Tag Archives: Senator Rick Scott

If You Cut Off The Head Of A Snake …

Posted on by under education, Election 2024, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Robert Reich’s piece yesterday titled “When Will the GOP Reach the anti-Trump Tipping Point?” made me think.  Although Reich predicts that the GOP won’t quit Trump just yet, I think his ship is sinking and will be shades of the Titanic by November 2024.  (Note that I predicted he couldn’t possibly win in 2016 and look how wrong I was then!) While I will be happy to see the GOP disavow Trump, they won’t be disavowing the movement he started.  Maga will be, I fear, with us for a long time to come, for like a carnival, people are drawn to it and Trump was, perhaps, only the beginning. And like a carnival, the movement has attracted a fair share of snake oil salesman and carnival barkers. Trump’s arrogance, his oversized ego, and the crimes he has committed against the people of this nation will bring his reign to an end … perhaps already have.  But others have been watching, learning, observing what it was about him that drew people, and they will use their observations to fine-tune maga into something less unsavory on the surface, yet far more dangerous.

Consider, for example, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis who is largely expected to throw his hat into the presidential ring sometime in the not-too-distant future.  DeSantis is ‘trumpian’ in some ways … he knows how to rally the people … but his public demeanor is calmer, he is more literate, able to string entire sentences together, and his ego is not as glaringly obvious.  He doesn’t make ludicrous statements such as “I alone can fix the system” or “I would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”  DeSantis does, however, indulge in ludicrous behaviour, such as his stunt sending asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.

More recently, he has launched a campaign designed to lure the anti-vax crowd, claiming he will seek a grand jury to potentially prosecute the manufacturers of COVID vaccines.  He further claims he will set up a “Public Health Integrity Committee” to oversee the medical establishment.  What could possibly go wrong when a politician without an ounce of medical knowledge attempts to outwit the experts, the scientists, and play Russian roulette with people’s lives?  DeSantis claims that “our CDC, at this point, anything they put out, you just assume at this point that it’s not worth the paper that it’s printed on,” hence the pseudo-justification for his committee.  Two of the people on his committee are authors of an open letter, the “Great Barrington Declaration”, published in October 2020, that called for achieving “herd immunity” by letting COVID spread naturally, whatever the cost for the vulnerable, rather than implementing shutdowns and lockdowns. At this point, I can only be thankful that I don’t live in Florida!

And then there’s Senator Rick Scott, also from Florida, who is one of the most abominable men on my radar, but he seems to know how to win the maga crowd’s hearts.  During Mr. Scott’s tenure as chief executive of Columbia/HCA, once the nation’s largest private for-profit health care company, the Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.  That, in itself, should make him a political pariah, but not among the maga crowd.  Honesty and integrity are not among their criteria.

So yes, Donald Trump’s days are numbered, as evidenced by his utterly ludicrous scheme to sell digital trading cards with a picture of his head on someone else’s body for $99 apiece, but there are others waiting in the wings to follow the path into the culture war.  According to Christopher Sebastian Parker, professor of political science at the University of Washington and co-author of a recent research paper on maga culture …

“Right now, these people feel like they’re losing their country and their identity. They feel like they’re being displaced by communities of color, by feminists and by immigrants. These people are motivated by what they see as an existential threat to their way of life.”

Translation:  they are seeking to turn the United States into an all-white, straight, male-dominated, gun-totin’ Christian nation.  Any candidate who can convincingly promise that will stand a chance at winning the maga arm of the Republican Party over in 2024.  Governance?  Justice?  Environment?  International relations?  Education?  Civil Rights?  None of that matters to the maga crowd. They have listened to Trump & Co long enough that even when Trump is either six feet under or in a prison cell, the movement will not die out any time soon.

Senator Rick Scott’s Narrow Mind

Posted on by under Global Issues, Personal, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

Speaking of Republicans … I do seem to do that a lot lately, don’t I?  They just give us so much fuel for the fires!  Republican Senator Rick Scott from Florida crosses my radar at least once a week, but I’ve largely learned to ignore him just as I have so many others.  He does, however, manage to make my antennae twitch when he goes all-out riding the bigot train as he did recently.

Last week, Scott was doing a radio interview (seems to me some members of Congress spend more time on the media circuit than they spend in the Capitol) when the host, Martha Zoller, brought up the topic of immigration.  Now, you might think that Scott, being an ultra-conservative Republican in this, the 21st century, would be completely against immigration, but you’d be wrong.  Oh no … Scott has a proposal:

“Why don’t we have a legal immigration system for the people that want to come and live our dream, that want to live, that believe in our Judeo-Christian values? Alright? Why don’t we want more? If we’re going to have more immigration, alright, let’s do that.”

