Amid outcry over Republican efforts to wreck the U.S. Postal System, scientist/science-fiction author David Brin -- author of the popular novel “The Postman” -- offers a few tools and perspectives. Some of these may be of use to those fighting to save America. See also this Monday's interview in Entertainment Weekly about that prescient novel’s pertinence to these troubled times... and the rise of neo-feudalism that it predicted, along with deliberate efforts by enemies of our Great Experiment to burn down our one American institution that predates even the Revolution.
The Postman speaks:
Save the Post Office!
Accelerating their decades-long assault against nearly all of our national institutions, the Republican Party has proved especially bent on undermining the United States Postal Service, saddling it with burdens faced by no private or public entity. In the name of ‘efficiency,’ they cripple a service that poor and rural and elderly Americans utterly rely upon, and one that was breaking even, before they interfered! Now we see Donald Trump waging open war against America’s oldest agency, the one pre-dating even the Revolution.
Lately, folks have messaged: “Well, Mr. ‘Postman’? What shall we do about it?”
As just another fretful citizen, I can’t lecture or prescribe. But when I wrote The Postman back in the 1980s, I saw deep-running strains in our national psyche might someday tear us apart, especially if hard pressed by war, disease and civil strife. Kevin Costner’s 1997 movie simplified a lot - and had some flaws - but was visually gorgeous and hugely big-hearted, keeping faith with the book’s core idea, that citizens -- and only citizens -- can build a civilization. And one way we do this is through institutions that we and our ancestors built, to knit us all together. (A hilarious Colbert meme: "Apologize to Costner for The Postman!")
So let’s talk about what we can do about this crisis, to prevent the very chilling nightmare that The Postman predicted with (alas!) such eerie prescience.
Move On has announced a national day of protest, Saturday, August 22nd, at your local post office at 11 am (local time). Sign up at savethepostoffice.net and follow #SaveThePostOffice for future updates.
SECOND here’s a list of other projects and events getting up to speed online and in your communities. Do this much!
THIRD HERE IS THE MOST HANDY GENERAL GUIDE to each state's voting rules and how to use the method that's easiest and safest for you. This can in most states include EARLY VOTING which can bypass every problem with the mail-ballots and deny power for every Trumpist cheat or excuse. (Another voting resource site.)
And yes, I’ll come back with more items, further down, both near and long term. Stay with me.
The NEW cover for The Postman, by artist Patrick Farley, already live on Kindle and for POD next week!
IN THE NEWS!
- House Oversight Committee calls Postmaster General DeJoy to testify on August 24th (almost a month earlier than originally scheduled).
- Admiral William McRaven (ret.) former Chancellor of the University of Texas, published an op-ed in the Washington Post praising the Postman story and film, citing its uncanny prescience toward today’s trends and its message of shared citizenship, linked together by institutions we all support.
- The House aims to pass a $25 billion supplement to safeguard to election, especially vote-counting and the safe-effective delivery of ballots.
MORE TO DO!
FOURTH: Spread the notion we should all delay sending or receiving mail for the 2 weeks before the election, in order to let USPS clear their decks for delivering ballots! Do not mail anything unnecessarily. Encourage companies to slow mail use and make clear that sending in that time frame will be deemed a political act. One of you even said: “Tell companies if you get mail from them those 2 weeks you will boycott!”
FIFTH: As it happens, Donald Trump has limited presidential authority over the USPS! Much of the power is vested in a Board of Governors who can be appealed to, directly. You can join thousands of fellow citizens who are writing to these individuals, as we speak.
- Robert Duncan, chairman, also the CEO of Inez Deposit Bank: mduncan@inezdepositbank.com
- Ron Bloom, Chairman Brookfield Asset Management: ron.bloom@brookfield.com
- Roman Martinez IV, board member NY Presbyterian Church, GreenPoint Financial Corp, and Cigna Corp: roman@rmiv.com
- John Barger, formerly of Deutsche Bank, works at Paragon Capital Partners: barger.jm@gmail.com
- Donald Moak, founder and CEO of The Moak Group: lee.moak@moakgroup.com
- William D. Zollars,Investor Proligis and Cigna Corp: DirectorAccessMailbox@cigna.com
Movie poster (middle), an older book cover (right), and a draft Patrick Farley cover that's especially topical for our time.
