Saturday, October 31, 2020

LAWLESS LAWYERS - CORRUPT L.A. DISTRICT ATTORNEY MADE SURE MURDERING COPS WENT FREE - NEO-FASCIST COP UNIONS TOOK CARE OF THEIR BITCH

 

THE LAWLESS LAWYER CLASS

LAWYER JACKIE LACEY PROTECTS HER MURDERING GANG INFESTED L.A. SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. SHE IS A REMINDER THAT THE LAWS DO NOT APPLY TO THE LAWYER CLASS!

ONLY KAMALA HARRIS HAS DONE MORE FOR MURDERING COPS AND THEIR GENEROUS NEO-FASCIST COP UNIONS!

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-lawless-class-how-lawyer-jackie.html

During her time in the DA’s office, Lacey has prosecuted only one officer for killing a civilian, leading to protests outside her office and her home

“She continues to find that it is necessary for police 

to kill unarmed people,” Gascón said. “Perhaps she 

thinks it’s fine, or perhaps it’s all the money she 

has taken from police unions.” Lacey has benefitted

from more than $5 million in contributions to 

outside committees benefiting Lacey has come 

from law enforcement unions. 

In terms of her politics, there is clearly nothing “historic” about Harris. As district attorney in San Francisco (2004-2011), attorney general in California (2011-2017), and, finally, US senator (2017 to the present), Harris has compiled a track record of backing the police, locking up workers and immigrants, covering up for the banks and supporting militarism and war.

 

The selection of Kamala Harris and the degradation of American politics

13 August 2020

With the selection of Kamala Harris to be the running mate of Joe Biden, the framework of the 2020 elections has been set. As was to be expected, the Democrats have chosen the most right-wing candidates to run the most right-wing campaign possible.

There is a certain inevitability to the choice of Harris. In July of last year,—based on a survey of who would be the worst, most reactionary and at the same time most suitable choice for second spot on the Democratic Party ticket— predicted that Harris would most likely be named the vice presidential candidate if she failed to win the nomination. She had all the ruthlessness, narcissism and careerism requisite for the job, plus the ethnic background to suit the Democrats’ obsession with racial and gender identity.

Kamala Harris is a dyed-in-the wool political reactionary.

This year has seen mass demonstrations throughout the country in response to the police murder of George Floyd. As a direct result of the policies of the ruling class, nearly 170,000 people have died to date in the coronavirus pandemic, with the daily death toll now at more than 1,000. There is growing anger in workplaces over the homicidal back-to-work campaign and broad opposition among teachers to the efforts to reopen the schools. Tens of millions of people are unemployed, and they have been cut off from federal benefits and face being evicted from their homes.

In the midst of this monumental political, economic and social crisis, and against the backdrop of so much suffering, the American people are to be offered the “choice” between the fascistic Trump, the conman from New York, and a Democratic Party ticket headed by a corporate shill from Delaware and an ex-prosecutor from California. This says everything about the degraded state of American politics.

Following the announcement by Biden on Tuesday, the media leapt into action with its nauseating effusion of state propaganda. The selection of Harris has been universally proclaimed to be “historic,” a watershed moment.

In terms of her politics, there is clearly nothing “historic” about Harris. As district attorney in San Francisco (2004-2011), attorney general in California (2011-2017), and, finally, US senator (2017 to the present), Harris has compiled a track record of backing the police, locking up workers and immigrants, covering up for the banks and supporting militarism and war.

Wall Street is certainly happy with the choice. “A VP pick that big business can back,” ran a headline on the inside pages of the New York Times. As for the military, its main concern is what will happen if the aging Biden doesn’t make it through a full term. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, opposition from the Democratic Party has been focused on issues of foreign policy. Harris, who has no other agenda than her own self-promotion, will be silly putty in the hands of the military-intelligence apparatus.

The “historic” character of the Harris nomination is premised entirely on her race and gender. She would be the “first African-American vice president,” the “first Asian-American vice president” and the “first female vice president.” She already is the “first Black woman on the national ticket of the Democrats or Republicans.” Everything is about the symbolism involved in the choice of Harris, with not a word about the program of a Democratic Party administration.

As if any of this makes a bit of difference for workers, whatever their race, gender or ethnicity. As if, moreover, the world has not already had the example of Obama, not to mention Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and many others.

The selection of Harris exposes the utterly reactionary character of politics that bases itself on race, gender and other forms of identity—anything but class. In response to the eruption of protests against police violence, the Democrats did everything they could to obscure the class issues, promote racial divisions and propagate the lie that the violence of the police is an expression of the oppression of “black America” by “white America.” The outcome of this racialist campaign is the selection as their vice-presidential candidate of a right-wing ex-prosecutor who once covered up evidence to keep an innocent man on death row and worked to tear immigrant children from their parents.

Those invested in the racialist campaign have jumped on the bandwagon to declare the selection of Harris “historic.” Ibram Kendi, author of How to Be An Antiracist and one of the chief inspirers of the New York Times’ 1619 Project, wrote on Twitter that “the Democrats now have a presidential ticket that reflects the American people better than the GOP ticket and every presidential ticket in US history.”

