Chicken Sh*t! Stalking Scott a Bust in Martin County

Rick Scott went to the Marriott Resort on Hutchinson Island this evening to give a speech that must have been faster than crap through a goose, because it was over in a flash, and he was gone.

Rick Scott Watch managed, through daring and so on, to eat a shrimp coctail and thus, slide by the defenses of the GOP and whatever security detail was on duty, to penetrate all the way into the ballroom, while dinner was being eaten.

Governor Rick was not to be seen. He seemed to know we were on the case.

Raw footage.

The crashing 1.(5:30)



Blending in. 2.(5:32)



Watching protesters (6:00) No Rick Scott. One notes the laughter of the party attendees. (Of course, Rick Scott Watch was blending, so idle chatter was necessary). It is amazing to see people so above it all that teachers pleading with their governor to listen and not cut quite so much from education, seems lightheartedly amusing to them.



Watching protesters again (6:30) Still no governor. There is talk that he is in the building but refuses to show himself or come out of hiding. Whatever could the problem be? One gentleman said the governor had been at the hotel for hours, was bathing at the pool, etc. Which was rubbish since Rick Scott Watch had been at the pool since 3:00 at the poolside bar, scoping the place out. Nonsense. Note again, strange indifferent observation of the upper crust at the spectacle of teachers fighting for their rights. Note: we begin to question here whether our presence is actually preventing the governor from showing his face. In that we are wearing a guayabera and not the standard issue GOP blue blazer. Also, we admit some nervous laugher here. Harsh apprehension could have happened at any instant.





At this point we go for broke. We wait until all the campers are in their seats and then walk boldly by security.





We decide that our presence indeed is keeping the governor from showing his face. Everyone else is sat. He and his party are not. Police are nearby. One can feel harsh apprehension approaching. It's time to call it.

Outside the protest continues into the night.





When we are driving out of town there is whoosh of a Gulfstream jet overhead in the rain. The governor has come and gone.

By the time we get home, there is this offending news story in the Palm Beach Post. He apparently said these words between gulps.

STUART — With hundreds of union protesters outside blasting his proposed budget cuts, Gov. Rick Scott told a Republican dinner tonight that he and other conservatives need support for daily battles in the legislative session that begins Tuesday.

Scott got applause from the Martin County GOP Lincoln Day dinner audience of about 300 when he said he has spoken to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose push to limit collective bargaining for public employees has drawn thousands of angry protesters to the state capitol in Madison.

"Scott's a good guy. He's going to stand strong. Hopefully his senate will stand strong," the Florida governor said of his Wisconsin counterpart.

Scott said he expects protests in Tallahassee, where he wants the GOP-controlled legislature to cut per-student education spending by about 10 percent and compel public employees to begin contributing 5 percent of their pay for their pension plans.

"This is a fight every day. It's not every two years. And every elected official will tell you the same thing, because the special interests are fighting every day," Scott said.

"They're going to be up there (in Tallahassee) and they're going to complain about everything we're doing. So if you don't stay active, then what's going to happen is they will win. Because they're going to be up there every day. So we need your support. Every elected official that believes in the conservative principles of the Republican Party needs your support."

Koch Suckers File: State Senate President Mike Haridopolos

Koch Suckers: (adj) Used to describe those politicians who feed off the promises, either real, or implied, and financial support, either in direct contribution, or in negative ad campaigns directed at their competition, of Koch industries.

Koch industries of course is the major contributor to several front groups including but not limited to Americans for Prosperity.


Senator Mike (R-Merritt Island) had supported High Speed Rail when Gov. Charlie Crist was in office. Now that Rick Scott opposes it, so does Senator Mike. It happened that fast.

Senator Mike will run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Bill Nelson of Orlando.

Senator Mike faced ethics charges last year for having failed to disclose a $400,000 investment home, $100,000 in consulting fees while a senator, on his declaratory statements. This is designed to keep senators honest. Mistake? He failed to do this from 2004 through 2008.

Here''s a video of him, explaining himself.




Senator Mike also wrote a book for Brevard Community College, concerning the history of the senate, and the political process in Florida, for a reported $150,000. The book was slightly over 175 pages ($150,000/175=$857.14 per page).From 2007 to now it has languished in its original type-written form at Brevard Community College. (We here in Brevard have known about this for some time.) But recently the discussion about this sweetheart tome, in Orlando papers and on Orlando Radio, prompted other calls for investigation to come out of the woodwork.

Suddenly, (as the Lionel Richie song says) the book was given new life as a $9.99 Kindle download available at Amazon.

