Florida Senator Rick Scott released his 11-point plan for the future. It contains every “culture war” issue that gets Republicans riled up. Abortion, gays, race, gender, patriotism.
It contains not a single proposal to address climate change, the economy, jobs, healthcare, or any other idea to address real problems of real people.
Rick Scott’s agenda:
- Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them. We will inspire patriotism and stop teaching the revisionist history of the radical left; our kids will learn about the wisdom of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the founding fathers. Public schools will focus on the 3 R’s, not indoctrinate children with critical race theory or any other political ideology.
- Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government forms. We are going to eliminate racial politics in America. No government policy will be based on race. People “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” We are all made in the image of God; to judge a person on the color of their epidermis is immoral.
- The soft-on-crime days of coddling criminal behavior will end. We will re-fund and respect the police because they, not the criminals, are the good guys. We will enforce our laws, all of them, and increase penalties for theft and violent crime. We will clean up our cities and stop pretending that crime is OK. We have zero-tolerance for “mostly peaceful protests” that attack police officers, loot businesses, and burn down our cities.
- We will secure our border, finish building the wall, and name it after President Donald Trump. Nations have borders. We should give that a try. President Trump’s plan to build a wall was right. We welcome those who want to join us in building the American dream, immigrants who want to be Americans, not change America. We are a stronger nation because we are a nation of immigrants; but immigration without assimilation makes us weaker. Politicians from both parties talk big about border security and do nothing. We are done with that.
- We will grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop Socialism. Socialism is un-American and always leads to poverty and oppression. We will stop it. We will shrink the federal government, reduce the government work force by 25% in 5 years, sell government buildings and assets, and get rid of the old, slow, closed, top-down, government-run-everything system we have today
- We will eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress. Many government agencies should be either moved out of Washington or shuttered entirely. Yesterday’s old government is fundamentally incompatible with the digital era. The permanent ruling class in Washington is bankrupting us with inflation and debt, so they must be removed. For you to have more, Washington must have less.
- We will protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections. Today’s Democrat Party is trying to rig elections and pack the courts because they have given up on Democracy. They don’t believe they can win based on their ideas, so they want to game the system and legalize voter fraud to stay in power. In true Orwellian fashion, Democrats refer to their election rigging plans as “voting rights”. We won’t allow the radical left to destroy our democracy by institutionalizing dishonesty and fraud.
- We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs. The nuclear family is crucial to civilization, it is God’s design for humanity, and it must be protected and celebrated. To say otherwise is to deny science. The fanatical left seeks to devalue and redefine the traditional family, as they undermine parents and attempt to replace them with government programs. We will not allow Socialism to place the needs of the state ahead of the family.
- Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science: Men and women are biologically different, ‘male and female He created them.’ Modern technology has confirmed that abortion takes a human life. Facts are facts, the earth is round, the sun is hot, there are two genders, and abortion stops a beating heart. To say otherwise is to deny science.
- Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives, and we will stop all government efforts to deny our religious freedom and freedom of speech. The Democrat Party and their Big Tech allies are not merely secular; they have virtually created a new religion of wokeness that is increasingly hostile toward people of faith, particularly Christians and Jews. They are determined to drive all mention of God out of public view. We will not be silenced, canceled, or told what words to use by the politically correct crowd.
- We are Americans, not globalists. America will be dependent on NO other country. We will conduct no trade that takes away jobs or displaces American workers. Countries who oppose us at the UN will get zero financial help from us. We will be energy independent and build supply chains that never rely on our adversaries. We will only help countries that are willing to defend themselves, like Israel.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Total BS for domestic terrorists and/or incredibly ignorant and dangerous fools, the same kind of idiots that empowered and supported monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Trump, et al.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, said the good Dr. Johnson, according to his Boswell. Whole lot of scoundrels going on.
Haaa! Well said!
This is the libertarian manifesto that is dominating the ideological policies in Florida. Such policies deplete the common good so that vandals and frauds can reign free. Scott should know because his company was responsible for one of the biggest Medicare heists in the country. It is amazing this guy walked away from mega-fraud ‘scot free,’ and now he wants to tell us how we should live and what it means to be “an American.” https://www.factcheck.org/2014/06/floridas-medicare-fraud-flashback/
From mega-fraud to MAGA-fraud
This is not a libertarian manifesto.
