NEWS ROUNDUP
Scott out, Ormsby in, pizza up, adjuncts broke…
Thursday, May 5, 2016
CAMPAIGN 2016
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Frustration boils over for Sanders’ supporters — At the convention of the Snohomish County Democratic Party, they unleashed their frustration at Sen. Patty Murray and Reps. Rick Larsen and Suzan DelBene for pledging their superdelegate votes to Hillary Clinton. They expressed themselves by repeatedly interrupting the speeches of Murray, Larsen and DelBene by stamping on the bleachers and chanting, “Bernie.”
► In today’s NY Times — Bernie Sanders’s legacy? The left may no longer need the rich (by Nate Cohn) — Sanders’s weakness among affluent Democrats and his strength among working-class Democrats might seem unsurprising, given his class-focused message. But in broader historical terms, it might be something of a turning point in Democratic politics: the moment when the party’s left no longer needs an alliance with wealthy liberals to compete in national elections.
► In The Onion — Report: Well, here we go — With Donald Trump’s two remaining GOP rivals suspending their candidacies and clearing a path for the billionaire businessman to assume the Republican presidential nomination, reports indicated Wednesday that, well, hoo boy, here we go.
► In today’s NY Times — With Trump in charge, Republicans have a day of reckoning — Republican elected officials, donors and strategists grappled uncomfortably on Wednesday with the inevitability of Donald J. Trump as their presidential nominee, an unexpectedly sudden denouement that left many in a state of political paralysis and others vowing to oppose the party’s new standard-bearer.
“I like it [right to work] better because it is lower. It is better for the people. You are not paying the big fees to the unions. The unions get big fees. A lot of people don’t realize they have to pay a lot of fees. I am talking about the workers. They have to pay big fees to the union. I like it because it gives great flexibility to the people. It gives great flexibility to the companies.”
► From Politico — Trump begins in a massive hole — He’s trailing Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders by margins not seen in a generation.
STATE GOVERNMENT
► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Rep. Timm Ormsby to head House budget panel — Rep. Timm Ormsby (D-Spokane) was named chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. Ormsby, first elected to the Legislature in 2002, has been the committee’s vice chairman since 2012. He succeeds Hans Dunshee, who resigned recently after being appointed to the Snohomish County Council.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Botched toll billing loses Washington state millions of dollars — A new audit confirms many drivers’ complaints about Washington’s toll system: It is rife with mistaken data and uncollectable bills, and quality control hasn’t been the top priority.
LOCAL
► From SkunkWorks — One year ago, conservatives predicted a pizza drought in Seattle. Were they right? (by Paul Constant) — Now that a year has officially passed since the Z Pizza saga exploded in the local media as a small-scale indictment of Seattle’s minimum-wage battle, I thought I’d check out the Capitol Hill pizza scene. How many pizza restaurants have opened within walking distance of Z Pizza since its closure last year? Eight pizza places, ranging from fine dining to cheap and on-the-go, all within 15 minutes’ walk of the restaurant that supposedly closed due to the minimum wage. From here, it looks like raising the minimum wage didn’t damage the local pizza economy — in fact, anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that raising the minimum wage supercharged the local pizza economy.
► In today’s Tri-City Herald — Total of 42 Hanford workers evaluated for chemical exposure — The number of workers receiving medical evaluations for possible exposure to chemical vapors over the last week at Hanford reached 42 Wednesday.
BOEING
► From AP — Illinois lawmakers urge Boeing not to sell aircraft to Iran — Three Republican congressmen from Illinois are urging the chief executive officer of Chicago-based Boeing to avoid doing business with Iran and not sell aircraft to upgrade its fleet.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
► In today’s Washington Post — Justice Dept. says North Carolina’s so-called bathroom law violates Civil Rights Act — The government gave Gov. Pat McCrory until Monday to pledge that he will walk away from the controversial law, which requires transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender at birth, or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
► In today’s NY Times — Safe ways to shorten U.S. airports’ security lines (editorial) — Security lines have gotten longer in part because more Americans are flying and government spending on security has not kept up with that growth.
NATIONAL
► From AFL-CIO Now — Many adjunct professors make little more than minimum wage — If you spend much time talking to adjunct professors across the United States, you start to realize that it sounds a lot like what fast food workers fighting for better wages and working conditions are saying.
► From the Washington Post — This man sued his former company because his work was ‘too boring’ — The plaintiff, 44-year-old Parisian Frédéric Desnard, is demanding more than $400,000 from his former employer, a perfume enterprise, as compensation for the boredom it allegedly caused.
TODAY’S MUST-SEE
► From Public Citizen — 4-year Korea data release: Warning for TPP — Data on 4 years of the US-Korea trade deal was just released—and the news is frightening: The trade deficit with Korea has more than doubled, equating to the loss of more than 106,000 U.S. jobs.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.