Police carrying out an eviction at an apartment building (Source: Twitter/@tiffanydcross) Out of the $46.5 billion in funding provided for rental assistance under two bailouts enacted in December 2020 and March 2021, the vast majority has not been distributed, with only an estimated $3 billion of the funds being distributed as of August 3 according to CNBC, while millions are at risk of eviction or foreclosure.
According to the Eviction Lab, in the six states and 31 cities tracked by it, 480, 456 evictions have taken place during the pandemic. In just those areas alone, 6,108 evictions were filed in the last week. This is in spite of the announcement on August 3 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the extension of the eviction moratorium to October 3 for counties “experiencing substantial and high levels of community transmission levels.”
The moratorium extension itself was only issued after Democrats allowed it to expire on July 31 and then after they washed their hands of it . The latest temporary version is a significant revision of the previous moratorium which, at least in letter, covered all renters. While CNN, citing a “source familiar with the effort” estimates it covers 90 percent of renters, which by no means should be taken at face value, that would still mean hundreds of thousands are now not covered who previously were, and can be thrown out of their homes amid a surge in the pandemic.
The extension itself has an uncertain legal future as attested to by the federal judge who allowed the Biden administration’s revised moratorium to remain in place, no doubt a veiled reference to a challenge by the extreme-right Supreme Court.
Approximately 1.6 million households reported being “very likely” to face eviction in the next two months according to the US Census Bureau’s July 21-August 2 Household Pulse Survey, while another 1.9 million where “somewhat likely.” Some 5.8 million were not at all confident in their ability to pay next month’s rent. Additionally, 238,000 homeowners were “very likely” to have to leave their house due to foreclosure, while another 826,000 were “somewhat likely” to have to leave.
For those seeking assistance, only 287,000 cited applying and receiving household rental assistance through state or local government, while 1.49 million were waiting for a response and 890,773 were denied assistance.
Only 15 states and the District of Columbia had spent 10 percent or more of the funds initially approved by Congress as of the end of June, according to the US Treasury, despite $25 billion of the funds for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) having been approved on December 27 of last year and $21.55 billion in March 11 of this year, under the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the “ American Rescue Plan Act ” bailouts, respectively.
According to a HuffPost analysis of Treasury Department data, “in roughly 40 states, counties and cities, not a single cent from ERAP made it out the door during that time.” This included some smaller counties, but also whole states such as New York, which received $801 million in funds, and Puerto Rico at $325 million, where nothing from ERAP was distributed.
Chicago hadn’t distributed any of its $80 million in ERAP funds either at the end of June, with the spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Housing saying that the department had been waiting on the City Council, which is ruled by Democrats, failing to allocate the funds since May when the applications opened.
Politicians for both parties have criticized local governments for the glacial pace that rental assistance was distributed.
Senate Minority Leader and coup plotter Mitch McConnell stated last week, “The problem has been with state governments who have been pathetically slow to get the money out.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized his own state of New York, stating he would send a letter to the state government to “immediately start disbursing those funds.”
Representative Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois, referring to the city of Chicago’s delay of $80 million in ERAP funds, stated that “Bureaucratic bungling is unacceptable,” and, “I am astounded and heartbroken that my constituents, who are suffering from horrendous economic woes in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, have not received the full financial relief that I voted for.”
New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio’s spokesperson Bill Neidhardt stated, referring to the unemployment benefits, “The main reason is that the application was fucking impossible.”
Neidhardt, saying perhaps more than he intended, stated, “I think it’s strategic incompetence. That’s why they delayed it, and that’s why they rolled out a mind-bogglingly unusable interface. Both those things show they didn’t want people to get the money.”
Sarah Saadian, vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition stated that while some places were distributing funds, many states and local governments were “putting in place their own documentation requirements or very lengthy application processes, which are getting in their own way of distributing aid.”
State governments undoubtedly played a role in holding up these funds through sheer incompetence and indifference. The central reason, though, has the same roots as the holding up of unemployment money, and that is the drive to shove workers back into low-paying jobs through economic blackmail so they can get back to producing profits for the financial oligarchy. As the WSWS wrote on April 29 of last year:
The unemployment benefits program included in the CARES Act has been, to a large extent, an elaborate exercise in deliberate mass deception. When Congress and the White House presented the additional 13 weeks of state-based unemployment insurance beyond the typical 26 weeks, plus an additional $600 weekly federal supplement through July 31, 2020, as a social safety net during the COVID-19 crisis, they knew very well that millions of unemployed workers would be unable to take advantage of it.
