Rick Scott Watch
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Political Serial Killers
There has to be a metaphor for these people who screw us so badly with a smile on their faces. This isn't the harshest one I could think of for a headline.
Our governor is not alone in his villainous hypocrisy. There are other governors who are behaving this way, and they are aided and abetted by political opportunists in their respective states.
In Florida, for instance, they talk about jobs, while they are killing 24,000 of them. They talk about education, while they are firing teachers or stealing their pensions, or their benefits, or trying to pit the parents against them. This, while they are trying to find a way to Stasi the remainders of their ranks,out of a careers.
They talk about police protection while they are actually considering to privatize the Florida Highway Patrol, or the Department of Corrections.
They are like the abuser who says "suffer the children to come unto me." They kill dreams of the young, for gain. They kill hope. And they will tell you they are helping the children as they do it.
Sen. Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), senate president of our State House, comes from my neck of the woods, the Space Coast, Brevard County. Mike has a great big ole smile, and the delivery of an excellent middle school teacher. He visits the schools, gets his picture taken there. Mike is a teacher as well, you know, at the community college.
How he visits those schools and then goes back to the state house and votes for massive cuts to education is just so beyond me. Is it me? Am I being too harsh?
They will talk about "tough choices" here at this point. They say "someone's got to make the tough choices," and won't acknowledge it's a sham to make those while they give massive tax breaks to the wealthy, while they cut the millage for schools to make it happen. Are there other ways? They won't hear them. They won't mention the budget crisis was a plague unleashed with intent, with Machiavellian verve, by the very people decrying the need for fiscal responsibility.
Mike's case may be one of the most naked flip flops in state history. He first voices opposition to the governor's plan to nix HSR but someone must have gotten to him. Someone whispered into his ear, that the way to defeat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) in the next election, was to agree with Rick Scott. Because all the doors in the world would be open to him. All the money in the world to mount an opposition.
Funny that I see Bill Nelson at our county offices more than I see Mike Haridopolos.
You announce you're a democrat in my county and you might as well walk down the road naked with a hammer and sickle emblazoned on your chest in red paint.Well, not anymore. Some of us, aren't hiding anymore.The more I see of this, the more disgusted I become.
You don't attempt to wage war on teachers, cops, and state workers, and call yourself a caring Florida public official. You don't kill jobs for purely political reasons.
You don't take money out of the pockets of teachers and hand it over to corporations who don't need the tax breaks.
You don't kill research grants, and scholarships to worthy students, lay off environmental regulators, fire officers of child protective services, and call yourself a careful steward of our future.
Say what you want about Charlie Crist, he was a good governor. He cared. You could tell it on his face when he came to my county. You could see it in his eyes as you shook his hand.
This man, this Rick Scott, and his Kochey minion, don't care one wit about this state. Haridopolos has obviously struck that Faustian bargain, willing to do anything for higher office.
Meanwhile our governor walks around with a butcher knife, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. Cutting. If it moves, he slices. Like a deranged mad-mad, he doesn't necessarily need to know why. In fact, it seems to please him more that he NOT understand something he is killing.
He has become the Jason Voorhees of Florida politics.
There are four, perhaps five just like him scattered like hateful, covert operatives across the country.
Our governor is not alone in his villainous hypocrisy. There are other governors who are behaving this way, and they are aided and abetted by political opportunists in their respective states.
In Florida, for instance, they talk about jobs, while they are killing 24,000 of them. They talk about education, while they are firing teachers or stealing their pensions, or their benefits, or trying to pit the parents against them. This, while they are trying to find a way to Stasi the remainders of their ranks,out of a careers.
They talk about police protection while they are actually considering to privatize the Florida Highway Patrol, or the Department of Corrections.
They are like the abuser who says "suffer the children to come unto me." They kill dreams of the young, for gain. They kill hope. And they will tell you they are helping the children as they do it.
Sen. Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), senate president of our State House, comes from my neck of the woods, the Space Coast, Brevard County. Mike has a great big ole smile, and the delivery of an excellent middle school teacher. He visits the schools, gets his picture taken there. Mike is a teacher as well, you know, at the community college.
