28 August 20
Appeal for Immediate Assistance on Contributions
While we have made some progress on the August funding drive in the past 48 hours we are still well short of our goal. If everyone pulls together we can finish efficiently. If you have not donated recently please throw something in the hat.
In Peace and Solidarity.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
27 August 20
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
Charles Pierce | How Many Times Can We Hear Donald Trump Is a Great Family Man Before the Universe Explodes?
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "How often this week do we have to hear this pussy-grabbing, porn-star-humping, bribe-paying, heathen horndog described as a great family man before the universe's bullshit quotient is exceeded and we all die in a cosmic fertilizer explosion?"
READ MORE
Men carry rifles as people protest outside the Kenosha county courthouse after Jacob Blake was shot several times by police. (photo: Stephen Maturen/Reuters)
Armed White Men Patrolling Kenosha Protests Organized on Facebook
Adam Mahoney, Victoria Bekiempis, Lois Beckett and Julia Carrie Wong, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "Hours before a 17-year-old white man allegedly killed two people and injured a third at protests over a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a local militia group posted a call on Facebook: 'Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend our city tonight from evil thugs?'"
READ MORE
Department of Motor Vehicles. (photo: iStock)
The Loophole the DMV Uses to Sell Your Data to Private Investigators
Joseph Cox, VICE
Cox writes: "As Department of Motor Vehicles around the country sell drivers' personal information to private businesses, including names, addresses, and more, some private investigators Motherboard spoke to said the reasons investigators can present to the DMV to access driver data are overbroad, leaving open the possibility of abuse."
READ MORE
Sen. David Perdue, R-GA, attends a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 18, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (photo: Caroline Brehman-Pool/Getty)
Debt, Eviction and Hunger: Millions Fall Back Into Crisis as Stimulus and Safety Nets Vanish
Hannah Denham and Taylor Telford, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Major recessions are especially fraught for low-income earners, whose finances can veer from tenuous to dire with one missed paycheck."
Without federal aid to stave off the impact of the pandemic and economic recession, households that were already on the margins are now being pushed to the brink of financial ruin.
ne of the most successful elements of the government’s response to the coronavirus recession — protecting people on the margins from falling into poverty — is faltering as the safety net shrinks and federal benefits expire.
Major recessions are especially fraught for low-income earners, whose finances can veer from tenuous to dire with one missed paycheck. But as the economy cratered this spring, economists and poverty experts were mildly surprised to discover that the torrent of government support that followed — particularly the $600 a week in expanded unemployment benefits and one-time $1,200 stimulus checks — likely lowered the overall poverty rate.
In fact, 17 million people would have dropped below the poverty line without the $500 billion in direct intervention for American families, said Zach Parolin, a researcher at Columbia University.
Now, data show, those gains are eroding as federal inaction deprives Americans on the financial margins of additional support. If the unemployment rate stays around 10 percent and no new stimulus is delivered, “we can expect poverty rates to rise and climb higher than those observed in the Great Recession,” Parolin said. The poverty threshold for a family of four is $26,200, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Data collected by the Census Bureau capture the financial pain. For the week that ended July 21, the most recent numbers available, roughly 29 million U.S. adults — about 12.1 percent — said their household sometimes or often didn’t have enough to eat the preceding seven days, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nearly 15 million renters said they were behind on rent during the same period.
Bruce Meyer, a University of Chicago professor who studies poverty and inequality, said the Cares Act stimulus package more than offset lost earnings for many low-wage earners. This helped lower the nation’s poverty rate in April and May, when it was projected to spike after the pandemic set off widespread job losses.
“We were sufficiently aggressive in responding to the pandemic early,” Meyer said. “But if we can’t sort things out soon, there’s going to be a lot of people who are hurting.”
Desperate measures
Code of Vets is used to requests for help with funeral expenses, hospital bills and housing issues. Since the pandemic, the nonprofit says, it has been inundated by veterans who can’t meet their basic needs: groceries, medications, utility bills. Diapers are a chronic concern for those with young children.
