You know, maybe it’s because I read all Dostoyovsky’s novels, but I don’t think the word ‘scoundrel’ gets thrown around enough in this country. I mean, Joe Miller is a scoundrel. That’s what he is. Rick Scott is a scoundrel, too.
If his bid to be Florida’s next governor is successful, Rick Scott could find himself in the awkward position of choosing his own inquisitor. New documents show that complaints into a chain of clinics he ran have been referred to the state health department, whose head is appointed by the governor.
Throughout the close race against Alex Sink, his Democratic opponent, Mr. Scott has stressed that he was never charged with wrongdoing when the health care conglomerate he built, Columbia/HCA, was fined with $1.7 billion for defrauding government health programs in 1997.
But Mr. Scott’s campaign has dismissed accusations about Solantic, a chain of health clinics he ran after his ouster from Columbia/HCA. Among them are allegations from a former employee that Solantic over-billed Medicare, Medicaid and a government health agency for veterans, as well prescribed unnecessary drugs for patients to buy through Solantic’s internal pharmacy.
Normally, the electorate has to decide whether to reelect someone who has done something highly unethical or criminal. Until this year, it was rare that a fresh challenger would come in with a well established record of ripping people off and breaking the rules. But we have that in spades right now. You have Christine O’Donnell using her campaign funds to pay her rent. Carl Paladino is a train wreck as a businessman and an ethics cement-head. Joe Miller’s hiding properties in fake trusts and breaking ethical codes at work. Marco Rubio ran up the GOP’s credit card buying wine and getting his family minivan serviced. Sharron Angle is an ethical disaster zone. Same for Linda McMahon:
Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon defended steroid use and acted-out wrestling violence against women during her tenure at the WWE…
…When asked if she was “creeped out” by an instance in which McMahon’s daughter walked into the ring as the crowd chanted “slut, slut, slut,” the Republican Senate candidate said, “You have to think about …the WWE as soap operas.”
“It was acting and WWE is the longest-running weekly episodic program in television. Sure, there are story lines that are better than others,” she said, adding that voters in Connecticut “are not concerned about soap opera story lines.”
These people are scoundrels. They are not reputable people. Nearly all of them are new to politics, at least on the federal level. It’s no wonder they don’t like the federal government. The federal government has an arm that enforces the law.
