Last Call For Eviction Prediction, Con't

With the Biden administration's CDC moratorium on evictions ending this month, it seems Ohio and Kentucky landlords will get an early start on procedures as the 6th Circuit has unanimously struck down the moratorium in four states.

 

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked authority for the national moratorium it imposed last year on most residential evictions to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati means judges in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan are no longer bound by the moratorium, said Joshua Kahane, the lawyer who argued the case for a property manager.

The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel upheld a lower court ruling in March finding the CDC overstepped its authority when it issued the moratorium last year.

The opinion by Judges Alan Norris, Amul Thapar and John Bush said dealing with the evictions during the pandemic could not be delegated to the CDC under existing law.

"While landlords and tenants likely disagree on much, there is one thing both deserve: for their problems to be resolved by their elected representatives," wrote Judge Thapar in a concurring opinion.

The moratorium is set to expire on July 31 and the Biden administration said in June it would not grant further extensions. read more

The CDC issued a national eviction ban on all residential rental properties in September to facilitate self-isolation, contain the spread of COVID-19 and prevent homelessness.

It acted after the expiration of a narrower previous ban enacted by the U.S. Congress. The CDC's moratorium has been extended three times, once by Congress and twice by the agency itself.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June left the CDC ban in place by a 5-4 decision.

 

Hundreds of thousands nationwide will be evicted in the months ahead, right into the teeth of the delta variant, so I do hope that vaccination efforts are enough. But I fear that the end of the moratorium is going to be far more consequential than people realize, and the pain that comes from it will be miserable for hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Donald Trump will settle for nothing less than the political extermination of GOP Rep. Liz Cheney for speaking out against him, and he's in the middle of choosing his catspaw to do his dirty work in Wyoming.

Former President Donald Trump’s top political advisers have been holding quiet talks over the last several months with the primary challengers looking to take down his most prominent Republican nemesis: Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

During phone calls and Zoom chats, the Trump advisers have pressed the candidates on their fundraising capabilities, their policy positions and the overall strength of their campaign organizations. The goal: to determine whether they have what it takes to unseat Cheney, the influential daughter of a former vice president, who served as the No. 3 House Republican until colleagues ousted her in the spring.

The talks will escalate next week, when Trump meets with two challengers at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club: state Rep. Chuck Gray and attorney Darin Smith. Trump’s son, Don, Jr., who earlier this year visited Wyoming to speak out against Cheney for supporting his father’s impeachment, is expected to be present at the meetings.

Trump is expected to sit down with other candidates before deciding whom to endorse, though advisers say that Gray and Smith have emerged as the two clear frontrunners. To prevent Cheney from winning renomination with just a plurality of the vote, they also say, Trump needs to back the strongest candidate and then elbow out others in the crowded field.

The behind-the-scenes talks underscore the high stakes confronting Trump, who has made unseating Cheney a priority since she blamed him for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and voted to impeach him. The outcome of the contest — and Trump’s ability to shape it — will be a key measure of Trump’s post-presidential dominance over the Republican Party.

“The Wyoming race is the highest priority of the cycle. It’s a must-win for President Trump. I hope he fully understands that because it’s an undeniable fact,” said Christopher Ekstrom, a major GOP donor overseeing a super PAC that’s expected to get involved in the effort to unseat Cheney.

Shortly after the January impeachment vote, the former president’s advisers began reaching out to the state Republican Party chair, Frank Eathorne, and state legislators to take their temperature on Wyoming’s political landscape. They were also in touch with the anti-tax Club for Growth, a pro-Trump group that is opposing Cheney.

Trump allies, including Donald Trump, Jr. and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, have participated in anti-Cheney events in the state. Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also went to Wyoming to get on-the-ground intel and meet with potential primary challengers.

The Trump team sounded out a potential early challenger in state Treasurer Curt Meier. But Meier said he wasn’t interested and instead recommended Gray, a state legislator and former radio show host who is staunchly supportive of the former president. In late January, Trump pollster John McLaughlin commissioned a 500-person survey through the former president's political action committee, which asked respondents their opinion of Gray and whether they would support him or Cheney in a primary matchup. The poll also tested the strength of another candidate, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard.

 

While it's definitely a litmus test on the power of Trump's cultism, I don't expect him to lose. I expect Cheney to be utterly destroyed and left broken, with Trump gloating that he crucified her, and that everyone else in the GOP who voted to impeach him will suffer the same fate. 

 

Most likely he'll be 100% correct.

It is a cult, after all.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Tired of the subtext, Mississippi GOP Attorney General Lynn Fitch wants her place in the history books as the woman who "ended abortion in America" and is straight-up asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade completely in the state's case before the Supreme Court later this fall.

Mississippi's attorney general told the Supreme Court on Thursday that Roe v. Wade was "egregiously wrong" and should be overturned as she urged the justices to allow a controversial law that bars most abortions after 15 weeks to go into effect. 

"The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition" state Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the justices in a new brief, launching the opening salvo in the most important abortion-related dispute the court has heard in decades. 

Fitch said that the case for overruling Roe is "overwhelming." 

Roe v. Wade is the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide prior to viability, which can occur at around 24 weeks of pregnancy. 

The case reignites the debate surrounding abortion and comes as states across the country, emboldened by the conservative majority and the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the high court, are increasingly passing restrictive abortion related regulations hoping to curb the constitutional right first established in 1973 in Roe and reaffirmed in 1992 when the court handed down Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

The justices deliberated for months whether to take up the Mississippi dispute, finally announcing their decision last spring and sending shock waves to groups supporting abortion rights who are fearful that the conservative majority -- bolstered with three of President Donald Trump's appointees -- will upend long-established constitutional protections for access to abortion. 

Oral arguments will likely be heard in the late fall or early winter with a decision expected by next June in advance of the midterm elections. 

Mississippi's Gestational Age Act, passed in 2018 but blocked by two federal courts, allows abortion after 15 weeks "only in medical emergencies or for severe fetal abnormality" and has no exception for rape or incest. If doctors perform abortions outside the parameters of the law they will have their medical license suspended or revoked and may be subject to additional penalties and fines. 

A district court blocked the law in a decision affirmed by a federal appeals court.
"In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's abortion cases have established (and affirmed and re-affirmed) a woman's right to choose an abortion before viability," a panel of judges on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in December of 2019. "States may regulate abortion procedures prior to viability so long as they do not ban abortions," the court held and concluded "the law at issue is a ban." 

The Center for Reproductive Rights is representing Jackson Women's Health Organization, the only licensed abortion facility in Mississippi, and the clinic's medical director, Sacheen Carr-Ellis, who are challenging the law. Lawyers for the Center will respond to Mississippi's appeal later this year. 

 

So yes folks, everything I've been warning about in the Road To Gilead series of posts is coming true at an alarming pace. Thanks and try the veal.

We're rocketing towards a two-tiered system where women have the right over their bodies in only about half the states in America,