In January, a typical month pre-pandemic, it handled 86 cases, said Gretchen Smith, who founded the nonprofit in 2018 to honor her father, a Vietnam veteran who struggled with PTSD. In April, after more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in the coronavirus recession, Code of Vets had more than 1,300 cases. The scale of need has been consistent, Smith said, even with the federal stimulus.
Last week, Smith said, one desperate mother admitted she had resorted to stealing to feed her 5-year-old boy.
“What do we do at this point?” Smith said. “They’re living on air.”
Struggling people are raising rent money on GoFundMe and asking for help with groceries on Facebook Marketplace. In New Orleans, some have staged sit-ins in front of courthouses to block eviction hearings, with signs urging the local government to cancel rent: “You can’t wash your hands if you don’t have a sink.”
Karin Smith, 52, of Jupiter, Fla., recently opened the two-bedroom townhouse she shares with her 13-year-old son to a fellow single mom with a daughter. They’re all facing eviction, much like the 22 million other Americans behind on their rent, according to an analysis by the Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project, a Colorado-based community group. Despite the federal moratorium that ended July 24, some landlords are raising rent, issuing late fees and initiating eviction proceedings earlier than the federal deadline, which requires 30 days notice for eviction.
Black and Latino renters are the most at risk: In July, 44 percent and 41 percent, respectively, said they had no or slight confidence they could make the next month’s payment or were likely to defer it, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey. About 21 percent of White renters felt the same, according to an Urban Institute analysis of the data collected between May 28 and June 9.
Karin couldn’t stand the idea of a family being pushed out into the streets.
“It’s like people are just standing around watching it,” she said. “This time of year, we shouldn’t be able to be evicted with storms. You can’t have homeless people during hurricane season or a pandemic.”
Karin lost her job as a U.S. Department of Education contractor on March 14 and told her landlord right away that the $1,650 rent would be a struggle. The landlord initially agreed to a payment schedule, she said, then on April 2 told Karin she would be evicted if she was even a day late.
Since then, Karin and her son, who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects connective tissue, have been living on food stamps and unemployment benefits that did not arrive until May. The state jobless aid started at $125 a week and was recently bumped to $225. She was earning $96,000 a year, but as a single mom with tens of thousands in student loans, health insurance premiums and other expenses, she didn’t have a lot of savings.
“Things were so behind at the end of May, as soon as it was coming in, it was going out,” she said. “With the $600 [weekly unemployment benefits], I could cover the necessities. I’m not sure what I can cover with [$225].”
Although Karin has a PhD in educational psychology, she hasn’t been able to find a job in her field, and a minimum wage position wouldn’t cover the rent. When Sept. 1 rolls around, she doesn’t know what the four of them — plus two cats and two dogs, most taken in from others who had been evicted — will do. Her son has been urging her to start selling household items to save up for a used mobile home. Karin said he’s been pressing her ever since he read that Walmart allows RVs to park in its lots for free.
“Now I know why my great-grandmother never wanted to talk about the Spanish flu,” she said. “When this is over, none of us will want to talk about it.”
Diane Yentel, the president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said the 40 million U.S. households projected for eviction by year’s end — and the lack of legislative action to prevent them — is nothing she’s ever seen.
The coalition is lobbying for a national eviction moratorium through the end of the pandemic and $100 billion in emergency assistance to supplement rent payments and help landlords operate properties. The Heroes Act included these two programs but stalled out in the Senate.
Before the coronavirus, homelessness had steadily increased for the past three years, as only 1 in 4 eligible households received help. Now more people are living on the streets, in their cars, crowding into apartments, and living in shelters or encampments, Yentel said. Social distancing, a key defense against the coronavirus, is impossible.
