With acid sarcasm, The Campaign for America's Future brings us three good reasons to do business in Florida: prisons, poverty and unemployment. Re prisons:
Are you doing business in a state that puts public safety above profits? Then come to the Sunshine State, where facilities for more than 20,000 inmates have been privatized for your profit-seeking pleasure. With more offenders getting locked up each day, there are limitless opportunities for growth...Repeat offenders are really just loyal customers.And what is it with these Republican governors? Do any of them have an original idea? We understand that the attacks on workers are a conspiracy cooked up by billionaires and CEOs, but can't they at least use different words? The ones who destroy collective bargaining rights for government workers ALL call it a "toolkit" for local governments. And they ALL say their state is "Open for business."
In Maine, a Tea Party supporter of wingnut Gov. Paul LePage actually paid for a highway sign that said "Open for Business." Which he bought in Alabama. (Maine DOES have companies that make highway signs.) LePage's administration put the sign up in York, a gateway to the state.
Then the sign was stolen.
Reports Counterpunch in "The Moral of the Mural,"
In a move worthy of Abbie Hoffman, someone stole an "Open for Business" sign that Maine's controversial right-wing Governor Paul LePage had placed on the Maine Turnpike near the primary highway entrance to the state, and days later another unknown soul offered to trade the sign for a mural depicting Maine's labor history that LePage had previously removed from the state Department of Labor in an act that drew national attention.
The much-ballyhooed Open for Business highway sign went missing before Memorial Day and has yet to be found. But on June 2 an ad appeared on Craigslist offering to sell a "right-wing political sign" for $1,000 or trade it for "a multi-panel mural depicting the labor movement," a clear reference to the Labor Department mural removed by LePage.Maine's Senate Republicans loved the sign so much they had a cardboard replica made up to hang in their office.
A "ransom note" for the highway sign was also found taped to the door of WKIT/WZON, two Bangor radio stations owned by Stephen King, an erstwhile Bangor resident. In classic ransom note style the message was written with letters from newspapers and magazines that had been cut out and glued to a sheet of paper.