According to Kendi, politicians “reflect” the American people not because of the socioeconomic forces they represent, but solely by their racial and ethnic background and their gender. Interests are determined by race. This is not progressive politics, but right-wing and racialist politics, which shares much in common with the fascistic politics of Donald Trump.

Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King wrote that he was “incredibly proud to see a brilliant Black woman, and HBCU [historically black colleges and universities] grad, chosen as a vice presidential nominee.” This was, he added, the stuff “dreams are made of.”

Commenters on Twitter quickly pointed to the contrast between this statement and his declaration in November 2018 that he would never support Biden or Harris because “they both helped build & advance mass incarceration.”

Political principles have never been a strong suit of Democratic Party hacks. They look forward to positions within the Biden administration and other opportunities that will reap financial rewards.

Then there is Bernie Sanders. In the Democratic Party primaries, Sanders won widespread support for his attacks on social inequality and his calls for a “political revolution” against the establishment. On this basis, he emerged as the main contender against Biden for the Democratic Party nomination. In the end, however, the “Sanders wing” of the Democratic Party got nothing.

BLOG EDITOR: SANDERS ALSO ENDORSED BANKSTER-OWNED CROOK ON THE LAM, HILLARY CLINTON!

This has not, however, stopped Sanders from praising the outcome. Sanders tweeted that Harris “will make history as our next vice president.”

Since packing in his campaign in mid-March, Sanders has assumed his assigned role as principal cheerleader for the Biden campaign, along with Elizabeth Warren, et. al. The more that social anger grows, and the more the Democrats are exposed, the more determined is his support for the Democratic Party.

What an exposure of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jacobin magazine and other political agents of the Democratic Party who claimed that Sanders was the path to the transformation of American politics and even the realization of socialism! They make fools of themselves every election. They will tag along with the Democratic Party in one form or another, no doubt accompanied by talk about how they are building a “progressive movement” inside that party of American imperialism, along with other varieties of political fraud. Every four years, the same play is performed.

There is something incredibly degrading and shameful about the whole process, testifying to the intellectual and cultural collapse of American politics.

Certain conclusions must be drawn from this experience, not only about Sanders, but about an entire type of pragmatic politics that hopes for easy answers to the crisis confronting the working class without a direct challenge to capitalism and its state apparatus.

The politics of the working class must begin with a serious theoretical understanding, rooted in a Marxist and class analysis. The Democratic Party is a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus. The politics of race and gender identity, which it relentlessly promotes, gives expression to the interests of layers of the upper-middle class, which employ this right-wing ideology in their fight for positions of power and privilege in the state, academia and corporate boardrooms. The pseudo-left, including the DSA and associated organizations, represent this social layer.

All of this is directed against the working class and the development of a genuine movement for socialism. Objective conditions, however, have created the conditions for a powerful eruption of class struggle, in the United States and internationally. The coronavirus pandemic, as the Socialist Equality Party has explained, is a “trigger event in world history that is accelerating the already far-advanced economic, social, and political crisis of the world capitalist system.”

Nothing progressive will emerge except through the intervention—the interference—of the working class. The Socialist Equality Party and our election campaign are oriented to the development of a socialist leadership in the working class. Our campaign is the only campaign that raises critical questions of perspective, exposing the reactionary promoters of racial conflict and the cheerleaders of Sanders’ “political revolution.”

The SEP is spearheading the organization of workers against the homicidal policy of the ruling elite, in opposition to all factions of the ruling class, on the basis of a revolutionary program to put an end to inequality, war, dictatorship and the capitalist system. This is the way forward.

Oversight Panel Calls for Resignation of LA Sheriff Alex Villanueva

 

BY FRANK STOLTZE 

FILE: L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva speaks in August at the graduation ceremony for the latest Academy Class. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

In a significant erosion of support for Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva, the Sheriff's Civilian Oversight Commission Thursday called on him to resign as leader of one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country. Commissioners said the sheriff has obstructed oversight at nearly every turn and failed to address major problems at the agency, including the existence of "deputy gangs."

The commission's resolution describes "a serious lack of judgement and leadership by Sheriff Villanueva" and decries "his efforts to block meaningful reform." It also says Villanueva has restricted access to the department by the county's inspector general.

In an extraordinary move, the sheriff opened a criminal investigation into Inspector General Max Huntsman in 2019, accusing him of unlawfully accessing department records. Huntsman — and the county's attorney — said he had access to those files under the law that created his office. Members of the commission called the sheriff's move an act of intimidation.

LOST CONFIDENCE

The nine-member panel says it has lost confidence in Villanueva's ability to effectively govern the agency, which employs nearly 18,000 people and operates the largest local jail system in the country.

Villanueva was an unconventional candidate for sheriff when he beat incumbent Jim McDonnel in the 2018 election. He was a retired lieutenant with little management experience who had never supervised more than 100 people. Villanueva won largely because of the backing of the deputy's union and an endorsement by the LA County Democratic Party.

The vote Thursday to call on Villanueva to resign was unanimous. Some of the panel's most traditionally pro-law enforcement members agreed the sheriff must go, including former Federal Judge Robert Bonner, former Deputy District Attorney Lael Rubin, and former Sheriff's Lt. J.P. Harris.

