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Gary Pearce posted on February 19, 2010 10:17
Has there ever been a more arrogant crowd than the new WakeCounty school board majority?
Judging from their comments yesterday, any sign of dissent or disagreement from Superintendent Del Burns is “insubordination” – and a firing offense.
Their attitude reminds me of an old political adage: “The lower the office, the bigger the ego.”
There’s a Tea Party flavor to all this.
The new powers-that-be remind me of Sarah Palin complaining about smarty-pants elitists who keep asking her questions about factual matters. Who needs facts and knowledge when you’re on the side of God and Right?
Teacher-bashing has long been a staple of right wing Republicans. Russell Capps thinks the superintendent should be a businessman, not an educator.
Maybe he could get Ken Lewis from Bank of America.
Pardon me, but I’d like the person running the schools to know something about teaching kids.
People of good will who care about education had better get organized. Or this crowd is going to wreck the WakeCounty schools – and do incalculable damage to the Triangle’s dynamic economic climate.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 18, 2010 12:57
It’s frightening how Cal Cunningham, the Democrat’s new boy-wonder, has begun to remind me of John Edwards. Just look at Cunningham’s picture in Wikipedia. It’s eerie. The same impish grin. The same hair. And Cunningham, like Edwards, is a candidate straight out of central casting: He steps onto the stage, opens a script and starts reading – and it’s like he’s reading one of John Edwards’ old scripts.
Cal says (with the same sincerity as Edwards): “North Carolina families need someone to fight for them…”
He says he’s a ‘change agent.’
A ‘revitalizer.’
And a man of ‘practical, common sense solutions.’
Then, Call adds, serving a year in the JAG Corps (Army lawyers) in Iraq makes him the soul mate of Terry Sanford – who jumped out of an airplane over Normandy on D-Day as a paratrooper.
Young Mr. Cunningham has his script and he’s sticking to it…but it sure sounds like we’ve seen this movie before.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 18, 2010 09:33
Since when does an obviously political and apparently unsupported charge by the state Republican Party chairman rate a screaming, streaming headline across Page B1 in The News & Observer?
The third graf of the story said:
‘The head of the state elections board said Wednesday that officials are reviewing how all gubernatorial campaigns from 2004 and 2008 handled flights and have not yet seen anything to warrant the treatment given to Easley” (emphasis added).
Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections, said:
"The information has not reached the level that causes us concern."
Apparently, the allegations don’t have to reach much of a level to cause the N&O to overhype them.
The only evidence the GOP’s Tom Fetzer offered is that he “sees similarities in campaign finance records between Easley and Perdue.”
Holy cow! “Similarities!” Call Inspector Javert!
Maybe something serious will turn up, and maybe it won’t. But the N&O’s watchdog zeal overrode its news judgment here.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 17, 2010 14:00
Politico has an excellent overview of what’s happening to once-Republican states that went Democratic in 2008 – including North Carolina.
One reason it’s excellent, of course, is that it quotes me. Click here to read the analysis.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 17, 2010 09:23
Maybe I’ve got this wrong but it seems like for years state government was bumbling and fumbling, but basically – except for the occasional road building scandal – honest. Now, times have changed. State government is still bumbling but its also learned chicanery and sleight of hand.
Follow this story from the newspaper the other day: WakeMed Hospital treated a prison inmate for trauma. Bill: $482,000. WakeMed’s cost: $133,000. WakeMed’s Explanation: By law they have to treat a lot of patients free, so they have to make up the losses wherever they can. Which is true – since we have the wackiest healthcare system on earth. And it’s equally true $482,000 is what the Perdue Administration – in advance – agreed to pay.
But, still, poor WakeMed landed on the front page of the newspaper with a black eye.
Which led the News and Observer to another story of chicanery involving lobbyists, Senator Tony Rand and Governor Perdue.
It seems that for some time the Department of Prisons – which is more practical than charitable – hasn’t been happy that part of its budget is helping subsidize hospital care for indigents.
