Sunday, September 6, 2020

There must be a Presidential Crimes Commission

Finally, someone says it.

Representative Eric Swalwell says there must be a Presidential Crimes Commission when Trump leaves office, in order to investigate the crimes of his administration.

I don’t say this lightly: when we escape this Trump hell, America needs a Presidential Crimes Commission. It should be made up of independent prosecutors who look at those who enabled a corrupt president. Example 1: Sabotaging the mail to win an election. #SaveThePostOffice
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) August 14, 2020

https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1294412030267588609


Back in January, former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner advocated for the same thing. Although it appears Swalwell is the first member of Congress to advocate this.

KIRSCHNER: And, I think what the founders envisioned is potentially a corrupt and criminal President. So, we have impeachment. Potentially, a corrupt and criminal Attorney General. There would be ways to deal with that if we had a law-abiding President. I don't think they ever envisioned a corrupt, criminal, abusive President supported by a corrupt, criminal, and abusive Attorney General. And that's why come January 2020, we need to wrestle this thing to the ground. We need to form a commission that is equal parts Nuremberg Trials and Truth and Reconciliation commission, and we need to hold all of these people accountable. I think "Trump Crime Commissions" has a nice ring to it. That needs to be done, because these corrupt men have exposed the flaws in our system.

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/01/glenn-kirschner-calls-trump-crimes


This needs to be THE NUMBER ONE talking point of the current Democrat party platform. In both the immediate short term and the long term, this is more important than any other issue or any other policy. More important than fixing healthcare, more important than solving climate change, more important than creating living-wage jobs, more important than immigration reform and anti-racism--because without cleaning house to get rid of the unprecedented corruption and foreign and far-right infiltration of our government, none of these other goals will ever be accomplished.

The practical reason behind this is very simple: if they can get away with it now, it means they will try again in the future and get away with it again, because if the next President does not establish the Presidential Crimes Commission, they will de facto legalize everything the Trump administration and the Republican party has done.

If we thought the government was plagued by inefficiency, gridlock, and brazen self-enrichment now, it will only get worse if the current administration is forgiven for destroying our nation and Constitution. These people are "the swamp". The stranglehold of these corrupt elitists is the reason why nothing ever seems to change for the better in this nation.

Even Trump voters wanted to "drain the swamp" and rid our nation of corrupt politicians and corporate elitism. So let's do it for real.

***

The past 50 years have set a disgusting precedent that political administrations are not punished for the most heinous of crimes. This needs to change. Those guilty of destroying our nation must be punished to the fullest extent of the law and not merely let off with minor violations. Let's take a brief look at the cancer that has been growing over the past 50 years:

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, after it became apparent he would almost certainly face impeachment and removal from office due to the Watergate scandal. A month later, President Gerald Ford fully pardoned all of Nixon's crimes.

In a 1977 interview, while attempting to justify himself, Nixon infamously said "Well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."

From the earliest days in school, we are taught that one of the things that has always made the US government 'special' is that the President is not above the law. However, when Presidents always get away with their crimes, that does, in fact, mean that the President is above the law.


In the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was involved in the Iran–Contra affair. In short, the administration illegally sold weapons to Iran and planned to use the money to illegally fund the Contra insurgents in a civil war against the Nicaraguan government. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush (who had been Vice President under Reagan!) pardoned 5 key figures who had been found guilty for their roles in the affair and pardoned one more who was indicted but had not yet reached trial. Bush's Attorney General Bill Barr helped engineer these pardons, and was especially adamant about pardoning Reagan's former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, before he went to trial.

(In June 2018, the same Bill Barr sent an unsolicited document to the Trump administration Justice Department in essence arguing the Mueller investigation should not be taking place because Trump was acting completely lawfully. Trump accepted Barr's job application and Barr was named Attorney General in February 2019 to cover up the Mueller investigation into Trump.)

Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, who was tasked with investigating the Iran-Contra affair, discovered documents held by Weinberger which may very well have implicated Bush and other high ranking officials who thus far had claimed "plausible deniability" of their role in criminal activity.

