Matt Cartwright Is A Strong Progressive In A District Trump Won

In 2012, Matt Cartwright waged a strong primary campaign against reactionary Blue Dog Tim Holden (one of the "Democrats" who joined with the GOP to vote against ObamaCare). Hoyer and Pelosi warned that a progressive like Cartwright could not win that red a seat in northeast Pennsylvania. Matt was one of Blue America's top candidates that year and we were in the trenches with him, while Hoyer ran around the district with a pack of lobbyists begging "people" to vote for Holden, a pro-frack-maniac. Matt won-- by a lot: 57.1% to 42.9% and then went on to beat the Republican Hoyer and Pelosi said he couldn't do by even more: 161,393 (60.3%) to 106,208 (39.7%). Matt then joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus and worked his way up to the caucus' whip. He was immediately appointed vice chair of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Caucus. Even before the election, he endorsed marriage equality, a position that the DCCC recommended that swing district Democrats stay away from. since then, he's had a 100% voting record from the Human Rights Campaign.

This week, Matt told me that when he first ran for Congress, "I promised to be a Roosevelt Democrat-- someone who stands up for the ordinary working people of the United States, for their safety, their economic security, their access to healthcare, their clean air and water, and their civil rights. I promised to be someone who isn’t afraid to take on what FDR called the 'economic royalists,' the powerful, the moneyed, and the connected. Drawing on the words of the late Paul Wellstone, I ran as a proud member of the 'Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.' It was my belief that, as Democrats, we do not ever need to forfeited these principles, even in so-called difficult districts.I have never abandoned these values, or hidden them, and I believe my voting record reflects that. My congressional story is a demonstration that when we have the courage of our convictions, and stand for them in a forthright manner, we can win districts like mine with a consistently progressive message. If it means working a little harder, we’re not afraid of that."

He was reelected in 2014 and in 2016, while Trump won his district by 10 points, Matt won by 7.5 points. In 2018 the GOP threw a self-funding Wall Street crook up against him (who spent $1,687,182 of his own money on the race) and, even with the district gerrymandered against him, he beat the Republican by over 9 points.

This year, the GOP has a fringe nut, Jim Bognet, who won the crowded Republican primary on one message: claiming he is the Trump candidate. Lately, as Trump's approval continues to sink in northeast Pennsylvania, Bognet is trying to back away from his Trump-adhesion.

This year, Matt's district is rated a "toss up." A few days ago Ted Lieu called me and asked if Blue America could help raise campaign funds for Matt, who he told me needs some help to overcome the Republican onslaught. Matt is their #1 target among House incumbents.

Ted told me that he and Matt are co-chairs of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, and that he had gotten to know him well. "He is an amazing Member of Congress who has advanced strong progressive values in a district that Trump won by 10 points," said Lieu. "Matt has shown remarkable courage, determination and grit. He is in a tough race again and we must bring him back to Congress. I hope you can help Matt. And as a bonus, every Democratic voter that Matt turns out in his district is also very likely to vote for Biden over Trump in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania."

Another strong and activist Democrat who Matt serves with in the House, Jamie Raskin (D-MD), wants us to let DWT readers that, in his words, "Matt Cartwright is the lucid, passionate and unmistakable voice in Congress of every victim of asbestos poisoning, every community fighting toxic contamination of their water, and every citizen fighting for his or her rights against big money, big business and big government.  If you give a damn about the survival of democracy in America, do something right now to keep Matt Cartwright in Congress."

Please consider making a contribution to Matt Cartwright's campaign. Along with Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin, he's one of only an even dozen incumbents we've endorsed this year. The other men and women we've endorsed are in blue districts. Matt's PVI is rated R+1.

Trump Blatantly Urges His Supporters In North Carolina To Commit A Felony By Voting Twice

Today, presidential voting kicked off and the first state to send out absentee ballot was North Carolina. Much to Trump's chagrin, 618,000 requested ballots went out today that's 16 times the number the state sent out at the same time four years ago. AP reported that "the requests came overwhelmingly from Democratic and independent voters, a reflection of a new partisan divide over mail voting... Democrats requested more than 326,000 ballots, and independents 192,000, while only 92,000 were sought by Republicans. Voters in the state can continue to request the ballots up until Oct. 27." Two days earlier, on Wednesday evening, Fox News released a new poll that shows Biden leading Trump-- albeit narrowly-- among likely voters in North Carolina by 4 points. This may have been depressing for Trump, who desperately needs North Carolina's 15 electoral votes if he's to have any hope at all of eking out any kind of path to victory in November.

Hours earlier, Rep Jamie Raskin (D-MD), in reference to Trump, told his own supporters that there is a "massive assault on the Post Office to sabotage the election" and that "We will have our hands full defending a November victory against every trick in the fascist playbook...These brutal times are trying to our souls." Maybe Trump saw it because he almost immediately reached for one of his most blatant proposals to his fans to help him sabotage the election yet.

Lauren Egan and Pete Williams of NBC News reported that while Stumping in North Carolina Trumo just urged his supporters to vote twice-- once by mail and once in person. That's illegal and I assume urging people to do so is also illegal. Egan and Williams noted that this is an escalation of "his attempts to cast confusion and doubt on the validity of the result."

Trump: "So let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system's as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote. If it isn't tabulated, they'll be able to vote... If it's as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote. If it isn't tabulated, they'll be able to vote. So that's the way it is. And that's what they should do."

Asked about Trump's comments during an interview later Wednesday on CNN, Attorney General William Barr argued that a 2005 bipartisan report on election reform found that mail-in voting is "fraught with the risk of fraud and coercion."

Asked why there have been no findings, however, of widespread fraud, Barr responded, "We haven't had the kind of widespread use of mail-in ballots that's being proposed."

Barr said he was unaware of the specific laws in North Carolina, and he did not respond directly to questions about Trump's earlier comments.

Trump made similar claims about mail-in ballots during his 2016 campaign, essentially encouraging his supporters to commit voter fraud.

While the House House scurried to explain that Trump didn't actually mean what he said and wasn't really urging his supporters in North Carolina to break any laws, he flew off to Pennsylvania, where he urged supporters there to also vote twice. "Sign your mail-in ballot, OK? You sign it and send it in and then you have to follow it. And if on Election Day or early voting, that is not tabulated and counted, you go vote. And if for some reason after that-- it shouldn’t take that long-- they’re not going to be able to tabulate it because you would have voted. But you have to make sure your vote counts, because the only way they are going to be able to beat us is by doing that kind of stuff."

We began with Jamie Raskin-- and we'll end with him as well. "Trump’s open-air invitation to his supporters to vote twice," he told me yesterday, "is a plan for massive criminal voter fraud and chaos at the polls to justify other offenses against American democracy. Every elected official in America must denounce this criminal solicitation by the President or be considered complicit by history in this conspiracy against our government and Constitution."