What Will They Do to Destroy the Mail?
Oh, these proto-Holnist traitors can be feral and clever. Here are some ways they have already -- or plan to -- sabotage our nation’s oldest institution.
- Don’t allow overtime (done)
- Remove extra mailboxes (started; incomplete)
- Remove critical equipment (done)
- Remove ballot bulk mail postage discount (done)
- Reduce funding
- Refuse to deliver if no/insufficient postage
- Change filters on automated sorting to reject more mail
- Demand postal workers take unused leave at critical times
- Misprint ballots so auto-processing fails
- Shut down critical sorting warehouses in key areas
- Companies currying GOP favor will send a lot of mail during the 2 weeks that mail-in ballots are flooding the system, causing jams
- Use mercenaries and ‘holnist’ barbarians to terrorize voters, sabotage mailboxes and vehicles and workers, sow chaos and provide excuses for ‘martial law.’
- Don’t put anything past them. They are in effect Holnists.
- Encourage folks voting by mail to take dated selfies of themselves dropping their own ballots in the PO box in front of their Post Office. If word spread about this trend, it might deter some kinds of cheating.
- Watch out for new or dummy Postal boxes set up in Democratic leaning areas! If you see a new one that wasn’t there before October, report it! Perhaps it’s official… or else maybe a trap-lure.
- Make and distribute stickers to slap on the backside of mailboxes saying “Protected by neighborhood watch cameras! We will see if you harm this box or the mail!”
- Are you rich? Consider funding a whistleblower or Henchman’s Prize. No conspiracy or dark plot can get anywhere without underlings to carry it out, and nothing devastates such schemes more than a truth-spiller, perhaps encouraged by the rewards and protection that money can buy.
LONGER RANGE GOALS:
Elsewhere I’ve published lists of desirable aims that we might achieve, if power comes back to the majority who believe in citizenship, equality, democracy, science and an end to cheating. Many of them are detailed in my book of unconventional political tactics -- Polemical Judo -- (chapters available for free download!)
A simpler list can be found here. A few items are highly relevant to the USPS crisis. For example:
- Restore the longstanding tradition of Post Office Bank accounts: In Europe, Japan and many other countries, these offer the poor a set of basic services like checking accounts, ATMs, and the ability to slowly build credit. Eliminated by both parties in the 1960s, restoring these simple, baseline accounts would offer the unbanked an escape from the trap of check-cashing services and other parasites. The PO Bank could also now offer basics like email addresses and assistance getting connected to broadband.
- Study the successful e-citizenship methods pioneered by Estonia (also called e-Stonia) that have expanded yet simplified so many processes like filling out your taxes or voting… and doing it so securely that their giant, despotic and conniving neighbor has been unable to do much damage, despite relentless efforts. Especially pertinent in these science fictional times of pandemic.
- Memes you could spread:
- Grandma can’t send your birthday money
- Seniors & Vets who served their country can’t get their medicine
- In the time of COVID19, when everything goes by mail, mail is slowed down
- Seniors can’t get social security checks
- Christmas is under attack!
- The USPS employs more veterans than any five other employers
- Others?
PLUS A FEW SELF-SERVING RECOMMENDATIONS!
- Ask for The Postman movie to be promoted on your favorite streaming service… perhaps along with a ‘Go vote!” speech by Costner? Or write asking for The Postman book to be promoted on Amazon!
- Better yet… buy copies of a certain novel and hand them out, like candy!
- And while on the topic of sci fi and pandemics… Some of my past sci fi has been more pertinent than I’d want! My Hugo-nominated story “The Giving Plague” deals with our complex relationships with viruses and such, including the several paths a parasite can go down, in “negotiating” with us hosts. Get it free.
And finally…
FUTURE COMMEMORATIVE STAMPS we hope not to see:
And this sadly ironic piece of whimsy…
https://pbfcomics.com/comics/post-apocalyptic/
50 comments:
Inspired by the final cartoon, I have emailed PCH asking them to suspend or reduce their mailings in the 2-4 weeks prior to the election.
