Mediaboss Marketing

Omicron is still raging across the country, but this holiday season it was houses of worship, not the state, that decided whether to gather or move celebrations online.

Governors and mayors are still issuing restrictions in the name of safeguarding the public, like requiring vaccine passports. But they are not shuttering houses of worship the way they did early in the pandemic.

That may be because last year, the U.S. Supreme Court erected a firewall around religious liberty. And that firewall appears to be holding.

In Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Andrew M. Cuomo, the court schooled the executive branch: (T)he Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten.

The high court overturned restrictions in California, Nevada and New York that regulated worship more harshly than economic activity. For instance, Nevada capped religious services at 50 people, while casinos could operate at 50% capacity. California even encroached on in-home worship, prohibiting more than three families from worshipping in a persons home or backyard.

Many people reflexively side with public health, for good reason. The coronavirus has yet to relinquish its grasp on society. But we cannot overlook the degree to which worship was relegat(ed) to third-class citizenship, as charged by the South Bay United Pentecostal Church, which twice reached the Supreme Court in challenging Californias orders.

In early 2020, South Bay simply wanted to open. California said no one could safely worship, even in the most cavernous cathedral. In May 2020, California allowed 100 worshipers. South Bay wanted to serve more. The church pointed out that California permitted factories and restaurants to reopen with safeguards; why couldnt the church?

That same month, the Supreme Court narrowly sustained Californias 100-person cap on worship gatherings, citing a century-old case holding that (o)ur Constitution principally entrusts (t)he safety and the health of the people to the politically accountable officials of the States.

But by February 2021, with vaccines becoming available, the court lost patience. Lacking sufficient justification, it struck the cap. Deference, though broad, has its limits, Chief Justice John Roberts noted.

Many ascribe the Supreme Courts intolerance of worship restrictions in 2021 to the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, but the justices were simply applying precedent.

Singl(ing) out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment draws strict scrutiny, the Supreme Court held in 1993. This means that the government must show a compelling interest and no less restrictive means to achieving exceedingly important ends. Yet these orders read like edicts, Justice Neil Gorsuch would later say, because almost no explanation was given.

Californias orders are a prime example. In press conferences about the states 100-person cap, Gov. Gavin Newsom cited stock CDC guidance about the need to contain the contagion given spiraling case numbers. When asked by reporters why he was applying specific and different caps on places of worship and not schools, Newsom said, Perfects not on the menu.

He did not explain what factors guided Californias categories or why people mixing from far and wide in an enclosed space was a problem in church, but not in factories. The Constitution and the First Amendment were nowhere mentioned.

Two Californians sued over the restrictions on in-home worship. They challenged why they could watch John Legend sing outdoors ... (but not) host their faith community in their backyard.

True, worship gatherings had acted as super-spreaders early on. But so had factories, meatpacking plants and nursing homes. According to California, factories were safe because entry could be staggered. But the litigants offered to stagger the congregants entry and implement requirements for social distancing and masks.

Calvary Chapel in Nevada sued Gov. Steve Sisolak twice, asking to host worship services on the same terms as casinos at 50% capacity, not just 50 people.

Gorsuch skewered the disparity: (T)here is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.

Later, the federal courts struck Nevadas scheme as discriminatory, violating the First Amendment.

New York also violated a cardinal First Amendment rule. It created cluster zones, with the tightest restrictions in the center and looser ones moving outward. On CNN, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed the ultra-Orthodox community for creating clusters. Catholic schools happen(ed) to be in the zone, too.

In red zones, houses of worship could accommodate 10 or fewer people, yet essential businesses like warehouses faced no caps. In yellow zones, places of worship were capped at 50% capacity; restaurants in yellow zones at that time had no cap on the total number seated.

Agudath synagogues and Brooklyns Roman Catholic Diocese both sued Cuomo, charging that he was targeting religion.

During litigation, the governors experts could cite no evidence of spread from the Orthodox community and admitted that the Brooklyn diocese was in fact taking the necessary precautions, just as essential businesses do.

The Supreme Court struck New Yorks policy, finding that it discriminated against people of faith.

Adding insult to injury, all three states permitted places of worship to reopen only after services deemed essential, like liquor stores and bike shops.

These ill-constructed orders were expensive. All three states paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees. Thankfully, during this holiday season, governments have not retread these orders.

