Tuesday, November 1, 2016

STATE ELECTIONS

► In the NY Times — The high costs of not offering paid sick leave (by Austin Frakt) — Each week about 1.5 million Americans without paid sick leave go to work despite feeling ill. At least half of employees of restaurants and hospitals — two settings where disease is easily spread — go to work when they have a cold or the flu, according to a recent poll.

Paid sick leave slows the spread of disease. Cities and states that require employers to offer paid sick leave — Washington, D.C.; Seattle; New York City; and Philadelphia, as well as Connecticut, California, Massachusetts and Oregon — have fewer cases of seasonal flu than other comparable cities and states… Workers lacking paid sick leave are more likely to delay needed medical care… Sicker workers may be more prone to job-related injuries…. Paid sick leave may also enhance productivity and reduce turnover.

EDITOR’S NOTE — If you agree that everyone should have the opportunity to earn paid sick leave at work, vote for I-1433!

► From PBS — Debate on I-1433 (minimum wage/paid sick leave)

EDITOR’S NOTE — Watch as the WSLC’s April Sims and home healthcare worker Tamika Aden knock it out of the park on behalf of Initiative 1433.

► From The Stranger — Initiative 732 is a false promise for climate justice (by Jill Mangaliman, executive director of Got Green) — Seven reasons to vote NO on I-732:

1. Urgency is not an excuse to get it wrong.
2. Adding a buck to the price of gas will do nothing to reduce climate change without investing the revenue in clean, equitable communities.
3. I-732’s “revenue-neutral” tax-cuts approach to carbon pricing is a step in the wrong direction and would be a devastating precedent for global climate action.
4. I-732 does nothing to create a Just Transition to a cleaner economy.
5. I-732 wants to be tax reform, but carbon revenues aren’t the relief we’ve been looking for.
6. That’s why most people who care deeply about the climate and communities don’t support I-732.
7. We can do better.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Wyman to clarify info in Spanish voter pamphlet after Dems threaten suit — The Spanish version of the voter pamphlet initially put out by Republican Kim Wyman used a broad translation for the word “felony,” one that also includes lesser offenses, such as misdemeanors. That translation could lead some Spanish-speaking voters to wrongly conclude they were ineligible to vote.

NATIONAL ELECTIONS

YESTERDAY at The Stand — Ignore the noise, it’s decision time: Want more talk, or real plans? — At a time when 24-7 campaign coverage has devolved once again into a “controversy” about emails we don’t know who wrote or what they say, the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) has released a timely new video that helps America’s working families keep their eye on the ball: real issues that affect our families and nation. The video reminds voters that Hillary Clinton has an ambitious plan to invest in infrastructure and rebuild America, while Donald Trump continues to support “right-to-work” for less.

THE NOISE

► In today’s Washington Post — FBI chief draws storm of protests on Clinton email probe — Outrage grew over FBI Director James Comey’s disclosure that the bureau has resumed its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, with Democrats and Republicans amplifying their demands that Comey and the attorney general provide a more detailed account of the probe.

► In today’s NY Times — James Comey’s big mistake (editorial) — The FBI director clearly failed to consider the impact of the innuendo he unleashed just days before the election, seemingly more concerned with protecting himself from recrimination by critics in Congress and the FBI. Now, thanks to Comey’s breathtakingly rash and irresponsible decision, the Justice Department and FBI are scrambling to process hundreds of thousands of emails to determine whether there is anything relevant in them before Nov. 8 — all as the country stands by in suspense. This is not how federal investigations are conducted.

EDITOR’S NOTE — You want scandal? Don’t settle for emails that may or may not have been from Hillary Clinton, and may or may not have anything to do with anything. Here’s the real deal (and it’s just one day in the life of our national disgrace, Donald Trump)…

► From Politico — What Trump’s tax returns could tell us about his dealings with Russia — This is now a major national security issue, especially in light of Sen. Harry Reid’s extraordinary allegation, in a letter of his own to the embattled Comey, that “in my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”

► From CNBC — Comey opposed naming Russians, citing election timing — Some government insiders are perplexed as to why Comey would have election timing concerns with the Russian disclosure but not with the Huma Abedin email discovery disclosure.

► From The Hill — Report connects Trump organization server to Russian bank

► In today’s NY Times — Trump used legally dubious method to avoid paying taxes — Donald Trump proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire. But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the IRS would most likely declare it improper if he were audited. Thanks to this one maneuver, which was later outlawed by Congress, Mr. Trump potentially escaped paying tens of millions of dollars in federal personal income taxes.

► From Think Progress — Trump supporters share a fake image of an undocumented immigrant voting, scream voter fraud — On the contrary: this is what voter intimidation looks like.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Still prefer your scandals to be email-related? Try this one on for size…

► From Newsweek — Trump companies destroyed emails in defiance of court orders — Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

► In today’s NY Times — Bundy verdict puts a target on the backs of federal workers (by Christopher Ketchum) — The Bundys landed a blow against a culture of public service embodied by the federal employees responsible for maintaining law and order and protecting our wildest Western landscapes. And while we don’t know the reason for the acquittals in what seemed like an open-and-shut case of guilt, it comes against a backdrop of deep antipathy in parts of the West toward the environmental regulation of the hundreds of millions of acres of rangeland, forests and national parks managed by the federal government on behalf of all Americans… The federal land managers I’ve spoken to — rangers, biologists and law enforcement officers, almost all of them so fearful they won’t go on the record — worry that extremist copycats who seek to undermine the federal public lands system will be emboldened by the verdict.

► In today’s Washington Post — Administration defends labor-law executive order against court decision (by Joe Davidson) — Marcia Crone, a little-known federal district court judge in Beaumont, Tex., played David to President Obama’s Goliath when she blocked most of an executive order that would allow federal agencies to deny work to federal contractors with workplace violations.

NATIONAL

► From Reuters — McDonald’s to pay $3.75 million in 1st settlement with franchise workers — McDonald’s has agreed to pay $3.75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it was liable for labor law violations by a California franchisee, marking what lawyers said was the first time the company has settled legal claims by a group of U.S. workers at one of its franchises.

► From Huffington Post — Thousands of Philadelphia transit workers go on strike — Public transportation workers in Philadelphia went on strike at midnight on Monday after they were unable to reach a contract agreement with the transit system that provides almost one million rides a day in and around the fifth largest U.S. city.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.