Patterico's Pontifications

8/4/2021

The Biden Administration Massive and Cynical Flip-flop on the Eviction Moritorium

Filed under: General — JVW @ 3:36 pm



[guest post by JVW]

I’m sure all of you have heard that the Biden Administration, via the Center for Disease Control (and Prevention), last night reimposed a 60-day moratorium on evictions of renters who have fallen in arrears on their rent. Protection for renters who found themselves sick, out of work, or both during the early days of COVID had been implemented during the Trump Administration, but after the Supreme Court narrowly allowed them to stand in a 5-4 ruling at the end of June, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had sided with the majority of Chief Justice Roberts and the Court’s three progressives, declared that in his opinion any further extensions of the moratorium without specific legislative action from Congress would be illegal. Though Congress has made nearly $47 billion available to renters and landlords during the COVID panic, to date the states have only managed to distribute about $3 billion, thanks in great part to governmental red tape clogging the process for both tenants and landlords.

So with the July 31 expiration date looming last week, House Democrats attempted a last-ditch effort to extend it, only to fail. Even had they suceeded, the measure faced an uncertain fate in the more evenly-divided Senate, where some moderate Democrats have expressed concern that funds are not reaching landlords. For its part the Biden Administration wanted progressives to know that the administration would love nothing more than to provide a further extension, but that the Court’s ruling greatly limited their ability to act. The failure of the extension naturally brought on the typical showy grandstanding by the, uh, “more publicity-minded” members of the Democrat caucus. And then — whaddya know? — the administration suddenly reversed course and prevailed upon the CDC to extend the moratorium an additional 60 days.

And of course, the Biden Administration — including ol’ squinty eyes himself — doesn’t really believe that they have much of a Constitutional leg to stand upon. Quoth the President: “The bulk of the Constitutional scholars say it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.” Yet the same guy cheerfully adds that even if it is struck down by the Court it “will give us some additional time” to distribute rent relief funds. Which is of course nonsense, as even once the moratorium ends those funds wouldn’t suddenly vaporize (even though, paradoxically enough, they were indeed created out of thin air), they would still be available to interested parties to cover back rent. As usual where progressives are inevitably in error the problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the inability of the bureaucracy to efficiently distribute it.

This brazen cynicism by that particular political party who spent the last five years insisting we were on the verge of being issued well-tailored uniforms and taught how to goose-step ought to be remembered next time we hear this nonsense about “undermining Constitutional norms” coming from those people who are cheering on as the Center for Disease Control determines our nation’s housing policy. As NRO points out, it’s weaponizing the bureaucracy to reach your party’s ideological aims taken to a new extreme. Charlie Cooke excoriates CNN (an easy target, granted) for completely eliding the central fact that hardly anybody believes this is legal, and the NRO editorial board points out that extending rent relief will continue to exacerbate the problem of the unemployed concluding that staying home and receiving government cheese beats going out and finding work.

Probably the best case scenario is that the Court immediately intervenes and declares the CDC’s edict unconstitutional, but with Chief Justice John Let’s-Not-Step-On-Anbody’s-Toes-Unnecessarily-m’Kay Roberts at the helm it’s sort of doubtful that will happen (and certainly a big part of the Biden Administration’s strategy here is the idea that the Court will take several weeks to adjudicate this matter). Short of that, Philip Klein believes that Republican Senators must respond by immediately revoking cooperation for the infrastructure bill and by blocking all other Biden spending initiatives. Charlie Cooke, after easily dispatching CNN, calls for a federalist response in which non-crazy states and locales should simply ignore the CDC’s extension and make it known that tenants behind on the rent must make some arrangements to pay or find themselves evicted. All sensible responses to the Biden Administration’s unprecedented use of federal power to ram through dubious left-wing policy.

– JVW

181 Responses to “The Biden Administration Massive and Cynical Flip-flop on the Eviction Moritorium”

  1. I didn’t see this until after I had written most of this post and had grown too tired of it to go back and re-word it, but Joel Zinberg at NRO has a pretty good encapsulation of what has gone on this far with the moratorium: the Trump Administration initially set it to expire December 31, 2020, then on their way out the door extended that to January 31. The Biden Administration has since extended it three times: March 31 to June 30 to July 31. As Mr. Zinberg points out, extending this was apparently such a low priority to Team Biden that they didn’t bother to ask Congress to intervene until a couple of days before the July 31 expiration date (and Congress itself didn’t take up the matter on its own initiative), only days before they were scheduled to recess. There’s virtually nothing about extending the moratorium that speaks to a disinterested rational decision made in the best interest of public health and economic considerations; virtually every part of this screams political mollification of the loud and obnoxious left-wing element of the Democrat Party.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  2. Grandpoppa Clutch clutched?!?!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  3. Yet the same guy cheerfully adds that even if it is struck down by the Court it “will give us some additional time” to distribute rent relief funds. Which is of course nonsense, as even once the moratorium ends those funds wouldn’t suddenly vaporize

    Well, you can interpret that as having the additional clause time to get it and avoid eviction. I think not evicting someone is a condition for the landlord getting the money.

    The states were slow in getting the program even established.

    The money can go directly to the landlord if it is arranged that way,

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  4. Short of that, Philip Klein believes that Republican Senators must respond by immediately revoking cooperation for the infrastructure bill and by blocking all other Biden spending initiatives.

    Reps should also vote against raising the debt ceiling.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  5. There’s virtually nothing about extending the moratorium that speaks to a disinterested rational decision made in the best interest of public health and economic considerations; virtually every part of this screams political mollification of the loud and obnoxious left-wing element of the Democrat Party.

    JVW (ee64e4) — 8/4/2021 @ 3:43 pm

    This pretty much sums up how Boomer and Gen-X parents raised and continue to enable the Juicebox Generation–initially tell them “no,” then shrug their shoulders and give in because they don’t want to deal with the thought that their kids might hate them for 5 minutes.

    What a complete and utter social failure, and now these spoiled brats are emotionally stunted “adults” who expect, with good reason, that they’ll get whatever they want if they just shriek loudly enough.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  6. You will notice that there have been no moratoriums on foreclosures of rental property. The Dems look on landlords much the same as Mao did.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  7. What power does Roberts have if 5 justices want to do something?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  8. The 50 GOP Senators can stay home after the recess and there’s nothing that can be done until they show up. Harris cannot vote in a quorum call.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  9. Reps should also vote against raising the debt ceiling.

    They already say they are going to.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  10. The Dems look on landlords much the same as Mao did.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/4/2021 @ 5:25 pm

    Not a surprise, considering they and their constituents are basically aping the Cultural Revolution, right down to the struggle sessions that SDS introduced to the radical left, particularly the Weatherman wing.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  11. @5 Spot on and well stated

    norcal (a6130b)

  12. Red states should immediately pass laws criminalizing false declarations of being unable to pay rent, if such false declarations are not corrected within 10 days. “Moratorium fraud” that also allows landlords to evict and seize property to pay back rent.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  13. And again those who pay their bills on time, even if it means a hardship, are exposed as schmucks.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  14. Foreclosure problems? Rental issues? Here’s the deal, folks!!! Howzabout moving into a free-wheeling, fully loaded, classy-chassis 18-wheeler rig! Air conditioned; cab toilet, hot plate and free CB and wifi; noproperty taxes- just rest areas and fast-food coast-to-coast!

    Call 202-456-1414: ask for Joe!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  15. The Dems look on landlords much the same as Mao did.

    That’s one of those traveshamockeries. No one could’ve predicted that.

    Good and hard… Good. And. Hard.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  16. I think it will be difficult to overstate the damage this Covid era has done to the fabric of a once-free nation. If the question is “cui bono?”, the answer seems to be China. Just a lucky break for them I guess.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  17. This eviction moratorium nonsense makes my blood boil. My 89-year-old mother is a retired school teacher. She always worked hard and was thrifty with her money. She didn’t understand stocks, but she understood real estate, so she bought two small houses to rent out for income. (Utah’s teacher pay isn’t high, and neither are the pensions.)

    One of her rental houses just became vacant, and my mother is perplexed about renting to a new tenant who might stiff her on the rent considering that the eviction moratorium seems to have nine lives.

    Just as Person A doesn’t have a right to Person B’s car should Person A’s car break down, neither does Person C have a right to Person D’s house should misfortune befall Person C.

    “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Where have I heard that before?

    norcal (a6130b)

  18. Just remember, the Dems wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t absolutely believe that they will get away with it without any consequences to them politically whatsoever. That’s why they’re being so brazen about it.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  19. @14 Okay, I got a chuckle out of that one.

    norcal (a6130b)

  20. 17-One of her rental houses just became vacant, and my mother is perplexed about renting to a new tenant who might stiff her on the rent considering that the eviction moratorium seems to have nine lives.

