General
The Essential Woman
When I was a boy I had a wire-haired terrier, a stray who showed up on the farm and made himself at home; one day walking past a woodpile the terrier spotted a barn rat and in the blink of an eye charged, ears tucked back, hair bristling; now, far as I know, that…
Read MoreRogue Rage
Laura Leslie of WUNC-FM – who does a great political blog – told a panel during last year’s campaign that she was sick and tired of men who liked Sarah Palin because she is “hot.” Sorry, Laura, but how else can someone so clearly unprepared for national office be taken seriously as a candidate…
Read MoreA Painful Lesson
It sounded like The New Martin Nesbitt after Democrats picked him for majority leader: “I saw ’94 up close and personal. I saw how things can get out of control. There are very few things that I’m the most qualified for, but getting us through this election is one of them.” Anxious Democrats…
Read MoreA Three Ring Circus
Here’s another odd story about how the Department of Health and Human Services works. Early in the Easley Administration, when Lanier Cansler was Assistant Secretary, the department decided to ‘Reform Mental Health’ in order to save taxpayers money and provide better care. About the same time Assistant Secretary Cansler was handling bidding…
Read MoreHow Not to Solve a Legal Problem
Back in August in her rush to pass the budget and get the legislature out of town, it looks like Governor Perdue slipped up and pulled a number out of thin air. What the Governor did to balance the budget (at least on paper) was tell legislators she was going to cut the Department of…
Read MoreSell the Cars; Keep the Nurses
Back in 1984 when Governor Hunt fessed up to making political trips on the state airplane and reimbursed the state $180,000, Tom Ellis, the attorney running Jesse Helms’ campaign to defeat Hunt told me, You know, give a politician a free airplane and he’ll hang himself every time. It turns out – for…
Read MoreBoss Plunket Would be Proud
The famous Boss Plunket of Tammany Hall, explaining his singular talent for getting the most out of politics (and what he called “honest graft”), told his biographer, ‘I just seen my opportunities and took ‘em.’ At first glance Boss Plunkett, who was a colorful New York Irish politician, and DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler, a…
Read MorePopulism Run Amok
I’m all for having regular guys and gals in high office. But this is too much. The New York Times reported this anecdote in a story about Federal Research Chair Ben Bernanke lobbying against bills aimed at the Fed: “At one recent meeting, Senator Sherrod Brown challenged Mr. Bernanke’s bona fides as a…
Read MoreThe Looniest Department in State Government
It turns out Craigan L. Gray, the MD and JD (lawyer) and newly appointed Director of Medicaid is pretty thin skinned. When Tim Rogers – head of the Association for Home and Hospice Care – asked Secretary Lanier Cansler to reconsider Gray’s cuts in a tiny Medicaid program that provides nurses to care…
Read MoreThe Looniest Department: CCME, Again and Again and Again
Right now if you’re a Medicaid patient or are a nurse or a nurse’s aide who cares for a patient you’re facing hard times – your medical care’s being cut or your hours are being cut or your pay’s being cut, by Craigan Gray Medicaid Director at DHHS. But if you’re one of the…
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