The cartoon at the end reminds me of a random encounter in the videogame Fallout 76.
Setup: You are one of the inhabitants of Vault 76, one of hundreds of long-term bomb shelters built by the Vault-Tec Corporation during the Resource Wars of the mid-21st century. When the bombs fell on the morning of Saturday, October 23, 2077, everyone who was designated for a Vault was ushered there; we find out in the other games that most Vaults were in fact horrific experiments perpetrated on their unwitting inhabitants (Vault 81 in Boston, for example, which was divided into two; on the "secret" side lived immunologists and virologists who would use hidden mechanisms to expose the survivors on the "public" side to various diseases, in the hopes of either coming up with a universal vaccine or breeding humans completely immune to disease - the first Vault Overseer put a stop to the project just before it began, sealing the "secret" side away permanently). Fortunately, Vault 76 was a designated "control" vault, where things happened precisely as designed - everyone went in, 25 years elapsed (would have been twenty, but exploring West Virginia shows you why the extra time - let's just say some people couldn't leave bad enough alone), then the doors opened and everyone came out, into a world that had ended again about ten years ago.
At several points as you adventure, you can be approached by a Mr. Handy robot, who's been eagerly trying to find you (for 25 years). It needs to inform you that you've won the Appalachian Grand Sweepstakes! (The prize comes in the form of a voucher entitling you to $25,000, a brand-new Corvega car, or a year's supply of Cram, the popular canned-meat product. Ah, the sweet, salty taste of Cram! Of course, none of those have been available since the Great War... Sometimes the robot then reminds you of your tax obligations or the back money you owe for subscriptions, which along with late fees comes to somewhere north of $100,000. That's usually when I shoot it.)
This is a very good post. Thanks for tying it all together so nicely, Doc!
Sad to see one of my very favorite novels be pertinent. Happy that the novel spells out how we can win our civilization back.
***
Last night's speech by Michelle Obama was one of the greats. Take a listen, if you haven't already. (I suspect most of you have tuned it to it already).
Also, Bernie Sanders did much to heal the rift between the progressives and the rest of the Democratic Party last night as well. It was needed, desperately. And it might pay back just a little of his karmic debt incurred by holding up Obama's nominees to the Post Office Board of Governors, so that Trump got to put 5/6 in place.
Finally, in the spirit of sport in a time of pandemic, GO RIP CITY! Beat the damn Lakers!
@ Matthew, The Stand is one of your favorite novels? Nyuk nyuk nyuk
.....
One of my customers was, in fact, down to his last thyroid pill when the package finally arrived from the VA. I told him, "Yeah, I figured out why it was late. You read the newspapers. It's... political." Wink wink. Say no more.
.....
I have 54 weeks of unused sick time. Don't tempt me.
.....
Here's a nice slogan, don't know why we never used it:
The United States Postal Service.
W̩̦͉͌̊̑̎̐̚e̞͗ͩ̋ͩ ̠͎̳ͤͥ͐́ͧͧ͆̌ͅḰ͔̹̜̟̖̦ͮͩ̎ͦ̆͒n͚̥̙̥͚͖̗ͥ̎͆͊ͣ̒ͥ͒o̤̙̱̹̰̍ͪw͕̦͚̭͚̻̃̒̊͗̈́̍̾ ̻͖̥̯ͥ̑ͬ̏̋̅̏Ŵ͙̰̻̖̲ͭͣ͋̅̽h͖̟͖̮̬͕̺̃̈̎ͧͅẹ̖̗̟̃͒̄ͭ̋͌r̮͖͖̟͖̭͚̻͓ͦ̌̀͛͗̓ē̫͈̏̓ͩͭ ̥ͨ̏̆ͅY̤͖̺̎̚o̦̱̺ͮ͆́̓̓ụ̪͙̭̰ͤ̔̿ͅ ̪̘̗̱̺̯̣͇̼ͯ̚L̦̇i̹̫̼͉ͤͅv͔̖̦͕̗̿ͬ̄̽ͦ̓ͨe̝̼̺̊ͯ̎̉͂̊
But my respect for AOC just plummeted
Apologize to Kevin Costner!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsZs5u0u--w
And I guess I'm just chopped liver. Sigh. And I though Stephen Colbert was supposed to be a sci fi nerd!
