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FOCUS: Congress and Biden Allowed the Eviction Ban to Expire, So Cori Bush and AOC Are Raising Hell |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60370"><span class="small">Jake Johnson, In These Times</span></a>
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Tuesday, 03 August 2021 11:46 |
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Johnson writes: "Members of the Squad are participating in a sit-in outside of the Capitol demanding that the House reconvene in order to restore the moratorium to protect millions of Americans from being evicted."
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the Capitol. (photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Congress and Biden Allowed the Eviction Ban to Expire, So Cori Bush and AOC Are Raising Hell
By Jake Johnson, In These Times
03 August 21
Members of the Squad are participating in a sit-in outside of the Capitol demanding that the House reconvene in order to restore the moratorium to protect millions of Americans from being evicted.
 nationwide eviction moratorium officially expired Saturday after the Biden administration refused to extend it unilaterally and Congress failed to act in time, putting millions of people across the U.S. at risk of losing their homes in the near future as the highly virulent Delta strain tears through the country.
The CDC’s temporary eviction ban lapsed as a growing group of lawmakers and activists rallied on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demand that Democratic leaders immediately reconvene the House and pass an extension. Many lawmakers skipped town Friday after the House adjourned for its seven-week August recess without holding a vote on prolonging the moratorium, which—while flawed—significantly curbed the number eviction filings nationwide.
“We’re now in an eviction emergency,” said Rep. Cori Bush (D?Mo.), who has been camping out at the U.S. Capitol building since Friday to push for immediate action from Congress and the Biden White House. “Eleven million are now at risk of losing their homes at any moment. The House needs to reconvene and put an end to this crisis.”
In a letter to President Joe Biden and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Saturday, Bush joined Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D?Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D?Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D?N.Y.), and others in calling on the White House to do everything in its power to “prevent the historic and deadly wave of evictions that will occur should the government fail to extend the eviction moratorium.”
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must leverage every authority available to extend the eviction moratorium before it is too late,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote. “In the meantime, we are continuing to work diligently to push for legislative action and ensure that states and localities in our districts are disbursing the billions in critical emergency rental assistance to renters and property owners that Congress passed most recently as part of the American Rescue Plan.”
State and local governments have thus far distributed just $3 billion of the roughly $46 billion that Congress appropriated for the Emergency Rental Assistance initiative, a program designed to help keep at-risk tenants in their homes amid the ongoing public health emergency, which has dramatically worsened the country’s preexisting housing crisis. Nationwide, total rent debt is now estimated to be around $20 billion.
Contrary to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D?Calif.) claim Friday that “we only learned about this yesterday,” lawmakers had been aware of the looming eviction emergency since at least June 29, when the conservative-dominated Supreme Court signaled that it would likely toss out any attempt to keep the moratorium in place beyond July 31.
When the CDC extended the ban for the fourth time on June 24, the agency said that “this is intended to be the final extension of the moratorium.”
In a statement on Thursday?—?just 72 hours before the moratorium’s expiration?—?White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki pointed to the June Supreme Court ruling as the reason the Biden administration would not act on its own to extend the ban. The next day, lawmakers scrambled to build support for legislation that would extend the moratorium, but the effort collapsed amid opposition from centrist Democrats and Republicans.
Late Friday, House Democrats attempted to pass an extension of the moratorium using a procedure known as unanimous consent, but Rep. Patrick McHenry (R?N.C.) objected, tanking the bill. The House proceeded to adjourn for August recess without a roll-call vote.
Under pressure from progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups, the House Democratic leadership has not yet given any indication that it plans to reconvene the chamber.
“What a devastating failure to act in a moment of crisis,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “As the Delta variant surges and our understanding of its dangers grow, the White House punts to Congress in the final 48 hours and the House leaves for summer break.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who joined Bush and dozens of activists at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, said that “it’s just simply unacceptable” for members of Congress to go on vacation as the eviction moratorium lapses.
“We cannot be abandoning the up to 11 million Americans that are in need, particularly when emergency rental assistance?—?the $46 billion that we authorized?—?has not gotten out.”
Due to loopholes in the CDC’s moratorium, landlords continued to file for eviction even with the temporary ban in place. Now that the moratorium has lapsed, experts and housing advocates fear that eviction cases currently in the pipeline will resume imminently, threatening millions with the loss of their homes.
