Category Archives: Freedom

Back in time: How a mural at Freedom of Espresso in Fayetteville captured the history of the village (photos)  syracuse.com

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Back in time: How a mural at Freedom of Espresso in Fayetteville captured the history of the village (photos) - syracuse.com

Doug Ford stood with the people of Ottawa during the Freedom Convoy, Justin Trudeau says  Toronto Star

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Doug Ford stood with the people of Ottawa during the Freedom Convoy, Justin Trudeau says - Toronto Star

Thursday Freedom Kicks: D.C. United fires Lucy Rushton and others, Arsenal bewilders Lyon in Womens Champion  Black And Red United

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Thursday Freedom Kicks: D.C. United fires Lucy Rushton and others, Arsenal bewilders Lyon in Womens Champion - Black And Red United

A county judge could rule by the end of November whether Indianas near-total abortion ban violates the states religious freedom law.

Under Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the state cant substantially burden someones religious practice unless its advancing a compelling government interest in the least restrictive way.

When it comes to the abortion ban, the ACLU and state attorneys fundamentally disagree over every facet of that test.

First, to the question of whether the ban substantially burdens anyone, ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk represents a group of Hoosier women who said theyve already changed their behavior because of the law.

People who are behaving responsibly will not become pregnant or not risk pregnancy if they cant be assured that, in case there is something that injures their health, that they will be able to resolve the pregnancy, Falk said.

But in a court hearing Friday, Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher called those changes in behavior "mere inconveniences."

Fisher also argued that abortion isn't a religious practice that requires protecting. For example, the Muslim faith prohibits self harm. Fisher said access to abortion is a means to that end and not a religious practice by itself.

Falk countered that many practices protected by RFRA such as gathering to worship are means to a religious practice.

"The state cannot simply decree what is secular and what is religious," Falk said.

To the question of whether the abortion ban advances a compelling interest, Fisher said the state wants to prevent "life" from termination.

"It's a widely accepted ethical assessment of the value of human life and the need to protect human life at all stages," Fisher said.

But Falk said that the very issue of whether a fetus is a life is a religious debate and that the government should remain neutral, not take a side.

And to the question of whether the ban advances a government interest in the least restrictive way possible, Falk pointed to exceptions to the ban already in law: when the life or serious health of the pregnant person is at risk, in some cases of lethal fetal anomalies and in some cases of rape of incest.

Falk said the state can't make those exceptions but then argue exceptions for religious beliefs aren't possible.

Yet Fisher said the ban is the only way to "protect the unborn."

"There are no ways to achieve the states objectives with broad exceptions," Fisher said.

Despite all those arguments, there's a question of whether the judge will even get to the religious freedom debate at this stage of the lawsuit.

READ MORE: Abortion stays legal in Indiana through end of 2022; state Supreme Court to hear challenge to ban

Join the conversation and sign up for the Indiana Two-Way. Text "Indiana" to 73224. Your comments and questions in response to our weekly text help us find the answers you need on statewide issues.

Friday's hearing was for a preliminary injunction a hold on the law that would temporarily prevent it from being enforced. Fisher pointed out that the abortion ban is already halted because of a different lawsuit.

If the other injunction isnt enough for [the plaintiffs], why would this one be any different? Fisher said.

The abortion ban is on hold through at least mid-January, as an appeal in the other lawsuit continues.

Contact reporter Brandon atbsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.

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Indiana, ACLU argue in court over religious freedom challenge to abortion ban - WFYI

Dear Republican Friends,

Please help me understand your sign that says, Fight for Freedom. First and foremost, I am not in a fight with you not a war, not a battle. In fact, I would welcome sitting down and having a conversation with you. These are some of the things I would like to understand.

Freedom: What does that mean to you? Does it include the right of a woman to choose what happens to her body? Does it include the right to vote? Does it include the right to read what I choose? Does it include the right to treat all people, including immigrants, humanely? Does it include the right for teachers to teach our history? Does it include the right to love whom you choose? Does it include the right to gender-affirming care? Does it include the right to acknowledge climate change? Does it include the right to accept defeat gracefully?

I promise to listen. I just sincerely need to understand your view because it appears freedom means a different thing to you than it does to me.

Cindy Nelson

Ephraim, Wisconsin

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Letter to the Editor: The Meaning of Freedom - Door County Pulse

Oct. 13, 2022

MILWAUKEE Marquette University is joining with the James W.FoleyLegacy Foundationin hosting the eighth annual James W.FoleyFreedomRunin cities across the United States on Saturday, Oct. 15, celebrating the moral courage of Americans like JimFoleyand remembering all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect ourfreedoms.

