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Our national shame | Health care sabotage | Ye’s 41

Friday, June 8, 2018

 


OUR NATIONAL SHAME

 

► From KUOW — Immigrant moms torn from kids at border jailed in SeaTac — As many as 209 asylum seekers captured near the U.S.-Mexico border have been transferred to a federal prison in SeaTac — many of them women who had their children taken from them by federal agents, immigrant rights attorneys say… Federal prosecutors charged the mothers with unlawful entry, a federal misdemeanor. They’ve served their sentences, however, and were sent to federal prisons pending the asylum application process. Their children are currently being held in unknown government facilities elsewhere. “The mothers are desperate to find out exactly what is happening because they don’t know even where [their children] are,” said Matt Adams of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Immigrant rights advocates and community supporters plan to rally Saturday, June 9 from 1:30 to 4 p.m. outside the SeaTac prison in solidarity with the immigrant mothers being imprisoned there and separated from their children. Get details.

► From The Stranger — Immigrant mothers separated from children are being held in a SeaTac prison — ICE has entered an agreement with the Bureau of Prisons to access 209 beds at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center.

► In the NY Times — Taking migrant children from parents is illegal, U.N. tells U.S. — The Trump administration’s practice of separating children from migrant families entering the United States violates their rights and international law, the United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday, urging an immediate halt to the practice.

► From Reuters — U.S. sending 1,600 immigration detainees to federal prisons — This is the first large-scale use of federal prisons to hold detainees amid a Trump administration crackdown on people entering the country illegally.

► From The Hill — Iowa student killed after being deported to Mexico — An Iowa high school student was killed three weeks after he was deported from the U.S. back to Mexico, the country he left when he was 3 years old. Manuel Antonio Cano Pacheco was scheduled to graduate from high school last month but died just after being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). His mother said that Pacheco was once a recipient of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected young people who were brought into the country illegally as children from deportation but his DACA renewal had not come through on time.

► In today’s Washington Post — Ryan promises immigration legislation in hopes of avoiding a showdown among House Republicans — Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday promised to produce legislation that meets President Trump’s hard-line immigration demands and addresses the fate of young undocumented immigrants in a last-ditch effort to stop a challenge from restive Republicans. A group of two dozen GOP moderates have set a Tuesday deadline for a rogue campaign to force votes on their immigration bill over the objections of leadership.

 


LOCAL

 

► In today’s Yakima H-R — CWU breaks ground on $56 million expansion — Work on a $56 million group of construction projects at Central Washington University began Thursday. The four projects include a new residence hall, a replacement for the school’s track and field, renovations to Tomlinson Stadium and adding extra dining facilities. University officials say the projects are in response to growing enrollment.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Infrastructure investment = JOBS + Improved public services

 


THIS WASHINGTON

 

► From AP — State Supreme Court: Compliance reached in McCleary education funding case — A long-running court case over the adequacy of education funding in Washington state has ended, with the state Supreme Court on Thursday lifting its jurisdiction over the case and dropping daily sanctions after the Legislature funneled billions more dollars into public schools.

► From AP — New laws take effect in Washington this week — More than 200 new laws take effect in Washington this week, including a package of bills meant to address sexual misconduct at the workplace.

ALSO TODAY at The Stand — All workers in Washington now have equal pay protections

► From EOI — You can now ask your male coworkers if they’re being paid more than you (by Marilyn Watkins) —  All of these new rights are the result of thousands of individuals speaking out, organizing, and working together to make our democracy work for us. New rights under the Equal Pay and Opportunity Act won’t end employment disparities overnight, but greater transparency in wages and career opportunities should help push both workplace practices and culture towards more equitable outcomes.

► In today’s News Tribune — Inslee emerging as credible bull in cattle call for U.S. president (editorial) — As chair of the Democratic Governors Association, he has articulated that the 2018 governors’ races should be a mandate against all of Trump’s policies. Name a progressive issue important to Democrats — the Affordable Care Act, net neutrality, women’s reproductive rights, clean energy and gun control, to name a few — and chances are Inslee’s helped lead the charge… Whether Inslee actually runs for president in 2020 remains to be seen. But in a primary crop that could include a cornucopia of far-left and far-right candidates, he just might present a reasonable choice for American voters.

