Floridians who still have health care are going to need it after they woke up with a major case of whiplash as Rick Scott, Donald Trump and the guy who pretends to be the Secretary of Interior, Ryan Zinke, attempted a political stunt that backfired.
As Rick Scott prepares to exit the governor's office and contemplates his next attempt at running government like a business, he's trying to reinvent himself as opposed to offshore oil drilling. But much like pouring Corexit on an oil spill already in progress, it only made Scott more toxic.
Who could have seen this coming?
Last week Unstable-In-Chief announced that it was once again open season on oil drilling on America's coastlines, but by yesterday he had already found an exception: Florida. Now, many cried foul noting that there's a certain piece of real-estate on Florida's coastline that stands to benefit from pristine waterfront in order to attract tourists and anyone from a foreign government who wants to manipulate a certain President* for their own mutual gain while enjoying all that Florida has to offer - Mar-a-Lago.
But there was another reason. If Scott fancies himself as Florida's next new Senator, he has a lot of cleanup to do, hence his sudden flip-flop on oil drilling, just for starters. Should he get in the race, he'd be trying to oust Sen. Bill Nelson who has been against oil drilling from the get-go.
Problem.
The old "drill-baby-drill" foot-stomping from Republicans just wasn't the same after BP literally brought oil to Florida's shores during the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and Scott knows it.
Granted, this is great news for Florida and the small business owners Trump pretends to embrace who were hit hard during that oil gusher that held viewers hostage on live television for months and hostage to a cleanup that went on for years with problems still ongoing. (Don't worry Florida, Trump can still get all up in your "states rights" in plenty of other ways, and he's already working on it.) So while this may cause sighs of relief in Florida, it may not be the magic electoral potion Rick Scott thought it would be. Sure, he took heat as a hypocrite from Democrats and environmental groups alike, but it also set off a "blowout" if you will among many of those he might hope will be new Republican colleagues in Washington.
Zinke cited Florida's coastlines as "unique" when crossing them off the list of shores he felt worthy of being forever soiled and destroyed by thick goo that kills much of everything it touches. But hey, who knew that there were other states who also rely on tourism, the fishing industry, and oil-free coastlines? Worse, some of them are also ::gasp:: red states where tears are not limited to liberals living there, but actual elected "I Got Mine, Screw You" Republicans who now find themselves on the wrong end of one of Trump's "best deals." Worse, Trump did it to boost one of the country's most toxic governors at their expense. Trump may have thought he was being clever in governing by revenge against blue coastal states, but even blue states have Republicans who know Trump and offshore oil drilling are equally toxic and this squeezes them into that ever-shrinking space between the rocks and hard places of Trumpism.
It's a delicate dance indeed for those Republicans who courted Trump but don't happen to have a Private Presidential* Club in their back yard and a President*-for-profit who hopes to have a Senator from Florida happy to take his loyalty oath while protecting his business interests in Florida
Donald Trump and Mike Pence are using Trump's imaginary delusions about massive voter fraud giving the popular vote to Hillary Clinton during 2016 as a ruse to launch a voter suppression effort, and they're using Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a man well known for such efforts, to do it.
While launching his "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity," Trump charged Pence with leading the effort, and moving forward, Kobach has written a letter to all the country's secretaries of state asking them to turn over voter information along with personal information without any details of how it will be used, nor how they will keep it secure:
Kobach, who serves as co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, asked all 50 secretaries of state to provide him with “publicly-available voter roll data” including voters’ full names, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of social security numbers, voter history, felony convictions, and other identifying information.
In Kansas, the secretary of state’s office has used an arsenal of intrusive methods to find alleged non-citizen voters, according to an internal document obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress in April. In one case, Kobach’s office compared voter rolls to a list of temporary drivers licenses issued to non-citizens. It also commissioned two outside firms to poll non-citizens about their voting habits using drivers’ license information and other data, and it asked the Department of Homeland Security to compare a list of suspected non-citizen voters against its list of naturalized citizens.
