Rick Scott's Fraud Settlement Resurfaces as Senate GOP Runs Low on Cash

[RayGravesGhost]

A leopard can't change its spots....



https://www.newsweek.com/rick-scotts-fraud-settlement-resurfaces-senate-gop-runs-low-cash-1735418
Rick Scott's Fraud Settlement Resurfaces as Senate GOP Runs Low on Cash
BY JASON LEMON ON 8/20/22 AT 1:36 PM EDT

Critics of Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), resurfaced a past Medicare fraud settlement from his tenure as CEO of a hospital corporation, as his committee reportedly is running short on cash and pulling ads in support of GOP Senate candidates with less than three months until the midterm election.

The NRSC is the primary organization working to raise funds and support Republican candidates in the party's bid to take back the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. Scott has led the committee since January 2021, but The Washington Post reported on Friday that campaign advisers are asking "where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee's finances" as the NRSC pulls ads and runs low on funds.

Many on Twitter pointed to Scott's past Medicare fraud scandal during his time as CEO of Columbia/HCA. When Scott was deposed in 2000 amid the investigation, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times.

Columbia/HCA later reached a settlement with the Justice Department of $840 million in 2000, and another settlement of $881 million in 2002, with the combined fines totaling $1.7 billion. At the time, this was the record health care fraud settlement, although it has since been surpassed, according to PolitiFact.

"Rick Scott oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in history, so the GOP in its genius put him in charge of its national campaign fund and now is wondering where all its money went. Incredible," writer Gary Legum posted to Twitter, commenting on the Post's reporting.





"There's clearly been some shift in momentum over the summer. But fundraising collapses like this don't happen in a week or a month. Did Rick Scott defraud the NRSC like he did Medicare? How on earth can they be out of money after a year of gop surge?" Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall tweeted.





"Rick Scott has gotten amazingly far in politics for a guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history but I'm not sure why you'd put the guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history in charge of a large sum of money," writer and editor Matthew Yglesias tweeted.





The Post reported that the NRSC has rapidly burned through its funds, despite its record fundraising. The committee raked in $173 million this election cycle, the report said, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Despite that massive haul, the NRSC had less than $29 million on hand at the end of June.

An NRSC spokesperson told the Post that the committee planned to spend more money in support of Republican Senate candidates at more crucial moments.


"Our goal was to keep our candidates afloat and get them to this point where they're still in the game in all our top states," committee spokesperson Chris Hartline said. "So when the big spending starts now we have a fighting chance."

Newsweek reached out to Scott's press representatives and Hartline for comment.

 

[RayGravesGhost]

https://news.yahoo.com/republicans-demand-know-happened-vanishing-141539162.html
Republicans Demand To Know What Happened To Vanishing GOP Millions
Mary Papenfuss
Sat, August 20, 2022 at 10:15 AM·2 min read


National Republican Senatorial Committee funds declined to just $28.4 million by the end of June. (Photo: Manuel Augusto Moreno via Getty Images)

A number of Republican strategists and consultants are growing increasingly dismayed about millions of dollars vanishing at the National Republican Senatorial Committee — just when the funds are needed most, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Cash at the national campaign fund is dwindling as candidates head into the final stretch of Senate races across the U.S.

“If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired,” a national Republican consultant working on Senate races told the newspaper, referring to the committee.


“There needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered,” added the consultant, who spoke to the outlet on condition of anonymity. “It’s a rip-off.”

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the NRSC, has been attacked by Republicans for featuring himself in ads and releasing a policy agenda that caused trouble for the GOP, leading to quips that “NRSC” stands for “National Rick Scott Committee.”

NRSC funds had reportedly reached $173 million this election cycle but were already down to $28.4 million by the end of June.

The committee spent more than $12 million on American Express credit cardpayments with an unclear purpose, along with $13 million for consultants and $9 million on debt payments, the Post said.

Now, a number of Republican candidates are struggling to raise money ahead of the general elections in November.

“It’s surprising and says a lot about the Republican brand that their candidates have struggled to raise money,” J.B. Poersch, the president of the Democratic-allied Senate Majority PAC, told the Post.

“With extreme candidates and extreme positions, maybe Republican donors are finding these candidates are out of step with where they are,” he said. “Maybe voters are feeling the same way.”

