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David Koch, Fleeing The Press At The RNC, Tampa 2012
(Photo: Martha Jackovics)
If you've read the GOP's "autopsy" of their losses in the 2012 election (re-branded as the "Growth and Opportunity Project") but haven't come to the conclusion that it's mostly nonsense just yet, this could do it for you.
One of the things that stood out for me was a small section buried in the Campaign Finance, and State Campaign and Finance Laws and Regulations recommendations. It's just a couple of sentences, but it's in conflict with a majority of the other recommended policies in the report. Or rather, what they would have people believe they want to do to woo voters.
Here's the snippet, which is listed twice, word for word, on pages 69 and 97:
3. Model legislation should be developed by interested organizations and state legislative leaders to improve state campaign finance laws. Organizations such as the RNC, the RSLC, and ALEC may wish to take a leading role. To turn ideas to action nationwide, experts should develop model statutes that can be replicated across states.
The two paragraphs are identical, almost as if they were a cut and paste job from something like, oh, I don't know, an ALEC "model" maybe?
If you're not already familiar with ALEC, that's the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is the corporate funded group who work with lobbyists and conservative politicians to write the "model legislation" that legislators then bring home to their states and pass into law. They get a large amount of their funding from the Koch brothers. (I've written more about them and their involvement in Florida here, here, here, here, here, and here, just to link a few of those posts.) ALEC has brought Florida laws like the Stand Your Ground gun law, election laws, and were behind many of the Amendments on the 2012 ballot. That's just a small sample.
ALEC largely operated in secret, and many elected officials passing off their cut and paste legislation did too. But when ALEC's behind the scenes operations were exposed to a little sunlight, corporations who had quietly worked with them began getting push back from activists, angry consumers and voters. Many of them quit working with ALEC because of it.
But there are plenty of those who still work with ALEC, lawmakers, and work "for" Koch, and not in the best interest of voters and consumers.
According to the GOP's new recommendations, they're practically saying they are fully prepared to hand over governing to ALEC, and the Koch's for a price. No more secret dealings. They're indicating right there in black and white for everyone to see that they're willing to sell out the country. "ALEC may wish to take a leading role?" There's no "may" about it. They want the whole ball game and the GOP knows that. They've already made a big investment as it is.
Shamelessly outsourcing "Democracy." Welcome to the GOP's real model for America.
It's not like many of us weren't already aware that it was really the Koch brothers and corporate America who were pulling our elected officials strings, but this is blatant. It's like the GOP is saying: "Yeah, you actually elected the Koch brothers, corporations and lobbyists, and guess what? From now on we're just going to cut to the chase and hand everything over to them for a price. We're going to let them write any old law they want. Hey, it's not like we work for a living anyway, and we certainly don't know what we're doing. Now excuse us while we jet off for another taxpayer funded vacation." Boom. No pretense about it anymore.
And of course, who is behind a lot of the laws and policies that earned the Republican Party losses in the last few elections? That's right, all of the above.
So while they claim they're going to change their ways and tinker with their policies and their messaging, the biggest "message" of all is really contained in that one little paragraph found on pages 69 and 97. Combined with even more leeway in campaign finance laws, that pretty much cancels out the rest of the report as merely window dressing.
Any questions?
GOP RIP
In their newly released "Growth and Opportunity Project" yesterday, one of the recommendations the Republican Party made for themselves was that they need to stop talking only "to each other." Yes, that was an obvious problem for them in the 2012 election. From Dick Morris, to Mitt Romney, to Karl Rove, they were shocked, shocked that they didn't win in a landslide because they spent the entire election in the FOX and "skewed" polling bubble.
Behold, the "wisdom" of GOP afterthought:
The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.
Right. They haven't been forceful enough to the majority yet, while attempting to destroy the country. But I digress...
Here's another shocker. They're still just talking to themselves....in their own report. In fact, they even did so before getting to that section above.
Consider this tone deaf revelation from their "autopsy":
At the federal level, much of what Republicans are doing is not working beyond the core constituencies that make up the Party. On the state level, however, it is a different story.
Republicans hold governorships in 30 states with 315 electoral votes, the most governors either party has had in 12 years, and four short of the all-time GOP high of 34 governors who served in the 1920s.
