Daily Archives: November 28, 2019

Freedom of religion is our First Freedom, protected in the Constitution. But it has been eroded by the growth of the administrative state, misinterpretations of the Establishment Clause, and corporate and cultural activism that seeks to expand government power to coerce conformity to a new sexual orthodoxy.

The Obama Administration implemented policies that coerced both individuals and private entities (both for-profit and charitable) to conform to the governments views on controversial issues like abortion and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). The Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) enforced the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act requiring that employers provide contraception, including abortifacients, under threat of massive financial penalties. This onerous burden caused multiple businesses and nonprofit organizations to file lawsuits to avoid violating their sincerely held religious beliefs about the beginnings of life. Ultimately, after years of costly litigation, the Supreme Court protected the religious freedom of the Hobby Lobby Corporation, a closely held for-profit organization, and the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns who serve the indigent elderly.REF

When the government forces religious actors to choose between following their beliefs or serving the public, it not only violates their freedoms, it deprives the public of valuable services and diversity among providers.

Americas understanding of religious freedom benefits everyone: Jews, Christians, and Muslims; members of smaller communities like Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs; and agnostics and atheists. Our robust protections of religious freedom have created the infrastructure for healthy pluralism. We are free to disagree with both each other and with the state.

Congress and President Trump have the opportunity to strengthen this structure by removing ideological restrictions that the previous Administration placed on religious actors, thereby freeing everyone to participate in the public square and serve the common good.

With a new Democrat majority in the House of Representatives, the conversation has shifted from protecting religious freedom to attacking existing protections of religious freedom and passing new legislation that would limit religious freedom. In light of this, Congress should prioritize the following:

Oppose the Equality Actin All Forms. This bill would punish disagreement on life, marriage, and sex differences by adding to the 1964 Civil Rights Act the term sex (in Title II on public accommodations) and redefining sex to mean sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in multiple sections (Titles II, III [public facilities], IV [public education], VI [federal funding], VII [employment], and IX [education] and in the 1968 Fair Housing Act).REF

In multiple states, these laws have been weaponized against those who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman or that sex is binary. Several wedding vendors, such as Masterpiece Cakeshop, have been sued for declining to create custom goods for same-sex weddings, although they serve all customers. The Equality Act would dramatically expand the definition of public accommodations to include houses of worship and online services.REF The expansive definition of public accommodations could lead to lawsuits demanding taxpayer funding for abortions through Medicaid, as well as forcing health care workers and entities to participate in abortion.REF Under similar state laws, individuals who identify as transgender have sued hospitals that declined to perform surgeries (including hysterectomies) on healthy women because of their religious beliefs against sterilization.

In an unprecedented move for federal legislation, the Equality Act nullifies the applicability of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to amended sections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The RFRA prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a persons exercise of religion unless the government demonstrates that the application of the burden to the person is the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling governmental interest. In Alaska, a womens homeless shelter was sued for gender identity discrimination when it declined to admit a man who identifies as a woman into womens sleeping quarters.REF

In addition to multiple problems the Equality Act would create for privacy, safety, and equality, it would be used as similar state laws have been to penalize people for acting on their sincere religious belief that people are created male and female and that male and female are created for each other.REF The Equality Act would treat such long-standing and widely held beliefs as the functionaland legalequivalent of racist bigotry. This is not true, and our civil rights law should not say otherwise.REF

Meanwhile, other proposed compromises that enact sweeping sexual orientation and gender identity policies with limited exemptions for religious institutions do not solve the underlying issue with these policies and do accelerate their harms. Proposed models such as Fairness for All, based in part on a legislative compromise in Utah, are inadequate to protect freedom for all.REF

Exemptions for religious institutions leave religious individuals exposed to liability in the public square. They narrow the scope of religious freedom to freedom of worship to be practiced within the confines of a church or synagogue or a religious collegeeffectively erasing these beliefs from the public square. Enacting nationwide SOGI policies that only exempt religious institutions would decrease safety and privacy for women and girls in single-sex private spaces and subject them to gross unfairness in athletics. Exemptions for medical organizations controlled by religious institutions leave out secular medical providers and medical professionals employed by those providers who have conscience objections to transgender ideology and oppose hormonal and surgical interventions for patients with gender dysphoria, including children. Finally, exemptions for religious institutions from a transgender medical mandate fails to preserve body-affirming treatment options for parents of gender-dysphoric children.

