This is not a conspiracy theory

The sitting president of the United States is scheming to steal the next election. This ought to be on the top of our minds as we are all looking forward to exercising our democratic rights, that just as Congress has stood by unwilling (rather, actively participated in the corruption) to act as the executive branch goes wild and as the judicial branch has been poisoned for a generation, Donald Trump is looking at the polls, seeing his only option is cheating.

The US Postal Service has issued a warning that they can’t make the delivery schedule for ballots in two states, so far.

The U.S. Postal Service has warned at least two states — Washington and the battleground state of Pennsylvania — that some mail-in ballots are at risk of not being delivered on time to be counted in the November general election because the states’ deadlines are too tight for its “delivery standards.”

Thomas J. Marshall, general counsel and executive vice president of USPS, expressed the agency’s concern regarding this “mismatch” in two separate letters to Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, and Kim Wyman, Washington’s secretary of state. The Philadelphia Inquirer was the first to report on the letters, which were dated July 29 and July 31, respectively.

Marshall warned in the letters that some of the states’ deadlines concerning mail-in ballots were “incongruous” and “incompatible” with the Postal Service’s delivery standards. “This mismatch,” he wrote, “creates a risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted under your laws as we understand them.”

Trump has openly declared that he won’t support mechanisms to allow continued voting during the pandemic.

President Trump on Thursday said he opposes both election aid for states and an emergency bailout for the U.S. Postal Service because he wants to restrict how many Americans can vote by mail, putting at risk the nation’s ability to administer the Nov. 3 elections.

Trump has been attacking mail balloting and the integrity of the vote for months, but his latest broadside makes explicit his intent to stand in the way of urgently needed money to help state and local officials administer elections during the coronavirus pandemic. With nearly 180 million Americans eligible to vote by mail, the president’s actions could usher in widespread delays, long lines and voter disenfranchisement this fall, voting rights advocates said.

Trump said his purpose is to prevent Democrats from expanding mail-balloting, which he has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, would invite widespread fraud. The president has also previously admitted that he believes mail voting would allow more Democrats to cast ballots and hurt Republican candidates, including himself.

He’s doing this in plain sight. He is brazenly opposing free and fair elections because he knows he would be deposed.

What are we going to do about it?

I remember the helplessness when the Supreme Court handed a presidential election to George W. Bush — we all let it happen because we had faith in the rule of law and democratic institutions. That faith is gone now, completely demolished by the actions of the Republican party and the passivity of the Democrats. Now we have a president who intends to deny huge numbers of people the right to vote, all because a fair election would damage his evil party.

What are we going to do about it when the rule of law fails?

Finally, a reporter asks a necessary question

That’s S.V. Dáte, of the Huffington Post. When will the rest of those reporters get that kind of spine?

By the way, Trump is now Just Asking Questions about Kamala Harris’s eligibility to run for office. We knew that would be coming: she’s black, she’s a woman, she can’t possibly be qualified. Screw Newsweek for thinking this was an issue worth raising.

Hey, Donald Trump keeps blithering about his Scot and German ancestry. I think we need to consider the possibility that he’s a foreign agent.

Trump is already interfering in the election

We just voted by mail in the Minnesota elections, but it may be more difficult in November: Trump is openly trying to suppress votes.

President Trump says the U.S. Postal Service is incapable of facilitating mail-in voting because it cannot access the emergency funding he is blocking, and made clear that requests for additional aid were nonstarters in coronavirus relief negotiations.

Trump, who has been railing against mail-in balloting for months, said the cash-strapped agency’s enlarged role in the November election would perpetuate “one of the greatest frauds in history.” Speaking Wednesday at his daily pandemic news briefing, Trump said he would not approve $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service, or $3.5 billion in supplemental funding for election resources, citing prohibitively high costs.

The only reason it’s “cash-strapped” is that Republicans have been ham-stringing the postal service for decades, and now they’re preparing to simply destroy the whole institution so they can rig the vote. They really hate democracy, don’t they?

Why I think Kamala Harris is a plus mark for the Biden candidacy

I haven’t been reluctant to say that Biden is one of my least favorite candidates, and that my support is lukewarm. Harris wasn’t my top choice in the primaries, either, but I think she’s better than Biden, so I can’t help but see this choice as better.

But what really matters is her policy positions. She has a record! We can actually look up what Harris has supported. All I have to say is that she has a 100% rating from NARAL and an “F” from the NRA to make the case for her. She also wants legislation to combat climate change, co-sponsored Medicare for all, is pro-union, opposed Trump’s tax cut for the rich, and thinks we ought to support the US Postal Service.

This is not to say she’s perfect, but I can hope that she’ll advance some progressive causes. I have more confidence in that than I have in passive empty suit Biden.

Of course, either one is better than evil fucking clown Trump.

I can live with Kamala Harris as VP

I was out spidering this afternoon when Biden announced his vice presidential candidate: Kamala Harris. Not that it matters, but here’s what I think.