None Dare Call It Fascism... Except Jamie Raskin

I Can't Breath by Nancy Ohanian

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin is widely considered the top constitutional scholar in Congress. He began an e-mail to his supporters yesterday with a quote from Benito Mussolini, a fascist dictator who dragged Italy into the sewer and was eventually brutally murdered and hung upside down in a Milan square while the whole city cheered: "If you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, no one will notice." It isn't unrelated to this quote by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels:

Referencing Madeleine Albright's new book, Fascism: A Warning, which he described as "chilling," Raskin wrote that "fascism is not a political ideology but a strategy for taking and abusing power. The active ingredient in the strategy is the relentless and casual dismantling of the rule of law and the rights of the people." He then enumerated how we're seeing that from the Trumpist Regime: "the formation of a secret police force by President Trump and Attorney General Barr to crush civil rights protesters; unidentified agents sweeping people off the street and detaining them without due process; overt illegal use of the White House and other federal property for campaign purposes; the endless promotion of hate, propaganda and dangerous lies; corruption and vandalization of government for private moneymaking purposes; massive assault on the Post Office to sabotage the election; and provocative presidential rhetoric encouraging civil violence and disorder."

He came right out and called what we're seeing, exactly what it is, though few members of Congress would dare: "We will have our hands full defending a November victory against every trick in the fascist playbook...These brutal times are trying to our souls."

Now, when it comes to Trump's systemic corruption of the federal government-- his "strategy for taking and abusing power"-- ProPublica's exposé on the way Trump makes it appear that he is sending relief packages of food paid for with taxpayer dollars and authorized by Congress is relatively small potatoes... one of Mussolini's single barely noticed or noted feathers. "Millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table," wrote Isaac Arnsdorf, "may discover a new item in government-funded relief packages of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat: a letter signed by President Donald Trump. The message, printed on White House letterhead in both English and Spanish, touts the administration’s response to the coronavirus, including aid provided through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative to buy fresh food and ship it to needy families. The letter is reminiscent of Trump’s effort to put his signature on stimulus checks and send a signed letter to millions of recipients. It’s the latest example of the president blurring his official duties with his reelection campaign, most prominently by hosting Trump’s acceptance speech for the Republican nomination last week on the White House lawn. Democratic lawmakers have gone so far as to say the USDA letter violates the federal Hatch Act. The law prohibits government officials from using their positions or taxpayer resources to engage in electioneering. Though the president himself is exempt, the ban applies to White House staff and agencies such as the USDA."

Jonathan Chait made the relevant and overarching point at New York Magazine yesterday though: Trump’s Reelection Campaign Is Corrupting the Entire Federal Government. Trump's illegal activities in using the government for his own ends have caused what Chait called "a flurry of recent reports on new and unprecedented government activity. All of these developments follow the same theme." He mentioned right-wing nut and Trumpist DNI John Ratcliffe announcing his agencies would end the traditional briefings to Congress on election security, even as Russia continues trying cripple America by helping the Trump campaign win the election. He also mentioned the government will be sending out relief checks to coincide with voting, while Trump pressures a weak FDA bureaucracy to rush-release a vaccine before the election whether it kills people or not. Chait reported on an HHS quarter billion dollar campaign "slush fund" and reminded his readers that on Monday Trump announced a joint Justice Department–Homeland Security task force to "investigate violent left-wing civil unrest."

Chait wrote that "Trump’s unhinged rhetoric would just be a Trump problem, were it not for the fact that the government appears to be following his lead. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told Tucker Carlson last night he is 'working' on a plan to arrest leaders of Black Lives Matter, who he claims are instigating a violent plot. Trump’s Homeland Security officials have already ignored or downplayed threats involving right-wing terrorism, which has resulted in a number of deadly shootings... [T]here is a pattern in all these events: They describe recent actions by the federal government; they all serve the purpose of enabling Trump’s election; and they all conscript the power of the federal government in novel ways. It has the appearance of coordinated action-- as if Trump has ordered every arm of the government to generate whatever tools can be placed at the disposal of his reelection."

Trump Is Blocking A Pandemic Relief Package To Prevent Congress From Keeping The Post Office Alive

On Wednesday, Trump, lying, tried stampeding Congress and bending it to his will by declaring there won't be a pandemic relief package. The Washington Post reported that " A new attempt to restart economic relief negotiations between the White House and Democrats ended just minutes after it began on Wednesday, with President Trump appearing to cast doubt on the whole process by announcing a deal is "not going to happen." The sociopath in the White House said "The bill’s not going to happen because they don’t even want to talk about it, because we can’t give them the kind of ridiculous things that they want that have nothing to do with the China virus."

The Reuters story made it clear what he's up to: trying to wreck the U.S. Post office in the hope of being more easily able to steal the election in November. Patricia Zengerle and David Morgan reported that on Thursday he said "his team was rejecting Democrats’ bid to include funds for the U.S. Postal Service and to shore up election infrastructure in a new coronavirus relief bill, as he vowed to block money to facilitate mail-in voting. Señor Trumpanzee: "The items are the post office and the $3.5 billion for mail-in voting. If we don’t make the deal, that means they can’t have the money, that means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. It just can’t happen." Zengerle and Morgan reminded their readers that "Roughly one in four U.S. voters cast their ballots by mail in 2016, and Trump himself has voted by mail. But Trump and his fellow Republicans have criticized state efforts to make voting by mail more widely available, saying without evidence it could lead to widespread fraud. Election exerts say mail voting is as secure as any other method."

Pelosi said any coronavirus relief bill should include billions of dollars to protect not just Americans’ right to vote but also essential services, like mailing prescription medicines, during the pandemic.

“You would think they’d have a little sensitivity, but so obsessed are they to undermine absentee voting that this is their connection there,” Pelosi told reporters. “So the president says he’s not putting up any money for absentee voting and he’s not putting up any money for the Postal Service, undermining the health of our democracy.”

...New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational changes and a clampdown on overtime in a bid to fix the financially troubled Postal Service, which reported a net loss of $2.2 billion in the last quarter.

Cost-cutting measures put in place by DeJoy have led to mail delays across the country, raising concerns that they could complicate mail-based voting. State election officials have scrambled to expand mail-voting capacity as experts say the pandemic could prompt up to half of all U.S. voters to cast their ballots by mail.

The Postal Service in recent months has encouraged election officials to send their ballots using regular first-class mail, rather than the cheaper and slower bulk mail rate that many states use, to ensure ballots are delivered in a timely manner.

In the past, the Postal Service has generally treated all election and political mail as if it were first-class, the service’s internal watchdog said in a 2019 report. That has caused some Democrats to accuse DeJoy of trying to undermine mail-in voting.

