As of Friday afternoon, more than 650 demonstrations were planned as part of "Save the Post Office Saturday," a national day of action in which people across the U.S. will demand that President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy end their assault on the U.S. Postal Service. Demonstrations will begin at 11:00 am local time.
The number of planned protests at hundreds of post offices grew as DeJoy testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday, telling lawmakers he has "no intention" of returning hundreds of mail sorting machines that have been decommissioned in recent weeks, severely cutting postal workers' ability to deliver mail quickly. The postmaster general claimed the machines are not needed.
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The removal of machines in battleground states including Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan will have serious implications for the general election in November, civil rights advocates have warned, as many Americans—particularly Democratic voters—plan to vote by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, DeJoy announced he was suspending changes to mail operations until after the November election to "avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail," but made clear that he has no plans to return mailboxes and sorting machines that were removed or restore overtime hours that he cut.
The president has also said he would block emergency funding for the Postal Service and for election assistance, saying that the funding would allow for "universal mail-in voting," which he has falsely claimed would result in a fraudulent election.
MoveOn, which is joining with the NAACP, SEIU, the Working Families Party, and other advocacy groups to organize the day of action, said people across the country are rejecting Trump's attack on the election and the Postal Service.
"From the most remote village in the Alaskan tundra to the tiniest island in the Everglades, there's one connection we've always depended on: the mail. Together, we're coming together to support a beloved system that every American relies on," said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn.
A poll released this week by Yahoo News and YouGov showed strong opposition to Trump's blocking of Postal Service funding, with 50% of respondents saying they "strongly" disapprove and only 28% saying they approve. Nearly two-thirds of voters surveyed said they feared they would be prevented from voting due to Trump and DeJoy's actions.
"The mail shapes our lives and our livelihoods. It's how millions get our medicines, send holiday greetings, and receive the resources we depend on," said Epting. "And, in this pandemic, the mail is how millions of us will deliver our democracy. We reject these attacks on the USPS. We demand full restoration of machines and personnel plus full funding for the post office. We will fight until every vote is counted."
MoveOn and other organizers are offering print-at-home signs for attendees to bring to the protests, emblazoned with phrases including, "Stamp Out Fascism," "Roll Back DeJoy, Restore the Machines," and "4 Million Prescriptions Delivered Daily."
Participants will be urged to wear face coverings at the socially distanced demonstrations, MoveOn said.
Although President Donald Trump and some of his sycophants at Fox News are claiming that former Vice President Joe Biden is running a “radical left” campaign, the truth is that a fair amount of conservatives are supporting this year’s Democratic presidential nominee. This includes members of the Lincoln Project and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (who spoke at this year’s Democratic National Convention). Some on the right are opposing Trump and supporting Biden based on national security concerns, as a long list of Republicans and former Republicans who signed a statement from the group Defending Democracy Together shows.
The list included national security officials who served in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. Some are ex-members of Congress who were known for their focus on national security. CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Secretary of State James Kelly and former Defense Secretary Ken Krieg. Miles Taylor, who formerly served as Homeland Security chief of staff under Trump but is now supporting Biden, signed the statement as well.
The statement lays out ten reasons why the former security officials believe Trump should be voted out of office in November and replaced with Biden in January. They allege that Trump “has gravely damaged America’s role as a world leader,” that he has “disparaged our armed forces, intelligence agencies and diplomats,” and “shown that he is unfit to lead during a national crisis.”
“Trump has disgraced America’s global reputation and undermined our nation’s moral and diplomatic influence,” the statement reads. “He has called NATO ‘obsolete,’ branded Europe a ‘foe,’ mocked the leaders of America’s closest friends, and threatened to terminate longstanding U.S. alliances. Other global leaders, friends and foes alike, view him as unreliable, unstable and unworthy of respect.”
The former security officials also state that they are opposing Trump because he “has undermined the rule of law,” “divided our nation and preached a dark and pessimistic view of America,” “attacked and vilified immigrants to our country” and “dishonored the office of the presidency.” In addition, they argue that Trump “has undermined the rule of law,” “aligned himself with dictators and failed to stand up for American values” and “imperiled America’s security by mismanaging his national security team.”
“Trump has compromised the independence of the Department of Justice, repeatedly attacked federal judges and punished government officials who have sought to uphold the law,” the statement says. “To protect himself from accountability, he has fired officials who launched investigations or testified against him, threatened whistleblowers, dangled pardons as incentives to stay silent, and blocked prison time for a political crony convicted of lying on his behalf. He has impugned journalists investigating his misconduct and has repeatedly denounced the press as the ‘enemy of the people.’”
The statement goes on to explain why they believe that Biden — if he wins in November — would be preferable from a national security standpoint.
“We believe Joe Biden has the character, experience and temperament to lead this nation,” the former security officials state. “We believe he will restore the dignity of the presidency, bring Americans together, reassert America’s role as a global leader and inspire our nation to live up to its ideals. While some of us hold policy positions that differ from those of Joe Biden and his party, the time to debate those policy differences will come later. For now, it is imperative that we stop Trump’s assault on our nation’s values and institutions and reinstate the moral foundations of our democracy.”
More specifically, he said, Biden would be “following the radical left agenda, take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns.”
With this speech, delivered in a rally-style address on Cleveland, Ohio’s airport tarmac on Aug. 6, Trump conveyed that a vote for Biden would weaken religion in the public sphere and restrict access to guns, thus tapping into the anxieties of his conservative Christian base.
As experts in Christian theology and the philosophy of religion, we explain how in Christian thinking, it might actually be possible to hurt God – just not in the way that Trump claims.
Impassibility
Classically, Christians have held that the God described in the Bible is metaphysically ultimate – meaning that everything that isn’t God was created by God and depends for its existence on God. God is believed to be a perfect being, without defect in mind or will.