Most libertarians want to separate education from the government, not have the government impose patriotic standards on schools, so they would oppose point 1. Most libertarians argue that there are too many laws and sentences are overly harsh, so they would oppose point 3. Most libertarians are in favor of open borders and would welcome any peaceful immigrant, so they would oppose point 4. Most libertarians believe that abortion decisions should left to the people involved, not mandated by the government, so they would oppose point 9. Most libertarians are against government discrimination against anyone, including trans people, so the would oppose point 9. Most libertarians are in favor of allowing individuals economic freedom to deal with any other person of their choosing, so they would oppose point 11.
Rick Scott, the poster boy for the GOP, a vile, putrid phony who spouts all the far right wing libertarian gibberish that would regress us back to the 1950s (socially). Quote: “Today’s Democrat Party is trying to rig elections and pack the courts because they have given up on Democracy.” end quote. What a pile of bilge. First off, it’s the DEMOCRATIC party not Democrat party. Should we refer to the Republican party as the Republic party (I prefer Revulsion Party)? But most importantly, this lying liar is spreading the Trump lies about a rigged election and packing the courts. When the GOP was in power, they packed the courts with their hand-picked right wing apparatchiks. Whichever party is in power gets to appoint judicial nominees, that’s our system. Rick Scott and his ilk stand in the way of any progress or chance of having good social programs that benefit all Americans. The GOP just keeps screaming socialism, socialism against such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, etc.
They use the term Socialism because they can’t say to their base that we want to take away your Social Security and Medicare, because their base needs those things.
Exactly
Elle, exactly right.
Trump and McConnell packed the Supreme Court, refusing to give Merrick Garland yet rushing Amy Barrett’s nomination in days.
I really don’t like him, but it’s good to see he wants to focus on the 3 R’s-Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I didn’t know he was concerned about climate change!
Good one!
“ I didn’t know he was concerned about climate change!”
Well, he did say, “I believe in science.”
Haaaa!
Wow! So much crap so little time!
“Nations have borders. [No Shit Sherlock] We should give that a try.” [I think we already have given it a try, eh!]
He’s batting 1.000 with those two inane statements.
great line: SO MUCH CRAP, so little time… 🙂
“Americans will be free to welcome God into all aspects of our lives, and we will stop all government efforts to deny our religious freedom and freedom of speech. . . . They are determined to drive all mention of God out of public view.”
Hey Rick, to which Sky-Daddy are YOU referring?
America would be a far better place if the citizens followed the precepts of THE SKY DADDY–THE FSM*!
*THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER. ALL HAIL HIS NOODLY APPENDAGES.
Well, they really don’t like the Hell Daddy! Here’s a doozy from Charlie Kirk of Turning Point. This is going to turn into a crap show for SCOTUS if they don’t uphold the Separation of Church/State.
https://www.newsweek.com/free-speech-satanism-opinion-1681893
Thanks for the link. When one (C. Kirk) believes in sky-daddy and demons and other faith belief absurdities/inanities of course the Satanic Temple is “evil”. “And there should be at least one “substantive evil” Americans can all agree to prevent: worshiping Satan.” Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. . .I’m an American and I don’t believe that shit.
Historically, believing such absurdities has led to many deaths of those who don’t believe such crap. Kirk is in a long line of faith-believers who are certain that they know what their imagined sky-daddy wants and have no problem with offing those who don’t believe. Efff him and all the others who think that way
!
Agreed. Authoritarian Christian nationalists seek to impose their vision on America, a nation largely made of immigrants from diverse countries. The founding fathers were not trying to create a Christian nation. They wanted a nation where people could worship freely regardless of religion. Using public money to fund religious activities violates this intention, IMHO.
Man this is easier than shooting ducks in a barrel!!!
“America will be dependent on NO other country.”
Tell that to the Chinese, eh!
One more, can’t resist!
“We will conduct no trade that takes away jobs or displaces American workers.”
That horse done left the barn decades ago!
There is so much hypocrisy in this “manifesto,” that I’d be inclined to call it drivel, but it’s so insidious that to do so would ignore its threat on democracy. He has real balls to use some of the terminology that he does against Democrats, when it really applies to Republicans. He claims to believe in science, when it’s his party that ignores or denies climate change and thought that injecting bleach into the body was better than listening to scientists; he claims that the “radical left“ is trying to rig elections, when it’s been proven that there was no voter fraud in the last election and Republicans are passing laws left and right to restrict voting rights. He also claims to have “zero tolerance for mostly peaceful protests that attack police,” when he and his ilk have done nothing but deny that the January 6 in surrection was a big deal. And what was that he was saying about religion? I always thought we had separation of church and state.
