Category Archives: Freedom

An overwhelming majority of Americans view gun ownership as essential to their freedom. This is what a recent Pew Research poll discovered in a deep dive into the complex relationship Americans have with guns.

According to the poll, The nationally representative survey of 3,930 U.S. adults, including 1,269 gun owners, was conducted March 13 to 27 and April 4 to 18, 2017, using the Pew Research Centers American Trends Panel. In other words, the survey is pretty comprehensive. And its findings reflect the understanding of many clear-thinking Americans on the 2nd Amendment: for those who do own and use firearms, it is integral to who they are.

Guns are ubiquitous in our culture. Both the bad guys and the heroes utilize them in movies and books, which accurately reflects reality the bad guys will always have guns and good guys know that firearms are an effective tool for securing property and protecting loved ones. In other words, gun ownership is completely normal, and contrary to what the gun grabbers and security liberals would have you believe safe.

There is a direct correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and less crime. Urban areas have fewer lawfully obtained guns and higher levels of criminal activity. Socioeconomics are a driver, but the impact of burdensome laws on who can own and carry firearms in urban areas plays a distinct role in lowering safety levels for residents.

Only a third of Americans expressed that they do not nor would they ever consider owning a firearm. A healthy 66 percent of gun owners, a significant portion of whom own more than one, would never consider not owning one. These people exist in a culture where gun ownership is the norm. It would be interesting to see the minority of Americans who eschew guns react to the findings here.

The survey results show a clear relationship between the conscious choice to own a gun and the exercise of personal freedom. Other studies on crime and gun owners have found that gun owners commit fewer crimes as a population than the police. The civilizing factor of owning a firearm increases the level of responsibility that must be exercised. This positively impacts everyone in proximity to gun owners.

Of note: only 19 percent of those dwelling in urban environments, where crime is the highest, own guns. In rural areas where crime is exceedingly low, 46 percent of those surveyed reported owning a gun. Of suburban respondents, 28 percent own guns. To place a finer point on the data, in just one out of five homes in an urban environment will an intruder face the possibility of a homeowner defending his home and loved ones with a gun. In a rural area an invader faces a nearly 50/50 chance, hence the miniscule incidences of criminal activity.

Another point worth noting is that while most gun owners could never see themselves not owning a gun, they have no desire to force others to possess them. Conversely, many Americans who do not own firearms have an almost compulsive desire to disarm law-abiding gun owners even as proof mounts against the efficacy of confiscation and disarmament. When guns are regulated away from those who seek them lawfully, only the criminals are armed.

Americans broad exposure to guns includes an overwhelming number who have fired a gun or have lived in a home with a gun owner. Approximately seven out of ten Americans have fired a weapon at least once.

Again, guns are tools and Americans have experienced their use as normal. The research done by Pew exposes the lesser-known facts surrounding firearm ownership and Americas relationship with guns. One thing is patently clear: guns arent going anywhere because Americans who own guns associate them with liberty and self-reliance. And thats a good thing.

Stacy Washington is host of the "Stacy on the Right Show," broadcast on Urban Family Talk Monday through Friday from 2-3pm in St. Louis, Missouri. Click here for more.

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Most Americans know that owning a gun is an essential part of our freedom - Fox News

When: 5:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, July 4

Where: Santa Monica Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles

Admission: Free

Information: https://farhang.org.

While people gather at the inaugural L.A. Freedom Festival for a night of Persian pop, ethnic food, and Fourth of July fireworks, a new public artwork will be unveiled.

Dubbed The Freedom Sculpture, the stainless steel monument by internationally renowned Sri Lankan designer Cecil Balmond and modeled on the progressive Cyrus Cylinder of ancient Persia is a gift to the city. And like the original Cylinder, its a symbol of religious freedom, cultural diversity and inclusiveness.

Heres a message that has come down 2,500 years and landed itself on a busy thoroughfare in Los Angeles where people are going to pass it by the millions, says Balmond, speaking by phone from his home in London. Its like the message keeps on traveling.