If, as Christians suppose, God is an ultimately perfect being, then God’s perfect personhood necessarily involves a fulfilled inner life, a perfectly satisfied mind and will. God must possess perfect beatitude, perfect happiness and perfect well-being.
God then is believed to not be susceptible to sadness and other such emotions that are expressions of unfulfilled desires.
Theologians have coined the term “impassibility” to this idea that God’s well-being must be unaffected by anything or anyone, for good or for ill. The root of this term is the Latin “passiones,” which means emotions or “passions.”
There are many proponents of this view. Bishop and early Christian author Ignatius of Antioch described God as “impalpable and impassible,” in a letter to a Polycarp, another bishop in the early Christian Church, that dates from around A.D. 118.
A detailed defense of this idea appeared centuries later with the fifth-century theologian Augustine of Hippo. In later years, Thomas Aquinas, a 13th-century Italian theologian with enormous influence in the Catholic tradition, also supported this view.
In the 16th century, the Swiss theologian John Calvin and the German reformer and theologian Martin Luther, who started the Protestant Reformation, made impassibility a standard picture of the divine.
But Christian thought does allow for the possibility of “hurting God” in other ways.
Harming God’s honor
The medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury examined how humans might hurt God in his book “Cur Deus Homo” or “Why God became human.”
Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, 16th century, fresco, Vatican Museums. God is represented with his arms outstretched as he creates.
In that book, he aimed to answer the following question: If Jesus atoned for our sins, what does this mean?
Sin, as understood by Anselm and other Christians, is wrongdoing against God. Anselm thought that God is impassible, so sin can’t mean that we literally harm God’s inner happiness. However, Anselm thought that it is still possible to harm God’s honor.
To understand what it would mean to harm God’s honor, consider this analogy by Catholic philosopher of religion Eleonore Stump. She asks us to imagine a situation where you spread a false, hurtful rumor about your colleague Beth to your friend Priya. Priya knows you’re lying, so you haven’t harmed Beth. But there is still a sense in which you’ve done wrong by Beth – you have done her an injustice.
Theologians believe that humans can harm God in similar ways: They can’t hurt God, but can still do God an injustice. But unlike human beings, God can’t feel upset or otherwise emotionally dissatisfied. Any such emotional dissatisfaction would be inconsistent with the fulfilled inner life that a perfect divine person must have.
Yet, a puzzle arises: The scriptures frequently talk about God’s emotions. For example, God is often depicted as angry or as taking pleasure in things creatures do.
Aquinas helps us reconcile divine emotions with impassibility, as religion scholar Anastasia Scrutton, explains. Aquinas draws a distinction between “passiones,” emotions that are not under our voluntary control, and “affectiones,” which are voluntary and rational. These constitute ways in which God evaluates situations.
In human beings, affectiones and passiones are always bound up together. For example, when a human being is angry – when she witnesses an unjust situation, for example – she will also feel upset. By contrast, theologians imagine that God can become angry without becoming upset.
In Aquinas’ views, when our character and conduct occasion God’s negative affectiones, we harm not God’s inner well-being but God’s relationship to us.
Under this interpretation, the question arises: What kinds of character and conduct dishonor God, displease God and therefore do God an injustice?
In the Bible, the Prophet Isaiah says that the time when the Messiah returns is a time when the people of all nations “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
Put in today’s context, Isaiah’s vision of the social order God aims to establish is one in which tools of war are exchanged for tools of agriculture and ecological caretaking.
For those who take Isaiah’s words to express divine intentions for human beings here and now – those who read Isaiah religiously as Scripture through which God addresses us – this vision calls readers to forfeit their implements of war, such as guns, in today’s world. Thus, in Isaiah being “against guns” does not imply being “against God.” In fact, it is quite the contrary.
On erasing religion from the public sphere, God speaks through the mouth of the Hebrew Bible prophet: “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.” God despises these festivals, because the people are, in God’s views unjust. Thus, the Prophet says “Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.” Instead of religious festivals, God exhorts people to “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.”
It would appear then, for readers who take these words in Isaiah to heart, that harming God is not the same as removing religion from the public sphere. Indeed, being unjust would be a greater harm.
No one better embodies this repudiation of violence and being a voice for the underclass than Jesus himself.
According to traditional Christian teaching, Jesus is God manifest as a human being. The Gospels clearly state how he advocated “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He condemned the religious hypocrisy of seeking the place of honor and public respect while neglecting the poor, oppressed and socially marginalized.
Dishonoring these stances taken by Jesus, God in the flesh, would then appear to harm God. As religion scholars, we then argue that the Christian tradition to which Trump appeals when he claims that a Biden presidency would “hurt God” does not support that claim.
Editor’s note: Federal prosecutors in New York have arrested former senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon and three other men, and charged them with allegedly defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to an online fundraising campaign to build portions of wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a University of Notre Dame law professor who researches nonprofits, explains what’s going on and what the consequences could be.
1. Who is accused of what, exactly?
Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has accused Bannon and the founder of the “We Build the Wall” crowdfunding campaign, Brian Kolfage, of lying to donors about how their gifts would be used. Two other men, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, are also accused of participating in this alleged scheme.
Kolfage launched the GoFundMe campaign in 2018, originally calling it “We the People Build the Wall.” With Shea’s help, he sought to raise a US$1 billion to support the Trump administration’s effort to build a wall on the Mexican border. But when the campaign only raised around $20 million and it turned out the government could not legally accept the funds, GoFundMe insisted that the funds be returned to about 325,000 donors. In response, Kolfage launched We Build the Wall, Inc., a nonprofit, to receive and use the donations.
To convince donors to redirect their gifts, Kolfage promised that the funds would go “toward wall construction only.” The indictment alleges that Bannon and Badolato helped Kolfage set up the new nonprofit, and that all four defendants told donors that if they agreed to redirect their gifts to the nonprofit “100% of the funds raised” would be used to construct the wall and that no one would be compensated for work tied to this effort. Most donors agreed to shift their money.
