Thread: 2020 US Presidential Race

There's just something REALLY wrong here. This guy is a complete asshole. I thought Trump promised to DRAIN the swamp.

USPS chief concedes changes causing delays but won’t restore sorting machines
America’s postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, conceded on Friday he had implemented recent changes that led to mail delays at the United States Postal Service (USPS) but said he would not reverse the decision to remove mail equipment ahead of the election.


DeJoy, a major Republican donor without prior USPS experience, made his first appearance before Congress amid widespread scrutiny over the mail delays and his management of the agency since taking over in June.


Mail-in voting is set to be a key feature of the November election due to the health threats potentially posed by in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats and civil liberties groups have raised concerns that the actions taken at the post office could amount to a campaign of voter suppression.


DeJoy said he implemented a change instructing USPS trucks to leave on time, regardless of whether all the mail was ready to go out. The move led to outcry from postal workers who said a fundamental principle at the USPS has been to not leave mail behind, no matter what. DeJoy said in theory, the move should have led to more efficient delivery, but conceded that hadn’t happened.




“Unfortunately, our production process within the plants was not fully aligned with this established schedule. So we had some delays in the mail, and our recovery process in this should have been a few days and it’s mounted to be a few weeks,” he said. “The only change that I made was that the trucks leave on time. Theoretically, everyone should have got their mail faster.”


Pressed by Senator Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, DeJoy declined to say what kind of analysis, if any, USPS had done before implementing the changes.


After widespread outcry, DeJoy announced earlier this week he was suspending recent changes at the agency until after the election. But when Senator Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, pressed him on whether he would restore hundreds of mail sorting machines that have been decommissioned, DeJoy said he would not, noting that mail volume had declined.


“There’s no intention to do that. They’re not needed,” DeJoy said.


The USPS had planned to take 671 mail sorting machines out of service this year. The number of sorting machines decommissioned under DeJoy has jumped significantly from prior years, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. Losing the machines, in combination with other cuts, has led to mail moving more slowly through postal facilities, postal workers say, including in Los Angeles, where bugs swarmed packages with rotted meat and vegetables, according to the Los Angeles Times.




The postmaster general also said he had been unaware of plans to remove the sorting machines and mailboxes until they were widely reported. He said 700 mailboxes had been removed since he became postmaster general, but said that was part of a regular process and 35,000 had been removed over the last 10 years. While the USPS had pledged to pause mailbox removal until after the election, DeJoy said he agency would “pick it up” after.


David Williams, a former USPS inspector general and member of the board of governors, flatly contradicted DeJoy’s assessment of removing mail equipment during a hearing by the House Progressive Caucus on Thursday.


“You don’t save money by breaking down machines and putting them away and storing them. You spend money. So that was a very odd action,” Williams said. “Normally the reason to keep those machines or planks in place are in the event of a Katrina, or a 9/11, or an election, or the Covid crisis. Removing those is thinning out the postal service’s ability to redirect mail in an incident like that.”


Removing the mailboxes, Williams said, was “not part of ongoing plans” and was something the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, wanted done. “I asked the postal service about it, and they said it wouldn’t save anything. And there would be no reason to remove those.”




Donald Trump admitted last week he opposes additional funding for the USPS, which is in dire financial condition, because it would make it easier to vote by mail, a process he opposes.


DeJoy repeatedly stressed the USPS had capacity and would prioritize delivering election mail this fall. Some states use a a cheaper and slower class of service to mail out ballots, but in the past, the USPS has traditionally prioritized all election mail, regardless of what class of service it is. This year, the USPS has signaled to election officials that they will more strictly enforce the class of service, setting off alarm bells that states would have to pay more to guarantee timely delivery.


DeJoy said election mail would be prioritized regardless of the class of service.


The USPS also has long said voters should put their ballots in the mail a week ahead of election day in order to guarantee they arrive on time and recently sent warning letters to states that allow voters to request a ballot within a week of the election.