The extensive voter data Kobach is now requesting from secretaries of state across the country raises the possibility that the commission will use those same methods to probe these voter rolls for suspected non-citizens or for people registered in more than one state, with huge potential to disenfranchise many legitimate voters.
Gov. Rick Scott on Friday said he has not seen the letter that had been sent to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner on Wednesday. But a spokeswoman for Detzner said the agency was reviewing the request.
What are the chances Rick Scott and SOS Ken Detzner are not only willing to turn over all your personal and voter information to Trump and crew, but also asking them "How can we help?" Given their history of voter purge attempts and suppression efforts, I'm kind of surprised Scott hasn't been appointed an unofficial member of the commission, but the he's probably too busy trying to assist Trump and the GOP in taking away your health care.
Whether or not states comply or Trump's effort at massive voter suppression fails before it begins (and let's hope that's the case), it's a bit stunning coming from a president who knows Russia interfered with our election, and who may have even helped, beyond merely encouraging Russian hackers to dig up Hillary Clinton's emails, but refuses to do anything about it, leaving the country open to more of the same.
Why is it that Trump wants to make it easier for Russia to "vote" than it is for Americans?
Perhaps because it brings Karl Rove and Republicans closer to their dream of a permanent Republican majority, and they don't care who it takes, Trump or Putin, to get them there?
This week Republicans in Congress are taking another stab at throwing millions of Americans off their health insurance to both satisfy their own lust for ending "evil" Obamacare (and killing people) and to give Trump what he thinks will be a "win," in that he'll get to sign something in front of the cameras (that will kill people) while claiming it's the best health plan ever put together in the history of health plans, facts be damned.
Facts. They are indeed pesky details that have tripped Trump up at every turn in his short time in office as the man who would be king, and the facts surrounding the latest version of Trumpcare will be no different. He claims this new version is even more awesome than the last one was, except the first was actually pretty bad and this one is even worse. It essentially takes the "health insurance" out of the "having health insurance" equation by ending provisions for covering basic health essentials like going to the hospital, along with protections and coverage for pre-existing conditions, something that a majority of the population have. Should you need that kind of coverage, the new plan would allow insurance companies to spike the cost of your premiums causing many to be priced out of the market altogether.
This is similar to the last plan that was so bad they couldn't even get enough Republicans to vote for it. So this time they added an incentive to turn those "no" votes into "yes" votes. They simply made sure members of Congress will be exempt from all of the above. In other words, they will get to keep their Obamacare and all of its protections, while the rest of us will get stuck with Trumpcare, which could barely be called insurance anymore. (They now claim they'll remove that exemption AFTER the bill passes, and we should just trust that they'll keep their word on it. Sure.)
Another problem with the new Trumpcare is what it could do to Floridians: The new plan would allow states to waive all sorts of benefits rules.
Here are the basic rules states could waive, eliminate, and/or "tweak" under the latest version of Trumpcare, as summarized by the New York Times. They fall into three categories, essential health benefits, community ratings, and age ratings, and what could be eliminated from the current Obamacare law:
A basic set of benefits, including hospital care, prescription drugs and maternity care, that must be included in all health insurance.
A pillar of Obamacare that prevents health insurers from charging higher prices to customers with pre-existing health conditions.
Rules about how much more insurance companies can charge older customers than younger ones.
Allowing states to set their own standards and requirements could have deadly consequences for Floridians at the hands of Republicans. I suggest reading the above referenced article in full for deeper details on just how devastating and deadly these waivers could be.
As Floridians know all too well, Republicans here have already declared a war on health care, and just the thought of these new waivers probably have Rick Scott rubbing his hands together, dancing a jig and wearing a permanent version of his evil, laser-eyed grin, while Republicans in the legislature are probably lining up to collect insurance company donor checks as I write this. After all, Scott was the king of the "Let's Kill Health Care" movement long before he became governor, after being forced out of his own company due to the company's record breaking Medicare fraud problem. After Obamacare passed in spite of his efforts, he and Republicans refused to expand Medicaid and passed a law that allowed insurance companies to charge Floridians higher premiums while also allowing them to falsely blame Obamacare for it. Right now Florida Republicans are trying to force a work requirement on those who still have access to Medicaid.
