And remember when Rubio voted "no" on that one too?
Well, turns out that Peter King actually does still remember, and thanks to Marco Rubio's ego, greed, lust for power, and Presidential pipe dreams, King was reminded of it all over again today.
“Being from New York we’re not supposed to be suckers,” Mr. King told Politicker this morning. “It’s bad enough that these guys voted against it, that’s inexcusable enough. But to have the balls to come in and say, ‘We screwed you now make us president?’”
Mr. King went on to urge Empire State donors to cut off Mr. Rubio and any other member of Congress who “threw a knife in the back in New York” by voting “no” on the bill.
“Rubio and these other Republican candidates are coming to New York to raise money,” he said. “I don’t think any senator or congressman who voted against aid for Sandy should get one nickel from New York.”
Ouch.
Yeah, that Marco. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in, shall we say......"bolas?" He could just be too stupid to realize how such a thing might look. Or he just doesn't care. His smarts, or the lack thereof have been a topic of debate for years.
Either way, King needn't worry too much about that knife in his back. There's a lot of time between now and 2016, and Rubio will have plenty of others to use it on before he's finished.
Put this story in the ole' "You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up" file.
Rick Scott is back to his old tricks again after pretending to be human for a brief moment last week when he succumbed to the reality of accepting the Medicaid expansion, as if it were all his idea. (Psst, Scott. No one bought it. Sorry.)
With the John Boehner/Republican sequester looming this week, Scott was a little late (isn't he always?) to jump on the GOP's "blame Obama bandwagon" which was debunked long ago. The people aren't stupid, and the polls are in, but then Scott and the Republicans don't fancy facts, polls, or reality, so we shouldn't be too surprised.
Scott loved to lecture the President on health care reform back in the day, as if the President had just fallen off the proverbial turnip truck and with all the authority of an expert on the business of Medicare fraud health care. As we saw last year, not to mention last week, that didn't work out so well for Rick Scott.
Well, now the old Rick Scott is back, I guess having recovered from the sadness of having to let the poor gain access to health care, and he's now lecturing President Obama on....wait for it......job losses.
The federal government’s sequester budget cuts due to take effect Friday will cause thousands of Floridians to lose their jobs, Gov. Rick Scott told President Barack Obama in a letter Wednesday.
Scott warned that Florida’s numerous military installations and its defense industry would be severely impacted by the broad, automatic budget cuts. The reductions, totaling $85 billion, would slash defense and domestic spending, and could affect everything from commercial flights to meat inspections.
Memo to Scott: Yeah......President Obama has kind of been going around the country saying this for about a week now, but he was saying it long before that. In fact, some of us have even written about what the Republican's sequester will mean for Florida. Really! We got our information from fact sheets posted on the White House website. But I know you Republicans like to pretend the President doesn't "have a plan" for anything. I also know that when you're desperate, you go directly to those non-existent plans, lift the information from them, and then go out in public and use them as if they're something you just pulled out of your brilliant.....intellect. (See: Marco Rubio, immigration. See also: Your own self, Medicaid. Oh, and that would be the actual Medicaid facts and numbers, not the ones you made up.)
But since it makes you feel better to fire off an angry letter to tell the President what he already knows, by all means, carry on:
"If your administration fails to do its job to responsibly manage the budget, thousands of Floridians will lose their jobs under sequestration," Scott wrote (emphasis his).
That sound you hear is the collective laughter of Floridians everywhere over the sheer hypocrisy of that statement. Scott knows "failure to do one's job" and causing "job losses." He's somewhat of a connoisseur of misery and an expert at cutting jobs and anything else that doesn't favor corporations and his rich buddies. If you have any doubts, watch his press conference on Medicaid last week. Show me a person who may not die without health care now, and I'll show you a former health care businessman doing a really bad impression of a sad clown.
Floridians laugh at Scott's hypocrisy. They have to laugh to keep from crying, because they've had plenty of practice and been living under Scott's version of a "sequester" due to cutbacks for a couple years.
I can see it now, Scott will attempt to tie some of the damage he's done to Florida since he was elected to any consequences of the Republican's sequester plans if they come to pass, and try to blame Obama. Again. Remember all those jobs and surplus money that came with Florida's high-speed rail project? Oh, wait....
Yeah, good luck with that. In spite of all his efforts to the contrary, the actual policies of the most despised governor in the history of governors who are despised (and yes, even counting the one who mandates vaginal probes) are very well documented and burned into the memories of those suffering because of them.
