Quoted Text

Man accused of breaking car window after filing insurance claim
Thursday, August 21, 2008

SCHENECTADY — A city man who filed an insurance claim for a broken car window was charged Tuesday with smashing the window himself after an insurance adjuster found no damage.
Investigators from the Frauds Bureau of the state Insurance Department said Mark Davis, 49, of 1588 Van Vranken Ave., filed a claim with the State Farm Insurance Co. in May, reporting that someone had smashed the rear window of his 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Davis then submitted an affidavit to the company claiming the car was vandalized, along with a $3,298 repair estimate.
An insurance adjuster inspected the car and found the window intact, investigators said, so the insurance company contacted Davis, who insisted the window was broken. He asked that the adjuster return to take another look, investigators said, and this time, the adjuster found the window had been smashed.
Witnesses told investigators that Davis broke the window before the adjuster's second visit, investigators said.
Davis was charged with insurance fraud and falsifying business records and was released pending a court appearance Wednesday.

Quoted Text

By MARV CERMAK
First published: Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tedisco starts trend

A recent item here announced Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco coming off the eligible bachelor list in November when he weds Mary Song of Saratoga Springs.

Come to find out, the Saratoga Springs/Schenectady assemblyman is leading a rush for marital bliss by other Schenectady politicians.

Gary McCarthy, 51, a city councilman is marrying Caroline Boardman of Schenectady. Boardman, public information officer for the Troy City School District, and McCarthy, also a former county Democratic chairman, set Oct. 19 for the wedding.

County Legislator Vince DiCerbo, 54, trades vows with Lynn Smookler on Sept. 27. Smookler is a Poughkeepsie city assistant corporation counsel.

County Legislator Joe Suhrada, 43, and JoAnn Kehlbeck just the other day became formally engaged with a wedding set for winter 2009. Kehlbeck is a Union College chemistry professor.

McCarthy was surprised at the wave of politico impending nuptials. "If we had worked together we probably could have gotten some wedding group rates," McCarthy wisecracked.

Quoted Text

State Police cracking down on wayward Thruway motorists

By CATHY WOODRUFF, Staff writer
Thursday, August 21, 2008

ALBANY -- State Police on the Thruway are planning a campaign to catch drivers breaking the law next week.
     
From Monday through Friday, members of State Police Troop T dedicated solely to conducting speed and aggressive driving enforcement will be in action along the Thruway.

``Troop T will be out in full force patrolling the highway, as well as watching for intoxicated drivers, speeders and conducting seat belt checks,'' said State Police Troop T Major Robert C. Meyers. ``The warmer weather brings more motorists out onto the roads and ensuring everyone's safety is Troop T's number one priority.''

The campaign is called Operation Summer Brake.

``As the summer travel season comes to a close, the authority reminds motorists to drive responsibly and to remain alert and aware of their surroundings," said Thruway Authority Executive Director Michael R. Fleischer.

Quoted Text

The Europeanization of the Democratic Party

By William Moloney

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

In the 19th century Americans took very seriously Washington’s warning against “entangling alliances” which might interfere with the country’s unfolding “Manifest Destiny” of dynamic growth and expansion. A corollary to this belief was that the “Great American Democracy” was a unique-perhaps even divinely inspired-form of political organization vastly superior to the Old World’s tired regimes of aristocratic privilege and downtrodden masses.

In the 20th century America entered upon the world stage powerfully and decisively coming to the aid of embattled European democracies and leading them to victory in two world wars and the Cold War. Launching these extraordinary interventions were three memorable Democratic presidents - Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

Though American actions in the two centuries were starkly different - isolationism in the 19th, and intervention in the 20th - one compelling theme was constant: American Exceptionalism - a general notion that foreigners were a source of problems and Americans were a source of solutions. This attitude was often naïve, and jingoistic, but it provided a sturdy foundation for American patriotism through most of our history.

This enduring national consensus, however, collapsed during the “Perfect Storm” of the 1960s when a toxic brew of social, military and political convulsions tore gaping holes in the fabric of our national life - self-inflicted wounds that remain unhealed to this day.

Out of this turmoil there emerged a powerful body of left-wing opinion and activism that turned the old national consensus upside down. Rejecting Henry Clay’s “my country - right or wrong,” the left substituted “my country - always wrong.” More extreme elements declared their country to be the most oppressive society in history - racist at home and imperialist abroad - while discovering sublime virtues in genocidal tyrants from Mao Tse-Tung to Pol Pot.

While this raging ideological virus infected in varying degree a wide range of American institutions - e.g. media, academia - its principal victim was the national Democratic Party.

In less than a decade the party that boldly sponsored the Berlin airlift, the Marshall Plan, and the NATO alliance went from the confident activism of the hawkish John Kennedy - “pay any price, bear any burden to assure the success of liberty” - to the “Blame America First” defeatism of George McGovern - who aptly themed his 1972 acceptance speech as “Come Home, America.”

Betraying allies in Vietnam, ignoring genocide in Cambodia, accepting communist aggression from Angola to Afghanistan, and bowing to humiliation in Iran, America’s defense of liberty abroad was reduced to Carter’s pathetic gesture of boycotting the Moscow Olympics.

The sorry Democratic mismanagement of both economic and foreign policy led to a series of landslide Republican presidential victories and finally a decade of GOP congressional dominance. Yet, amazingly, none of these severe reality checks halted the Democrats' steady leftward drift.

To understand this hostile takeover of the Democratic Party it must be seen in the context of what happened to all “parties of the left” in Europe in the second half of the 20th century. Traumatized by the shocks and dislocations of world wars and Cold War the entire European political spectrum moved decisively leftward. While the socialist parties led this progression, the parties of the center and right - shaken by their own crises of confidence - succumbed as well. European capitalism and nationalism was decisively weakened and the door opened to a continent-wide shift to collectivism and the transnationalism represented by the United Nations, and the European Union.

Today the elitists who dominate the Democratic Party have embraced the “New Europe” and its worldview. On virtually every issue - Iraq, taxes, abortion, global warming, energy, hostility to religion, suspicion of Israel, regulation, U.N. worship etc. etc. - differences are only of degree, not kind.

The fawning reception of Barack Obama in Europe illustrated this perverse harmony. Clearly Obama’s view of the future fits with Europe’s. They see him as the anti-Bush, their best bet ever to lash “rambunctious” America to the collectivist chariot of Europe’s “Brave New World.”

While heir to Western Civilization, America has always stood apart in the degree of its faith, patriotism, individualism, opportunity, and vitality. Most basically the presidential election will decide whether this American Exceptionalism will endure or not. The Democratic Party has already given its answer. In November, ordinary Americans will give theirs.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Baltimore Sun. He is Colorado's former commissioner of education.

© Rocky Mountain News