Republican governors are America’s reformers in chief. They continue to deliver on conservative promises of reducing the size of government while making people’s lives better. They routinely win a much larger share of the minority vote than GOP presidential candidates, demonstrating an appeal that goes beyond the base of the Party.
It is time for Republicans on the federal level to learn from successful Republicans on the state level. It is time to smartly change course, modernize the Party, and learn once again how to appeal to more people, including those who share some but not all of our conservative principles.
First of all, most of those Republican governors were elected in 2010, and since they began governing on those "conservative promises," buyer's remorse quickly set in. Sure, they're still in office because states are stuck with them until the next election. I wouldn't exactly put that factor in the "win" column just yet.
Among those falling under the "tanking in the polls column" is Gov. Rick Scott. He's a classic GOP case on how not to govern, and was so even before this latest poll from Public Policy Polling:
In four hypothetical match-ups, Scott trails Charlie Crist by 12 points (40/52), Pam Iorio by 7 points (37/44), Alex Sink by 5 points (40/45) and leads Nan Rich by 6 points (42/36). Crist takes a whopping 29% of the Republican vote against Scott, exactly in line with PPP’s January poll of the Florida governor’s race.
Scott’s abysmal -24 job approval rating (33/57) is also exactly in line with the results from PPP’s January poll. Scott barely has the approval of his own party—Republicans approve of his job performance by a slim 46/42 margin. 52% of Democrats, 44% of independents and 18% of Republicans think Scott is too conservative.
Yes, that's even after he backed down by accepting Medicaid expansion in Florida. No doubt he assumed that being forced to "do the right thing" as he calls it now, might have come with a silver lining. It didn't. Nor did his about-face proclaiming his new love of teachers and education. His assumption that Florida teachers were stupid enough not to see through his sudden interest in actually paying them a little more was a bad one.
Ask the average Floridian if they think Rick Scott is "making their lives better" or if he's "appealing to those who don't share his conservative principles." Or rather, ask them after they stop laughing. Or crying.
But sure GOP, keep believing what you're telling yourselves. Keep believing in those pipe dreams, skewed polls, and that blind adoration of the bubble-heads at FOX telling you just how awesome you are.
May you, along with Rick Scott, head off into the sunset in 2014, scratching your heads along the way, wondering what coud have possibly have gone wrong...
You've probably heard that Gov. Scott's hand-picked Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll resigned yesterday amid a federal racketeering probe. What you may not have heard is that the legislature is working to pass "ethics reform" that will do little to stop the culture of
corruption that's consuming Florida.
Now more than ever, we need real ethics reform that will stop the worst abuses of the public trust that pervade our government.
Sign our petition to the Florida Legislature demanding real ethics reform.
Ethical scandals have always been a part of politics, but corruption has reached epidemic levels in Florida. Between 2000 and 2010, our state led the nation in federal corruption convictions.1 Gov. Scott's administration has been no stranger to scandal either, with Chief of Staff Steve McNamara resigning under a dark cloud in 2011.2 Just this week, a news investigation revealed that a handful of GOP state representatives helped set up a fly-by-night company which a state auditor said should never have received public funds.3
The Florida Legislature's response so far? A watered down, half baked bill that conveniently ignores key recommendations from Florida's grand jury on public corruption.4 The Florida House's version of "ethics reform" would amazingly allow even more money to flood our political process, with all the special interest influence peddling that goes with it. The legislature's ethics reform plan only seems to protect politicians, not the people. Real ethics reform begins with adopting the main components of the grand jury's recommendations:
There's a lot more to be done, particularly with tackling the suffocating power of corporate special interests, but this is where we need to start.
Gov. Scott and his allies in the Legislature won't enact real ethics reform because it's the right thing to do. Real ethics reform will only happen if Floridians like you demand it.
A government without trust is a government that threatens the integrity of democracy itself. Sign the petition for real ethics reform, and let's demand a better Florida.
For progress,
Mark, Jon, and the Progress Florida team
1"Study ranks Florida No. 1 in government corruption" Tampa Tribune, 5/31/12.
2"Gov. Rick Scott's chief of staff Steve MacNamara resigns" Tampa Bay Times, 5/12/12.
3"Hardee County politicians with no company or product get millions in grant money" WTSP, 3/12/13.