In other words, this latest effort to kill Obamacare (and lots of people along with it) and replace it with Trumpcare would be a dream come true for Florida Republicans, not to mention the members of Congress who will get to keep their Obamacare and all of its benefits even as they vote to cut yours.
Unless you're a Floridian who plans to get through life absent any illness, any basic need for medical care, and don't have a pre-existing condition, you might want to give your Representative a call before they vote on this nightmare tomorrow or Saturday.
Rick Scott, the Grim Reaper of the health care industry, is unsurprisingly giddy at the prospect of Republicans finally killing off President Obama's health care law, and possibly thousands of Americans right along with it. In fact, he was so excited about it that he recently fled Florida once again to offer his assistance with ending it to the person Donald Trump passed him over for to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Republican Tom Price. After meeting with Price, Scott, who normally avoids press coverage, couldn't wait to share his glee, saying this about the end of health insurance as we know it for thousands:
"Day one would be nice for me."
Of course "day one would be nice" for him. He's not the one who will lose his health insurance, nor will he have to worry about paying more for it as long as he's a public servant and has those he presumes to govern for footing the bill for him. (Republicans in the Florida legislature voted to keep his and their own premiums low, but Floridans still have to pay for it, whether they themselves have insurance or not.)
Because for people like these Republicans in general, and Rick Scott in particular, it wasn't enough just to block 800,000 of the state's working poor from getting health care by their refusal to expand Medicaid. No sir. They hope to end coverage for thousands more while throwing the insurance industry into chaos in spite of this:
Florida has more people signed up for private insurance coverage under the ACA marketplace than any other state: at least 1.5 million. Since the marketplace opened in 2013, the percentage of Floridians from 18 to 64 without insurance has dropped from 21.5 percent to 13.2 percent, according to Enroll America, a coalition formed to promote the ACA.
And it's not just those without Medicaid, or those who will lose coverage and/or subsidies who will be hurt by repeal (and let's be clear, that's all the Republicans have plans for as of now: repeal. They don't have a replacement yet, and it's quite possible they never will.) It means rates could go up for everybody once again. Repeal of every part of the ACA absent a replacement means going back to the old ways when insurance companies can raise your premiums through the roof whenever they feel like it, when they can decide what they cover or not no matter what you paid for, when they can end your coverage for reasons of their own choosing. They can return to the days when anyone with a pre-existing condition was uninsurable, and when they alone can determine what a pre-existing condition was, say a hangnail, or simply being a woman. It would be a return to the days when everyone is just one health issue away from losing everything, not just possibly their lives.
There are real human costs to ending the ACA, and that human cost means quite a high body count in Florida if Scott's "Day one would be nice for me" hopes come true. Just look at the numbers in this state by state chart, depending on whichever scenario Republicans go with. Anywhere from 1,425,000 to 2,230,000 will lose their insurance, resulting in death sentences for thousands.
So of course Scott can live with that. The question for Floridians is, can you? If the answer is "no," you may want to take it up with your Congressmen before it's too late. Because Republicans are all over the airwaves and the editorial pages speaking for you, claiming the American people want to end the ACA in spite of record breaking sign-ups continuing as I write this.
If they don't speak for you, you had better speak up now while you still have the chance.
A federal judge on Wednesday extended voter registration until Oct. 18 in the battleground state of Florida, due to the disruption and damage from Hurricane Matthew.
During a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker agreed to extend the deadline for six more days. He had already extended the Oct. 11 deadline one day, after the Florida Democratic Party filed a lawsuit last weekend, following the hurricane's brush with Florida's east coast.
Walker said in an order issued shortly afterward that he acted swiftly because "no right is more precious than having a voice in our democracy."
"Hopefully it is not lost on anyone that the right to have a voice is why this great country exists in the first place," wrote Walker, who set the deadline at 5 p.m. on Oct. 18....
