Pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported that Alisha Morris, a Kansas high school teacher, decided to create a spreadsheet of COVID outbreaks in schools. It was a way to consolidate all the news reports in one place. And to show administrators it would be foolish to have student in physical classrooms. That spreadsheet now has over 700 entries.

That’s not 700 students, that 700 schools.

And the stories continue, such as the Oklahoma high school student, who knew they were positive, but since they were asymptomatic, they went to school anyway, thinking they were safe.

There is, of course, another way to keep schools off this spreadsheet. Walter Einenkel of Kos reports the Texas Education Agency hasn’t decided whether to collect virus data from schools. Don’t collect data and no one can tell how bad it is.

And Leah McElrath tweeted a quote from Suzy Khimm:

NEW: Coronavirus outbreaks in schools are mounting — but it is impossible to track all the cases.

The CDC isn't collecting any data on the virus in schools.

And least 9 states won't release any school outbreak data to the public.

That means there is NO comprehensive tally of COVID-19 cases or outbreaks in schools.

Researchers say that will make it harder to figure out which practices that *are* preventing the virus from spreading — and if a major outbreak that hits the local news is an anomaly.

McElrath says it could be up to student reporters.



Angus Johnston, professor at CUNY, tweeted a thread about how much bigger the Postal Service is than either UPS or FedEx. Which means if the USPS goes under, FedEx doesn’t have the resources to take over. One bit from the thread:

Wherever you are, however far you are from anyone else, the Post Office will come to your house and bring you your mail, and pick up what you send out. Even if your nearest FedEx location is a hundred miles away, your nearest postal worker is as far as the end of your driveway.

There's a reason Tester and Manchin have been out front on the USPS crisis—they represent Montana and West Virginia. the Post Office is a matter of life and death in states like that.
…
One addendum to the above thread—I shouldn't quite have said "wherever you are" a few tweets up. USPS is required by law to deliver to nearly every household in the US, but there are a few exceptions, as someone who lives in extremely rural New Mexico just pointed out to me.

(Still, USPS delivers to far more homes than any private shipping service, and in fact delivers a lot of last-mile stuff that FedEx and UPS are contracted to deliver but choose not to.)

The pressure to act to save the USPS has apparently reached Moscow Mitch. Joan McCarter of Kos reported he’s offered a bill to help the USPS and provide a bit of virus relief. But it is even skimpier than the bill the Democrats have already refused. However, this gives Mitch a way of saying see I did something! You can blame the Democrats.

That pressure is also reaching Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Hunter of Kos reported that DeJoy released a statement saying in part:

To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.

Hunter said the key word is “suspend” which is not the same as “reverse.” DeJoy isn’t saying he will fix the problems, he just won’t make them worse. Until after the election.

McCarter reported Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s response. She also noted the key word:

[DeJoy’s statement] is a necessary but insufficient first step in ending the President’s election sabotage campaign. … This pause only halts a limited number of the Postmaster’s changes, does not reverse damage already done, and alone is not enough to ensure voters will not be disenfranchised by the President this fall.

Several other Democrats responded, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the previous Deputy Postmaster General, who left about the time DeJoy started, and the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who have filed a suit. That suit was apparently the nudge for DeJoy to make his statement.

Also responding is Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan who has opened an investigation and will host a Senate hearing about the Postal Service on Friday. The House has planned to hold its own hearings on Monday.

Someone briefing the House Democrats before DeJoy’s hearing will be David Williams. He was a Postal Service Inspector General and was on the USPS board of governors until last April. He saw how the nasty guy intended to muck around with the USPS and resigned. He’ll have fascinating details of what the nasty guy did to get DeJoy installed.



I didn’t watch the Democrat’s virtual convention last night, nor will I tonight or the rest of the week. If something really interesting happens I’m sure I can catch it the next day.

A lot of people are annoyed that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, very much a progressive, was given only sixty seconds to speak. One of those was Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (though is Twitter bio doesn’t say he no longer has that job):

Dems only giving @AOC 60 seconds to speak tonight. GOP should give her more time at their convention to show voters how crazy Dem ideas are.

To which AOC responded:

If I can regularly roast Trump sycophants in 280 characters or less, I can speak to progressive values in 60 secs (& maybe filibuster a few extra).

Meanwhile, you’re supporting GOP sabatoge of people’s medicine, votes, etc by mail bc apparently democracy means nothing to you.

One really interesting thing was Michelle Obama’s speech. I read that others raved over it and I read the transcript (which is easier for me to quote). I pulled out a few favorite bits. For a person who hates politics she did a great political speech.

In the 2016 convention he trademark phrase was, “When they go low, we go high.” This time she elaborated:

So what do we do now? What’s our strategy? Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, “When others are going so low, does going high still really work?” My answer: going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.

But let’s be clear: going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live together and work together across our differences.

And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.

So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.

And her call to vote:

We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we’ve got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.