DAILY NEWS
Hunger strike continues, voting rights in peril, divided we fall…
Thursday, April 13, 2017
LOCAL
ALSO at The Stand — Hunger strikers decry conditions at Tacoma detention center — UPDATED today with details about a rally at noon outside the detention center.
► From Slog — “I feel light headed, funky:” The hunger strike at Tacoma’s immigrant detention center continues — About 415 detainees at NWDC, mostly undocumented immigrants picked up by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), had stopped eating to protest conditions at the facility, according to community organizers in touch with people participating in the hunger strike. It was day two without food.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Crane mishap sends debris crashing through Seattle construction site where workers had raised safety concerns — A crane cable apparently snapped at a construction project a couple blocks from Pike Place Market on Tuesday, sending debris crashing through the job site and onto a passing commuter’s bicycle. Just weeks before, a local carpenters’ union had picketed the project, alleging unsafe worker conditions.
THIS WASHINGTON
► In the Spokesman-Review — Troubled software for Community Colleges of Spokane on ‘pause’ as vendor files for bankruptcy — A $100 million software system that was pushed online at the Community Colleges of Spokane more than a year and a half ago still doesn’t work properly and the vendor hired to install it filed for bankruptcy this week, a legislative panel was told Tuesday.
TOWN HALLS
ALSO at The Stand — Which local members of Congress are playing hide-and-seek at recess?
► In today’s NY Times — Can the GOP turn back the tide of town hall anger? (by Arthur C. Brooks) — Members of Congress facing furious crowds could learn a lesson from social science and start treating protesters as individuals.
ELECTIONS
ALSO at The Stand — The theft of the next election is under way (by Mark M. McDermott)
► In today’s NY Times — The broken Supreme Court (by Linda Greenhouse) — Making a court vacancy a highly visible part of a Republican electoral strategy stamps the court as an electoral prize, pure and simple.
► MUST-SEE from Last Week Tonight — John Oliver on gerrymandering — Lawmakers often reshape voting districts to shift the balance of political power. Instead of voters choosing politicians, it’s politicians choosing their own voters.
THAT WASHINGTON
► From Politico — Trump reverses stances on China as currency manipulator, Ex-Im Bank — President Trump backed off his campaign promise to label China a currency manipulator and signalled support for the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which he had bashed on the campaign trail.
► From The Hill — Trump promises ‘pleasant surprises’ on NAFTA — Trump told a group of CEOs at a White House meeting: “We’ll have some very pleasant surprises for you on NAFTA.”
► In today’s NY Times — Whose side is Betsy DeVos on? (editorial) — At a time when student loan borrowers are suffering, they may lose federal protections.
ALSO at The Stand — AFT: DeVos moves to reinstate ‘Wild West of student loans’
► From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — Trump administration wealthiest in history (editorial) — The torrent of financial disclosure forms that the White House released March 31 confirms it: The Trump administration is the wealthiest in history. The combined net worth of the Cabinet members and President Donald Trump’s top advisers exceeds $12 billion. Trump is no populist. He’s the plutocrat in chief.
NATIONAL
► In the La Crosse Tribune — Republican lawmakers seek full repeal of prevailing wage law — Republican state lawmakers signaled Tuesday that they will push to fully repeal the state’s prevailing wage, a minimum pay requirement for workers on public construction projects.
PREVIOUSLY at The Stand — WSLC, others seek state probe of farm wage manipulation (Jan. 6, 2016) — A state agency found that “guidance” provided by WAFLA resulted in growers providing wage data at odds with data provided in previous years, substantially lowering the prevailing wages of H-2A workers in Washington state.
► In today’s NY Times — Reality show workers stage walkout to push contract talks forward — The Writers Guild renewed its push for reality show workers to get a contract separate traditional screenwriters, staging what it called a walkout at roughly a dozen reality show companies in New York and Los Angeles.
► In today’s
TODAY’S MUST-READ
Trump is a symptom, not the cause, of the crisis we now face. It is written, in fact, into the very fabric of our society. And the only way we’ll avert the disintegration of our political system — as Lincoln and the abolitionists did in their day, and the Roosevelts and the progressives did in theirs — is first to understand its origins.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.