4"Rick Scott promised big ethics reform, but nothing has happened" Miami Herald, 3/7/13.
Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
With their pledge to create "jobs, jobs, jobs" long forgotten, today all Florida House Republicans voted against a minimum wage hike, including Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) who boasts about helping people find jobs in his district and holding job fairs when he's home from Washington.
House Republicans unanimously voted down a measure Friday that would have raised the federal minimum wage, from its current $7.25 per hour to $10.10 by 2015.
Six Democrats joined 227 Republicans in voting it down; 184 Democrats voted yes.
The legislation was proposed as a last-minute amendment upon passage of the SKILLS Act, which reauthorizes a jobs training program. The procedural move, known as the motion to recommit, was invoked by Democrats with the instruction that the minimum wage amendment be tacked on to the SKILLS Act, an aide said.
An increase in the minimum wage to $9 was backed by President Obama during this year's State of the Union, and immediately shot down by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who argued that it would drive up unemployment by making it harder for small businesses to hire.
If You Don't Like New Ideas, You're Going To Love Marco!
Ah yes, the brilliance! Nothing makes people who can't think for themselves and whose idea of good reading is "Thinking For Dummies" happier than listening to a guy like Marco Rubio, who doesn't make sense.
Anyone who came to CPAC 2013 looking for new ideas would leave disappointed, take it from Rubio. Only those with the blind devotion of lemmings could possibly fall for what the King Of The Grifters was selling there yesterday. Here are just a few of the highlights that I wanted to point out, with translation.
Apparently speaking of good, hard working people who pay their taxes and doing the right thing, only to fail at the hands of evil "Big Government," Rubio transitions to slackers and freeloaders:
"And now when the housing bubble came they were stuck with the bill up for bailing out the banks. For bailing out the people who took out mortgages they couldn't afford to pay. Everywhere they look."
Ah yes, that old myth. The housing bubble was created by all those people who ran out and signed on to mortgages they couldn't afford! Freeloaders! Never mind that those people lost everything, the banks were the real victims, who are moving on to their next bubble. Rubio knows this well. That's why he's secretly spending time courting those big Wall Street donors. Oddly enough, he didn't mention that in this speech.
"Unfortunately every country in the world have poor people but few have the kind of vibrant widespread middle class that America does."
Middle class? What middle class?
"A widespread middle class that everyone we have said should have any opportunity to be -- part of the middle class or even better. It sets us apart from the world."
Actually what sets what's left of our middle class apart from the rest of the world's is health care, for one thing. Ours can no longer get access to it. And opportunity? Hard to have such a thing when those "no taxes job creators" are hoarding profits rather than hiring, an education is out of reach, and when there's no chance of a decent wage and benefits even if you can find employment. Marco and his ilk have just about squeezed all they can from what used to be the middle class. Now they've had to move on to squeezing the wealthy by running for office and giving speeches at places like CPAC. And speaking of grifting:
"Basic trouble is they look to Washington DC..... Every week Washington's creating some sort of manmade crisis for them to worry about. And they look at the political process whether it's fair or not."
Now there Rubio is speaking a bit of truth. Who's creating all the man-made crisis? The Republican Party, that's who. Debt ceilings and fiscal cliffs and sequesters, oh my! And why would they do such a thing? Well, besides being willing to destroy the country because your party lost the last two elections, here's why. More grifting. Fair? No, but what better way to get revenge on those voters, am I right?
"People who disagree on all sorts of things in the real world work together all the time on things they do agree with....
Now in order to work together, there has to be mutual respect. That means I respect people who disagree with me on certain things but they have to respect me too."
Yes, nothing says "I respect your ideas" more than four years of obstruction, and threats to shut down the government unless you respect Marco Rubio and his party of "No."
Now here's my favorite part of his so-called "respect" argument:
"I respect people who disagree with me on certain things, but that means they have to respect me too. Just because I believe states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot. Just because we believe that life, all human life, all life, all human life is worthy of protection in every stage of its development doesn’t make you a chauvinist. In fact, the people who are actually close minded in American politics are people who love to preach about the certainty of science in regard to our climate, but ignore the absolute fact that life begins at conception."