How he visits those schools and then goes back to the state house and votes for massive cuts to education is just so beyond me. Is it me? Am I being too harsh?
They will talk about "tough choices" here at this point. They say "someone's got to make the tough choices," and won't acknowledge it's a sham to make those while they give massive tax breaks to the wealthy, while they cut the millage for schools to make it happen. Are there other ways? They won't hear them. They won't mention the budget crisis was a plague unleashed with intent, with Machiavellian verve, by the very people decrying the need for fiscal responsibility.
Mike's case may be one of the most naked flip flops in state history. He first voices opposition to the governor's plan to nix HSR but someone must have gotten to him. Someone whispered into his ear, that the way to defeat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) in the next election, was to agree with Rick Scott. Because all the doors in the world would be open to him. All the money in the world to mount an opposition.
Funny that I see Bill Nelson at our county offices more than I see Mike Haridopolos.
You announce you're a democrat in my county and you might as well walk down the road naked with a hammer and sickle emblazoned on your chest in red paint.Well, not anymore. Some of us, aren't hiding anymore.The more I see of this, the more disgusted I become.
You don't attempt to wage war on teachers, cops, and state workers, and call yourself a caring Florida public official. You don't kill jobs for purely political reasons.
You don't take money out of the pockets of teachers and hand it over to corporations who don't need the tax breaks.
You don't kill research grants, and scholarships to worthy students, lay off environmental regulators, fire officers of child protective services, and call yourself a careful steward of our future.
Say what you want about Charlie Crist, he was a good governor. He cared. You could tell it on his face when he came to my county. You could see it in his eyes as you shook his hand.
This man, this Rick Scott, and his Kochey minion, don't care one wit about this state. Haridopolos has obviously struck that Faustian bargain, willing to do anything for higher office.
Meanwhile our governor walks around with a butcher knife, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. Cutting. If it moves, he slices. Like a deranged mad-mad, he doesn't necessarily need to know why. In fact, it seems to please him more that he NOT understand something he is killing.
He has become the Jason Voorhees of Florida politics.
There are four, perhaps five just like him scattered like hateful, covert operatives across the country.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Rick Scott: The Lone Ranger?
"I don't know of anyone else in Florida who agrees with the governor. He's the lone ranger on this deal."
Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, on Bloomberg News Feb. 25.
Hats off to LaHood, this is an excellent nickname but nationally, well, Rick Scott isn't alone.
The Koched-up governors don't particularly like high-speed rail.
If we watch, we see the governor never mentions rail. He also has a curious habit of moving his head back and forth like a rain-bird lawn sprinkler. I think he's going for the "visionary with the far away eyes" thing here. It just comes off "rain-bird". Right, right, right, right.....aaaallllllllll the way back, left.
Anyway...
Modern high speed rail is part of a national transportation revolution that has been in the works for years. It is also championed by Obama. But Scott mentions specifically, the need to improve roads rather than rail. Why? Wouldn't rail qualify a infrastructure? He's already been assured out the proverbial yin that cost over-runs will be handled by the contractors. That sounds like a little dummy-saying, gibberish that sounds like something, but really it's not.
So what gives?
Random speculation here. Just spit-ballin'
Roads equals more asphalt requiring more petroleum, more fossil fuels to run the autos. In short, it requires more Koch.
Nelson mentions congestion. And who needs congestion? Kochs and the Koched-up governors do. What happens when you're on the highway and there's a traffic jam? Needless guzzling of gas.
Koch.
If you opt not to purchase a new car because you have a rail alternative that spans the nation, what about all those minerals that went in to making that car, the petroleum products for the brakes, right down to the windshield wipers?
You don't buy them.
Koch.
Something to think about.
Remember, Florida, none of this is about you. It's not about 24,000 jobs the governor just cost us; oh no. He doesn't care about that at all.
It's about making decisions that appeal to the money trough, managed by the Kock brothers. Sorry, the Koch brothers. It's about furthering the political career of one Rick Scott.