"In late 1992, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, who had been chosen to investigate the Iran–Contra affair, found documents in the possession of Reagan's former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, which Walsh said was "evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public."[52][53] Weinberger was set to stand trial on felony charges on January 5, 1993.[52][54] His "indictment said Mr. Weinberger's notes contradicted Mr. Bush's assertions that he had only a fragmentary knowledge of the arms secretly sold to Iran in 1985 and 1986 in exchange for American hostages in Lebanon."[54][53][55] According to Walsh, then-president Bush might have been called as a witness.[56]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barr#Iran-Contra

"In response to these Bush pardons, Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, who headed the investigation of Reagan Administration officials' criminal conduct in the Iran–Contra scandal, stated that "the Iran–Contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair#Pardons

**

During the Bush administration, Nancy Pelosi was firmly against pursuing impeachment, despite his administration leading us into our most morally-corrupt and financially-draining war since Vietnam. Even Donald Trump, in an interview on October 15, 2008, criticized Pelosi for not pursuing impeachment again Bush.

In a 2008 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, which went viral online on Wednesday, Trump said he was "surprised" Pelosi "didn't do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush."

"It just seemed like she was really going to look to impeach Bush and get him out of office. Which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing," Trump said.

Blitzer responded, "To impeach him?"

"For the war," Trump said. "For the war! Well, he lied! He got us into the war with lies!"

Trump then contrasted Bush with former President Bill Clinton, who was impeached.

"I mean, look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant," Trump said. "And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense. And yet Bush got us into this horrible war with lies, by lying. By saying they had WMDs, by saying all sorts of things that happened not to be true."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/live-blog/live-updates-house-votes-impeachment-president-trump-n1103576/ncrd1104381#liveBlogHeader
https://twitter.com/wolfblitzer/status/1207375509698596867

Biden, Clinton, Schumer, and other prominent Democrats voted in favor of the Iraq war. To be fair to Trump, he had lukewarm support for the war in the beginning, then seems to have turned against it once it was apparent it was just a disaster. His biggest regret seems to be that we didn't plunder their oil, so he's just as morally bankrupt as the rest.


During the Obama administration, Obama declined from pursuing any investigations into the crimes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other Bush administration officials.

Q: The most popular question on your own website is related to this. On change.gov it comes from Bob Fertik of New York City and he asks, ‘Will you appoint a special prosecutor ideally Patrick Fitzgerald to independently investigate the greatest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping.’

OBAMA: We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. … My orientation is going to be moving forward.

[...]

Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s choice to lead the Office of Legal Counsel, rejects Obama’s “look forward” approach. In March 2008, she told “the next president” to avoid “any temptation to simply move on”:

We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation’s past transgressions and reject Bush’s corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation’s honor be restored without full disclosure.

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/obama-on-appointing-special-prosecutor-to-investigate-bushs-crimes-we-need-to-look-forward-e66d86502992/

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder also completely covered up the Bush administration's illegal acts of torture:

The Obama administration's aggressive, full-scale whitewashing of the "war on terror" crimes committed by Bush officials is now complete. Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the closing without charges of the only two cases under investigation relating to the US torture program

[...]

As a result, in August 2009, Holder announced a formal investigation to determine whether criminal charges should be brought in over 100 cases of severe detainee abuse involving "off-the-books methods" such as "mock execution and threatening a prisoner with a gun and a power drill", as well as threats that "prisoners [would be] made to witness the sexual abuse of their relatives." But less than two years later, on 30 June 2011, Holder announced that of the more than 100 cases the justice department had reviewed, there would be no charges brought in any of them – except two.

[...]

On 16 April 2009, Obama himself took the first step in formalizing the full-scale immunity he intended to bestow on all government officials involved even in the most heinous and lethal torture. On that date, he decreed absolute immunity for any official involved in torture provided that it comported with the permission slips produced by Bush department of justice (DOJ) lawyers which authorized certain techniques. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution," the new president so movingly observed in his statement announcing this immunity. Obama added:

"[N]othing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past … we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer

(And here we are, more divided than ever and on a route towards the bleakest future imaginable... All because no one stepped up to cut out the cancer that was destroying our society.)


Also, guess what, Obama's refusal (and hence implicit endorsement of the Bush administration's conduct), led Trump to promote one of the individuals involved in Bush-era torture:

"Much has been made of President Trump’s disregard for rules and norms—boundaries delineated by ethics and morality if not written laws themselves. But transgressing laws, rules, and norms isn’t the only way to destroy them. Another way is simply not to enforce them.

In that regard, the 44th president, Barack Obama, bears a measure of responsibility for the recklessness of his successor, in particular Trump’s decision to appoint Gina Haspel, the Central Intelligence Agency’s deputy director, to run the agency itself. Haspel oversaw a black site during the Bush era where at least one detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was tortured*.