 

[RayGravesGhost]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/15/gop-slashes-ads-in-key-senate-battlegrounds-00051969
GOP slashes ads in key Senate battlegrounds
NRSC cancels over $10 million in ad buys as candidates struggle with fundraising.

By NATALIE ALLISON
08/15/2022 04:40 PM EDT

As midterm election campaigns heat up in the Senate’s top battlegrounds, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is canceling millions of dollars of ad spending, sending GOP campaigns and operatives into a panic and upending the committee’s initial spending plan.

The cuts — totaling roughly $13.5 million since Aug. 1 — come as the Republicans’ Senate campaign committee is being forced to “stretch every dollar we can,” said a person familiar with the NRSC’s deliberations. Republican nominees in critical states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — places the GOP must defend this fall — have failed to raise enough money to get on air themselves, requiring the NRSC to make cuts elsewhere to accommodate.

Since Aug. 1, the NRSC has cut ad buys in the battleground states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million), according to the ad tracking service AdImpact. Separately, a Democratic source tracking advertising buys estimated roughly $10.5 million in cuts by the NRSC since the first of the month.

“People are asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said one Republican strategist working on Senate races. “Why are we cutting in August? I’ve never seen it like this before.”

While the scale of these cuts is unprecedented, the NRSC is also ahead of its typical schedule on its ad spending, having already spent $36.5 million on television spots this cycle, as opposed to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s $1.9 million to date. Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the NRSC, announced earlier this year the campaign committee would be spending sooner than in years past. It was a necessary change, Scott said, to prevent Democrats from having the airwaves to themselves all summer.

“We’ve been creative in how we’re spending our money and will continue to make sure that every dollar spent by the NRSC is done in the most efficient and effective way possible,” said Chris Hartline, NRSC spokesperson. “Nothing has changed about our commitment to winning in all of our target states.”

The person familiar with the NRSC’s deliberations said the committee is swapping some of its independent expenditure spending for coordinated and hybrid spending with campaigns. The latter category imposes more rules on how much can be spent and what the ads can say, though it allows the committee to purchase ad time at a candidate discount, rather than a much steeper outside group rate.

But the numbers show that the NRSC has cut significantly more than it has booked back, indicating a potential cash strain at the committee. Second-quarter filings showed the DSCC had nearly twice the cash on hand as its Republican counterpart, $53.5 million to the NRSC’s $28.5 million.

Another Republican strategist referred to the recent cuts as “unreal,” noting that the NRSC had not eliminated any ad time in New Hampshire, where there won’t be a GOP nominee until mid-September — and where there’s no clear frontrunner in the meantime.

The NRSC earlier this month also spent a combined $1 million on ads in Washington and Colorado, two blue states that are considered unlikely but potential pickup opportunities for Republicans.

While the GOP committee is making a perplexing number of mid-August cuts, the organization could still book back that time over the next 2½ months. And between what the NRSC has already spent on television this cycle and what it has reserved for the rest of fall, the Republican committee has still purchased significantly more than the DSCC, though Democrats will likely reserve more air time in the coming weeks.

“While Rick Scott’s failed leadership of the NRSC continues to be one of Senate Democrats’ greatest assets,” said David Bergstein, spokesperson for the DSCC, “we know McConnell’s super PAC will have significant resources in the weeks ahead and we are continuing to take nothing for granted in each of our battleground races.”

Bergstein was referring to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that has reserved $150 million in ads this fall. Its first spots begin airing Friday in Pennsylvania.

 

[Dr. Curmudgeon]

A leopard can't change its spots....



https://www.newsweek.com/rick-scotts-fraud-settlement-resurfaces-senate-gop-runs-low-cash-1735418
Rick Scott's Fraud Settlement Resurfaces as Senate GOP Runs Low on Cash
BY JASON LEMON ON 8/20/22 AT 1:36 PM EDT

Critics of Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), resurfaced a past Medicare fraud settlement from his tenure as CEO of a hospital corporation, as his committee reportedly is running short on cash and pulling ads in support of GOP Senate candidates with less than three months until the midterm election.

The NRSC is the primary organization working to raise funds and support Republican candidates in the party's bid to take back the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. Scott has led the committee since January 2021, but The Washington Post reported on Friday that campaign advisers are asking "where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee's finances" as the NRSC pulls ads and runs low on funds.

