The policy and politics of Trumpism

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Heather Cox Richardson on the USPS.


On May 6, the board of governors of the United States Postal Service appointed Louis DeJoy to the position of Postmaster General. The board of governors consists entirely of Trump appointees, since the Senate stopped confirming appointees to it during President Barack Obama’s term, and began to confirm them again in 2018. DeJoy was a top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee, giving more than $2 million since 2016. For two decades the Postmaster General has risen from within the ranks of the agency, but DeJoy has no experience with the USPS. He was appointed after the vice chair of the board of governors, Democrat David Williams, resigned, citing the attempts of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to politicize the traditionally non-political USPS.

The pandemic is crippling the revenue of the agency since most mail is sent by businesses, which suddenly shut down in March. The USPS is projecting a $13 billion revenue shortfall by the end of September. In an early coronavirus relief bill, Congress allowed the agency to borrow $10 billion from the Treasury Department to help stem the bleeding. But Mnuchin refused to loan the money without terms that would turn over much of the operation of the USPS to the Treasury Department. Williams and the other Democrat on the board refused, but the three Republicans on the board were open to at least some of Mnuchin’s terms.

On July 14, DeJoy put major changes in place. These, he said, were intended to cut costs in order to keep the USPS afloat, but this explanation is suspicious since as soon as Trump was sworn in, his Office of Management and Budget produced a report that called for privatizing the USPS.

The emphasis on DeJoy's changes is significantly less time spent managing the mail. For example, letter carriers must now leave mail behind at distribution centers if it would delay the completion of their routes according to new, tight, schedules. Traditionally, letter carriers make multiple delivery trips to ensure letters and packages are delivered on time; now the materials will wait for the next day. There will no longer be any overtime, and postal hours are being cut. Already, post offices are seeing a growing backlog of mail.

Trump has long criticized the USPS, apparently both because he blames it for the financial success of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, which is highly critical of Trump, and because he would like to privatize the agency’s highly valuable assets.

The USPS is self-funding; it does not receive support from tax dollars, and it is required to serve the entire country. It employs more than 630,000 workers, including a large proportion of people of color, women, and more than 100,000 military veterans. It has a valuable fleet of vans and real estate, but more than that, it has proprietary information highly sought after by private mail carriers. It does not, in fact, undercharge Amazon or any other large customer; by law it cannot do so.
On Wednesday, the USPS took a step toward Trump's demands when it agreed to give Mnuchin the agency’s proprietary information on its ten largest service contracts, including that of Amazon, FedEx, and UPS, in exchange for getting the $10 billion loan it needs to survive.

Trump’s war on the agency has been helped by a longstanding crisis in the USPS, stemming from a provision in the 2006 overhaul of the agency that required it to prepay the health benefits of its retirees, beginning with ten years of payments of about $5 billion a year. This requirement was pushed hard by Republicans, and it is unusual for any company.
Under it, the agency immediately began to lose money, especially as the recession hit, and then as Americans increasingly began to use electronic communications. Since 2012, the USPS has not been able to meet its prefunding requirement, but without it, the agency would have made a modest operating profit every year since 2013. The huge prefunding burden has also meant the USPS has not been able to invest in modernizing and upgrading its facilities.

In February, the House of Representatives voted to eliminate the prefunding requirement, but a companion Senate bill was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) is focused not on the USPS, but on his investigation of Hunter Biden.

The USPS is popular. Ninety percent of Americans have a favorable view of it. If Congress allows the USPS to collapse and private companies take over the mail business, we can expect what we have seen with private internet providers: thorough service in urban areas that will turn a healthy profit, either none or very expensive service in rural areas.
Knowing how their constituents will react to the end of the mail system that was established in our Constitution, congress members have, in the past, been reluctant to destroy it. But now, the 2020 election might well hinge on mail-in ballots.

It is interesting to note that, for all the Republican Senators who spoke up to reject Trump’s call for a delayed election, not one of them is speaking up at this crucial moment for protecting the United States Postal Service, the agency on which many of us will depend to deliver our vote to election officials in November.
 