Yes, don't hate those other members of the media for being self-absorbed. They can't help themselves. But Chuck Todd, self-absorbed? Never:
It's not about him, people!!!
Meanwhile, we join Chuck Todd....on Chuck Todd, earlier in the day:
BREAKING! - VIEWERS TOO STUPID TO EMBRACE THE INTELLECTUAL HUMOR OF VERY SERIOUS JOURNALIST CHUCK TODD
Maybe no one found it amusing, considering that everyday Americans are actually suffering and are about to suffer more.
Or maybe no one was watching, period. Because these days if they want actual news, viewers have to turn on Comedy Central to get it from The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert. Sadly, the reverse is not true. When searching for an amusing distraction, no one says "Gosh, I just can't wait for Chuck Todd's austerity quip o' the day!"
Or, maybe they weren't tuning in at all, because they're tired of having the Chuckster insult their intelligence:
How does anyone get through the day without the brilliance of the Pundit Whisperer?
While we're on the subject, Mr. Todd, please explain how this whole sequester business got started in the first place? Better yet, how about a little history on obstruction, and the lack of Republican compromise?
Read: False Equivalence.
"Be nice" if we could get actual facts from the media, rather than having them beat the dead "both sides" horse? As Chuck Todd would say, "too much to ask, of course."
When I saw Todd's Woodward tweet this morning it reminded me of seeing him on an episode of "Real Time" years ago, when Jeremy Scahill called Todd out for wanting to be a rock star, and for not taking the facts on torture under Bush and Cheney seriously. At the time, Todd called talking about torture "political catnip." Later off camera, Todd accused Scahill of "taking a cheap shot" at him. When Scahill asked Todd to point out what he said that wasn't true, Todd said:
For two years, they have recognized those members of the legislature who support policies that benefit families in Florida as "Champions of the Middle Class." Last year there were 27, and prior to that, 22.
The 2013 Agenda:
This year, we are announcing our 2013 Middle Class Agenda before the legislative session begins so you know what issues you will be scored on as session convenes. Below, please find the top ten issue areas where your votes will determine whether you are named a "Champion of Florida’s Middle Class":
1. Guaranteeing Free, Quality Public Education – We must ensure Floridians’ constitutionally protected right to a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools” by rejecting efforts to revive the so-called “parent trigger” bill and curtailing the use of private school vouchers, both of which slash public education funding while privatizing public education for corporate gain. Charter schools should not be funded by taxpayers at the expense of public schools. We cannot continue the practice of cutting K-12 and higher education funding and threaten our state’s Bright Futures Scholarship program.
2. Creating and Protecting Quality Middle Class Jobs – Florida’s Defined Benefit retirement plan is one of the strongest in the nation and should be strengthened and preserved, rather than phased out in favor of risky 401(k) type plans. Florida’s low-income earners should be protected from corporate extremists aiming to preempt local laws designed to prevent wage theft or provide benefits such as earned sick time. Public employees should not face the threat of job loss due to corporate privatization schemes like the prison plan that narrowly failed last year. The legislature should not be placing large corporations over small businesses and middle class working families. Florida should be putting our main street, family owned small businesses first.
3. Ensuring Effective, Efficient Government – Corporations must pay their fair share in taxes. We cannot continue the practice of increasing billion dollar corporate tax breaks and subsidies and pushing for further reductions or the elimination of the corporate income tax altogether while slashing funding for education and neglecting the needs of the state's small businesses. Large corporations must pay their fair share and corporate tax loopholes should be closed once and for all. Inefficient government practices, like taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power plants and other handouts to big business that don’t help create jobs, should be stopped. Cutting corporate taxes simply rewards big business and the wealthy and does nothing to aid job creation.
4. Promoting a Stronger Democracy and Protecting Voting Rights – To avoid a repeat of last year’s election fiasco, when voters endured unforgivable wait times of up to eight hours (the longest in the nation), we need to return to a minimum of at least 14 days and 12 hours per day of early voting for all Florida voters. Voters should have the same access to the ballot regardless of what county they reside in. The legislature should be held to the same 75-word maximum for constitutional amendments that citizen-led constitutional amendments are.
5. Ending Corporate Welfare and Protecting Small Businesses – Attracting new businesses and industries to Florida should be a top priority this legislative session, but that goal cannot be achieved without creating a balanced approach to the state's budget problems, making smart investments in education and infrastructure, ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and making sure corporations pay their fair share so that small businesses have a competitive opportunity against large corporations.
