General
The Real Biden
If you want to see a politician who’s a real human being, take a long look at Joe Biden. You may never ever see another one like him. Tragedy has bookended Biden’s long public life. Just weeks after he was elected Senator at age 29 in 1972, his wife and daughter were killed in a…
Read MoreA Mistake
Despite being heavily outnumbered by the Iraqi Army ISIS rolled right into Ramadi and after the Iraqis skedaddled the Secretary of Defense told CNN it sure looked like our allies had lost the “will to fight.” Then Baghdad announced it had stopped retreating and was counter-attacking – then Baghdad announced it had Ramadi surrounded –…
Read MoreA Quagmire
The Senate Bull Mooses have locked horns with the Opossum Drop Caucus over in the State House;—for years the Bull Mooses have hollered Medicaid spending was out of control and soaring but that turned out not to be so – that the Bull Mooses were simply spinning a yarn to accommodate their friends the MCOs…
Read MoreStraightening Out the Mess?
Former Ambassador John Bolton said the state of Iraq no longer exists and Chris Wallace shot back , One, what does that mean? Two, what are the ramifications? You could go back four thousand years and not unscramble all the knots in what used to be Mesopotamia – the Sumerians were conquered by the Assyrians…
Read MoreDangerous Places to Stand
There are patches of ground that are innately dangerous: Edges of cliffs. Rivers of ice. Railroad tracks. No man’s land. After the State House passed its budget at 1am in the morning, eight hours later up popped an ad on Facebook lambasting Chief House Budget Writer Nelson Dollar for raising spending a billion dollars. Those…
Read MoreA Dust Up
It’s unusual to see a dust up in front of the TV cameras on NC Spin but when Brad Crone said Medicaid spending has been stable for three years the usually soft-spoken John Hood shot back, Brad’s incorrect. Crone leaned back, told Hood he needed to look at the audit reports that showed Medicaid spending…
Read MoreA Little Devilment
Just about every morning a group of MCO promoters (the Carolina Partnership for Reform) drop an email into legislators mailboxes and the other morning they gave legislators a list of 15 states and told them, Look. See. North Carolina spends more on Medicaid per enrollee than states that have MCOs. It looked logical. And sounded…
Read MoreLooking at Hillary Through Different Eyes
A powerful new Modern Science has crept into the world of political campaigns: The Mega-Database – where thirty-something whizzes and mathematicians collect data from the four corners of the digital universe to figure out what voters (and especially Independent voters) have on their minds. The other day sitting in a meeting, when one of the…
Read MoreVolvo and Alcoa Vs. NC?
Could it be that losing Volvo to South Carolina had nothing to do with the Republican vs. Republican battle over incentives vs. tax cuts? Could it be that North Carolina is doomed to NEVER get an automotive plant? Could it be that North Carolina lost out because of its long-running war with the company that…
Read MoreCrossing the Line
Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Bad Bob Rucho is a Bull Moose or a bull in a china closet but there’s no doubt he sincerely loathes tax loopholes so it’s a shame in his enthusiasm to gore a corporate ‘incentive’ he crossed the line. When a bill landed in Rucho’s committee to kibosh a…
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