Showing posts with label Vice News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vice News. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

With Destruction of Hundreds Of Mail Sorting Machines Look For Chaos, Potential Political Violence In Wake Of General Election



"The Post Office is an earnest,  all-American, beloved, practical part of our lives.   You mess with it and you are messing with a lot of Americans - who apparently are in the mood to push back... The U.S. Postal Service is more American than apple pie.  And I mean that in a very specific sense. Apple pie does not have its own line in the Constitution.  The Post Office does.  It is a necessity, it is uncontroversial, it is integrated into the fabric of our lives."  - Rachel Maddow, Aug. 14, MSNBC

 The news that brand new mail sorting machines  are being destroyed in the run up to a major election in which over 100 million mail ballots may be cast, ought to set every citizen's teeth on edge. For with this sabotage of these critical machines - which can process up to 36,000 piece of mail per hour - we are looking at the specter of the destruction of our democracy using open sabotage and terror.

 Worse, the sabotage in concert with Trump's endless attacks on the election being 'rigged" from mail voting, is setting the stage for massive civil unrest, chaos and violence given what is likely to unfold.

 Consider: 671 of the machines have already been disassembled and many chucked into dumpsters, as reported  on MSNBC  (Stephanie Ruhle) Monday. And also originally by VICE News, e.g.

In doing this DeJoy and his cohort had to have calculated just what it would take to muck up the works in the midst of a pandemic election, So tossed a "spanner" into the mail system as it were.  Take 36,000 pieces of mail processed per hour at 671 sites (mainly in city areas, some rural) and look at eight hours a day taken out of service  -  and over at least ten days of sorting before the Nov. 3rd deadline.    We are now looking at a backlog of millions of mail ballots to be tabulated and counted and a best guess is it will not be completed until December 1st.    That means we may not know the winner until December 1st or probably later.
All of this while Trump incessantly rage tweets and barks and snarls (like the mad dog he is) about the forthcoming election being "rigged" and  (on Monday): "The only way they can take this election away from us is if they rig it!"    Which is total codswallop given most polls show him losing by up to 8 points which  if it holds -would translate to a landslide, say 440 electoral votes to 98.

 But imagine this asinine autocrat Traitor feeding the fires of frenzy for at least a month.  Indeed, in a worst case scenario - with enough snafus (e.g. some states throwing out ballots over changing rules) -   we may not learn the winner until the new year.  Over all that time Trump stoking rage among his denizens.  All it will take is one "match" and this nation could literally go up in flames. Think of the Kenosha protests and fire bombs etc. but nationwide.  (One  FT columnist compared the  conditions to the 1860 election, "just before the Civil War.")  

 In the end, the removal of the sorting machines at this critical time will clearly have a major impact on ballots processed. And the slower, the more ponderous the rate of resulting counts - and in a majority of states- the greater the potential for violence and chaos.  Especially this time as the Resistance will not easily allow Biden to concede like Gore did in 2000. Not until every damned outstanding ballot is counted in every damned state.   Not when we know this election is "for all the marbles" , and may well be the last gasp of democracy, whether the millions of Trump's  deranged zombies even know or care.
We know already this will be a knife fight and Trump and the Repukes are setting the stage up convinced the Dems will meekly abandon the effort and cave like they did in 2000 to "save the Republic" or "avoid a constitutional crisis" or some such rot. But make no mistake, there is no such luxury this time around  e.g.
So the Dems will have to bring metaphorical Uzis to the knife fight. No time now, no matter how long the ballot counting takes,  to play the meek role. Thanks to Louis DeJoy's mass sabotage of sorting machines  - including ripping off the UPC coding labels so they can't just be reassembled - even if dedicated workers wanted to.  At least one liberal blogger has recommended "non-violent defense of the election in the streets", e.g.
But that, of course, will depend on the behavior of Trump's brigade of zombies, Boogie Boies, Nazis and other riff raff,  including militias. No lefty I know is prepared to "turn the other cheek" if a long gun gets pointed at him or her, so things could get ugly and fast.  But again, this is the diabolical stage Trump, DeJoy and the 'Pukes have set up.  As the blogger Jeffrey C. Isaac notes:
"It is likely that the election will generate many court challenges and political contestation involving governors, state legislatures and Congress. We may also see civil violence fomented by Trump’s far-right supporters, many of whom are armed and dangerous and have already shown their willingness to brandish their weapons in public."
So hey,forewarned is forearmed!  Could it have been avoided? Well, yeah, Duh! Had DeJoy not sabotaged the critical sorting machines en masse just weeks from the election! (And also defiantly vowed to the House Oversight Committee Monday he will absolutely not restore them to service.  Most are utterly junked anyway.)
Fortunately, Janice and I live in a state (Colorado) where we will get our ballots at least ten days before and we plan to promptly fill them in then deposit in a drop box (not mail them in).  This is cool for us.  The problems then, will likely arrive in all the battleground states which hold the electoral votes needed to win like they did in 2016. So we are looking at Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania in particular.   Any foul ups in the processing of ballots in those key states could have especially ugly outcomes.  It is regrettable things have come to this but as Robert Reich put it in a recent blog on smirkingchimp.com:
"It’s no secret Donald Trump will do anything to hold on to power. His latest strategy is to sabotage the United States Postal Service, courtesy of his handpicked Postmaster General Louis DeJoy."
Watch Reich's full presentation here:




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Sunday, August 16, 2020

If Trump's Reign Of Terror On The Postal Service Succeeds You Can Kiss The Rest Of This Country Goodbye Too



"Victory at any cost! Even if it means burning the whole country and all its institutions down!"

"The Post Office is an earnest,  all-American, beloved, practical part of our lives.   You mess with it and you are messing with a lot of Americans - who apparently are in the mood to push back... The U.S. Postal Service is more American than apple pie.  And I mean that in a very specific sense. Apple pie does not have its own line in the Constitution.  The Post Office does.  It is a necessity, it is uncontroversial, it is integrated into the fabric of our lives."  - Rachel Maddow, Friday night, MSNBC

As Trump's reign of terror  and sabotage against the coming election and the U.S. Postal Service ramps up it is clear  we are in a state of national emergency.  The problem is few are aware of the extent of the pillage already done. Before it goes beyond salvaging we need millions taking to the streets in protests as loud and energetic as those protesting George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Exaggeration?  Hell no, not when mail boxes have been carted away in dozens of cities and only a last minute public outcry stopped it  - temporarily at least.  But nothing has of yet stopped the removal and destruction of hundreds of bulk sorting machines - all designed to clog up the mail so voting by mail becomes a herculean task if not impossible.  That means tens of millions of Americans potentially being disenfranchised. As Mika Brzezinski  observed last week Friday on 'Morning Joe', at no other time in our history has such blatant sabotage been carried out against a department enshrined in the Constitution. 
In addition, the  US Postal Service, in letters to 46 states, and the District of Columbia, warned that it could not guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted.  Such a fiasco could possibly affect tens of millions of votes across almost the whole country - especially including key battleground states like Pennsylvania.   The news was reported first in the Washington Post.
But the malicious destruction of sorting machines, which can process up to 36,000 pieces of mail per hour and cost nearly a quarter million bucks each,  uncovers a whole new dimension of Trump's sabotage.  This was reported by Vice News, e.g.

