Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Trump administration’s innovative affordable housing strategy. The Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plan would raise rent on low-income people in Las Vegas by 20.7 percent, or $820 a year, and 46 percent of those affected would be children, according to a new analysis from the Center for Budget Policies and Priorities released to the AP. (BTW, ICYMI, FWIW my column yesterday reviews the status of Nevada’s affordably housing policy, or, rather, the lack therof).

In other wildly unaffordable housing news… Bubble, Bust, Repeat?

Sin City. In the final (for now) story of Dana Gentry’s three-part investigation of the bizarre coziness of law enforcement and pimps, a star witness asserts she was ready, willing and eager to testify against a violent criminal. Which is exactly the opposite of what the District Attorney says when explaining why he made a plea deal with aforementioned violent criminal.

Click bait, but still… Here at the Daily Current, we prefer peer-reviewed studies to market analyst company listicles. As a rule, anyway. And Las Vegas is not the 4th worst city in the U.S. (except on days Laxalt or Heller is visiting, maybe). But given the item directly above, 24/7WallStreet may be on to something, at least crime-wise. KTNV

Anything for Amazon. Jeff Bezos once famously explained that he’s spending billions of dollars on spaceships because he’s got so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it. In other words, from the viewpoint of Nevada’s economic development professionals, the Amazon CEO is exactly the type of person that needs a lot of corporate welfare. The R-J describes some of the welfare package, er incentive plan, which included free land and hundreds of millions in tax breaks, that Nevada was willing to lay at the feet of the Bezos god. Of course, though Nevada’s economic development experts, including Gov. Brian Sandoval, truly excel at groveling to impress rich people from somewhere else, Amazon decided that other locations, similarly eager to demean themselves and their citizenry while the citizenry’s urgent needs go ignored, will be better suited for Amazon’s second headquarters.

In a related item… Employees at an Amazon warehouse in Minnesota allege that Amazon is basically too cheap for air conditioning, and workers have suffered exhaustion, dehydration and even injuries as a result, reports the AP. Amazon has three warehouses – oops, make that “fulfillment centers” – in Nevada, and a fourth in the works. Fortunately it doesn’t get hot here. Besides, Nevada is renowned for monitoring workplace health and safety.

Poliwrap: An overview of the GOP congressional primary that the perennial loser is expected to win (Indy); An overview of things that you, astute Daily Current readers, assuredly already know (Sun); And in the Current, a look at African American women carving out careers in the political-industrial complex.

Good luck

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