All Americans should be able to live out their beliefs in every corner of the public square, not just the lucky few affiliated with an institution that qualifies for a religious exemption.

Oppose SOGI Language in Any Federal Bill that Treats Disagreement as DiscriminationIncluding in Appropriations. The House of Representatives added SOGI and abortion language to a number of appropriations bills, including for HHS (for foster care),REF Housing and Urban Development (HUD),REF Department of Homeland Security,REF Department of State/U.S. Agency for International Development,REF intelligence agencies, and Customs and Border Patrol. The newly introduced SOGI language would block the Trump Administrations ability to carry out current regulatory priorities at HUD (new proposed rule for homeless shelters) and HHS (waiver for faith-based adoption agency).REF The Senate should strike this language from its versions of appropriations bills.

Other federal bills that would add SOGI to federal law include the Elder Pride Act/Inclusive Aging Act, which would add conditions to grants for organizations that serve the elderly based on whether grantees offer a full array of sexual health services or have a formal relationship with organizations that assist LGBT individuals.REF Attempts to create a SOGI ideology litmus test on serving the elderly should be opposed.REF

Revise the Stronger Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. H.B. 2480 added sexual and gender minority youth to abuse-prevention outreach requirementsREF and references the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions definition, which includes the term transgender.REF The terms transgender and gender minority adopt one side of a political dispute over the proper treatment of gender dysphoria. These terms are not based on science or medicine but on ideologyand would be a roundabout way of enshrining SOGI ideology into law.

Oppose the Do No Harm Act (H.R. 1450). The bill would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by limiting the scope of cases in which RFRA can protect Americans religious freedom.REF It does this by treating certain protected actions as harm and then removing them from RFRAs reach.REF Supporters of the bill describe it as a response to the Supreme Courts 2014 landmark decision in favor of Hobby Lobby Stores, which held that under the RFRA a closely held for-profit corporation could be exempt from the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Health Care Act that violated their religious beliefs. Without the important balancing test RFRA provides, Americans everywhere would lose their first legal recourse to defend their First Amendments protection of religious exercise. The original RFRA should not be watered down.

Pass the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act. The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act (CWPIA)REF would increase the supply of foster parents by allowing faith-based agencies to serve communities in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs.REF The CWPIA would prohibit federal government and state governments that receive federal funds from discriminating against foster care and adoption providers on the basis of their religious beliefs that every child deserves both a mom and a dad, or because they place children with co-religionists.

In the 115th Congress, the House Appropriations Committee passed the CWPIA as an amendment to the fiscal year 2019 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS) appropriations bill (the Aderholdt Amendment), but it did not ultimately become law.REF Meanwhile, in the 116th Congress, the House added SOGI language to the fiscal year 2020 Appropriations bills for LHHS that would invalidate the Trump Administrations attempts to protect faith-based adoption with a waiver from a SOGI non-discrimination regulation enacted under the Obama Administration (discussed further below).REF

Regulatory action is not enough to provide permanent protection to every capable agency that wishes to serve children consistent with their religious beliefs. With more children entering foster care every day due to the drug crisis, Congress should not delay ensuring that all able agencies can recruit as many forever families as are needed to ensure no child is left on the waiting list.REF

Pass the First Amendment Defense Act. When the U.S. Supreme Court redefined marriage in the 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, it pledged not to disparage Americans who hold the view that marriage is between one man and one woman and that, in the words of Justice Kennedy, is based upon decent and honorable religious and philosophical premises and held in good faith by reasonable and sincere people around the world.REF

The First Amendment Defense Act would prevent the federal government from discriminating against individuals and organizations for their beliefs about marriage through licensing, contracting, and accreditation (among others), and revocation of tax-exempt status.REF This act is essential to protect private schools, charities, and businesses, as well as the students, clients, and customers whom they serve.

Pass Comprehensive Legislation to Protect Freedom to Disagree on Marriage and Sex Differences. Congress should enact comprehensive legislation to protect the freedom of all Americans to think, speak, and act according to their beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman and that there are only two sexes.REF The growing wave of punishments under state and local SOGI laws and the Equality Act show it is time to enact legislative protection of:

Sexual orientation and gender identity policies like the Equality Act ultimately codify sexual ideology as government orthodoxy for everyone. As these policies multiply at the state and local level,REF the federal government should enact policy to protect the freedom of all Americans to live according to their beliefs about marriages and differences between the sexes.

