Creepy Guys!

Is it just me, or do these two look like they came out of the same dinosaur egg?

They both give me the creeps. Same shining pates; Same loopy, gaga eyes; Same insolent smirks. They could be brothers, or son & father.

I don't know much about Loughner, except he thrust himself into the public consciousness through a single despicable, hate-filled act on a sunny day in Arizona by shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others, killing 6 of them. I have followed Tea Party favorite Rick Scott though, and watched while he bought himself the governorship of Florida spending over $78 million of his own money.  Scott won his election by 1% of the vote against an able and smart Democrat.

Scott could afford it though. He is a tremendously successful gazillionaire who back in the 1990’s was a partner with George W. Bush in the ownership of the Texas Rangers ball team.  Most of his gazillions seem to have come from the hospital and pharmaceutical industries. Scott eventually parlayed control of several hospital ownership companies into ‘Columbia/Health Care America’ company, gaining control over a company with hundreds of hospitals and over 285,000 employees and was the 7th largest company based on payrolls in the US.

However, all was not roses. The FBI descended on the company in 1997, and it was eventually fined over $631 million for health care fraud, the biggest fraud fine in US history. The ensuing scandal cost Columbia/HCA over $2 billion, and Scott was forced out as CEO, though he was not personally charged with anything.  In 2001 SCott and a partner founded ‘Solantic’, a company to provide physicals, drug screenings,  job injury care, immunizations and urgent care services.  That company in turn has come into it’s share of legal troubles, mostly in the form of employment discrimination lawsuits because of age. But, perhaps it’s also significant that Scott now has NO minorities in his cabinet, as in ‘none’, although Florida’s Lt. Governor is black.    

Since becoming Florida’s governor, Scott has plunged headlong into ideological political regression on his terms alone, going against the majority of Floridans and his own party - but completely in tune with Tea Party dogma. He’s refused Federal high-speed rail money which would provided an estimated 20,000 - 30,000 new jobs. 67% of Floridians are for the project and only 17% against it. Scott is already being sued by both Democrat AND Republican legislators as ‘overstepping his executive authority’. 

Now, two months into his term a group has already formed to seek his recall, or ‘firing’. Rick Scott has never held elective office of any sort before and the hue and cry is being raised all over the state about his ‘imperial style of governing’.  However, Florida has no method to remove a governor from office short of impeachment for illegal acts. To remedy that one legislator, State Representative Rick Kriseman, has introduced HB 787 that would allow recall of state officials.

Some of Scott’s other regressive moves:

• 15% cut in state education funding;
• Wants to fire1690 state department of corrections employees;
• Wants to eliminate another 7000 state jobs;
• Wants to give $4 billion in tax cuts, including reducing corporate income taxes;
• Seeks to transfer Medicaid recipients into privately run managed care groups;
• Scott has forbidden state employees from discussing global warming;
• Wants to repeal of a state law to prevent medical prescription fraud!!

So much for job creation for this governor! In fact, this governor all by himself makes any normal recession look positively rosy. And all his idiocy makes him a hero to Tea Partiers who are now even talking about the possibility of this loose cannon running for president one day! Thus, we see one nut case who picks up a gun with a thirty round ammo clip to make his statement versus another one who spent over $78 million of his own money to impose his regressive ideology on an entire state. It is my fervent hope the future is very dark for both of them.