Despite that, al-Nashiri provided “essentially no actionable information,” according to a CIA interrogator cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report. Haspel also then played a role in a decision to destroy recordings of CIA detainees being tortured.

Before Obama even took office, he announced his belief that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards” on torture. That set the standard for Obama’s tenure, as all avenues of accountability for Bush-era torture were curtailed. A Justice Department inquiry into interrogators who broke even the “acceptable torture” guidelines ended with no charges. Civil lawsuits from former detainees were blocked when the Obama-era Justice Department invoked the state secrets doctrine. An internal Justice Department review of the torture memo’s authors concluded they had not committed professional misconduct when they worked backwards to justify the Bush administration’s use of torture in defiance of laws against it. Even a proposal for a South African-style “truth and reconciliation” commission was rejected. All avenues for any form of accountability for torture—criminal, civil, even professional—were blocked by Obama-era officials. Even an episode in which the CIA spied on Senate staff in an effort to stonewall an inquiry that ultimately found CIA torture ineffective, and then lied about having done so, ended with little more than an apology.

[...]

There is no reason for powerful people to follow the rules if they know they cannot and will not suffer any consequences for breaking them. A system in which only the weak are punished is not a two-tiered system of justice, but one in which justice cannot be said to meaningfully exist.

In a country where a CIA official like Haspel can destroy evidence in order to obstruct a federal investigation, and not only escape prosecution but rise to become the head of the agency, it is no wonder that the president and his allies behave as though the possibility of the law catching up to them is not merely remote, but a kind of absurdity."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/obamas-legacy-of-impunity-for-torture/555578/

**

I will avoid giving too detailed of an analysis of Barr, the Mueller report, and other current events. But, in summary, in June 2018 Barr sent a memo to the Justice Department arguing his opinion of how the Mueller investigation was flawed. Trump clearly took notice of this and Barr was brought in to become the Attorney General in February 2019. Despite the obvious ethical conflict, Barr did not recuse himself and was allowed to formally oversee the Mueller investigation in his role as Attorney General. One month later it was announced the Mueller report was "complete". Soon after, Barr wrote a 3.5 page opinion that Trump was innocent of collusion and other crimes. Mueller contradicted Barr's characterization of the report.

In short: the man who had successfully helped George H. W. Bush cover up his and Reagan's crimes was brought in to cover up Trump's crimes. By May 2019, Barr had even launched an "investigation into the investigation" to pursue retribution against individuals who had provided enough evidence for the Mueller investigation to be warranted in the first place. (This "investigation" is still ongoing, and may be used as an "October surprise" before the 2020 election, trying to repeat Comey's infamous conduct during the 2016 election).

"On March 25, Mueller reportedly wrote a letter to Barr, as described in the New York Times as "expressing his and his team's concerns that the attorney general had inadequately portrayed their conclusions".[140] In USA Today it was described that Mueller "expressed his differences with Barr".[141]

On March 27, Mueller sent Barr another letter describing his concerns of Barr's letter to Congress and the public on March 24. In it, Mueller complained that the summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the Special Counsel's probe, adding, "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations".[142] Both before and after the release of Barr's summary, Mueller repeatedly tried to get Barr to release the report's introductions and executive summaries. Mueller's March 27 letter also stated that he had earlier sent a March 25 letter to Barr.[143]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barr#Mueller_investigation_and_report

The full report, with many redactions, was released in April 2019. Mueller, falling victim to conservative indecisiveness in the most critical and historic moment of his life, refused to indict Trump because of a Justice Department policy (not even a law) that a sitting President could not be indicted.

In May, Mueller essentially hinted to Congress that the ball was now in their court to take action and impeach Trump:

"The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing." - Robert Mueller

https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-mueller-announces-resignation-from-justice-department


Despite the Mueller report detailing all the ways Trump and his associates obstructed justice and committed collusion, Congress called Mueller to testify in July in order for him to spell it out for them on more time.

Lieu recounted the three elements needed for the crime of obstruction of justice.

"I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met, and I'd like to ask you the reason, again, you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC (the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel) opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?" Lieu asked.

"That is correct,"

[...]

"Did you actually totally exonerate the president?" Nadler asked.

"No," Mueller replied.

Congress failed their duty to immediately pursue impeachment while the Mueller report was fresh and public indignation against Trump was at its fiercest.