    Do whatever you can to convince her not to rent that place out. There’s simply no incentive anymore for people to be responsible.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  21. And again those who pay their bills on time, even if it means a hardship, are exposed as schmucks.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/4/2021 @ 5:48 pm

    Yes, like those who got vaccinated before inducements were offered, or like those who paid off their student loans before the pander bears showed up.

    I’m starting to think we live in a nursery rather than a republic.

    norcal (a6130b)

  22. American citizens are SOL if they don’t have an army of lobbyists at their disposal when Democrats are in power.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  23. Josh Blackman also hits Biden pretty hard.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  24. Well, you can interpret that as having the additional clause time to get it and avoid eviction. I think not evicting someone is a condition for the landlord getting the money.

    If a tenant has not paid his/her rent in 18 months then I would imagine there is at least a 90% chance that the tenant will never resume paying. I have a lot of compassion for someone who was out of work for a year or so but then found a job this spring, started up in April, and is trying to get back on their feet. That person might owe an entire year’s worth of back rent, but that’s what the federal program is for, and hopefully that person and his/her landlord are working something out. But if I’m a landlord and my tenant is still unable to find work 18 months into the pandemic, I’m thinking that short of getting some kind of permanent disability check, my tenant is not going to ever resume paying me and I would be justified in requiring them to leave. If progressives like AOC and her Squadmates object, let them raise the money to keep people in their current domiciles.

    And the fig leaf upon which the CDC hangs its edict is that an evicted person/family will end up on the streets and thus be far more likely to contract and spread the disease, but I don’t think there is much empirical data to back that up.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  25. @17. Convoy Joe has a message for her, norcal:

    ‘Keep on truckin’ baby…’

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  26. #13

    But their principles are intact…. for now.
    See the black market in the old Soviet Union if you want to see principles erode in a hurry

    steveg (ebe7c1)

  27. 23.Josh Blackman also hits Biden pretty hard.

    Behind the gymnasium? 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  28. The Biden administration is developing plans to require all foreign travelers to the United States to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with limited exceptions, according to an administration official with knowledge of the developing policy. -enews.com

    Yet Covid-ravaged illegals swarm across the U.S southern border. Irish, Catholic and damn stupid is no way to go through life, Joe.

    “Your ticket, please…” – Indiana Jones [Harrison Ford] ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ 1989

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  29. As I’ve stated in previous thread.

    This should be impeachable.

    Once SCOTUS ruled something in black and white, but the administration just does it anyways because of political expediency, Congress should write up articles of impeachment right away. They won’t though because impeachment is always political.

    So the recourse? The Judicial Branch must curb stomp this administration somehow. Via national injunction or lost of respect to any other executive branch suing as a federal entity.

    Otherwise, this becomes standard going forward, which is an awful way to run the executive branch.

    whembly (ae0eb5)

  30. You’re cracking me up today, DCSCA! And here I was on the verge of blocking you a while back.

    norcal (a6130b)

  31. @29. He’s a bum; out of his league; an old senator trying to be a CiC.

    All his frigging cronies are dead. It’s the Peter Principle at work before your very eyes. And it’s terrifying. Pull him from the mound and send Kamala in as relief. We can at least expect complete sentences and survive her curve balls– and laugh– for a few innings.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  32. Joe sez he ran for president to ‘save the soul’ of America.

    Don’t do “us” any favors, Giuseppe:

    “Howdy Parson, welcome to HELL!” – Ben Rumson [Lee Marvin] ‘Paint Your Wagon’ 1969

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  33. Once SCOTUS ruled something in black and white, but the administration just does it anyways because of political expediency, Congress should write up articles of impeachment right away.

    Well, hang on: let’s be totally fair and accurate here.

    An Alabama landlords group brought a lawsuit to the U.S. District Court in Washington DC saying that the CDC lacked the authority to implement and extend nationwide rent moratoriums. The CDC countered that under the Public Health Services Act (PHSA) they are empowered to issue regulations which lessen the spread of infectious diseases. The court ruled in favor of the relators, determining that the CDC had exceeded whatever mandate they had with the PHSA by issuing a national order that appeared to have no limits. But the court apparently stayed their decision pending an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    So what the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 margin (Roberts, Kavanaugh, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan in majority) is that they wouldn’t overturn the stay until some other relevant issues were hashed out by other appellate courts. But in his concurrence with the majority which was filed on June 29, Kavanaugh wrote that once the current extension expired on July 31, any further extensions must come from an act of Congress, not by another CDC edict. One of the reasons he agreed to continue the stay was that it would soon expire, and he thought that immediately ending it would burden both tenants and landlords.

    So the CDC/Biden Administration’s action yesterday isn’t exactly the same as ignoring a Supreme Court ruling, and I don’t really agree that it rises to the level of an impeachable offense. As per the title of my post I find the sudden determination that an extension maybe — just maybe — be acceptable to be excessively cynical, and it suggests to me that this administration cares as little about Constitutional norms as did the last administration in which Biden occupied a desk.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  34. Cuomo fights back !!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8HewLSDkAg

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  35. Didn’t this policy start under Trump? Doesn’t mean Biden shouldn’t be blamed if it’s bad policy. But did all the people complaining that this is Maoist or socialist grabbing of power feel the same way when it happened under Trump?

    JRH (52aed3)

  36. @35 I did. Yes.

    norcal (a6130b)

  37. Didn’t this policy start under Trump? Doesn’t mean Biden shouldn’t be blamed if it’s bad policy. But did all the people complaining that this is Maoist or socialist grabbing of power feel the same way when it happened under Trump?

    You would admit though, that there is a pretty substantial difference in the situation on the ground on August 4, 2020 (when many states were just taking tentative steps to reopen) and August 4, 2021, right? I mean the end point of your logic is to suggest that you have no standing to complain about U.S. troops being in Afghanistan in 2020 unless you had been complaining about them being there since 2002.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  38. those who got vaccinated before inducements were offered

    A lot of people over 50 got the shots because they’d known someone who died. Not dying is a better inducement that $100.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  39. So the recourse? The Judicial Branch must curb stomp this administration somehow.

    Cite the President for contempt and send the bailiffs to arrest him.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  40. But did all the people complaining that this is Maoist or socialist grabbing of power feel the same way when it happened under Trump?

    A moratorium for a few months is way different as it approaches the two-year mark. FOr a couple of months the damage to the landlord is moderate. If that. But floating a mortgage for two years is another thing entirely.

    Maybe they should try enjoining the banks. Like that will happen. Not even Democrats are that stupid.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  41. Not dying is a better inducement that $100.

    Stick-up guy: “Your money or your life! … Well?!?!”

    Jack Benny: “… I’m thinking it over!”

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  42. This administration and the mentally handicapped that voted for Biden owe me.
    Pay up.

    mg (8cbc69)

  43. @37. Well, I didn’t make an argument about the policy. I just think the rhetoric on this thread around the extension is interesting. Trump was writing us all kinds of checks (one check had his signature on it!) and taking all kinds of executive action, including this moratorium, and I don’t remember people comparing him to Mao. That said, yes I see a difference, and I know this can’t go on forever.

    JRH (52aed3)

  44. Your health is not as important as crimaleins with the china flu crossing the border.

    mg (8cbc69)

  45. The eviction moratorium provides an interesting view into the state of government power. Justice Kavanaugh suggested in his recent ruling that the program could continue only in the wake of “clear and specific congressional authorization.” Even without a direct ruling on the merits of the case, this is a pretty unambiguous message to the administration that they are over reaching. But what’s interesting to me is the insinuation that Congress has the undebated power to effectively nullify contracts that, on appearance, are purely intrastate. Even with the Substantial Effects doctrine, which measures the impact of aggregated local commerce on interstate commerce, this is less about regulating the commercial act of establishing a rental contract (which could involve interstate parties), but the enforcement act of eviction….which on its face is not even economic activity per se…..and would seem to fail the Lopez economic/non-economic test.

    So even to get to the question of delegated power (Congress to the CDC), you really have to accept that commerce clause power subsumes anything that is economic…at all…in character, which is where we’re at, independent of how many conservative justices are on the Court. But then that the CDC could take a statute giving it the authority to act during a pandemic to take over the intrastate rental markets is simply astonishing. We understand the rationale….and are sympathetic to individuals who became unemployed effectively by state order…and recognize the chaos that might occur from mass evictions…..but how government acts should matter…..and here it is picking winners and losers on the debatable presumption that the landlords can better afford it…and then try to sloppily patch that up on the side.

