NEWS ROUNDUP
‘Jobs not cuts,’ Boeing’s big week, USPS meetings…
OCCUPY, ‘SEIZE,’ WHATEVER
► At SeattlePI.com — Occupy protest marches on bridge, blocks traffic — Rush hour was jammed in Seattle as hundreds of Occupy Seattle and union protesters occupied University Bridge.
► In the Slog — Police stand by as protesters Occupy University Bridge — It was raining so hard I was soaked to the bones, my fingers so numb with cold that I couldn’t feel the shutter button on my camera, and yet a thousand-plus protesters braved the weather and marched through the streets from opposite sides to occupy the University Bridge and claim it for the 99 Percent.
► At AFL-CIO Now — Senate hearing room erupts: ‘We are the 99%’ — Today’s National Day of Action took an unlikely turn on Capitol Hill, as working and retired Americans joined together to tell lawmakers not to balance the budget on the backs of the 99%, as a joint congressional committee has threatened to do through proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
► In today’s NY Times — A day of protests as Occupy Movement marks two-month milestone — Protesters across the country demonstrated en masse Thursday, taking aim at banks as part of a national “day of action” to mark the two-month milestone of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
► In today’s LA Times — Hundreds held in Occupy protests across nation — More than 70 are arrested in downtown L.A., and several unions call on the city to let protesters stay at a bank plaza on Bunker Hill. At a march in Manhattan, 200 are taken into custody.
► In today’s NY Times — Out of Zuccotti Park and into the streets (Eugene Robinson column) — Occupy Wall Street may not occupy Zuccotti Park anymore, but it refuses to surrender its place in the national discourse. Up close, you get the sense that the movement may have only just begun.
BOEING
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Boeing says huge 737 order is company’s biggest ever — Lion Air’s request is both Boeing’s largest in terms of the number of airplanes and its biggest by dollar value, Boeing said.
STATE GOVERNMENT
► In today’s Olympian — State jobless rate falls to 9% — The state’s jobless rate fell to 9%, its lowest level since March 2009, from a revised 9.2% in September; the state created 4,600 jobs in the September-to-October period.
► From AP — Budget forecast still looks grim — The state’s chief economist said Thursday that the state has taken in $12 million less than expected since September, and that revenues are projected to drop by $122 million over the next two years.
► In today’s Yakima H-R — Little change in revenue forecast, ‘brutal’ session up soon — “There are tax exemptions that have been granted for specific reasons at specific times that maybe have outlived their effectiveness,” says Rep. Bruce Chandler (R-Granger). “We should be looking at all of those. We should be looking at spending the same way.”
LOCAL
► In the Wenatchee World — Postal officials to hold meeting on possible closure — The USPS mail processing center at Olds Station may be shut down and moved to Spokane. A public meeting on the proposed closure — its reasons and possible outcomes — will be held at 6 p.m. Dec. 1 at the Red Lion Hotel, 1225 N. Wenatchee Ave.
ALSO SEE — Attend USPS meetings on processing plant closures — Next up: TONIGHT (Friday, Nov. 18), a public meeting on the proposed Olympia plant closure is at 6 p.m. at the Phoenix Inn Suites, 415 Capitol Way North, Olympia.
► In the Columbian — Wind project in Pacific County killed — Four local public utility districts have pulled the plug on a proposal to build Washington’s first coastal wind farm in the heart of the state’s most valuable nesting habitat for the threatened marbled murrelet.
► In today’s Daily News — Rainier shipyard gets $9.6 million contract to build new state ferry — Foss Maritime’s new Keller Ferry will replace the 12-car Martha S., and will be able to carry 20 cars between the towns of Wilbur and Keller on Lake Roosevelt, the lake created by Grand Coulee Dam.
► In the Seattle Times — Reardon used county trips for affair, employee says — A woman who prompted a criminal investigation into Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon’s travel spending said she took multiple county-paid trips with the executive where he did little or no official business.
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Reardon denies misconduct but otherwise stays silent
SUPERCOMMITTEE!™
► In today’s NY Times — Failure is good (Paul Krugman column) — Why was the SuperCommittee!™ doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.
► In the Seattle Times — How the deficits SuperCommittee!™’s failure would be a success (E.J. Dionne column) — A balanced deal would be nice but it’s now impossible — and not because of some vague congressional “dysfunction” the media like to talk about. Sane fiscal policies are blocked because one party refuses to accept the need to roll back the excesses of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. If Congress does nothing, those tax cuts go away. That’s why a “failure” by the supercommittee to endorse a deeply flawed deal is actually a victory for sensible deficit reduction.
NATIONAL
► In The Hill — Industry fights with health advocates over worker exposure to carcinogen — Business and labor interests are locked in a more than decade-long battle over how to limit worker exposure to a known carcinogen. The latest skirmish is over a OSHA proposal that has been stalled at the OMB for close to 300 days.
► At Politico — Big Labor shells out for GOP friends — Major unions are giving a heftier slice of campaign donations than usual to pro-labor Republicans this election cycle, even as overall union contributions to members of Congress lags.
► At Huffington Post — Workers rebel against early Black Friday openings, shortened holiday — There are more signs of worker frustration over a shortened Thanksgiving holiday.
► In today’s NY Times — Professor of profits (Tim Egan column) — This is not just another Newt Gingrich laugher, up there with his revolving Tiffany’s account or his multiple personal hypocrisies. This story encapsulates why Washington is broken and how the powerful protect and enrich themselves, unanchored to basic principles.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 9 a.m. These links are functional at the date of posting, but sometimes expire.