NEWS ROUNDUP
SS Steiner strike, Sinclair silent, Murray scores, no sense of decency
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
LOCAL
► In today’s Yakima H-R — Striking S.S. Steiner workers in Yakima say their rights are on the line — For more than a month, about two dozen workers from S.S. Steiner’s pellet and warehouse departments have been picketing outside the company’s Yakima facility… To those not familiar with the process, the dispute may appear to be a quibble over contract language. But for the workers, Teamsters 760 officials and other union advocates, S.S. Steiner’s request is a hard stab at workers’ rights and the ability to speak up on working conditions. “They’re just trying to weaken the union; It’s a union-busting tactic,” said Leonard Crouch, Teamsters 760’s secretary-treasurer. “It’s a death of a thousand cuts.”
ALSO at The Stand — Support S.S. Steiner hops strikers in Yakima (by Paul Parmley)
ALSO at The Stand — Did Sinclair buy KOMO to shut it down? (by Dave Twedell)
► From AP — Boeing beats Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings forecast — Boeing posted better-than-expected, third-quarter net income of $1.85 billion and raised its outlook for the year. Shares of Boeing Co. are up more than 90 percent in the past 12 months and more than 70 percent this year.
► In today’s Bellingham Herald — Whatcom is experiencing job growth in industries that tend to pay higher wage — Whatcom County’s unemployment rate has drifted downward to a level not seen in a decade.
► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Cowlitz employment still hitting record levels
► From The Stranger — Seattle/King County’s massive, 4-day free health and dental clinic launches this Thursday — For the fourth year in a row, the Seattle/King County Clinic will repurpose KeyArena into something that in looks and scale resembles an emergency response after a natural disaster. But as former Stranger art critic Jen Graves once put it, the disaster is wholly unnatural: “This time, the disaster is the American health care system,’ she wrote.
THIS WASHINGTON
► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Millennium sues Ecology, fights state permit denialWith the future of the Longview coal dock at stake, Millennium Bulk Terminals is suing the state Department of Ecology and arguing that the state agency unfairly and illegally denied a key permit for the project last month.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Is McCleary plan enough? Justices appear frustrated — Washington’s Supreme Court justices on Tuesday weighed whether lawmakers have done enough to fulfill the court’s landmark school-funding ruling, known as the McCleary decision.
► From The Hill — Harassment, then helplessness, in state capitals — For women in state legislatures across the country who routinely experience what they call a pervasive culture of sexual harassment, assault and retaliation, there is often little or no recourse.
HEALTH CARE
► TODAY from the Congressional Budget Office — Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act of 2017 — CBO and the JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would reduce the deficit by $3.8 billion over the 2018–2027 period without substantially changing the number of people with health insurance coverage, on net.
► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Congress must stabilize health insurance (editorial) — The Murray-Alexander deal would extend CSR payments for another two years while providing states more flexibility. It helps nobody to undermine the current market with no immediate replacement in sight. Scoring political points at the expense of health care coverage should be off the table.
► From The Hill — Groups in scramble to delay ACA taxes — The medical device and insurance industries are fighting to stop Affordable Care Act taxes from taking effect now that it’s clear the law will remain on the books next year.
THAT WASHINGTON
► In today’s Washington Post — ‘Dangerous,’ ‘utterly untruthful’: Retiring GOP senators sound alarm on Trump — In an extraordinary breach, Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee questioned the president’s fitness for office and warned that his actions presented a danger to the nation, remarks that escalated a civil war roiling the party ahead of the 2018 midterms.
► In today’s Washington Post — Enough (by Sen. Jeff Flake) — As I contemplate the Trump presidency, I cannot help but think of Joseph Welch. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, Welch asked Sen. Joseph McCarthy for his attention and told him to listen with both ears: “Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.” And then, in words that today echo from his time to ours, Welch delivered the coup de grace: “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
EDITOR’S NOTE — The answer is “no.” No sense of decency…
► From The Hill — Trump mocks Flake, mentions ‘standing ovation’ for third time
► From Politico — Poll: Voters see Trump as reckless, not honest — Reckless. Thin-skinned. Not honest. Not compassionate. Not stable. Those aren’t just the extraordinary, harsh judgments of President Donald Trump by two retiring, Republican senators on Tuesday — they are also shared by majorities of voters in a new poll.
► In today’s NY Times — Another Republican call to arms, but who will answer? — George W. Bush. John McCain. Bob Corker. And now Jeff Flake of Arizona, who delivered a stinging indictment of President Trump and his own party on the Senate floor on Tuesday. The four men represent a new type of freedom caucus, one whose members are free to speak their minds about the president and how they see his words and actions diminishing the United States and its standing in the world without fear of the political backlash from hard-right conservatives. But who — if anyone — will follow?
► In today’s NY Times — ‘Army’ of lobbyists hits Capitol Hill to preserve NAFTA — Automakers, retailers and other business leaders stormed Capitol Hill on Tuesday in an extraordinary show of force against a Republican president they fear will cripple or kill the North American Free Trade Agreement, an outcome business leaders said could devastate their profits and harm the United States’ ability to compete in a global market.
► From HuffPost — Elizabeth Warren reams GOP: ‘The system is rigged’ against Americans — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Senate Republicans’ vote to overturn a regulation to help consumers fight Wall Street is proof that “the system is rigged.”
TRICKLE-DOWN TAX CUTS
► In today’s Washington Post — House GOP tax leader threatens to break Trump’s promise not to change 401(k) rules — House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady suggested a tax bill he is preparing could lower the tax-free amount Americans can contribute to their retirement accounts, potentially bucking a pledge from President Trump that those accounts would be left alone.
► From Politico — Schumer takes hard line with Trump on taxes — Chuck Schumer has shown he’s willing to cut deals with President Donald Trump. But the Senate minority leader says Democrats will take a hard-line approach with the White House on taxes — and everything else — until Trump’s GOP-only approach hits a dead end.
NATIONAL
► From the AFL-CIO — Highlights from Day 3 of the AFL-CIO 2017 Convention
► In today’s Seattle Times — Stuck in part-time work — a new American dilemma (by Jon Talton) — A humming economy and record stock market aren’t enough to help some people get better work. More people — 5.1 million — want full-time work but are stuck in part-time jobs than at any equivalent time during an expansion since the 1980s. And to be clear, this doesn’t include those who choose to work part-time.
► In today’s NY Times — At a steel plant, layoffs and a request: Train your replacement (video) — After an Indianapolis factory said it would move production to Mexico, two longtime friends disagree whether to help the company train their replacements.
► From The Onion — Jeff Bezos’ heart breaks a little reading Albany’s Amazon headquarters pitch — “Oh, jeez, you can tell they put a lot of work into this sad presentation — they even provided a concept sketch of our headquarters across the river from their little Amtrak station,” said Bezos… At press time, Amazon had reportedly received an addendum to Albany’s proposal noting they are optimistic that United Airlines may begin offering flights between their city and Detroit within the next year.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.