Tuesday, November 12, 2019

BOEING

► In today’s Seattle Times — Boeing says FAA’s OK for 737 MAX should come next month, but commercial flights will take longer — Boeing said Monday it expects the FAA to clear the grounded 737 MAX as safe to fly again in late December, but the FAA likely won’t finalize a new MAX pilot training regimen until January. That means Boeing may be able to resume deliveries of the jet to airlines before year end, but that the airplanes won’t be cleared to carry passengers until as much as a month later.

► From Business Insider — FAA considered grounding 38 Southwest jets over incomplete maintenance records — The FAA recently considered grounding more than three dozen Southwest Airlines jets, after the airline failed to provide documentation confirming that the jets meet safety standards.

THIS WASHINGTON

► In today’s Spokesman-Review — Ferguson says his office can defend I-976 from legal challenges — The state attorney general’s office seems likely to defend the successful car tabs initiative against threatened legal challenges, despite calls from Tim Eyman and Sen. Steve O’Ban (R-University Place) that the state hire outside lawyers. Officials from the city of Seattle, King County and Sound Transit all announced last week they are considering lawsuits to challenge the constitutionality of the law.

► From KUOW — Rash of nursing home closures in Washington prompts proposals to raise Medicaid rates — In response to a rash of nursing home closures in Washington, Sen. O’Ban is calling for an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates and other steps to stave off additional closures. He has pre-filed legislation for the 2020 legislative session that would require nursing home Medicaid rates to be recalculated annually beginning next year and tied to inflation.

► In today’s News Tribune — Here’s a bad sign for moderate Republicans in Washington: out-of-bounds behavior at UW, WSU (editorial) — Clearly, Republican organizations are unhappy with the direction young Washington conservatives are going, and they’re chartering other students to take up a more moderate mantle at UW and WSU. But if they want students to return to those traditions, they’ll first have to send in some clear-headed role models and be clear about what constitutes acceptable behavior.

LOCAL

► In today’s Yakima H-R — Yakima School District continues to address findings in critical workplace report — Yakima School District leaders intend to request a more extensive independent survey of employee culture and civility. The decision comes after the May release of a report conducted by the state Labor Department, which found reports of autocratic leadership and threats to employment through in-depth interviews with 23 district employees. The intent is to get a better understanding of how widespread the issue is in the roughly 2,000-employee district and to work to eradicate it, said Superintendent Trevor Greene. The study was requested by district counselor Michael Rhine, a Yakima Education Association executive board member.

► In today’s Seattle Times — After I-976 passage, officials and riders watching how new King County Metro paratransit contractor performs — The county’s new five-year, $424 million contract to operate the buses and run the dispatch center took effect Oct. 26. The private company MV Transportation, which took on 90% of workers from the previous contractors, now provides Access bus drivers and runs the dispatch center, where riders with disabilities call to schedule trips.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Seattle Children’s hospital again closes some operating rooms because of mold — Seattle Children’s has closed three of its operating rooms because of the same fungus that forced the shutdown of all the hospital’s operating rooms earlier this year.

THAT WASHINGTON

► From Politico — DACA finally lands in Supreme Court after Trump’s years-long battle — The Supreme Court is set to wrestle Tuesday with one of the most momentous issues to reach the justices in years: whether to allow the Trump administration to shut down a program that gives work permits and quasi-legal status to about 660,000 foreigners who entered the U.S. illegally as children.

TODAY — In Seattle, DACA supporters will gather for a “Home Is Here” rally at 2 p.m. today outside the U.S District Courthouse, 700 Stewart St. in Seattle. Get details. In Walla Walla, DACA supporters will gather for a “Home Is Here” community vigil for DACA recipients at 6:30 p.m. tonight at 1st and Main. Get details.

► From AP — U.S. held nearly 70,000 migrant children in government custody in 2019 — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him. After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, the once bright and beaming girl arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her father abandoned her. He fears their bond is forever broken. This month new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more kids detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.