An effective solution to social and political conflicts over the definition of sex and the meaning of marriage will allow all Americans to live consistently with their beliefs. Congress should pass comprehensive legislation that will promote authentic pluralism by protecting freedom to disagree on these issues.

Strengthen Spiritual Fitness Resources for Veteran Suicide Prevention in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On average, 20 veteran suicides happen each day, despite more than 15 years of federal suicide-prevention programming.REF Congress should recommend that the Department of Defense (DOD), in consultation with commanders, chaplains, and military medical professionals, develop a suicide-prevention program that incorporates, as an optional component, opportunities for religious practice in accordance with each members faith.REF

At the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019, President Trump stated that Americas Founders understood that no right is more fundamental to a peaceful, prosperous, and virtuous society than the right to follow ones religious convictions.REF The Trump Administration has taken several significant steps to protect freedom of conscience and religion at home and abroad.REF This is consistent with the Presidents public statements on numerous occasions emphasizing the importance of life and religious liberty.REF

Domestically, the Trump Administration has:

Issued an Executive Order on Religious Liberty. In 2017, the President issued Executive Order No. 13798 to guide the executive branch in formulating and implementing policies with implications for the religious liberty[in] compliance with the Constitution and with applicable statutes and Presidential Directives.REF The final executive order featured weaker religious liberty protections than had been incorporated in a previous draft, but it was nevertheless a step in the right direction.REF

Issued the Department of Justice (DOJ) Memorandum on Religious Liberty and Set Up the Religious Liberty Task Force. Pursuant to Executive Order No. 13798, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued 20 principles to guide federal agencies to act in accordance with the First Amendment, the RFRA, and other statutes and regulations.REF The Religious Liberty Task Force implements these principles within the DOJs operations, legal arguments, and policies and regulations.REF

Filed Amicus Briefs with the Supreme Court. The DOJ intervened on behalf of religious liberty in critical SOGI cases in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and an Establishment Clause challenge in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association.REF

The DOJ also filed briefs in two cases concerning the interpretation of sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),REF and Altitude Express v. Zarda.REF In the former case, the owner of Harris Funeral Homes, Tom Rost, is a Christian who believes that we are created male and female. He declined to allow a male employee who identifies as a female to adopt the female dress code and to use private facilities for females. The Courts interpretation of Title VII could have a significant impact on employers, including religious ones, who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman or that sex is binary. The Department of Justice clarified that the EEOC overstepped its mandate by interpreting sex to mean SOGI and that federal legislation should be understood according to its ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.REF

Furthermore, under President Trump, the Department of Health and Human Services has:

Created a New Conscience and Religious Freedom Division. The new division is dedicated to enforcing the numerous federal laws protecting freedom of conscience and religious freedom.REF As of April 2019, it had received 343 complaints (compared to the mere 10 complaints received over the course of eight years in the Obama Administration), and is an important step towards more consistent application of the law.REF

Issued a Rule to Provide Robust Enforcement of Federal Conscience Protections. The rule revises and strengthens a similar regulation from the George W. Bush Administration that was later rescinded under President Obama.REF The Trump Administrations rule will help ensure that health care providers,professionals, andother health careentities do not face coercion or discriminatory action if they decline to participate in certain activities, such as abortion, assisted suicide, orsterilization, because of moral or religious objections.

Rescinded the Health Care Gender Identity Mandate. In May 2019, the Trump Administration proposed a new rule to clarify that discrimination on the basis of sex under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act refers to biological sex only, not to a persons subjective perception of his or her gender identity.REF It was a needed corrective to the Obama Administrations expansion of the term sex to mean to include gender identity.REF Even though a federal judge blocked the regulation from going into effect through a nationwide preliminary injunction on the basis that the regulation had violated the Administrative Procedures Act and likely violated the RFRA, thereby preventing the rule from going into effect, the clarification provides predictability to both secular and religious medical professionals, hospitals, employers, and insurers.REF

Granted a Waiver for Faith-based Adoption to Miracle Hill. In January, HHS responded to a request from South Carolina for a waiver from an Obama-era regulation which added the categories of religion and SOGI to a non-discrimination provision in foster care funding.REF The Obama-era changes exceeded the scope of the language in the original authorizing legislation which only prevented discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.REF The waiver from HHS allowed Miracle Hill Ministries to continue placing children with co-religionists.REF It is the largest provider in South Carolina for children without special needs and recruits 15 percent of foster families in the state.REF