But the nonprofit, the authorities determined, paid Kolfage an initial salary of $100,000 in February 2019, followed by monthly payments of $20,000. All told, Kolfage received $350,000 in compensation he spent on personal expenses, including boat payments, home renovations and a SUV. The nonprofit also paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal expenses for Bannon, Badolato and Shea. To hide these transfers, the four defendants allegedly funneled money through another nonprofit, a for-profit shell company under Kolfage’s control and accounts controlled by unnamed associates using “fake invoices,” according to the indictment.
The defendants stand accused of lying to obtain money using electronic communications (wire fraud) and the U.S. Postal Service (mail fraud). They also stand accused of money laundering, that is transferring funds to conceal criminal activity. Strauss brought the charges because at least some of the actions occurred in New York.
Nonprofits may legally pay their leaders. What the defendants did wrong was lie to donors about whether Kolfage would be paid and how the funds would be used. But of course without those lies, it’s hard to know how many donors would have agreed to transfer their gifts to the nonprofit.
Bannon is a former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, making this a high-profile case with potential ramifications for the Republican Party.
Several prominent Republicans have supported We Build the Wall. For example, Donald J. Trump Jr. spoke at a fundraiser and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach serves as the group’s general counsel and sits on its advisory board, along with Erik Prince – a major Trump campaign donor who founded the controversial security company formerly known as Blackwater and whose sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The indictment didn’t name Prince, Kobach or Donald Trump Jr.
The allegations also fit into a larger pattern of Bannon’s questionable use of nonprofits. In April 2020, Bannon faced questions about his co-founding of two nonprofits with Guo Wengui, a fugitive Chinese billionaire. Bannon was aboard Guo’s yacht off the Connecticut coastline when federal agents arrested him.
3. How has President Trump responded?
Asked about Bannon’s arrest shortly after it occurred, Trump called it “a very sad thing” but stressed that he had not been dealing with his former adviser “for a very long period of time.” The White House also issued a statement that claimed Trump “does not know the people involved with this project,” which was immediately contradicted by media reports and other evidence.
It is also unclear what the future holds for We Build the Wall, especially with the arrest of its leaders. It has funded various private wall-building efforts, but those have run into structural and legal challenges. Prosecutors have asked for funds in various We Build the Wall bank accounts to be forfeited, which could leave the group without the means to continue operating.
In a speech before the Council for National Policy on Friday, Donald Trump admitted that he "embarrassed himself" at the Republican National Convention in 2016 where he claimed “I alone” can fix America’s problems, saying it made him sound "egotistical."
That didn't stop him from also claiming, "I am the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos."
The internet was quick to point out that he seems to be the source of most of the aforementioned chaos in the country, with one Twitter user wondering if the president was "medicated."
Fans of Donald Trump did not care much for coverage of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's acceptance speech on Thursday night on Fox News, taking to social media to complain about the all-star panel of host's lavish praise of the Democrat.
With news personality Bret Baier claiming Biden's speech was “the best he’s been” and "what he needed to do,” colleague Chris Wallace added, Biden "blew a hole" in Trump's contention that Biden isn't up to the task.
“Remember, Donald Trump has been talking for months about how Joe Biden is mentally shot, a captive of the left,” Wallace suggested. “And yes, Biden was reading from a TelePrompter, from a prepared speech. But I thought he blew a hole, a big hole in that characterization.”
Afternoon host Dana Perino went a step further, gushing, "Joe Biden just hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth. He had pace, rhythm, energy, emotion and delivery. So I think that if he looks back, he’s got to say that’s probably the best speech of his life.”
Appearing as an analyst, former GOP consultant Karl Rove added, "If I were a Republican strategist in the Trump campaign, I’d be worried about how long and how effectively he carries that theme forward.”
Needless to say, those comments led to pushback from viewers unaccustomed to Fox News hosts not toeing the Republican Party line about the former vice president, as you can see below:
As the Democrats staged a successful virtual telethon-style convention over the past four days, Donald Trump has been running around the country saying that there's no way he can lose the election unless it's "rigged" and telling Fox News that he plans to send law enforcement to polling places, "to Democrat areas, not to the Republican areas, as an example. Could be the other way too, but I doubt it." He's also pretty much endorsed the conspiracy cult QAnon, saying they are people who like him "very much." On Thursday he watched yet another of his 2016 campaign leaders hauled off in handcuffs by federal agents.It would be just another week in the surreal world of Donald Trump if it weren't for the fact that the election is just around the corner and his rantings have become quite serious. Certainly, seeing his former White House strategist and campaign "CEO" Steve Bannon face indictment, on the same day that another judge ruled he would have to turn over his tax returns to New York prosecutors, may have focused the mind.
Bannon and three others were indicted on federal charges for allegedly siphoning off more than a million dollars of small-donor money from the private fundraising group We Build the Wall, which had promised that all money donated would be spent on President Trump's cherished border wall. This sort of thing is a familiar theme in Trump World: Recall that just before he assumed office in 2017, he settled a $25 million lawsuit over his fraudulent Trump University.
In fact, this isn't all that different from the charges Trump may well face from the Manhattan district attorney's office relating to his licensing and real estate projects. There is evidence that he and others in the Trump Organization have misrepresented how much of their own money was at stake to other potential buyers, banks and investors. And then there's the question of whether they committed tax fraud. (Spoiler: Almost certainly, whether or not that can be successfully prosecuted.)
Trump claimed on Thursday that he was always against the private wall project that got Bannon into trouble, but his image was all over the group's website and Donald Trump Jr. is on video endorsing it. One of the board members, Kris Kobach —who headed Trump's short-lived "voter fraud" commission and keeps losing elections back home in Kansas — is also on video claiming that Trump told him the project had his blessing.
