Saturday, October 14, 2017

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2017

Kaepernick sports new T-shirt:

Love this guy!

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Prison Radio UPDATE:

Please sign this petition:

Release all the records and files regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal case!
https://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/release-mumia-abu-jamal-case-record

A ruling to implement Judge Leon Tucker's recent order to release Mumia's court documents could be made as soon as May 30, 2017. Please call or e-mail the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office now to pressure them to follow the court's order to release all the records and files regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal case.

Phone: 215-686-8000

E-mail: DA_Central@phila.gov

Judge Orders DA to Produce Complete File for Mumia's Case

Dear Friend,

This just in! Judge Leon Tucker of the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia has ordered the District Attorney of Philadelphia to produce the entire case file for Cook v. the Commonwealth- the case file in Mumia Abu-Jamal's criminal conviction, by September 21st.

The DA's office has to produce the entire file for "in camera" review in Judge Tucker's chambers. This mean Judge Tucker thinks that a thorough review of all the relevant files is in order! Or in other words, what has been produced under court order from the DA'a office has been woefully deficient.

Judge Tucker worked as an Assistant District Attorney in the late 90's, so he knows what is in -and not in- files. Cook v. the Commonwealth comprises at least 31 boxes of material held by the DA. Will they turn over "all information and the complete file" for Mumia's case, as Judge Tucker has ordered?

This in camera review by Judge Tucker himself means that an independent jurist will personally inspect the documents the DA produces. See the order here. Stay tuned for more information following September 21. This is just one step in a long walk to freedom. It is a step that has never been taken before.

OPEN the files. Justice Now!

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Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? (City Lights Open Media)

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

A Book Review by Robert Fantina

With the recent acquittal of two more police officers in the deaths of unarmed Black men, the question posed by the title of this book is as relevant as it ever was. Through a series of concise, clear essays, Mumia Abu-Jamal details the racism against Blacks, comparing today's behaviors with the lynchings that were common in the south prior to the decade of the sixties. He points out the obvious: The passage of Civil Rights legislation hasn't changed much; it simply changed the way racism operates.

The ways in which the white establishment has worked to oppress Blacks is astounding. After the Civil War, when slavery was no longer legal, "whites realized that the combination of trumped-up legal charges and forced labor as punishment created both a desirable business proposition and an incredibly effective tool for intimidating rank-and-file emancipated African Americans and doing away with their most effective leaders."

Abu-Jamal states that, today, "where once whites killed and terrorized from beneath a KKK hood, now they now did so openly from behind a little badge." He details the killing of Black men and women in the U.S. with almost complete impunity.

There are two related issues Abu-Jamal discusses. The first is the rampant racism that enables the police to kill unarmed Blacks, as young as 12 years old, for no reason, and the second is the "justice" system that allows them to get away with it.

One shocking crime, amid countless others, occurred in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2012; a police officer was acquitted in the deaths of two, unarmed Blacks, after leaping onto the hood of their car and firing 15 rounds from his semi-automatic rifle into the car's occupants. That is 137 shots, at point blank range, into the bodies of two unarmed people.

If this were an anomaly, it would be barbaric, but it is not: it is common practice for the police to kill unarmed Blacks, and, on the rare occasions that they are charged with a crime, for the judges and juries to acquit them.

In the U.S., Black citizens are disproportionally imprisoned. With for-profit prisons on the rise, this injustice will only increase.

Abu-Jamal relates story after story with the same plot, and only the names are different. An unarmed Black man is stopped by the police for any of a variety of reasons ranging from trivial (broken tail light), to more significant (suspect in a robbery). But too often, the outcome is the same: the Black man is dead and the police officer who killed him, more often than not white, is either not charged, or acquitted after being charged.

The Black Lives Matter movement formed to combat this blatant injustice, but it will be an uphill battle. As Abu-Jamal says, "Police serve the ownership and wealth classes of their societies, not the middling or impoverished people. For the latter, it is quite the reverse." As a result, people of color suffer disproportionately, too often winding up on the wrong side of a gun.

What is to be done? Abu-Jamal refers to the writings of Dr. Huey P. Newton, who calls not for community policing, but for community control of the police. Abu-Jamal argues forcefully for a new movement, "driven by commitment, ethics, intelligence, solidarity, and passions; for without passion, the embers may dim and die."

Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? is powerful, disturbing, well-written, and an important book for our day.

Robert Fantina is the author of Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy. His articles on foreign policy, most frequently concerning Israel and Palestine, have appeared in such venues as Counterpunch and WarIsaCrime.org.

—New York Journal of Books, July 2017

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/Black-lives

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES

B) ARTICLES IN FULL

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A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES

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Please forward and distribute widely

The Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

A Fight Against Racist U.S. Capitalism

Having finally been properly treated for Hepatitis-C, Mumia is now trying to show that his case was compromised by former Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald Castille, who was a judge of the PA Supreme Court during Mumia's appeals.

Throughout Mumia's appeals, Judge Castille refused to step down or recuse himself from Mumia's appeals, despite his role in prosecuting Mumia. Mumia has won "discovery" of documents that should demonstrate Judge Castille's role in framing him.

If proven, this could overturn Mumia's negative appeals rulings, and open the case to new examination. But will the court allow this evidence to be brought forth? This is now in question!

This needs to be a mass struggle. Please join us for this effort...

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Invites you to attend:

Public Forums

Rachel Wolkenstein

Lawyer for Mumia from the beginning of his case.

ALSO: Other speakers, and a special segment: solidarity with anti-fascist fighters.

San Francisco: 6:30 PM, 27th October 2017

Hastings Law School, 198 McAllister St, Room A

Co-sponsors for the SF forum: San Francisco Law School Chapter,

and UC Hastings Chapter, National Lawyers Guild

Oakland: 7 PM, 28th October 2017

Niebyl Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave.

INITIAL ENDORSERS:

Workers World Party, Justice for Palestinians, Leonard Peltier Support Group, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, Alameda County Peace and Freedom Party, Taking Aim, Socialist Viewpoint, Bay Area National Lawyers Guild, Mobilization To Free Mumia, Kiilu Nyasha

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Union Time: Film screening and director talk

Thursday, November 9, 2017, 6:00 - 8:00 P.M.

UC Berkeley Labor Center

2521 Channing Way, Berkeley

Union Time: Fighting for Workers' Rights tells the story of one of the greatest union victories of the 21st century—the fight to organize Smithfield Foods' pork processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. From 1993 to 2008, workers struggled against dangerous working conditions, intimidation, and low pay. They were organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, whose "Justice for Smithfield Workers" campaign brought national attention to the plight of the plant workers. The victory led to the formation of UFCW Local 1208 and fair working conditions for 5,000 workers.

Find out more and register for the event: http://laborcenter.berk eley.edu/union-time-film-scree ning-director-talk/

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Labor Studies and Radical History

4444 Geary Blvd., Suite 207, San Francisco, CA 94118

415.387.5700

http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/mayday.html

Hours

(call 415.387.5700 to be sure the library is open for the hours you are interested in. We close the library sometimes to go on errands or have close early) suggested)

7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed on all major holidays and May Day

We can arrange, by request, to keep the library open longer during the day or open it on weekends. Just ask.

Services

Reference Librarian On-site

Email and Telephone Reference

Interlibrary Loan

Online Public Access Catalog

Microfilm Reader/Printer

DVD and VCR players

Photocopier

Quiet well-lighted place for study and research

For an appointment or further information, please email: david [at] holtlaborlibrary.org

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Support:

CONTRIBUTE

Thank you for being a part of this struggle.

Cuando luchamos ganamos! When we fight we win!

Noelle Hanrahan, Director

To give by check:

PO Box 411074

San Francisco, CA

94141

Stock or legacy gifts:

Noelle Hanrahan

(415) 706 - 5222

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MEDIA ADVISORYMedia contact: Morgan McLeod, (202) 628-0871
mmcleod@sentencingproject.org

NEW REPORT FINDS RECORD NUMBER OF PEOPLE SERVING
LIFE SENTENCES IN U.S. PRISONS
Washington, D.C.— Despite recent political support for criminal justice reform in most states, the number of people serving life sentences has nearly quintupled since 1984.

A new report by The Sentencing Project finds a record number of people serving life with parole, life without parole, and virtual life sentences of 50 years or more, equaling one of every seven people behind bars.

Eight states — Alabama, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, and Utah — have at least one of every five prisoners serving a life or de facto life sentence in prison.
The Sentencing Project will host an online press conference to discuss its report Still Life: America's Increasing Use of Life and Long-Term Sentences, on Wednesday, May 3rd at 11:00 a.m. EDT.

Press Conference Details

WHAT: Online press conference hosted by The Sentencing Project regarding the release of its new report examining life and long-term sentences in the United States. REGISTER HERE to participate. The call-in information and conference link will be sent via email.
WHEN:

Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. EDT
WHO:

Ashley Nellis, The Sentencing Project's senior research analyst and author of Still Life: America's Increasing Use of Life and Long-Term Sentences

Evans Ray, whose life without parole sentence was commuted in 2016 by President Obama

Steve Zeidman, City University of New York law professor and counsel for Judith Clark—a New York prisoner who received a 75 year to life sentence in 1983

The full report will be available to press on Wednesday morning via email.

Founded in 1986, The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration.

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The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration.
Sign up for our updates here. Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe.
Problems viewing this email? Click here to view as a web page.