Rescinded 45 C.F.R. 75.300 (c) and (d) in Title IV-E of the Social Security Actand Issued a New Rule. On November 1, HHS responded to requests from both child welfare providers, religious liberty advocates, and states by announcing it would rescind the Obama Administrations problematic addition of religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity to the list of protected classes.REF In addition to creating problems for Miracle Hill Ministries, it had created problems for foster care agencies in other parts of the nation. In Dumont v. Lyon, the Attorney General of Michigan and the ACLU signed a settlement agreement to stop the state from working with faith-based agenciesciting the Obama regulation.REF

The Trump Administration also pledged that recipients of federal funds could continue to follow their own beliefs on marriage. Some agencies described their views on marriage as an essential component of their shared values with families, birth mothers, and children. Without the new regulatory reform, faith-based adoption agencies would have remained vulnerable. Forty Democrats in Congress called on HHS to revoke the waiver to Miracle Hill (mentioned above) and to refrain from granting such waivers in the future.REF

Proposed a HUD Rule to Protect Privacy and Safety in Homeless Shelters. The Obama Administration implemented a SOGI provision in federal housing called the Equal Access Rule. It then created an additional rule based on the Equal Access Rule that granted individuals access to sex-specific shelters for the homeless on the basis of self-determined gender identity.REF Lawsuits arose in both religious and secular womens homeless shelters over whether men who self-identify as women can demand access. The Trump HUD proposed a new rule that would allow shelter providers to offer single-sex or sex-segregated facilities, empowering them to protect the well-being of all guests.REF

Rescinded the Obama Administrations Gender Identity Mandate in Schools. The Trump Department of Justice and Department of Education (DOE) officially rescinded Obama-era guidance that instructed schools to treat sex as gender identity for the purposes of Title IXforcing them to give access to sex-specific facilities and activities to members of the opposite sex.REF A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction that brought this gender identity mandate to a halt, which the Obama Administration then appealed. The Trump Administration withdrew the motion, stating that in this context, there must be due regard for the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing educational policy.REF

Proposed a New Rule for Religious Organizations that Partner with the Department of Labor. The new rule ensures that religious entities that partner with the Department of Labor can take into account not only religious belief but all aspects of religious observance and practice (per the definition of religion in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act) in their employment decisions.REF Religious organizations were reluctant to participate as federal contractors because President Obamaissued Executive Order No. 13672, which expanded President Lyndon Johnsons Executive Order No. 11246 to cover SOGI. The Obama Administration gave contractors guidance that suggested it would narrow existing religious exemptions.REF

Clarified the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Public Religious Displays. The VA clarified that religious symbols, as well as spiritual and pastoral care, are welcome at its facilities.REF Millions of service members from different religious backgrounds have relied upon their faith and gained encouragement from religious literature, symbols, and displays. No member of the military should have to hide his or her faith when putting on a uniform, nor should our public square be devoid of religious symbols.

Internationally, the Trump Administration has advanced religious liberty by:

Responding to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) Genocide. Vice President Mike Pence has spearheaded two initiatives in this regard: (1) the Genocide Recovery and Persecution Response Program, which gave more than $340 million in aid to religious and ethnic minority communities persecuted by ISIS in Iraq and elsewhere in the region; and (2) the International Religious Freedom Fund, which received nearly $5 million in pledges and helped more than 1,800 victims of persecution.REF

Using the Department of State to Promote International Religious Freedom. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo elevated the office of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom to report directly to the Secretary, fulfilling the requirements of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act of 2016.REF Secretary Pompeo and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback hosted two Ministerial Summits to Advance International Religious Freedom, with over 900 representatives from governments, faith communities, and advocacy groups from more than 100 countries. These fora built consensus around combatting apostasy laws, protecting places of worship, and the use of technology regarding religious freedomas well as focusing on specific countries, including Burma, China, and Iran.REF At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September, President Trump announced an initiative to engage business leaders in protecting religious freedom in the workplace and a $25 million fund to protect houses of worship and religious artifacts.REF

More can and should be done to protect religious freedom at home and abroad. There are unrelenting attacks against the freedom of all Americans to live according to their beliefs in every corner of the public square. Abroad, more than 80 percent of the worlds population lives under serious restrictions on their religious freedom. The Trump Administration can build upon the strong record of its first three years with the following initiatives.

