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NEWS ROUNDUP

Legendary legislators pass, Boeing wins, may God have mercy…

Monday, October 15, 2012



STATE ELECTION

 

► In The Olympian — Inslee getting big push from labor, enviros — Labor and environmental activists kicked off major door-to-door campaign efforts Saturday in Tacoma, Olympia, Issaquah, and other communities. Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson fired up a crowd in Tacoma this morning at the IBEW Local 76 hall, and Jay Inslee joined him in making remarks to an estimated 200 workers.

ALSO TODAY at The Stand — Labor steps up, out for endorsed candidates — Check out video coverage of Saturday’s massive volunteer turnout for the Labor Neighbor Super Walks.

► In the Olympian — PDC staffers recommend dismissing McKenna’s complaint against Inslee — McKenna had alleged that Inslee failed to properly report transfers and committed other violations, but the PDC staff said that all of the contributions cited by the McKenna campaign were eligible to be transferred.

EDITOR’S NOTE — It appears our state Attorney General doesn’t understand the state’s laws as well as we might think.

► In the Columbian — Steves brings pro-marijuana campaign to Vancouver — Travel guru Rick Steves spoke to full house at the Vancouver Community Library Friday night in favor of I-502, an initiative to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana. Through his travels abroad, Steves found that alternative lifestyles are tolerated in Europe, and people aren’t criminalized for their casual use of the drug. Europeans don’t smoke any more marijuana than Americans, he said, even though its legal in Europe.

ALSO at The Stand — Join Rick Steves on I-502 tour this month— Next stops: tonight in Leavenworth, tomorrow in Everett and Bellingham.

 


STATE GOVERNMENT

 

► From AP — Former Washington legislator Sid Snyder dead at 86 — The governor’s office says former state legislator Sid Snyder died Sunday at his home in Long Beach. He was 86. Gov. Chris Gregoire says Snyder was “legendary for getting things done and for his never-failing courtesy and civility.”

ALSO see History Link’s page on Sid Snyder for more information.

► In The Olympian — Longtime legislator Wojahn dead at 92 — Former state legislator R. Lorraine Wojahn died Saturday evening in Tacoma at age 92. Those who worked with Wojahn at the Capitol remember her as a fierce legislator who pioneered the way for women in both chambers.

► In the Seattle Times — How the next governor can make Washington more competitive (by Jon Talton) — First, do no harm to a state economy that is healthier and has better bones than most. With that backdrop, here are 10 areas that could benefit from the new governor’s leadership.

 


BOEING

 

► In today’s Washington Post — Boeing wins $1.9 billion contract for planes in Pentagon’s year-end spending surge — Boeing won the largest Pentagon contract in September as military awards surged in the final month of the government’s fiscal year. The contract for P-8 maritime patrol planes was valued at $1.9 billion. Based on the 737-800, the aircraft are designed to replace Lockheed’s P-3 Orion. (Boeing assembles the P-8 aircraft in Renton.)

► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Inland northwest aerospace poised for takeoff — A growing cluster of aerospace companies in the Inland Northwest is reaping the rewards of a global surge in aircraft production. It’s also setting the table for a main course that could nourish the economy much like health care and education do today.

 


NATIONAL

 

► At AFL-CIO Now — Don’t pass the sugar: Join boycott of American Crystal Sugar products — Because of American Crystal Sugar’s continued refusal to end its 14-month lockout of more than 1,300 workers and return to the bargaining table, working families across the country today launched a boycott against American Crystal Sugar (ACS) products.

 


PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

 

► At AFL-CIO Now — Romney/Bain outsource middle-class jobs for 99 cents/hour jobs in China

 

► From Yahoo! News — Koch brothers, other CEOs warn of layoffs if Obama re-elected — Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kan.-based company run by the billionaire Koch brothers, sent a voter information packet to 45,000 employees of its Georgia Pacific subsidiary earlier this month. In it was a letter, from Koch Industries president Dave Robertson implicitly warning that “many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences” of voting for President Obama and other Democrats in the 2012 elections and a list of conservative candidates the company’s political action committee endorses.

► In today’s NY Times — Death by ideology (by Paul Krugman) — Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people. But that’s only because he doesn’t want to see them; if he did, he’d have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way: the lack of health insurance does kill people.

► At TPM — Romney’s unraveling claim that six studies validate his tax plan — In response to the persistent and substantial questions about the math of his tax plan not adding up, Mitt Romney and his campaign frequently argue that six independent studies back him up by ratifying the arithmetic of the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. Of the six studies, two are blog posts by the conservative American Enterprise Institute; one is a report by the Republican-friendly Heritage Foundation; one is a paper by Princeton professor and former George W. Bush adviser Harvey Rosen; the fifth and sixth are a paper and Wall Street Journal op-ed by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, an adviser to the Romney campaign.

 


TODAY’S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

 

► In today’s NY Times — Seeing homosexual agenda, Christian group protests anti-bullying day — The American Family Association is urging parents to keep children home on a day when schools encourage students to eat lunch with someone they don’t usually speak to.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This clip best expresses the entire staff of The Stand’s reaction to the American Family Association…

 


The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 9 a.m.

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