If omicron or another variant forces more restrictions, governors and mayors would do well to construct coherent policies and transparently explain them from the beginning. Asking people to forego worship, an important source of support during crisis, should only happen when governments articulate the criteria for restricting core liberties in such a way that all of us can understand the need.

Robin Fretwell Wilson holds the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law and is a Public Voices fellow with The OpEd Project.

See the rest here:
COVID and churches: Can the government force churches to close? - Deseret News

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

More than 200 Marines have been booted from the United States military for refusing to submit to a coronavirus vaccine.

Fox News confirmed Thursday that 206 U.S. Marines have been kicked out of the military since late November for refusing to take the vaccine.

BIDEN'S VACCINE MANDATE WILL DECIMATE OUR MILITARY

A @USMC Marine assists a woman and child during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. #HKIA (Department of Defense)

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Aug. 25 directed all military branches to ensure service members receive the vaccine as the number of cases surged over the summer. The deadlines for each branch of the military passed as of Dec. 15, and disciplinary action appeared to immediately follow.

Several Marines who refused to get the shot were granted anonymity by Fox News Digital, so they could speak freely. They said they are witnessing a "political purge" by the Biden administration that is forcing out the militarys "best and brightest" over deeply held beliefs they say are protected by the First Amendment.

"Theres something fundamentally wrong at this point with our nations leadership," said a major with more than 17 years of active service. "We are facing an unconstitutional edict that I think is very targeted as a political purge, taking out some of the best and brightest soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians from the Space Force."

MIAMI, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 29: A healthcare worker conducts a test at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at the Dan Paul Plaza on December 29, 2021 in Miami (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The Marines who spoke with Fox News said they were on the receiving end of a "blanket" denial of religious exemptions, with their applications being rejected without consideration. Eight separate letters of denial provided to Fox News were nearly identical, citing "military readiness" as the primary reason for rejection.

BIDEN MAKING 'GRAVE MISTAKE' ENFORCING MILITARY VACCINE MANDATE, REPUBLICANS WARN

"I saw one package from a sergeant who had attached, like, 30 pages of material to substantiate why his belief was sincere, under no lawful obligation to do so," the master sergeant said. "And then to have this as a response with no individual inquiry and just a generalized assertion of governmental interest is insulting."

Earlier this month, California Rep. Darrell Issa led a group of Republicans in sending a letter to Biden saying he was committing a "grave mistake" in enforcing his military vaccine mandate.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

"As the father of a major in the Judge Advocate General Corps who honorably served our nation in a foreign combat theater, you can fully and uniquely appreciate the sacrifices that our veterans make for America," the letter said. "There is simply no good reason to charge forward, decline all deliberation and recklessly damage perhaps irreversibly our nations security and force readiness," they wrote.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin holds a briefing in Tbilisi on Oct. 18, 2021. (VANO SHLAMOV/AFP via Getty Images)

The Army said that 98% of its active-duty force had gotten at least one shot, the Marine Corps said 95% of its force had gotten at least one dose, 97.5% of the Air Force and Space Force have gotten at least one shot and 98.4% of the Navy is fully vaccinated.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.

Fox News Jessica Chasmar and Julia Musto contributed to this report

See the original post here:
More than 200 Marines have been discharged from military due to vaccine refusal - Fox News

In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.

On December 30, just a week before January 6, the FBI, along with the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center, issued an intelligence report"Intelligence in Depth"titled "Diverse DVE Landscape Probably Will Persist." DVE refers to domestic violent extremists.

The report, shared exclusively with Newsweek, did not mention the election or Donald Trump. No mention was made of the impact of COVID. No mention was made of the two post-election protests that had already taken place in Washington DC, on November 24 and December 12, or any upcoming threats. In fact, there was no focus on the nation's capital at all.

The report covered all bases but focused on none. It's a mishmash of contorted acronyms, codes to neutrally describe what the intelligence agencies saw as the threats on the American battlefield, but careful not to explicitly label any one group. White supremacists were referred to as Racially Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE). There were also Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists (AGAAVEs), Anarchist Violent Extremists (AVEs), Militia Violent Extremists (MVEs), and Sovereign Citizen Violent Extremists (SCVEs). There were others mentioned, some with and without acronyms: Abortion-Related Violent Extremists, Animal Rights/Environmental Violent Extremists and Puerto Rican National Violent Extremists.

