NEWS ROUNDUP

Test of humanity, McKenna overruled, immigration…

Today’s news links:

STATE GOVERNMENT

► In today’s News Tribune — A major test of humanity for Washington’s Legislature (editorial) — The impact of Washington’s looming $2 billion shortfall is coming into focus, and it is ugly indeed. Consider what DSHS and HCA alone might have to eliminate under the worst-case scenario: Care for 80,000 incapacitated citizens, including the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled; Domestic violence intervention that helps protect 4,500 children; The entire Basic Health Plan, whose loss would end medical coverage for 36,000 of the working poor; Health insurance for thousands of mentally ill and homeless Washingtonians; and Assistance for 54,000 women with high-risk pregnancies. Nov. 28, the likely date of the special session, will confront the Legislature with one of the greatest challenges it has ever faced.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Not so fast: Solving state’s budget dilemma will require careful deliberation (column by Sen. Ed Murray and Rep. Derek Kilmer) — The problem before us today is a $1.4 billion drop in expected revenue. At this point, that poses more than an accounting challenge. It asks us to reconsider what we can do for the public.

► In today’s Seattle Times — McKenna says he was ‘overruled’ on scope of health-care challenge — The Republican candidate for governor said his goal in joining the lawsuit was not to strike down the entire law, just the provisions he argues are unconstitutional. But the plaintiffs’ legal briefs since then repeatedly have sought to scrap the entire law. McKenna now says he was overruled on that point by his co-plaintiffs. “An individual state can’t necessarily dictate to the group every aspect of the case,” said Dan Sytman, a McKenna spokesman.

EDITOR’S NOTE — “It’s not me. It’s my buddies who want to eliminate coverage for adult children, allow insurers to deny people with pre-existing conditions, restore caps on coverage, and keep the Medicare “donut hole” for prescription drug coverage. What’re ya gonna do?”

► In today’s NY Times — States putting hopes in ‘bottoms up’ to help bottom line — Dozens of states and cities have tinkered with laws that regulate alcohol sales as a way to build up their budgets. Twelve states have raised taxes on alcohol or changed alcohol laws to increase revenue.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Meanwhile in this state, despite being rejected twice by voters last year, big corporations are back with their risky Initiative 1183 to deregulate Washington’s liquor system. The Washington State Labor Council is urging union members to protect our communities — and this critical source of state revenue — by voting “NO!”

► At TheOlympian.com — Democrat Mark Miloscia files for State Auditor — The Federal Way Democrat, said he made his 2012 campaign for state auditor official today.

E.G.T. UPDATE

► At MSNBC.com — Longshoremen criticize Port of Longview commissioners — Port commissioners went before a large group of longshoremen, and withstood a barrage of negative testimony over the port’s handling of the union’s dispute with grain elevator operator EGT. “Every one of you guys have to go home and look yourselves in the mirror and look what you’ve done to our community, because it’s a travesty,” said ILWU Local 21 President Dan Coffman

► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Sheriff makes 2nd felony arrest in EGT vandalism — Conner McCleod was arrested Tuesday night on suspicion of second-degree burglary and sabotage for allegedly storming the grain terminal with other protesters in the early morning of Sept. 8.

LOCAL

► In today’s Peninsula Daily News — 600 hear speakers on fixing the economy — The impassioned crowd filled the room with thunderous applause off and on for two hours as Robby Stern and others called for Wall Street financial reforms, an expanded Medicare system with universal coverage for all, and efforts to spur jobs growth in a country facing a double-dip recession.

► In today’s News Tribune — 3-year deal ratified; Tacoma teachers will get first full paycheck — The Tacoma School Board on Wednesday ratified the teacher contract in a unanimous vote.

ELECTION

► At TheStreet.com — Perry, Romney both embrace national right-to-work law — Both say they would sign the National Right to Work Act introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) in March 2011, which would ban union members from enacting “union security” clauses in their contracts, which require all who benefit from the contract to pay a representation fee.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Funny how these guys are all about states’ rights when they disagree with something, and they are all about federal government control when it comes to discouraging unionization or discriminating against gays or polluting the planet. Learn more about so-called “right-to-work” laws.