That Mike is a Koch sucker at this point is purely opinion, based on questionable legislative ethics in combination with his stance on rail; a complete flip-flop.

Clearly, if nothing else, Senator Mike is displaying the proper plumage attractive to Koch penetration into his political camp.

Should Senator Mike also reverse himself on education and vote along with Rick Scott's education killing budget, we will know Mike has totally sold himself outright for Koch.

We need a good nickname. I say it's 'WHITE RABBIT"

While we wait for a ruling on rail we search for a proper nickname. Every unpopular governor has one. Here's my list so far.

1. BARFD: The Bald Avenger of Fiscal Discipline

2. Bald Avenger

3. Governor "Rain Bird" for the way his head moves like a rain bird water sprinkler during impromptu television interviews. Right, right, right, allllllllllllll the back to the left. Repeat.

4."White Rabbit" This morning's pic from News 13 made me think of a scared white rabbit. I don't know if the Jefferson Airplane song of the same name had anything to do with this.

Feel free to use facebook or the comments section here to add your choices.

Xtranormal fun: Interview 3 with Rick Scott

Governor Rick and the Donald are now an item

This was our Bald Avenger of Responsible Fiscal Discipline (BARFD) making gooey eyes at the Donald on morning television.

Ostensibly the governor was in town promoting Florida tourism.

The Rickster and the Donald are offering free trip to Escambia County.

There is nothing wrong with that. Read the canned "attaboy-Ricks" in the comments section. Additionally, Escambia County isn't known for Cajun culture, that I am aware of. I think someone might be mistaken.

Aside from the obvious questions we are prone to ask ( such as, is this our children's future in that you will gut education, Rick? To serve umbrella drinks to dismissive, poor tipping republican strangers, who will admonish our young to "bootstrap" themselves into better careers, while they toss a quarter on the tip plate? Or perhaps another one: is the Donald to be our answer for economic development the way he was for that seaside town in Scotland that tried to resist his latest golf course?) are there deeper threads to be read in the fabric here.

Trump has been making squeekies about a latent desire. He may be getting The Runs. And if this is true, I think we know who might be interested in being his running mate.

King Ricky Bares His Fangs While Gallivanting About

A bi-partisan lawsuit to stop Gov. Rick Scott from throwing away $2.4 billion in infrastructure funds, has met with the governor's scorn. But it has also been fast-tracked by the Florida Supreme Court.

Republican State Senator Thad Altman, of Viera, and democratic State Senator Arthenia Joyner, of Tampa, filed the motion based on separation of executive and legislative powers, as described in the state constitution. They also filed an injunction to prevent the White House from sending the HSR money elsewhere.

Florida's Supreme Court gave the Governor 24 hours to respond to the lawsuit.

Scott is quoted slamming the "disrespect" Altman and Joyner showed "taxpayers" in their motion.

As a democratic taxpayer who lives two towns south of Altman, the author of this post can say he was not disrespected at all.

Here we are beginning to see the naked fangs of our gubernatorial rex mundi. Joyner is quoted as calling him a self-appointed king.

Additionally this brings up the governor's travels, of late. He has been three days at the governor's conference in Washington, spending precisely what, who knows? Now he is off to Pennsylvania and elsewhere, allegedly dredging up "tourism".

I think the winter itself, as it does most years but particularly this year, has served in this regard without our governor's help. This is NOT what I as a taxpayer had my vote stolen by Diebold systems for, so our newly-appointed usurper could gallivant,spreading the word across the northeast that Florida is an excellent place to visit.

I think the world knows this. I think the news has been out for some time that warmth exists in the lower latitudes during winters, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

This brings up the expenditures on this magical mystery tour at this curious hour, that obviously will be co-mingled with his own considerable coffers thereby eluding scrutiny and skating litigiously around government in the Sunshine oversight. It is noted he was in D.C., he popped home, then sprinted back to Philly, of all places. How much did this flitting about cost?

The agenda, of course is what we'd like to understand, that being, what he is really doing, who he is really seeing. But since our governor set the "schedule" function on his website to indicate where he was 24 hours ago and not where he is going, we operate in the darkness of supposition.

With a Governor Like this Who Needs Enemies?

Governor Scott - the Bald Avenger of Responsible Fiscal Decision-making (BARFD) - said it was time to "measure the heck out of everything."

So, let the measuring commence.