Despite those credentials, Villanueva has called the panel anti-law enforcement.

"They're political philosophies are either they really, really hate cops or they slightly hate cops or they're not too sure," he said. In the sheriff's view, attempts by the panel to oversee his department are part of a "proxy war" by the Board of Supervisors. The board appoints the panel.

It's worth noting Villanueva's relationship with the board has deteriorated too — two members of the board have asked him to resign. Aspiring members of the board also are critical of the sheriff. In Wednesday's debate hosted by our newsroom, Herb Wesson and Holly Mitchell both said the sheriff was unqualified to do the job. They're vying for the open District 2 seat, which represents cities such as Carson, Compton, Culver City and Inglewood; all or part of L.A. neighborhoods including Crenshaw, Koreatown, La Brea, and Mar Vista; and other unincorporated areas of the county.

Villanueva did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the commission's vote.

AN ELECTED OFFICE

The sheriff is elected by the voters — so it's unclear what effect the calls for resignation will have. In fact, several commissioners worried their resolution will close the door on any hope for effective oversight — even though it simultaneously calls on the sheriff to cooperate with the panel.

"It does seem to be a bit of a contradiction," said Harris. "I hope it doesn't close the door."

"He is the one that closed the door, he's the one that can open it," said Commissioner and Loyola Law School Professor Priscilla Ocen.

The vote comes amid a raging debate over policing in the country and a demand for more accountability and transparency. It also follows a series of controversial shootings by sheriff's deputies that drew angry protests, as well as accusations of brutality by the department during the George Floyd and other demonstrations.

Among the resolution's points:

§  Sheriff Villanueva removed the Sheriff's Department's constitutional policing advisors, while at the same time attempting to rehire deputies who were fired for cause, such as fabricating evidence and domestic violence.

§  Sheriff Villanueva alleged, without proof, that the disciplinary process was "unfair" and deactivated the disciplinary proceedings against deputies accused of using excessive force and committing child abuse

§  Violent deputy cliques or gangs continue to operate within the department, particularly in the Compton and East Los Angeles stations... Despite Sheriff Villanueva's claims that members of these cliques/gangs have been disciplined or reassigned pursuant to Sheriff's Department policy, Inspector General Max Huntsman has said that he is "'aware of no implementation whatsoever' of the policy and that his office can't effectively investigate the secret societies 'because of the obstruction of the Sheriff's Department.'"

In another part of the resolution, the commission says the commission has "violated the First Amendment rights of residents engaging in protest activity as well as journalists covering protests." It cites the arrest of LAist/KPCC reporter Josie Huang, who was taken into custody by deputies last month after identifying herself as a member of the press. "In defending the arrest, Sheriff Villanueva cited inaccurate and misleading information that was contradicted by contemporaneous video footage."

THE BACKSTORY

When Villanueva took office in December of 2018, commissioners initially were hopeful for a better relationship with him than his predecessor Jim McDonnell, who sometimes resisted requests for information from the panel and attended only a handful of their meetings.

Indeed, Villanueva attended several meetings during his first few months in office but as commissioners' questions became more pointed about deputy discipline, use of force and other matters, he quit showing up.

Villanueva was particularly perturbed by the panel's demand for more information about his decision to rehire a former campaign aide who had been terminated by the department for alleged domestic violence and lying. The rehiring of Caren Carl Mandoyan sparked a lawsuit by the board of supervisors and a judge's ruling it was unlawful.

His relationship with the nine-member civilian panel steadily deteriorated since then with his often refusing to even send subordinates to answer questions necessary for them to conduct effective oversight. McDonnell almost always sent his undersheriff to meetings - even if his responses to inquiries left the commission unsatisfied.

In May, Villanueva defied the first ever subpoena by the commission to testify about how he was handling the spread of coronavirus inside LA County's sprawling jail system. The sheriff worried it would be a "public shaming" of him.

The commission was created by the Board of Supervisors in January of 2016 to increase transparency and accountability at the department. In March, voters approved a measure giving subpoena power. At each point, criminal justice reform advocates expressed high hopes for better oversight and changes at the sheriff's department.

With the commission now at a standoff with the sheriff, nobody expressed much hope.

There was talk of a recall of the sheriff among a few activists who spoke at the meeting - the only hope for some to oust a sheriff who's vowed to remain in power.

»

 

A NATION UNRAVELS - Riots, Lockdowns Implode Rental Markets in Democrat-Run Cities - As we’ve seen, Black Lives Matter and Antifa are looking for any reason to burn your city down. And Democrat mayors and governors are looking for any reason to allow them to burn your city down because they believe this helps them politically.

 

Nolte: Riots, Lockdowns Implode Rental Markets in Democrat-Run Cities

Portland Riots
Getty Images/Nathan Howard
5:24

“Renters have never had so many options in Manhattan,” reports Bloomberg. “The number of apartment listings in New York’s most expensive borough has tripled from last year, the highest figure for vacancies in recent history. Asking rents in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens have imploded.”

“Yet the renters are staying away,” Bloomberg continues. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, cities on both coasts have seen sharp declines in average rents, even double-digit dips for some.”

