City Plans to Clear Out Sodo Homeless Encampment This Morning: The tent city is named the Field of Dreams and it sits at Royal Brougham Way and Airport Way South. Encampment residents were hoping the Field, which has become a “muddy bog” due to rain, could be added to the city’s list of approved tent cities, including ones in Ballard, Interbay, and Rainier Valley, Vernal Coleman reports for the Seattle Times. Despite multiple requests for additional time to move out, including a letter from four Seattle City Council members, Seattle police officers are already waiting to enforce the “sweeps,” KOMO reports. Heidi Groover will be reporting from the Field. Follow her on Twitter for updates.
Anti-Defamation League Report Shows White Supremacists Are Targeting WA State Colleges: The organization, which fights hate speech and anti-Semitism, has “cataloged 104 incidents of white-supremacist posters appearing on campuses in at least 25 states, starting in September 2016. Oren Segal of the ADL told the Times that “it’s not clear if the participants are doing it out of a sense of irony, or if they are ‘true believers’ of white-supremacist ideology.”
The Launch of Trump Care: The president unveiled his promised Obamacare replacement plan yesterday. From The New York Times: “Medicaid recipients’ open-ended entitlement to health care would be replaced by a per-person allotment to the states. And people with preexisting medical conditions would face new uncertainties in a more deregulated insurance market. The bill would also cut off federal funds to Planned Parenthood clinics through Medicaid and other government programs for one year.” Translation: This will hurt people with low incomes because they will not receive the same financial assistance as they did under Obamacare.
Republicans Are Already Voicing Concerns: Senators Rob Portman (R-OH), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday, voicing concerns that people who gained Medicaid under Obamacare would lose protections. They wrote: “While we support efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and make structural reforms to the Medicaid program, we are concerned that the February 10th draft proposal from the House of Representatives does not provide stability and certainty for individuals and families in Medicaid expansion programs or the necessary flexibility for states.”
Muslim Ban 2.0: Trump also signed a new executive order yesterday that “bans citizens from six Muslim-majority countries, excluding Iraqis and green card-holders. The new order’s ban on Syrian refugees is now a temporary 120-day one, subject to review and renewal,” Sydney Brownstone wrote. During a press conference yesterday afternoon, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said his office has not yet made plans to sue Trump over the new ban.
Experts Say It Could Be Harder to Strike Down Trump’s New Ban: Seattle University immigration law professor Won Kidane told the Seattle Times: “The previous executive order was just rushed and it didn’t make sense … Now I think they took their time and took care of many of the offending provisions.”
Monday’s order removed Iraq from the list of affected countries and will not apply to existing visas or green-card holders. It also avoids any mention of favoring particular religious groups. …
Still, Kidane said the new order also could face legal hurdles for its impact on immigrants seeking entry to the U.S., frequently with the aid of family members and employers. He pointed to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which bans discrimination against immigrants based on national origin.
Others say basic constitutional pitfalls remain over the particulars of Trump’s order — and the motivation behind it.
Customs Officials Seize Nearly 8,000 Lead-Laden Toy Skis, UFOs: Two toy shipments arrived at the Port of Seattle and Port of Tacoma from China with high lead levels, KING 5 reports.
The Featured Speaker for International Women’s Day in Seattle Will Be… A dude. Shaun King of the New York Daily News, to be more specific.
So honored @ShaunKing will speak at #Seattle‘s #InternationalWomensDay rally, 3/8 6pm! #BLM #IWD2017 @WeWillBoycott https://t.co/G5XuTUMka7 pic.twitter.com/0xGv49uqRx
— Kshama Sawant (@cmkshama) March 6, 2017
@cmkshama so we’re celebrating #internationalwomensday by listening to a man? Are there not black women activists in Seattle?
— Heather (@bitchesloveNero) March 7, 2017
@cmkshama @ShaunKing @WeWillBoycott one damn day and men still gotta talk?
— catlady in birdland (@Laura_Rhymes) March 7, 2017
There Will Be Some Womxn Speaking at the Event, Thankfully: The Facebook event page notes that the Martin Luther King Labor Council’s Nicole Grant, activist/poet/attorney Nikkita Oliver, the Seattle Women’s Commission’s Morgan Beach, and #NoDAPL’s Millie Kennedy, among others, will be there as well.
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