WRAL drinks at a tainted watering hole:

Any long-term improvement in the U.S. economy will require painful choices, the kinds of choices that politicians have been thus far unwilling to make, according to Mike Walden, an economist and professor at North Carolina State University.

It looks like we're headed back to the bad old days, where media failed to inform readers that the "expert" they interviewed was in the employ of Art Pope. Not only is Doctor Mike and adjunct scholar for the John Locke Foundation, he's been producing tainted research for them for at least fifteen years:

Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor:

The 2011-12 state budget cuts about $350M from the program. But because federal dollars match state spending 2 to 1, the resulting loss to NC’s Medicaid services is about $1B. Officials expect program rolls, now at 1,500,000, will add another 100,000 by 2013 – a growth rate of about 6.6%. During the same biennium, program funding is slated to shrink by $2 billion, or about 7.8%.

Hat-tip to Laura Leslie. Sometimes there's a fine line between austerity and irresponsibility, and it's not always evident the line's been crossed. But these actions are way beyond that, into the realm of criminal negligence with the intent to do harm. The word "shame" doesn't even cover it.

In search of cookie-cutter legislation:

In my conversations with those who have attended ALEC events in the past, a lot of the focus has been on developing model legislation. This focus combined with corporate donors who pay for lawmaker scholarships (see below) lead many to question the probity, or at least the appearance of conflict, the event stirs. (NPR did a story this year changes to Arizona criminal/prison laws that apparently started at an ALEC conference, much to the benefit of a conference sponsor.

Again, hat-tip to Mark Binker for linking to this Pro-Publica tutorial on how to research ALEC. Check it out, and if you do dig up some useful info on NC legislation or legislators, (please) post it here for folks to check out:

The Herald-Sun cuts deep, shifts work to Kentucky:

According to sources at The Herald-Sun, seven jobs in the company’s newsroom were cut July 28, leaving fewer than 20 people in the editorial department. The Herald-Sun managers told employees that production duties—page design and copy editing—will be shuffled to the staff of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, also owned by The Herald-Sun’s parent company, Paxton Media Group.

I'm assuming this is bad. I don't know for sure, because their paywall has kept me from reading a lot of their stuff. I wonder if the two are related?