What this is, is a Muleta for their base to charge at. It doesn’t really have to have any substance because they don’t seem to care about that right now. The only way they can win is if they make it a cultural war. Democrats need to figure out a way to not only counter this, but to develop an offensive plan, as well. I don’t think whatever they’ve been doing up until this point is working on that front.
I was unfortunate enough to have Rick Scott as governor in Florida, and I can only hope that we are not subjected to him as a leader of the nation. In fact, I think both Florida governors are looking to be president, and that scares me very much.
Perfectly said, Elle!
Wow…..just wow! I’ve lived in Florida since 1980 & suffered through Jeb Bush first, then later, Rick Scott. This crook snookered the majority of “low-information, poorly-educated” voters into electing him, even after he resigned as CEO of Columbia/HCA Medical Network and settled one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes ever, by paying a fine of $1.7 BILLION. Then he had the audacity to run for governor and win twice & later for Senator. The ignorance in this state is just breathtaking & sad. We need to unite the 2 Dakotas as one state & split Florida (from Orlando to the south) into two states (probably the same with California).
We need to grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico.
Bob we can’t even raise the minimum wage ! Nor secure voting rights.
One should never let a good crisis go to waste. Putin has made nuclear threats against the World!!!( there is no such thing as a limited nuclear exchange as we all know ). While he invades a Democratic Nation . Wake me when Biden starts to attack figures on the Right as Treasonous. “A ruthless murderous dictator is threatening your families your children and these scum are taking his side ” Those words you will never hear.
Wake me when Garland indicts seditious politicians who conspired to overturn an election.
Lets turn the clock back to 1969 . After Ramsey Clark finds no basis for Federal prosecution of the Chicago 7 /8 . After a Commission declares a police riot as the cause of the violence in Chicago; It takes John Mitchel only 3 months to indict the Chicago 7.
Would Nixon have resigned or John Mitchel have gone to jail if not for tapes. Breaking into the DNC pales in comparison with breaking into the Capitol in order to overturn an election.
Don’t hold your breath
Wake me when Garland indicts seditious politicians who conspired to overturn an election.
YUP. Totally with you there.
And about what Biden should say about the Repugnicans supporting Putin.
“A ruthless murderous dictator is threatening your families your children and these scum are taking his side ”
Perfectly said, Joel!
And so Rick Scott makes his play for being the 2024 Repugnican Fascist Party candidate for President. This string of disinformation is not, ofc, at all surprising from someone whose vast wealth is derived from diverting health care dollars into his own pockets.
Let me be specific about this. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD is an intergovernmental economic organization with 38 member countries, including the richest and most technologically developed democratic nation states.
Among those OECD states, the United States is the ONLY one without universal health care.
Per capita health care costs in the United States were $10,348 in 2016. Health care as a percent of Gross Domestic Product was 17.9 percent. The average per capita healthcare cost in the OECD, two years later, was $4,069, and the cost of health care as a percentage of GDP in the OECD was 8.9 percent. So, U.S. cost are more than TWICE what they are in the OECD.
So, does the U.S. have better health outcomes? Well, no. Life expectancy is the U.S. is among the lowest in the OECD. Infant mortality is among the highest. And it has among the highest rates for obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
So, we pay TWICE as much and have WORSE outcomes? Why?
That one’s easy to answer: Half our health care dollar is diverted into the private profits of health care moguls like Rick Scott.
The facts in this post are all from the OECD.
Well said, Bob.
“health care assholes like Rick Scott.“
Just a slight edit.
In the interest of complete accuracy, yes.
I thought I would supply a translation of this out of Repugnican Fascist Jingoism into ordinary English:
Like every Fascist state, we will indoctrinate young people in a mythologized nationalist history and ideology. We will erase inconvenient history and create straw men “enemies within” like Antifa and Critical Race Theory. Ironically, we will do this in the name of teaching “true” history.
We will do nothing to end systemic racism in the United States and will perpetuate and extend the economic disparities between white people and POC. Ironically, we will do this in the name of combating racism.
Like every Fascist state, we will create a police state and use violence to crush dissent. Three out of every 100 Americans is now in prison, in jail, or on parole, and the percentages are far greater for POC than for white people. That’s not enough. We will crush dissent in the name of freedom of expression and expand systemic racism in the name of combating racism.
Like every Fascist state, we will severely limit immigration in order to solidify our control. We will do our best to eliminate diversity and crush subcultures in the name of “assimilation.” Ironically, despite the fact that immigrants have the lowest crime rates of any subgroup in the U.S., we will demonize them as enemies within.
We will utterly destroy those functions of government that serve the Common Good, leaving in place only those that divert taxes into private profits. Ironcially, we will tell the poor and working classes of the United States that not providing decent medical care, education, and social security is in their interests.
