THE DOCTRINE OF THE N.A.F.T.A. GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS IS TO SERVE THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ENDLESS WAVES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR SUBSIDIZED WITH WELFARE FUNDED BY TAXES ON MIDDLE AMERICA.
In many speeches, Mayorkas says he is building a mass migration system to deliver workers to wealthy employers and investors and “equity” to poor foreigners. The nation’s border laws are subordinate to elites’ opinion about “the values of our country,” Mayorkas claims.
Friday, July 3, 2020
TRUMP THREATENS TO ELIMINATE HOUSING PROGRAM THAT BENEFITS LOW INCOME AMERICANS AS HE HANDS BILLIONS IN SOCIALISM AND WELFARE TO WALL STREET CRONIES
President Threatens to Eliminate Obama-Era Housing Policy
An apartment complex that houses many refugees and immigrants in Grand Rapids, Mich., Oct. 9, 2019. (Christopher Lee/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has taken aim at an Obama-era program intended to eliminate racial housing disparities in the suburbs, a move proponents of the policy see as an attempt to shore up his sagging support among white suburban voters by stoking racial division.
In a Twitter post late Tuesday, Trump announced that he was considering the elimination of a 2015 initiative known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which requires localities to identify and address patterns of racial segregation outlawed under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by creating detailed corrective plans.
“At the request of many great Americans who live in the Suburbs, and others, I am studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas,” he wrote, adding, “Not fair to homeowners, I may END!”
The tweet came just a day after Trump posted a video showing a pair of angry white homeowners pointing an assault rifle and pistol in the direction of chanting protesters walking past their house in St. Louis — part of a barrage of footage on social media capturing white homeowners confronting Black bystanders, often their neighbors, for simply standing on their streets.
Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development were puzzled by the timing of Trump’s tweet; the housing rule has been in limbo since Obama left office, tied up by litigation, lengthy rule-making and exemption requests by local officials.
In January, HUD posted a notice saying it was considering weakening the original regulation by factoring in “the unique needs and difficulties faced by individual jurisdictions” in complying with a 92-item questionnaire that must be completed to obtain funding from the department.
Trump’s claim that he might end the housing initiative was a reference to the January proposal, not the announcement of a new policy, a White House spokesman said.
The process may not have changed, but there has been a significant shift in political sentiment prompted by the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump and his campaign team, already concerned about his weakness in battleground states, have become increasingly alarmed by internal polling showing a softening of support among suburban voters, especially women without college degrees, according to two Republican officials close to the campaign.
They said Trump was also seeking to highlight a set of proposals, put forward by the campaign of his presumptive Democratic rival, Joe Biden, to reassess zoning laws relating to single-family homes, a move some critics argue could turn suburbs into cities. “Corrupt Joe Biden wants to make them MUCH WORSE,” Trump tweeted.
Hours after Trump tweeted, his son Donald Trump Jr., posted a link to a National Review article titled, “Joe Biden and Democrats Are Set to Abolish the Suburbs.”
Shaun Donovan, who as secretary of Housing and Urban Development created the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing policy after pursuing fair housing actions against Yonkers, New York, and other localities, said the messages had little to do with housing policy, but were part of a campaign to stoke long-simmering racial animosities for political purposes.
“Trump’s tweet is racist and wrong,” said Donovan, who established the rule after months of consultation with civil rights groups. “He would turn back the clock to the days when the federal government perpetuated the lie that Black families’ moving to suburban neighborhoods brings down property values.”
The core of the fair housing policy was “a recognition that outlawing intentional discrimination is not enough for people of color to overcome the consequences of centuries of oppression,” added Donovan, a former New York City housing commissioner who is now running for mayor.
Whatever the motive, the tweet was a pointed reminder of just how firmly Trump’s slashing style is rooted in the racially polarized conflicts of his early days in Queens.
The president, fighting for survival at 74, is choosing to make a political stand on a similar racial and political battlefield he first stormed in 1973, when, at 27, he vehemently fought a federal fair housing lawsuit accusing his father Fred Trump’s rental developments in boroughs outside Manhattan of discriminating against Black applicants.
Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group based in Washington, questioned the timing of the tweet — especially since Trump seldom weighs in on such specific policy matters.
“It’s especially abhorrent for the president to threaten further entrenchment of segregated communities now, during a time of reckoning on racial injustices in our country,” Yentel said. “A direct line connects America’s history of racist housing policies to today’s overpolicing of Black and brown communities.”
It is unclear how the pandemic, economic swoon and local moratoriums on rent payments will affect the proposed rule changes. Even before the current crisis, homelessness rates were on the rise, especially on the West Coast. At the same time, Black homeownership rates have dropped to levels not seen since the 1960s.
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing policy was meant to replace oversight of federal spending on housing that was widely seen as ineffective, especially when it came to discrimination based on race, disability, gender, age and sexual orientation.
The new rules, in theory, created stricter benchmarks for communities receiving federal funding, but compliance proved difficult, and HUD was still working on a tool kit that would have made it easier for localities to file the necessary reports when Trump was elected, Donovan said.