So, last summer, the Department sent its lobbyists over to the legislature to pass a special bill. In effect, the prison officials said to legislators, Look, Medicare is the government program that pays hospitals the least. So, let’s pass a law that says the hospitals can only charge us 150% of what they’re charging Medicare.
That sounded reasonable but it sent the powerful Hospital Association – which lobbies for hospitals – into a tailspin: It sent its lobbyist to legislators and said that at a minimum the prisons ought to pay the hospitals the same thing the state pays for teachers and state employees – meaning the prisons would be paying a lot more than 150% of Medicare.
In short order the hospital’s lobbyists whipped the prison’s lobbyists and their version of the bill passed.
That sent the bureaucrats who run the State Employees Health Care plan into a tailspin; they said prisoners sure as heck ought to pay more than teachers for hospital care. It’s not clear how Blue Cross (which manages the State Employees Health Care plan) landed in the middle of this mess but a Blue Cross lobbyist talked to Senator Tony ‘The Fixer’ Rand and Rand fixed the problem – by repealing the law.
That made the State Employees bureaucrats happy. And the Hospital Association happy – because they were back to charging top rates. And the only ones worse off were the taxpayers.
Next the News and Observer got wind of what had happened and called Rand and asked, Did Blue Cross have anything to do with you to repealing that law? And Rand said, adamantly, No sir, Blue Cross didn’t have anything to do with it.
Well, three months later, the News and Observer got its hands on an email from a Blue Cross lobbyist to Rand’s assistant about repealing the law and the whole thing landed on the front page of the newspaper; in an eyeblink the News and Observer asked Rand, who Governor Perdue just made head of the Paroles Commission, about the email and Rand suffered a complete memory lapse, saying, “I remember very little…”
The moral of the story: Hospital lobbyists trump prison lobbyists. Blue Cross lobbyists trump both. And Tony Rand fusselled the newspapers and landed a plumb job in state government – thanks to Governor Perdue.
Ironically, the same day the story broke there was a picture in the paper of Governor Perdue climbing into a racecar wearing a Nascar driver’s suit and high heels – which seems to be a snapshot of how government works Perdue style.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 17, 2010 08:29
Can Erskine Bowles save America? Can history repeat itself?
I was about halfway through the book The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the President, by Taylor Branch, when I heard that President Obama will name Erskine and another Great Compromiser, former Senator Alan Simpson, to lead a national commission on the budget deficit.
You will remember that, in 1997, Bowles brokered a deal with Newt Gingrich and congressional Republicans that balanced the federal budget.
You will remember that, when George Bush 43 took office, the budget was running surpluses as far as the eye could see.
And you will remember, if President Obama is successful in reminding you, that Bush and the Republicans promptly wrecked the car and in just eight years gave us budget deficits that – all the smart people say – will wreck America.
Even before I heard the news about Erskine, I was struck by the parallels in Branch’s book between Clinton’s first term and Washington today.
Then, as now, congressional Republicans staunchly opposed anything and everything a Democratic President supported. “The hell with the country! We need to destroy this President!”
Then, as now, Republicans opposed serious deficit reduction – until their stubbornness reelected Clinton and forced them to compromise.
(Question: Why do congressional Democrats compromise with Republican Presidents – tax cuts with Reagan, deficit reduction with Reagan and Daddy Bush, education and drug benefits with Baby Bush, etc. – even though Republicans refuse to reciprocate? Answer: Democrats are more responsible.)
Then, as now, a Democratic President struggled to pass health-care reform that was and is, in Clinton’s apt description, “hard to explain and easy to criticize.”
Maybe now, as then, Bowles can navigate Washington’s stormy seas and bring the ship of state safely to port.
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 16, 2010 16:42
Last summer, Governor Perdue promised legislators huge spending cuts in Medicaid if they’d let her pass out $250 million in no bid contracts – which she said would bring cost saving efficiencies.
They did. She did. But no savings materialized.
Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services is $250 million over budget.
So, the other day, the Governor had to send a minion over to the legislature with a movie projector and slide show to explain what went wrong; now, a slide show is one of the deadliest weapons a Governor has when it comes to dealing with cantankerous legislators – first, they get bored, then frustrated, then confused, and then they’re putty in the Governor’s hands.
The Governor’s slide show whipped right past explaining what happened to all the savings she’d promised and, instead, villianized Medicaid Home Care patients: Her aide flashed up a chart that told legislators 23% of the Home Care patients were welfare cheats (who shouldn’t get any care at all) and 40% were cheating to get more care than they deserved.
It looked – in chart form – like cool and officious truth and the message to legislators said loud and clear all that cheating had devoured $130 million of the Governor’s promised savings.
It was lucky there weren’t any seventy or eighty year old Home Care patients in the room because even the liberal legislators were so mad they’d have been lynched.
It was the perfect diversion and legislators forgot to ask the Governor or Secretary Lanier Cansler: Let’s see your proof – which is a good thing because Cansler didn’t have any.
It’s simple common sense that a bureaucrat sitting at a computer in Raleigh can’t tell if an eighty year old Medicaid patient in Manteo is a welfare cheat. Instead, a nurse or doctor has to eye-ball and examine the patient – which Cansler hasn’t done.
What he did do was ask his computer how many patients had to be cheats for him to explain away his $130 million snafu – the computer said 40% and Cansler said, Voila. Then he showed the numbers to legislators who got so mad they never thought to ask him if he’d stopped to examine even one patient.
Which may explain – in an odd way – why the Governor thought Cansler would make a first rate Secretary of Health and Human Resources. This is a man who knows how to deal with legislators. By all rights, legislators should be grilling the Governor about passing out $250 million in no bid contracts (a lot of them to Cansler’s former clients from his days as a lobbyist, and to her contributors). But, instead, Cansler’s got legislators mad as hops at Home Care patients.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 16, 2010 08:26
So how’s that sassy, flirty thing working out for ya?
Pretty well, judging from the way the media has swooned for Sarah Palin, including even the sober dean of the Washington press corps, David Broder.
It must be about sex.
How else does a nitwit like Palin get taken seriously as a potential President?
Sex appeal obviously doesn’t hurt in politics. See JFK.
But something more is required. See John Edwards.
Like brains.
So don’t underestimate the intelligence of the American public. A recent poll showed that 71 percent of Americans believe Palin isn’t qualified to be President. Even 52 percent of Republicans agree.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 16, 2010 08:19
Something rings wrong about Evan Bayh’s ostentatiously principled withdrawal from the Senate.
Maybe it’s the picture-perfect posing of his family at the press conference. Somehow you wonder if there’s a National Enquirer scoop lurking in the wings.
Maybe Bayh fears the same fate his father met exactly 30 years ago – losing a race for reelection.
How does a man whose life and family have all been about politics suddenly decide that the process is just too, too tough for a noble soul like himself?
If politics and Washington are so broken, doesn’t Bayh have an obligation to stand and fight?
If he’d been a Founding Father, he might have said: “I’m just disgusted with the way this King and colony thing isn’t working, so I’m quitting and going home to my family.”
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Carter Wrenn posted on February 15, 2010 17:20
Tiger Woods ought to offer John Edwards a free golf lesson – a thank you for knocking him off the front pages of the newspapers.
Last week there was a new twist in the saga of John and Liz and Andy and Rielle – and, surely, after this development the announcement the four of them have signed a multi-million dollar contract to appear together in a ‘Reality TV Program’ can’t be far away.
Here’s the latest episode: Andy, turning over the sex tape of John and Rielle to the judge, and pumping to sell books, announces Elizabeth has threatened to sue him for ‘alienation of affection.’
In other words John had an affair with Rielle – so Elizabeth’s going to sue Andy for breaking up her marriage.
Don’t that just beat anything you ever heard?
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