N.C. Democratic Party is Not The Only Organization With a Credibility Problem

The Daily Caller released a story that should have headlined all the major newspapers in North Carolina: The Democratic Party is caught covering up a sexual harassment case.

Out of all of the major newspapers that litter North Carolina, the News and Observer is the only one that reported it:

The state Democratic Party faces serious questions about a secret settlement agreement with a former staffer who was fired after raising concerns about being harassed by a superior, according to documents and interviews.

A member of the party’s executive committee, Watt Jones, sent a complaint to Party Chairman David Parker in March asking about the allegations and financial settlement with the former employee, urging him to “clean up this mess before it gets worse.”

“If this hits the media, the Democratic Party, our candidates and our credibility are doomed in this election,” wrote Jones, according to a copy obtained by The News & Observer

The staffer’s firing has caused consternation within the party ranks for months. A party spokesman told The News & Observer in December he could not comment on an internal personnel matter.

Soon after the staffer left, former longtime party administrator Sallie Leslie quit. “The unethical actions by party leadership, of which I will not be a part of or have my reputation be associated with such” caused her to leave, she told The News & Observer on Friday.

Let’s get this straight. The News and Observer knew about this back in December and didn’t report it. If this had been the Republican Party, these leftist rags would have headlined this scandal all the way to November.

The Democratic Party isn’t the only organization that has a credibility problem; so do the newspapers in North Carolina.

Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/04/13/1999481/nc-democratic-party-roiled-by.html#storylink=cpy


http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/13/nc-dem-official-sexually-harrassed-staffer-party-fears-credibility-doomed/

Fayetteville Observer's Medicaid Crayon Dreams

The Charlotte Observer’s favorite toady editorial board of late is from the Fayetteville Observer. This past Monday, the east coast version of the Disturber published an inane attack on North Carolina’s General Assembly. Here is how the article led off:

Scores of thousands of our neighbors in the Cape Fear region are eligible for Medicaid assistance. There is nothing abstract about the debate raging in Raleigh.

In its budget for the current fiscal year, the General Assembly set out to soak poor children, the ill and the elderly for $356 million. To that end, they included language that mandates service cuts if administrators fail to pony up on time. Health officials are scrambling to comply, but predict they'll come up millions short and have to terminate certain services to many of their 1.5 million clients.

Wow! What a bunch of heartless bastards! Those bad republican legislators (let’s make no mistake who these libtard editors are attacking) are throwing the poor and elderly under the bus. How can these 1 percenters get away with screwing over the most vulnerable amongst us? Well, only one has to Google to find out what kind of financial crisis Medicaid is under in the state of North Carolina:

The administrators in North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue’s office have announced that the state’s Medicaid health insurance program could face a $139 million dollar shortfall in the coming year due, in part, to slow enrollment of the chronically ill. In addition, the state Medicaid agency must make repayments for accounting errors and improper billings adding up to $300 million that occurred several years ago.

State health regulators say that the NC Medicaid insurance program is falling short of meeting the $356 million in net reductions for the division that oversees the program. A budget was created to address Medicaid finances, which Governor Perdue vetoed because of the severity of the cuts; however, the Legislature overrode the veto, according to Gary Robertson of the Associated Press

But according to the Fayetteville Observer editors, we live in a land of Mountain Dew streams and candy cane trees:

Here's where we are: There is money - unexpectedly high tax collections and a rainy-day fund - that could be tapped to make this budding crisis disappear. Lawmakers, eyeing hurricane damage and other needs, don't want to spend it on Medicaid.

Here's what should happen: All parties to this situation should sit down together and make an earnest effort to corral this problem now, before bad things happen to undeserving people and to the public interest. Get a fix on the shortfall, agree to pay it out of available funds, then do it.

This fuss is ironic, because Medicaid pays for itself, with interest. It just doesn't do it within the framework of a state budget. Consider some service cuts for which the legislature has already provided statutory authority.

Medicaid pays for itself? If it did we wouldn’t be in this situation. And we have a rainy-day fund? That’s news! Maybe that fictitious fund can help pay the other problem North Carolina has:

RALEIGH, N.C. — The unemployment tax for North Carolina businesses will increase by $21 per worker in January to help the state repay the federal government the $2.5 billion it borrowed to cover jobless benefits during the recession.

North Carolina has the nation's sixth-largest debt for extended unemployment benefits, and the unemployment taxes will continue going up by $21 per worker each year until the debt is paid off.

I wonder where all that “unexpectedly high tax collections” is coming from when this state has a 10% unemployment rate.

