Ever since Gov. Smeagol took office, he has made a nasty habit of making arbitrary decisions. One of the first things he did was to announce that he himself would stop all pending regulations for his "personal" review, even routine and necessary ones. He had no authority to do so and our state Supreme Court handed him his ass.
Rick Scott responded the way one would expect him to: with not one, but two schemes to dismantle the Court. (One last year to literally dismantle it that failed, and one this year that goes after all Democratically-appointed Justices.)
But the state Courts were not alone: he showed no regard for any other state institution. Not the Cabinet, the media, and certainly not the citizenry.
You may recall during the budget signing ceremony at the Villages, several residents who dared to wear anti-Scott T-shirts in a PUBLIC square were threatened with criminal charges of "tresspassing" by the Sumter County Sheriff's Office on the orders of one Rick Scott. He said he was justified by being the "chief law enforcement officer"; which I guess doesn't require knowing the law.
And so on... he tried to push through a horrible plan to force drug testing on all state employees (but himself). He decided to kill thousands of jobs by single-handedly killing high speed rail. And most recently, you might have heard, he is attempting to purge thousands of eligible voters while even daring the Justice Department to do anything about it.
Now, we see it with Health Care.
The Affordable Care Act was passed in Congress, with a supermajority in the Senate, signed by the President, and now UPHELD by a very conservative Supreme Court. It has been the "law of the land" since it passed; now it is confirmed.
Rick Scott promised last November, in talking with the Palm Beach Post, that if the Supreme Court upheld the law he would implement it:
"It's my job, if it's the law of the country, to be ready when it's the law … when it's the law of the land, we'll implement the law.''
As early as last Wednesday, he said he acknowledged that he would have to comply with the law "if it’s declared constitutional" by SCOTUS.
But now? After spending millions of taxpayer dollars to fight it in Court; after turning down more than $100 million in federal funds to set up health care exchanges; after promising repeteadly to implement it if its "the law of the land"; Rick Scott said yesterday that Florida WILL NOT implement the health care law.
Just like that.
Because he hates it and he says so. So there.
He is Dictator, after all. With a compliant right-wing legislature, who are we, the citizens, to complain?
Scott also said he is not going to expand health insurance through Medicaid, regardless that the federal government is paying almost entirely for the plan and a million people need it.
Of course, he has NO PLAN for the 4 million people in this state without insurance, although he has been in office for 1.5 painful years. (Actually, he sort of has a plan, but can't come up with a formal way to say "screw 'em".)
All he does is make the rounds on right-wing talk shows and lie, lie, lie. Just yesterday on Fox "News" he relayed a phony story about a mysterious "business owner" who told him he has to lay off 20 employees because he can't afford health care. Nevermind that the law specifically exempts any company with fewer than 50 people. This is Greta's Fox crowd he was talking to.
Dictators don't care about truth. They also don't care about the rule of law, much less the plight of suffering people.
The only good news is that Rick Scott is not actually a dictator... he only thinks he is. We do still have elections. Granted, they are MUCH more difficult with all the registration restrictions, handwriting analysis, purging and other roadblocks put in place the past 1.5 years, but they still exist. No matter how much money the Kochs give to Rick, no matter how many restrictions they place at the ballot box, there is no amount of pressure or suppression that is going to keep that bastard in office past 2014.
Maybe then Floridians can get the health care they deserve.
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