The MilwaukeeFoleyFreedom5k Run/Walk will begin at 10 a.m. at the St. Joan of Arc Chapel on Marquettes central mall. Students, faculty and Milwaukee community members will gather to run/walk around the Marquette Mile in remembrance of conflict journalist, educator and proud Marquette alum James W.Foley.

To register for the Milwaukee run or donate visitMarquette Runs for Jim.

This yearsFoleyFreedomRun comes at a poignant time, following the 2022 conviction and sentencing of Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh for their role in the detention, torture and murder of Americans in Syria, including my son Jim, saidFoleyFoundation Founder and President DianeFoley. Accountability is essential to ever deter hostage taking and impunity.

TheFoleyFoundation is deeply grateful to President Biden and the national security officials who are working day and night to bring U.S. nationals home, and for the recent return of American citizens from Afghanistan, Venezuela and Iran, continued Foley. But we cannot rest until every U.S. national being held hostage or unjustly detained overseas is home safely and reunited with their loved ones.

The eighthannualFoleyFreedomRun will be run in cities across the U.S., including Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Houston and Rochester, New Hampshire. Individual runners are also invited to participate virtually and use #IRunForJim on social media.

All proceeds support the James W.FoleyLegacy Foundations mission to bring Americans held hostage home and to promote the safety of journalists worldwide. Participants receive aFoleyFreedomRun T-shirt and snacks and refreshments, including craft sodas from Sprecher and on-the-go drink packets from ZYN.

Kevin is the associate director for university communication in the Office of Marketing and Communication. Contact Kevin at (414) 288-4745 or kevin.m.conway@marquette.edu.

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Eighth annual James W. Foley Freedom Runs to be held in Milwaukee, nationally // News Center - Marquette Today

Tribune News Service

Solan, October 14

Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar today said that people should remember the contribution of tribal heroes, who had sacrificed their lives for the nation, during the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.

He was presiding over a programme on the Contribution of Tribal Heroes to the Freedom Struggle organised by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, New Delhi, Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry at Nauni.

The Governor said, There are innumerable tribal heroes who need to be remembered. He also inaugurated an exhibition put up by the national commission.

The keynote speaker of the programme, Bhagwan Shay, Jagrit Pramukh, Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, said that the Scheduled Tribes had their own distinct culture and by adopting that one could give a direction to society.

Nauni varsity VC Rajeshwar Singh Chandel said that there had been a change in the perception of the people about tribals, original inhabitants of the country.

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Need to remember tribal heroes of freedom struggle: Governor - The Tribune India

Hard to say.

Diehl declined to answer a question on whether he supports a federal abortion ban. He said he would respect the ROE Act the sweeping abortion protections passed in Massachusetts Legislature to preserve abortion rights here. But as my colleagues Matt Stout and Samantha J. Gross wrote, he also said he disagreed with parts of that law, mainly those that prompted Governor Charlie Baker to veto it, necessitating a legislative override.

Asked after the debate if he would also have vetoed the ROE Act as governor, Diehl declined to answer.

Abortion rights advocates have hammered Diehl on his antiabortion record, and the states Democratic Party last week launched a digital ad highlighting his stance. Of note: He once cosponsored a bill that would ban the procedure opponents call partial birth abortion and jail doctors who violated it for up to five years.

Diehl tried to explain that bills intentions during the debate, saying that while Healey keeps talking about trying to criminalize abortions, he was trying to protect those innocent lives who were born from a failed abortion to get medical attention. Thats infanticide in my opinion, and that to me is criminal.

Well, then.

Diehl called it shameful that Healey hadnt similarly supported choice in vaccine mandates; his running mate, Leah Allen, is a nurse who was pregnant during the pandemic and lost her job for declining to get a vaccine.

You know whats shameful? Healey said, Is all the talk about freedom except when it applies to women.

How did the candidates do in the debate? Heres a scorecard from my colleague and political guru, James Pindell.

Hello, Genius

Loretta J. Ross got the call from the MacArthur Foundation when she was driving to teach at Smith College, and she assumed it was from someone seeking a reference.

I said, Well, thats nice, but I dont drive and talk, Ross recalled, realizing how casually she had asked the person to call her back later.

Turns out, the caller was offering her a MacArthur genius grant, the surprise honor that delivers intellectual renown, not to mention $800,000 over five years, with no strings attached.

Ross is one of the Black feminists who coined the term reproductive justice and who founded SisterSong, the Southern-based organization that works to improve the reproductive lives of marginalized women.

Its going to be life-changing for me, Ross said of the award, and she meant that literally.

Ross intends to use the award for long-term care insurance, which she said she has been unable to access because shes diabetic. And she plans to start a human rights education institute at Smith College, seeing an opportunity for a liberal arts college like Smith to train young people in how to actively defend democracy using a human rights framework.