The Sentencing Project
1705 DeSales Street NW, 8th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20036
sentencingproject.org
202.628.0871

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SUPPORT THE RESISTANCE

Support the Resistance
Donate to Courage to Resist

Thank you again for contributing to Chelsea Manning's freedom, and supporting war resisters like Ryan and Jenna Johnson. Now let's get some justice for Reality Winner!

Support the resistance. Donate to Courage to Resist today.

One year ago, I was asking folks such as yourself to donate, likely for a second or third
time, to Chelsea Manning's defense efforts. At the time, Chelsea continued to languish in the Fort Leavenworth military prison, facing down the remaining 27 years on her sentence for exposing war crimes and the reality of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After seven years of building support for Chelsea, and funding her legal teams, I wouldn't have blamed you for being skeptical that one more donation could lead to her release any time soon.
Yet, following former President Obama's last-minute commutation of Chelsea's sentence, she's again in the headlines. Not as a prisoner, but as a young woman travelling the country advocating for social justice—including being invited and disinvited to teach at Harvard just last week. Wow. Just wow.
Chelsea's trial attorney David Coombsrecently shared with us his insight on what happened:

"Because of our trial strategy, and more importantly because of the efforts outside of the courtroom in positively portraying Manning, the message was that [Chelsea] was not the type of person who deserves 35 years. Ultimately, even though a judge was not convinced of that, a President of the United States was. If not for the efforts of… the Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist, there's no way that a president would spend the political capital to grant a commutation."
In short, Chelsea Manning is free because people like yourself signed petitions, called the White House switchboard, marched in the streets, and gave money to her defense. Thank you!
Today, Courage to Resist is at it again. Again, we need your help.
We've taken up the fight to support whistleblower Reality Leigh Winner. A young woman facing the wrath of Trump's Justice Department for sharing a classified NSA report with the media that allegedly detailed how foreign agents were attempting to undermine the integrity of the 2016 US presidential election. Just out of the Air Force, she's being held without bail and faces 10 years in prison for attempting to alert US citizens to weaknesses in our election systems—and to hold President Trump accountable for addressing them.
This case may become the most substantial First Amendment challenge to the antiquated 100-year-old Espionage Act yet. With the Justice Department now regularly using the Espionage Act against whistleblowers—and not spies as was originally intended—US v. Winner can be expected to set significant legal precedents.
Reality and her team of attorneys are hopeful that they will be able to win her release on bail prior to her March 2018 scheduled trial in Augusta, Georgia.
Not all of our work makes national headlines. One example, that we're just now able to share, is the case of Iraq War resister Ryan Johnson. Ryan had been AWOL from the Army for over 11 years, after resisting deployment to Iraq. He spent much of that time living in Canada and organizing fellow war objectors. For personal reasons, Ryan returned to the United States, and to the US Army to resove his legal situation.
During Ryan's court martial, we agreed with Ryan's decision to downplay his history of activism, in the hopes of getting a shorter prison sentence. In this context, we were not able to raise significant funds for him by way of direct appeals. Regardless, we helped support his wife Jenna while Ryan was jailed at the Miramar Naval Brig near San Diego for much of last year. Recently, upon Ryan's release, we helped the two of them resettle in the Denver area, providing them with over $10,000 beyond what donors contributed directly to their earmarked support fund.
Support the resistance. Donate to Courage to Resist today.
Jeff Paterson
p.s. For up-to-date information about Reality Winner, and to donate to her defense online, visit standwithreality.org. To donate by check to Reality Winner's defense fund, send to Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610, and note "Reality Winner" on the memo line.

COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559
www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist

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When they knock on your front door: Preparing for Repression

BAY AREA ANTI-REPRESSION COMMITTEE

When they knock on your front door: Preparing for Repression
BY OAKLANDANTIREPRESSION

On May 24th 2017, police in the Bay Area raided two houses and arrested one person in connection to the recent protests in Berkeley California. In this moment of increasing state repression, we must be vigilant in protecting ourselves, each other, and our communities.

Never speak to the police. Remember that any response can incriminate you and others. You have a right to remain silent, but not to lie – even to say "I don't know." Better responses are "I have nothing to say to you." or "No comment." We recommend practicing how to respond to emergency situations such as raids where police are particularly threatening and nefarious about getting you to speak to them.

Share this information with friends and housemates, particularly those who are intimately tied to political communities but are not that involved or invested in them. These are often the people the state targets to get information on wider activist communities.

Political repression in any form has the common purpose of undermining our movements as a whole, even when it seems particular individuals are the targets. Therefore it is extremely important that we all get prepared for further repression. We do this by supporting each other in remaining calm and brushing up on some basic know-your-rights information as well as being mindful of how we communicate on the internet.

Here are some links with helpful info to get you started:

If an Agent Knocks
This booklet is the best know-your-rights manual to dealing with law enforcement encounters that we've come across. Although it was written for how to handle encounters with federal agents, the information is just as useful in situations with local police. The first chapter, which is only 8 pages, covers law enforcement visits and searches. The booklet also covers state infiltration, surveillance, grand jury resistance, and special considerations for non citizens.

Time to Beef up Defense Against Far-Right Doxxing
Now that there's a far right, internet-based movement growing in this country, we have to deal with attacks on two fronts: the state, and the far right. The alt-right might put you on the radar to the state and/ vis versa. If our personal information is available online, the alt right can find you and "doxx" you, meaning they publicize your name, address, phone number and your family members' names, addresses and phone numbers for the purpose of harassing and intimidating you. Below is an article with tips on preventing this from happening, along with a list of websites that the alt-right uses to uncover people's sensitive, personal information.

Security in a Box – Digital security tools and tactics
The state can and does monitor activists' communication and internet activity. This website is an excellent resource for giving you step-by-step guides to encrypting and securing your various devices and computer operating systems. It also goes over encrypting email.

Resisting Grand Juries
With resistance comes repression and unfortunately often repression leads to more repression. We can help damage control this by always refusing to talk to law enforcement. Sometimes investigations result in grand juries. It is important to be prepared to remain silent if subpeoned to a grand jury. We should all prepare ourselves to support those who refuse to testify. This website has tons of information on grand juries, how they work, and the importance of resisting them. We particularly recommend reading the "Statement of Resistance" written by a collective of folks from various movements in the Bay Area and endorsed by dozens of groups, political prisoners, and former grand jury resisters.

Lastly, if you or anyone you know has been approached by law enforcement or has been visited at their homes or jobs please contact the National Lawyers Guild at 415-285-1011 to access legal advice, resources, and support.

Solidarity is our best weapon in the face of repression. Lets use it!

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A Message to the... Activist Community From The Mothers and Family Victims Of Police Violence and the Racist Raids By ICE Immigration and NYPD Gang Units

This message is obviously directed to the East Coast cities of New York and New Jersey. But after reading their "What We Want, What We Need" May, 2017 - NY/NJ Parents 10 Point Justice Platform and Wish List I think the platform could be applied pretty much as is to practically every community. Check it out.

Mothers Message to the NY/NJ Activist Community

In order to effectively combat the existing opportunism, hidden agendas and to better provide ALL genuinely good willed social justice organizations and individuals who work inside of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas... with more concrete guidelines;

The following "10 Point Platform and Justice Wish List" was adopted on Saturday, May 13, 2017 during the "Motherhood: Standing Strong 4 Justice" pre-mothers day gathering which was held at Hostos Community College - Bronx, New York.......

"What We Want, What We Need"

May, 2017 - NY/NJ Parents 10 Point Justice Platform and Wish List

Point #1 - Lawyers and Legal Assistance: Due to both the overwhelming case loads and impersonal nature of most public defenders, the Mothers believe that their families are receiving limited options, inadequate legal advise and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to help us in gaining access to experienced "pro-bono" and/or activist attorneys as well as the free resources provided by non-profit social justice and legal advocacy groups.

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Point #2 - First Response Teams: The Mothers felt that when their loved ones were either killed or captured by the police that they were left in the hands of the enemy and without any support, information or direction on how to best move forward and therefore; WE WANT and NEED community activists to help us develop independently community controlled & trained first response teams in every borough or county that can confirm and be on the ground within 24 hours of any future incident.

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Point #3 - Security and Support At Court Appearances: The Mothers all feel that because community activist support eventually becomes selective and minimal, that they are disrespected by both the courthouse authorities, mainstream media and therefore; WE WANT and NEED community activists to collectively promote and make a strong presence felt at all court appearances and; To always provide trained security & legal observers... when the families are traveling to, inside and from the court house.

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Point #4 - Emotional/Spiritual Healing and Grief and Loss Counseling: After the protest rallies, demonstrations, justice marches and television cameras are gone the Mothers all feel alone and abandoned and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to refer/help provide the families with clergy, professional therapy & cultural outlets needed in order to gain strength to move forward.

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Point #5 - Parents Internal Communication Network: The Mothers agreed as actual victims, that they are the very best qualified in regards to providing the needed empathy and trust for an independent hotline & contact resource for all of the parents and families who want to reach out to someone they can mutually trust that is able understand what they are going through and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to help us in providing a Parents Internal Communication Network to reach that objective.

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Point #6 - Community Offices and Meeting Spaces: The Mothers agreed that there is an extreme need for safe office spaces where community members and family victims are able to go to for both confidential crisis intervention and holding organizing meetings and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to help us in securing those safe spaces inside of our own neighborhoods.

