The Commentariat -- August 18, 2020

Afternoon Update:

** Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service will halt its controversial cost-cutting initiatives until after the election -- canceling service reductions, reinstating overtime hours and ceasing the removal of mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced in a statement Tuesday. The declaration comes as lawmakers prepared to question DeJoy and USPS board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan in a Friday hearing in the Senate and at a Monday hearing in the House on those policy changes, which have caused mail slowdowns and threatened to jeopardize ballot collection during the November election."

** "This Is What Collusion Looks Like." Mark Mazzetti & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A sprawling report released Tuesday by a Republican-controlled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia's 2016 election interference laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russian government officials and other Russians, including some with ties to the country's intelligence services. The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government undertook an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 American election to help Mr. Trump become president, and some members of Mr. Trump's circle of advisers were open to the help from an American adversary.... The report showed extensive evidence of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and people tied to the Kremlin -- including a longstanding associate of the onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, whom the report identifies as a 'Russian intelligence officer.'... [In an appendix,] Democrats also laid out a potentially explosive detail: that investigators had uncovered information possibly tying Mr. Kilimnik to Russia's major election interference operations conducted by the intelligence service known as the G.R.U." ~~~

~~~ Karoun Demirjian & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "President Trump's 2016 campaign chairman posed a 'grave counterintelligence threat' due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Moscow's government and intelligence services. In its report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee states that Trump's then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer 'on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,' including the idea that purported Ukrainian election interference was of greater concern."

The New York Times' coronavirus live updates Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here.

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday complained that former first lady Michelle Obama's speech a night earlier at the Democratic National Convention was 'extremely divisive,' hitting back after she said he's 'in over his head.' 'She was over her head, and frankly she should've made the speech live, which she didn't do,' Trump said during a White House event commemorating the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. 'She taped it. It was taped a long time ago because she had the wrong deaths. She didn't even mention the vice presidential candidate in the speech. She gets these fawning reviews. If you gave a real review it wouldn't be so fawning,' Trump added. 'I thought it was a very divisive speech. Extremely divisive.'" Mrs. McC: Trump forgot to call Mrs. Obama "nasty." ~~~

~~~ Here are the New York Times' election updates Tuesday. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here: A10:16 am ET: "Trump on Tuesday raised the prospect of having to redo the presidential election if states widely embrace universal mail-in balloting, a voting method he has relentlessly attacked in recent weeks, often making claims that are not backed up by any evidence. 'Universal is going to be a disaster, the likes of which our country has never seen,' Trump said at a White House event. 'It will end up being a rigged election or they will never come out with an outcome. They'll have to do it again, and nobody wants that, and I don’t want that.'"

Mrs. McCrabbie: For your own peace of mind, don't watch the whole video (it's only part of the interview) of Anderson's Cooper's interview of Trump's friend and coronavirus cure guru, the My Pillow guy, who is now pushing an oleander oils elixir in which he has a financial interest. But the crosstalk was wild, and gives you a better grasp of Trumpworld, the fake POTUS* and his fake coronavirus briefings: "

~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Here's the video that PD Pepe refers to in today's Comments. I thought it was the best part of the whole show, certainly so in introducing Joe Biden to the American people:

The New York Times' live analysis of the Democratic National Convention Monday is here. "The event, which is nominally being held in Milwaukee, will be streamed and televised from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time. It will feature Michelle Obama, the former first lady, in a leading role, and will offer remarks from an ideologically wide range of speakers who want to turn the page on the Trump era...." ~~~

~~~ Steve Peoples of the AP: "Michelle Obama delivered a passionate broadside against ... Donald Trump during Monday's opening night of the Democratic National Convention, assailing the Republican president as unfit for the job and warning that the nation's mounting crises would only get worse if he's reelected.... Joe Biden introduced the breadth of his political coalition to a nation in crisis Monday night at the convention, giving voice to victims of the coronavirus pandemic, the related economic downturn and police violence and featuring both progressive Democrats and Republicans united against Trump's reelection. The ideological range of Biden's many messengers was demonstrated by former presidential contenders from opposing parties: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who championed a multi-trillion-dollar universal health care plan, and Ohio's former Republican Gov. John Kasich, an anti-abortion conservative who spent decades fighting to cut government spending.

Here's the part of Michelle Obama's remarks that got the most attention:

     ~~~ Video of Obama's full remarks is here. CNN has the transcript, as prepared, here.

Here's a portion of Bernie Sanders' speech. Video of his full remarks is here:

My dad was a healthy 65-year old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump. And for that he paid with his life. -- Kristin Urquiza of Arizona ~~~

