Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Bark louder, little dog.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

“Alexa, change the president.”

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Let there be snark.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

You are here: Home / Politics / IOKIYAR / Why Is This Not Being Discussed?

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  1. 1.

    Dave

    Because there is no recall mechanism and the Florida Commission on Ethics is notoriously toothless.

    Florida fucking got what it deserved. This wasn’t even a Rick Snyder “bait and switch”: Floridians elected a crook.

  2. 2.

    Paul in KY

    I know this is ‘quaint’ and all that, but in most collective bargaining agreements, you can’t be drug tested just because some honcho thinks a certain percentage of you are druggies.

    You have to either come in with some kind of smell/action that makes them decide to test you, or there can be a random test for people in positions where the public safety is paramount.

    I know we have some good lawyers in here, so please correct me where I’m wrong here.

  3. 3.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    Oh look, it’s Caribou Barbie on a bus!

    Oh look, Democrats are engaging in divisive hyperbole over bold Republican plans!

    Paris Hilton just endorsed a line of dildos!

    And so on.

    Our Corporate Media Overlords have spoken. Nothing more to see here now please move along.

  4. 4.

    Cat Lady

    The answer is right there in the tags. Those are the alpha and the omega, and will be carved into the country’s headstone – “IOKIYAR, killed by a narrative arc.”

  5. 5.

    Tulip

    Rachel Maddow has been talking about this for a while. Not exactly the finanical side, though she always states Scott’s clinics are to do the testing, but more from a big gov’t vs. small gov’t (which is what Republicans preach) prespective.

    I’m convinced the media just doesn’t give a shit about anything Republicans do.

  6. 6.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    I think people are also desensitized to this kind of thing after 30 years of exactly the same kind of behavior packaged as “the War on Drugs.”

  8. 8.

    BlueMonkey

    @lacp:
    Holy guano, that was the first thing that popped into my mind!

    And then…DUH, WEINERING!

  10. 10.

    HyperIon

    The citizens of the great state of Florida are idiots who will suffer for the next 3.5 years due to their idiocy. Elections have consequences!

  11. 11.

    andy

    To his base, corruption is a positive, it’s the Magic of the Market. The right people will be profiting by this, and the wrong people will be harassed as needed under this. As they say, a feature, not a bug- what could be better?

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    @Paul in KY: you can’t be drug tested just because some honcho thinks a certain percentage of you are druggies

    Dude, are you really in KY? Maybe you’ve never worked a crappy job in the South? Because in Florida, they are really really really sorry the slaves got freed.

    If Boss says “cut your hair” you buzz it, male or female. If Boss says “I want you in on Saturday and I’m not going to pay you overtime” you show up.

    If Boss says “whiz in this jar” you don’t call your lawyer, you don’t call a civil rights organization, and you are so brainwashed you make fun of people who do. You whiz in the jar and complain to your buddies in private.

  15. 15.

    Martin

    They should expand it to Medicare recipients and create some whimsical looking clinics that look like train cars. I bet a whole bunch of Floridians will perk up and take notice then.

  17. 17.

    Dave

    All the above being true…this IS un-Constitutional, right? If I remember correctly, a drug test can be administered in the hiring process but random drug testing of currently employees is a civil rights violation.

  19. 19.

    Han's Solo

    I know that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and since I live in Texas I’m definitely living in a glass house on this subject, still… Fuck Florida. They elected this guy knowing he was a criminal.

    During the last election there was a lot of talk about how Democrats were killing medicare by cutting 500 billion from Medicare Advantage. I would guess the state most in need of Medicare is Florida. Who does Florida vote for? A guy who made his bones by stealing from Medicare!!!

    I realize there is a whole bunch of people in Florida that didn’t vote for Lex Luthor, and I feel bad for them, I really do. But the state has a long history of less than wise political choices that were bound to catch up with them eventually.

  20. 20.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Because there is no recall mechanism

    Really? So they’re just stuck with him raping and pillaging the state unless he meets an untimely end? What a way to run a Democracy.

    Really, it makes you wonder if he didn’t carefully figure out every single move he is making long ago, and is just “maxing out his options”.

    And some wonder why I told my kids that if they ever even tried to major in Business I’d fucking disown them.

  21. 21.

    Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory

    It’s being discussed. Just not by anyone with any sort of clout.

    Floridians elected an proven crook with a long track record. That he’s looting the state treasury just to beat up on poor people is par for the course, exactly in keeping with his previous behavior, and they need to make their peace with that.

  22. 22.

    pragmatism

    i grew up in a redneck town so my facebook account (which i’m seriously close to shutting down) said this morning:

    Progressive Conservative. I care about poor people. I just don’t want them to have any of my money.

    FSM, why did you abandon us?

  23. 23.