Excerpt:
"Most of the machines being dismantled in the facilities Motherboard identified are delivery bar code sorters (DBCS), into which letters, postcards and similarly sized mail (but not magazines and large envelopes, which are categorized as “flats” and sorted differently) are fed. The DBCS sorts the mail into one of hundreds of “stackers,” a slot about a foot long. Each slot is for a different destination, be it another post office or distribution facility.
A DBCS typically requires two workers to operate: one to feed the mail into the machine, and the other to collect the mail from the stackers and put them in the appropriate bins for transport. Running at peak efficiency, the machines can sort about 35,000 pieces of mail per hour,"
Trump has openly admitted (on FOX Business Network Thursday)  to his deliberate sabotage to prevent mail voting, and hence cheating to try to keep power, e.g
  Excerpt:
"They need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots, But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”   
In other words, the traitorous rat swine will try to destroy the post office in a desperate effort to rubber stamp his fascist authoritarianism.   We also have learned (ibid.)
"This week, House and Senate Democrats sent separate letters to (Louis) DeJoy laying the blame for the recent mail delays at his feet, writing:
“The House is seriously concerned that you are implementing policies that accelerate the crisis at the Postal Service, including directing Post Offices to no longer treat all election mail as First Class. If implemented now, as the election approaches, this policy will cause further delays to election mail that will disenfranchise voters and put significant financial pressure on election jurisdictions.”
But make no mistake, this letter is inadequate given the nature of the emergency and its impact on an election in less than 80 days. Not to mention the impact on the tens  of millions who depend on mail deliveries, from bills to be paid,  to packages expected -  including prescription meds. As columnist Margaret Sullivan has written in The Washington Post Saturday, quoting journalist Elizabeth Spiers:

"Supporting the continued existence of the USPS, which is guaranteed in the Constitution, should be the most straightforward non-political bipartisan effort in existence. Everyone uses it and needs it, and the irony is older rural Trump supporters need it *more*.”

  So what we really need, as Rep. Ayanna Presley pointed out, is an emergency reconvening of the House from its summer break and a serious interrogation of Trump Toady DeJoy by the Oversight Committee.

 That and tens of millions protesting in the streets - including in front of DeJoy's home -  just might sway the Senate Republicans to end the insanity and support the postal service which is admired and loved by all political tribes.

 As for the very act of mail voting now under siege by Trump, we have had that over the past ten years here in Colorado. The fraud rate?  Estimated by the Brennan Center for Justice at a whopping 0.0000001%.   Or 1 in ten million. About the same probability as being struck twice in the same location by lightning.  As our Secretary of State Jena Griswold has put it (Denver Post, Aug, 14, p 1A):

 "It's voter suppression to undermine the safest method to vote during a pandemic and force Americans to risk their lives to vote."

 Even more blunt are these words from Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates: 

 "The president of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies.  That includes cutting off delivery of medicines because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely. "

 There is no question that this story  -- until the Postal service is re-established whole, as it was - must be the Number 1, Number 2, Number 3 and Number 100 story until the election is over.  Every media source must be on it 24/7 without letup.  As the WaPo's Sullivan notes:

 "But if journalists don’t keep the pressure on Postal Service problems, they will be abdicating their duty.  There’s very little that matters more than the Nov. 3 vote. Anything that threatens the integrity of the vote needs to be treated as one of the biggest stories out there — even if it’s not the sexiest."

 Ms. Sullivan then quotes Dan Gillmor, co-founder of the News Co/Lab at Arizona State University’s journalism school:

 "Some stories demand collaboration, and this one is a plain example. The nation’s newsrooms — working together and, crucially, with the help of the public in communities around the nation — could find out and explain what is going on, at the macro and micro level,” 

 And meanwhile, citizens can mount massive protests to garner needed media attention, as the House Oversight Committee reconvenes in emergency session to grill DeJoy and his trolls.  This is too important an issue for anyone to slack off and worst of all, not pay attention.

See Also:

10 Things to Know About Trump’s Post Office Scandal

AND:

 And:
 | 
Trump Is Destroying the Postal Service to Rig the Election and Senate Republicans Are Allowing It
by Joan McCarter | August 14, 2020 - 7:18am | permalink

And:
Trump Going Postal on Our Ass
by Jaime O'Neill | August 15, 2020 - 7:31am | permalink

And:

 | 
Postal Service Warned 46 States Last Month That Their Elections Are in Jeopardy
And:

 | 
How to Save 2020: The Grassroots Emergency Election Protection "Trifecta" Action Guide
by Harvey Wasserman | August 15, 2020 - 6:20am | permalink

 And:



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Sunday, May 31, 2020

American Tinderbox - Blame White Nationalists & The QAnon- "Boogaloo" Extremists Fomenting Riots To Launch a Civil War


Far-right activists marched through the University of Virginia campus with torches on Friday night.
THESE are the renegades the Feds ought to be looking at as chaos is unleashed in American cities. These Right wing racist savages - lower image from Charlottesville in Aug. 2017,  chanting "Jews will not replace us!"-  have been itching to start a race war since Charlottesville and before.