The common linking characteristic in all of this was the term "extremist." Yet the December 30 report offered no explicit definition of what precisely was an extremist. Domestic Violent Extremists were described as "individual[s] based and operating primarily within the United States or its territories without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power who seeks to further political or social goals wholly or in part through unlawful acts of force or violence."

A government definition of extremism is hard to come by. The definitive Department of Justice bible on the subject, "Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism: Terms and Concepts," nevernot in 120 pagesdefines what extremism means. Nor does the new Department of Defense "Report on Countering Extremist Activity Within the Department of Defense," issued just this month. It merely says that members of the armed forces are restricted from participating in "extremist activities" that include "unlawful force, unlawful violence, or other illegal means to deprive individuals of their rights under the United States Constitution or the laws of the United States." The Pentagon says that this includes supporting "the overthrow of the government" and "goals that are political, religious, discriminatory, or ideological in nature." That's a fairly broad spectrum.

Few people would dispute that those who seek to further their political goals "through unlawful acts of force or violence" should be the subject of federal law enforcement attention, but without a definition of extremism, and with such a broad category of wildly different individuals and groups that fall under the domestic violent extremist umbrella, it is no wonder that the FBI had such a hard time paying attention to the many Americans who were openly threatening violence before January 6.

A senior retired FBI executive, who spoke to Newsweek on condition that his name not be used because he fears retaliation by the very extremists he is talking about, says that he sees two major constraints on the Bureau's domestic terrorism efforts. First, he says, there is too much emphasis on organized groups and searching for conspiraciesa legacy of the organized crime and then al Qaeda emphasis focusing on thwarting and dismantling groups.

Second, he says, the federal government has tied itself into a bind over the proper protocol of even following or monitoring free speech while looking for possible threats. The December 30 report, for example, was careful to note that not all extremists were prone to violence, stating that "First Amendment"-protected protest was not per se a predicate for either federal attention or further FBI investigation.

"I understand that people might be skeptical that the FBI actually safeguards civil liberties, but in today's Bureau, it's more true than false," the FBI executive says. "Yes, there have been many historical examples of overreach, [but] this level of care is equally applied to right and left."

The FBI stated in its 2021 domestic terrorism report to Congress: "Under FBI policy and federal law, no investigative activity may be based solely on First Amendment activity, or the apparent or actual race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity of the individual or group. The FBI does not investigate, collect, or maintain information on US persons solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment."

The executive says that post-January 6, with domestic terrorism a national issue and more emphasis on stopping attacks, previous constraints might loosen. But he still thinks that focusing on groupsProud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc.and imagining these groups are more powerful than they are, obscures the individuals and their actions that need to be detected and stopped.

Even after January 6, FBI Director Christopher Wray described the same vague threat picture as did the December 30 report in testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees. Despite all that had happened, he still saw homegrown violent extremists (HMVEs)that is, "individuals radicalized here at home by jihadist ideologies espoused by foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS and al Qaeda"as the Bureau's number-one priority.

HMVEs are not to be confused with DVEs, yet they are mixed together in a way that suggests the two are equivalent. HMVEs (foreign influenced) and DVEs (non-foreign influenced), FBI Director Wray said, have a commonality in that the biggest actual threat is from so-called "lone" wolves.

According to Wray, the Bureau is "countering lone domestic violent extremists radicalized by personalized grievances ranging from racial and ethnic bias to anti-government, anti-authority sentiment to conspiracy theories."

Wray previously told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that, "over the last year, we observed activity that led us to assess there was potential for increased violent extremist activity at lawful protests taking place in communities across the United States."

The FBI says that in response to these threats, it authored 12 formal intelligence reports in 2020 relating to potential domestic terrorism. In 2019, the FBI produced 15 domestic terrorism related reports. (Each year, the FBI produces about 1,000 domestic terrorism related intelligence products.) In late August 2020, Wray says, the FBI published an analytical report "informing our partners that DVEs with partisan political grievances likely posed an increased threat related to the 2020 election.

"In that product, we noted that DVE responses to the election outcome might not occur until after the election and could be based on potential or anticipated policy changes," Wray said. In December 2020, he says, the FBI also contributed to a Department of Homeland Security Intelligence In-Depth product, which stated that the diverse DVE landscape "would probably persist due to enduring grievances."

That would be obvious to any observer. The FBI, in its formal intelligence reporting, seems to have missed the signs completely.

"The FBI and our federal, state, and local partners collected and shared intelligence and relevant public safety-related information in preparation for the various planned events" on January 6, Wray claims. But there is no evidence that any of that sharing had any impact, according to the testimony of numerous U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officials.