~~~ Here's what struck Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Four years ago, then-First Lady Michelle Obama offered one of the most stirring speeches of the Democratic Convention. On Monday, she offered an attempted indictment not just of President Trump, but of the movement he has led.... One of [the convention's messages] was reinforced a couple times Monday night: Biden won't go hard left.... The night was full of testimonials from average people and, even more than that, average people touched by crucial election-year issues like police violence and the coronavirus." ~~~

~~~ The AP's "takeaways" report, by Bill Barrow & Nicholas Riccardi, is here. Mrs. McC: I guess my favorite sentence in the report is the last one: "Trump, meanwhile, confirmed two guests he has invited to participate at his convention next week: a white St. Louis couple who gained national headlines when they emerged from their house wielding weapons to confront protesters who were in their neighborhood." So Democrats had all these nice people, most bringing uplifting messages, and Trump's first-announced guests are a couple of old, white, wealthy, overprivileged, gun-wielding hatemongers bent on scaring the stuff out of passersby. It's them vs. us, and them is pointing guns at us.

Bill Barrow of the AP: "Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said Monday that this year's handful of presidential caucuses should be the last the party ever holds. 'I think by 2024 we ought to have everyone being a primary state,' Perez told The Associated Press in an interview on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention. The chairman didn't specifically name Iowa, which for decades has led off the nominating calendar, but his position could represent a seismic shift in the party's traditions, and it underscores the pressure on the caucus structure that has intensified since Iowa's count dragged out for days to open the 2020 nominating fight eventually won by Joe Biden."

Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg plans to spend $60 million to strengthen the Democratic House majority in November, roughly matching the money he invested in flipping control of the House in 2018, according to a Bloomberg adviser familiar with the plans." The Hill has a summary report here.

Trump's Pathetic Counterprogramming. Kevin Liptak of CNN: the New York Times: "... Donald Trump's darkly portentous campaign message came into stark focus Monday as he launched his most intensive campaign swing since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, warning of 'fascist' Democrats with a 'Trojan horse' candidate during stops in the Upper Midwest. The dire warnings -- reliant on false information and racist tropes -- foreshadowed a bitter fall campaign as Trump seeks to reverse a slide in the polls. And they presaged a drawn out post-election battle as Trump preempted a potential loss with warnings of fraud. 'The only way we're going to lose this election is if this election is rigged,' he said during a stop in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the second of several battleground events he is using this week to counterprogram the Democrats' all-digital convention."

Zachary Cohen & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "... Donald Trump on Sunday night retweeted Russian propaganda about former Vice President Joe Biden that the US intelligence community recently announced was part of Moscow's ongoing effort to 'denigrate' the Democrat ahead of November's election. Late Sunday, Trump amplified a tweet that contained audiotapes of a 2016 conversation between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- material that was released earlier this year by Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker named by the US intelligence community in its August 7 statement about Russia's disinformation campaign against Biden. US authorities labeled Derkach's efforts as disinformation because they are intentionally designed to spread false or misleading information about Biden. By retweeting material that the US government has already labeled as propaganda..., Trump demonstrated once again that he is willing to capitalize on foreign election meddling for his own political gain. There is no proof of wrongdoing on the tapes of Biden and Poroshenko. But Trump and his allies, as well as Kremlin-controlled media outlets, have used the tapes to foment conspiracies about Biden's dealings with Ukraine.... [Twitter suspended] the account Trump retweeted ... 'for violations of the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam.'"

** Miles Taylor, a Trump political appointee as DHS chief-of-staff, in a Washington Post op-ed: "After serving for more than two years in the Department of Homeland Security's leadership during the Trump administration, I can attest that the country is less secure as a direct result of the president's actions.... The president has tried to turn DHS, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, into a tool used for his political benefit.... Trump's indiscipline was also a constant source of frustration.... The decision-making process was itself broken: Trump would abruptly endorse policy proposals with little or no consideration, by him or his advisers, of possible knock-on effects.... Top DHS officials were regularly diverted from dealing with genuine security threats by the chore of responding to these inappropriate and often absurd executive requests, at all hours of the day and night.... Meanwhile, Trump showed vanishingly little interest in subjects of vital national security interest, including cybersecurity, domestic terrorism and malicious foreign interference in U.S. affairs.... Four more years of this are unthinkable."~~~

     ~~~ Jeremy Diamond, et al., of CNN have a story here. ~~~

