, - Voices for Public Transit
Stephan: If you read me regularly you know the Theorem of Wellbeing. Here is a major proof of the theorem.
Public transportation not only provides essential mobility to millions of Americans, but it also anchors communities and drives economic development.
“Transit-oriented development” (TOD) refers to the way public transportation helps drive new investment in residential and commercial development along transit lines because ready access to public transportation helps attract new residents and businesses alike. TOD neighborhoods include a mixture of residences, stores, offices, and services, all located within a half-mile of public transit, and they are helping transform communities—and lives—throughout the nation.
Households in transit-oriented neighborhoods spend, on average, 15 percent of their income on transportation, compared to 28 percent in neighborhoods without public transit access. In addition to lowering transportation costs, transit-oriented development:
- Reduces strain on roads and highways—and helps limit traffic congestion
- Promotes public health by supporting walking, cycling, and community interaction
- Helps businesses attract both customers and employees
- Revitalizes neighborhoods and supports housing affordability
- Reduces air pollution and limits sprawl
Federal Transit Funding Supports TOD
The 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act includes key provisions to support transit-oriented development. The FAST Act reauthorized and expanded the Transportation Infrastructure […]
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Steve Reilly, - USA TODAY
Stephan: Donald Trump is a grifter, he has always been a grifter, and he particularly likes to grift the ordinary working class people who voted for him. Am I exaggerating? Read this, and you tell me.
Credit: Joe Darrow
During the Atlantic City casino boom in the 1980s, Philadelphia cabinet-builder Edward Friel Jr. landed a $400,000 contract to build the bases for slot machines, registration desks, bars and other cabinets at Harrah’s at Trump Plaza.
The family cabinetry business, founded in the 1940s by Edward’s father, finished its work in 1984 and submitted its final bill to the general contractor for the Trump Organization, the resort’s builder.
Edward’s son, Paul, who was the firm’s accountant, still remembers the amount of that bill more than 30 years later: $83,600. The reason: the money never came. “That began the demise of the Edward J. Friel Company… which has been around since my grandfather,” he said.
Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will “protect your job.” But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies […]
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Thursday, April 5th, 2018
Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport New York Editor - DC Report
Stephan: For many years coming into the United States or going to an American embassy abroad has been a study in authoritarian government. It is very intimidating, and it is designed to be that way. But now it is reaching a level that even North Korea must envy.
In the course of my life I have done a great deal of international travel, but my really experienced international traveler friends tell me that now they keep a laptop and phone somewhere out of the country where they regularly visit, and send whatever they need home over the internet before returning to the U.S. so that they never come into the country with either a phone or a laptop. After you read this article, if you regularly travel out of the country, you may do the same, and you should certainly warn any family or friends coming to the U.S. that they should be aware of what they will face. Particularly if they are coming from any but the 40 waiver nations (you can find the list by clicking through).
I wonder if they have taken that plaque off the Statue of Liberty yet?
If I read it correctly, the Trump administraton, defender of reducing government spending for all things but national security and military parades, now wants to screen the social media posts of every visitor to the United States.
All 14.7 million of them, including my family from Argentina.
I guess the idea is that you can’t be too careful about who enters through the nation’s airports, ports and roads. Someone may have become radicalized and want to harm Americans.
You might notice that some people come to this country to do business, to be part of cultural tours or to just to visit cousins.
I’m expecting my next overseas vacation will require sharing my fascinating Facebook and Instagram posts.
Overseas customs officials will be as just as rapt as American audiences about seeing pictures of my grandchildren and the picture of my jazz band playing at a Greenwich Village club.
Under rules the U.S. State Department issued last week, nearly all applicants for a visa to enter the United States—14.7 million people a year—will be asked to submit their social media usernames for the past […]
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Thursday, April 5th, 2018
Nahal Toosi, Ted Hesson and Sarah Frostenson, - Politico
Stephan: I can't tell you how many friends and family from other countries have told me they won't be coming to the U.S. for the foreseeable future. My own sister has told me that she will not return to the U.S. as long as Trump is President and the Republicans control the government. And she is an American citizen living abroad. My niece who works for the U.N. running a program that helps women and children feels the same. And they are by no means unique. Foreign visitors generally are way down and their numbers are dropping rapidly, as this report spells out.
This is not a trivial issue. Cities and states that are usually tourist destinations will be significantly impacted. Hotels, museums, national parks, restaurants, all with hourly workers will suffer. Immigrant doctors and nurses who constitute a critical part of what passes for healthcare in the U.S. aren't coming, which means that rural hospitals and clinics which disproportionately depend on immigrant professionals are already suffering staff shortages or closing.
All of this is being done by Trump and the Republicans to cater to their christofascist White supremacist base.
To the rest of America: It's time to stand up and be counted
The United States is granting fewer visitor visas to people from around the world — not just Muslims — as President Donald Trump ratchets up his anti-immigration rhetoric.
By one measure, the U.S. granted 13 percent fewer visitor visas over the past 12 months when compared with fiscal year 2016, according to State Department data analyzed by POLITICO — a downward trend that appears to have accelerated in the past six months.
It’s unclear whether the drop is due to fewer people applying or more rejections of applications. The cause is likely some combination of both. The State Department furnishes data on how many visitor visas are granted per country, but releases only limited information on how many applications are received or refused.
But the decline comes as Trump is once again underscoring his hard-line views on immigration. Over the weekend, the president used Twitter to blame Democrats and the Mexican government for a “dangerous” flow of migrants over the border. The Republican president blasted America’s “dumb immigration laws” and threatened to abandon legislative talks on how to deal with […]
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Thursday, April 5th, 2018
, - The Los Angeles Times/The Washington Post
Stephan: Judges will now have quotas for deportation, something even the Soviet Union didn't have. Under Trump and Republican governance we are no longer a healthy democracy, and are well on the way to becoming an authoritarian bully nation.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration will pressure U.S. immigration judges to process cases faster by establishing a quota system tied to their annual performance reviews, according to new Justice Department directives.
The judges will be expected to clear at least 700 cases a year to receive a “satisfactory” performance rating, a standard that their union called an “unprecedented” step that risks undermining judicial independence and opens the courts to potential challenges.
Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has promised to stiffen immigration enforcement partly by moving more aggressively to clear a backlog of more than 600,000 cases pending before the Executive Office of Immigration Review, the federal court system that adjudicates immigration cases.
Some immigrants facing deportation wait years for a court date, but they are typically authorized to work in the United States to support themselves during that time, an arrangement that critics view as an incentive to illegal immigration.
