Republicans Actually Trying to Steal the November Election by Killing the Post Office
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats have desperately tried to get vote by mail passed in states that don’t have it in time for the November presidential election. It’s a non-starter with Republicans lead by Trump. At the same time, the Postal Service is losing $2 billion per month with reduced volumes of mail. Democrats tried to put a $15 billion bailout in the relief bill, but Trump threatened to veto the entire multi-trillion dollar bill if it included any money for the Post Office. The bill finally got passed with a $10 billion loan, by Mnuchin is holding it up in Treasury, and Trump fired the IG assigned to oversee the distribution of funds from the relief bill last week.
Republicans have been trying to kill the US Postal Service for decades, trying to privatize it and hand it over to some of their largest donors. In 2006, the Republican controlled Congress passed a law that required the Postal Service prefund 75 YEARS of anticipated pensions, totaling $72 billion. They then diverted that money to paying down federal debt caused by GWB’s slashing tax cuts. Even though the Postal Service is no longer a full federal agency the Congress still controls its budget, continuously starving it for funding.
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has caused mail volume to plummet, Republicans, lead by Trump, have stonewalled any support to keep the service alive, and without funding, it will run out of cash in September. At the same time, Democrats are trying to introduce voting reforms that allow vote by mail for the November elections. Of course, Republicans are also stonewalling that. About 20 states already allow voting by mail. Why in the world would Republicans want to kill the Postal Service? That answer is now crystal clear – no Post Office? No voting by mail. Trump’s plummet in the polls can be offset by making it almost impossible to vote during the pandemic.
Yep, Republicans figured out many years ago that reducing turnout through voter suppression, as well as radical gerrymandering, improves their chances of hanging on to power. This effort is that strategy on steroids actually taking away Americans’ Constitutional right to vote.
Few kinds of death are more painful and drawn out than slow starvation by famine…
1I live in Pierce County, Washington State.
Not sure about other counties but Pierce County has about fifty drop boxes where voters can drop ballots after voting.
https://patch.com/washington/puyallup/where-can-i-drop-off-my-ballot-d148c31c
Of course, we always received our ballots via the USPS.
2Moscow Mitch would like to destroy the USPS to cancel the 2020 election. There’s a better idea. Have the election at the WMDBS. Let’s do it today and send Covidiot* 45 the election results in time for him* to cancel his daily 5 pm EDT campaign rally.
Waiting for Billy Bob Barr to explain away that little piece of the Constitution mandating the USPS. Step aside John Yoo, there’s a new torture expert in town.
3Republicans never met a crisis they couldn’t exploit.
4Thank you. I’ve been saying this to friends since the push for vote by mail gained steam.
5You are so right.
6The ‘Vote by Mail Suppression Complex Corp.’ is looking for a
7big pay day when they can raid the USPS Retirement Fund.
They get cartoon googly eyes when they see that and think that
the standard ‘Voter Repression Industrial Complex’ rePubs are
amateurs.
Stay Safe…
If the Postal Service was privatized, wouldn’t the new donor owners still provide a mail delivery service thereby allowing voting by mail?
For 20 years or so, I believe, the IRS has been required to provide a listing of alternatives to USPS for delivering tax returns. UPS, FedEx, et al., were just two private sector parties in the list if memory serves.
I for one definitely hate the idea of USPS being privatized. Hell I still get most of my bills, etc., by snail mail rather than electronic media. I trust USPS to be more reliable than my ISP, which may be down or have some other glitch that delays delivery of an electronic bill.
8Just as I go to actual checkers at grocery stores, etc. I use the USPS because I want people to have jobs. However we must vote, either in the upcoming primary runoff or the vote in November, I will put my bandana over my face, run a scarf around that and put my dishwashing gloves on and vote. I won’t be held back and you shouldn’t either!