GOP sleaze-bags Steven Mnuchin and Mark Meadows are leading the charge for Trump. Lisa Mascaro reported for AP that "With talks stalemated, Trump has resorted to bypassing Congress, issuing the executive actions that Meadows warned would come if the White House failed to reach a deal. The president’s orders for jobless aid and other actions are only expected provide modest relief to some 20 million Americans at risk of eviction and even more who are out of work, halving unemployment assistance to $300 a week. On a conference call with Republican senators, Meadows and Mnuchin left the impression there are no new talks scheduled with Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

CNN went right to the point: Trump "opposes much-needed funding for the United States Postal Service because he doesn't want to see it used for mail-in voting this November. By directly linking USPS funding to mail-in voting, Trump is fueling allegations that he is trying to manipulate the postal system for political gain. The pandemic has led to record-shattering levels of voting-by-mail, but Trump has tried to restrict the voting method because he says it will hurt his re-election and Republicans across the board."

Biden's campaign manager, Andrew Bates: "The President of the United States is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies and for delivery of medicines, because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in over 100 years."

This is a highly unpopular stance by Trump and Democratic congressional candidates are increasingly using it to beat up on the Trump enablers they're running against. Few members have been more slavishly devoted to Trump than Omaha's Donald Bacon and progressive Democrat Kara Eastman took him to task yesterday for his refusal to denounce Trump's efforts at sabotaging the post office (and the election). She noted that The US Postal Service employs over 600,000 Americans, including almost 100,000 veterans and that people of color comprise 40% of the USPS workforce. "Congressman Bacon, this continued attack on the Postal Service is undermining workers and serving to promote voter suppression," Eastman said. "The US Postal Service is an American institution, protected by the Constitution. Donald Trump and Republican politicians like Don Bacon have been trying to undermine it for years and are now sabotaging it to rig the election. This attack on the USPS is an attack on American service and values. It’s time for Bacon to stand up to his party and stop these attacks on one of our most basic and fundamental institutions."

"We cannot allow this administration to sabotage the Post Office so they can cheat the election. Folks across the nine counties of the Texas 10th district need the Post Office to safely vote by mail, get prescription medications delivered, or run their small business," said Mike Siegel, a public school teacher turned civil rights attorney running in the gerrymandered central Texas district to unseat Republican corporate crony Michael McCaul, an unabashed Trumpist. "My opponent has taken over $50,000 from corporate PACs with a direct interest in gutting the post office. I am not taking a dime of corporate PAC money."


Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he serves as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and is on 2 other subcommittees-- the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus and the Subcommittee on Government Operations, which is where all the action is on the Republican Party play to destroy the post office. "The GOP attack on the Post Office," he told me today, "is definitely a sinister attack on the 2020 Election itself and we must do everything we can to stop it. But it’s also more broadly an effort to kill American democracy. The Post Office has been a central crossroads and symbol of American communications, culture, and political community from the beginning of the Republic. In the name of our first postmaster Benjamin Franklin and all the other great Americans who worked for the Post Office, including Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, we must take down the campaign to destroy the Post Office. This is the struggle of our lifetime."

Southern California congressman and realist Ted Lieu wasn't sugar-coating the dire nature of this disaster. He told me today that "This election is too important for me to promise things to make you feel better but won’t actually happen. The stark truth is the House cannot adequately fund the Post Office without the consent of Trump. The only option is a veto override with the Republican controlled Senate. That is not going to happen. That means our only solution is to empower the voters. We need you to spread the word that if people are going to vote by mail, they need to mail their ballot at least 10 mailing days out from Nov 3, which would be Oct 22. That’s how we win."

Adam Christensen is the progressive Democrat trying to flip Ted Yoho's north-central Florida district blue. Much of that district is rural and dependent on the post office. "This attack on one of governments best run and organized agencies," he told me, "is an attack on rural America. It is an attack on small business owners and those that rely on USPS everyday for shipping. It is an attack on our towns and our neighbors who are tired of paying outrageous fees for basic services. Attempting to destroy good paying jobs in our community and replace them with corporate monopolies is what has killed our town centers for the last 30 years. The Republican party is dying but it appears that they want to finalize the destruction of the middle class on their way out."

The Fascist Pig Is Stealing The Election In Plain Sight And Democracy Seems Incapable Of Protecting Itself-- The US Postal Service

I've thought all year that the reason Trump squealed like a stuck pig about the postal service was because he and his Russian allies had the electronic voting machines rigged in enough counties to throw him another electoral college win. Vote by mail would kill that. So he had to kill the post office, conveniently, an institution, Republicans hate anyway. "Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have taken to the courts dozens of times as part of a $20 million effort to challenge voting rules," wrote Politico's Anita Kumar, "including filing their own lawsuits in several battleground states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada. And around the time Trump started musing about delaying the election last week, aides and outside advisers began scrambling to ponder possible executive actions he could take to curb mail-in voting-- everything from directing the postal service to not deliver certain ballots to stopping local officials from counting them after Election Day... [I]t has allowed Trump to present himself as a fighter on an issue that many of his most fervent supporters have taken up in the last few months. Trump fans, said John Fredericks, a conservative radio host who serves on the Trump campaign’s advisory committee, 'think Trump is going to win legitimately, but the Democrats are trying to steal the election by manipulating mail-out ballots. They want the president to jawbone enough so there’s a level of outrage to get rid of these ballots.' Just because Trump’s claims of rampant mail-in voting fraud aren’t supported by evidence doesn’t mean election experts aren’t concerned about problems holding a presidential election during a pandemic. It’s unknown whether the United States Postal Service can handle a surge of mail-in ballots in a timely fashion."

Writting for the Washington Post yesterday, Jacob Bogage reported about how Louis DeJoy, Trump's crooked new postmaster general is working quickly and ruthlessly to destroy the U.S. postal service from within. "DeJoy unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s mail service, displacing the two top executives overseeing day-to-day operations... The shake-up came as congressional Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy and the cost-cutting measures that have slowed mail delivery and ensnared ballots in recent primary elections. Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. The reshuffling threatens to heighten tensions between postal officials and lawmakers, who are troubled by delivery delays-- the Postal Service banned employees from working overtime and making extra trips to deliver mail-- and wary of the Trump administration’s influence on the Postal Service as the coronavirus pandemic rages and November’s election draws near."

Ted Lieu, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, is watching closely-- and very realistic. "Democrats," he told me last night, "are going to do everything we can to stop voter suppression, including by the Post Office. At the same time, here is the truth: with conservative control of the Supreme Court, the White House, and the Senate, most if not all of the efforts by Democrats will not succeed in the next three months. That means voter suppression will occur. And the best way to overcome it is to prepare voters. That means we need to educate people that if they are going to vote by mail, they need to vote early. If they decide to vote on November 3, they need to prepare for long lines. Bring a meal, a lawn chair, a game, whatever is necessary to wait in a potentially long line to cast the vote. That is how we win, by preparing voters to overcome obstacles instead of promising actions we can't deliver on in the next three months."

