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As a Florida resident, I have already pointed out the dismal future Florida faces under its new governor, where I fully expect a New Depression. Wednesday, Rachel Maddow pointed out bizarre behavior by the new governor’s campaign, where some staffers were paid with American Express gift cards, rather than cash. But as I think more and more about this new governor, he takes on a different identity for me. Is it possible that Rick Scott is really Lord Voldemort? Take a look at the side by side comparison. The Scott photo is from his ScottForFlorida Flickr feed and the Voldemort shot is from this YouTube trailer for the next Harry Potter movie.
At the Harry Potter Lexicon, the most famous quote attributed to Voldemort is “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” That seems entirely fitting for an incoming governor who was CEO of the company that has set the record for the largest Medicare fraud settlement ever paid to the US Government. He now is saying, even before he has been sworn in, “I don’t think anybody’s trying to go after my power.” Scott and Voldemort really look and sound like the same person to me, so from now on it seems to make sense just to refer to Governor Scottdemort.
There are dark days ahead for Florida under the rule of Governor Scottdemort.
128 Comments
Governor Scottdemort! I likes it! lol
It looks like the Tallahassee.com page with the quote from the new governor has now been put behind a subscription paywall. Here is an alternate link:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/breaking/fla-gov-elect-scott-makes-first-post-election-visit-to-capitol-meets-with-crist-cannon-107028463.html
And, like so many other States, FL unemployment funds are in deficit.
Add to that what has happened re home insurance and the others issues and ,yeah, FL will no longer be the ‘sunshine state’.
As ye sow so shall ye reap
Let the reaping begin.
I wish somebody had thought of that during the election, and used it well.
I don’t really understand how a state full of old people could vote for someone who should really be in jail for scamming Medicare. This is who they choose to manage their state’s finances? to “govern?” Gawd.
As disappointed as I constantly am with Texas voters, it’s incomprehensible to me that Florida would elect this clown and felon.
I was thinking Voldescott myself but either way.
, Rachel Maddow pointed out bizarre behavior by the new governor’s campaign, where some staffers were paid with American Express gift card
The guy is broke or was trying to get around campaign finance laws?
There were mentions of the resemblance very early on, but you are right that much better use should have been made of it.
Howdy folks.
The GOP *is* the dark side.
That’s a most excellent question.
I would hope that the IRS will be investigating this. I don’t think that AmEx handles tax withholding.
Yeah, the gift cards are a mystery. Makes you wonder if AmEx actually made a contribution to the campaign that was easiest for them to use that way.
Good evening!
You just said a mouthful, Dr. D.
Come on, Scott is so white he’s nearly transparent.
Hiya, Doc.
hey jim — lard sakes, florida sure seems headed to the crapper
How about Voldescott Demort?
It will be the Grim Weeper State.
It becomes more clear daily that Carl Hiaasen does not exaggerate when he describes Florida in his books.
Those all work.
Frankly, the whole damned country seems to be right behind them.
Yup. It’s gonna be really ripe here with four years from this clown.
Indeed. He pegs it perfectly.
He keeps the darkness hidden inside where his heart ought to be.
Jim,
I fear a lot of states are heading into a depression (financial flavor, nothing that SSRIs will help). We here in New Mexico may go into le toilette right behind you.
Our Governor-elect promised that she’d balance the budge without touching K-12 education or Medicaid. Those two things make up nearly 2/3 of the state budget.
Those of us in the other third (like me in Higher Ed) who take Ms. Martinez seriously (not me, the numbers don’t add up) are very worried.
I like that one.
Here in Montana, the state only contributes about 18%, so it wouldn’t be too bad.
I see on the AmEx site that you can buy gift cards with Membership Rewards points. Just how many cards was this? Did he burn a bunch of personal rewards points instead of paying them actual money? Maybe the campaign credit cards were with AmEx and he wanted to burn whatever points they had built up?
Jim, just to put some perspective on Rick Scott… Didn’t he receive the largest fine ever levied in Medicare fraud history…? Just to grasp what transpired…? *gah*
I just discovered Hiassen. So far, I’ve read Basket Case and Lucky You. I laughed my ass off…
I got the impression that he was just being cheap. Given his history, he was probably trying to save all of the campaign cash he could for his greedy self.
Yes, very soon we are all going to feel the effects of “voodoo economics” that George Bush the elder tried to warn of regarding Reagan before he joined in perpetrating this fraud on the world.
Hey Jim — Michigan passed a ballot initiative last week making it illegal for convicted felons to hold any elected office on our state for 20 years after conviction.
Florida have anything like that? If not, jeepers, we got a ballot initiative you can launch, already written up, might come in handy!
Hence the gift card paydays.
Yes, the earlier post of mine that’s linked gives the info on his $1.7 billion fine. His company, Columbia/HCA was defrauding Medicare. That’s just such good training for being a governor, isn’t it?
Yeah, except that he wasn’t fined personally. Columbia-HCA, the corporate entity he controlled was fined.
