Category Archives: Freedom

Almost a year later, Columbus police still wont identify the officer who pepper-sprayed Ohio State University journalists. Reporters say they mostly work without incident but face an increase in online threats.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Matter News. Please join Eye on Ohios free mailing list and follow Matter News as this helps them provide more public service reporting.

Who is thepersonpictured above?

Nearly a year after Columbus police officers pepper-sprayedjournalists covering protests against police brutality, the Columbus Division of Police still has not named the officer shouting I dont care! and turning eyes into agony, as those reporters shouted, We are members of the news media! and held up their badges.

A police spokesman said the incident is still under investigation but, contrary to previous precedent, declined to name the officer involved. In public records requests, police said no officer on that crowded street had body camera video of the incident, and no officer has faced discipline, though the inquiry is still ongoing.

Sixty-five pages of police reports, obtained through a public records request, detail a wildly violent scene that night. But that version of events directly conflicts with the memory and video of the pepper-sprayed reporters.

Please excuse my language, but the reports about Lane and High [streets] were some of the biggest b------t Ive ever read. No commands were given before the first officer started spraying the intersection upon immediate arrival. Certainly no concrete or rocks were thrown, said Max Garrison, reporter for Ohio State University's student newspaper, TheLantern.

Ill add to [Lantern reporter MaeveWalshs] comment about the exclusion of our being pepper-sprayed from the report, they also excluded the physical contact they made with me immediately before the spraying commenced.

Since the event, no other journalist in Columbus has faced police violence. Was the pepper spray an isolated incident or evidence that officers act above the law?

The U.S. Freedom Press Tracker logged 11incidents against reporters in Ohio in 2020, the most since 2017. (Note: the database is partially funded by the Committee to Protect Journalists whose grant helped to fund this joint journalism project.)

Eye on Ohio and Matter News surveyed dozens of reporters around Ohio about press freedom in the state. Most said they enjoyed a high degree of latitude, though they faced increased vitriol online. Two said they had been in a violent incident in the past year.

Another reporter, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals, hadn't slept in her apartment for half of the previous month, for her own safety. She began receiving threats after she published a series of articles covering the plight of local residents who complained about the efficacy of their local government to stop the abusive and threatening tactics of a local developer who lashed out at the community after a failed land deal.

The Lantern pepper spray incident was part of a series of police complaints following Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. The City of Columbus set up an external website to track citizen complaints, and spent about $600,000 to hire a special prosecutor and a law firm to investigate.

Through a public records request, Eye on Ohio/Matter News received thousands of documents, pictures and video that prosecutors reviewed to analyze abuse of power complaints. Those records are available here:

So far, just one case has resulted in police discipline. Several investigations are still ongoing.

A federal judge in aFriday ruling said city police ran "amok" during lastsummer's protests, wielding pepper spray, tear gas and wooden bullets, NBC News reported.

The judge's preliminary injunction keeps police from using force against non-violent protestors. The judge also stated officers must recognize those displaying credentials identifying them as members of the media, as medical respondersor as legal observers, and allow them to record the protestsor assist injured people.

Weve seen troubling attacks on press freedom in Ohio, especially in the wake of the protests over the killing of George Floyd, and to a lesser extent, the COVID-19 pandemic: journalists being arrested and attacked, or being subpoenaed for their footage, or threatened with litigation over their coverage, said Andrew Geronimo, director of the First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

I think its a critical matter of public concern that we have some transparency and accountability into exercises of governmental power, and the best way to do that is by protecting from government interference the gathering and publishing of information on newsworthy topics.

In addition to the officer who pepper-sprayed reporters, Special Prosecutor Kathleen Garber said her investigation needs to identify several officers who might be responsible for criminal misconduct. She originally filed subpoenas to compel their supervisors to name them, which she later withdrew. She also filed Garrity notifications to compel them to answer questions. The police union balked, saying the order would violate officers and supervisors constitutional rights.

By mutual agreement, an arbitrator will now decide whether the officers will have to follow the citys order to provide information relative to the possible criminal activity of other officers. Both the city and the officers attorneys decided this was the proper venue for these issues to be argued, said Department of Public Safety Assistant Director Glenn McEntyre.

As of press time, no arbitration date had been set.

Near the end of April, researchers at Ohio State University released the findings of an eight-month study they began after the protests in Columbus erupted last summer, including a list of recommendations for the city based on the results. The study evaluated how Columbus officials managed the protests from May 28 through July 19, 2020 and found that the city was unprepared for and lacked coordination around how to handle the type and size of protests that occurred.

Although the study references reporting done by the three Lantern reporters, it does not reference the pepper-spraying they experienced nor does it list any recommendations related to press freedom in Columbus.