I encourage you to read the full story. For those of us who live in the real world, who have not had our perspectives violated and cracked by the national media’s surreal and skewed bubble, none of this is anything other than what intelligent people expected. So while the numbers are not surprising, it is still quite an experience to read them.

Let me summarize the best I can…

In 30 core cities, the average rental price has plummeted by an average of more than five percent, while rents in the suburban areas around those cities are up a half-point. This is not due to some big swing in a riot-prone Chicago, Seattle, or Portland skewing everyone else. In 27 of these 30 cities, “suburban rents are outpacing city rents.”

This collapse is also not due to stagnation. People are not staying put. In fact, Rob Warnock, a research associate at Apartment List, says, “We do see people moving effectively at the rate they would be moving right now if there were no pandemic.”

In Charlotte, rents are down two percent while the suburbs are up five. In Dallas, rents are also down two percent. Seattle crashed seven percent. In Silicon Valley, there’s been an 11 percent drop. Boston is down eight percent, New York down 13 percent, and San Francisco down 18 percent.

Come on, y’all…

It’s not the coronavirus… It’s these stupid and unnecessary lockdowns and restrictions. I’ve lived in a couple big cities. It can be great to live in a city, but not if you’re trapped in a small apartment or home for months and months and months… Especially when you’re locked down by your Democrat leaders for no valid reason other than to hurt Donald Trump’s re-election chances.

Out in the suburbs and rural America, even if your shitty, fascist Democrat governor *cough*RoyCooper*cough* locks you down for no reason, you can at least go outside. You have a porch,  a deck, a yard, a field… And in my case, all four.

I can’t imagine being stuck in a 600 square foot apartment for weeks, much less months, especially with no access to the outdoors other than a window you probably aren’t allowed to open.

Hilariously, what Bloomberg conspicuously omits entirely from this analysis is months and months and months of left-wing rioting in almost all of these Democrat-run cities. And it is not just the rioting itself. It is that if you live in a Democrat-run city, even a nice and quaint place like Kenosha, Wisconsin, you are living under the constant threat of riots.

As we’ve seen, Black Lives Matter and Antifa are looking for any reason to burn your city down.  And Democrat mayors and governors are looking for any reason to allow them to burn your city down because they believe this helps them politically.

As I write this, in one Democrat-run city after another, stores and municipal buildings are being boarded up in anticipation of election night rioting. If Biden wins, there won’t be any rioting. Trump supporters are not barbarians. But if Trump wins, what we’ve witnessed over the past months will be nothing compared to what’s coming. Democrats will be determined to burn it all down, while their elected official and media cheerlead every act of arson, looting, and murder.

This is supposed to be the United States, not Fallujah.

Another major problem is cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles that are so incompetently governed by Democrats, and have been for decades, are literally turning into dystopias with massive wealth gaps that create a small and powerful left-wing elite untouched by their own policies, and everyone else, who are left to simmer and fester in communities teeming with homelessness, crime, bad roads, illegal immigrants, and lousy government services. They’re choking on smoke from forest fires caused by environmental insanity; dealing with over-priced housing and too little housing, caused by that same environmental insanity; their wages and job opportunities undercut by illegal immigrants; their schools failing and over-funded. It’s pure madness.

We’re not supposed to have to live like this, and out here in the hinterlands, we don’t.

But these idiots keep voting for Democrats, and you get what you vote for, and what you get when you vote for Democrats is high taxes, unnecessary lockdowns, and violence.

And if Biden does win the presidential election, the lockdowns are going to get worse. Much worse.

So of course sane people are fleeing this insanity. Let’s just hope they don’t behave like the locusts in infested Red States like Colorado and Virginia and turn them Blue. Then we’ll never be able to escape the feckless, incompetent, and fascist Democrat rule.


As the decay of American capitalism accelerates, it will be reflected in increasingly degenerate displays of greed and opportunism by the ruling class.

Gig workers hired to evict people from their homes as millions struggle to pay rent

A startup company by the name of Civvl is seeking to recruit temporary “gig” workers to assist landlords in evicting tenants who have been unable to pay rent in the midst of the economic depression triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Civvl is owned by OnQall, a developer that provides a platform for a number of other app-based services. However, Civvl is markedly different from the other apps, some of which are used for house-cleaning and mowing lawns.

The startup, described by VICE News as “Uber, but for evicting people,” has posted ads across the US looking for gig workers to join eviction crews to assist in what the company’s website calls “debris removal.” In other words, it is hiring people to clear out the possessions of evicted people.

Like opportunistic vultures, the company’s owners seek to take advantage of an economic crisis in which millions are unemployed and cut off from federal assistance. Desperate workers—in many cases struggling to pay rent themselves—are now to be utilized by the startup to evict other struggling people for the purpose of turning a profit.

The startup’s own website declares it to be the “FASTEST GROWING MONEY MAKING GIG DUE TO COVID-19.” The website assures its clients that “Civvl gets them out!” amid photos showing furniture and other possessions being hauled out into the streets with police standing by.