I’m sure that Mr. ScottDeMort knew no more of what was going on at Columbia-HCA than Kenny-Boy Lay knew about what was really happening at Enron.
Too bad, I like Florida. How d’ya stay out of jail and control a company that commits medicare fraud? Oh well he is in good company in the republican party.
Scott wasn’t personally convicted, Rayne.
The problem is that he wasn’t convicted. He left the company under pressure early in the Federal investigation. He was never charged. During the time the Feds were investigating the fraud, he was deposed in a civil case against the company and refused to testify. Took the Fifth Amendment 75 times!
Yeah, he can handle such large sums…! *gah*
How d’ya stay out of jail and control a company that commits medicare fraud?
I’ll bet Duke Cunningham would like the answer to that one. Maybe he could apply it to accepting bribes.
That’s right. Here it’s a feature, not a bug.
The largest “ongoing criminal enterprise” in the country.
Oh, I’m not looking at his conveniently cleaned up past. See, this is where you have to plan ahead.
A guy with stones big enough to plead the Fifth 75 times is going to screw up again.
Just a matter of time. ;-)
I’m sure he will “run the government like a business”. Hey, do governors get stock options? Maybe if he took Florida public…
No doubt there is a little known, carefully crafted bit in the Health Insurance Company and Pharmaceutical Welfare and Giveaway Act that would have allowed him to keep his position and not face any consequences. I can’t imagine the lobbyists who wrote it would let that opportunity go by and I certainly can’t imagine the Democrats objecting to it’s inclusion.
75 times…? I thought any competent Prosecutor could indict a Ham Sandwich…? Why wasn’t he prosecuted…?
Very good point.
No doubt hje spent some of his largess greasing the right palms.
I wish I knew what really happened. We have a Columbia-HCA hospital near us (El Paso). The Feds came in and hauled off several (the number 5 sticks in my head, but I can’t attest to it) truckloads of records.
Someone knew something, and the rot had to go all the way to headquarters.
That was a deposition in a civil dispute between HCA and another company. They were afraid the questions would lead him say something about the fraud, so his attorney made him clam up.
Hard to imagine anything larger, but the fraudulent sales of packaged mortage-related securities was much, much larger. Trillions instead of billions.
It seems to me that if Scott had a good team behind him, someone would tell him he has a couple of months before he’s sworn in. He could have some hair at least on the sides of his head by then and look less like Voldemort. Maybe some glasses, too.
I don’t know. Maybe he relishes the resemblance. Republicans are weird like that.
There were the two Federal Prosecutors that mysteriously drowned in a Dallas Hotel swimming pool while investigating HCA’s mischief…! 8-(
Oh, yeah, I had forgotten that. Thanks, CTut.
Urk! Can’t say I like these threaded commnets. Makes it hard to follow the discussion.
“At the Harry Potter Lexicon, the most famous quote attributed to Voldemort is ‘There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.’ That seems entirely fitting for an incoming governor who was CEO of the company that has set the record for the largest Medicare fraud settlement ever paid to the US Government.”
Lemme guess: He worships Ayn Rand, doesn’t he?
Yeah. The old system was much better.
Just in case, here’s the ballot wording (pdf). Michigan’s a bit goofy in that this is an amendment to its constitution, not creation of a state law.
Spread it around if there’s nothing already in place.
Because I’ll bet you don’t want Marco Rubio looking at a governorship years from now after getting his hands caught in a cookie jar, either.
You are forgetting all those no bid contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
tis only myfdl that has the nested comments — fdl and all sites under the fdl umbrella still have the other commenting system
That would be an excellent question to ask Bathilda Bagshot, errrr Jo Rowling.
And html tags don’t work here, either, Suz.
Yup, this is the first time I’ve had a Late Night over here at MyFDL. It is different, for sure.
I’ve seen this complaint before but I fail to understand why having someone’s reply to your comment appear directly below that comment is so hard to follow.
Completely off topic, but for us Mac users who have to coexist with PCs and use MicroSloth Office, let me say that Office for Mac 2011 is a substantial improvement.
the tech crew is working at fixing the html problems….and bringing back the edit feature at all the fdl umbrella sites…
If you are following several nested threads, you have to keep scrolling through the whole thing.
Because you have to keep going back to see what’s going on in the conversations. It’s a better archival format, but reading it live is cumbersome.
as far as i know, there is no plan to bring nested style comments to fdl and the sisters
Testing. Does italic work?
Does boldface work?
How about underline?
Praise goddess!
Two out of three ain’t bad.
If’n I coulda hit a curveball that well, I’d be in the Hall o’ Fame.
One way to deal with the “confusion” from nested comments is to keep another tab open in your browser to the “activity feed” button that you see in your toolbox. Refreshing that shows you comments across the site as they come in and let you know what’s happening in the diaries you are following. You can then look for the comment back on the diary page and respond if you want.
