HOUSE ADOPTS BILL TO ROLL BACK POSTAL SERVICE SABOTAGE. The House came back to D.C. for a Saturday session (8/22) to pass a bill that would provide $25 billion to help the US Postal Service make it through the pandemic and prohibit any operational changes that would delay mail delivery amid widespread fears the Trump administration is trying to discourage millions of Americans from casting ballots by mail this November. The House voted 257-150, with 26 Republicans joining Democrats to protect the Postal Service after widespread complaints about delayed delivery of medications, bills and checks and even mail-order chicks, but the Republican-led Senate has no plans to act on the bill, which Trump has threatened to veto.

Republicans accused Democrats of manufacturing “baseless conspiracy theories” about delays in postal deliveries, the Washington Post noted (8/22) but Donald Trump has said (8/13) that he opposed election aid for states and an emergency bailout for the Postal Service because he wants to restrict how many Americans can vote by mail. The president, who plans to vote by mail, has repeatedly made the baseless claim that mail-in ballots can lead to widespread fraud while criticizing the Postal Service in recent months, calling it a “joke.”

David Williams, the former vice chairman of the USPS Board of Governors who quit in protest at the end of April, testified to the Congressional Progressive Caucus that what he witnessed in his final months at the Postal Service was unprecedented, detailing how Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin required members of the supposedly independent board to “come to his office to kiss the ring and receive his blessing before confirmation” and made “illegal” demands of officials.

“The Secretary has called over board members to provide instructions and requests and express his displeasure, which is really striking. I’m not sure I’ve run into that before, where one department is trying to run another department,” said Williams, who previously served as USPS inspector general. “Normally you would simply reject the effort and report it to Congress.”

Williams told lawmakers that the removal of USPS mailboxes in several states was specifically advocated by Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who was reportedly involved in the recruitment of DeJoy for the postmaster general position, Jake Johnson reported at CommonDreams (8/21).

“The blue boxes were maybe the most interesting of all,” said Williams, a Democrat who was appointed to the Board of Governors by President Trump. “Those were not part of ongoing plans. To my knowledge, as a matter of fact ... Secretary Mnuchin wanted that done. His study of the Postal Service asked that it be done.”

The chair of the House Oversight Committee said things at the Postal Service are far worse than previously known.

Documents released (8/22) by Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) show a 7% to 9% decline in mail delivery going back to July. including in First-Class, Marketing, Periodicals and Priority Mail. Louis DeJoy, a major donor to President Trump, Republican fundraiser and the first postmaster general to not be a career postal worker, took over USPS in June, CommonDreams reported.

“After being confronted on (8/21) with first-hand reports of delays across the country, the Postmaster General finally acknowledged a ‘dip’ in service, but he has never publicly disclosed the full extent of the alarming nationwide delays caused by his actions and described in these new documents,” said Maloney. “To those who still claim there are ‘no delays’ and that these reports are just ‘conspiracy theories,’ I hope this new data causes them to re-think their position and support our urgent legislation today.  We have all seen the headlines from every corner of our country, we have read the stories and seen pictures, we have heard directly from our constituents, and these new documents show that the delays are far worse than we were told.”

The problems are hitting rural areas especially hard, the New York Times reported (8/21). “This is an attack on a tried-and-true service that rural America depends on,” said Chris Gibbs, a farmer in western Ohio who voted for Trump in 2016, but this year started an advocacy group arguing that the president has failed rural America. “It pulls one more piece of stability, predictability and reliability from rural America. People don’t like that.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said his office has received 4,800 calls from the largely rural state about Postal Service problems since the pandemic began, the New York Times reported.

Postmaster General DeJoy has mapped out more sweeping changes to the US Postal Service than previously disclosed, which could lead to slower mail delivery and higher prices for some mail services, the Washington Post reported (8/20). The plans include raising package rates, particularly when delivering the last mile on behalf of big retailers; setting higher prices for service in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico; curbing discounts for nonprofits; requiring election ballots to use first-class postage; and leasing space in Postal Service facilities to other government agencies and companies. They would take effect after the election, said four people familiar with Postal Service discussions.

DeJoy has made it clear he intends to introduce long-term change. “I came to the Postal Service to make changes to secure the success of this organization and its long-term sustainability,” he said (8/12) in announcing temporary suspension of controversial policies such as limiting overtime for postal workers and dismantling mail-sorting machines. “I believe significant reforms are essential to that objective, and work toward those reforms will commence after the election.”