DeJoy is at war with congressional Democrats and there's no doubt in my mind that if Pelosi and Schumer could, they'd throw him in prison. But they can't. Bogage reported that Jerry Connolly (D-VA), chair of the House subcommittee responsible for postal oversight, called the reorganization "a deliberate sabotage" to the nation’s mail service and a "Trojan Horse." Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the subcommittee, told me yesterday that "All the Oversight Committee Democratic Members have been focused on defending the Post Office against right-wing attack ever since Trump came to power. The defense of the Post Office now assumes paramount importance and urgency as it will be a central transmission belt for delivery of ballots and votes in Nobember. Trump and his team have been making overtly hostile moves to undermine postal capacity, so expect intensive oversight hearings, demands for information and legislative action to stop Trump’s unfolding sabotage of the Post Office and 2020 presidential election."

The Postal Service will implement a hiring freeze, according to the reorganization announcement, and will ask for voluntary early retirements. It also will realign into three “operating units”-- retail and delivery, logistics and processing, and commerce and business solutions-- and scale down from seven regions to four.

The structure displaces postal executives with decades of experience, moving some to new positions and others out of leadership roles entirely, including McAdams, Williams and chief commerce and business solutions officer Jacqueline Krage Strako, who previously held the title of executive vice president and chief customer and marketing officer.

...[T]he changes worried postal analysts, who say the tone of DeJoy’s first eight weeks and his restructuring have recast the nation’s mail service as a for-profit arm of the government, rather than an essential service.

“He keeps referring to the USPS as ‘our business.’ But he’s been appointed postmaster general. You don’t run a business,” said Philip Rubio, a history professor at North Carolina A&T State University and a former postal worker. “He’s not accountable to shareholders. He’s accountable to the American people and Congress.”

Earlier Friday, congressional Democrats demanded an investigation of DeJoy’s cost-cutting initiatives, which postal workers blame for delivery slowdowns.

A letter signed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) and seven other Democrats, including Connolly, urged Postal Service Inspector General Tammy L. Whitcomb to examine how DeJoy came to implement policies that prohibit postal workers from taking overtime or making extra trips to deliver mail on time, and how such delays specifically affect election mail.

“Given the ongoing concerns about the adverse impacts of Trump Administration policies on the quality and efficiency of the Postal Service, we ask that you conduct an audit of all operational changes put in place by Mr. DeJoy and other Trump Administration officials in 2020,” the letter states.

It also asks Whitcomb to review the finances of DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, the nominee for ambassador to Canada. The couple’s holdings include between $30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets in USPS competitors or contractors, according to a financial disclosure Wos filed with the Office of Government Ethics when she was nominated. Postal Service mail processing contractor XPO Logistics-- which acquired DeJoy’s company New Breed Logistics in 2014-- represents the vast majority of those holdings. Their combined stake in competitors UPS and trucking company J.B. Hunt is roughly $265,000.

DeJoy had 30 days from taking over the agency to disclose any assets that present a conflict of interest, according to the Postal Service. DeJoy in a statement said he had “done what is necessary to ensure that I am and will remain in compliance with those obligations.”

“We would welcome the Inspector General to look into the steps we are taking to make the Postal Service more efficient,” Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said. “She will find that much of what we are doing is designed to address recommendations that her office has made in recent years.”

Agapi Doulaveris, a spokesperson for the Office of Inspector General, said the department had received the letter, but could not comment on ongoing work.

“I would absolutely hope the inspector general would look into why the mail is being slowed, because that’s outrageous,” Rubio said. “Especially during the pandemic and with America about to vote, this is the worst time to be changing policies.”

DeJoy met Wednesday with Pelosi, Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to discuss the new mail-handling procedures and the Postal Service’s tenuous financial position. The agency is projected to run out of money between March and October 2021, though it just accessed a $10 billion Treasury loan authorized last week in an early coronavirus relief package.

During the USPS’s quarterly board of governors meeting Friday, DeJoy said he negotiated the loan terms with Mnuchin. Upon accessing the loan, the Postal Service, subject to confidentiality restrictions, will hand over proprietary contracts for its 10 largest service agreements with private sector shippers. Those businesses use the mail service for “last mile” package delivery from distribution centers to consumers’ homes or businesses.

Mnuchin had sought sweeping operational control of the Postal Service in previous loan terms, including provisions that would allow the Trump administration to approve senior postal personnel decisions, service contracts with third-party shippers, collective bargaining negotiation strategies and high package prices.

In April, shortly after Congress authorized the loan, Trump called the Postal Service “a joke” and said he would not approve any emergency funding unless the USPS quadrupled package delivery prices, a move analysts said would quickly bankrupt the agency by chasing away customers to private-sector competitors.

DeJoy, at the governors meeting Friday, said that though he has a “good relationship” with Trump-- he’s donated more than $2 million to the Trump campaign or Republican causes since 2016, and chaired the finance committee for the 2020 GOP convention-- he does not take direction from Trump on postal issues.

“While I certainly have a good relationship with the President of the United States, the notion that I would ever make decisions concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the President, or anyone else in the administration, is wholly off-base,” he said. “I serve at the pleasure of the governors of the Postal Service, a group that is bipartisan by statute and that will evaluate my performance in a nonpartisan fashion.”

Coronavirus funding for the Postal Service-- and Schumer and Pelosi’s demand that DeJoy roll back the cost-cutting policies-- emerged as a sticking point between Democrats and the White House in negotiations on a “Phase IV” relief package. The House passed a package with $25 billion for the Postal Service that does not need to be repaid to replace the Treasury loan. The Trump administration has objected to any direct aid to the Postal Service.

On his Bradcast radio show Friday, Brad Friedman warned "Never mind the pre-election polling numbers you are hearing. Given the way Donald Trump and his Administration and acolytes around the country are actively working to undermine this year's November 3rd general elections, you'd make a mistake to place Joe Biden's odds of being declared the winner at any better than 50/50 at best at this point. Disturbing comments from our guest today only underscore that concern yet again." Even as Trump, reported Friedman, continues to make false claims about absentee voting (after fraudulently doing so himself!), his recently appointed Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, is now undermining the U.S. Postal Service itself in advance of what will be, by far, the largest Vote-by-Mail elections in all 50 states in the nation's history. "The Republican Trump mega-donor DeJoy, with no previous USPS experience, issued several directives upon taking office in June that have resulted in the slow down of mail delivery. And while both DeJoy and other leadership at the 250-year old Postal Service (whose first Postmaster General was Benjamin Franklin) have claimed the new directives are not aimed at slowing down mail or doing Trump's bidding to undermine absentee voting, our guest today, Mark Dimondstein, President of the American Postal Workers Union and Postal Service worker since 1983, charges that is exactly what is happening. The new directives purportedly meant as efficiency measures to curb overtime costs, 'can't do anything but slow down mail,' says Dimondstein. 'Our understanding is that it's really happening all over the country, and it needs to be reversed. It needs to be stopped.' The APWU chief, representing more than 200,000 postal workers, charges the new measures, which direct carriers to leave mail behind at sorting stations if waiting for it will delay their route, 'runs counter to our DNA. Our DNA as a postal worker is to serve the customer, leave no mail behind, treat it as if it is our own.'"