“When our collective health depends on our ability to stay in our homes, we all have a stake to ensure that tens of millions of people don’t lose theirs,” Yentel said. “Evictions during a pandemic are not only cruel and immoral, they are shortsighted and senseless.”
Panic attacks and eviction notices
Laura Thayer said her mind went blank when she got up to cross-examine her landlord. She said she had been in and out of court the past two months after her landlord denied her payment plan and lease renewal, and applied her past rent payment to another tenant and charged her late fees. The 50-year-old had experienced anxiety attacks before, but fighting to keep a roof over her and her partner’s heads in a Springfield, Mo., multifamily apartment was a new kind of panic.
“The cards are stacked from the beginning, and to be honest, I can’t believe I’ve made it this far,” Thayer said. “I realize this could be one of the last few days in my place, or it could be the first of many.”
Every day when she gets home, Thayer braces for the knock on her door. If she doesn’t win this case, she doesn’t know where she and her partner will live — especially because landlords often see eviction records and charge double deposits and extra fees.
Thayer fell behind on the rent after losing her job in December, after taking time off to care for her partner, who has health issues and recently applied for Social Security benefits. She didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance until June. She receives federal aid to cover utilities, but her EBT card didn’t qualify for renewal because she had too much in her savings account: $2,200.
‘Another bill and another bill’
Hunger has hovered near record highs since the beginning of the pandemic, as shuttered school meal programs and vanishing income left many without a way to feed their families. About 22 percent of the population has been food-insecure since the pandemic began, according to an April report by the Hamilton Project, an economic policy project of the Brookings Institution. For mothers with children 12 and younger, the figure is more than 40 percent, according to Lauren Bauer, who wrote the report.
“This is not just affecting families who suffered some sort of income shock,” Bauer said. “This is really penetrating families with low-wage and essential workers.”
Increased flexibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, helped fuel an unprecedented spike in SNAP enrollment, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From March through April, 6 million people became newly eligible for SNAP. But the Trump administration recently decided against extending a food stamps waiver that allowed needy families to bypass certification, such as providing pay stubs. The move will reduce the number of eligible families in the coming months, even as other stimulus measures expire.
Food banks nationwide have struggled to keep up with demand, and surging grocery prices are compounding the strain, said Crystal FitzSimons, the director of school and out-of-school time programs at the Food Research & Action Center.
“When families are on limited and stretched budgets, or when they’ve lost wages to lost jobs or reduced hours of work and then food prices go up, their dollars don’t go as far,” FitzSimons said. “Low-income families work really hard to stretch dollars as far as possible, but with the cost of food is going up it really makes it hard for families to afford the diet that they need.”
Suzanne St. John, 69, of Clearwater, Fla., hasn’t had more than $25 in her savings account for as long as she can remember. The retired English teacher has to stretch her $870 in monthly Social Security benefits to support herself and her granddaughter, who moved in after losing her job in March. She depends on food stamps, which she uses to pay for grocery delivery since she’s high risk for the coronavirus and doesn’t own a car. But each month she worries her latest SNAP card will be the last.
“If it weren’t for that, I don’t know what I would be eating,” St. John said.
Nonprofits and community organizations have stepped in to fill the gaps in many states. When the pandemic shuttered Boston Public Schools in mid-March, the YMCA of Greater Boston shuttered its aquatics and wellness programs, and funneled its resources into local food programs, chief executive James Morton said.
In 2019, the Boston organization delivered 837,000 meals. From March 16 to Aug. 7, it delivered more than 2 million meals and 91,000 bags of groceries. Morton said the YMCA is determined to help families meet their basic needs — food, shelter, child care.
“Let’s feed our children, let’s house our families, let’s make sure everybody’s got a decent job — those are not unique strategies, those are essential strategies,” Morton said. “I think we’re losing sight of that a little bit.”
Lea, 24, of Marietta, Ga., woke up July 27 to find a note on her door from the sheriff. She had 30 days to come up with $2,278 or get out.