    Extraordinary times always test the limits of government power….and certainly there is no simple solution to this eviction problem. My gut says that states should have been allowed to handle this with financial backup from Congress if requested. Most Democrats cannot even conceive of not insisting on a one-size-fits-all solution. The Court will likely tame this impulse….but it’s interesting to see who wins the politics….especially with vaccinations changing the dynamic and the pandemic posing significantly less economic uncertainty today versus a year ago….

    AJ_Liberty (a4ff25)

  46. I think this is horrible policy. I agree that it further erodes the principle of limited government and rule of law, and is yet another abdication of congressional responsibility. Based on the comments here and other reading it doesn’t look like Biden has taken an illegal action with this extension; just a stupid one.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  47. @37, very much agree. But the point when a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind isn’t black and white.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  48. Do any of the comrades commenting here actually know how evictions work? Ever been involved in one?

    What you are seeing is an expansion of federal housing subsidies. And like the business subsidies that are part of the stimulus packages, they help the big boys the most. The ones who know from the get-go, and have the legal and accounting resources ready at hand, to be furstest in line and to get the mostest government checks.

    Big real estate investors. Real estate management companies. Like the Trump Organization. The Kushners. And their Democrat counterparts which almost certainly outnumber the Republicans situated as they are in the urban areas.

    nk (1d9030)

  49. Nk, sons friends dad and mom put all of their free time into housing. Buy a cheap, unlivable house in the city. Fix it up. Get an occupancy permit. Rent it.

    They say this has set them back years.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  50. They are working hard to eliminate the mom and pop investor/rental property owner and do the bidding of corporate landlords.

    Say hello to teh New Feudalism!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  51. You mean Democrats are crapping on the Constitution? The same Constitution that they held up and worshipped during the Trump administration? The deuce you say!

    Ask a progressive if anyone attacked the Capitol before 1/6. Ask them. If they don’t say “The Weather Underground” then they are either stupid or lying.

    Remember – the abiding principle of Democrats and progressives is “For thee, not me”

    Two sets of rules.

    Hoi Polloi (ade50d)

  52. @33

    Once SCOTUS ruled something in black and white, but the administration just does it anyways because of political expediency, Congress should write up articles of impeachment right away.

    Well, hang on: let’s be totally fair and accurate here.

    An Alabama landlords group brought a lawsuit to the U.S. District Court in Washington DC saying that the CDC lacked the authority to implement and extend nationwide rent moratoriums. The CDC countered that under the Public Health Services Act (PHSA) they are empowered to issue regulations which lessen the spread of infectious diseases. The court ruled in favor of the relators, determining that the CDC had exceeded whatever mandate they had with the PHSA by issuing a national order that appeared to have no limits. But the court apparently stayed their decision pending an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    So what the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 margin (Roberts, Kavanaugh, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan in majority) is that they wouldn’t overturn the stay until some other relevant issues were hashed out by other appellate courts. But in his concurrence with the majority which was filed on June 29, Kavanaugh wrote that once the current extension expired on July 31, any further extensions must come from an act of Congress, not by another CDC edict. One of the reasons he agreed to continue the stay was that it would soon expire, and he thought that immediately ending it would burden both tenants and landlords.

    So the CDC/Biden Administration’s action yesterday isn’t exactly the same as ignoring a Supreme Court ruling, and I don’t really agree that it rises to the level of an impeachable offense. As per the title of my post I find the sudden determination that an extension maybe — just maybe — be acceptable to be excessively cynical, and it suggests to me that this administration cares as little about Constitutional norms as did the last administration in which Biden occupied a desk.

    JVW (ee64e4) — 8/4/2021 @ 7:16 pm

    I think you’re being way too charitable here from someone who’s an admitted cynic at times.

    The distinction I want to point out is something you said:
    any further extensions must come from an act of Congress, not by another CDC edict.

    That is as Black & White as you can get from the majority opinion as you can possible get.

    How can it be argued that this current eviction moratorium isn’t another CDC edit? Nevermind what the very great points AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 8/5/2021 @ 5:21 am offered as to whether or not Congress could extend it.

    The issue, to me, is that this administration is thumbing their nose at SCOTUS and outright admitted that they’re gaming the courts so that at least SOME money gets out of the door before likely being shut down.

    That’s blatantly corrupt and ought to be an impeachable offense. Because normalizing this sort of tactic would really throw liquid hydrogen into our current partisanship conflagration right now.

    whembly (ae0eb5)

  53. Trump could have nixed the CDC eviction moratorium with a wave of his pinky. And Biden can too.

    But here’s the deal, comrades: Local eviction moratoriums! Like Chicago’s, which I know more about than anybody on the Supreme Court from the Chief Justice on down. And I betcha Sarah Palin’s bearskin rug that they also exist in every other place in the country with tenants who vote.

    There’s nothing any President could do about them, the local moratoriums, except throw money their way. And that’s what’s happening, with the CDC order providing the fig leaf for federal involvement in a purely local matter.

    Now, whether the little landlords get something out of it, too, along with the big boys … well … when you water your flowers, you water the pot too. But it is the big boys of rental real estate who will come out smelling like roses.

    nk (1d9030)

  54. https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/08/report-federal-government-released-over-7000-covid-positive-migrants-in-mcallen-tx/

    While the Biden administration is trying to destroy us and turn us into a socialist nation, he’s also illegally importing vectors of the virus and shipping them to conservative areas of the country.

    It seems Biden has declared war on his own nation. But no mean tweets.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  55. AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 8/5/2021 @ 5:21 am

    It’s more elaborate than nullify. A nullified contract is void and no longer enforceable. That would mean none of the renters have any right to remain in the property. These contracts are rewritten or maybe you’d say specific clauses are rewritten.

    It gets more interesting when the lease expires. If someone’s lease expires during the moratorium I don’t think eviction applies. At that point, we’re dealing with trespassing. But I don’t think landlords are allowed to boot these people either? I don’t know.

    In the example, @17 I’d suggest the grandmother rent month to month with payment upfront. If they can’t pay she could trespass them. But I don’t know what rules apply now. I don’t think that’d work because I imagine that somehow a contract would magically appear that didn’t allow for that.

    @35 – Yes. I complained about this then. I don’t think it was something congress or the CDC could authorize.

    I think there is a tendency to minimize this, i.e. it erodes the rule of law. No. This is pretending rule of law, deciding to do something arbitrary and claiming you always had the power to do it and then pretending that isn’t happening and rule of law is still a thing. You don’t rewrite millions of contracts, or declare portions of them temporarily unenforceable, by administrative action at the federal level and pretend rule of law or federalism is a thing.

    This is clown nose on, clown nose off level stuff but with fundamental things like contracts.

    frosty (f27e97)

  56. Biden should also be brought up on charges from the nations south of our border for encouraging masses of illegal aliens to go through their nations spreading disease during a pandemic.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  57. This corrupt act also effective nullifies the Takings clause. Another part of the Constitution destroyed.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  58. @58, I agree, that’s another problem with the eviction moratorium and always was.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  59. This corrupt act also effective nullifies the Takings clause. Another part of the Constitution destroyed.

    There was a reason the Alabama Association of Realtors didn’t challenge the eviction moratorium under the Takings Clause. Prior Supreme Court precedent has made it difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in TC cases long before the eviction moratorium. But that may change:

    Last week, a group of plaintiffs led by the National Apartment Association (a trade association of owners and managers of rental housing) filed a takings lawsuit against the original version of the CDC moratorium. They argue that the moratorium qualifies as a taking requiring “just compensation” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The cover sheet indicates they are seeking an estimated $26 billion in compensation payments.

    The Complaint alleges a physical invasion taking because it precludes “property owners from excluding [tenants] and leasing the rental homes to rent-paying persons, even as the property owners must continue paying taxes, utility payments, employee salaries, maintenance costs, the cost of capital, and other expenses.” Complaint at 10. Alternatively, the property owners allege that the CDC order is an “illegal exaction because the CDC exceeded and contravened its statutory and regulatory authority and as a direct result exacted Plaintiffs’ private property and property interests[.]”

    The just compensation sought “includes the amount of rental income Plaintiffs would have received in the absence of the physical occupation and taking or exaction of their property …”

    Previous efforts to challenge eviction moratoria on takings grounds have had little success. But …….. that may change as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid:

    A key reason why such claims faced bleak prospects is that Supreme Court precedent made it very difficult for property owners to prevail in a takings case if the government imposed a merely “temporary” physical occupation of their land. It was often difficult to tell the difference between a temporary occupation and a permanent one. But the CDC had a strong argument that the eviction moratorium was temporary, because each successive extension of the order included a specific time limit, generally only a few weeks in the future.

