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KINKY FRIEDMAN STAYING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRIAL . . . FOR HIS CIGARS! |
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 Plus: last word on Oregon’s Measure 50 and tobacco-company ads
Los Angeles, November 14 – “The cake for Kinky Friedman's 63rd birthday, which he celebrated at a cigar store in Greenville, N.C., was decorated with one of the Kinkster's newest slogans: ‘Cigarettes bad, cigars good.’
“Only a man with a trunk full of cigars to unload would be that politically incorrect.”
So wrote Mark Rutledge of The Daily Reflector on Greenville, who spoke to Friedman at the smokeshop. The former Texas gubernatorial candidate was in Greenville to participate in a local humor festival being held at East Carolina University.
Wrote Rutledge, “He likes to discuss the epidemic of ineffective leadership he sees festering throughout the country.
“‘They're not good people, who are drawn to politics,’ he said. ‘If they were, they don't stay that way long.’”
Although Friedman is only the latest in a long line of well-known personalities to have a line of cigars named for them and then promoted by them, he says he’s serious about the venture. “It looks like I might become the next George Foreman, Famous Amos or Jimmy Dean of the cigar world,” he told the reporter. “That would be great.” Friedman’s cigars are made by the Habana Cuba Cigar Co., best known for its Oliveros lines.
“He clearly enjoys burning good cigars and bad politicians,” noted Rutledge. That sounds like a good career choice for anyone!
Senate Democrats finally ban tobacco!:
Democrats who control the U.S. Senate have voted to override President George W. Bush’s veto of the SCHIP bill, but saw the House of Representatives come up short. So they did the next best thing: they banned tobacco sales in their own Capitol Hill store.
“The Senate was operating as a discount cigarette outlet. It was time to shut it down,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, one of the most ardent anti-smoking activists in the Senate. He joined with four other anti-tobacco Democrats – Tom Harkin of Iowa, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jack Reed of Rhode Island – in sending a letter to California Senator Dianne Feinstein on August 4 requesting that Senate sundry shops no longer sell tobacco products.
Feinstein, whose Rules and Administration Committee oversees such matters, issued a letter banning the sale of any tobacco products in Senate restaurants and stores.
Because tobacco was priced in these locations free of Federal or District of Columbia taxes, they were less expensive than in surrounding stores. But, of course, instead of correcting the price differential, Democrats went for a ban. Is there a preview here of future legislation?
The situation in the House of Representatives relative to sales of tobacco products is unchanged, however, since one side of the Congress cannot regulate the other.
No news is good news:
For the first time since February of this year, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control – the folks who enforce the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba – did not impose any penalties against individuals or entities relating to the purchase of Cuban cigars in its latest list of civil sanctions issued during the month of October.
The OFAC has been quite active in sending warning letters concerning Cuban cigar purchases, but actual sanctions – almost always fines – are fairly few in number. For the first 10 months of 2007, a total of 14 civil penalties related to cigar purchases have been imposed, ranging from $200 to more than $6,000. The incidents which led to the penalties go as far back as 2002.
Last word on Oregon’s Measure 50:
Reader Mike Russell of Salem, Oregon had a bone to pick with the Salem Statesman Journal story on the defeat of Measure 50, which would have funded a children’s health-insurance program with tobacco taxes.
“The front page of the Nov. 7 Statesman Journal quotes our governor's reaction to the defeat of Measure 50. ‘The tobacco industry won this battle, but they will not win the war.’
“It occurs to me that the voters won the battle. If the state of Oregon is going to single out an ‘industry’ to fund a state program, why not beer or soda pop or bottled water or candy or french fries?
“The intent of Measure 50 was to add a ‘sales tax’ to a product. Sales tax is a notion that has been rejected by Oregonians for a long time.
“The governor may wish to be informed that the state of Oregon already has plans in place to address the problem of uninsured Oregonians. One is called the Family Health Insurance Assistance Program. Another is called the Oregon Health Plan. Additionally, the Insurance Pool Governing Board has designed employer-sponsored group plans specifically for the benefit of children.
“It is probably a good idea to fix what we already have rather than throw money at a new solution.
“Hooray for the voters! We have not been duped by tobacco industry advertising. We are intelligent and victorious.”
Right you are. But as Kinky Friedman will tell you, that’s hardly going to stop politicians from trying to tax tobacco.
~ Rich Perelman
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