Lea, who declined to share her last name out of fear of retaliation from her landlord, was living paycheck to paycheck even before the pandemic. Now she’s barely afloat. She lost her job, but her employer had a noncompete clause and she wasn’t eligible for unemployment. Then her laptop broke and her car got towed. She’s worked every kind of gig: babysitting, tutoring, cleaning cars and apartments. She got a loan from her mom. But it wasn’t enough.
“I did everything I could to scrape money together,” she said. “No matter what I was doing, I kept falling behind. No matter how hard I tried, there was another bill and another bill.”
Desperate, she launched a GoFundMe campaign and hoped the kindness of strangers could save her from eviction. Donations came flooding in, and she was able to raise enough to pay off her late bills and fees from her landlord — at least for August.
But next month, she doesn’t know where she’ll get the money for rent, utilities or groceries. She’s trying to sell her TV and looking into local women’s shelters.
“I’d love to be more optimistic about what’s going to happen in the future,” she said. “But I just don’t see it.”
Fresh produce provides essential nutrients to Greater Boston's most vulnerable populations during the pandemic. More than 1,000 bags of groceries are packed and delivered every day from the YMCA of Greater Boston's Hunger Prevention prep site. (photo: Maria Venegas
GOP Lawmakers Asked Trump for Low Wage, Migrant Worker Visas
Lee Fang, The Intercept
Fang writes: "Despite increasing campaign rhetoric by leading Republicans about the downward impact on wages posed by some forms of immigration, many lawmakers are quietly helping business interests lobby for greater access to a pool of low-wage foreign workers."
Despite Republican rhetoric about the impact of immigration on wages, Sens. Perdue, Tillis, and Burr all lobbied for more H-2B visas.
en. David Perdue has long argued that “strained working-class Americans” face an uneven playing field as they are forced to compete with “a steady supply of cheap, unskilled” immigrant labor.
But the Georgia Republican has sung a different tune in private messages to the Trump administration. The lawmaker contacted the Department of Homeland Security and Labor Department in February, urging officials to increase the flow of visas offered to temporary migrant workers to be employed in low wage, nonagricultural jobs.
“I am writing to request that you exercise authority delegated to you,” wrote Perdue, citing the statute that governs foreign work visas, “to increase the numerical limitation on H-2B visas in order to provide relief to American businesses.”
Despite increasing campaign rhetoric by leading Republicans about the downward impact on wages posed by some forms of immigration, many lawmakers are quietly helping business interests lobby for greater access to a pool of low-wage foreign workers.
The Intercept, through a records request, obtained a number of recent requests by GOP lawmakers to the Trump administration. The legislative letters echo business demands that the government raise the number of available H-2B visas for employers to bring in migrant workers.
North Carolina Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, along with the GOP House delegation from North Carolina, requested that the administration “expeditiously release all 64,716 H-2B visas. House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wrote “on behalf of business” that her state needed emergency “H-2B cap relief.” Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., wrote similar letters earlier this year. None of the lawmakers’ offices responded to a request for comment.
The letters came a time of increasing political pressure to bring cheap labor into the country. The Wall Street Journal reported on a broad bipartisan effort in January to increase the number of H-2B visas available for employers. Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., signed onto the push.
After these letters were sent and following a coalition lobbying effort by employers in the seafood, landscaping, construction, and food services industries, the Trump administration approved 35,000 additional seasonal work visas in March, bringing the total available this year to 101,000. Business interests also won expedited approval of H-2B visas. The State Department declared that the program is “essential to the economy” and waived in-person interviews for applicants. But the administration soon changed course, freezing the the flow of new visas as the economy deteriorated in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The H-2B program has come under fire from organized labor and migrant worker civil rights organizations for rampant human rights violations. Across numerous workplaces, guest workers have reported sexual violence, imprisonment, physical abuse, starvation, wage theft, and conditions akin to slavery. Though the visa program is required to pay prevailing wages, employers routinely pay wages lower than those offered to Americans working the same jobs.
