Oh wow:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
A decorated combat veteran of three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and a registered Republican -- sued Gov. Rick Scott and the state Wednesday, claiming the administration used his overseas deployment to eliminate his job in violation of state law.
The suit was filed by Walter Kreitlow, who works as an agent in the Department of Business & Professional Regulation's division of alcoholic beverages and tobacco. He earns about $50,000 a year.
DBPR declined to respond directly to the lawsuit's allegations. The agency produced documents showing that Kreitlow accepted a job demotion and a 7.5 percent pay cut in 2011 as well as a five-page letter DBPR sent to the U.S. Department of Labor in July in which the agency denied or refuted every one of Kreitlow's job-related complaints.
For example, the letter said, Kreitlow claimed he was reprimanded for putting a dry erase board in his cubicle. "This is a potential safety hazard," DBPR's response said. "Neither (Chief) Connors not (Lt.) Campbell reprimanded Mr. Kreitlow; he was merely asked to remove it ... It is requested that Mr. Kreitlow's continued mischaracterizations in his complaints be noted."
About two weeks later, on July 25, the Department of Labor told DBPR that "we are closing our file in this matter." - Miami Herald, 9/17/14
Here's some more info:
http://www.tampabay.com/...
The state produced an email that Kreitlow wrote about a week earlier in which he said he was "excited about the new challenges."
Kreitlow's attorney, Thomas Dickens, said he had no choice.
"He was basically backed into a corner and had no choice but to play nice," Dickens said.
Kreitlow's lawsuit claims that his new office was a storage closet and that his bosses, without telling him, removed an American flag that he brought back from an Iraq battlefield and displayed at work.
The DBPR said that he got a smaller office because it was the only space left and that he worked mainly in the field. The agency said Kreitlow's items were put in boxes because the office was getting fresh carpeting.
Kreitlow said that when he first went to Iraq from 2004 to 2006, when Jeb Bush was governor, he received care packages from co-workers, who stayed in touch with his wife and two daughters. But under Scott, he said, "no one contacted my family."
Kreitlow also alleged that when he sent an email to Scott's office demanding his old job back, he got a call from the DBPR's human resources office telling him he needed counseling. The agency declined to respond to that allegation.
Scott, a U.S. Navy veteran, has emphasized his support for veterans throughout his campaign for re-election. He has handed out thousands of commemorative veterans' service medals and has worn a Navy baseball cap in public appearances and TV interviews. - Tampa Bay Tribune, 9/17/14
The last thing Scott needs is this kind of press and he has been getting a lot of bad press lately. Like this:
http://www.miamiherald.com/...
After nearly four years, Gov. Rick Scott has appointed fewer African-Americans to Florida judgeships than either Charlie Crist or Jeb Bush did in the same period of time.
Scott has appointed nine black attorneys to judgeships in nearly four years, according to data from his office. They include reappointments of three judges who hear job-related injury claims and four county judges who decide small claims and traffic cases.
Only twice has Scott appointed black judges to the more prestigious trial court or circuit court, and both are in Miami-Dade: Eric Hendon and Rodney Smith in 2012. Thirteen of Scott’s 14 choices for district courts of appeal judges are white and the other is Hispanic.
“What I’m focused on is making sure that the people I appoint understand that there are three branches of government and that they don’t get to legislate,” Scott said in an interview with the Herald/Times. “They don’t get to pass laws, just like I don’t get to pass laws.”
As African-Americans now make up a slightly smaller percentage of the pool of judges than before Scott took office, he faces criticism from the Florida Bar and the Legislature’s black caucus.
“He has no interest in diversity,” said state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, a caucus member and incoming Senate Democratic leader. “He wants to stack the courts with people who think like him. It’s that corporate mentality that he brought to the governor’s office.”
Statewide, 84 percent of judges are white, 9 percent are Hispanic and 6.6 percent are black, according to data from the court system. When Scott took office in 2011, the percentage of black judges was 6.9 percent. - Miami Herald, 9/9/14
And this:
http://www.forbes.com/...
Florida Gov. Rick Scott is in a tight reelection fight. Former GOP-governor-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist is neck and neck in the polls to reclaim the office. Scott has stepped up his campaign and has proposed a series of significant tax cuts that he hopes will turn the tide of the election. Like most election-inspired tax reform, Scott’s proposals are mostly geared toward collecting votes and have little to do with sound tax policy.