I am putting a policy in place at our company to limit sending things by USPS for 14 days before the election. I don't know how much we can delay, some of our stuff is time sensitive. I guess we can send some things out as UPS packages. That might cost quite a bit more.
I suspect the most important thing we can do is to get the message out, "If you want your vote to count, request your ballot as early as you can. If you have the option to drop it off at your election board, do so instead of putting it in the mail."
The most powerful weapon we have is education. That or relativistic antimatter.
Clever neo-Holnists also:
- stopped removing mail boxes, but have been locking them instead.
- are not just removing critical sorting equipment, but destroying it.
What's AOC done?
Got an email from Angie Craig (2nd district Minnesota) that you might find encouraging:
The U.S. Postal Service is enshrined in our Constitution and performs essential services for millions of Americans. The recent actions undermining the USPS are deeply concerning. As we face the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the USPS is vital for delivering medicine, food, paychecks, tax refunds, election ballots and much more. Here’s what I’m doing to protect the USPS and the services folks depend on:
Pushing for relief funding
In May, I joined 82 of my colleagues to push for the strongest possible relief funding for the USPS. It is essential that future COVID-19 relief packages support the USPS and it’s long term viability.
Advocating for veterans who receive prescriptions by mail
Last week, I sent a letter to the Postmaster General outlining my concern for the 80% of VA prescriptions filled by mail. I will not stand by and watch these recent attempts to politicize, dismantle and delay postal services, which put the lives of more than 330,000 veterans every day at unnecessary risk. We cannot allow partisanship and the politicization of this essential service to endanger those who have served our country.
Calling for oversight
Over the weekend, I called on leadership to convene Congress immediately to hold the Postmaster General accountable. I’m pleased that we will return to Washington later this week to perform oversight and vote on legislation protecting the USPS.
Cosponsoring the Delivering for America Act
The Delivering For America Act would prohibit the Postal Service from implementing any changes to the operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020, until the COVID-19 pandemic has ended. This legislation would maintain current service standards as well as the integrity of our elections and bedrock democratic principles.
No idea how standard this is for Democrats, just as I have no idea how standard Jim Banks is for Republicans (or how a Canadian ended up on either of their mailing lists).
TCB: "I have 54 weeks of unused sick time. Don't tempt me."
You might not have it for long. Banked sick time is seen as an 'entitlement*' by the right-wing and pro-business types, and it can easily be taken away by legislation.
Happened to me (teacher in Canada).
*By which they mean "unearned privilege" rather than "something I worked for".
Why did your respect for AOC plummet? Were you taken in by NBC News' false and totally misleading tweet (which then got picked up by others).
Her assigned role in the Convention was to second Bernie's nomination. The rules required that anybody who got more than 1,000 delegates had to have their name entered into nomination, and that required not only that they be nominated, but have the nomination seconded. And that was the role AOC was assigned. Which she did just fine with.
Here's the HuffPo story: Ocasio-Cortez Slams NBC’s ‘Unacceptable, Disappointing’ Tweet About Her DNC Speech. Sub-headline: The lawmaker said NBC’s clarification wasn’t enough to correct the “incredible amount of damage and misinformation.”
Okay I looked into it. AOC's job was to second Bernie. Fine. The whole "convention" and "delegation" and 'nomination" thing has been so downplayed that one forgets. Still, she ought to have given Joe B a nod.
Any red lines for any of the equivocators out there yet?
They came for[1] + They came for[2] + They came for[3] + They came for[4] + . . .,
And I did nothing, but equivocate.
And then they came for the US Postal Service . . .
Removing collection boxes, locking them? Removing vital equipment, destroying vital equipment? Right before an election? Because the president doesn't like mail in voting?
Anyone able to rationalize this shit is a fool or worse.
And the ones removed or locked maybe correlate with neighborhoods?
In my blog posting I mention something I've not seen discussed even by the paranoid... how we must start looking for suspicious mailboxes ADDED to neighborhoods, during the nexct two months. Honey pot traps aimed at drawing voters in Democrat-leaning areas to "conveniently" drop in their mail-in ballots, never to be seen again. This ploy can be staunched if there's a simmer of awareness.
