{"id":401991,"date":"2019-03-30T15:10:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T14:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/catherine-toney-takes-the-first-step\/"},"modified":"2019-03-30T15:10:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T14:10:28","slug":"catherine-toney-takes-the-first-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/catherine-toney-takes-the-first-step\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Toney Takes the First Step"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                            \t<!-- S3 Cache --><!-- S3:S3:Original -->\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne day I woke up and I could fly\u2026 I\u2019d look down and see. And I wouldn\u2019t know myself. I\u2019d have new hands. I\u2019d have new feet. I\u2019d have new vision. My eyes would be open a little better\u2026 For one moment of my whole life, I would know how it would be to be free!\u201d \u2013 Nina Simone<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you feel about going home today?\u201d the guard asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be great,\u201d Catherine replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you\u2019re leaving us today, huh?\u201d said the case manager.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was like an out of body experience for me,\u201d Catherine Toney recounted the moment she was told she was going home from prison. She had to sit as her soul leaped in gratitude for God\u2019s deliverance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.candoclemency.com\/catherine-toney-20-years\/\">Catherine Toney<\/a> had spent 14 years of her life in prison. She had no idea President Trump\u2019s recently passed First Step Act prison reform bill would affect her sentence. She had tried and failed multiple times to get her sentence reduced. The surprise rescue from a 20 year sentence for a drug offense was a miracle.<\/p>\n<p>Leading clemency champion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.candoclemency.com\/amy-ralston-povah\/\">Amy Povah<\/a> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.candoclemency.com\/\">CAN-DO Foundation<\/a> introduced me to Catherine shortly after their visit to the White House in February, where she stood on stage with her family and President Trump and gave a powerful <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/3R6IE3XgbXE?t=2354\">thank you<\/a> to an electric crowd at the African American history celebration. She is the first woman to be released under the First Step Act.<\/p>\n<p>Watch my interview with Catherine here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m7QF_zdlJns\" width=\"600\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Three weeks before the White House, Catherine woke herself up in the middle of the night on her steel prison bed shouting, \u2018Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus!\u2019 She startled herself by her outburst and looked around to see if she had disturbed her bunk mates. She could not recall any dream that led to her praise in the darkness. The next day, as she was&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2019\/03\/david-gornoski\/catherine-toney-takes-the-first-step-for-the-rest-of-us\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOne day I woke up and I could fly\u2026 I\u2019d look down and see. And I wouldn\u2019t know myself. I\u2019d have new hands. I\u2019d have new feet. I\u2019d have new vision. My eyes would be open a little better\u2026 For one moment of my whole life, I would know how it would be to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-401991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}