The Democrats and Republicans knew that many workers would not be able to get through to the antiquated systems in the state capitals across the country, which would be completely overwhelmed and unprepared for the number of people seeking to apply for benefits. They were counting on these systems being so backed up with delays and confusion that workers would give up and end up receiving little or nothing of the government money.
Just as before, both Republicans and Democrats are well aware that the distribution of such money would encounter significant caveats, yet they did nothing to address these.
“In most cases they couldn’t scale up an already-existing program, or if they could scale up an existing program, that program was tiny compared to the funding available now,” Ann Oliva, a housing policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told HuffPost. “That explains some of the lag.”
The glacial rate of the distribution of ERAP funds is in direct contrast to the lightning fast speed at which the continuous bailout by the Fed to Wall Street and large corporations is carried out. The justifications, evasions and blame game going on in D.C. and across the states are thoroughly unconvincing given that the Fed gives out over $120 billion per month, almost triple the total amount allocated to ERAP , to buy up corporate bonds and other financial assets, which are quickly used by Wall Street to fuel an orgy of speculation whose result can be seen in soaring stocks and soaring wealth of the billionaires. This contrast becomes even more evident when it’s considered that only a fraction of ERAP funds have been distributed, while the $120 billion is quickly put to use in speculative activities by Wall Street.
One could also point to the bailout of the airline industry, which, while being nominally allocated less money, in reality received far more than the $3 billion currently distributed. American Airlines received $5.81 billion through the CARES Act, while Delta received $5.4 billion, with both of their CEOs receiving millions while laying off tens of thousands of workers.
The failure to provide for housing, and the ongoing eviction and foreclosure crisis, is a testament to the bankruptcy of the capitalist system and to the necessity for its overthrow and replacement by socialism, reorganizing society to meet human need rather than private profit.
REMEMBER WHEN BRIBES SUCKING LAWYER KAMALA HARRIS SAID OL' JOE'S FINANCES WERE ENTIRELY 'TRANSPARENT'?
This Is How the Left's Power Structure Collapses By David Prentice
Weeks ago, Rush Limbaugh mentioned that the issues defining the election had not come forward yet. He was correct. Not entirely, because all the issues coming out right now have existed. In plain sight.
They just weren't distilled yet.
It's now here, served up on a silver platter. No, not Hunter Biden. This Hunter Biden laptop story simply leads us to the issue. The word. One word that rules them all, and in the darkness binds them.
Corruption.
There it is. That's the issue. To begin, you have the corrupt family Biden. They've been scamming us and our system well for almost fifty years. The man is supposedly worth over 250 million dollars. How is this possible on his salary? It's not. So where did his wealth come from? Not from being a brilliant businessman.
Enter Hunter's laptop. We now know that this is a family steeped in crime and corruption. Ole Corn Pop appears to be awash in money kicked back to him by his family members who have grifted off his reputation for years. Hunter's laptop has betrayed all this and more. Much like Al Capone's bookkeeper. Who would have thought Capone would have been destroyed so completely by a set of crooked books? Such delicious irony. And who would have known that this would become the October surprise of all October surprises?
Corruption. Full grown. Oozing its way into America. It's everywhere on the left. The Biden family. Clintons. The Democratic Party. The FBI. The CIA. The mainstream media. The tech giants. It's a full-out plague, aided and abetted by their demonic philosophy, all of them gone astray.
All of them corrupt.
The New York Post story has been there for about a week now. The Democrat-media complex has ignored it entirely; the tech giants went into overdrive removing all evidence from their platforms. Google. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. The whole lot of them. Covering up a story that deserved universal distribution and condemnation. Instead, they covered up the most damning story to their side, their chosen side. All of them colluded to bury this mounting evidence of wrongdoing.
How far the mighty have fallen. And are falling.
What's the word for a media establishment that won't report this story?