As Civvl’s Craigslist ads explain, “Unemployment is at a record high and many cannot or simply are not paying rent and mortgages.” It continues: “We are being contracted by frustrated property owners and banks to secure foreclosed residential properties. ... There is plenty of work due to the dismal economy.”

Amid a stream of bad press, the company adjusted the language on its website to indicate that it does not, in fact, carry out the evictions. However, this appears to be contradicted by the fact that among the positions listed is that of “process server,” a person who would be contracted with serving court documents and posting eviction notices on properties. Other services include that of “eviction standby.”

As for the legality of the evictions, the company makes clear in its terms of service that it is merely carrying out the dirty work of the landlord, who assumes all legal responsibility.

Many have expressed outrage over such blatant profiteering from the growing misery of masses of people. VICE News spoke with Helena Duncan, a Chicago housing activist and paralegal. “It’s f*cked up that there will be struggling working-class people who will be drawn to gigs like furniture-hauling or process-serving for a company like Civvl, evicting fellow working-class people from their homes so they themselves can make rent,” she said. Others expressed their indignation on Twitter with one user tweeting: “These people are just evil.”

The absurdity and criminality of this state of affairs will not be lost on workers. A CNN report on evictions from September 2 featured the eviction of an elderly Houston woman who could no longer afford to pay her rent. As the landlord’s mover hauled out her possessions, he lamented, “Maybe today it’s her, tomorrow it’s me.”

The CDC has imposed a moratorium on evictions effective through December 31, 2020. However, this hasn’t stopped landlords from resorting to illegal methods to evict their tenants, including utility shutoffs and intimidation tactics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) moratorium has been subject to different interpretations among varying state and local governments, leaving many low-income and vulnerable tenants at risk for eviction and homelessness.

Avery Kreemer, the founder of Ohio Eviction Watch, recently spoke to the WSWS on the eviction crisis in the state. He explained: “Each county and each court will interpret the moratorium differently,” said Kreemer. “One of our reporters lives up in Akron, and someone from the Legal Aid Society told her about a woman who lives on the county line. The court she lives under decided she was not covered under the CDC order, but if she had lived two miles to the west she would have been protected under that court.”

Despite the CDC moratorium, many renters are unaware of the protections available to them, and landlords take advantage of this ignorance to carry out illegal evictions. In some states, tenants must fill out a declaration in order to remain exempt from eviction. In other states, such as Maryland, tenants may be required to provide documentation to assert that they qualify for exemption.

Phillip DeVon, an eviction prevention specialist at the Chicago-based Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO) told VICE, “One thing we know just from experience, especially with housing: just because something is technically legal, doesn’t by any stretch mean that it’s right, ethically speaking.” Regarding Civvl, DeVon said, “With this particular company, it sounds like they’re doing what landlords often do, which is prey upon a lack of knowledge and information about people’s rights.” He added, “It’s very dishonest. … It’s like, ‘Oh, don’t call us a hitman. We don’t pull the trigger! We just connect you with someone who’s willing to.’”

The eviction crisis in the US, as part of the broader social catastrophe brought about by the pandemic depression, is rapidly assuming monstrous dimensions. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which is tracking growing rates of unemployment, hunger and general hardship, some 11.8 million adult renters—or nearly 1 in 6—were unable to pay their rent last month.

The CBPP acknowledges this to be a significant undercount since younger, less educated, and Black and Hispanic renters—demographics that are statistically more likely to be struggling to pay rent—were less likely to respond to the survey. The advisory firm Stout Risius Ross conducted an analysis that concluded that as many as 34 million people may be at risk for eviction.

Unemployment, which is closely tied to difficulties paying rent, is still at record highs. The CBPP, having analyzed the Census Bureau population survey, concluded that some 31 million people were unemployed, or lived with an unemployed family member. Among them are 7 million children. The CBPP further acknowledges this to be an undercount, since it doesn’t include workers who have been furloughed, workers who have given up on looking for a job, and people who are caring for sick relatives and/or their children because of closed schools. If the family members of these workers are counted, some 54 million people—1 in 6 in the country—live in households with a disenfranchised worker.

The owners of Civvl clearly anticipate the avalanche of evictions that is coming. Its website states frankly, “Moratorium ends Dec 31, 2020,” and urges landlords to “Secure your booking and act fast.”

While the company is rightly receiving widespread condemnation, it would be mistaken to characterize this phenomenon as an anomaly. The entire capitalist system is predicated on violence and exploitation.

The appearance of a startup such as Civvl is merely the odious expression of an old maxim, made infamous by Democrat Rahm Emanuel, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The opportunism of Civvl is reflected on the grand scale by pharmaceutical companies such as Regeneron, which is set to make a fortune from its Covid-19 treatment. Even though the project was federally funded—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars—the treatment will likely be unaffordable for a great majority of the population, even as the company’s executives—already the highest paid in the industry—are due to receive billions of dollars.

In an economic system that subordinates everything, even human life, to the accumulation of wealth, it is perfectly logical to take advantage of a situation in which millions of human beings may be expelled from their homes. A bourgeois political economist would undoubtedly praise the entrepreneurial spirit displayed by Civvl’s owners, as well as the genius of their business model: utilizing unemployed poor people to remove other poor people from their residences.

