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Park service tells me no 1st amendment at parks
Well this park employee on the rail trail told me I can #39;t have any "political " signs on my bike. Well I am exercising my first amendment rights , free speech,freedom of the press, right to...
By: That guy for 2a defend the constitution
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Park service tells me no 1st amendment at parks - Video
Yesterday the City Council Consumer Affairs Committee heard testimony relating to a bill that would require costumed characters across New York City to register with the Department of Consumer Affairs in order to accept tips or donations. "This straight up seems like fascism to me," Keith Albahaye, a.k.a. The New York Joker, told the councilmembers. "The First Amendment is the First Amendment. I'm not gonna be allowed on 52nd Street and Broadway in the United States of America?"
At the outset of the hearing, the bill's sponsor, Bronx Councilmember Andy King, testified that "the bill is not designed to take away anyone's First Amendment rights," and he added that his aim wasn't to raise questions about a performer's immigration status either. King said that his own five-year-old daughter was traumatized by an encounter with a character this past summer.
"Strawberry Shortcake didn't get the proper tip she wanted, she ripped off her own head and started to berate her father and her family," King said. "In the mind of a five year old, how do you comprehend a head being snatched off? In cartoons you can erase the head and you can draw it back on, but in human life you can't do that. We want to make sure we can maintain that kind of innocence for our children and our families."
Midtown South Commander Edward Winski testified that since 2009, the police have arrested 38 costumed performers in Times Square, 18 of those occurring this year. Most were for aggressive solicitation, but others were more serious, such as when a Spiderman struck a police officer and when Woody from Toy Story was arrested for sexually assaulted a woman by grabbing her buttock.
Councilmember Dan Garodnick, whose district covers a portion of Times Square, noted that King's bill merely reiterates the law prohibiting aggressive solicitation, the enforcement of which is currently up to the NYPD.
"Even under the bill as proposed, those same subtle questions exist," Garodnick said. "I think it still leaves open a lot of those questions which ultimately, if the police are not there to enforce, we're just where we are today."
Int. 467 would make it illegal "for any costumed individual while wearing a costume to solicit in return for posing for photographs or otherwise interacting with the public in public places without having first obtained a license."
Steven Shiffrin, professor emeritus at Cornell Law School and the author of numerous books on the First Amendment, told us in September that a law like this may not pass constitutional muster.
"Wearing costumes is a form of First Amendment expression, and the First Amendment does not permit government to charge its citizens as a pre-condition of exercising their rights," Shiffrin wrote in an email. "This principle takes on special force when the charge is exorbitant and when the purported justification for its imposition is so obviously a pretext."
A representative from the Department of Consumer Affairs also revealed that in addition to the $175 fee for the two-year license, characters would have to pay a $75 fingerprinting fee. There are 14 other licensed professions that require fingerprinting, including auctioneers, auto repair workers, bingo hosts, process servers, pawn brokers, and tow truck drivers. The representative noted that the costume license would be the cheapest, though a general vendor license costs $200. A tow truck company pays $600 per truck.
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Times Square Joker Says Costume Law Is "Straight Up Fascism"
Obama: Clinton #39;s #39;Dead Broke #39; Comment Won #39;t Make a Big Difference
The "This Week" roundtable weighs in on President Obama defense of Hillary Clinton #39;s income remarks. The "This Week" roundtable weighs in on President Obama defense...
By: Aspocaer Paoscae
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Obama: Clinton's 'Dead Broke' Comment Won't Make a Big Difference - Video
Talking Points Memo's Dylan Scott interviewed Mitch Stewart, the former battleground states director of President Obama's reelection campaign and now a member of the Hillary Clinton campaign-in-waiting known as "Ready for Hillary," about how the 2016 electoral map could be expanded in Democrats' favor if the former secretary of state is, as expected, the party's presidential nominee.