Wow … I dunno, maybe some people would be happy living in a nation that only welcomes Christians, but … I personally value diversity.  Our closest friends are a family of immigrants from Iraq who came to the U.S. seven years ago and almost immediately we began learning from each other, became best friends, and still today remain so. Last year after my 11 days in the hospital, they cooked dinner for us every night for over a month!   I cherish what I have learned from them and our exchange of cultures.  I have tried and loved some Arabic foods, have picked up a few words of Arabic, though with my failing memory my attempts to say something in Arabic usually end in resounding laughter!  No, their skin is not lily-white, and no, they are not Christians, they are of the Muslim faith, but … so what???  They are wonderful people and my life is richer for knowing them!  And yet Mr. Rick Scott would shun them?

The United States was founded in part on freedom of religion.  That gives me the right to be a non-believer, that gives Rick Scott the right to be a Christian, and it gives my neighbors the right to be Muslim.  If this country tilts toward Rick Scott’s vision, then we are no longer the United States of America that was established by the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.  And if we allow this abominable sort of discrimination, then we are depriving ourselves of a myriad of opportunities to learn more about the world, to open our minds and our hearts. I have zero desire to live in a country of bigoted, narrow-minded people who think everyone must conform to their ways, their beliefs.

One last thing … I came across this a few days ago and found it so apt

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. ~Jimi Hendrix

The Road Ahead?

Posted on by under education, Election 2020, Free Press Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

I cringe when I hear people say that there should be no separation of church and state, when they say that wasn’t what the Founders had in mind, or when they push for their own religious beliefs to dominate our schools and government.  I nearly lost it when I heard the uneducated congresswoman from Colorado, Lauren Boebert, say …

“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution.  The church is supposed to direct the government.”

This nation was established as a democratic republic, NOT a theocracy.  Religion has a place in the lives of many people, but it is a choice, and has NO business on the political landscape, no business dictating government policy.  A number of things lately have led me to believe that we are shifting toward a government dominated by a single religion, thereby excluding the majority of the people in this nation.  Let’s hear what Robert Reich has to say about it …

The Republican Party: God, guns, forced birth, and strongmen

The ideology of Christian nationalism

Robert Reich, Jul 7

The link is tightening between America’s move toward theocracy and its slide toward autocracy.

It is important to understand these connections. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe, its expanded reading of the Second Amendment, and its eagerness to elevate religious freedom over the Constitution’s guarantee against established religion come from the same cloth as Republican state legislative attacks on democracy, the GOP’s fealty to Trump’s Big Lie, and white supremacy.

At the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Nashville last month, speakers explicitly embraced the theology of “Dominionism” — the idea that “right-thinking” Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society.

Trump’s keynote at the conference made the connections explicit. He warned that the “radical Left” is “trying to destroy organized religion” and “trying to shred our Constitution,” and continued: “The greatest danger to America is not our enemies from the outside, as powerful as they may be. The greatest danger to America is the destruction of our nation from the people from within. And you know the people I’m talking about.”

Other speakers labeled Democrats “evil,” “tyrannical” and “the enemy within,” and charged that Democrats were engaged in “a war against the truth.” Senator Rick Scott of Florida predicted “the backlash is coming. Just mount up and ride to the sounds of the guns, and they are all over this country. It is time to take this country back.” Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina (the state’s first Black lieutenant governor and a virulent critic of so-called “critical race theory”) said he expected “a pitched battle to literally save this nation.” Referencing a passage from Ephesians that Christian nationalists often use to signal their militancy, Robinson added, “I don’t know about you, but I got my pack on, I got my boots on, I got my helmet on, I’ve got on the whole armor.”

The connections between these strands of rightwing ideology are growing clearer and louder — theocratic Christianity, gun violence, the subjugation of women through forced birth, and strongman authoritarianism. Christian nationalism now taking over the Republican Party envisions vigilante justice — “good guys with guns,” neighbors eavesdropping on neighbors, and action to stop what they call “abortion trafficking” — women crossing state lines to access legal abortions. Widespread access to guns is essential to keep everyone under control, suppress protests, and fuel fear.

To call this a “culture” war is to understate its true meaning and potential danger. Those of us who still believe in separating church and state, guarding reproductive rights, ensuring racial equality, ending gun violence, and protecting democracy must understand that much of the Republican Party now stands for the exact opposite of these values.

The funders and kingmakers of the Republican Party see all this for what it is: an effort to hold on to power in the face of massive demographic shifts: toward women (who now constitute 60 percent of all university enrollees, and therefore the future power structure) and people of color, and away from formal religion. Over the longer term, the Republican Party is doomed. In the meantime, with a rightwing majority on the Supreme Court, legislative majorities in states determined to suppress votes and dominate election machinery, an authoritarian strongman president waiting in the wings, and an ideology of Christian nationalism, the GOP will do what it can to hold on.