Despite the fact that both income and wealth inequality in the United States have grown to levels never before seen in our history, we will end any and all government policy that works to reverse these trends. Ironically, in the name of democracy and freedom, we seek to return to a system of absolute control by local feudal lords.
We know that young people are overwhelmingly against us, as are people of color. So, we will do everything in our power to suppress the vote via gerrymandering, eliminating polling places in areas with high poor and ethnic populations, voter ID laws, reducing mail-in voting, and so on. If we don’t crush voting rights, our backward Fascist party will cease to exist before long, so this is urgent. We shall rise phoenix-like from the ashes of democracy, and ironically, we shall do this in the name of democracy.
If you have a nontraditional, nonnuclear family, look out. We’re coming for you. Single-parent families, families with two moms or two dads, kids living with a grandparent. Few families in the United States are now traditional nuclear families, but, ironically, we are going to attack the nonnuclear family—families we don’t like—in the name of family values.
We are the party of hate. We are homophobic and transphobic, and we’re going to enshrine our backward hatred of the Other in law and enforce it with violence. Ironically, in the name of protection of human rights, we are going to take away women’s control over their own bodies and reproduction. And in the name of freedom, we’re going to keep people from being able to express their chosen gender identities and marry the partners they love. We would love to return to the days when we can prosecute people and put them in mental hospitals for being gay or lesbian or trans.
Like most Fascist states, we find that partnering with religious organizations serves our purposes very well indeed. We are going to force our medieval superstitions on everyone. We are going to eliminate the separation of church and state. Who knows, perhaps we can even return to burning heretics at the stake. Ironically, we will crush religious diversity, including the freedom not to be coerced into religious practice, in the name of religious freedom.
Like every Fascist state, we will be nationalists and completely abjure abiding by international law such as respecting the territorial integrity of other nation states. Ironically, we will absolutely rape the environment and ignore global warming in the name of independence and leave your grandchildren dependent for their survival on cleaning up the mess.
Sorry. I numbered these translations to correspond to the items in Scott’s Manifesto for a Newly Fascist United States, but WordPress stripped out the numbers when I posted it.
cx: when I posted them
I have a 2024 Presidential campaign slogan for Rick Scott-free:
Back to the future! I mean, way, way, way back!
Notice that Scott sprinkles throughout his Manifesto references to the Repugnican Fascists’ favorite Orwellian “Enemy Within,” Socialists. My take: Sane Americans should adopt this intended slur with pride:
The primary characteristic of the fascist is the belief in a “rolling back of the calendar” to a time of previous greatness. Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Mosley on England, all these fascists shared this basic nature. This is prelude to the belief that individual rights are but a a shibboleth, that true greatness in a civilization comes from blind adherence to the principles of a great man. If you can read this manifesto without understanding that Scott is showing all signs of basic Twentieth Century fascism, then your delusion is chronic.
Make America Grate Again!
Yup, all Fascists hold out the promise of returning to a mythical time of greatness. And they blame the not-so-greatness of the present on enemies within that must be eliminated. Gays. Socialists. Teachers of CRT.
Good news for NYC public school (and private school, as a practical matter) students: NYC will drop its mask requirements for students on March 7.
What I hear when I read Scott’s talking point:
Americans will be free to welcome Medieval superstition into all aspects of our lives, and we will stop all government efforts to deny our freedom to practice and speak about and foist upon others our Medieval superstitions. The Democrat Party and their Big Tech allies are not merely not Medieval; they have virtually created a new religion of thinking rationally that is increasingly hostile toward Medieval superstition. They are determined to drive all mention of our Medieval superstitions out of public view. We will not be silenced, canceled, or told what words to use by saner people of the modern era.
Bob,
I’m sorry you have such horrible spokesmen for the state you live in. I used to vacation in Florida. I won’t do so again until these reactionaries have been ousted. Puerto Rico for me.
Totally understandable.
Duane, love your comments! You belong up on the screen w/Ron Reagan, Jr. (a completely different kind of Reagan), in his commercials for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (amazingly aired on “60 Minutes” all through January, after CBS had previously refused to air them). He’s alarmed at the intrusions of religion into our secular government, & this group works to “keep church & state separate, just as our Founding Fathers intended.”
“Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in Hell.”
Thanks for the kind words, rbmtk!
