February, 12 2013, 02:11pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jordan Libowitz,,jlibowitz@citizensforethics.org,.
January's Scoundrel of the Month: Sen. Mitch McConnell
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can't filibuster this vote: After thwarting a far-reaching proposal to reform Senate rules, and then bragging about it, the minority leader is your choice for January's Scoundrel of the Month.
WASHINGTON
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can't filibuster this vote: After thwarting a far-reaching proposal to reform Senate rules, and then bragging about it, the minority leader is your choice for January's Scoundrel of the Month.
"Time and again, Sen. McConnell has put the politics of the moment ahead of the public interest with his constant obstruction of Senate business," said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. "With his unprecedented abuse of the filibuster, Sen. McConnell is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with Washington."
In January, a group of reform-minded senators floated a proposal to curtail the abuse of the "silent filibuster." Ultimately, the Senate adopted a watered-down rules reform package, which members from both parties hailed as a bipartisan triumph. Nevertheless, within hours Sen. McConnell's reelection campaign sent an email to supporters boasting "We Beat the Liberals," and promising Sen. McConnell would continue to routinely obstruct Senate proceedings.
The minority leader has long demonstrated he is shameless when it comes to frustrating the will of the majority. Over his long tenure as the Senate's obstructionist-in-chief, Sen. McConnell has prevented the Senate from passing measures he previously supported, like campaign finance disclosure measures, and in one absurd case, even filibustered his own bill.
Nominations are already being accepted for February's Scoundrel of the Month. People, entities, and agencies are all eligible. Submit your choices by February 22. Voting will begin the following week.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials -- regardless of party affiliation -- who sacrifice the common good to special interests. CREW advances its mission using a combination of research, litigation and media outreach.
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Arrests and detainments of journalists in the United States surged in 2024 compared to the year prior, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The tracker reports that journalists were arrested or detained by police at least 48 times this year—eclipsing the number of arrests that took place in the previous two years combined, and constituting the third highest number of yearly arrests and detentions since the project began cataloging press freedom violations in 2017. 2020, however, still stands as far and away the year with the most arrests and detentions.
The 48 arrests and detentions this year is also part of a larger list of "press freedom incidents" that the tracker documents, including things like equipment damage, equipment seizure, and assault.
While a year with a high number of protests typically leads to more arrests, "it was protests in response to the Israel-Gaza war that caused this year's uptick," according to the tracker.
The vast majority of the arrests and detainments out of the total 48 were linked to these sorts of demonstrations, and it was protests at Columbia University's Manhattan campus that were the site of this year's largest detainment of journalists.
The report also recounts the story of Roni Jacobson, a freelance reporter whose experience on the last day of 2023 was a harbinger of press freedom incidents to come in 2024. Jacobson was on assignment to cover a pro-Palestinian demonstration for the New York Daily News on December 31, 2023 when she was told to leave by police because she didn't have city-issued press credentials with her. She recounted that she accidentally bumped into an officer and was arrested. She was held overnight at a precinct and then released after the charges against her, which included disorderly conduct, were dropped.
Even five arrests that the tracker deems "election-related" took place at protests that were "at least partially if not entirely focused on the Israel-Gaza war." Three of those election-related arrests took place at protests happening around the Democratic National Convention in August.
One police force in particular bears responsibility for this year's crackdown: Nearly 50% of the arrests of journalists this year were at the hands of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Many of those taken into custody had their charges dropped quickly, but the tracker notes that the NYPD's use of "catch-and-release" tactics was particularly worrying to press freedom advocates.
Two photojournalists, Josh Pacheco and Olga Federova, were detained four times this year in both New York City and Chicago while photographing protests. They were both "assaulted and arrested and [had] their equipment damaged" while documenting police clearing a student encampment at Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology; however, they were released the next day and told their arrests had been voided.
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Besides covering protests, 2024 also saw the continued practice of "criminally charging journalists for standard journalistic practices," according to the tracker. For example, one investigative journalist in Los Angeles was repeatedly threatened with arrest while attempting to cover a homeless encampment sweep in the city, and then was detained in October, though he was let go without charges.
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Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan added that "authoritarians love to control and instrumentalize media organizations, especially state-funded ones."
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