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Heather Cox Richardson on the USPS.


On May 6, the board of governors of the United States Postal Service appointed Louis DeJoy to the position of Postmaster General. The board of governors consists entirely of Trump appointees, since the Senate stopped confirming appointees to it during President Barack Obama’s term, and began to confirm them again in 2018. DeJoy was a top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee, giving more than $2 million since 2016. For two decades the Postmaster General has risen from within the ranks of the agency, but DeJoy has no experience with the USPS. He was appointed after the vice chair of the board of governors, Democrat David Williams, resigned, citing the attempts of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to politicize the traditionally non-political USPS.

The pandemic is crippling the revenue of the agency since most mail is sent by businesses, which suddenly shut down in March. The USPS is projecting a $13 billion revenue shortfall by the end of September. In an early coronavirus relief bill, Congress allowed the agency to borrow $10 billion from the Treasury Department to help stem the bleeding. But Mnuchin refused to loan the money without terms that would turn over much of the operation of the USPS to the Treasury Department. Williams and the other Democrat on the board refused, but the three Republicans on the board were open to at least some of Mnuchin’s terms.

On July 14, DeJoy put major changes in place. These, he said, were intended to cut costs in order to keep the USPS afloat, but this explanation is suspicious since as soon as Trump was sworn in, his Office of Management and Budget produced a report that called for privatizing the USPS.

The emphasis on DeJoy's changes is significantly less time spent managing the mail. For example, letter carriers must now leave mail behind at distribution centers if it would delay the completion of their routes according to new, tight, schedules. Traditionally, letter carriers make multiple delivery trips to ensure letters and packages are delivered on time; now the materials will wait for the next day. There will no longer be any overtime, and postal hours are being cut. Already, post offices are seeing a growing backlog of mail.

Trump has long criticized the USPS, apparently both because he blames it for the financial success of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, which is highly critical of Trump, and because he would like to privatize the agency’s highly valuable assets.

The USPS is self-funding; it does not receive support from tax dollars, and it is required to serve the entire country. It employs more than 630,000 workers, including a large proportion of people of color, women, and more than 100,000 military veterans. It has a valuable fleet of vans and real estate, but more than that, it has proprietary information highly sought after by private mail carriers. It does not, in fact, undercharge Amazon or any other large customer; by law it cannot do so.
On Wednesday, the USPS took a step toward Trump's demands when it agreed to give Mnuchin the agency’s proprietary information on its ten largest service contracts, including that of Amazon, FedEx, and UPS, in exchange for getting the $10 billion loan it needs to survive.

Trump’s war on the agency has been helped by a longstanding crisis in the USPS, stemming from a provision in the 2006 overhaul of the agency that required it to prepay the health benefits of its retirees, beginning with ten years of payments of about $5 billion a year. This requirement was pushed hard by Republicans, and it is unusual for any company.
Under it, the agency immediately began to lose money, especially as the recession hit, and then as Americans increasingly began to use electronic communications. Since 2012, the USPS has not been able to meet its prefunding requirement, but without it, the agency would have made a modest operating profit every year since 2013. The huge prefunding burden has also meant the USPS has not been able to invest in modernizing and upgrading its facilities.

In February, the House of Representatives voted to eliminate the prefunding requirement, but a companion Senate bill was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI) is focused not on the USPS, but on his investigation of Hunter Biden.

The USPS is popular. Ninety percent of Americans have a favorable view of it. If Congress allows the USPS to collapse and private companies take over the mail business, we can expect what we have seen with private internet providers: thorough service in urban areas that will turn a healthy profit, either none or very expensive service in rural areas.
Knowing how their constituents will react to the end of the mail system that was established in our Constitution, congress members have, in the past, been reluctant to destroy it. But now, the 2020 election might well hinge on mail-in ballots.

It is interesting to note that, for all the Republican Senators who spoke up to reject Trump’s call for a delayed election, not one of them is speaking up at this crucial moment for protecting the United States Postal Service, the agency on which many of us will depend to deliver our vote to election officials in November.
hey, let's put businessmen in charge of running the government.
 

