The 2022 Midterms

Can someone please enlighten me how this guy made it this far? Seriously, listen to this nut job's podium speech.
I can only imagine his kind of crazy giving speeches on the Senate floor.

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1592971906218876929/
 
shadow puppet said:
What is it about Scott you don't like? Just asking because I'm unfamiliar with the man.
Click to expand...

Just about everything, actually... here is a sample, from while he was CEO of a Florida company which at the time was the largest of the USA's for-profit healthcare outfits:

"During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. 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."​
​

Anyway, the now US Senator Rick Scott is a former governor of Florida and current junior Senator from that state, elected in 2020. He has been a Trump supporter although took public exception sometimes to a few of Trump's outed character flaws during the 2016 campaign. In the just-ended challenge for leader of the GOP conference of the Senate, he got 10 votes to Mitch's 37, so it's not like McConnell was in real danger of being deposed.

However I found his nomination distressing, not least because it was Senator Ron Johnson who nominated Scott, plus the fact that even a handful of other Senators went along with the idea.

The main problem with Scott is his radical "11 Point Plan to Rescue America". Some of its proposals were remarkable enough so that even a number of other Republican Senators openly and immediately distanced themselves from it.

en.wikipedia.org

Rick Scott - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

McConnell for all his hyperpartisan maneuvering is still a person capable of leading negotiations with Democrats that end with something of benefit to the USA's national interests if not necessarily to any benefit of the downtrodden amongst us. For instance he took issue with the House Freedom Caucus trying to nudge the USA into default on our financial obligations via a shutdown over budget appropriations and applied some arcane Senate rules and protocols to prevent that happening.

I am not at all sure Rick Scott would have done more than step back to see "what would actually happen" if the USA defaulted on Treasury obligations owned by foreign nations. After all, he is on record as having advocated that all federal legislation should be sunsetted after five years and have to be voted back in again to take effect. Social Security, Medicaid, USDA food assistance programs... everything. That whole House caucus attitude --in support of just burning the place down-- doesn't sit well with me and I'd hate to see it gain more traction in the Senate.
 
DT said:
Hahaha, JFC, do you think, or at least hope, a few of those folks are in on the joke ... ?
Click to expand...

One rare occasion, I'll run across someone who's in on it. Most of the time, and with ole Herb in particular, they're oblivious to the leading sarcasm.
 
shadow puppet said:
Can someone please enlighten me how this guy made it this far? Seriously, listen to this nut job's podium speech.
I can only imagine his kind of crazy giving speeches on the Senate floor.

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1592971906218876929/
Click to expand...

I can't say that's an appropriate topic for a stump speech, but he's not wrong.
 
Cmaier said:
On behalf of the jews, she can have our shofars. They are annoying. When was the last time you heard a shofar on a rock song?
Click to expand...

Bummer, you missed an opportunity to do this at Mar-a-Lago last night ...

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1592965152135335936/
 
Republicans just gained the last seat needed to win the house. Or, as Trump puts it, “a resounding victory for me and my endorsement! Republicans would have done far worse without me!”

Just a few weeks until inauguration and we’re off to the races. A divided government and a Republican house where everyone is a kingmaker.
 
lizkat said:
McConnell for all his hyperpartisan maneuvering is still a person capable of leading negotiations with Democrats
Click to expand...

McConnell is just as thin-skinned as Trump. He pulled funds from AZ, which while Masters wasn't a great candidate, it was still a winnable race, because Masters was non-committal if would support McConnell as Leader. Mitch would rather be head of the minority instead of just a Senator in the majority.
 
DT said:
Bummer, you missed an opportunity to do this at Mar-a-Lago last night ...

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1592965152135335936/
Click to expand...
Just go to a park and collect some squirrels and let them loose on the guys. they will vanish till next spring.
 
Herdfan said:
McConnell is just as thin-skinned as Trump. He pulled funds from AZ, which while Masters wasn't a great candidate, it was still a winnable race, because Masters was non-committal if would support McConnell as Leader. Mitch would rather be head of the minority instead of just a Senator in the majority.
Click to expand...

Blake Masters was a bridge too far to the right (even in Arizona) for the Senate in McConnell's eyes.

You're right that it would serve McConnell's leadership head count well not to have to put Masters in the "what will it take to get his vote?" for the upcoming Congressional session, but there was more to it than that there. Not just a loathing of Trump or fact that Trump endorsed Masters.

Maybe it was the fact that Masters had had such truly extreme and nationalistic views on his website for awhile before he scrubbed some of them, and toned others way down, even denied he had ever thought about some of the potential spinoffs of his draconian takes on appropriate legislation.

Mitch is a consummate cynic --and entirely capable, as we all know-- of saying one thing and then doing another, but maybe some of the things Blake Masters had once said he stood for were just too much for McConnell to stomach.

McConnell is an establishment creature and a conservative Senator underneath all of his machinations.