On Saturday, June 2, 2020, three reporters stood at the intersection of North High Street and Lane Avenue in downtown Columbus, on behalf of Ohio States student newspaper,The Lantern: Sarah Szilagy, a junior campus editor, Maxwell Garrison, a junior assistant campus editor, and Maeve Walsh, the special projects editor.

They were dressed appropriately just in case they were inadvertently caught up in the moment: despite the heat, they had long sleeves to protect against pepper spray and underneath their clothes they had the number of their school adviser and the number for the student press center written on their arms.

They did not imagine, however, that they would end up as targets.

They were really peaceful. There was no violence or anything, and there was no police presence at that point. We were monitoring social media and saw that the police chief was downtown marching with them 20 or 30 minutes earlier,"saidGarrison, who's studying journalism and public policy at OSU."We followed them all the way through the campus area up North High Street. Again, no police presence or anything. They got to the corner of Lane Avenue and North High Street and stopped and congregated for a few moments in that area.

And pretty much as soon as everybody was back there, all the sudden a bunch of police cruisers came out of nowhere from the south of High Street and stopped behind a group of cars. Officers came out in SWAT gear and worked their way up through the group of cars and approached the intersection."

Garrison continued: "Once the police were visible, a lot of protesters dispersed. Before they even got to the intersection, a few police officers were already spraying pepper spray without anything being thrown at them ahead of time, or any previous aggression towardthem, or even yelling everybody get out of the intersection.

"At that point all the protesters around us were gone, and it was just the three of us standing up on a raised part, he explained.

The group said other officers throughout the day had left them alone when they pointed to their PRESS labels. But this was different.

I was wearing glasses but they were so close and it was such a strong spray that I remember feeling it enter my eye, saidSzilagy, a journalism major at OSU. And they kept following us, so we couldnt even stop to flush out our eyes.

They said a spokesperson later came by the school and said that perhaps the officer didnt know reporters were not required to follow the curfew, which the Lantern reporters said conflicted with their experience with other officers who knew they could be out later on different occasions.

At the time, body-worn cameras were not required for officers wearing riot gear, because standard riot gear doesnt have mounts for cameras. On Sept. 23, 2020, officers changed their policy to wear a traffic vest over the gear, which can accommodate a body-worn camera.

The three students said that no officials have followed up with them on the status of the investigation since initial conversations regarding the incident. Walsh, the former special projects editor, has already graduated from OSU. Many of these investigations can take months to complete, and since neither the city nor the police department have been able to identify the officers involved, the investigation could take even longer.

See original here:

Does freedom of the press always extend to police coverage? - Mahoning Matters

The "Atlas of Civil Society" report is full of examples of restricted freedoms: overcrowded prisons in the Philippines, arrested journalists in Zimbabwe, threatened human rights defenders in Mexico. For the fourth time, the organizations Bread for the World and Civicuspublished a comprehensive report on the situation of civil society organizations and their members in almost 200 countries.

"2019 was a year of protests," said Dagmar Pruin, chairperson of Bread for the World."Worldwide, people took to the streets. And this mobilization continued in 2020, for example in the US, or in Belarus."

There were also protests in connection with the pandemic, for example by people calling for more financial assistance and less corruption.

"But in response to this, the governments in many countries didn't fight the causes of the protests, but the protesters," Pruin said.

The picture for 2020 is bleak. According to the report, 88% of the world's population lives in restricted, oppressedor closed societies. The remaining are classified as impaired or open societies.

Germany counts as open because civil society organizations suffer no restrictions, and information is easily accessible. Only 42 of the 196 examined countries are considered open. And that does not include all 27 EU member countries.

According to the report, the pandemic served simultaneously as a catalyst and a magnifying glass.

"What we can see is that the pandemic has basically exposedthe weaknesses found in some systems and regimes," says Silke Pfeiffer, head of the human rights and peace department at Bread for the World."And in many places, there has been a tendency to counter problems revealed by the pandemic with excessive authority which terrified the citizens."

For example, 100,000 people were arrested in the Philippinesfor allegedly not adhering to corona rules, 17,000 were arbitrarily detained in quarantine centers in El Salvador, including a human rights activist who was held in detention for three weeks before even being tested for COVID-19.

An increase in police violence is also a big problem. Lockdown measures, according to the "Atlas of Civil Society," were implemented with a heavy hand in some countries.

A survey of almost 400 journalists showed that people in 59 countries experienced police violence in relation to the coronavirus. In Colombia, almost 50 non-governmental organizations published a joint statement complaining about violence by the police, which has become increasingly militarized.

In many countries, measures to curb the pandemic have also been abused to undermine democracy and put human rights activists and journalists under pressure.

In Mexico, human rights defender Clemencia Salas Salazar has long been under police protection, under the guard of two police units. In March 2020, her protection was reduced to a single police officer, on the grounds that the rest were needed to fight the pandemic. The non-governmental organization Amnesty Internationalwas one of several groups that pointed out that this was insufficient. In June her protection was stepped up again.