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Point #7 - Political Education Classes and Workshop Training: The Mothers agreed in implementing the "each one, teach one" strategy and therefore; WE WANT and NEEDfor community activists to help us in being trained as educators and organizers in Know Your Rights, Cop Watch, First Response, Emergency Preparedness & Community Control over all areas of public safety & the police in their respective neighborhoods.

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Point #8 - Support From Politicians and Elected Officials: The Mothers believe that most political candidates and incumbent elected officials selectively & unfairly represent only those cases which they think to be politically advantageous to their own selfish personal success on election day and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to help us in either publicly exposing or endorsing these aforementioned political candidates and/or elected officials to their constituents solely based upon the uncompromising principles of serving the people.

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Point #9 - Research and Documentation: The Mothers believe that research/case studies, surveys, petitions, historical archives, investigative news reporting and events should be documented and made readily available in order to counter the self-serving police misinformation promoted by the system and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to help us by securing college/university students, law firms, film makers, authors, journalists and professional research firms to find, document & tell the people the truth about police terror & the pipeline to prison.

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Point #10 - Grassroots Community Outreach and Information: The Mothers believe that far too much attention is being geared towards TV camera sensationalism with the constant organizing of marches & rallies "downtown" and therefore; WE WANT and NEED for community activists to provide a fair balance by helping us to build in the schools, projects, churches and inside of the subway trains and stations of our Black, brown and oppressed communities where the majority of the police terror is actually taking place.

The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he's a the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal... If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X

www.hugopinell.com

www.kiilunyasha.blogspot.com

@nyashakiilu

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1) Stop the Unconstitutional War in Yemen
By RO KHANNA, MARK POCAN and WALTER JONES
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opinion/yemen-war-unconstitutional.html?action=
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opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

WASHINGTON — Imagine that the entire population of Washington State — 7.3 million people — were on the brink of starvation, with the port city of Seattle under a naval and aerial blockade, leaving it unable to receive and distribute countless tons of food and aid that sit waiting offshore. This nightmare scenario is akin to the obscene realityoccurring in the Middle East's poorest country, Yemen, at the hands of the region's richest, Saudi Arabia, with unyielding United States military support that Congress has not authorized and that therefore violates the Constitution.

For nearly three years, the United States has been participating alongside a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a brutal military campaign in Yemen. The United States is selling the Saudi monarchy missiles and warplanes, assisting in the coalition's targeting selection for aerial bombings and actively providing midair refueling for Saudi and United Arab Emirates jets that conduct indiscriminate airstrikes — the leading cause of civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the Saudi coalition is starving millions of Yemenis as a grotesque tactic of war.

This is horrifying. We have therefore introduced a bipartisan congressional resolution to withdraw American armed forces from these unauthorized hostilities in order to help put an end to the suffering of a country approaching "a famine of biblical proportions," in the words of Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council. After all, as Foreign Policy has reported, the Saudi coalition's "daily bombing campaign would not be possible without the constant presence of U.S. Air Force tanker planes refueling coalition jets."

How did we get to this point?

In March 2015, the United States introduced its armed forces into the Saudi regime's war against an uprising of Yemen's Houthis, a rebel group that rapidly took control of Yemen's capital, Sana, and eventually most of the country's cities, by allying with forces loyal to an ousted former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. But the Shiite Houthi rebels are in no way connected to the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, which the United States has been going after across the globe under the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001. American participation in the war in Yemen is not covered by that authorization.

Al Qaeda has been referred to by The Associated Press as a "de facto ally" of Saudi Arabia and its coalition in their shared battle against the Houthis. This raises the question: Whom are we actually supporting in Yemen?

American involvement in this unauthorized conflict against the Houthis was pursued by the Obama administration for political purposes — "a way of repairing strained ties with the Saudis, who strongly opposed the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran," as Foreign Policy put it.

There's a good reason that the Constitution reserves for Congress the right to declare war — a clause taken in modern times as forbidding the president from pursuing an unauthorized war in the absence of an actual or imminent threat to the nation. Clearly, the founders' intent was to prevent precisely the kind of dangerous course we're charting.

The State Department found that the Saudi war against the Houthis has allowed Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State's Yemen branch "to deepen their inroads across much of the country." In other words, the power vacuum left by the war has made Al Qaeda's deadliest branch stronger than ever — yet there's never been a public debate over the American role in deepening that threat to our own national security.

Four decades ago, as a bloody United States military campaign across Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos drew to a close, Congress overrodePresident Richard Nixon's veto to enact the War Powers Resolution of 1973, reflecting the legislature's determination to confront executive overreach as a coequal branch of government. Now we congressmen are invoking a provision of that 1973 law, which defines the introduction of armed forces to include coordinating, participating in the movement of, or accompanying foreign military forces.

That law affords our bill "privileged" status, guaranteeing a full floor vote to remove unauthorized United States forces from Saudi Arabia's war against Yemeni Houthis. In doing so, we aim to reassert Congress's sole constitutional authority to debate and declare war.

This resolution may create discomfort for some of our colleagues who have been content to cede Congress's oversight responsibilities to the White House and Pentagon in recent decades. But now more than ever, the House of Representatives must serve as a counterweight to an executive branch that has long run roughshod over the Constitution — especially at a time when our president has threatened, in front of the United Nations, to "totally destroy" an entire country, North Korea.

Exercising our constitutional duty is the key to alleviating the catastrophe that's engulfing Yemen.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs declared last April that "Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world," and in August the charity Save the Children warned that one million malnourished Yemeni children were at risk of contracting cholera. Nowhere else on earth today is there a catastrophe that is so profound and affects so many lives, yet could be so easy to resolve: halt the bombing, end the blockade, and let food and medicine into Yemen so that millions may live.

We believe that the American people, if presented with the facts of this conflict, will oppose the use of their tax dollars to bomb and starve civilians in order to further the Saudi monarchy's regional goals. Our House resolution is a first step in expanding democracy into an arena long insulated from public accountability. Too many lives hang in the balance to allow this American war to continue without congressional consent. When our bill comes to the floor for a vote, our colleagues should consider first the solution proposed by the director of Unicef, Anthony Lake, for stopping the unimaginable suffering of millions of Yemenis: "Stop the war."

Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, are members of the House Armed Services Committee. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat in the House, is a co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

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2) Shouldn't Doctors Control Hospital Care?
By Sandeep Jauhar, October 10, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opinion/shouldnt-doctors-control-hospital-care.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

Who ultimately should be in charge of care at our nation's hospitals — physicians or businesspeople?

In January 2016, the board of directors at Tulare Regional Medical Center, a small community hospital in central California, voted to terminate the elected leaders of its medical staff office. Medical staff offices help ensure that patient needs are kept separate from business imperatives, such as increasing hospital profits. They have historically operated independently of hospital administrators.

Citing deficiencies in the elected leaders' performance, the Tulare board appointed new officers without an election. The board also passed new bylaws written without the input of the hospital's physicians, including some stating that physicians' "status" at the hospital would depend on the number of patients they admitted — in other words, their economic value to the facility.

Not surprisingly, Tulare's doctors were furious; within six months, roughly half of them left the hospital. With the support of the California Medical Association, a lawsuit was filed calling for reinstatement of the original medical staff officers and bylaws. The association said that the Tulare board's actions violated California law on medical staff self-governance and posed "an existential threat to independent hospital medical staffs." The hospital countered that its actions were not only lawful but also needed to keep it operating properly.

The case, which went to trial but has been postponed because the hospital filed for bankruptcy protection, is ostensibly about protecting medical staff members from administrative interference. But it is a symptom of a much bigger problem in American medicine: the gradual loss of autonomy by physicians at our nation's hospitals.

A generation ago, physicians actually ran most hospitals, and medical staff offices commanded great influence over how care was delivered. Doctors were able to leverage a cultural perception of high-minded knowledge for an unusual degree of professional independence.

But much has changed over the past several decades. As spending outpaced hospital budgets, business executives increasingly took over. There were also concerns about uneven clinical quality, for which doctors were held responsible and became subject to regulatory oversight. Once the epitome of independent professionalism, physicians watched their autonomy shrink rapidly.

Today, less than 5 percent of America's roughly 6,500 hospitals are run by chief executives with medical training. Most hospital executive suites are disproportionately filled with lawyers or businesspeople. Indeed, the number of non-medically trained hospital administrators has gone up 30-fold in the past 30 years, while the number of physicians has remained relatively constant. Independent practices are also disappearing, as hospitals buy them up and put doctors on salary. The result for many physicians is the feeling that they are pawns of a big organization that does not want to hear, let alone act on, their concerns.

Doctors were once expected to scrutinize and, when necessary, challenge administrative actions on behalf of patients. No more.

The dispute at Tulare must be viewed in the context of this larger struggle. As hospital managers make decisions based on business, not clinical, imperatives, both patients and their care providers are getting squeezed. For example, doctors are being pressed to discharge patients quickly — sometimes too quickly — to maintain "throughput." There is a focus on increasing the rates of profitable procedures, such as orthopedic and heart surgeries, at the expense of relatively poorly remunerated general medical care. Administrators are even exerting control over traditionally medical domains, such as the credentialing of new physicians with hospital privileges. If a hospital board can dismiss elected medical officers with impunity, as at Tulare, it will indicate to many doctors the increasingly tenuous nature of the position they currently hold.