6. Reforming Tallahassee’s Culture of Corruption – In order to reach optimal government effectiveness we must clean up the culture of corruption in Tallahassee and push for real ethics reform. These reforms would prohibit the use of Committees of Continuous Existence (CCEs) except to engage in political activities related to the election or re-election of candidates; provide teeth for the Commission on Ethics to go after those current and past elected officials who have been found to have violated ethics and elections laws; eliminate the revolving door of legislators and their staff leaving public service to lobby their former colleagues; and keep contribution limits to candidates low while increasing disclosure and transparency.
7. Providing Access to Affordable Health Care – We must address Florida’s high rate of uninsured residents by extending Medicaid to pay for health care coverage for nearly a million Florida families in dire need. Florida must take advantage of provisions under the Affordable Care Act to set up a state health insurance marketplace in 2014 that will allow millions more Floridians to have access to affordable health care coverage.
8. Protecting Our Land and Water – The successful Florida Forever conservation and recreational land buying program should be restored. Attempts by corporate polluters to influence policy when it comes to protecting our water should be rejected. Any efforts to expand the dirty and dangerous practice of oil drilling on state owned land should also be rejected.
9. Advancing Women’s Rights and Equality – Lawmakers should stop putting politics in the exam room by introducing bills that restrict access to health care services, and instead make it easier for more women to access health care. Florida lawmakers should also support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the Florida Competitive Workforce Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in employment, housing and public accommodations.
10. Protecting Homeowners – Homeowners should be protected from predatory practices that have contributed to the state’s sky-high foreclosure rate. Homeowners should be allowed every opportunity to save their homes and should be afforded their day in court.
Last November voters made clear that we need political leaders who will stand up for Florida’s working and middle class families, and now it is time to heed their call by helping advance the 2013 Middle Class Agenda.
At Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on guns, it was refreshing to hear Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn stand up to Sen. Lindsey Graham and challenge him on the argument he's trying to make for the cameras. Flynn wouldn't back down even when Graham did what he and others famously do in these hearings, to talk over the witness or put a halt to their answers when they aren't what the Senator wants to hear.
But aside from that, also notice when Graham asks Flynn this question: "Has your budget gone down in the last year?" Then "In the next year, do you expect more or less money given the budget situation?" When Flynn says probably less, Graham responds by saying that's just a reality, and that Americans need to know that because of those cuts to law enforcement, many police departments are faced with the same reality, and "less money means you may have to defend yourself."
What Graham doesn't say is that he is one of many Republicans who have forced the very cuts that place law enforcement and Americans in that "reality." You see how that works? Republicans, Graham, make the cuts, and then argue that due to "hard times" the average American may find themselves in the situation of having to buy more guns. More guns means more money for gun manufacturers and of course the gun lobby, who give generous donations to Lindsey Graham. Graham adds just a hint of fear here for emphasis, just to stoke the fires for those who may be watching in case they might want to head to the gun shop for another purchase now "just in case." Of course, it also earns Graham more credit from the gun lobby as a "stand up guy," especially when he's faced with reelection and a possible primary challenge from a member of the Tea Party who may be even more extreme than Graham is.
This isn't the first time Graham has used this argument. He did so at the last hearing on gun violence in January, which I wrote about back then. Then he specifically warned of cutbacks to come, saying he would vote against gun restrictions because of them. He used a potential "slow response time" from police as a reason during that hearing:
[...I can tell people throughout this land, because of the fiscal state of affairs we have, there will be less [SIC] police officers, not more, over the next decade. Response time are gonna be less, not more.
Graham may portray himself as a noble "fiscal conservative," but in fact his policies help perpetuate gun violence indirectly. He claims to "respect" the dangerous job that law enforcement do every day, but that's clearly not the case.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence held Wednesday included testimony from the father of one of the victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. The hearing focused on the need to ban assault weapons.
The video speaks for itself. I really have nothing to add.
On the same day when President Barack Obama unveiled the Rosa Parks statue in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., The Supreme Court heard arguments that could throw out the Voting Rights Act.
Scalia attributed the repeated renewal of Section 5 to a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” He said, “Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
A shocking statement to be sure, but considering the source, it shouldn't be.
(See the transcript here, and for context, see a more detailed discussion here.)
Indeed it is. Having an "A" rating from the NRA will now cost you an election. That wasn't always the case, but in the first election since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, that is the new reality.