~~~ Alex Thompson of Politico: "'Anonymous' is trolling ... Donald Trump one more time. The self-described 'senior Trump administration official,' who anonymously trashed the president's leadership in a 2018 op-ed and a 2019 best-selling book, is calling for voters to throw the president out of office this November in a new preface for the paperback '2020 election edition' of the book, 'A Warning.'... 'Anonymous' said last year that [s/he would reveal [her/his] identity to Trump before the election, but the person stays nameless in the latest edition, only saying they plan to unveil herself in 'due course.'... Trump called the original op-ed an act of treason and asked for the Justice Department to investigate. In 2019, the DOJ asked the book's publisher and the author's agents for identifying details." Mrs. McC: (1) Speaking freely is not "treason," Donnie (see First Amendment), and (2) Thanks, Billy Barr, for doing the bully's bidding again. She's probably Kellyanne Conway.

Trumpies Sink All Ships. Elliott Njus of the Oregonian: "A boat on the Willamette River took on water and sank Sunday afternoon after being swamped by waves as a 'Trump Boat Parade' passed. Video posted to Twitter showed the boat taking on water as its occupants called for help while more than 20 boats and personal watercraft flying ... Donald Trump flags headed south on the Willamette River near downtown Portland.... A spokesman for the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, said river patrol deputies responded to the incident but that the people on the boat had already been picked up by other boaters in the area by the time the deputies arrived. Video appeared to show at least one of the boats that stopped to help was a parade participant." Includes video. Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See also his commentary below. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Perhaps the first rule of the sea is that you take care to respect other vessels. That means, among other things, that you slow down for passing craft. This is especially (and obviously) true when a motorboat passes by a sailboat or when a large craft passes a smaller one. You can see from the video that the craft the captains of Trumpism swamped was not the only one they endangered. They whizzed past a small sailboat tacking in the other direction, and as they did so, many of them also ignored the rule that you pass approaching crafts port-to-port. Why, the Trump supporters just kept on tearing up the river as if they had no responsibilities to others at all.

Paul Krugman: Donald Trump's attack on the Postal Services is 'part of a broader attack on the institutions that bind us together as a nation.... A key part of the post office's ethos has long been that it has a 'universal service obligation,' 'binding the nation together' and 'facilitating citizen inclusion.'... Most Americans -- presumably including most of the 91 percent of the public with a favorable view of the Postal Service -- believe that there are some things that should be universally available, even if providing those things isn't profitable, because they're important components of full citizenship. Unfortunately, Trump and those around him don't share that belief, perhaps because they don't really buy into this notion of 'full citizenship' in the first place."