Many on Twitter pointed to Scott's past Medicare fraud scandal during his time as CEO of Columbia/HCA. When Scott was deposed in 2000 amid the investigation, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times.

Columbia/HCA later reached a settlement with the Justice Department of $840 million in 2000, and another settlement of $881 million in 2002, with the combined fines totaling $1.7 billion. At the time, this was the record health care fraud settlement, although it has since been surpassed, according to PolitiFact.

"Rick Scott oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in history, so the GOP in its genius put him in charge of its national campaign fund and now is wondering where all its money went. Incredible," writer Gary Legum posted to Twitter, commenting on the Post's reporting.

View embedded media

"There's clearly been some shift in momentum over the summer. But fundraising collapses like this don't happen in a week or a month. Did Rick Scott defraud the NRSC like he did Medicare? How on earth can they be out of money after a year of gop surge?" Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall tweeted.

View embedded media

"Rick Scott has gotten amazingly far in politics for a guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history but I'm not sure why you'd put the guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history in charge of a large sum of money," writer and editor Matthew Yglesias tweeted.

View embedded media

The Post reported that the NRSC has rapidly burned through its funds, despite its record fundraising. The committee raked in $173 million this election cycle, the report said, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Despite that massive haul, the NRSC had less than $29 million on hand at the end of June.

An NRSC spokesperson told the Post that the committee planned to spend more money in support of Republican Senate candidates at more crucial moments.


"Our goal was to keep our candidates afloat and get them to this point where they're still in the game in all our top states," committee spokesperson Chris Hartline said. "So when the big spending starts now we have a fighting chance."

Newsweek reached out to Scott's press representatives and Hartline for comment.

Is this similar to Ms. AOC's spending of campaign funds on personal items and vacations?

 

[RayGravesGhost]

No it means the RNC is low on cash and Scott is being called out for it...

Since Aug. 1, the NRSC has cut ad buys in the battleground states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million), according to the ad tracking service AdImpact. Separately, a Democratic source tracking advertising buys estimated roughly $10.5 million in cuts by the NRSC since the first of the month.

“People are asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said one Republican strategist working on Senate races. “Why are we cutting in August? I’ve never seen it like this before.”

“While Rick Scott’s failed leadership of the NRSC continues to be one of Senate Democrats’ greatest assets,” said David Bergstein, spokesperson for the DSCC, “we know McConnell’s super PAC will have significant resources in the weeks ahead and we are continuing to take nothing for granted in each of our battleground races.”

 

[Mdfgator]

this guy is a crook through and through

 

[grandhavendiddy]

No it means the RNC is low on cash and Scott is being called out for it...

Since Aug. 1, the NRSC has cut ad buys in the battleground states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million), according to the ad tracking service AdImpact. Separately, a Democratic source tracking advertising buys estimated roughly $10.5 million in cuts by the NRSC since the first of the month.

“People are asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said one Republican strategist working on Senate races. “Why are we cutting in August? I’ve never seen it like this before.”

“While Rick Scott’s failed leadership of the NRSC continues to be one of Senate Democrats’ greatest assets,” said David Bergstein, spokesperson for the DSCC, “we know McConnell’s super PAC will have significant resources in the weeks ahead and we are continuing to take nothing for granted in each of our battleground races.”

Ray - you are spot on here. Between the amazingly poor candidates (Oz?) and Rick Scott's financial malfeasance, I am not at all surprised that the Republicans are finding, yet again, a way to blow the senate majority.

Just a bit of discipline and they should have had historic gains.

They will blame it on election fraud (and I agree with them on the new voting measures in Florida, Texas, etc.) or some other way to not ask themselves the hard questions on why this is getting screwed up.

It's a shame. While this happens, borders will run wide open, crime will go up, federal institutions will go only partially checked, etc.

 

[Capt Ron 1]

New conservative group gets $1.6 billion donation to spend during midterms and beyond

Conservative nonprofit led by Leonard Loe was given $1.6B to spend during the 2022 midterms and into the 2024 election cycle as well, according to the New York Times

www.foxnews.com

A little reality for the resident snowflakes who are desperate.....