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Heather Cox Richardson



August 2, 2020 (Sunday)

Today's most important story comes from Dr. Deborah Birx, the doctor advising the White House on the coronavirus. She warns that we are entering a “new phase” of the pandemic, when the virus is everywhere and is spreading at such a pace that we could see more than 300,000 deaths by the end of the year. On Saturday, the national daily death toll from Covid-19 reached 1,198, exceeding 1000 for the sixth day in a row.
Birx implores people to wear masks and stay apart… but it is an argument falling on deaf ears among those who continue to believe that Covid-19 is a hoax. Texas is apparently not reporting a number of its cases; Mississippi is so overwhelmed officials don’t actually know what the numbers are, but they are storing bodies in refrigerated storage units. Ignoring the virus, more than 250,000 people are expected to show up next week to the Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally, which business leaders pressured the City Council to hold despite the objections of more than 60% of Sturgis residents, who fear their town will become a hot spot.

As the death toll rises, Trump today tweeted that other countries were also facing new infections but that the “Fake News” was not reporting it. He added, “USA will be stronger than ever before, and soon!” Then he went golfing.

Already, experts are worried that the Trump administration will rush to market an unproven vaccine in October, boosting Trump’s hopes for reelection. “We expect to have a vaccine available very, very early before the end of the year, far ahead of schedule,” Trump said today. “We’re very close to having that finalized.” But rushing a vaccine will not necessarily help the pandemic response and could hurt it by reducing people’s faith in a vaccine. Experts say that a vaccine will be the beginning of dealing with the coronavirus, not the end, as we spend years perfecting the vaccines and drugs that will handle it most effectively.

Yet, as the coronavirus rages across America, there are signs that the Trump campaign is worried about the upcoming election.

It seems that Trump’s heavy hand in Portland, Oregon, backfired. He was trying to deflect attention from the disastrous response to the coronavirus by convincing voters that there were dangerous riots in our streets, backed by Democrats. But the heavy hand of the federal troops he sent has led to lawsuits, and on Wednesday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown and federal officials agreed for federal troops to get out of the streets of Portland. After the deal, Trump tweeted “If the Federal Government and its brilliant Law Enforcement (Homeland) didn’t go into Portland one week ago, there would be no Portland—it would be burned and beaten to the ground. If they Mayor and Governor… do not stop the Crime and Violence from the Anarchists and Agitators immediately, the Federal Government will go in and do the job that local law enforcement was supposed to do!”

But with the removal of federal troops from active policing of the city, the protests have become quiet and largely peaceful. The sudden calm illustrates that Trump was ginning up trouble to get footage for campaign ads. And voters get it. They trust Biden over Trump to “maintain law and order” by a margin of 50% to 41%.

The campaign appears to be concerned. Most interesting today was the news from a convention spokesperson and a Republican official that the organizers of the Republican National Convention, due to start on August 24, would not allow reporters at the event.

The convention has become a bit of a disaster, with Trump abruptly moving it from Charlotte, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida in mid-June, only to cancel the Jacksonville event on July 23. Now things are back on in Charlotte, but exactly what is going to happen there is unclear. The Jacksonville move meant that the delegates were not going to write a new platform for 2020, leaving Trump standing on the 2016 platform, which contained embarrassing attacks on “the president,” who in 2016 was Barack Obama. The Jacksonville event was essentially just going to be a celebration of Trump’s renomination.

But now back in Charlotte, the convention organizers are apparently talking about excluding reporters, although the Republican National Committee communications director Michael Ahrens told CNN that the decision was not yet final. He blamed the restriction on the coronavirus distancing necessary, but this explanation is not convincing from a party and a president that is so routinely flouting coronavirus restrictions.
More likely, they expect drama at the convention, drama they do not want others to see. It’s possible Trump fears an objection to his renomination, or another such public relations nightmare. The whole point of conventions these days is that they make such good television they launch candidacies with a giant push. And now it appears Trump, a publicity hound if ever there was one, is apparently considering foregoing that hoopla. It’s interesting.

