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Reposted by Emily Hamilton

Michael🎃🎃🎃🎃👻👻👻👻 @ballstonbakfiets.bsky.social · 15h

Someone needs to ask, "how does it save money to lay off people who aren't receiving paychecks?"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15h

BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 2d

He didn’t yell down the angles

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Reposted by Emily Hamilton

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d

My first thought was “wow I hope this guy didn’t give out his name because he could absolutely be charged” and yup, he is correct to stay anonymous.

This man’s account is shocking. His neighbors’ situation is shocking. The entire Chicago raid is shocking.

On the other side was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for his help.
"I wasn't planning on letting her stay, but I didn't know what the hell was going on," the man said of his Venezuelan migrant neighbors. But he quickly relented. The little girl was inconsolable and hid under his bed.
"I didn't want them to take her," said the man, who didn't want to be named because he fears he'll be targeted by federal authorities for his actions.
"I gave her my bedroom, and I just told her,
'Just stay there. Don't open, don't, shh, just stay quiet," he recalled telling the mom and daughter as he choked back tears.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 2d

Reading curricula intentionally moved away from phonics-forward writing like Dr. Seuss to encourage the “look at the picture” method.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 2d

I was a late-ish reader (mid first grade), so I actually remember learning how to read. I had the book Hop on Pop memorized, and figured out the phonics during a family road trip.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 2d

I’m listening to the podcast Sold a Story, and it is both fascinating and scandalizing. In the late twentieth century, schools decided to stop teaching reading to kids who couldn’t figure out how to decode words for themselves.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 3d

Turns out that building streets for fire trucks does not maximize life safety!

Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 3d

This is because apparently a coronavirus pandemic also unleashes a pandemic of nihilism

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 3d

2. CAFE standards that led to very aerodynamic windshields that are hard to see out (and incentivized a proliferation of trucks and SUVs relative to sedans, though Brian points out sedan fatalities are up too)

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 3d

But he leaves out two factors that may help to explain why pedestrian fatalities are rising in the U.S. compared to other countries:

1. NHTSA requirements for wide A-pillars (the piece between the driver's window and the windshield that creates a blindspot)

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 3d

This Brian Potter post provides a thorough break down of the data on rising pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. open.substack.com/pub/construc...

Why Are So Many Pedestrians Killed by Cars in the US?

It’s unfortunately not uncommon for pedestrians to be killed by cars in the US.

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Emily Hamilton

onekade @onekade.bsky.social · 4d

Not to be that guy but the democrats should have had the foresight to see this coming when Obama did this exact same thing (including to US citizens!) and they did nothing. It’s not as if they weren’t warned by the ACLU and many others! Bipartisan “war on terror” foolishness delivered this.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Schiff: "If a president in secret can put names on a list and kill them, then there is no war power still retained by Congress, and there's no check on an executive who may drag us into another war."

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 4d

As I see it they’ve made peace with that one.

Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 4d

Families desperate for 4+ BR apartments in walkable neighborhoods

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 4d

Lmao who are the special interests pushing single-stair reform? Small scale multifamily infill developers who don't exist yet?

Rory Stolzenberg @rorystolzenberg.bsky.social · 4d

NFPA responds to this Pew study showing modern multi-family housing is safer than detached houses with a column attacking single-stair reform.

Affordability arguments are "dubious" and pushed by "special interests" — citing high profits for… single-family homebuilders.

www.nfpa.org/news-blogs-a...

What some advocates and special interests in the building industry are now proposing around the country is an expansion of single-stair construction well beyond that threshold—in some cases allowing single-stair construction in buildings up to six stories tall. These changes are being pushed legislatively, some with literally no debate or input from safety officials, and outside the safeguards of an independent, consensus-driven code process.

...

In short, the fire safety record of newer buildings should not be used to justify shortcuts in the very process that made them safe. And, we should not rely on dubious estimates on affordability from the home building industry, which has posted record profits in recent years.

Housing affordability is a serious issue, but the solution can’t be sacrificing safety to protect developer profits. Everyone deserves a safe place to live, regardless of income, zip code, or building height.

NAHB’s New Study Provides Statistics and Data on Builder Financial Performance
...

The 2025 edition of The Cost of Doing Business Study reveals significant trends in the financial performance of builders:

On average, single-family builders reported higher gross and net profit margins in 2023 than in 2020. Their average 8.7% net profit margin was the highest in more than three decades and second only to the series peak of 10% in 1991.

The average gross profit margin increased from 18.2% in 2020 to 20.7% in 2023.
The average net profit margin rose from 7.0% to 8.7% during this period.

https://www.nahb.org/news-and-economics/press-releases/2025/04/nahbs-new-study-provides-statistics-and-data-on-builder-financial-performance?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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Reposted by Emily Hamilton

Welcoming Neighbors Network @welcomingneighbors.us · 4d

“The Montana experience shows why it’s often necessary to come back and pass cleanup bills to achieve policymakers’ initial intentions … Zoning and building code regulations have a 100-year history of making it more difficult to build housing over time. Unwinding this morass will take time as well.”

What Montana Can Teach Us About Housing Reform

Two years ago, lawmakers in the Big Sky State passed one of the most comprehensive state-level housing reform packages in the country. This year, they doubled down on their success.

www.governing.com

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 4d

I heard she still has questions about his support for upzoning and permit streamlining

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

Here's a fertility hack. 1) Go to low-ranked schools, 2) life turns out fine, 3) assume kids' life will also be fine if they go to low-ranked schools.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

"'Momfluencers' and other social media phenomena that encourage parents to compare their children to other parents’ children are fueling an expensive educational arms race that may be contributing to record-low global fertility." www.brookings.edu/articles/pol...

Policy concerns in an era of low fertility | Brookings

www.brookings.edu

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Reposted by Emily Hamilton

Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 5d

I can't stop thinking about this. We're pursuing zero fire risk in multifam, while tolerating much more in single-fam. People respond by building and living in single-fam, where they're exposed to not only one of the highest fire death risks in the developed world, but also TONS more car crash risk

Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

Love this new report on buildings' relative fire safety from @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew colleagues.

www.pew.org/en/research-...

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

From the report:

"Among the roughly 8.3 million Americans who lived in apartments built since 2010, just four died in a residential fire in 2023. Far more people—at least 20—died in homelessness-related fires than in fires in apartments built since 2010."

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

Real talk about tradeoffs is badly needed in the building code development process.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

Increasing the cost new multifamily buildings leads to more people:
1) living in less safe old housing,
2) being more likely to live in greenfield single-family that is more dangerous from a fire perspective and WAY more dangerous from a vehicle miles traveled perspective, or
3) being homeless

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

Modern multifamily buildings are already very safe. Every three years, changes to U.S. building codes change to make these buildings marginally safer but also more expensive to build.

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Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

Love this new report on buildings' relative fire safety from @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew colleagues.

www.pew.org/en/research-...

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