 

[gatordad3]

A leopard can't change its spots....



https://www.newsweek.com/rick-scotts-fraud-settlement-resurfaces-senate-gop-runs-low-cash-1735418
Rick Scott's Fraud Settlement Resurfaces as Senate GOP Runs Low on Cash
BY JASON LEMON ON 8/20/22 AT 1:36 PM EDT

Critics of Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), resurfaced a past Medicare fraud settlement from his tenure as CEO of a hospital corporation, as his committee reportedly is running short on cash and pulling ads in support of GOP Senate candidates with less than three months until the midterm election.

The NRSC is the primary organization working to raise funds and support Republican candidates in the party's bid to take back the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. Scott has led the committee since January 2021, but The Washington Post reported on Friday that campaign advisers are asking "where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee's finances" as the NRSC pulls ads and runs low on funds.

Many on Twitter pointed to Scott's past Medicare fraud scandal during his time as CEO of Columbia/HCA. When Scott was deposed in 2000 amid the investigation, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times.

Columbia/HCA later reached a settlement with the Justice Department of $840 million in 2000, and another settlement of $881 million in 2002, with the combined fines totaling $1.7 billion. At the time, this was the record health care fraud settlement, although it has since been surpassed, according to PolitiFact.

"Rick Scott oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in history, so the GOP in its genius put him in charge of its national campaign fund and now is wondering where all its money went. Incredible," writer Gary Legum posted to Twitter, commenting on the Post's reporting.

View embedded media

"There's clearly been some shift in momentum over the summer. But fundraising collapses like this don't happen in a week or a month. Did Rick Scott defraud the NRSC like he did Medicare? How on earth can they be out of money after a year of gop surge?" Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall tweeted.

View embedded media

"Rick Scott has gotten amazingly far in politics for a guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history but I'm not sure why you'd put the guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history in charge of a large sum of money," writer and editor Matthew Yglesias tweeted.

View embedded media

The Post reported that the NRSC has rapidly burned through its funds, despite its record fundraising. The committee raked in $173 million this election cycle, the report said, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Despite that massive haul, the NRSC had less than $29 million on hand at the end of June.

An NRSC spokesperson told the Post that the committee planned to spend more money in support of Republican Senate candidates at more crucial moments.


"Our goal was to keep our candidates afloat and get them to this point where they're still in the game in all our top states," committee spokesperson Chris Hartline said. "So when the big spending starts now we have a fighting chance."

Newsweek reached out to Scott's press representatives and Hartline for comment.

https://news.yahoo.com/republicans-demand-know-happened-vanishing-141539162.html
Republicans Demand To Know What Happened To Vanishing GOP Millions
Mary Papenfuss
Sat, August 20, 2022 at 10:15 AM·2 min read


National Republican Senatorial Committee funds declined to just $28.4 million by the end of June. (Photo: Manuel Augusto Moreno via Getty Images)

A number of Republican strategists and consultants are growing increasingly dismayed about millions of dollars vanishing at the National Republican Senatorial Committee — just when the funds are needed most, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Cash at the national campaign fund is dwindling as candidates head into the final stretch of Senate races across the U.S.

“If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired,” a national Republican consultant working on Senate races told the newspaper, referring to the committee.


“There needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered,” added the consultant, who spoke to the outlet on condition of anonymity. “It’s a rip-off.”

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the NRSC, has been attacked by Republicans for featuring himself in ads and releasing a policy agenda that caused trouble for the GOP, leading to quips that “NRSC” stands for “National Rick Scott Committee.”

NRSC funds had reportedly reached $173 million this election cycle but were already down to $28.4 million by the end of June.

The committee spent more than $12 million on American Express credit cardpayments with an unclear purpose, along with $13 million for consultants and $9 million on debt payments, the Post said.

Now, a number of Republican candidates are struggling to raise money ahead of the general elections in November.

“It’s surprising and says a lot about the Republican brand that their candidates have struggled to raise money,” J.B. Poersch, the president of the Democratic-allied Senate Majority PAC, told the Post.

“With extreme candidates and extreme positions, maybe Republican donors are finding these candidates are out of step with where they are,” he said. “Maybe voters are feeling the same way.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/15/gop-slashes-ads-in-key-senate-battlegrounds-00051969
GOP slashes ads in key Senate battlegrounds
NRSC cancels over $10 million in ad buys as candidates struggle with fundraising.

