THE POST WAS HERE?

 

Ever since I was a child (shortly after the Civil War), I loved getting mail; snail mail to you youngsters. Whether it was my subscription to RANGER RICK or a perfumed billets-doux from a female admirer, the mailbox was a magical vessel that brought wonders from the outside world. One never knew what might be in that box on any given day. Hell, there was even a song I learned in 2nd grade that contained the joyful refrain, “…the post is here, the post is here, hurrah, hurrah hurrah!…”

But for years now the United States Postal Service has been the object of scorn, which always baffles me. Every time the cost of a postage stamp goes up there is a barrage of complaint to which I rejoinder, ”Let me get this straight, the USPS will come to your house, pick up a letter and take it anywhere from down the street to distances thousands of miles away to whoever has a mailbox and have it there usually in less than a week AND do it all for 49 cents…you don’t think that’s a bargain?” Have we really become that jaded as a population? Unreal!! Why, the postal service is not only older than the U.S. of A., it is the ONLY public agency outlined in the United States Constitution! The 640,000 employees of the USPS cover 4 million miles a day to deliver 150 billion pieces of mail not only door-to-door and not just on foot and in quaint little trucks but with the aid of snowmobiles, bush planes, riverine mailboats and even on mules to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. NOTHING so links the people of this country like the USPS.

Well friends and neighbors, with the election of a Chief Executive who seems not to be able to tolerate anything in public life that doesn’t carry his personal brand, no matter how cherished the institution might be, the USPS is once again under attack. My God, is NOTHING sacred to that man? On April 12, 2018, in spite of the fact that the USPS enjoys an 88% approval rating (Feb. Pew Research Poll) the Prez signed an order creating a task force filled with his own cronies to propose reforms in the USPS. Almost immediately it concluded: PREPARE THE USPS FOR FUTURE CONVERSION FROM A GOVT. AGENCY INTO A PRIVATELY HELD CORPORATION.

This latest outrage of anti-govt propagandists is nothing new. For decades right-wingers from the Koch Bros, to the John Birch Society have force-fed Americans the fable that all government is wasteful and incompetent; except, of course, when it involved billion-dollar bailouts for runaway capitalistic entities such as the auto industry and Wall Street. Lest we forget, these are the same lobbies that would love to privatize Social Security; turning it into a stock-market crap shoot. They characterize the Postal Service as a bloated, antiquated bureaucracy in spite of the fact that the USPS operates without a single dime of taxpayer funds. That’s right, the Postal Svc. Is completely financed by its own sales and services to its customers. “Not true!”, you say? Allow me to give you an example of why you believe that.

In 2006, unable to find a flaw in the Postal Service, Pres. George W. Bush at the behest of the “privatizer lobby” (FedEx, UPS, Wall Street speculators, etc.) and the Republican leaders beholden to the same invented an imaginary “debt” on USPS books. Congress passed an “enhancement” provision requiring the prefunding of all health and pension benefits for Postal workers 75 years in advance! This unprecedented legislation required the Postal Service to pay now for employees who haven’t even been born yet! This book-cooking, false entry piled a 6.9 billion dollar false cost on the agency’s balance sheet. This boondoggle, and this boondoggle alone, enables the right-wing to screech and wail about the “money-bleeding” post office. Take away this artificial decree (that NO OTHER private corporation or gov’t. agency is required to carry) and the tried-and-true Postal Service emerges as the wonder it truly is. For example, since 2014, it has posted an operating profit of $2.7 billion….an average of $900 million/year. Hmmm..maybe the vaunted “deal-maker-in-chief” should study the USPS next time he opens a casino!

But wait, the “privatization” nightmare gets worse! On top of requiring the American people to eat the “pre-funding” debt that never existed in the first place, Trump’s task force proposal would:

-Cut mail delivery from 6 days/week to 2-3/days/week.

-Replace the current door-to-door delivery with “more central locations” requiring the public to travel miles in some cases to use postal services.

-Allow for “deregulated product pricing” according to corporate whim in the exact same manner as the prescription drug industry.

-Free private business operators to ruthlessly renegotiate employee benefits, pay, and working conditions (e.g. a Wal-Mart/McDonalds-like “race-to-the-bottom” for employees).

