Mr Postman, bring me a dream. Make him the cutest that I’ve ever seen The Marvelettes Please Mr Postman
In politics, ignorance can be every bit as deadly as an AK-47. In his bad tempered dream world. Trump sees his ass being kicked, with one foot at death’s door, and the other on a banana peel. Since the coronavirus will turn this election into a base mail in ballot election, and Trump fears the results, he turned to messing with the United States Postal Service to try to suppress and disenfranchise voters, retaining his hold on power. And why not? The postal service is just another much maligned government agency.
Except it’s not. It is in fact a national treasure, enshrined in the constitution. And more important it is woven into the social fabric of this country. It transcends barriers. Black, white, rich, poor, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, everyone in the country has a very real, very visceral connection to the post office.
People of my age and even younger can remember spending lazy summer days looking down the street, waiting for the mailman to show up to see if the precious cargo of the prize we had mailed those box tops in for had arrived. For generations, for two weeks a year, your birthday week, and Christmas week, the mailman was the most important man or woman in the world. No birthday or Christmas was complete without a package from Grandma or Aunt Rose, or an envelope with a piece of the long green in the card.
Forget about old farts remembering when they were kids. A generation later, and going for generations forward, young adults, with young and growing families started checking their mailbox daily starting in the second week of January, waiting for the W-2 forms from work that would allow them to fill out their taxes. And starting 10 days after the tax returns were postmarked came the feverish, daily check of the mailbox for that magic CHA-CHING moment when the tax refund finally arrived in the mail, signalling a sudden embarrassment of riches, at least for a few weeks.
And for veterans, there is an even more special, visceral relationship with the postal service. For a young G.I. in a far flung land, the postal service was the only link line to home. As a close friend of Brian Williams of NBC News, who served in Vietnam nostalgically told him, In the field, mail call was more important than chow call. After all, you can’t get Mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies through e-mail. The postal service was also the vital link line that assured that far flung military personnel got to vote.
And even today, seniors and veterans depend on the postal service for their disability and social security checks, and life saving medication. People in more rural areas, often without access to high speed internet depend on the postal service for such basic functions as their utility bills and magazines. Constituents are already complaining to their congress critters that the slowdown in mail service is costing them late fees when either the bill itself, or the payment is delayed. And if there’s one thing that elected officials pay attention to, it’s constituent pressure.
Because of his ignorance of all things American, Trump has finally managed to pick a fight with the one universally beloved institution in American government. And it’s already costing him. As Rachel Maddow reported tonight, as mail service in Montana stalled, people started to complain. But they didn’t complain at the postal service locally, they held protest rallies to support their local postal service. And when locals started seeing mailboxes being loaded onto trucks and carted away, they got Democratic Senator Jon Tester involved. And after Tester fired off an angry letter to the Trump appointed Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, and they saw the way the wind was blowing, the GOP Senator from the state, as well as the GOP House member also fired off angry letters. And the post office relented, announcing that they would remove no further mailboxes nationwide until after the election.
Congress may be officially on recess, but that’s no excuse. There is no reason on God’s green earth for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to not call the House Oversight Committee back into session in Washington, and call Postmaster General DeJoy and the Board of Governors in front of them for a good, old fashioned, roasting over an open fire. The wind is firmly in their sails on this issue.
As with all things Trump,it is his pathetic lack of self control over his baser impulses. This could have been a very effective tactic if Trump had waited until late September or early October to spring it on the American people. But once again, Trump required instant gratification, and shot his wad far too early. Pressure is already mounting on the USPS from all sides, and with no legitimate excuses, they’re going to have to start caving sooner or later. And state Secretaries of State, now forewarned, are already looking at local ways to minimize the damage from Trump’s perfidy. Wadda way to run a fucking railroad.
