CityLab: Portugal Passes ‘Right to Housing’ Law As Prices Surge

The Basic Housing Law emphasizes the “social function” of housing, with the explicit goals of eradicating homelessness, prioritizing the use of public real estate for affordable housing, and prohibiting tenant evictions across Lisbon—a pressing issue in recent years—unless the state is able to provide similar accommodation nearby. Framers of the law describe it as a foundation and roadmap for future policies, albeit one with some explicitly defined targets, rather than a direct instrument for giving people homes.

The law stipulates that the government will need to present a first-ever national policy for housing to the parliament by March 2020, including special protective measures for young people, the disabled, the elderly, and families with young children.

It also creates a mechanism whereby not only individuals but entire neighborhoods will be able to lodge complaints about housing quality, ongoing construction, or proposed developments, in an attempt to democratize a sector that has seen soaring rent increases amid the tourism boom in Lisbon’s city center. [...]

Although there is not more recent data, according to the 2011 census there were there were 50,289 vacant homes in Lisbon’s inner city, out of a total of 322,865 housing units, according to Mendes. (Many homes in the capital were abandoned as the population shrank in the late 20th century.) Meanwhile, the ongoing demolition of illegal or informal settlements—there are an estimated 14,000 families living in “precarious conditions” in the Lisbon metropolitan area—penalizes the poor who lack sufficient protections and has stoked racial tensions in districts such as Barrio de Jamaica.

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BBC: The strange link between the human mind and quantum physics

For one thing, the mind seemed, to the great discomfort of physicists, to force its way into early quantum theory. What's more, quantum computers are predicted to be capable of accomplishing things ordinary computers cannot, which reminds us of how our brains can achieve things that are still beyond artificial intelligence. "Quantum consciousness" is widely derided as mystical woo, but it just will not go away. [...]

When this "observer effect" was first noticed by the early pioneers of quantum theory, they were deeply troubled. It seemed to undermine the basic assumption behind all science: that there is an objective world out there, irrespective of us. If the way the world behaves depends on how – or if – we look at it, what can "reality" really mean? [...]

Physicists are not terribly comfortable with finding themselves inside their theories. Most hope that consciousness and the brain can be kept out of quantum theory, and perhaps vice versa. After all, we do not even know what consciousness is, let alone have a theory to describe it. [...]

One particularly puzzling question is how our conscious minds can experience unique sensations, such as the colour red or the smell of frying bacon. With the exception of people with visual impairments, we all know what red is like, but we have no way to communicate the sensation and there is nothing in physics that tells us what it should be like.

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Slate: Iran Is Right

I take no joy in reporting this, as the ruling regime in Tehran ranks among the world’s most detestable and oppressive. It’s a sad day when the American president and his top officials outdo the mullahs in mendacity. [...]

First, and most obviously (though it’s surprising how few news stories mention this up high, if at all), Iran was not the first country to breach the deal’s terms. In May 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, for no good reason other than he didn’t like it, despite the fact that international inspectors had repeatedly attested that the Iranians were in compliance with its terms. Then Trump not only re-imposed economic sanctions, which had been lifted with the signing of the deal, but also imposed “secondary sanctions” on any country that did business with Iran—even the five powers (Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany, along with the European Union) that had co-signed it.

Second, even in its (quite delayed) response to Trump’s withdrawal, Iran did not violate the accord. Paragraph 36 of the JCPOA states that if one signatory of the pact believes that some others “were not meeting their commitments” under the deal, then, after certain meetings and consultations, it would have “grounds to cease performing its commitments.” [...]

Fourth, leveling secondary sanctions against other countries doing business with Iran is a violation of the spirit, and possibly the letter, of international law. It is permissible and even proper to punish countries or companies that violate sanctions imposed by, say, a U.N. Security Council resolution. But the JCPOA is a Security Council resolution—No. 2231—enshrined as international law in July 2015, around the same time the U.S. and the other five countries signed it as a multinational deal with Iran.