The very best hospitals in America are still run by physician chief executives — Toby Cosgrove at the Cleveland Clinic, for example, and John Noseworthy at the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic says that it is physician-led because "this helps ensure a continued focus on our primary value" — namely, that "the needs of the patient come first." Indeed, a study in 2011 found "a strong positive association between the ranked quality of a hospital and whether the C.E.O. is a physician." Overall hospital quality scores were about 25 percent higher when physicians, not business managers, were in charge.

Of course, correlation does not prove causation; it is certainly possible that better hospitals choose physicians as their leaders. But when day-to-day decision making is done by people with clinical training, it appears that patients do benefit.

There are many factions to blame for the corporate takeover at America's hospitals. Doctors need to accept some of the responsibility, too. If we had taken better care of our institutions, perhaps there would not have been a need for others to manage them for us.

How the court rules in the Tulare case, once it resumes, will have profound consequences for whether medical staffs can do their work independently of nonclinical administrators. And it will also provide an answer to the more important question of who should be in charge of hospital care.

Sandeep Jauhar (@sjauhar) is the author of "Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician" and a contributing opinion writer. He is at work on a history of the human heart.

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3) One in 10 New York City Public School Students Were Homeless Last Year
"More than 111,500 students in New York City schools were homeless during the last academic year, a six percent increase over the year before and enough people to populate a small city."
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS OCT. 10, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/nyregion/one-in-10-new-york-city-public-school-students-are-homeless.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=
rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

The number of homeless students in the New York City public school system rose again last year, according to state data expected to be released on Tuesday. The increase pushed the city over a sober milestone: One in every 10 public school students was homeless at some point during the 2016-17 school year.

More than 111,500 students in New York City schools were homeless during the last academic year, a six percent increase over the year before and enough people to populate a small city. Of the overall figure, 104,000 students attended regular district public schools, while the rest were in charter schools. Statewide, 148,000 students were homeless, or about five percent of the state's public school population.

The data is to be released by the New York State Technical and Education Assistance Center for Homeless Students, a project of Advocates for Children of New York funded by the state Education Department.

The plight of homeless students is part of the entrenched and growing problem of homelessness confronting New York City and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is pushing a controversial plan to expand the city's shelter system.

Not all students who are considered homeless live in shelters. Students in temporary housing includes families living in their cars or in hotels, or those "doubled up" with family or friends. An analysis of the state data, conducted by Coalition for the Homeless, found that families living with relatives or friends drove last year's increase, with about 4,400 more students living in such situations than the year before. The number of students in shelters increased by roughly 1,900.

The upheaval in the home lives of students in temporary housing often follows them into school. Many of them frequently change schools as they bounce from one temporary living situation to another. Many are placed in shelters far from their original school, which means they must either transfer midyear or commute long distances each day. Many students regularly arrive late or miss days of school altogether.

Those stresses harm their academic performance. A report released this summer by the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness found that homeless students passed the state English tests at about half the rate as their peers who had permanent homes. Homeless students who were designated as English Language Learners generally took longer to become proficient in the language. On average, the report found that one-third of homeless students miss the equivalent of a month of school. Students living in homeless shelters had the highest rates of chronic absenteeism, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of school days.

Liz Cohen, chief of staff at the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness, said that while most of the city's homeless policies are aimed at getting people housed, the academic damage can linger long after students find a place to live.

"The data shows that for multiple years after a student becomes housed, they have increased rates of chronic absenteeism and decreased academic performance," Ms. Cohen said. "That experience stays with them."

Mr. de Blasio's administration has made efforts on several fronts to combat the city's homeless crisis. The administration is revamping the shelter system to try to keep people closer to their home communities, rather than shipping them across the city, a change that would allow children to stay in their local schools. There has also been a push to enroll more homeless students in the city's pre-K program. And the city's Education Department now offers bus service to students in kindergarten through sixth grade who are living in the shelter system.

"It's important to acknowledge what the city has done," said Randi Levine, policy director of Advocates for Children of New York, which will release the data. "But these numbers show the city should redouble its efforts." For example, Ms. Levine said the city has hired 43 social workers to work in schools with high concentrations of students in temporary housing. While that is a good step, she said, there are about 150 schools where at least 10 percent of the students live in shelters.

Jaclyn Rothenberg, a spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio, said the Department of Homeless Services and the Education Department "remain focused on addressing the unique needs of students in temporary housing, which is why we've worked together to expand dedicated staffing and programming, established a real-time data feed between the agencies to most effectively provide support to families on the verge of and experiencing homelessness.''

The New York City Council is scheduled to hold a hearing on Wednesday about students in temporary housing and discuss three related bills, one of which would ensure that families receive school information while they are applying for shelter. At the hearing, Liza Pappas, an education policy analyst at the city's Independent Budget Office, plans to share data on how housing impacts absentee rates.

According to the budget office, 24 percent of permanently housed students were chronically absent in the 2015-16 school year. For students living in shelters, that number was 62 percent.

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4) Even at $15 an Hour, Need Is Close By
"...a family of four (including two adults and two young children) would require $70,319 to live in the Bronx, $72,160 to live in Brooklyn and more than $98,000 to live in Lower Manhattan."
By GINIA BELLAFANTE OCT. 9, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/nyregion/15-minimum-wage.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=
nyregion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=
7&pgtype=sectionfront

This past week, Randall Woodfin, a young Alabama city attorney, unseated a two-term Democratic incumbent to become the mayor of Birmingham. Mr. Woodfin's campaign, which was committed to Trump resistance, brought him national attention and successful fund-raising in New York and Washington. Central to his progressive platform was a proposal to drive up Birmingham's minimum wage, after a move last year to bring the city's rate to $10.10 an hour was quickly undercut by the State Legislature. Mr. Woodfin maintains a more ambitious agenda, to eventually get the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour.

"The Fight for 15," as the movement is known, began in New York five years ago, when 200 fast-food workers marched to demand $15 an hour and the right to unionize from their employers. Since then, the movement has spread to 300 cities around the world and won various political and corporate victories — last year Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation that would secure a $15 an hour minimum wage for all workers in New York City by the end of 2019; in September, Target announced that it would raise its pay rate from $10 an hour to $11 right away and to $15 in three years.

The logic of $15 an hour follows thus: presuming a 40-hour workweek, a family of three (a single parent with two children, for example) would, at that rate, earn an annual salary of $31,200 which is approximately $10,000 more than the amount at which the government officially designates a family of that size as poor. For years though, antipoverty advocates have argued for different standards to assess need.

In 2002, the University of Washington created the Center for Women's Welfare, with the goal of advancing what is known as the self-sufficiency standard. This figure is calculated by examining what it costs a family to live at the level of basic need (accounting for food, housing, transportation and child care expenses), without public assistance, state by state and city by city.

The problem with the government metric, proponents of the self-sufficiency standard have said, is that it is outdated, having derived in the 1960s from the notion that a typical family spent one-third of its income on food. Although the measure is continually adjusted for inflation, it does not adequately reflect ever-increasing housing costs, geographical variation or the fact that families now spend a lower proportion of their incomes on what they eat.

At a recent gathering of social service organizations that operate under the umbrella of the near century-old Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, in Lower Manhattan, the discrepancies were made painfully clear. While the number of New Yorkers living at the federal poverty level has stood at about 20 percent of the population for years, the number lacking the resources to meet basic needs, according to the self-sufficiency standard, is at about 42 percent, amounting to 3 million people. By borough, the numbers are equally dramatic. A report issued by the FPWA using the self-sufficiency standard determined that a family of four (including two adults and two young children) would require $70,319 to live in the Bronx, $72,160 to live in Brooklyn and more than $98,000 to live in Lower Manhattan.

Other data points from the report stand out as well, one being that the average pay for social-service workers in New York City is $29,600 a year, meaning that many in the business of helping the poor are often struggling with the same issues as their clients. Sixty percent of social-service workers, the report indicates, use or have a family member who uses at least one public-assistance benefit.

This brings me to the subject of Joceline Rodriguez, a teaching assistant at an early learning center in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Ms. Rodriguez, who is 32 and a single mother of two, recently got a promotion and pay increase that has bumped her to just under $15 an hour. The daughter of a judge and a clerk, she pays $2,000 a month for an apartment in the Ridgewood section of Queens having lost a smaller apartment in Bed-Stuy when the landlord sold the building. Her previous work as a nurse's assistant on Long Island brought her higher pay, she told me, but the schedule was incompatible with taking care of her children.

The children's center where Ms. Rodriguez works is one that she herself attended as a child. It is run by the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society, a nonprofit organization, and her youngest child attended as well. Ms. Rodriguez's promotion also came with more hours, but her salary of a little under $30,000 a year ultimately just means that she will no longer need food stamps. Her former partner helps with the rent, she said, though the amount fluctuates and without it she would not be able to meet her housing costs. The raise still won't allow for luxuries — Ms. Rodriguez has taken one vacation with her children, to Disney World last year. Although she hopes to pay off her credit-card debt, she does not have any money for luxuries and her children get their health insurance through Medicaid because she can't afford to pay the additional premium that would have them covered by her policy at work.

I asked Ms. Rodriguez, who is enrolled in college now and receiving financial aid, how much money she would need to earn to feel more comfortable and to worry less and she said about $35,000. At $60,000 a year, she imagined, she would hardly need to worry at all.

