To be able to get away with it, criminals need secrecy. In Florida, to judge by Jeb Bush, so do governors.
First, state-level officials refused to discuss the latest in a string of scandals within Jeb’s largely privatized corrections system. This time, the questions concern not steriods and drug dealing, illegal use of prisoner and employee labor, pilfered equipment, fighting, or sex coerced in inappropriate places, but illegal occupation of prison housing.
First Coast News asked the Department of Corrections in Tallahassee to talk with us on camera about staff housing out at Raiford…
Since Corrections refused to talk, First Coast News asked State Attorney General Charlie Crist. He turned us down too.
First Coast News then went to Governor Jeb Bush’s office requesting an interview on Department of Corrections staff housing.
We talked with two different people in Bush’s press office. That was a week and a half ago. Our numerous calls have never been returned.
It’s easy to understand why Jeb Inc. might not want to talk about how woefully adrift Florida’s correction system has become since Jeb raided it for the profit of his buddies. But his reluctance to confab extends to the mess he made by attempting to privatize education through his poorly planned and executed voucher system as well.
Things got so bad, what with awarding big bucks to operations that existed by storefront and post office box only, or that were found to be laundering money for terrorists, that the commissioner of education resigned last year.
Now, facing an anticipated ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that using taxpayer funds for private education is illegal, Jeb’s busy on a work-around. But he’s not talking about it.
Rep. Shelly Vana, D-West Palm Beach, asked Attorney General Charlie Crist last week to investigate whether Gov. Jeb Bush’s office willfully avoided releasing public records to The Palm Beach Post.
…advocates have said in the past that a way around an adverse ruling might be a broadening of the state’s program that gives tax credits to businesses that provide vouchers.
The Post reported that the governor’s office denied for weeks having any documents related to options using the tax-credit voucher plan in the future. But the paper later found that the office had such documents since at least early October.
The Sunshine State’s open records laws are referred to as “Sunshine Laws,” meaning the work of government is conducted in public view, not behind closed doors or in dark back rooms.
The Bush family operates the opposite of that, since judging these folks by their ideas, abilities, and effectiveness leaves them not so much visible as revealed. Their avoidance works for awhile, but from father to son to son, eventually the truth wins out and things fall apart. We are entering the golden age of the Bush meltdown.