The USPS is in crisis mode now, as coronavirus lockdowns have severely curbed regular mail delivery-- though package delivery has increased, he tells me, helping to mitigate that loss somewhat. The Post Office is funded entirely by postage, not tax payer dollars, but its Republican-dominated Board of Governor's, he says, unanimously voted to request a $25 billion emergency bailout from Congress earlier this year. While almost every other company in the nation has received crisis funding during the pandemic, Republicans in Congress and the White House have continued to block the request. "The Post Office does not run on tax dollars in normal times, it runs off the revenue. So if the revenue is not there, then the Post Office will run out of money," Dimondstein warns. "It's not a question of if, it's a question of when."

..."Vote-by-Mail is nothing new for postal workers. We've been doing this for generations. Military personnel have been voting by mail since the days of the Civil War...And of course now, with the pandemic, it's a question of access to the ballot box at all for tens of millions of people who want to vote safely," he tells me, noting ironically that "Trump trusts us to deliver his mail-in ballot!"

..."The idea that the Postal Service is a joke is an insult to every dedicated postal worker. 600,000 plus strong," says Dimondstein. "Out here in this pandemic, on the front lines, can you imagine how we all feel hearing that? And it's an insult to the customers. 91% of the people in this country, in the latest Pew Research Poll [support USPS]. The Postal Service always rates the highest. This year, it was the highest ever, I think out of a deeper appreciation for the role of postal workers in this pandemic."

"The country just laid to rest John Lewis," Dimondstein notes. "His historic role in this country, courageously done, was the question of voting rights for African-Americans in the South of the United States. And it was courageous. He was almost beaten to death. Voting rights now is right here at the epicenter of what's going on right now, and the Post Office is right in the middle of this thing. Because without Vote-by-Mail, people aren't going to be able to vote. It's as simple as that. Tens of millions of people, from seniors to young people, just will not be able to vote during this pandemic if they don't have good access to Vote-by-Mail and don't have the states step up. We have to worry about some of these states that don't want people to vote. That's the reality."

When asked how long before Election Day Dimondstein would advise voters get their absentee ballot into the mail to ensure it arrives n time to be counted, he recommends that if you haven't mailed it by the Tuesday or Wednesday before Election Day, you'd be wise to try and drop it off in person at your precinct or local County headquarters.

Do You Think ANYONE Took Trump Seriously When He Said Biden Wants To Hurt God?

Actually, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Congress' most knowledgeable Constitutional scholar is taking it very seriously. He e-mailed his followers and warned them, telling them that "Trump said that Joe Biden as President would 'hurt God and the Bible.' This comical bit of pandering to the religious Right came from the guy who has more than a dozen outstanding sexual assault and harassment claims against him and waved an upside-down Bible over his head after unleashing a tear gas and pepper spray riot by his secret police force against 2,000 civil rights protesters. For anyone who has read or watched The Handmaid’s Tale, Donald Trump’s America offers disturbingly familiar dystopian glimpses of misogynistic, anti-scientific, homophobic, and authoritarian religion driving the affairs of state. In Congress we face a constant drive to stifle science and promote discriminatory religious dogma in government."

No one knows more about the evangelical hive mind than Frank Schaeffer. This morning he told me that "Trump got the emotions right. He won in 2016 because he understood that white evangelical and conservative Roman Catholic Republican voters were no longer motivated by any sense of hope; they were motivated by a menace, resentment and fear. Since we think of God as a bigger version of ourselves thus Trump is correct: Biden hurts God-- if, that is, God is a reflection of Trump’s white evangelicals’ denial of the teachings of Jesus. In that universe Biden’s simple humanity is an affront to a God who endorses separating children from parents and locking them in cages, approves flying confederate flags to remind American Blacks that slavery was God’s plan all along, is titillated and pleased by clubbing and gassing protesters who dare to get in the way of a photo-op in order to wave a Bible in front of a church a few yards from where you signed a check to pay off a porn star. All this hurts God- once you’ve redefined the Creator as Satan and erected a new temple too him in the person of Donald Trump."

 Jack Holmes, writing for Esquire noted that there's something to learn from Trump's unhinged rant about Biden wanting to hurt God. "Just as Vice President Mike Pence provided a clarifying look this week at how conservatives see the Supreme Court, his boss has been a clarifying force when it comes to American political religion. In short, the kind of Political Christianity that now dominates on the American right has very little to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ, or even the Old Testament. That's how Donald J. Trump became the standard-bearer for Evangelicals despite personifying all of the Seven Deadly Sins at once, and despite his palpable disdain for believers even when addressing them directly. 'Two Corinthians 3:17, that's the whole ballgame,' he said at Liberty University way back in 2016. 'Is that the one you like?' It didn't matter that the president was essentially saying, I'm pandering to you because I think you're an easy mark, or that he clearly has no familiarity with even basic tenets of the Bible, or that he rarely, if ever, goes to church, or that he's cheated relentlessly on all three of his wives, paying hush money to multiple mistresses. It won't matter that he's demonstrated callous indifference to the deaths of 158,000 Americans, or that, as more than 1,000 of his constituents die each day and the current economic suffering is set to explode with the lapse in boosted unemployment benefits, he really packed his schedule Friday as he heads to one of his golf courses."

On Thursday, the last day that he and Congress saw fit to work this week, he gave a speech in Ohio in which he once again demonstrated that his strategy for courting Evangelical votes is just throwing things at the wall.

The idea that a presidential candidate could "hurt God," a Supreme Being who exists beyond space and time, is not really the kind of talk you'd expect from someone who believes in or understands the concept. But this is a fairly revelatory look at the state of the conservative movement. As Trump has proven, this sort of Godliness and religiosity is less tied to any principles to live by than they are one facet-- along with gun ownership and, apparently, burning fossil fuels-- of a conservative identity around which the movement's base is organized. He doesn't mention opposition to nonwhite immigration here, or the larger concept that this is a country built for and by white people and everyone else should just be happy to be here, but those are the really animating features that drew movement conservatives to his candidacy in the first place.

It's probably worth mentioning that insufficient religiosity is not among Joe Biden's issues, of which there are many, though many fewer than the incumbent president has. By all indications, the Democratic nominee is a man of faith, and it would take approximately two church visits a year for Biden to prove himself more devout and committed than Trump. (The president did visit a church recently, albeit after he had federal forces violently clear peaceful protesters so that he could stage a photo op holding a Bible upside down.) There is zero reason to believe Biden would somehow crack down on religious believers-- not even make them provide employees with health insurance that covers contraception, which is considered oppression in this country. None of this is to suggest Trump really believes any of what he says about this, or cares. Meanwhile, the actual problems that exist in reality have not gone away, and will not disappear beneath another culture-war food fight.

