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'Trump’s quest for revenge' is already crippling GOP efforts to win back the House: columnist
September 18, 2021
In her column for the Daily Beast, longtime political observer Margaret Carlson claimed that Donald Trump's attacks on GOP lawmakers he feels are disloyal to him are already coming back to haunt the Republican Party that has high hopes of reclaiming the majority in the House in the 2022 election.
As Carlson notes, the decision of Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) to not seek reelection, in main part because of attacks by the former president that have made the Ohio Republican fear for the safety of his family, could open the gates to more Republican incumbents choosing to step aside making GOP plans to take over the House more difficult than they had planned on.
"Gonzales is a sterling example of who the Republican Party is sacrificing on the altar of The Donald. Trump's only animating force for interfering in the 2022 primaries is punishing apostates—any party member who suggests that he didn't leave the White House for the warm waters of Mar a Lago voluntarily, or upheld the results of the election he lost or, worst of all, voted for impeachment," Carlson wrote before suggesting, "This is the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, and the pillow guy who missed last month's deadline to move Trump back into the White House. But it's not just fringe characters joining in Trump's bonfire."
As she notes, Trump's "quest for revenge" against Republicans who don't bow and scrape before him will have a long-term effect on the Republican Party -- and they may not even see it coming.
Writing, "Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy have turned the party over to the ex- president as they watch his followers cling to him," she added, "Trump's quest for revenge is at odds with the party's desire to win back Congress which would be more likely with incumbents running for re-election than crackpots who appeal to the MAGAniacs and satisfy Trump's hunger for retribution. But Trump, perpetually tan, rested in semi-retirement, and seething with anger, continues to remake the Grand old Party to his specs, one primary at a time, anointing sycophants and forcing officials like Gonzales out."
"Maybe normal Republicans will find their spines if Trump takes them down to defeat in 2022 and they realize they defeated themselves by giving over their party to a madman who would have no power to destroy except that which they've ceded him," she concluded.
You can read the whole piece here.
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Some Republicans have dialed up the hyperbole to express their indignation about President Biden's vaccine mandates. Here are two tweets from South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster:
The American Dream has turned into a nightmare under President Biden and the radical Democrats. They have declared war against capitalism, thumbed their noses at the Constitution, and empowered our enemies abroad.
Rest assured, we will fight them to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian."
Hearing Republican politicians speak about the American dream while voting against a livable minimum wage and undermining unions and consumer protection, is always, well, a little rich.
This article first appeared in Salon.
In this little tirade, McMaster was merely piling on while reacting to the supposed tyranny of Biden's recently announced mandates for vaccinations or testing in the workplace and in school.
So: You will fight sensible policies in an ongoing global health crisis — one that has already taken at least 660,000 lives of your own countrymen — to the gates of hell? Beyond the obvious morbid jokes that statement naturally elicits (e.g., Trevor Noah: "Normally, that statement is hyperbole, but with COVID you might actually get the chance."), where can McMaster now go if he wants to further ratchet up this rhetoric?
- Before I listen to you, you'll see me do-si-do with Satan himself!
- Do so, and you'll be up the River Styx without a paddle, pardner!
- I'd rather traverse down all nine levels of Dante's Inferno, with a poet, than be bipartisan with the likes of you!
And how about that use of "thumbing their noses"? With that aged locution, the good governor is, without doubt, speaking directly to his demographic.
If one wanted to use old-fashioned phrases or words, one might ask: What is it with this ceaseless perfidiousness from the right? Merriam-Webster defines "perfidious" as "untrue to what should command one's fidelity or allegiance." Synonyms include faithless, false, disloyal, treacherous and traitorous.
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One need only consider the Republican votes during the two impeachment trials of Donald Trump, or their Trumpian adherence to the Big Lie about the 2020 election, or their whitewashing of the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, to understand the word. It might be a fun game to connect the most apt synonym with specific members of the House or Senate.
For decades the Republican game has been to claim that liberals and progressives are out to ruin the country with their unholy desire to see a bit more sharing of wealth and resources. But the rhetoric they're employing lately seems truly biblical, end-times unhinged, of the "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore" variety. And it all seems to be a psychological projection of their own desire to bring the American experiment as a democratic republic to an end.
The left now understands (let us hope) that like the British aristocracy of the 18th century, the GOP is going to war to retain power by any means. We need a modern-day Paul Revere (and a William Dawes, who didn't get a mention in the famous Longfellow poem) to raise the alarm. Their signals in the Old North Church today might be: "One if by gerrymandered land, and two if by voters put out to sea."
Our modern-day Revere, Stacey Abrams, can see those three lanterns glowing, day and night. Even with her eyes shut.
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Jared Kushner's family firm set to unleash eviction wave amid pandemic
September 18, 2021
Properties owned by former White House adviser Jared Kushner's family company have filed at least 590 eviction lawsuits since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and more than 200 in 2021 alone, putting "countless tenants" at risk of losing their homes in parts of the U.S. where Covid-19 transmission levels remain dangerously high.