Pandemic regulations in several countries also put journalists under pressure. In the Philippines, the broadcasting license of the largest news broadcaster, ABS-CBN, was not renewed. The station had repeatedly criticized President Rodrigo Duterte's government.

"This means that an important source that could have provided the public with objective and critical information was missing during the pandemic," says the "Atlas of Civil Society."

In other countries, laws have been passed under the guise of fighting pandemics that undermined or brought democratic processes to a halt. In Cambodia, a country that officially did not have a single corona death in 2020, parliament passed "a vaguely worded law that gives the government the authority to declare a state of emergency."

The "Atlas of Civil Society" doesn't give much cause for hope of improvement.

"In 2020 the situation worsened exceptionally," said Pruin. There was, however, one more positive development: many civil society organizations have been able to close the gaps that their governments failed to fill, and have dealt with the corona crisis creatively.

One example of this was in Brazil. The organization Assesoria e Servicios a Projetos em Agricultura Alternativa(ASPTA) bought food from small farmers who could no longer sell their products due to closed markets and transport routes. The organization then distributed the food to day laborers who had lost their livelihood during the quarantine.

This article has been translated from German.

Excerpt from:

COVID leads to erosion of fundamental rights and freedom - DW (English)

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) Walking through the hallways of Covenant Living of the Great Lakes, Rev. Dick Gleason clutches a large black portfolio. Inside are blown-up pictures that tell the story of the ride hes been on for the last 60 years.

Oh, let me show you something, Gleason says as he pulls something from the portfolio. These are the Freedom Riders. If you notice that most of the men have ties and this is all chronological and Im up here. The 7th bus, 57th person to be on the freedom ride.

Gleason, like the other 327 pictured, is holding a mugshot placard. His reads, Police Dept. Jackson Miss, 20934, 6-2-61. The picture shows a young man in a suit and tie with no smile. It is only a snapshot of the work Gleason has done.

I was in solitary confinement, bad experience, Gleason said. Fined $200. Came back to Chicago and I was met at the airport by the police. A mob in Chicago was after me and a detail was put on me for two weeks.

Gleason grew up in a small town in Ohio near the Michigan border. He was bullied and tormented and never felt like he belonged, until a minister pulled him aside one day.

He said, Richard, look up and look at me, look me in the eye. He said, I know you had a tough time, but I want you to know that God loves you and he has a plan for your life,' Gleason remembers. If you dream big enough and work hard enough, you can do anything you want to do.'

Gleason turned his life to God and asked that he be strong enough to serve. He was ordained a minister at 24 and moved to Chicago, a culture shock for the small-town boy, to work in their segregated communities.

Never saw the cab before, much less a subway, Gleason said, laughing. I didnt know anything about a race. Just didnt know anything about urban life.

He went to work in the countrys largest public housing project and immediately learned that life was different in the big city. He was jumped and sent to the hospital, and the church he worked for pulled the plug on his program because it wasnt safe for him.

I lived on the street for a year, Gleason said, saying he would stay warm in businesses nearby. And I got to know those kids. And behind that, Im the baddest or Im the coolest or whatever, I saw that little boy that was just struggling to be somebody.

Its that feeling that resonated and motivated Gleason to do better.

When I see the homeless person on the street, I can identify, Gleason said. I can feel. I can walk into a jail cell and communicate, I can identify.

In May of 1961, Gleason was watching the news and saw what was unfolding in the South. Freedom Riders, a mix of black and white activists, boarded an interstate bus to protest segregation on the transit platform and in the terminals. The Supreme Court had outlawed segregated bussing and facilities with two decisions, Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), that werent being enforced in the South.

The first freedom ride left Washington D.C on May 4 of 1961, headed for New Orleans. They were met by angry mobs of white segregationists. Gleason remembers the images he saw in newspapers and on television of the buses being surrounded by people or cars and the riders inside being dragged out and beaten. It was then he felt the calling in his heart to join the ride.

I was living in a system that was racist, Gleason said of the Chicago housing project. And I didnt know anybody there. I wasnt part of any group. I dont know how to put it, I wasnt political in any sense of the word, but I saw what was happening in Chicago and I decided I was ready. I came across the scripture and Isaiah 1:17, learn to do right, seek justice and defend the oppressed. And boy I got on a bus and went to Dr. Kings office in Atlanta, Georgia, and joined six others and became a freedom rider.

He remembers the day in June his bus left Montgomery, Alabama. They were told not to draw attention to themselves, to not pool together on the bus. But one of the freedom riders spilled the beans and asked a white woman if a black rider could share her seat. Mayhem broke out.