From a crowded field of Democratic contenders, Kelly emerged early as a leader on gun-control issues — a central theme during the race — which helped her win support from Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA. It poured more than $2 million into the race by airing anti-gun ads in her favor and against another Democratic front runner, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who unlike Kelly is against banning assault weapons.
“We worked really, really hard,” the former state representative from Matteson, a south Chicago suburb, told The Associated Press. “We were on the right side of the issue and our message resonated.”
Kelly also defended the financial support from Bloomberg, saying: “No one complains when the NRA was spending big money.” In her victory speech she vowed to fight for gun control until “gun violence is no longer a nightly feature on the evening news."
With the March 1 deadline fast approaching for the sequester that Republicans wanted and used as a bargaining chip in exchange for not crashing the economy in the debt ceiling fight, Republicans are trying to pin the blame on anyone but themselves in spite of, well, facts. Everyone knows how the GOP is on facts these days.
They don't matter.
In keeping with that magical thinking policy, today Governor Rick Scott, being forced to face reality for the second time in a week, issued a statement in order to point the finger of blame in the general direction of Washington:
“Sequestration means the Obama Administration and Congress failed to do their job to manage the budget. As thousands of Floridians lose their jobs, the Obama Administration and Congress are getting paid for not doing theirs. That’s just wrong.
“The impacts on Florida’s military installations and defense industries will be severe under the meat hammer of sequestration. Our immediate concerns include dramatic reductions to our National Guard, which threatens our ability to respond to wildfires this spring and hurricanes this summer.
“Now is the time for leadership. It is critical for all national leaders to find a way forward that will not have unwarranted, unnecessary impacts on both our economic and our national security.”
Aside from the standard boilerplate that everything bad that happens is President Obama's fault, notice Scott blames "Congress" in general. If Scott were really serious about calling out "Congress," he would be on the phone with Florida Republicans urging them to stop playing their "elementary school game of ‘chicken.’ " as he put it. But of course he won't do that.
Here is how Republicans voted on the blackmaildebt ceiling. Only five Republicans from Florida voted "no." The rest were just fine with it, even though they knew the consequences of the bargaining chip they used, the sequester, would be dire for their constituents if it came to pass.
So here we are.
While they try their hardest to place the blame on President Obama, here are the facts. Republicans want this sequester as much as they want to have it both ways, but their logic is laughable. They've used every excuse they can come up with, and none of them make sense, especially when you compare them.
The cuts are "horrible!" The end of the world as we know it! Yet they could stop them easily, and so far they aren't budging. Some have claimed this is a trap set for them by President Obama. By that logic, why would they willingly walk into it then? Again, because they want them.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got "98 percent" of what he wanted in the final deal to raise the debt ceiling.
"When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy," Boehner said in an interview with CBS News on Monday evening.
The final vote to give Boehner that 98% of what he wanted was 269-161, with 174 Republicans backing the bill. Only sixty-six Republicans voted against it.
Flying in the face of logic with their other excuses, some have also said the equivalent of "Meh! It's just not going got be a big deal." That's because, again, Republicans want the sequester. They're perfectly happy to have austerity measures in place that will cut even more programs for the poor, and hurt the average American further than they have already, all to protect their rich friends and their corporate bosses. They'll cut anything to avoid raising taxes on the wealthiest who pay very little as it is now. This is what they want. It falls in line with the ideology of the conservative wing of their party, something which Joy-Ann Reid explains in more detail here.
Rick Scott is of course one of those ideologues. But he's also a governor who is crashing in the polls, faces reelection, and is now facing the consequences of accepting reality and Medicaid expansion. The Tea Party and the crazy wing of the GOP have voiced their dismay with that choice he made last week. By generalizing the blame, he seeks to have it both ways.
Good luck with that.
If the sequester Republicans want goes through, make no mistake, it will hurt Floridians, and our Florida Republican Congressmen and women who voted for it know this. Here are some of the ways Floridians will get hurt by their actions:
Statewide impacts: There will be even more cuts in education, the military, law enforcement, clean air and water protection, work study jobs and Head Start programs. Funding will be cut in these areas: vaccinations for children, meal programs for seniors, other public health programs, and protection from domestic violence. These are just some of the statewide cuts. For a more detailed list of these, along with severe national impacts, see the report here.
Americans who have already paid dearly for wars that never should have happened thanks to Republicans, bailed out the banks when they nearly crashed the world economy, many whom were also hurt further during the process, are now being asked to make even more sacrifices so that a minute few of the wealthiest among us can gain even more wealth without having to pay their fair share in taxes.
