Just How AWFUL is Our Attorney General in Rick Scott's Florida?

#93 of My Stupid State series

Crossposted on DKOS

Rick Scott said this week he will vote against a proposed constitutional amendment to allow the medical use of marijuana, which would be shameful enough if he also wasn't trying to stop the people of Florida from even having the opportunity to vote on this compassionate measure. Rick Scott turned to his young, lackey Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to try to stop it. Out of all the issues facing Floridians, she has made keeping this proposal off the ballot her top priority by arguing the 74-word summary is confusing.

(Mind you we had 11 amendments in 2012, none of which came from citizens but from the GOP legislature, that were purposefully written to be as confusing as possible. One columnist compared them to a Chinese menu written upside down in Hebrew. Yet PamBo had no problem with those.)

It was PamBo who did her Master's bidding and led the fight to deny healthcare to millions of Floridians with a Quixotic attack on Obamacare, costing our state millions. In fact, over a million in legal fees alone has been spent on a pointless defense of Rick Scott's long list of controversial legislation: ruining our states pension plans, requiring drug tests of state employees and welfare recipients, cutting teacher's salaries, and purging voters.

In fact, you can always tell a Rick Scott initiative by asking three questions:

• Is it unConstitutional?
• Is it designed to HURT rather than HELP Floridians?
• Will Bondi fight for it?

In FL Democrats' obsession over Rick Scott, they often overlook this crucial piece in the GOP's oppressive regime--- one who is a character all of her own. But who exactly is Pam Bondi?

PamBo is Florida's Attorney General. Before being AG, she was only known for being a right-wing talking head on Sean Hannity's show on Faux News.

She is the most ideological AG in Florida's history and probably the nation's history. She is exactly what the wingnut powerbrokers wanted when they took over Tallahassee in 2010: a partisan who would finally implement a doctrinaire conservative interpretation of the law. (Or should I say "misinterpret", which is why she costs the state so much in fighting battles based on ideology rather than law. But her anti-intellectualism is part of her base's appeal).

Bondi is dishonest. She is also, frankly, stupid. She is rightfully considered the worst AG in the country today by many members of the American and Florida bar.

I will just point out a few things to enhance my points:

Ideologue

Its easy to forget that Pam Bondi doesn't work at Fox News anymore since she's been on there more times than when she was actually working there. Whether its to lie about the healthcare navigators, defend herself from turning her office into a partisan hackshop, or just to bask in the hollow praise of the idiots at Fox and Friends, you will always see her dumb smile. She's so well known at Fox that she even made that part of her pitch to voters.

If you have been reading the MY STUPID STATE series, you may wonder why no one has tried to stop Rick Scott with all the clearly illegal things he is doing. Well, its because Democrats here have also lost 10 out of the 11 cabinet races, and elections have consequences. We now have a Fox News lackey as our Attorney General and, so far, has ignored everything he has done. So, for example, when we expect our AG to fight against Scott's illegal voter purges, instead we have PamBo vigorously defending the voter purges (both in the Courts and on Fox News) even after knowing the majority of people kicked off were legitimate!

Incompetent

Every state in the union was awarded 25 billion from the five largest banks due to mortgage fraud. Our state led the nation in bad foreclosures, but unfortunately for us, each state's AG was responsible for handling the funds. Our idiot AG struck a horrible, horrible deal that didn't give the money to the distressed homeowners, but to our corrupt legislature who were already in bed with the mortgage companies to begin with.

Not like Bondi really cared. She has always put the fraudulent mortgage companies first. In fact, she abruptly fired two assistant AGs because they were successfully fighting mortgage fraud. She claimed they were fired because of poor performance, despite the fact that they received glowing reviews right before their firings.

Corrupt

Even worse than politically motivated firings is her reluctance to pursue charges against people who give her money. Donald Trump ran a get-rich quick seminar that fleeced Floridians and New Yorkers out of tens of thousands of dollars. When this scam came to light, the New York AG immediately filed charges. Pam Bondi's office told the Orlando Sentinel on September 14 of last year that she was studying the New York case and was planning on taking action here as well.

Three days later, Sept. 17--Trump cut Bondi a LARGE check for her re-election this year. Bondi then miraculously decided not to press charges.

So how much does campaign cash trump justice for PamBo? She literally moved an execution date for a prisoner because it coincided with a fundraiser. Yeah, that stuff happens here. She was called out on it, apologized, and it was never to be heard from again in our media.

Just recently, she used taxpayer money to sue to stop the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. WTF?! you might be asking. Why is she trying to spending money to fight a cleanup in a Bay that isn't even in freaking Florida? Big agriculture wants her to. And she works for the special interests, not the people of Florida.

Awful

And when she is not being just awful at her job, she is just being plain awful. She took a Louisiana family's Katrina dog and refused to give it back to them when they were finally able to track the St. Bernard down. The children's pleas for their dog back fell on deaf ears, and PamBo even accused the family of neglecting the dog. (I guess it was their fault for allowing the dog to be washed away in the hurricane).

The case was settled. The family got the dog back but PamBo was allowed to visit and promised to provide for the dog with food and medication for life.

She stopped after one month.

Thankfully, PamBo is fighting for her political life and will be defeated unless our incompetent State Party doesn't screw this up. Even though she has clearly been obsessed over fundraising and has been campaigning vigorously, she leads only slightly against her two potential Dem rivals: George Sheldon and Perry Thurston.

This race deserves some attention. More so than any other cabinet race.

1. Donate to George Sheldon!
2. Spread the word on PamBo! Share this post. Write about her in your local paper or on a blogpost. Talk to your friends when they bring up how much they hate Rick Scott.
3. Get Pam Bondi Out of Office Facebook Page

Send this Fox News flunkie back to Hannity and out of office so we can put someone there who will actually fight for Floridians for a change.

Bondi serving drinks on a bizarre trip to the Caymans