Most [of] the violence went towards us who were white males, feeling that we were traitors to our race, Gleason said. It was two hours before we got to the Selma Bus Station and Sheriff Jim Clark, the most notorious of all sheriffs, the one responsible for the problems of Bloody Sunday in Selma where they used cattle prods and dogs, he came on the bus and drug off this freedom rider. Andwe had five more hours to go before we got to Jackson, Mississippi, terrified.

Not thinking he would survive the trip, Gleason was determined to reach the Colored Only waiting room no matter what. He did, and he was arrested.

After he went home to Chicago and the police detail and threats to his life died down, Gleason was disfellowshipped from his church, labeled a communist, he says, for riding, and he lost everything. But through that loss, he maintained a heart of justice and Christ.

He started his own Christ-centered ministry, The Southside Christian Center Youth Program, a seven days a week spiritual, recreational and educational program for young brothers and sisters of gang-related teens.

Over the next two decades, that ministry would flourish. Its choir would tour the country and sing for people like Martin Luther King Jr. They bought a 260-acre farm in Buchannan, Michigan, and started the New Hope Camp for those same teens.

Its not God bless America for me. Its God loves the children of the world, Gleason said. I see things in a broader perspective.

As his ministry grew, it went hand in hand with his push for social justice. He walked with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, was at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for his I Have a Dream speech, and was behind the civil rights leaders mule-drawn coffin at his private funeral in Atlanta. He still wears a pin that reads, Keep the Dream alive.

We have come a long way. I think Dr. King would say, weve come a long way, Gleason said. But boy, were missing the boat. Were missing the boat. Isaiah 1:17 is learn to do right. Seek justice, defend the oppressed. Our pastors arent doing that. Four hundred years they havent done that.

Thats his call to action now, continuing the journey he started 60 years ago, to the church, to its leaders, and to himself: the ride continues.

Im on the bus. Im doing good trouble, Gleason said, using the words of someone he marched with, John Lewis.Yes indeed, I believe in good trouble.

See the original post:

On Your Corner: Continuing the Freedom Ride, 60 years later - WOODTV.com

Who is this person?

Nearly a year after Columbus police officers pepper sprayed journalists covering protests against police brutality, The Columbus Division Police still have not named the officer shouting I dont care! and turning eyes into agony, as those reporters shouted, We are members of the news media! and held up their badges.

A police spokesman said the incident is still under investigation but, contrary to previous precedent, declined to name the officer involved. In public records requests, Police said no officer on that crowded street had body cam video of the incident, and no officer has faced discipline, though the inquiry is still ongoing.

Sixty-five pages of police reports, obtained through a public records request, detail a wildly violent scene that night. But that version of events directly conflicts with the memory and video of the pepper sprayed reporters.

Please excuse my language, but the reports about Lane and High [streets] were some of the biggest bt Ive ever read. No commands were given before the first officer started spraying the intersection upon immediate arrival. Certainly no concrete or rocks were thrown, said Lantern Reporter Max Garrison. Ill add to [Lantern reporter] Maeves comment about the exclusion of our being pepper sprayed from the report, they also excluded the physical contact they made with me immediately before the spraying commenced.

Since the event, no other journalist in Columbus has faced police violence. Was the pepper spray an isolated incident or evidence that officers act above the law?

The U.S. Freedom Press Tracker logged eleven incidents against reporters in Ohio in 2020, the most since 2017. (Note: the database is partially funded by the Committee to Protect Journalists whose grant helped to fund this joint journalism project.)

Eye on Ohio and Matter News surveyed dozens of reporters around Ohio about press freedom in the state. Most said they enjoyed a high degree of latitude, though they faced increased vitriol online. Two said they had been in a violent incident in the past year.

Another reporter, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals, hadn't slept in her apartment for half of the previous month, for her own safety. She began receiving threats after she published a series of articles covering the plight of local residents who complained about the efficacy of their local government to stop the abusive and threatening tactics of a local developer who lashed out at the community after a failed land deal.

The Lantern pepper spray incident was part of a series of police complaints following Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. The City of Columbus set up an external website to track citizen complaints, and spent about $600,000 to hire a special prosecutor and a law firm to investigate.

Through a public records request, Eye on Ohio/Matter News received thousands of documents, pictures and video that prosecutors reviewed to analyze abuse of power complaints. Those records are available here:

Sidebar- FOIA Extra: Special Investigations Records Released

So far, just one case has resulted in police discipline. Several investigations are still ongoing.

Weve seen troubling attacks on press freedom in Ohio, especially in the wake of the protests over the killing of George Floyd, and to a lesser extent, the Covid-19 pandemic: journalists being arrested and attacked, or being subpoenaed for their footage, or threatened with litigation over their coverage, said Andrew Geronimo, Director of the First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve University. I think its a critical matter of public concern that we have some transparency and accountability into exercises of governmental power, and the best way to do that is by protecting from government interference the gathering and publishing of information on newsworthy topics.