If it is tried, I hope the FBI does a sting, instead of just removing the scam boxes, surveiling them and catching the perps who come to "collect" (and destroy) the mail within.
The House Oversight Committee has requested details of selection of DeJoy as Postmaster General and have been stonewalled by the USPS BoG and, most especially, the executive talent search agency, Russell Reynolds Associates, that the BoG used to chose him as a candidate. Of particular interest is Sec. Manuchin personally interfering in the process.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/19/postal-service-dejoy-schumer-mnuchin/
Also, despite DeJoy stating otherwise, more sorting machines were removed and destroyed, at his order, yesterday.
Liars gonna lie.
Congress Dems will get two chances to see if DeJoy perjures himself.
Hope they use their best, and not just for making speeches.
Make him take the 5th or lie under oath.
He'll say "I don't recall."
More detail, this time from CREW, which has filled a FOIA request on the matter
https://www.citizensforethics.org/mnuchin-pushed-dejoy-appointment-usps-pricing-changes/?s=09
While it might have been courteous for AOC to give Joe a nod, bear in mind that she was only allocated 60 seconds of screen time, less citation of ritual endorsement, to put her case. Endorsing both in that time span might have sounded a bit confused? (She's certainly endorsed Biden on social media.)
It occurs to me that the best people to keep an eye out for fake postal boxes are the ladies and gents of the US Postal Service. I might drop @APWUNational 256 chars.
@ Robert, never mind the sick time, they could very easily say postal pension money is no longer there on account of all the other red ink. Give Trump another four years, and he can tank Social Security too. Will I retire in three years? Five? Or will it be when I keel over dead? Stay tooned!
@ Dr. Brin, they only gave AOC about a minute, whaddaya want? She had a Super Bowl ad's worth of time to name check the whole progressive agenda. Hell, they gave Colon Powell (sic) the same amount of time, and he is merely an ally of convenience who helped the almost-as-illegitimate-as-Trump George W. Bush sell an illegal Iraq invasion, and he made his bones helping the Army to try to paper over the My Lai massacre.
As for Suspicious New Mailboxes, here's a simple test: does it have that funny looking arrow key lock? If so, I can open it. Assume it is legit.
By the way, for those who didn't already know this, the USPS Board of Governors is four Republicans to two Democrats. They picked DeJoy and cannot be counted on to curb him.
Best line of the night (so far) from Hillary Clinton. Paraphrasing from memory:
In 2016, Donald Trump asked us what we have to lose. Well, now we know. Our health care. Our jobs. Our loved ones. Our place in the world. And now, our Post Office.
Second best line, also from Hillary, also paraphrasing from memory:
The worst thing I hear from voters is "I didn't know how bad he would be. I shouldn't have voted for him." Or worse yet, "I should have voted."
This can't be another coulda-woulda-shoulda election.
"While I'm sure we'll unite behind Joe, I am here to second the nomination of my friend and the spiritual heart of the Democratic Party, Bernie..."
What was that? Two seconds?
While all this is going on, my wife and I just spent the day driving our only child 150 miles south to begin her freshman year at the University of Illinois, which for the moment is still having students live on campus (with social distancing rules and their own home-grown COVID testing twice a week).
Nothing is quite like watching the baby you once brought home go forth to live on her own.
And I can't help ruminating on the line from Star Trek TNG that I first saw long before my daughter was even a twinkle in my eye:
"There comes a time in every father's life, when he looks into his little girl's eyes, and knows...he must change the world for her."
Here is a copy of the USPS Equipment Reduction Plan:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1do1fFe5zQknuEdBhOtv18sfnfAOtMXls/view
Curiously, it is dated the same day that Richard Burr requested that the final volume of the Senate Intel report on Russian interference in our election be declassified.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/last-act-chair-burr-asks-final-volume-senate-intel-report-n1208061
TCB: I hear you.
The Alberta government* took over all civil servant pension plans that used to be run independently, and invested the money in oil companies that were losing money (but that had donated to the UCP). My sister is worried that they will change the rules before she can retire in a few years, so that she can't retire.
*Alberta is Canada's American, red-state province.