...Democrats late last week asked Republican Gov. Rick Scott to extend the deadline, but Scott turned down the request and said people have had enough time to register. Scott brushed aside questions on whether his decision was related to his staunch support of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
In court, however, attorneys for both Scott and the state's chief top elections official offered no defense of the existing deadline and did not object to an extension. Most of the hour-long hearing before Walker was spent discussing how long to extend voter registration.
Walker said he did not believe that Scott had authority to use his emergency powers to waive the deadline. But he also pointed out that Florida law already allows the governor to suspend or delay an election if there is an emergency.
"There is a gap in Florida law that renders (the deadline) constitutionally untenable," Walker said.
Yesterday a judge disagreed with Scott and ordered a one day extension and set a hearing on perhaps extending it further:
A federal judge in Florida late Monday ordered the state to extend the deadline for registering to vote by one day and set a hearing on whether to extend it even further.
Under Florida law, voters had until Tuesday, Oct. 11, to register to vote. But Judge Mark Walker said in view of the disruption caused by Hurricane Matthew, the state should have extended it to Wednesday.
The order came in response to a lawsuit filed Sunday by Florida Democrats. They said when Gov. Rick Scott ordered evacuations as the hurricane headed for the state, he forced voters "to choose between their safety and the safety of their families on one hand, and their fundamental right to vote on the other."
The state Democrats had asked the judge to extend the registration deadline by a week, until October 18. He set a hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday on that request.
Walker said Florida law gives the governor authority to suspend or move an election date due to an unforeseen emergency. Given that, the judge said, "it is wholly irrational in this instance for Florida to refuse to extend the voter registration deadline.
"It has been suggested that the issue of extending the voter registration deadline is about politics. Poppycock," Walker wrote.
"This case is about the right of aspiring eligible voters to register and to have their votes counted. Nothing could be more fundamental to our democracy."
While Rick Scott has posted an extensive list of updates on hurricane recovery, cleanup, and government resources, his list makes no mention of the voter registration deadline extension.
"I'm not following politics closely right now, but this is terrible. I don't agree with anyone talking like this about anyone, ever."
What Scott didn't say: "And I withdraw my endorsement and my support of Trump."
No, Scott's not following politics closely right now, other than refusing to extend the voter registration deadline for people displaced by the hurricane who may not have registered already, while Democrats are clobbering Republicans in the voter registration department, and as Hillary Clinton is beating Trump in the polls here.
Of course, Scott doesn't have to be "following politics closely right now" to continue chairing a Super PAC supporting Donald Trump either, which is still collecting donations as I write.
Because priorities.
Rick Scott says no one should talk like this about anyone, ever, but he doesn't feel that should bar Trump from the presidency? After all, up until now, the rest of the things Trump has said and done were okay too, as well as this observation from Orange Captain Obvious:
Yes, who really cares? Because money talks, and "profits over people" is a preference for both Trump and Scott, as is their love for unchecked power. Scott currently has it and Trump desperately wants it. Two peas in a pod.
There's apparently nothing Trump can do or say that will keep Rick Scott from supporting him.
Matthew And Scott, A Perfect Storm For More Voter Suppression
You've probably heard the phrase "never let a good crisis go to waste." Well, so has Florida's Governor Rick Scott, who has employed it liberally since he became governor.
So when Hurricane Matthew came along this week during the final days for voter registration in Florida, threatening to potentially cut off a few of those days before the deadline, he seized the opportunity for political advantage.
Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign asked him to extend the deadline in light of the storm, and Scott immediately responded "no" during his statewide tour of pre-hurricane photo-ops.
So as he was telling Florida residents the dangerous storm "would kill them," Scott didn't feel the storm was severe enough to give those who were trying to save their own lives and the lives of others additional time to prepare to participate in democracy after the storm passes. Even as Florida was undergoing the largest mass evacuation in the state's history, (1.5 million living on the east coast) Scott insisted that Floridians had already had enough time to register to vote:
“I’m not going to extend it,” Gov. Rick Scott told reporters in Tallahassee. “Everybody has had a lot of time to register. On top of that, we have lots of opportunities to vote: early voting, absentee voting, Election Day. So I don’t intend to make any changes.”