The despicable attempts by this startup to prey upon the misery afflicting millions of working people is mirrored by the machinations of a ruthless financial oligarchy that has taken advantage of the pandemic crisis to engineer a multitrillion-dollar bailout to itself. The ecstatic booming of the stock markets and the exorbitant increase in the wealth of the richest 1 percent are to be contrasted with the growth of severe poverty and misery among the masses of the working class.

This is not an aberration, it is the inevitable result of capitalism, and it is how the system is designed to function. As the decay of American capitalism accelerates, it will be reflected in increasingly degenerate displays of greed and opportunism by the ruling class.

 THE LOOTING OF AMERICA

KAMALA HARRIS AND HER GOLDMAN SACHS BANKSTER STEVEN MNUCHIN

A tidy corrupt partnership

https://kamala-harris-sociopath.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-looting-of-america-kamala-harris.html

She also declined to prosecute OneWest, run by now-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin from 2009-2015, after her own prosecutors said they discovered over a thousand violations of foreclosure law committed by the bank. (OneWest donated $6,500 to Harris' attorney general campaign in 2011, and Mnuchin himself donated $2,000 to her Senate campaign in 2016.)

 

GRIFTER AND PHONY CHARITY FOUNDATION FRAUDSTER HILLARY CLINTON’S LONG SERVICE TO AMERICA’S MOST EVIL BANKSTERS

 

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-democrat-party-grifter-and-pay-to.html

 

The judge found these releases, together with the publication of Clinton’s secret speeches to Wall Street banks, in which she pledged to be their representative, were “matters of the highest public concern.” They “allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election.”

 

“Clinton also failed to mention how he and Hillary cashed in after his presidential tenure to make themselves multimillionaires, in part by taking tens of millions in speaking fees from Wall Street bankers.”



VIDEO:

THE FRAUDULENT CLINTON FOUNDATION EXPOSED.

 

PAY-TO-PLAY FROM THE FIRST DAY!

 

https://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2019/01/sucking-in-bribes-dirty-story-of-two-of.html

 

Is it a signal that she's back in the game because she's selling her president-ability to the world's global billionaire crowd and laying the groundwork for more funds?  There are all kinds of ways for foreign billionaires to get money to the U.S. without consequences, after all.  What's more, it's pretty much the biggest base of support she has, which is at least one reason why she lost the 2016 election.

 

“The couple parlayed lives supposedly spent in “public service”
into admission into the upper stratosphere of American wealth, with incomes in the top 0.1 percent bracket. The source of this vast wealth was a political
machine that might well be dubbed “Clinton, Inc.” This consists essentially of
a seedy money-laundering operation to ensure big business support for the
Clintons’ political ambitions as well as their personal fortunes.

 

The basic components of the operation are lavishly paid speeches to Wall Street and Fortune 500 audiences, corporate campaign contributions, and donations to the ostensibly philanthropic Clinton Foundation.”

 

"But what the Clintons do is criminal because they 

 

do it wholly at the expense of the American people.

 

And they feel thoroughly entitled to do it: gain 

 

power, use it to enrich themselves and their friends.

 

They are amoral, immoral, and venal. Hillary has 

 

no core beliefs beyond power and money. That 

 

should be clear to every person on the planet by 

 

now."  ----  Patricia McCarthy 

 

THE LOOTING OF AMERICA:

BARACK OBAMA AND HIS CRONY BANKSTERS set themselves on America’s pensions next!

 http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/04/obamanomics-assault-on-american-middle.html

 

The new aristocrats, like the lords of old, are not bound by the laws that apply to the lower orders. Voluminous reports have been issued by Congress and government panels documenting systematic fraud and law breaking carried out by the biggest banks both before and after the Wall Street crash of 2008.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.

 

PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BARACK OBAMA MOCKS TRUMP

Obama orchestrated the greatest transfer of wealth to the rich in U.S. history!

http://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2018/09/pathological-liar-barack-obama-mocks.html

 

THE WALL STREET BOUGHT AND OWNED DEMOCRAT PARTY

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/09/democrats-and-bankster-billionaire.html

SERVING BANKSTERS, BILLIONAIRES and INVADING ILLEGALS

 

THE CRONY CLASS:

 

Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.

 

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/12/obamanomics-at-work-depressed-wages-and.html

 

 

“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”

 

 

GET THIS BOOK!

 

Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses

BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY

 

 Editorial Reviews

 

Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

 

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s OBAMANOMICS TO SERVE THE RICH AND GLOBALIST BILLIONAIRES.

 

 Nearly 10,000 eviction actions filed across the US since September despite CDC moratorium

 

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According to a recent report by NBC News, some 10,000 families face eviction from their homes due to a surge in filings by big residential landlord companies since the beginning of September.

If approved, these evictions will be carried out across the country in several states hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and despite a federal moratorium on evicting those affected by the virus.

In Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, large corporate landlords such as Progress Residential, have filed eviction proceedings for thousands of residents as a dramatic explosion in the homelessness crisis looms due to the devastating economic impact of the pandemic and the expiration of local, state and federal restrictions put in place earlier this year.

