Text service for KBOO Evening News Spetember 5th, 2018
0905 US Judge Kavanaugh Senate Hearing
Today marks the second day of Senate hearings for U-S Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
After the first day saw organized protests and calls for Democrats to "walk out", more than a dozen progressive groups today issued a letter critical of Democratic party leader Chuck Schumer.
The statement comes from 13 organizations that have spent weeks raising alarm about the administration’s deeply unpopular nominee for the nation's highest court.
The groups say that the Democratic Party's progressive base expects nothing less than all-out resistance to the nominee.
The Sierra Club issued its own statement against Kavanaugh, saying that his confirmation to the Supreme Court endangers many things the American people hold dear, including clean air and water, the right to vote, access to healthcare, the right to make decisions about their own bodies, and a fair and open democracy.
According to the group’s statement, the American people know exactly what is at stake, which is why they are overwhelmingly demanding Kavanaugh’s nomination be rejected.
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0905 US Prison Strike
A nationwide prison strike, which began on August Twenty-First and will continue through the end of this week, is focused on drawing attention to slave labor in US prisons.
Prisoners in seventeen states and several Canadian provinces are on strike in protest of prison labor conditions.
In the U-S, people who are incarcerated harvest and process eggs, orange juice, ground beef, and fish.
They also staff call centers, fight wildfires, and make sugar.
According to the advocacy group Prison Policy Initiative, they receive an average of 86 cents per day for their work.
Since the nationwide prison strike began, prison officials have retaliated against those involved, monitoring correspondence and putting some in solitary confinement.
It has been hard for those on the outside to get details on what is happening.
The Appeal, a journalism website devoted to criminal justice issues, recently spoke with an incarcerated man in South Carolina who helped organize the strike.
He said officials in his prison have made it clear that they want to root out and punish those behind the protest.
The strikers’ demands include better-funded rehabilitation services, the removal of racist gang-enhancement laws, an end to prison slavery, the restoration of voting rights, and an end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of Black and brown people.
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0905 US Boise Camping Ruling
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that prosecuting people for sleeping in public when they have no place else to go amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and is therefore unconstitutional.
The case being appealed originated in Boise, Idaho in 2009 when six people who were experiencing houselessness sued the city over an ordinance that banned sleeping in public spaces.
At the time, need for shelter beds in Boise far outweighed availability and shelter policies limited the amount of time an individual could remain in the shelter. Two of the city’s three shelters also required visitors to participate in religious programming.
The three-judge panel took issue with the city coercing people to participate in religion-based treatment programs. They also found that it was cruel and unusual to punish people for surviving houselessness.
Judge Marsha Berzon wrote in the court’s decision QUOTE “…just as the state may not criminalize the state of being ‘homeless in public places,’ the state may not ‘criminalize conduct that is an unavoidable consequence of being homeless — namely sitting, lying, or sleeping on the streets.” ENDQUOTE
A spokesperson for the city of Boise said that the city’s attorneys were considering appealing the ruling to the US Supreme Court. As it stands, the court’s decision could impact cities across the United States, including Portland, where a similarly-worded ordinance prohibits camping on public property and thoroughfares.
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0905 OR TriMet Considering Closing Downtown Stations
TriMet is considering closing four MAX stations in Downtown Portland.
The transportation service is now asking for feedback from the public.
The four stations they are considering closing are the King Hill Southwest Salmon Street Station, the Mall Southwest 4th Avenue Station, the Mall Southwest 5th Avenue station, and the Skidmore Fountain station.
These stops are all within a quarter mile from other MAX stations.
According to TriMet, the four stations have low ridership and closing them would help trains move more efficiently through Downtown.
TriMet said, QUOTE “As we looked to speed up trains through Downtown Portland, we considered distance to nearby stations, ridership and the flow of the trains.”
According to TriMet, if the stations are closed it would shorten the length of a trip on the MAX Blue or Red lines between Goose Hollow Southwest Jefferson and Old Town Chinatown by around two minutes.
The stations would shut down in September of 2019.
To share your input, you can email hello at TriMet dot org [hello@trimet.org] or call 503-238-7433.
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0905 INT Israel Allows Demolition of Bedouin Village
The Israeli High Court of Justice, has decided to allow their military to demolish the West Bank Bedouin village of Khan Al-Ahmar.
The ruling comes despite long petitions and protests by citizens and activists in the area, which is home to around one-hundred eighty Bedouins living in tents in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
The Palestine Liberation Organization warned the Israeli government against any harm to the village or the displacement of its inhabitants.
The P-L-O says that they will consider the demolition of the village to be a war crime and a violation of international humanitarian law.
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0905 INT Paraguay Relocating Embassy to Tel Aviv
Paraguay’s government has announced plans to relocate their embassy in Israel from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv.
The Jerusalem embassy opened only four months ago.
