Month: August 2020

The November Elections. It’s In The Mail

Well, here we go again. Another POTUS inspired crisis, this time involving the Post Office and the upcoming elections in November.

I’ve reached the point where watching the news pretty much requires you to wear for your own health and safety a blood pressure cuff. Good grief. I digress.

Anyway, with Trump’s election prospects folding faster than a tent in a hurricane, the Doofus-in-Chief and his Republican lackeys have come up with a new strategy. Apparently they want to suppress voter participation by denying emergency funding to the Post Office.

Anything that makes it harder for people to vote during a pandemic must be good national policy. Right?

Well folks, you can’t make this shit up.

Here’s from The Washington Post:

President Trump on Thursday said he opposes both election aid for states and an emergency bailout for the U.S. Postal Service because he wants to restrict how many Americans can vote by mail, putting at risk the nation’s ability to administer the Nov. 3 elections.
Trump has been attacking mail balloting and the integrity of the vote for months, but his latest broadside makes explicit his intent to stand in the way of urgently needed money to help state and local officials administer elections during the coronavirus pandemic. With nearly 180 million Americans eligible to vote by mail, the president’s actions could usher in widespread delays, long lines and voter disenfranchisement this fall, voting rights advocates said.
Trump said his purpose is to prevent Democrats from expanding mail-balloting, which he has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, would invite widespread fraud. The president has also previously admitted that he believes mail voting would allow more Democrats to cast ballots and hurt Republican candidates, including himself.

I guess at some level you have to give Trump credit. No matter how outrageous the lie, he is more than willing to make a total ass out of himself by promoting it extensively in public. Most people, like me, only get to spread such nonsense in the privacy of one’s home — or from the safe confines of a padded cell.

Anyway, in Colorado we vote via mail in every election, federal, state and local. And as best I can tell it works well. You get the ballot in the mail and then mark it up before returning it by mail, depositing it in a safe box, or going to vote in person if you have nothing better to do and are trying to commit suicide by virus.

Oh, by the way, Bernie agrees with me:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday lashed out at President Trump on postal service funding, hours after the president signaled that he was opposed to giving additional funds to the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service (USPS) because he thinks it will allow Democrats to expand mail-in voting for November’s elections.

“What this is about is not complicated,” Sanders said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper while discussing Trump’s rhetoric on mail-in voting. “Trump may be crazy, but he’s not stupid. And he looks at polling. He is behind. And I think what he and his friends believe [is] that if they can suppress the vote — make it harder for people to vote — they have a better chance to win the election.”

I understand that the Post Office has huge financial problems, most of which are caused by health care and pension benefits owed to thousands of retirees in addition to current employees.

And in an era of email, FedEx and Amazon, the Post Office may no longer have a sustainable business model. But it seems to this citizen journalist that the Post Office provides a valuable and maybe irreplaceable service to millions who rely on it for the delivery of prescriptions, checks and so on.

And come November, the future of our country may hinge on the Post Office.

Okay. I have to go now.

I asked Kamala Harris to send me a copy of her birth certificate. Maybe it’s in today’s mail.

Congress At Work. Well, Maybe Not

Okay. To say that this country is a mess right now is certainly an understatement.

Our economy brings back bad memories of the Great Depression.

Millions are unemployed and may never return to their original job if they happen to depend on one of the thousands of businesses that have been forced to close and might not reopen.

Tens of thousands of Americans have died from the Trump Virus, with the number increasing each day by as many as one death every 80 seconds.

And we are about to reopen schools during a pandemic, putting millions of students (and their families), teachers, administrators and support staff at risk.

Gee. You would think that this is a time that would demand common sense — and leadership.

But alas, both are in shorter supply than toilet paper.

It’s really no fun any more writing about Trump and his ineptitude. If nothing else, POTUS defines the Peter Principle. Sad.

But what about Congress?

Certainly we should be able to rely on leadership during this crisis from the men and women who we send to Washington to act in the public interest.

Well, no.

Clearly, people throughout the nation need enhanced unemployment and income protections, health care insurance, limits on being evicted from their houses or apartments and yada, yada, yada. Bernie: Where are you when we need you? I digress.

Well, while the nation burns, members of Congress can’t do much more than fiddle.

Here’s from CNN:

Washington (CNN)Don’t expect a another stimulus check anytime soon.

While there’s bipartisan support for a second round of direct payments, negotiators have walked away from talks without a deal, and most lawmakers have now returned to their home states.Congress let three key coronavirus relief programs created in March — enhanced unemployment benefits, eviction protection and a small business loan program — expire during the past two weeks.
In the meantime, the economy is showing few signs of recovering from the pandemic. Thirty million people are collecting unemployment, consumer spending is down 8% from January and the number of open small businesses has fallen 18%. The unemployment rate remains higher than at any time during the Great Recession.

I’m not sure what relief members of Congress should focus on. But you would think that something needs to be done. And sooner rather than later.

So what has created the logjam?

A simple explanation:

Unknown

Or another:

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I’ll admit that I am becoming fairly discouraged by the inaction that we see every day from our elected representatives in Congress and in the White House.

Come November, it might be a good time for us to vote in a way that advances the agenda of the American people.

And those who are thrown out of office as a result can always find a new gig as a lobbyist or as a talking head on Fox News or MSNBC.