Let’s start with the ugly. Scott wants a constitutional amendment to limit property taxes. In general, that’s an awful idea. The property tax is good for funding local government services. If it’s limited, local governments are forced to rely on state aid to pay for services. That limits local autonomy and puts pressure on the state budget. Florida citizens don’t even like the idea — they have defeated similar proposals in the past, including as recently as 2012.
Worse, Scott would like to adopt $200 million in new sales tax holidays. Every public finance expert who has ever thought about sales tax holidays has unequivocally stated that they are a terrible idea. For Florida, with its heavy reliance on the sales tax, holidays are particularly awful. Someone should tell the governor that sales tax holidays don’t work (and that even if they did, they represent everything that’s wrong with American tax policy).
Unfortunately, the property tax limitation and the sales tax holidays will resonate with the electorate. People hate property taxes, and they love to think they’re saving money during the holiday. The business tax cuts will no doubt make the business community happy — no small feat during an election year. - Forbes, 9/10/14
And of course there's this:
http://www.tampabay.com/...
With soft piano music in the background, an anonymous Republican in Gov. Rick Scott's latest attack ad levels an explosive claim about Democrat Charlie Crist and Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein.
"I got swindled by both Rothstein and Charlie," the man says.
But not only is there no evidence to support this accusation about Crist, the Miami Herald has identified the man as Fort Lauderdale investor Dean Kretschmar — and found that he never made that allegation in his successful lawsuit to recover millions of dollars in Rothstein-related losses.
Also, Crist isn't directly named in the suit Kretschmar joined. Nor is Crist mentioned in any of the other major court actions brought by victims of Rothstein's $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme, the fourth-largest in U.S. history.
Rothstein showered Crist and other politicians, mostly Republicans, with tainted money that nearly all of them returned after the scheme was exposed in 2009. Rothstein used his close relations with Crist, other politicians, sports stars and area religious and charitable leaders as an advertising tool to dupe investors.
None of that context is in the ad cut by the 41-year-old Kretschmar. Repeating a disputed Rothstein claim that Crist sold judgeships, Kretschmar makes a series of omissions.
Kretschmar fails to mention that his Fort Lauderdale lawyer is William R. Scherer, a Scott donor and GOP operative. Rothstein once called Scherer a "mentor." And Scherer also tried to help get a lenient sentence for Rothstein — the very man Scherer's client trashes in the ad, which has run about 4,000 times in Florida at a cost of at least $2 million.
"Scott Rothstein," Kretschmar says in the ad, "swindled a lot of people — me included — bankrupted many families."
But Kretschmar wasn't bankrupted.
Kretschmar recouped most of the roughly $8 million that he personally gave Rothstein as part of an investor group known as Razorback.
In all, investors of Razorback settled for $170 million with TD Bank, which was the former Rothstein law firm's banker and played a role in his Ponzi scheme, which involved the sale of fabricated legal settlements. They sought $190 million. - Tampa Bay Times, 9/16/14
Not only should Scott be worried about the bad press, he should also be worried about the Tea Party base abandoning him at the polls this year:
http://www.motherjones.com/...
Tea partiers have plenty of reasons for souring on their former star. Things started well for them. Upon taking office, Scott followed up on his campaign promises to oppose Obamacare, cut taxes, and reduce spending. He slashed the budget for education and environmental protection to pay for tax cuts for corporations. He refused to support the expansion of Medicaid in the state under Obamacare, leaving more than 700,000 Floridians without health care. He supported a (failed) bill that would have brought Arizona-style anti-immigration laws to Florida and vetoed a hugely popular GOP-supported bill that would have allowed "DREAMers"—undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children—to obtain driver's licenses.
But Scott soon discovered that governing like a tea partier made him one of the nation's most unpopular governors. Early polls showed him losing reelection to a generic Democrat by wide margins. So he reversed course. Last year, he came out in favor of expanding Medicaid. (His current position on the matter is ambiguous. He changed his stance only after the federal government approved his request to fully privatize Medicaid, and he's never advocated for it in the Legislature, which has not approved the expansion.) This year, he's proposed big increases in education spending and launched a "Let's Keep Florida Beautiful" initiative, promising to restore some of his earlier environmental budget cuts.
