Category Archives: Freedom

New York Times

The Fake Freedom of American Health Care New York Times Such is the cost of freedom. As House Speaker Paul Ryan put it in a tweet: Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need. Vice President Mike Pence picked up that baton: Obamacare will be replaced with something that actually ...

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The Fake Freedom of American Health Care - New York Times

It's a Program That Started in the Civil Rights Movement Era

DULUTH, Minn.- The Family Freedom center opened up registrations for the Family Freedom school, a 12 week program designed to engage and empower black families and community members.

The program addresses internalized racism, economic isolation, and structural racism that can affect black families. The program also helps educate people on the civil rights movement, cultural values, and youth development. A talent show showcasing the communitys young talents was also held at the registration.

We wanna create resources and gates for our own children to have a path to their own future. We want them to know who they are, where they come from, which is so important, and we want them to direct their own future and where they wanna go, said Alina Baines, the facilitator for Family Freedom School.

Historically, freedom schools were organized in the southern United States during the Civil Rights Movement.

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Registrations Opened for Family Freedom School - Fox21Online - FOX 21 Online

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From his hateful tweets and provocative rhetoric to his new (and now failed) executive order banning Muslims and refugees all over again, President Donald Trump is driven by the idea that Islam is a threat to what makes us American.

Trump has declared that Islam hates us. There is, he says, an unbelievable hatred. Stephen K. Bannon, one of his chief advisers, claims that we are in an outright war against ... Islam and doubts whether Muslims that are shariah-adherent can actually be part of a society where you have the rule of law and ... are a democratic republic. He believes Islam is much darker than Nazism and seems to agree with HUD Secretary Ben Carson that Islam is a religion of domination.

But Trump and his administration could learn a thing or two about American values such as freedom and equality from the religion and people they so hate.

In Islams founding story, after Muhammads death, it was unclear who would lead the nascent Muslim community. Typically, succession disputes make for great drama. This one, however, was more C-SPAN than Game of Thrones.

Rather than intrigue or bloodshed, believers pursued democracy. Only by the peoples consent, they reckoned, could a ruler justly be named and a community freely governed. They chose Abu Bakr, one of Muhammads companions. His inauguration speech, according to one of Muhammads earliest biographers Ibn Ishaq, was brief (though were not sure how big the crowd was). It went something like this: Im no better than any of you. Only obey me if I do right. Otherwise, resist me. Loyalty means speaking truth. Flattery is treason. No human, but God alone is your lord.

Abu Bakr sought to guard the people against domination by making himself accountable to them. The people obliged, securing their liberty. They could call him out at any time, and he had to listen. He even had to ask permission for new clothes.

His successor, Umar, carried the legacy forward. Publicly rebuked by a woman for overstepping the law, Umar responded: That woman is right, and I am wrong! It seems that all people have deeper wisdom and insight than me.

This spirit of accountability and liberty would become enshrined as a religious duty in Islam, though as with any tradition, these values are not always upheld. Nonetheless, every Muslim has the obligation to command right and forbid wrong, correcting and resisting any who betray justice, rulers included. That Abu Bakr and Umar are paradigms of good Islamic rule for well over 1 billion Sunni Muslims tells us something about this traditions love for freedom, whether or not its followers always live up to their ideals.

So does the 12th-century theologian al-Ghazali, one of Islams most beloved figures. In his most famous political work, an open letter to a young sultan, Ghazali famously defends a golden rule of liberty: The fundamental principle is ... treat people in a way in which, if you were subject and another were Sultan, you would deem right that you yourself be treated. Nothing a ruler would not himself endure has any place in politics. While sin against God can be forgiven, violation of this rule cannot: Anything involving injustice to mankind will not in any circumstance be overlooked at the resurrection.

Ghazali tells rulers that on judgment day, not God but the people will determine their fate: The harshest torment will be for those who rule arbitrarily. He sounds striking similar to James Madison writing in Federalist 57, for whom rulers will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their exercise of power is reviewed, and they must descend to the level from which they were raised. Only in Ghazalis vision, the tyrant descends to hell.

