A young mother wanted to speak to her governor during his recently completed "listening" tour of public education. This was the start of something bad:
To be considered for meeting the governor, each parent had to fill out a form with a driver's license, Social Security number and date of birth. Similar forms are routinely required from those who attend gatherings with a president of the United States, but contrary to the claims in Tallahassee, they have never been routinely required for a meeting with prior Florida governors.
As appalling as that is, what is happened after the check was even more appalling... .
For almost 20 years this young mother has held a sensitive job as a child care worker and Medicaid provider who screens young children. This type of work requires a flawless background with rigorous background checks. She always passes with flying colors.
This time, all she wanted to do was sit down in the school library at the school her own child attends while her governor "listens" to their concerns.
But she was denied. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement told her she failed her background check.
What's worse is that, to this day, they won't tell her why she was rejected! From the same article:
Gretl Plessinger, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, refused to disclose why La'Tasha Reed Dullivan flunked its background test to attend a session of the governor's education "listening tour.'
Mrs. Dullivan was furious. So she ran a check on herself, forking over the $24 for access to the database.
What did find? Nothing. Nada. Zip.
No trace of criminal history.
Nothing evil--except her party registration. Democrat.
Outrageous! - says the governor's staff. They certaintly don't tell law enforcement to weed out Democrats! (Except when they do).
The FDLE won't say why she "failed" either, despite repeated requests from the press. (Nasty buggers they are. No wonder Scott hates them so.)
The FDLE put out a statement that these background checks are common. This is complete and utter crap. No other governor has ever subjected their citizens to a background check just to talk with them. The Tampa Times investigated and found that not Crist, Chiles, Graham, or even JEB did such a thing. Bush's former Chief of Staff said Bush never asked for a backround check just to meet with her boss; and Charlie Crist was downright disgusted when he was asked, saying "I never did that!''
Scott's people, growing tired of a new scandal every week, are throwing the FDLE under the bus. They are saying they must be going rogue and doing this without their knowledge. Once again, COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAP! You can't pull a stunt like this without the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the state knowing about it--and in this backwards state, that person is the same freaking guy who gets elected governor. (BTW, Dick Rott used this position as an excuse to order the Sumter Co. Sheriff to remove anyone wearing an anti-Scott T-shirt in a public square last year.)
Running these types of background checks on EVERYONE who is selected to be in an audience with the guber is expensive, offensive and wasteful. FDLE is underfunded and overwhelmed. The limited resources need to go to serious crimes, including dealing with the uptick in murders under the badly-written Stand Your Ground law you may have heard about. Just like public education, which was cut by $1.3 billion in 2011, FDLE succumbed to the Tallahassee Teabag budget ax along with those other government "parasites" in mental health and child protective services.
(And, before I conclude, allow me to quickly remind everyone what a total asshole Rick Scott is: he appointed a monster to head the Department of Children and Families who justified Rick Scott gutting his own agency by $179 million, even though we have an epidemic of child deaths, by saying "I believe in the protective power of prayer and hope".
Seriously dude, F&*K YOU!! And to cap it off, Scott requested a 116% increase for his own office. Ass......hole. OK, I'm done.)
I'm sure the woman didn't miss much. Scott mostly talked during his "listening" tour and the complaints fell on deaf ears. But he could have at least a shred of decency and allowed someone to ask why they are being screwed over before ignoring them.
What I find most ironic is that this squeaky-clean woman couldn't get an audience with a governor with an actual criminal history.
But then again, this is Florida....
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