Rick Scott's 2800 Pound Dog and Pony Show

I just updated my list of non-partisan reasons to dis-elect Rick Scott, since I’ve reached 150 of them now. #149 had to do with his delay in picking a lieutenant governor – though to be fair, given the last one he had, Rick Scott may be doing us a favor by not picking a new one.

The 150^th reason (which ends up being #144 in my numbering) is the subject of this posting. Here it is:

144) Rick Scott has tried to impress voters with a shallow citation of how many regulations he has deleted.

Scott and his campaign say that they deleted 2800 regulations from the books. This is a big number used in an attempt to impress voters, but it lacks the most important considerations: Why was it a good thing to get rid of each of these 2800 regulations? Were they all bad? (Are lawmakers that incompetent?) Did Scott delete any useful or good regulations? Are any of them just out of date (and if so, why should Scott tout this as a serious accomplishment)? The big number is nothing but a gimmick as it stands.

I’m sure most of you have seen lists of “stupid laws.” You know what I mean: Stuff like, “In New Brunswick it’s illegal to spit on an emu.” We have a good laugh at these, but have you ever asked yourself why anyone would pass such a law?

Well, it may have been a joke, but it’s also possible that someone passed it for what seemed like a good reason. Someone may have actually spit on an emu, which then turned and kicked that someone in the jaw. A law probably wasn’t needed, of course, but laws and regulations that seem silly may have had a perfectly legitimate concern behind them.

As I said in the description, Rick Scott flashes that big number (“2800 regulations, whoa! He must really care about our freedoms!”), but unless and until he explains why each and every one of those 2800 regulations deserved deletion, it’s nothing but show.

Sure, some may have been bad. But how many were good, or served some good purpose, and should not have been deleted? Given Scott’s haywire attitude towards so many other issues, you might want to ask if he deleted some things that were meant to stop harm or even death.

Maybe a few were outdated. (“You can’t park your velocipede in a school zone.”) That’s fair game for deletion, but Rick Scott deserves no credit for getting rid of things like that. It doesn’t serve any purpose other than to save an inch of column space somewhere.

If I can, I’d like to find a list of those 2800 regulations, and see what they were. You can be sure Scott himself didn’t carefully read or consider all 2800 before he swiped them with his pen. All he was after was that big number. In the meantime, be sure and tell people not to fall for Scott’s 2800-pound dog and pony show.

Minimum Wage is the "Black Teenage Unemployment Act". Yes, it was on FoxNews.

Crossposted on DailyKos

Where else would you hear such a stupid, bigoted statement?

Art Laffer is a Fox News regular who they always trot out to defend the failed trickle-down economic experiment. He meets Fox's requirements: He supports taxes on poor people but not rich people. He hates the minimum wage. He's a a con artist. And to top it off, he's a bigot.

"The minimum wage makes so sense whatsoever to me. I mean, honestly, it's just the teenage.. the BLACK Teenage Unemployment Act"

I dropped my jaw when I heard that.

But if you were waiting for the Fox News bobblehead, in this case Jenna Lee, to call him out on that--you would be... not surprised. She ignores his statement completely and instead fawns all over his "new ideas". She was the "moderator" of this deep intellectual discussion between two men, because Fox is fair and balanced. On one side, you had the far rightwing nutjob. The other was Art Laffer.

By the way, this is what other guy who wasn't Art Laffer said in response:

I certainly agree with Art that we should LOWER the minimum wage for teenagers. I also think we should lower the minimum wage for the long-term unemployed.

I think you can all join me in saying... WHAT??..

Jenna Lee played the airhead role very well, looking confused when the men were talking, complaining she needed a calculator and couldn't keep up with the discussion, and getting her basic facts wrong (no, Laffer didn't work "in different administrations"--just Reagan. And that was one too many).

The bottom line is that Fox and their conservative guests know their audience. There is no subject that you can't sprinkle in some bigotry to appeal to their fears and biases. You name it: minimum wage, economics, immigration, gun control, etc. Heck, Megyn Kelley found a way to give a nod to bigots over freaking Santa Claus!

Fox News viewers know LESS than people who watch no news at all. But intellectual discussions and real news were never the purpose of Fox "News". It was always to appeal to the Republican base by playing to their stereotypes and fanning their fears; which in turn inspires them to fight to keep the plutocracy in power.

It is my hope that in my lifetime we can one day look back on the Fox News era with the same disgust as we do the McCarthy era, and wonder in awe just how many Americans could have been so fooled.

Rick Scott's Last Job Application?