Even the Republican governors of the other states impacted by Hurricane Matthew, Georgia and South Carolina, saw the importance of extending the voter registration deadlines there and granted them.
But Rick Scott said "no."
By law, Floridians have until October 11 to register. By not extending the deadline to accommodate those who have every right to believe they can register right up until that deadline if they choose, but may now miss that deadline due to unforeseen events like having to flee their communities during a deadly hurricane and/or facing days of putting their lives back together, Scott is essentially shortening their time to register to vote.
Many will recall another extension Scott refused to make in 2012. That year, Scott also refused to extend early voting, and as a result, some waited six hours in line to vote. Many were still in line after the polls closed. This was after Scott had tried other voter suppression tactics like purging voter rolls of eligible voters, making it harder for students to register on college campuses, and refusing to restore voter rights for felons, with help from his SOS who also doesn't see the need for online voter registration.
In essence, Rick Scott wants government to stay out of your business, unless you want to participate in democracy.
So after ordering the shutdown of government offices in preparation for Hurricane Matthew, (some being elections offices where one could register to vote, many closed for the remainder of the week and potentially into next week), urging nearly the entire east coast of Florida to evacuate, and touring the state urging people to prepare for a dangerous hurricane that had already taken hundreds of lives before it reached Florida, apparently giving those fleeing their homes a little extra time to register to vote was a bridge too far for Scott. In other words, sure, the hurricane may kill you, but if you thought you had plenty of time left to register to vote, well, if you snooze, you lose!
Now, extending the deadline may not seem like a big deal to some, but Florida is a swing state that Donald Trump would like to win, and Rick Scott would love to deliver it to him. In fact, in addition to being the governor who has the power to extend voting registration deadlines, not to mention extending early voting, Scott is also the chair of a Trump Super PAC called Rebuilding America Now. But that conflict of interest just the beginning.
Currently, Hillary Clinton is beating Trump in the polls. Then there are several other facts and figures to consider, and no doubt Scott considered them as well when he made his decision against extending the deadline.
Elections supervisors typically see a surge in voter interest immediately before the registration closes. About 50,000 people registered during the final five days in 2012, according to University of Florida professor Daniel A. Smith, who studies Florida voting trends.
“Right at the end, people feel the urgency to do something,” said Gihan Perera, head of Florida New Majority, which called off its sign-up events at schools, churches and football games in South Florida and the Jacksonville area.
Given that last minute registration history, and the fact that this year, the very thought of turning the White House over to the likes of Donald Trump may well drive fear-stricken voters to the polls in record numbers, there's probably more than a good chance that people will "feel the urgency to do something." This week is also one of the busiest weeks for voter registration drive schedules according to those involved. On Wednesday many voter registration drives had to be cancelled in the wake of the storm. Even those registering by mail could lose out. Voter applications must be postmarked by next Tuesday to be accepted. That may be a huge problem considering mail from communities on nearly the entire east coast could either come to a halt, or be lost altogether.
“For any political party to ask this in the middle of a storm is political,” said Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for Scott, and “our No. 1 focus is protecting life. There’ll be another day for politics.”
Late Thursday, about 90 minutes after the governor’s final press briefing, Scott’s office revealed he’d taken calls earlier in the day about Matthew with two top Trump supporters: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The late schedule revision meant the governor avoided questions from reporters about the conversations.
What are the chances that the conversation involved seizing the opportunity to use the hurricane to Trump's advantage? We'll never know since Scott made sure no one in the press could ask him.
The Florida Democratic Party has submitted about 488,000 voter-registration forms it has collected for this election, while Republicans have submitted roughly 60,000, according to state reports.
And if all that isn't enough, there's the possibility of another nightmare scenario in the mind of a law professor who happens to be an election law expert, and to those still having flashbacks to the 2000 election, suffice it to say the idea of this sequence of events could trigger many more.