Domestically, the Trump Administration should:

Veto the Equality Act and Any Bill Including SOGI Language. Given the widespread, dangerous implications of any federal sexual orientation and gender identity policy, the President should veto the Equality Actand any bill that includes SOGI language. The law should leave people free to act consistent with the belief that we are created male and female and that male and female are created for each other.REF All too often, SOGI policies have been used to punish people who hold these views, despite the Supreme Courts pledge in Obergefell v. Hodges not to disparage traditional beliefs about marriage.REF

Rescind the Equal Access Rule. Homeless shelters are not the only organizations affected by the Equal Access Rule. The 2012 rule, which added SOGI to the Code of Federal Regulations, applies to all HUD-insured and HUD-assisted housing, including housing for families and care facilities for the elderly and disabled.REF Given the widespread implications of the Equal Access Rule, HUD should rescind this problematic rule and issue new regulations that reiterate sex discrimination is based on biology, not gender self-identification.REF

Issue New Guidance on Preferred Pronouns. Although the Trump Administration addressed the Obama Administrations gender identity mandate, it retained the previous policy on preferred pronouns.REF In June 2017, the DOE issued a memo stating that it may investigate complaints of refusing to use a transgender students preferred name or pronouns.REF

All students deserve to learn in an environment that is free from bullying and harassment. But that does not mean that the government should treat the viewpoint that sex is binary as bullying. Nor should the federal government compel the speech of teachers or administrators in the presence of students. A public school teacher in Virginia was fired for not using a students preferred pronoun.REF The DOE should issue new guidance clarifying that all teachers, students, and administrators remain free to speak consistent with their beliefs.

Issue Guidance to Clarify the Meaning of Sex in Title IX. The DOE should issue clarification that Title IX refers to biological sex, not self-professed gender identity. Although the Obama-era Dear Colleague letter was rescinded, problems continue to arise at the state and local levels. In Decatur, Georgia, a 5-year-old female student was sexually assaulted by a male classmate who identifies as gender-fluid in the girls restroom at school.REF The school adopted a gender-identity bathroom policy without notification to parents who may have objections for either religious or secular reasons.

Strengthen Spiritual Fitness Resources in Suicide Prevention.The DOD can act independently to strengthen spiritual fitness resources for members of the military in order to reduce suicides.REF

Internationally, the Trump Administration should:

Appoint a Special Adviser on International Religious Freedom to the National Security Council. Section 301 of the International Religious Freedom Act states that there should be a Special Adviser to the President on International Religious Freedom whose position should be comparable to that of a director within the Executive Office of the President.REF

Appoint an Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The Trump Administration should work with the Senate to appoint an ambassador to strengthen the ability of the United States to promote the new religious liberty initiatives that President Trump announced at the UNGA. This is a critical time to explain the United States concerns about the U.N. Secretary Generals misguided hate speech initiative that threatens to undermine the freedoms of expression and thought, conscience, and religion protected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.REF

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has long-targeted the U.N. for efforts to introduce restrictions on speech that offend religious sensibilities. The U.S. opposed the OICs Defamation of Religions resolution under the Bush Administration, but the Obama Administration adopted a compromise.REF The Trump Administration should strongly critique efforts to empower supra-national or national actors to censor speech.

All Americans benefit when Congress and the executive branch protect religious freedom because this freedom provides the essential national infrastructure for authentic pluralism and civil discourse. When the government adopts a position whether on marriage or abortion or any other matter, that position should not become a state orthodoxy or an ideological litmus test.

In order for Americans to be able to live according to their consciences, we must be able to disagree on matters of profound importancelike life, marriage, and sex differences. For the benefit of all Americans, the 116th Congress and the Trump Administration should continue removing barriers to the freedom of religious groups and individuals to participate in the public square.

Emilie Kao is Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, of the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity, at The Heritage Foundation. Monica G. Burke was Research Assistant in the DeVos Center.