To start this post, let me reveal the 147^th reason I’ve added to my list of reasons Rick Scott doesn’t deserve re-election:

Rick Scott is oblivious to the difficulties an average unemployed person has in finding a job.

I won’t formally post this one in the list on my blog (Rick Scott Must Go) until I get enough to reach 150. But it does raise a question. First, though, let me explain the background.

When asked what he planned to do about the dysfunctional CONNECT (DEO) website, Scott offered a clueless reply, which reads as follows: 

"The state's unemployment website has been a disaster, what are you doing to make sure this gets solved?" Brown asked Scott.

"First off, the most important thing we can do is help people get jobs," said Scott. 

"What do you want to say to the people who can't pay their bills right now because of this?" Brown asked.

"Again, my biggest job is to make sure people can get a job. We have 279,000 job openings in the state. We're recouping money, holding money back from Deloitte to make sure it gets better quickly," said Scott.

Source

My analysis for the listing is:

"Scott answers as though all one of the unemployed has to do, is walk outside and snag one of those 279,000 open jobs. He does not even consider the fact that many of those jobs have literally hundreds of applicants, dozens of them qualified. He also does not consider that the unemployed are competing for jobs with others who are still employed, but are looking for a new job because they don’t like their current one. Finally, it is a point of fact that there are still at least three unemployed people in Florida for every job available. Even if all 279,000 of those jobs were filled, we’d have about 550,000 unemployed people left who would need unemployment benefits. Scott clearly has lost touch with what it is like to have to beat the path to look for work."

This made me wonder, in fact, when the last time was that Rick Scott did have to look for a job the way most of us do. By that I mean, searching listings, filling out applications, and interviewing.

Actually, that’s hard to say.

As a kid, he had some nasty jobs as a fry cook, selling TV Guides, and as a phone booth cleaner. He enlisted in the Navy after high school, back in 1970. While in the Navy he and his wife saved money so they could buy a donut shop. The donut revenues paid his way through law school, and he became an attorney. In 1987, he and a partner had enough money to buy a hospital. That was the start of HCA. And then we know about Solantic, which he also started. (I got all this information from this article.)

So…when was the last time Rick Scott actually had to look for, and interview for, a job?

Possibly, he may have interviewed to join a law firm at some point. But if he didn’t, it looks like he hasn’t been through the process since…what? Did he interview for that phone booth cleaner job, maybe? Or, the one selling TV Guides? (I’d like to have heard his answers to, “Why should we hire you?” on that one.) 

Bottom line, Rick Scott hasn’t walked the job search trail most of us walk, since at least the mid-80s. He has no idea what it’s like to check the want ads, to fill out applications, to pound the streets and work the phones and be rejected repeatedly.

And this is someone who touts himself as a “jobs governor”?

No, he’s out of touch. And that’s yet one more reason Rick Scott must go.

**

As a bonus, here’s a comment on the latest effort by Florida Republican Party honcho Lenny Curry to insult the intelligence of Florida voters, which will also make my list as the 148th reason.

Curry, said "As Congress votes today to address cybersecurity concerns with Obamacare, Governor Rick Scott was right from the beginning when he raised privacy and security problems over aspects of this health care bill…Yet, Charlie Crist has dismissed these problems, embracing a bill that puts the privacy of Floridians' personal information at risk."

Wait a minute.

First of all, Scott formerly opposed the "pill mill" database for the same reasons -- then flip flopped and supported it.

Second, Scott didn't seem too concerned about such problems when he hired Deliotte (with its proven bad track record) for the DEO website, which had randomly handed out people’s Social Security numbers. Whoops.

And where, may I ask, has Crist "dismissed" these problems? Can we have a quote? Curry didn’t seem to have one.

No, the bill in question (the Affordable Care Act) hasn’t put the privacy of people at risk; at worst, the troubled implementation of it has, same as with the DEO website. But with that DEO website spitting out people’s Social Security numbers, Scott and Curry had best stop throwing rocks in their house before they break the walls.

Today, 900 Rich People No Longer Have to Pay Into Social Security

Crossposted on Dkos

You and I, who are struggling to make ends meet, will be paying into social security in perpetuity. Not so for the top .00001% of which our economy is rigged. These 900 of the richest of the rich don't have to pay Social Security taxes for the rest of the year. That's because of an incredibly stupid law that says you cannot tax after $117,000--and since this top elite has already made that much by now, they, unlike the rest of us, get the rest of the year free from Social Security taxes because.... something.