Biden was America's first Catholic vice president. He has always seemed like a guy who takes Christianity and faith far more seriously than Trump does. But, as Stephen Crockett put it for readers of The Root, Señor Trumpanzee "believes that if Joe Biden is elected president, his first days in office would include Biden placing the Bible on the floor of the White House bedroom and the 77-year-old diving off the bed to deliver a big elbow to the helpless Bible. The president of people who’ve thrown out all their watches because he’s banned Tik Tok also believes that Biden is going to get into an argument with God that includes Obama’s former No. 2 sucker-punching God in the face. Or at least that’s how Trump’s been trying to spin it. The president of people who love the Bible yet openly and actively hate people who don’t look like them or love like them told a crowd that Biden wants to 'Take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy, our kind of energy.' And what energy would that be? Orange-painted-skin energy? Also known as Oompa Loompa energy?"

I was a little surprised that hundreds of so-called evangelicals showed up for a live Trump campaign rally-- headlined by crackpot Paula White-- yesterday. The hotels was fined for breaking the social gathering restrictions, although not enough for anyone to think twice about it. And speaking if crackpots, Ralph Reed was very excited about the whole thing. But what I wasn't surprised about was Rev John Pavlovitz's eloquent rebuttal letter to Trump: This is What Hurts God, Donald. "I know that actual spirituality is something foreign to your heart," wrote Pavlovitz, "that authentic faith is antithetical to who you are and how you view the world. I know that God is simply a prop you wield, a costume you put on, a resource you rent in order to manipulate religious people. If you knew anything about Jesus, if you’d ever read the Gospels, if you even once opened the Bible and saw what the Good News Jesus preached actually was-- you’d know the kinds of things that hurt God:

• 160,000 Americans dying without a shred of compassion for them.
• Children taken from the arms of their parents and put into dog kennels.
• Families pepper-sprayed for a sociopath’s Bible-wielding photo op.
• Terrified refugees denied sanctuary from their suffering.

• A leader who celebrates a rising NASDAQ and ignores a rising death toll.
• Dehumanizing women by talking about their genitalia.

• Black men murdered in the streets and a leader who will not condemn the executioners.
• Rubber bullets fired into the bodies of young mothers standing silently in solidarity with those black men.
• Someone trying to take away healthcare from millions of people in a pandemic.

The Jesus who implored his followers to love the least, to care for the poor, to feed the hungry, to visit the prisoner, to welcome the stranger-- this Jesus surely is being hurt in these moments."

Pavlovitz was just getting started I suggest you redathe whole open letter on his website

The End Of The NRA?

Last night Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Tom Hamburger explained NY Attorney General Leticia James' decision to sue the NRA out of existence or, at least, out of New York, where they have been a chartered charity for over a century. James' case revolves around the $64 million top NRA officials drained out of the non-profit to enrich themselves, "a decades-long pattern of fraud to raid the coffers of the powerful gun rights group for personal gain," wrote Leonnig and Hamburger. "In her lawsuit, Attorney General Letitia James called for the dissolution of the NRA and the removal of CEO Wayne LaPierre from the leadership post he has held for the past 39 years, saying he and others used the group’s funds to finance a luxury lifestyle. She also asked a New York court to force LaPierre and three key deputies to repay NRA members for the ill-gotten money and inflated salaries that her investigation found they took. James accused the NRA leaders of flouting state and federal laws and signing off on reports and statements they knew were fraudulent, while diverting millions of dollars away from the NRA’s charitable mission to benefit themselves and their allies... Her investigation, which began in February 2019, found a 'a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement, and negligent oversight at the NRA that was illegal, oppressive, and fraudulent,' according to a statement by the attorney general’s office."

I asked Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi if James can actually do this. He was crystal clear: "One of the central jobs of the New York State Attorney General is to oversee the conduct of charities operating within the state. General James is using the tools in the tool kit of her Charities Bureau to perform the oversight she is sworn to do. Bravo General!"

Trump is going crazy because the NRA spent millions on backing him in 2016 and planned to do the same thing between now and November. I suspect that James' suit is going to tie up their funds, at the very least.

Meanwhile, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced Thursday that his office filed a separate lawsuit against the NRA Foundation, which is based in Washington. Racine accused the organization of being a puppet of the NRA, despite legal requirements that it independently pursue charitable purposes. Instead, Racine said his office found, the foundation repeatedly lent the NRA money to address its rising deficits.

James said at a news conference Thursday that she is seeking to dissolve the NRA because of the brazenness of the group’s violations of law.

“The corruption was so broad, and because they have basically destroyed all the assets of the NRA,” she said. “Enough was enough... No one is above the law, not even the NRA.”

Her office cited as a precedent its previous action against the Trump Foundation, which led Trump to shut down the charity in 2018 amid allegations he used it for his personal benefit.

The New York lawsuit against the NRA paints a picture of widespread wrongdoing at the influential gun rights group, and a freewheeling atmosphere in which top officials repeatedly took advantage of their positions for their personal benefit.

In one new revelation, the attorney general said her investigation uncovered that LaPierre recently arranged a post-employment contract for himself with the NRA worth $17 million. He never sought board approval for the deal, the suit claims.

The lawsuit also claims LaPierre failed to report large sums of personal income to the IRS. James’s office said it found that the NRA chief funneled personal expenses through an outside public relations firm, allowing him to avoid reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal income.

James said Thursday that she was referring those findings to the IRS. She also said that if her office uncovers criminal activity, it will be referred to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

In response, the NRA said Thursday that it was filing its own federal lawsuit against James, alleging that the attorney general has violated the group’s free speech rights and has been unfairly targeting the gun rights lobby since she began campaigning for the office.

“This was a baseless, premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend,” NRA President Carolyn Meadows said in a statement. “You could have set your watch by it: the investigation was going to reach its crescendo as we move into the 2020 election cycle.”

NRA officials said they believe James’s action was designed to disrupt the group’s momentum at a critical time in the 2020 election campaign. The NRA political action arm is planning to spend tens of millions of dollars this fall to mobilize its members to defeat Democratic candidates who seek gun restrictions, including putative Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to a person familiar with fundraising, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal strategy.

“It’s a transparent attempt to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda,” Meadows said. “This has been a power grab by a political opportunist-- a desperate move that is part of a rank political vendetta. Our members won’t be intimidated or bullied in their defense of political and constitutional freedom.”

Trump also decried the legal action against the organization, which spent millions on his behalf in 2016, calling it a “terrible thing” as he spoke to reporters Thursday morning at the White House. He said the NRA had been “decimated” by legal expenses and suggested the group should move from New York to Texas.

Experts in tax law said the deep investigation into the NRA’s finances showed the potential for state officials to vigorously enforce nonprofit rules.