Read the original here:

How Congress and the Trump Administration Can Advance Religious Freedom - Heritage.org

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora joined a team of volunteers at Freedom Skate Park on Saturday, November 23 to provide free skateboards and lessons on the basics of skating to a group of 30 at-risk youth from the Trenton area. Freedom organized the event in partnership with HomeFront to give youth who might not otherwise be able to afford skateboard equipment an opportunity to skate and get a board of their own. Saturdays event was the first of four Grom-A-Rama board giveaways the organization has planned as part of its Trenton Winter Skateboarding Program, which provides the only skate park in Trenton and the only indoor skate park in the state of New Jersey.

The Freedom team teaches themimportant life lessons about thinking creatively, setting goals, and followingthrough on those goals. But were also giving kids the chance to do somethingfun. Were putting them on the path towards success while continuing to build ahealthy, safe Capital City community, said Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora. Todaysevent provided that opportunity for these kids, and giving each of them a boardto take home means theyll be able to keep practicing and share our lessonswith their friends.

Currently, there are no skate parksin Trenton and no indoor skate parks in the entire state of New Jersey. Thismeans there are no safe, legal places for youth and young adults in Trenton tolearn the important lessons skating teaches and there is nowhere forskateboarders in New Jersey to practice their skills when it is too rainy,cold, or dark to skate outside.

Freedoms Trenton WinterSkateboarding Program addresses both of these problems by providing a public,indoor skate park in the historic Roebling Wire Works building. In addition toweekly Open Skate events, Freedom partners with local nonprofits serviceat-risk youth to run monthly Grom-A-Rama board giveaways.

Drawing their name from the termgrom, which is skateboard slang for a young skater, these events empoweryoung people to have confidence in their own ideas and welcome them into theskate community while providing equipment for youth who may not be able toafford it. Saturdays event brought a group of 30 youth participating inHomeFront programs to the park for small group instruction as well as supervisedfree skate. At the end of the event, every child who participated took hometheir very own skateboard.

Skateboarding is a unique activitythat teaches crucial life lessons that have benefits far beyond the skate park.The process of seeing an obstacle, thinking of a trick to do on that obstacle,and then perfecting the physical skill needed to perform the trick teachesyoung people to think outside the box, set goals for themselves, and followthrough, said Jake McNichol, Founder and Executive Director of Freedom.Working together with the City of Trenton, HomeFront, and so many passionatevolunteers to give kids in Trenton who otherwise might not be able to skate thechance to not only enjoy the park but also take home their own board to keeppracticing and share skating with their friends is critical to Freedomsmission to use skating as a tool to build a stronger, healthier Trenton. We areso thankful for Mayor Guscioras support and we look forward to continuing tocollaborate with the City to keep growing Trentons skateboard scene.

Here is the original post:

Freedom Skate Park and HomeFront Give Free Skates to At-Risk Youth - TrentonDaily News

Photo from the NRAs National Firearms Museum.

The pilgrims Thanksgiving feast of 1621 atPlymouth Plantation with Native Americans is often referred to as the original meal that later began the holiday of thanks. This is an often-mythologized scene from American history that has been taught to elementary school children for generations. Few are taught, however, that a tangible link to that first Thanksgivinga gun to be preciseis still here as a reminder that Americans from the first days had firearms for self-defense.

This particular gun is affectionately known as the Mayflower gun, as it came over the Atlantic from England on the Mayflower. It now rests in the NRAs National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Va.

This Italian-made wheel-lock carbine was found during a home renovation in Duxbury, Mass., in 1924. It was in a secret compartment next to the front doorlikely first stored there to be used to defend the home. The home was built in the 1650s by members of the Alden family, a family whose roots date back to John Alden, one of the Pilgrim leaders of Plymouth Colony who came over on the Mayflower in 1620.

Phil Schreier, senior curator for the National Firearms Museum, says, Aldens occupied the house from 1653 through 1896. This home survived nearly 350 years without being ravaged by fire, a common fate of early American residences.

Schreier says there is no doubt this gun was at the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony in 1621. It was also undoubtedly used by Alden to hunt with (perhaps it was even used to kill a wild turkey) and to defend the young colony.

Alden, who signed onto the Mayflower as a 20-year-old cooper, joined Capt. Miles Standishs Militia to defend the settlers from attacks. He was also a signatory of the original Mayflower compact. His rifle was a single-shot originally chambered in .50 caliber, says Schreier, but extensive use removed almost all traces of its rifling. Today, after years of use, repairs and modifications, the gun would require a .66-caliber ball.