See, to our governor, we are all just ancillary parts in a television drama about Rick Scott. We are the "good townspeople" expected to listen to the lanky stranger with the mid-western accent, and do precisely what he says, so he can ride off into the sunset victorious.
And I guess, that does make him the Lone Ranger.
Trouble is, we are not children and we can see behind the mask and we don't believe homespun fairy tales.
Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, on Bloomberg News Feb. 25.
Hats off to LaHood, this is an excellent nickname but nationally, well, Rick Scott isn't alone.
The Koched-up governors don't particularly like high-speed rail.
If we watch, we see the governor never mentions rail. He also has a curious habit of moving his head back and forth like a rain-bird lawn sprinkler. I think he's going for the "visionary with the far away eyes" thing here. It just comes off "rain-bird". Right, right, right, right.....aaaallllllllll the way back, left.
Anyway...
Nelson assails Scott's decision on bullet train : MyFoxORLANDO.com
Modern high speed rail is part of a national transportation revolution that has been in the works for years. It is also championed by Obama. But Scott mentions specifically, the need to improve roads rather than rail. Why? Wouldn't rail qualify a infrastructure? He's already been assured out the proverbial yin that cost over-runs will be handled by the contractors. That sounds like a little dummy-saying, gibberish that sounds like something, but really it's not.
So what gives?
Random speculation here. Just spit-ballin'
Roads equals more asphalt requiring more petroleum, more fossil fuels to run the autos. In short, it requires more Koch.
Nelson mentions congestion. And who needs congestion? Kochs and the Koched-up governors do. What happens when you're on the highway and there's a traffic jam? Needless guzzling of gas.
Koch.
If you opt not to purchase a new car because you have a rail alternative that spans the nation, what about all those minerals that went in to making that car, the petroleum products for the brakes, right down to the windshield wipers?
You don't buy them.
Koch.
Something to think about.
Remember, Florida, none of this is about you. It's not about 24,000 jobs the governor just cost us; oh no. He doesn't care about that at all.
It's about making decisions that appeal to the money trough, managed by the Kock brothers. Sorry, the Koch brothers. It's about furthering the political career of one Rick Scott.
See, to our governor, we are all just ancillary parts in a television drama about Rick Scott. We are the "good townspeople" expected to listen to the lanky stranger with the mid-western accent, and do precisely what he says, so he can ride off into the sunset victorious.
And I guess, that does make him the Lone Ranger.
Trouble is, we are not children and we can see behind the mask and we don't believe homespun fairy tales.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Fifty Governors Convene in D.C., Scott Included. You're not invited
He's in D.C. today.
Before you've had your coffee he's doing an interview at Bloomberg television. He will deliver canned answers about delivering 700,000 jobs, while somehow slip-sliding around the fact he just threw away 24,000.
Then he's sliding over to the Marriott for a chat with the EDC of the entire nation. It's an economic development committee or council. You've hung around county politics long enough and you've run into one of these curious creatures called an Economic Development Council; quasi-business, quasi-public body. No oversight. They get paid taxpayer money, often to cut and facilitate deals that the taxpayer never sees one dime of in return.
Next he's off to the confab of governors held at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue. Looks like a nice place from Street View, and the rooms are swanky doo.
This confab lasts all day. I am making a leap of faith here that he is actually meeting with all the other governors from all fifty states at this round-table event at Four Seasons.
He says on his schedule "executive round table" and sure enough, in D.C. scheduled the following day, Feb 26, is a massive event for all fifty governors, as well as a White House dinner on Sunday.
You have to ask why the president won't come down hard on union busting these days? He can't politically afford to be shunned by some of these turds. Nice huh? That would make Obama an "un" consensus builder.
The sweet irony of this event. I wonder if the Koch brothers will be there. I bet they will. Perfect time to just buy out the lot of them in a block. Like a 4-H event at the county fair.
Each governor can be brought into a corral and the business elites can bid on them. Tags on the ears; whole shebang.
It probably won't happen exactly like that.
There is a curious note in the press release. "Throughout the meeting, there also will be several "Governors-Only" sessions, providing governors the opportunity for dialoge on a variety of issues facing states."