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Politico: Trump campaign plunges into brawl to control Pennsylvania GOP

The showdown highlights the importance of Pennsylvania to the presidential race in 2020 — and the determination of Trump's reelection team to quash any potential dissension within the party heading into next year. Trump’s aides have intervened in a number of states besides Pennsylvania toward that end. [...]

If Trump's team is successful in both electing Comfort and uniting the party, it would be a major victory. But the campaign is taking a risk by jumping into the race. If Comfort loses, Trump’s aides will have to work with a party chairman they actively opposed. And despite their best efforts, the election is exposing old divides within the state party. [...]

The race has also pitted two of the party's donors against each other. Wagner, who is behind Tabas, shot off an email to supporters assailing the pro-Comfort Republican National Committee member Bob Asher for "working the phones calling people to influence who becomes the next party chairman," and saying his "politics have left our party bitterly fractured and highly dysfunctional." Wagner is calling for Asher to be removed from his position in the party.

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The Guardian: Mitsotakis takes over as Greece's PM with radical change of style

In a changing of the guard that was as subdued as it was swift, Mitsotakis assumed office after he was officially sworn in by the Orthodox Christian country’s spiritual leader, Archbishop Ieronymos. [...]

From the outset, there was no escaping the change in style. In a radical departure from his leftwing predecessor, a self-declared atheist only ever seen in open-neck shirts, Mitsotakis wore a suit and tie as he took the oath on the Bible, watched by his wife and three children. [...]

His pledge to reduce taxes and create jobs in a county still grappling with record unemployment – at 18%, the highest in the EU – particularly appealed to the middle class hit hard by tax rates imposed by the Tsipras government to meet fiscal targets. [...]

The new cabinet will be sworn in on Tuesday. Mitsotakis may have a fiery start: tensions with Turkey have risen dangerously in the eastern Mediterranean over conflicting claims to energy reserves off the island of Cyprus. In a move that has alarmed the EU, Ankara announced that it would be sending a second drilling ship to begin the search for hydrocarbons off the island on Tuesday.

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Politico: Cuomo signs law allowing New York to hand over Trump's taxes

“Tax secrecy is paramount — the exception being for bonafide investigative and law enforcement purposes," Cuomo said in a release. "By amending the law enforcement exception in New York State tax code to include Congressional tax-related committees, this bill gives Congress the ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities, strengthen our democratic system and ensure that no one is above the law."

The law allows the state Department of Taxation and Finance to share returns of top federal, state or local government officials — though not private citizens — with three congressional committees that have jurisdiction over tax matters at the request of their respective chair. [...]

It’s just the latest broadside from Empire State Democrats against the president. The state attorney general’s office, now headed by Tish James, has opened multiple probes into Trump’s businesses and charitable dealings, including the forced shutdown of the Trump Foundation in December 2018.

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Reuters: Florida county cannot ban invocations by atheists: U.S. appeals court

A federal appeals court on Monday declared a Florida county’s ban on atheists and other non-religious groups from giving invocations before public meetings unconstitutional, even as it ordered the narrowing of an injunction against the practice. [...]

Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedents, Marcus said the law was clear that sectarian prayer was allowed, but Brevard County’s practice “is unconstitutional and must be rejected.”

Marcus singled out county officials who testified they would bar prayers from deists, Wiccans, Rastafarians and polytheists, and would have to think “long and hard” before inviting Hindus, Sikhs or followers of Native-American religions.

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CNN: Why can't Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just get along?

That comment echoes what Pelosi said of AOC (and her closest allies, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts) in an April interview with USA Today. "While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what's important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House," Pelosi said. [...]

Take climate change. In an interview with Politico earlier this year, Pelosi referred to it as her "flagship issue." In forming the select committee aimed at considering the best possible legislative solution to the crisis, Pelosi said this: "I want everybody to be in on the act because this is deadly serious." [...]

And that's part of the broader issue here: Pelosi bristles at the idea that she and AOC are on some sort of equal plane because the New York congresswoman has almost 5 million Twitter followers. That's all well and good to Pelosi, but is nothing when compared to serving as the Speaker of the House (and the first woman to hold that role to boot)!

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