In defiance

I went to another protest today. This one was to protest the slowdowns at the Postal Service. I heard there were 500 protests across the country. I went to one in Detroit, which was the closest I knew about.

Here’s the poster I made.

I hadn’t bought new posterboard lately, so this was improvised by taking apart a campaign yard sign from a couple years ago and turning it inside out.

When I got to the protest site I realized it wouldn’t work well. It had too many words. The audience for our protests was passing cars, many of them tooting in support. And they wouldn’t be able to read that many words as they went past. Even so, fellow protesters thought it was appropriate and clever.

There were about 25 of us in front of this particular post office. The organizers wanted to keep the number of people at each site to about 50. I heard the protest in Royal Oak – about eight miles north and safely in the suburbs – had 80 people sign up.

This parked car was also a part of our protest. Because of the glare of the sun some letters may not be discernible. The signs say, “Community Support, Post Office & Workers.”

Though the sun was bright it was thankfully not blazing hot. There were no speakers, just us and our signs. I stayed for about 75 minutes.


Don Winslow tweeted:

Dear @SpeakerPelosi

We're less than 80 days from the election.

DeJoy is not going to quit and Trump won't fire him.

When he refuses to put the machines back and approve overtime now...

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

WHAT ARE YOU PREPARED TO DO?

Because the Hearings are not enough.

Passing a bill that’s going to sit in Moscow Mitch’s inbox (or wastebasket), and for which the nasty guy has threatened a veto, isn’t going to accomplish anything either.

And what can she do? Easy stuff: hold hearings daily showcasing people harmed by slower mail and postal workers who can contradict the official line. Harder stuff: Impeaching Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, issuing subpoenas for documents and actually using contempt of Congress to throw people in jail.



Daniel Cassady of Forbes reports that Postal Service workers in the Seattle-Tacoma facility and in Dallas have reinstalled some of the high speed sorting machines that had been disconnected. In the Seattle-Tacoma facility eight of eighteen sorting machines had been disconnected, some even dismantled. I’m not sure how many were put back in service. And, yes, this is in defiance of orders from DeJoy.



Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted an opinion piece for the Boston Globe that proposed international election monitors be brought to the US.

In its report assessing whether the 2020 US election needed international observers, the OSCE wrote, “Elements of the electoral process that... merit specific attention include voter rights, registration and identification, security of election technologies, legal framework for and implementation of alternative voting methods, campaign finance, and the conduct of the electoral campaign, particularly online and in the media.” That’s a long list of processes that require attention, and the organization should do its best to monitor our election despite the obstacles to observing polling places imposed by some state laws.

My weekly check of Michigan coronavirus data shows since the middle of July the new cases per day has averaged about 630 with a steady trend line. The number of deaths per day has been low with a steady trend line since mid June (when the number of cases started climbing again) with an upper limit of 13 deaths a day. It is good to see deaths remain that low.



Dan Price, a small business owner whose bio says he cut his CEO pay by a million to make sure his workers are paid well, tweeted:

Amazon: profit up 100%
Walmart: profit up 80%
Target: profit up 80%
Lowe's: profit up 74%
Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google: stock at record high

Small businesses: 21% closed; revenue for rest down 30%

We're seeing a monumental wealth transfer from mom & pops to conglomerates.

My company processes small business payments. In 2008 - the worst recession in 80 years - small biz revenues fell 20%. Now they're down 30%.

Meanwhile, the stock market is at a record high.

So the biggest corporations are in a record boom and small biz are in a record free fall

Peter Daou responded:

#COVID19 proved to be the perfect opportunity for a massive upward redistribution of wealth (i.e theft by the oligarchy). And both parties facilitated it.

A Nixon rule was proposed:

Presidents who walk away (resigning for high crimes or losing an election) get to keep their pardons & not face prison.

Sarah Kendzior responded with how dumb and damaging that is:

Or we could be a country where no one is above the law and any president who is proven to have committed high crimes faces prison.

Without that, there is an incentive for elite criminals to run for POTUS in order to remain immune from prosecution.