Nach der Wahl ist vor der Wahl - US-Politik nach Trump

Zitat von inspectorgadget

bin mir sicher wenn jimmy dore nicht ständig die fraudsquad zusammenschreien würde, wäre das nie passiert

Hmm...

Genau genommen hat Präsident #NotTrump nicht selbst die Verlängerung des Räumungsmoratoriums verfügt, sondern man hat offenbar hinter den Kulissen das für die Pandemie zuständige CDC dazu gebracht, eine erneute Verlängerung aus Gesundheitschutzgründen anzuordnen.

Zitat von CNBC - 03.08.21

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new federal eviction moratorium on Tuesday.

The eviction ban will be targeted at areas of the country experiencing high levels of coronavirus infections and will last for 60 days until Oct. 3. The protection could cover around 90% of renters.

The CDC’s original eviction ban, which had been in effect since September 2020, expired on July 31.

Biden selbst hat darauf hingewiesen, dass der (größtenteils republikanisch besetzte) Supreme Court mehrheitlich die Kompetenz des CDC, eigenmächtig eine solche Maßnahme bundesweit zu verfügen in Frage stellt. Da werden sich sicher Kläger (oder deren repräsentanten) finden, die ihr Recht auf private Eigentumsverwertung bis zur letzten Instanz durchfechten wollen.

Zitat von Associated Press - 04.08.21

The announcement was a reversal for the Biden administration, which allowed an earlier moratorium to lapse over the weekend after saying a Supreme Court ruling prevented an extension. That ripped open a dramatic split between the White House and progressive Democrats who insisted the administration do more to prevent some 3.6 million Americans from losing their homes during the COVID-19 crisis.

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Biden said he pushed the CDC to again consider its options. But he still seemed hesitant as to whether the new moratorium could withstand lawsuits about its constitutionality, saying he has sought the opinions of experts as to whether the Supreme Court would approve the measure.

“The bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster,” Biden said. “But there are several key scholars who think that it may and it’s worth the effort.”

Der Präsident hat auch betont, dass es dazu eigentlich eine Entscheidung im Kongress bräuchte. Der ist aber - bis auf Ms. Bush und eine handvoll anderer "progressives" schon im Urlaub, (bzw. auf dem Weg nach Martha's Vineyard, zur großen Huldigungsfeier zu Obamas sechzigstem Wiegenfest.)

Ansonsten wird auch erneut darauf verwiesen, dass die Staaten die dafür von der Bundesregierung bereit gestellten 47 Milliarden Dollar an Hilfsgeldern für MieterInnen und VermieterInnen größtenteils noch gar nicht ausgezahlt hätten, also die Schuld für mögliche Räumungen auf die lokalen Regierungen verschoben.

Zitat von AP

Aside from the moratorium, Biden has insisted that federal money is available — some $47 billion previously approved during the pandemic — that needs to get out the door to help renters and landlords.

“The money is there,” Biden said.

The White House has said state and local governments have been slow to push out that federal money and is pressing them to do so swiftly.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen briefed House Democrats Tuesday about the work underway to ensure the federal housing aid makes it to renters and landlords. She provided data so that lawmakers could see how their districts and states are performing with distributing the relief, according to a person on the call.

Man könnte also auch mutmaßen, dass die Demokratische Parteiführung sich zwar jetzt von der ihnen gewogenen "liberalen" Presse als RetterInnen in der Not feiern lässt, dass sie aber eigentlich sowieso nicht damit rechnen, dass sich die millionenfachen Räumungen noch länger aufhalten lassen.

Zitat von Politico - 03.08.21

The announcement comes after a dayslong standoff with Congress in which Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats, along with progressives led by Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, waged an intense public campaign to goad the White House into action.

Sie haben also eigentlich genau nicht das getan, worüber sich linke Populisten wie J. Dore die ganze Zeit so fürchterlich aufregen: ihre Mehrheit in Repräsentantenhaus, Senat und weißem Haus dazu genutzt, Millionen von BürgerInnen per Gesetz vor der Obdachlosigkeit zu bewahren, sondern nur ein technokratisches Pflästerchen auf eine schwelende Wunde geklebt, das wahrschinlich bald wieder abfallen wird - was natürlich ihre diversen, sicher auch reichhaltig in Betongold investierten Großspender (bzw. ihre mit finazmarktbasierter Immobilienverwertung beschäftigten Eheleute) freuen wird.

Ergo:

Kurzfristiges Propaganda-Win-Win für die Top-Politicos.

Mittel- bis langfristiges Real-Lose-Lose für die betroffenen Menschen.

Meanwhile in Ohio...

