Over on Balloon Juice, they call it Peak Wingnut. The belief - long since disproved - that at some point the mass delusional conspiratorial rumor-mongering of the Far Right would be so over-the-top that everyone and their grandparents would completely dismiss it and the Far Right would be discredited forever and barred from polite society. You may notice we've yet to reach Peak Wingnut and probably never will (if Hillary wins in 2016, it will only change from racial nuttery to gender nuttery).
Considering what we've got as governor of the state of Florida, I prefer to call it Peak Asshole. And we've yet to reach that as well.
Even after Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott went to the federal government to beg for Medicaid money - just not Obamacare Medicaid Expansion, because God forbid we get anything with Obama's cooties on it - and getting his sorry hide dismissed for refusing the obvious, we're still getting the stupid out of him as well as the lack of accountability.
Scott has just sent out a letter to the state agencies regarding the budget impasse within the Florida Legislature, and informed those agencies to start planning for the possibility of a full-bore state shutdown. Per the Tampa Bay Times:
...Scott put agency heads on notice, giving them until 5 p.m. next Monday to identify services that must continue when the fiscal year ends at midnight June 30 and, in the absence of a budget, agencies could not spend money and state employees would not be paid.
In letters to agencies, Scott laid the blame for a potential shutdown on the Senate...
Okay, I gotta interrupt here. THE SENATE WANTS TO PASS A BUDGET. Blaming the shutdown on them when it's THE HOUSE THAT SPLIT TOWN THREE DAYS EARLY LIKE LAZY BASTARDS is the height of hypocrisy and blame-gaming.
Back to the report:
"It is possible that Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner and the Florida Senate will not agree to any budget without the specific expansion of Medicaid (at a cost to state taxpayers of $5 billion over 10 years)," Scott wrote. "Therefore, we are requesting your agency prepare a list of critical state services our citizens cannot lose in the event Florida is forced into a government shutdown on July 1st."
Scott is making it clear that any budget with federal Medicaid expansion money is unacceptable to him. His allies in the state House will most likely deny any compromise attempt.
By sounding the alarm of a shutdown, Scott may be trying to rally Floridians to support the view he shares with the House that a debate on health care must take a back seat to a more urgent matter of passing a budget.
Bullshit. Health care is part of the budget itself. It HAS to be part of the budget. Take away any provision of health care funding and we will see hospitals and nursing homes close their doors.
But Scott could also be seen as calling out his fellow Republicans for behaving irresponsibly. Talk of a shutdown could heighten a public sense of dysfunction in a state government controlled by Republicans at all levels.
Dear Rick "Asshole" Scott: It takes two to have an argument. Blaming the Senate for YOUR intractable irresponsibility is denial of the worst kind.
Scott's hardball tactics Thursday cost him support from one of his few staunch Senate supporters, Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater.
"I have great respect and admiration for the governor," Latvala said. "But I think it's unfortunate that they're taking this approach in trying to solve the situation between the House and Senate. Raising the specter of a government shutdown is not necessary at this point, and it's meant to put political pressure on the Senate… It's hard for him to be a broker for a solution when he takes one side like this."
I doubt Scott has any friends left in the Senate, the way he's been using them as a scapegoat for his political ambitions and short-sighted betrayals.
Part of me still thinks this whole thing is kabuki, that Scott is just playing the part of an Obamacare Refusnik down to the last minute so that he can play the martyr when a deal gets made including the much-needed Medicaid money. On the other hand, the Republican Party has become so radicalized over constant campaigning to the far right that Scott may well fear any deal would hurt his 2018 Senate hopes. There's still that factor from the federal shutdown I noted before, how the Far Right are convinced that the "doom-and-gloom" over a budget impasse / default is all a librul myth, and that if they stick to their guns they'll get the "small government" they've always hoped for.
I am extremely pissed off. I would love to see Rick "Not My Fault, Screw Everyone Else" Scott get burned over this. I would love to see the whole state FINALLY fucking wake up to the horrors of one-party Far-Right-Wingnut rule. I would love to win one of the state lotto tickets before the whole thing gets shut down. Unfortunately, I know my luck's not that good. I know we're screwed as a state. Barring outright arrest warrants issued for Scott by any of the various judges calling on his sorry ass to answer to the law, we're stuck with this crook for another three years.
Insert more curse words here if you like.
3 comments:
Awesome, nice analysis although I am more than a bit confused by some of the more convoluted political details. I have never liked Scott, and am quite baffled as to how, given his record, he was ever elected even once, let alone twice... I would not characterize him as a tea party puppet (like Rubio) but more of a crazed, fanatical zealot out to shove his bitter medicine down our collective throats whether we like it or not. Florida seems to be a backward state in many ways, riddled with corruption at all levels, and it would seem that he has somehow taken full advantage of this to claw his way to the top and brainwash people into thinking he is acting in their best interest. Probably he can only be finally stopped if we begin working toward changing the system so that there is at least some degree of oversight.
I would be reluctant to throw Rick Scott into a wood chipper, out of concern that each of the chips might crawl off and grow a new Rick Scott. Therefore, in an abundance of caution, I am suggesting that he be buggered to death by a sheep. Or even better, one of those ducks with the huge, corkscrew-shaped penises. Imagine his posthumous Wikipedia page:
Rick Scott, who was fatally sodomized by a duck, ran a health care organization which was subjected to the largest fine in history for Medicare fraud, and served briefly as governor of the state of Florida, where his policies were so offensive as to finally enrage the wildlife, and thus bring about his grisly demise...
Maybe instead of hiding the llama, you guys could elect it as governor. I mean, it's far-fetched, but is it really any farther-fetched than Rick Scott?
Also, good luck. Perhaps it really is the gruesome dance he feels he has to perform before reaching a Medicaid privatization deal like other Republican governors have done, and he's not actually as evil as he looks...
-Doug in Oakland
To answer DrCroland: Scott won because of various factors in 2010. First due to the terrible voter turnout the non-Presidential election cycles have and second due to the far right-wing tea-party faction being more motivated to vote for him while the Democratic voters fail to show up at all. Both in 2010 and 2014 the Democrats failed to nominate figures that could have stirred the progressives to show: Crist may have the managerial and campaign skills, but the left-leaning Dems just didn't like him on a personal level (and felt he was a party-switching opportunist) and so he fell short. Even though Scott was barely hanging on with terrible favorability numbers.
Since then, as the terrible partisan skills of Scott have become more acute - his ongoing email and blind trust scandals, the FDLE firing scandal, this budget debacle - it's become very clear in hindsight how much of a disaster Scott's been... except to the still-hardcore Far Right voters who are in major denial over who exactly is about to destroy this state. It's likely that having Scott go against fellow Republicans in the state Senate may show how far off the reservation he's gone, but I doubt it.
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