DAILY NEWS
Strike closes BTC, Times vs. gift horse, America says let DREAMers stay
Monday, September 25, 2017
LOCAL
ALSO at The Stand — Bellingham Technical College staff vote to strike Monday
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — EvCC teachers take their contract concerns to the board — Roughly 20 members of the Everett Community College faculty appeared at a Board of Trustees meeting as their union president voiced their frustration over slow-moving contract negotiations. They wore buttons, saying a cost-of-living increase doesn’t amount to a raise and urging support for the college’s counselors.
► In today’s Seattle Times — New Seattle mayor revives plan to offer all workers IRAs — Seattle Mayor Tim Burgess says the city should move ahead with a plan to set up retirement-savings accounts for as many as 200,000 private-sector workers.
► In today’s Seattle Times — I owe a debt of gratitude to UW’s immigrant janitors (by Michiyas Assefa) — I have come to understand that we students are the dividend of a long-positioned investment — the actualization of a dream that was conceived many years ago.
STATE GOVERNMENT
ALSO at The Stand — Volunteer to help Manka Dhingra break the gridlock in Olympia
► In the Seattle Times — Meet the district that could change Washington state’s political landscape — By a fluke of fate and a consequence of math, the voters in the 45th Legislative District will likely decide the balance of power in the state Legislature.
ALSO at The Stand — Momentum builds for Alliance’s climate change campaign
► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Here’s what to do if you want to vote and aren’t registered — National Voter Registration Day is Tuesday. In Washington, those looking to participate in this year’s General Election have until Oct. 9 to register online or make address changes and other updates. Oct. 30 is the deadline for new voter registrations prior to the General Election. Those registrations must happen in person at a new registrant’s county elections department. Counties will mail out General Election ballots by Oct. 20. The General Election ends Nov. 7.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Reason for rate drop in workers’ comp should be clearer (editorial) — No one will accurately trace the paternity of the workers-comp rate drop. As John F. Kennedy said, success has a thousand fathers.
We’re all for being skeptical of what government agencies report. We certainly doubt what we hear from the other Washington these days. But why not talk to a business or labor representative on the Workers’ Compensation Advisory Committee, which oversees the L&I system and, not coincidentally, meets today? If the Times had done so, they might have seen this chart or this chart or others backing up L&I’s report.
Instead of doing that, the Times lazily invites a state corporate lobbying group to speculate what bad news might have caused the good news, while giving that group a platform (once again) to spew the false narrative that the whole system is “one of the most expensive and administratively complex in the nation.” That is, of course, demonstrably untrue (see the chart below.) With this editorial, the Times demonstrates it has bought into that false narrative and can see/hear/speak nothing but evil about L&I.
TRUMPCARE
ALSO at The Stand — Republicans try to buy votes to kill ACA
► From HuffPost — A new Trumpcare draft is out and it attacks pre-existing protections more severely — Republicans on Sunday evening circulated a new version of their embattled legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now the legislation includes a pair of important changes — an even more aggressive assault on protections for people with pre-existing conditions, as well as some extra money to blunt the impact of funding cuts for a handful of states.
► From The Hill — Poll: Majority disapproves of latest Trumpcare bill — Just 20 percent of respondents in the poll approve of the bill, sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Even among Republicans, approval ratings for the bill don’t reach 50 percent.
► In the Spokesman-Review (the home newspaper of the only member of Congress from Washington who voted for ACA repeal) — Cassidy-Graham just another hasty mistake (editorial) — If put through the regular rigors of legislating, Cassidy-Graham would die on the merits. It’s only because of political considerations that it still has a pulse. Let it go. Do it the right way. This is too important.
THAT WASHINGTON
ALSO at The Stand — DREAM nurse speaks out to save DACA
► In today’s Washington Post — White House expands travel ban, restricting visitors from eight countries — The Trump administration announced new restrictions Sunday on visitors from eight countries — an expansion of the preexisting travel ban that has spurred fierce legal debates over security, immigration and discrimination.
► From HuffPost — Rights groups decry new travel restrictions: ‘This is still a Muslim ban’ — President Donald Trump’s third attempt to restrict travel to the United States from a handful of countries is just as xenophobic as the previous ones, refugee advocates and human rights groups lamented.
► From Politico — GOP tax blueprint to propose slashing corporate, individual rates — A Republican tax reform blueprint to be released this week is expected to call for slashing both corporate and individual tax rates. The plan will also propose eliminating a deduction for state and local taxes.
► In today’s Washington Post — New details of GOP tax plan reveal focus on wealthy — White House officials and Republican leaders are preparing a set of broad income and corporate tax cuts while also looking for a way to keep their plan from being a massive windfall for the wealthiest Americans.
► Drip, drip, drip from Politico — Kushner used private email to conduct White House business — The senior adviser set up the account after the election. Other West Wing officials have also used private email accounts for official business.
EDITOR’S NOTE — But… but… you know… Hillary!
NATIONAL
► In the Washington Post — Deaths of farmworkers in cow manure ponds put oversight of dairy farms into question — The deaths have rattled Idaho’s dairy industry as well as local immigrant communities that do the bulk of the work producing nearly 15 billion pounds of milk annually on the industrial-sized farms in the state’s southern prairie. As farms have transitioned from family operations into big businesses involving thousands of cows and massive machinery, new safety concerns have emerged.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.