Today, as we get word that so far four Floridans have been killed, and as hurricane Matthew is still creating devastation up the coast, Democratic members of Florida’s Congressional delegation are again asking Scott to extend the deadline by three days. Just three days. To register to vote. In the wake of deadly hurricane possibly displacing over a million voters.
Too much to ask?
All of these things combined could create a "perfect storm" if you will, in the mind of Florida's "run government like a business" dictator wannabe who prefers profits over people, if Rick Scott fancies turning the country over to another one who's even worse than he is.
And he does.
Did I mention Scott happens to be the chair of a Trump Super PAC?
While Hillary Clinton is beating him in polls here, it looks like Donald Trump is bringing his Insult Every Voting Group In America Tour back to the Sunshine State this month.
Lucky us.
Because details are still being worked out, I have questions.
Will Pam Bondi, his faithful campaign prop servant, "accidental Trump Foundation donation" recipient, and Trump University "What Me Worry?" fixer be appearing with him as always? Or will she suddenly have to do her hair? My money's on "all in" because she has no shame, and it's not like she's too busy doing her job looking out for the interests of Floridians or anything.
Will his faithful fan Rick Scott appear with him as per usual? After all, Scott's been with him from the get-go. He likes him so much he's even chairing a Super PAC for him, although it's not doing so well. (Go figure.) I'm guessing that's also an affirmative, because there's nothing Scott likes more than a good photo-op, unless you count blind trust investments in projects almost certain to pollute Florida and kill the environment.
And hey, what about Marco Rubio? After all, "Little Marco" is standing with Trump in spite of being humiliated by him during the primaries. Trump continued mocking him and his bottled water "drinking habit" at another event in Florida even after he was no longer a threat* to him and had dropped out. Even now as we discover that Trump allegedly violated the Cuba embargo, an issue that is supposedly so near and dear to his heart, Rubio says "Hey, no big whoop! Who cares?"
*Rubio was never an electoral threat to Trump, or any other GOP presidential candidate for that matter, especially in his home state.
What about the rest of the Republican field in Florida? Any takers? Anyone willing to stand at the podium at a Trump resort somewhere between the Trump steaks and the Trump wine bottles and proudly say "I'm with deplorable?"
Because they all support him as President, even after he: called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, mocked the disabled, mocked Hillary Clinton's pneumonia, refused to pay workers, refused to rent to black people, called for a Muslim ban, lied, threatens to sue media outlets and calls for changing libel laws over what he deems "unfair" coverage of actual facts, evades taxes, lied, held a bogus fundraiser for veterans in order to chicken out of a debate and then didn't give them the donations raised until he got caught, said veterans of multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer PTSD when they return are "weak," lied some more, makes sexist insults to women regularly and fat shames others, claimed he was against the Iraq war (he wasn't), claims debates and the elections are rigged against him, operates a Foundation that was never registered, uses said Foundation as a vehicle to buy things for himself while giving almost nothing to charity himself, lied about his previous lies, praises Putin, becomes the first nominee for President to refuse to release his taxes in the history of presidential nominees releasing their taxes and apparently doesn't pay any, refused to denounce the support of David Duke and white supremacists everywhere, once said if Ivanka weren't his daughter, perhaps he'd be dating her, took to twitter at three in the morning calling on his supporters to look for a sex tape that doesn't exist, and on and on and on, because there isn't enough time to list them all. Not if I plan on watching tonight's debate between his chosen VP candidate, a man who practically wrote the script for the GOP war on women and a leader in the war against the LGBT community, and an actual feeling human being who does countless good work, Sen. Tim Kaine.
Who among the proud "Infowars conspiracy theory" tweeting Florida GOP plan to stand proudly beside the man who is a poster boy for everything the Republican Party claims they've stood against all these years?
The donation Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi solicited and received from Donald Trump just before she decided not to investigate complaints against Trump University has sparked several calls for investigations and numerous complaints.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, a supporter of Donald Trump, and the chair of a Trump Super PAC, will now be in a position to pick which State Attorney will lead one of those investigations.
