North Carolina’s numbers are hard to ignoreNorth Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek says his office is digging into a steep rise in Medicaid billing for autism therapy, especially ABA, or applied behavior analysis. He points to a jump from about $1.4 million in total billings to more than $660 million over five years. That kind of growth is not a small accounting issue. It is the sort of number that makes any taxpayer wonder whether the state found a hidden need or simply built a payment system with the barn door open. Boliek says his office is the state’s top watchdog for waste, fraud, and abuse, which sounds noble until you remember that watchdogs usually have to bark because somebody left the gate wide open.Officials say the rules help the problemBoliek argues the trouble is not just bad actors, but bad design. He says some claims may be illegal, while others could still be technically allowed because the rules are too loose and the oversight too thin. In his view, the system can let multiple clinical providers bill for the same time window on one autism therapy client, which is either a billing mistake, a loophole, or a very creative…

Moore Would Not Draw a Hard Line In a podcast interview with Patrick Bet-David, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was asked a direct question about his 14-year-old son: if the boy wanted to transition to female, would Moore stop him? Moore said he would not reject his child or throw him out of the house, which is a low bar and a reasonable one. But he also said that if it were “a journey that he wants to go down,” he would stay involved and help him along it. That is the sort of answer that sounds warm in a studio and fuzzy everywhere else, especially when parents are trying to tell the difference between support and surrender. https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/2052544611768283383?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw He Later Added One Caveat Moore later said he would not support the use of puberty blockers, which is at least one sentence with an edge. He was also asked whether he would advise waiting until 18, and he did not give a clean answer. That is the classic political move now: sound caring, avoid specifics, and hope nobody notices the missing part. It works well in modern media, where a vague promise can be treated like wisdom and a clear line…