Blake Masters is not that. In the other chamber, he would have made quite the House hothead in the GOP's House Freedom Caucus, and people would have competed for ringside seats to see him and Gym Jordan eventually duke it out to run that circus. The guy is arrogant enough to figure he could just walk in and start running stuff. You can imagine Jordan taking exception. But Masters wasn't inclined to pay dues as a House member anyway. He went straight for a Senate seat.

McConnell didn't want that, and worked hard to prevent it. I won't give Mitch credit for the result since it was Arizona voters who re-elected Kelly, and after all Masters had Peter Thiel levels of money for his side of that contest. Sure Mitch would rather AZ have a conservative Republican than a Democrat of any stripe in that seat, but maybe just not a guy so indisputably far off the charts. Masters has filled his brain with some real burn-the-place-down stuff over the years and has commented that more people should be familiar with the kind of subversive thinking in the manifesto of Ted Kaczinski, the unabomber. I mean c'mon man.

Anyway Arizona officialdom was trending too crazy. Imagine adding Lake and Masters. The two of them make Senator Sinema look positively small-d democratic, which who knows if she even really is any more. But if Lake had won the governorship and Masters a seat in the Senate, wow. Whatever one thinks of any state in the union there are limits an American should wish for it in the way of malformed capabilities.

[ On the other hand and a bit off topic, Dems should give some thought to what it is that causes people in red states to have turned to these faux populists. Clearly, a lot of the unhappy do vote and certainly not for the Ds even if not for establishment Rs either. What do they want? How to work across party lines so that so many people are not so unhappy as to make irrational choices about ways to climb out of discontent? ]
 
lizkat said:
Just about everything, actually... here is a sample, from while he was CEO of a Florida company which at the time was the largest of the USA's for-profit healthcare outfits:

"During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. 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."​
​

Anyway, the now US Senator Rick Scott is a former governor of Florida and current junior Senator from that state, elected in 2020. He has been a Trump supporter although took public exception sometimes to a few of Trump's outed character flaws during the 2016 campaign. In the just-ended challenge for leader of the GOP conference of the Senate, he got 10 votes to Mitch's 37, so it's not like McConnell was in real danger of being deposed.

However I found his nomination distressing, not least because it was Senator Ron Johnson who nominated Scott, plus the fact that even a handful of other Senators went along with the idea.

The main problem with Scott is his radical "11 Point Plan to Rescue America". Some of its proposals were remarkable enough so that even a number of other Republican Senators openly and immediately distanced themselves from it.

en.wikipedia.org

Rick Scott - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

McConnell for all his hyperpartisan maneuvering is still a person capable of leading negotiations with Democrats that end with something of benefit to the USA's national interests if not necessarily to any benefit of the downtrodden amongst us. For instance he took issue with the House Freedom Caucus trying to nudge the USA into default on our financial obligations via a shutdown over budget appropriations and applied some arcane Senate rules and protocols to prevent that happening.

I am not at all sure Rick Scott would have done more than step back to see "what would actually happen" if the USA defaulted on Treasury obligations owned by foreign nations. After all, he is on record as having advocated that all federal legislation should be sunsetted after five years and have to be voted back in again to take effect. Social Security, Medicaid, USDA food assistance programs... everything. That whole House caucus attitude --in support of just burning the place down-- doesn't sit well with me and I'd hate to see it gain more traction in the Senate.
Click to expand...
I agree about MCconnell, he's as Conservative as they come but he's also shown to be capable of reason and doesn't play all the partisan BS that the extremists do. I don't mind disagreeing on issues with stand up people.

Right now I have to say that I've had it with the extremes of both parties and the whole "it's my way or the highway" stuff, it's like either side only wants to work for their own party and not attempt to meet in the middle, which is literally just about 50% of the people. I know we won't always get a long but even a bit of decorum would be a nice change of pace after the last several years. IMO it'll never happen with Trump in the picture, we need cooler heads to prevail.
 
Last edited:
I am thoroughly enjoying the commentary on Kari's Twitter page.

1668649581116.png
 
Last edited:
Eric said:
I agree about MCconnell, he's as Conservative as they come but he's also shown to be capable of reason and doesn't play all the partisan BS that the extremists do. I don't mind disagreeing on issues with stand up people.

Right now I have to say that I've had it with the extremes of both parties and the whole "it's my way or the highway" stuff, it's like either side only wants to work for their own party and not attempt to meet in the middle, which is literally just about 50% of the people. I know we won't always get a long but even a bit of decorum would be a nice change of pace after the last several years. IMO it'll never happen with Trump in the picture, we need cooler heads to prevail.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I spoke to soon lol

 
Herdfan said:
McConnell is just as thin-skinned as Trump. He pulled funds from AZ, which while Masters wasn't a great candidate, it was still a winnable race, because Masters was non-committal if would support McConnell as Leader. Mitch would rather be head of the minority instead of just a Senator in the majority.
Click to expand...
Is that you Ted Cruz?
 

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