    MattR

    Geez, I just realized this post was about Scott’s plan to drug test all state employees and not his plan to drug test all Welfare recipients. Too many outrages to keep track of. Assholes.

  25. 25.

    Jules

    @Paul in KY:

    I know this is ‘quaint’ and all that, but in most collective bargaining agreements, you can’t be drug tested just because some honcho thinks a certain percentage of you are druggies.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    In the South we call it “Right to Work be Fired”….

  26. 26.

    Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory

    All the above being true…this IS un-Constitutional, right? If I remember correctly, a drug test can be administered in the hiring process but random drug testing of currently employees is a civil rights violation.

    @Dave: Seems to be some confusion here. The Scott plan is to drug test all welfare applicants. Which they can do.

    That it is his former company that will be doing the testing and getting paid by the state to do it looks bad, but…awww, hell, it’s bloody goddamned theft, but there’s nothing to stop him, now is there?

    EDIT: Aww, shit, he’s going to do all state employees as well? Damn, there’s no limits on this guy’s greed. Even the mafia knows that you can’t steal all the money or the victim won’t be able to pay you next month.

  27. 27.

    Han's Solo

    What do you want to bet he exempts political appointees?

    How funny would it be if half his staff got canned for smoking crack?

  28. 28.

    Davis X. Machina

    @andy:

    it’s the Magic of the Market.

    It’s not ‘magic’, it’s divine.

    Baruch atah ha Shuk, ha dayan emet.

  29. 29.

    Paul in KY

    @WereBear: Notice I said ‘collective bargaining agreement’. That stipulates a certain kind of employee. Of course, the poor devils in retail & private jobs do not have the protections I was talking about.

    State merit/classified employees generally do have those protections.

  30. 30.

    PWL

    Why is it not being discussed? Because it’s only about fucking over poor people, and making rich people even richer.

    The MSM has more important things to do…like jabbering about Wiener’s weener (Is it or isn’t it? Did he or didn’t he?), or chasing Sarah Palin’s Rolling Grifter bus around the country….

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    Florida is a very weird state. It was a place where criminals and Native Americans fled to because no one was crazy enough to chase them further. Once air conditioning got invented, land deals/con games proliferated and seeped into the very fabric of the culture. A nut imported grapefruit trees, discovered no one wanted to eat the sour nasty things, and invented the Grapefruit Diet to sell his stock before they rotted.

    One thing I noticed during my adolescence there; Florida hates its residents. Hates them. They are simply a pit into which money falls for education, health care, and other demands for actual civilization.

    It would suit Florida to turn the Panhandle into dorms for the servant workers, turn the rest of the state into expensive condos, and keep a bare minimum of high level government jobs to reward family members for not having a scandal recently.

    I have people there I love… but they won’t get out. And a tiny corner of my heart where the place cannot sink beneath the waves too soon for me.

  32. 32.

    Chris

    @Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory:

    That it is his former company that will be doing the testing and getting paid by the state to do it looks bad, but…awww, hell, it’s bloody goddamned theft, but there’s nothing to stop him, now is there?

    Right. Political machines with their patronage and cronyism and corruption are things that happen to Chicago, or Pittsburgh. No Republican, especially in a proud Southern state full of old people with their Traditional Values, would ever stoop to such things.

  33. 33.

    Fred

    Because Floridians were dumb enough to elect a corrupt criminal clown.

    Is this a trick question?

    IMHO Floridians should get EXACTLY what they deserve. I hope he raids Florida coffers, raises taxes 1000% then disappears with suitcases full of money.

    This is what happens if you don’t vote or watch Faux before you vote. Voters are getting what they deserve. Full stop!

  34. 34.

    Paul in KY

    @Jules: Jules, I’m talking about public employees with collective bargaining rights, etc.

    I’m not talking about the employees at Sbarro.

  35. 35.

    acallidryas

    In Florida it’s talked about. But as others have pointed out, it’s not as if Rick Scott even made an effort pre-election to disguise the fact that he’s a crook and plain evil. His former company did have the largest medicare fraud case ever. It’s not as if it should be a great shock that he turned out to be corrupt.

    Which isn’t to say that it shouldn’t be discussed. Just that I’m confused by all the Floridians who are now genuinely surprised by the way Scott’s been governing.

  37. 37.

    Sammi

    The ACLU is suing to stop the drug-testing. The GOP-dominated legislature passed the laws and will not stop Scott. They rammed through drug tests for welfare recipients and state workers and are going after people collecting unemployment. All those being tested will have to disclose what medications they’re taking so as to avoid false positives. Who will have access to the database of all that confidential information??

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    @Paul in KY:

    I’m talking about public employees with collective bargaining rights, etc.

    What public employees are those? Remember, part of the Republican plan is to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees. ISTR that Florida is in the middle of eliminating them.