    Cedar Point changes that. Now, at least a as a general rule, “a physical appropriation is a taking whether it is permanent or temporary.” This makes potential takings challenges to the CDC order much stronger. A moratorium on evictions in situations where the property owner would otherwise have a right to remove the tenant pretty clearly imposes at least a temporary physical occupation against the owner’s will. And the federal government isn’t paying “just compensation” to affected landlords, as the Takings Clause requires.

    ………
    Even after Cedar Point, issue isn’t a complete slam dunk. The federal government can still make various arguments to try to avoid liability, such as the claim that the moratorium falls within the “police power” exception to takings liability, due to the fact that it was enacted for the purpose of controlling the spread of disease. But I am doubtful that courts will be willing to extend the police power exception so far, and hope they will not. At the very least, the plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success, far greater than before Cedar Point.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  60. I’d like to see a creative lawyer also use a violation of the 3rd Amendment in these actions. People focus on soldiers being quartered, but I think it’s more the act of government doing so that makes it relevant.

    Reclaim our long forgotten rights.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  61. > Ask a progressive if anyone attacked the Capitol before 1/6. Ask them. If they don’t say “The Weather Underground” then they are either stupid or lying.

    Or simply aren’t old enough to remember an event that took place more than forty years ago during a time period that is basically not taught in public school history courses.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  62. There’s no taking. That kind of talk is talking just to have something to talk about. You might try “obligation of contracts” (rotsa ruck), but you’d be on firmer ground with Tenth Amendment interference with state judicial proceedings. Except that the local moratoriums that I mentioned above would moot your case, anyway, and without that federal “rental assistance” sugar too.

    nk (1d9030)

  63. > Biden should also be brought up on charges from the nations south of our border

    Sure would be nice if there were some international judicial system capable of adjudicating such disputes and enforcing their judgments, wouldn’t it?

    aphrael (4c4719)

  64. There’s no taking.

    Short-term, you are probably right. But this is long-term now. Requiring property owners to allow people to squat in their rental property for a year and a half IS a taking, at least as any layman would understand it. Perhaps the legal niceties ignore this popular understanding, but often when that happens it’s the law that changes, not the people.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  65. Sure would be nice if there were some international judicial system capable of adjudicating such disputes and enforcing their judgments, wouldn’t it?

    aphrael (4c4719) — 8/5/2021 @ 9:45 am

    No. Let the individual nations try him for his actions.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  66. Government, federal state or local, has ordered people to turn control of their property over to the state, for what the state considers a public purpose. For a temporary emergency, this can maybe be countenanced. But what we have is more of an ongoing thing that increases its urgency (more and more people falling behind because rent is no longer their first priority).

    If it isn’t a taking at 18 months, is it a taking at 18 years? Please show me a bright line here.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  67. I’m sure there are a lot of Central American countries that would like to try a variety ofUS government officials for things they feel have damaged their country. Personally I’m opposed to it.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  68. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/5/2021 @ 10:15 am

    If it isn’t a taking at 18 months, is it a taking at 18 years? Please show me a bright line here.

    I’d say you already crossed it at

    Government, federal state or local, has ordered people to turn control of their property over to the state, for what the state considers a public purpose.

    It’s hard to stop once we’re already sliding down that slippery slope.

    frosty (f27e97)

  69. Guatemala probably has the strongest case for such a hail Mary- less of a % of total migrants, no famous transnational street gang or cartel, less internal extralegal opposition and enough goodwill from acknowledging Jerusalem.

    urbanleftbehind (467d12)

  70. It seems Biden has declared war on his own nation. But no mean tweets.

    No. He’s just a bum. You’re a ‘NJ’ guy; if you’ve been there long enough and recall his Delaware antics from thee 1970s on you’d know what a floating POS he is– an ha always been. The press did in 1988 and drove him out of the race.

    The newer generation of reporters are just lazy when it comes to bums like Biden– and Trump as well. The Trump we all saw as POTUS and on NBC for years is the same act he had in the tri-state area around NYC in the late 70s and all through Reagan’s 1980s. The younger execs in the news media were just too damn busy chasing ratings- and the reporters too lazy- to hound him.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  71. @64 i’d be okay with a US court system that has its rulings enforced

    baby steps

    JF (e1156d)

  72. When a hair-plugged boob who has painted himself for decades as a poor Senator, an Amtrak lunch bucket, union hugger guy lies about something as basic as being an 18-wheeler truck drivin’ guy, [not to mention having coal mining relatives back in PA…] it’s the final straw. Hell, the jerkoff hasn’t lived in Scranton in over 70 years. This near 50 years-a-politician bastard representing a state full of non-lunchbucket friendly, incorporated PO box banks and corporations, needs to be hounded daily for being the lying scumbag he is. A swamp creature. It’s why he was dumped in 1988. He’s the very reason a ‘Trump’ type won in the first place. A thin-skinned kiss-ass-back-stabbing mick who angers easily. These young reporters fear getting his Irish up; tell him his kid’s bum too and has the talent to paint your outhouse for $5/hour — the watch him go ‘lying dog-pony-solder-crazy.’

    He’s a bum.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  73. The younger execs in the news media were just too damn busy chasing ratings- and the reporters too lazy- to hound him.

    More like too scared in the case of #45 of getting the Greg Gianforte* treatment by the toughs he keeps around.

    *a good Bodyguard/VP for your bowl of masala, DC—.

    urbanleftbehind (fa2429)

  74. “Requiring property owners to allow people to squat in their rental property for a year and a half IS a taking”

    The argument against it being a regulatory taking is that (1) it’s temporary (the rules for when an eviction can commence changed, not whether an eviction can happen at all) , (2) debt is still accumulating, and (3) you can still separately sue to recover that debt. What’s an interesting twist is, if the government is guilty of a taking, would that absolve the tenant of having to pay anything, including interest? I can envision scams trying to take advantage of that. Still it’s dicey to think that you will recover damages based on a police-power regulation intended to promote the general welfare (health). There’s a bit of a logic chain to get from eviction moratorium to stopping the spread of Covid, but it’s not irrational. My sympathies are with the landlords where justice seems to suggest some sort of compensation, especially when the end benefit is to society in general.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  75. 71. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/5/2021 @ 11:06 am

    The press did in 1988 and drove him out of the race.

    That was probably a Bill Clinton plot. Bill Clintton determined in July 1987 that he could not win the nomination because he was not the only southern candidate because Al Gore would not drop out of the race (real reason I think) so he got behind Michel Dukakis a s the Dem most likely to lose and give him another chance in 1992. He got rid of Joe Biden.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  76. I think the Dukakis campaign acted of it’s own accord (John Sasso was the guy who turned the media onto Kinnock’s similar word for word remarks), of course Clinton let them proceed. It is more accurate to say the bulk of incident happened in summer of 1987.

    In 2012, Chris Christie borrowed one of Clinton’s other 1988 strategies – the ponderous self promoting Party convention keynote speech to turn attention away from the actual nominee in that years contest.

    urbanleftbehind (fa2429)

  77. But who alerted the Dukakis people?

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  78. 77.Hell, he lied about his law school ratings. He’s much more dangerous than PT Barnum; you kow what you paid for when you went to a Barnum show; this jerkwater is schooled in the ways of verbal parsing and non-denial denialing wheeling and dealing fpr half a century-as all senators are. He’s a mouthy mick who’s always ready to ‘take you behind the gymnasium’ but somehow never makes it to the saloon doors.

    He’s a bum.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  79. Wait until Trump drives up to a rally– actually at the wheel of an 18-wheeler big rig. He’s probably getting his lisc., now.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  80. President Plagiarist just told the world and U.S. ciTizens that ‘insurrection is fundamentally un-American.’

    That would be news to the ‘insurrectionists’ we know as The Founders. Is that what they taught you in Scranton? Or is it Wilmington this week?

    IDIOT.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  81. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/441028-schneider-how-i-inadvertently-helped-joe-biden-ruin-his-first-white-house-run

    I had just covered the 1987 British general election. Kinnock, the Labour Party leader, was a brilliant orator. Academy award-winning filmmaker Hugh Hudson (“Chariots of Fire”) had produced a party political broadcast about Kinnock’s life that created a sensation in the U.K. During a British political campaign, the major political parties are given free television time. Each party has to make ten-minute videos to fill the time every evening. Kinnock’s video remains the most powerful political broadcast I have ever seen. I witnessed that broadcast move Conservative Party audiences to tears. (In the video, Kinnock’s parents are shown wearing standard issue National Health Service eyeglasses. It was an image that connected with British audiences immediately.) I asked a British television producer to make me a copy of the ad so I could share it with friends in the United States.