One of the more suspicious connections with this scam was Trump's relentless insistence that a North Dakota construction firm called Fisher Industries should get the contract for the official border wall. According to this Washington Post story from May of 2019, Trump demanded that the military award the job to this obscure company even after its bid had been rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers, which alarmed Homeland Security officials about the appearance of corruption. And guess what?
Even as Trump pushes for his firm, Fisher already has started building a section of fencing in Sunland Park, N.M. We Build the Wall, a nonprofit that includes prominent conservatives who support the president — its associates and advisory board include former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon, Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince, ex-congressman Tom Tancredo and former Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach — has guided an effort to build portions of the border barrier on private land with private funds.
Jared Kushner pushed Fisher Industries as well, but in the end the firm didn't get the government contract. It ended up building a small piece of the private wall that has been described faulty and flawed. Trump distanced himself from the We Build the Wall project last month, apparently out of the blue, saying he never believed in it in the first place.
None of this smells right: He spent months pushing the government to award that company a multi-billion-dollar contract, and suddenly their shoddy work makes him "look bad."
On Friday we will see yet another corrupt Trump henchman appear on Capitol Hill when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor, testifies before the Senate. The sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service in advance of the election is almost certainly the most corrupt act this administration has yet undertaken.
Trump openly admitted that he opposes funding the post office in order to make mail-in voting impossible during the pandemic. It's pretty clear that the point of the various "efficiencies" DeJoy has implemented in the past few weeks, such as destroying sorting machines, removing mailboxes and ending overtime for mail carriers, are designed to make mail-in voting difficult or impossible during this deadly pandemic.
Of course, this has also had the effect of turning the Postal Service into what a small business owner interviewed by the Los Angeles Times described as "Armageddon," with packages of rotting food and dead baby chicks piling up in postal facilities, and deliveries taking weeks instead of days. DeJoy claimed earlier this week that he would not implement any more "efficiencies" until after the election but reports from all across the country suggest the service cuts are continuing.
We can expect that DeJoy will be asked about all this at the Senate hearing Friday and a House hearing on Monday. Let's hope the committees ask him about his reported meeting with the president earlier this month as well:
Trump has said he didn't meet with DeJoy on that date, which is almost certainly a lie. What are the odds Trump didn't tell him he wanted the post office crippled in advance of the election to prevent mail-in voting?
Trump's corruption often has a blatant financial component, of course. Take his aborted gambit to hold the G7 summit at his Trump National Doral resort in Miami, for instance. Maybe there's a money angle for him in the border wall and the post office too. But to be fair, his corrupt gambits aren't always driven by financial gain. They can also be about personal, political benefit, even if that's often based on an ignorant misunderstanding.
According to the Washington Post, Trump's obsession with the Fisher Industries, the obscure North Dakota firm, stemmed from the CEO's frequent appearances on Fox News, in which he promised he could build the wall cheaper and faster than anyone else. Trump's antipathy toward the post office predates his panic over mail-in voting, and reflects his delusional belief that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is so much wealthier than Trump is because he's getting a sweetheart deal from the Postal Service.
These are just two of Trump's many nonsensical and corrupt obsessions, pursued on his orders by flunkies and henchmen who often know their assignments but carry them out anyway. Quite a few of them have been caught bilking the taxpayers and ended up losing their jobs at this point, and there's an ignominious list of Trump's campaign cronies who have been indicted or convicted of federal crimes, to which Steve Bannon added his name this week.
Whether Trump's underlings are motivated by opportunism, careerism or just plain old greed, you have to ask yourself why anyone would sign on to work for this insane, childlike president. Maybe someone will ask Louis DeJoy that question when he appears on Capitol Hill. At this point the country deserves to know.
The first three nights of the Democratic National Convention brimmed with content that was alternately frightening and depressing, which was entirely appropriate under the circumstances. The country is in crisis, with 1,000 Americans dying a day of COVID-19 and more than 10% unemployment. (Quite likely a lot more.) As I wrote after the first night, there was something validating about the grim and claustrophobic vibe of this affair, which reflected the very depression settling over America, which we're all feeling but is not often mentioned in political discourse.
But it was critical that the last night offer viewers something else — a spark of hope and joy, and a vision of what life might look like once we get to the other side of our current national nightmare. People need some idea what the future could be like under President Joe Biden. And indeed Democrats delivered a largely successful effort to inject some fun and optimism —and, yes, a view of life beyond Donald Trump — as they kicked off what is sure to be a grueling fall campaign.
"Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot," Biden told us, in plain language. "Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be. That's all on the ballot."
In keeping with the theme of the night, the former veep continued, "I see a different America. One that is generous and strong. Selfless and humble. It's an America we can rebuild together."
Donald Trump's argument against Biden all along, since Trump is just a massive troll, has been to claim Biden is senile. He didn't seem that way on Thursday night. His speech was strong, moving and intelligent — and devoid of any digressive rants about windmills or mockery of disabled people. More importantly, the speech played right to Biden's strengths as a man famous for his decency, compassion and sense of justice, so much so that he practically vibrated with anger at what Trump has done to this country toward the end of his speech.
While the focus of the night was largely "vote for the guy you know for a fact does not kick puppies," the truth is that the hard-nosed policy wonks of the left were not entirely left out. On the contrary, after a largely policy-light evening, Biden hit a laundry list of progressive promises in his speech, hitting on plans to improve health care, fight the climate crisis and repeal the predatory Republican tax bill passed by Paul Ryan's Congress.
But the real tone shift from "the hell we live in" to "what could be on the other side" came largely from the supporting cast. The humor was provided by host Julia Louis-Dreyfus and internet sensation Sarah Cooper, the comedian whose videos of herself lip-synching Trump's more erratic pronouncements have become viral hits.
