I was all set to tell all y'all about the hearing on the NYPD's proposed "parade" rules intended to stifle peaceful dissent, but the NYPD withdrew the proposals yesterday. Go buy yourself something nice if you wrote the mayor, the police commissioner, and/or your councilperson (if you're a NYC resident).
New York cable news channel NY1, owned by Time Warner, wouldn't permit Democratic anti-war candidate Jonathan Tasini to debate incumbent Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton as part of its series of televised debates. Why? Because Tasini couldn't raise $500,000 and therefore, in NY1's view, did not "represent" the Democratic party. Though he's, like, against the Iraq war, and most Democrats -- excuse me, most Americans oppose the Iraq war now. I do so love it when people worship mammon. The above link contains contact info for the two big poobahs at NY1, in case you want to give them what-for.
Though I oppose the sort of permanent welfare state that Lyndon Johnson helped create, I'm not a cruel and heartless bastard -- for example, I think six months of unemployment isn't enough in a culture that thinks it's OK to lay people off just to increase profits. So it goes with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the program that "replaced" welfare in 1996. The Department of Health and Human Services has drafted unnecessarily rigid rules that will hamstring states when they develop their TANF programs -- for example, they won't give states the leeway to count many of the barriers poor people face (language, education, rehabilitation) when determining someone's needs. Conservatives used to argue that the biggest government should do the least because the smallest government knew best, but those who have stolen the mantle of "conservative" have become just the sort of hifalutin deep-thinkers they always said they hated. The "deep thought" guiding this particular set of rule changes, I guess, is "simplify government," just like they wanted to "simplify" away the Estate Tax and higher tax brackets. Anyway, the Coalition on Human Needs provides a handy PDF so you can develop your comments on the rule changes to HHS. Once you've crafted your comments, here's where to submit them. You've got until August 28, which is this coming Monday.
OK, that's enough homework for today. Maybe too much, in fact. This is summer break, right?
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