In addition to the officer who pepper sprayed reporters, Special Prosecutor Kathleen Garber said her investigation needs to identify several officers who might be responsible for criminal misconduct. She originally filed subpoenas to compel their supervisors to name them, which she later withdrew. She also filed Garrity notifications to compel them to answer questions. The police union balked, saying the order would violate officers and supervisors Constitutional Rights.

By mutual agreement, an arbitrator will now decide whether the officers will have to follow the Citys order to provide information relative to the possible criminal activity of other officers. Both the City and the officers attorneys decided this was the proper venue for these issues to be argued, said Department of Public Safety Assistant Director Glenn McEntyre.

As of press time, no arbitration date had been set.

Sidebar: A lot of Shut your Mouth: Looking at Online Harassment of Journalists on Twitter

Near the end of April, researchers at Ohio State University released the findings of an eight-month study they began after the protests in Columbus erupted last summer, including a list of recommendations for the city based on the results. The study evaluated how Columbus officials managed the protests from May 28 through July 19, 2020 and found that the City was unprepared for and lacked coordination around how to handle the type and size of protests that occurred.

Although the study references reporting done by the three Lantern reporters, it does not reference the pepper spraying they experienced nor does it list any recommendations related to press freedom in Columbus.

Sunshine and Lanterns; the best disinfectant

They were dressed appropriately just in case they were inadvertently caught up in the moment: despite the heat, they had long sleeves to protect against pepper spray and underneath their clothes they had the number of their school advisor and the number for the student press center written on their arms.

They did not imagine, however, that they would end up as targets.

They were really peaceful. There was no violence or anything, and there was no police presence at that point. We were monitoring social media and saw that the Police Chief was downtown marching with them 20 or 30 minutes earlier. We followed them all the way through the campus area up North High Street. Again no police presence or anything. They got to the corner of Lane Avenue and North High Street and stopped and congregated for a few moments in that area, said Max Garrison, a Junior in Journalism and Public Policy at the Ohio State University.

And pretty much as soon as everybody was back there, all the sudden a bunch of police cruisers came out of nowhere from the South of High Street and stopped behind a group of cars. Officers came out in SWAT gear and worked their way up through the group of cars and approached the intersection.

Once the police were visible, a lot of protesters dispersed. Before they even got to the intersection, a few police officers were already spraying pepper spray without anything being thrown at them ahead of time, or any previous aggression towards them, or even yelling everybody get out of the intersection.

At that point all the protesters around us were gone, and it was just the three of us standing up on a raised part, Garrison explained.

The group said other officers throughout the day had left them alone when they pointed to their PRESS labels. But this was different.

I was wearing glasses but they were so close and it was such a strong spray that I remember feeling it enter my eye, said Sarah Szilagy, a Junior Journalism major and campus editor of the paper. And they kept following us, so we couldnt even stop to flush out our eyes.

They said a spokesperson later came by the school and said that perhaps the officer didnt know reporters were not required to follow the curfew, which the Lantern reporters said conflicted with their experience with other officers who knew they could be out later on different occasions.

At the time, body-worn cameras were not required for officers wearing riot gear, because standard riot gear doesnt have mounts for cameras. On Sept. 23, 2020, officers changed their policy to wear a traffic vest over the gear, which can accomodate a body-worn camera.

The three students said that no officials have followed up with them on the status of the investigation since initial conversations regarding the incident. Walsh, the former special projects editor, has already graduated from OSU. Many of these investigations can take months to complete, and since neither the city nor the police department have been able to identify the officers involved, the investigation could take even longer.

Read the original post:

Does Freedom of the Press Extend to Covering Police in Ohio? - Cleveland Scene

Americas Freedom Festival in Provo is a go this year, according to the festival organizers.

Much of the annual summer festival, including the Stadium of Fire show at Brigham Young Universitys LaVell Edwards Stadium, was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings.

But with those restrictions ending and vaccination numbers increasing, Jim Evans, executive director of Americas Freedom Festival, said he is confident that the majority of events will take place this year.

Im here to tell you we are having the festival this year and many things are being prepared and planned right now, Evans said during a Utah County Commission meeting on Wednesday.

Evans, who said he was at the meeting representing the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteers who help pull this festival off every year (and) the 500,000-plus people who participate in the festival, told the commissioners that most of the regular Freedom Festival events will take place as usual.

Those events include the Balloon Fest, Patriotic Service, Freedom Run, Colonial Heritage Festival, childrens parade and all the different things that (residents are) used to and (have) loved to participate in every year, Evans said.

The festival also will include a Utah Valley National Day of Prayer celebration on Thursday, beginning with a morning event at Mount Timpanogos Park in Orem and ending with an evening event at the Provo Community Church.