Looking Forward Doesn’t Mean Forgetting The Past

Posted on by under Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Free Press Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary

The attacks on Congress and the Capitol on January 6th of this year are destined to become a notable part of the ongoing history of this nation.  We rely on the media to help us find answers to the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions, but instead the press, whose independence we cherish and protect, is turning a blind eye, has moved on without delving too deeply for answers.  The GOP prefers to simply ‘move on’ and the press is giving in to them, it seems.  Robert Reich’s piece in The Guardian yesterday speaks to this issue …

Republicans tried to overturn the election. We can’t just forget that

Robert Reich

Americans like to look forward but the effects of Trump’s lies about Covid and the 6 January insurrection are still with us

America prefers to look forward rather than back. We’re a land of second acts. We move on.

This can be a strength. We don’t get bogged down in outmoded traditions, old grudges, obsolete ways of thinking. We constantly reinvent. We love innovation and disruption.

The downside is a tendency toward collective amnesia about what we’ve been through, and a corresponding reluctance to do anything about it or hold anyone accountable.

Now, with Covid receding and the economy starting to rebound – and the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol behind us – the future looks bright.

But at the risk of being the skunk at the picnic, let me remind you: we have lost more than 580,000 people to Covid-19. One big reason that number is so high is our former president lied about the virus and ordered his administration to minimize its danger.

Donald Trump also lied about the results of the last election. And then – you remember, don’t you? – he tried to overturn the results.

Trump twisted the arms of state election officials. He held a rally to stop Congress from certifying the election, followed by the violent attack on the Capitol. Five people died. Senators and representatives could have been slaughtered.

Several Republican members of Congress encouraged the attempted coup by joining him in the big lie and refusing to certify the election.

This was just over four months ago, yet we seem to be doing everything we can to blot it out of our memory.

Last Tuesday, the Washington Post hosted a live video chat with the Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley, a ringleader in the attempt to overturn the results of the election. Hawley had even made a fist-pump gesture toward the mob at the Capitol before the attack.

But the Post billed the interview as being about Hawley’s new book on the “tyranny of big tech”. It even posted a biography of Hawley that made no mention of Hawley’s sedition, referring instead to his supposed reputation “for taking on the big and the powerful to protect Missouri workers” and as “a fierce defender of the constitution”.

Last week, CBS This Morning interviewed the Florida Republican Rick Scott, another of the senators who tried to overturn the election by not certifying the results. But there was no mention of his sedition. The CBS interviewer confined his questions to Biden’s spending plans, which Scott unsurprisingly opposed.

Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, also repeatedly appear on major news programs without being questioned about their attempts to undo the results of the election.

What possible excuse is there for booking them if they have not publicly retracted their election lies? If they must appear, they should be asked if they continue to deny the election results and precisely why.

Pretending nothing happened promotes America’s amnesia, which invites more attempts to distort the truth.

On Monday, Trump issued a “proclamation” seeking to co-opt the language of those criticizing his falsehoods. “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as the BIG LIE!” he wrote, repeating his claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that President Biden is illegitimate. Most Republican voters believe him.

Trump’s big lie is being used by Republican state legislatures to justify new laws that restrict voting. On Thursday, hours after Florida installed new voting restrictions, Texas’s Republican-led legislature pushed ahead with its own bill that would make it one of the hardest states in which to cast a ballot.

The Republican-controlled Arizona senate is mounting a private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa county – farming out 2.1m ballots to GOP partisans, including at least one who participated in the 6 January raid on the Capitol.

The Republican party is about to purge one of its leaders, the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, for telling the truth.

It is natural to want to put all this unpleasantness behind us. We are finally turning the corner on the pandemic and the economy. Why look back to the trauma of the 2020 election?

But we cannot put it behind us. Trump’s big lie and all that it has provoked are still with us. If we forget what has occurred, the trauma will return, perhaps in even more terrifying form.

Filosofa Ponders …

Posted on by under Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Filosofa means ‘philosopher’ in Spanish.  When I first started this blog, my friend Herb suggested the name ‘Filosofa’s Word’ because he sees me as a philosopher of sorts.  I rarely philosophize these days, but tonight I am in a reflective mood, pondering and feeling the need to opine a bit.  Please bear with me.

Have you ever stopped and pondered the differences … the core differences, not the everyday cosmetic differences … between the two major political parties in the U.S.?  Most people are lifelong members of one party or another, while a small percentage are recent converts and another small percentage identify as Independents.

If you ask most people, they will give you a few key talking points, such as Republicans are for smaller government, big business, and a balanced budget, Democrats are for inclusiveness, more government regulations, etc., etc.  If you ask a die-hard republican what Democrats stand for, the first word out of his mouth will likely be: socialism.