That early declaration of human rights is represented in the large-scale contemporary artwork by a metallic gold cylinder within a silver cylinder and supported by two rings that ground it to the public transit median on historic Route 66, on Santa Monica Boulevard at Century Park East. It appears lacelike, echoing the original cuneiform script from a distance.

In the day, it shines silvery with glints of gold, and by night the golden inner cylinder is illuminated by LED lights.

To build form, you have to have a poetic sense of space, he says. I like to think that my work reflects that. Of course its subjective how you decide the visitor should see and engage with your work. If you see my artworks, go to my buildings or cross my bridges, youll see theyre never static.

The Freedom Sculpture began as an idea by the Farhang Foundation in late 2013. In 2014, it launched an art competition that attracted more than 300 submissions from around the world. The panel of jurors, which included curators from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, chose the winning design in late 2015.

Balmond is known for his large public displays.

They include the award-winning Snow Words, an abstract tower of light suspended between a skylight and a mirrored floor in the lobby of the Crime Detection Laboratory in Anchorage, Alaska, to commemorate fallen officers in 2012.

In the current divided political climate, the public artwork takes on greater meaning.

Angelenos, who comprise millions of people from different ethnicities, religions and lifestyles living together in peaceful harmony, are an embodiment of these noblest of American ideals, says Farhad Mohit, vice chairman of the Farhang Foundation, which commissioned Balmond to create the work as a gift to the city. For them, the Freedom Sculpture will become an iconic symbol of another of the unique attributes of this great city.

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LA Freedom Festival celebrates Fourth of July with symbolic new sculpture - LA Daily News

If the Trump administration and the Trumpist movement represent anything, it is the destruction of establishmentarian sacred cows. Already, the spirit of populist iconoclasm the President embodies has left globalist false idols scattered like tombstones up and down the Acela Corridor. Some of the casualties are obvious, such as the presumption that the administrative state is made up of disinterested experts, rather than ideologically motivated sleeper agents. Some of the losers from the Trumpist Zeitgeist are equally obvious: mainstream media outlets and the tech industry.

However, what seems to occur to few people is that the fall from grace that such ideas and institutions are suffering is not only of their own making, but all traceable back to the same cause. Namely, the shift of such institutions from attempting to promote freedom to attempting to constrict it. In other words, groups that were originally designed and trusted to make the world bigger have instead begun systematically trying to make it smaller. They have gone from battering rams to gatekeepers.

Take the mainstream media. While conservatives correctly bemoan the liberal bias that infects the landmark publications and TV networks, and has infected them all the way back to the Vietnam War, it is easy to forget a simple fact about that anti-Vietnam coverage: It was the first time the medias reporting was not subjected to official censure by the military. No doubt this led to anti-American bias that distorted the story, but for Americans watching, the idea of a media that was critical of the government line no doubt seemed like an advancement for freedom to access information and freedom to be skeptical of government policy.

Flash forward to today, though, and it is obvious that the media has gone from being uncensored truth-tellers to censors themselves. From the cyberbullying, SJW left morality policy approach of sites like the defunct Gawker and Vice, to the arrogant agonizing by media figures over their supposed ability to control what people think, to the overwhelming and unprecedented hostility toward the president that even the most seemingly respected media falls prey to, it is very clear that giving the public greater freedom to make informed decisions has ceased to be a media objective. Rather, out of fear that those informed decisions will not meet the partisan standards of the reporters themselves, they seek a full-on pre-Vietnam role reversal: now the political and military actions approved by the American people must pass muster with them to be legitimate. Americans, who have never much liked being told what they must believe or what they must do, have rightly rebelled.