While these course reversals have helped put Scott within 1 point of his challenger, former Republican and now-Democrat Charlie Crist, they've disenchanted much of his tea party base. And nothing has angered those folks more than Scott's refusal to wage a full-throated war on the Common Core, the set of national educational standards that have become perhaps the single biggest rallying cry for conservative activists this election season.
Meredith Mears, cofounder of Florida Parents Against Common Core, supported Scott and the tea party in 2010 but has since become disillusioned with both. She says tea party activists have been very vocal in their unhappiness with Scott: "They have been saying, 'We will not vote for him.' Common Core has become a huge hot button with the voters."
Tea partiers and many committed Republicans see the Common Core standards as the latest sign of federal overreach into local government, and one forced on unwitting children by an unholy trinity of President Obama, for-profit testing companies ("crony capitalism"), and Jeb Bush, who has been a steadfast champion of the standards and pushed for them through his Foundation for Excellence in Education. - Mother Jones, 9/17/14
Scott can be beaten and Charlie Crist (D. FL) has been running one aggressive campaign:
http://www.tampabay.com/...
Emboldened by Democrats' success with women voters, Charlie Crist's campaign has teamed up with Planned Parenthood to target Gov. Rick Scott over abortion, birth control and Medicaid expansion.
On Tuesday, Crist's campaign touted its newest TV ad that seeks to paint the Republican incumbent as "extreme" for signing multiple laws restricting abortion rights and for saying he opposes the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.
"Rick Scott's devastating policies have left women without a representative fighting for them in Tallahassee," Crist's running mate, Annette Taddeo, said on a conference call with Planned Parenthood, which is reaching out to hundreds of thousands of like-minded voters to help Crist's campaign.
Scott's campaign and the Republican Party of Florida wouldn't comment. But a top Scott surrogate, Miami state. Sen. Anitere Flores, said the Democrats are misconstruing Scott's record and what's important.
Flores, a Republican who backed all the abortion bills Scott has signed since 2011, sponsored the 2014 legislation that restricts abortions after about the 20th week of pregnancy, when a fetus or baby can be considered "viable" by a physician.
"This issue isn't anti-woman. This is about a new life," Flores said. "Technology and medical advances have gotten to the point to say this baby, this fetus is alive. And the courts have ruled that a state has a compelling interest in protecting the child, protecting the life of the unborn."
That so-called "viability" legislation received far less attention than a 2011 law Scott signed requiring women to receive an ultrasound prior to an abortion. Crist vetoed nearly identical legislation the year before, after he left the GOP and ran unsuccessfully as an independent for U.S. Senate. - Tampa Bay Times, 9/9/14
Speaking Medicaid Expansion:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/...
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist said his team is researching the prospect that he could sign an executive order on his first day in office to immediately and unilaterally expand the state's Medicaid program to cover uninsured Floridians.
In a day of dueling politics in Orlando – with both Crist and Gov. Rick Scott appearing – Crist started by announcing his interest in an executive order while speaking to the Florida Nurses Association on Saturday at the Florida Hotel and Conference Center.
"There is some school of thought that makes the argument that there is the potential the governor can do it unilaterally by executive order. If we have the research that proves that is a viable argument, I'll sign the executive order that day," Crist said.
Crist's comments came at the end of a speech spent mostly bashing Scott – calling him the "corporate governor – and the Republican Party of Florida. Crist left that party in 2010 after being elected to one term as a Republican governor, and now is seeking, as a Democrat, to oust Scott. - Orlando Sentinel, 9/15/14
And he's been out on the campaign trail discussing his plan for Florida:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
Democratic candidate for governor Charlie Crist wants to invest in business incubation, create a thriving solar energy industry, and usher in a new age of space exploration.
The ideas are part of his "Fair Shot Florida" plan to create jobs and grow the state's economy.
Crist unveiled the plan in August. But he provided some new details Wednesday.