To know the future, look to the past.before the insanity of the 2020 election, relive the insanity of the 2016 GOP primary campaign, and the general election, to see how we got to where we are. Copies of President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange are available as e-books on Amazon, at the links above. Catch up before the upcoming release of the third book in the trilogy, President Evil III: All The Presidents Fen
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
Well golly! Do ya think that may be why The National Association of Letter Carriers Union endorsed the Biden/Harris ticket earlier today?
I hadn’t heard that. Thanks.
For real. How dare he mess with such an important part of American life? This truly effects each of us. And please tell me how does his destroying this vital lifeline makes america great again?
One of the last groups that trump is relying on is rural white people, especially older white people. my dad has no internet. He gets all his bills by mail. messing with the mail is not going to piss older white people off, it is going to scare them and scared older white people are not going to turn out to vote for trump. They want stability, they want their social security to show up on time, they don’t want to have to learn something new. They will turn to Biden because he will represent stability.
Or they get scared enough to not even vote, which would effectively be a vote for Biden.
Hey, guys, just a little something I ran into on Twitter this morning, courtesy of Data Bear: the emails of EVERY member of the Post Office board that appointed De Joy. Want to let them how much vote by mail means to you? Here’s your chance to tell them yourselves:
Robert Duncan: [email protected]
John Barger: [email protected]
Ron Bloom: [email protected]
Roman Martinez: [email protected]
Donald Moak: [email protected]
William Zollers: [email protected]
Have fun…I certainly did! 🙂
Started my letter writing campaign, thanks for the info
My pleasure, Janey! As the original tweet is now unavailable, my rescuing those email addresses feels prescient now.
Thanks, Bareshark! I will email all of them and I’ll share the list widely!
As I say, my pleasure, Meg. Let’s make these clowns regret EVER thinking this was a good idea.
Excellent!
May tRump burn in Hell…
Well, what can you say. When you look up stupid in Webster’s it says the definition is Donald Trump.
This pinheaded Nazi wipes his ass with the constitution. We are in a knife fight for our children’s lives. All that horse malarkey about the high road etc.pales next to the destroyed children at the border, in Yemen, etc. When I joined the military, I was handed a gun, not a pamphlet to help me talk our enemies out of their positions. It should be extremely clear by now. Vote early. Argue with these aholes. Leave them no peace. Either they lose power or kiss ur arses goodbye.
I know this is trivial but the words to the song at the top are from “Mr. Sandman”. I’m older than you and remember singing it in the 50’s. “Mr. Postman” goes Wait a minute Mr. Postman, check and see. Is there a letter in your bag for me.
Good catch!
Mr Postman, look and see, is there a letter, a letter for me?
There has already been damage done that will affect the election – damage that can’t be fixed in the time available. I heard on TRMS last night that over five hundred machines (I can’t remember if she said 502 or 507) had been removed or were scheduled for removal. Later, when Ali Velshi was on I learned the memo that had made its way to reporters stated the number was actual 671 machines! All of them by the way in in high population areas, which is also not at all coincidentally happens to be the kinds of places that can expect high numbers of Democratic votes. Granted, a lot of those ballots sorted would go out well beyond those areas but the mail slowdown in general will hit cities and suburbs hard.
Here’s the thing that really stuck with me during Velshi’s show however. From the time earlier this week when Maddow first rang the alarm bell about machines being removed I worried about damage to them from being improperly transported and stored. Basically, that putting them back in place and recalibrating them might take weeks or longer. It’s much worse. It seems machines are actually being junked! Just thrown out. Each machine costs millions of dollars, which means replacing them will require manufacturing new machines, which in turn means (probably) the company or companies that make them will have to gear up for extra production. Then there’s the time to ship, install and calibrate them and that’s assuming funds would be available. This would surely not be able to happen until AFTER the election even if it were made a priority for the USPS to do it and the funds (upwards of a billion dollars probably) were provided.
Given that ballots are sorted by these machines, the vote suppressing fuckery that’s been done can’t be un-fucked before voting starts.