Opponents, including some local officials, viewed the new system as onerous — and found a receptive audience for their complaints when Ben Carson, a brain surgeon with no housing experience, was confirmed as Trump’s housing secretary in 2017.
By 2018, Carson, a free-market conservative and the only Black person in Trump’s Cabinet, delayed enactment of the regulation and signaled his intention to eliminate it altogether, part of a larger strategy of slow-walking fair housing investigations and marginalizing department officials who aggressively pursued cases.
Carson’s moves were part of a larger push to reduce housing regulation led by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks that worked closely with department officials and the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Carson has also tried to roll back the Obama administration’s attempt to more closely monitor the use of computer algorithms and other methods that have historically been used to exclude minority applicants from receiving housing loans.
In announcing the proposed rule changes, Carson claimed the Obama-era initiative was “actually suffocating investment in some of our most distressed neighborhoods that need our investment the most.”
Appeals Court Vacates Temporary Order Blocking Publication of Trump Niece's Tell-All
By Andrew Albanese |
Jul 02, 2020
Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia
In a speedy reversal, the Second Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court has vacated judge Hal B. Greenwald's Temporary Restraining Order blocking Simon & Schuster from publishing Mary L. Trump’s forthcoming tell-all, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
The July 1 decision comes just a day after Greenwald issued his June 30 order, following emergency appeals by both Simon & Schuster and the author, and a speedy private hearing before the appeals court. The decision means S&S can continue to move forward with its planned July 28 publication, although a July 10 hearing on the matter still looms.
In his six-page ruling, Presiding Judge Alan Scheinkman held that because S&S is not a party to the confidentiality agreement at the heart of the case, they cannot be restrained without a full hearing of the facts.
"The only basis offered by the plaintiff to extend the temporary restraining order to S&S are the allegations that S&S 'intends to act' on Ms. Trump’s behalf in causing the publication of the book and that S&S is acting at Ms. Trump’s direction and in concert with her," Scheinkman wrote. "However, these allegations are conclusory and not supported by any specific factual averments. Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights. Since the predicate for the plaintiff’s application for a temporary restraining order is the existence of the confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement (and no alternate basis for an injunction against Ms. Trump is either suggested or apparent), and S&S is not a party to the settlement agreement, this Court perceives no basis for S&S to be specifically enjoined."
But with a hearing set for July 10 before Judge Greenwald, the appellate court upheld a modified version of the Temporary Restraining Order pertaining to the author, Mary L. Trump.
"At this preliminary stage of the proceedings, this Court is of the view that it is appropriate, in view of the confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement and the showing made in the plaintiff’s papers, for a temporary restraining order to issue as against Ms. Trump to temporarily enforce its terms pending a hearing on the preliminary injunction," Scheinkman concluded.
In a statement, S&S officials said there were "gratified" by the Appellate Court’s decision. "As we all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions," S&S officials said, "and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied."
Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.
”
In its June 30 answer to the Trump family lawsuit, attorneys for Simon & Schuster insisted there is no constitutional or contractual basis for blocking Simon & Schuster's publication, and denied that the publisher is acting either as an "agent" or "in concert" with Mary L. Trump.
“This argument, which posits that Simon & Schuster can be bound by an agreement that pre-existed its relationship with Ms. Trump by almost twenty years and whose existence was unknown to it, is specious at best,” S&S attorneys argue, adding that the publisher and the author are "independent parties that entered into an arm’s length transaction." And unlike a legally defined agent, "Simon & Schuster—not Ms. Trump—maintains the right to control the publication of the Book.”
That argument is bolstered by an affidavit from S&S CEO Jonathan Karp, who told the court that after book was formally accepted on May 7, Mary L. Trump “lost any ability she otherwise may have had to prevent or delay the Book’s publication.” Further, Karp said that "approximately 75,000 copies have been printed and bound and are ready for publication,” which includes shipments to retail booksellers—copies which S&S no longer maintains control of.
“Once Simon & Schuster shipped [the books] in response to a purchase order," Karp explained, "title to the physical copies passed to the retailer or wholesaler.”
Coronavirus, the Russia bounty scandal, and the upcoming election continue to dominate America’s news.
Today, there were 52,788 new reported infections in the country, topping 50,000 for the first time. Right now, the seven-day average of new confirmed cases is the highest it’s ever been, and 45 states have seven-day averages of new infections higher than the previous week. June saw more than 800,000 new cases, bringing the total number of cases in the United States to more than 2.6 million.
But even with statistics like this, tonight on the Fox News Channel, Trump once again said that the economy was recovering strongly, and suggested that the coronavirus would go away on its own. He said: "I think we're gonna be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear, I hope." (The coronavirus will not just disappear.)