There are two other signs that the administration is working to get as much of its agenda in place before November as possible. Despite the pandemic that has thrown everything out of whack, the Census Bureau is cutting short its efforts to knock on doors to count everyone for the 2020 census. It will stop them on September 30, rather than October 30, as originally planned. About 4 out of 10 households have not yet been counted, and they are overwhelmingly those of people of color, immigrants, and traditionally undercounted groups.

“It’s going to be impossible to complete the count in time,” said one of the census managers. “I’m very fearful we’re going to have a massive undercount.” At the same time, in an unprecedented move that is already facing lawsuits, the administration is trying to avoid counting undocumented immigrants, which will badly undercount cities. “The end result would be [overrepresentation] for the White non-Hispanic population and greater undercounts for all other populations including the traditionally hard-to-count,” Former Census Bureau Director John Thompson told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday.

The Census Bureau explained the reason for the shortened census count: “We are currently evaluating our operations to enable the Census Bureau to provide this data in the most expeditious manner and when those plans have been finalized we will make an announcement.”
Yes, that is word salad. What it amounts to is that the census will determine congressional representation and federal funding for the next decade, and the administration appears to be trying to rush the census to lock in the best results for the Republicans it can in case Democrats take the helm of the country in November.

And then there is Trump’s announcement that he is removing 12,000 troops from Germany, where they have been stationed since WWII. Trump claims he is upset that Germany doesn’t pay more toward sustaining NATO, but the head of the U.S. military’s Europe command will move to Brussels, which pays in even less. The removal has sparked bipartisan opposition in Congress, with almost two dozen Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee warning that it would weaken the U.S. and strengthen Russia. It is a profound disruption of the order that has stabilized Europe since 1945, and which has enabled it to hold Russian ambitions at bay.

On Twitter, the head of the German parliament's foreign relations committee, Norbert Roettgen, echoed American criticism of the move. He said, “Instead of strengthening [NATO] it is going to weaken the alliance. The US’s military clout will not increase, but decrease in relation to Russia and the Near & Middle East.” In contrast, the Kremlin’s spokesperson seemed almost gleeful as he told CNN that the move was in Russia’s interest.

CNN’s international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson analyzed the situation. His conclusion was titled, “Trump’s Germany troops pullout may be his last gift to Putin before the election.”
 

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Manhattan DA Is Investigating Trump And His Company Over Reports Of Fraud
District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. urged a federal judge to reject President Trump’s attempts to block a subpoena for his tax returns.
Huff Post
 

selmaborntidefan

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If you saw it - in one breath he's praising Nevada....in the next he's threatening to sue the state and saying, "I have to right to do it."


I mean.......this is a James Bond movie with a cartoonish villain
 

TIDE-HSV

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If you saw it - in one breath he's praising Nevada....in the next he's threatening to sue the state and saying, "I have to right to do it."


I mean.......this is a James Bond movie with a cartoonish villain
This morning, he called Birx "pathetic" for saying the virus was widespread and then praised her in the afternoon because she'd been criticized by "crazy Nancy," so you can take your choice. Mail-in ballots - "bad," absentee voting - "good." It goes on and on...
 

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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-seven percent (47%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 40% who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing and 41% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -1. (see trends)

Gallup has Trump at 41%
 

TIDE-HSV

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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-seven percent (47%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 40% who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing and 41% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -1. (see trends)

Gallup has Trump at 41%
To get a little perspective, which you don't get with Rasmussen...

realclear
 

2003TIDE

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What astonished me was that 41% gave Trump a favorable rating.
I got reminded by a relative on FB that "don't blame Trump for not fixing things because previous presidents did not fix it either." I pointed out that the current s-show is all Trump's fault because he ignored and dismantled the entire pandemic plan and response team Bush and Obama worked years to set up. Then, I got unfriended. Which was a good thing. I probably should have unfriended them when they were sharing alien sperm doctor's coronavirus cure videos.
 
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