Carolina Politics Online

          At the AKA Sorority function last night Kay Hagan attacked Dole with the same talking points from her commercial. She talked about Dole’s effectiveness rating and voting with Bush 90% of the time. Hagan forgot to mention that she voted with Marc Basnight and Tony Rand 100% of the time and also voted for that $9 million jet Easley had to cancel. Hagan was very negative and condescending towards Dole while talking to a small probably receptive audience.

          My opponent Dan Blue was too busy talking about Voting for Obama to be worried about his own race. And I got Vernon Malone angry at me because I said that the leadership in Raleigh was responsible for our failures on Mental healthcare, Roads, Schools, and many other failures. I did mention to a voter that it took a Democratic consultant to start the downfall of Jim Black, not the General Assembly leadership. Also Malone did not ask for the expulsion of Representative Wright when overwhelming evidence caused the full House to eject him. Malone only wanted a slap on the wrist of Wright. Maybe corrupt is a label that DOES fit the leadership of the Democratic Party in Raleigh.

Tens of thousands of poor children aren’t getting access to more than $160 million in medical attention they’re due because of a slow-moving bureaucracy.

In June 2007, state lawmakers authorized the expansion of the entitlement program for children called South Carolina Healthy Connections Kids, which would give 60,000 more children access to a generous set of benefits for the first time.

Now, 16 months later, only 7,000 children have been signed up and a state budget meltdown could mean the rest never see the benefits.

The Post and Courier

So let’s go ahead and put the government in charge of all of our health care.  Universal health care for everyone in America!  After all, the government does such an effective job!

Sue Berkowitz is outraged.

“Nothing is more compelling than to get kids on this program, especially at this time,” said Berkowitz, an advocate and director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center. “These families really need the help.”

I agree.  These children do need help.  That’s why I fully support telling the parents of these children to get off their asses, stop making excuses, accept some responsibility, and start acting like parents and provide for their kids.

New leadership needed to correct problems

Charlotte, N.C. – The following is a statement from Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican nominee for governor, in response to news that employees at Cherry Hospital accepted money from drug companies and foreign medical schools to visit destinations such as Hawaii and Hungary:“The Easley-Perdue administration continues to lurch from one crisis to another in mental health care. In the latest scandal, managers at Cherry Hospital took money from a nonprofit foundation created to benefit the hospital’s patients to spend on catered meals and a staff retreat. This follows the director of Central Regional Hospital stepping down after using money intended for patients use to have her portrait made. In typical administration fashion, the former Central Hospital administrator was sent to Cherry Hospital to help correct problems there.

“The mismanagement in mental health is so systemic that it will require a complete change of attitude and management to solve the crisis. While both Gov. Easley and Lt. Gov. Perdue sit in silence, patients are in danger, hospitals are losing accreditation, and taxpayer’s dollars are being misspent.

“Over the last year, Broughton Hospital lost and regained accreditation, Cherry Hospital lost accreditation and the new Central Regional Hospital is about to lose accreditation. At the same time, administration officials have been unrelenting in their drive to close Dorothea Dix Hospital which may cause it to lose accreditation. Loss of accreditation at Broughton cost taxpayers $1 million a month and the loss of accreditation at Cherry Hospital is costing taxpayers $800,000 a month. In addition, over $400 million has been misspent in reform efforts.

“In order to improve our mental health system, we must hold people accountable for mismanagement and scandal. Second, we must change the culture of striving for minimum standards and set the goal to achieve excellence. Third, we must admit mistakes and not continue down the wrong road simply because some people are stubborn. Fourth, we must improve the caliber of training for mental health care workers. Most importantly, we need the leadership of a new administration.

“It is obvious that reform of our mental health care system must come from outside the present administration. Lt. Gov. Perdue is part of the problem and should not be entrusted with the major task of correcting a broken Mental Health system.”

WASHINGTON - Former Sen. John Edwards may be out of the limelight, but his wife forged headlong into the health care debate this morning, slamming Republican presidential nominee John McCain and arguing with a GOP congressman about the cost of universal health care.  Elizabeth Edwards showed hints of the feisty image she has cultivated over the years during an appearance on Capitol Hill today as she testified before a subcommittee about health care reform.