Of course, like their Western counterparts, many Muslim regimes fail to honor this vision of liberty. But it is women and men like Malala Yousafzai, Humayun Khan and the hopeful youths who filled Tahrir Square who are faithful to the best of Islam, not the likes of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and Saudi princes.

For Islam and the American founders alike, freedom is about protection from arbitrary power and rule by law, not the caprices of men. Theirs is a vision where citizens stand not in slavish deference to masters but on equal terms with all. This vision animates our whole system of governance. It was this vision Lincoln endorsed when he wrote, in words that echo Ghazali: As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. And it was this vision Sojourner Truth, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harvey Milk invoked when they each demanded that equality before the law be still further expanded so that it would eventually include not just straight white men but everyone.

This vision is under threat in a way it rarely has been in our history. But it is under threat not by Islam, but by Trump and his administration.

Trumps first Muslim ban was an act of brazen, unconstrained power and barely concealed animus. The second ban is more of the same. The blessing of the first was just how blatantly it betrayed our deepest values. The danger of the second is its attempt to conceal its dominating and bigoted aims. No serious observer thinks these bans make us any safer. Instead, they seek to circumvent rule of law, roll back libertys benefit and wage Bannons war with Islam. They give Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and other agents discretionary power to decide on a whim whether to sever families, deport refugees and detain Muslims. And they make Trump and his cronies unaccountable arbiters of who really loves the very American values the administration is busy betraying.

Trump wants to return America to its former greatness. But when it comes to freedom, Ghazali and Abu Bakr have far more in common with Madison and Lincoln than with terrorists and tyrants who claim Islams mantle. For that matter, they have far more in common with this countrys great lovers of liberty than does the current president.

So, instead of banning Muslims, Trump should listen to them: He might learn something about liberty and equality, two values he seems not to have learned to love from our own nations history or the Constitution he swore to uphold.

Decosimo teaches religion, ethics and politics at Boston University and is writing a book on freedom and domination in Christianity and Islam.

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Islam's lessons on freedom and democracy - WatertownDailyTimes.com

George W. Bush said: Helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment. | AP Photo

On this day in 2003, President George W. Bush announced the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The U.S.-led invasion was, according to Bush, aimed at ridding Iraq of its dictator, Saddam Hussein, and eliminating its ability to store, develop and deploy its stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

In a nationwide televised address, Bush said: Helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment. He acknowledged the substantial domestic opposition to the war and said that he had only reluctantly authorized the invasion. At the same time, the president noted his administrations refusal to live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

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Within six weeks, the pre-emptive strike morphed into an occupation. Saddam's eventual capture by U.S. troops led to his trial in an Iraqi court, which sentenced him to death by hanging.

A post-invasion investigation by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 1991 but that it intended to resume production if sanctions were lifted. Some investigators concluded Saddam, when it came to the offending weapons, was engaged in a big bluff.

Although Bush announced on May 1, 2003, that the U.S. mission had been accomplished, violence against coalition forces and among sectarian groups soon escalated into a full-fledged insurgency. Strife between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis continued, and the violent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, which used suicide bombers, emerged.

During the wars most intense phase, which lasted more than four years, U.S. casualties climbed to more than 3,000, with more than 23,000 wounded. Iraqi civilian fatalities were estimated at more than 50,000.

In February 2009, President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for combat forces, with some 50,000 troops remaining to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence.

After the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by December 2011, a violent insurgency of mainly Sunni Islamic Islamist fighters targeting the Iraqi government gained force. By June 2014, Sunni Islamic, jihadist and ISIS militants, already having achieved territorial successes in the Syrian civil war, had conquered the Iraqi cities of Samarra, Mosul and Tikrit, and threatened the Mosul Dam and Kirkuk, where Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga troops took control from the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

An Iraqi counterinsurgency effort, supported by U.S. airstrikes and an ever-increasing number of combat advisers, remains underway. President Donald Trump has pledged that ISIS will be eradicated under his watch.