There will be some differences this year, Evans acknowledged. The Hope of America Event, which typically takes place at the BYU Marriott Center where we have thousands and thousands of 5th graders come every year to sing all the patriotic songs about our country and freedoms we enjoy, will instead be held at Rock Canyon Park in Provo.

While there wont be a carnival as part of this years Freedom Festival, Evans noted that there will be a three-day event in downtown Provo featuring various food vendors and live entertainment.

Evans didnt say on Wednesday who would be performing at this years Stadium of Fire, which, in the past, has had headliners ranging from The Beach Boys to Miley Cyrus. He said organizers expect to announce the performers sometime next week.

I dont want to announce that today, but were finalizing the contracts and there will be some talent that all of you know and love, he said.

The Utah County Commission voted unanimously to approve an agreement between Utah County and Americas Freedom Festival that includes $22,400 in in-kind contributions, including use of the county grounds, county attorney fees and fees for grounds crews, electricians, custodial services and electricity.

Evans, who noted that the contract is similar to those of previous years, thanked the three commissioners for their support and said we look forward to being back this year with our Americas Freedom Festival here.

Commissioner Bill Lee called the festival wonderful, adding I think everyones anxious to get out and celebrate.

We are, Evans said. People are calling, theyre anxious, and were grateful for your support.

Connor Richards covers government, the environment and south Utah County for the Daily Herald. He can be reached at crichards@heraldextra.com and 801-344-2599.

Continued here:

Freedom Festival Organizers say most events will happen this summer - Daily Herald

The Republican National Committee slammed Facebook as "an extension of the lefts woke mob" after the company's oversight board upheld a ban on President Trump.

"Weve known for multiple cycles that Facebook, Twitter and Big Tech have become an extension of the lefts woke mob. The First Amendment and our freedom of speech is a right granted to all Americans from the Constitution, not from Facebooks Oversight Board," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to Fox News.

"If Big Tech can ban a former President, whats to stop them from silencing the American people next?" she added.

Facebooks Oversight Board upheld a ban on the former president instituted after the Jan.6 Capitol riot but said it was "not appropriate" for Facebook to impose the "indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension."

The board gave Facebook six months to review the "arbitrary" indefinite ban, saying in a tweet that the company "violated its own rules."

"Facebook cannot make up the rules as it goes, and anyone concerned about its power should be concerned about allowing this," the board said in a statement. "Having clear rules that apply to all users and Facebook is essential for ensuring the company treats users fairly."

Facebook, responding to the board's decision Wednesday, said it believes its move to ban Trump in January was "necessary and right," and are "pleased the board has recognized that the unprecedented circumstances justified the exceptional measure we took."

Facebook said it will "now consider the board's decision and determine an action that is clear and proportionate."

"In the meantime, Mr. Trump's accounts remain suspended," Facebook said.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

View post:

Freedom of speech is from the Constitution not 'Facebook's Oversight Board,' RNC says of Trump ban - Fox News

President Dwight Eisenhower once implemented a bold idea a system of highways that brought America together. Six decades later, it's time to reimagine that idea and electrify our entire national highway system.

Simply put, the climate crisis is not waiting, and our vulnerable and disadvantaged communities that have been hardest hit by COVID-19 and environmental racism are suffering the most. As our country attempts to rebound from the pandemic and economic crisis, clean energy investments can power short- and long-term economic and environmental recovery, like creating family-supporting jobs to manufacture and install electric vehicle chargers and the cars that plug into them.

That's why I'm glad President Joe Biden has reiterated his pledge to deploy 500,000 new public electric vehicle charging outlets and called for a $15 billion investment from Congress. My EV Freedom Act, which I introduced with New York Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, is the comprehensive policy we need to make Biden's request a reality, creating a national network of publicly available, high-speed EV charging infrastructure along the whole U.S. highway system within five years.

The need for investment to allow for the mass adoption of EVs is dire: according to the Department of Energy, there are 45,517 charging stations and 116,298 outlets nationwide not nearly enough to crush range anxiety, the fear that you'll run out of juice on the open road, and build a future where every car on the road is an EV built in the U.S., with U.S. union labor.

Our challenge is clear. Chargers must be:

1. Available everywhere, allowing for the quintessential American road trip to see the beauty of our nation, move your kid into college or visit Grandma in Omaha.

2. Interoperable, so you don't need to worry about the shape of your car's charging outlet.

3. Capable of providing the fastest recharge currently possible to push us towards a future where you can charge your vehicle in the time it takes to fill up your gasoline tank.

From my experience as a union organizer and clean energy entrepreneur, I know we will not be able to tackle the climate crisis successfully unless we infuse workers' rights and racial and gender justice into every aspect of our clean energy policy. A unified coalition made up of labor, climate, environmental justice groups and energy companies endorsing the EV Freedom Act see both the urgency and potential of this transformative idea.

