Tuesday, November 22, 2016

BOEING

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing goes outside for new Commercial Airplanes CEO — For the first time in Boeing’s history, it is going outside the company to find a replacement for the CEO of its Commercial Airplanes division. In a surprise move, Boeing announced Monday that Ray Conner will step down immediately from that position, and the new boss of some 78,000 Boeing Commercial employees will be senior General Electric executive Kevin McAllister. Conner, 61, will stay on as Boeing vice chairman through the end of next year, helping with the transition. For remaining until then, he’ll get an added bonus worth more than $7 million.

THIS WASHINGTON

► In the P.S. Business Journal — U.S. job growth strongest in Washington state, faltering in energy states — The Pacific Northwest has become the pacesetter for U.S. job growth, according to new employment data. Washington state posted the nation’s biggest gain in nonfarm jobs, an increase of 3.5 percent between October 2015 and the same month this year. Neighboring Oregon took second place with an increase of 3.3 percent.

► MUST-READ in today’s News Tribune — Talk politics this Thanksgiving — like the future depends on it (by Matt Driscoll) — We don’t just have disagreements. We have gaping, festering wounds. Urban versus rural. Educated versus working class. Elite versus, well, whatever the opposite of elite is. It’s not that many of us don’t see eye to eye, it’s that we’re not on the same plane. Perhaps most alarming of all, we can’t even agree what we’re looking at. That’s why, on Thanksgiving, when families and friends of differing political leanings gather around tables, removed from the bubbles we’ve created for ourselves — and momentarily disconnected from the online echo-chambers — we must skew holiday norms. We must talk about politics with the ones we love. And we must listen.

► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — New lands commissioner could pose challenge for Longview coal project — On the campaign trail, Hilary Franz said she opposed using state lands for fossil fuel projects, including the Longview coal terminal.

► From KUOW — Why we’re saying ‘white nationalism’ instead of ‘alt-right’ — We are avoiding the term “alt-right” in favor of white supremacy or white nationalism because “alt-right” doesn’t mean anything, and normalizes something that is far from normal. So we need to plain-speak it.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Ditto for The Stand.

THAT WASHINGTON

► From McClatchy — She beat Bush on Muslim deportations. She expects to do same with Trump. — Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, came to the United States from India when she was 16. Now, as the only newcomer in the Washington state congressional delegation that will be sworn in in January, she’s preparing to do battle with President-elect Donald Trump over his immigration policies.

► From Huffington Post — President Obama expanded overtime pay for millions of workers. President Trump could take it away. — The only thing standing in the way of repeal of the updated overtime pay standard by Republicans is a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, which would leave Republicans relying on the appropriations process to halt the reforms. Congress could attach a “rider” to a spending bill that prevents the Labor Department from enforcing the overtime rules, essentially making compliance voluntary. But eventually, Trump’s Labor Department could issue a new regulation to reverse it.

► From Huffington Post — Trump vows to back out of the TPP, effectively killing it

ALSO at The Stand — WFTC: Path forward on trade is pursuing policies that benefit all

► From Reuters — Trump’s NAFTA revamp would require concessions, may borrow from TPP — Trade experts, academics and government officials say Canada and Mexico would also seek tough concessions and that NAFTA’s zero-tariff rate would be extremely difficult to alter. And any renegotiation would likely take several years.

► From TPM — Behind ‘Make America Great,’ the Koch agenda returns with a vengeance — Although widely unpopular with the mass public, the Koch policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich, union busting, Medicare privatization, business deregulation, and evisceration of environmental and global warming measures is ripe to be rammed through a GOP-dominated Congress and sent to the desk of a president who needs Koch-affiliated personnel, understands very little about policy issues, and will be looking for victorious bills to sign into law. The stage is perfectly set to advance the core Koch ultra-free-market agenda, even though the brothers avoided endorsing Trump and the candidate himself discussed almost none of the relevant policy shifts in his appeals to voters.

► In the NY Times — Billionaires vs. the press in the era of Trump — A small group of superrich Americans — the president-elect among them —  has laid the groundwork for an unprecedented legal assault on the media. Can they succeed?

► From Politico — Sanders rips Trump infrastructure plan as ‘corporate welfare’ — Said Sanders: “Trump would allow corporations that have stashed their profits overseas to pay just a fraction of what the companies owe in federal taxes. And then he would allow the companies to ‘invest’ in infrastructure projects in exchange for even more tax breaks.”

► In the Washington Post — Trump adviser accidentally reveals border wall, immigrant-tracking ideas — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a member of the Trump transition team who has been floated as a Cabinet member, learned a new lesson the hard way: Don’t hold documents where the cameras can see them. In a clear shot of his photo op with Trump, some of the ideas on a position paper are clearly visible.

► From The Hill — Young, restive Dems want change in the House — Rep. Tim Ryan’s (D-Ohio) long-shot challenge to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has shone a rare public spotlight on restive voices that say the Democrats need a hefty shakeup to get back on a winning track.

► In the Wall St. Journal — Embattled Democrats, labor see Nevada as a beacon — The Culinary Workers Union helped to deliver a nearly clean sweep for Democrats in several races. The union was credited by many with helping to produce a blue wave that flipped two U.S. House districts to Democrat from Republican, won a close Senate race for Democrats and helped the party gain control of both state legislative bodies.

NATIONAL

► In the Milwaukee J-S — Federal court strikes down GOP-drawn maps — The judges ruled 2-1 that Wisconsin’s legislative district maps redrawn by Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature were unconstitutional because they were “intended to burden the representational rights of Democratic voters … by impeding their ability to translate their votes into legislative seats.” Depending on the outcome of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case could have national implications because it includes a new method of determining whether legislative maps are drawn in a way that discriminates against voters of a particular party. The judges noted that Democrats got more votes than Republicans in Assembly races in 2012, but Republicans were able to claim 60 of the 99 seats.

► From AP — O’Hare workers to strike on nationwide ‘Day of Disruption’ — A strike by hourly workers at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago will add another dimension to a nationwide day of protests on Tuesday, Nov. 29 by fast-food employees who have been pushing for a $15 hourly wage and union rights. Thousands of workers plan to walk off the job at McDonald’s restaurants and other fast-food spots in more than 340 cities that day, organizers said.

► From NBC News — Phone app ‘Jornaler@’ helps immigrant day workers combat wage abuse — Labor groups have designed a new mobile app to crack down on wage theft and other labor violations faced by immigrant workers. The “Jornaler@” app, from the word jornalero or jornalera, which means day laborer in Spanish, allows workers to report employer abuses. The information is forwarded to day laborer worker centers, labor unions and other organizations that can help workers file a formal complaint.

T.G.I.T.

► Add last week’s untimely death of Sharon Jones to the ever-growing list of why 2016 has sucked. A longtime corrections officer at Rikers Island, this remarkable performer wasn’t discovered and didn’t record her first album until she was 40. Last Friday she passed away at just 60. The clip below isn’t professionally recorded. But that doesn’t matter. You get to experience what it was like to be up front at a Prince show in Paris, only to discover this amazing opening act — Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings! — and be compelled to pull out your phone and record it. Watch this middle-aged woman bring the funk like a young James Brown and inspire the main act to come out early and join her (at about 6:30) for a guitar solo. Let’s hope these two are jamming together somewhere right now. Enjoy.

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