Wry humor. I can't find it online, but today's Chicago Tribune has a political cartoon showing a mailbox with a military statue sitting on top of it. A masked couple comment: "Trump won't remove that one, because someone put a Confederate monument on it."
A defense of the Post Office and a shout out our host on another popular blog.
Posted by Liberal Librarian August 20, 2020 109 Comments
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ON THE POSTAL SERVICE
If you haven't read David Brin's The Postman, you really should. Well, really, you should read all of David Brin's work.
But in these trying times, the United States Postal Service is in the cross-hairs again.
We all know what's been going on: Donald Trump is screwing with the service in order to scupper the upcoming elections, when millions more people will be voting via mail than ever before due to his not being able to control the COVID pandemic.
In Brin's novel, America has vanished, subsumed in decay and civil war. An itinerant actor finds a letter carrier's heavy coat, and takes it to keep warm. He comes across a settlement, and one thing leads to another and suddenly he's leading a regeneration of America.
The Postal Service isn't just some random government agency. Departments like Defense and State aren't in the Constitution; they were created by Congressional act. The Postal Service is one of the few government agencies which receives its brief from the Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power To... establish Post Offices and post Roads
The Founders saw the need to weave together a nation which covered, at that time, half a continent. Any great state has a postal service, from Persia to Rome. Communication is integral to any civilized polity, or it falls apart. The image of the Pony Express rider is a mainstay of American folklore.
In Brin's novel, the Postal Service is seen as a hearkening back to better times. It's seen, indeed, as the mark of civilization...
https://establishmentbar.blogspot.com/2020/08/on-postal-service.html
Here is the newly released Volume 5 of the Senate Intel report on Russian interference (redacted version). I’m still working my way through it. It is damning for the Trump Administration — teehee! A bad day for Trump is a great day for America!
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsZs5u0u--w&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2jLdwaXgUVYMk4gYHS8U0KUELHQXGOZ8B3gw0gpUftlk_wEzPTsHfrMHU
An apology is owed:
Credit my wife with this one:
"The reason Trump wants so badly to open the schools is because the NRA has been complaining about the dearth of mass shootings."
This NY Times columnist is channeling Dr Brin...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/opinion/democrats-republicans-economy.html
...He [Biden] will [if he wins] be the third consecutive Democratic president, going back a full three decades, who has had to clean up a mess left for him by a Republican predecessor.
Yes, that’s three Republican economic failures in a row. When will the American people figure out that we have a pattern here?
Well, for starters, when Democrats get around to telling them. For my money, that is Mr. Biden and his party’s No. 1 job between now and Election Day: Make it clear that Democrats have been better stewards of the economy — for decades, and by far.
Many people don’t believe this. The perception that Republicans are better at handling money is hard-wired. In a new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, President Trump enjoyed a 10-point margin over Mr. Biden on the question of who would handle the economy better — even as 77 percent of respondents rated the economy today as “only fair” or “poor.”
But it’s true. As I’ve been arguing for some time (most recently in The Daily Beast), the country has done better for decades under Democrats, by nearly every major economic measure. From John Kennedy through Barack Obama — 56 years during which, as it happens, we had a Democratic president for 28 years and a Republican president for 28 — we saw more than 50 million jobs created under Democrats and just 24 million jobs created under Republicans.
Even the stock market has performed better under Democratic presidents.
...
Now, they're sending me bloody E-MAILS!
https://action.donaldjtrump.com/democrat-corruption/?utm_medium=ad&utm_source=dp_verizon&utm_campaign=20200415_na_survey_djt_tmagacpros_ocpmylea_bh_audience0818_creative04597_copy01407_us_b_18-99_w_all_na_lp0141_acq_sa_static_16_9_na&utm_content=sur
Do you believe the mainstream media purposely avoids reporting on allegations of corruption by Democrats for political reasons?
Yes
No
Unsure
Should Joe Biden and his son be investigated for their corrupt business dealings in Ukraine?
Yes
No
Unsure
Do you believe Joe Biden’s corruption in Ukraine should disqualify him from being president?
Yes
No
Unsure
Should Adam Schiff be removed as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for making up a fake phone conversation involving President Trump?
