Li Hai
Close to half of Americans can’t afford a one-bedroom rental: report
Home is where the rent’s affordable which, for many Americans, is an increasingly thin portion of the housing market.
New data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition has revealed the depressing reality that close to half of the American workforce does not make enough money to rent a one-bedroom apartment.
The situation has been made significantly worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which US rents rose while many Americans fell behind on rent payments.
The problem is a huge threat to national happiness and well-being, researchers believe.
“The kind of tight budgets that especially low-income renters face when they’re cost-burdened can lead to serious harms,” National Low Income Housing Coalition research analyst Daniel Threet told the Guardian.
In order to afford a one-bedroom rental, the new data reported, workers must earn approximately $20.40 an hour, where the median US wage is only $21 an hour — and the federal minimum wage is only $7.25 an hour. . . .
Social Media’s Threat to Religious Freedom
Carl Trueman is a distinguished scholar, bestselling author and ordained Presbyterian minister. On Aug. 7 he gave a series of talks to the Sacramento Gospel Conference, live-streamed on the YouTube channel of Immanuel Baptist Church. Twice during the event, the live broadcast was booted off the air. Viewers were informed that the first interruption was due to a copyright violation, possibly the result of Christian music that the conference organizers played during a break. But in the second, more mysterious instance, Mr. Trueman’s presentation went dark because of a “content violation.”
Was this an intervention by a human being or an algorithm on automatic pilot? Neither Mr. Trueman nor Immanuel Baptist has been told. Equally unclear is the specific nature of the alleged content violation. Nothing in Mr. Trueman’s talks encouraged hatred, vulgarity or violence. On the contrary, he offered a thoughtful analysis of American cultural attitudes toward sex through the lens of classic Christian thought, citing sources from Freud to the philosophers Rousseau and Charles Taylor.
Mr. Trueman is understandably worried that religious speech is being censored online. So are many other religious believers. And for good reason: We sense that the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty is being dismantled, and with it the profound contributions that religion makes to American unity and self-government.
Today’s sexual politics function as a new kind of fundamentalism, one that presents a deep problem to a diverse and democratic society. Instead of encouraging the dialogue of democratic process, the fundamentalists seek to impose their own rigid certitude unilaterally. On matters ranging from foster care and education to gender ideology and the family, this new fundamentalism is displacing the moral convictions that once grounded U.S. culture. The result isn’t a more compassionate and liberal society; it’s a more punitive one.
Social Media enables the new fundamentalism, enforced by the mysterious rules of Big Tech’s quasimonopoly. On public sidewalks, the First Amendment still theoretically protects free speech. In the new public square of the internet, power displaces liberty and conscience.
Lies, Lies and More Lies To Create Covid-19 Fear For Power and Money | The Texas Tribune ‘Corrects’ It’s Claim That 5,800 Children Hospitalized In 7 Days
Correction, Aug. 12, 2021: An earlier version of this story overstated the number of children who have been hospitalized in Texas recently with COVID-19. The story said over 5,800 children had been hospitalized during a seven-day period in August, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number correctly referred to children hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began. In actuality, 783 children were admitted to Texas hospitals with COVID-19 between July 1 and Aug. 9 of this year. Texas children and children’s hospitals are under siege from two viruses: RSV and COVID-19
Minneapolis GOP campaign manager, PAC founder allegedly sex trafficked minors
Federal authorities on Thursday arrested a Minneapolis-based GOP strategist and PAC founder on allegations of sex trafficking minors, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
The FBI arrested Anton “Tony” Lazzaro on Thursday on numerous charges, including conspiring with others to recruit minors to engage in sexual acts.
According to the indictment, Authorities seized Lazzaro’s possessions including his 2010 Ferrari, property at a downtown hotel, $371,240 in cash, and multiple electronic devices, according to the Star-Tribune.
Federal authorities said they could not estimate the ages or genders of the victims in the case, sharing that more victims could be identified as the investigation continues. . . .
Chicago Cardinal Pushes for Mandatory Coronavirus Vaccines
Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich has been applying “tremendous pressure” on the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) to withdraw its support for conscientious objection to receiving a coronavirus vaccine, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported Wednesday.