"The way to grow jobs in Florida is to invest in our homegrown businesses and innovators and help them grow and hire," Crist said in a statement. "Fair Shot Florida is about investing in our middle-class families and small businesses -– and the industries of tomorrow –- to ensure everyone gets a fair shot at success." - Miami Herald, 9/17/14
Here are the details:
I. Focusing on Florida’s Homegrown Small Businesses
Small businesses comprise 98.9 percent of all the companies in Florida. Unfortunately, Rick Scott has focused on promising out-of-state companies tax giveaways to relocate here -– instead of helping our homegrown businesses. Research shows that only about two percent of annual state job gains can be attributed to business relocations, while more than 95 percent comes from the expansion of existing businesses and the birth of new ones.
As governor, Charlie focused on helping small businesses struggling with the Great Recession. Despite the impacts of the recession, the number of Florida small businesses grew in Charlie's last year in office. Job growth began to pick up during Gov. Crist's last year in office and state economists at the time projected Florida's economy was on track to create 1 million new jobs over seven years –- with no further intervention.
If elected again, Charlie will continue his focus on creating an environment where small businesses can grow and hire. Specifically, Charlie will:
Recreate the Office of Small Business Advocacy. In 2008, Gov. Crist worked with Republicans and Democrats to create the Office of the Small Business Advocate (OSBA).Unfortunately, Rick Scott vetoed funding for the office despite business groups saying that the OSBA had been "more effective at curbing red tape than anything [Scott] has proposed to date." Charlie Crist will restore the OSBA so Florida’s business owners will once again have a stronger voice in Tallahassee.
Invest in Business Incubation. Incubators help entrepreneurs establish their start-up businesses and attract investments. As governor, Charlie will create a competitive grant fund to enable incubators to expand and help more budding entrepreneurs create jobs in their communities.
Help small business owners access money to grow their businesses. Charlie knows that when small business owners have greater access to capital, Florida’s entire economy grows. He'll direct his administration to explore ways to make capital more accessible, such as pushing to improve federal small business credit initiatives, developing new microloan programs, and creating pilot public-private partnerships that foster crowdfunding and angel investments.
Support Florida's women- and minority-owned businesses. Last year, Rick Scott vetoed $1.2 million in funding for four minority small business development centers across the state. If elected, Charlie will create the new position of Women and Minority Business Advocate, a senior public servant who will report directly to the Governor. This person will monitor the state’s progress on diversity, helping women- and minority-owned businesses access state resources available to them, and identifying policies that will support their success.
II. Growing Cutting Edge Industries
Florida has a history of innovation. Charlie believes we need to build on that history by strengthening industry clusters –- areas with a collection of companies and other institutions associated with a given industry. Charlie will encourage the creation and growth of those clusters in areas like clean technology, manufacturing, and aviation and aerospace.
Turning Florida ideas into Florida jobs -- renewing efforts to commercialize public research. During his first term, Gov. Crist and the legislature greatly improved Florida’s ability to commercialize the innovations coming from our universities and research centers. As governor, Charlie will renew these efforts to ensure that Florida ideas turn into Florida jobs.
Taking on the big utilities to open up the market for the solar and renewable energy industries. Charlie will remove the artificial barriers that prevent the solar industry from thriving in Florida.
Create a new age of space exploration by making Florida the leader in the commercial space industry. One of Gov. Crist’s top priorities is for Florida to reassert its rightful place as the nation's leader in space exploration.
Usher in a new era of trade with Latin America and create the position of Florida Trade and Development Representative to open foreign markets. Florida can become the undisputed leader in trade with Latin America, and Gov. Crist will make it a priority.
Expanding tourism by increasing investment in programs like VISIT FLORIDA.
And the DGA is determined to help Crist defeat Scott:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/...
The Democratic Governor's Association just gave Charlie Crist another $1.5 million, bringing the total it has invested in the Florida governor's race to about $5.6 million. The breakdown: $3.5 million for Charlie Crist for Florida, $1.15m for the Florida Democratic Party and nearly $1 million to a political committee called Florida For All.
For the DGA, this is huge money in Florida.
In October 2010, DGA had given then-Democratic nominee Alex Sink nearly $6m. Considering the fact that it's September, DGA So is on pace to beat that record. - Miami Herald, 9/15/14
We can defeat Scott we just have to make sure the base comes out to vote for Crist. Click here to donate and get involved with Crist's campaign:
http://www.charliecrist.com/