Instead, the House waited until December, when most of the momentum from the Mueller report's revelation of Trump's crimes had wore off. Blatantly tearing up the Constitution, multiple Senators declared they would not be "impartial jurors" during the Senate impeachment trial and would basically acquit Trump no matter the evidence.

...Thus proving the President is indeed above the law so long as the Attorney General and 51 Senators are on his side.

***
***

On May 14, 2020, Joe Biden said he would not pardon Trump, and he would allow the Justice Department to pursue criminal investigations into Trump after he leaves office.

The pledge from the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee came during a virtual town hall on MSNBC, when Biden was asked by a voter whether he would be willing to commit “to not pulling a President Ford” and pardoning Trump “under the pretense of healing the nation.”

“Absolutely, yes. I commit,” Biden responded, adding: “It’s hands-off completely. Look, the attorney general of the United States is not the president’s lawyer. It’s the people’s lawyer.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/joe-biden-pledges-not-to-pardon-trump-260147

Biden has attempted to be diplomatic so rabid Trump supporters cannot claim he is biased or looking for revenge. He said he will not pressure his Attorney General to pursue investigations into Trump, but allow them to investigate if they see the merit. Therefore, if Biden becomes President, we must put maximum pressure on his Attorney General to uphold the law.

Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he would not order his administration to investigate Donald Trump if the former vice president is elected in 2020.

“Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does. I would let them make their independent judgment,” Biden said during the fifth Democratic debate in Atlanta.

“I would not dictate who should be prosecuted or who should be exonerated. That’s not the role of the president of the United States,” Biden said.

Biden said he would do “whatever is determined by the attorney general.”

“If that was the judgment, that he violated the law and he should be in fact criminally prosecuted, then so be it, but I would not direct it,” Biden said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/joe-biden-says-he-wouldnt-order-investigation-into-trump-as-president.html


But, truly, that is not enough.

If Biden's Attorney General does not wish to pursue the fullest extent of the law against Trump and all the cronies who aided and abetted his crimes, we cannot merely let Biden be passive about the whole situation either. If he allows their crimes to go unpunished he is not being impartial--he will be actively covering up their crimes by allowing them to get away with everything.

The worst case scenario will be that Biden (knowingly) appoints an Attorney General who will refuse to do anything, Biden pretends that his hands are tied, and then the public gives up hope of ever achieving justice and runs out of steam. ...And then the cycle of corruption will deepen and we will see a repeat of everything Trump has done in the near future.

What has happened to our nation over the past 4 years is unprecedented. There needs to be a thorough and systematic investigation with enough resources to turn over every single stone and hold every individual involved accountable. It must be in a format accessible to the general public so they can see all the injustices that have been covered up and occurring behind closed doors, and so they can transparently see that justice is finally being done. This is the only thing that can reverse the precedent of the past 50 years that a presidential administration can get away with the most heinous of crimes.

What will happen if the Crimes Commission is not carried out? Well, historically when corruption in an outgoing administration is this extreme, courts order summary executions to clean house and citizens take the old leaders out into the streets and lynch them. Luxury and the stability of the power structures maintaining order make this kind of upheaval unlikely to take place in the US. That leaves one other option: subsequent administrations will copy every tactic in the Trump administration playbook, because it will all be legal.


Instead, let's heal our nation by cutting out the cancerous corruption once and for all. We must constantly demand every politician to come out in support of the Trump Crimes Commission.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Trump sabotages the Postal Service to rig the election - part 2

After public outrage, Postmaster General DeJoy claimed he will stop his plans to remove Postal Service machinery. However, he has said multiple times he has no intention of replacing machines or mail collection boxes that have already been removed.

Some reports have stated that machines were not merely being removed, but destroyed upon disposal. Others are missing critical parts, left outside to be damaged by the weather, or even being sold for scrap metal. This means they cannot simply be plugged in again now that the public has taken notice. Despite DeJoy's orders that the machines not be reinstalled, some post offices have courageously defied these orders and tried to reinstall the machines, with only partial success.

Postal Service internal documents contradict DeJoy's claim that the mail is not being delayed due to the changes. Furthermore, multiple major post offices are reporting mail volume is so backed up that there is over three times more mail than at Christmas, and there is physically so much mail piled up that it is difficult for workers to walk through the office.


The damage is done--Trump and DeJoy must believe they have gotten away with destroying enough Postal Service infrastructure to have some effect on the election and no longer have the need to continue their planned destruction.

Indeed:

"The potential effectiveness of an order issued Sunday to stop the removal of United States Postal Service sorting machines is now in question.