“It is a watershed moment in nonprofit regulation,” said Douglas Varley, who advises nonprofit organizations at the law firm of Caplin & Drysdale.

With a decline in IRS funding and enforcement, there has been a widespread belief that “the locus of nonprofit enforcement is shifting from IRS to the states,” Varley said. “Here is the clearest possible evidence of that reality. I think everyone who believes a strong regulator is needed would heartened by this.”

The dual suits filed by the attorneys general in New York and Washington punctuate nearly two years of infighting at the NRA over management of the group’s funds, a civil war that led to the exodus of many veteran members and top officials.

...The group’s bitter internal battle burst into public view in April 2019 at the NRA’s annual convention in Indianapolis, when then-NRA President Oliver North was forced out by LaPierre after pressing for an internal financial review.

The Washington Post and other news organizations subsequently revealed how the NRA directed funds to board members and how LaPierre racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges at a Beverly Hills clothing boutique and on foreign travel.

The Post also reported how, after a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., Pierre told close associates he was worried about how easily he could be targeted and needed a more secure place to live and sought to buy a $6 million, 10,000-square-foot French-style country estate in Westlake, Texas.

The suit expands on previous allegations that LaPierre improperly charged the NRA for private jet travel and luxury vacations that had no clear business purpose. The filing claims LaPierre billed the NRA more than $500,000 for private charter flights he and his family took to visit the Bahamas eight times over three years.

Last year, a spokesman for LaPierre told The Post his visits to the Bahamas were for NRA business. But the New York attorney general’s investigation found the trips were private vacations.

In four years, LaPierre was reimbursed by the NRA for $1.2 million in expenses that were personal trips, golf fees and gifts, the suit claims.

LaPierre also spent $3.6 million of NRA money for private travel consultants to arrange private jets and executive car service for his and his family’s use over just two years, the suit says. And he set aside several millions each year for private security for him and his family.

LaPierre also enjoyed the largesse of NRA vendors who hoped to keep their organization’s business, the suit said. One vendor gave LaPierre and his wife an all-expense paid trip to Africa for a safari adventure; another frequently loaned LaPierre and his family the use of his 107-foot yacht on his visits to the Caribbean.

Phillips, the former treasurer, is accused in the suit of arranging a NRA deal worth more than $1 million that benefited his girlfriend. The lawsuit also claims that shortly before he retired in 2018, Phillips obtained a contract for himself worth $1.8 million. On paper, Phillips’s contract called for him to provide advice and consulting services for the new treasurer; but the new treasurer said he knew nothing of the contract and never received any services from Phillips, the suit claims.

Powell, LaPierre’s former chief of staff, had his salary increased from $250,000 to $800,000 in just three years as a reward for his loyalty to LaPierre, the suit states, and allegedly pocketed an additional $100,000 he was not entitled to as a housing allowance. In addition, Powell also arranged for his wife and father to earn money through NRA contracts.

The lawsuit accuses Frazer, who was general counsel to the NRA, of failing to make sure the nonprofit was governed properly and followed state and federal laws, and it claims he certified false or misleading annual statements.

James said Frazer failed to comply with the rules on board governance, to make sure the board was aware of and voting on major financial transactions and to follow the NRA’s conflict of interest policy.

A central fraud embedded in NRA finances, James’s suit claims, was a secret agreement to pass questionable expenses through its Oklahoma-based advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen.

Under this agreement, the suit alleges, LaPierre and his inner circle of trusted deputies rerouted millions of dollars in lavish personal expenses for themselves, their families and allies through Ackerman McQueen. The goal was to avoid having the board or other members of the NRA know that the charitable organization was paying so much money for LaPierre’s membership fees at golf clubs, private jets and designer suits, the lawsuit said.

Ackerman McQueen then billed the NRA for these large, unexplained sums, calling them “out-of-pocket” expenses, suggesting they were related to the company’s advertising work for the NRA.

The attorney general’s office said it found that Ackerman McQueen billed the NRA $70 million in just 2017 and 2018 for its public relations work, including “out-of-pocket” expenses.

A very large portion of those hidden expenses were for personal trips and expenses for LaPierre. In a deposition in a separate lawsuit last year, LaPierre acknowledged he did not report any of the NRA-paid expenses as personal income to the IRS and claimed they were business expenses.

In its statement, the attorney general’s office said this practice “did not comply with IRS requirements, and, as a result, all such expenses should have been included by the NRA in taxable personal income for LaPierre.”

The partnership between the NRA and the public relations firm began to crack after James, then a candidate for New York attorney general, announced in summer of 2018 that she planned to launch an investigation of the NRA if she won. LaPierre hired a new law firm, led by Angus McQueen’s estranged son-in-law. That attorney, Bill Brewer, urged that the NRA to audit Ackerman McQueen’s bills in preparation for James’s probe.

At LaPierre’s direction and with Brewer’s help, the NRA ejected its in-house lawyer and sued Ackerman McQueen, accusing them of concealing details of the nearly $40 million the NRA paid the firm each year.

Last spring, North announced in Indianapolis he would not seek a second term as president, warning about exorbitant payments to Brewer’s firm and reports of financial mismanagement.

“There is a clear crisis,” North said in his letter announcing his departure.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) its considered Congress' most brilliant constitutional law expert. This morning he told me that "For many years, the NRA’s non-profit form has been nothing but cheap camouflage for rampant profiteering and straight-up ripoffs of NRA Members. When your political agenda is all about promoting the selfish desires of the few over the Interests of the many, the exploitation quickly comes home to roost."

Kathy Ellis is running for Congress against gun nut Jason Smith in southeast Missouri. She told me she is enthusiastic about James' decision to hold the NRA leadership accountable for their crooked activities. "As I heard the great news that the AG of NY was pursuing charges against the NRA president, board and others for running the 'charity' like it was their own bank," she told me this morning, 'I thought about my dad. He was an NRA member when it was an educational entity and as it became more of an advertiser for the gun manufacturers, he dropped his membership saying, 'Thus is becoming too political and will end up in trouble.' Well, they’re in trouble now. I hope that all the NRA endorsed candidates are 'sweating bullets.'" Marie Newman, who will be part of the class of 2020, seems to agree-- and wanted to make sure the voters in her Illinois district know it:

Are Americans Strong Enough To Resist The Siren Call Of Fascism Trump Has Unleashed?