I have one negative: she was a prosecutor, so she was an enabler of the carceral state. That’s the opposite of what we need, but maybe she’s learned from recent events? We can hope? Maybe someday I’ll learn that my hopes are always shattered?

I have lots of positives, though. She’s relatively young, but old enough to be experienced; she’ll represent multiple minorities, as a woman, black, and Indian; she’s smart and has teeth. I would love to watch her rend Pence into a pulp in a VP debate, although I doubt that they’ll have one.

She’s not Joe Biden. In the run-up to the primaries, I had a much more favorable impression of Harris than of Biden, so seeing her on the slate is a net gain. I’m not enthused about Biden, but he could have screwed up this choice far more catastrophically.

I didn’t chuckle even once at this McSweeney’s article

But then, I’m not laughing at much nowadays.

We could have poured resources into prevention. We could’ve spent all summer enforcing mask use and social distancing. We could’ve sacrificed small pleasures for the greater good. We could’ve kept this from happening. But instead, we’re blindly barreling toward reopening even though we know teachers and students will die. We’re going to treat COVID the same way we treat school shootings. An unfortunate but unavoidable cost to doing business.

One rule for you, one for me

Did you hear the one about social media having a liberal bias? Yeah, right.

Facebook has allowed conservative news outlets and personalities to repeatedly spread false information without facing any of the company’s stated penalties, according to leaked materials reviewed by NBC News.

According to internal discussions from the last six months, Facebook has relaxed its rules so that conservative pages, including those run by Breitbart, former Fox News personalities Diamond and Silk, the nonprofit media outlet PragerU and the pundit Charlie Kirk, were not penalized for violations of the company’s misinformation policies.

Misinformation is OK if you are a Republican. Better yet, it’s the breath of life for those asshats. Oh, and bite me, Facebook.

In related news, never buy anything from Teespring. They’re fine with selling merchandise with swastikas, but don’t you dare add a rainbow to it. They’ll yank the hippie-dippy love & peace apparel from their product line, but if you want a black t-shirt with Nazi symbols all over it, no problem.

Teespring, which is owned by KA Design, says it didn’t sell any of the design and didn’t profit from it. In a video on its Facebook page, KA Design said the swastika is thousands of years old and is a symbol of peace, love, life and other ideas. But the Nazi party corrupted that symbol, the company added.

“[T]hey stigmatized the swastika forever. They won. They limited our freedom. Or maybe not? The swastika is coming back,” the video said.

Sure, Nazis corrupted it and made it representative of their hateful ideology. That’s a significant part of its history now. It ain’t coming back until everyone forgets WWII and the Nazis and the Holocaust, so everyone can just stop playing stupid and stop pretending that shameful blight on the world never existed.

I’d rather put something in the mail than sacrifice myself for Donald Trump

I don’t know who Josh Bernstein is, but he’d be fine with me dying. He compares voting in person to storming the beaches at Normandy and thinks we ought to be willing to do that. Sacrifice yourself for Donald Trump!

Some of these folks may actually get sick, and that’s sad, and it’s unfortunate, and I hope that it doesn’t happen, Bernstein continued. “And some of them, yes, they may even die and pass away. So be it. I don’t mean to be callous. I don’t mean to be cruel. I don’t mean to be insensitive. But we’re not asking you to storm the beaches of Normandy here, and we’re certainly not asking you to try to overtake Hamburger Hill either. We’re asking you to get out of the house and go down and vote for President Trump so that you can secure your children and your grandchildren’s future, to make sure that they live in the freedom that you have enjoyed as well. OK? Some people are going to die. So be it. It will be their last sacrifice for this country.

He might as well announce that “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” by voting Republican.

Of course, military action in WWII was necessary to oppose a totalitarian force that threatened to invade us, and was killing its own citizens. If we had an alternative to D-Day that involved simply mailing some letters, I would have suggested we do that. We didn’t have that alternative, but we do have a way to vote that doesn’t require me to risk my life. I think we should do that, despite Bernstein’s paranoia about imaginary voter fraud.

Also, if I had to vote in person, it wouldn’t be for a Republican of any kind.

North Paulding High is the epitome of professionalism!

North Paulding High in Georgia has opened, and there are swarms of students milling around maskless in crowded hallways. What to do about it? I know! Prohibit the publication of any photos that show how incompetently they’re managing the pandemic!

All those students ignoring the mask requirement? They’re fine. The student who posted that photo? Suspended! (It’s probably better for him, anyway). The administrators who permit that kind of crowding? Oh, they’re fine, no problem.

Would you believe there is already a COVID-19 outbreak among the football team, which held a practice the week before? You probably would. They opened anyway. The administration is incredibly slack.

Despite recommendations from CDC health officials, the district has called mask-wearing a “personal choice” and said that social distancing “will not be possible to enforce” in “most cases.” While the school provided teachers with face shields and masks and encouraged staff and students to wear them, they are not required and not all teachers have chosen to use them. One North Paulding teacher resigned last month over concerns about virus safety.

Jeeeezus. Just close all the schools already.