The taxable maximum makes the Social Security payroll tax regressive, meaning that low earners pay a MUCH HIGHER share of their earnings in taxes than high earners. But that's fair because..... something. Boosting the taxable maximum would completely fix the system’s financing. Eliminating the cap entirely would make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years without cutting any benefits, without raising the age, and without effecting the earnings one iota of 95% of all Americans, and would hardly affect the top .00001% at all.

This story showcases a Korean War Veteran delivering pizzas to make ends meet. We are already in a serious retirement crisis: Social Security was supposed to be part of a three-legged stool for elderly Americans. Pension, supplemented by 401ks, supplemented by Social Security was supposed to be our safety net. Pensions have all but disappeared. 401ks are woefully inadequate (I had to tap into mine for health care issues... but that is another issue altogether). Social Security was never meant to the primary lifeline for seniors, yet that is what it has become. Living entirely off of Social Security will keep you below the poverty line, and yet the republicans, led by Koch-funded groups, are pushing the solution to CUT Social Security benefits rather than expand it.

David Koch is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the fight to cut SS benefits. Keep in mind that he makes $3 million an hour. Granted, this is investment income, which means it isn't taxed at all. If it were earned income, he would have met his cap at 2 minutes and 21 seconds after midnight. The bottle of champagne he drank from to ring in the new year was worth almost half of the maximum allowable.

(Yet that asshat still refuses to tip the help).

He is supported by overpaid CEOs who make up 70% of those 900 people. Their earned income is so high they have already hit the table cap on January 3rd, and they have accumulated MASSIVE retirement fortunes. Yet they support cutting Social Security even though, without any awareness of the irony, they helped contribute to this crisis by successfully shifting the burden of retirement savings to their employees.

The arguments against even raising the cap is flimsy; and again, mostly coming from think tanks funded by the Kochs or University Economic Departments they have bought (I'm looking at you Florida State and Florida Gulf Coast).

The main argument is that raising the cap would somehow "discourage work" and thus cutting benefits is the more proper solution. Yes, because the wealthiest CEOs obviously must work thousands of times harder than their employees to earn thousands of times their salary.

Elizabeth Warren is one of the few fighting to expand, not cut, Social Security. It is more than soluble if the wealthiest among us will at least contribute the same percentage as the rest of us.

Remember this the next time you are told we have to cut "entitlement" programs.

140+ Reasons Why Rick Scott Must GO!

Yesterday, to ring in the new year, I unveiled something special, and readers of The Seminole Democrat can help make it even better.

At the link at the end of this entry, you’ll find a posting on my own blog, Rick Scott Must Go! It’s a list of 146 non-partisan reasons why Rick Scott deserves to be voted out of office. (They’d also make a nice list for why he deserves to be recalled, if only we had a recall function here…sigh.) I also posted it on my Facebook page.

Why non-partisan?

Because Rick Scott is a menace to the well-being of all Florida citizens – regardless of political views. And those of us who live here and still possess faculties of reason need to unite in spite of partisan differences, and show that someone like Rick Scott will not be tolerated in the governor’s office.

What can you do?

I’m a pretty good researcher. But I’m sure I missed a few things. Please check the list out, and see if you can find any mistakes, or if you can think of anything to add. If you do think of something I can add, please write me at indiethinker777@gmail.com and let me know. I will want some sort of documentation, like you see in the listings now: Preferably from a mainstream Florida media source, like one of the newspapers. 

Also, when you submit something, remember that the list is intended to be non-partisan. Yes, many voters from partisan camps have reason to be angry with Scott; even the Tea Party people (sounds like some alien Grade B movie group, doesn’t it?) are upset with him over a few things by this time. Scott is nothing if not an equal opportunity offender, which is about what you’d expect from someone whose only principles are green and come in denominations. But as I said, all thinking and caring citizens of this state need to unite in purpose if we’re going to unseat this monster. So I prefer to keep the list non-partisan.   (Maybe I can make some “partisan” lists later.)

I’d like to get some feedback for a while, and then see what can be done about getting this listing around. Please accept my thanks in advance for any suggestions!

http://rickscottmustgo.blogspot.com/2014/01/over-140-non-partisan-reasons-why-rick.html

My thanks, again, to the Seminole Democrat’s My Stupid State series, and the archive at ricksscottsucks.us, for providing so much of the material I used to create the listing.