By NATALIE ALLISON
08/15/2022 04:40 PM EDT

As midterm election campaigns heat up in the Senate’s top battlegrounds, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is canceling millions of dollars of ad spending, sending GOP campaigns and operatives into a panic and upending the committee’s initial spending plan.

The cuts — totaling roughly $13.5 million since Aug. 1 — come as the Republicans’ Senate campaign committee is being forced to “stretch every dollar we can,” said a person familiar with the NRSC’s deliberations. Republican nominees in critical states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — places the GOP must defend this fall — have failed to raise enough money to get on air themselves, requiring the NRSC to make cuts elsewhere to accommodate.

Since Aug. 1, the NRSC has cut ad buys in the battleground states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million), according to the ad tracking service AdImpact. Separately, a Democratic source tracking advertising buys estimated roughly $10.5 million in cuts by the NRSC since the first of the month.

“People are asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said one Republican strategist working on Senate races. “Why are we cutting in August? I’ve never seen it like this before.”

While the scale of these cuts is unprecedented, the NRSC is also ahead of its typical schedule on its ad spending, having already spent $36.5 million on television spots this cycle, as opposed to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s $1.9 million to date. Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the NRSC, announced earlier this year the campaign committee would be spending sooner than in years past. It was a necessary change, Scott said, to prevent Democrats from having the airwaves to themselves all summer.

“We’ve been creative in how we’re spending our money and will continue to make sure that every dollar spent by the NRSC is done in the most efficient and effective way possible,” said Chris Hartline, NRSC spokesperson. “Nothing has changed about our commitment to winning in all of our target states.”

The person familiar with the NRSC’s deliberations said the committee is swapping some of its independent expenditure spending for coordinated and hybrid spending with campaigns. The latter category imposes more rules on how much can be spent and what the ads can say, though it allows the committee to purchase ad time at a candidate discount, rather than a much steeper outside group rate.

But the numbers show that the NRSC has cut significantly more than it has booked back, indicating a potential cash strain at the committee. Second-quarter filings showed the DSCC had nearly twice the cash on hand as its Republican counterpart, $53.5 million to the NRSC’s $28.5 million.

Another Republican strategist referred to the recent cuts as “unreal,” noting that the NRSC had not eliminated any ad time in New Hampshire, where there won’t be a GOP nominee until mid-September — and where there’s no clear frontrunner in the meantime.

The NRSC earlier this month also spent a combined $1 million on ads in Washington and Colorado, two blue states that are considered unlikely but potential pickup opportunities for Republicans.

While the GOP committee is making a perplexing number of mid-August cuts, the organization could still book back that time over the next 2½ months. And between what the NRSC has already spent on television this cycle and what it has reserved for the rest of fall, the Republican committee has still purchased significantly more than the DSCC, though Democrats will likely reserve more air time in the coming weeks.

“While Rick Scott’s failed leadership of the NRSC continues to be one of Senate Democrats’ greatest assets,” said David Bergstein, spokesperson for the DSCC, “we know McConnell’s super PAC will have significant resources in the weeks ahead and we are continuing to take nothing for granted in each of our battleground races.”

Bergstein was referring to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that has reserved $150 million in ads this fall. Its first spots begin airing Friday in Pennsylvania.

No it means the RNC is low on cash and Scott is being called out for it...

Since Aug. 1, the NRSC has cut ad buys in the battleground states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million), according to the ad tracking service AdImpact. Separately, a Democratic source tracking advertising buys estimated roughly $10.5 million in cuts by the NRSC since the first of the month.

“People are asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said one Republican strategist working on Senate races. “Why are we cutting in August? I’ve never seen it like this before.”

“While Rick Scott’s failed leadership of the NRSC continues to be one of Senate Democrats’ greatest assets,” said David Bergstein, spokesperson for the DSCC, “we know McConnell’s super PAC will have significant resources in the weeks ahead and we are continuing to take nothing for granted in each of our battleground races.”

You being so obsessed with Rick, here is your hero singing his one hit wonder song.

 

[RayGravesGhost]

Its 5:59 pm...Do you know where your RNC donation is? 🤣

 

[grandhavendiddy]

Its 5:59 pm...Do you know where your RNC donation is? 🤣

That's kinda funny.....