Internal USPS planning documents obtained by CNN indicate nearly 95% of the mail sorting machines that had been set for removal during the last few months were already scheduled to be taken out of service by now."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/16/politics/usps-documents-sorting-machine-removal-order/index.html

***

On August 18, Nancy Pelosi issued a statement, which read in part:

"Postmaster General DeJoy’s announcement of what may be a temporary pause in operational changes delaying the mail is a necessary but insufficient first step in ending the President’s election sabotage campaign. This pause only halts a limited number of the Postmaster’s changes, does not reverse damage already done, and alone is not enough to ensure voters will not be disenfranchised by the President this fall."

On August 19, Pelosi said DeJoy told her he would not be replacing machines that were already removed.


On August 24, DeJoy testified before the House. He repeated that he would not replace machines which were already removed. According to documents obtained by CNN, over 95% of the machines planned to be removed have already been removed. The damage has been done--"halting" changes now is meaningless. Nothing DeJoy said at the hearing alleviated fears regarding the sabotage of mail-in voting.

Jim Cooper kept the pressure up on DeJoy. Tired of non-answers, he directly asked him if his backup plan was to be pardoned like Roger Stone.

On August 31, Representative Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said she was planning to subpoena DeJoy to obtain documents related to his communication with the Trump campaign and related to mail delays. Congress has been seeking these documents for months and should have subpoenaed DeJoy earlier.

***

It was recently noted that the chairman of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, Robert Duncan, is a director of a superPAC aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell. The Board of Governors is the body overseeing the Postal Service and selects the Postmaster General.

This is yet another reason why McConnell must be jailed for his role in all this corruption, if justice is to ever be done.


Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who previously defied a congressional subpoenas by refusing to hand over Trump's tax returns, was also a key figure in sabotaging the Postal Service:

"After it went years without a voting quorum, Trump was able to reshape the traditionally nonpartisan postal board in three years to set his priorities in motion. When his administration took office in 2017, the nine-member board was empty. Trump tasked Mnuchin with filling it with a majority of appointees designated to the party in the White House.

“Everything was set up to make it seem like it wasn’t driven by the whole Amazon thing,” said a person familiar with Mnuchin’s efforts. “He would come back from meetings at the White House [and] wanted to know where things stood and where appointees to the board stood.”

Mnuchin made clear he wanted to push out Brennan, a letter carrier who rose through the ranks to eventually lead the agency, the person said. He urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to vet potential nominees through his caucus.

The nominees had ties to Republican causes. Robert M. Duncan, a former Republican National Committee chairman and close ally of McConnell who became chairman in 2018, met with Mnuchin, the person said, and the secretary made clear his plan to oust Brennan. Duncan was hesitant, the person said, but not opposed.

“He wanted backup,” the person said. And Mnuchin continued to seek out new governors.

David Williams, the former Postal Service inspector general and the board’s vice chairman until his resignation in protest in April against Mnuchin’s involvement, told House Democrats on Thursday that Mnuchin demanded that new governors “come to his office to kiss the ring and receive his blessing before confirmation.”"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mnuchin-dejoy-postal-service-delays-crisis/2020/08/22/b80f5ba8-e3c3-11ea-8181-606e603bb1c4_story.html

***

Some additional articles on the ongoing debacle.

"The carriers are the beloved face of the Postal Service, as they should be, and an icon of our proud history. But as a mechanic working to keep them on their routes, in August I witnessed a scene I never could have imagined. My co-workers on another shift began dismantling at least three mail processing machines. They didn't want to do this, they told me; they just had to follow orders.

While there is less mail being delivered this year, those machines process over a million pieces of mail a day at my post office alone and were always in use. When I asked them what they were doing, they told me that the area was going to be rearranged. I later found the machines behind the processing plant, dismantled,in a huge scrap metal dumpster — uncovered in the rain. Later, Postal Service leaders said they paused these changes, but I don't expect the machines to ever come back. That’s a hard thing for a mechanic, or any caring person, to see."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/09/01/post-office-mail-sorting-machines-donald-trump-column/5678592002/

"In Chicago, postal employees say backlogged mail is stacked so high in some facilities that workers barely have space to walk by. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, mail handlers tell NBC News first class and priority mail is still running several days a week behind schedule on average.

And in Tacoma, Washington, multiple postal workers said new mandates mean many mail trucks per week are being ordered to set out on their routes five minutes early — often entirely empty.