“Tens of thousands [of pending evictions] across the state, easily, are just sitting there in abatement waiting until the CDC order expires,” Mark Melton, an attorney with the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, told the Texas Tribune on Friday. “And the second [the moratorium] expires, the landlord or the court will call for another hearing, and they’re all going to go through. If there’s no CDC declaration, those evictions are just going to go through.”
For weeks, activists have been warning that a wave of evictions amid growing coronavirus infections would be catastrophic. A recent study by a UCLA-led team of researchers found that the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths “increased dramatically after states lifted eviction moratoriums” last year. While some states still have eviction bans in place, those too are set to expire in the coming weeks.
According to an analysis by Eviction Lab last month, neighborhoods across the U.S. with the highest eviction filing rates typically have the lowest levels of vaccination against Covid-19.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, and while vaccination access is improving, it’s still limited in disadvantaged communities that are at greatest risk for eviction,” Eviction Lab researchers wrote. “The CDC eviction moratorium is, for many tenants behind on rent, the last remaining protection from the threat of displacement.”
Citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that “renters in Southern states are among the most vulnerable to the ban’s expiration.”
“Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia tenants are more likely to carry rent debt than the U.S. average,” the Journal noted. “Eviction laws and procedures in some Southern states are also among the most landlord-friendly in the country, which means many tenants could be evicted quickly once the ban lifts. In Mississippi, tenants can lose their eviction case in court and be removed from their home on the same day. In Arkansas, landlords can pursue criminal charges for tenants who don’t pay rent. And in western Tennessee, where a federal judge ruled that the CDC ban was unconstitutional, tenants are already getting evicted for nonpayment.”
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FOCUS | Report: Rudy Giuliani Is "Close to Broke," Prepared to Go to Prison |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=44994"><span class="small">Bess Levin, Vanity Fair</span></a>
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Tuesday, 03 August 2021 11:34 |
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Levin writes: "When we last checked in on Rudy Giuliani, things were not looking so hot for the former federal prosecutor turned Donald Trump attorney turned old man yelling at an empty blender."
Rudy Giuliani. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Report: Rudy Giuliani Is "Close to Broke," Prepared to Go to Prison
By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
03 August 21
Trump has apparently refused to contribute to Giuliani’s legal fund, which could come back to haunt him when his ex-lawyer is faced with the prospect of cutting a plea deal.
 hen we last checked in on Rudy Giuliani, things were not looking so hot for the former federal prosecutor turned Donald Trump attorney turned old man yelling at an empty blender. For starters, he’d recently had his home and office raided by the Feds, who seized nearly a dozen cell phones and computers as part of their criminal probe into his Ukraine dealings. Subsequent to that, he had his law license suspended in both New York and D.C. over the many election lies he’d told, and in one of the many new books out about Trump, it was reported that when it became clear that Trump was probably going to lose, an allegedly inebriated Giuliani “started to cause a commotion...telling other guests that he had come up with a strategy for Trump,” insisting the campaign should “Just say we won,” which it did. Amid all of this, Giuliani didn’t even have his cousin-wife’s shoulder to lean on. And sadly, things continue to look quite to very bleak for the guy who went from “America’s mayor” to “Two weeks away from being thrown out of the Port Authority for disorderly conduct.”
On Monday, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported that while Trump has amassed a huge war chest (in part by scamming his supporters), Giuliani’s financial picture has become extremely grim (which probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given his friends have taken to crowdfunding money for his legal defense):
According to Haberman, even if Trump did have a heart, which medical professionals say he does not—a Denny’s grand slam breakfast can be seen on MRIs where the blood-pumping organ should be—he’s unlikely to take pity on Giuliani and cough up some cash. (“Trump aides have been clear they see no mechanism for paying Giuliani’s legal bills that isn’t problematic for Trump, and they think Giuliani took actions a lawyer should have known were problematic, even if the client wanted it,” Haberman said in a tweet.)
And speaking of “problematic” actions, in an interview on Friday about the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Giuliani veered off topic to insist the criminal investigation into him is “lawless” and that he’d done nothing wrong, but is nevertheless fine with going to prison, something innocent people don’t usually say. Per Insider:
“I committed no crime,” said Giuliani. “And if you think I did commit a crime, you’re probably really stupid because you don’t know who I am.… As the guy who put the mafia in jail, terrorists in jail, put [former mayor] Ed Koch’s commissioners in jail and the worst people on Wall Street, I’m not going to file [as an agent]?” Giuliani asked, referring to several of the most famous cases he pursued as a prosecutor before his political career.