Digby in Salon: "One of the more tedious tasks in writing about politics is that every single election year it's necessary to discuss the latest cheating schemes cooked up by the Republican Party to suppress the votes of minorities, challenge the legality of perfectly legal votes and otherwise make all elections they do not win look suspect in the eyes of American voters. Needless to say, this year is worse than usual because Donald Trump makes everything worse than usual.... At some point, this country is going to have to come to terms with the fact that the Republican Party is fundamentally hostile to democracy and do something about it." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Top Senate Democrats have set their sights on the little-known board that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, urging it to undo the postmaster general's controversial policies out of concern they have "endangered" Americans. The call for action came Monday from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and five other Democratic senators. They urged the Postal Service's Board of Governors to rein in Postmaster General Louis DeJoy by canceling his recent policies -- including a crackdown on overtime -- that postal workers say have caused mail delivery and processing slowdowns. The senators raised the prospect that the watchdog body could remove DeJoy from his post outright if he chooses not to cooperate.

Heather Caygle, et al., of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi finalized plans Monday to provide billions of dollars in funding to the flailing Postal Service as Democrats seek to prop up the agency ahead of the November election, even while senior Republicans decry the move as partisan and unnecessary. The House will vote Saturday on legislation that will deliver $25 billion to address funding shortfalls and block organizational changes at the Postal Service that Democrats say are politically motivated and threaten to jeopardize the presidential election by inhibiting mail-in voting.... Pelosi said the bill, which will be released by the House Oversight Committee in the coming days, paints a 'clear choice' for Republicans, many of whom have remained silent during Trump's continued broadsides against the Postal Service and mail-in ballots." See also Jordain Carney's report below re: the Senate Republicans' proposed coronavirus relief bill.

Matthew Mosk, et al., of ABC News: "A group of Democratic state attorneys general are now in the final stages of preparing legal action against the Trump administration for recent cost-cutting changes made to the United States Postal Service, a lawsuit that one official said could demand a halt to any cutbacks that could impede mail-in voting. As many as 10 state attorneys general are now involved, two state officials involved in the effort told ABC News.... States will assert that the federal government is trying to impede their constitutional right to oversee their own elections. And they will argue that the Trump administration is interfering with every American's individual right to participate in the election. The lawsuit will also argue that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy failed to follow administrative procedures when he made cuts to overtime and decommissioned equipment -- steps the states will ask the courts to halt, the attorney said."

This is Louis DeLuxe.Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to House Democrats' request for him to testify next week about his controversial Postal Service changes that have raised hackles around the nation, according to two people familiar with the matter. On Sunday, Democrats moved up a request for DeJoy to testify to Monday, Aug. 24, calling it an 'urgent' matter.'... [House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn] Maloney [D-NY] also has requested the testimony of Mike Duncan, chairman of the Postal Service's Board of Governors. Duncan also agreed to testify, according to a person familiar with the matter. Duncan is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.... The House is also expected to vote as early as this Saturday on a proposal to block DeJoy's plans to overhaul the Postal Service." Mentioned on MSNBC: The Oversight Committee has also asked the USPS for production of documents. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ This is one of the letter carriers who works for Louis. And for us. Not sure where this is. But wouldn't it be awful if that mailman got a few hours of overtime pay for delivering the mail across flooded streets? The video was posted in July 2018:

The Trumpidemic, Ctd.

Big Whup. Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Out-of-work Americans may see only a three-week boost to their unemployment benefits, as state and federal officials scramble to stretch out a limited pot of money and implement President Trump's recent policy order.... The dollars will come from a federal disaster relief fund managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will initially dispatch an amount to the states meant to cover three weeks' worth of payments, the Trump administration said.... FEMA said in its guidance that it anticipated it could take an 'average' of three weeks from when Trump first signed his directive -- perhaps putting some of those first payments around Aug. 29."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Republicans are preparing to unveil a smaller coronavirus relief package as soon as Tuesday that is expected to include billions in new funds for the Postal Service. In addition to $10 billion in post office funding, the Republican proposal is expected to include liability protections, a $300-per-week federal unemployment benefit, another round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, and additional money for coronavirus testing and schools, according to aides. The bill is a pared-down version of the roughly $1 trillion package offered by Senate Republicans late last month, known as the HEALS Act, and comes as House Democrats are drafting their own stand-alone Postal Service bill."

