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‘Squad’ lawmakers were ripped off on Saturday for turning Washington, DC into a ‘Hooverville’ by sleeping on the immaculate marble steps of the Capitol in a scheduled stunt until the national moratorium on evictions expires .
Far-left Democrats – Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts – camped outside the historic building on Friday night and vowed to continue the slumber party until Sunday.
“We slept at the Capitol last night to ask them to come back and do their work. Today is their last chance. We are still here ”, Bush tweeted on Saturday alongside photos of herself and staff members in hoodies and blankets.
“The night went better than what a night would have really been like for someone who was really not accommodated”, Bush told reporters out of his orange sleeping bag on Saturday morning. “We need the powers that be to understand that we are not going to let this go on quietly.”
Photos from their night on the streets show lawmakers completely surrounded by piles of garbage, including discarded Domino’s pizza boxes. Stacks of crisps, cookies and other junk food were ready to support them.
Bush and Pressley fall asleep around 5 a.m., as the staff sprawled out across the steps and the stone plaza that surrounded them.
Meanwhile, Staten Island City Councilor Joe Borelli mocked the display as an awakened ‘Hooverville’ – conjuring up images of the Great Depression slums created by the dilapidated during the President’s administration. Herbert Hoover.
“The Capitol is like anywhere else in the United States where the far left is in control,” Borrelli said.
New York GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa added that the “squad camp” reminded him of Penn Station.
“The only thing it didn’t have was marshmallows around an open fire,” he joked.
A glaring absence from the slumber party was New York’s own rep, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The mainstay of the team posted a video Friday night in which she offered words of encouragement.
“Everyone knew this was going to happen”, AOC said in the clip, clapping his hands to insist. “We have members in our own caucus who threaten to go on vacation” rather than extending eviction protections. She did not respond to the Post’s questions about where she spent the rest of the night.
Omar, too, swept his own caucus, lambasting Dems for leaving town.
“Some of our fellow Democrats decided it was more important for them to spend their summer vacation instead of protecting the thousands and millions of people who would end up being deported. she told reporters.
The temporary ban on evictions, put in place last year as a pandemic relief measure by President Trump, was due to expire on July 31 following a Supreme Court ruling last month.
President Biden, who has taken no action to extend it, instead asked Congress to pass a bill to address the problem and called on states to adopt their own relief measures.
About 6.2 million tenants are protected by the eviction ban, according to a recent Harvard University housing report. and 2.3 million homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments.
But some Republicans are saying it’s time to get back to normal.
“US employers cannot fill a record 9.2 million jobs because the government has paid the unemployed more to stay at home,” Representative Nicole Malliotakis told The Post (R- NY).
“So why don’t they pay their rent? ” she asked.
“Small owners haven’t received income for over a year, but they are expected to pay property taxes, a mortgage and water bills,” she said.
A House GOP assistant agreed.
“The Squad should be encouraging people to take one of the millions of jobs available so they can pay their rent instead of defending the right to free,” the insider said.
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