According to curators at the museum, markings on its barrel and lockplate indicate this gun is connected to the original Beretta family of armorers. The surviving detail of its wheel-lock devicethe rotating mechanism, which provides spark and ignitionis a thing of fine craftsmanship and a link to our first Thanksgiving.

See the original post here:

This Gun Was at the First Thanksgiving - America's 1st Freedom

For journalists, filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can be a roll of the dice. Bureaucratic delays are standard for even the most benign FOIA requests. Sometimes, persistence results in flat-out rejection.

That was the outcome of a FOIA request I filed on behalf of 60 Minutes as we reported "The Russian Hack," our look this week at Russian interference in 2016 presidential and congressional races. Prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller laid out their case in an extraordinarily detailed indictment of Russian intelligence agents.

Buried deep within the indictment is a reference to an unnamed candidate for Congress who prosecutors say requested stolen materials from a hacker who was reported at the time to be connected to the Kremlin's intelligence services. We wanted to identify this mystery Congressional candidate.

First, some background: In 2018, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers as a result of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The 29-page indictment described Russia's foreign influence operation in granular detail. The indictment described a classic "hack and dump" campaign conducted by teams of cyber warriors from Russia's notorious military intelligence agency, the GRU. Some of the Russian defendants were charged in the indictment for using a variety of techniques to hack into and steal proprietary documents from computers inside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The DOJ indictment says another Russian military hacker team was tasked to disseminate the documents by using a fictional online persona they created called Guccifer 2.0.

In the summer before the 2016 election, it was widely suspected that the Democratic Party organizations had been hacked by Russian intelligence agents, thanks to reporting by The Washington Post among others. But that didn't stop American political operatives and members of both the mainstream and partisan press from contacting Guccifer 2.0 directly and asking for the stolen material. The indictment alludes to one Republican political strategist in Florida named Aaron Nevins, who used Twitter to send Guccifer 2.0 this direct message: "Feel free to send any Florida-related material." A week later, as Nevins recounted to The Wall Street Journal, his Dropbox account was stuffed with over 2 gigabytes of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC. Nevins was amazed and wittingly or not began conversing with the Russian agents (posing as Guccifer 2.0) explaining to them the strategic value of the stolen material.

Nevins realized he was playing with fire, but nonetheless soon began releasing the stolen documents on his blog, "Hello Florida," and farming more out to other blogs and mainstream reporters. The First Amendment was being bent to the breaking point.

But there was an equally remarkable story buried on page 16 of the indictment, one that seems to me to require more transparency on the part of the government. The prosecutors wrote, "On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent."

After spending weeks unsuccessfully trying to find out the identity of the mystery congressional candidate, 60 Minutes filed a FOIA request with the FBI and the Department of Justice. We wrote:

"While it is unlikely the 12 GRU agents indicted will be brought to trial, we believe the identity of a candidate for the U.S. Congress specifically asking for and receiving stolen Intellectual Property from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee... is clearly in the public interest."

After several back-and-forth exchanges between 60 Minutes and the FBI and DOJ FOIA teams, we received our final answer on August 20, 2019, from the DOJ:

"The records on third party individuals you requested are categorically denied. The records are exempt from disclosure as the processing of any such third party records would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Therefore, your request is closed."

After our FOIA request was denied, 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker repeatedly questioned John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, about it in an interview this month.

There are other mysteries in the GRU indictment and the larger Mueller report, such as the identification of the two Florida counties where elections systems were allegedly penetrated by the Russian agents. But the fact that someone who could be sitting in the United States Congress today, or may be considering running once again for Congress in 2020, with the possible help of stolen information, is, to me, "need to know" information.

View original post here:

DOJ won't reveal congressional candidate who asked for, received hacked info on their opponent - 60 Minutes - CBS News

By Ted Rall

NEW YORK The United States ranks 48th among nations for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders (RWB). Since few other countries have the equivalent of the U.S Constitutions First Amendment, learning that it ranks below Botswana and Slovenia may come as a surprise.

Mostly the organisation pins this dismal state of affairs on U.S President Donald Trumps attacks on the news media. They reference the White Houses revocation of CNN reporter Jim Acostas press card, the Presidents fake news and enemy of the people jibes and his tacit approval of the grisly murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government.

At least one White House correspondent has hired private security for fear of their life after receiving death threats, and newsrooms throughout the country have been plagued by bomb threats and were the recipients of other potentially dangerous packages, prompting journalism organisations to reconsider the security of their staffs in a uniquely hostile environment, reports RWB.