Paraguay was one of three countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem, along with Guatemala and the United States.
Former President of Paraguay Horacio Cartes made Paraguay the third country to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem, but new President Mario Abdo Benitez is against the change.
Foreign Minister Luis Alverto Castiglioni announced that the government will take action immediately.
In response, Israel has announced it is closing its embassy in Paraguay because the decision will QUOTE “strain relations between the countries.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Paraguay pledged to relocate their embassy back to Tel Aviv after a visit by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki.
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0905 US Administration Subpoenas Voter Data
Mother Jones magazine reports today that election officials Are Alarmed after the current administration subpoenaed voter data from forty-four counties in North Carolina.
According to voting rights advocates, this move could interfere with election preparation and intimidate voters only two months before the midterms.
Election officials in North Carolina say they are deeply concerned by the administrative drain on county boards of elections in order to comply with the extensive subpoenas immediately prior to a federal election, including the necessary reproduction of millions of documents.
This subpoena comes after a judge ruled against an attempt in Georgia to close more than three quarters of the polling places used by black and brown voters.
Nationally, the trend has been a tightening of voter ID laws in many states that critics view as an effort to make it harder for blacks and other minorities to vote — and, in Georgia specifically, to block the high-profile gubernatorial bid by democrat Stacey Abrams, a Black woman.
As secretary of state, her opponent, Republican Brian Kemp, has led efforts in Georgia to purge voter rolls, stop early voting, and close polling places.
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0905 US Ayanna Pressley Wins Nomination in Massachusetts
Progressives are optimistic after a landslide victory for Ayanna Pressley in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts.
Her opponent, incumbent Mike Capuano, is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Congress.
Pressley argued that in the age of Trump, the Massachusetts seventh congressional district and the nation need QUOTE "bold, activist leadership."
Pressley is now positioned to become to first Black woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress.
This follows similar upsets against the Democratic establishment in Florida’s gubernatorial primary with Andrew Gillum, and the win by 28-year-old democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s Democratic primary in June.
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0905 OR City Council Roundup
Wednesday, September 05, 2018
CDRW# __
Runs 5 : 00 w/Lockout Kill Date/Time __________________
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The Portland City Council met at nine-thirty this morning in Council Chambers, as they always do.
KBOO reporter Sam Bouman was there and has this report.
<<Play Audio>>
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(The following is raw IBM Watson speech-to-text from Sam Bouman's City Council report.)
The Portland city council's morning session was attended by all 5 commissioners today and maybe 30 members of the public. The council formally approved new members for a plumbing code appeal board, and the parks and rec bond oversight committee reorganized the way non union represented city employees are classified and compensated. And approve the police lieutenants bargaining agreement among other city business. The proceedings began on a tense note during communications, when citizens can sign up to speak briefly before council on any topic. Regular council attendee and cop watcher David gift Davis used his time to mock the mayor's new beard, and to call up memories of the police treatment of protesters on August 4 to threaten the mayor's peace of mind.
[comments garbled by vtt engine]
Later on commissioner Chloe Eudaly left chambers ahead of a vote on the police lieutenants collective bargaining agreement with the city, which was approved by the remaining commissioners 3 to one, with commissioner Amanda Fritz voting against. She said that she was opposed to the proposed salary increases for lieutenants. Who are already making over $100000 a year and she got some unwelcome applause.
[n.b. Watson rather failed to transcribe this and other citizen commentary...but he tried.]
Mayor Ted Wheeler got a few more chances to scold the audience for its behavio,r most prominently during the approval vote for a new member of the plumbing code board of appeals when longtime council attendee Joe Walsh made a subtle point about council procedure in a decidedly unsubtle way.
[garbled]
Mr Walsh was referring to the fact that the approval vote for the plumbing appeal board is formally categorized as a report in which a department presents some new information to the council in this case presenting a new candidate for the board. Auditors'reports are also included in this category, including a number of firmly negative reports on the Portland police-- bureau activists and council regulars have long expressed their dismay that mayor Wheeler has elected not to allow public testimony when reports are presented.
[garbled]
Mr Walsh sat on the floor and refused to leave council chambers until Wheeler, who was clearly upset by the interaction, also left. Eventually they both did-- Wheeler in a huff, and Walsh flanked by grinning security personnel. After Wheeler re entered, he informally polled the crowd about a new idea for council sessions he was off Mike at the moment hence the lousy audio quality house sessions outside counsel.
[garbled]
That was the mayor asking if people wanted more council meetings to be held in community spaces across town and it more agreeable times of day as opposed to smack dab in the middle of business hours on Wednesday and Thursday. Most of the audience was in rare agreement with the mayor on that. You can let him know how you feel about that by emailing mayor Wheeler at Portland Oregon.gov.
For KBOO news in Portland, I'm Sam Bouman.