Gov. Rick Scott told black lawmakers, “It’s true —
I grew up poor in the projects, like you.
And though I dance like a spazz,
I really dig jazz,
And fried chicken and watermelon, too!”
“Blacks are some of my best friends,
Like the home girl I picked for Lieutens,
I get down with the dozens
And one dated my cousin,
Oh, and I listen to Usher on the weekends!”
Florida’s new tea party governor, Rick Scott, didn’t make any friends when he met recently with 20 of Florida’s black state legislators.
The luncheon was billed as a get-to-know-you welcome to Tallahassee from Scott, who has barely been in town a month. But the political novice wasted no time in offending his guests.
In discussing his own humble origins, Scott implied that all black lawmakers grew up poor.
“I grew up probably in the same situation as you guys,” Scott said to the group of 20 Democrats. “I started school in public housing. My dad had a sixth-grade education.”
Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, said she was offended by the remark…Afterward, she said, “He assumed that everyone [in the room] was poor and that can only be because you’re black.”
Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, said Scott’s choice of words was unfortunate even if he was trying to “empathize” with the black caucus.
“Some of us might be from the projects, but we come from all spectrums of life,” Gibbons said.
Scott of all people should know there are rich African Americans. He chose as his lieutenant governor former state Rep. Jennifer Carroll despite her ongoing problems in reporting her net worth. When she was not trying to win minority small business contracts, she said was worth about $23 million. When she was applying for the set-asides, she said it was only $2 million and explained she got her zeros and decimal places wrong. Either way, it’s doubtful the Florida legislature’s first black Republican woman can empathize with those in public housing.
Nor any longer can Scott, who didn’t spend $75 million of his own money to buy the governorship without the expectation of a hefty return on his investment.
It’s becoming a familiar refrain —
Floridians questioning Rick Scott’s brains.
What could possibly will him
To reject the feds’ $2.4 billion,
And just say no to a high-speed train?
frugging An unethical fundraising tactic where a telemarketer falsely claims to be a researcher conducting a poll, when in reality the “researcher” is attempting to solicit a donation. The Washington Post cites Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions advocacy group as example: “According to complaints on consumer-focused Web sites, some American Solutions calls begin with slanted polling questions before proceeding to a request for money. The tactic, known as ‘fundraising under the guise of research,’ or frugging, is discouraged as unethical by trade groups such as the Marketing Research Association.”
One of the Republicans’ most often-repeated “big lies” — the Goebbels-Rove tactic of repeating a falsehood over and over until it is perceived to be true or, as Rove put it, until a “new reality” has been created — is that the government cannot create jobs.
This is, of course, demonstrably untrue. Just for starters, there are hundreds of thousands of contractors in aerospace, defense, transportation and elsewhere who owe their jobs to the federal government and no one else.
Notably, the federal government paid, and is still paying, the salaries of tens of thousands of employees of Halliburton and Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On the other end of the spectrum, the federal government contracts out nearly all the construction work on new roads, bridges, tunnels, harbors and the like. State and local governments do the same.
Beyond the contractors, the federal government also has direct employees — about 2.8 million of them. Federal employees use their salaries the same way everyone else does. They pay mortgages or rent and other bills. They buy groceries, clothing, appliances and electronics. They go out to restaurants and on vacation. They even pay taxes.
The United States and Ukraine no longer seem to be in synch,
After Trump lifted Russia sanctions with a grin and a wink.
Trump coordinated it with Putin,
Who ramped up the drone shooting,
After Trump and Elon Musk throttled Ukraine’s Starlink.