From then to 2014 and beyond

2006-2012:
The Seminole Democrat started in the summer of 2006 as the official blog for the Seminole County Democrats. I was taught how to blog by the creator of the Boiling Mad blog, which is apparently now defunct. Our URL was, as it is now, seminoledemocrats.blogspot.com. I loved writing for them, but I was very careful in what I wrote because I was representing an organization.

One year later, I split from the Seminole County Democrats but kept the blog. (They created their own on a revamped website). The URL remained the same but I dropped the "s" and just became "The Seminole Democrat" in the title.

I also started posting on the largest political blog on the planet, DailyKos to build an audience and refine material. I posted off and on as a hobby.

In 2010, the unthinkable happened where we elected a criminal and a supermajority of conservative teabaggers to the legislature. This prompted a new feature of documentation called MY STUPID STATE (we are up to #81 and counting). I noticed my writing started taking an angry edge because I was so disappointed in our state. Almost every post you see featured in that series has been featured as a Recommended post on DKos seen by hundreds or thousands. In 2012 I was asked to be a founding writer for DKos Florida when that started. I also finally got around to updating the SemDem website.

2013:
This was an interesting year. I took a new job that required most of my time so the blog was essentialy on hiatus for the first 8 months. I did manage to make a few posts, like one in early August where I asked people to donate to a conservative editor at RedState. The story was picked up by outlets across the nation, including Mediate and Breitbart.

In late August I unfortunately became very ill and was rushed to hospital several times. I am still being tested for issues at a research hospital. I was in a bad place and did something I promised I would never do: I asked readers to donate. I was hoping for maybe a couple hundred bucks to take care of the smaller bills. But I raised 4K in a few days through GoFundMe and PayPal. Although I am still deep in medical debt, I was touched by the outpouring of support.

I started writing more regularly. I received two emails from the General Manager of Daily Kos who thanked me for driving social media traffic thanks to two stories I had written. One on "afflueza" received almost 73,000 facebook shares and the other about the bigoted Sheriff of Pickens Co received 28,000. Markos Moulitsas, the owner, also let me know that he appreciated the social media traffic to his blog.

SemDem has moved to the blogroll of several prominent Florida blogs such as Pushing Rope and the #1 political blog in Florida, FlaPolitics. Our posts are featured among their Fl Netroots column and I thank them for their support.

I also gave in and created both a Facebook page and, very recently, a Twitter account. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to LIKE or FOLLOW. I also created a button to make it easy to put SemDem on your mobile device.

At any given time, I enourage you to click Worldwide Visitors to SemDem, which is always located on the right column of this blog. It's very cool. Every few seconds it updates to show who is on and reading. Obviously Florida is always the most swamped but our posts are read worldwide as you can see.

I went from having a few dozen readers to hundreds to thousands. Last month we had almost 20000 unique page views, which was a record. Considering I had a few dozen three years ago that is quite a change. My Stupid State series along with the post on the Miami man arrested 258 times for no reason drove a lot of that traffic.

2014:
This year I am honored to have Independent Thinker on board as an author. I will probably ask for one or two more authors.

Also, early last year I was asked by two private companies if I took sponsors. I had absolutely no idea how to do that and they both asked within a month of each other when I was on hiatus, so I said no. Now that I have more time and figured out how to do it, I may solict for sponsors especially since 2014 is an election year. Email me if interested in either sponsoring or writing.

My Stupid State series continues to grow. My ultimate goal is to kill this series this year, which I will most likely do if Rick Scott is defeated this year. That will show that there is hope for this state. If he wins again, it will unfortunately grow for years to come.

Winner of 2013 My Stupid State: No Changes to Stand Your Ground

#81 of My Stupid State

As usual, there was corruption, waste, bigotry, and a slew of stupidity that marked the GOP/Rick Scott reign in Florida. But the winner for this year was clear.

Right now in Florida, thanks to the NRA-controlled GOP legislators, perpetrators have more authority to shoot and kill than U.S. troops have in war. The law was drafted and funded by the NRA. It exposes police to criminal and civil penalties if they arrest someone who is claiming self-defense. (Hence, the SNL sketch about being a policeman in Florida).

Worse, it says that anyone can shoot anyone if they "reasonably believe" that they or someone else is in imminent danger. So the burden of proof is highly subjective: just someone believing or imagining a danger means you are in the clear--regardless of the fear is based on misperception or, as we here have often seen as the case, ethnic prejudices.

Worse still, it is obvious to everyone that the law is being used with malice by people murdering and then claiming "SYG". Which has happened quite often: the majority of people in Florida who claim SYG have a criminal record. And they have been successful in exploiting the SYG law: 70% of people who claim SYG go free.