    When I returned to the U.S., I discovered that the British tape was incompatible with U.S. videotape specifications and had to be transferred to a different format. I took it to a political consultant who happened to be working for another 1988 Democratic presidential candidate, Richard Gephardt. The consultant transferred the tape and kept a copy. Why not? It was a public document. But one that few Americans had seen… For the record, I also showed the ad to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who did not run for president in 1988.

    A few months later, I was attending an academic conference at an inn deep in the French countryside. The innkeeper knocked on my door late one night and told me I had a telephone call from The New York Times. It was political writer Maureen Dowd, who had tracked me down on an Alp. She asked me if I knew how Biden might have obtained a copy of the Kinnock videotape. “Yes,” I replied. “I showed it to the senator, and he asked me if he could make a copy of it.”

    Biden had lifted passages from Kinnock’s dramatic story of his own life and that of his family. Sometimes Biden used Kinnock’s words with attribution, sometimes not. Dowd had received an anonymous tape that showed Kinnock’s speech and Biden’s speech (without attribution to Kinnock) side by side. The result was a feeding frenzy in the press — Gary Hart had been driven out of the race just a few months earlier for sexual improprieties. It was a foolish thing for Biden to do, and he was forced to leave the 1988 race…

    ….I explained that Sen. Biden had actually appropriated someone else’s life, depicting the struggles of Kinnock’s family as those of his own.

    ….The one loose end in the story was the identity of the person who sent Maureen Dowd the anonymous “attack video” showing the Kinnock and Biden speeches side by side. Some pointed fingers at Gephardt, who had access to the tape. The truth came out at the end of 1987, when candidate Michael Dukakis discovered that his campaign manager, John Sasso, had sent out blind copies of the attack tape. Dukakis fired Sasso to show his disapproval of “dirty tricks.” But how did Sasso get the Kinnock tape? He got it from my editor at The Atlantic, a mutual friend of both myself and Sasso who had asked me for a copy.

    So he says an editor at the Atkantic gave it to the Dukakis campaign.

    Bit how did Sasso know to ask for it??

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  82. President Joe Biden has now revealed there is at least one area in which he is a fiscal conservative: When it comes to providing the infrastructure needed to secure the border, he wants to spend far less than the government currently spends.

    His administration has presented Congress with a Department of Homeland Security budget proposal that calls for slashing spending on what it calls “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” by 96%.

    In fiscal year 2021, Congress approved $1,513,000,000 in funding for border security assets and infrastructure. Biden is now asking that Congress approve just $54,315,000 for fiscal year 2022. That is a reduction of $1,458,685,000—or 96.4%.

    What exactly is Biden cutting?

    Biden’s DHS has presented Congress with a 562-page “overview” of its fiscal year 2022 budget proposal for Customs and Border Protection. The explanation for its “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” plan is presented on pages 326 through 350 of this document.

    The presentation divides “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” into six categories: Integrated Fixed Towers; Remote Video Surveillance Systems; Mobile Video Surveillance System; MVSS-M2S2 Modular Mobile Surveillance System; Border Security Assets and Infrastructure End Items; and Border Wall System Program.

    https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/04/biden-wants-to-cut-funding-for-border-security-assets-and-infrastructure-by-96/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  83. 79. But Biden might be the best the Democratic Party can produce. He knows that a lot of things are wrong. Can somebody who openly flouts the “conventional wisdom” get to the top of the Dem Party?

    I don’t think he wants to do wrong.

    Of course this is not a good situation.

    He sounds pretty intelligent. I meaN he explained quite clearly his legal strategy in renewing the evIction protection.

    Although he is fundamentally stupid in telling a lot of unnecessary lies about himself.

    It seems he wants to be a blue collar man with an extremely high education.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  84. I don’t think he wants to do wrong.

    Wants? Wants??? Hell, it’s wholly intentional: he’s a repeatedly outed plagiarist and a serial liar- continuously caught at it for decades—especially when it comes to his own credentials.

    Wants???? It’s who he is, Sammy.

    He’s a bum.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  85. He’s a dog faced pony soldier, DCSCA.

    mg (8cbc69)

  86. @87.He’s a dog faced pony soldier

    “a lying dog-faced pony soldier” – as the bum likes to plagiarize it.

    FIFY.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  87. 86. I mean I don’t think he wants the government to do wrong things. He’ll support that, for political gain or out of political fear, but he tries to mitigate that or avoid that.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  88. He’s all wrong, Sammy. An embarrassment to Pennsylvania, to Delaware, to the hair plug industry, to genuine lunch-bucket train ridin’ commuters and 18-wheel drivers everyplace…

    He’s a bum.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  89. Massive and cynical, huh? Where do “illegal” and “unconstitutional” fit in?

    Gryph (f63000)

  90. NJRob — what jurisdiction do those nations have to try him?

    aphrael (4c4719)

  91. Shock poll: Newsom losing recall by double digits.

    The poll came from Survey USA and the San Diego Union Tribune, and was conducted among 1,100 Californians from Aug. 2 to Aug. 4. It found that 51% of respondents were in favor of recalling Newsom, while only 40% wanted to keep him in power. The previous Survey USA/San Diego Union Tribune poll from May found 36% in favor of the recall with 47% opposed.

    Unlike a recent UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Time poll that was weighted by whether the respondent was likely to vote in the Sept. 14 recall election, the Survey USA carried no such weight, which is even more alarming for the governor. The Berkeley/Los Angeles Time poll found double-digit opposition to the recall, but a dead heat when weighted by likelihood to vote. Polls have consistently shown a large enthusiasm gap, strongly suggesting Republicans are more likely to turn out.

    Given that Republicans seem far more likely to turn out, a poll that presumes equal turnout itself that way and still shows Newsom getting turfed is phenomenal. I think it’s people unhappy with the Covid turn of events who are both blaming Newsom (unfair) and apprehensive about what he might do (very fair).

    The same poll shows that a goofy Democrat is leading among the pack, but that again neglects the prospect of a heavy GOP turnout. Likely winner: Larry Elder.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  92. * itself that way

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  93. The rational wing of the Demcorat Party has a shallow bench, but unlike the GOP they remain in control. The GOP has a fairly deep rational bench, but they aren’t getting back into the game real soon.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  94. That would be news to the ‘insurrectionists’ we know as The Founders.

    Lincoln was a bit of an insurrectionist himself, and the Army of the Potomac outvoted a lot of folks.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  95. In 2012, Chris Christie borrowed one of Clinton’s other 1988 strategies

    Didn’t work for him at all. Didn’t work for Pat Buchanan in 1992, either.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  96. I know that folks think that this is like a war and that Covid is a clear and present danger. But what is happening to small landlords as a result is starting to look like wartime internment rather than the “shared sacrifice” some would make it out as.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  97. I wouldn’t take that poll too seriously; Survey USA has a bad history with California polls, Paffrath leading is wildly inconsistent with other polling, and i’ve seen some evidence that there is something wildly wrong with their sampling.

    That said, other more reputable polls (Berkeley/IGS, for example) show the race an effective dead heat.

    the problem, of course, is that all of the leading republican candidates advocate complete surrender in the covid fight, and there are no credible non-republican candidates.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  98. 98. Either the eviction moratorium is right, or wrong. The passage of time doesn’t make it more or less so. With the passage of time, and particularly as brazen as the Biden administration is getting, some of us are just starting to see things a little more clearly.

    Gryph (f63000)

  99. Gryph, surely something can be a good policy as a short-term stopgap in an emergency and turn into a bad policy if it lingers for a medium or long term?

    Grounding the planes on Sept 11 was clearly good policy. Keeping them grounded on February 11 wouldn’t have been.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  100. 101. I’m specifically referring to *this* particular policy. There are people out there who cheered it when Trump did it, and now think it’s bad since Biden is in charge (for whatever reasons). Likewise, there are people who are cheering it now that Biden is in charge who weren’t cheering Trump for it. If a significant number of people really believe that disallowing someone the fruits of their labor can be good or evil situationally, there is nothing left of America to save.

    Gryph (f63000)

  101. Grounding the planes on Sept 11 was clearly good policy.

    No. That was controlled panic. Closing the barn door after the horse galloped out.