"With eviction protections gone, corporate landlords like Kushner are relishing the soonest opportunity to evict the vulnerable."
That's according to a detailed analysis conducted by the government watchdog group Accountable.US, which examined public eviction filings submitted largely by properties under the control of Westminster Management, a subsidiary of Kushner Companies. In his 2020 financial disclosure, Kushner—former President Donald Trump's son-in-law—reported $1.65 million in income from Westminster Management, the only item listed in the "Employment Assets & Income" section of the filing.
In a report (pdf) provided exclusively to Common Dreams, Accountable.US compiled the publicly available eviction suits submitted by Westminster properties, including 2021 filings that have not been previously reported. The group emphasized that its list of filings is likely incomplete, given that many lawsuits may not yet be available to view online.
The analysis comes less than a month after the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court struck down a nationwide moratorium that protected millions of people from eviction for non-payment of rent—a decision that housing advocates warned could spark a devastating wave of evictions and worsen the pandemic.
"Jared Kushner is the poster child for ultra-rich landlords clamoring to boost their bottom line by kicking families to the curb, even if it comes at the expense of public health," Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, told Common Dreams. "By siding with big rental companies, the Supreme Court veered even further to the right and welcomed a homelessness crisis that will fan the flames of the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic."
"With eviction protections gone," Herrig added, "corporate landlords like Kushner are relishing the soonest opportunity to evict the vulnerable, but it's still a choice: is it worth making themselves a little bit richer in the short term while making communities where their tenants reside far less healthy? We hope they put people before profits."
According to Accountable's report, Westminster properties and other companies in which Kushner holds investments have filed at least 96 eviction-related lawsuits in New Jersey since the pandemic began, and more than 40 this year alone. All of the New Jersey filings "were in counties that appeared to be covered by the extended CDC moratorium as of August 26, 2021," the group found.
The same was true of Westminster-owned properties in Maryland and Virginia, Accountable.US noted.
The Washington Post reported last November that throughout the pandemic, "Westminster has been sending letters to [Maryland] tenants threatening legal fees and then filing eviction notices in court―a first legal step toward removing tenants."
"Those notices are now piling up in local courthouses as part of a national backlog of tens of thousands of cases... as eviction bans expire and courts resume processing cases," the Post noted at the time. "Those facing eviction proceedings once courts begin hearing cases again include a nurse who struggled financially during the pandemic, healthcare administrators, and a single mother who is currently unemployed."
The Supreme Court's ruling against the CDC eviction moratorium on August 26 removed the last line of defense for many at-risk tenants who have struggled to pay rent amid the pandemic-induced economic downturn. A dashboard produced by the National Equity Atlas and Right to the City shows that more than 5.8 million households are currently behind on rent, holding a combined total of $15 billion in rental debt.
"Given the logjam in the distribution of rent relief, there's diminishing hope that aid will reach renters' doorsteps before eviction notices will."
Kushner Companies is hardly the only corporate firm rushing to evict tenants who have been stuck waiting for federal rental assistance that's been infuriatingly slow to arrive. According to the latest data from Princeton University's Eviction Lab, landlords across six U.S. states and 31 cities have filed for 510,453 evictions since mid-March of 2020.
As Bloomberg recently reported, "owners of large apartment complexes have filed the lion's share of evictions against tenants" throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated the nation's preexisting housing crises.
"Across a dozen cities and counties where data are accessible, evictions at just a small number of apartment buildings contributed between one-fifth and one-half of all pandemic eviction filings," Bloomberg noted, citing figures from the Eviction Lab. "If the evictions to come in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision follow the same course as the evictions that persisted while the moratorium was still in place, then they will disproportionately fall on Black and immigrant families living in class-B or class-C apartment complexes owned by large landlords."
Following the Supreme Court's decision to scrap the CDC eviction moratorium—which corporate landlords sued over and lobbied hard against—members of Congress faced growing pressure to enshrine emergency tenant protections into federal law. Hours after the Supreme Court's ruling, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and dozens of other House Democrats sent a letter imploring their party's leadership to "act with the highest levels of urgency to advance a permanent legislative solution... to extend the life-saving federal eviction moratorium for the duration of the deadly global health crisis."
Weeks later, Congress has yet to act. Earlier this week, Bush introduced legislation to expand access to rental aid during the pandemic, but it's not clear when—or even if—the bill will get a vote in the House.
"So how are renters expected to stay afloat amid a nationwide housing shortage and crumbling federal protections from evictions?" Sabiha Zainulbhai, senior policy analyst at New America's Future of Land and Housing program, asked in a CNN op-ed on Tuesday. "Unfortunately, the answer is not clear."
"Given the logjam in the distribution of rent relief, there's diminishing hope that aid will reach renters' doorsteps before eviction notices will," Zainulbhai wrote. "Despite federal guidance, the distribution of this aid has been too slow and ineffective to meet the scale and the pace of the need. Meanwhile, the Delta variant is still a threat, hiring has slowed to its lowest rate since January, and to top it all off, pandemic unemployment benefits have expired. The outlook for renters is not good."
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