What's the word for the FBI having this laptop for almost a year, watching dispassionately as the Democrats impeached Trump with hard evidence in their hands of his innocence and the Bidens' guilt?
What's the word for the above group of bad actors colluding to forward the Russia lies for almost three years?
What's the word for Director Wray's involvement?
What's the word for CIA director not releasing documents of the Russia hoax, documents that have been available for a long time?
What's the all-encompassing word that has been revealed at the heart of all these colluding to hide the truth from an America that deserves to know?
Corruption.
This is an issue that won't go away. All the attempts to deep-six the truth here are failing, and miserably at that. It's causing a slow-walk of information to drip out to the American public. First the stories of Ukraine. Drip-drip-drip. Then the stories of drugs. Then the sex problems. Then the Chinese stories. The story of kickbacks to Pop.
It's as if all the smartest people in the world colluded to destroy themselves. By purposefully and unanimously excluding all information concerning this story from the American public. The smartest people in the world actually believe they can be successful in spiking one of the biggest stories to pop up in any American election cycle. Their hubris is so advanced, so viral, so awful, that they can't see what they've done to themselves. They really believe they are going to keep a cork on this.
The derogatory phrase for the establishment has been "the swamp." How bad is this, how deep is this, how criminal is this, how horrifying is it to find out the vast amount of corruption and collusion in so many of our institutions and corporations?
It's staggering. It's infuriating.
These are the most powerful among us. All rich. All corrupt. All once respected by Americans of all stripes. And here, in one fell swoop, they reveal themselves to the average American. As arrogant bullies, as deceitful liars, as evil as anything we've seen in our generation. They have revealed themselves as the cabal of darkness. Terrible motives, terrible actions, virtually unforgiveable in what they have done, and yet failed to finish. And due to the hubris of the cabal, the exposé will be slow-walked until the election.
Today, Trump had an exchange with reporters, where he said, "Biden was a criminal."
This shocked the corrupt media. Reverberations rocked the corrupto-sphere. The lion had roared. There is no way the corrupto-sphere keeps this lid on. There is also no way all these corrupt actors go back on their solemn pledge to one another. They are bound together. They're stuck with each other. And it will overwhelm them.
As this careens into the debate, as this careens into voting, as this careens into Election Day, the ultimate narrative will be set. The doomsday clock will start. All the corrupt actors will be pointed out. All of them will rue the day they couldn't get rid of Donald Trump. He, above most anyone, knows just how corrupt these people are. He above anyone knows how to handle them. He, above all, knows what's all coming out in the next weeks.
It's going to be an avalanche of material. It's going to be a number of fires even Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the DNC, the Bidens, the media, the corrupt government officials, the whole shooting match, will not be able to handle. If they all overtly held emergency meetings with each other, they'd never stop the flood. When Trump roared, you know he had one of his famous moments, that moment when he knows how and when to bring this to a head. Trump the narrative-builder, Trump the destroyer will be unleashing hell on these people.
Anyone who has seen him operate knows. This is his time. This is how the beginning of the end of the swamp, or should I say the sewer, begins. This is the kind of chaos these smartest people in the world, ever, haven't seen before. Algorithms will not help them. Censorship will not help them. It will be a rushing mighty wind, coming to destroy all those who didn't understand that their corruption could be turned on them.
This is going to be epic. Corruption will be their end; it's just a matter of time. And Trump will have four years to finish their corruption.
‘10% Joe’ – From Grandfather to Godfather By David Isaac
We thought Joe Biden was the grandfather. It turns out he’s more like the godfather.
It’s the big reveal in the Hunter Biden story.
Until now, we thought Hunter, the “f—ked up addict that can’t be trusted” (in his own words) who sent not one but three laptops full of incriminating material in for repairs – an act so stupid that even crack can’t be blamed – was the one taking advantage of his father’s position to enrich himself.
(Compounding the idiocy, despite repeated notifications, he failed to pay the $85 bill to reclaim the one salvageable laptop, so that after 90 days it became the legal property of the repair shop.)
What we learn from the laptop is that Joe (referred to as “the big guy”) was to get a 10% cut of the loot from a deal with a now defunct Chinese energy company with strong ties to the Chinese government (the email outlines an equity split including “20 for H” and “10 held by H for the big guy.” That makes “10% Joe” analogous to the Godfather, the capo dei capi , the boss due his share of the family’s enterprises.