Establishment prevails as Brown beats Turner in Ohio special election (Politico - 04.08.21)

because "pragmatism" & Reality™:

Hillary Clinton Wants Nina Turner to Lose

The special election in Ohio’s 11th congressional district, where Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment are struggling to defeat former Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner, is the latest illustration of how Democratic elites prioritize defeating the Left over strengthening their own party.

Zitat von Jacobin - 06.07.21

[...] When Hillary Clinton endorsed Shontel Brown’s candidacy in the Ohio 11th congressional district’s special election last month, there was an obvious personal dimension and a noticeable amount of pettiness involved. Nina Turner, Brown’s primary opponent (and, by all appearances, the race’s front-runner), played a significant role as cochair of Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign and was a vocal supporter during his 2016 challenge to Clinton. The narrative of a relitigation of the 2016 primaries spawned by Clinton’s intervention has predictably come to color national perceptions of the race. But this development risks obscuring the wider dynamic at play.

Last week, Brown secured another high-profile endorsement from none other than Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, a development that is striking for a number of reasons. As the New York Times noted in its reporting on the race, the congressman rarely intervenes in primary contests. In publicly justifying the move, Clyburn invoked his by-now-familiar opposition to what he called the “sloganeering” of the Democratic Party’s left wing — citing as an example, among other things, the issue of Medicare for All.[...]

Among other things, the Ohio 11th affair is a textbook case of what the duplicitous political narrative championed by establishment Democrats looks like in action. Progressive policies, or so the line goes, might be all well and good but will never attract the support or secure the votes in Congress necessary to become law. Ergo, it’s better to support smaller, more incremental reforms over big and ambitious ones — and, presumably, Democratic candidates synonymous with the former rather than the latter. There’s a remarkably circular logic at work here: progressive policies, we are ceaselessly told, will never pass because they lack the required support in Congress; a major reason they lack said support is that the Democratic establishment almost invariably defends right-leaning incumbents from progressive primary challenges and actively works to elect more conservative lawmakers, even in districts like Ohio’s 11th, among the most solidly blue in the entire country. As the American Prospect’s Alex Sammon rightly put it: “Democrats are almost certainly going to lose their House majority, their top legislative priority — lowering prescription drug prices, which they’ve run on for 6 years — is on life support, and [the] party leadership is busy trying to bigfoot a special election in deep blue Ohio’s 11th.” [...]

Zitat von Wemir

Fehlt nur noch die offizielle Verbriefung der Korrumpierung der Gewinnerin als Kirsche oben drauf:

Aaach...

Bei uns hier in der alten Welt nennt man sowas Wirtschaftskompetenz™!

Na sowas...

Dems Scored Real Estate Cash Before Letting Eviction Ban Expire

Democrats received a million dollars from a real estate mogul just before failing in their “relentless campaign” to extend a lifeline to struggling renters.

Zitat von The daily Poster - 03.08.21

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last Friday that Democratic leaders had only learned one day earlier that the Biden administration was counting on lawmakers to renew the eviction ban via legislation. However, she claimed the next day that her colleagues had led a “relentless campaign” to extend the moratorium, blaming Republicans for its failure. On Monday, Pelosi sent a letter to Democratic lawmakers arguing that “the moratorium must be extended by the administration.”[...]

George Marcus, chairman of both the massive real estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap and the real estate investment trust Essex Property Trust, donated $1 million on June 1 to House Majority PAC, a super PAC that works to elect Democratic lawmakers. The donation amounted to nearly 7 percent of the total funding the committee has raised so far this year.

Marcus also donated $263,400 in June to a joint fundraising committee benefiting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s campaign, her leadership PAC, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the party committee that works to elect House Democrats.

During the 2020 election cycle, Marcus donated a combined $1 million to the DCCC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which elects Democratic Senate candidates. He contributed millions more to the party-aligned super PACs that aid those committees: $3.5 million to Senate Majority PAC and $3 million to House Majority PAC.

Marcus, who has a net worth of $1.7 billion, has also been a huge Biden supporter. He donated $4 million to super PACs that supported Biden: Priorities USA ($2 million), Unite the Country ($1 million), and American Bridge PAC ($1 million). He also hosted a Biden fundraiser in 2019, and donated $500,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee benefiting the Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and state parties.

Marcus & Millichap, founded by Marcus in 1971, is the largest commercial real estate brokerage in North America and sells apartment buildings, too. While Marcus is part of a group of billionaire landlords that have together seen their personal fortunes increase by nearly $25 billion since last March, Marcus & Millichap has been hit hard by the pandemic.