He also said he was “more than willing to go to jail if they want to put me in jail. And if they do, they’re going to suffer the consequences in heaven. I’m not. I didn’t do anything wrong.” When asked why he would be willing to go to jail if he is not guilty, Giuliani replied, “Because they lie, they cheat.”
Despite claiming he’s happy to go to prison, in May a person close to Trump told CNN, “Even the most loyal people have their breaking point,” and that the prospect of time behind bars could get Giuliani to flip and cooperate against Trump, saying a shift in Giuliani’s loyalty “wouldn't shock me at all.”
“I think we’ve seen some more surprising instances of things like that happening, especially with Michael Cohen,” the person said.
Kevin McCarthy “jokes” about assaulting Nancy Pelosi
This guy is truly the total package. Per CNN:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joked at a Saturday night event that it “will be hard not to hit” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel if Republicans take control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms and he becomes Speaker. “I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it,” McCarthy said in audio posted to Twitter by a Main Street Nashville reporter. The Republican leader made the comments after he was handed an oversized gavel by members of the Tennessee congressional delegation while appearing at a fundraising event in the state.
Pelosi’s spokesperson and deputy chief of staff swiftly condemned the comments. “A threat of violence to someone who was a target of a #January6th assassination attempt from your fellow Trump supporters is irresponsible and disgusting,” Drew Hammill said in a Saturday tweet in response to the reports.… The comments also drew backlash from a number of congressional Democrats. “Violence against women is no laughing matter,” New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries wrote on Twitter, calling on the House minority leader to apologize.
Representative Eric Swalwell called for McCarthy to resign, tweeting, “America has suffered enough violence around politics. @GOPLeader. McCarthy is now a would-be assailant of @SpeakerPelosi. He needs to resign.” His colleague Ted Lieu wrote: “You should never be encouraging or threatening or joking about causing violence to anyone, including the Speaker of the House. You need to apologize for your statement, or resign.” McCarthy hasn’t responded to the backlash, though an aide from his office told ABC News, “he was obviously joking,” which actually isn’t so obvious given the GOP’s track record.
Don’t worry, Trump is still gouging the Secret Service
< Rich people, they’re just like us!
If the “us” in this scenario is purchasing a second home in the Hamptons as a weekend getaway from our weekday Hamptons home. Per the New York Post:
Thumbing their noses at one of the most aggressive markets in history, established residents of the Hamptons are buying up additional homes in the East End. They’re not looking for a quick flip either. These second home buys are pricey pied-à-terres that provide a different vibe from a primary Hamptons residence. With the contrasting character of each home, weekending feels like a vacation within a vacation. Yorgos Tsibiridis, a real estate agent with Compass, not only sees the trend on the rise—but is part of it himself.
“It happened to me this year,” he said, referring to his $1.1 million purchase of a second Hamptons retreat. For the past six years, Tsibiridis has lived in a modern farmhouse outside the village of Sag Harbor on an acre of land that he purchased for $1.2 million. There was just one problem: convenience. A smaller 1850s “historic house” just 15 minutes away on Main Street was the answer, he said. “I wanted to have a place downtown so I can walk everywhere instead of driving,” he said. “I use it to work, stay occasionally and for my kids to walk to the park, which is a block away, after school. I like having both options.”
A second home 15 minutes away from the first? Relatable!
Tsibiridis said owning multiple homes in the Hamptons has become trendy in recent years—but especially this summer.… But scoring one, much less two, Hamptons getaways is no small feat. The average price of a Hamptons home rose to $2.4 million in the second quarter of 2021, a 15.6% spike year over year, according to Douglas Elliman data. During the same period, listing inventory plummeted to just 1,081 homes, a staggering 43.3% drop from the same quarter in 2020—the third lowest level on record.
If you know someone struggling to find a million-dollar property within walking distance of another million dollar property, let them know you’re thinking of them and are happy to provide a shoulder to cry on if they need one.
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Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Is a Truth-Teller in a Time of Systemic Deceit and Lethal Secrecy |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=33125"><span class="small">Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept</span></a>
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Tuesday, 03 August 2021 08:23 |
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Scahill writes: "Daniel Hale is a man of tremendous conscience, courage, and moral clarity."