...

“Some stations have so much mail backed up, it’s three times more than the volume you would see at Christmas,” Richardson said, noting Chicago’s International Military Service Center and Henry McGee Postal Station are particularly overwhelmed. “You can’t even walk down the aisles. It’s a wonder carriers can get in and out.”

...

“You have customers used to getting letters six days a week getting only one delivery a week now,” Richardson said, adding customers served by Chicago’s Robert Leflore station are experiencing some of the city’s worst delays.

In Albuquerque, Ramona Chavez, vice president of the American Postal Workers Union, Local 331, reports similar problems.

“We have more packages in our facility right now than we do at the holidays,” she said, noting even priority mail packages are being delivered several days late. “We have a mail handler group on Facebook and we’re all reporting the same thing. We’re all understaffed. Everybody’s just doing everything they possibly can. Delays are our new normal.”

...

Edra Haecherl, an assistant supervisor tractor trailer operator for the Postal Service based in Tacoma, said she has seen the empty trailers firsthand. “Seven tractor trailers come back empty each day” when usually they would have been carrying mail, she said. “This is not normal.”"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/despite-dejoy-s-vows-halt-changes-serious-problems-persist-postal-n1238666

"An order from U.S. Postal Service headquarters hasn’t stopped some mail-processing plants in Washington state from hooking up their high-speed letter-sorting machines again.

Despite a national order not to reinstall letter-sorting machines that had been dismantled over the past month, the Postal Service plants in Tacoma and Wenatchee have done just that, according to workers there.

Forty percent of the letter-sorting machines in the Seattle-Tacoma area had been disconnected by Tuesday, when the Postal Service announced a halt to a nationwide machinery purge until after the November election."

...

"Workers at Washington’s biggest mail-processing plant, just south of Seattle in Tukwila, say there are no plans to reinstall any machines.

Nine sorting and postmarking machines there have been disconnected.

“At least three of the machines have been completely dismantled,” Postal Service electronics technician Matt Olmsted said. “It would take a lot to get those back together.”

Olmsted said past attempts at downsizing and the current reorganization have generated mistrust between local post office staff and those at headquarters.

It was to the point where our managers had to take pictures of the actual power cables lying on the floor to verify that they had been disconnected,” Olmsted said.

Internal documents obtained by KUOW show that the Postal Service, even before DeJoy took the helm in June, was planning to remove 969 mail-sorting and postage-canceling machines, one-fifth of the national total."

https://www.kuow.org/stories/post-offices-ordered-not-to-reinstall-recently-removed-mail-sorting-machinery

"Postmaster General Louis DeJoy may have suspended changes to postal service operations, but it doesn’t necessarily mean machines that had been removed will be put back in use, according to an email obtained by CNN.

The email, sent hours after DeJoy’s public suspension of changes on Tuesday, instructs postal workers not to reconnect any mail sorting machines that have previously been disconnected.

“Please message out to your respective Maintenance Managers tonight,” wrote Kevin Couch, a director of maintenance operations. “They are not to reconnect/reinstall machines that have been previously disconnected without approval from HQ Maintenance, no matter what direction they are getting from their plant manager.”"

...

"Yared Wonde, the president of the American Postal Workers Union’s Dallas Area Local, said management at the Dallas processing and distribution center, which serves nearly all of Dallas, unsuccessfully tried to put back four delivery bar code sorter machines.

DBCS machines make up the bulk of the mail sorting operation across USPS, handling envelopes which includes ballots heading to voters.

The machines, which Wonde says were removed in July, cannot be put back into service because they are missing pieces. Wonde said it was unclear what moved management at the Dallas facility to attempt to reassemble the DBCS machines."

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/08/21/official-email-usps-reconnect-sorting-machines/

Actually, it is clear why the management in Dallas tried to reinstall the machines. They understood that the machines are necessary to be able to process the mail and that intentionally delaying the mail is a federal crime--not to mention the blatant election sabotage of removing the machines on the eve of an election. It is unfortunate, however, that the managers did not refuse the order to remove the machines from the very beginning.

At this point, many of the machines cannot be installed, because not only are many missing parts (as mentioned in the above articles), but were outright destroyed upon disposal...

"Multiple sources within the postal service told Motherboard they have personally witnessed the machines, which cost millions of dollars, being destroyed or thrown in the dumpster. USPS did not respond to a request for comment.

...