North Carolina. Surprise! College Students Are Bad at Social Distancing. Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the largest schools in the country to bring students to campus for in-person teaching, said Monday that it will pivot to all-remote instruction for undergraduates after testing showed a pattern of rapid spread of the novel coronavirus. The shift signaled enormous challenges ahead for those in higher education who are pushing for professors and students to be able to meet on campus. Officials announced the abrupt change just a week after classes began at the 30,000-student state flagship university. They said 177 cases of the dangerous pathogen had been confirmed among students, out of hundreds tested."

Brad Plumer & Henry Fountain of the New York Times: "Overturning five decades of protections for the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States, the Trump administration on Monday finalized its plan to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas development. The decision sets the stage for what is expected to be a fierce legal battle over the fate of this vast, remote Alaska habitat. The Interior Department said it had completed its required reviews and would start preparing to auction off leases to companies interested in drilling inside the refuge's coastal plain, which is believed to sit atop enough oil to fill billions of barrels but is prized by environmentalists for its pristine landscapes and wildlife. While the agency has not yet set a date for the first auction, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said on Monday, 'I do believe there could be a lease sale by the end of the year.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ben Fox of the AP: "A nonpartisan congressional watchdog's finding that the two top officials at the Department of Homeland Security are legally ineligible to hold their posts is 'erroneous' and should be withdrawn, a Trump administration official ... acting DHS general counsel Chad Mizelle ... said Monday.... GAO said in the finding released Friday that the appointment of acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and acting Deputy Ken Cuccinelli violate a federal law that regulates the appointment of senior government officials. It is an important issue because there are pending lawsuits challenging DHS actions related to immigration and law enforcement that argue in part that Trump administration policies are invalid because the top officials are not legally eligible to hold those positions."

Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "A former C.I.A. officer was charged with giving classified information to the Chinese government, the Justice Department announced on Monday, the latest in a string of former intelligence officers accused of spying for Beijing. The suspect, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, worked as a C.I.A. officer in the 1980s and then as a contract translator for the F.B.I. in the 2000s. He was arrested on Friday. According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Ma, 67, and an unnamed older relative, now 87 and suffering from debilitating cognitive disease, first provided information to Chinese intelligence officials in March 2001 about C.I.A. personnel, foreign informants, classified operations, cryptography and other methods of concealing communications, secrets for which they were paid $50,000. The accusations against Mr. Ma are the most recent in a series against former intelligence officers." An NBC News story is here.

Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from removing nondiscrimination protections for transgender people in health care, issuing a temporary setback to a major policy priority for social conservatives. The new rules, which were set to take effect on Tuesday, would have reversed Obama-era Affordable Care Act regulations that said discrimination protections 'on the basis of sex' should apply to transgender people. Civil rights advocates had decried the new interpretation, saying it could be used to deny care to transgender patients. The Department of Health and Human Services finalized the regulations in June, three days before the Supreme Court ruled that federal nondiscrimination protections 'because of sex' include gay and transgender employees. The Supreme Court justices held that such discrimination 'has always been prohibited by Title VII's plain terms,' and that 'that should be the end of the analysis.'" A Politico story is here.

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

On the USPS:

Don't know how the House hearing will go next Monday, but I would ask these questions for starters:

What's the intent of the sudden changes?

To improve service or save money?

If it is to improve service, how will cutting overtime and removing sorting machines (and in some cases destroying or scrapping them) make the operation run more smoothly?

If it is to save money, how will that affect service?

If it will delay delivery of a first class letter, please put a number on the average delay for a letter mailed within a state, region or across the county.

How will these changes affect other mail categories? Numbers, please.

Presumably you have made studies of all these possible effects.

If you have. please release them so they can become part of the hearing's public record.

If you have not, what the hell are you doing?

[Akhilleus]

The Trump Effect

This weekend, in Portland, Oregon, a collection of well-to-do Trump idiots raced their boats down the Willamette River, creating a dangerous wake that flooded, then sank a boat with a family on board, who could be heard screaming for help as Trump’s minions, flying his flag, sped past.