Daniel Hale. (photo: Jesselyn Radack)
Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Is a Truth-Teller in a Time of Systemic Deceit and Lethal Secrecy
By Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept
03 August 21
Hale should be pardoned and released, and the government should pay him restitution.
 ince the arrest and indictment of Daniel Hale on charges that he leaked the documents that formed the basis for The Intercept’s series “The Drone Papers,” as well as documents about the government’s secret watchlisting system, I have wanted to speak publicly about this unjust prosecution. However, due to security concerns, legal advice, and a desire not to hinder, in any way, Hale’s defense or to aid the government in its disgraceful prosecution, I have been unable to do so. Now that the circumstances have changed, I am able to share some aspects of my thoughts. In doing so, I am speaking only for myself and not for The Intercept or anyone else.
Daniel Hale is a man of tremendous conscience, courage, and moral clarity. It is an abomination that this brave whistleblower has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after being convicted of exposing the horrors of the U.S. drone assassination programs, the killing of civilians, and the Kafkaesque “terror” watchlisting system run by the government.
President Barack Obama’s Justice Department did not prosecute Hale, but the Trump administration dug up the case and threw the book at Hale in an obvious ploy to stanch leaks about President Donald Trump and his corrupt administration. The indictment Trump’s prosecutors crafted was a dishonest piece of political propaganda intended to criminalize Hale and attack the freedom of the press.
The initial threat of decades in prison against Hale was a cudgel deployed by prosecutors in an effort to break Hale’s spirit and to frighten other prospective whistleblowers. That President Joe Biden’s Justice Department continued this prosecution instead of dropping the Trump administration’s case serves as an ominous reminder that the war on whistleblowers is a permanent fixture of the U.S. system. The use of the Espionage Act by successive administrations to prosecute whistleblowers is an affront to basic liberties and the constitutional rights of the accused, as it prevents people of conscience from presenting a real defense before a judge or jury. Its use to target dissent, independent journalism, and whistleblowing is an authoritarian weapon masquerading as a law, and it should be abolished.
In 2013, Daniel Hale and I were separately invited to speak at a public forum alongside a Yemeni American activist in Washington, D.C., about drone strikes and the murderous U.S. war in Yemen. As I listened to Hale speak that day, he struck me as a deeply moral person who was profoundly grappling with the role he had played in a lethal global system of assassination. I found him to be a thoughtful, sincere, caring person with an inherent degree of selflessness and honesty rare in our society. Hale appeared to be viscerally struggling with the nature of the work that he had done on behalf of the U.S. government and the horrors he had witnessed.
The Trump Justice Department indictment against Hale was anemic in its “evidence” and replete with innuendo and circumstantial events dishonestly crafted and presented as a substitute for facts. The government spied on Hale and manipulated his communications to paint a grossly distorted picture of his character and motivations that served the prosecutors’ campaign to railroad him.
It has been particularly disheartening to see people purporting to support Hale repeating Trump Justice Department assertions as established fact. There have been a lot of lies told about what happened in this case — in the Trump Justice Department indictment, by the prosecutors, on social media, and, unfortunately, in some news reports. Contrary to what the judge and prosecutors in this case stated and implied, it is evident that Hale was not motivated by trying to impress a journalist or anyone else. Hale was motivated by love of his fellow humans and by a deep and abiding sense of duty — duty to protect the innocent and the defenseless, as well as dedication to a sense of morality none of his detractors come close to matching. He is a noble teller of truths in a time of systemic deceit and lethal secrecy.
Among the “crimes” that Hale was convicted of are the following: revealing that, at times, nearly nine out of 10 people killed in so-called targeted strikes by the U.S. are not the intended targets; exposing the complicity of top U.S. government officials in a secret kill chain that decides who should be assassinated by drone strike; exposing that the U.S. government officially labels unknown people it kills as “enemies killed in action” unless they are posthumously proven to have been civilians; and exposing the secret watchlisting rulebook used to label people, including U.S. citizens, as “known or suspected terrorists” without evidence that they did anything wrong.
Daniel Hale should be pardoned and released, and the government should pay him restitution for the trauma it has inflicted on him for daring to speak out, at great personal risk, for the victims of wars and extrajudicial assassinations funded by U.S. taxpayers. He deserves the gratitude of good people everywhere for his courage, bravery, and sacrifice. It is a grave injustice that a man who blew the whistle on the killing of civilians is in jail and that those who murder them receive medals or appear as pundits on cable news.