In May, the USPS planned to remove a total of 969 sorting machines out of the 4,926 it had in operation as of February for all types of letters and flat mail. The vast majority of them—746 out of 3,765 in use—were delivery bar code sorters (DBCS), the type that sort letters, postcards, ballots, marketing mail and other similarly sized pieces. But a subsequent document distributed to union officials in mid-June said 502 of those machines would be removed from facilities."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkyv4k/internal-usps-documents-outline-plans-to-hobble-mail-sorting

"You’re not just imagining it: The mail really is experiencing widespread delays, according to new internal United States Postal Service documents.

The documents were published by Rep. Carolyn Maloney ahead of a Monday hearing with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Motherboard previously reported that a mix of the coronavirus pandemic, more restrictive overtime policies, and a restriction on the amount of time that mail can be sorted and loaded onto mail trucks before they go out has led to delays in mail delivery. Maloney said that "these new documents show that the delays are far worse than we were told” by DeJoy.

The new documents, a Postmaster General “Service Performance Measurement” briefing prepared for DeJoy on August 12, seemingly show the actual impact of those policies. Across the board, “on-time” scores have fallen sharply since early July. Presorted first-class mail is getting delivered late 8.1 percent more often than baseline, marketing mail (8.42 percent), periodicals (9.57 percent), and even Priority Mail (7.97 percent) have seen similar drops."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7qyyv/usps-delays-far-worse-than-we-were-told-internal-docs-show

"Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are continuing to call for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to either be fired or resign amid the continuing controversy over mail-in voting.

...

In a series of other tweets, Warren accused DeJoy of having "flat-out lied" to the Senate about the changes he implemented and "rejected the idea of fixing his damage."

"Enough is enough: the Board of Governors must remove DeJoy & reverse his acts of sabotage," she added."

https://www.newsweek.com/usps-warren-sanders-1526914

"“It’s disturbing to see the machinery taken out,” said Scott Hoffman, APWU Boston Local 100 president. Hoffman said nine machines have been removed from Boston’s Dorchester Avenue post office located downtown.

...

Bill Thomas, another Boston union officer and postal clerk said he believes the changes are a deliberate attempt to undermine the postal service.

“It’s intentionally delaying the mail,” Thomas said in an interview with WGBH News.

The new directives include tamping down overtime and leaving mail behind at processing plants when sorting runs late.

"Before, the truck would wait for the mail from the plant to bring to the stations,” Thomas said referring to large delivery trucks that bring mail from processing centers.

“Now, if the mail is running late on the machine, the truck leaves, that mail's not getting out for the day."

...

Hoffman, a 32-year veteran of the postal service, told WGBH News he views the changes as an “all-out attack” on the postal service by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a donor turned Trump-appointee who took the helm of the postal service in June.

“With an edict from up top, they've changed it all. They haven't changed the statutes. They haven't changed the rules and regulations. The only difference is a new postmaster with a new set of edicts,” Hoffman said."

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2020/08/17/at-least-a-dozen-mail-sorting-machines-have-already-been-removed-in-massachusetts-postal-union-officials-say

"Michigan union leaders within the U.S. Postal Service are sounding alarms about policy changes that one official describes as a "conscious decision to delay mail" as a political showdown brews in Washington, D.C.

The removal of at least eight mail sorting machines in Detroit, Pontiac and Grand Rapids facilities are causing the loss of sorting more than 270,000 pieces of mail per hour, according to union officials from around the state. The planned removal of another seven machines in West Michigan and Pontiac would reduce mail sorting capability by another 200,000 or more pieces of mail per hour, union officials said.

...

Prior to the suspension, two delivery bar code sorting machines — which combined can sift through 60,000 pieces of mail per hour — were removed from a large Pontiac distribution center, Roscoe Woods Jr., president of Southeast Michigan's American Postal Workers Union Local 480-481, told The Detroit News on Monday.

...

In an unprecedented move, four sorting machines were removed from a Detroit facility, said Keith Combs, president of the APWU’s Detroit District Area Local. Each machine could sort 35,000 pieces of mail per hour, he said.

The removal of machines from the George W. Young Post Office in downtown Detroit occurred 30 to 40 days ago, said Combs, who also expressed concern about work rule changes described as cost-saving measures.

“That’s a huge number to take out right before an election, an election that may require” significant vote-by-mail due to the pandemic, he said.

...

"They've made a conscious decision to delay the mail under the guise of reducing overtime," he said. In light of DeJoy's latest suspension of changes, Woods said he would like the Postal Service to go further and restore removed machinery.