A perfect encapsulation of the Trump Effect. Glorify the Dear Leader and jeopardize lives while blithely doing whatever is required to demonstrate your lack of concern for others.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/trump-boat-parade-sank-portland-willamette-river-a9675046.html

[Bobby Lee]

Dear Leader has spoken: "The only way we can lose this election is if it is rigged".

How long before he is calling on his minions to prepare to dwfend the "real winner" of the rigged election?

[PD Pepe]

I thought the format of the DNC kick off last night was done very well given that they had to greatly improvise. The optic that resinated with me was the portrait of Biden as a "regular Joe everyman"–-a man with a title but nevertheless travels daily on a train and on that train he talks to "everyday people"––gets to know the people in charge of running that train–-sends congratulations to them on their birthdays–-gets to know their families. He, in essence, is the exact opposite of Trump in almost every way except they both are front and center politically.

Michelle's mention of Trump's ineffectual hand in the presidency contrasted beautifully with Biden's ability and obvious enjoyment in this role. I recall what Edmund Morris said in his book about Teddy Roosevelt––"He just loved being president!"

I think of Joe that way: the man gives and gets love and energy from interacting with other human beings while for a man like Trump there is only the "gets"––there is really no giving and there is a devoid of empathy.

And why did Joe travel back and forth on that train? To be home in time, every day, to spend some time with his children before he tucked them into bed and in the morning have breakfast with them. This fact should not be minimized––it has to do with character, responsibility and that thing called love.

Biden was not my first choice––in fact, I said at one point he was yesterday's dessert––but I think for this time in our lives he is the best man for the job and Harris by his side will be the one who kicks him in the rear when he needs it.

[Akhilleus]

Bobby Lee,

Just another example of the fat man’s lifelong mantra “Heads, I win, tails, you lose.” It’s the cheater’s code. Even when you lose, declare victory, then slam the other side, sue them, attack them, never admit defeat, because that would be admitting that not everyone loves you as you love yourself, a death blow to a personality warped and deformed and stripped of all humanity, rationality, and decency by crude, unchecked narcissism.

[Akhilleus]

My horse can’t run. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut his legs off...

The media is, once again, failing the American public as it indulges in toxic bothsiderism where the USPS debacle is concerned. “Well”, some ‘experts’ sniff, “you have to admit, Trump has a point. The Post Office DOES lose a lot of money.” But they never (most of them), say why.

Why do government agencies so often have problems fulfilling their mandates? Republican chicanery is a huge factor, as it is with the delivery of the mail, still a vital service to hundreds of millions of Americans. But as always with confederates, it comes down to doing everything they can to hamstring a successful government service, then blaming that agency for problems they caused.

The weirdly titled PAEA, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, put in place by a confederate controlled congress, and signed by the ever nefarious, smirking chimp, the Decider (it absolutely galls me that this fucking treasonous monkey is now afforded Elder Statesman status). What this act did to the postal service is nothing short of wanton mismanagement (a Republican specialty).

Prior to its enactment, the USPS was turning a pretty nice profit every year, in addition to providing gainful employment to hundreds of thousands of Americans and serving hundreds of millions more. A government operation that is successful AND makes money while carrying out its mandate? This is too much for guvmint hating R’s. So what to do?

Hey! Let’s screw them by making them do what no business or agency has to do. Let’s force them to pay retirement benefits—upfront—for employees for the next 75 years! This means the USPS has to set aside billions every year to pay retirement benefits for future employees yet to be born.

Let the red ink flow. Suddenly, instead of turning a profit, the USPS is barely able to make it.

Then along comes Mr. Multiple Bankruptcies to whine about how poorly managed it is. “Everyone knows they’ve been losing money for years!” sniffs one of the biggest frauds and business failures in US history. “I alone can fix it!” Yeah. Like going to see Dr. Mengele for a check up.