Like most other mainstream analyses of the state of press, RWB focuses on how easy it is for large, corporate-owned media conglomerates with establishmentarian political orientations to do their jobs. Independent journalists, especially those whose politics are left of the Democrats or right of the Republicans, have much bigger problems than deep-pocketed mega-conglomerates like CNN.

No consideration of freedom of the press in the U.S is complete without a hard look at the case of Julian Assange. The founder and publisher of WikiLeaks is rotting in an English prison, awaiting extradition to the U.S for possession and dissemination of classified information exactly what The New York Times did when it published the Pentagon Papers and the Edward Snowden revelations. He is being treated worse than a murderer, he is isolated, medicated, says journalist John Pilger, who recently visited him. Incredibly, corporate media is siding with the Trump administration, not merely ignoring Assange but mocking him and accusing him of treason (which is impossible, since hes not American).

Censorship is insidious; readers and viewers cant know what theyre not told. Almost as sinister as the persecution of Assange is the wholesale erasure of left-wing politics from U.S news media. Forty three per cent of Americans tell pollsters they want the U.S. to become a socialist country. Thirty six per cent of registered Democrats currently support self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, whose campaign promises closely align to Sanders.

The nations 1,000-plus newspapers employ countless Democrats and Republicans. But there isnt a single staff columnist or editorial cartoonist who agrees with 43 per cent of the public that socialism would be better than capitalism. There isnt a single one who says he or she supports Sanders or Warren. Watch CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the other cable news outlets. Once in a great while you might catch a token leftist joining a discussion. Youll never see socialist get a gig as a regular contributor, much less be asked to host a show. If you dont think its weird that 43 per cent of the countrys population is being censored, I dont know what to tell you.

Pervasive among both corporate and independent journalists is self-censorship. Apologists say that freedom of the press doesnt include the right to published, and thats true. Because journalists are like everyone else and cant survive without earning money, however, the real-world practical effect of having to earn a living is that reporters and pundits have to watch what they say lest they become unemployable pariahs like I was after 9/11. Sorry, man, an editor I considered a friend told me after I asked him for work at his magazine, youre radioactive.

The Post and other corporate news companies ridiculed Sanders recent assertion that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ownership of the Post influences its coverage. As Sanders noted, its not like Bezos calls Post editors to tell them what to print and what to censor.

Self-censorship is subtle. Post executive editor Marty Baron is technically correct when he retorts that Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence. But hes dodging the meat of the matter. Baron and other Post editors know who their bosses are: Bezos and, more generally, his allies in the corporate ruling class.

No matter how much they protest that they can follow any lead and print anything they want, that knowledge of who butters their bread informs every move they make. Its why, when the editorial page editor sorts through the days nationally syndicated political cartoons, he never ever publishes one from a left-wing political orientation, no matter how well-written or well-drawn it is. Its why, when theyre hiring new staffers, they never hire a leftie. Theyre smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds them. Its also why the person making that hiring decision is not himself or herself one of the 43 per cent.

Im more audacious. Yet I too know not to go too far. Ive learned that I can draw a cartoon or write a column criticizing free trade agreements without fear of getting fired or assassinated. There is also no fear that it will be published by a corporate newspaper so why bother? Over the long run, I have to give editors material they want to publish; if I send out too much stuff about a verboten topic like free trade Ill lose clients.

Most people who hear about my defamation lawsuit against the Los Angeles Times support me. But most people dont hear about it for a simple reason: When one member of the press is besieged especially when its justified the others circle the wagons.

Reporters for The Washington Post, The New York Times and fake-left outfits like The Intercept contacted me eager to write about how the LAPD pension fund bought the Los Angeles Times in 2014 and then ordered the paper to fire me because I criticized the police in my cartoons. (Its still legal for the cops to buy a newspaper). Invariably they went silent after talking to their editors.

Corporate gangsters stick together.

As I said, Im not that brave. My editor didnt tell me about the LAPD deal with the Times. I assume she didnt know. If she had called and said Hey, lay off the police, they own us now, draw about something else, I would have. I have to make a living.

Only 48th? When it comes to press freedom, the U.S. is benefiting from grade inflation.

Reprinted from the Japan Times

Read the original here:

Real freedom of the press doesnt exist in the US - Stabroek News