Yes
No
Unsure
Do you believe Nancy Pelosi has put her radical anti-Trump agenda ahead of doing what‘s right for the country?
Yes
No
Unsure
Do you believe mainstream media outlets should stop having proven liars like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell on their shows?
Yes
No
Unsure
Do you believe that Democrats should focus on working with President Trump to deliver for the American people rather than wasting more taxpayer money on bogus witch hunts?
Yes
No
Unsure
(Optional) Is there anything else you’d like to share with President Trump regarding Democrat corruption?
That "survey" from the Trump campaign reminds me of a classic scene from the old British series, "Yes, Prime Minister." (It used to be "Yes, Minister," but the guy got promoted. :) ) The older aide explains to the younger aide how to create a survey to come to the opposite result of the first one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
Of course, being British, they did it with far more finesse. :)
A.F. Rey:
Of course, being British, they did it with far more finesse. :)
Some Americans could probably give the Brits a go of it. Trump isn't one of those.
What gets me is how many of the questions like the ones about "disqualifying" for corruption or "doing what's right for the country" would reflect badly on Trump himself in a sane universe in which facts and reality mattered.
I do have to give that Trump survey credit for one thing, though. The last question wasn't "How much are you willing to donate to the ... campaign?" I think that's the first survey I've ever received from either party which didn't contain such an entry.
Hahahahahaha Steve Bannon was arrested for fraud, on a yacht, by US Postal Inspectors.
Hahahahahaha fuckin A!
p.s. HAHAHAAAAAAAAAA
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling out NBC for 'deliberately misconstruing' her nomination of Bernie Sanders to create discord among Dem voters. But it was pro forma and the DNC had asked her to.
The lawmaker continued in another tweet that she’s taking this issue as seriously as she is because it’s reminiscent of the “recklessness before in ’16.” “We have seen click-hungry media coverage bring voters to a froth for no reason but views,” she wrote, adding that it will happen to Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, too, and that it “needs to stop now.”
On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez had delivered a symbolic nominating speech for Sanders to honor his campaign and the delegates he won around the country. A tweet and a story headline by NBC News both made it appear that the representative was deliberately snubbing Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.
So it seems NBC is playing the old transactional game of "Let's you and them fight". Remember, NBC gave us The Apprentice. For which, burn in hell, NBC.
I revised this blog posting to insert an image of the movie prop book authored by Natan Holn: SEIZING THE WAY TO WIN. From the Postman movie set... the book Nathan Holn used to harness American selfishness against America.
Remind you of anybody who came along later? Are you tired of winning yet?
The circumstances of Bannon's arrest puts some weight to that 'augmented' poster being touted by the UPWU.
Having wiped the tears streaming from my eyes, I gather it's been noted that, this way, the FBI (and the AG office) was not involved.
So it seems Steve Mnuchin is the puppeteer behind the USPS Board of Governors, particularly John Barger, through whom he inserted Louis DeJoy as PMG without following the established hiring procedures and so it goes on and on...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/21/complete-bombshell-former-top-usps-official-reveals-disturbing-new-details-dejoy
It's an eerie feeling when something you've created in the past, which bore little fruit, and which was largely forgotten, suddenly comes storming back like an uplifted phoenix. Kudos for "The Postman".
I've been busy with citizen science efforts and trying to establish ongoing contact with George Will. In the only response I've yet received from him, he expressed his interest in Isaac Asimov. There's common ground there I think. Truly conservative, erudite, intelligent, patriotic Republicans are sorely needed in these times. It was their party that got stolen. The real story of 9/11 was the inspiring way that one flight dealt with hijackers. Land of the free, home of the brave. The 2nd amendment was written for them, not the Holnists.
Also
Pillows. Oleandrin. Oleaginous. Pence. Will.
It's all beginning to make sense now :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UypXiV5frng
Back to AOC, I see and like your suggested opening for her. To me, though, I wonder if such tone-deafness was the result of AOC, or her being told what she could and could not include in her speech by the convention organizers. Guess we'll never know.
And regarding tone-deafness. Nancy Pelosi endorsed Joe Kennedy over sitting Senator Ed Markey. AOC has (rightfully) called he out on it, since Pelosi pretty much had a policy of not challenging sitting officials (at least when it came to progressives).