One can understand why Janice would be suspicious after watching AG Bill Barr's performance two nights ago, blabbering about the violence accompanying many of the George Floyd protests: "In many cases it appears the violence is driven by anarchic and left wing extremist groups".  Unwilling to pin the tail on the actual messengers of mayhem:  right wing extremists using the upheaval, chaos and violence to hijack the peaceful protests for their own ends.    With the reporting by Vice News overnight, that:

 "Far Right extremists are hoping to turn the George Floyd protests into a new Civil War."

 Janice had her first evidence that her suspicions were correct, and it is the Right and its dregs (e.g. from 4chan, 8chan, Boogaloo Bois, militias  etc.- such as stormed the Minnesota state house two months ago) behind all the havoc and using the civil protests as a "human shield". I agree with her totally and also that the Swine -in -chief and his toady Barr are trying to callously exploit these events to propound a "law and order" meme to help Trump get re-elected.  

 And what do we find Trump doing in the midst of this national agony, with millions of citizens suffering -   over 104,000 deaths from the pandemic, 40 million unemployed, no more stimulus money and facing home evictions in a month?  Is he trying to assuage the pain and bring the country together? Hell no, he's acting the part of the vicious, vile, verminous rat he is, e.g

 Image result for Trump as a rat images
Firing off a series of tweets at Minnesota's response, vowing "shootings" will soon be done, ridiculing protesters outside his gated mansion at the White House,  and warning them that "vicious dogs will be released."  Thereby putting himself in the same role as the infamous AL sheriff Bull Connor-   who used fire hoses and vicious dogs on peaceful marching men, women and children in Birmingham over 50 years ago.   Only this time going one better than Connor and bragging "there will be some of the most ominous weapons ever seen" - i.e. if protesters attempt to breach the WH fence to get at him.  See also:

America is at a low ebb, shaken by multiple blows, and Trump adds to the distress


 Janice is also aware, of course, of German history and how -when Hitler and the Nazis came to power - they had blamed "Jews, leftists, socialists and unions" for  ongoing civil unrest and violent mayhem and riots that struck German cities in the waning days of the Weimar Republic.  But most of those were incited by Hitler's S.A. (Sturm Abteilung) terror squads.

 Ian Kershaw in his magnificent account of Hitler’s rise to power (‘Hitler Nemesis’) noted that Germany's 1930-31 Weimar Republic constituted a weak democracy which had little or no control over the most radical Rightists, especially Hitler’s NSDAP party. They would regularly beat Marxists, socialists, and any leftists on the streets while holding up signs that read: “Tot dem Marxem!” (Death to Marxists!)  (Recall on Thursday, Trump himself Tweeted out a video of a supporter saying, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”)

 My good fortune has been that on two occasions - one in August of 1978, the other in May of 1985-   I was able to meet and talk with actual flesh and blood Germans from the WWII era: one who had been a member of Hitler Youth (forced to at the point of a gun to his mother's head), and two others who had fought for the most fearsome army on the continent - the German Wehrmacht. At different times, they used their own photographs, films and archives to show me just what Hitler and Nazis were about. Looking back on the content of those archival films I see the same echoes now in our present condition, including mass unemployment, riots, and mayhem.

 Let's move to the present. In her latest NY Times column Michelle Goldberg wrote:

 "But if America feels like a tinderbox at the moment, it’s not just because of pressure coming from the dispossessed. On Wednesday, the journalists Robert Evans and Jason Wilson published a fascinating and disturbing look at the “boogaloo” movement — “an extremely online update of the militia movement” — on the investigative website Bellingcat. “The ‘boogaloo Bois’ expect, even hope, that the warmer weather will bring armed confrontations with law enforcement, and will build momentum towards a new civil war in the United States,” Evans and Wilson write. They add, “In a divided, destabilized post-coronavirus landscape, they could well contribute to widespread violence in the streets of American cities.”