1. He sold two state aircraft. He took the proceeds from one to pay off the lease for the other, something he wasn't supposed to do without consulting the legislature, according to some members of the state house. He also sold these aircraft in a soft market for executive jets, thus earning an unknown loss to the taxpayers in the transaction. The transaction looked like this $3,67 million were the sale proceeds from both, the lease to be paid off on Jet #2 was $3.4 million. Thus, ($3.67 Mil-$3.4Mill= $270,000) An observer here might question why this was such an important fiscal decision to be made the moment his foot crossed the doorway in that the actual earnings to the taxpayer, when considering the soft market, are nil?

2. He proposed a budget that would give $4 billion in tax cuts to large corporations, during a time when he claims there is a massive budget shortfall. He then proposes cutting $3 billion from education via local property taxes. In effect, taking the money cut from education and handing it to those corps, leaving a $1 billion deeper hole in the allegedly massive deficit. Thus he is increasing the deficit he says these plans are designed to reduce.  -$1 billion

3. He continues to push for the nixing of High Speed Rail, which in effect, sends $2.4 billion originally slated for Florida to California so they can develop their rail system ahead of us, and in so doing nixing 24,000 jobs.  -$2.4 billion

4. He brokered a deal giving Bing Energy $1.9 million in tax relief so they could bring 240 jobs to the state. (700,000-240=)699,760 jobs to go, as opposed to (700,000-24,240=)675,760 jobs to go.

5. He and his office spent $X, where X=unknown, in an all-expenses paid, three day trip to Washington D.C. The price includes meals, gas for his jet, cars, plush accommodations, and ancillary expenditures. So far no word on how much it cost but we will get back to you. (-$X)

6. He proposes a long exhaustive legal battle between Florida and the unions, in the elimination of collective bargaining as a right under the state constitution. The fight will of course, deeply divide the citizens, and necessitate the enormous expenditure to house counsel and outside labor attorneys. Not to mention the costs in clean up and police presence during the expected protests. (-$X Million)

7. His "informal education adviser" Michelle Rhee has proposed harsh measures aimed at teachers. Pensions, and teacher tenure are now the targets. This stance of course serves to demoralize and demotivate Florida teachers. The result likely will be to thin the ranks of those seeking to enter the profession here in Florida, and  constitute a "brain drain" on the profession, statewide. Younger teachers who feel a calling for this profession, will surely seek greener pastures elsewhere, in other states where teachers are given a better deal. The legal battles in education specifically will result in unknown costs to the state taxpayers. In other words, the costs for us to defend ourselves legally, from our own teachers. (-$X million)

It should be noted Florida has risen from the bottom twelve to the top five public school departments in the nation since 2000. So in effect, he seems desirous of breaking something that was demonstrably in the process of fixing itself; a massive perversion of the refrain "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

The loss to the state in this regard of course is incalculable. State students receiving a poorer education will slip from the top five in the rankings down to the bottom rungs, as has South Carolina, who cut massive holes in their education system to "incentivize" big business. Former Gov. Mark Sanford's approach, has in fact served to hinder education while not attracting business to South Carolina. The unheeded lesson being tax breaks can't force companies to choose a state where the employees can't adequately prepare their children for a future.

The loss to education, the loss to students, loss to the state has an exponential, if not, logarithmic negative affect. (-$X^2 million)

8. Governor Scott has effectively, or is attempting to nix a state data base on "Pill Mills" a problem for not only the state's law enforcement community, but the nations. These unscrupulous pain clinics and their perennial clients abuse the insurance industry and the medical community, and the law enforcers by providing dangerous drugs under cover of prescriptions. The pervasion of these drugs continues to reduce the quality of life, kill citizens who become addicted.  The cost here is unknown for not having a database to better help law enforcers track these clinics and those who use them. (-$X million)

For now we tally what we know.

Known and proposed dollar losses, to date, for the Rick Scott plan = -$3.4 billion- $270,000 (jet proceeds)= -$3,399,730,000.

Known job losses to date- 24,000-1,700 corrections officers -8,700 other state workers =-34,440+240 Bing Energy Jobs= -34,160


At the present time we conclude that the governor  isn't serving the state so much as - quite literally - attacking it. His effort seems to be to destroy the actual fabric of that which is working, that which is actually holding the state together, while reducing the quality of life and making it more dangerous for the law enforcement community, and the department of corrections!

We note with alarm he attacks that which works, FIRST, education. The bi-product of giving the money from teachers to corporations - a sort of "raping Peter, to pay Paul" if you will - may not be the point at all, but only serve as a kind of plumage; signalling to higher authority in Washington, and in corporate America, that he is on-board with their plans here in Florida. Those plans could include anything from a repeat of the Enronification of the energy grid, to whatever may most insult and injure Floridians. Who really knows?

In sum, and to quote another common refrain, with a governor like this, who needs enemies?