Floridians Are Maybe Starting To Understand Their Governor Is A Grifter

[seafan]

Grifter is PRECISELY the definition of the man occupying our Governor's mansion.



Rick Scott
AP


Jason Linkins writes at the HuffPo:

March 30, 2011

Despite his being best known as a cartoon villain fraudster who bilked Medicare and incurred a record-setting fine from authorities, Florida Governor Rick Scott outspent and outgunned his primary opponent Bill McCollum and then slipped past Democratic challenger Alex Sink in the 2010 GOP wave.

And now, after three months in office, he's become the very face of buyer's remorse:

A PPP poll of registered voters released today shows that in a hypothetical re-do of last year's gubernatorial election, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) would lose to Democrat Alex Sink by a nearly 20-point margin, 56%-37%. Scott won a squeaker of an election last year, edging out Sink by about one point.

.....

Let's see....

Cutting teacher pay and wiping out their job security. Cutting the education budget. Cutting unemployment benefits. Killing high-speed rail in Florida. Requiring random drug tests on all state employees and public assistance recipients. Nice how that will benefit his bottom line at his Solantic walk-in health clinics.

And he's just getting warmed up. He's only been in office for 3 months.


Linkins continues:

For future reference, here are some ways that you can tell if your state's governor is some sort of appalling grifter.


He does vaguely scammy things to the people who worked on his own campaign.

(Paying campaign workers with gift cards instead of cutting a check.)

.....
He spends an inordinate amount of money on self-celebration.

(Spending $2 Million on his inaugural ball, in the face of brutal economic conditions among the people.)

.....
He's got something of an itching palm.

(He's still ticked off at Haley Barbour and the Republican Governor's Association for running ads depicting Scott as a massive fraudster in his campaign against opponent Bill McCollum. And Scott wants his money back that he spent fighting those ads.)

.....
He seems to want to make it easier for other serial fraudsters to commit serial fraud.

(He is trying to get rid of a massive database that tracks and helps stop fraudulent prescription drug traffic.)

.....
He avoids scrutiny like a vampire avoids sunlight.

(He has declared war on media access to his activities, and spit on Florida's sunshine laws ordering transparency.)

.....
Oh! And he basically crafts policy for the sole purpose of personal enrichment.

(All those newly ordered drug tests will no doubt pad the bottom line of Scott's $62 Million chunk of his fortune in Solantic walk-in health clinics. And that doesn't include his forcing the state's Medicaid patients into HMOs, which do lots of business with Solantic. Nice!)

So there you have it: the more he reveals himself as the grifter he is, the more Florida voters turn against their governor. All the classic signs of a scammer are right there on the surface, they've just been largely obscured by the sort of P.R. Scott's money can purchase.

.....

Over at EyeOnMiami, Geniusofdespair updates us on the efforts to remove Scott from power:

.....

So what are we to do? There is no recall of a Governor in the Florida constitution, that is why State Senator Gwen Margolis is trying to put it in with legislation. But do we have the time for this lengthy process with all the damage this guy is doing and further, will the State Legislature even put it on the ballot? Tick, tick, tick, time is wasting.

I personally can't wait to find out. Here is my plan. We start a petition campaign to rid Florida of its number one tea bagger with a constitutional amendment. Here in section 3 of the Florida Constitution, it tells us the only legal channel citizens have to turn to:

Initiative — The power to propose the revision or amendment of any portion or portions of this constitution by initiative is reserved to the people, provided that, any such revision or amendment, except for those limiting the power of government to raise revenue, shall embrace but one subject and matter directly connected therewith. It may be invoked by filing with the custodian of state records a petition containing a copy of the proposed revision or amendment, signed by a number of electors in each of one half of the congressional districts of the state, and of the state as a whole, equal to eight percent of the votes cast in each of such districts respectively and in the state as a whole in the last preceding election in which presidential electors were chosen. (That means we only need 676,506 signatures as 8,456,329 voted in 2008).


I presume our petition can say something like: Do you want to remove Rick Scott from office? We would have to make it legally okay. Maybe it has to be specific, like "Any Governor who pleaded the 5th amendment 75 times be removed from office." Or "Any Governor whose company was fined in excess of 1 Billion Dollars be removed from office." I spoke to an attorney who tells me this would raise 'bill of attainder' issues. Ouch! I don't like the sound of that (and don't know what it means). He suggested that we instead simply amend the constitution to end the sitting governor's term 3 days (arbitrary) following the adoption of this amendment, with a special election to be held on date X, with the term of the interim governor to end at the time that the sitting governor's term would have ended.

Or we can wait for Gwen Margolis' legislation (Senate Bills 1688 and 1700 and House Bills 785 and 787) which would be slow because it is a two step process (and I don't think it will be well received by legislators). In Margolis's scenario first we have to get legislators to place the recall Statute on the ballot and then we have to vote for it. Second we have to put Rick Scott's recall on the ballot in a petition drive and then we have to approve that in an election. All that would take too long - about 2 or 3 years at a minimum. I think we can get rid of him with one carefully worded petition drive in a year if we get the unions to help. He has gotten enough unions angry at (him) that is for sure. Let them flex their muscle with their numbers and their pocketbooks.

We would have plenty of money to mount a Statewide petition drive with union support, and also the manpower to collect signatures. So, LET'S GET TO WORK!

[Imajika]

1. Sorry, but these do over polls are almost entirely worthless...

People keep posting them as if they are super significant and they just don't matter much.

Almost anyone who tries to do anything controversial, whether it be horrible Republican stuff or agenda items Democrats push that we agree with, will see their popularity go down sharply. It is tough to anything big, whether it be good or bad.

Once these governors actually run and campaign against someone whose positions can also be criticized, they almost never fare as badly in these polls.

Here is an example. The radical Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, with a single stroke of the pen wiped out public employee collective bargaining. Additionally, he refused to collect union dues from public employee paychecks. His popularity dropped into the 30% range. He went on to win reelection easily.

I wouldn't read too much into these polls. They are nice to see, but shouldn't really fill anyone with much confidence.

[spanone]

2. why do voters hire criminals to pass laws that only effect the citizens?

[Scurrilous]

3. K & R

Kudos for the link to EyeOnMiami. Great blog. :thumbsup:

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. And this makes him different from our neighbors, how?

[1monster]

5. When I went to the polls on that Tuesday morning, Alex Sink was ahead by five percent.

When the "results" were counted Alex Sink lost by five percent. That's a turnaround of 10 percent.

Or the names were switched on the results.

I haven 't believed our election results since 2000 and I doubt I'll ever beleive them again.

[seafan]

6. And Rick Scott's overall negatives were at 47% the week of the election.

Here is that damning (for Scott) report on the Sink-Scott race in the Naples News the week of last November's election.


Oh, and the implementation of Amendments 5 and 6 that the voters passed by 63% to stop political parties from gerrymandering themselves into permanent power, is deliberately being blocked by Republicans in Tallahassee.


After what happened in November, 2000, it's going to be a very long time before the election process is credible in Florida, because there is a subset of thieves who want to keep it that way.


When it comes to stealing power and keeping it, these criminals have no equal.

[Zephie]

7. I will never believe that Scott won that election legitimately.