Not long ago, Perdue openly and sharply criticized migrant worker visas as an exploitative trap that harmed both American wages and foreign migrant workers. In 2017, Perdue cosigned a letter with Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Richard Durbin, D-Ill.; and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., decrying rampant abuses in the H-2B program.
The lawmakers noted in the letter that “a large body of evidence suggests that our increasing reliance on the H-2B program cuts wages, pushes American workers out of jobs, and may, in some cases, discourage them from ever applying again. Indiscriminate increases in the number of H-2B workers will only exacerbate these problems.”
The letter noted that some employers “take advantage of H-2B workers’ unique vulnerabilities, which can result in human trafficking and labor abuse.” One labor investigator the Perdue letter cited found that “the way H-2 visas shackle workers to a single employer leaves them almost no leverage to demand better treatment.”
The H-2B program is designed to only be available when businesses cannot find Americans willing to take on jobs. But a growing body of research shows the application process can be gamed and that many employers in fact use H-2B to drag down wages for American workers.
Michael Cunningham, a former official with the Texas State Building and Construction Trades Council, has documented a number of abuses in the H-2B program.
“I have seen the misuse of construction and production occupations that adversely affects wages paid to guest workers,” wrote Cunningham in an email to The Intercept. “This is the way the employers get the cheapest wage possible that really was created to deter American workers from applying for these jobs.”
Cunningham described systemic problems that allow multibillion-dollar businesses to easily game the system for H-2B visas for work that could be offered to Americans. “Also concerning is the lack of enforcement by the Department of Labor,” wrote Cunningham. “They don’t have enough boots on the ground to monitor and enforce each employer to make sure they are in compliance.”
The migrant visa program has only grown in recent years. The Obama administration sharply lowered the number of H-2B visas provided to U.S. employers, below record highs in 2007 and 2008 during the previous administration. But the Trump administration has reversed that trend, increasingly expanding the number of visas over the last four years.
Advocates for business interests in Congress have agitated to raise the statutory cap on H-2B visas, coming close in 2018 to expanding the program from 66,000 to 114,000 visas. The administration has dutifully offered employers waivers to increase the number of H-2B beyond the annual cap.
But the growing economic crisis has forced a shift in the administration’s response. In June, President Donald Trump suspended a range of work visas programs. The decision was touted as a major intervention into the economy to save American jobs at risk during the global coronavirus pandemic. The executive order, in a deference to large employers, however, did not impact H-2B workers already in the country for the 2020 season.
Young activists take on powerful monarchy and pro-army leaders in what could be a 'new turning point' for Thai politics. (photo: AFP)
Why Are Thai Students Protesting Against King Vajiralongkorn?
Zaheena Rasheed, Al Jazeera
Rasheed writes: "In the biggest and boldest protests since Thailand's 2014 coup, students and young activists - intent on shaking up a stultifying political order - are taking on the country's most powerful players: King Maha Vajiralongkorn and general-turned-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha."
READ MORE
Old oil wells crowd the Louisiana coast. Many wells are old and poorly maintained. An increasing number are being abandoned and put under the care of the state. (photo: Times-Picayune)
More Than 1,400 Oil Wells Were in Laura's Path, but Spills and Other Damage May Not Be Known for Days
Tristan Baurick, The New Orleans Advocate
Baurick writes: "About 1,400 active oil wells are crowded in Laura's storm surge path. If hit hard enough, the wells, many of which are decades old and may no longer be protected by the state's receding shoreline."
urricane Laura plowed through a corner of Louisiana loaded with oil and gas wells, pipelines, storage tanks and other infrastructure that could potentially cause thousands of small and large environmental disasters – the extent of which may not be known for days or weeks.