Thus, as we invest in EV chargers we must invest in the people and communities who build them. The EV Freedom Act includes strong labor provisions and focuses on providing local workers with high-quality training to ensure that the EV jobs of the future are good-paying, union jobs in the communities that need them most.

Eisenhower's idea was bold indeed, but in retrospect we can see its flaws highways that split and even destroyed communities of color, and sprawl that contributed mightily to our current carbon crisis. Today, we have an opportunity to create a more just future for workers and disadvantaged communities even as we revision the American ideal of the open road for a carbon-free world.

Read the rest here:

EV Freedom Act can bring fast charging and a just future to all - Automotive News

Im perplexed by protests like those in Montreal that shut down a vaccine clinic in the name of freedom and liberty, or the Alberta rodeo that defied health rules because, someone said, Its better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I dont really get how wearing a mask is living on your knees, but I know many mean it sincerely. Humans are meaning-seeking missiles often willing to risk much or all for the sake of some highly symbolic issue.

Its freedom as their focus thats especially perplexing; its so amorphous.

Theres a homey adage that says your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Fair enough. More pompous renditions distinguish negative and positive freedoms, then try to maximize each individuals freedoms while preventing the state or someone from spiriting them away.

But what I find irritating about these approaches is they start from some pristine individual state where youve received your freedoms from the get-go and try to hang onto or expand them, while others try to strip them away. Its always about freedom, revolving around noble, self-serving heroic individuals.

I just dont think that kind of personalized, self-centred starting line is what most people experience. I think there are better frameworks for figuring out what your life challenges look like and how to meet them. One would be the German philosopher Heideggers notion of Geworfenheit (say the w as a v).

True, Heidegger was a despicable Nazi with other problematic traits. But he had some decent ideas. Geworfenheit means thrownness and refers to how none of us chose to be who or where we are. We arrive in the world, right from the start, as if we were tossed into a situation we never chose and then must figure out how to deal with it. Then that keeps reoccurring; were always already situated. Marx made that point when he said humans make their own history, but never in circumstances of their own choosing.

So instead of always starting at some pure point where Im at the centre along with my precious freedoms that Im trying to protect were often tossed into a situation, like a pandemic, that doesnt really fit the freedoms model. You can try responding in terms of your insatiable appetite for freedom, but that might be a stretch. Freedom might not be totally irrelevant then, but it mightnt be very relevant either, as you search for a way to handle the new situation.

Take Nomadland, which got this years Oscar for best picture. The book its based on was about Americans shortly after the 2008 financial crash, who lived in their vans or pickups because they were houseless and made the best of it. They helped each other and embodied the classic American move of lighting out for the territories, which evokes an archetypal U.S. sense of freedom. (Except for the main character in the movie, Fern, who had a personal safety net.)

By the time the movie was made, though, as reviewer Jack Hamilton noted, it was Trump time there, and things had shifted. The same people whod admirably asserted their personal freedom were now expected to chant build that wall and lock her up. The issue wasnt mainly their personal freedom any more it had swung to matters like racism, exclusion, democracy. Theyd been geworfed to another situation in which freedom as a focus wasnt as pertinent.

Freedom is just too fluid to be your political or ethical Swiss Army knife.

Long ago, in another era when freedom was a watchword, I worked at a summer camp and decided to introduce the concept of freedom from a famous British free school, Summerhill. The kids wouldnt even have to make their beds.

One evening I returned from a day off. Campers ran up saying, Hey Rick, did you hear about the new freedom- unlimited tuck! Theyd voted in my absence that anyone could spend their full summer allowance for candy at the tuck shop in one go. I guess they felt that having freedom handed them was less satisfying than seizing it. So there you have it, with apologies to Kris Kristofferson: freedoms just another word for unlimited tuck. Sometimes, anyway.

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Are the protests in Montreal and Alberta about freedom? Come on - Toronto Star

Moms from around the country gathered at Black Lives Matter Plaza in downtown D.C. Thursday to demand action on police reform.

(CORRECTION May 6, 2021 7:15 p.m. An earlier version of this story stated the rally occurred at Black Lives Matter Plaza. It occurred at Freedom Plaza. This story has been updated.)

Just ahead of Mothers Day, moms from around the country gathered at Freedom Plaza in D.C. on Thursday to demand action on police reform.

Marion Gray-Hopkins, president of the Coalition of Concerned Mothers, which is locally based, said she hopes leaders hear our cries.

The crying of the mothers that are not only here, but across this nation, to say were sick and tired of (police) killing our loved ones. And that there is some federal legislation, along with legislation in each individual state, that will address the impunity that officers are now getting for killing our loved ones, Gray-Hopkins told WTOPs John Domen.

She said she lost her son when he was 19 to the hands of two Prince Georges County, Maryland, police officers, after attending a dance at a local fire station where he had actually been a peacemaker, breaking up an altercation between a friend and someone else in November 1999.