9Hairy #7, I’m afraid that if you were to pay attention to El Jefe, like he said, that ‘Retirement Fund’ is long gone! Of course, the snaciblupeR Want to take over the USPS, hand it over to their donors, and deunionize the post office. Which will make ‘mail service’ so expensive, it would be unaffordable and thereby allow bankruptcy, taking away the pension fund( after it’s already gone!) and completely screw the workers.
10Colorado is one of the States that uses vote-by-mail. They also have drop boxes for people who still wait until the last minute to vote. (We’re given a mail-by date with our ballots to ensure delivery on time.) Guess where all the missing/uncounted ballots end up? Yup, every election there’s some story about missing ballots that turn out to have been lost in a drop box.
There are occasions where ballots don’t get mailed to the voters on time, but it’s never the USPS fault for that. And there are the occasional mis-printed ballots. Still not the USPS fault.
11Oh, and I forgot to mention that you get an id number for your ballot so that after you mail it in you can check to see that it was counted, online, for pity’s sake!
12Oh and don’t forget the added ex[ense of sending letters/ ballots by UPS, FedExetc over the USPS.
13Another form of voter suppression.
1) Electoral authorities will claim they can NOT afford spending upwards to $5 a piece for local delivery so Vote by Mail must be restricted to rural, elderly and thuglican areas.
Not to mention the suppression of votes being returned if the voter has to pay the same amount plus arrange drop off or pick-up that would prevent many on the subsistence border or those living on food stamps from returning their ballots.
Wonder if this does occur if a case could be made that the inflated delivery costs coming out of voters pockets could be argued to be a “privitized” poll tax?
The Republicans will look for anything or anybody they can screw over and dive in. They can’t win if they don’t cheat. They don’t care about the citizens of this country. They are addicted to money and that’s all they care about. I believe they have taken the Scrooge view of this pandemic, which is to reduce the surplus population.
14And also remember USPS was established by Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the US Constitution. So, the idjits are still saying “Government Is Broken! Elect us and let us prove it!”
15If you’re one of the lucky who still have money or an income, you can immediately help the Post Office survive by going to
usps.com
and buying stamps or other USPS swag online.
16Delivery via the USPS, of course.
The USPS pension fund is not “long gone”.
By law, it is invested in US Treasury bills.
So you can look at it two ways:
171. The pension fund is invested in what has been, for seventy years, the safest investment on the planet.
2. The pension fund has been loaned to the US Government, who, as El Jefe said, used the money for things on the Republican agenda. But the obligation to repay is the same as the obligation to repay all other T-bill owners.
joel hanes @17 :
“By law, it is invested in US Treasury bills.
…The pension fund –*has been loaned to the US Government–*… –*But the obligation to repay is the same as the obligation to repay all other T-bill owners–*. ”
Almost exactly, and NOT coincidentally, as has the Social Security Trust Fund et al. been their most lasting target for destruction!
Which has also been a permanent focus of all Republic idiotology since the ’30s, and of every one of their surrogates such as the JBS, MM, TFS, CPAC, etc.
How and why the TeaParty MAGAot types keep swallowing this along with the rest is a conundrum; so many of them are older, sicker, and of more limited means than average, which makes it baffling.
Except when you factor in Rethug propaganda, self-ignorance, submissive ‘authoritarian’ psychtype/worship, and evangelitaliban fervor.
For those hordes of trump-luvin’ MAGAots, fuck ’em, let ’em die.
But for the vast numbers of rest of us, do ANYTHING to ensure a massive crushing Democratic victory in November. It’s going to be a very dirty uphill fight.
Don’t be sqeamish, your goddamn life depends on it.
A suggestion: When you get your gubmint COVID19 payout, donate a chunk of it to Democratic candidate campaigns, your choice.
The Rescummies –are already– urging their MAGAot base to pass on a ‘tithe’ for the Vaterland.
Trumplandia Über Alles!
18Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!
Meine Führer. Ihr Führer. Der Führer!
Obersten Führer Trump!