Well, maybe not EVER (that list might have to include both California’s Pete Wilson and der Gropenfhurer), but here are the five worst who are currently in office, and boy, we had to leave off some doozies:
5. Jan Brewer, R – Arizona
Known primarily for her heartless campaign against immigrants, at the expense of Arizona’s agriculture and tourist industries, not to mention humanity, Brewer has done so much more to deserve a spot on this list, including (but NOT limited to):
Cutting off all federal money funneled through Arizona for non-abortion health care work done by Planned Parenthood. The effect was ending preventative health care and family planning services for 20,000 women;
A mere four months after the Tucson shooting spree that killed six including a federal judge and in which Arizona Democratic Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded, signing into law a bill establishing the Colt Single Action Army Revolver as the State Gun of Arizona;
Displaying such disgusting partisanship that she actually vetoed a bill establishing a community service award for high school students because it was conceived by a Democrat-leaning high school student and sponsored by a Democratic state senator;
Defunding a state program that paid for life-saving organ transplants, even after wide-spread opposition, documented cases of Arizona residents who were now facing death with no hope, all the while funds were diverted to fixing sports arena roofs and similar non-urgent purposes; and
The mere fact of her utter stupidity, as evidenced by numerous campaign appearances in 2010 when somehow, the people of Arizona elected her to retain the position that she originally attained by being in the wrong place at the wrong time – things like freezing when given her turn for an opening statement at a debate, and repeatedly alleging the existence of “headless bodies” found in the Arizona desert.
4. Rick Perry, R – Texas
Perry just does not get enough credit for making Texas one of the very first states to pass one of those trans-vaginal-probe laws that dehumanize women and restrict the Constitutional right to choose. Perry does, however, seem to get plenty of credit for making Texas the execution capital of the modern world, giddily overseeing 234 executions in his first 11 years in office, more than any other two states have seen… over the past 35 years. And OF COURSE Texas has passed one of the most restrictive of the myriad number of new voter registration laws, Perry’s version making people gathering registration forms liable for criminal penalties for the most minute of clerical errors, and prohibiting the use of student IDs to register, while okaying the use of licenses to carry concealed weapons.
3. Scott Walker, R – Wisconsin
How much do we really need to say about Walker, the man whose missions in life are to terminate the very existence of unions and lick the collective asses of the Koch Brothers. Upon taking office, Walker created a budget deficit by drastically cutting corporate taxes, along with environmental protections, as the first couple of gifts to his Koch benefactors. He then alleged the state was broke due to union contracts and collective bargaining, and rammed through his right wing legislature new laws to end collective bargaining of public sector unions and place additional onerous restrictions on unions. The protests and recalls of the past year could only slow his battle plans. Withstanding his own recall has now made him stronger and bolder, thanks of course to $50 M in Koch Brothers, Koch Brother crony, and out-of-state money.
2. Rick Scott, R – Florida
It is absolutely amazing that Scott is not number one, with this record of dishonesty and disregard of the human condition. Here are only three of oh, so many examples:
A. His hatred for President Obama and the Affordable Care Act led him to reject $200 M in ACA funds that would have provided heath care to uninsured Florida children. 16% of Florida children are uninsured, 6% above the national average. Also, Scott’s State Dept of Insurance has requested a waiver of the share of rebates Florida residents would receive under the 80/20 provision of the ACA (See “Will the Supreme Ct Keep Health Insurers From Paying Out Refunds?”);
B. Prior to becoming governor, Scott operated Solantic Corp., a chain of 32 urgent care centers (with an estimated value of $62 M; he owned the controlling interest). Upon election as governor, title was transferred to his wife. As governor, Scott has closed public health clinics, switched 3 million Medicaid patients to private clinics, and forced through laws requiring government employees and welfare recipients to pass drug tests. And just WHO has received governments contract to handle much of this? Solantic; and
C. Scott’s voter suppression operation has sought to remove hundreds of thousands of Florida residents from voter rolls. Alleging that these people, most clearly long-time Florida residents, most with voting records and records of living and working in Florida for decades, and virtually all in groups most associated with voting Democratic, were not US citizens. The burden was placed on the people to prove that they are citizens to return their names to the voter rolls;
1. Rick Snyder, R – Michigan
As bad as these others are, they have not actually accomplished their goal of removing Democracy from state and local government. Snyder has done it in Michigan. After enlarging upon the state’s Emergency Manager Legislation, and putting it into action immediately (and unlawfully as he and his puppet legislature has repeatedly done (see “About the Michigan Story” from the Maddow Blog), Snyder has removed democratically elected city governments, and replaced them each with his own personal stooge, denying any authority whatsoever to mayors, city councils, and other elected officials, and ruling as a dictator.
This has happened in the cities of Flint, Pontiac, Ecorse, and Benton Harbor, and with numerous school districts in Detroit, Highland Park, and Muskegon Heights, with many more takeovers in the planning stages.
The most egregious situation has been in Benton Harbor, where the Snyder-imposed Manager had sought to sell off city property, including the city-owned radio station, license and all, and which he had illegally listed for sale on eBay. Here is the exact language of the edict issued to the elected city government: “No City Board, Commission or Authority shall take any action for or on behalf of the City whatsoever other than: i) Call a meeting to order, ii) Approve of meeting minutes, iii) Adjourn a meeting.”
The town’s major asset, beautiful and vast lakefront property that was a gift to the city decades ago, was however, at the center of the takeover. A deal has been in the works by der Manager to permanently deny the citizenry of access to the property and the lake, and sell it off to a developer with plans to build a massive member/owners only private golf resort. We should also mention the fact that the population of Benton Harbor is 90% African American. Who needs Democracy? Certainly not the good people of Michigan.
Thanks, Governor Rick Snyder, for relieving the people of Michigan of this horrible burden of having to Democratically govern their own communities..
Isn’t it amazing that, purely by coincidence, all five are republicans? Amazing.