    Billions spent on military an intel to protect America and 19 towelheads w/$500,000 kicked Uncle Sam hard in the balls. Failure of imagination and personnel.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  102. 103. I’m a little suspicious of anyone out-of-hand who can say anything the government does is *clearly* good policy

    Gryph (f63000)

  103. @93. People are pissed and looking to whack some balls at the driving range — and Newsom, for better or worse, may end up being teed up to kiss the face a 3 wood.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  104. > I’m specifically referring to *this* particular policy.

    Even *this* policy. In March/April of 2020 we didn’t really know how infectious this was and what the public health risk of large numbers of homeless would be. Plus, we *forced people to lose their jobs*, in effect, as a public health policy. I think it’s rational to conclude that under those conditions, an eviction moratorium was good policy, but that under current conditions it wouldn’t be.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  105. the problem, of course, is that all of the leading republican candidates advocate complete surrender in the covid fight, and there are no credible non-republican candidates.

    So you do like I do — pick the least awful. That’s probably Faulconer as San Diego politicians tend to be milder.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  106. Either the eviction moratorium is right, or wrong. The passage of time doesn’t make it more or less so.

    What is acceptable in an emergent situation is usually unacceptable later. The police might put barriers up to deal with a situation. But they have to take them down soon.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  107. in effect, as a public health policy. I think it’s rational to conclude that under those conditions, an eviction moratorium was good policy, but that under current conditions it wouldn’t be.

    Again, why? This isn’t an equitable burden. Why not have them pay half the rent? Failing that, why not tell the banks they have to wait for the mortgage payments? Instead the entire burden is place on a (to some) hated group. In WW2 it was the Nisei, this time the landlords.

    If there really is an emergency, the society needs to share the hit. But here we protect the renters, then we tax everyone to make the renters whole. We protect the workers, with UI that exceeds their take-home in many cases, and let the businesses slowly twist in the wind.

    It’s clear who is favored here and who are “the others.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  108. There are a lot of board-ups and For Lease signs in my neighborhood. How many dreams died in the last year?

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  109. 106. I maintain that still doesn’t make it right to deny an individual the fruits of his labor. In any other context, that exact action would be considered stealing — and rightfully so. Given the number of people that have willingly surrendered their livelihoods and freedom already, and the number of people who are still soiling their drawers over “safety,” I don’t know how you could argue that we’re not still in an emergent situation where Daddy Government is concerned… Arguing over “public safety” is like arguing over the definition of “pornography:” ‘I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.’

    108. At what point did the pandemic cease being an emergency? And how do you define “soon?” Many of these same people arguing that that eviction moratorium is “temporary” are the jokers who told us “it’ll just be two weeks to slow the spread.”

    I got news for you: If you really think that the eviction moratorium will stand because it’s “temporary,” there is literally nothing that the government can’t do in the name of “emergency.” And by the time it’s your oxen being gored, it’ll be too late for you to do anything about it.

    Gryph (f63000)

  110. 109. Ding ding ding! Granted, I’ve been gainfully employed, but what reward do I get for not being a single day late since I moved into my apartment 18 months ago? Jack $h!t, ladies and gentlemen. And those landlords forbidden from evicting deadbeats are still expected to pay their own property taxes and mortgages IN FULL. Public safety, my a$$.

    Gryph (f63000)

  111. Question: How many people were unable to pay rent, even if unemployed? My non-profit furloughed workers, but they all did fairly well and some made more than they did working. There was a lot of safety net here.

    My concern is that people were ENCOURAGED to withhold rent as they could put other priorities first. And once they got into that hole, it was easy to say “eff it, in for a penny, in for a pound. I need these shoes.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  112. > Failing that, why not tell the banks they have to wait for the mortgage payments?

    That should absolutely have been part of the package, in my view.

    > Again, why?

    my point was to contrast two different situations (May of last year vs. Aug of this year) and argue that it’s reasonable to think that policies could be good in one situation and not in the other.

    Lockdowns, as well as the general decline in many businesses caused by people being scared to do anything, meant that many people could no longer pay rent. Unemployment helped some, but only some, and didn’t hit everyone. Protecting people from being rendered homeless as a result of this was good policy — even more so given that we didn’t know whether them being rendered homeless would increase their vulnerability to, or their likelihood of infecting other people with, a virus we didn’t understand.

    The policy should *absolutely* have protected landlords from foreclosures, too.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  113. And those landlords forbidden from evicting deadbeats are still expected to pay their own property taxes and mortgages IN FULL.

    In the middle of this, with the governor issuing ukases right and left, people asked if they could postpone their property tax payments. The governor said she had no authority to allow that. Their ox ain’t getting gored!

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  114. > How many dreams died in the last year?

    hypothetical counter factual: if the people who were unable to pay rent because they lost their jobs due to the pandemic had been evicted, the landlords would likely have been unable to rent at the price they had been charging, and very well might have been forced to accept rent that would still have left them underwater viz. their mortgage.

    how many dreams would have died in that world?

    aphrael (4c4719)

  115. Hey Gryph! Long time no see! How are things in South Dakota?

    norcal (a6130b)

  116. Covid is over for those who are vaccinated.

    norcal (a6130b)

  117. 118.Covid is over for those who are vaccinated.

    Might wanna as “Doctor” Lindsey Graham ’bout.

    “D’oh!” Homer Simpson, 100% Covid 19 immunity.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  118. 110.There are a lot of board-ups and For Lease signs in my neighborhood. How many dreams died in the last year?

    Reaganomics.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  119. Gryph, surely something can be a good policy as a short-term stopgap in an emergency and turn into a bad policy if it lingers for a medium or long term?

    Grounding the planes on Sept 11 was clearly good policy. Keeping them grounded on February 11 wouldn’t have been.

    aphrael (4c4719) — 8/5/2021 @ 7:14 pm

    So you agree with the Korematsu decision?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  120. Concur with the CA to NM guy re Faulconer, as will the “Piolin” voters once they realize Newsom is toast.

    urbanleftbehind (fa2429)

  121. if the people who were unable to pay rent because they lost their jobs due to the pandemic had been evicted

    Again, UI was pretty generous. Up to $1000/week. People who made $15/hour working were making $20/hr at home ($600/feds + $200/state per week/40hrs). The Dickensian dystopia you paint just wasn’t there.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  122. Those jobs they had are going begging now. Frankly, I think that Biden is using borrowed money as a form of union strike fund, keeping people off the job market until wages rise to meet government largess.

    Hard to get fast food workers when the ones who lost their jobs are being paid to stay home and play video games. You may think this hyperbole, but it really is not. A lot of restaurants that survived the shutdowns closed because they could not get workers at wages they could afford.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  123. Concur with the CA to NM guy re Faulconer, as will the “Piolin” voters once they realize Newsom is toast.

    It’s a free vote. They vote NO on the recall, then vote for the least terrible person should YES win.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  124. So you agree with the Korematsu decision?

    If they had “protected” the Nisei from Dec 7th to Feb 7th, that might have made sense. But they kept them there for years.

    The reason for the internment was that FDR intended to stoke racial hatred and it wouldn’t do to have lynchings in the news.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  125. Or simply aren’t old enough to remember an event that took place more than forty years ago during a time period that is basically not taught in public school history courses.

    aphrael (4c4719) — 8/5/2021 @ 9:43 am

    Sure, the post-WW2 years tend to get rushed because it’s around the end of the year, but it’s funny how they seem to always hit on McCarthyism.

    Regardless, you don’t even have to go back to the late 60s-early 70s to talk about this stuff, even though left-wing terrorism in the US during this time is something that should really be discussed in a high school history course. The Senate was bombed in 1983 and one of the plotters, Susan Rosenberg, was later pardoned by Clinton and became the head of one of BLM’s funding fronts.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  126. And that’s not even taking recent events into account like James Hodgkinson trying to assassinate Republican congressional members.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  127. 117. As I said, I’ve been gainfully employed throughout this “pandemic” and I’ve been paying all my bills. And never have I felt more $h!tty about doing so than I have felt lately.

    Gryph (f63000)

  128. @129 – In this brave new world if you aren’t a victim you’re an oppressor. I’m sure there’s someone around who will tell you that feeling you have is your conscience calling you a running dog capitalist.

    frosty (f27e97)

  129. @129 – If you’ve got the right politics you don’t have to follow the law either and you’re good to get in on the looting and burning. I feel like a sucker buying my TV retail.

    frosty (f27e97)

  130. AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 8/5/2021 @ 12:48 pm)

    you can still separately sue to recover that debt

    Spme people aren’t noticing that, but it’s true. There may be practical difficulties, but if someone has money, they can sue. It just converts a sort of secured debt – sort of because housing courts only order evictions, they don’t collect back rent – into an unsecured debt.

