Inbox: Today, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union endorsed Joe Biden for President.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 16, 2020
Per the Washington Post, “Federal judge temporarily blocks USPS operational changes amid concerns about mail slowdowns, election”:
A federal judge in Washington state on Thursday granted a request from 14 states to temporarily block operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service that have been blamed for a slowdown in mail delivery, saying President Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy are “involved in a politically motivated attack” on the agency that could disrupt the 2020 election.
Stanley A. Bastian, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, said policies put in place under DeJoy “likely will slow down delivery of ballots” this fall, creating a “substantial possibility that many voters will be disenfranchised and the states may not be able to effectively, timely, accurately determine election outcomes.”…
In a written order released Thursday night, Bastian laid out more than a page of specific prohibitions on the Postal Service until a final judgment is reached in the case — restrictions that could broadly affect the agency’s services. He connected the USPS policies to Trump’s broadsides against mail voting, saying the actions amount to “voter disenfranchisement.”…
The suit, filed by Washington and 13 other states, sought a broad injunction prohibiting the Postal Service from implementing operational changes, distribution center closures and removal of mail-sorting machines, among other changes, absent an opinion by the Postal Regulatory Commission.
In his decision, Bastian largely granted that request, ordering the Postal Service to reverse any instructions for mail carriers to leave mail behind at postal facilities, to stop requiring trucks to leave at set times regardless of whether the mail is ready and to allow return trips to distribution centers to ensure “timely delivery.”
The USPS must also treat all election mail according to first-class delivery standards and replace or restore the equipment required to do that. Any request to “reconnect or replace any decommissioned or removed sorting machine(s)” must be directed through the court for approval, unless the USPS has already approved it…
Fascists don’t worry about the mail delivering your votes on time, extremely shitty presidents who know the system is stronger than them do.
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) September 17, 2020
Jay
HumboldtBlue
All I got is some Dizzy Gillespie.
Major Major Major Major
I got a new shirt! From the Denver Tool Library.
HumboldtBlue
There’s always Brubeck live in Belgium.
Paul Desmond is an illustrator.
In sound.
You can hear him paint.
Mary G
@Major Major Major Major: Cool! Very Dan Brown!
The LA Times has been doing some great investigative reporting on the post office.
This article on August 20:
‘Like Armageddon’: Rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities amid cutbacks
Yesterday:
Empty trucks, falsified records: How Louis DeJoy’s changes at the Postal Service brought chaos
Farenthold style investigation that’s not just talking on the phone:
Mary G
@Mary G: More from the LA Times story:
Bruce K
Not-quite-unrelated good news: my family in exile received emails from the New York State government instructing them them how to download PDFs of their absentee ballots. They’ll be sending them in with a courier service (probably DHL); I checked, and New York County had no problem with accepting three sealed ballots in one courier envelope.
I’m going to fill mine out today, as well. I don’t have any state-level choices to make: only President and Representative. My choices are clear, as the only way I could ever again be made to vote for a Republican is for someone to give that command to my zombified corpse (and because I wouldn’t put it past the GOP to try that, I’m leaving instructions that my body is to be cremated and the ashes scattered on two different continents).
James E Powell
I’ve given up hope that the revelations by Miles Taylor, Olivia Troye, or even Trump himself on tape will cause his approval to drop. I have to be satisfied that they are keeping his approval from going up.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: That’s a really cool shirt. I saw a very sunukar design recently, but it was something to do with Qanon or Soros or some other conspiracy theory. If I run across it again I’ll email it to you.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: yeah, it’s very popular with conspiracists…
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Uh, not sunnakar design, similar design.
(where the hell did I get sunnaker?)
John Revolta
This is good news. But, how long before another judge blocks the blockage of the stoppage, thereby allowing the stoppage to restart?
I’m practically crosseyed from all the legal chicanery these assholes keep running on us instead of actually, you know, governing.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: ha, yeah I’d been meaning to google that.