  40. 40.

    beltane

    @acallidryas: My mother-in-law plays cards with a group of Fox News watching Republican ladies who voted for this crook and are now “shocked” by his behavior. Yeah, they hate Rick Scott now but I can guarantee that they’ll still vote for the next teabagging criminal who winks at them. Republican voters are simply the most stupid group of humans currently residing on this planet of ours. Too bad we can’t harness the awesome power of their stupidity for something useful.

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    @Paul in KY: Yes, you did say that, and it is an excellent point. I just wonder if:

    a) such is true in Florida, where cattle barons routinely buy off zoning boards to mine phosphate and ship the resultant cancer victims to other states so their agonizing deaths won’t skew statistics

    b) the employees in question have any clue they have rights regarding their employment

    and

    c) they have the suicidal guts to ask for them

  44. 44.

    goblue72

    The MSM – print, TV, film, radio, publishing, the whole lot of it – is all owned by the same small group of 6 mega-corporations – Fox, Viacom, Comcast, TimeWarner, Disney, and CBS. They are IN on the con. Sooner folks on the left wake up to the fact that chasing Weiners and Palins while glossing over the Scotts and Walkers is intentional, the better.

  45. 45.

    Cris (without an H)

    @Dave: If I remember correctly, a drug test can be administered in the hiring process but random drug testing of currently employees is a civil rights violation.

    I am not a lawyer, but I believe everything Google tells me, and Google tells me that’s still very much up in the air. Seems like fourth and fifth amendment concerns are brought up, but the courts tend to rule in favor of public safety.

  47. 47.

    Paul in KY

    @WereBear: If they don’t stand up for those rights while they still have them, then (IMO) they are sort of gutless.

    I’m sorry that POS got elected down there. Florida is my vacation spot (check out Navarre Beach), and I lived there for awhile, so I have a soft spot for the state (strange, given how many assholes live there).

  50. 50.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    @Sammi:

    did the gop stop to consider(self-satsq) that by drug testing the unemployed, that people might get a job(if they can, any job) just so they can smoke the dope?

    it seems like they are incentivizing more drug users in the work force.

    druggies on the job, while the clean people stay home, what a country.

  51. 51.

    Sasha

    Part of it is the Law of Diminished Legitimate Outrage:

    The greater the number and significance of newsworthy scandals or scandalous behavior a politician is linked to at any one time, the less actual news and investigative time will be devoted to any portion of them. (Corollary: The less newsworthy the scandal is, the more airtime it will be inclined to take up.)

    Thus, people like Bush43 or Scott, who engage in numerous acts of highly questionable and unethical behavior, are less likely to be investigated for them than someone who commits a single major breach of public trust.

    Part of it is that while investigating several legitimate scandals of an individual uses a good chunk of time and resources, reporting on one legitimate scandal or several faux scandals does not (i.e., the bang-for-buck doesn’t justify examination into more than one or two outrages at a time). Additionally, for image-conscious organizations, reporting on the multiple breaches of a single politician can be easily spun as a vendetta or political activism.

    Also, I think scandal fatigue sets in so that the public begins to simply handwave away (yet more) newly reported malfeasance as SOP that’s not worth doing anything about.

  52. 52.

    Sasha

    @Fred:

    As a Floridian who voted for Sink, I don’t see the inherent fairness of going down with the ship that Scott’s voters drilled holes into.

  53. 53.

    Rosalita

    @WereBear: I lived there during my adolescence too. I think we should just saw the state off and leave it to drift. After 25 years of living there my mother moved back NORTH to Connecticut she was so disgusted.

  55. 55.

    Sly

    This is what happens when you elect a guy who campaigns on “saving medicare” after he ran a health conglomerate that paid out the biggest medicare fraud settlement in history and was forced by the Board of Directors of said conglomerate to resign over the matter.

    I’m not saying Floridians are stupid. I’m just saying that approximately 2,619,335 Floridians are stupid. Which may sound harsh, until you realize that the voting eligible population of the state is a bit over 11 million. So it fits within the established pattern of electoral psychosis.

  56. 56.

    Southern Beale

    why is it not being discussed that the Scott plan to basically drug test everyone who moves in Florida is a blatant plant to make millions?

    Because shiny-sparkly Palin thingie over there and oh my God Weiner’s weiner!

    That’s why.

  57. 57.

    Sammi

    @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Unemployment is higher than 10% in FL now. People are unemployed because no one is hiring. Another one of Rick Scott’s evil proposals is to cut unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. After 20 weeks, you’re on your own.

  58. 58.

    John S.

    Fuck you assholes.

    I voted for Alex Sink, along with 47% of Floridians who bothered to vote. We don’t deserve to get punished because the other 48% of Floridians voted for this asshole, or because too many people didn’t vote at all. But suffer we will, and as a result, Florida will have a Democratic governor in 2014 for the first time in a LONG time.

  59. 59.