People are going to have to drop off their ballots at approved drop boxes in states/places that allow it, or if you live where I do at the county clerk’s office to ensure they get where they need to go, and especially in time to be counted. Or as I always intended to do (my signature is a scrawl and a GOP election observer would fight tooth and nail to disqualify my ballot, probably on grounds that my notary needed to be “verified” or some other such shit) so despite my health conditions I’ll be taking the risk of voting in person and personally feeding my ballot into the scanner.
My recommendation is for as many people as can do so to do what I intend to do. Vote early. In the meantime every time I’m at the store I make sure to look for the chance to buy some cans of Lysol spray to treat my rolling walker, my car, and since I’m trying to figure out how I can make a disposable PPE suit (I don’t give a flying fuck if MAGAts try to make fun of me but I also know it’s possible they will try to rip it for “fun” so I might not bother). I’ve been working out decontamination for before I get back in my car too. As well as the procedure for when I get back to my apartment. Past experience tells me I’ll be in line for a half hour or so outside, and another half hour inside and voting. This year it could be much more which means a WHOLE lot more exposure than a trip to the grocery store. So I’m figuring things out ahead of time.
For those that do intend to vote by mail, my advice is to apply AS SOON as your jurisdiction allows you to do so. If they will let you pick up your ballot in person then do it. If so and early voting has started fill it out and hand it right back unless they have a requirement for notarization and no one at the clerk’s office can or will do it for you. But once you have your ballot, fill it out THAT DAY. And if at all possible either hand it in back at the county clerk’s office or get it to a drop box if your allowed to do so. That means contacting your county Party HQ ahead of time to get a sample ballot and if it doesn’t include recommendations following up with them on candidates for races where there’s no Party affiliation listed. Every election has such stuff – say for your “Water and Soil District commission representative, or for Trustees of a university.
Ordinarily I’d say if you can afford it pay the fee to skip the mail and send your ballot in via UPS or FedEx. However, UPS is headed up by a pal of the Postmaster General, and FedEx is headed up by a major GOP donor so I don’t trust them for ONE SECOND not to have programmed their own sorting equipment to “misplace” those flat letter size containers that might contain ballots that just so happen to be addressed to a county clerk’s office.
Just keep in mind that as much of a hassle as it might be to turn your ballot in by doing so in person you have time to plan ahead if you need transportation or other assistance. And finally, even if your state doesn’t require notarization of your ballot start looking now for someone who you can have notarize it was you who signed it. And if witnesses are required their signature’s too. Don’t give ANY fucking GOP election judge ONE FUCKING BIT of slack. Because signature match is going to be a major front in this war on (Democratic) voters this fall.
As a retired Postal Worker who worked those very machines for YEARS I can tell you there is no way in hell any new machines will be up and running by election time. It takes MONTHS to get them installed and calibrated enough to run well enough to go a full day without requiring fiddling with it. And the newer the machine, the worse it was and longer it took to become reliable.
I just got of the phone making calls for the Minnesota Democratic Party. Every single person I spoke with said they either plan to vote on person (one woman said she’d wear a hazmat suit if that’s what it took!) or they planned to personally drop their ballot into an official ot collection box or hand deliver it to their county election officials. NOBODY trusts what’s happening to the post offices!!! tRump picked the WRONG battle!
And as Murf said, the timing was dumb as hell. THIS far ahead, everybody’s got a chance to do a course correct.
Trump’s got full Postal! Lock him Up!
[email protected]. Lock him up! Harass his ass!
Obstructing the mail is a federal crime, S Code Title 18 part 1, chaper 83 s 1701. Jue 25 1048 ch 645,62 stat 778 Pul L 103-322 tit;e XXX113 330016 (1)(b) Sept 1994,,108 sta,2146
I dropped him a line. If he’s smart, he’ll take my advice and quit.
That quote is not from “Please Mr. Postman” — it’s from “Mr. Sandman” but with “Sandman” changed to “Postman”.