More news dropped today about the Russia bounty scandal, including the information that bounties on American and allied soldiers ranged up to $100,000. National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien blamed Trump’s CIA briefer for not bringing the information to the president’s attention, although sources confirm it was, in fact, written in the President’s Daily Brief in February. While O’Brien did not mention a specific name, he used the pronoun “her.” Trump’s usual briefer is Beth Sanner, a CIA analyst with more than 30 years of experience. Earlier, officials claimed that Trump missed the significance of the coronavirus at first because of her, as well, saying that she had downplayed the dangers of the virus when she briefed him about it on January 23. But Sanner has an excellent reputation as a briefer, and former intelligence officers familiar with Trump’s intelligence briefings say he cannot absorb anything that does not reinforce his worldview.
Trump continued to insist that the scandal isn't real. He told an interviewer on the Fox News Channel that he had not been briefed on it because there was no consensus on the intelligence, and that he believed it was a hoax. On Twitter, he started the day by saying: “The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited [New York Times] has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!” He followed up with: "Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party. I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level…."
Congress, however, wants answers, and so far they have not been forthcoming. Tomorrow, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe will brief the Gang of Eight: the top Democrats and Republicans from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking minority members from both the House and the Senate Intelligence committees. The Gang of Eight is sworn to secrecy, and normally, it is only engaged under extraordinary circumstances when the president wants to limit access to information, as when a covert action is underway. Normally, the president is required to share information about intelligence with the congressional intelligence committees.
And then there is the upcoming election. Today Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is overseeing Trump’s campaign, moved long-serving campaign aide Michael Glassner from the position of chief operating officer to a different role in order to bring in Jeff DeWit, who had held the position in 2016. This move was in response to the Tulsa rally, and seems to assign Glassner the blame for that disaster. Such a shake-up at this point in an election year signals that the campaign team is nervous.
For his part, Trump is throwing his weight behind his base. On Tuesday night, he tweeted that he was considering scrapping a fair housing rule designed to combat racial segregation.
In 2015, President Barack Obama announced new rules to clarify the 1968 Fair Housing Act. That act required government not simply to stop outright discrimination, but also to dismantle existing segregation and foster integration instead, but this latter part of the law’s charge really never got off the ground. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was designed to remedy that lack. It sets out a framework for local governments, States, and public housing agencies to look for racially biased housing patterns and to report the results. This will call out, for example, places where zoning laws bar affordable housing, a policy that appears to be race-blind, but which in practice excludes low-income families of color. The AFFH rule also requires towns to set goals which must be tracked over time.
Even while the rule was under discussion, opponents claimed it was an experiment in “social engineering” that would destroy white suburbs. “Let local communities do what’s best in their communities, and I would predict we’d end up with a freer and fairer society in 20 years than we have today,” Rick Manning, the president of Americans for Limited Government told Emily Badger of the Washington Post. “Far freer and fairer than anything that would be dictated from Washington.”
The Trump administration has already delayed enforcement of the AFFH rule, and had proposed to water it down. But last night Trump went after it altogether in a clear appeal to the white suburban voters he has been losing, and whose support he so badly needs in 2020. “At the request of many great Americans who live in the Suburbs, and others, I am studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas. Corrupt Joe Biden wants to make them MUCH WORSE. Not fair to homeowners, I may END!”
The Trump campaign today also reinforced its use of Nazi imagery. It offered for sale an “America First” t-shirt with a design reminiscent of the Nazi Iron Eagle widely understood to be a symbol of hate. Like the use of the triangle symbol that harked back to the Nazi tag for political prisoners, this image is close enough that it cannot be missed, but different enough that Trump supporters promptly insisted that people calling out its use are overreacting. On Twitter, conservative Tom Nichols, a professor of international affairs at the U.S. Naval War College said, “I've been pretty hard on people who make the Nazi comparisons around here, but Christ, even *I* saw this one right away. This is not some standard American eagle, this is a Trump graphics guy thinking he's being clever and trolling the world by saying "mayyyybe it's close."
As Holocaust scholar Waitman Beorn notes, the Trump campaign’s appropriation of Nazi images speaks to Trump’s white supremacist base. But as media critic Parker Molloy noted about the previous controversy, issuing these images is also a cheap and easy way to command media attention without having to pay for it.
John Bolton’s new tell-all book about the Trump administration has sold more than 780,000 copies in its first week, making Bolton the latest former Trump administration official to cash in on a book bashing the president.
Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, is a negative take of the Trump administration during his 18 months as national security adviser. Bolton was reportedly paid a $2 million advance.
The Room Where It Happened fell short of former FBI Director James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty in first week sales but still ranks as one of the best-selling books of the Trump era, according to The Hill‘s Joe Concha.
Bolton’s memoir came unusually quickly after he left the administration in late 2019 in relation to other books by former officials. Trump has said he fired Bolton, while Bolton claims he resigned.
The White House attempted to block Bolton’s book from publishing after he failed to complete a national security review process for former officials, but a judge ruled that it was impossible since advance copies of the book had already been widely distributed.
The judge harshly criticized Bolton, however, saying that he “gambled with the national security of the United States” and exposed the U.S. to harm by not completing a review of his book for classified information.
Bolton could also face legal and financial consequences due to not completing the review.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook.
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