First the obvious: No, Marco Rubio doesn't respect people who disagree with him. If he did, why follow that first sentence with "but?" And what a big "but" it is. Never mind that he's objecting to a straw man who calls him a "bigot" for being against same sex marriage at a convention which banned gay Republican groups from attending. Rubio "respects" others beliefs so much that he's trying to block access to birth control, and thinks only certain women should be protected from domestic violence. He voted against the Violence Against Women Act not once, but twice. He's basing legislation for everyone else to live by on his beliefs, and his belief that actual scientific evidence is nonsense, all at the same time.
Nothing says "I respect you" like passing laws that make sure everyone else is forced to respect your views, and live by them, right Marco?
Marco Rubio respects others all right. Just as long as they're white males....I mean white male Republicans.......Or rather, white, male Republicans who believe exactly what Marco believes. Those of us who don't agree with his views don't vote for him, and when he wins in spite of that, we respect the decision in a fair election, because that's democracy. It's people like Rubio and the Republican Party who are trying to change the rules when the majority of the country no longer sees things their way.
"We don't need a new idea. There is an idea. The idea called America."
Who needs new ideas? There's no need for new ideas in Marco Rubio's version of America.
The Republican's Vision For Florida: We're All "Villagers" Now
A few days ago, when asked if he would push the reluctant Florida Legislature on Medicaid expansion after accepting it himself, Rick Scott said all he planned to focus on was teachers raises and eliminating sales taxes on the purchase of equipment by manufacturers. Accent on the "teacher raises" which are more of a campaigning for reelection issue than an idea born from his "love" of teachers and education.
Or at least that's what he says his main concern is in front of the cameras. When he's not in public however, it's a different story. Those who were willing to fork over $125 for a ticket to attend the so-called "non-partisan" James Madison Institute’s 25th anniversary gala Wednesday night got a different "pledge" from Scott, along with several other Florida politicians and office holders.
During the event, Scott made no mention of those teachers raises he's laser "focused" on. No, there he made it clear that he's still working for big business, and less concerned about representing the best interests of Floridians.
This is some of what he had to say to the ticket holders at The James Madison Institute:
In a story that highlighted the governor’s preference for unfettered private development that was sure to please the JMI crowd, Scott spoke about meeting with Gary Morse, the developer of The Villages and a major donor to the GOP. Morse showed him an aerial map of his project where more than 80,000 people live in Central Florida. Scott asked him why he couldn’t keep growing because of there was nothing but vacant land around the project. Morse, who is a billionaire and top donor to the governor’s reelection campaign, told Scott he could never afford to pay for the costs of having the project reviewed by state planners. “So with your help,” Scott told the JMI audience, “with the individuals you elected, with your thoughts and your ideas, we cut taxes, we cut 2,300 regulations, we streamlined the permitting process, we got rid of the Department of Community Affairs (which would have been the agency to review the Villages), we streamlined the water management districts, we got the Department of Transportation focused on where they can help us get more jobs.”
Yes, let's let development run wild with no restrictions and pesky regulations, that's just what Florida needs according to Scott. Let's just turn the entire state into a giant version of The Villages! There's a frightful vision.
Of course Scott wasn't the only one there who pictured Florida as a wonderland of businesses gone wild, free from paying taxes, with nothing as restrictive as environmental protections or rules, just leave it to these guys and they'll fix Florida right up:
Adam Putnam: “Private property rights are a bedrock of our constitutional rights.(applause) We spend far too much of our time pushing back against a federal government that tells us how much water they’re going to let flow downstream, what we’re allowed to do with it, what we’re allowed to do with our land. That’s not just an ag issue, it’s a constitutional issue, that’s an American issue. We can never lose sight of protecting our sacred private property rights."
Jeff Atwater: “Right now our choices are to reduce the size of our government, reduce the size of the debt, reduce taxes and reduce regulation. Those are the choices that Florida made because JMI was educating the people of Florida as to the consequences of the choices. In the same period of time we made those decisions, Washington increased the size of our government, increased taxes, increased our debt.”
Adam Putnam isn't the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, he's the Commisioner Of The Constitution! He just neglected to share the title change with the rest of us. Agriculture, land use, pshaw!