Marcus also chairs and founded Essex Property Trust, and he controls a 3 percent stake in the company, according to Forbes. As of last year, Essex Property Trust had an ownership interest in 60,272 apartment units in California and Washington state, according to company disclosures. Over the last two election cycles, Essex Property Trust donated $23.5 million to committees that opposed ballot initiatives that would have allowed rent control measures in California.[...]

Alles anzeigen

Und die Nazis waren Sozialisten.

Trigger Warning: Polemik!

The Vanishing Legacy of Barack Obama

On the road from stirring symbol of hope and change to the Fat Elvis of neoliberalism, birthday-partying Barack Obama sold us all out

Zitat von Matt Taibbi - 13.08.21

[...] There’s a glorious moment in the life of a certain kind of politician, when either because their careers are over, or because they’re so untouchable politically that it doesn’t matter anymore, that they finally get to remove the public mask, no pun intended. This Covid bash was Barack Obama’s “Fuck it!” moment.

He extended middle fingers in all directions: to his Vineyard neighbors, the rest of America, Biden, the hanger-on ex-staffers who’d stacked years of hundred-hour work weeks to build his ballyhooed career, the not quite A-listers bounced at the last minute for being not famous enough (sorry, Larry David and Conan O’Brien!), and so on. It’d be hard not to laugh imagining Axelrod reading that even “Real Housewife of Atlanta” Kim Fields got on the party list over him, except that Obama giving the shove-off to his most devoted (if also scummy and greedy) aides is also such a perfect metaphor for the way he slammed the door in the faces of the millions of ordinary voters who once so desperately believed in him.

Obviously, getting rich and not giving a shit anymore is the birthright of every American. But this wasn’t supposed to be in the script for Obama, whose remarkable heel turn has been obscured by the Trump years, which incidentally were at least partly his fault. The history books and the still-starstruck press will let him skate on this, but they shouldn’t.

Obama was set up to be the greatest of American heroes, but proved to be a common swindler and one of the great political liars of all time — he fooled us all. Moreover, his remarkably vacuous post-presidency is proving true everything Trump said in 2016 about the grasping Washington politicians whose only motives are personal enrichment, and who’d do anything, even attend his wedding, for a buck. Trump’s point was that he, Trump, was already swinishly rich, while politicians have only one thing to sell to get the upper class status they crave: us.

Obama did that. He sold us out, and it’s time to start talking about the role he played in bringing about the hopeless cynical mess that is modern America.[...]

Der Rest ist leider hinter der Paywall, aber der Anfang ist auch nicht schlecht.

Mr Dore doing violence™ again.

Meanwhile kümmert sich die Youtube-Konkurrenz um die Themen, die wirklich wichtig sind...

Chris Hedges, der alte Marxist-Stalinist, ist jetzt wohl auch Querfornt und alt right...

Part II:

"I think we have to understand that the motive of the left [-> the "boutique left" in congress and their liberal allies] is not to be effective. The motive of the left is to celebrate themselves." (Chris Hedges)

What Will Trigger Revolution In America? w/Chris Hedges - The Jimmy Dore Show (youtube)

Während das halbe Land - inkluisve so manch "liberaler" Medienfiguren - Präsident #NotTrump alleine für den verpatzten Afghanistan-Abzug verantwortlich macht, schafft der Oberste Gerichtshof endlich Gerechtigkeit für die Eigentümer von Mietshäusern:

The Supreme Court Will Allow Evictions To Resume. It Could Affect Millions Of Tenants

Zitat von NPR - 26.08.21

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration's order extending the federal eviction moratorium to a large swath of the country, in a decision expected by both legal scholars and the White House.

The ban on evictions, a two-month order, was issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pause covers parts of the United States that are experiencing what the CDC calls "substantial" and "high" spread of the coronavirus.

The unsigned decision from the court was 6-3, with the court's three liberal justices dissenting.

The court's majority said the CDC exceeded its authority with the temporary ban.

The majority opinion says that the CDC for its order relied on "a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination."

"It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts," the majority writes, adding: "If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration is "disappointed" by the decision.[...]

Alles anzeigen

Zum Glück hat sich der Kongress - mit Ausnahme einer handvoll "progresives", die sich dann auf öffentlichen Druck hin doch noch zum Protest haben nötigen lassen - ja schon vor seiner Sommerpause dazu entschieden, hier der kapitalistischen Verwertungslogik ihren freien Lauf zu lassen, so wie Gott der Herr es den Gründervätern des Land of the Free damals auferlegt hatte.

Schätzungsweise sind über 8 Millionen MieterInnen in den USA bereits im Mietrückstand und könnten jetzt auf die Straße gesetzt werden.