TRUMP TRIES (AND FAILS) TO SEPARATE HIMSELF FROM NEWLY INDICTED BORDER WALL FRAUDSTERS. The morning of Aug. 20, the news cycle exploded with yet another member of Donald Trump’s inner circle facing federal charges, bringing the total to six Trump confidantes who’ve faced felony charges since 2016, Jen Hayden noted at DailyKos (8/20). This time it is Steve Bannon, who joins Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn in the Trump Indictment Club. Bannon was the Trump campaign’s chief executive officer in 2016. Bannon later followed Trump to the White House as chief strategist, a position he left in August 2017 to return to Breitbart News and attached himself to a series of grifts, including the one he is now facing charges for, which involved soliciting donations for a privately built border wall and then, according to prosecutors, fraudulently creating sham invoices and shell companies to enrich himself and other collaborators. It’s quite similar to what the NRA was doing, as well. Makes you wonder if any other campaigns might have similar setups? Curious, indeed.

But back to Trump responding to the Bannon news. During an appearance with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, Trump took a few questions and tried to put a Grand Canyon-sized gap between himself and Bannon, a man he apparently barely knows now. Let’s break down his responses here, because he gave a couple of rather incredulous responses. 

First up, he details how very “sad” it is that Bannon is facing charges, and then he pivots to a curious statement that is rather telling. Trump says, “I think it is surprising. But, this is something that by reading social media, by reading whatever it is, by speaking to Mike and Mike and all of them, I didn’t like that project.” Now why would Trump mention “social media”? Because on July 12, after erosion along the base of the fence on the Rio Grande was detected, threatening the stability of the wall, Trump tweeted:

“I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads. It was only done to make me look bad, and perhaps it now doesn’t even work. Should have been built like rest of Wall, 500 plus miles.”

Let’s be clear here: By the time he sent that tweet, Trump was no doubt well aware that Bannon’s wall project was under investigation. Bannon himself reportedly learned of the investigation in October 2019 and he and the other defendants took steps to further conceal the fraud. There can be little doubt that Trump knew and many are speculating that is precisely why Attorney General Bill Barr moved in June to fire Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney leading the investigation. 

And let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on Trump saying he didn’t like the privately funded border wall project because it was “showboating” and my goodness, if there is one thing Donald Trump hates, it’s showboaters.

He hates showboaters so much that one of the cornerstones of his 2020 campaign is encouraging boat owners to fly Trump flags and organize boat parades weekly.

Speaking of boats, Bannon’s partner in this scam was Brian Kolfage, who created the GoFundMe account to privately build a border wall. Kolfage was a proud member of the Trump boating community, using a boat that he bought with the funds scammed from the border wall project.

Ironically enough, Bannon was arrested on a yacht anchored off the coast of Connecticut. The boat is owned by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and the arrest was carried out by … wait for it … federal postal inspectors.

TRUMP SPEECH ATTACKING BIDEN ON IMMIGRATION INSTEAD SHOWS TRUMP’S OWN EXTREMISM. Two days before Bannon was busted for the alleged Border Wall fraud scheme, impeached president Donald Trump returned to Arizona (8/18) to give a “speech” that tried to paint Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as some sort of extremist on issues like immigration policy. Instead, Gabe Ortiz noted at DailyKos (8/19), Trump’s rant only continued to showcase his own authoritarianism and racism, including illegally blocking and expelling asylum-seeking children at the border. But there was also plenty of stupid during his Yuma visit: Long after Americans have already started paying for his stupid and racist wall, Trump again insisted Mexico would foot the bill.

Trump kicked off his rant by touting the endorsement of the National Border Patrol Council, a union that also endorsed him in 2016. The organization itself had said at the time that it “had a longstanding practice of not endorsing presidential candidates in the primaries,” but candidate Trump was just the kind of racist that border agents have been longing for. And when they’ve already had no issue with stomping on US law, what’s the harm in stomping on a pesky little tradition?

These agents have “been my friends from the beginning,” Trump said, calling them “unbelievable people” and “great people.” Some might say that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tactical unit that kidnapped protesters right off the street in Oregon before helping raid a humanitarian medical camp at the southern border are, in fact, not “great people,” but those kinds of raids and state-sanctioned disappearances are exactly why the authoritarian president loves them in the first place.