DeJoy said on Friday there were no changes to USPS election mail for this year and said he was “extremely highly confident” ballots mailed close to election day would be counted in time. Many states require ballots to be received by election day in order to count, regardless of when they are put in the mail. Because of concerns in mail delays, election officials are encouraging voters to request mail-in ballots as soon as possible.


“We will scour every plant each night leading up to election day,” he said.


DeJoy, who is set to appear before the House oversight committee on Monday, signaled there will probably be major changes ahead for the agency after the election.


“We are considering dramatic changes to improve the service to the American people,” he said.

USPS chief concedes changes causing delays but won’t restore sorting machines | US Postal Service | The Guardian

Originally Posted by Cujo

There's just something REALLY wrong here. This guy is a complete asshole. I thought Trump promised to DRAIN the swamp.

Don't be silly, it was far less 'swampy' before he arrived.

He's turned it into a stinking cesspool of republican graft.

Originally Posted by deeks

A link to Biden's election promises, 110 pages, so it takes a while to read. Read past the titles and get into the meat of it, a whole lot of free stuff and government control.

https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uplo...MENDATIONS.pdf

Hey deeks,

How much money did you lose to Bannon's scam to pay for the wall that Trump said Mexico would pay for?

Originally Posted by deeks

Read past the titles and get into the meat of it, a whole lot of free stuff

What have you got against free stuff?

Originally Posted by Cujo

Anyway, having seen such an elequent speech, how's the old "Biden can't string a sentence together"

Beside the fact, how hard he had worked on penning his speech. Then, at the end of the day, he did not need to read the teleprompter.

^ Yeah. That makes sense.


'Not an easy task': GOP scrambles to finalize plans for convention amid COVID-19, venue changes, Trump input

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Convention opens in just two days, but planners have yet to provide a final schedule or other key details about what will take place during the gathering that will culminate in the nomination of President Donald Trump for a second term.


Officials have confirmed the identities of a dozen or so convention speakers, but not when they will be speaking, where they will be, or what they will be talking about.


Convention planners haven’t officially announced that Trump is giving his acceptance speech from the White House, though the president himself has confirmed it.


Even aides to the Senate’s top Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, seemed confused about whether he would have a convention speaking role. McConnell’s re-election campaign said Thursday he would be campaigning in his home state and would not be speaking at the event. Hours later, a campaign source said there had been “a miscommunication” and that the senator would submit taped remarks to be played at the convention.

McConnell's off-again, on-again appearance at the convention underscores the chaotic nature of the short-term planning for a complex event that has been moved from two cites over a period of two months, all under the shadow of the pandemic, officials said.


“The airplane has been put together in mid-air, and it is much less organized than normal,” said Dan Eberhart, an energy company executive and GOP donor who is familiar with the convention planning.


But the convention is happening, ready or not, concluding a 2½-month scramble that involves constantly changing venues and ever-changing schedules over four nights of programming.

MORE. RNC: Planners scramble to finalize details amid chaos, Trump's input

The RNC are now saying they want a different kind of speech than the type given by Biden. In other words, Trump can't deliver like Biden, and they all know it. Instead, it will be filled with lies, innuendo, hate, fear mongering and conspiracy theories, which 40% of the US will accept and is a testimony to the fact that the country is unhealthy and unfit for a democracy.

As Chomsky said, the Republican party is the largest terrorist organization in the world.

Originally Posted by elche

The RNC are now saying they want a different kind of speech than the type given by Biden. In other words, Trump can't deliver like Biden, and they all know it. Instead, it will be filled with lies, innuendo, hate, fear mongering and conspiracy theories, which 40% of the US will accept and is a testimony to the fact that the country is unhealthy and unfit for a democracy.

As Chomsky said, the Republican party is the largest terrorist organization in the world.

I don't think the "want" it, but they know that baldy can't resist ad libbing with the odd "which is really tremendous" and such shit, so what they really mean is that baldy can't even do a teleprompter speech properly.

Really? This is it?

Originally Posted by misskit

Really? This is it?

Is that a parody or real?

Originally Posted by TheRealKW

Is that a parody or real?

It's basically a family meeting

Can't stand listening to Ivanka Trump. The speeches will be carefully drafted but that flat characterless voice of hers just makes me want to put a pillow over her face.