With apologies to Biden, Louis-Dreyfus had the line of the night: "Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he doesn't even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get there."
The hope came from a truly moving tribute to the recently deceased Rep. John Lewis and his long life fighting for civil rights, capped off with a performance of "Glory" by John Legend and Common. And from NBA legend Steph Curry and his adorable family talking about what presidents are supposed to be. And the Chicks (they no longer use the name "Dixie Chicks"), who were legendarily canceled by the right during the Bush years for opposing the Iraq war and on Thursday sang the national anthem in a way that reminded us progressives and liberals had survived that nightmare and can survive this one.
Of course there were endless testimonials from friends, family and colleagues of the candidate that emphasized the same point over and over again: He's a nice man who cares about people. That should be a minimal qualification, honestly, but certainly offers a dramatic contrast with the sociopathic narcissist currently defiling the White House.
All credit to the Democrats, truly, for letting Louis-Dreyfus loose with some truly nasty and barbed jokes, and for using Cooper's viral talents to push a "vote early, to stop Trump from stealing this" message that has been hammered home every night of this convention.
Conventions and other official party events tend to be rife with toothless humor, for understandable reasons. Building broad coalitions means offending no one and appealing to voters' most earnest tendencies. But in these dire times, corny jokes are the most offensive, because they depend on ignoring our realities. The only humor that works is pitched pretty dark, as Louis-Dreyfus' tear gas joke demonstrated. That's the only way to laugh without pretending things aren't as bad as all that.
It may also have been a sharp political calculation. Louis-Dreyfus' sick burns and Cooper's eerie Trump lip-sync satire were funny. They were also irresistible Trump bait.
The man in the Oval Office has been spiraling out on Twitter, as he often does, clearly stressed out by watching the Democratic convention lay bare his total failure at a job he never took seriously as anything but a grifting opportunity. That was predictable — Trump is nothing if not predictable — and Trump, a misogynist to his bones, will be deeply displeased that a bunch of women made fun of him. He'll want to tweet about it, and it's just a matter of whether his staff can prevent him. And since he'll be screeching at the beloved Elaine from "Seinfeld," whatever he says will be widely reported, even by the entertainment press, rather than ignored by journalists who are completely jaded by the daily Trump outrages.
If he does go after Louis-Dreyfus and Cooper, let's just say that those female voters Trump has been losing and trying to get back with ham-fisted appeals to "Suburban Housewives" will probably notice, and won't much like it.
To be fair, Hillary Clinton used the same strategy against Trump in 2016: Rolling out bait, getting him to lash out in racist and sexist ways, and then dinging him for it in the media. But that was then, and the ramifications of what it might mean to elect a man so thin-skinned that he can be "baited with a tweet," as Clinton said, weren't being taken seriously by either the media or voters. Today, as the death toll and unemployment claims keep rising, the impact of such foolishness is undeniable. So this time maybe the voters will take seriously the danger of voting for someone who is more interested in throwing narcissistic tantrums than in protecting American lives.
Meanwhile, outside the hyper-rehearsed and produced world of the conventions, another of Trump's 2016 campaign officials — Steve Bannon — has been arrested. And despite assurances that he would stop slowing down the mail, and thereby throwing the election into doubt, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, keeps kneecapping the Postal Service most voters will rely on this fall. The chaos is deepening, and it's going to be a long two and a half months until Nov. 3. At least Joe Biden made the strongest possible case for himself, and delivered a real sense of possibility. Now we must wait to see whether it worked.
Trump has refused to act to contain the coronavirus, opting to sit on the sidelines as the pandemic ravages the country. But when it comes to waging violence against his own people, he’s quickly risen to the occasion.
Here are 6 ways Donald Trump has failed to attack the coronavirus, but instead has attacked Americans.
1. LEADERSHIP?
Trump has said he has “no responsibility” for the coronavirus pandemic, fobbing it off on governors and mayors whose repeated requests for federal help he’s denied.
But when it comes to assaulting Americans exercising their right to protest in defense of Black lives, Trump is quick to assert strong “leadership.” He called the NYC Black Lives Matter mural a “symbol of hate” and has sent federal agents to terrorize protestors even as mayors and governors urged him to stay out.
2. STRATEGY?
Trump has never offered a national strategy for testing, contact tracing, and isolating those who have the virus. He has provided insufficient funding for the schools he’s trying to force open, abysmal standards for reopening the economy, purchasing critical supplies, or helping the unemployed, and no clear message about what people and businesses should do.
But he has a strategy for attacking Americans. He deployed unidentified federal agents against protesters in Portland, Oregon, where his secret police pulled them into unmarked vans, and detained them without charges. Federal agents have since left the city, causing violence to go down almost immediately, but Trump has threatened to send agents to Kansas City, Albuquerque and Chicago. He also said he’ll send them to New York City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland – not incidentally, all cities with Democratic mayors, large Black populations, and little violent unrest.
3. PERSONNEL?
Trump can’t find enough federal personnel to do contact tracing for the coronavirus.
But Trump has had no problem finding thousands of agents for his secret police, drawn from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
4. EQUIPMENT?
Public health authorities don’t have adequate medical equipment to quickly analyze coronavirus tests.
But Trump’s police have everything they need to injure protesters, including military style armored vehicles, teargas, and tactical assault weapons – “the best equipment,” Trump boasted obnoxiously.
5. LEGAL AUTHORITY?
There is ample legal authority for Trump to contain the coronavirus.
But he’s likely exceeded the legal authority for him to send federal troops into cities where mayors don’t want them. The framers of the Constitution denied police power to the national government. The local officials in charge of public safety have rejected Trump’s troops. (The mayor of Portland was tear-gassed. The mayor of Kansas City called them “disgraceful.” Albuquerque’s mayor announced: “There’s no place for Trump’s secret police in our city.” Chicago’s mayor said she does “not welcome dictatorship.”)