Homeless camp in San Francisco. (Image Credit: Envato)

Millions of American workers have lost their jobs and some 12.6 million have suffered heavy cuts in income since March, resulting in millions of families falling behind on monthly rent.

One worker interviewed by NBC News, Cristina Valez, lost her job and was facing an over $2,000 rent bill she could not afford. Her landlord, Progress Residential, she says was unsympathetic and uncooperative in working with her considering her economic situation.

Landlords are not required by law to inform tenants of any protections they may have and can proceed with evictions when rent is late.

“There’s got to be something for people affected by COVID and being furloughed,” Valez told NBC. A representative for Progress replied, “There’s nothing we can do” and served Valez with a bill for over $4,000 in rent and legal fees or else an order to vacate the premises. “I told them I was affected by COVID, but it didn’t matter to them. They are not very patient,” Velez said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) moratorium on evictions, which went into effect in early September and expires at the end of December, landlords cannot evict tenants affected by COVID-19 as long as they can show that the pandemic has negatively impacted their ability to pay rent.

In order to be protected, the CDC stipulates the tenant must prove that they meet 5 criteria: that they sought government assistance, make less than $99,000 a year, have suffered a “substantial loss of income” due to the pandemic, they must show they are making an effort to pay as much of the rent as they can, and that eviction would leave them homeless.

However, according to a clarification by the CDC, landlords can proceed with the legal procedures of an eviction as long as tenants are not forced out before the end of the year and landlords are also not required to tell residents of the federal ban.

Landlords can also challenge their tenants’ claims of COVID-19 impact and deny their claims without an appeal process in place. This caveat was implemented in part due to landlord lobbying groups directly appealing to the Trump administration.

This whitling down of the formerly broad-based ban on evictions by the CDC has essentially placed all the power in the hands of landlords, resulting in the current deluge of evictions.

Diane Yentel of the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition told NBC News the whittling down of the formerly broad-based ban on evictions “puts more power back in the hands of landlords at the expense of low-income renters.” Yentel said of the CDC’s clarification, “It creates new burdens for renters and creates new holes in protections for renters.”

The clarification was posted on October 9 and almost immediately there was a jump in eviction proceedings with some 2,000 having been filed across five states during the week of October 12.

For their part, the landlord companies carrying out these evictions have told reporters that they are doing everything according to the law and the rules of the CDC moratorium.

Landlord lobbying groups have fought such bans since the beginning of the pandemic, calling them an overreach and an obstruction on landlords’ ability to make profits. In September, according to a recent report, some 6 million households were unable to make rental payment.

Many of the largest landlord companies are controlled by private equity firms whose stock holdings have soared in value since the beginning of the pandemic. One of these big firms, Invitation Homes, owns some 80,000 homes across the country and has filed 122 evictions over the last six months while its stock has climbed 80 percent according to the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project which has compiled statistics on private equity firms buying up community properties across the country.

Progress Residential has filed 97 evictions since the beginning of the CDC moratorium. The company is itself owned by an equity firm called Pretium which is run by former Goldman Sachs partner David Mullen, a credit and mortgage manager who was investigated by a Senate committee following the housing crisis of the late 2000s.

Progress Residential defends its actions as being fully within the law while at the same time many of the actual evictions do not comply even with the laws as favorable as they are for the landlords.

According to renters’ advocacy groups, most judges accept the terms of an eviction even if it technically falls within the stipulations for protection. For the vast majority of those facing eviction finding a new home will be increasingly difficult as evictions often appear on the resident’s credit report and landlords often use such black marks to refuse to rent.

Since the CDC now allows landlords to file eviction proceedings, they are able to use this as an intimidation tactic, forcing residents to move who may otherwise have been protected by the moratorium without going through the full eviction process.

For millions of workers across the country the threat of homelessness is ever present and with the moratorium set to expire at the end of the year the crisis is set to explode even further. For many workers even the threat of an eviction represents a plunge into deeper poverty as landlords are free to pile on late charges and legal fees in addition to the past due rent.

The housing crisis and spike in poverty are only exacerbated in the backdrop of a pandemic that has shown no sign of slowing as the current “third wave” of infections wreaks havoc leading to deeper strains on an already brutalized working class facing sickness and job loss and homelessness, while the big banks and corporations were handed trillions of dollars in bailout funds.

Ten percent of US households face eviction by year’s end

Katy Kinner
21 October 2020

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On January 1, the Center for Disease Control emergency evictions moratorium will expire, raising the existing US eviction and homelessness crisis to unprecedented proportions.

While tens of thousands of evictions have been filed throughout the pandemic, according to a recent report by the Aspen Institute, 30-40 million more Americans could be at risk of eviction by the end of this year. This is a staggering 10 percent of the American population.

In addition, millions of Americans are at risk of being evicted from homes for non-payment of mortgages. According to mortgage analytics firm Black Knight, 3.9 million households were not paying their mortgages as of late August.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, over 20.8 million renter households—almost half of all US renter households—were “rental cost-burdened,” a term defined as households who pay over 30 percent of their income towards rent. Twenty-five percent of rental households were spending over 50 percent of their income on rent before the pandemic. The higher a household’s rental cost-burden, the more likely they are to become evicted.