Because the one thing Republicans stand firm against is raising taxes for the rich. Under any circumstances. For that they are willing to risk the nation's economy, while throwing seniors, children and every average American over the cliff. Not only are they not creating jobs, they aren't willing to pay those who have them fairly, and for those who don't, they plan even more cuts to unemployment.
For these reasons, and a few others of his own, Governor Rick Scott will never "make the call" to his fellow Republicans to avoid the sequester that will hurt all Floridians. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, and his party is slowly letting him churn for himself.
That's why Floridian will have to make the call to their Congressmen and women themselves and make their voices heard. We are now our own representatives, and we are the ones who will get hurt.
Republicans know that, and they just don't care. They have job security, and we're paying for it.
Rick Scott received an inaugural donation of $25,000 from one of the largest private prison companies: The Geo Group, Inc.
Another politician from Florida joins the rest of those who were recipients of campaign cash from Geo, Marco Rubio. He's received at least $27,300 from them. In addition to those from Florida, he joins another list of Republicans that get donations from the private prison industry, among them the group who are working with Rubio on so-called immigration reform. Rubio has been "talking" about his big immigration ideas for over a year now, but they've yet to be seen.
Among members of Congress, the top two recipients of contributions from CCA are its home-state senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee. The Republican lawmakers, each of whom has received more than $50,000 from CCA according to data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation, represent important swing votes for advancing a reform bill through the Senate. Another top CCA recipient is Arizona Republican John McCain, who has gotten $32,146 from CCA and is a member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” that is working to draft legislation. His fellow Gang of Eight member, Marco Rubio, ranks among the top recipients of contributions from the Florida-based GEO Group, receiving $27,300 in donations over the course of his career.
In recent years, each of these senators has sponsored bills that would have increased the detention and incarceration of immigrants. Legislation put forward by Alexander in 2009, for example, would have provided for “increased alien detention facilities.” And a 2011 bill cosponsored by McCain and Rubio sought to expand Operation Streamline, a federal enforcement program that makes illegal entry a criminal offense in some jurisdictions.
While the companies insist that they do not seek to shape immigration policy, the private prison industry has at times acknowledged its business could be affected by the reform debate. “Immigration reform laws which are currently a focus for legislators and politicians at the federal, state and local level also could materially adversely impact us,” the GEO Group declared in a 2011 SEC filing. And with the White House saying its goals for reform include “expanding alternatives to detention and reducing overall detention costs,” the limited media coverage so far has focused on potential losses for the industry. “Private prisons will get totally slammed by immigration reform,” read the headline on a Feb. 2 Business Insider piece.
But any immigration reform bill will be shaped by Congress—and the impact of reform on detention and incarceration still hangs in the balance. Divisions have already emerged between the White House and the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Eight about the crucial path to citizenship. One key difference is that the Gang of Eight—which includes McCain and Rubio—has proposed that the Homeland Security department must certify that the border is secure before any undocumented immigrants can get green cards.
There's much more to the article beyond this, which you can read here.
CCA famously worked with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to pass SB1070, the "papers please" anti-immigration law in Arizona.
Geo has it's own controversies, some that came to light all over again earlier this week when Florida Atlantic University announced that in exchange for $6 million dollars, the FAU football stadium would be named for the company. It's bad enough that a university would want the name of a prison company on its stadium. It hardly compares to other sponsors that do, like Raymond James, Heinz, or Papa John's, to name a few. It's a prison, not a fast food drive through.
Given all these Republican's associations with the prison companies, ALEC, and the upcoming immigration reform, not to mention the generous donations they've received from CCA and Geo, it's no easier to imagine anyone would just brush that aside as easily as some tried to do over naming a stadium for a prison.
The Republicans know they have a problem with Hispanic and minority voters. Some also hoped by putting Marco Rubio out there, he would bring some of them into the party. Part of their reasoning was placing him front and center on immigration reform. (It might have looked a little more convincing if Rubio had bothered to put immigration as an issue front and center on his website. He didn't.)
Better for those with a stake in the details to be worked out on immigration to know that Rubio's taken campaign cash from prison for-profit companies who have more of an incentive for locking up and detaining people, and at times under "less than ideal conditions." So far, Rubio isn't making any promises for a path to citizenship. While vague, he's stated that his "plan" on that subject is conditional. It's part of Obama's plan that Rubio adamantly criticizes.