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5) Trump Warns Puerto Rico Weeks After Storms: Federal Help Cannot Stay 'Forever'
By PETER BAKER and EILEEN SULLIVAN OCT. 12, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-warns-puerto-rico-weeks-after-storms-federal-help-
cannot-stay-forever.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=
first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

WASHINGTON — President Trump suggested again on Thursday that Puerto Rico bore some of the blame for its current crisis following twin hurricanes, and that there were limits to how long he would keep troops and federal emergency workers on the island to help.

Mr. Trump, who has been criticized for a slow and not always empathetic response to the storms that ravaged the United States territory, sounded off in a series of early-morning tweets. Angry about the criticism, he has sought to refocus blame to where he believes it belongs — the leadership of the island itself, which in his view mismanaged its affairs long before the winds blew apart its infrastructure.

"'Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.' says Sharyl Attkisson," he wrote, citing the host of a public affairs show on Sinclair Broadcast Group television stations. "A total lack of accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend. We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!"

Puerto Rico was already facing deep financial troubles before Hurricanes Irma and Maria swept across the island, knocking out many basic services. As of earlier this week, nearly three weeks after Maria hit, 84 percent of the island remained without electricity, two-thirds of cellphone towers were down, only 392 miles of the 5,073 miles of roads were open and about 6,000 people were still in shelters.

Mr. Trump has alternately praised the federal response and expressed frustration that so much has been required. Unlike after hurricanes struck Texas and Florida, he has complained that Puerto Rico was ruining the federal budget, and he mounted a caustic attack on the mayor of San Juan, the capital, when she complained that the island needed more help.

Puerto Rico, which was struggling with a debt crisis before the storms hit, may run out of money by the end of the month, and Mr. Trump on Tuesday asked Congress for a $4.9 billion loan to help pay its most pressing obligations amid warnings that it would not be able to pay teachers and health care providers. That comes after Mr. Trump already requested $29 billion for storm recovery efforts.

The president's expression of impatience with the length of the recovery effort, now just three weeks old, stood in contrast to the federal investment after prior storms. A former official in the George W. Bush administration noted that the federal government kept at least some military in New Orleans for nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and that the government took more than five years for recovery efforts over all.

"It's fairly typical for FEMA, D.H.S. and other executive agencies to be on the ground running recovery operations for years to come," said James Norton, the former official, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security under Mr. Bush. "I would expect them to be operating in Texas and Florida for the next couple of years."

Critics of the president said he had been stingy in his public comments about Puerto Rico compared with Texas or Florida.

"There is this view that, somehow, we don't merit that level of concern or attention or respect from this government," Melissa Mark-Viverito, the speaker of the New York City Council, said even before the Thursday morning tweets. "Somehow, we're a burden and we're mooching. That's the kind of language this president is throwing around."

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6) N.F.L. Players May Have an Ally in Their Protests: Labor Law
By NOAM SCHEIBER OCT. 12, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/business/economy/nfl-players-kneeling-national-anthem-labor-laws.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=business&region=stream&module=
stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

As National Football League team owners consider President Trump's call to fire players who refuse to stand for the national anthem, they have stumbled into one of the most consequential debates in today's workplace: How far can workers go in banding together to address problems related to their employment?

In principle, the answer in the N.F.L. and elsewhere may be: Quite far.

To the extent that most people think about the reach of federal labor law, they probably imagine a union context — like organizing workers, or bargaining as a group across the table from management.

As it happens, the law is much more expansive, protecting any "concerted activities" that employees engage in to support one another in the workplace. The National Labor Relations Board and the courts have defined such activity to include everything from airing complaints about one's boss through social media to publicly supporting political causes that have some bearing on one's work life.

The league's operations manual says players must be on the sidelines during the anthem and should stand. While the law might not bear on whether an individual player can kneel during the anthem, many experts say it could protect players from repercussions for making such a gesture together — or taking other action — to show solidarity on the job.

And as unionization continues its decades-long decline, some believe that these alternative forms of taking collective action may be crucial to enabling workers to speak up.

"Workers without a traditional organization that is meant to protect them at work are kind of scrambling around for new ways of protecting themselves," said Benjamin Sachs, a labor law professor at Harvard University. "It does feel like these are nascent forms of something new."

To be protected under federal labor law, an employee's action must be conducted in concert with co-workers, it must address an issue of relevance to their job, and it must be carried out using appropriate means. Workers can't, say, damage property or threaten violence. (If the workers have a collective bargaining agreement with their employer that forbids certain actions — like striking — they can't do that, either.)

Many experts believe that some of the recent protests by N.F.L. players meet all three conditions, and that as a result, their teams cannot discipline or fire them for taking part.

These experts point to a 1978 case in which the Supreme Court ruledthat workers have a right to engage in political advocacy as long as the political theme relates to their job. In 2008, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces federal labor law, issued a guidance making clear that workers had a right to publicly demonstrate for or against immigration legislation pending in Congress, though they didn't have the right to skip work to do so.

More recently, the Obama-era labor board appeared to bless a relatively informal definition of the term "concerted activities," so that spontaneous banter, and not just well-orchestrated action like a formal protest, could qualify as protected.

For example, the board ruled that two employees of a sports bar had been improperly fired after one complained on Facebook that their boss had mishandled their tax withholdings and another "liked" a former employee's Facebook complaint. In another case, the board ruled that an employer couldn't fire five workers who had gone on Facebook to object to criticism of their work by a sixth employee.

Together, said Matthew Bodie, a law professor at St. Louis University who is a former attorney for the labor board, these precedents suggest that federal labor law would most likely protect collective protests of the president's argument that players should be fired over political gestures — or his suggestion that league rules designed to protect players from debilitating injury are too strict.

Mr. Bodie added that a player was also likely to enjoy federal protection for any protest in support of other players who had been disciplined.

"If they're standing up for other players' rights to kneel in context of their job and keep their job, it seems to me to be protected concerted activity," Mr. Bodie said.

Michael J. Lotito, a lawyer with the management-side firm Littler Mendelson, agreed that players who protested Mr. Trump's efforts to stifle their colleagues' political gestures could be engaging in protected activity. But he argued that under the law, which he said the Obama-era labor board had interpreted too broadly, the activity would have to entail more than kneeling during the national anthem.

He said players would need a more overt connection to their cause, like passing out, to other players, fliers that took issue with the president's meddling in their workplace.

Mr. Lotito also said the players' collective bargaining agreement with the owners could lawfully prohibit these sorts of protests. But Michael LeRoy, who teaches sports law at the University of Illinois, said the league's bargaining agreement was somewhat ambiguous on the question of protests with a political dimension.

The N.F.L. and its players association did not respond to requests for comment.

Experts said the "concerted activity" right could be even more profound in workplaces where employees aren't unionized and, therefore, have fewer tools for challenging their employers.

"People naturally have complaints, and they don't go away just because you kill unions," said Wilma B. Liebman, a former chairwoman of the labor board during the Obama administration.

Mr. Sachs of Harvard pointed to a case involving a group of employees for a Washington State construction contractor, some of whom produced and publicly released a YouTube video complaining that they were being forced to handle contaminated soil without proper training. The labor board issued a complaint against the company for firing the workers, and the company ultimately settled.

Even James Damore, the Google engineer recently fired for internally sharing a memo about the company's diversity policies that many found offensive, could credibly claim that federal labor law protected his actions, according to Mr. Bodie. To do so, Mr. Damore would have to demonstrate that he had been seeking to enlist his co-workers in questioning the policies, as he has since suggested was his goal.

The Trump administration appears to take a dim view of workers' rights to band together outside traditional union activities. Beyond the president's forays into the N.F.L. controversy, his administration took the unusual step of reversing the government's position in a worker-rights case pending before the Supreme Court.

The court, which heard the argument in the case last week, must decide how strong a right workers have to band together to sue employers over workplace concerns, like wage theft or safety lapses, or initiate collective arbitration proceedings to address these issues. Courts have generally acknowledged that federal labor law protects workers' rights to bring class-action cases, but there is debate about whether employers can require workers to waive that right through their employment contracts. The Trump administration argues that they can do so.

With a conservative majority on the Supreme Court and a Republican majority on the labor board, federal law is likely to move in this direction.

Even so, there is probably no reversing the trend of employees' piping up en masse in the workplace. "People's instinct, whether you know the word 'solidarity' or not, is to look for people to join you," said Ms. Liebman, the former board chairman. "The growth of social media, Twitter, different avenues for expressing solidarity, is kind of remarkable."

Ken Belson and Adam Liptak contributed reporting.

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7) California Winds Are Fueling Fires. It May Be Getting Worse
By HENRY FOUNTAIN OCT. 11, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/climate/caifornia-fires-wind.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=
business&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=
10&pgtype=sectionfront

Powerful, hot and dry winds like those that have fanned the deadly wildfires now raging in California are a common occurrence in the state, a result of regional atmospheric patterns that develop in the fall.

The impact of climate change on the winds is uncertain, although some scientists think that global warming may at least be making the winds drier. "That is a pretty key parameter for fire risk," said Alex Hall, a climate researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The winds, known as Diablo winds in Northern California and Santa Ana winds further south, have their origin in the high desert of the Great Basin of Nevada and parts of Utah. High-pressure air that builds over that region flows toward lower-pressure air over California and the coast.

Along the way the air descends to lower elevations, which causes it to compress and become hotter and drier. The air picks up speed as it descends and funnels through canyons or across peaks that are lower than their neighbors.

"The wind is seeking the path of least resistance to lower pressure," Dr. Hall said. "That tends to be where there are gaps in the topography."