    JonF

    Not big nationally, but its a major thing in Florida and why Scott will be fried chicken come 2014.

  60. 60.

    MD Rackham

    @Sammi: So if they’re collecting prescription info, then the way to make trouble is to go after them for HIPAA violations, because you can be sure they haven’t bothered to read that set of laws. And since it’s federal law, you don’t have to count on Florida DA’s for anything.

    Sort of like Al Capone and taxes.

  63. 63.

    tofubo

    for the liberal news meadea to cover this: 1st, it would have to actually be a liberal meadea; and 2nd, it would have to consider this actual news

    since both are not true (the meadea being liberal, the liberal meadea thinking this is news), it is not being covered

  65. 65.

    burnspbesq

    Shit like this is why the check I write to the ACLU gets bigger every year. Sheesh.

  66. 66.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Stuff like this is why national polls saying 2/3 of Americans want to preserve Medicare or 60% or like the ACA or plan to vote Democrat in the next election are WORTHLESS.

    In America, politics is ALL local. It’s where you live, not what the rest of the nation thinks.

  67. 67.

    Mike in NC

    Once upon a time, scum like Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and Rick Scott would be branded as sociopaths. Today they’re Very Serious People.

  68. 68.

    WereBear

    @Paul in KY: I understand the soft spot; I hated the place, but would agree with anyone that is uniquely wonderful and deserves far better.

    I do believe its popularity is part of the problem; it’s full of tourists and retirees; like it or not, they are just “passing though” yet they have far more clout than actual residents.

  69. 69.

    Sasha

    @JonF:

    Not big nationally, but its a major thing in Florida and why Scott will be fried chicken come 2014.

    And why Florida has a very good chance of going blue in 2012.

  70. 70.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @JonF:

    Not big nationally, but its a major thing in Florida and why Scott will be fried chicken come 2014

    Maybe so, but three years is more than enough time to accomplish the wholesale destruction of an entire state. It won’t matter much to those who lives are seriously damaged by his short-term actions. And I am willing to be he will get away with all his personal financial gains, too.

    The only good thing that is going to come out of this man’s reign of terror is what Sasha said–it just may make Florida go blue in 2012.

  74. 74.

    burnspbesq

    @Han’s Solo:

    “They elected this guy knowing he was a criminal.”

    Actually, he’s not. There is a small but significant difference between being a criminal and being the CEO of a company that is a criminal. In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Scott is wearing suits, not orange coveralls.

  76. 76.

    Bex

    @acallidryas: He said he would cut taxes. That’s all they wanted to hear. The ramifications of that never occurred to them…and probably still doesn’t.

  78. 78.

    Sasha

    @Niques:

    Um, Florida went blue in 2008.
    ..
    2010 was a fluke, nationwide.

    There’s going blue, and there’s going blue. Jacksonville elected its first Democratic mayor in like, forever, in no small part to anti-Scott/GOP sentiment.

  84. 84.

    Tonal Crow

    @Sasha:

    @Dazedandconfused:Read the article John Cole linked to. His shares went into a trust under his wife.

    See! He has noooo interest in promotin’ its bidness at all, you libtard!

  85. 85.

    maus

    @Niques: Respectfully, fuck your internet petition.

    They’re the most masturbatory, feel-good but do nothing someone can do, and that even includes writing snippy comments in response to your petition.

  86. 86.

    MattR

    @Sasha: Actually, Dazedandconfused’s article is a few weeks after yours and indicates that Gov Scott did in fact sell his stake to an investment firm after attempting to get by via the trust.

    @Fred: Nope. A democracy means the majority wins. It does not mean that the minority should be blamed for the sins of the majority or that the minority deserves to be screwed over by the majority.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    Recall may not be an option, but can’t he be impeached? I find it hard to believe that this guy hasn’t already crossed the line of legality during the few months he’s been in office.

  88. 88.

    maus

    @MattR:

    Actually, Dazedandconfused’s article is a few weeks after yours and indicates that Gov Scott did in fact sell his stake to an investment firm after attempting to get by via the trust.

    Yes, but when does the deal go through fully? I see a lot of “finalizing” and “expected”, but he could still be directly profiting from the state’s moves. Perhaps through an inflated offer or other kickbacks hidden during the sale in exchange for the favor.

  91. 91.

    Dazedandconfused

    @ Sasha

    Read the date of the articles that John linked to and the one I linked. The “wife owns it so I can say I have no involvement” shtick wasn’t flying.

    “Sold” it to a law firm for an undisclosed amount of money, of course, but it was enough to get the press back on Lyndsey’s latest rehab.

  93. 93.

    Jado

    @Davis X. Machina:

    “Baruch atah ha Shuk, ha dayan emet.” ? Not likely.

    More like –

    “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Koch/Halliburton R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtan”

    That’s more in keeping with their morality and ethos

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