I am neither a registered Republican nor Democrat, don’t label myself as either, though at this point, I see so much wrong with the Republican ideology that I suppose I’m far more aligned with the Democratic Party than the Republican.  But it occurs to me tonight that perhaps neither side actually understands what the other is fighting for.

I drew this conclusion after reading part of a statement issued by Florida Senator Rick Scott tonight.  In his statement he makes some truly absurd claims …

At the very same time these far-left radicals are trying to remake America in their image, and lead us into a disastrous, dystopian, socialist future, we have a parade of pundits and even Republican voices suggesting we should have a GOP civil war. NO.

This does not need to be true, should not be true, and will not be true. Those fanning these flames, in both the media and our own ranks, desire a GOP civil war. No, we don’t have time for that: The hour is late, the Democrats are planning to destroy our freedoms, and the threat in front of us is very real.

Yes, we are up against powerful elites headquartered in Washington and on the coasts, and they endlessly try to lecture, bully, and intimidate us. But we can beat them. The Republican Civil War is now cancelled.

You and I are being called upon to rescue our nation from a socialist experiment that always has a tragic finale, an ending that involves loss – loss of prosperity, loss of freedom and loss of life. Let’s work together, let’s focus forward, and let’s get to work to create the America our families want and deserve.

Say WHAT???  ‘Far left radicals’ … is that what I am?  What planet is this man living on?  Dystopian socialist future?  Destroy our freedoms?  Socialist experiment???  Loss of prosperity, freedom and life?  What the Sam Hell is he even talking about?

My first comment is that Rick Scott does not understand what ‘socialism’ is, and like so many in the Republican Party today is trying to use the word as a scare tactic.  Socialism, as I have clarified before, is:  a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Nobody that I’m aware of is advocating that the means of production, distribution and exchange be owned and regulated by the government (the community as a whole, in this case).  Regulations, yes … ownership, no.  This is, for better or for worse, a market-driven capitalist nation.  Personally, I think the U.S. has taken capitalism too far, to the detriment of the people of this nation, but nobody asked me.  Regulations have only been imposed where corporations abused their freedom, such as in their treatment of employees, workplace safety, monopolistic practices, and most recently polluting the environment.

When Mr. Scott speaks of ‘loss of prosperity’, I have to wonder just whose prosperity he refers to, for the income gap in this country has been growing by leaps and bounds, leaving most of us scratching our heads when the word prosperous comes up in conversation.  But see, here’s the problem … too many people don’t understand most of this and when somebody tells them that they’re going to lose their prosperity or their freedom if a Democrat is elected, they believe it!  They don’t realize that they aren’t the ones with prosperity and freedom to begin with!  It is the owners of the companies they work for who are prosperous, at their expense.  It is the CEOs of the companies who manufacture the cars they drive, the appliances in their homes, the clothes they wear, and the food they eat that are prosperous.

The biggest difference between Mr. Scott’s Republican Party and the Democratic Party is people.  The Republican Party still adheres to Ronald Reagan’s ‘trickle down’ economic theory … a theory that has been deposed and dispelled so many times, and yet they keep telling the myth over and over.  And people believe it … over and over.  The theory goes that if we don’t regulate big business, if we don’t expect them to pay their fair share in taxes, then they will make lots ‘n lots of money and they will then share it by paying their workers more, and by starting new factories to hire even more workers.  It’s a lie.  A bald-faced lie.  But even today, people believe the lie.  Even after Republicans have blocked a raise in the federal minimum wage rate for twelve years, people believe the lie.

The key difference in the two parties boils down to this:  people vs profit.  You’ve heard me use that term more than a few times but stop and consider it for a minute.  The Republicans support big business, unfettered by such things as taxes, workplace safety regulations, or environmental regulations that might cut into their obscene profit margin.  They believe that the working class should bear the bulk of the burden of supporting government and that government spending should largely be on such things as the military and show-stopping space exploration.  Democrats, on the other hand, would rather see people’s wages increased, access to affordable healthcare for all, and taking care of those who, for whatever reason, are not able to take care of themselves.  Yes, Democrats support what are called ‘social welfare’ programs that help people pull themselves up, help them feed, house, and clothe their families.  Is that really such a bad thing?

The simple fact is that not everyone has the opportunity to earn a college degree and get a high-paying job.  People have troubles, sometimes of their own making, sometimes not, but should they and their children have to die of starvation or a lack of healthcare, while others have billions of dollars stowed in offshore accounts?  What, exactly, is wrong with equality, with everyone contributing so that everyone has an opportunity to live a decent life?  This “I’ve got mine; you get your own” mentality is bullshit.  And the ultimate irony is that most of those who identify themselves as Republicans claim to be ‘Christians’.  I make no such claim, but I’ve always heard that Christianity was about sharing, giving, caring, helping.  Perhaps not so much anymore.