Pelosi's excuse: “I wasn’t too happy with some of the assault that I saw made on the Kennedy family.” Oh, that poor Kennedy family, unable to defend itself without the Speaker's help. The Democrats really do seem to be pretty good at the self-own, as you have pointed out.
Pelosi Says She Endorsed Kennedy Because She Was Upset By ‘Assault’ On Kennedy Family Legacy.
The thing about the new post office law, is that it was passed by a bipartisan voice vote in Dec of 2006. By passing with a voice vote no individuals had to go on record voting for this hit job on the post office. (very convenient for them)
And the problems with this law were well known by the time Obama and the democrats took over the federal government in 2009. If they had wanted to they could have easily fixed the problems with new law, once again they chose not to.
In other news that is both good and bad.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-humans-overshoot-planetary-august.html
Tomorrow the 22nd is this years Earth Overshoot day. It is substantially later than last year when we reached Earth overshoot day on July 29.
"The study estimated that the pandemic had driven a 14.5-percent decrease in humanity's carbon footprint compared to 2019" This is the biggest decrease ever and unfortunately this seems to be the only effective way to actually reduce our ecological footprint and will likely be the type of mechanism that brings humanity back into balance with the rest of the living world. Forced to change by events beyond our control.
Here is a link to a description of what a fossil fuel free future would actually be like for most people. I honestly find it pretty hopeful but not something most people would choose.
https://www.humanpowerplant.be/2020/06/the-fire.html
"We are in 2030. Bospolder-Tussendijken (BoTu), once one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, has become completely independent of fossil fuels. The neighbourhood has achieved this without the use of expensive technology and infrastructure. Energy production relies entirely on locally available resources: human power and biomass, supplemented by wind and solar power if the weather allows it. Energy use has decreased radically, while welfare has increased spectacularly."
Joe Biden's acceptance speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd9JsR5q5qI
In just the few minutes after 22:00, I hear:
"...as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them."
"For Lord's sake..."
"...you and I together, one nation under God..."
"...and may God bless you, and may God protect our troops."
So when Frankin Graham tweets:
In watching some of the @DemConvention on TV, it's been interesting to see the absence of God. I don’t believe America’s finest hours will be in front of us if we take God out of gov't & public life. It's God who set the standards we're to live by.
1) He's not paying attention. He probably didn't even watch, and is just projecting his view that Democrats are atheists
2) He's got some chutzpah condemning Biden for this while supporting Trump.
Good observation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/opinion/democratic-convention-warren-biden-obama.html
...
His [Obama's] speech was fiercely pro-American and fiercely anti-Trump, showing that, in fact, to be fiercely pro-American you have to be fiercely anti-Trump.
...
Last week, a federal judge in a PA election case, brought by the GOP to stop mail-in balloting, ordered the GOP to produce evidence of actual fraud, not speculation and hysteria. Yesterday:
"The Trump campaign’s 524-page response to a discovery demand turned up precisely zero instances of mail-in vote fraud."
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/20/trump-election-fraud-pennsylvania-court/
Well jim did something I though him incapable of, actually noticing the positive trends in energy and sustainability that might lead to solutions, if enabled with vigor.
Alas, there’s : “If they had wanted to they could have easily fixed the problems with new law, once again they chose not to.”
…. aaaaaand he’s back, utterly ignoring again the pure fact that dems had 78 days across 25 years when they could “easily fix” things. Pelosi thought she’d have more time, till prissy sanctimony junky leftists stayed home in the 2010 election, leaving dems castrated nationally till… maybe… 2021. Care to bet where jim will be in november 2022?
Smurphs there WAS one case of mail in fraud, in NCarolina… by a Republican mail carrier.
To change the mood a little, I've just happened upon something slightly less divisive than US politics(?): the kickstarter campaign for the ZX Spectrum Next2. You can decide whether you want one or not.
I just found a potentially very useful service provided by the USPS. Every morning, they email you an image of all the letter sized mail that is being shipped to your address. They also send you notification of non letter sized parcels. It lets you manage incoming packages if you don't plan to be home. If nothing else, this will give you a clue that someone messed with your incoming ballot.
https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action
onward
onward
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