The result is hot, dry winds with speeds that can exceed 70 miles per hour. In the wildfires that have devastated parts of Northern California's wine country since Sunday night, the highest gusts were recorded in Sonoma County, at 79 m.p.h.

The state got some respite from the winds on Tuesday, but they were expected to pick up again Wednesday and Thursday. Scientists said such variation is typical, as there is natural variability to large-scale climate patterns like high-pressure systems. If the high pressure over the Great Basin moves eastward, for example, the air will be less likely to flow westward, and that may allow cooler, gentler winds to move into California from offshore.

But there is also a day-night pattern to the winds. They tend to subside during daytime warmth, but as the land and atmosphere cool at night, the pressure gradient between the Great Basin air and California's air increases. "The winds just pick up phenomenally," said Norman Miller, an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Some of Dr. Miller's research suggests that the high-wind season, which currently runs from about October to December or January, may lengthen as climate change continues. His climate simulations suggest that the warming atmosphere could lead to more high-pressure days in the Great Basin, and thus more days of strong winds.

But research by Dr. Hall and colleagues suggests that the frequency of high-wind events has been decreasing over several decades.

"The big picture to me seems to be that there's conflicting evidence," Dr. Hall said.

What seems clearer, he said, is that climate change may be making these strong winds drier. That's because if the air over the desert of the Great Basin becomes warmer, its relative humidity will decrease. So as it descends into California it will become even drier.

"That's likely to be a pretty robust feature of these events going forward," Dr. Hall said.

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8) Trump to Scrap Critical Health Care Subsidies, Hitting Obamacare Again
By ROBERT PEAR, MAGGIE HABERMAN and REED ABELSON OCT. 12, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/politics/trump-obamacare-executive-order-health-insurance.html?hp&action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=
top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

WASHINGTON — President Trump will scrap subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out-of-pocket costs of low-income people, the White House said late Thursday. His plans were disclosed hours after the president ordered potentially sweeping changes in the nation's insurance system, including sales of cheaper policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers.

The twin hits to the Affordable Care Act could unravel President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement, sending insurance premiums soaring and insurance companies fleeing from the health law's online marketplaces. After Republicans failed to repeal the health law in Congress, Mr. Trump appears determined to dismantle it on his own.

Without the subsidies, insurance markets could quickly unravel. Insurers have said they will need much higher premiums and may pull out of the insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act if the subsidies were cut off. Known as cost-sharing reduction payments, the subsidies were expected to total $9 billion in the coming year and nearly $100 billion in the coming decade.

"The government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments," the White House said in a statement.

It concluded that "Congress needs to repeal and replace the disastrous Obamacare law and provide real relief to the American people."

In a joint statement, the top Democrats in Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, said Mr. Trump had "apparently decided to punish the American people for his inability to improve our health care system."

"It is a spiteful act of vast, pointless sabotage leveled at working families and the middle class in every corner of America," they said. "Make no mistake about it, Trump will try to blame the Affordable Care Act, but this will fall on his back and he will pay the price for it."

Lawmakers from both parties have urged the president to continue the payments. Mr. Trump had raised the possibility of eliminating the subsidies at a White House meeting with Republican senators several months ago. At the time, one senator told him that the Republican Party would effectively "own health care" as a political issue if the president did so.

"Cutting health care subsidies will mean more uninsured in my district," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, wrote on Twitter late Thursday. She added that Mr. Trump "promised more access, affordable coverage. This does opposite."

But Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, praised Mr. Trump's decision and said the Obama administration had usurped the authority of Congress by paying the subsidies. "Under our Constitution," Mr. Ryan said, "the power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the executive branch."

The future of the payments has been in doubt because of a lawsuit filed in 2014 by House Republicans, who said the Obama administration was paying the subsidies illegally. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the United States District Court in Washington agreed, finding that Congress had never appropriated money for the cost-sharing subsidies.

The Obama administration appealed the ruling. The Trump administration has continued the payments from month to month, even though Mr. Trump has made clear that he detests the payments and sees them as a bailout for insurance companies.

This summer, a group of states, including New York and California, was allowed to intervene in the court case over the subsidies. The New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, said on Thursday night that the coalition of states "stands ready to sue" if Mr. Trump cut off the subsidies.

Mr. Trump's decision to stop the subsidy payments puts pressure on Congress to provide money for them in a spending bill.

Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Senate health committee, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the panel, have been trying to work out a bipartisan deal that would continue the subsidy payments while making it easier for states to obtain waivers from some requirements of the Affordable Care Act. White House officials have sent mixed signals about whether Mr. Trump was open to such a deal.

The decision to end subsidies came on the heels of Mr. Trump's executive order, which he signed earlier Thursday.

With an 1,100-word directive to federal agencies, the president laid the groundwork for an expanding array of health insurance products, mainly less comprehensive plans offered through associations of small employers and greater use of short-term medical coverage.

It was the first time since efforts to repeal the landmark health law collapsed in Congress that Mr. Trump has set forth his vision of how to remake the nation's health care system using the powers of the executive branch. It immediately touched off a debate over whether the move would fatally destabilize the Affordable Care Act marketplaces or add welcome options to consumers complaining of high premiums and not enough choice.

Most of the changes will not occur until federal agencies write and adopt regulations implementing them. The process, which includes a period for public comments, could take months. That means the order will probably not affect insurance coverage next year, but could lead to major changes in 2019.

"With these actions," Mr. Trump said at a White House ceremony, "we are moving toward lower costs and more options in the health care market, and taking crucial steps toward saving the American people from the nightmare of Obamacare."

"This is going to be something that millions and millions of people will be signing up for," the president predicted, "and they're going to be very happy."

But many patients, doctors, hospital executives and state insurance regulators were not so happy. They said the changes envisioned by Mr. Trump could raise costs for sick people, increase sales of bare-bones insurance and add uncertainty to wobbly health insurance markets.

Chris Hansen, the president of the lobbying arm of the American Cancer Society, said the order "could leave millions of cancer patients and survivors unable to access meaningful coverage."

In a statement from six physician groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the doctors predicted that "allowing insurers to sell narrow, low-cost health plans likely will cause significant economic harm to women and older, sicker Americans who stand to face higher-cost and fewer insurance options."

While many health insurers remained silent about the executive order, some voiced concern that it could destabilize the market. The Trump proposal "would draw younger and healthier people away from the exchanges and drive additional plans out of the market," warned Ceci Connolly, the chief executive of the Alliance of Community Health Plans.

Administration officials said they had not yet decided which federal and state rules would apply to the new products. Without changing the law, they said, they can rewrite federal regulations so that more health plans would be exempt from some of its requirements.

The Affordable Care Act has expanded private insurance to millions of people through the creation of marketplaces, also known as exchanges, where people can purchase plans, in many cases using government subsidies to offset the cost. It also required that plans offered on the exchanges include a specific set of benefits, including hospital care, maternity care and mental health services, and it prohibited insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The executive order's quickest effect on the marketplaces would be the potential expansion of short-term plans, which are exempt from Affordable Care Act requirements. Many health policy experts worry that if large numbers of healthy people move into such plans, it would drive up premiums for those left in Affordable Care Act plans because the risk pool would have sicker people.

"If the short-term plans are able to siphon off the healthiest people, then the more highly regulated marketplaces may not be sustainable," said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president for the Kaiser Family Foundation. "These plans follow no rules."

Mr. Trump's order would also eventually make it easier for small businesses to band together and buy insurance through entities known as association health plans, which could be created by business and professional groups. A White House official said these health plans "could potentially allow American employers to form groups across state lines" — a goal championed by Mr. Trump and many other Republicans — allowing more options and the formation of larger risk pools.

Association plans have a troubled history. Because the plans were not subject to state regulations that required insurers to have adequate financial resources, some became insolvent, leaving people with unpaid medical bills. Some insurers were accused of fraud, telling customers that the plans were more comprehensive than they were and leaving them uncovered when consumers became seriously ill.

The White House said that a broader interpretation of federal law — the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 — "could potentially allow employers in the same line of business anywhere in the country to join together to offer health care coverage to their employees."

The order won applause from potential sponsors of association health plans, including the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group for the construction industry.

The White House released a document saying that some consumer protections would remain in place for association plans. "Employers participating in an association health plan cannot exclude any employee from joining the plan and cannot develop premiums based on health conditions" of individual employees, according to the document. But state officials pointed out that an association health plan can set different rates for different employers, so that a company with older, sicker workers might have to pay much more than a firm with young, healthy employees.

"Two employers in an association can be charged very different rates, based on the medical claims filed by their employees," said Mike Kreidler, the state insurance commissioner in Washington.

Mr. Trump's order followed the pattern of previous policy shifts that originated with similar directives to agencies to come up with new rules.

Within hours of his inauguration in January, he ordered federal agencies to find ways to waive or defer provisions of the Affordable Care Act that might burden consumers, insurers or health care providers. In May, he directed officials to help employers with religious objections to the federal mandate for insurance coverage of contraception.

Both of those orders were followed up with specific, substantive regulations that rolled back Mr. Obama's policies.

In battles over the Affordable Care Act this year, Mr. Trump and Senate Republicans said they wanted to give state officials vast new power to regulate insurance because state officials were wiser than federal officials and better understood local needs. But under Thursday's order, the federal government could pre-empt many state insurance rules, a prospect that alarms state insurance regulators.

