Jim Black may be gone, but the ongoing criminal conspiracy that passes for state government chugs right along in Raleigh.
Check out Gov. Mike Whatshisname getting caught red-handed trying to fix — and I mean crooked fix, not repair — the energy policy debate in North Carolina. The governor’s staffers ran around setting up the governor’s former Utilities Commission chair, Jo Anne Sanford, in the consulting biz.
The goal was obviously to use Sanford as a front to smooth out differences between Duke Energy and Progress Energy on one side and the enviros at the Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation on the other. Sanford would find out where everybody stood, pass it on to Whatshisname, the governor’s office spits out ready-made policy. No need for messy public input.
Oh, and Sanford gets to cash some consulting checks along the way, demonstrating to all the kleptocrats in Raleigh the power and value of being close to Whatshisname. Win-win all around, except for the citizens of North Carolina, who once again get shut out of a vital policy debate; once again as determined by who is writing a check to pol’s crony.
Hell, it worked for health care, why not energy policy? Why even go to the trouble and expense of elections?
This state runs on backroom deals and cold-hard cash. Just like every other banana republic.
