Governor Rick Scott (R. FL) has found himself being ridiculed again:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
Gov. Rick Scott tempted the comedy gods with his latest choice of fundraisers.
And, as Sunday night’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” proved, the comedy gods show no mercy.
Not with the material Scott gave them Monday night.
Scott attended a $10,000 per person fundraiser at the home of George Zoley, the president of Geo Group of Boca Raton. Geo is the the second-largest private prison company in the U.S. with $1.5 billion in annual revenue.
Geo has been the subject of much unflattering attention lately. There was the Mother Jones story on Friday detailing all sorts of problems at Geo facilities, like the hunger strike at the immigration detention center in Broward County that was protesting overcrowding and high costs, and the students and faculty at Florida Atlantic University who successfully protested against the stadium getting named after the GEO Group.
Zoley, who was netting between $22 million from the GEO Group between 2008 and 2012, has become a big supporter of Scott’s. Let’s Get to Work, Scott’s reelection campaign, has accepted $415,000 from Geo Group and its affiliate, Geo Care. - Miami Herald, 7/21/14
Now here's the awful background on Zoley and the GEO Group:
http://www.motherjones.com/...
George Zoley is one of the founders of the GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the country. Among the 98 facilities the company owns or manages are several detention centers for undocumented immigrants run through contracts with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. One of those is a facility in Broward County, Florida, that's been the site of at least one hunger strike and protests over allegedly poor treatment of the 700 immigrants held there, most of whom have no serious criminal histories.
In 2012, members of Congress demanded that ICE investigate the Broward facility after reports the center was holding people who should have been released and that it was not providing adequate medical care to the detainees. An investigation last year by Americans for Immigrant Justice also found credible reports of detainees suffering food poisoning from being served rotten food. The group noted instances of sexual assault among detainees and inadequate mental health care that may have contributed to at least three suicide attempts. Detainees also reported being forced to work for $1 a day and to pay $3 a minute for phone calls.
The Geo Group, which rakes in $1.5 billion in annual revenue, earns $20 million annually just from the Florida center.
The GEO Group also operates the Adelanto Detention Center that, with 1,300 beds for men, is the largest immigrant detention center in southern California. In 2012, a detainee there died from pneumonia. The US Department of Homeland Security's Office of Detention Oversight concluded that the man's death was preventable. Investigators determined that the medical staff had "provided an unacceptable level of care" and commit "several egregious errors" that led to the man's death. Immigration reform advocates have reported various forms of abuse at the Adelanto facility: maggots in the food, inadequate medical treatment, mistreatment by the GEO staff, and the overuse of solitary confinement. These allegations landed the center on the nonprofit Detention Watch Network's list of the worst detention facilities in the country.
The GEO Group is now expanding the Adelanto facility to add another 650 beds, which includes a women's wing. The GEO Group expects the expansion to result in an additional $21 million a year in revenue. The GEO Group has also invested heavily in lobbying Congress, spending more than $3 million over the past decade to keep the money flowing to its detention centers.
Zoley netted $22 million in compensation from the GEO Group between 2008 and 2012. He's donated a fair bit to the GOP and to Scott, who's made privatizing Florida's jails and prisons a priority of his administration. Zoley accompanied the governor to the UK in 2012 on a trade mission. The Geo Group donated $25,000 to Scott's inauguration, and Zoley also personally donated $20,000 to help spiff up Scott's living quarters in the governor's mansion. - Mother Jones, 7/18/14
That's not the only bad press Scott received today:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
Upon his election in 2010, Gov. Rick Scott’s transition team included a Florida Power & Light executive who pitched his company’s plan to build a major natural gas pipeline in North Florida to fuel a new generation of gas-fired power plants in places like Port Everglades.
Gov. Scott understood. In May and June 2013, he signed into law two bills designed to speed up permitting for what came to be known as the Sabal Trail Transmission — a controversial, 474-mile natural gas pipeline that’s to run from Alabama and Georgia to a hub in Central Florida, south of Orlando.
Five months later, the Florida Public Service Commission, whose five members were appointed by Gov. Scott, unanimously approved construction of Sabal Trail as the state’s third major natural gas pipeline. More approvals are needed from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which the governor oversees.