But the impeached president was also there to attack Joe Biden, who was set to receive the Democratic nomination for president later that day. “Biden’s plan is the most radical, extreme, reckless, dangerous, and deadly immigration plan ever put forward by a major party candidate,” Trump vomited at the rally he’s holding in the middle of a pandemic, claiming that “[f]or decades, Washington politicians like Biden allowed an endless supply of illegal foreign labor to decimate American jobs and wages.” 

Regarding the former claim, Biden’s immigration plan is to put undocumented families on a path to citizenship, something Americans support by a massive margin: “In research conducted by Civis Analytics for The Immigration Hub, 77% of the 9,000 swing state voters interviewed supported a pathway to citizenship—the highest rated position of those tested,” immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice noted in August. So it’s Trump’s mass deportation agenda that’s, in fact, “radical, extreme, reckless, dangerous, and deadly.”

On the second claim, well, it’s always about projection with this dude. The Trump Organization’s hiring and exploitation of undocumented workers is one of the nation’s worst-kept secrets, from his Virginia winery to his Bedminster golf resort. Undocumented workers like Victorina Morales and Sandra Diaz helped keep those businesses running. Not only that, Trump is pointing his orange finger at others about an “endless supply” of undocumented workers when the Washington Post last year described “a pipeline” of undocumented workers for Trump that “goes back years.” 

Trump also pulled out a redux of his presidential campaign kickoff speech, when he descended those Trump Tower escalators to slander Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists.” The latest version didn’t change much from then, and I won’t bother repeating it here for him because we already know he’s a white supremacist. 

REPUBLICAN VOTERS SAY COVID-19 DEATH RATE ‘ACCEPTABLE.’ Republicanism is now nothing more than a cult. That’s the takeaway message of a new CBS News poll finding that Republicans by a 3-to-1 margin think the battle against COVID-19 is “going well,” Hunter noted at DailyKos (8/23).

Among all registered voters in the national poll, 6 in 10 say the battle is going “badly.”

America’s registered voters say America is not better off than four years ago by an overwhelming 65%-35% margin. Republican voters, however, believe it is—and by a 75% to 25% spread.

Republicans believe COVID-19 deaths are being exaggerated; a plurality of all voters believe it is being undercounted. And, most troubling of all, 57% of Republicans say the nearly 180,000 US COVID-19 deaths and rising are “acceptable.”

The poll also found that most voters agree with the Black Lives Matter movement. While 81% of Republicans think too much attention has been paid to complaints of police abuse of Blacks, among all registered voters, 24% said the attention to Black Lives Matter is about right and 32% say it’s not enough.

The poll, conducted Aug. 19-21, found Biden leading Trump 52-42%.

TENNESSEE WILL STRIP VOTE FROM PROTESTERS. Tennessee protesters will face harsh penalties, including losing the right to vote, as punishment for participating in protests under a law enacted by Tennessee’s GOP-dominant General Assembly. Right-wing Governor Bill Lee quietly signed off on the bill (8/20), AP reports.

Under the new law, demonstrators who camp on state property can be charged with a Class E felony, punishable by up to six years in prison, rather than a misdemeanor it was previously.

Since George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in May, protesters have camped outside the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville, demanding a meeting with the governor to discuss racial inequality and police brutality. The protesters set up camp in War Memorial Plaza near the Capitol, naming it the “People’s Plaza” and “Ida B. Wells Plaza,” after the civil rights leader. They stayed there 24 hours a day for more than two months, CommonDreams reported (8/22).

Tennessee is one of 21 states that punish felons by taking away their right to vote, and Gov. Lee made it clear that this threat is meant as a warning to the Black Lives Matter protesters who have called for racial justice in the state.

“The racial motivation underlying this law is undeniable. This is a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement and to those who are resolutely opposed to racial injustice and police violence,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “To criminalize protest activity and disenfranchise voters on top of it defies principles that lie at the heart of our democracy. This is abuse of state power intended to silence voices of dissent from the streets to the ballot box.”

“We are very disappointed in Governor Lee’s decision to sign this bill, which chills free speech, undermines criminal justice reform and fails to address the very issues of racial justice and police violence raised by the protesters who are being targeted,” ACLU of Tennessee Executive Director Hedy Weinberg said in a statement. “While the governor often speaks about sentencing reform, this bill contradicts those words and wastes valuable taxpayer funds to severely criminalize dissent.”