This soft cheese sounds suspiciously similar to "no press invited or permitted." In that an "executive round-table" taking place today, sounds like it fits this bill rather nicely, I think there's a very good chance the governors are meeting in private, behind closed doors at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue.
As a citizen taxpayer I would love to see plenty of signs and protesters out front of the hotel. But, alas, they have us right where they want us. Lethargy at a high, along with $5 a gallon gas.
Show up if you can.
Before you've had your coffee he's doing an interview at Bloomberg television. He will deliver canned answers about delivering 700,000 jobs, while somehow slip-sliding around the fact he just threw away 24,000.
Then he's sliding over to the Marriott for a chat with the EDC of the entire nation. It's an economic development committee or council. You've hung around county politics long enough and you've run into one of these curious creatures called an Economic Development Council; quasi-business, quasi-public body. No oversight. They get paid taxpayer money, often to cut and facilitate deals that the taxpayer never sees one dime of in return.
Next he's off to the confab of governors held at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue. Looks like a nice place from Street View, and the rooms are swanky doo.
This confab lasts all day. I am making a leap of faith here that he is actually meeting with all the other governors from all fifty states at this round-table event at Four Seasons.
He says on his schedule "executive round table" and sure enough, in D.C. scheduled the following day, Feb 26, is a massive event for all fifty governors, as well as a White House dinner on Sunday.
You have to ask why the president won't come down hard on union busting these days? He can't politically afford to be shunned by some of these turds. Nice huh? That would make Obama an "un" consensus builder.
The sweet irony of this event. I wonder if the Koch brothers will be there. I bet they will. Perfect time to just buy out the lot of them in a block. Like a 4-H event at the county fair.
Each governor can be brought into a corral and the business elites can bid on them. Tags on the ears; whole shebang.
It probably won't happen exactly like that.
There is a curious note in the press release. "Throughout the meeting, there also will be several "Governors-Only" sessions, providing governors the opportunity for dialoge on a variety of issues facing states."
This soft cheese sounds suspiciously similar to "no press invited or permitted." In that an "executive round-table" taking place today, sounds like it fits this bill rather nicely, I think there's a very good chance the governors are meeting in private, behind closed doors at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue.
As a citizen taxpayer I would love to see plenty of signs and protesters out front of the hotel. But, alas, they have us right where they want us. Lethargy at a high, along with $5 a gallon gas.
Show up if you can.
WE (the sane) DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM
Not to micturate on my betters but I have had it. Big media, listen up.
WE THE SANE, OF FLORIDA, DIDN'T VOTE FOR RICK SCOTT, and you damned well know it.
Furthermore, you damned well know there are more sane voters in this state than there are the insane variety. There are more people of modest means than your country-clubbing, frothing Teapawns.
What I am driving at is, you damned well know there is every reason to suspect that vote was stolen by Diebold voting machines on behalf of the corporate construct. Hacked!
Last night on MSNBC, Cenk Ygur had a snooty woman on from The Nation. I didn't catch her name, and I don't take issue with her points, that this rapine of the middle class by the corporations has to stop. No what irked me, was how easily she spread the pervasive lie that we here in Florida don't know how to vote properly. It was done ever so artfully, sotto voce, with a touch of pity for us. She is only the latest.
"Those voters down in Florida...(tisk) what can they be thinking?" etc. etc. etc.
People in the northeast can be just as gullible as your barnyard yahoo in fly-over-land. They just don't know it. They are no different, they are no better. Just as ignorant at times, and - again, at times - twice as blinded by their own narcissistic, self importance.
To that woman, dressed ever so prim; for her feigned, well-perfumed earnestness, for all her contrived sadness and insipid pity for those of us down here on the short-bus farm, I say "Dear, we, are you! Don't you get that? Or are you pretending to be this ignorant?"
Wherever do the New Yorkers and New Englanders go, when they have had enough of those wonderful winters? They come here. When they have been here four months or so, we call them, legally, 'our fellow Floridians.'
