In this footage from depositions that then-CEO tea Rick Scott gave when Columbia/HCA was under investigation for Medicare/Medicaid fraud in 1995, Scott makes Bill Clinton — who famously told investigators into his sex life that his answer depended on what your definition of “is” is — look like an over-sharer. Although Columbia went on to receive the nation’s biggest fine ($1.7 billion) for its guilt, and Scott was forced to resign to avoid criminal prosecution, investigators got farcically little cooperation from the man who now wants to run Florida “like a business.”
If anyone thought there were issues too petty for a former governor to unleash his lawyers over, Jeb Bush’s most recent actions should put such ideas to rest.
Even Florida’s most jaded political observers — including the Republican ones — are shaking their heads now.
Not only does Bush want Florida Senate District 8 candidate Deborah Gianoulis (D) to stop using her nickname in campaign materials, she is not to use the exclamation point, the colors red and white, or the letters “e” and “b.”
We’re all pretty sick of the relentless drumbeat of the MSM over the mid-term meme that the Dems are going to take a shellacking in November, right? How much of the doom and gloom is driven by poll numbers? Oh, I’d say about 90 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus four points.
But what if the polls were wrong? What if, because of the way telephone polls are conducted, they were inherently biased toward more conservative results?
According to Pew Research, there’s a pile of stinking bias behind almost all of the telephone polls, and it’s even higher and stinkier behind the automated polls. The reason is simple — people who only have cell phones tend to be more liberal while people who have land lines tend to be more conservative. Pollsters conduct polls using land lines, and automated polls are strictly land lines; very few polls reach a significant percentage of cell phone users.
Pew conducts its polls using both land lines and cell phones, and has identified bias in other polls it says could be worse than in 2008, when it was first detected:
With polls showing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist at about 30 percent in his race for U.S. Senate against Tea Party Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek, the newly independent candidate is already swimming upstream.
I just got my sample ballot, and not only is Crist not listed third, he’s at number nine, ahead only of one other guy and the space to write someone in.
Blame it, along with many of his other campaign woes, on Charlie’s decision to go no party affiliation (NPA) rather than face Rubio in a Republican primary.
The last time ten names were listed for one office on a Florida ballot was in 2000. And you know how that turned out.
“The names of the candidates of the party that received the highest number of votes for Governor in the last election in which a Governor was elected shall be placed first under the heading for each office on the general election ballot, together with an appropriate abbreviation of party name; the names of the candidates of the party that received the second highest vote for Governor shall be second under the heading for each office, together with an appropriate abbreviation of the party name.”
It’s hard to watch this video from the Alex Sink campaign and not care if she or Rick Scott is elected governor of Florida. One of the many things that bother me about Scott is how much he doesn’t get the concept of answering to the people — and if he is elected, he will be working for us, not a private corporate board. When Jeb Bush was governor, we were used to arrogance in Tallahassee but it was a different type. Rick Scott truly thinks he can tell us only what he wants to, and the rest is none of our business. It ain’t that way.
Number of “flags” issued by the Federal Election Commission to the Marco Rubio for U.S. Senate from Florida campaign for taking contributions in excess of federal limits. Since the notices were issued, starting last year, 24 have gone out, with half going to three candidates: Rubio; Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Id.), who also got four; and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), with three. The other 13 notices have gone to candidates who only got one each.
Rumors are flying in Florida after this week’s debate among the three candidates for the U.S. Senate. One scenario, put forth by the Wall St. Journal, says Democrats might be pressuring U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) to drop out of the race, leaving only Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio to duke it out.
Should Meek give his concession speech now, or wait until after the election?
With Meek’s poll numbers showing no bump after the debate, and with groups like the Florida Sierra Club offering dual endorsements of both him and Crist, Meek really has two choices: quit and lose now, or stay in and lose later.
The candidate himself, though, seems still in fighting mode. After the Sierra Club’s odd move, Meek upped the oddness quotient by refusing the endorsement. He also made it clear he’s tired of people forgetting that Charlie Crist is neither a Democrat nor a true environmentalist.
Joe, please explain how this endorsement stuff works, is it to be completely one sided. Sarah spent all morning working on a Face book post for Joe, she won’t use it, not now…Put yourself in her shoe’s Joe for one day.
— Todd Palin, in a righteously indignant (and grammatically disastrous) email to Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller. Palin came to his wife’s defense after Miller refused to say whether Sarah was qualified to be president, and after Sarah endorsed Miller over yet another Palin enemy, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R).
A new ad from U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Charlie Crist (Fla.-NPA) spotlights the questionable spending practices of self-proclaimed fiscal conservative Tea Party Republican opponent Marco Rubio. The ad focuses on Rubio’s credit card problems, which should be leading Florida news but, since the talking points aren’t matching up to Rubio’s golden boy image, seem so far to be non-issues.
We’d like some answers about Rubio’s spending habits, and in particular, to find out if the reason he fought so hard to keep his full credit card records from becoming public is because of all the travel they show for his legislative aide, healthcare lobbyist Amber Stoner. Stoner, as has been noted, had a habit while Rubio served in the Florida House of either accompanying him or arriving in the same cities and resorts as he did within a day. We’d also like to see if Rubio’s wife, former cheerleader Jeanette C. Dousdebes-Rubio, joined the pair on those trips.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“This week has been a howling vortex of suck for the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. Imagine a black hole in the profound interstellar vacuum in the cold emptiness of space, drawing all matter and energy into its brutal singularity, an ineluctable and final journey into nothingness. … That’s the GOP this week. It’s been bad and will get worse.”
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”
NBC poll: “RFK Jr.’s support draws more from Trump than Biden. Though the CW is that Kennedy is a bigger threat to Biden than to Trump, the numbers here tell a different story: 15% of Trump supporters and 7% of Biden supporters in the head-to-head matchup break for RFK Jr. when the field expands to include third-party candidates.”