Protest organizer Justin Jones, 24, told The Washington Post: “There was no violent behavior by the protesters, but there was violence by the state troopers who dragged us down the Capitol stairs. This is all about criminalizing peaceful protesting. Everything we’ve done is the spirit of nonviolence. This will not deter us from pushing forward in challenging these laws, both in the courts and in the streets,” Jones said. “This just confirms that we must continue.”

PENTAGON WEIGHING $2 BILLION CUTS TO MILITARY HEALTH CARE. Shortly after both chambers of Congress approved a $740 billion Defense Department budget for fiscal year 2021, Pentagon officials are reportedly pushing for more than $2 billion in cuts to military healthcare over the next five years, potentially threatening the coverage of millions of personnel and their families amid a global pandemic, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (8/17).

Politico reported (8/16) that the proposed $2.2 billion cut to the military healthcare system is part of a “sweeping effort” by Defense Secretary Mark Esper to “eliminate inefficiencies within the Pentagon’s coffers.”

“Ever notice that it’s never a cut to things used to send kids to war?” asked Josh Moon of the Alabama Political Reporter. “It’s always—always—a cut to the promises we make to get them to volunteer for us. What a disgrace.”

According to Politico, “Esper and his deputies have argued that America’s private health system can pick up the slack” for any servicemembers who lose coverage.

“Roughly 9.5 million active-duty personnel, military retirees, and their dependents rely on the military health system, which is the military’s sprawling government-run healthcare framework that operates hundreds of facilities around the world,” Politico noted. “The military health system also provides care through TRICARE, which enables military personnel and their families to obtain civilian healthcare outside of military networks.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the push for billions in healthcare cuts shows once again that the Pentagon “puts more effort in protecting defense contractor profits than the lives of our troops.”

Alongside Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Pocan co-sponsored an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have cut the proposed $740 billion budget by 10% without touching the military healthcare program. The amendment failed last month by a vote of 93-324, with 139 Democrats joining 185 Republicans in voting no.

A companion amendment in the Senate led by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) also failed to pass.

Unnamed Defense Department officials told Politico that, if approved, the cuts “could effectively gut the Pentagon’s healthcare system,” adding to the rapidly swelling ranks of the uninsured. A study released last month by advocacy group Families USA found that at least 5.4 million Americans have lost their health insurance during the coronavirus pandemic.

Politico reported that the proposed $2.2 billion in cuts includes “eliminating all basic research dollars for combat casualty care, infectious disease and military medicine for [Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences], as well as slicing operational funds.”

“What’s been proposed would be devastating,” warned one anonymous senior official.

TRUMP PROPOSES CAPTAIN GAINS CUT TO HELP RICH. President Trump said (8/10) he was “seriously considering” a cut in the capital gains rate if he’s re-elected, Kevin Drum noted at MotherJones.com (8/22). Needless to say, Trump says a lot of things, and the fact that he said this probably doesn’t mean much. Still, he was backed up by longtime capital gains warrior Larry Kudlow, who told reporters “We’d like to take it back to 15% [from the current 20%], where it was for quite a long time because it helps jobs, investment, productivity and wages.”

Drum took a look at whether capital gains rates have any effect on economic growth over the past 60 years, and found little correlation with real GDP growth as the rates have ranged from 25% in the 1960s to 40% in the 1970s to 15% in the 2000s and 20%.

A Congressional Research Service in 2012 concluded that “neither the top marginal tax rate nor the top capital gains tax rate are strongly correlated with saving, investment, labor productivity, and GDP growth controlling for other covariates.”

“There’s been a ton of research on this subject and it almost unanimously concludes that capital gains rates have a tiny effect at most on economic growth,” Drum wrote. “On the other hand, when capital gains rates are different from ordinary tax rates they can cause serious mischief.”

As Len Burman of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center wrote in 2012, “Virtually every individual income tax shelter is devoted to converting fully taxed income into capital gains.”

Capital gains tax cuts are regressive, with the benefits going almost exclusively to the rich. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 71% of the benefits go to the top 1%.

“Many affluent households earn a majority of their income in capital gains. This means that some of them actually have lower overall tax rates than middle-class households, who have to pay the ordinary income tax rate. Lowering the capital gains rate would only make this worse.

“So that’s that. It’s no surprise that rich people—and therefore the Republican Party—are in favor of reducing capital gains rates. Why wouldn’t they be? But there’s no reason for the other 99 percent of us to be in favor. It does the economy no good; it does us no good; and it motivates lots of inefficient gameplaying with taxes. It’s just another stupid con. Don’t fall for it if your income is anywhere below $200,000 or so.”

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2020

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