Just this past September, Wray told Congress how much "the threat" had changed 20 years after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. "It was 9/11, after all," he said, "that turned the FBI into an agency focused on disrupting threats."

But when a national threat and a catastrophic event loomed in late 2020, FBI bureaucrats not only didn't disrupt it, they didn't even see it coming.

Continue reading here:
Exclusive: Secret Threat Report Named Everyone Except Angry Donald Trump Voters - Newsweek

Voter suppression fears are justified

The writer of a Dec. 28 letter on votingmade amisstatement in suggestingthat President Joe Biden is not telling the truth about voter suppression. The facts argue otherwise.

Various nonpartisan entities have fact-checked former President Donald Trumps "Big Lie" about so-called voter fraud. An investigation by The Associated Press revealed that outof 25.5 million votes in the sixbattleground states during the 2020election, the total of votes that could legitimately calledfraudulent amounted to just475 and some of those were cast for Trump!

That's whyit is universally recognized that even if all of these apparently fraudulent voteswere cast for Biden, it would not have made a scintilla of difference in the presidential election. And well before Trump was a candidate, states that have been using millions of mail-in ballots have been doing sofor many years without any significant fraud.

The issue was only raised byTrumpers after their candidates legitimate loss. Soto suddenly propose ID laws on the false claim of voter fraud isdisingenuous at least, and cynically wicked at worst.

More: Herald-Tribune: How to send a letter to the editor

Biden is indeedtelling the truth: the right-wing radicals whoare trying to suppress the vote areattempting to bring back Jim Crow voting restrictions. If they succeed, we will loseour democracy and we will slip into autocracy.

Stephen Japhe, University Park

Homeowner surprised by rude behavior

After last weeks wind eventI hauled two barrels of yard waste, mostly palm fronds, to my front yard for Tuesday pickup. But instead of loading the materials, the truck driver justdumped themon the ground.

When I confronted him, the truck drivertold me that the yard waste was too heavy and was not packed correctly. I am 75 years old, and I carried the same barrels at least 200 feet to the curb.

I suggested to the truck driver thatif he couldnt deal with something that someone at least twice his age could handlewith ease, then maybe he should join a gym or get a desk job. His response was, I dont give (an expletive).

I would expectthe Venice public works department todemand a bit more courtesy and professionalism from an employee who, in my opinion, has a pretty good gigespecially in comparisonto what manyother peopleare experiencing during these difficult times.

I imagine that there may be a lot of folks out there who would love to have hisjob.

Reg Grover, Venice

Challenging times for our democracy

In 1787Benjamin Franklin foresaw the possibility that the new democracy being formed could fail.A founding father of our Constitution, Franklin was asked if the new government was a republic or a monarchy. He replied, A republic, if you can keep it.

These ominous words are relevant today. The visionary leader believed that inherent in the ambitious goal of self-government deemed an experiment at the time wouldbe the rise of troubling issues that wouldthreaten its viability.

Were facing such a challenge right now. Theres disruptive disagreement among our Republican and Democratic leaders regarding the policies and legislation needed for our country to advance.The deadlock they havecreated not only stymies the enactment of fresh legislation it also perpetuates the dissension.

The question at hand is what measures these lawmakers can introduce to resolve this turmoil to form a more perfect Union, the centuries-long goal and history of our democracy.

JohnMarcus, Sarasota

Expose hate speech - don't silence it

The guest columnists from Support Our Schools stated that children are entitled to a modern education in a safe and inclusive environment. Although I find the Proud Boys organization reprehensible and I deplore their use of violenceI dont believe the answer is exclude them from public debate.

Even hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. In the 2017 Supreme Court case Matal v. Tam, for example, Justice Samuel Alito quotedJustice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s dissent fromUnited Statesv. Schwimmer in 1929:. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability or any other similar ground is hateful, but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought we hate.

Justice Holmes statement has become a central principleof First Amendment thought.

Inclusivity requires that our children be exposed to all points of view, even the ones we detest, so that they may learn to evaluate critically and decide which positions are the most consistent with their values and so they may learn to reject speech which is hate-filled.

Hate speech will always be with us. But we can oppose and expose it not with silence, but with education and action. Show our children the harmful effects of hate speech. Support candidates whose positions more closely align with your own. Run for office.

Above all use your vote to send the message of inclusivity and brotherhood.