And according to Atwater, we who actually pay taxes need to be educated! Those of us not in the big business world just don't understand how great it is when there are no rules to be governed by. That's what you call "freedom!" Oh, and speaking of freedom:
Will Weatherford: “I believe America is less free today than it was four years ago. We are less free. And I believe, under current trends and the current leadership that we have, we’ll probably be less free three and a half, four years from now than we are today. Now I have no control of that here in Tallahassee. But what I do have control over and what we have an opportunity to do is create a pocket of freedom that is unrivaled by any place in the world. We can do that. Right here. We can create little pockets of prosperity all over the country. I believe that the real battleground is taking place in states all over America. We have an opportunity, right here, to lead that charge.” He said the next two years, the House will focus on making Florida “the most prosperous free state that America has ever seen.” He repeated two of his priorities: closing pensions for new government workers and stopping Medicaid expansion.
Yes, America is less free now than it was, say back in 1995, when Will Weatherford's family was busy having their medical bills paid by Medicaid. This is America, and Weatherford wants to create those little pockets of freedom and prosperity, you know, what we sickly little outsiders call gated communities for the rich, or for the suckered, like The Villages.
(Photo: Martha Jackovics)
Lt. Governor? What Lt. Governor?
No, it's NOT working.
Another day, another scandal, resignation, and disaster from Rick Scott's office. Yesterday, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll's resignation was only the latest episode to surface from the man who promised ethics reform upon taking office.
We're still waiting.
Less than 24 hours after Carroll's resignation, the Lt. Governor's web page was scrubbed from Scott's site, as seen above. Why, it's as if she were never there! There is no Lt. Governor page at all. It's reminiscent of those emails that disappeared after Scott took office, except that time he claimed it was an accident.
Not so this time. The absence of her web page is certainly no accident, nor was his choice to make Carroll his number two, but it was a question of poor judgment. On this trait, at least Rick Scott is consistent. Carroll wasn't the first person to leave his administration for "ethical" problems, and she probably won't be the last since he still has almost two years left in office. He campaigned as "the jobs Governor" but so far he's spent more time filling positions in his office due to an extremely fast turnover.
Scott was never a stranger to scandal and ethics problems. Before he was elected there was his former company that set a record for Medicare fraud, and a little lesser known problem of giving his campaign workers gift cards instead of actually paying them money. Then there was that pesky investment in the porn industry that even right wingers cried foul over. And that was all before he was elected.
After he settled into office, he went about killing jobs with the rejection of Florida's high-speed rail project that was years in the making, and all the stimulus money along with it, pursued not only killing the health care reform bill, but expressed his interest in privatizing Medicaid, which he's now one step closer to, thanks to the Florida Legislature, in spite of having to accept expansion himself. For both issues, Scott tried to pull a fast one with fake numbers in the case of Medicaid, and with a bogus report from a right wing think tank in the case against high-speed rail.
When the problems with the disappearing emails came to light, Scott came up with his "Project Sunburst" that was supposed to make email to and from his office open to the public. Except it wasn't. He and his staff got caught cherry-picking only the positive emails he received. Today if you look at the emails, you'll see they're rather sparse, with only a few choice days for their release. Not exactly government in the sunshine.
Of course who could forget that whole anti-democracy voting experiment thanks to Scott and Republicans in the legislature? Recall their "baffled" reaction when election day disaster did in fact ensue
Now Scott has tried to sweep his latest mess under the rug by scrubbing his web page of any trace of Jennifer Carroll. The problem of course is that this scandal, and its fallout to Scott are far from over, nor is it over for the rest of the Republicans in Florida, who as I write are combing campaign contribution records to see who got what from Allied Veterans Of The World, and of those already known, some plan to give them back. Before it's all over, there may be other elected officials who could go down along with Carroll. That shouldn't be too shocking though, as Florida was ranked number one in government corruption in a study done last year.
Yesterday when the latest scandal broke, many people asked me when will it be Scott's turn to go? With his record of disastrous decisions like those listed here, and many more I didn't mention, that's a good question. Unfortunately we may just have to wait until November of 2014 before we're rid of him.
In the meantime, rather than just crossing your fingers in hopes that Scott will actually embrace that ethics rewrite he promised long ago, you can start by signing this petition to urge the Florida legislature to demand real ethics reform.