But while the mainstream medias behavior is egregious, it is also fair to say that they are rapidly becoming a marginal player in the information marketplace. More sinister and influential is the rapidly growing tech industry, and in particular the social media wing of that industry. But here, too, we are observing a corruption of organizations that previously offered freedom. In its early days, Google gave Americans the extraordinary power to find new information and new perspectives, YouTube provided a fertile and untamed Wild West-style playground for creative minds to make a living, and sites like Facebook and Twitter offered the ability to connect and speak to both friends and strangers from all around the world.

To say that this is not the case anymore is a gross understatement. Now, Google openly admits to viewing conservative viewpoints as contrary to science, and acts as if its blatantly partisan policy preferences are somehow apolitical good sense because they can find a few pet Republicans to agree to them. This is reflected in their search results, which now exclude disfavored viewpoints, and their stewardship of YouTube, which now strips money and possibly even subscribers from its users, sometimes for such minor crimes as simply telling off-color jokes that offend the humorless sensibilities of corporate HR departments. Facebook and Twitter, meanwhile, liberally (pun intended) shadowban or outright shut down the accounts of users who do nothing but express distasteful opinions, or call them out on censorship. Facebook has even arrogated to itself the right to decide what does and does not count as fake news using standards insourced from left-wing donors, despite having previously landed in hot water for acting too much like a newsroom and less like a neutral platform.

In short, Silicon Valley fears the freedom that it created and seeks to curtail it, despite the fact that the only thing that gave their business models life was the perception that they were building a world where both people and information could be free.

So far, an emerging rebellion from consumers, in tandem with tougher scrutiny of their practices, is not working out for the mainstream media, or the tech companies. The first is shedding trust and likely will shed viewers in the future. The second is facing an emboldened raft of competitors that actively market their political neutrality and commitment to freedom of speech and information. The gatekeepers have had their gates blasted off their hinges and now are watching their Towers of Babble being sacked.

Good riddance.

Mytheos Holt is the Senior Fellow in Freedom to Innovate at the Institute for Liberty, and a former speechwriter for US Senator John Barrasso (R-WY).

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The Media and Silicon Valley Fear the Freedom They Created | The ... - The American Conservative

MUMBAI: Industrialist Anil Ambani today termed the Goods and Services Tax (GST), being rolled out from July 1, as India's "economic freedom" and said it would make the country the biggest free and democratic market in the history of humankind.

Speaking here at a mutual fund industry event, the Reliance Group chairman said there are many ways of counting the benefits of GST and as many of counting its costs.

"But there is just one way of describing its true promise. GST is not just another piece of reform or transform, however significant. GST is the liberation of our economic imagination. It is our economic freedom," he said.

Ambani said there are moments in the life of a nation when history is made not in small steps of incremental gain but in giant leaps of ambition.

"We, the people of India, are privileged to bear witness to one such moment in time," he said, referring to the proposed rollout of GST on midnight of June 30.

"Seventy years ago, at the stroke of the midnight hour, our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, spoke movingly in the Central Hall of Parliament about India's tryst with destiny.

"At the same mid-night hour tomorrow, as our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi rises to address a waiting nation from the same august Central Hall, India will be set on course for another historic tryst with destiny," he said.

Ambani said the free market is perhaps the greatest force for economic good in the human history of all earthly inventions.

He said the free market is a force for generating wealth and transforming lives and the real promise of GST is the promise of economic liberation.

With the promise of 'One Nation, One Tax, One Market', it would create a borderless world of 1.3 billion people -- producers and consumers engaged in a seamless exchange of goods and services, skill sets and capital, labour and ideas.

Ambani said the world has seen nothing like this before and in less than 48 hours, India will emerge as the biggest free and democratic market in the history of humankind.

"In tandem with its policy precursor -- demonetisation -- GST will forever change the ground rules of doing any kind of trade, commerce or business in India.

"The leadership advantage is backed by strong macro- economic stability," he said while adding that the economy has moved from low inflation to high growth, from fiscal rectitude to prudential current account management, and from one of the highest savings rates in the world to one of the fastest rates of economic growth.