"Down in Florida. Down in Floriduh...etc. etc." Yes, yes, very nice. So creative of you. Go on, have your fun. But you are only demonstrating your obliviousness as to the way of things. And in so doing, you are falling into the very stereotype of the huffy, clueless, pseudo intellectual, committed to their own insular, ( and did I mention clueless?) art-show-hopping, Manhattan, limousine liberal world, that most "folks down here...y'all" just love so well.
In other words, your stupidity is getting us nowhere.
The myth we don't vote well down here, works to the advantage to the vast corporate machine that has stolen our democracy. Yes, stolen it. It's gone. Has been gone for some time.
So goes Floriduh, so goes the nation, in the last three out of four. Am I wrong?
Those working in larger media never permit themselves to dare think, or speak "heavens no, children. Shhhhhhh.. mustn't speak its name" about what happened in 2000.
They never summon the gonadal resolve to look at the fact that 16,022 votes were cast backwards, in the race that handed the nation to George W. Bush, over Al Gore. Not under-votes, not no-votes, the votes cast themselves backwards! Not even quantum physics can explain.....(sigh.)
While the nation was watching people in Palm Beach counting chads, and giggling over those left hanging, THE VOTE HAD BEEN HACKED, ABSOLUTELY FORNICATED IN VOLUSIA COUNTY. Those in large media glaze over when you mention this, "what? what's that? Huh.....never mind." because they helped divert national attention to the chads. How cute, They're "chads" and they hang.
Of course. Yes, I hear you, and I agree wholeheartedly. The backwoods, nay-bob, bureaucratic thuggery of sleepy out-of-the-way county offices, helped to the cover the tracks of the guilty, as well.
But for one woman named Bev Harris, who summoned a whirlwind of support to show that Diebold lies, and Diebold is HACKABLE. She even appeared in a movie about it called Hacking Democracy, THAT MANY OF YOU IN THE MEDIA DAMNED WELL SAW AND YOU KNOW IT, SO A MENTION FROM TIME TO TIME WOULD BE NICE!! It's not like HBO doesn't have a viewership.
The hack apparently happened again in 2006, only this time, the systems were ES and S. 18,000 under-votes, suspiciously on touch screen, no paper trail voting machines in Sarasota County. This handed a congressional seat to the people's non-choice, according to thorough, independent studies. See our previous post for the whole story.
The truth is, there are only three or four players in this market making scan readers and touch screen systems. The code doesn't appreciably change. And the hack is essentially child's play to those who have a modicum of programming and the ability to do some research.
The narrative "Florida=stupid" is the underbelly, it is the blind spot by which corporations continue to steal our votes from us. By that I mean all of us, dear.
Sadly, no pundit on national television wants the mammillary vice; the next morning with management discussing how they "cast doubt" on the voting process on national television. Bad juju.
They are too cozy, these pundits. Their salaries are immense. Their egos too well-fed.
And the democratic party, apparently, makes use of these hackable machines, as well, in other parts of the country. So whether you're FOX or MSNBC, you're not going to want to go and piss off one of the two super-parties by admitting what everyone knows. That our votes in key states, are a farce.
You combine the governor of Wisconsin's recent "punking" with the coordinated attack by he, and five other newly elected Koch-govs, like the one we have here in Rick Scott, and you have more than a problem.
You review recent history, how Wall Street itself was hacked, and how that bubble didn't just grow organically but was fertilized like mad reefer in a lab. You look at how the process that led us to war was hacked,as was the 2000 election and you have to come to the conclusion we are in some seriously deep trouble. The fallibility has handed us to a runaway, mad crazy corporate balance sheet that makes us enemies by the second abroad, that does unspeakable horror in our name everywhere on the planet.
Little Ms. Sanctimony speaking with Cenk on MSNBC, tisking about Florida voters is a front, a placative lie, masking a fatal flaw in our entire system that we so charmingly call "free democracy".
Let's stop lying to ourselves. And please, for the love of God, stop using my state as the scapegoat.
WE THE SANE, OF FLORIDA, DIDN'T VOTE FOR RICK SCOTT, and you damned well know it.