SOURCE: FIASCO: THE AMERICAN MILITARY ADVENTURE IN IRAQ, BY THOMAS E. RICKS (2006)

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Bush announces launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 19, 2003 - Politico

Imagine a life where every part of your day is defined, regimented, controlled by someone other than you. Where even basic decisions, like what to eat, where to go, or who to spend time with are denied you. For people with disabilities living in many residential facilities, this is the reality. Basic choices, from decisions about where to live to the opportunity to be intimate with your partner, are denied people with disabilities across the nation.

Many Americans are aware of these sorts of problems and the resulting loss of freedom faced by people with disabilities who are forced into nursing homes and other types of institutions. To address this, disability rights advocates have worked over the last 50 years to bring people out of institutional settings and into the community, fighting to expand Medicaid-funded home and community-based services, also known as HCBS.

In 2013, after decades of effort by activists and federal policymakers, the percentage of Medicaid funding spent on community-based services finally exceeded that spent on institutional care. Many states have succeeded in serving people with developmental disabilities entirely in the community, no longer relegating people with Down syndrome, intellectual disability, and other similar diagnoses to institutions. Others are working towards similar outcomes.

Unfortunately, the mindset of institutionalization still exists, even in community-based settings. A growing body of research indicates that, particularly in larger settings where people with disabilities are clustered together for provider convenience, residents are deprived control over basic choices. To address this, the Obama administration issued a groundbreaking rule in 2014, requiring every state to upgrade its home and community services to ensure that those receiving them had their basic rights respected by 2019.

The HCBS settings rule included requirements that people get a choice of where they live, including the opportunity to pick residences other than group homes and other disability-specific settings. It also instructed states to ensure people living in residential facilities were afforded the right to choose what to do during the day, who they invited into their homes, when they ate, and whom they shared a bedroom with. These are the kinds of basic rights that most Americans take for granted but for people with disabilities, federal intervention was necessary to protect them.

Imagine a life where every part of your day is defined, regimented, controlled by someone other than you.

The settings rule gave every state five years to work with providers and people with disabilities to reach compliance unfortunately, it looks like thats not going to happen. This week, President Trumps Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Seema Verma issued a letter to state governments indicating their intent to delay the rules implementation deadline, making the full realization of the rights of people with disabilities a dream deferred.

Whats worse, the letter indicated their intent to rollback federal oversight, deferring to state governments as to whether or not particular providers and settings were respecting the rights of people with disabilities trying to live their lives on their own terms. Thats a problem. Basic freedoms like choice, autonomy, and privacy in ones own home shouldnt be subject to the whims of state legislators.

This delay by Secretary Price and Administrator Verma threatens the fundamental rights of people with disabilities. It means that peoples freedom is determined based on what state they live in. In 2011, four states Kentucky, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New Mexico supported more than 90 percent of all people with developmental disabilities receiving community-based residential services in settings of three or fewer people. In the same year, five states Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and South Carolina supported fewer than 30 percent of their residents in such settings, relying predominantly on more congregate group home models that restrict the freedoms of their residents.

Tom Price and Seema Verma should realize that the right to live in the community and make basic choices about ones own body, time, and home should be available to every American. This weeks letter sends a message that for people with disabilities those rights are conditional. Americans with disabilities have too much experience having our freedom subject to other peoples whims.

We deserve a full and speedy implementation of the HCBS settings rule. Nothing less than our basic civil liberties is at stake.

Ari Neeman runs MySupport.com, an online platform connecting people with disabilities to support workers. He previously served as one of President Obamas appointees to the National Council on Disability and as the President of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He currently advises the ACLU on disability policy and Medicaid.

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Secretary Price, Don't Mess With People With Disabilities' Freedom - ACLU (blog)

MATT SHAND

Last updated08:25, March 20 2017

RICKY WILSON/FAIRFAX NZ

Taupo's mayor is about to hit the road in his own caravan.

Freedom camping caravans are commonplace in Taupo but Taupo District Council is sending out one of its own.