    Of course a lot of people do not have the money. But there’s the rental assistance program. Which was not designed by people who understood what it would take to get it to actually work. Or didn’t care. It could have included a little extra in lieu of interest and paid a few months in advance if requested by the tenant.

    It could have been directly paid by the federal government and converted into a tax liability, which could be collected either when it came time to file an income tax return or from diminished Social Security payments one day. Of course the debt could later be forgiven for many, but this would take care of the emergency.

    And the whole stimulus ting could have been done differently.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  131. The reason for the internment was that FDR intended to stoke racial hatred ….

    Based on what evidence?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  132. Sure, the post-WW2 years tend to get rushed because it’s around the end of the year, but it’s funny how they seem to always hit on McCarthyism.

    It would be good to see a course on Civil Rights during the same era; about how the GOP tried to end lynching and how Democrats, JFK included, voted to gut the bill. About who ran the South and made up the Klan. About the party of George Wallace, Lester Maddox and Sheriff Clark. About Jimmy Carter’s shameful racist attacks against his “new Democrat” opponent in his run for governor.

    But no, it’s about McCarthy and HUAC.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  133. “350 million Americans have been vaccinated.” – President Plagiarist, 8/6/2021

    He said it. TWICE.

    The United States had an official resident population of 331,449,281 on April 1, 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    IDIOT.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  134. Based on what evidence?

    That they stoked racial hatred. Can’t post them here, but Google “ww2 racist anti-Japanese posters” and select images.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  135. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/5/2021 @ 8:22 pm

    In the middle of this, with the governor issuing ukases right and left, people asked if they could postpone their property tax payments. The governor said she had no authority to allow that. Their ox ain’t getting gored!

    And the government of the city of New York – headed by Bill de Blasio – deliberately set out to steal from he poorest of the poor – the street homeless – almost certainly for financial reasons. They’re government. They’re always the good guys!

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/nyregion/homeless-camps-relocate.html

    On a sweltering July afternoon, a homeless man named Melvin Douglas biked up to his sleeping spot beneath the High Line, the elevated, art-filled New York park overlooking the Hudson River, and found that a city cleanup crew had thrown away his possessions — again. The same thing had happened the day before.

    “Brand-new clothes, brand-new T-shirts, everything,” Mr. Douglas, 54, said as he shook his head at the bare sidewalk. “They took all my stuff, bro. No regard at all.”

    As the country’s most populous city strives to lure back tourists and office workers, it has undertaken an aggressive campaign to push homeless people off the streets of Manhattan.

    They want landlords to collect more in rent so that they can pay property taxes.

    They’re note even setting up an encampment somewhere else. Probably wouldn’t meet building codes and zoning laws.

    City workers used to tear down one or two encampments a day. Now, they sometimes clear dozens. Since late May, teams that include sanitation workers in garbage trucks, police officers and outreach workers have cruised Manhattan around the clock, hitting the same spots over and over.

    Nit an accident. Deliberate. And taking their stuff is a deterrent. Part of the punishment maybe. Except not done by a court sentencing them to that. Just on the fictional premise that these goods have been abandoned.

    According to a statement from the homeless services department, the cleanup crews do not throw away people’s belongings.

    Except that’s not true, really, of course.

    Rather, they “carefully assess” a site while noting the “number and type of possessions,” remove items to protect “valuable property” and “quality-of-life for the client,” and provide “details about how they can obtain the property.”

    Max Goren, who lives in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, has found reality to be a bit different.

    “At least once a week, a sanitation truck rolls up,” Mr. Goren, 34, said in July. “If you’re not there to say, ‘Hey, that’s mine’, everything goes in the back.”

    They have to there at the time to claim them.

    Cynical. It can;t be that nobody understands this.

    It doesn’t even work to get them to stay away from those places.

    And why are they there all the time?

    He said his possessions had been trashed three times — each time because he left them to go to a methadone clinic.

    “Do I want to risk losing all of my clothes and all my bedding, or do I miss my clinic appointment?” he said.

    The newspaper doesn’t say who replaces all these items, but it is presumably some charitable organization.

    The money may be coming from the city, by the way.

    In Times Square, the city’s tourist center, a business group is testing a very different approach.

    There, teams of people, some of whom were previously homeless or incarcerated, hand out T-shirts, socks, granola bars and water, hoping to build trust and, gradually, connect homeless people to social services. They only offer services if people ask.

    The idea for the program, which recently won a $350,000 city grant, originated with Tom Harris, a retired police officer and the president of the Times Square Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes businesses in the area. Last year, Mr. Harris watched in dismay as street homelessness and open drug use increased in the area. At some outdoor dining tables, people took food off customers’ plates.
    “The status quo was untenable,” he said….

    People who are homeless and their advocates say that what they want, mainly, is something that is in short supply: a place to live with a modicum of privacy.

    And the street has more privacy.

    The best that outreach workers can typically offer is a berth in a group shelter where 10 to 20 people often share a bedroom.

    Now there are some real problems;

    One homeless book vendor, Michael Jones, said the city crews had served a purpose.

    “You had people building shanty towns near the scaffolding and terrorizing people,” he said. “At the end of the day, people were messing up a good hustle.”

    And this sometimes works – but would work mch better f they would tell them where they could stay, alone.

    Under the High Line, Melvin Douglas is tiring of playing cat and mouse. A week after his belongings were thrown out two days in a row, he stashed them neatly behind a pole, left briefly and returned to find them gone yet again.

    “I don’t even have a clean change of underwear right now,” he said as he sat dejectedly beneath a sign announcing that the crew would return the next day.

    Mr. Douglas said he might set up camp elsewhere in the city.

    He said he had been where he was, thinking he was not bothering anyone, for close to three years.

    “This is my spot,” he said.

    This is just plain wrong.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  136. @134, My US history class in college covered that pretty well. But it might not be what you’re looking for because it also went into the realignment of the Dixiecrats into the GOP and the Southern Strategy.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  137. 135. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:56 am

    IDIOT.

    Donald Trump is even worse with numbers, so this could be an improvement. Except that Trump claims the size of crowds are bugger than what they are and he;s never made them more than the population of a city..

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  138. The reason for the internment was that FDR intended to stoke racial hatred …. No, he intended to appease it.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  139. @133: Here is one of the tamer ones:

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  140. @139. Big difference between PT Barnum pitching ‘the greatest show on Earth’ and Dr. Evil demanding a ‘million dollar’ ransom, Sammy.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  141. Kevin, It’s surprising people need this proven. Also I think Dr. Seuss did some of those posters.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  142. 109. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/5/2021 @ 8:12 pm

    Failing that, why not tell the banks they have to wait for the mortgage payments?

    That would require an Act of Congress (they could offer incentives to get or allow banks to add the payments to the back end of the mortgage or amend the bankruptcy code) but politicians these days aren’t much interested in, or don’t have much hopes of, passing legislation except maybe giant bills written outside of committee.

    IIn WW2 it was the Nisei, this time the landlords.

    But not in Hawaii, where it would ave been more logical. Because it would have beeen impossible and Hawaii had no votes in the Electoral College. As it is, Imperial Japan did not recruit Japanese Americans as spies, except those with very close ties to Japan, of which there were not many, in good part because they would be the first to come under suspicion. There was too much worry about spies or saboteurs, anyway. Although this did happen with Germans in 1916.

    If there really is an emergency, the society needs to share the hit. But here we protect the renters, then we tax everyone to make the renters whole. We protect the workers, with UI that exceeds their take-home in many cases, and let the businesses slowly twist in the wind.

    It’s clear who is favored here and who are “the others.”

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  143. Based on what evidence?

    That they stoked racial hatred. Can’t post them here, but Google “ww2 racist anti-Japanese posters” and select images.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:58 am

    Given that the Japanese were the enemy at the time, those posters are understandable-it was government policy. I am looking for evidence of FDR’s personal animus.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  144. 140. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/6/2021 @ 9:06 am

    Big difference between PT Barnum pitching ‘the greatest show on Earth’ and Dr. Evil demanding a ‘million dollar’ ransom, Sammy.

    You;re right. I think Joe Biden can;t keep what number means whhat readily in mind. 350 million is the goal.’They want zero Covid, Which is either impossible or will happen by itself.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  145. It’s a free vote. They vote NO on the recall, then vote for the least terrible person should YES win.

    Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/5/2021 @ 10:57 pm

    I’m voting NO on the recall and for Angelyne. She’s just as qualified as Larry Elder.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  146. I’m voting NO on the recall and for Angelyne. She’s just as qualified as Larry Elder.

    Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  147. > So you agree with the Korematsu decision?

    No. Rounding up everyone based on their ethnicity, taking them out of their homes, and forcing them into camps was never good policy.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  148. > They vote NO on the recall, then vote for the least terrible person should YES win.

    I mean, that’s certainly my plan, and the plan of most of the people I know in person. The biggest trouble i’m having is a rounding error of all of the candidates with a chance of winning oppose vaccine and mask mandates, which means I can’t vote for them.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  149. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. 😉

    Or Ronald Reagan.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  150. Rip, why does it matter why FDR was stoking racial animus?

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  151. Rip, why does it matter why FDR was stoking racial animus?

    I just never read anywhere that FDR was personally prejudiced against the Nisei.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  152. Rip, why does it matter why FDR was stoking racial animus?

    I just never read anywhere that FDR was personally prejudiced against the Nisei.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/6/2021 @ 9:43 am

    Unlike Wilson against African Americans.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  153. I just never read anywhere that FDR was personally prejudiced against the Nisei.

    I never said he was. But the US Government went out of its way to stoke racial animus against the “Japs.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  154. Did FDR hold any animus toward Jews?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  155. Did FDR hold any animus toward Jews?

    Probably most members of his social class did.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  156. sheldonkirshner.com/roosevelt-and-the-jews

    Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he addressed Jewish issues, he did so behind the scenes, and when he hesitated, he allowed the U.S. State Department, which was less than sympathetic to Jews, to call the shots. Nonetheless, they point out, Roosevelt did more for Jews than any other world leader, even if his efforts seem deficient by today’s standards. According to Breitman and Lichtman, Roosevelt went through four different phases with respect to Jewish issues.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  157. ‘But the US Government went out of its way to stoke racial animus against the “Japs.”’

    Can’t imagine why. Oh. Right. Nanking. Manila. Pearl Harbor. WW2… and all that.

    Suggested reading:

    ‘From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor: Front Line Dispatches from the Advertising War’ – by Jerry Della Femina (Author) 1970

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  158. This attitude dovetails with what is known about FDR’s views regarding immigrants in general and Asian immigrants in particular. In one 1920 interview, he complained about immigrants “crowding” into the cities and said “the remedy for this should be the distribution of aliens in various parts of the country.” In a series of articles for the Macon (Ga.) Daily Telegraph and for Asia magazine in the 1920s, he warned against granting citizenship to “non-assimilable immigrants” and opposed Japanese immigration on the grounds that “mingling Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results.” He recommended that future immigration should be limited to those who had “blood of the right sort.”

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  159. Breaking- Presidient Plagiarist drove an electric 4 wheeler on Thursday.

    14 wheels short, Convoy Joe!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  160. @160: Nazi Germany had its faults, too, but they didn’t round up German-Americans or make hatred of Germans (as opposed to Germany) a national ethos.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  161. Weird to see the Nazi defended for where they didn’t stoke hatred.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  162. “they” in 163 refers to the people in the U.S. government or press.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  163. OH! Kevin I’m sorry I completely misread your comment. Sammy thank you for the explanation. Forgot to take my smart pils today.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  164. ……
    In the 1940 US census, some 1,237,000 persons identified as being of German birth; 5 million persons had both parents born in Germany; and 6 million persons had at least one parent born in Germany.[25] German immigrants had not been prohibited from becoming naturalized United States citizens and many did so. The large number of German Americans of recent connection to Germany, and their resulting political and economical influence, have been considered the reason they were spared large-scale relocation and internment.
    ……..
    A total of 11,507 people of German ancestry were interned during the war, comprising 36.1% of the total internments under the US Justice Department’s Enemy Alien Control Program.[29] By contrast, an estimated 110,000–120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated from the West Coast and incarcerated in internment camps run by the US War Department’s War Relocation Authority.[29]
    …….
    In addition, the US accepted more than 4,500 German nationals deported from Latin America, detaining them in DOJ camps. During the early years of the war, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had drafted a list of Germans in fifteen Latin American countries whom it suspected of subversive activities. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US demanded deportation of these suspects for detention on US soil.[31] The countries that responded expelled 4,058 people.[32] Some 10% to 15% were Nazi party members, including approximately a dozen who were recruiters for the NSDAP/AO, which acted as the overseas arm of the Nazi party. Just eight were people suspected of espionage.
    …….
    The following territories set up their own detention facilities for enemy aliens of Axis nations: Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela, as well as in the Panama Canal Zone.

    The U.S. internment camps that held Germans from Latin America [were located in: Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Tennessee.]

    Some internees were held as late as 1948.

    Source

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  165. 166. Time123 (9f42ee) — 8/6/2021 @ 10:47 am

    . Forgot to take my smart pills today.

    T first, I also thought that’s what the words meant. But that;s an impossible reading. So it actually was good for you to mention it, so that the next personn to read to see those words doesn;t read it that way.

    The problem was caused by an unclear antecedent.

    By the way, many vaccines may prevent or delay Alzheimer’s says a WSJ Op-ed piece (although probably not your usual flu vaccine – too weak a vaccine)

    Not so the otherwise kind of uselsss tuberculosis vaccine

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-prevent-alzheimers-dementia-neurodegenerative-11628196831

    For instance, the BCG treatment increased the levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines, which could lead to an increase in beneficial T-cells that help regulate inflammation. The mRNA Covid vaccines have also been found to generate such cytokines.

    Another study, from the Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, published this spring in the Clinical Genitourinary Cancer journal, found that bladder-cancer patients who received BCG treatment had a 60% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other dementias than patients who did not.

    What about vaccines that are more common? A study last year sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute examined data from more than 5,000 people 65 and over who participated in a cardiovascular-health study. The researchers found that getting a pneumonia vaccine between ages 65 and 75 (the vaccine is recommended for adults over 65) reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s by 25% to 30% after adjusting for potentially confounding variables.

    The FDA will never let them say it. Unless they spend a couple of billion dollars maybe and wait fifteen years.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  166. @151. Thespians. Can’t live with ’em; can’t live w/o ’em. 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  167. 165. 169, The antecedent was in a previous comment, #160, not in #163.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  168. OH! Kevin I’m sorry I completely misread your comment.

    Not a problem. My fault for the pronoun referencing another comment.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  169. @167: Those were German nationals, not US citizens of German origin. They were people who were bound by German laws to act in Germany’s interests. Different than rounding up 3rd-generation Americans by race.

    If we ever got into a war with Mexico, imagine the difficulties.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  170. . Rounding up everyone based on their ethnicity, taking them out of their homes, and forcing them into camps was never good policy.

    aphrael (4c4719) — 8/6/2021 @ 9:21 am

    But you agree the government had the power to do it? That’s what the Korematsu decision stated.

    I didn’t ask about policy or whether you agreed with the government’s decision. I asked if you agreed with the Korematsu decision.

    NJRob (fbe422)

  171. “Rounding up everyone based on their ethnicity, taking them out of their homes, and forcing them into camps was never good policy.”

    Swedish Tourism Board

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  172. 135. DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 8/6/2021 @ 8:56 am

    “350 million Americans have been vaccinated.” – President Plagiarist, 8/6/2021

    He said it. TWICE. Biden loooked at his notes, andd said quite clearly he was looking at anote.

    And on it, apparently was written the number 350 million.

    And nothing else.

    So he took it to be the number of Americans vaccinated, not a rounded up estimate of the total number to be vaccinated.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c)

  173. @176. Wait ’til someone hands him a note card w/t instructions:

    Announce name of new Ireland ambassador, Picknose Fart.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  174. I asked if you agreed with the Korematsu decision.

    This would apply well to the vaccine situation, should Biden want to go to the mattresses. I think it would be God’s gift to Trump, bwdikinaTs.

    Of course, we had a Supreme Court justice not too long ago, quoting the even-more-horrific Cruikshank decision in his dissent in Heller

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  175. He said it. TWICE.

    175 million, vaccinated twice.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  176. He said it. TWICE. 175 million, vaccinated twice.

    So he stutters, eh? Still tallies more than the 330 million.

    Convoy Joe be-a-fibbin’ again.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  177. He said it. TWICE. Biden loooked at his notes, andd said quite clearly he was looking at anote.

    And on it, apparently was written the number 350 million.

    Maybe he’s counting all the illegal immigrants he let in since he took office.

    Factory Working Orphan (a6f340)


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