Leslie Curley, Venice

Go here to see the original:
Thursday's letters: Voter suppression, a rude city worker, the fate of democracy and more - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

The Ohio Supreme Court heard a second round of arguments about gerrymandering in less than a month.

Theyre being asked to decide if the states new Congressional district map is unconstitutional, by some of the same groups that have also sued over the new maps for Ohios state House and Senate districts.

Chief Justice Maureen OConnor started by welcoming attorneys and online viewers to the arguments on two cases challenging the Ohio Congressional map approved by the Ohio Redistricting Commission and then on a party line vote by Republican state lawmakers last month.

The Ohio Supreme Court has been in person since September, but these cases were suddenly added to the docket between Christmas and New Years.

Arguing for a group of voters representing Democratic former US Attorney General Eric Holder's National Redistricting Action Fund and for the League of Women Voters of Ohio was Ben Stafford from the Elias Group, which has challenged Republican-drawn maps in several states. Those groups were involved in lawsuits over Ohios state legislative maps too.

Stafford said expert analysis shows Republicans could win 12 of 15 districts in this new Congressional map, in violation of a 2018 voter approved constitutional amendment to end the partisan process for drawing congressional districts.

This case is about how the General Assembly has thumbed its nose at these reforms and enacted a plan that palpably violates Article 19s new anti-gerrymandering protections," Stafford told the court.

Stafford and civil rights lawyer Robert Fram argued that a partisan map wouldnt have resulted in just using Ohios geography to create the plan. Fram said the 80% Republican-20% Democratic result was only achieved through county splits.

When we see a substantial deviation from compactness that results in a substantial increase in partisan gain, thats a tipoff that what we have here is an unduly partisan, favoring one political party," Fram said.

Earlier this month the court removed from the lawsuits the Democrats on the Redistricting Commission, Sen. Vernon Sykes and House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, and also Republican members Auditor Keith Faber and Gov. Mike DeWine, whos incidentally the father of Justice Pat DeWine. That left Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senate President Matt Huffman and Speaker Bob Cupp, all Republicans.

Arguing for the map they approved was Phillip Strach, a North Carolina lawyer who said map drawing can use partisanship, just not excessively.

"This case is about a Congressional district plan that fully complies with Article 19 of the state Constitution and was the most constitutionally compliant of all the plans before the General Assembly," Strach said.

Strach said the other sides analysis is deeply flawed because of human interference, and that just using geography would also have created a Republican map.

He reiterated Republicans leaders claims that this map has six GOP and two Democratic seats with seven competitive districts, and only splits 12 counties just over half the number allowed and two counties, Hamilton and Summit, twice.

Democratic Justice Melody Stewart asked him about that: Its almost like youre saying its not as gerrymandered as it could have been.

Your Honor, Im just saying that the Constitution allows five counties to be split twice, so the General Assembly could legally have done that," Strach replied.

Ohio has had a Congressional delegation of 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats since the current map was first used in 2012.

Republican Chief Justice Maureen OConnor is considered a swing vote since she sided with the minority to throw out the current map in 2011. She asked Strach why he kept comparing the new map to the current one, which is considered one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country and arguably sparked the 2018 vote to change the process.

If you do compare it to that plan, which has been criticized but was never overruled, that if you look at that plan, its clearly " Strach began his answer.

O'Connor interrupted: "Counsel, didnt the people overrule it? I mean, maybe not overruled in front of us or another court, but the people in their vote overruled what had been done to that point, did they not?"

Strach restated his argument that this new map has more competitive districts and is therefore less partisan, which is what voters wanted, and also said lawmakers didnt have other maps that would be better.

In his follow up, Stafford said this new map is more gerrymandered than that 2011 one. And he closed with an analogy that might be understandable but perhaps difficult just weeks after OSU lost the Big Game.

If Ohio State every year has to spot Michigan a two touchdown lead, it might make the game more competitive. The rules are set up to favor one team over the other, and thats exactly what theyve done here with their supposedly competitive districts," Stafford said.

The law that created the new Congressional map sets a March 4 filing deadline for candidates for a May primary. Secretary of State LaRose filed a brief that didnt defend the maps constitutionality but asked for a quick ruling.

Decisions on this map and on the state House and Senate maps argued before the court a few weeks ago are expected soon.

Here is the original post:
Constitutionality of Ohio's Congressional map now in the hands of the state's Supreme Court justices - ideastream