Her latest work has focused on challenging call-out culture, and encouraging people to instead call-in.

When I had last spoken to her in 2020, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett had not yet been confirmed. But Ross could see the writing on the wall and expected womens rights to be upended. The belligerent patriarchy has taken over again, she said at the time.

Now she is thinking of the Supreme Courts Dobbs ruling as a gift for the midterms.

I think that the Supreme Court has gifted us with an overreach because they have forgotten about a very important constituency and thats pro-choice Republican women, she said. Theyre the ones who turned Kansas out, right?

On fetuses in Rhode Island

This past week, the US Supreme Court skipped an opportunity to weigh in on whether fetuses have constitutional rights post-Roe, as my colleague Edward Fitzpatrick wrote.

The legal challenge centered on a Rhode Island case that was inherently interesting: The plaintiffs included two women who also filed on behalf of their fetuses. They were challenging the 2019 Rhode Island law enacted to protect abortion rights in case Roe v. Wade was overturned.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court found the unborn plaintiffs had no standing in part because they were ultimately born and unharmed by the law.

The mothers, along with Servants of Christ for Life, had filed a petition asking the highest court to review the Rhode Island decision.

In other states

In Georgia, one recent poll showed little effect of the bombshell news about Herschel Walker, a Republican running for US Senate. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Walker trailing incumbent Raphael Warnock by 7 points, after trailing by 6 points last month. The poll was conducted after The Daily Beast reported a former girlfriends claims that the anti-abortion candidate had allegedly paid for her abortion and that she later went on to have a child with him. Walker has said she is lying.

But Nate Cohn has an analysis of four recent polls conducted since the story broke that suggests danger for Walker.

Kentucky is gearing up for a referendum on abortion rights like the vote heard round the world in Kansas in August. But this Red State might not deliver the same surprises that Kansas did, The 19th reports.

Kentucky is also the state facing the latest challenge to its abortion ban on religious grounds an interesting twist on the religious freedom arguments often successfully wielded in court by other congregations. Like the challenges in Florida and Indiana, the suit filed in state court by three Jewish women argues that the state Legislature imposed on their religious freedom and imposed sectarian theology with its abortion ban. In their suit, the Associated Press reported, the women argue that Jewish law answered the question of fetal personhood thousands of years ago.

Jews have never believed that life begins at conception.

What Im reading

Will Supreme Court abortion ruling drive women to vote in 2022 election? Washington Post

Post-primary parting thoughts on abortion from Gail Huff Brown New Hampshire Union Leader

Another conservative group offers ads and strategy to blunt the potentially galvanizing effect of abortion on the midterms Washington Post

This piece first appeared in Beyond Roe, our free weekly newsletter chronicling the fight for abortion rights in the United States. If youd like to receive it via e-mail every Friday, you can sign up here.

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at Stephanie.Ebbert@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @StephanieEbbert.

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Which Mass. governor candidate will protect a womans freedom? - The Boston Globe

Freedom of Russia is a legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). It was formed in March 2022, mainly by Russian prisoners of war and volunteers who defected from the Russian army. It consists of two battalions and seeks to help protect Ukraine against the 2022 Russian invasion.

In an exclusive interview with Kyiv Post, a fighter from the legion with the call sign Caesar, said: The legion now has over 5,000 applicants wanting to join, but we dont accept everyone.

He added: There is a thorough selection process. At the beginning of the war, there were many prisoners of war, but not in the second battalion where Im a member. Now the third battalion is being formed, which will go to the front and fight with us after training. It includes those who were recently mobilized by Russia but went over to the side of Ukraine, he adds.

Caesar emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putins regime and its leadership is inadvertently doing everything possible to fill the ranks of the legion.

On April 5, three servicemen from the legion held a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine. They described how they joined the legion after the Ukrainians captured them. Other fighters joined after coming to Ukraine from Russia, such as former Vice-President of Gazprombank Igor Volobuev, a native of the Sumy region of Ukraine.

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Over 5,000 Applications to Join Freedom of Russia Legion Fighter Caesar - Kyiv Post

Ottawa has dealt with a fair number of serious crises over the last few years. A massive and destructive windstorm, floods, a giant sinkhole that swallowed a busy downtown throughway and, of course, a global pandemic.

Each time, Coun. Mathieu Fleury says he recalls a white table was erected with name tags for all the key leaders in the response, where they would come together to make a plan.

But when a convoy of big-rig trucks arrived in Ottawa to launch a protest that would drag on for weeks and precipitate the use of the federal Emergencies Act, there was no such table.

