The USPS Board gets new people who may fire the postmaster general

Louis DeJoy, the Postmaster General of the US Postal Service, was a businessperson and Republican fundraiser with no experience in the area of the agency he was picked to lead by Trump. He seems intent on ruining the postal service in the name of cost savings and efficiency. Like many Trump and Republican free market enthusiasts, they do not seem to realize that some vital government services are just that, services whose goal should be to serve the public well, not to generate profits.

What is even more puzzling is that in providing uniform pricing for mail, the USPS is using the heavier volume of mail sent to and from urban areas (which makes it cheaper to handle per item) to subsidize the mail sent to and from rural and remote areas. For some rural areas, the postal service is their lifeline to the rest of the country and the way they get essential items like medicines. Since urban areas tend be more Democratic and rural areas more Republican, cutting postal services or raising prices would hurt Republicans more. And yet, Republicans, so indoctrinated against the government, seem to be on board with both those measures that are promoted in the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘cost cutting’.
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Using gods to support bigotry

People who are homophobic and transphobic do not hesitate to say that their stance is what their god wants, as if they have a hotline to their deity who keeps them informed. Republican congressperson Greg Staube said on the floor of the House of Representatives that his god opposes transgender rights. Congressperson Al Green, who is Black and gay, had no hesitation about putting such people in their place during the debate on provide protections against discrimination to the LGBTQ community by pointing out how people had invoked their god in support of slavery and other abominations.

A different March Madness

March Madness is the name given to the college basketball championships in the US but it may acquire an additional significance this year. One of the features of apocalyptic cults is that when the predicted day of reckoning fails to materialize, they simply shift the day. This is happening with the QAnon and other dead-enders who believe that Trump should still be president. After the overthrow of the election did not occur on January 6th despite their riot, they thought that Trump would seize power on inauguration day. When that did not happen and he slunk off to Florida, they needed a new day and it appears that Thursday, March 4th is the one.
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The turkey siege may not have been personal

Readers may recall a previous post where a turkey held me hostage in my car for about half an hour.

While taking a walk a couple of days ago, I saw a turkey standing guard over someone else’s car and then chasing yet another car down the road. Whether this was the same turkey that held me captive I do not know, since we were never properly introduced the first time around.

I then saw another resident approach her car where another turkey was lurking. I watched from a distance for about ten minutes as she, after getting into the car and starting it, could not drive away immediately because the turkey kept hanging around the car, walking around it, and even seeming to peck at it or maybe it was getting up close to it to see its reflection. The driver clearly did not want to risk driving over the turkey and so could barely move. She would inch the car backwards and the turkey would follow. This went on for about ten minutes, until she was sure that she could go without hitting it and then she drove off, with the turkey in hot pursuit.

So I think that my encounter with the turkey was not due to any personal animosity towards me but instead that the neighborhood turkeys are on some kind of mission to harass cars in general. It means that the turkey who held me hostage is not likely to be rounding up a posse and planning a surprise attack on me personally.

Trump’s surprisingly poor showing in the CPAC straw poll

As expected, Trump received a rapturous welcome at the CPAC conference that ended yesterday and went through his usual spiel for ninety minutes, again claiming that he won. He clearly seeks to remain as the leader of the Republican party and thus has frozen the race to be the party’s next nominee in 2024, similar to the way that Hillary Clinton froze the Democratic race in 2016 until she finally did announce her candidacy.
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