What wasn’t publicly known in 2013, however, was that the governor owned a stake in Spectra Energy, the Houston company chosen by Florida Power & Light that July to build and operate the $3 billion pipeline. Sabal Trail Transmission LLC is a joint venture of Spectra Energy and FPL’s parent, NextEra Energy. - Miami Herald, 7/21/14
But it wasn't all bad news. Scott finally answered a question:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
We asked Scott to elaborate on his views on discrimination at a campaign pit stop promoting jobs in Pompano Beach this morning:
Q: “Gay rights groups say that the marriage ban discriminates against them but proponents of the ban say that judges are now discriminating against their votes. You have said you are against discrimination. Which kind of discrimination are you against?”
A: “First off, as we know in 2008 the voters of the state decided that marriage would be between man and a woman, traditional marriage. It's gone to the courts. The courts will end up deciding. The Attorney General is doing her job. She is appealing it which is her job to defend the Constitution. In my case I believe in traditional marriage. Also I don’t want anybody discriminated against. We will see what the courts do.”
Q: “How did you vote in 08 on that?”
(Scott’s response was so quiet I couldn’t hear him.)
Q: “What?”
A: “I would have voted for the traditional marriage.”
A spokeswoman for the campaign, Jackie Schutz, later told us that in 2008 Scott “voted for the amendment.”
The amendment defined marriage as between one man and one woman and was approved by about 62 percent of the voters. - Miami Herald, 7/21/14
One question that's been asked quite a bit: What does Charlie Crist (D) have to gain from debating Nan Rich (D):
http://tbo.com/...(TBO+%3E+Politics)
Rich is an unapologetic, flag-totin’ liberal Democrat, and it’s a mistake to believe no one is paying attention. She has been crisscrossing the state for months, going wherever she is asked and speaking to core Democratic ideals.
She may not be piling up enough votes to win a primary, but she is making friends. That’s why treating her like an infectious mosquito is dangerous.
A debate with Rich would be the perfect dress rehearsal for Crist in his coming armageddon with Scott. It would give him a chance to be seen as something more than a craven opportunist who changed parties because the old one didn’t want him any more.
It would give him a chance to confront Democratic doubts about him directly. And it would take one arrow out of Rick Scott’s quiver. - The Tampa Tribune, 7/21/14
I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments. But in the mean time, get to know Crist's running mate a little more:
http://www.tampabay.com/...
The Miami-Dade County Republican Party leader quickly summed up the opposition's greatest strength.
"The best asset that the Miami-Dade Democratic Party has is Annette Taddeo," Nelson Diaz, chair of the local GOP, said during a spring good-government seminar arranged by the Miami Dade College faculty union.
"As the Democrat chair, she's very involved,"' he said. "She worked hard to organize and mobilize the left wing of her party — which is now the party's base — making them more of a presence. She made us work harder."
Now, Taddeo has a much bigger role in state politics: running mate for Democrat Charlie Crist, who tapped her Thursday to become the first female Hispanic lieutenant governor if the ticket can knock off Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera.
Unlike Lopez-Cantera, Diaz says, he doesn't believe Taddeo, a Miami businesswoman who runs a translation company, is ready to become governor because she has never held elected office or run a large company.
But when it comes to the mechanics of fundraising and generating buzz, Diaz said, Republicans shouldn't and won't take her lightly.
Taddeo has twice run for elected office — Congress in 2008 and county commission in 2010 — and lost both times. An avid partisan Scott-basher, Taddeo jumped at the chance to help Crist when he called her Tuesday to offer her a spot on the ticket.
"I am so fired up. And I'm ready," Taddeo told Crist, paraphrasing the Obama campaign's fired-up, ready-to-go call-and-response mantra.
Crist was eager to have her for a number of reasons: her demeanor, reputation, biography, ethnicity, gender and Spanish-language skills. - Tampa Bay, 7/20/14
We have a serious shot here. Lets help Crist get ready to win in November. Click here to get involved and donate to Crist's campaign:
http://www.charliecrist.com/