6. THE TRUTH?
Trump has tried to suppress the truth about the coronavirus. The White House instructed hospitals to report cases to the Department of Health and Human Services rather than to the CDC. Trump muzzled the federal government’s most prominent and trusted immunologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, while the White House tried to discredit him.
But the Trump campaign ran fictitious ads portraying cities as overrun by violent leftwing mobs, and Trump’s shameless Fox News lackeys have consistently depicted protesters as “rioters” and the “armed wing of the Democratic party.”
**
More than 160,000 Americans have already died from the coronavirus — tens of thousands more than would have died had Trump acted responsibly to contain it. And the economy is in freefall.
No matter how hard he tries, we can’t let Trump shift public attention from his failure to attack the virus to his attacks on Americans protesting to create an America where Black lives matter and everyone can thrive.
In fewer than 90 days, we must hold him accountable at the ballot box.
The truth is that Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist who is also antisocial and sadistic. He is tied up in knots because he knows he may be facing criminal charges once he leaves office; he has already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator. He is desperate to hang onto his power and control and constant feeding of adoration by his supporters. He has thrived on his greed and corruption as president.
Trump floated the proposition of postponing the November election because of the pandemic. That idea did not fly even with Republicans. His nefarious motivation was transparent to all.
Trump is now trying to steal the election by crippling the Postal Service. He is fueling a campaign of voter suppression. He knows it is his only chance to win. He is adamantly opposed to national mail-in voting. Such voting would defeat him for certain. No matter what happens with mail-in voting, Trump is already setting the stage for claims that he is the victim of voter fraud. This could conceivably allow him to confound and even paralyze the whole election process.
As Trump's desperation grows, we will see typical Trump pathology: hostile tweets, wild accusations, lies, blaming, fear-mongering, conspiracy theories, vindictiveness and gaslighting. His psyche will continue to unravel before our eyes. Everything he says will be either projection or confession. He will have no self-control, no shame and no empathy. He cannot under any circumstance accept responsibility for his feelings, thoughts or actions.
Malignant narcissists develop a scorched-earth mentality when they are cornered or exposed or rebuffed. Trump will deliberately and purposefully try to hurt people and institutions if he goes down. He will strike out in narcissistic rage. He will not go down alone.
Upon losing the election, Trump will file motions and lawsuits in order to turn the election results upside down. He will not concede. He will not assist in the orderly transition of power to Joe Biden. He will not leave the Oval Office. He will scream from the mountaintops that he is the victim of a "rigged election." And he will point fingers at his usual foils, including Barack Obama, the Democratic Party and virtually all non-white Americans.
Sadly, Trump is capable of inciting and promoting violence by his supporters. There could be riots in the streets. He will describe it as the "silent majority" rising up on his behalf. He will clamor for a new election. He will get a sadistic rush from witnessing the turmoil and chaos that he alone creates.
Trump's desperate maneuvers reflect his severe and malignant psychopathology. He cares about no one but himself. Even then, he is so self-sabotaging and self-destructive that he seems to tarnish and destroy everyone and everything in his path, including himself.
The next 11 weeks will be unsettling and scary for all of us. That is not presidential leadership; that is psychiatric disturbance breathing unrest and disarray into our daily lives.
Let us not forget about the thousands of Americans who are losing their lives every week because of Trump's incompetent and corrupt handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, millions of jobs have been lost as a result of the resulting economic collapse. So what does Trump keep providing us? Denials, lies, inaction, conspiracy theories, magical thinking and reckless medical cure-alls. That is not presidential leadership; that is being an accessory to mass murder, if not worse.Donald Trump's desperation is mounting by the day. America is suffering mightily as he falls from grace.He does not give a damn.
Joel Buchanan’s stomach turned when he watched poll workers deny ballots to Latinx voters ostensibly because the names and addresses on their driver’s licenses didn’t match those on election records.
And his blood boiled when election officials closed polling stations in poor neighborhoods, deliberately disenfranchising citizens unable to travel to other communities to cast their ballots.
“It’s ugly, and as un-American as you can get,” the retired Steelworker and Navy veteran said of the voter suppression he’s observed as a campaign activist and poll watcher in various states.
Although dismayed by the duplicity he witnessed during two decades of political activism, Buchanan never expected to see an American president openly try to steal an election by disenfranchising millions of voters.
But that’s what’s happening. Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to tear down the U.S. Postal Service and cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in ballots are nothing but a desperate attempt to undermine American democracy.
“We’re talking about an assault on our rights and our form of government,” noted Buchanan, a longtime member of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 2102, who first got involved in politics because local elected officials failed to support union members during a 1997 steel mill strike in his hometown of Pueblo, Colorado.
“When a president tries to manipulate the post office to benefit himself in an election, what’s going to happen if he wins that election?” Buchanan asked. “What’s the next step? These are scary times.”
But the danger of Trump suppressing votes during a crucial election remains very real.
There’s no guarantee that DeJoy will return postal operations to normal levels, as he promised to do, and the Trump toady and big Republican donor continues to hobble the mail in other ways.
Trump repeatedly claims without so much as a shred of evidence that a surge in mail-in votes will lead to widespread fraud favoring his opponent, Joe Biden.
“It’s all just crap,” Buchanan said, noting Colorado has one of the most voter-friendly, equitable voting systems in the nation—thanks to the mail.
Colorado is one of the few states that not only mails ballots to all voters but encourages residents to return them the same way.
If they prefer, citizens can still cast their ballots at polling places or deposit them in secure boxes, similar to the ones in Pennsylvania that Trump wants to eliminate. But many Colorado residents simply drop them in the mail.
