Before You Vote GOP for Governor, Look Around

We Kentucky dems bitch non-stop about our Governor Steve "Cowardly Waste of Oxygen" Beshear. We hate him so much we are very likely to either sit out the election this November or cast a vote for Insane All-Abortion-Is-Murder Freakazoid Gatewood Galbraith, thus allowing repub Senate President David Williams to win.

Beshear is certainly a painful disappointment who richly deserves to lose, but Kentucky does not deserve the corporatist takeover that GOP governors elected last year have launched all over the country.

Beshear probably won't deny voting rights to everyone who is not a white Xian repug male, or cancel employee rights for 35,000 state employees, or authorize a takeover of an elected municipal government, or pay for huge corporate tax breaks by firing thousands of teachers, or eliminate nursing home inspections or perform any of the other unconsitutional, anti-American stunts that have made GOP governors despised across the nation.

Alternet has the details on the 8 worst governors in America:

When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker rammed his union-busting bill through the legislature -- and then published it despite a judge's stay -- he seemed a lock for the honor of the Worst Governor in the United States. But then again, there are a lot of truly terrible executives in various state-houses these days.

So let's look at some of the others who might also vie for the title of America's Worst Governor -- to nobody's surprise, they're all Republicans!

The Governor: Rick Scott (Florida)

Rick Scott was once the CEO of Columbia/HCA, a massive hospital chain. The federal government fined Columbia/HCA for Medicaid and Medicare fraud. That fine, a jaw-dropping 1.7 billion dollars, is the largest in American history.

But instead of going to jail, Rick Scott became the governor of Florida.

A guy scams the government and now is an elected official of the government. And in the three months since he's been in office he's doing his best to destroy the fourth largest state.

1. He rejected $2.4 billion in stimulus money to build a high-speed rail line from Tampa to Orlando.

2. He wants to slash $4 billion in spending while cutting taxes for millionaires.

3. He tried to use state funds to build golf courses in state parks while cutting education by 10 percent and corporate taxes by 5 percent.

4. He's requiring 600,000 government workers (including police officers, teachers, firefighters, judges, and retirees) to contribute 5 percent to their retirement.

5. He just lopped off $2,300 a year in teacher salary to give massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.

He's also not a fan of black people. He proposed eliminating state support for two HBCUs (Historically black colleges and universities). He's shutting down a state agency that assists minority businesses, and he refuses to appoint an African American to any significant position in his administration.

Read the whole thing. They cover Walker (WI), Paul LePage (ME), Rick Perry (TX), Jan Brewer (AZ)), Rick Snyder (MI), Tom Corbett (PA) and John Kasich (OH), but miss what Down with Tyranny calls New Jersey's loudmouthed Limbaughesque slob, Chris Christie.

So, Kentucky. Gubernatorial election in November. I pleaded for a Real Democratic to step up and challenge Beshear in the May primary, but Beshear cowardice is apparently contagious. And they all think Williams is going to win no matter who is on the Democratic ticket.

I think Williams is going to win, too, but I'm no longer shrugging it off. Repug governors are destroying the structures of democracy. They are tearing the viscera out of the body politic and feeding it to the corporate vultures.

Kentucky has fallen so far thanks to Beshear's neglect that I have a hard time imagining what Williams could do to make it any worse. But that's exactly what terrifies me. Democratic voters in Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio and Florida and Pennsylvania and Texas and Arizona and Maine and New Jersey never imagined that punishing Democrats at the ballot box would result in widespread catastrophe.

You really think David Williams is not going to try to beat them at the Game of Anarchy?

Vote for Steve Beshear. Crawl into your hazmat suit, turn on the pure oxygen and vote for the worthless fucker. Do it with the vision of Rick Scott, burning Florida to the ground, in front of you.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....