One last thing…While Trump’s task force invectivized about how their proposal would bring innovation to the Postal Service, the right-wing lobbyists have for years prevented the USPS from doing exactly that. Just one example:

-A Post Office proposal to offer “postal banking” to the 88 million lower-income Americans who are currently without a bank and have to rely on predatory lenders such as totally unscrupulous “pay-day” and “check-cashing” outfits and pawn-shops.

 

 

THE MIDTERMS…LAST CHANCE FOR DEMOCRACY?

Think midterm elections aren’t important? Perhaps you have forgotten how the Reagan Administration used them to institute an orgy of tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulations that nearly crippled the economy, the environment and union labor rights.

The upcoming midterms will stand as a public consensus on a President who has doled out huge tax cuts to his well-to-do friends; done his best to reverse climate control legislation; bull-dozed a date-raping  Supreme Court Justice onto the bench; engaged our economy in a disastrous trade war; and set a record for false statements, corruption, and giving comfort to racists, misogynists and pro-Russian lobbyists. He has shown total disregard for the rule of law and openly obstructs justice to save his own hide and the hides of his weasley cronies and family members. Blatant, rampant lying is a particularly singular feature of the Trump Whitehouse. The Washington Post (the same newspaper that brought down Tricky-Dick Nixon) identified 5000+ false statements made by Trump in his first 600 days in office. Yes, almost all politicians bend the truth, but EIGHT times a day? And name me even one President who maligned black people as “low-I.Q.” or labeled a female critic as a “dog” when she had the nerve to disagree with him or referred to poor nations as “shithole countries”.  If you don’t think voting is worth your time, remember that with control of just one chamber of the legislature it may be possible to at least hinder his autocratic march towards oligarchy. GOP insiders have revealed that they are so fearful of a Democratic voter backlash that have already begun preparing for over TWO-DOZEN Dept of Justice probes and investigations into Trump and his minions including the worst acts of voter suppression since the heyday of the Civil Rights movement.

Donald Trump has shit on the Constitution and created an administration rife with conflicts of interest and a total disregard for ethics; one from which he endlessly profits financially and ceaselessly degrades the First Amendment through his vilification of the free press. He is the first President to be openly endorsed by such hate mongers as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Brotherhood. While he denies any affiliation with such groups, think of it this way…if you want to know who the greatest “rock-god” guitar player was you need only ask other guitarists from the era and they will invariably tell you it was Jimi Hendrix. If you ever wonder who the greatest NFL “pocket-passer” was, ask other NFL greats and they will all tell you it was Dan Marino. Ergo, the fact that that the most vile, racist, misogynist, hate merchants consider him to be one of their own…. Well, you see where I’m going.

Trump was once touted as a “non-politician” from outside the normal political realm. Hard to argue with that now that we have seen the ineptness with which he runs his administration. Many crucial government positions are still unfilled two years in and over 40% of the people he has appointed he has, himself, fired! So much for his eye for talent. He has also shown open contempt for learning the basic tenets of how government works; “forget about the little shit” he was heard to remark to House Republicans at a 2017 meeting on a proposed health care bill. And while he has the time to play golf almost weekly he has YET to make even one visit to US forces in a war zone. Scarier still is his embarrassing affection for the most brutal, oppressive dictators on planet Earth. People such as Rodrigo Duerte of the Philippines, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and most embarrassingly, Kim Jong Un of North Korea. After returning from a visit with Kim Trump publicly stated that he wanted Americans to “sit up at attention” and “bow down when he passes” in the same manner as the citizens of North Korea do out of fear for their lives of the dictator Kim.

Back to the matter at hand. Midterm elections are the clearest referendums on public approval of whatever administration is currently in power. Republicans have stood by mute while Trump derided anyone who failed to applaud his State of the Union Message as a traitor. They have looked the other way when he threatened to abolish freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and sheepishly made excuses for Trump comments such as, …”I think a dictatorship would be a good idea…” and, “there are fine people in those neo-nazi groups”. Should the Republicans hang on to both the House and the Senate a message will be sent that the American people are comfortable with a hate-filled, low brow chief executive who openly presides over a corruption filled, self-interested gang of scoundrels. A President who is a bully, an enemy of women’s rights, speaks with the vocabulary that would shame a 5th-grader and fawns over the worst dictators on earth. A man mocks the handicapped if they dare disagree with him. A man that called one of our nation’s greatest heroes (John McCain) a “loser”. A man that openly bragged about his abuse of bankruptcy laws and his entitlement to “grab women by the pussy” because he was a “star”. One last footnote from history…there once was a would-be dictator who came to power by first choosing a group of people to demonize; secondly, attacked the free press; third, installed his own cronies into power positions at the highest levels of government. And most heinous of all, wielded his nation’s military power as an extension of his own will even though he himself was a draft-dodger. Hitler, you ask? Good guess, but no…Hitler volunteered for military service!

