Get 'em Charlie:
http://www.tampabay.com/...
David Straz, a retired banker and one of Tampa Bay's most prominent philanthropists, endorsed Charlie Crist for governor Wednesday. "I intend to support him a a big way," Straz, a Republican and former Rick Scott supporter, said inside the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa.
"It is the responsibility of each of us to give back to our communities," said Straz, who contributed an estimated $25-million to the Performing Arts Center. "Unfortunately some outsiders come to Florida and just take. Rick Scott took from Floridians as a CEO and he is still taking from out state. He took away high speed transportation and jobs from the city of Tampa. He wanted to take away $4.8-billion from education and he took away access to affordable health care for 1.1-million Floridians."
Crist gave his own blistering assessment of Gov. Scott, contrasting Scott's business experience to Straz's.
"David's a businessman. We've got a guy in the governor's mansion who calls himself a businessman -- but not a good one in my humble opinion," Crist said. " You all know the story. His company had to pay the largest fine for Medicare fraud in the history of the United States of America at the time -- $1.7-billion. What kind of company was it? It was a health care company, HCA Columbia. And what did they do? They took money from poor people. They upcoded. You know what upcoding is? It's a fancy word that means they charged too much. When you charge too much you're stealing. And you're stealing from sick people, and that's wrong. I can't believe he's governor. But in seven months we can fix it and get Florida back on track." - Tampa Bay Times, 4/2/14
And that's not the only thing Crist has been hitting Scott on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) criticized Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Wednesday for his failure to expand Medicaid in the Sunshine State, accusing the current governor of failing to “lift a finger” to persuade the GOP-controlled legislature to approve the expansion.
"Even [House Speaker] Will Weatherford said, 'The governor never called me to bring up that bill to expand Medicaid.' That would have been one thing. I would have called the Speaker...used the bully pulpit to talk about it every damned day,” Crist, who is challenging Scott in the 2014 gubernatorial race, told reporters on Wednesday, according to Creative Loafing Tampa. “Because otherwise sick people get sicker."
Crist insisted that he would have convinced Republican legislators to back Medicaid reform by just being “honest with them.”
"Most of these people have good hearts,” Crist said. "I think that if you're in the governor's chair, and you make an appeal to them and you point out to them how every single day if you don't get this Medicaid expansion done, people are getting sick, and they're getting sicker, and some will die. And just be honest with them that way. It's hard for them to say, 'No, I'm not going to do that.' Because you can get to their heart if you work."
In February, Crist also said that people die daily because of Scott’s inability to implement Medicaid reform. - Huffington Post, 4/3/14
That's some serious fighting words from Crist. Of course outside sources under disguise are trying to take Crist down:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
A shadowy group calling itself Progressive Choice is attacking Charlie Crist as "a conservative Republican" who is "no friend of progressive Democrats."
Mailers started showing up in Tampa Bay area homes (and in Tallahassee, we're told) over the weekend, claiming Crist is pro-life, A+ rated by the NRA and that he signed a petition banning gay marriage.
The attacks aren't surprising, and most of the specific claims are rooted in truth (though they ignore Crist's changes of positions/flip flops). The more intriguing question is: Who's behind and paying for the mailers?
Progressive Choice has a bare bones website that describes the group as "a diverse coalition of fair-minded, forward-thinking individuals and organizations advocating for leadership that stands firm on progressive principles and genuinely reflects the interests of all progressives across the nation."
The group is not yet listed with the Federal Election Commission or the Florida Division of Elections, so we don't know where its money is coming from. The mailer lists a Washington D.C. P.O. box and says the mailers were sent from Orlando.
On a Facebook page, the group said its leader is Jamie Fontaine, who runs a Baltimore political advocacy firm and who "has been pushing women's and LGBT issues for 20 years."
In an email, Fontaine would not say who is funding the mailers, robocalls and Web adverstising being paid for by Progressive Choice. - Miami Herald, 4/1/14
Who knows what's going on but people are trying to put the heat on Crist to take their attention off Scott who hasn't been getting the best press lately:
http://www.tampabay.com/...
Florida Gov. Rick Scott's administration violated federal law by trying to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls too close to the 2012 presidential election, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in calling the mistake-prone effort "far from perfect."
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta invalidated efforts by the Department of State to identify and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls in advance of an election in which a Florida victory was crucial to President Barack Obama's re-election.
Federal law prohibits states from "systematic" removals of voters less than 90 days before a federal primary or general election.
Judges said they ruled in a case that might otherwise be moot to prevent Scott's administration from undertaking a future purge effort. - Tampa Bay Times, 4/1/14
And there's this:
http://www.miamiherald.com/...
Amid a growing online controversy, Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s administration reversed itself Wednesday and will invite a scholar to deliver a talk, days after canceling it without explanation.
Secretary of State Ken Detzner apologized to Florida State University professor Diane Roberts and issued a statement that she can speak “on the topic of her choosing.” Detzner also said he wants to find out “if everything was handled appropriately” after learning that an agency employee resigned in protest over the incident.
Roberts, an author and commentator who also writes opinion articles for the Tampa Bay Times, is a frequent critic of Scott’s policies. She had been invited to speak Thursday at the state-run Mission San Luis on a favorite topic, the deterioration of Florida’s lakes, rivers and springs.
But last week a spokeswoman for Detzner, Brittany Lesser, said that an “internal decision” was made to cancel Roberts’ talk because it did not directly relate to Mission San Luis’ emphasis on historical resources.
Roberts said she was amused by the controversy but appreciated Detzner’s call Wednesday.
“He was as nice as he could be. He also told me about 400 times how much he values water,” Roberts said. - Miami Herald, 4/2/14
And this:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) is hosting a fundraising event on Thursday in which the host committee includes the founder of a substance abuse boot camp that closed because of charges of serious abuse, Mother Jones reported on Tuesday.
The fundraiser in question is Mel Sembler, who founded Straight Inc. in 1976. Over 17 years the Straight Inc. drug treatment facilities were repeatedly accused of abuse. As Mother Jones notes, there was at least one Straight Inc. staffer accused of kidnapping adult patients and abusing them in mental, physical, and sexual ways. There were two state investigations that backed up that charge.
Mother Jones reported in 2006 that "hundreds" of patients said they had been abused at Straight Inc. facilities. Samantha Monroe said she had been raped and starved and locked in a closet.
Monroe also said that after she escaped from the program Straight Inc. staff put her in a "timeout room" and "hog-tied her," according to Mother Jones. - TPM, 4/1/14
Seriously, what a scumbag. Luckily for us we have a great shot at taking out Scott. Please do click here to donate and get involved with Crist's campaign:
http://www.charliecrist.com/