So Biden is getting “his beak wet,” as former NYC Mayor and current Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani points out in a damning video describing the “ Biden crime family’s payoff scheme .”
There’s more. Hunter tells his daughter Naomi in a 2018 text-message exchange: “I hope you all can do what I did, and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years and it has been tough. It’s really hard but don’t worry, unlike Pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.”
It would take some real mental gymnastics to convince any normal person – that is, anyone not marinating in Democratic talking points - that “Pop” wasn’t referring to Joe Biden.
Did Biden really get half? It sounds more like Hunter is complaining that he had to give his dad anything.
The amount really doesn’t matter. It puts paid to Joe’s claims that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” It should lead to a federal investigation, starting with subpoenas to Hunter’s banks.
Other emails are equally damning when it comes to Joe’s claims to know nothing of his son’s business affairs. There’s the email from Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi thanking Hunter for setting up a meeting with then Vice President Biden.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
Up to now the worst that was usually said of Biden is that he wasn’t up to the job. He was a kindly grandfather who was cognitively slipping. To Trump opponents, it didn’t matter. What was important was that Biden would return the country to “normalcy.” Peggy Noonan wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 8):
“If Joe Biden wins big, part of the reason, maybe a big part, will be simply that he is normal. Not ‘he’s such an accomplished legislator,’ not ‘he’s the man of the future’ or ‘charismatic’ or ‘warm’ or ‘has such a moving back story.’ No. He is normal. And people miss normal so much.”
BLOG EDITOR: SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN AND HILLARY CLINTON HAS MADE VAST WEALTH SERVICING FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
A family business raking in millions for access to U.S. policy makers is “normal”?
Still less excusable than Noonan’s silly remarks are those of U.S. Adm. (ret.) William McRaven, who extols Biden in the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 20), well after the scandal broke: “We need a leader of integrity whose decency and sense of respect reflects the values we expect from our president.”
We hope McRaven was a better admiral than he is a judge of character.
And the response of mainstream media to the Post ’s revelations?
In what may be the most blatant example of media censorship in U.S. history, the story has been buried by Big Tech and blackballed/denied by the media giants.
Facebook and Twitter, in the tank for Biden, both blocked the link to the Post story. Twitter blocked the Trump campaign’s official account and also that of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. The major news outlets have rushed in unison to label the Post scoop “Russian disinformation.” Their response was so monolithic that John Ratcliffe, the Director of National Intelligence felt impelled to intervene, assuring there was “no intelligence that supports that.”
The hard drive is full of pictures of the Biden family, Hunter (sometimes in compromising positions) and over 11,000 emails, most of them harmless. And why, as Giuliani points out, did Hunter Biden’s lawyers repeatedly demand his computer be returned (once they realized the disaster that was brewing)? Seems like a strange approach if you think it’s all Russian disinformation, and not Hunter’s computer at all.
David Isaac is managing editor of World Israel News.
WE KNOW WHAT OBAMA-HOLDER-BIDEN DID FOR THEIR CRONY BANKSTERS! THEIR CRIME TIDAL WAVE IS NOT OVER AND NONE HAVE GONE TO PRISON!
As a senator, Biden vigorously voted for several similar bills. In short, based on his voting record, Joe Biden is not (and never was) a champion of disadvantaged Americans, unless you consider multi-billion-dollar credit card corporations and millionaires “disadvantaged.”
This year, it’s Mr. Biden. Financial industry cash flowing to Mr. Biden and outside groups supporting him shows him dramatically out-raising the president, with $44 million compared with Mr. Trump’s $9 million.
"The reference to what “Trump’s done” is a fraud, since the both the Democrats and Republicans endorsed, on a nearly unanimous basis, the multi-trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street in March."
"Biden reassured Wall Street and the billionaires, “I’m not looking to punish anyone.”
I’ve also fallen toward a consultant theory of change — or like, a process theory of change. So a lot of people on the left would say that the Hillary Clinton campaign largely ignored economic issues, and doubled down on social issues, because of the neoliberal ideology of the people who worked for her, and the fact that campaigning on progressive economic policy would threaten the material interests of her donors.
