Adult "Bat Boy," a/k/a Rick Scott
20. Rick Scott: You have a friend on Facebook who updated his status with something like this: ”post this as your status if you think all welfare/UEI recipients should be drug tested. They’re all just puffing up ratings for the Price Is Right, so let’s make them jump through as many hoops as possible in this awesome job market. It’s a great use of state resources. USA! Also…fuck ‘em.”
Now imagine you are the governor of an awful state and implemented said policy because it’s the ultimate in pandering. (Also, it’s always cool uniting behind facebook campaigns….Matt and 211,932 others like “orange highlighters.”)
Then imagine that before you were governor you were CEO of a company found guilty of the largest Medicaid fraud in the country’s history.
Let he who has not overbilled Medicare cast the first reimbursement.
Of course, the drug testing ended up costing the state more than it’s worth to deny benefits to the 2% of recipients who failed the drug tests. (If the state tested elected officials, I would bet $1.7 billion that more than 2% would drop “positive.” )
Oh, and it might be unconstitutional as a clear violation of the 4th Amendment. However, BO/W have made sure the 4th is the Tito or Jermaine of Amendments.
Stay true to form, Rick. See you next year.
19. Fmr. Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan: Can be located in cell block 3 of Patrick J. Sullivan Detention Facility.
18. Mike Allen: If you boiled down the smugly nonsensical petri dish of cable news to print form, you would have Politico. Mike Allen is its chief political reporter. He’s also a talking point wrapped in a talking point pretending to do real journalism in talking point form, with the apparent lack of any discerning value system.
He clocked in at #9 on Alex Parenee’s 2011 Hack 30 List, and god willing he’ll one day reach the top of that City on a Hill.
17. Bank of America: Since corporations are now people, they can now be included . (Thanks John Roberts, Chief Justice of the US Chamber of Commerce Supreme Court!)
In June, Bof A settled claims against its adopted lovechild Countrywide for a very light $8.5B. While simultaneously putting their hand out to the TARP gatekeepers, BofA continued attempts to foreclose on Americans who weren’t even behind in their payments. Beyond the hidden fees and all the other Big Bank bullshit, they’re also really good at foreclosing on military families.
Purple Mountains Majesty!
16. Jon Corzine: Even among elected Democrats, Corzine’s duplicity stands out in technicolor. The former NJ Governor drove MFGF into the ground while practicing the same behavior he long condemned. In other words, the Goldman Sachs Way. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
When I read MF Global Finance’s second-quarter results, though, what popped out at me was its compensation expenses: 64 percent of revenues went to compensation. In any industry but Wall Street, that would be obscene. Indeed, in a talk he gave at Princeton last year, Corzine said that he’d been “arguing about compensation sins of Wall Street” for decades. Not enough to actually do anything about it, though, once he was back in charge of a firm.
Then there’s Corzine’s own compensation. When he walked in the door, he negotiated a salary of $1.5 million. (Incredibly, MF Global Holdings paid a $400,000 fee to Corzine’s lawyers.) He also received a signing bonus of $1.5 million, and $11 million in stock options.
But here’s the kicker. Like many executives — on Wall Street and off — Corzine’s agreement also covered his eventual departure. If he left MF Global because, say, it was sold, his $11 million in stock options would immediately vest, and he would get a $12.1 million golden parachute. Of course, the MF Global proxy statement doesn’t call it a golden parachute. It calls the payment “severance.”
There’s more to the story. When Joe Nocera wrote this killer column earlier this week, it hadn’t even come out yet that….THE MONEY’S GONE!!!
Federal regulators have discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing from MF Global in recent days, prompting an investigation into the brokerage firm, which is run by Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor, several people briefed on the matter said on Monday.
15. Charlie Sheen: next.
14. Joe Walsh: The Illinois rep. is a self-proclaimed “family values” tea partier who differs with his family’s value by the $100,000 he owes in child support. However, he loves to take personal responsibility and blame any of his kids’ debt on Obama. He yells at constituents and doesn’t think a single bank has done a single thing wrong. He’s also a 2nd Amendment revolution troll. All around great guy. Well done, IL-8.
BTW, The Family Research Council Action gave Walsh an award for his “unwavering support of the family,” because of course they did.
13. Evan Bayh: A Man Of Honor.
A week ago, this House bill passed the Oklahoma Education Committee:
