North Coast Online

Gore In His Neo-Con Days

Enjoy a chuckle while watching this video of a much younger, but even then pedantic, Al Gore chastising the elder Bush for having ignored the obvious connections between Saddam Hussein and Muslim terrorists.

What's For Lunch Tomorrow, Spitz?

Governor Spitzer really cares about the chiiiildren, and to prove it he'd like to tell them just exactly what and how much of it they should eat.

Since introducing legislation he called “an important step in the fight against childhood obesity,” Spitzer has seen both houses of the Legislature reshape his proposal, removing such items as precisely how many calories a milk carton may contain or the percentage of whole grain products that must be offered each week on a lunch menu.

Lawmakers bristled at the extent of the food mandate. Spitzer’s bill was so precise that it had to include a clause assuring that its provisions are not meant to apply “to the consumption of water from drinking fountains.”

I know this is the kind of policy that Democrats just love -- government planning out our lives in great and organized detail.  But I find it bemusing and quite alarming that our Governor is such a micro-manager (control freak in the vernacular) that he'd submit legislation this detailed to solve what most of us don't even consider a problem.

I'm sure that school food can be improved but I'm also pretty certain that there are wise and skilled people in each and every district capable of doing that.  Perhaps some gubernatorial exhortations might be in  order to get the ball rolling, but can the Soviet-style planning -- please.

[UPDATE:] In an unrelated story, Congressman Higgins is hinting that news may soon be forthcoming about some changes to the highway system on the Outer Harbor.

Pressed for details, Higgins would say only that the office of Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer is working on more detailed plans.

Oh, you can just bet they are.

Back To The Future

What do the Europeans know that their sycophants, the Democrats, don't?

Now that French voters are giving him a decisive parliamentary majority, President Nicolas Sarkozy is going to launch a pro-growth, tax cutting, deregulation, reform plan.

In other words, Reaganomics finally comes to France.

Here at home, all the Democrats running for president (except New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson) want to raise personal and corporate taxes. They want to punish profits.

So, let me get this right: while Reaganomics spreads from Eastern Europe—with low flat tax plans proliferating everywhere—into Western Europe, the supply-side model still has not infiltrated the Democratic party.

And to make matters worse, House Dems are now proposing a 4.3 percent surtax on successful earners that will allegedly solve the AMT problem, but in fact, might end up hitting families making as low as $75,000 according to last Friday’s Washington Post article.

The Democrats are stuck in a punitive, soak-the-rich time warp with class warfare written all over it.

Indeed.

Crimes And Punishments

I'll give the News editorial board partial credit for recognizing that Lewis Libby's sentence was over the top. 

It does seem, however, that a very valid point about the rule of law could have been made without going to the extreme of sending a previously law-abiding, highly accomplished citizen off to prison for 30 months and fining him $250,000. That’s on top of the implosion of his career, emotional pain loaded onto his family and what must be millions in legal fees he now owes.

They're docked points, however, for this piece of spin.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald certainly left no stone unturned in his valid quest for the source of the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity. Valid because the CIA feared that one of its prized assets had been compromised just to lash out at a former ambassador — Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson — who had publicly questioned the White House claim that Saddam Hussein had been shopping around Africa for the stuff to make nuclear bombs with.

Fitzgerald already knew who the "leaker" was before Libby was questioned -- former Clinton administration member Richard Armitage who, you'll notice, has never been charged.  He also knew very quickly that Valerie Plame's name couldn't really be "leaked" because she wasn't in a protected CIA job.  No crime had been committed, yet he continued to investigate until he found a scapegoat to indict on something so as to provide some atonement for the crimes that Democrats insist the Bush administration had committed.

It's all the more infuriating because Sandy Berger (another Clinton administration member, oddly enough) walks the streets a free man even though he admittedly stole classified documents from the National Archives.  Lewis Libby committed perjury to a grand jury and deserves punishment, but his sentence is hardly justice and the Buffalo News isn't telling you the full story.

The Verdict Is In

This proves it, John Edwards is stark, raving crazy.

Senator Edwards is outlining a new national security strategy that includes the creation of a 10,000-person civilian peace corps to stem the tide of terrorism in weak and unstable countries.

Mr. Edwards's plan, which he presented in Manhattan yesterday, comes less than a week after he called President Bush's war on terror a "bumper sticker slogan" and said the current national security strategy has not made America safer.

I suppose this fits well with Dennis Kucinich's plans for a Department of Peace, but the naivete that could lead someone to even pretend that a sort of peace corps could stem blind, suicidal religious fanaticism is stunning.  Now, I realize that his far-left base will find this proposal downright thrilling as it allows them to feel that they're not ignoring the problem of Islamic fascism.   It will probably invoke a fair amount of JFK nostalgia amongst his elderly supporters, too. 

How long can the Democrat party continue basing its foreign policy on New Age notions of good deeds and vibrations? Until they win, I suppose.  Though they do have the example of Jimmy Carter who turned the other cheek to disastrous consequences throughout his term -- that's what we should be afraid of.

Rage Against The Machine(s)

I see Judy Einach's running for Common Council in my district (Niagara).

The retiring Council member [Bonifacio] endorsed Peter Savage Jr., an assistant corporation counsel favored by Brown. The Hoyt candidate is Buffalo Police Officer David Rivera, while Judith Einach, a community activist who unsuccessfully ran an independent campaign for mayor in 2005, also has entered the race.

Let's see, Brown's endorsed a government-insider lawyer. I think we've got enough of those in City Hall.  Hoyt's mini-machine is supporting a Buffalo Police Office.  Now, I have deep respect for the police, but I'm not terribly keen on city employees serving in government which is, after all, their employer.  Right at the moment I'd have to say that Einach sounds pretty good.

Of course, if there's a Republican in the district who decides to run I'll have to consider that as well.  I do know that it won't be me --  but I can't say for sure what plans the other two have.

[UPDATE:] I don't mean to intimate that Ms. Einach is a good candidate only because the others aren't, the campaign hasn't started yet and therefore no one's really put forward any ideas.  I was able to meet her during the mayoral campaign and was impressed.  Judy and the Common Council might be a very good fit. 

Self-Fulfilling Investigations

John Edwards makes a bold and brave statement.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Thursday called for a federal investigation into possible antitrust violations by the oil industry and criticized oil companies for raising gas prices.

Of course, he qualified it in the next sentence.

``There's absolutely no justification for the gas companies to be as profitable as they are and have the taxpayers subsidizing the industry,'' Edwards said.

You're right, John.  Why not campaign to do away with oil company subsidies and then leave them alone?  What?  You say that would take away your justification for using oil as a campaign issue?  Oh, I see.

Shared Misery

Hillary calls for a renewed collective effort.

It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society.

Scott at Powerline writes, "Not since I was 16 have I wanted so badly to be on my own."

The Breck Girl Exposed

I don't know if Democrats will be influenced by tales of John Kerry's supposed discomfort for John Edwards; in fact, I don't even know if they're true (this is Bob Shrum after all).

He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

Delicious stuff.

Saving The Stupid

One year after that Rod Watson's Buffalo News series that criticized rent-to-own stores, Senator Schumer is still out there flogging them.

Nationwide, the fast-growing rent-to-own industry has more than 8,300 stores serving an estimated 2.7 million customers. The industry is dominated by two publicly traded companies — Rent-A-Center of Plano, Texas, and Aaron Rents of Atlanta. There are about 60 rent-to-own stores in the Buffalo area, including 13 Rent-ACenter locations surveyed last week by Schumer’s staff.

Citing that research, Schumer said a 27-inch Toshiba television that retails for $299.99 locally cost $909.35 after 65 weekly payments at Rent-ACenter. That’s a 203.13 percent markup over 15 months.

Similarly, a Whirlpool stove selling at retail for $699.99 was $2,183.09 after 91 weeks or 21 months, while a $299.99 Whirlpool air conditioner sold for $779.70 after 30 weeks and a $529.99 Whirlpool refrigerator cost $1,637.09 after 91 weeks.

If the rent-to-own stores state the terms of payment up front and deliver the product as advertised, then Senator Schumer should have nothing to say about it.  "But, Craig," you ask, "what about those high prices?"   

Look, it's safe to assume that a solid chunk of rent-to-own customers don't follow through on their payments and that the store will have to send people out to reclaim its inventory.  Given their customer base, it's also not a stretch to imagine that a fair portion of that inventory will have been mistreated and damaged to the point that it's not fit to be re-sold.

How else are they to offset those costs but by charging high prices?

No one forces people to buy from these stores.  There are plenty of options:  save up first and then buy, buy used (cheap) or clean up your credit and go into hock like the middle class does.  But Senator Schumer has based his career on treating his constituents as if we all have an extra chromosome (as Al Gore would put it) and with praise like this from the Buffalo News he's not likely to stop any time soon.