DAILY NEWS
ITMFA, Hanford collapse, Cathy’s cruel vote, voter ID damage…
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
► In today’s Washington Post — Lawmakers fear Comey’s removal might upend or stall Russia probe — Legislators on both sides of the aisle are calling for an independent body to continue the investigation into possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
► From Politico — Behind Comey’s firing: An enraged Trump, fuming about Russia — President Donald Trump weighed firing his FBI director for more than a week. He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.
► Meanwhile, from The Hill — Senate Republican leader defends Trump decision to fire Comey
► From TPM — McConnell defends Trump’s firing of Comey, opposes new investigations — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as director of the FBI. McConnell also argued against appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
LOCAL
► In today’s Seattle Times — Seattle Mayor Ed Murray won’t seek second term: ‘It tears me to pieces to step away’ — Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s announcement that he is ending his campaign for re-election amid allegations of child sexual abuse ends a political career that has spanned decades.
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Boeing sent 580 layoff notices to union workers in April — Most went to union workers: 217 to members of IAM District Lodge 751 and 277 to SPEEA members. It is not clear how many non-union workers were laid off. Company executives have indicated more layoffs could come later this year.
ALSO at The Stand — Amid Boeing job cuts, legislators eye tax break accountability
► In today’s Seattle Times — That’s rich: Seattle and the world’s two wealthiest men (by Jon Talton) — Earlier this spring, Bloomberg calculated that the No. 1 and No. 2 richest people on the planet were Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. One can hardly say Seattle is an anti-business blue-city hellhole when it attracts such moguls — and, more importantly, the headquarters and thousands of well-paying jobs from their enterprises.
THIS WASHINGTON
► From KNKX — Still no budget deal halfway through Washington’s special session — As budget talks creep along behind the scenes, outside groups are exerting pressure on lawmakers. Democrats are getting pressure from the state teachers’ union, who have been sending unionized teachers down to the Capitol every day of the special session to sort of occupy the Capitol. On some days the number of teachers have outnumbered the number of state lawmakers. But that’s because most days, only the budget negotiators are at the Capitol.
TRUMPCARE
ALSO at The Stand:
Unions’ full-page ad to McMorris Rodgers: ‘Shame on you’
Federal, state Medicaid cuts are the real ‘death panels’ (by Brendan Williams)
► In the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin — McMorris Rodgers’ vote shows cruel disregard (letter) — A party that claims to be “pro-life” has just voted in a bill that will condemn many Americans to death. A party that includes many self-proclaimed Christians has turned its back on the sick, the poor, the elderly. And our elected representative, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, was among the most enthusiastic supporters of this legislative attack upon the most vulnerable.
► From Spokane Public Radio — Progressive group holds Town Hall, minus McMorris Rodgers — A series of speakers criticized McMorris Rodgers for her vote last week in support of the House Republican health care plan. Many shared their own stories and talked about their worries that the new plan would lead to many people losing their health care.
► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Health care talk dominates Herrera Beutler town hall — The meeting, held via conference call, drew over 5,000 participants. As Herrera Beutler started taking questions the tone was mostly cordial: many callers thanked her for her “no” vote last week on the American Health Care Act. But she reaffirmed that she does not support universal health care.
► From the CBO — CBO to release estimate for House-passed version of the AHCA early in the week of May 22
► In today’s Washington Post — Senate Republicans face their own divisions in push for health-care overhaul — a group of Republican senators , which presently numbers 13, is at the center of a fragile connection between hard-liners and leadership that may be the Senate’s best chance to pass its own version. The strategy is to keep them talking until consensus is reached, in a process that could drag on for months.
► From The Hill — Reporter arrested after repeatedly questioning Health secretary — Dan Heyman, a reporter for Public News Service, said he was arrested at the West Virginia State Capitol after trying to ask Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price a question about the House-passed healthcare bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
THAT WASHINGTON
► From NPR — Businesses push back on paid sick leave laws — Business groups are helping draft a Republican proposal in the House of Representatives. The terms aren’t finalized, but the basic idea is to set a floor for the amount of paid sick leave employers could voluntarily offer. If that minimum threshold is met, she says, the employer would then be exempt from state or local regulations.
► In today’s Washington Post — U.S. Census director quits as funding crisis looms for 2020 count — John H. Thompson’s resignation, which surprised census experts, follows an April congressional budget allocation for the census that critics say is woefully inadequate.
NATIONAL
► From the AFL-CIO — 5 things you need to know from the AFL-CIO’s new Executive Paywatch Report — On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO released the 2017 edition of its Executive Paywatch report. The average compensation for an S&P 500 CEO last year was $13.1 million. In contrast, production and nonsupervisory workers earned only $37,632, on average, in 2016. The average S&P 500 CEO makes 347 times what an average U.S. rank-and-file worker makes.
► In the NY Daily News — Google exec Sundar Pichai leads the pack of highly compensated CEOs with $200M salary in 2016 — Google exec Sundar Pichai made over $200 million in 2016 — doubling his pay from the year before, which was already more than 2,000 times what the average American worker earned. Pichai’s not alone, according to the AFL-CIO’s annual executive paywatch report, released Tuesday.
► From The Nation — Wisconsin’s voter-ID law suppressed 200,000 votes in 2016 (Trump won there by 22,748) — A new study by Priorities USA shows that strict voter-ID laws, in Wisconsin and other states, led to a significant reduction in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters.
► In today’s NY Times — Why Yale graduate students are on a hunger strike (by Jennifer Klein) — Two weeks ago, Yale graduate student teachers began a hunger strike to pressure the school to negotiate with their union… The measures these graduate student teachers are taking are dramatic. But their cause — a fight for decent, secure wages and comprehensive benefits — has implications for the entire labor market.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.