Gray-Hopkins said mothers are at the front line of the movement.

And I think that people have finally realized, after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and so many others across this nation, that something needs to be done, she said.

Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner a Black man from New York City who died after a white NYPD officer put him chokehold during his arrest for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes was also at the event.

Garners dying gasps of I cant breathe became a rallying cry among police reform activists.

Those words drew renewed attention last May, after George Floyd echoed them as Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin pressed a knee into Floyds neck, leading to his death.

Carr said she hopes the rally will move the nation toward more accountability.

Because the police have that qualified immunity, which were trying to get rid of, she said. In New York City, where I come from we do have that in place. But we need a nationwide law, a federal law for this qualified immunity because the police, they get away with too much. And the bar is set so high that its almost impossible to indict or convict a police officer. So this has to stop.

She added, The law should be for all of us, not just for me, or not just for the Black and Brown community, but for the police officers also when they do wrong.

Catherine Young said her son was shot and killed by an off-duty D.C. police officer in May 2018.

Im heartbroken that he was murdered and dont have all the answers why, she said. I was told that my son had a gun and that my son shot at the police officer thats what the police officers say but the public says something different.

Young said she received some body-camera footage, but it was not the whole body-cam footage.

And because the police officer was off duty, he didnt have a camera on him, she said.

Young described video from a nearby recreation center as showing her son having a conversation with the officer, and my son looked like he was trying to get away from the police officer. And the police officer kept pursuing him, acting like he wanted to fight my son.

Sean Bell was killed in November 2006 in a 50-shot barrage by NYPD officers following his bachelor party in Queens. His mother, Valerie Bell, was also at Black Lives Matter Plaza on Thursday for the rally.

She wants everybody to hear our cry, thats the name of the rally, Hear My Cry, meaning to speak to people, to let them know that you are still hurting for what happened to your son or daughter that was killed by police officers who are here to protect us.

So if they hear us, maybe they will have a heart to do other things that need to be done to make a change in this world today.

She called for more legislation and more police accountability.

It says justice for all its not justice for all. Because we are killed while we walk. We are killed while we talk. We are killed while we drive a car. We are killed even when we hold our hands up, Bell said. That needs to be stopped.

Rev. George Gilbert, with The Center for Racial Equity and Justice in Northeast D.C., helped organize the event.

He said video cameras and recordings have put a face on this devil.

And its not necessarily each individual police officer. But I would ask how many of us would take a flight on American, Delta or Frontier if they told us that, Oh, we just have a few bad apples?' Gilbert said.

How many of us would would buy a burger from Burger King, McDonalds or Wendys if they said, Only a few burgers are bad? So now were dealing with a system thats telling us, Oh, we only have a few bad apples. But we need the whole system changed. Its time for America to change the system.

Among the changes Gilbert wants to see are nationwide standards for all police departments. That includes mandates on body cameras, doing away with no-knock warrants, community review boards that really have some powers and teeth as well as a bad cop registry.

We just want to see justice, he said. And quite frankly, we want our people to stop dying. We want our kids and our young men and our young women to stop being killed.

The D.C. Council voted late last year to make BLM Plaza a permanent part of the District.

WTOPs John Domen contributed to this report.

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Moms demand action on police reform at DCs Freedom Plaza - WTOP

Fans standing for the National Anthem at T-Mobile Park. (Getty Images)

Thats how I felt after my second dose: Free again. And were talking real freedom at this point (at least for those who are fully vaccinated).

Under the new rules, Ill be able to go to church and sit close to strangers, more restaurants can return to full service, and theaters that admit only-vaccinated audiences can go up to 50% capacity!

So where does that leave unvaccinated people?

Well, it leaves them free to choose. They dont have to get the vaccine or carry a vaccination card, and the state is not going to force businesses to check for vaccination cards.

But at the same time, the relaxed distancing rules for vaccinated people mean any business that involves having a lot of people indoors has a very strong incentive to require those cards. That will likely have unvaccinated people saying, well, thats discrimination.

To which I would say, no thats freedom. The shots are everywhere now. Heck, you can get them at Mariners games. And for businesses that want to keep their patrons safe, theres a much better chance of doing it by requiring the card even if some of them are fake.

Yes, there are fakes being sold online for $200. If that catches on, itll just force states to set up databases, which theyre allowed to do when public health is involved.

But as Americans, we hate the idea of forging documents, right? At least we do when it comes to undocumented immigrants, so why would we, as good Americans, buy phony documents? We wouldnt.

So, everybody gets what they want: The state will not force anyone to get the vaccine, it will not force you to carry a card, but at the same time it willalso not force businesses to endanger their customers by pretending COVID is no big deal.

Listen to Seattles Morning News weekday mornings from 5 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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Ross: Relaxing rules for vaccinated people isnt discrimination thats just freedom - MyNorthwest.com