Because when it comes to Florida politics, conflict of interest is baked into the cake. Republicans wouldn't have it any other way.
According to The Tampa Bay Times, Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober, the man charged with investigating one of the bribery complaints, has requested that another prosecutor take over because his friendship with Pam Bondi is a conflict of interest. But buried in the Times story is this:
Scott now can choose which of the other 19 state attorneys in Florida should consider an investigation into Bondi.
That would be Rick Scott, YUGE supporter of Donald Trump and Bondi, and the chair of Rebuilding America Now, a Super PAC created to help elect the very man whose apparent pay-to-play action launched the very same investigation, along with several others.
In other words, by stepping aside due to a conflict of interest, Ober may give way to an even larger conflict of interest in the investigation, and, dare I be cynical, perhaps grease the skids even more in Trump and Bondi's favor considering Scott gets to handpick the investigator.
The one saving grace, according to interviews with a dozen people with ties to the group: Scott, the Florida governor who chairs the super PAC. He has made a significant contribution to the super PAC from his own personal fortune, CNN has learned from a super PAC aide.
"We were the one blessed by the current regime, and the regime left," said one super PAC official, who said that his concerns have been soothed by Scott's success. "It was fits and starts before that, and it's fits and starts now."
Scott's is an unusual role: the chief executive of the nation's third largest state -- with a net worth estimated to be over $100 million -- holding a side gig glad-handing the nation's wealthiest Republicans to help the party's presidential nominee.
An "unusual role" is certainly one way to put it. You could even say one man's "blessing" is another man's conflict of interest.
This same article goes on to explain that Scott has struggled to persuade big donors to join him, and that even members of the Republican Party have tried and failed to get Scott to instead distance himself from Trump and his toxicity. In fact, an anonymous party member, in a Trump-like fashion, even said this:
"I'm kind of glad there are hurricanes and Zika that take up a bunch of his time," said one person close with Scott who is encouraging him to scale back.
That's the Republican Party for you, cheering on natural disasters and virus outbreaks if they may in any way benefit the party.
But this anonymous and ever so concerned Republican need not have worried. Scott is perfectly capable of making political hay out of all three things at once. You could say he's a bit of a disaster multi-tasker, having been at the helm of one after another ever since he took office, a majority of his own making. He's also a natural ally to Trump, in that their personal business interests put them in a position to potentially benefit financially if they govern accordingly. Anyone who's been paying attention to Scott, how he governs, and his "blind trust" could hardly be surprised that he would not only support Trump, but take an active role to help get him elected. Aside from raising money and appearing at his side for rallies, many are holding there breath in horror at the thought of a repeat performance of numerous election shenanigans Scott and his SOS have taken part in during past elections that could benefit the toxic Trump.
Meanwhile, back in pay-to-play land, Scott and Bondi continue to shrug off any scrutiny of her actions in soliciting the donation from Trump just as she decided to take no action on behalf of Floridans who complained Trump and his "University" cost them dearly, as if it's nothing. Of course, when this is business as usual in their eyes, that's hardly surprising. But many others beg to differ, as all the calls for investigations and all the complaints filed show.
Though the request came from Ober's office Aug. 22, it has not yet been acted on by the governor.
“We received the letter and will process this reassignment request with the same protocol as other reassignment requests," Scott spokeswoman Lauren Schenone said in a statement.
It's common for state attorneys to request their cases be reassigned when they see a conflict of interest. However, it's less common for the subjects of a complaint to be Florida's top legal officer with ties to every state attorney.
Bondi's office and Trump's campaign have repeatedly insisted that the bribery allegations are not true. Addressing reporters in Washington on Tuesday, Scott, who chairs a pro-Trump super PAC, echoed those complaints.
“It’s just partisan politics," Scott said.
"Just partisan politics" says Scott, shrugging off yet another conflict of interest so big Trump could fly his company plane through it on a flight paid for by the donors Scott has managed to string along on Trump's and his business's behalf.