Morzer
https://twitter.com/Sharp208/status/1306795693172879361
@Sharp208
Amir Khalid
@opiejeanne:
Autocorrect is powerful, and moves in mysterious ways.
satby
This is good-ish news, but since several mail sorting machines were already removed in key states and deliberately destroyed in the process, I’m not sure if it’s been done in enough time to completely reverse the clusterfuck that mail delivery has become.
And since DeJoy is a rich fucker, I hope he’s held personally responsible and made to pay financial penalties for violating postal tampering laws. Jail time would be sweet too.
PST
@opiejeanne: Sunukar is what happens when your right hand is one key to the left of where it should be while touch typing similar.
different-church-lady
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE, DROP YOUR BALLOT OFF AT CITY HALL INTO A BOX YOU’VE DETERMINED IS LEGIT!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@satby:
With DeJoy, it’s hard to determine how much destruction is planned malevolence or whether it is just a happy byproduct of rich white-boy sheer incompetence and being over-focused on meaningless metrics that feign efficiency or achievement.
I mean, look at the failure point – “our trucks go out on time or earlier, regardless of whether they’re full”. This is pure MBAism, and looks like something done to “wring out the inefficiency” by making the lazy moochers on the sorting and handling end of the inefficient government behemoth work harder.
With conservative business practice, it is never about the service, product or experience you deliver. It is all about being able to pretend like you’re on top of things while making a stack.
geg6
@different-church-lady:
Easy to say, but only as of yesterday were those of us in PA allowed to even have drop boxes, per a PA Supreme Court ruling against Cheetolini’s lawsuit to disallow them here. Also, the GOPer ratfucking case to a get the Greens on the ballot, even though they didn’t meet the ballot requirements was dismissed. They are finally printing our ballots and, hopefully, be in the mail next week. Living in a battleground state is living on the electoral edge.
Morzer
@geg6: We really should start calling the creature Cheatolini. It sums up the entirety of his education, business and political career.
evap
My local rag (Atlanta paper) had an article about the forced hysterectomies and it sounds like it’s all about a privately run camp and one particularly corrupt/evil doctor making money rather than specifically aimed at immigrants. This particular doctor has been involved in Medicaid fraud in the past and the subject of lawsuits for incompetence. I imagine he gets paid for each surgery and I’m betting he saw an opportunity to line his pockets. Why this guy hasn’t had his license taken away is not clear. It’s a heart-breaking and horrifying story in any case.
Chyron HR
@evap:
Oh, well, that’s fine as long as they have such a convincing excuse.
“Chimneys billowing smoke? No, that’s steam, from the steamed camp we’re running.”
evodevo
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yes. This. As a 23-yr veteran of the Postal Service, this MBA crap from the “suits” is very familiar….this scanning crap was instituted years ago, and was laughable then. Even in our tiny facility, they called/emailed immediately if the scans were missed or late….didn’t matter if the work was actually performed or not, NO LATE SCANS lolol. The clerk wasn’t allowed to start earlier to effectively sort the incoming mail (by hand) when you knew the day would be a clusterfuck because “holiday mail”, when we usually get 3 times the normal daily load…you weren’t allowed to come back after “dispatch time” and possibly delay the outgoing truck because the number of Amazon packages was overwhelming and impossible to deliver in the usual time allotted, etc etc. As the years have gone on, hiring has failed and the number of available subs has dwindled to a shadow of former years…hiring freezes and overtime bans haven’t helped…I finally had had enough and quit last Dec. I’m so glad I did…
The Oracle of Solace
@James E Powell:
Given how frustrating it’s been to see Trump weather a hundred presidency-ending scandals, I think your assessment is correct, and a useful change in perspective.
(I had my own change in perspective early in summer, when I realized Trump wasn’t acting like a politician who wanted to win an election, but a despot trying to cling to power. Perversely, it made me feel better knowing that even he realized he couldn’t win).
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: There’s a Denver Tool Library?!