Another part of Mr. Trump's order indicates that he may wish to crack down on the consolidation of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, a trend that critics say has driven up costs for consumers. Mr. Trump said that administration officials, working with the Federal Trade Commission, should report to him within 180 days on federal and state policies that limit competition and choice in the health care industry.

Robert Pear and Maggie Haberman reported from Washington, and Reed Abelson from New York. Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting from Washington.

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9) California Fires Leave 31 Dead, a Vast Landscape Charred, and a Sky Full of Soot
By THOMAS FULLER, DENISE GRADY and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA OCT. 12, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/california-wildfire-deaths-napa-sonoma.html?hp&action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=
top-news&WT.nav=top-news

SONOMA, Calif. — Some of the worst wildfires ever to tear through California have killed 31 people and torched a vast area of the state's north this week, but the reach of the blazes is spreading dramatically further by the day, as thick plumes of smoke blow through population centers across the Bay Area.

Everything now smells burnt. Hills and buildings are covered in a haze. Residents nowhere near the front lines of the fires now venture out wearing air masks. On a hillside above the Russian River, a broad and menacing band of fire is turning a blue sky into a gray miasma of soot.

Air-quality, based on levels of tiny particles that can flow deep into the lungs, is rated "unhealthy" across much of Northern California, and smoke has traveled as far as Fresno, more than 200 miles to the south. The effects are many: schoolchildren are being kept inside during recess, the Oakland Raiders canceled their outdoor practice on Thursday to prevent players from breathing in the bad air, and doctors are reporting an increase in visits and calls from people with lung and heart trouble.

By Friday morning, the fires that broke out across the state, starting on Sunday, had consumed 221,754 acres, including more than 150,000 acres in Sonoma and Napa Counties, and 34,000 acres in Mendocino County, according to Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency. Fanned by high winds, the fires continued to spread — the largest ranged from 5 percent to 27 percent contained — and had destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.

It is the 31 deaths, however, a toll that surpasses the official number of people killed by the single deadliest wildfire in state history, that has horrified Californians. The Griffith Park fire of 1933, in Los Angeles, killed 29 people despite burning a mere 47 acres, according to officials.

Late Thursday, the authorities said they had identified 10 of 17 peoplewho were killed in Sonoma County. Most were in their 70s and 80s, and most were found in houses. One was found next to a vehicle.

"We have found bodies that were nothing more than ash and bones," said Robert Giordano, the Sonoma County sheriff. In some cases, he said, the only way to identify the victims was by the serial numbers stamped on artificial joints and other medical devices that were in their bodies.

Because the fires have sent so many residents scrambling for safety, separating them from relatives, the authorities have received reports of 900 missing people and have deployed 30 detectives to track them down. Officials said they had confirmed the locations and safety of 437 people and were still looking for the other 463.

If they cannot find them by phone or online, they send search and rescue teams with cadaver dogs to the homes — if the homes are accessible, which in many cases, they still are not.

"It's going to be a slow process," Sheriff Giordano said.

Underscoring the vast scale of the crisis, a line of fire that appeared to span at least two miles descended into Alexander Valley, a wine grape growing region in Geyserville along the Russian River. Thick white columns of smoke poured from the forested hillside above the vineyards as the fire crept down into the valley.

Health officials were particularly focused on young children, who are at a higher risk than adults from dirty air. They breathe faster and take in more air than adults because they run around more. They also have smaller airways, so irritation in those narrower pipes is more prone to cause breathing trouble.

"People with pre-existing heart and lung disease, the elderly and young children should stay in the house with the windows closed," said Dr. John Balmes, an expert on the respiratory effects of air pollutants at the University of California, in both Berkeley and San Francisco.

Certain masks can filter out fine particles, but surgical masks are useless, and so are the ones used to protect against big particles. The masks that work are a type called N95, available in many hardware stores.

Nancy Barkley, 40, a nurse from Indiana who is on a 13-week assignment unrelated to the fire emergency, drove dozens of miles from Santa Rosa to find face masks.

"I kept on driving because they were out everywhere," she said, pulling down her surgical mask to talk.

Northern California is accustomed to wildfires and occasional wafts of smoke that drift with the winds. But nothing like this.

"I've lived here 50 years — I've never seen it this bad," said Paul Ackerley, a 90-year-old World War II veteran.

Mr. Ackerley was walking through his neighborhood Wednesday when a woman stopped her car and offered him a mask.

People closest to the fires have the greatest risk of health problems. There, heavy smoke can include toxic substances emitted when man-made materials burn. Plastics can release hydrochloric acid and cyanide.

"Smoke inhalation can kill you," Dr. Balmes said. "There's no doubt about that, but it's all dose-related. If you breathe in a lot of smoke from any fire, especially a fire in a building with man-made materials that can emit these toxins, you basically have chemical burns of the airway.

"Just like your skin can slough off when it's burned, the airway lining can slough off. It can be life-threatening. People have to be intubated and put on a ventilator," he said.

Hospitals near the worst fires are struggling as they continue to take in patients.

At Santa Rosa Memorial, the city's largest hospital, technicians installed a large air filtration system to clear smoky air from the hospital lobby. The hospital has handled 130 fire-related cases since Sunday night, when the fires began. Bus drivers in the city have been issued face masks.

"We've seen patients who have chronic lung disease, like emphysema, generally older patients, which is really exacerbated by the smoke," said Dr. Chad Krilich, chief medical officer for St. Joseph Health, which includes Santa Rosa Memorial, another hospital and other facilities in Sonoma County.

"For some of them, it's really life-threatening," he said, adding that patients even without asthma or other lung problems are coming in with breathing trouble. Most are being treated in the emergency rooms, which would normally see 105 to 135 patients a day, but are now seeing 150 to 180 a day.

Their inpatient count rose at first, but they have been transferring patients elsewhere, "because we are at risk of evacuation, too," Dr. Krilich said, adding, "We know at least 108 of our employees are homeless, and 46 others have had to evacuate."

Steve Huddleston, vice president for public affairs of NorthBay Healthcare, said the network has two small hospitals and three outpatient clinics in Solano County, east of the fires. One of its outpatient clinics is less than a mile from the fire line, but still operating.

In the emergency rooms and the clinics, he said, "we're seeing 100 patients a day with respiratory distress and asthmatic attacks from the smoke."

Many have chronic lung disease or asthma, but not all.

"All of our beds are full, and they have been for two days," Mr. Huddleston said.

He added: "We're on the edge of feeling overwhelmed. The staffing is becoming challenging. We've had half a dozen of our physicians or staff members lose their homes in the fires. We have staff members who live in the evacuation zones, and they're trying to get their belongings and their loved ones out of there."

In areas directly affected by the fires, many schools have canceled classes for the week, leaving parents scrambling.

On Thursday, William Roman, 13, a middle-school student, was helping his grandfather in a landscaping job at a strip mall in Santa Rosa, watering plants — with a face mask on.

"If we're going to play outside we need to wear a face mask — that's what my mother says," William said.

Depending on the winds, the smoke can range from heavy to none. In parts of Santa Rosa on Thursday, there was something resembling a blue sky. Yet even when the smoke was not visible, the outdoors smelled like a fireplace.

Thomas Fuller reported from Sonoma, Calif., and Denise Grady and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Matt Stevens contributed reporting from New York.

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10) Chargers' Okung Issues Call to Action for N.F.L. Players
By KEN BELSON OCT. 13, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/sports/russell-okung-nfl-anthem-protests-trump.html?hp&action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=
top-news&WT.nav=top-news

In an unusual and public call to arms, a Los Angeles Chargers lineman posted a letter on The Players' Tribune on Friday morning urging the league's 1,700 players to take a unified stand against pressure from N.F.L. team owners to curb demonstrations during the national anthem before games.

"We can either wait until we receive our respective marching orders, speak up individually, or find a way to collaborate, and exercise our agency as the lifeblood of the league," the player, Russell Okung, wrote.

Okung's nearly 900-word manifesto takes N.F.L. owners to task for making decisions on anthem demonstrations, which have typically involved players kneeling or sitting during the anthem, without broadly consulting players. The owners plan to meet next week to discuss the demonstrations, which were originally intended to draw attention to racial inequality and police shootings of African-Americans.

But that initial message has become blurred, and owners could be prepared to issue restrictions on the protests, especially after drawing condemnation from President Trump and a number of fans in recent weeks.

Trump has said that players who kneel or sit during the national anthem are disrespecting the flag and the military, though many players say it is their patriotic duty to bring attention to social injustice and other ills in society.

In a phone interview on Thursday, Okung said he wrote the letter as a way to move players' focus away from the president's agenda and back toward their own goals of addressing inequity.

"I'm about shifting the narrative. We can't be distracted by what he is trying to do," Okung said of the president. "We're honing our voice. We're not unified against Trump, we're unified against social injustice."

In his letter, Okung, an offensive lineman who was named to the Pro Bowl after the 2012 season, lamented that the original message of the protests, which were started last season by Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, had gotten muddled and had exposed divisions among players, fans and owners.

"As Kap's message has now been distorted, co-opted and used to further divide us along the very racial lines he was highlighting, we as players have a responsibility to come together and respond collectively," wrote Okung, 30, who is African-American and has Nigerian heritage.

In a letter to N.F.L. executives this week, the league's commissioner, Roger Goodell, said he and the owners wanted the players to stand for the anthem. The owners will meet next week in New York, where they will consider whether to enforce league rules that state players must be on the sideline during the national anthem and should stand while it is being played. To date, the league has not penalized any players for kneeling, sitting or remaining in the locker room during the anthem.