About 1,400 active oil wells are crowded in Laura’s storm surge path. If hit hard enough, the wells, many of which are decades old and may no longer be protected by the state’s receding shoreline, could trigger several oil spills in coastal waters and marshes.
“I have a lump in my throat thinking about them,” said Bob Bea, a specialist in catastrophic risk management and former well manager for Shell. “I’m not at all confident these systems will, when hit with a severe hurricane, function adequately.”
Laura made landfall in Cameron Parish at around 1 a.m. Thursday as a Category 4 storm, bringing with it 150 mph winds, pounding rain and devastating storm surge that could press several miles inland.
Also in harm’s way are dozens of offshore oil platforms, pipelines, large liquefied natural gas complexes in Cameron Parish and a host of petrochemical plants and refineries in the Lake Charles area. Several heavily contaminated sites managed by the federal Superfund cleanup program could be damaged or flooded, as many were in Texas during Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Federal and state emergency responders say spill inspections and cleanup will likely be delayed as all resources are focused on search and rescue operations and other critical post-hurricane needs.
“We have assets staged and we’re ready to respond for search and rescue,” said Sydney Phoenix, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard, which is the main response agency for marine oil spills. “That’s our priority for the next 72 hours. When that calms down, we’ll send (spill responders) if pollution occurs.”
State Department of Natural Resources officials say few companies were able to heed warnings to secure wells and other infrastructure in Laura’s crosshairs.
“If we had a couple months, there’d be enough time,” DNR spokesman Patrick Courreges said. “(Oil companies) are doing what they can but there’s no way to shut them all down.”
Among the precautions DNR requested were pumping out oil tanks and filling them with water and marking pipelines that could be submerged under high water.
Hurricane Katrina struck a similar trove of coastal oil and gas infrastructure in 2005. A Category 3 storm, Katrina made landfall with less force than Laura but managed to damage an estimated 100 drilling platforms, 400 pipelines and caused about 540 spills in Louisiana waters. Added up, the spills likely released roughly 11 million gallons – the same amount as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
Fifteen years later, no environmental damage assessments have been completed and no companies were fined.
The oil and gas industry says past storms have prepared it for this one.
“Building upon lessons learned from past storms, like Katrina, Ike and Rita, companies are continuously improving preparation and response plans to lessen storm impacts and shorten the time it takes to recover,” the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association said in a statement Wednesday. “Plans are constantly updated and improved year-round, not just when a storm is at our doorstep. Regular planning meetings are held with local, state and federal government before and after hurricane season.”
Bea is doubtful. The industry and its regulators are plagued by overconfidence before storms and indifference after them, he said.
“When it comes to how we manage our platforms, pipelines, and wells, we here in the U.S. are not world leaders in risk management," he said. "We’re not Canada or Norway. We’re not even a Third World country.
The state has struggled to keep up with the rapid rise of wells that have been abandoned by their owners and are now the responsibility of DNR. According to a 2014 report by state auditors, DNR wasn’t properly regulating and inspecting these ‘orphan’ wells or charging fees that could cover plugging and cleanup costs.
A followup audit in April indicated DNR has made progress, but estimated the number of orphaned wells had increased by 50%. The new audit also noted that DNR is behind in forcing operators to plug disused wells that are yet to be abandoned, and has failed to conduct required re-inspections of dozens of out-of-compliance wells.
Louisiana has documented nearly 4,300 orphan wells, and the number is expected to rise as more companies shut down wells due to low oil prices and a faltering economy.
DNR has said its regulatory challenges are due in part to the large number of inactive or low-production wells, many of which are owned by small, cash-strapped companies.
Bea likened these wells to used cars. When new, they worked well, but each successive owner spends less on upkeep while trying to squeeze out as much value as they can.
“If each new owner is more tight-fisted, they don’t change the oil, the filter, the wheel bearings, and pretty soon the wheels fall off,” he said. “It’s not so much the hurricane, it’s us, and how we maintain these wells.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.