Taupo District Council staff will be taking a caravan on an informative road trip around the district to let residents know how they can have their say on the future of freedom camping in the district.

Policy manager Nick Carroll said the road trip was part of two months of public consultation on a draftfreedomcampingbylaw for theTaupoDistrict.

"We've recentlyprepared a draftfreedomcampingbylaw thatrecommends movingfreedomcampingsites away from the shores of Lake Taupoand proposes 15 sites around the TaupoDistrict wherefreedomcamping could beallowed," he said.

"The road trip will stop at five sites around the district where people will be able to talk to staff about the consultation process and can then submit their viewson the draft bylaw."

The caravan will be in the following locations over the next three weeks:

Submissions on the draft bylaw can be made until April 18by visitingtaupo.govt.nz/consultation.

-Stuff.co.nz

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Council sends out freedom camping caravan - Waikato Times

Steve Bannon was furious.

Last weekend, the Washington Examiner published a story claiming that President Donald Trump had vowed to back primary challengers to run against Republicans who oppose the GOP's health care plan. The article named Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows as a "possible target." Bannon believed the story was categorically untrue, according to sources, and he met with Meadows over the weekend as speculation mounted about who was behind it.

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Multiple House Republican whips denied that Trump made the threat during the meeting with GOP leaders cited in the story. But a few days later, Trump leaned on Paul Ryan to compromise with the House's far-right flank, which has dubbed the speaker's health care bill "Obamacare-Lite."

The Freedom Caucus may not need to fear Trump-backed primary challengers because of this episode. But the group, nonetheless, is taking a big risk in threatening to blow up Ryans health care proposal: Its passage is a top priority for Trump and could have ramifications for the rest of the president's agenda. Trump told GOP vote counters last week that hed do everything in his power to get it through Congress.

The Freedom Caucus, however, has clearly found a sympathetic ear in Trumps right-hand man Bannon, who wants conservatives to be included in the legislative process instead of twisting their arms to vote yes. The fledgling alliance has given the group newfound hope that they can win the White House over to their side or, at least, that Trump wont blame them if Obamacare repeal implodes.

The last thing I want is for the president to be mad at me, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows told POLITICO in a brief interview on Thursday. He asked me to negotiate in good faith, so I have been working around the clock to negotiate in good faith, reaching out to people that I would not normally reach out to. He understands that no one wants a deal more than me.

Allies of Ryan say the speaker cant possibly agree to everything that conservatives are requesting, and they don't believe Meadows and the Freedom Caucus have engaged in good faith. They also argue that Ryan, at the White House's behest, is trying to incorporate their wishes while still getting the bill passed within a week.

But for months, conservatives have complained that GOP leaders aren't listening to them. That's why Meadows (R-N.C.), who declined to divulge details of his talks with the White House, and other conservatives have circumvented leadership and taken their case to the White House. Trump has essentially become the middleman between warring House GOP factions.

The Freedom Caucus' unwillingness to go along with GOP leaders could backfire if Trump loses his patience. The president carried most of its members' districts by wide margins. If he turns against them blaming them for the bills failure the hard-liners could find themselves in a precarious spot in the 2018 midterms.

Everybodys concerned about getting into a Twitter war with the president, said Freedom Caucus member Ral Labrador of Idaho. He added, however, that conservatives cant simply get on board with something they reject.

And it's not only the House factions complicating the calculus.

Conservative lawmakers have proven adept at exploiting similar divisions in the White House to build momentum for their cause. Administration sources say they stovepipe their concerns to Bannon because of his relationships with the far right, and they warily eye others aligned with chief of staff Reince Priebus, who is closer to Ryan.

They've found sympathizers in the West Wing for complaints that leadership has excluded them from the legislative process. One senior administration official told POLITICO that House leadership cut them out of the process totally.

We opened up a direct channel" with Meadows, fellow Freedom Caucus leader Jim Jordan and Sen. Ted Cruz, the source continued, "to get the real issues on the table.

If Trump is aware of the infighting, he's not acknowledging it.