Amanda Wood, 23, waits to fight an impending eviction notice July 31, 2020, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Farnoush Amiri)

Some states, such as Ohio, are more vulnerable to the eviction crisis due to insufficient COVID-19 protections, high poverty rates and high pre-pandemic eviction rates.

Avery Kreemer, the founder of Ohio Eviction Watch, recently spoke to the WSWS on the eviction crisis in the state. Ohio Eviction Watch seeks to establish a central database for eviction information in the state by requesting and publishing data from various courthouses around the state. As a result, Kreemer hopes to illuminate the full scope of a crisis that is both growing and underreported.

“Our state legislature has been ineffective with anything regarding Covid-19 measures,” Kreemer noted. “Since March, proposals for eviction and foreclosure prevention haven’t gotten much traction in the House or Senate. This is important because the CDC eviction moratorium only goes into effect if there isn’t a pre-existing protection in that state.”

Kreemer argues for additional state-level action for many reasons, one of which being that the CDC moratorium falls short. The CDC order, which went into effect on September 4, does not stop evictions, but postpones them. The order makes it illegal for landlords to evict tenants who sign a declaration that, among other things, they cannot afford rent and make less than $99,000 a year as an individual, or double that amount for a couple filing taxes jointly.

The order does not provide funding for families to pay rent and it does not stop landlords from tacking on late fees or contacting credit bureaus to alert them to missed payments. The order also does not require landlords or courts to alert tenants to the many stipulations required for eligibility under the order including the completion of the declaration form.

Causing further confusion, the order is inconsistent across states. “Each county and each court will interpret the moratorium differently,” said Kreemer. “One of our reporters lives up in Akron, and someone from The Legal Aid Society told her about a woman who lives on the county line. The court she lives under decided she was not covered under the CDC order, but if she had lived two miles to the west she would have been protected under that court.”

According to data from The Eviction Lab, a Princeton University research institute, Ohio’s eviction rate has surpassed the national average for nearly two decades. In 2016, Ohio had an eviction rate of 3.5 percent of rental households, which averages to about 158 evictions per day and 57,980 evictions per year. For comparison, the US national eviction rate in 2016 was 2.3 percent of renting households.

Several major cities in Ohio struggled with even higher pre-pandemic eviction rates. Cincinnati had an eviction rate of over 4.7 percent of renter households (4,174 evictions) in 2016, Cleveland reached 4.53 (4,483 evictions) and Columbus reached 4.45 percent (9,000 evictions).

In a discussion of the pre-pandemic eviction rates in Ohio, Kreemer explained, “What’s interesting about the CDC moratorium is that its focus is to stop the spread of COVID-19, not to stop evictions. It’s strange that we waited for a global pandemic to try to stop evictions.”

The idea for the Ohio Eviction Watch project predates the pandemic. “I was working at the Dayton Daily News last year when a tornado ripped through the area. It hit the poorest parts of the city. As a result, there was a sort of mini housing crisis in Dayton. People’s homes were unfit to live in, businesses shut down, many lost their jobs or lost a way to reliably get to their jobs. We saw an increase in eviction filings.”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1PM US EST

On the Eve of the Civil War Election

An online meeting with Socialist Equality Party candidates Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz.

FIND OUT MORE

 

Kreemer added, “Issues that caused this [increase in eviction filings] weren’t fixed, no steps were taken to solve it. Summer 2019 in Dayton becomes Summer 2020 across the whole country.”

Asked how the broader political situation relates to his project and the larger issue of evictions across the nation, Kreemer said, “There are many goals in getting through this pandemic. There are health goals and economic goals and there are many ways people propose fixing the economy. But we judge our economy on how it functions for a minority of people. If the stock market is going up it’s going to benefit the people already holding a lot of wealth. If the jobs are increasing, great, but are the wages of those jobs increasing? The strength of the economy isn’t judged based on how many people are being kicked out of their homes.”

The growth in evictions will lead to the further spread of the coronavirus as people are forced to double up in homes, seek out homeless shelters, or fight against their evictions in crowded court houses. Likewise, homeless people are more likely to have health issues that make them more at risk for contracting the virus.

In addition, further analysis of The Eviction Lab data by reporters at CNN shows that some of the neighborhoods facing higher eviction rates are also facing higher rates of medical comorbidities such as heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and obesity, all of which are COVID-19 risk factors.

Even if a household manages to pull together enough rent, coming close to eviction during a time when losing shelter could lead to exposure to a deadly virus puts an enormous amount of stress on an individual or family.

Evictions also cause aftershocks in a community. In reference to the book “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond, one of the many minds behind Princeton’s Eviction Lab data, Kreemer said, “In one part [Desmond] cites studies that researched how communities are destroyed by evictions. A family lives on a specific street, they are well known on that block, maybe their house is a gathering space. They have to leave, and they can’t play an active role in that community. Something immeasurable is lost.”

The eviction crisis is just one side of a general breakdown of social life caused by the criminal response of American ruling elite to the pandemic. As foodbanks across the country run low on supplies and as the number of chronically unemployed hits an all-time high and millions run out of federal and state jobless benefits, the US government continues to do nothing to provide sufficient aid.