Florida has always been a state of con artists and tricksters. So what else is new?
Horton hears a who knows
Studied ignorance is the political gift that keeps on giving.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Floriduh, has spent virtually his entire political career – beginning as governor – ignoring environmental protections and keeping government from even acknowledging climate change, let alone do anything about it.
But things have changed, Now that Scott is facing a tough re-election – and trying to look concerned while meeting with victims of Hurricane Helene – he’s finally ready to concede that climate change is a thing.
If only we had a clue as to what’s causing it.
Scott certainly doesn’t:
Who knows? Who knows what the reason is, but something is changing. Massive storms. Massive storm surge. So we’ve got to figure this out.
Which is not to say that Scott isn’t without solutions to this most mysterious malady:
You’re going to have to build higher.
By which he presumably means that we’ve got to start perching seaside buildings on really really high stilts so that even the most powerful storm surge will wash harmlessly underneath them.
Not sure exactly how deeply into the ground said stilts will have to be driven in order to keep eroding sand from tumbling those high houses into the sea.
But listen, Scott’s an idea man, not a detail man. Let the scientists figure it out.
Still, Sen. Who Knows, R-Clueless, had his skillful studied ignorance blown out of the, um, water almost immediately by the on-line news service Florida Phoenix.
Well, we know,” Susan Glickman, a longtime and well respected environmental lobbyist told Florida Phoenix.
We know that Rick Scott has invested tens of millions of dollars in gas and utility companies that spew climate pollution. And we know they benefited from his votes. We know that – in part due to actions by Rick Scott – Florida is dangerously over-reliant on methane gas for power – around 75%,”
And we know that climate pollution from Scott’s gas investments is warming the planet. We know warming melts glaciers, raising sea levels. Rick Scott may not know, but we do, that sea rise contributes to the historic storm surge we’re seeing.
And we know that, because of warming, we are experiencing unparalleled rapid intensification from hot ocean temperatures. And we also know that Rick Scott has some responsibility for the fact that power bills are through the roof. He approved power plants and pipelines that we never needed.
Who knew?
The voters, hopefully
Florida vanishing cream
When Russian nobleman Grigory Potemkin heard that Empress Catherine The Great would be passing through his land, he wanted to really impress her.
So he put up fake pasteboard villages and posted smiling, waving pheasants out front of them to show Catherine just how prosperous was his realm.
Hence the term Potemkin village to describe just how far politicians and con artists will go to give the appearance that all is well.
So when Floriduh’s State Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Nothing To See Here Folks, went to Denver and saw homeless people blatantly sleeping in the streets he came home determined to “solve the problem.”
The “problem” being that respectable people just hate seeing homeless people sleeping in the streets.
That’s why, beginning Oct. 1, cities and counties will have the obligation to roust people who are illegally sleeping in public parks and on sidewalks.
And if they fail to do so, come Jan. 1, residents, business owners and even the state’s attorney general, will be able to sue cities and counties that fail to render sleeping homeless people invisible to respectable eyeballs.
Problem solved.
Hopefully, GNV’s illegal public sleepers will avail themselves of accommodations at Grace Marketplace. Some may end up in jail, though local law enforcement is hoping to avoid that possibility.
But some homeless campers, for a variety of reasons, won’t go to Grace.
Some will simply go deeper into the woods.
Where they will at least have the decency to remain be out of sight and out of mind.
Of course living in the woods, without sanitation and beyond the reach of local assistance efforts isn’t exactly a “solution.”
“Florida can be a leader in the laboratory of democracy for trying to develop a model that combines both a carrot and a stick,” pontificates Garrison, R-Vanishing Cream.
Um, exactly what carrot, Sam?
More realistic is the assessment of Jon DeCarmine, director at Grace, which is currently adding 20 more beds, for a total of 170, in anticipation of an uptick in demand.
DeCarmine told me:
The Legislature hasn’t solve the problem, they are just making it less visual. If they want to get people off the streets they have to have a place for them to go. There is no data to show that prohibiting public camping is going to solve the problem.
The genius of Garrison’s “solution” lies in its cost-effectiveness.
Why, Florida won’t even have to erect pasteboard villages behind which to hide homeless sleepers.
FreeGNV 