Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

The Housing Crisis Is Worse Than You Think

“Housing is a human right,” Julián Castro, the former Obama Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, wrote in the preamble to his “People First Housing” platform in June. He’s one of a few Democratic contenders who have spoken about affordable housing in recent weeks, an issue that’s historically received limited attention on the campaign trail. But housing’s newfound importance makes good sense: As In These Times has noted, the economic prospects for everyday Americans are hardly sunny, even after the putative rebounds made by the nation since the Great Recession.

While there are ample reasons to doubt the progressive promises made by the likes of Castro, the need to address the shortage of affordable housing could not be more real. And with the recent release of the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual report on the gap between wage-earners and rent prices, now is an important moment for candidates to outline their plans to address the issue. Here are 10 statistics that outline the U.S. housing crisis:

24.7%: U.S. renters who spend more than half their income on rent.
49.5%: Those who spend more than the federal threshold of “affordable” (30% of income).
7,000,000: Nationwide shortage of affordable homes for low-income renters. 
552,830: People experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2018.
7,400,000: Americans forced to move in with friends or family.
32%: Increase in median rent from 2001 to 2015.
97%: Increase in the number of homes renting for $2,000 or more between 2005 and 2015.
80%: U.S. markets where home prices are growing faster than wages.
1%: U.S. counties where a fair-market one-bedroom rental home is affordable for a full-time minimum-wage worker.
103: Weekly hours worked at minimum wage needed to afford a one-bedroom home at national average fair-market rent.

Race to the Bottom

Is Hitler a racist? Let’s ask our all-aryan panel.

The Dam Truth: The 91,000 Dams in the US Earned a “D” for Safety

This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It is a telling illustration of the precarious state of United States dams that the near-collapse in February 2017 of Oroville Dam, the nation’s tallest, occurred in California, considered one of the nation’s leading states in dam safety management. […]

Health Insurers Make It Easy for Scammers to Steal Millions. Who Pays? You.

This story was originally published by ProPublica.  Ever since her 14-year marriage imploded in financial chaos and a protective order, Amy Lankford had kept a wary eye on her ex, David Williams. Williams, then 51, with the beefy body of a former wrestler gone slightly to seed, was always working the angles, looking for shortcuts […]

If You Catch My Meaning

Get your official Donald Trump decoder ring today, kids!

Taxes Are Down, Down, Down

As long as I’m making budget charts, here’s another one for you: Over the past 40 years, the total tax burden in the US has declined from about 18 percent of GDP to about 16 percent of GDP. Keep this in mind the next time you hear some Republican on TV moaning about the immense […]

Citing Intense Public Interest, Judge Unseals Files in Case of Trump Associate Felix Sater

The decision came after The Intercept sought access to the filings, some of which have remained under seal for two decades.

The post Citing Intense Public Interest, Judge Unseals Files in Case of Trump Associate Felix Sater appeared first on The Intercept.

How fat prawns can save lives

New research provides a roadmap for how entrepreneurs can harness freshwater prawns' voracious appetite for snails to reduce the transmission of schistosomiasis-causing parasites while still making a profit selling the tasty animals as food. The study shows how small-scale farming of freshwater prawns could be a win-win for communities in emerging and developing economies where schistosomiasis is common.

He Was Told to Go Back to Africa. Instead, He May Go to the U.S. Senate.

Helena, Montana, mayor Wilmot Collins was reminded by Donald Trump’s recent comments of the racism he faced when he first came to the U.S. from Liberia.

The post He Was Told to Go Back to Africa. Instead, He May Go to the U.S. Senate. appeared first on The Intercept.

As a psychiatrist, if I had severe depression I’d choose ECT | Mariam Alexander | Opinion | The Guardian https://prismo.xyz/posts/3490ef9c-918d-4deb-a553-c0573511c926

https://www.blender.org/press/ubisoft-joins-blender-development-fund/

Pretty neat! If they keep this up Blender might start displacing Autodesk (apparently people aren't happy with that anymore)

Amazon customer service representatives report 24 hour shifts - Vox https://prismo.xyz/posts/fc43509d-d33d-4493-b5ba-d7fbdfe11ccc

Heart disease biomarker linked to paleo diet

People who follow the paleo diet have twice the amount of a key blood biomarker linked closely to heart disease, the world's first major study examining the impact of the diet on gut bacteria has found.

San Juan Takes to the Streets

Puerto Rico changed after Maria – and protestors aren’t backing down.

Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

What does the future hold? Ask our seer, Ben Passmore.

Why Am I Scared to Ride a Bike?

To save lives, cities need to design roads for people—not cars.

10 Years of Working In These Times: The 25 Best Stories

This month marks the tenth anniversary of Working In These Times. When I became its editor, in 2012, the site had just turned three.

Founded in July 2009 as a daily labor “blog,” WITT had already become much more, providing full-length, original reporting on each and every major labor story of the day.

We had a void to fill. With the exception of Steven Greenhouse at the New York Times, major newspapers lacked a single reporter dedicated to labor (and most still do). When they deigned to cover labor at all, mainstream outlets published management-slanted pieces in their business sections.

Working In These Times boasted a fleet of top-notch reporters: some casualties of downsized U.S. newsrooms whom we’d lucked out to inherit, some young journalists just cutting their teeth, and David Moberg, a veteran In These Times reporter who had been pounding the picket lines since the magazine’s founding in 1976.

Those reporters—David, Stephen Franklin, Kari Lydersen, Michelle Chen, Sarah Jaffe, Josh Eidelson and many more—taught me the principles of labor reporting: Cheerlead the labor movement and the power of unions, while keeping a critical distance so as to inform labor strategy. Talk to the rank and file. Make sure workers understand the risks they’re taking when speaking out about workplace conditions. Don’t twist their arms to “get the story.”

And the golden rule: Report from the workers’ perspective, not the bosses’.

Reading through the more than 4,500 articles we’ve posted in 10 years of Working In These Times, what I noticed most is the variety of workers you meet. Coal miners, transit workers, teachers and domestic workers: the working people who rarely get a forum to tell their stories.

What struck me, too, was how dogged labor’s fights are—and how long they’ve lasted. Hotel workers spoke out about sexual harassment years before the #MeToo movement erupted. The Chicago teachers walkout in 2012 helped lay the groundwork for the teachers strike wave that took the country by storm in 2018. Fight for $15 protesters demonstrated for years before $15 minimum wage ordinances were won in cities across the country (and the position became de rigueur for Democrats seeking office). Domestic workers came together in New York nine years before the first national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights was introduced, just last week.

In the stories below, which chronicle the iconic labor battles of the last 10 years, you’ll meet the workers who formed the backbone of those fights and many more.

Bad Religion expand fall tour

While the band is already touring in support of their new album, Age of Unreason, Bad Religion have added some additional tour dates to the US leg of the tour. The newly added dates will begin September 17 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and wrap October 6 in San Diego, CA. Tickets are on sale as […]

The post Bad Religion expand fall tour appeared first on Dying Scene.