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I didn't see that white table situation and out of all the crises I've seen, it's a bit unique that I didn't see that, Fleury said Friday as a witness in the inquiry of the federal governments inaugural use of the Emergencies Act.

Fleury and his fellow downtown councillor Catherine McKenney, who is running for mayor, told the inquiry they would forward increasingly desperate emails from residents to city officials and the mayor but would get little back in the way of a plan to deal with what they called an "occupation" of the capital city.

The testimony was part of a blaring introduction to life in Ottawa during the "Freedom Convoy" protest, complete with a recording of the deafening chorus of big-rig horns that was played for the commission.

The first witness, a legally blind resident of downtown Ottawa, flinched as a recording of the horns resounded in the conference room for the benefit of the commissioner, lawyers, protest convoy organizers and members of the public.

The witness, Victoria De La Ronde, told the commission the protest that arrived in Ottawa in late January was an "assault on my hearing," which she relied on to navigate the city independently.

I found myself trapped, said De La Ronde, who was left feeling hopeless and unable to leave her home.

She became emotional as she told the commission she eventually begged a friend to pick her up and help her leave the convoy zone. A few days later, she and her friend both contracted COVID-19.

In the days after the protest ended, De La Ronde said, she could still hear phantom horns blaring in her head. Even now, the sound of a car horn ripples through her body, fraying her nerves, she said.

Convoy organizer Tamara Lich listened stoically from the public gallery as the lawyer representing her and fellow organizers told De La Ronde he was sorry for the hardship she endured during the protest.

The commission is examining the evolution and goals of the protest, the effect of misinformation and disinformation on the convoy, and the efforts of police before and after the emergency declaration.

"It didnt feel safe, my guard was up all the time," downtown resident Zexi Li said of walking the Ottawa streets during the protest.

Li, a 22-year-old public servant, launched a class-action lawsuit against convoy organizers Feb. 3, and an Ontario court granted her an injunction four days later to stop the honking.

On Feb. 14, the federal Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time as protesters opposed to COVID-19 public health measures and the Trudeau government occupied downtown Ottawa streets and blockaded border crossings.

The law temporarily granted police extraordinary powers and allowed banks to freeze accounts, which the government argues was critical to ending the protests.

Both Li and De La Ronde described feeling sleep-deprived by the constant noise rising from the street.

Evidence provided to the commission showed the noise levels outside their homes reached 100 decibels at times about as loud as a lawn mower.

"There was fear," McKenney said. The councillor told the committee residents felt "under threat," particularly on residential streets.

McKenney would often walk the streets during the convoy and spot safety hazards like open fires near jerry cans of fuel or fireworks.

"Everything combined just made for an exceptionally dangerous environment for people, feet away from their bedrooms, children's living areas, school in the downtown," McKenney said.

Both McKenney and Fleury said people felt abandoned by the police.

The downtown city councillors said that in the early days of the protest, the city was slow to respond. Even around the council table, their colleagues seemed keen to push on with usual business at virtual meetings they attended from home, while trucks blared outside of city hall.

Over the course of the crisis, councillors pitched several solutions: an injunction, a curfew, handing jurisdiction of the parliamentary precinct to the RCMP.

At one point, a motion was put forward at council to ask the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act, but that motion was defeated.

Those solutions either never took off or were slow to arrive, Fleury said, adding even the mayor's declaration of a state of emergency came too late.

In late January, when trucks began to roll into Ottawa, businesses were still shut under a provincial public health order. Some chose to open when the order was lifted during the protest, but others remained closed, said Nathalie Carrier, executive director of the Vanier Business Improvement Area.

In some ways, the convoy proved even more devastating than COVID-19 public health measures, Carrier told the commission, since road closures and other disruptions prevented staff from coming to work and deliveries being made. At times, food delivery services would not enter the area.

"Businesses were completely crippled," said Carrier, whose association represents a neighbourhood east of downtown Ottawa.

Rideau Centre Mall, which contains hundreds of businesses and typically only closes for Christmas, shut its doors on the first weekend of the demonstration and remained closed for 25 days.

At the time, police advised people to avoid the city core.

Carrier recalled then-Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly commiserating with local business groups and saying he was scared as well, though the former chief's counsel disputed the claim.

In times of crisis, "you turn to your leaders to have a plan and to be stable and I remember very specifically feeling that maybe our leaders were a little shaken, and that's scary," she said.

The testimony of the witnesses was compelling, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said in a statement, but did not shed light on why police needed extraordinary powers.

"The impact on Ottawa residents and Ottawa businesses does not explain why a public order emergency was declared affecting the entire country," the statement read.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2022.

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Blaring intro to life in Ottawa during "Freedom Convoy" protest comes with recording of deafening chorus of big-rig horns - Canada's...