“Most people, Republicans and Democrats, like the system we have here,” said Buchanan, vice president of Chapter 38-3 of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) and District 12 representative to the group’s executive board. Members of both parties win elections in Colorado, he added, clearly demonstrating that the system works for Republicans and Democrats alike.
If the system is tilted toward anyone, it’s the voters.
Universal mail-in balloting provides equal convenience to all citizens, no matter where they live or how busy their Election Day schedules.
Mail-in balloting prevents election officials from questioning voters’ legitimacy and disenfranchising them on the spot, as Buchanan observed four years ago at a polling place where one of the elections officials had the audacity to display a Trump hat right on his desk.
And people voting in the privacy of their homes face no intimidation from overzealous campaign workers thronging the doors at polling places or activists who stage noisy rallies nearby.
“When somebody’s 75 years old and drives up and sees that happening, they just turn around and leave,” Buchanan said.
Because of the convenience of mail-in voting, Colorado has one of the nation’s highest turnout rates.
Although Trump claims mail-in ballots invite fraud, the opposite is true.
In Colorado, candidates appoint election watchers to observe election officials as they check voters’ signatures on ballot envelopes against signatures already on file. If signatures appear not to match, the unopened ballot receives further review.
Foreign governments cannot hack mail-in ballots, as they did with some electronic voting systems four years ago, and the post office has its own police force, the Postal Inspection Service, to guard against mail fraud.
During the spring of 2019, one of Colorado’s county elections officials invited presidential candidates to visit his office to see how mail-in ballots are counted and learn about the safeguards ensuring the integrity of the delivery and tabulation systems.
Instead of working to improve election security, an issue he claims is a top concern, Trump continues to assail the legitimacy of mail-in ballots and use the president’s bully pulpit to undermine public confidence in the election system.
And instead of encouraging higher turnout to ensure as many Americans as possible have their voices heard at a pivotal time in the nation’s history, Trump refuses to say even whether he’ll accept the outcome of the November 3 vote.
Buchanan worries that Trump’s attacks on the system will lead to yet another form of suppression—Americans refusing to cast ballots because they have lost faith in the election process or fear their votes will go uncounted.
He just hopes enough voters understand that the real threat to democracy comes not from fraudulent voting but a president pulling every conceivable trick to suppress votes and usurp the people’s will.
“That’s exactly what this is all about,” he said. “I just never thought I’d see this kind of situation in this country.”
Maine farmers have blamed recent changes at the U.S. Postal Service after receiving thousands of dead baby chicks due to shipping delays. The state's postal workers blamed the slowdown on a bill championed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that "weakened the Postal Service" — and faces a tough re-election battle this fall.
This article first appeared in Salon.
At least 4,800 chicks shipped to Maine farmers through the USPS have arrived dead in recent weeks, the Portland Press Herald reported. "It's one more of the consequences of this disorganization, this sort of chaos they've created at the post office and nobody thought through when they were thinking of slowing down the mail," Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, told the newspaper. "This is a system that's always worked before and it's worked very well until these changes started being made."
"Shortly after or right at the same time that [DeJoy] came on board … the company line was that it was a cost-saving measure," Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, told Salon. "But the reality is that it impacts service standards and, whether intentionally or not, this changes the time frames that our customers receive the mail."
Postal workers say the agency would not be in a financial hole if not for the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), a bill co-sponsored by Collins back in 2005. The bill required the agency to pre-fund retirement health benefits 75 years in advance, something not required of any other federal entity.
Collins said on the Senate floor in 2006 that it was "not a perfect bill" but "I am convinced it will put the U.S. Postal Service on a sound financial footing for years to come."
— (@)
Instead, the agency's financial troubles have largely been the result of the mandate in the law, which passed with bipartisan support in 2006 during a lame-duck session before Democrats took over the Senate.
"That kind of put us in a hole on paper and made it look like we were losing money," Mark Seitz, president of the National Association Letter Carriers, Local 92 union, told the Maine Beacon.
"That bill had a few good things in it, but it had a spoiler with this pre-funding mandate," John Curtis, a retired mail carrier, told the Beacon. Collins, he continued, "helped set the stage for the current attacks on the postal service. … She weakened the postal service to the point where people like our president can point to it and say, 'There's a crisis here.'"
"Collins has never publicly spoken out in favor of privatization. She's very cautious about that," Curtis told the Beacon. "But if you look at her actions, they all trend in that direction."
Postal Service reform has been a key focus for Collins for nearly two decades. The Maine senator introduced a bill to create a postal reform commission in 2002 that later recommended "that the private sector become more involved in the delivery of the nation's mail."
After taking over as the chair of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which oversees the USPS, Collins held numerous hearings on the committee's recommendations, which also included a suggestion to create a "reserve account" to pay for future retiree health benefits. The hearings culminated with the introduction of the PAEA, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.
Along with requiring the USPS to pre-fund retiree benefits, the bill also barred the agency from raising rates beyond inflation rates, effectively prohibiting the agency from being able to cover the growing hole in its operational expenses. This was a boost to private competitors like FedEx and UPS, who were able to keep their rates low while contracting out the "last mile" of deliveries to the USPS, especially in remote areas where deliveries are not profitable.
"If people cannot depend on the Postal Service for prompt delivery of mail or packages, it will only further hurt the Postal Service's financial situation," Collins said.
She also sent a letter to DeJoy expressing concerns over the slowdown and calling on the agency to "take steps to immediately remedy the factors that are causing delays in essential deliveries."
Collins' campaign did not respond to questions from Salon.
Collins introduced a bill in July that would provide $25 billion for the Postal Service, with a condition that would require the agency to provide a long-term financial plan to lawmakers. House Democrats approved $25 billion with no strings attached in a coronavirus relief bill in May, but Senate Republicans have so far balked at providing any additional funding to the USPS in their relief proposal.