He said that from insolvency code to NPA resolution, the present government has undertaken a fundamental overhaul of India's financial infrastructure while consolidating and strengthening the banking sector.

"But the greatest achievement of the government lies in the area of financial inclusion, thus setting in motion a growth dynamic for financial intermediaries which is unprecedented in its scope and size," he added.

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GST will be India's 'economic freedom': Anil Ambani - Economic Times

By Jim Campbell By Jim Campbell June 28 at 1:05 PM

Jim Campbell is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Masterpiece Cakeshop in the Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

Should an artist who serves all people be able to decline to create art for an event that conflicts with his deepest convictions? That question much debated in recent years seemed destined to reach the Supreme Court. And on Monday, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, it finally did.

The owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jack Phillips, is a cake artist who creates custom works of edible art for special occasions such as weddings and birthdays. He serves everyone, no matter their race, sex, religion or sexual orientation. But he cannot create art for events that conflict with his faith. For years, that practice caused no disturbances. But when a couple asked Phillips to create a cake for a same-sex wedding, things got dicey.

He told the requesting couple that he would gladly sell them anything in his store, but designing a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex marriage was not something he could do. Phillips was compelled to decline that request because of his religious conviction that marriage is a husband-wife union a belief that just two years ago the Supreme Court said is decent and honorable and held in good faith by reasonable and sincere people.

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission determined that Phillipss decision to live by his conscience was unlawful and ordered him to re-educate his staff on the states anti-discrimination law, meaning he must create wedding cakes for same-sex weddings if he creates wedding cakes at all. The commission did this while simultaneously concluding that three other bakers were within their rights when they declined to create cakes bearing biblical messages they found offensive. That anti-religious bias is reason enough for the Supreme Court to reverse the commissions decision to punish Phillips.

But there is far more on the line than one cake artists freedom. At stake is whether the government can conscript artists to ply their expressive talents for events or ideas that they do not support.

If Phillips loses, the rights of all artists will suffer. Under that scenario, the government could compel a lesbian artist to design fliers for a religious event opposing same-sex marriage or a black woodworker to craft a cross for a Ku Klux Klan rally. Almost no one wants to live in a world like that, and thanks to the First Amendment, we dont have to.

Those who oppose Phillips argue that the interests of same-sex couples seeking artists should outweigh his freedom. This argument, however, misperceives the competing interests.

On Phillipss side of the scale is the future of his wedding-cake business and his very livelihood. If Phillips cant create cakes to celebrate same-sex weddings, the government insists, he cant make wedding cakes at all. So a loss in his case means the loss of a fulfilling part of Phillipss work that accounts for roughly 40 percent of his income, a hit thatll risk sinking his business.

Of course, the same-sex couple has an interest in obtaining custom art from businesses. But there is no shortage of cake artists willing to help celebrate same-sex marriages in Denvers suburbs. That a same-sex couple must go to another shop cannot override Phillipss freedom.

Same-sex couples raise another interest: avoiding the frustration and dignity harm that they feel when an artist declines their request. But someones offense at anothers exercise of his artistic and religious freedom is not a reason to suppress it. On the contrary, as the Supreme Court has explained, the First Amendment exists to shield artistic, expressive and religious choices that in someones eyes are hurtful.

In addition, same-sex couples dont have the market cornered on dignity harms. If the law deems Phillipss beliefs odious and unfit for public life which is precisely what a ruling against him would do that would demean not only him but also millions of Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jews and Muslims who hold similar beliefs.

Some folks nevertheless insist that Phillips is like the racist business owners in the Jim Crow South and must suffer the same fate. This is simply not true. Jim Crow involved the systematic exclusion of black Americans from public life. Countless businesses flatly refused to serve a class of people. But that is not remotely true of Phillips or others like him. He will gladly serve people who identify as gay or lesbian; it is only custom orders for certain wedding cakes that he must decline. Phillips is not deserving of the social margins where racists now reside.

