Welcome to a new weekly Friday addition to the Collegian repertoire. Our Week in Review will give you snapshot looks at some of the biggest, and maybe the most underrated stories of the week. International news, national headlines and local tidbits boiled down by our own Managing Editor, Lena Mercer, will be found here every Friday.
Trump’s “Beautiful” Wall
During an annual shale conference, in Pittsburgh where President Donald Trump was a key speaker he spoke to the mainly oil and gas tycoons about the wall being built along the southern US border with Mexico. In his comments, President Trump was quoted as saying ““And we’re building a wall on the border of New Mexico and we’re building a wall in Colorado…” As of this writing, many members of Congress and the House, along with a myriad of people across social media platforms, have pointed out that Colorado…does not touch the Southern border. For clarification, President Trump later tweeted that he was “joking”.
Chile erupts
A movement begun by middle school students in Chile’s Capitol City, Santiago, has spread into a nationwide fight against austerity. Originally aimed at fighting a transit fare hike, the protests have spread to all parts of the country and at least one general strike has been called. On Saturday the 17th, President Sebastian Piñera declared a State of Emergency after riots and looting rocked the city. This, plus the use of the military to establish a curfew has been decried by civil rights groups. On the same day President Piñera called for a curfew, he repealed the fare hike—but the protests continued. In total, media outlets are reporting 15 deaths, mostly at the hands of the military and police and hundreds of arrests.
Amazon funds democracy
Two presidential hopefuls weighed in on political spending in the Seattle City Council race this past week. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both commented publicly on the unprecedented spending that Amazon has been doing. A Political Action Committee is a group formed usually by a business or a campaign to push a specific political agenda or candidate. A local PAC known by the acronym CASE (Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy) has been received a reported 1.5 Million dollars from Amazon and Amazon employees. The PAC itself is closely associated with the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, so includes other Seattle giants like Vulcan Inc in it’s collections. The PAC has given the largest single sum of this money ($107,405) to Egan Orion, a pro business candidate favored by the Chamber in District 3. Orion was just recently forced to pay a $1000 fine for ethics violations regarding ad placement in the “endorsement” issue of the Stranger.
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