Karol told Salon that the agency's "immediate need is to get the COVID relief funding" but the longterm goal is to "stop some of these very destructive policies" by demanding that Congress rework the requirements of the PAEA.
"For many, many years … we have been trying to have Congress address that," Karol said, adding that she hopes the public distress over USPS service changes will compel lawmakers to correct "the problems that legislation created."
"Ultimately," she said, "that law is responsible for how we got to where we're at now."
With the arrest of Steve Bannon — the president’s former campaign chair and White House strategist — and a group of his allies on Thursday, the world received confirmation of what many have long said about the conservative movement: The right-wing, ethnonationalist, populist rhetoric is often little more than a scam to win support from the masses to fund the desires of elites.
At least, that’s the narrative told in the indictment of Bannon and others leading “We Build the Wall, Inc.” — an organization that raised money from private donors, supposedly to build parts of President Donald Trump’s border wall. (Don’t ask about the fact that Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall.) According to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, despite, Bannon’s claim that the organization was run entirely by volunteers, he and his allies was cashing in.
“While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss.
Bannon, on the other hand, “through a non-profit organization under his control (‘Non-Profit-1’), received over $1 million from We Build the Wall, at least some of which [Bannon] used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in [Bannon’s] personal expenses,” SDNY said. Bannon is fighting the charges, pleading not guilty in court on Thursday.
Bannon and Kolfage, along with Timothy Shea and Andrew Badolato, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
But it’s not just the people named in the indictment who come off looking worse.
Attorney General Bill Barr’s already tarnished reputation took another substantial hit with the announcement because it reframed actions he took two months ago. In June, Barr sought to remove Geoffrey Berman, who has been the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. But he did so in a clumsy and corrupt fashion. He met with Berman privately and tried to pressure him out of a job. When Berman refused, Barr simply announced that Berman would be stepping down, to be replaced immediately by another prosecutor from outside the office while a permanent successor could be confirmed.
Berman quickly refuted Barr’s claim, publicly stating that he did not intend to leave. This started a brief struggle until Barr caved somewhat on his demands. He still had Berman removed, but he permitted Strauss, Berman’s deputy, to take his role. She is now serving in an acting capacity, and she oversaw the indictment filed against Bannon and the others.
The episode created a sharp backlash, because there seemed to be no above-board explanation for Barr’s actions. Barr might have had legitimate reasons to replace Berman with another appointee, but there was no clear reason why Berman should leave before that person was appointed. And Barr might have had reason to fire Berman, but there’s no clear reason why Strauss wouldn’t take over in his stead — which is how succession in these offices typically functions. And there was no good reason at all why Barr should lie about Berman voluntarily stepping down — it was just an aggressive power play.
These facts all pointed to a clear conclusion: Barr had a corrupt reason for wanting to oust Berman and replace him with a hand-picked successor. In a public statement and in testimony to Congress, Berman made clear what a plausible motive would be: Replacing him with anybody but Strauss would likely impede the office’s ongoing investigations.
We now know that the case again Bannon and “We Build the Wall, Inc.” was among the cases that likely would have been slowed down. Barr has admitted he knew about the case months ago. And it’s quite clear why Barr, an unabashed partisan, would want to slow it down. Indicting yet another of the president’s allies — and his second campaign manager — surely reflects badly on Trump. It’s especially bad because the allegations involve fleecing Trump’s supporters for venal reasons, which may hit close to home for those feeling let down by his presidency heading into the November election.
It’s possible there were other investigations Barr was looking to stop as well. And it’s possible, of course, that he wasn’t trying to delay this investigation at all. But that’s precisely why Barr’s hamfisted control of the Justice Department, and his complete lack of interest in even acting like a straight shooter, is so destructive for him and the country as a whole. It makes it impossible for Americans to be confident that he’s performing his job in good faith, rather than trying to protect the president’s friends and go after his enemies.
Donald Trump Jr., too, comes off looking a lot worse out of Bannon’s scandal, because he openly endorsed the project. In a quote featured on the organization’s website, he said:
This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else and what you guys are doing is pretty amazing. It started from a grassroots effort and it’s doing some wonderful things for an important issue.
After the indictment became public on Thursday, the Trump Organization put out a statement to the New York Times trying to distance Don Jr. from the project:
Don gave one speech at a single We Build the Wall event over a year ago with a group of angel moms and, besides that, has no involvement with their organization. He never gave them permission to use him as a testimonial on their website and was unaware they included him as one until today’s media reports about it. His previous praise of the group was based on what he was led to believe about their supposed intention to help build the wall on our southern border and if he and others were deceived, the group deserves to be held accountable for their actions.
The statement appears to admit that when Trump Jr. said the group was “private enterprise at its finest” that does work “better, faster, cheaper” than others and is “amazing,” he had no idea what he was talking about.
But the HuffPost reported that the ties between Trump Jr. and We Build the Wall, Inc. may be more significant than the statement suggested:
“[We Build the Wall representative] FOREMAN MIKE will be in Florida TOMORROW with Donald Trump Jr. at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort!” the organization announced in a post on Nov. 7. The next day, Kolfage posted a photo of himself with a small group of people including Trump Jr. and “Foreman Mike.”
There’s some evidence, too, that the president was backing the project before its downfall, but its thinner.
In a Jan. 25, 2019 New York Times article on Kris Kobach that discussed the project, reporter Stephanie Saul wrote:
President Trump gave the undertaking his “blessing” in a telephone conversation Wednesday night, according to Mr. Kobach.
The White House press office did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump avoided going on the record, which now looks wise.
After the indictment came out, Trump’s defenders pointed to a recent tweet of his distancing himself from the project:
— (@)
However, this tweet emerged after Barr was aware of the investigation into Bannon, so Trump was likely aware of it, too. And the president’s fans had already donated millions to the project, some of whom were likely encouraged by the fact that Trump’s own son had endorsed it.