Having experienced going to Mass every day during the school year and having survived Catholic K-12 schooling, I knew before I was a teen that the religious nonsense they were peddling was a crock. I was also a compliant kid-it kept one off of the hot seat-so I played the game real well. If there was anything that that education taught me was how to be a sneaky shit to get what I wanted-a function of the unspoken curriculum that the kids knew about but not the teachers of which half were nuns and half were lay teachers.
I have a few questions that I’d like to direct to Senator Scott…point by point, if you will.
1 – I presume WWI, WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War will also be taught. Along with the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Will the reasons WHY those wars began be discussed, too?
2 – What does the image of God look like? What does Buddha look like? How about Allah?
3 – “mostly peaceful protests.” Does that include the insurrection that occurred at the US Capitol on 1/6/2021? I mean, that happened, right?
4 – The Wall, huh? Didn’t the Chinese try that too? How’d that go?
5 – So, “Social” Security is going to be done away with? I must be able, then, to keep more of my paycheck, correct?
6 – Who is the ruling class, by the way? The President, Congress and Senate, which means we’ll be able to get rid of you, too, since that’s the way you got there, right?
7 – I’m sorry, but where’s this “proof” of your accusations of “rigged-ness”? (P.S. – check the vote tallies by the people of the last two elections and that tells the tale.)
8 – The definition of family is evolving because family is evolving…all over the world! “Nuclear family” is a term from the 1950’s – don’t take us back there.
9 – You need to read the science of biology class…again. The male seashore is the one who’s pregnant, not the females. That IS science.
10 – Are we also free NOT to believe in God or A god? You speak of God as an absolute – where’s your scientific proof? Does your God also create narrow-minded human beings.
11 – I hope you’re not a tea drinker. Most tea comes from China. And coffee comes from…oh, forget it. You wouldn’t understand.
Thank you.
Thank you for a great response to Senator Scott. He obviously appeals to the uneducated, like Trump.
#4-The wall.
The only ones to do justice to The Wall were Pink Floyd.
Sounds like a GOP agenda, not an American agenda.
These neo-fascists want to remake our nation according to their own bias.
These Russia RepubliQans are vexing. Our judicial system functioned properly by exterminating the scores of junk lawsuits claiming massive voter fraud. Yet those like Scott continue to shovel the Putin puppet’s Big Lie to the detriment of our democracy. Like Fox “News” and Tucker, the “Guardians Of Putin” party have become yet another subsidiary of the Kremlin’s global outreach program.
Let’s stop helping Pat Buchanan- he’s the one who began the “culture war” narrative’s spread and continues to promote it today. (The term originated with a sociologist 30 years ago.)
The headline that exposes the success of Buchanan’s polarizing “culture war” narrative is, “Huge surge in media coverage….The way that political parties and the media engage in these debates plays a role in growing division.” What Buchanan has achieved is nothing short of a coup. “Culture war framing sorts partisanship into a mega identity.” *
I recognize the knee-jerk reaction that sends some people at this blog running off the cliff in denial (or, acquiescence) when the truth about right wing religion is exposed. The U.S. DOES NOT have a “culture war”. The coup’s leaders are conservative Christian nationalists including Catholic and evangelical protestant. Theocracy is the threat not some unconnected, sanitized language about culture.
Read the interview posted at the Pat Buchanan site written by Ryan Girdusky (founder of the 1776 PAC that funds school board members who oppose CRT.)
“How culture wars start”, 5/24/21, King’s College London
No mention here of the tax plan of SEN Scott (R-Medicare Fraud) — ensure all Americans, no matter how poor, pay income tax. So you’re making $10/hour and your rent just jumped 30%? If you can pay rent, you can pay taxes. Can’t pay rent? That’s more money for taxes.
Something about blood, turnips, I forget.
If it harms the 90%, it will find a way to the legislative agenda. Whereas, billionaires never get taxed nor are denied control e.g. Bill and Melinda Gates, tyrants in the state of Washington. and the world.
I’m glad he at least acknowledged that the Earth was round. I wonder if he and his advisors had a heated debate over this? In all seriousness, this reminds me of Gingrich’s “Contract with America” where he had no intention of bringing it into law. The entire Republican strategy is to entangle government so much that it cannot operate through obstruction, grievance, and cultural politics. Scott represents a segment of polity that has lived off of the grift in perpetuity and relishes a world where there is no accountability for “robber barons.” If voters don’t wake up soon, he may get his wish.
Rick Scott’s woke cultural view reflects on a bizarre world of Florida’s education gag order.
https://www.the74million.org/article/florida-gop-lawmakers-are-creating-an-education-system-of-censorship-cloaked-in-individual-freedom/
Words of a demented foolish criminal who should be in chains in a jail cell.