437: Old Boys Network
Jun 3, 2011
Stories about standing up to the man—or, really, the men. Nurses at
a small Texas hospital report a well-connected doctor for dangerous
medical practices, and find themselves under arrest. Plus...how political
operators in Chicago get to be judges.
- In a small west Texas town called Kermit, two nurses were accused of harassment after they complained to the medical board that a doctor was putting patients in danger. The nurses were fired and then arrested, facing ten years in prison. Reporter Saul Elbein found that a group of powerful men in Kermit went to extreme and sometimes ridiculous lengths to try to bring down these nurses. Saul wrote a version of this story for the Texas Observer. (28 1/2 minutes)
- In this act: judge wannabes working with the old boys network. Ira talks with Chicago Sun-Times political reporter Abdon Pallasch, who since 1996 has covered the meeting where the Chicago political machine decides who it'll put on the ballot to become a judge.