Furthermore, you damned well know there are more sane voters in this state than there are the insane variety. There are more people of modest means than your country-clubbing, frothing Teapawns.
What I am driving at is, you damned well know there is every reason to suspect that vote was stolen by Diebold voting machines on behalf of the corporate construct. Hacked!
Last night on MSNBC, Cenk Ygur had a snooty woman on from The Nation. I didn't catch her name, and I don't take issue with her points, that this rapine of the middle class by the corporations has to stop. No what irked me, was how easily she spread the pervasive lie that we here in Florida don't know how to vote properly. It was done ever so artfully, sotto voce, with a touch of pity for us. She is only the latest.
"Those voters down in Florida...(tisk) what can they be thinking?" etc. etc. etc.
People in the northeast can be just as gullible as your barnyard yahoo in fly-over-land. They just don't know it. They are no different, they are no better. Just as ignorant at times, and - again, at times - twice as blinded by their own narcissistic, self importance.
To that woman, dressed ever so prim; for her feigned, well-perfumed earnestness, for all her contrived sadness and insipid pity for those of us down here on the short-bus farm, I say "Dear, we, are you! Don't you get that? Or are you pretending to be this ignorant?"
Wherever do the New Yorkers and New Englanders go, when they have had enough of those wonderful winters? They come here. When they have been here four months or so, we call them, legally, 'our fellow Floridians.'
"Down in Florida. Down in Floriduh...etc. etc." Yes, yes, very nice. So creative of you. Go on, have your fun. But you are only demonstrating your obliviousness as to the way of things. And in so doing, you are falling into the very stereotype of the huffy, clueless, pseudo intellectual, committed to their own insular, ( and did I mention clueless?) art-show-hopping, Manhattan, limousine liberal world, that most "folks down here...y'all" just love so well.
In other words, your stupidity is getting us nowhere.
The myth we don't vote well down here, works to the advantage to the vast corporate machine that has stolen our democracy. Yes, stolen it. It's gone. Has been gone for some time.
So goes Floriduh, so goes the nation, in the last three out of four. Am I wrong?
Those working in larger media never permit themselves to dare think, or speak "heavens no, children. Shhhhhhh.. mustn't speak its name" about what happened in 2000.
They never summon the gonadal resolve to look at the fact that 16,022 votes were cast backwards, in the race that handed the nation to George W. Bush, over Al Gore. Not under-votes, not no-votes, the votes cast themselves backwards! Not even quantum physics can explain.....(sigh.)
While the nation was watching people in Palm Beach counting chads, and giggling over those left hanging, THE VOTE HAD BEEN HACKED, ABSOLUTELY FORNICATED IN VOLUSIA COUNTY. Those in large media glaze over when you mention this, "what? what's that? Huh.....never mind." because they helped divert national attention to the chads. How cute, They're "chads" and they hang.
Of course. Yes, I hear you, and I agree wholeheartedly. The backwoods, nay-bob, bureaucratic thuggery of sleepy out-of-the-way county offices, helped to the cover the tracks of the guilty, as well.
But for one woman named Bev Harris, who summoned a whirlwind of support to show that Diebold lies, and Diebold is HACKABLE. She even appeared in a movie about it called Hacking Democracy, THAT MANY OF YOU IN THE MEDIA DAMNED WELL SAW AND YOU KNOW IT, SO A MENTION FROM TIME TO TIME WOULD BE NICE!! It's not like HBO doesn't have a viewership.
The hack apparently happened again in 2006, only this time, the systems were ES and S. 18,000 under-votes, suspiciously on touch screen, no paper trail voting machines in Sarasota County. This handed a congressional seat to the people's non-choice, according to thorough, independent studies. See our previous post for the whole story.
The truth is, there are only three or four players in this market making scan readers and touch screen systems. The code doesn't appreciably change. And the hack is essentially child's play to those who have a modicum of programming and the ability to do some research.
The narrative "Florida=stupid" is the underbelly, it is the blind spot by which corporations continue to steal our votes from us. By that I mean all of us, dear.