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Dear Congress: Say No to Water Privatization in the Infrastructure Bill |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60367"><span class="small">218 Organizations, In These Times</span></a>
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Tuesday, 03 August 2021 08:23 |
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Excerpt: "We urge you to reject this proposed water privatization scam. Do not compromise on water."
'Water privatization will lead to rate hikes on households already struggling to afford their water bills.' (photo: iStock)
Dear Congress: Say No to Water Privatization in the Infrastructure Bill
By 218 Organizations, In These Times
03 August 21
Water costs have soared in recent years as federal funding for water infrastructure has shrunk. Privatization is the last thing we need.
 ear Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sanders, and House Budget Committee Chairman Yarmuth:
We, the undersigned 218 organizations, oppose the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework that promotes privatization, and we urge you to reject it and water privatization in all its forms and fight for a bold, uncompromising infrastructure package that provides real federal funding at the level our communities urgently need.
The outline of the latest bipartisan infrastructure framework would promote a slew of privatization activities. The proposed financing sources for new investment include public-private partnerships, private activity bonds and asset recycling.
That provision promotes a Wall Street takeover of essential services like public water. It is dangerous for the public and undermines public access to essential water services.
Water privatization is an incredibly expensive financing option. Privatization through public-private partnerships, private investment schemes or asset recycling is not a source of new funding, but an expensive and high-risk way to finance water projects. The typical water public-private partnership carries a cost of capital that can be five times the cost of the low interest bonds available to municipal water systems.
Water privatization will lead to rate hikes on households already struggling to afford their water bills. Because the private entity recovers its financing costs and profit through user bills, privatizing water and sewer systems lead to considerable rate hikes for households and local businesses. Already, nearly one in three U.S. households struggles to afford their water and sewer bills, and households nationally have accrued billions of dollars of water debt during the pandemic. They cannot afford the price of privatization.
The problem at hand is that local government utilities rely almost exclusively on water bills to cover the cost of infrastructure projects because of the loss of federal support for water infrastructure. Federal funding has fallen by 77% in real terms since its peak in 1977. Local governments cannot continue to raise their water rates to levels that are increasingly unaffordable for households. Our public water utilities have a funding problem, not a financing problem. Privatization would only exacerbate the main problem facing our public water utilities.
Water privatization is not a viable or just solution for rural, small or disadvantaged communities. Private companies focus on profit maximization and avoid areas where per-household costs are high, the customer base has less wealth and bill collection problems can abound. A private company will acquire such a system if the system is contiguous to its existing network and if it can redistribute the costs across its other service areas. Because water rates are regressive, this type of subsidization is inequitable and disproportionately burdens working- and middle class families across communities.
Water privatization can trap communities in expensive deals. Public-private partnerships that involve private financing are usually 30 to 40 years long, and they are extremely difficult to exit early. After taking office, the new municipal services director in Bayonne, N.J., posed as his first question: how do we get out of the city’s water concession contract? He was told the city would have to repay the $150 million concession fee that it no longer has. Since entering into a decades-long concession deal in 2012, Bayonne has experienced rate hikes of 50% despite promises of rate stabilization. According to the Hudson Reporter, a board of education trustee recently told the new city council, “You didn’t sign the contract, and neither did the citizens of Bayonne, but everyone is suffering because of it.” Similarly, Middletown, Penn., was unable to exit its water concession deal, and attempted to stop surcharges in court and lost.
Water privatization is not a solution for our nation’s water needs. Water privatization can increase costs, worsen service quality and allow infrastructure assets to deteriorate. There is ample evidence that maintenance backlogs, wasted water, sewage spills and worse service often follow privatization. In fact, poor performance is the primary reason that local governments reverse the decision to privatize and resume public operation of previously contracted services.
Communities need real federal dollars spent on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. The most comprehensive funding solution on the table is the WATER Act (H.R.1352, S.916). The WATER Act would provide $35 billion a year to fully fund our water infrastructure at the level that is needed according to EPA needs surveys.
We urge you to reject this proposed water privatization scam and fight for a bold package that provides the support our communities need. Do not compromise on water.
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n July 20, longtime Haitian politician Ariel Henry was sworn in as the nation’s prime minister. Henry’s appointment ended a brief power struggle between himself and interim prime minister Claude Joseph, who assumed the post following 