Complaining that the Post Office loses money, after your party tied them to a boat anchor then pushed them overboard, is like bitching about a race horse who always loses after you amputated two of his legs.

But how many people know about this perfidious bullshit? Accountability and enhancement my ass. Accountability is always for people and things they hate. Never for Republicans, and absolutely never for Mr. Bankruptcy.

[Ken Winkes]

True, Akhilleus, but I'm leery of blaming the USPS's straits on the media.

The advance payment for medical and retirement benefits from 2006 has been reported many times, maybe not as often as the poisonous effects of Citizens United but often enough.

Neither outrage may be common knowledge, but they are well known to the uncommon who do read.

But those uncommon are of the minority who don't happen to.be the same minority that has been running the country (with the exception of Obama's first two years and as I remember his hands were very full) since one Supreme gave the 2000 election to Bush II.

And the internet has has its profound effects, too, on USPS profitability.

Whether it should be profitable at all, is of course another question.

[Akhilleus]

The Amtrak video recounting Biden's years as a regular commuter (by the way, ANOTHER service that Republicans routinely denigrate and refuse to fund properly--I guess it's different for big shots who spend their lives in limos) was a joy to watch.

Big smile by the end when Mr. Weaver was telling the story of Biden calling him while he was sitting in a barber shop to ask how he was doing after a heart attack. Can you imagine Fatty doing this? Can you imagine him taking the train? Talking to regular people from whom he expected nothing in return?

I can see the video that would open Fatty's coronation showing white supremacists, Qanon whack jobs, and manipulated shots of those protesting police brutality running with threatening music and a hysterical voiceover yammering about how "they" are trying to "take our country" over. "Let's hammer these commie liberals and TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!! Aiiiieeeeee!"

Hatred, division, baseless accusations, coddling of criminals and racists...and plenty of pocket stuffing.

The Trump Vision.

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

To be more accurate, I'm not blaming the media for the leaky boat the USPS finds itself in. My opening salvo was meant more to bemoan the fact that disgraceful machinations by Republicans, followed by outraged accusations by the same are too often allowed to go unchallenged or properly covered by too many in the MSM.

The biggest problems of the USPS, is directly the result of confederate schemes to take it down.

And when they are, finally, called on their machinations, they pretend ignorance and say "Well, we never, ever, meant to harm the postal service. No one is trying to mess with the election, the very idea is absurd!"

[Ken Winkes]

As usual a bit slow on the uptake, but learned twenty years late the meaning of "shading" last night from the MSNBC commentary on Michelle Obama's fine speech.

And learned on the radio this AM that the Pretender's most trenchant criticism of her speech was the numbers she citied on Covid deaths.

She was off the mark. Because her speech was pre-recorded, she missed the last 20,000 deaths.

Glad to hear he was up to date on how many more he's killed and wished to make sure everyone knows he's on top of things.

[NiskyGuy]

The link in yesterday's comments to Nick Harper's article on the post office did help me take a deep breath, at least for a moment. It is possible that the reductions were, in fact, recommended in a good-faith study performed in 2019. They even probably made sense in 2019. They might have even made some sense in January of 2020.

But at this point, with the Oval Office Occupier sowing distrust in the postal service, anyone who doesn't realize that recommendations from 2019 are no longer valid should be fired. It's a whole new world.

[Bobby Lee]

The Trumps absentee ballots, picked up by a designee in Palm Beach last Wednesday, were returned to the registrars office on Monday.

I wonder how much those two votes cost the taxpayers considering they had to involve courier trips to DC and back.

Story is in WaPo.

[Patrick]

DiJiT says don't buy Goodyear Tires.

Maybe he's jealous of the blimp? (Rimshot, droopy trombone)

I just yesterday bought and mounted four tires of a different brand. Maybe I can pay a small fee to have them changed to Goodyear, just because?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/08/19/democratic-national-convention-live-updates/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_politics-luf%3Aprime-time%2Fpromo#link-RDOF243J6REDDABNCSZEZ6EREQ