After DeJoy took office, policies were implemented to reduce overtime and mandate carriers leave for their routes at certain times, causing delays in mail deliveries, said Michael Mize, president of the Michigan Postal Workers Union.

"What we’re seeing right now is a direct attack on the Postal Service and what we do," said Mize, who's worked for the service for more than two decades.

...

Tlaib took aim at Trump's relationship with DeJoy, saying: "The billionaire mega-donor he appointed ... is doing everything he can to prevent postal workers from processing mail, sorting ballots and delivering life-saving medications to our seniors and loved ones.""

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/18/michigan-union-chiefs-usps-delaying-mail-removing-machines-shifting-policies/3378203001/

***

Once again, a reminder that by intentionally delaying the mail DeJoy is committing a federal crime.

18 U.S. Code § 1703. Delay or destruction of mail or newspapers:

(a) Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail entrusted to him or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any carrier or other employee of the Postal Service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post office or station thereof established by authority of the Postmaster General or the Postal Service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1703

***
***

Last, but not least, Trump is beginning a new wave of accusations on coup attempts, election rigging, and consideration of illegally extending his term in office.

Trump is, of course, attempting to distract from the ongoing coup he and the Republican party have been engaged in. Even if Trump loses the election and steps down from the presidency, the Republican coup has succeeded in the Senate, Judicial branch, and countless Executive branch positions. Unless there is a thorough cleaning and radical restructuring of the government to undo all the damage that has been done by Trump and his cronies, this usurping of the government will remain once Trump is out of office. If the Biden administration turns a blind eye to this or is not thorough enough in cleaning up the damage, it will demonstrate the leadership of the Democratic party is complicit in the coup.


Trump seems to be getting desperate and realizes the likelihood that he will lose. However, we must not get complacent. Afterall, few people thought he would win in 2016 (including his own campaign officials). Nor did we expect each day of his presidency to reach a new low.

"With the political world focused on the Democratic convention Monday night, President Trump looked to steal some of the limelight by saying that he will seek a third term if he wins re-election.

During a rally in Wisconsin, the president lied to a cheering crowd, telling them that he deserves eight additional years in office because, he falsely claimed, his campaign was spied on in 2016 — an assertion his own FBI refuted in a detailed report.

“We are going to win four more years,” Trump said. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”"

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-third-term-because-they-spied-on-him-1045743/

“We have to win the election. We can’t play games. Go out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots, or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged, Remember that. It’s the only way we’re going to lose this election, so we have to be very careful.” -Donald Trump, August 17, 2020.

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1295496980408524804


Projections show that, due to mail-in votes taking days to count, the immediate tally on election day may show Trump winning, but could flip to Biden once all the mail-in votes are counted.

"A top Democratic data and analytics firm told "Axios on HBO" it's highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted.

Why this matters: Way more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans, due to fears of the coronavirus, and it will take days if not weeks to tally these. This means Trump, thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person, could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night.

Imagine America, with its polarization and misinformation, if the vote tally swings wildly toward Joe Biden and Trump loses days later as the mail ballots are counted.

...

Between the lines: Hawkfish is not just trying to educate the public about the possibility that Trump could prematurely declare victory, or try to delegitimize a Biden victory if it took days or weeks to determine.

The group is also trying to sensitize state and county elections officials, news and social media organizations, and the courts to the perils of premature results — and to the possibility of Trump and his team applying challenges and political pressure to reject a high share of mailed-in ballots counted after election day.

And the group is warning voters that rejection rates for mail ballots are higher than in-person voting.

To avoid having their votes thrown out, Hawkfish is advising voters to be extra careful about voting early enough and following all the instructions to the letter — or, potentially, putting on masks and gloves and going early either to safely vote in person or return the mail ballot in person."

https://www.axios.com/bloomberg-group-trump-election-night-scenarios-a554e8f5-9702-437e-ae75-d2be478d42bb.html


So, by sabotaging the Postal Service, this gives Trump (or Russia) (1) more time to sabotage Biden votes from being counted to potentially prevent him from winning the final vote tally, (2) the ability to continue the narrative that votes for his opponent are somehow illegitimate and that he is the "real" winner, and (3) using this narrative, incite his supporters to violence should he choose. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but if Trump loses the election, he will have 2.5 months to cause as much chaos as possible.

For the sake of our nation, we must ensure Trump loses in the largest landslide in US history.