In this hotly contested struggle between artistic freedom and government coercion, it is impossible to predict the outcome. But because to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. the arc of the universe bends toward human freedom, Phillips should feel pretty good about his chances.

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The Supreme Court puts a baker's business and artistic freedom on the line - Washington Post

WASHINGTON As Senate GOP leadership tries to bring conservatives on board with their health care bill, House conservatives are working to reinforce the far rights negotiating position, signaling they wont support the Senate legislation without changes.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told reporters Monday night and Tuesday morning that there would not be enough votes in either chamber to pass the Senate legislation without significant amendments.

This bill, in its current form, would lose significant conservative votes, which would make it almost impossible to pass, Meadows said late Monday.

By Tuesday morning, Meadows pointed to two amendments from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that if adopted, would go a long ways to make us get where we need to be in the House and the Senate.

The first amendment would allow insurers to offer plans that dont comply with Obamacare regulations like the mandate that plans include 10 essential health benefits, or that insurers not charge people with pre-existing conditions more as long as insurers offered at least one plan that did comply with the Affordable Care Act regulations.

The effect of that amendment would be healthier people signing up for those noncompliant plans, bringing down the cost for them (perhaps for skimpier coverage) but driving up the costs for sick people. In effect, an insurer could offer unreasonably priced plans for people with pre-existing conditions and then make their money by selling plans with limited coverage to healthier people. The amendment would also likely have the effect of bringing much higher prices to women seeking coverage with maternity care. The Congressional Budget Office projected in the House health care bill that maternity care would be sold as a rider policy and would cost women more than $1,000 a month, in addition to whatever other health care plan they selected.

The other amendment would expand Health Savings Accounts, which are tax-free accounts meant to help people pay high deductibles, expensive medical treatment and costs not covered by medical insurance, such as dental and vision care. The idea, popular among conservatives, is to introduce some market forces into health care and make people more cost-conscious.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Meadows and other conservatives arent happy with the Senate bill. It undid some of the major changes they demanded, particularly allowing states to opt out of regulations that ensure that sick people are not charged more than healthy people.

Meadows had previously quietly signaled that he and most other conservatives in the Freedom Caucus would accept what came out of the Senate. They still might, should Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) miraculously be able to move the bill without changes. But Meadowsnew position reflects a reality that McConnell doesnt have the votes at the moment, and changes are expected.

Conservatives are angling to make sure that the changes McConnell makes appease them rather than moderates, and Meadows new posturing might just help conservatives make the case that their direction is ultimately the only one that works.

Meadows and other conservatives could set up an irreconcilable disagreement between the House and Senate, particularly if they insist on undermining those pre-existing conditions protections and McConnell insists on keeping them.

That all assumes McConnell can get the bill out of the Senateand doesnt make the changes that conservatives want. For now, conservatives in both chambers are watching to see what amendments McConnell makes to the bill.

McConnell met with Cruz on Tuesday morning, but both sides were cagey about what progress they had made. Prior to that meeting, McConnell and other Senate GOP leaders had avoided negotiating with conservatives like Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Meadows called that position troubling.

If there are no discussions going on now, that means there will be no amendments, he said. And if there are no amendments, that means there will not be the votes there to pass it in the Senate or the House.

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Freedom Caucus Chair: House Conservatives Would Reject Current Senate Health Care Bill - HuffPost

New York Community Bank is getting out of the mortgage business sort of.

The bank announced Tuesday that it is selling its mortgage banking business, including its origination and servicing platforms, and the banks mortgage servicing rights portfolio, to Freedom Mortgage.

According to NYCB, its servicing portfolio carries an aggregate unpaid principal balance of approximately $21 billion, all of which will now go to Freedom Mortgage.

NYCBs in-house mortgage business was part of the banks 2009 rescue of AmTrust Bank, which was facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

And now the bank is selling those assets off.

A separate release from Freedom Mortgage provided a little more detail on the deal.