IMMIGRATION

► In today’s NY Times — Companies use immigration crackdown to run a profit — Especially in Britain, the United States and Australia, governments of different stripes have increasingly looked to multinational security companies to expand detention and show voters they are enforcing tougher immigration laws. Some of the companies are huge — one is among the largest private employers in the world. But the ballooning of privatized detention has been accompanied by scathing inspection reports, lawsuits and the documentation of widespread abuse and neglect, sometimes lethal. Human rights groups say detention has neither worked as a deterrent nor speeded deportation, as governments contend, and some worry about the creation of a “detention-industrial complex” with a momentum of its own.

► At Politico — Obama tells Hispanic roundtable he can’t fix immigration alone — “This notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is not true. The fact of the matter is there are laws on the books I have to enforce. And there is a great disservice done to the cause of getting the DREAM Act passed and comprehensive immigration reform passed by perpetuating the notion that somehow by myself I can just go and do these things.”

► Today at The Hill — Obama: Deportation statistics deceptive — President Obama said statistics that show his administration is on track to deport more illegal immigrants than the Bush administration are misleading.

► In today’s NY Times — Alabama wins in ruling on its strict immigration law — A federal judge upholds most of the state’s far-reaching immigration law that had been challenged by the Obama administration, including portions that had been blocked in other states.

► Stephen Colbert solves the immigration problem — “Folks, if America is going to solve our illegal immigration problem, we need to look inside ourselves, with an emotional melon-baller, and scoop out any vestige of human kindness.”

The Colbert Report
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NATIONAL

► At AFL-CIO Now — Watch live webcast of Shuler, Solis at Next Up summit — AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will kick off the second annual Next Up Young Workers Summit in Minneapolis today. Hundreds of young working people, including organizers and students from across the country, are meeting as part of the AFL-CIO’s efforts to reach out to working people under age 35. You can watch a live webcast of Shuler and Solis here today beginning at 3 p.m. Pacific time (5 p.m. CDT).

► In The Hill — Postal workers push House members to support benefit payment changes — Postal workers around the country on Tuesday held demonstrations near the offices of all House members, urging them to support legislation that would allow the USPS to reschedule future retirement payments that are threatening to shut down the service completely. But Republicans seem to be considering significant cost and service cuts at the USPS instead.

ALSO SEE at the The Stand video coverage of local USPS demonstrations.

► At TPM — Supercommittee!™ Dems avoid trap that skewed debt limit fight — According to aides with knowledge of the discussions, they’re trying to keep the panel’s early focus on revenues, to avoid falling into a familiar trap of agreeing to a bunch of spending cuts only to have Republicans freeze up when they try to change the conversation to taxes.

► In today’s NY Times — A pipeline divides along old lines: Jobs versus the environment — The final days of rancorous public debate over a $7 billion oil pipeline that would snake from Canada through the midsection of the United States have taken on an unexpected urgency this week, as the economic and environmental stakes of the massive project snap into focus at a time of festering anxiety about the nation’s future.

► In today’s NY Times — UAW members ratify new GM contract — Members voted by two-to-one to ratify a new four-year collective bargaining agreement that will create 6,400 new jobs in the United States.

► In today’s NY Times — Killing the recovery (editorial) — A global fixation on austerity is exactly the wrong course to reignite the economy.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► In today’s NY Times — An overlooked way to create jobs (by former assistant Treasury secretary C. Fred Bergsten) — By virtually ignoring trade, President Obama and Congressional Republicans are missing a major opportunity to create jobs. The United States runs an annual trade deficit of about $600 billion, or 4% of our entire economy. Eliminating that imbalance would create 3 million to 4 million jobs, according to Commerce Department estimates, at no cost to the budget.

Not every country can expand its economy through exports, because one nation’s smaller deficit is another’s smaller surplus. But the United States has a unique claim now to pursue such a strategy, because it has run large deficits for most of the last three decades, become the largest debtor country and accommodated other countries’ desire for export-led prosperity. If we want to avoid bankruptcy and raise growth, we have got to attack the trade deficit.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 9 a.m. Make this electronic “clip service” your first stop each morning! These links are functional on the date of posting, but sometimes expire.