Since this editorial comes from a newspaper, I have an expectation that these people would have a grasp of what is going on in this state. After reading this crap, I’m beginning to believe that their opinions are being written in crayon.

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/10/31/2736830/power-politics-imperil-health.html#ixzz1chBQaVkk

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1506/north-carolina-medicaid-faces-139-million-dollar-shortfall

http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/story/10306486/

Fayetteville Observer Chucks Truth Under the Bus

I’m beginning to believe that all newspapers in North Carolina are liberal rags. The Charlotte Observer published an editorial by the Fayetteville Observer entitled, “State Budget Chucks Many Services Under the Bus”. And here is how this article leads off:

Which of North Carolina's schools for the deaf do you plan to close? Or would you prefer to shut down a school for the blind, instead?

The choice is real, but don't complain. At least you were offered a voice this time. So which will it be? The Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf, in Wilson, or the North Carolina School for the Deaf, in Morganton? No dawdling, because if neither is chosen you can kiss the Governor Morehead School for the Blind goodbye.

That isn't conjecture. It's the law - our newly right-sized, fiscally responsible state budget.

Are you shocked? Are you shamed? Poor little deaf and blind kids are about to be denied an education by those evil republican state legislatures.

I can hear it now: Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

But what the scumbag editors at the Fayetteville Disturber didn’t tell you is that these three residential schools have only 220 students. That is about 73 students per school. Would it not be cost effective to consolidate? Apparently, not to the spendthrifts at the Fayetteville Disturber.

Let’s explore this feigned outrage even further. Not only is the North Carolina GOP children haters; they also despise the mentally ill:

There was a warning of another sort when, earlier this year, the federal government ordered the state to stop using Medicaid to warehouse people with mental illnesses among the residents of elder-care homes. There was a deadline, now past. If those homes lose their Medicaid eligibility, both the mentally ill and many seniors will be left with nothing.

Unfortunately, that was only the insult, not the injury. Along with public schools and the pre-kindergarten program, lawmakers had already targeted funding for mental health programs as well. These are the same programs that have been struggling to restore stability to a system that has been reeling from poor judgment and insufficient resources for a decade.

Let's tally up. That takes care of the mentally ill, the poor, the elderly, the sick, preschoolers, K-12 students and ... Oh yes: Will it be the visually impaired, or the hearing-impaired?

Do the editors at the Disturber consider fraud poor judgment? I know perpetrators consider taxpayer largess to be insufficient, as would many bank robbers. Many of these “warehouses” have been committing fraud since the inception of Medicaid:

As many as 1,200 mentally ill adults, scores of them living in the Lake Norman area, could be forced out of assisted-living facilities as the state tries to enforce a Medicaid rule concerning mental health care centers.

The rule requires assisted-living facilities with more than 16 beds have no more than half of their residents diagnosed with a mental illness. The rule is decades old, but the state is now asking the homes to comply or fall under the designation of “institution of mental disease.” Mentally ill residents in those facilities cannot receive Medicaid funding.

To comply with the state’s new initiative, officials say assisted-living facilities will have to kick out mentally ill residents into an already overstretched mental health system that is not prepared to handle the deluge.

“It’s a disaster in the making,” said Deby Dihoff, state executive director of the National Alliance for Mentally Illness, “because we’re catching up with decades of neglect in the housing options for the mental ill at a time when there are few beds and no money to increase those options.”

The Medicaid law, passed in 1965, had the provision regarding assisted-living facilities. North Carolina, however, looked the other way and allowed the mentally ill to fill those beds because it eased waiting lists and opened up beds in its psychiatric hospitals across the state, said Amy Hart, owner and administrator of Hunter Village assisted-living center in Huntersville and Crown Colony in Mooresville.

Looked the other way? They were defrauding the taxpayers! And I want to know what these teat suckers consider mentally ill. I have hundreds of examples of people, companies, and hospitals who’ve screwed over the citizens of this state via Medicaid. And I wouldn’t doubt that many of these “warehousers” have committed their share of padding the books. Hell, what am I saying they committed fraud!

But what is the law to the editors of the Fayetteville and Charlotte Disturbers. They only care about scoring political points and redistributing the wealth.


Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/25/2637573/state-budget-chucks-many-services.html#ixzz1Z6bMupHq

http://www.alldeaf.com/current-events/91596-north-carolina-school-deaf-jeopardy-closing-once-again.html

http://www.huntersvilleherald.com/news/2011/07/28/medicaid-enforcement-could-push-out-thousands-of-mentally-ill/