In its release, Freedom said that it agreed to buy approximately $500 million of selected residential mortgage assets" from New York Community Bank's mortgage banking operation.

Freedom also highlights the MSR portfolio as a significant piece of the deal. According to Freedom, the servicing portfolio includes Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-approved mortgages as well as a relatively small amount of Ginnie Mae-insured mortgages.

In addition to selling its origination and servicing platforms and its MSR portfolio to Freedom, NYCB said that it is selling the majority of our one-to-four family residential mortgage-related assets to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management.

That sale is being conducted after the NYCB received approval from the FDIC to sell the assets covered under the banks loss share agreements that were part of the AmTrust acquisition.

But NYCB isnt exiting the mortgage business entirely.

When asked by HousingWire whether the bank planned to continue in the mortgage business, a spokesperson for NYCB said that the bank will continue to provide mortgage banking products and services to its customers through a third-party.

The spokesperson said that is the way that NYCBs mortgage business operated prior to the AmTrust acquisition. From our customers perspective, nothing will change, the spokesperson said.

In a statement, Joseph Ficalora, NYCBs president and chief executive officer, said that the deals are the right move for the bank right now.

The decision to sell the mortgage banking business comes after many months of careful evaluation with our Board of Directors and our outside advisors, Ficalora said. Selling to a large, national, full-service mortgage banking company that would keep certain employees and maintain operations in the region were important considerations during the evaluation process.

Under the terms of deal, Freedom is expected to retain certain employees from the NYCBs Cleveland mortgage banking business. Freedom is also expected to maintain operations in the area.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to add the quality assets, platform and select employees which are part of New York Community Bank to our Freedom family, Freedom Mortgage CEO Stanley Middleman said.I think there will be a great future for both firms as a result of this transaction.

Ficalora said that the banks presence in Ohio is an important component of the banks business strategy, and after the sale, the bank will still have 28 branches, $2 billion in deposits, and more than 400 employees in the state of Ohio.

Full financial terms of the deals were not disclosed but NYCB said that the deals should result in a gain on sale of approximately $90 million on a pre-tax basis.

Ficalora said that agreeing to these deals are the next steps in the companys strategic objectives.

They allow us to focus on our core business model, including growth through acquisitions, generate liquidity which will be redeployed into higher-earning assets, enhance our returns through improved efficiencies, and reposition our balance sheet, Ficalora added. More importantly, they will enhance shareholder value through earnings and tangible book value accretion on an ongoing basis.

The companies expect the deals to close in the third quarter.

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New York Community Bank selling mortgage business to Freedom Mortgage, Cerberus - HousingWire

MENLO, Iowa | Before his recent swing into Northwest Iowa, Freedom Rock creator Ray "Bubba" Sorensen put the finishing touches on the 19th edition of his original Freedom Rock south of Menlo.

Sorensen, 38, who always aims to have that Freedom Rock done by Memorial Day, finished this year just a day or two before the holiday. All told, it took him just over three weeks.

"I just realized that I've been doing the original Freedom Rock for half my life," said Sorensen, who painted that Freedom Rock for the first time in 1999.

The original Freedom Rock this year features two depictions of the late Bob Ross, one as Ross the artist, the other as Ross the staff sergeant, a member of the U.S. Air Force for 20 years.

"Bob Ross was an inspiration for me," Sorensen said during a break while painting the Ida County Freedom Rock at Holstein on Monday. "He said he spent part of his career yelling at people (as a staff sergeant) and the rest of his career painting.

"Bob Ross was so well-known, I always thought it would be interesting to portray him," said Sorensen. "I loved his show. He was inspiration for me dating back to times before I began painting the original Freedom Rock."

The upper left of the north side of the Freedom Rock features pictures of Medal of Honor recipients Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall and Maj. Ed Freeman. The lower right portion shows Lee Hazen, a Prisoner of War during World War II and a native of Adair County.

