Okay, so Trump picked Rick Scott to be his “point man” on the GOP plan to revise health care. I don’t think “point man” was in any way related to Scott’s head. But, ya never know.

Okay, so here’s my question.

Why would you pick a guy who reset the meter on the largest Medicare fraud in history while he was CEO of Columbia/HCA?

Among many other things, Colombia “billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or had not been ordered by physicians.  They also attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals.”

In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines, civil damages and penalties.

Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.

During his 2010 race, the Miami Herald reported that Scott had said he would have immediately stopped his company from committing fraud — if only “somebody told me something was wrong.” But there were such warnings in the company’s annual public reports to stockholders — which Scott had to sign as president and CEO.

Back then Scott stole from the government to let his company save money.  Now that the role is reversed, who is he going to steal from to make the government save money?  Me.  That’s who. Me.

All the best people.

Thanks to Deb T for the heads up.

Okay, so William Barr wrote a letter last Friday (news dump day) to Lindsey Graham and  Jerry Nadler.  It went something like this right here.

He no longer claims it is a “summary” of the findings, but now he wants to make it very clear that it’s  “a summary of its principal conclusions.”

So maybe Barr might be concerned that his original “summary” diverges from the actual findings of the Mueller report?  I’m wondering if the Mueller report might have some wiggle-room showing a little hanky-panky with Russia during the election.

You also gotta wonder if there’s evidence that Trump obstructed justice but Mueller can’t indict the president under justice department guidelines so he left that to the attorney general  who is … William Barr, the writer of the “summary.”

So Barr gives Trump a victory tour claiming total vindication and Trump’s followers dance in the streets.  Will they care about a second report saying, “oops, not so fast”?  Nope. Fake news.

Slimy sumbitches.

Trump tweeted something about the Republican health care plan that caught my eye.

So their plan is … trust us until we are in complete control and Democrats have no voice whatsoever.

That’s a helluva plan.

Okay, remember the new Texas Secretary of State who screwed up voter registration in Texas and announced that 95,000 potential noncitizens had registered to vote in violation of state law?  And the rightwing and Donald Trump were dancing around and drooling and local voter registrars were going to the expense of sending out letters to these people making them come into the office to prove they were citizens?

Remember that?

Well, the same thing happened to him that happens to every Republican who makes enormous mistakes that vilify people and waste taxpayer money: He got a 49% pay raise.

Yeah, he was in office less than five weeks, screwed everything up, and Governor Abbott rewarded him.

The day after David Whitley took office as Texas secretary of state on Dec. 17, he received a 49 percent pay raise thanks to his friend and political patron, Gov. Greg Abbott.

In a Dec. 18 letter to the Legislative Budget Board, the governor’s chief of staff said Abbott was using his authority to immediately raise Whitley’s annual salary to $197,415.

That’s almost $64,500 more than the $132,924 paid to Rolando Pablos, the Abbott appointee who was secretary of state before Whitley.

He’s a close friend and former chief of staff to Governor Abbott so he deserves it no matter how incompetent he is.

All the best people, all the best people.

If you’ve never heard of Pete Olson, it’s because he is called “furniture.”  That’s because it is hard to distinguish between him and the hall tree.

Come to find out that Pete just completely forgot to put one of his contributions on his 48 hour before election contribution report.

I can’t imagine Pete not wanting us to know everybody who gave him money before election day.

Click the little one to see the big one.

Oddly enough, there is no one by that name registered to vote in Texas.  But, there is a guy living here who has a Florida corporation.

I’m just real sure that Pete, who loves Jesus so much, would not lie about who is giving him money.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.  

El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are all subject to cuts in foreign aid under Donald Trump.

Fox reports.  You decide.

As my friend Deb T explains …

Well, it IS Latin America, so there are *six* Mexicos:

Mexico
Mexicas
Mexicat
Mexicamus
Mexicatis
Mexicant

The real question is, of course, which Mexico will pay for the Wall? On the bright side, this means only ONE of the Mexicos refused to pay for The Wall. Donnie should now ask the OTHER TWO Mexicos to pay. (SCREAMS INTO A PILLOW, pounds head against wall!)

On the other hand, he could mean, Mexico, New Mexico and … uh … Rosa’s Taco Hut.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.