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Are Single-Family Homes “Racist?”

Media Advisory
From The American Policy Center
Tom DeWeese, President
Contact: 540-341-8911
Email:

The Growing Assault on Private Property
Are Single-Family Homes “Racist?”

One of the main indicators used by economists to measure the health of the nation’s economy is housing starts – the number of private homes being built around the nation. In 2018 housing starts fell in all four regions of the nation, representing the biggest drop since 2016.

While many economists point to issues such as higher material costs as a reason for the drop in housing starts, a much more ominous reason may be emerging. Across the nation, city councils and state legislatures are beginning to remove zoning protections for single-family neighborhoods, claiming they are racist discrimination designed to keep certain minorities out of such neighborhoods. In response to these charges some government officials are calling for the end of single-family homes in favor of multiple family apartments.

  • Minneapolis, Minnesota: the city council is moving to remove zoning that protects single-family neighborhoods, instead planning to add apartment buildings in the mix. The mayor actually said such zoning was “devised as a legal way to keep black Americans and other minorities from moving into certain neighborhoods”. Racist, social injustice are the charges
  • Chicago, Illinois: So-called “affordable housing” advocates have filed a federal complaint against the longtime tradition of allowing City Aldermen veto power over most development proposals in their wards, charging that it promotes discrimination by keeping low-income minorities from moving into affluent white neighborhoods. Essentially the complaint seeks to remove the Aldermen’s ability to represent their own constituents.
  • Baltimore, Maryland: The NAACP filed a suit against the city charging that Section 8 public housing causes ghettos because they are all put into the same areas of town. They won the suit and now the city must spend millions of dollars to move such housing into more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, landlords are no longer permitted to ask potential tenants if they can afford the rent on their properties.
  • Oregon: Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting legislation that would end single-family zoning in cities of 10,000 or more. She claims there is a housing shortage crisis and that economic and racial segregation are caused by zoning restrictions.

Such identical policies don’t just simultaneously spring up across the country by accident. There is a force behind it. The root of these actions are found in “fair housing” policies dictated by the federal Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD). The affected communities have all taken HUD grants. There is very specific language in those grants that suggest single family homes are a cause of discrimination. Specifically, through the HUD program called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), the agency is taking legal action against communities that use “discriminating zoning ordinances that discourage the development of affordable, multifamily housing…”. The suits are becoming a widely used enforcement tool for the agency.

To enforce its social engineering policies HUD demands the following from communities that have applied for or taken HUD grants:

  • First, HUD forces the community to complete an “Assessment of Fair Housing” to identify all “contributing factors” to discrimination. These include a complete breakdown of race, income levels, religion, and national origin of every single person living there. They use this information to determine if the neighborhood meets a preset “balance,” determined by HUD.
  • Second, HUD demands a detailed plan showing how the community intends to eliminate the “contributing factors” to this “imbalance.”
  • Once the plan is prepared, then the community is required to sign an agreement to take no actions that are “materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.”

Americans who have grown up experiencing private home ownership as the root to personal prosperity must quickly learn of the threat of the HUD/AFFH program. They must fully understand why cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Baltimore and states like Oregon have suddenly announced actions to eliminate single-family home zoning. These cities have already taken the grant poison and must now comply. The ultimate government game is to reorganize our cities into massive urban areas where single-family neighborhoods are replaced by the Sustainable/Smart Growth model of “Stack and Pack,” wall-to-wall apartment buildings.

To the frustration of those Sustainablists determined to change our entire economic system, the legal protection of private property rights and ownership have proven to be a roadblock for implementation. New York Mayor William DeBlasio best expressed the frustration of those driving to control community development when he was quoted in New York Magazine saying, “What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it and what the rent will be.”

Most importantly, HUD and its social engineering advocates have sold these so-called sustainable policies using the well-worn excuse that such programs are simply to help lower income families to succeed. In fact, these programs are actually at the very root of why many of them are NOT succeeding.

Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center, an internationally recognized private property advocacy groups says, “The immediate result of eliminating single-family homes and in turn, destroying private property rights, is to degrade the property values of the homes so many have worked to build. It used to be called the American dream. Now it’s labeled racism, discrimination, and social injustice.”

DeWeese continues, “Eradicating poverty is the most popular excuse for the expansion of government power. Yet, it’s interesting to note that not a single government program, from the federal to the local level, offers any plan for eradicating poverty except the well-worn and unworkable scheme of wealth redistribution. After decades of following such a failed policy the only result is that we have more poor.”

Today, as demonstrated in Oregon, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Chicago, we hear the claims that there is a “housing crisis” and so government must take a dramatic step to solve the very crisis is has created. As economist Thomas Sowell has said, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

Concludes DeWeese, “It is interesting to note that, as private property ownership shrinks under these misguided policies, so too does the nation’s wealth. Sustainable policies are at the root of nearly every local, state, and federal program. Each step diminishes individual freedom, personal and national prosperity, and the destruction of the hopes and dream of every American. The American Policy Center is determined to lead the fight to end this misnamed and disastrous ‘Sustainable’ course for our country.”

By

Chuck Baldwin: Trump’s SCOTUS Pick: More Of The Same

A Republican-dominated Supreme Court (SC) gave us Roe v Wade, homosexual marriage and Obamacare. In fact, Republican appointments have dominated the SC for the last 45 years. All of this talk about Republican presidents appointing pro-life, constitutionalist, originalist justices is just so much hot air.

Republican presidents have given us William Brennan, John Paul Stevens, Harry Blackmun (the man who authored Roe v Wade), Anthony Kennedy (the man who gave us homosexual marriage), and John Roberts (the man who gave us Obamacare). Trump’s appointment of Gorsuch (the man who made it illegal to deport illegal alien criminals) and now Kavanaugh are likewise in the mold of the above justices.

Kavanaugh is a favorite of the establishment. Judge Andrew Napolitano rightly called Kavanaugh a “swamp pick.” He said that Kavanaugh was the “heart and soul of the DC establishment.” He said that Kavanaugh is “a big government guy.” Napolitano also quoted Kavanaugh as repeatedly saying that “the President [ANY President] can do no wrong.”

Judicial Watch founder, attorney Larry Klayman, wrote this:

Judge Kavanaugh either has no respect for the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, or he was unethically attempting to curry favor with the Republican establishment, exemplified by former President George W. Bush and his administration, which Kavanaugh had worked for as staff secretary in the White House Counsel’s office. President Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney, not coincidentally, had also put in place this mass surveillance, using September 11 as the pretext.

Kavanaugh obviously understood that his aspirations to someday become a Supreme Court justice would depend on his close ties to this Republican Bush-Cheney establishment, who would someday, if the chance arose, push for his nomination. And, indeed this came to pass in the last weeks, after Kavanaugh’s mentor who he clerked for in his early career, Justice Anthony Kennedy, announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. The swamp creatures of this slimy Republican establishment . . . pushed The Donald to name Kavanaugh as the next SCOTUS justice

That ALONE should tell you all you need to know. But it’s actually worse than that. Kavanaugh, like Roberts, is a totally controlled toady of the Deep State.

Kavanaugh helped Ken Starr cover up the Deep State’s murder of former Bill Clinton legal counsel Vince Foster. To quote Joel Skousen:

The Vince Foster cover-up wasn’t a simple case of an erroneous conclusion based upon weak evidence. This was a full blown conspiracy to intimidate witnesses that proved the official version was a lie. As Starr’s deputy, there is no way that Kavanaugh could not have known that there was a cover-up and conspiracy going on.

Kavanaugh will always be subject to the blackmail of “you knew what Starr did to Patrick Knowlton [the key witness exposing the Deep State conspiracy that killed Foster], and you went along with it.” That also implies a more lethal threat of “you know what they did to Vince Foster when he got cold feet about protecting the Clintons.”