Hooray!
site activity is in your toolbox up at the top of this page — right click on it and open it in another tab to follow the feed — fyi it has all comments from all fdl sites and not just this thread
*Heh” You’re already in my ‘Hall of Fame’, BCT…! ;-)
I tried to use if’n in my recent iphone scrabble match against the cpu. Lousy computer wouldn’t accept it.
An’ ye canna win an row wi’ a computer, lassie.
Thanks for a fun conversation, folks. I’m headed for bed. Probably have nightmares from the Dark Lord.
g’nite jim
Over on theoildrum they do nested comments, but they also timestamp the page in such a way that each comment which is new since the last time you refreshed the page has a “[new]” on it, and you just search for that to get all the fresh comments. I like it that way, but without the tag it is hard to spot the new ones.
Good night, Jim.
Just remember, Harry got all the Horcruxes and Voldy’s gone moldy besides.
The good news is that Carl Hiaasen will have an endless bounty of material to draw from for his future novels.
Night.
Think I will toddle off as well. Take care all.
Good night, Dr. D.
g’nite dr dick
Hi Jim, hi everyone. Jim, I sure don’t envy you and all the rest of the sane Floridians for the next four years. Gov. Scottdemort indeed!
Just stopping by and I have an off-topic tech question: I’m taking a stab at writing a post, and I’m wondering whether I can save my draft for an indefinite period of time while I work on it? Thanks!
hey ll — it is my understanding that you can save your post and then come back to it later. i am not aware of any time limits on how long ya can have a post in drafts
Oh good, thank you Suz! This might take me a while ;-)
I’ve still got at least one draft from the Seminal days that I never felt like releasing, but it’s still there.
I’d forgotten about it, and noticed it listed in my drafts.
So this stuff lasts a long time.
What are you drinking, Suz?
lol — my usual latte bct — thank you
One virtual latte … decaf, I presume? … delivered.
thanks bct — nice foam art dood
That’s good to know, BCT — thank you too! I got inspired tonight when I read Rayne’s post about how to write an effective post.
LOL. I’m much better at posole.
had to wiki posole….
sounds yummy bct:
Pozole (Nahuatl: potzolli, which means “foamy”; variant spellings: pozsole, pozolé, pozolli, posole)[1][2] is a ritually significant, traditional pre-Columbian soup or stew from Mexico. Pozole was mentioned in Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s “General History of the Things of New Spain” circa 1500 C.E.. It is made from nixtamalized cacahuazintle corn[1], with meat, usually pork, chicken, turkey, pork rinds, sardine, chili pepper, and other seasonings and garnish.[3] Vegetarian and vegan versions also exist. After colonization by the Spaniards, the ingredients of pozole changed, but the staple corn remained. It is a typical dish in various states such as Sinaloa, Michoacán, Guerrero, Jalisco, Morelos, México and Distrito Federal. Pozole is often served in Mexican restaurants in the American Southwest.
I can always use a good posole recipe.
Like most things, there is a distinct New Mexico take on the dish. As nearly as I can tell there are only two constants:
1. Hominy is always present.
2. Tripe is never present (because if tripe is in the
stew, it’s menudo which is a southwest hangover
cure, having nothing to do with a little boy band.)
It’s great stuff for cold weather, and I’m making a dutch-oven full on Saturday.
Me too, Suzanne!
*gah* I despise all Tripe/menudo, ox-tail based creations here in the Isles, of course, I’m still a sucker for Manapua…! ;-)
strickthrough?Hiya! Where is everyone?
Hi Christine!
ce — i hope they are stocking up in anticipation of late late nite…
Here you go, Margot.
http://my.firedoglake.com/bargaincountertenor/2008/12/16/posole/
So confusing — both FDL and my FDL! I’m sitting over in my fdl, and cricketts!
Margot,
I left a link to my posole recipe above.
Seems a good fit for snake in the grass. You’ll need Godric Gryffindor’s sword to vanquish the keeper of the last horcrux, Nigini, before the pall is finally lifted.
But thanks RonD! How are you?
ooooo bct that looks like a yummy recipe…
Fine, thanks! Trying to see how many mythical parallels I can find in the story of Robert Oppenheimer. So far I have Faust, Oedipus, and Prometheus…any suggestions?
MrCE has to be on the train by 8:15 to Philly, so I don’t know if I’ll make LLN. He is flying to Philly, renting a truck to drive to Brooklyn, and then back to PA to get MsCE’s furniture and car in the hangar. Then off to Cleveland on Sunday. Return to Cleveland.
yikes ce — that’s a busy day!!!
tis!
thanks!
Suzanne is upstairs!
Late Late Night FDL: I Believe To My Soul
Narcissus works too.
Please. You’ve made the mistake of assuming that Rick Scott ever had a soul.
I like Governor Dexter.
Hiassen is one of those authors who has literally made me laugh out loud on the subway…..
Anybody remember Governor Claude Kirk from the 1960s ? Ran round the state armed to the teeth, claiming death threats. Also claimed that Richard Nixon barged into his 1967 wedding uninvited.
Bob Graham was a decent governor, and senator, too.