Originally Posted by elche

As Chomsky said, the Republican party is the largest terrorist organization in the world.

With all respect to Chomski - if he really said it like this - what is the difference between the two parties? Just curious...

Mary Trump has apparently released an audio tape of Trump’s sister, former Judge Maryanne Barry saying: "He has no principles. None. None. His goddamn tweets and lying [...] it’s the phoniness & this cruelty. Donald Trump is cruel."

Not sure how to link it here though.

Originally Posted by lom

It's basically a family meeting

where is the jared ?

Originally Posted by Klondyke

With all respect to Chomski - if he really said it like this - what is the difference between the two parties? Just curious...

If you don't know the difference then you're an even bigger fuckwit than anyone thought possible - why do you constantly post about a country you know nothing about, as you happily admit?

Originally Posted by Cujo

Can't stand listening to Ivanka Trump. The speeches will be carefully drafted but that flat characterless voice of hers just makes me want to put a pillow over her face.

Melania and her Klondyke-esque baby-English . . .

Originally Posted by lom

It's basically a family meeting

His ex-wives' inclusion could have made non-family members superfluous

I have searched for the Chomsky's comment as mentioned above and found only this:

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this comment that you made that the Republican Party, you said, is the most dangerous organization in world history. Can you explain?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I also said that it’s an extremely outrageous statement. But the question is whether it’s true. I mean, has there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth? Not that I’m aware of. Is the Republican organization—I hesitate to call it a party—committed to that? Overwhelmingly. There isn’t even any question about it.
Chomsky on the GOP: Has Any Organization Ever Been So Committed to Destruction of Life on Earth? | Democracy Now!

But there are other links headlined as: "Chomsky says US is world's biggest terrorist", however, in the text it is a bit different:

Noam Chomsky: “I’m in favour of the Iran negotiations but they are profoundly flawed. There are two states that rampage in the middle east carrying out aggressions, violence, terrorist acts, illegal acts, constantly. They’re both huge nuclear weapon states and their nuclear armorments. And their nuclear weapons are not being considered.”

Noam Chomsky: "The United States is regarded as the greatest threat to world peace"

Do you agree?

Watch the full interview here: http://eurone.ws/LNSwJ

Posted by euronews on Monday, 20 April 2015

Isabelle Kumar: “And who exactly are you referring to?”

Noam Chomsky: “The United States and Israel. The two major nuclear states in the world. I mean there’s a reason why, in international polls, run by US polling agencies, the United States is regarded as the greatest threat to world peace by an overwhelming margin. No other country is even close. It’s kind of interesting that the US media refused to publish this. But it doesn’t go away.”
Chomsky says US is world's biggest terrorist | Euronews

Originally Posted by Klondyke

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this comment that you made that the Republican Party, you said, is the most dangerous organization in world history. Can you explain?

Originally Posted by Klondyke

NOAM CHOMSKY: I also said that ...

Clear as you need it to be. Well, most. You? It needs spelling out in crayon

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Mary Trump has apparently released an audio tape of Trump’s sister, former Judge Maryanne Barry saying: "He has no principles. None. None. His goddamn tweets and lying [...] it’s the phoniness & this cruelty. Donald Trump is cruel."

Not sure how to link it here though.

Listen to the full recordings released today of Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump conversation

I don’t know how long the video above will stay up

Some transcripts here...


Donald Trump's sister calls him 'cruel' in audio secretly recorded by her niece Mary Trump - CNNPolitics

More credibility for the orange abortion . . . what a paragon of virtue

Originally Posted by panama hat

Clear as you need it to be. Well, most. You? It needs spelling out in crayon

Yeah but he'd eat the crayon.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Don't be silly, it was far less 'swampy' before he arrived.

He's turned it into a stinking cesspool of republican graft.

An old friend of many years told me yesterday that Trump was the best President of his lifetime. He’s 60.

I still can’t wrap my head around such a stupid belief.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

I still can’t wrap my head around such a stupid belief.

The Fox news kool aid is powerful shit.