A few examples:

• Judge dismissed murder charges under SYG after a man killed two unarmed people.
• Another one went free after he shot a black man laying on the ground
• Man acquitted who shot a man in bed with his wife
• Two gang members using AK-47s gunned down an 15-year old were granted immunity under STG
• A Miami man fired at two unarmed Florida Power & Light workers who had entered his yard to cut power due to unpaid bills. The judge said he was protected by SYG.

Google "crazy stand your ground cases" and you will get dozens. People being set free under SYG even though they shot the victim in the back, or shot someone trying to deliver a paper, or misinterpreted a deaf guy. It goes on and on.

One of the major issue with the law is that the defendant, as it is written, can INITIATE the fight, pursue the victim and shoot them even if they are unarmed AND retreating. All the perpertrator has to do is claim at some point he was "threatened" by you:

Its so f-d up that even Durell Peaden, the former Republican senator who sponsored the bill, said the law was never intended for people who put themselves in harm's way before they started firing. But the NRA and thus, our GOP officials rejected even that simple tweak to the law.

After the Travyon shooting, Rick Scott put together a "task force" following the public outcry that was supposed to review the law and recommend changes. Even though researchers have shown that under SYG homicides have increased while empirical studies have found it simultaneously does not deter crime, no opposing research was allowed to be presented. In fact, the "task force" was made up of six people appointed by Rick Scott, including two of the original drafters of the SYG bill, three ALEC members, and this idiot.

Surprisingly, they recommended the NRA law be completely unchanged.

I haven't even up till now mentioned the obvious racial inequalities of the law. The graph speaks for itself:

I'll just say that right now, as I'm typing this, an active duty airman and father of three with no prior criminal history (unlike Zimmerman) fired his gun and did NOT kill (unlike Zimmerman) during a violent brawl he did not start involving 40 people and claimed to be in fear of his life.

He sits in prison for a 25-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder

The Daily Show featured this segment as one of their best of last year. Even a fake news channel can't make this stuff up. As John Oliver said, Florida needs to change our motto.

Scarier Than a Plastic Dinosaur

So, at a time when some people can't even pay their electric bill because Rick Scott's fabulous CONNECT website can't even put two and two together, golf gopher Jack Nickalus -- who a couple years back had wanted to build some golf courses in Florida state parks, to add to the absurd number we already have -- is holding a 10K per person fundraising dinner for Scott.

Source

But don't worry. If you're one of those unemployed people, he'll gladly rent you one of those 18 holes to live in.

Watch Rick Scott Dodge Medicaid Expansion Questions

The federal government, under ACA, would cover ALL expenses for insuring newly eligible people from 2014 thru 2016. That share would only decline to 90% in 2022 and beyond. We stood to gain over $51 billion dollars, but our idiot GOP legislature rejected the Medicaid expansion.

Here in Florida, it would have covered 1/5 of our population: 3.8 MILLION people. To add insult to injury, the GOP legislature came up with its own alternative that would have cost Florida taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars and only cover 115,000 uninsured Floridians.

Rick Scott initially supported the Medicaid expansion and was pushing the teabag legislature to do the right thing after his mother passed away. There was a gleam of hope that for once, FOR ONCE, he would do the right thing. After the billions he has cost us and the untold damage he's done to this state, the average Floridian deserves SOMETHING good from this governor.

As predicted, he did a 180...

Put Our Website (or Any Website) on the HomeScreen of your Mobile Device!

You can do this for SemDem or any webpage you want on your Homescreen for any Apple or Android product.

It's actually pretty simple but I wanted to be as descriptive as I could. Video link included at the end if you need more visual.

APPLE Products:

1. GO to the website you want on your homescreen
   (like http://www.seminoledemocrats.blogspot.com)
2. Select the Arrow button . (This might also be a "plus" symbol on some browsers.)

3. Select "Add to Homescreen"

Android Products:

1. Go to website you want (like SemDem)

2. Select the Options button
3. Select "Bookmark/Add Bookmark" icon to save it as a bookmark
   (Depending on device, this might be under an option that says "MORE")

4. Now that its saved as a bookmark, select the Bookmark icon on your homescreen.
   (If not on your homescreen, press your finger against any open area on your homescreen and select Shortcuts > Bookmark)

5. Press your finger against the website under Bookmarks you want and presto!
   (It will either automatically put the shortcut on your homescreen, or give you an option that says "Add shortcut to Home")

Step by step short video if you need it. Let me know in the comments if you have difficulty.