Ross, a native of Florida, enlisted in the Air Force at 18 and spent two decades in the military, serving a portion of his career at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, where Ross encountered snow and mountains for the first time, two natural elements he became known for while painting landscape scenes on "The Joy of Painting," which ran for years on Public Television. Ross died from lymphoma in 1995.

There are other tributes on this edition of the Freedom Rock, a 60-ton boulder located 1.5 miles south of exit 86 off Interstate 80 between Menlo and Greenfield, Iowa, where Sorensen and his family reside.

The late Maj. Ed Freeman and the late Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall are depicted with the Huey helicopter, a Vietnam War scene Sorensen features annually. The paint used for the helicopter has included ashes of Vietnam War veterans for years.

U.S. Army Pvt. First Class Desmond Thomas Doss, a Medal of Honor recipient, is featured on the west side of the 2017 Freedom Rock south of Menlo, Iowa. Doss, a conscientious object who served as a medic and would not carry a weapon in World War II, served as the inspiration for the movie, "Hacksaw Ridge."

"We added veterans' ashes to the helicopter this year and brought the number to 100 Vietnam veterans whose ashes we've included," Sorensen said.

Freeman and Crandall, heroes in the battles of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, were presented with the Medal of Honor in 2001 and 2007, respectively. Both men repeatedly flew their choppers into enemy machine gun and rifle fire in their quest to evacuate wounded U.S. soldiers and Marines.

The front, or west face, of Freedom Rock shows another Medal of Honor recipient, U.S. Army Pvt. First Class Desmond Doss, subject of the movie "Hacksaw Ridge." Doss, a Seventh-Day Adventist and conscientious objector who refused to carry a weapon, heroically fulfilled his duty as a medic who, while continuously exposed to enemy fire, rescued and treated his fellow wounded soldiers. Doss himself was wounded while saving others in a furious battle at Okinawa.

"I had always planned to put Desmond Doss on the rock and then I saw the movie previews," Sorensen said.

The back, or east side, of Freedom Rock this years features "man's best friend," depicted in a trio of service dogs, including the famous U.S. Army Sgt. Stubby, of World War I, a service dog decorated for his work in saving his regiment from surprise mustard gas attacks.

"Anytime I see a story about a service animal, I read it," Sorensen said. "Sgt. Stubby got the rank of sergeant, which I don't think they were supposed to do. But, it was World War I and the rules were a little more relaxed."

Seeing the artwork on the back of the wall, I recalled the life and sacrifice of South Sioux City, Nebraska, resident John Douangdara, a U.S. Navy special warfare dog handler for Naval SEAL Team Six. Douandara died on Aug. 6, 2011, when the Chinook helicopter he and his dog, Bart, were in was shot down, while they served a mission in Afghanistan. The John Douangdara Memorial War Dog Park, named in their honor, keeps their memory alive. Just as the Freedom Rock has done for so many of our nation's finest the past 19 years.

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GALLAGHER: Freedom Rock painter honors painter - Sioux City Journal

A civil rights historical marker remembers black teenager Emmett Till, who was kidnapped before being lynched in 1955. Allan Hammons, whose public relations firm made the marker, said Monday that someone scratched the marker with a blunt tool.Allan HammonsAP

A historical marker for Emmett Till on the Mississippi Freedom Trail has been vandalized.

The sign, located outside the grocery store where 14-year-old black teenager Till was accused of whistling at a white woman in 1955, is missing vinyl panels that contained photos and words about him. In May, someone scratched the marker with a blunt tool, according to Allan Hammons, whose public relations firm created the marker.

"Who knows what motivates people to do this?" Hammons told the Associated Press. "Vandals have been around since the beginning of time." Hammons said the marker on the Freedom Trail cost more than $8,000 and repairs will amount to about $500.

Till was kidnapped, tortured and killed by two white men after 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant said he whistled at her. His brutal murder, and the later acquittal of the defendants by an all-white jury, set the Civil Rights movement in motion.