Sadly, no pundit on national television wants the mammillary vice; the next morning with management discussing how they "cast doubt" on the voting process on national television. Bad juju.
They are too cozy, these pundits. Their salaries are immense. Their egos too well-fed.
And the democratic party, apparently, makes use of these hackable machines, as well, in other parts of the country. So whether you're FOX or MSNBC, you're not going to want to go and piss off one of the two super-parties by admitting what everyone knows. That our votes in key states, are a farce.
You combine the governor of Wisconsin's recent "punking" with the coordinated attack by he, and five other newly elected Koch-govs, like the one we have here in Rick Scott, and you have more than a problem.
You review recent history, how Wall Street itself was hacked, and how that bubble didn't just grow organically but was fertilized like mad reefer in a lab. You look at how the process that led us to war was hacked,as was the 2000 election and you have to come to the conclusion we are in some seriously deep trouble. The fallibility has handed us to a runaway, mad crazy corporate balance sheet that makes us enemies by the second abroad, that does unspeakable horror in our name everywhere on the planet.
Little Ms. Sanctimony speaking with Cenk on MSNBC, tisking about Florida voters is a front, a placative lie, masking a fatal flaw in our entire system that we so charmingly call "free democracy".
Let's stop lying to ourselves. And please, for the love of God, stop using my state as the scapegoat.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Rick Scott's Published Schedule is a Farce
Government in the Sunshine. Florida officials have prided themselves on transparency over the years.
At least outwardly.
Of late, however, there is a Corpservative movement to do away with it. Too cumbersome to have to ask who one can meet with, under what legal circumstances, and need the press be there?
RILAB people, your "run it like a business" crowd have been rapidly eroding one of our state's hallowed rules, both in legal practice, and in spirit.
Under the guise of "getting things done with greater efficiency" deals are being made, without the consent or oversight of the people. No democracy. Ram it through.
Governor Scott's move to do away with Florida's state aircraft, selling them cheap rather than even storing them until the market for executive jets improves, thus making a better deal for the taxpayers who bought them, is nothing short of a Sunshine Law work-around.
Notice how it was his first order of business. Get rid of the damned things before anyone could protest it; before a legal challenge could rise up forcing the governor to conduct his travel in a state vehicle, so that the public, by way of the media, could ride along from time to time.
Can't have that.
His schedule, his itinerary or whatever you want to call it, so too, is an example of his disdain for openness.
Printing a schedule "day of" he is thumbing his nose at the media charged with following him, and the voters of this state who might want to put up a sign or two protesting these drastic cuts to budgets. Not to mention those who want to have a word with him about his nixing a high speed rail deal that has been in the planning for years.
There is no question, we could use the work, use the money, we could use 24,000 jobs the project would bring, as in NOW.
Scott visited Embrear yesterday in Melbourne . Emraer is a Brazilian company that makes executive jets. They moved to Melbourne in 2009. By all indications are an excellent company that, according to Melbourne city officials brought at least 400 high paying jobs to the state, or will when they are built out.
The company enjoys the tight security provided by Melbourne International Airport. You see Northrup-Grumman make weapons drones, surveillance aircraft, remotely operated attack helicopters and so on, and they share the other side of the property. So any sort of protest can immediately be put down by the airport PD and the Department of Homeland Security. Even if someone knew the governor would be there, which was a tightly held secret apparently, good luck holding up your sign before the gang tackle.
The governor zipped in and then zipped out again, mumbling a few words on high speed rail, how it was too wasteful, and potentially debt heavy for the state. His mind, made up; despite assurances from our duly elected senator from Central Florida, Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) that the taxpayer would be off the hook for any massive debts, since cost overrruns have been assigned to the contractors.
There are many who would disagree with the governor. Twenty four thousand jobs and $2.4 billion stand to be lost to California by Friday, simply because Governor Scott and Senator Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island) are busy campaigning against President Obama, and sidling up to the Koch brothers, who run their Tea-pawns through "Americans For Prosperity", Inc.
