Trump's attack on the Postal Service is now a national emergency

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The Plum Line • Opinion
Trump’s attack on the Postal Service is now a national emergency

Opinion by Paul Waldman
Columnist
August 13, 2020 at 10:57 a.m. EDT

You’ve heard the joke about the boy who kills his parents, then pleads for mercy from the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan. That’s essentially what President Trump is doing — except the victim is the U.S. Postal Service. The Post reports:

President Trump says the U.S. Postal Service is incapable of facilitating mail-in voting because it cannot access the emergency funding he is blocking, and made clear that requests for additional aid were nonstarters in coronavirus relief negotiations.

Trump, who has been railing against mail-in balloting for months, said the cash-strapped agency’s enlarged role in the November election would perpetuate “one of the greatest frauds in history.” Speaking Wednesday at his daily pandemic news briefing, Trump said he would not approve $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service, or $3.5 billion in supplemental funding for election resources, citing prohibitively high costs.

“They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess,” Trump said. “Are they going to do it even if they don’t have the money?”

In an interview on Fox Business on Thursday morning, Trump also said of the money Democrats have requested to help states and the Postal Service ensure that mail ballots are delivered and processed in a timely fashion: “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots ... But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

So to summarize: Trump says an election in which too many Americans vote by mail would be illegitimate, so he’s doing everything he can to make sure that the Postal Service can’t handle the huge numbers of ballots it will have to deliver.

{snip}

Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. Follow https://twitter.com/paulwaldman1

[cayugafalls]

1. Flood your congress people.

I did my part this morning first thing. Called them all. Sent emails. Signed the petition.

https://www.change.org/p/save-the-usps

Will do the same thing tomorrow, except for signing the petition...

[JudyM]

8. Same here, earlier today. We need to make our voices heard.

[SheltieLover]

2. Yup

🤬

[Grasswire2]

3. Charge him today. Conspiracy to .... election (need legalese)

Set him back on his heels. Flip the script on him. Charge him and test that oppressive DoJ memo in the courts.

Freeze Trump assets.

Put him under a gag order.

ACT, don't REACT

Or lose the republic.

[AmyStrange]

4. How about, Conspiracy to Circumvent the Election?

-

to avoid, overcome or to find a way around something such as a law or rule etc, often in a clever way. The sale of shares by the director without telling the company is an attempt to circumvent the law.
circumvent – TransLegal

http://www.translegal.com/dictionary/en/circumvent/verb
==========

[Grasswire2]

5. CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY to Circumvent the Election.

Bingo

[AmyStrange]

6. Criminal Conspiracy... I love it! n/t

[lagomorph777]

7. DeJoy faces criminal liability for his related financial dealings.