Trump’s appointment of Kavanaugh tells me that Donald Trump is completely controlled by the Deep State—all of his rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. As Skousen notes, Kavanaugh is neck-deep in the Vince Foster cover-up. Accordingly, there can be no doubt that Kavanaugh is owned by the Deep State. And Trump’s appointment of Kavanaugh means that Trump is owned by the Deep State. Always remember that being controlled by the Deep State does not mean that it controls every decision or every vote you make; it simply means that the Deep State has enough power and influence over you that when it needs you to submit to its wishes on a particular decision or vote (such as Judge Roberts’ Obamacare vote and Trump’s appointment of Deep State puppet Brett Kavanaugh), you WILL comply.

As to the life issue, pro-life organizations across the country are lauding Kavanaugh as staunchly pro-life. These endorsements don’t impress me at all. Most of the national “pro-life” (and “Christian”) organizations are unabashed sycophants of the Republican Party. Furthermore, they adamantly refuse to support the only pro-life bills that would actually STOP abortion: personhood bills such as the one repeatedly introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by former congressman Ron Paul.

If passed, Ron Paul’s Sanctity of Life Act would have defined life as beginning at conception and under Article. III. Section. 2. of the U.S. Constitution removed abortion from the jurisdiction of the court, thereby overturning Roe. Yes, the pro-life Republicans in Congress—along with a pro-life Republican President—could overturn Roe v Wade anytime it wanted to. Saying they must wait for a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe is simply a way for cowardly congressmen and presidents to pass the buck and still claim to be “pro-life” at the same time.

The truth is, national “pro-life” groups can no more afford for Roe v Wade to be overturned than national help-us-find-a-cure-for-cancer groups can afford to find a cure for cancer. These groups make millions of dollars “fighting” abortion. If anything, these national “pro-life” groups want to make sure that Roe v Wade is NOT overturned so they can maintain their multimillion-dollar enterprises, while at the same time convincing their gullible donors that they are truly trying to rid the country of legalized abortion. P.T. Barnum could not have cooked up a better scam.

That Kavanaugh has ruled in favor of certain restrictions on abortion “rights” is no indicator that he would do anything to reverse Roe v Wade. In fact, Kavanaugh is on record as saying he respected the government’s “precedent” (Roe v Wade decision) on abortion. Pro-life organizations are using the Garza case to prove Kavanaugh’s commitment to the right to life, but they are conveniently overlooking the fact that in this decision Kavanaugh said the government conceded the teen’s right to an abortion but simply stated that delaying the abortion “did not pose an undue burden on that right.”

For 45 years, wishy-washy Republicans have bragged about being “pro-life” and have voted for all kinds of compromised “pro-life” bills that have done absolutely NOTHING to overturn Roe v Wade and stop the slaughter of over 60 million unborn babies. Kavanaugh was a clerk for Anthony Kennedy and rose to power in the rabid neocon administration of G.W. Bush. His pro-life credentials are mired in compromise.

Kavanaugh is also being heralded by gun groups for supporting the pro-Second Amendment Heller decision. But Kavanaugh himself said that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms could be regulated and restricted by State and Federal law as long as these regulations and restrictions did not take away the right (the Second Amendment) completely. That’s hardly a strong pro-Second Amendment position.

Yes, radical leftists will vehemently protest Kavanaugh’s appointment. (It is the right that should be protesting, and a few will. Senators Rand Paul and Tom Cotton have already expressed reservations.) But the cacophony of protests from the left means NOTHING. The Deep State doesn’t care about the protestations (or the agendas) of the left or the right. All it cares about is putting people in power that they can control—and Kavanaugh fits that job description perfectly.

Like I said, Trump’s appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is just more of the same.

P.S. I highly commend Donald Trump for issuing presidential pardons to Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. This might be the best decision of Trump’s presidency to date—a whole lot better than his SCOTUS pick. Trump’s clemency of the Hammonds overturns an egregious injustice committed against the father-son ranchers by corrupt federal agencies. Throughout their whole ordeal, the Hammonds conducted themselves with dignity and grace. Such cannot be said for the agents of the federal government who behaved more like mafia gangsters than protectors of law and order. This presidential pardon was long overdue.