"Great progress on healthcare," he tweeted Thursday. "Improvements being made Republicans coming together!"

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The alliance with the White House has emboldened the Freedom Caucus. The group is now aiming to strike its own deal with moderates independent of the efforts of GOP leaders. In fact, with the exception of one conversation with Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Meadows told reporters Wednesday evening that he had not spoken to GOP leaders in two weeks. He said he talks to the White House almost daily.

The end-run around House leaders has had mixed success. The White House isn't listening to the Freedom Caucus' plea to repeal Obamacare now and replace it later, or their request to axe health care tax credits essential to the Ryan plan. But Trump pressed Ryan Tuesday night to amend his bill to placate conservatives, something the far right has been imploring the White House to do for weeks.

Meadows had given the White House a list of a half-dozen "improvements" that the group wants to be made to the bill.

Trump is also kibitzing with rank-and-file Freedom Caucus members. Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, an early Trump supporter, flew from Nashville with the president on Air Force One late Wednesday and said the two talked about health care pretty extensively.

With a cadre of top aides in the cabin, along with Rep. Marsha Blackburn, another Tennessee Republican, DesJarlais said Trump listened closely as he pitched proposals that would push the health care bill to the right.

He also said Trump is approaching the process carefully and is weighing various ideas to help shepherd it through a Republican conference with sharp divisions. He realizes that its really important to get this done, but he knows that if his names going to be on it, it must be a good product, said DesJarlais, who was a doctor before coming to Congress. I dont think that hes rigid.

On Thursday, Meadows, during a panel discussion with fellow conservatives, slammed the Examiner report as inaccurate and hinted that the White House has told him it was not true.

It didnt happen, and I know that from good authority, asking people that not only were in the room, but I know the president didnt say that, he said.

The Examiner reporter who wrote the story stood by the report.

Meadows suggested someone intentionally was trying to threaten him into voting for the bill and said it wasnt working.

This is the typical kind of thing that happens whenever pressure comes to bear trying to get people to vote against their constituency," he said. "Obviously, we want to say yes. Everybody up here wants to say 'yes.' But the kinds of things that are happening, they dont bring us closer to yes. If anything, they have an opposite reaction.

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Freedom Caucus aligns with Bannon in risky Obamacare gambit - Politico

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The novelist Anatole Frances mischievous observation came to mind when the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the Republican cut-taxes/gut-Medicaid bill and its defenders went into a continuous loop talking about freedom. Conservatives are fond of saying that freedom isnt free. This is entirely true, especially when it comes to health care.

Republicans speak of the wondrous things that will happen if they succeed in slaying the monster known as Obamacare. House Speaker Paul Ryan offered this rush of animated words to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: You need to have an individual market where people care about what things cost, where people have real freedom, where those providers of health care services, be they insurers, doctors or hospitals and everybody in between, compete against each other for our business based on value, based on price, based on quality, based on outcome.

Ryan spoke to Hewitt shortly before the CBO concluded that under his legislative contraption, 24 million fewer people would be insured over the next decade. Ryan dismissed the CBO in advance by accepting that the coverage numbers would, indeed, drop because people would be able to exercise a newfound right to be uninsured, much as they might be liberated to sleep under bridges or beg in the streets.

Were going to have a free market, and you buy what you want to buy, Ryan explained. Theyre going to say not nearly as many people are going to do that. Left-wingers are often cast as dreamy utopians, but its Ryan and his allies who pretend they can create a capitalist paradise in health care something that not one wealthy capitalist country has ever done because the health care market is not like any other.

Older people, for example, are not an ideal market for private insurance companies. Thats why we have Medicare. Lower-income people cant afford to pay the full cost of a decent insurance policy. Thats why we have Medicaid, and why the Affordable Care Act subsidizes policies from private insurance companies.

Slash Medicaid and take away the subsidies and, presto, the ranks of the uninsured mushroom. There is thus something unseemly about Ryan declaring that he is so excited about eviscerating Medicaid. We are de-federalizing an entitlement, block-granting it back to the states, and capping its growth rate, he told Hewitt. Thats never been done before.