On condition of anonymity, one NCBC board member said Cupich has been “leaning hard” on board members, both bishops and laypersons, to throw their support behind a vaccine mandate.
In early July, the NCBC declared it “does not endorse mandated COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] immunization,” referencing a 2020 instruction from the Vatican’s doctrinal office (CDF) that “vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”
“The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) does not endorse mandated COVID-19 immunization with any of the three vaccines that have received Emergency Use Authorization as of July 1, 2021,” the statement read.
“The most authoritative guidance from the Catholic Church issued on this topic comes from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and emphasizes that individuals must discern whether to be vaccinated or not in conscience and without coercion,” it added.
“The short answer is we don’t have a moral obligation” to get the vaccine, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann told Catholic News Service (CNS) in an interview last February, but it is “permissible to use these vaccines.”
In order for a particular vaccine to be morally mandatory, a number of conditions must exist, including the irrefutable lethality of the disease, proven effectiveness of the vaccine as well as its guaranteed safety for recipients, and an absence of moral objections to the vaccine itself and its provenance.
None of these conditions have been definitively met in the case of the coronavirus and the various vaccines created to defend against it.
Hassan Mahmood on how the mindsets of successful people differ from others
A follow-up to the conclusion of a certain laid down action is called winning. So many people lie in the category of always postponing and putting things on hold. Once you are a victim of procrastinating, it is hard to get yourself to see it fully done. You lose a lot of trust in people and end up becoming unreliable. Hassan Mahmood has shared his insights on the mindset of a winner in this article. No other person can give you the conviction that you need from yourself. This means you have to maintain positive thoughts and ideas in your mind. Once you have created this for yourself, it is easy to regard yourself highly. Secondly, you need to put down your ideas either in your diary, plan book or as a reminder. This majorly helps you keep track of what is required to be done.
Now that you have created a positive environment in your mind, keeping track of things that need to be done, you need to work on your discipline. Be focused enough to meet the deadlines of the said plans and targets. If you have to do it overnight, do it. Once you see your plans getting to be done and you are following up to see that you have done them in the right way, you get some ray of hope and trust yourself more. This creates patterns for yourself, people around you, investors, family, colleagues start relying on you. A winner is a reliable game-changer that is disciplined enough and gets things done. The simple change in you winning in a month, creating this pattern to work for you throughout the whole year, changes your life forever.
A winner is a person that has a pattern of meeting up to fulfill his dreams. This is what Hassan Mahmood believes is how the mind of a winner operates. . . .
Fintech CEO Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison for COVID-19 Relief Loan Fraud, Investment Fraud
Audrey Strauss, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced on Wednesday in a statement, that Sheng-Wen Cheng, a CEO of a financial technology company has been sentenced to 6 years in prison for fraudulently obtaining $7 million in government loans intended to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as for securities fraud.
Cheng, a/k/a “Justin Cheng” or “Justin Jung” applied in 2020 to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and other financial institutions under other people’s names for a total of over $7 million of government-guaranteed loans designed for small business owners impacted by lockdowns and restrictions due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party virus pandemic.
To mitigate the financial difficulties suffered by businesses, Congress passed a $2.2 trillion rescue package also known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which provided loans for business owners to use for paying their workers and keeping them employed during lockdowns, among other benefits.
These loans had attractive features such as forgiveness of up to eight weeks of payroll based on employee retention and salary levels, no SBA fees, and their repayment could be deferred for a period of six months to a year. However, the amount of granted loans was determined by the number of workers employed by the business and their payroll cost.
In order to receive this type of loan, Cheng, 24 of New York City, who controlled several Fintech companies provided falsified information claiming that other individuals were the sole owners of his companies, the statement said. He also stated in loan applications that his companies employed together over 200 workers to whom he paid in total about $1.5 million in wages per month. To prove that, Cheng submitted falsified tax records that had not been filed with the IRS and payroll records with forged signatures.
All of Cheng’s companies employed a total of no more than 14 employees, the statement said. His false payroll records included names of celebrities, athletes, artists, and public figures, such as a co-anchor of a TV show, a former football player, or a deceased coach.