The News & Observer

I am trying to figure out exactly what qualifies Elizabeth Edwards to speak on this matter before Congress.  Being the wife of an adulterer and former Presidential candidate clearly doesn’t make her any wiser than anyone else.  Being a cancer victim could carry some weight, but there are millions of cancer patients out there and she certainly isn’t having a difficulty paying for the best treatment her husband’s money can buy.

This morning, Edwards also argued with U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican, when he asked panelists about the costs of universal health care and how best to pay for it.

She suggested - as had her husband in his presidential campaign - rolling back President Bush’s tax cut on wealthy taxpayers.

Murphy responded that the country’s wealthy already pay most of the nation’s taxes.

“That’s an ideological argument,” Edwards shot back.

No, it’s a true and factual argument.  The top 5% of income earners in this country paid over 60% of all Federal income taxes in 2006.  When is enough, enough?  They aren’t entitled to pay Edwards’ health care bills or anyone else’s nor should they be.  Universal health care will be very costly.  Just look at the monster Medicare has become.  Plus, the quality of “free” health care will degrade, just as it has in Canada in Europe.

People like Elizabeth Edwards don’t understand what it means to live in freedom.  Living in freedom means being responsible for yourself and not being dependent on a government nanny to provide with a daily allowance to live.  Living in freedom means you might be rich, you might be poor, but you aren’t a serf on the manor.

A federal grand jury has indicted an Indian Trail accountant on charges that he threatened to kill U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who on Thursday night accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

The indictment accuses Jerry Blanchard, 48, of publicly threatening to shoot and kill Obama twice last month. On July 15, Blanchard told two diners at a Waffle House on Pineville-Matthews Road that he planned to kill Obama with a rifle he would buy from Hyatt’s Gun Shop on Wilkinson Boulevard, authorities say. On July 28, a witness has said, Blanchard made similar threats at the Crowne Plaza Hotel uptown.

Charlotte Observer

He is an accountant.  You can’t blame him for wanting to try and spice up his life.

First, the part we can ALL agree on… hopefully:

The state Senate moved Thursday to keep guns from those deemed so mentally ill that they pose an immediate threat to themselves and others.

The N&O

Now, the part that leads to arguments and gnashing of teeth:

Senators would allow gun purchases by people who have been involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment but are not considered an immediate threat.

So why would the senate do this?

The Senate voted 30-19 to remove a requirement that anyone involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment would be listed on a national database that sheriffs use to deny gun permits. The bill now says that those committed to outpatient treatment “shall only be reported if the individual is found to be a danger to self or others.”

“If someone is involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment, it specifically means they are not found to be a danger to others,” said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, who pushed the change.

Berger contended that judges and medical professionals would be more aware of the need to determine whether someone is a danger.

This page had a discussion on this very topic a few months back. So far back, in fact, that I’m too damn lazy to go look for it to link to. But I recall that this page’s general consensus was similar to what the Senate ultimately agreed to- involuntary commitments should not be a permanent bar from owning firearms. There’s just too much ambiguity over whether or not the person is truly mentally incompetent.

NEWS&OBSERVER

“In another secret back room meeting, the political establishment in Raleigh has arrogantly dismissed the welfare of mental health patients and decreed through the budget that the state does not have to comply with the same regulations it places on everyone else,” he said in a statement.

He noted that hospitals normally have to pass “rigorous reviews,” but not mental hospitals run by the state.

“The Department of Health and Human Services, which is racked with scandal and over $400 million misspent in mental health, will now move forward with closing Dix Hospital and opening Central Regional without independent review,” he said.

NEWS&OBSERVER

A last-minute change to the state budget will make it easier to close Dorothea Dix.

The final budget headed to Gov. Mike Easley was stripped of a provision that would have required the new Central Regional Hospital in Butner to be approved by outside inspectors before it can accept patients. It’s unclear who wrote the provision.

Advocates for the mentally ill decried the change, which effectively lets Secretary of Health and Human Services Dempsey Benton certify that the new hospital is safe.

The Democrats in charge of the North Carolina government continue to compound their $400 million boondoggle by not having a independent inspector pass/fail their new hospital. It is a shame and a surprise that these irresponsible legislators are allowed to continue the “Era of Entrenched Corruption”.