It is a political sham, a travesty. When he campaigned and promised 700,000 new jobs, did he mean he would select the type of jobs, specifically, or did he mean the balance of those new jobs would be "created" but would reside in Chinese labor camps, with only the managers, or top level engineers, residing in Florida?
Are 24,000 construction and engineering jobs not the sort of jobs he wants for Florida? Is there an issue of unions getting even one dime of that money, and that's the reason he is so dead set against them?
Jobs are jobs. Are they not?
We have no problem paying union labor to send shuttles into space since 1981. What gives?
If you want to talk to or protest your governor, good luck. It's "catch as catch can". Sure he complies with the letter of the law if not the spirit and intent. He has to publish as schedule. We should be thankful for the baby steps, I suppose.
Day-of, doesn't cut it, at all. Be sure to tell him so.
At least outwardly.
Of late, however, there is a Corpservative movement to do away with it. Too cumbersome to have to ask who one can meet with, under what legal circumstances, and need the press be there?
RILAB people, your "run it like a business" crowd have been rapidly eroding one of our state's hallowed rules, both in legal practice, and in spirit.
Under the guise of "getting things done with greater efficiency" deals are being made, without the consent or oversight of the people. No democracy. Ram it through.
Governor Scott's move to do away with Florida's state aircraft, selling them cheap rather than even storing them until the market for executive jets improves, thus making a better deal for the taxpayers who bought them, is nothing short of a Sunshine Law work-around.
Notice how it was his first order of business. Get rid of the damned things before anyone could protest it; before a legal challenge could rise up forcing the governor to conduct his travel in a state vehicle, so that the public, by way of the media, could ride along from time to time.
Can't have that.
His schedule, his itinerary or whatever you want to call it, so too, is an example of his disdain for openness.
Printing a schedule "day of" he is thumbing his nose at the media charged with following him, and the voters of this state who might want to put up a sign or two protesting these drastic cuts to budgets. Not to mention those who want to have a word with him about his nixing a high speed rail deal that has been in the planning for years.
There is no question, we could use the work, use the money, we could use 24,000 jobs the project would bring, as in NOW.
Scott visited Embrear yesterday in Melbourne . Emraer is a Brazilian company that makes executive jets. They moved to Melbourne in 2009. By all indications are an excellent company that, according to Melbourne city officials brought at least 400 high paying jobs to the state, or will when they are built out.
The company enjoys the tight security provided by Melbourne International Airport. You see Northrup-Grumman make weapons drones, surveillance aircraft, remotely operated attack helicopters and so on, and they share the other side of the property. So any sort of protest can immediately be put down by the airport PD and the Department of Homeland Security. Even if someone knew the governor would be there, which was a tightly held secret apparently, good luck holding up your sign before the gang tackle.
The governor zipped in and then zipped out again, mumbling a few words on high speed rail, how it was too wasteful, and potentially debt heavy for the state. His mind, made up; despite assurances from our duly elected senator from Central Florida, Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) that the taxpayer would be off the hook for any massive debts, since cost overrruns have been assigned to the contractors.
There are many who would disagree with the governor. Twenty four thousand jobs and $2.4 billion stand to be lost to California by Friday, simply because Governor Scott and Senator Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island) are busy campaigning against President Obama, and sidling up to the Koch brothers, who run their Tea-pawns through "Americans For Prosperity", Inc.
It is a political sham, a travesty. When he campaigned and promised 700,000 new jobs, did he mean he would select the type of jobs, specifically, or did he mean the balance of those new jobs would be "created" but would reside in Chinese labor camps, with only the managers, or top level engineers, residing in Florida?
Are 24,000 construction and engineering jobs not the sort of jobs he wants for Florida? Is there an issue of unions getting even one dime of that money, and that's the reason he is so dead set against them?
Jobs are jobs. Are they not?
We have no problem paying union labor to send shuttles into space since 1981. What gives?
If you want to talk to or protest your governor, good luck. It's "catch as catch can". Sure he complies with the letter of the law if not the spirit and intent. He has to publish as schedule. We should be thankful for the baby steps, I suppose.
Day-of, doesn't cut it, at all. Be sure to tell him so.
Monday, February 21, 2011
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