P.P.S. I am VERY excited about a new book written by Christopher Bollyn entitled The War On Terror. I have read and reread it; and I believe this is one of the most important books written in recent memory. The book connects the dots between the 9/11 attacks and America’s perpetual “War on Terror.”

This book needs to be read by every single American. If it was read and taken to heart by enough people, this book could literally change the course of history and save our republic. The full title of the book is The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East.

From the book’s back cover:

The government and media have misled us about 9/11 in order to compel public opinion to support the War on Terror.

Why have we gone along with it? Do we accept endless war as normal? Are we numb to the suffering caused by our military interventions?

No. We have simply been propagandized into submission. We have been deceived into thinking that the War on Terror is a good thing, a valiant struggle against terrorists who intend to attack us as we were on 9/11.

Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims in order to start the military operations for that strategic plan. Recognizing the origin of the plan is crucial to understanding the deception that has changed our world.

After selling out, we have now been resupplied with this blockbuster new book.

If you don’t read any other book this year, read Christopher Bollyn’s The War On Terror. Orders for this book are coming in as fast as we are being supplied, so I suggest you order quickly. And after reading this terrific book, I’m sure you will want to order copies for friends. EVERYONE needs to read this book.

Order Christopher Bollyn’s investigative masterpiece here:

The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East

Published: Thursday, July 12, 2018

© Chuck Baldwin

By

Tom DeWeese: Will Brett Kavanaugh Stand for Property Rights?

There’s lots of talk about where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh stands on the Roe v Wade abortion decision and if he would vote to rescind it. There is another very controversial Supreme Court decision made just few years ago, supported by the Anthony Kennedy, the justice he seeks to replace. That is the Kelo decision that basically obliterated private property rights in America. So, where does Brett Kananaugh stand on protection of private property rights? With Kennedy or the Constitution?

In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down an opinion that shocked the nation. It was the case of Susette Kelo, et al. v City of New London, Connecticut, et al. The issue: “Does the government taking of property from one private owner to give to another private entity for economic development constitutes a permissible ‘public use’ under the Fifth Amendment?”

In 2000, the city of New London saw a chance to rake in big bucks through tax revenues for a new downtown development project that was to be anchored by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The company announced a plan to build a $270 million dollar global research facility in the city. The local government jumped at the chance to transform 90 acres of an area right next to the proposed research facility. Their plans called for the creation of the Fort Trumbull development project which would provide hotels, housing and shopping areas for the expected influx of Pfizer employees. There were going to be jobs and revenues A-Go-Go in New London. Just one obstacle stood in the way of these grand plans. There were private homes in that space.

No muss – no fuss. The city fathers had a valuable tool in their favor. They would just issue an edict that they were taking the land by eminent domain. The city created a private development corporation to lead the project. First priority for the new corporation was to obtain the needed property.

In July, 1997, Susette Kelo bought a nice little pink house in a quiet fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London. Little did she imagine that warm, comfy place would soon become the center of a firestorm.

She had no intention of selling. She’d spent a considerable amount of money and time fixing up her little pink house, a home with a beautiful view of the waterfront that she could afford. She planted flowers in the yard, braided her own rugs for the floors, filled the rooms with antiques and created the home she wanted.

Less than a year later, the trouble started. A real estate broker suddenly showed up at her door representing an unknown client. Susette said she wasn’t interested in selling. The realtor’s demeanor then changed, warning that the property was going to be condemned by the city. One year later, on the day before Thanksgiving, the sheriff taped a letter to Kelo’s door, stating that her home had been condemned by the City of New London.

Then the pressure began. A notice came in the mail telling her that the city intended to take her land. An offer of compensation was made, but it was below the market price. The explanation given was that, since the government was going to take the land, it was no longer worth the old market price, therefore the lower price was “just compensation,” as called for in the Fifth Amendment. It was a “fair price,” Kelo and the homeowners were told over and over.

Some neighbors quickly gave up, took the money and moved away. With the loss of each one, the pressure mounted. Visits from government agents became routine. They knocked on the door at all hours, demanding she sell. Newspaper articles depicted her as unreasonably holding up community progress. They called her greedy. Finally, the bulldozers moved in on the properties already sold. As they crushed down the houses, the neighborhood became unlivable. It looked like a war zone.