With the funds obtained through defrauding his lenders, Cheng purchased luxury goods or services for his personal use such as renting and furnishing a luxury condominium instead of directing them to cover payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent, or utilities of his companies as required by the CARES Act, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
In addition to misusing COVID-19 relief loans, Cheng committed investment fraud between 2017 and 2019, the statement said. . . .
Horatio Sanz groomed, sexually assaulted underage fan at ‘SNL’ party: lawsuit
Comedian Horatio Sanz allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted an underage superfan at a “Saturday Night Live” party — as cast members looked the other way, the woman claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The unnamed Pennsylvania woman, who was 17 at the time, was running an “SNL” fan site in May 2002 when Sanz allegedly took her on a limo ride, then “digitally penetrated her genitals” at a post-show bash, according to the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The girl first met Sanz at age 15 — when he was 31 years old — in 2000 after he invited her to a taping of the sketch comedy show, according to the lawsuit, which names the actor and SNL Studios as defendants.
The next year, he summoned her to several after-show parties, where he allowed her to drink, touched her inappropriately and told her “to sit on his lap,” according to the lawsuit. . . .
How the woke takeover of child services endangers abused kids
Just to be clear: There were adults who cared about Julissia Batties. Yet their care couldn’t overcome the illogic of a child-welfare machine that returned her to an abusive family environment that this week ended her life: Julissia’s half-brother allegedly beat the 7-year-old to death for taking snacks from the kitchen, an attack subsequently covered up by her own mother.
Her grandmother for years had cared for Julissia. There were city Administration for Children’s Services caseworkers who tried to keep her away from her abusive mother and siblings, even going to the highest courts in the state to keep her safe. There were even concerned neighbors who repeatedly called authorities when they saw what was happening.
The story of Julissia Batties isn’t a story of hidden child abuse, of what goes on behind closed doors. It is the story of a system that favors placing children with their biological parents no matter what the danger, then delays action until it is too late.
Julissia had been taken from her mother at birth. Little wonder, since the mother had lost custody of her four older children in 2013 over safety concerns. A family-court judge initially granted her mother custody — God only knows why — but ACS lawyers appealed the decision and won. . . .
Ex-Chicago police officer gets year in prison for taking bribes in exchange for crash report details
Kevin Tate pleaded guilty to a bribery conspiracy in September 2019, admitting he took “not less than $10,000” from Richard Burton, who ran National Attorney Referral Service.
An ex-Chicago police officer who admitted taking thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for early access to the names of people involved in traffic accidents was sentenced Thursday to a year in federal prison.
Kevin Tate pleaded guilty to a bribery conspiracy in September 2019, admitting he took “not less than $10,000” from Richard Burton, who ran National Attorney Referral Service, while giving Burton details from 25 to 100 crash reports per month from 2015 until 2017.
U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle handed down Tate’s sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrianna Kastanek in a court memo last spring sought a sentence of as many as three years for Tate. She wrote that Tate’s crime was serious not because of the crash reports, “but in the significance of a police officer accepting a bribe in exchange for providing a member of the public with access to information intended, at that time, only for police use.”
“In this context, it was traffic reports,” Kastanek wrote. “In another context, it could have been other sensitive information whose disclosure could risk public or private safety. In exchange for private financial gain (and a relatively small amount of gain) [Tate] compromised his integrity, and public trust in police officers.”
Todd Pugh, one of Tate’s defense attorneys, wrote in a separate memo that punishment has already been leveled toward Tate through the loss of his job, the “unrepairable damage to his professional reputation, and the shame of ignoring the oath he took as a Chicago Police officer to uphold the law.”
Pugh wrote that Tate was fired following his guilty plea.
Tate began his career as a Chicago police officer in 2005 and was repeatedly recognized by the department, Pugh wrote, including when he received a Life Saving Award for rescuing two children from a burning apartment building.
Burton, who pleaded guilty in June 2019 to a bribery conspiracy, has yet to be sentenced, records show. A second officer caught up in the scheme but charged separately, Milot Cadichon, was sentenced in November 2019 to 18 months in prison.
Federal prison records show Cadichon was released from custody in June.