Day: April 2, 2011

Boos for Bozo: Rick Scott Strikes Out with Ceremonial Pitch

Trish

A movement was spawned last month, after boos erupted for Florida Gov. Rick Scott at a Florida spring training camp game between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays. Floridians who still haven’t totally given up on the idea of a recall election found a shorter-term strategy: boo at the governor every chance we get.

And so a Facebook page was born. “Boo Rick Scott on Opening Day (even if you’re not going to the game)” had 1,211 likes before Scott took the field to throw the opening pitch at the first regular season game for the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday.

Scott was throwing the ball a day after announcing devastating cuts to services to the developmentally disabled that will force many out of group homes and into much more expensive — and depressing — nursing homes. It also came the same week that consumer advocates and industry experts called for an investigation into Scott’s dismissal of nursing home ombudsman Brian Lee, widely seen as a payback to the nursing home industry for its deep pockets in support of his campaign.

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Gingrich Should Re-Read His Own Book

Buck Banks

The idea of a grand showdown on spending had long been a staple of conservative analysis. Even before Reagan’s inaugural, he had been approached by one prominent conservative who urged him to force a showdown over the debt ceiling and simply refuse to sign on to one until the Democratic Congress reined in its spending plans. Reagan rejected this idea with a comment I wish I had understood better at the time. The conservative activist who told me that story was convinced that Reagan would have won such a showdown. For fifteen years I agreed with him, but I was to learn something about the American people that too many conservatives don’t appreciate. They want their leaders to have principled disagreements but they want these disagreements to be settled in constructive ways. That is not, of course, what our own activists were telling us. They were all gung ho for a brutal fight over spending and taxes. We mistook their enthusiasm for the views of the American public.

— From Newt Gingrich’s 1998 book, “Lessons Learned the Hard Way.”

Obama Makes the Case for Clean Energy

Trish

There are many things I love about this video, but the best part is that it shows something we all know. Obama is one of us, a normal person, who understands you might have to go pick up a package if you miss the delivery driver, or that Armour-All can do wonders for your dash. It’s hard not to remember the first Pres. Bush’s discovery of supermarket scanners, or the privileged cluelessness of his son in almost every area except aimless brush-clearing.

Oh yeah, and saving energy is a good thing too.