HOUSE CLEANING

If you are a Democrat, or even a person concerned about the direction in which this country is being led, the upcoming mid-term election is absolutely crucial. It may, in fact, be your last chance to speak up and stem the “Trump” tide. Here are some reasons why:

–          BLOCK BILLS-Republicans can’t keep cutting taxes for the wealthy if they don’t control both the Senate AND The House of Representatives.

–          TRUMP’S MYSTERIOUS TAX RETURNS-Every U.S. President since Gerald Ford made their tax returns a matter of public record as a way of providing transparency and an honest view into their conduct as private citizens. But NOT Donald! What is he hiding?

–          OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS-The Republican Party is already getting their story straight on the DOZENS of probes they anticipate arising if the Democrats win control of The House of Representatives; kind of like when a kid breaks a window and starts concocting an excuse before their parents find out. Hmmm…I wonder why? A short list of the Repub’s red-handedness includes the Stormy Daniels pay-off; Trump’s shady business dealings; the cruel family separation policy; and Trump’s never-ending habit of firing the very people he himself appointed!

–          BLOCK APPOINTMENTS-If Democrats controlled the Senate they could prevent Trump from appointing judges and Cabinet members who are too extreme, unqualified, or just plain crooked.

–          FORCE THE RELEASE OF RECORDS-House Democrats could vote approval of subpoenas of documents relating to Trump’s special interest foreign business dealings; questionable travel bans; the REAL reason for withdrawal of security clearances; and even the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

–          THE RUSSIA PROBE- If Dem.s controlled either chamber of Congress the people of this country might get a REAL hearing on Russian interference in our elections and why Trump seems so buddy-buddy with Vlad Putin.

–          THE DEBT LIMIT-During Obama’s presidency the Republicans held the entire country hostage with the threat to shut down the government unless spending cuts that endangered the entire world economy were instituted. Democratic control would make it possible to abolish the debt limit once and for all thereby depriving the Republicans of one of their favorite weapons.

–          IMPEACHMENT-The impeachment process requires only a simple majority in the House to be set in motion. And while the 2/3’s majority in the Senate to convict the President is unlikely; it would at least be possible to send a clear message to Trump and his cronies.

HOW QUICKLY TIMES CHANGE

During the Republican campaign, Donald Trump attacked Ted Cruz’s father and wife and branded him “Lyin’ Ted,” and Cruz attempted to demonstrate his manhood by declaring, “Donald, you sniveling coward.” But times have changed, and now Cruz has been called upon to write a public tribute in Time magazine to the man who bullied him and attacked his family.
In his entry for the magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2018, Cruz omits such Trumpian achievements as getting to the bottom of the Kennedy assassination and marrying a hotter babe than Ted Cruz could snag. Instead, he credits Trump with triggering the liberals

trumpcruz

THE GOOD SAMARITAN REMEMBERED

When I hear/read the heartlessness with which conservatives who claim to be Christian regard the plight of refugees to our country I am reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the same way that many of the names applied to certain American Indian tribes were NOT what they referred to themselves as, but were actually taken from their enemies; the word “Samaritan” was a pejorative term applied by the Israelites to the people from the region north of the Holy Land. Jesus specifically had the only benevolent person in the story emanate from the region despised by His own followers to show that we should be loving and kind to ALL people regardless of their national or ethnic origin.

Jimmy Carter’s prescience

In “OUR ENDANGERED VALUES”-2006, Jimmy Carter lays out what he saw as the coming political and social divisiveness that has all come to fruition. He also talks at length about the dangers of religious fundamentalism such as the belief that one’s own religion is superior to all others and the violent militancy they feel justified in using to suppress any viewpoint that differs from their own. Sadly, he predicted over 12 years ago that the spirit of cooperation and compromise he enjoyed with his own political rivals would soon vanish completely. Wow…it’s like he had a crystal ball!