The commissioner and the owners have been meeting small groups of players about the issue at the league's headquarters and in various cities. About 10 players will also be attending the owners meeting.

Some players have reacted scornfully on social media to the suggestion they might be forced to stand. But Okung's letter is a rare example of a player trying to unite all his peers in defiance of the league, and it sheds light on the frustration many athletes have only privately expressed regarding recent events.

"Things have clearly gotten out of control," he wrote. "As a pragmatist, I will admit, I initially doubted the merits of Colin Kaepernick's protest and questioned the strategy. I was wrong.

"There is now no doubt that what he started was a courageous, prophetic, self-sacrificial act that has captivated a nation and inspired a powerful movement," he added. "If I had his cell phone number, I would tell him that."

Players routinely speak to teammates and to friends on other teams. Last year, players on several teams coordinated via text messages how to approach the anthem on the first Sunday of the season, which fell on Sept. 11.

Broader conversations across multiple teams, though, have not been possible, Okung wrote, adding that the N.F.L. Players Association was ill-suited to facilitating larger discussions because the players are also competitors and "the system is designed to keep us divided and stifle our attempts to collaborate."

Okung said in the phone interview that his immediate goal was to identify players across the league who want to do more, then discuss their next steps.

In his letter, Okung invited players to contact him on Twitter and when they do he will send them instructions on how to communicate as a larger group. He said he hoped that his letter reached as many players as possible, and that it "acts as a catalyst to convene a conversation among those of us who are uncomfortable having these important decisions made without us in the room."

"While I don't have all the answers as to how to ensure we are not robbed of this moment, I am convinced that we will never make progress if we do not find a way to come together and take action that represents the will of the players,'' Okung wrote. "What we have is strength in numbers."

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11) U.N. Officials Condemn Arrests of Gays in Azerbaijan, Egypt and Indonesia
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCEOCT. 13, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/azerbaijan-indonesia-egypt-arrests-gays-un.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=stream&module=
stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront

GENEVA — United Nations officials on Friday condemned the recent mass arrests of gay and transgender people in Azerbaijan, Egypt and Indonesia, saying that the authorities in those countries had violated international law by detaining, mistreating and torturing them.

The roundups — of about 80 people in Azerbaijan, 50 in Egypt and 50 in Indonesia over the past few weeks — do not appear to be connected, but United Nations officials said they exposed patterns of discrimination and abuse that also damage broad development goals.

The authorities in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, have detained more than 80 people identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender since mid-September, reportedly subjecting some of them to beatings, electric shocks and forced shaving, Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

The police resorted to other forms of humiliation, including forcing many of those arrested to undergo medical examinations and then releasing the results or details of their medical status to the news media.

The authorities in Baku said they were acting in response to public demands for a crackdown on prostitution, but lawyers for those detained said that most were not involved in the sex trade and that the charges were a pretext.

All of those detained in Azerbaijan have been released, but some served short sentences on charges of “hooliganism” and “resisting a police order,” Mr. Colville said. He added that “any arrest based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity is by definition arbitrary and violates international law.”

Egyptian authorities had arrested more than 50 people in recent weeks on the basis of their assumed sexual orientation or gender identity, some of them entrapped by law enforcement officials on websites and chat rooms, Mr. Colville said.

Two people were arrested after they waved rainbow flags during a rock concert, he said. The flag waving, at a performance by a Lebanese band with an openly gay singer, was shown on social media sites and provoked criticism as an attempt to disgrace Egypt. The police interrogated the two on charges that included “joining an outlawed group that aims to promote homosexuality.”

Charges against those detained included “habitual debauchery,” “inciting indecency and debauchery,” and “joining a banned group,” Mr. Colville said. Some had been subjected to intrusive vaginal and anal examinations, he said, which have been condemned by the United Nations’ anti-torture panel as cruel, inhumane and degrading.

A few of those arrested in Egypt have been released, but 10 men were sentenced to prison terms of one to six years and others were being held pending trial, he said.

Egyptian human rights activists, who say the government has arrested more than 300 gay and transgender people since 2013, condemned the arrests as an attempt to distract public attention from social problems.

The Indonesian police arrested 50 people at a sauna in the capital, Jakarta, a week ago “on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation,” Mr. Colville said. Many were released, but four men and one woman were charged under a “law on pornography” that Mr. Colville said had been used to punish people for same-sex relationships.

He said the authorities in all three countries accused those arrested of being involved in sex work “although in almost all cases the accused have denied such allegations or indicated that they were coerced into confessing involvement.”

Mr. Colville called on the three governments to release anyone detained on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and drop charges based on vaguely worded and discriminatory laws.

Twelve United Nations agencies called in June for an end to discrimination in health care and the elimination of laws that criminalize gender expression and relationships between consenting adults. They described such measures as violations of basic rights, as a threat to public health and as an obstacle to achieving development goals.

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12) Texas Inmates Donated Nearly $54,000 for Hurricane Relief
By MATT STEVENSOCT. 14, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/us/texas-inmates-harvey-relief.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=
stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast 12 years ago, inmates in Texas prisons told their wardens that they wanted to help.

Specifically, they wanted to donate money to hurricane relief funds. So officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice developed a novel system: Inmates, they decided, could give away money saved in their commissary accounts; instead of spending their balances on snacks or sneakers, they would be allowed to give a few dollars to the American Red Cross.

Inmates ultimately cobbled together about $44,000 to help those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So when Hurricane Harveyspun into Texas in August, some longtime inmates who remembered the previous efforts insisted that officials restart the program.

This time, the fund-raising was even more successful.

In about one month, officials say, 6,663 inmates donated $53,863 for Hurricane Harvey relief — an astonishing sum considering many of the offenders typically have less than $5 in their accounts.

Some of those who had saved gave more — hundreds of dollars, in some instances, a spokesman for the Criminal Justice Department said.

“There wasn’t a person within the prison system who didn’t know a hurricane was going on,” the spokesman, Jason Clark, said in a telephone interview on Friday. “Texans are generous people.”

Millions of dollars of reliefhave poured in from celebrities as well as average Americans, moved by the scope and extent of the destruction caused by Harvey.

And every dollar counts. In early September, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas predicted that the recovery costs might exceed those of Hurricane Katrina, which caused more than $100 billion in damage.

Texas’ prison inmates were not exempt from the hurricane’s effects. Officials evacuated five prison units and temporarily moved about 6,000 offenders during the hurricane, Mr. Clark said. And throughout the storm, prison staff members continued suiting up and coming to work despite having lost their homes.

“These men and women, they have family and friends, too, that were affected,” Mr. Clark said of the inmates. “They saw the television reports and saw what was happening.”

“Straight away,” he added, they began “asking what they could do.”

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Saturday, October 14, 2017

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2017

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Prison Radio UPDATE:

Judge Orders DA to Produce Complete File for Mumia's Case

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Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?

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A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES

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Labor Studies and Radical History

4444 Geary Blvd., Suite 207, San Francisco, CA 94118

415.387.5700

http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/mayday.html

Hours(call 415.387.5700 to be sure the library is open for the hours you are interested in. We close the library sometimes to go on errands or have close early) suggested)

7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed on all major holidays and May Day We can arrange, by request, to keep the library open longer during the day or open it on weekends. Just ask.

Services

Reference Librarian On-site Email and Telephone Reference Interlibrary Loan Online Public Access Catalog Microfilm Reader/Printer DVD and VCR players Photocopier Quiet well-lighted place for study and research For an appointment or further information, please email: david [at] holtlaborlibrary.org

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Support: CONTRIBUTE Thank you for being a part of this struggle.Cuando luchamos ganamos! When we fight we win! Noelle Hanrahan, Director To give by check: PO Box 411074 San Francisco, CA 94141 Stock or legacy gifts: Noelle Hanrahan (415) 706 - 5222

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Support the ResistanceDonate to Courage to Resist

Thank you again for contributing to Chelsea Manning's freedom, and supporting war resisters like Ryan and Jenna Johnson. Now let's get some justice for Reality Winner!

Support the resistance. Donate to Courage to Resist today.

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Mothers Message to the NY/NJ Activist Community

In order to effectively combat the existing opportunism, hidden agendas and to better provide ALL genuinely good willed social justice organizations and individuals who work inside of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas... with more concrete guidelines;

The following "10 Point Platform and Justice Wish List" was adopted on Saturday, May 13, 2017 during the "Motherhood: Standing Strong 4 Justice" pre-mothers day gathering which was held at Hostos Community College - Bronx, New York.......

"What We Want, What We Need"

May, 2017 - NY/NJ Parents 10 Point Justice Platform and Wish List

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http://www.freeleonard.org/case/

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw Kindle Edition

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Hours

(call 415.387.5700 to be sure the library is open for the hours you are interested in. We close the library sometimes to go on errands or have close early) suggested)

7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed on all major holidays and May Day

We can arrange, by request, to keep the library open longer during the day or open it on weekends. Just ask.

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Support:

CONTRIBUTE

Thank you for being a part of this struggle.

Cuando luchamos ganamos! When we fight we win!

Noelle Hanrahan, Director

To give by check:

PO Box 411074

San Francisco, CA

94141

Stock or legacy gifts:

Noelle Hanrahan

(415) 706 - 5222

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