 This is exactly what we are seeing now.  Echoing these insights, Mia Bloom on her blog Justsecurity notes:

  "Former FBI agent and CNN commentator, Josh Campbell wrote, that Minnesota “authorities have been monitoring alleged criminals online, including postings by suspected white supremacists trying to incite violence.”

 Most disturbing:
"The accelerationists, if you have never heard the term, are an extreme subset of white nationalism whose goal is to bring about chaos and destruction. The basic tenet of accelerationism argues that since Western governments are inherently corrupt, the best (and only) thing supremacists can do is to accelerate the end of society by sowing chaos and aggravating political tensions. “Accelerationist ideas have been cited in mass shooters’ manifestos — explicitly, in the case of the New Zealand killer — and are frequently referenced in white supremacist web forums and chat rooms,” Zack Beauchamp explained.

White Supremacists pretending to host a protest to honor George Floyd on Facebook to whip up violence in San Diego were posted on the BLMSD social media warning people not to go and that it was a white supremacist organized rally. People attending demonstrations remarked on the fact that the demographics were wrong, in places like Oakland where the majority of the destruction was perpetrated by young Caucasian men has inspired not just people on social media but reporting in the mainstream"
Of course we also cannot ignore the possibility that agent provocateurs could be at work as well, such as from within the ranks of the police assigned to the protests.  (As pointed out by Joy Reid this morning in relation to an incident in NYC).  We also read from Mia Bloom's account:
"Experts on political violence (and not just Qanon conspiracy theorists) shared stories on social media that the May 27 looting and arson at AutoZone by an unidentified man in a gas mask carrying an open umbrella (dubbed #umbrellaman) was not necessarily a protester but could be an agent provocateur or member of the police. In video posted to YouTube, while this man smashed windows with a hammer, protesters at the scene accused him of being an outsider and began to film him.

According to reporting in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “The man’s actions were so odd that other rioters in the area paused their own protests to call him out and began filming. “Are you a f—ing cop?” someone else can be heard yelling to the man as he disappeared from view.”
As in the 1960s it appears we are faced with fakes, double fakes, insidious skullduggery and the hijacking of protests  by those who firmly believe "the Great Replacement"  Rightist codswallop.  All this to aid their agenda by compounding violence and deflecting attention. The FBI's Cointelpro  comes to mind, which infiltrated left groups from 1956- 1971 and in many cases saw agents inciting incidents in the midst of normally lawful protests, like against the Vietnam War.  In one secret 1968 memo - since exposed via FOIA release-  Hoover made no bones about the motivation:
"To expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize the activities of various New Left organizations. We must frustrate every effort of these groups and individuals to consolidate their forces or to recruit new or faithful adherents.”
It very much appears that Trump and Barr are resorting to the same tactics now, and Trump himself keeps pouring more gasoline on the simmering fires that could explode if we are not careful - as well as perceptive.  A lesson the Weimar Germans learned too late.  

 Update: Further exhibiting his full blown psychosis, ignorance and incompetence in this crisis, Dotard fulminated that "we will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization".   To jog memories, this was the activist group -  NOT an organization with a clear structure that can be penalized under law- that came to the aid  of numerous Charlottesville citizens in August, 2017.  As I wrote in my Aug. 16 post:

 Rev. Traci Blackmon  related on MSNBC  how African-Americans singing a hymn  near an entrance in Emancipation Park were set upon by the White racist loons and goons who proceeded to beat and mace them. As Rev. Blackmon put it, "the only thing that saved them was the intervention of Antifa and other protesters" - one of whom drove the racist louts back using a spray can and a match - effectively engineering a mini flame thrower. 

 One can surmise from this that if Dotard Donnie Bonespurs had his way, those elderly black Americans singing their hymns would have been bashed senseless.  Much like this racist loon did to one Antifa member trying to save a fellow  protester that day:
Chaos Does Not Have to Destroy Us

And:


How Much Violence and Destruction is Enough for Depraved American Leaders and Their Subjects?

And:

And:


Eruptions of Rage in Minneapolis and across the US over the Cop Murder of George Floyd are Uprisings, Not 'Riots'
by Dave Lindorff | May 31, 2020 - 5:09am | permalink
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