Monday, August 12, 2019

IMMIGRATION

► From Reuters — Trump administration moves to block immigrants who may need government aid — Trump’s administration unveiled a new rule on Monday that could deny visas and permanent residency to hundreds of thousands of people for being too poor. The rule, pushed by Trump’s leading aide on immigration, Stephen Miller, takes effect Oct. 15 and would reject applicants for temporary or permanent visas for failing to meet income standards or for receiving public assistance such as welfare, food stamps, public housing or Medicaid.

EDITOR’S NOTE — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

EDITOR’S NOTE 2 — “Blessed are the poor.”

► From The Hill — Trump administration mulls decertifying immigration judges’ union — The Trump administration has reportedly taken a step to decertify an immigration judges’ union that has been repeatedly critical of Trump and the White House’s policy proposals.

► From Time magazine — Hundreds of their workers were arrested in Mississippi ICE raids, but no employers have been charged yet — Hundreds of employees at seven worksites across Mississippi were swept up Wednesday in the largest immigration raid in at least a decade. Their employers are yet to be charged. They might never be. They typically aren’t.

► From TPM — CBP chief forced to explain why ICE raids haven’t targeted Trump’s companies — Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan on Sunday had to explain why sweeping immigration raids haven’t affected Trump’s companies despite multiple reports of those companies hiring undocumented immigrants.

► From The Onion — Koch Foods CEO applauds immigrant arrests as consequence of illegally accepting job at Koch Foods — “These people must be held accountable for my company’s hiring practices because they’re taking American jobs that I offered them,” said billionaire Koch Foods CEO Joseph Grendys.

LOCAL

► In today’s Tri-City Herald — Blueberry season is half over. Feds say growers must pay pickers 50% more. — One of Washington’s largest blueberry growers is threatening to cut short the 2019 harvest and replace human pickers with machines next year. That’s the company’s reaction to a recent mandatory pay rate increase for guest workers. Selah-based Zirkle Fruit is suing in federal court to block the Department of Labor’s 75 cent-a-pound prevailing wage piece rate for guest workers.

► In today’s (Longview) Daily News — Despite coal lawsuits, Millennium still humming along — While the company awaits court decisions that could decide the fate of its controversial coal terminal — which would occupy about one-third of the 540-acre property — managers say they will continue to seek new projects to fill its Longview site.

ALSO TODAY at The Stand — A win-win for labor, environment in Kalama (by Mike Bridges)

THIS WASHINGTON

► In the (Everett) Herald — Another big ballot battle is brewing on the cost of car tabs — Initiative 976, the latest handiwork of Tim Eyman, seeks to cap car tab fees at $30, erase most of the motor vehicle excise tax collected by Sound Transit, and wipe out fees now imposed by cities through transportation benefit districts. If approved on the Nov. 5 general election ballot, and if it withstands an almost certain legal challenge, it would siphon off millions of dollars flowing into accounts used each year to buy buses, expand transit service, repave streets, maintain ferries, build roads, fix bridges and run the Washington State Patrol.

EDITOR’S NOTE — The Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO is urging union members and their families to vote NO on Eyman’s I-976.

► In the News Tribune — Student care imperiled by budget cuts, nurses say. ‘Somebody’s going to get really hurt.’ — Splitting their work week between schools means some will only have a registered nurse on site one day a week. When RNs aren’t on site, assistant nurses or office staff — who are not required to have medical certifications — care for students.

► In the News Tribune — Ex-strate senator Pam Roach plans to retire next year

EDITOR’S NOTE — If somebody gives her retirement flowers, do… not… take them.

THAT WASHINGTON

► In the NY Times — Trump finds a brawler for his war on workers (by Nicolas Kristof) — President Trump talks a good game about helping American workers but has pursued arguably the most anti-labor agenda of any modern president. Now he has doubled down by choosing for secretary of labor a corporate lawyer who has spent his career battling workers. This is a bit like nominating Typhoid Mary to be health secretary… Trump campaigned in 2016 as a voice for forgotten workers, but he consistently sides with large corporations against workers, and his nomination of Eugene Scalia would amplify the sad and damaging war on unions.

► From Politico — Some labor unions split with Biden on ‘Medicare for All’ — Joe Biden and other moderate Democratic candidates opposed to “Medicare for All” have cast the plan as anti-labor, arguing it would leave union members worse off by stripping them of the health care benefits they painstakingly negotiated. But not all labor unions agree.

► From HuffPost — Farmers lash out at Trump after latest trade war blow from China — “It’s really, really getting bad out here,” said Bob Kuylen, a North Dakota farmer of 35 years. “Trump is ruining our markets.”

NATIONAL

► From CBS Pittsburgh — American Federation Of Teachers threatens Walmart boycott over gun sales — “If Walmart continues to provide funding to lawmakers who are standing in the way of gun reform, teachers and students should reconsider doing their back-to-school shopping at your stores,” AFT president Randi Weingarten wrote in an Aug. 7 letter to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon.

► In the NY Times — Fraud case against bus maker shows risks of pay promises in city contracts — Bus maker New Flyer won a contract, worth about $500 million, to build buses for the Los Angeles County MTA, by promising good jobs. But the company did not pay the wages it said it would and misrepresented the value of the benefits it was providing, according to pay stubs and corporate reports recently unsealed in the fraud case.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► In the NY Times — How the El Paso killer echoed the incendiary words of conservative media stars — There is a striking degree of overlap between the words of right-wing media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh and the language used by the Texas man who confessed to killing 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso this month. In a 2,300-word screed posted on the website 8chan, the killer wrote that he was “simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”

ALSO at The Stand — We must forcefully call out, condemn white supremacy (by Larry Brown and April Sims)

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