Of course, maybe its never been done before because enough politicians stood up to resist the cruel idea of tossing so many people overboard.

Defenders of this proposal try to argue that health care is radically different from coverage. They must think the American people are dunderheads. Coverage is not the end, Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on MSNBCs Morning Joe Tuesday. People dont get better with coverage. They get better with care.

Well, sure, but try taking your kids to get care from a pediatrician if you dont have insurance coverage. Or do backers of the Coverage Destruction Act of 2017 just want people to get sicker and sicker until they have to get really expensive care in an emergency room which may come too late?

Ryan urges people to read his bill. If you do, youll realize how many of its pages are devoted not to health care but to tax cuts. According to the CBO, the bill takes $1.2 trillion out of helping people get health care (including $880 billion from Medicaid) and then hands out about $600 billion of that in tax cuts, mostly for the well-to-do and various interest groups, the beleaguered tanning industry being my favorite. This could also be called the Make Inequality Worse Act of 2017.

In his youth, Ryan was a devotee of Ayn Rand, whose philosophy is nicely summarized by the title of her book The Virtue of Selfishness. In her world, government should never take money from the better-off to help lesser souls. In the glorious future created by Ryans bill, they will now be even freer to try maintaining their own existence without health insurance.

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Ryan health plan offers freedom to be ill - Albuquerque Journal

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and wife Lucy arrive at the memorial service for Bill Leak on Friday. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch have paid tribute to Bill Leak, labelling the late cartoonist a free-thinker and defender of freedom.

He was accused of racism because of a cartoon, Turnbull said during a Sydney memorial service for Leak who died, aged 61, of a suspected heart attack a week ago.

A cartoon that united Australians in defence of freedom.

The prime minister was referring to one of Leaks most controversial works, a cartoon depicting a drunk Aboriginal father who had forgotten his own sons name.

Leak was investigated for a possible breach of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act but the racism complaint was subsequently dropped.

Turnbull was one of many prominent figures who attended Fridays memorial in Sydney Town Hall. Former prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard, cabinet ministers Peter Dutton and Mitch Fifield, crossbench senators Derryn Hinch and Malcolm Roberts, satirist Barry Humphries, Leaks former colleagues at the Australian and other conservative figures also attended.

Turnbull, who was depicted in a portrait by Leak for the Archibald Prize in 1994, said his cartoons embodied the freedom to agree or disagree with ideas. There was nothing more Australian than challenging authority, he added. We dont look up or down, we look each other in the eye. Side by side. Mates.

Murdoch, in a letter read out by the Australians editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker, described Leak as one of the worlds best political cartoonists. He was a fine example of the Australian tradition of free-thinking, a fearless opponent of hypocrisy, Murdoch, who wasnt at the memorial, wrote.

I am proud to have known him as a colleague and a friend.

Humphries criticised those who continued attacks on Leak after his death, labelling them low-lifes. Hes been snatched from the jaws of the PC jackals, the comedian said.

Humphries also poked fun at the Australian Human Rights Commission saying he did not normally enjoy memorials. The only one I would have enjoyed would be the funeral of the Human Rights Commission.

Outside the service, one supporter held up a poster about the cartoonists contest with section 18C.

Wanted: for the untimely death of Bill Leak and other crimes against western civilisation, Gillian Triggs, Tim Soutphommasane, 18c and their rotten commission, it read.

Leak died in Gosford Hospital last Friday.

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Turnbull lauds Bill Leak's 'cartoon that united Australians in defence of freedom' - The Guardian

New York Post

Kidnapped woman escapes from moving car's trunk and runs to freedom New York Post Dramatic surveillance video shows the moment a kidnapping victim hopped out of the trunk of a moving car in Alabama and dashed to freedom. A man abducted the 25-year-old woman outside her apartment in Birmingham's Avondale neighborhood around ... and more »

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Kidnapped woman escapes from moving car's trunk and runs to freedom - New York Post