The AP reports that a second marker for Till, near the area where his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, was shot multiple times.

In January, Bryant, who remarried to become Carolyn Bryant Donham, told Vanity Fair that she had fabricated her testimony against Till.

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An Emmett Till Marker on the Mississippi Freedom Trail Was Vandalized - TIME

Another Fortnight for Freedom is coming up. Once again, we as U.S. Catholics are directed to consider to what extent the practice of our faith is being infringed upon by our government. While the Catholics for Choice organization is not well thought of in many Catholic circles, the Baltimore Sun editorial provides many points that are worthy of consideration.

Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for Choice, discusses the fifth Fortnight for Freedom that is beginning in Baltimore, and he makes a number of significant points.

Initially, O'Brien makes the same point I've been making for some time. (Here, too.) The bishops have distorted the notion of religious liberty. Instead of protecting their right to worship freely, which has never been in question, they are seeking to impose their positions on the rest of the country.

He makes two additional points. First, the bishops are winning because they have made President Donald Trump their champion and he is giving them even more than what they are asking for. Second, real people are being hurt by the decisions that are being made, and the bishops are applauding many of these decisions.

O'Brien notes that Trump has rewarded the bishops by denying funding to any overseas organization that speaks about, advocates for, or refers patients to abortion services, even if that organization is providing HIV/AIDS assistance. The president has signed an executive order that would allow churches to engage in partisan politics and help fund the campaigns of individual candidates. Legislation is being considered to allow corporations to deny birth control coverage for their employees on religious grounds.

We are no longer talking about abortion here. The Affordable Care Act never did provide public funds to cover abortions, despite what the bishops have been saying. The attack on contraception seems particularly misguided. Contraception has been a settled issue for Catholics for several decades.

Bishops are essentially protecting their own myopic point of view. Catholics, by a 74 percent margin, oppose legislation allowing organizations to deny services to employees or customers based on their religious beliefs. Seventy-one percent of Catholics believe all women should have access to birth control coverage no matter where they work. In any case, the church has no right to impose its position on the entire population in the United States.

O'Brien posits the bishops' position in stark terms. "It could be your family who pays the price now that President Trump has let the Catholic bishops and other extremist religious leaders dictate policy for everyone else."

He provides some examples. Your daughter is interested in a strong program offered at a Catholic university but hesitates because she can't afford both the cost of books and paying for her own birth control. Perhaps your brother will be denied the possibility of adopting and caring for a needy child because he is in a same-sex relationship.

He brings up two cases that stand out: A young woman was denied birth control services, Depo Provera shots, at a Catholic hospital and ended up with a ruptured cyst. A 17-year-old girl was raped on her way to the U.S. to work in the fields and was denied housing by Catholic Charities. She was transferred to another facility where she received an abortion.

The Catholic bishops have come out against the latest version of the Republican health care bill. I am glad about that. Yet if you read the article linked from Catholic Daily, it is clear that the focus for the bishops is the pro-life language in the bill. The suspicion is they would prefer to have no health care at all if their pro-life language is deleted from the bill. The focus should be on the poor, the disabled, and the elderly who would be hurt by this bill. Too many bishops remain committed to one-issue politics, and to their attachment to Donald Trump as a champion for their point of view. All the damage that this president is doing to our country in so many ways does not seem to be enough to change their minds.

It is time to retire the Fortnight for Freedom and focus on the real needs of our people of all people. Christians are being discriminated against around the world, particularly in the Middle East. Focus on that. Focus on making things better for people.

A full-throated condemnation of the health care efforts that are going on in the Congress would be a good place to start. Bishops need to join Pope Francis in attaching their concerns, their values, and their efforts to the poor and the needy, and not to a president who will espouse one position today and a totally different one tomorrow.

See the rest here:

We are having another Fortnight for Freedom, but we shouldn't - National Catholic Reporter (blog)