In Susette Kelo’s neighborhood, the imposing bulldozer was sadistically parked in front of a house, waiting. The homeowner came under greater pressure to sell. More phone calls, threatening letters, visits by city officials at all hours demanding they sign the contract to sell. It just didn’t stop. Finally the intimidation began to break down the most dedicated homeowners’ resolve. In tears, they gave in and sold. Amazingly, once they sold, the homeowners were then classified as “willing sellers!”

Immediately, as each house was bulldozed, the monster machine was moved to the next house, sitting there like a huffing, puffing dragon, ready to strike.

Finally Susette’s little pink house stood nearly alone in the middle of a destruction site. Over 80 homes were gone: seven remained. As if under attack by a conquering army, she was finally surrounded, with no place to run but to the courts. Under any circumstances the actions of the New London government and its sham development corporation should have been considered criminal behavior. It used to be. If city officials were caught padding their own pockets, or those of their friends, it was considered graft. That’s why RICO laws were created.

The United States was built on the very premise of the protection of private property rights. How could a government possibly be allowed to take anyone’s home for private gain? Surely justice would finally prevail.

The city was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, one of the largest proponents of eminent domain use, saying the policy was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects. However, the Supreme Court had always stood with the founders of the nation on the vital importance of private property. There was precedent after precedent to back up the optimism that they would do so again.

Finally, her case was heard by the highest court in the land. It was such an obvious case of government overreach against private property owners that no one considered there was a chance of New London winning. That’s why it was a shock to nearly everyone involved that private property rights sustained a near-death blow that day.

This time, five black robes named Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer shocked the nation by ruling that officials who had behaved like Tony Soprano were in the right and Susette Kelo had no ground to stand on, literally or figuratively.

These four men and one woman ruled that the United States Constitution is meaningless as a tool to protect individuals against the wants and desires of government. Their ruling in the Kelo case declared that Americans own nothing. After deciding that any property is subject to the whim of a government official, it was just a short trip to declaring that government could now confiscate anything we own, anything we create, anything we’ve worked for – in the name of an undefined common good.

Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, who opposed the Court’s decision, vigorously rebutted the Majority’s argument, as she wrote in dissent of the majority opinion, “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing a Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”

Justice Clarence Thomas issued his own rebuttal to the decision, specifically attacking the argument that this was a case about “public use.” He accused the Majority of replacing the Fifth Amendment’s “Public Use” clause with a very different “Public Purpose” test. Said Justice Thomas “This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold against all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a public use.”

Astonishingly the members of the Supreme Court have no other job but to protect the Constitution and defend it from bad legislation. They sit in their lofty ivory tower, with their lifetime appointments, never actually having to worry about job security or the need to answer to political pressure. Yet, these five black robes obviously missed finding a single copy of the Federalist Papers, which were written by many of the Founders to explain to the American people how they envisioned the new government was to work. In addition, they apparently missed the collected writings of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington, just to mention a very few. It’s obvious because otherwise, there is simply no way they could have reached this decision.

So, in a five to four vote, the Supreme Court said that it was okay for a community to use eminent domain to take land, shut down a business, or destroy and reorganize an entire neighborhood, if it benefited the community in a positive way. Specifically, “positive” meant unquestioned government control and more tax dollars.

The Institute for Justice, the group that defended Susette Kelo before the Supreme Court, reported that it found 10,000 cases in which condemnation was used or threatened for the benefit of private developers. These cases were all within a five-year period after the Kelo decision. Today, that figure is dwarfed as there is seemingly no limit on government takings of private property.

The Kelo decision changed the rules. The precedent was set. Land can now be taken anytime at the whim of a power elite. So again, the question must be asked: if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, will he stand to protect private property rights against massive overreach by local, state, and federal governments? Will he support an effort to overturn the Kelo Decision?

July 17, 2018 17:48 ET
 

https://americanpolicy.org/