Thursday, June 30, 2011

Perry, Scott AWOL at Kochfest during state emergencies

Hard to imagine that a governor would abandon a state during a disaster. Even harder to imagine that a governor would do it to attend a fundraiser by  union-busting, oil-speculating, thieving billionaires in order to figure out new ways to attack the middle class.

But that's exactly what Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Florida Gov. Rick Scott did last weekend. ThinkProgress has the story:
As Texas faced some of the worst wildfires in its history and a severe drought crisis that has caused the federal government to declare the entire state a disaster area, its governor was schmoozing with well-heeled conservative donors in Vail, Colorado at a retreat organized by the right-wing industrialist Koch brothers. Gov. Rick Perry (R) left his state without notifying constituents or the press and dodged inquiries into his whereabouts....Perry has spent the past two months complaining that the Obama administration has not been paying enough attention to his state’s fires.
Meanwhile, in Florida, days after declaring a state of emergency for his state’s own climate crisis, Gov. Rick Scott (R) disappeared over the weekend, failing to disclose his whereabouts in his public schedule and refusing to respond to numerous press inquiries. Yesterday, Scott finally admitted he left the state without informing his constituents to attend the the Koch summit. Florida press spent most of the past few days trying to track down the rogue governor while more than 300 wildfires continue to burn in the state...
That's leadership for you.