…is highlighted over at Cowgirl. Excerpt:
“Using his signature method of anecdotes and unsupported claims, Rep. Burnett (R-Bozeman) is ramping up his crusade for a massive food police bureaucracy to restrict food to needy children.
The Montana TEA Party legislator stated in a Wisconsin newspaper this week that we shouldn’t be helping needy kids who don’t get school lunch because school is out–in spite of the increase in hungry kids seeking food in the last five years.”
Tom Burnett is currently running unopposed in House District 63 until Democrats find a replacement for Marty Livingston, who withdrew in June.
Please God, let them find a good one….
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From Eternity To Here 
This whole “war on the hungry” is increasingly concerning me. There’s a growing number of cities where you can actually get fined or arrested for feeding homeless people outdoors without a permit. This was brought to my attention lately by the Occupy National Gathering’s food drive–turns out they were explicitly breaking the law by…feeding Philadelphia’s homeless? Also turns out that many other cities, including New York, have similar bans. The mayors keep claiming it’s because of “concern over food safety standards,” but all I’m hearing is “out of sight, out of mind–if the homeless people can’t get fed here they will go somewhere else.” This combined with laws against sleeping in public places makes me wonder…are they hoping to end homelessness by making it illegal not to have a home?
My own city has been having a really annoying conflict with our state governor over a similar issue. The governor recently decided to forcibly close down a self-sufficient tent city that was housing 60-70 homeless folks around here over “safety concerns.” The state has offered assistance for some, but not all of its residents–and hasn’t explained what exactly they expect newly homeless people to do now that the camp is gone and our local homeless shelter is always over capacity. They have, however, declared that anyone trying to re-enter the camp will be arrested for trespassing. WTF?
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