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Big Business’s boy ● Trump’s health care hike ● Fast-food poaching

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

 


SUPREME COURT

 

► In today’s Washington — Brett Kavanaugh is nominated by Trump — President Trump on Monday nominated federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, elevating a conservative stalwart with deep ties to the Republican establishment to succeed retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and triggering a partisan war over the court’s future. Republican leaders firmly believe that Kavanaugh could be instrumental in pitching the ideological makeup of the court to the right and leaving a conservative imprint on the law for a generation.

ALSO TODAY at The Stand — AFL-CIO: Kavanaugh puts workers’ rights at serious risk

► From HuffPost — Who is Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court? — “(Kavanaugh) has written almost entirely in favor of big businesses, employers in employment disputes, and against defendants in criminal cases,” noted Adam Feldman, a lawyer who publishes the Supreme Court analysis blog Empirical SCOTUS.

► From TPM — Collins, Murkowski hedge their bets after Kavanaugh announcement — Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), widely regarded as Democrats’ best chance to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination, hedged their bets after the announcement Monday to obfuscate how they’ll vote on the candidate.

► From Reuters — Trump’s top court pick tests Senate Democrats — It may soon become difficult to determine who sits in the hotter seat: Kavanaugh or Senate Democrats from conservative states.

► From The Onion — Viewers annoyed episode of ‘The Bachelorette’ interrupted just to announce person who will set back social progress 40 years

► Not from The Onion, from HuffPost — Mitch McConnell to Democrats: Treat Trump’s SCOTUS pick ‘fairly’

 


THIS WASHINGTON

 

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Ballot measure would ban local taxes on groceries and soda — Initiative 1634, a ballot measure barring cities from taxing soda pop and many common foods, will provide much-needed protection for working families who would be hit hardest by such taxes, supporters said Monday. “People are worried about how Washington is becoming less affordable,” said Pete Lamb of Teamsters Local 174. “They don’t want local governments to tax their groceries, too.”

EDITOR’S NOTE — The Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO took no position on I-1634 at its political endorsement convention.

 


THAT WASHINGTON

 

► From The Hill — Insurers scramble after Trump suspends billions in ACA payments — The Trump administration’s abrupt suspension of billions of dollars in payments to Affordable Care Act insurers has prompted new warnings of rising premiums as health companies scramble to adjust. Insurers are pressing the administration to resolve the issue and resume the payments, arguing that premiums will rise for ObamaCare enrollees if funding is cut off.

► In today’s NY Times — Judge rules migrant families cannot be detained long-term — The ruling is a significant legal setback to the president’s immigration agenda and comes as authorities prepare to reunite 54 young migrants with their parents.

► In today’s NY Times — Federal judge reacts to citizenship query put on U.S. census — The Trump administration says it needs the question to enforce voting rights. But a federal judge said it appeared that the Commerce Department had acted in “bad faith.”

► In today’s Washington Post — Anatomy of a Trump rally: 76 percent of claims are false, misleading or lacking evidence — The president made 98 factual claims at a Montana rally. We found that 76 percent were false, misleading or unsupported by evidence.

► In today’s Washington Post — Progressive insurgents are propelling Democrats into the future (by Katrina vanden Heuvel) — Since the 2016 presidential election, Democrats have been seeking a message that can pierce the cacophony of Trumpism. While party leaders have vaguely promised a “better deal” for working people, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks of “economic dignity” while stating clearly that “no person in America should be too poor to live.” The past month has been a painful reminder that Americans are not merely politically divided; we are engaged in a moral battle that will define the country for years to come. Democrats would be wise to embrace the passion that progressive insurgents are bringing to the fight and the universal principle that working people’s voices need to be heard. As Ocasio-Cortez put it, “There’s nothing radical about moral clarity in 2018.”

 


NATIONAL

 

► In today’s Washington Post — States launch investigation targeting fast-food hiring practices — Attorneys general in 10 states and the District of Columbia are launching an investigation of contracts at fast-food chains that prevent their workers from switching franchises, targeting a practice some economists say drags down wages for millions of Americans. The group will send letters to eight fast-food companies requesting information about “no-poaching” agreements that bar or restrict managers from hiring workers at another store in the same chain. About 80 percent of fast-food workers are constricted by no-poaching clauses, according to one estimate.

 


The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.

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