And you thought Jeb Bush was bad!

Florida voters, many of whom are as ignorant as a school of carp, voted Rick Scott to be governor last November.  Most of those probably thought Jeb Bush was the cat's meow. 

But a whole lot of us who live in Forida came to rue the day that ol' Jeb first arrived in Tallahassee.  If, however, you thought ol' Jeb was bad, wait 'til you see what Rick Scott is going to do to this state!

Scott, you may remember, spent $70 million of his own money to lie his way into the governor's seat. Which is what you might expect for Scott is the shady character who headed up Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, as noted by Carl Hiaasen, "falsified patient's bills and gave kickbacks to doctors, among other scams.

"While the FBI was hauling away company records, Scott got the boot. Columbis/HCA later paid a $1.7 billion fine for perpetrating the largest Medicare fraud in the history of Medicare, no small feat.

"Scott was never charged with a crime ... [but] He left Columbia/HCA with a $300 million-plus severance package ..."

Scott admits that he was responsible for what went on at Columbia/HCA, but denies knowing of any illegal activity. That, of course, is laughable. As Hiaasen says, "The fraud was so massive and institutionalized that his statement can't be taken seriously. If he truly didn't know what was happening all around him, he's an incompetent fool.

"And if he did know, he's a lying crook."

Hmmm. It would appear that the second option is a more accurate choice.


Scott made some big promises during his campaign. It should come as no surprise, however, due to his ongoing inability to tell the truth, that some of those promises are going to be forgotten now that he's in the cat-bird seat.

Scott flies about in his own personal jet, and he refuses to make his flight plans public, which is a pretty good way of keeping secrets from the people of Florida. He did, however, visit a notorious gambling promoter in Vegas recently, which fueled speculation that he may be reneging on his supposed opposition to open Florida to more gambling.  He says that's not so.  They were just visiting.

We'll see.

But that's a minor promise. What about the other promises: he will, he promised over and over again on the campaign trail, "single-handedly slash property taxes, create 700,000 new jobs and shrink state government."

Right.

Or, as Hiaasen put it, "And right after that, he'll climb into a great big balloon and fly Dorothy and Toto back to Kansas."

Let us not forget:  the man who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud ever is now the governor of Florida!