► From The Hill — Sanders lands endorsement from nurses union — Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday announced an endorsement from National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S. The group cited Sanders’s Medicare for All proposal as one of the reasons it was backing the Vermont senator’s White House bid.

IMPEACHMENT

► In today’s Washington Post — Career federal employees are the protagonists in the impeachment drama — at risk to themselves — As diplomats kick off nationally televised impeachment hearings on Wednesday, it is clear how, more than in any political scandal in modern history, career employees have emerged as crucial witnesses. Rank-and-file bureaucrats who work in the federal agencies that handle national security will defy the directive of the White House to stay quiet, instead describing what they saw as they went about, in their view, just doing their jobs.

► MUST-READ/SEE in the Washington Post — An epic ‘Meet the Press’ rant unmasks the real goal of Trump’s lies — This scandal is all about disinformation — about getting news organizations to treat disinformation seriously, to create a miasma of doubt around Russia’s 2016 sabotage and an aura of corruption around Biden. Indeed, as former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon has admitted, the way to create this sort of aura is to get the mainstream media to cover such allegations, no matter how discredited, to introduce them into the mainstream discussion and get them treated as representing one side of a good-faith political dialogue.

.@RandPaul tries to “both sides” Trump and Biden, Chuck Todd nods along, and @jahimes just burns it all down. pic.twitter.com/f5ProtBbqR

— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) November 10, 2019

MORE SWAMP UPDATES

► From Politico — Federal health contract funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump allies — At least eight former White House, presidential transition and campaign officials for Trump were hired as outside contractors to the federal health department at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

► From the Hill — The worst thing about Trump’s ‘fake news’ warning (by Bernard Goldberg) — In July 2016, Lesley Stahl says she told Trump that his constant bashing of the media was tiresome… He responded, “You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

EDITOR’S NOTE — Of course, Trumpers will consider this column “fake news.”

NATIONAL

► From Bloomberg — Richest 1% of Americans close to surpassing wealth of middle class — The U.S.’s historic economic expansion has so enriched one-percenters they now hold almost as much wealth as the middle- and upper-middle classes combined. U.S. household wealth become more concentrated among the top tenth. The top 1% of American households have enjoyed huge returns in the stock market in the past decade, to the point that they now control more than half of the equity in U.S. public and private companies, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Those fat portfolios have America’s elite gobbling up an ever-bigger piece of the pie.

► From The American Prospect — Payday lenders suffer rare attack of honesty — In Arizona, the industry has a bill that would block minimum wage increases, because when people don’t have money, they need short-term loans.

► From Vox — If you are a unionized journalist, this labor ruling should worry you — America’s top labor law enforcer signaled last week that many unions, including media unions, may be left without recourse if their employer engages in illegal union-busting.

► From the AP — Little Rock teachers to go on strike over district’s control — Little Rock teachers will go on strike for one day this week over an Arkansas panel’s decision to strip their collective bargaining power and complaints about state control of the 23,000-student district, union officials said Monday.

Educators in Little Rock are striking this Thursday against the resegregation of their schools and for local democratic control.

Here’s a powerful video of their recent candlelight rally ❤️❤️❤️

Show your solidarity, please share widelypic.twitter.com/YdJvwfqPyL

— Eric Blanc (@_ericblanc) November 12, 2019

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From HuffPost — A shocking number of Americans know someone who died due to unaffordable care — In the last five years, 34 million Americans watched as someone they knew died because they couldn’t afford medical treatment, according to a survey report that Gallup and West Health published Tuesday. That means 13% of Americans personally knew someone who died who didn’t get the medical care they knew they needed because they couldn’t afford it. Reflecting the deep disparities in the economy and the health care system endured by racial minorities and low-income people, nonwhites and the people who earn the least money were about twice as likely to report knowing someone who died under these circumstances, the survey reveals.

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