Trump administration greenlights $324M border wall in Arizona

The Arizona border will have 32 miles of existing wall replaced starting next April.

The $324 million project has been given the green light by federal immigration officials, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Thursday.

The project will switch out an old barrier that runs from the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector west into the Yuma Sector, which is just miles from Arizona's border with California. The replacement wall is meant to keep pedestrians and vehicles from entering the U.S. Older barriers were largely to prevent cars from driving over, but were only a few feet tall and did little to keep people from trespassing from Mexico.

The undertaking, which will be paid for by congressional funding for CBP from 2018 legislation, is part of President Trump's January 2017 executive order to secure the country by improving barriers in vulnerable and high-traffic areas.

Five miles of work will take place near Lukeville, Ariz., and the other 27 miles are in Yuma's territory.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-administration-greenlights-324m-border-wall-in-arizona

Despite Janus Ruling, Some Unions Still Forcing Public Workers to Pay Annual Dues

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision from June in Janus v. the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was clear: Public employees no longer are required to pay union dues, even for collective-bargaining purposes. This was no technical or ambiguous point. The court declared it an infringement of the First Amendment when the government forces workers to financially support organizations that they don't want to support.

Case settled, right? Not entirely. Public-sector unions, especially in California, aren't used to finding themselves on the losing end of a public-policy battle. As Janus made its way to the high court, some of the state's unions successfully lobbied the Democratic-controlled Legislature to pass laws designed to undermine the expected decision in that case, which involved an Illinois social-worker who didn't want to pay dues to his local AFSCME union.

For instance, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that gives unions on-the-job access to California public employees, where union organizers can provide "orientations" touting the benefits of union membership. Unions also have been sending public employees contracts that include "trap language." In essence, the public employees were given contracts that essentially signed away any post-Janus rights. In signing the contracts, they are trapped into paying dues even though the high court said they no longer were required to do so.

We're already seeing the fruits of these anti-Janus activities. In order to circumvent the decision, some California union leaders now are telling their members that they can resign their membership but that those contracts they signed require them to continue paying the union at the same rate. Some of the unions are calling this a service fee, but they can call it whatever they choose: It undermines the clear words, intent and spirit of Janus.

https://reason.com/archives/2018/11/16/despite-janus-ruling-some-unions-still-f

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Democrat beats Republican by 1 vote in Kentucky state House race

Democratic challenger Jim Glenn beat GOP state Rep. D.J. Johnson by one vote in their Kentucky state House race.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/417097-democrat-beats-republican-by-1-vote-in-kentucky-state-house-race