 


THAT WASHINGTON

 

► In today’s Washington Post — Trump administration won’t defend ACA in case brought by GOP states — The Trump administration said Thursday night that it will not defend the Affordable Care Act against the latest legal challenge to its constitutionality — a dramatic break from the executive branch’s tradition of arguing to uphold existing statutes and a land mine for health insurance changes the ACA brought about.

► In today’s NY Times — Justice Dept. says crucial provisions of ACA are unconstitutional — The Trump administration told a federal court on Thursday that it would no longer defend crucial provisions of the Affordable Care Act that protect consumers with pre-existing medical conditions. Under those provisions of the law, insurance companies cannot deny coverage or charge higher rates to people with pre-existing conditions.

EDITOR’S NOTE — After railing against this law for years and vowing to repeal it, Republicans (who control all branches of the federal government) didn’t have the votes to kill these increasingly popular consumer protections. So now, they will step aside so their state-level compatriots can kill it in the courts. Meanwhile, they have managed to destabilize insurance markets with Trump’s executive orders and other efforts to undermine the law, leading to dramatic cost increases for American employers and citizens. All of this is horrible news for Americans who are struggling to retain (or gain) access to affordable health coverage… you know, so the citizens of the richest nation on Earth can get medical treatment when they are sick or injured.

► Meanwhile, from Politico — The 2 words you can’t say in a Democratic ad

EDITOR’S NOTE — Spoiler alert (and click-bait headline defeater): They’re “single payer.”

► In today’s Washington Post — Trump calls for reinstating Russia to G-7, threatens allies on trade — President Trump said Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven leading economies, breaking with other world leaders who have insisted Moscow remain ostracized following its involvement in the 2014 Crimean crisis.

► From Reuters — Trump vows to deal with ‘unfair trade’ ahead of tense G7 summit

► From The Hill — GOP senators want NAFTA deal from Trump by Labor Day

► In today’s NY Times — The cult of Trump (editorial) — This week’s primary elections underscored the striking degree to which President Trump has transformed the Republican Party from a political organization into a cult of personality… Assuming that American democracy endures, a party organized around a single extreme personality seems like a brittle proposition. But Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican psyche is unusually powerful by historical standards, because it is about so much more than electoral dynamics. Through his demagogic command of the party’s base, he has emerged as the shameless, trash-talking, lib-owning fulcrum around which the entire enterprise revolves.

 


NATIONAL

 

► From The American Prospect — Missouri’s Greitens guts public-sector unions on his way out the door — In the waning hours of his tenure as governor after resigning in disgrace, Republican Eric Greitens delivered on his campaign pledge to kneecap the state’s labor unions. He signed a bill requiring unionized government employees to vote every three years on whether they want their union to continue to represent them.

► In the Charleston Post and Courier — Fair treatment for Boeing workers (letter) — These Boeing workers have proudly stood up for the fair treatment that they’ve earned. What’s more, as union membership continues to surge in South Carolina and throughout the country, they have a growing movement of brothers and sisters watching their backs.

PREVIOUSLY at The Stand — Boeing South Carolina unit votes to join together with IAM (June 1)

 


T.G.I.F.

 

► Today is Kanye West’s 41st birthday. We know, we know. His attention-grabbing nonsense has ranged from shocking to regrettable to truly offensive. And his bromance with Donald Trump is hard to stomach. But despite his outrageous comments and behavior, his critical acclaim and fan base continue to grow. His latest album released this week, Ye, will debut at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, just like each of his last seven albums. Kanye is among the best-selling musical artists of all time, ahead of his modern peers Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and even Adele (but not Taylor Swift), and he’s won a remarkable 21 Grammy Awards. Three of his albums are ranked on Rolling Stones “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

We polled The Entire Staff of The Stand’s children and a super-majority (2 of 3) said the best concert they have ever seen was Kanye’s Yeezus tour in 2013. (The holdout’s answer, if you’re interested, was Bombay Bicycle Club.) You may hate Kanye for his calculated controversies, shameless self-promotion and pointless politics, but as he demonstrates in this powerful SNL performance, this guy is committed to his music and his speech. “I’ve been a menace for the longest / But I ain’t finished, I’m devoted / And you know it, and you know it!”

 

Or, if you prefer something a little lighter from Ye, there’s always “Poopy di scoop!”

 


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