Stewart suggests two "buckets" of states that Clinton could make competitive in 2016 that Obama, for a several reasons, couldn't in 2008 or 2012. The first bucket is Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri. The second contains Arizona and Georgia.
The first bucket of states is ridiculous. The second is plausible -- but almost certainly not in 2016. Let's take them in order.
Stewart's explanation for Clinton's heightened competitiveness in Arkansas, Missouri and Indiana is that she can appeal to whites and, in particular, white working-class voters and, even more particularly, white working-class women voters in a way that Obama could not. (It's worth noting that the Clinton people have made a similar argument about the potential competitiveness of Kentucky.)
"Where I think Secretary Clinton has more appeal than any other Democrat looking at running is that with white working-class voters, she does have a connection," Stewart told Scott. "I think she's best positioned to open those states." As evidence, Stewart cited Clinton's success in the 2008 primary process in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Fair(ish). But remember that Clinton's performance in those primaries was against an African American candidate named Barack Obama, not against a Republican in a general election. And that coming close isn't the same thing as winning. Yes, Clinton would almost certainly do better with white working-class voters than Obama did. But, in some of the states that Stewart puts in that first bucket, that's a pretty low bar.
Arkansas is a good example. It's easy to assume -- and the Clintons almost certainly are assuming -- that the former first couple of Arkansas have a special connection to the Natural State. After all, Bill Clinton spent years as the state's governor and used it as a launching pad for his presidential bid in 1992.
That was a very long time ago. And even in the past six years, Arkansas has moved heavily away from Democrats at the federal level. In 2008, both U.S. senators from Arkansas were Democrats, as were three of its four House members. Following the 2014 elections, all six are Republicans. ALL SIX. President Obama won just 37 percent of the vote in the state in the 2012 general election after watching someone named John Wolfe win 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary against him.
Would Hillary Clinton do better than that? Yes. But the idea that the Arkansas that helped push Bill Clinton into the national spotlight has anything in common, politically speaking, with the Arkansas of 2014 is a fallacy. As for the idea that Obama's race was the fundamental reason for his poor showing among white working-class voters, here are two words for you: Mark Pryor. As in, the two term incumbent senator -- and son of a former governor and senator in the state -- who just lost badly in his bid for reelection. Pryor took just 31 percent among white voters and won an even more meager 29 percent among whites without a college education. (The exit poll didn't break down income level by race.)
Missouri and Indiana are slightly -- emphasis on slightly -- less clear-cut as such huge reaches when it comes to Clinton's presidential prospects. Obama's successes in both states in 2008 -- he won Indiana and lost Missouri by less than 4,000 votes -- would seem to provide significant encouragement for the Clinton forces. But subsequent election results in both states make 2008 look far more like the exception than the rule for Democrats.
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The ridiculousness of Hillary Clintons expand-the-map ...
DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS, Tenn. (FOX13) - It's been 20 years since former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Back then she was First Lady.
On Thursday she was at the Downtown Memphis hospital to help dedicate and open a new $200 million research, education and collaboration center.
This new facility will allow doctors and researchers from St. Jude and worldwide to share knowledge about treatments and cures for childhood cancer.
The Marlo Thomas Center for Global Education and Collaboration will also host a college graduate and post-doctoral fellow program to be a "degree-gaining institute." The facility is already in use - meetings were being held Thursday. In the last 20 years since Clinton visited st. Jude, the hospital's CEO says its doctors have discovered how to tailor medullablastoma therapies, started a genome project to understand pediatric cancers and established a life study program. This center will allow doctors worldwide to share and further cancer research.
"This is what healthcare should look like patients before profits, collaboration before competition, and that is particularly healthcare that every single child deserves," the former secretary of state said.
It was decided that the center would be named after Marlo Thomas because of her efforts there as a "proud beggar" for the st. Jude children. She'll receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom Nov. 24 for her advocacy work supporting the hospital.
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Hillary Clinton To Visit St. Jude Hospital