Trump's fascist goon squad unconstitutionally occupying Portland tear-gassed the city's mayor yesterday, something Trump seems to have particularly enjoyed and taken great pride in. Robert Kuttner termed what's happening in Portland Full-On Fascism. With their silence and in some cases with their cheers, Members of Congress from his own party have given Trump the green light. "Trump," wrote Kuttner, "has run out of other strategies, so he is pursuing a long-standing fantasy of having a personal secret police force that is beyond legal control. Last week, unidentified storm troopers dispatched from Border Patrol units descended on Portland over the objections of state and local officials. They made random arrests without any regard for due process, and jailed and brutalized citizens. If Trump gets his way, Chicago, New York, and other liberal bastions that he doesn’t like will be next. The gambit, worthy of Putin’s anonymous armed green men and Hitler’s SA, is sinister and brilliant. It brings America close to civil war, pitting illicit federal power against lawful state and local authority. It divides progressive mayors from fascistic police forces that reject civil authority. In Chicago, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked Trump to keep his shock troops out, the head of the police union has urged them to come."

Trump’s grand design is to use his secret police to provoke physical clashes, which then become the pretext for sending in more storm troopers. America is seen as falling into civil disorder, and Trump (having provoked the disorder) poses as the law-and-order president.

What might stop this? Two things. One would be large numbers of Republicans objecting to this illicit use of paramilitary power. So far, libertarian Rand Paul has been very lonely.

Republicans in principle are against arbitrary executive power, but opportunism trumps principle. They shame themselves, like the German conservatives who enabled Hitler.

The other firebreak is the courts. After the unlawful invasion of Portland, Oregon’s attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, asked the U.S. district court to enjoin Trump’s illegal action. The ACLU has filed its own suit.

If these actions persist, we can expect expedited review by the Supreme Court. Once again, as will occur when Trump tries to steal the November election, the fate of America’s democracy could well come down to one man.

He’s preferable to Trump, but I sure wish John Roberts were a more reliable defender of constitutional government.

Pennsylvania state Senator Daylin Leach (D) noted that the predictable result of Trump's attack on Portland "is to inflame the situation, and obviously there is nothing about this which is compatible with democracy. They did a lot of this sort of thing in Chile and Argentina in the 70s and in Russia now. In Russia, many of the people seized go on to have truly unfortunate falling-off-balcony accidents, sometimes several on the same day. A lot of clutzes there. In America, we are not supposed to use the federal government’s military assets for domestic policing. That’s why they don’t send the nuclear submarine Ticonderoga to your house to search for weed. We also don’t arrest people at all unless there is either an arrest warrant or the appropriate police witness a crime being committed. And if we detain you, we tell you who is doing the arresting and why. We read you your Miranda rights. Hell, we are even supposed to give you one phone call."

Aside from all the democracy-schmemocracy problems with this, it is extremely dangerous. You have to comply when the police arrest you. You are under no obligation to comply if a bunch of anonymous dudes with guns try to grab you off the street and cram you into the back of a Land Rover. Some people might legitimately be frightened and resist, and then, well…what could go wrong?

Trump, and his Twap Wigit Bill Barr have now promised to invade a number of other cities that don’t want them. It seems that they want to normalize this as they’ve normalized so many other gashes to the heart of our democracy. But is this really creeping “fascism”?. Well, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC has put out a list of 12 signs that a country is heading towards fascism. Look at this list and tell me which ones we are not currently experiencing.

• Powerful and continuing nationalism
• Disdain for human rights
• Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
• Rampant sexism
• Controlled mass media
• Obsession with national security
• Religion and government intertwined
• Corporate power protected
• Labor power suppressed
• Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
• Obsession with crime and punishment
• Rampant cronyism and corruption

There is a famous “Doomsday Clock” that tracks how close we are to nuclear war. During tense times we’ve gotten as close as three minutes to midnight. I am unaware of a “Fascism Clock”, but don’t be surprised if someday you see me with a version on Shark Tank. But I can only imagine if such a clock did exist, we would already be hearing the chimes. If we don’t stop this now, when will we?

Bernie warned his followers yesterday that "We are in a very dangerous moment in American history. Last month, as you'll recall, Trump had peaceful protestors outside of the White House in Washington, D.C. viciously attacked by federal agents who wore no identification. As we speak, in Portland, Oregon, federal agents in combat gear and unmarked vehicles are pulling protesters off the streets and jailing them without charges, despite opposition from local and state officials."

He is sounding the alarm that "What Trump and his allies are now doing is 'normalizing' the use of federal troops to patrol and make arrests of American citizens in communities throughout the country. Today it is Portland, Oregon. Tomorrow, Trump is suggesting it could be New York City, Chicago or Philadelphia. Next, your hometown. This is what a police state is all about."

Make no mistake about it: Donald Trump does not believe in democracy, our Constitution or the rule of law.

He is working aggressively to suppress the vote and, in the midst of this terrible pandemic, is vigorously opposing the right of citizens to vote by mail. He has ignored decisions of Congress, which is why he was impeached. He has contempt for a free press and has called the media 'an enemy of the people.' He has used his office for blatant personal and political gain, running the most corrupt administration in modern American history. He has ruptured our relationships with long-time democratic allies around the world while he embraces right-wing authoritarian leaders in Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the Philippines and elsewhere.

Yes. We must all come together to defeat Trump in November, but we must also act right NOW to stop the movement toward authoritarianism and a police state.

That is why I am introducing legislation with Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon which would greatly curtail the activities of federal military forces in our communities. This bill would limit their ability to conduct crowd control to properties immediately surrounding federal buildings without the invitation of the Governor and Mayor, require federal agents to wear visible IDs, and ban them from making arrests or detentions in unmarked vehicles.

...Too many Americans fought and died to defend American democracy to let President Trump move us even further in an authoritarian direction... Trump's strategy of hateful rhetoric and using a crisis to seize more power is nothing new. It has been used by authoritarian leaders throughout history. Our job NOW is to stand together, fight back, and stop the movement toward authoritarianism and a police state.

Blue America is a citizen's organization co-sponsor of Jeff Merkley's petition to let Trump know Authoritarianism has no place in America. "Trump," wrote Merkley "would rather be a tinpot dictator than the president of a democratic republic. His Department of Homeland Security is using unmarked paramilitary forces to patrol the streets of Portland, Oregon. In recent days, those federal agents have attacked protestors and grabbed people off the streets into unmarked vans. This is unacceptable and it must change." His petition outlines 4 demands:

• We must require federal agents and the agency they work for to be clearly identifiable.
• We must prohibit the federal misuse of unmarked vehicles.
• We must prohibit federal agents from patrolling city streets, outside of federal property, unless invited to do so by local authorities.
• We must require agencies to disclose how many personnel have been deployed and for what mission when they’re sent into our cities.

Congress must prohibit these police state tactics. The American people must speak out. You can make your voice heard-- in a manner of speaking-- by signing here.

The next fascist might not be as incompetent

Jamie Raskin offered a piece of legislation that would prevent any president of pardoning himself for criminal activities. "We've never had a president attempt to pardon himself," said Raskin, Maryland's best member of Congress and a constitutional law expert, "and no president has ever come close to that point, but with Donald Trump all things are possible, and we want to make it completely clear that our understanding of the Constitution is that it does not include the possibility of the President pardoning himself."