Issues
Lanier Stumbles Again
Over at DHHS High Lama and former lobbyist Lanier Cansler has promulgated a whole new set of rules governing folks who care for Medicaid patients. For instance before a doctor can provide care to a Medicaid patient Lanier is going to check out his character, conduct, competence, criminal history, mental and physical health…
Read MoreMass Hysteria
The polls hadn’t even closed in Massachusetts when Democrats formed up the requisite firing squad to fix the blame. In truth, there are three factors here. 1. Scott Brown had the greatest gift in politics: an inept and overconfident opponent. Did she really go on vacation in the Caribbean last month? 2.…
Read MoreObama Can’t Lose
Health-care reform may die in Massachusetts today, and Democrats across the country may panic, but a loss in the Senate race won’t be the death blow to the Obama Presidency that Republicans dream of. In fact, Obama wins either way. A Democratic win in Massachusetts guarantees enactment of reform. A Republican win gives him…
Read MoreBasnight’s Pier
I figured ole’ Marc Basnight just loved fishing piers, so he passed a bill to build the grandest one you ever saw – with a ballroom and restaurant – in his district. But it looks like Senator Basnight had a more practical reason: Basnight Construction Company is building the $25 million pier. Next explaining…
Read MoreABC, DMV, SHP…
Is everybody in state government crooked? No, they’re not. But the average person might think so when – in one skinny issue of the paper – they see ABC boards investigated, the ex-DMV director accused of wiretapping and the State Highway Patrol questioned about missing records and sexual misconduct. Does this ever end?…
Read MoreFight Back
Democrats need to stop wringing their hands and worrying about November. And start fighting back on health care. Here’s the message: This year – over the opposition of every single Republican in Congress – we did something that Americans have needed for 50 years. When the health-care bill passes, every American will be…
Read MoreThe Roots of Health Care Reform
As the health-care battle resumes in Washington, some history may be just what the doctor ordered. Most people believe this battle traces back to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed effort to reform health care in 1993-1994. Actually, it goes back to 1991 – and a now-forgotten special election for the U.S. Senate in…
Read MoreWho’d Have Imagined It?
In 2008 while running for Governor, Bev Perdue said: Then, this year, she put a lobbyist in charge of health care, gave him the green light to spend $250 million to pass out no bid contracts (many to his former clients), then gave him her blessing to cut health care to thousands of…
Read MoreThe New Economy
Go back 50 years in North Carolina. To 1960. The year Terry Sanford was elected governor. Tobacco was king in North Carolina – politically and economically. WRAL-TV started its broadcast days (after a devotional) with the Farm Report. The News & Observer had a regular farm reporter. And the health of the…
Read MoreThe Decade of Obama?
The Teens may come to be Barack Obama’s decade the way the Eighties were Ronald Reagan’s decade. Ideology aside, the two Presidents have much in common. Both were outsiders who ran campaigns that upset conventional wisdom. Both had lives before politics – Reagan as an actor and union leader, Obama as a…
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