Saturday, August 15, 2020
'Silence Is Complicity': GOP Condemned for Doing Nothing as Trump Openly Touts Sabotage of Postal Service
"Donald Trump knows that if the people are heard in November, he and Republicans up and down the ballot will lose," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "This is what we're up against—and this is why we have to fight back with all we've got."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/13/silence-complicity-gop-condemned-doing-nothing-trump-openly-touts-sabotage-postal
Voting rights advocates on Thursday took aim at Republicans in Congress for remaining silent in the face of President Donald Trump's open admission that he is blocking funding for the U.S. Postal Service with the express purpose of stopping an expansion of mail-in ballot access ahead of the November elections.
Echoing comments he made during a press briefing Wednesday, Trump told Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Thursday morning that Democrats "need that money in order to make the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots."
Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, tweeted that Trump is "openly touting his agenda to defund the post office to prevent people from voting amid a pandemic...[e]ven at the expense of veterans getting their medicine by mail and all of the other grave harms.""Now, if we don't make a deal, that means they don't get the money," the president said. "That means they can't have universal mail-in voting, they just can't have it."
"How many Republican senators will confront him on this?" Gupta asked. "Silence is complicity."
Listen to Trump's comments:
In a statement, Stand Up America founder and president Sean Eldridge said Trump is "saying the quiet part out loud" by admitting that he's blocking Postal Service funding in an effort to hinder mail-in voting.
"His continued efforts to cripple the USPS are a clear attempt to sabotage the election and suppress the vote in the middle of a pandemic," said Eldridge. "Congress must act now. "If Senate Republicans gave a damn about the future of our democracy, they would demand that the Trump administration return to the negotiating table on a Covid-19 relief bill that protects our elections and funds the post office."
During his press briefing Wednesday evening, Trump vowed to continue blocking Democrats' demand for $3.5 billion in election assistance funding for states and $25 billion for the Postal Service, calling the requests "ridiculous."
Trump also praised Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor to the president who has imposed sweeping changes to Postal Service policy that have caused major mail backlogs across the United States, prompting concerns about timely delivery of mail-in ballots in November.
"Donald Trump knows that if the people are heard in November, he and Republicans up and down the ballot will lose," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted Thursday. "This is what we're up against—and this is why we have to fight back with all we've got."
On Wednesday afternoon, House Democrats introduced a bill that would reverse DeJoy's new policies and bar any further operational changes until the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. It's not clear when the legislation could get a floor vote in the House.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), one of the bill's co-sponsors, stressed the urgency of congressional action to save the Postal Service in a tweet Thursday, warning that "we have a five alarm fire in this country."
"The president is on TV brazenly, corruptly, and deliberately sabotaging the USPS," wrote Connolly. "Congress must provide the Postal Service the financial resources needed to ensure a smooth process of mail-in ballots for the November election."
Jana Morgan, director of the Declaration for American Democracy—a coalition of over 160 progressive advocacy organizations—said in a statement Thursday that "all eyes are now on Senate Republicans."
"We call on Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans to make the right move," said Morgan. "Stop enabling President Trump and immediately pass $3.6 billion in safe election funding and reforms, in addition to the $25 billion needed to keep the post office up and running."
Victory for Democracy as Supreme Court Blocks 'Merciless' GOP Effort to Restrict Mail-In Voting in Rhode Island
Thanks to the high court's decision, said one voting rights advocate, "hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island voters will be able to safely cast their ballots without risking their health."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/13/victory-democracy-supreme-court-blocks-merciless-gop-effort-restrict-mail-voting
In a decision one journalist hailed as "the first good news on voting rights from SCOTUS in ages," the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked an effort by the Rhode Island GOP and the Republican National Committee to restore onerous mail-in ballot witness requirements that were suspended by the state's Democratic governor due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 6-3 ruling (pdf)—with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissenting—leaves intact a consent decree allowing Rhode Island voters to mail their ballots without having to sign them in front of two witnesses or a notary. Gov. Gina Raimondo first suspended the requirement for the state's June primary out of fear that forcing people to comply with the rules would expose voters and witnesses to Covid-19.Jane Koster, president of the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island, applauded the high court's decision as an affirmation of "our assertion that voters should never have to choose between their health and their right to vote."
As the Washington Post reported, the Rhode Island legislature "could not reach agreement on a bill that would extend that accommodation to elections in September and November. Groups including Common Cause sued, and state officials agreed in a consent decree not to enforce the witness requirement."
The state GOP and the Republican National Committee sued over the consent decree and appealed to the Supreme Court after a lower court rejected the Republicans' initial legal challenge.
John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said in a statement that thanks to the Supreme Court's decision Thursday, "hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island voters will be able to safely cast their ballots without risking their health."
"We are thrilled that the Supreme Court agreed not to stay the consent decree," said Marion.
The ACLU of Rhode Island celebrated the high court's decision as a "victory for democracy" and welcomed the failure of "the Republican Party's merciless effort to turn the right to vote into a 'Survivor' episode."
"You can once again vote securely from the safety and privacy of your home," the group tweeted.
'Just Comes Out and Says It': Trump Declares Postal Service Can't Handle Mail-In Voting Because He's Blocking Funding
"This is crazy by any standard. The president of the United States is actively trying to sabotage the election."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/13/just-comes-right-out-and-says-it-trump-declares-postal-service-cant-handle-mail
President Donald Trump proclaimed Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service doesn't have the capacity to handle an unprecedented increase in mail-in ballots because it lacks funds that his administration is blocking, remarks that were immediately viewed as an open admission of election sabotage by a president who has previously called USPS "a joke."
During his daily Covid-19 briefing Wednesday evening, Trump dismissed Democratic congressional leaders' demands for $3.5 billion in election assistance for states and $25 billion for USPS as "ridiculous" and vowed to continue blocking the funds. While USPS leadership insists it has "ample capacity" to meet election needs, postal workers have warned that without emergency funding, the agency could struggle to deliver mail-in ballots on time in November.
The president's comments came shortly after an attempt to revive coronavirus relief talks quickly fell apart Wednesday due to disputes over the size of the legislative package and specific items, including emergency Postal Service funding."Therefore, they don't have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can't do it," said the president, who repeated his false claim that mail-in voting is highly susceptible to fraud. "How are they going to do it if they don't have the money to do it?"
In talks over the CARES Act in March, Trump threatened to veto the sweeping relief legislation if it included a $13 billion direct grant to USPS that lawmakers originally agreed to provide. The bill ultimately included a $10 billion loan—to which Trump's Treasury Department attached conditions that critics warned will give the administration unprecedented access to USPS operations.
"Trump just comes out and says it: He is blocking money to keep the Postal Service afloat in an attempt to cast the election as fraudulent," Washington Post reporter Jacob Bogage tweeted in response to the president's briefing Wednesday.
Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos Elections said "Trump is stripping the U.S. Postal Service for parts both to thwart mail voting that threatens his re-election and so his cronies can profiteer off of it as the GOP has long wanted to."
Watch Trump's remarks:
"This is crazy by any standard," tweeted Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. "The president of the United States is actively trying to sabotage the election."
Ahead of the president's briefing, the entire Senate Democratic caucus sent a letter slamming Postmaster General Louis DeJoy—a major Republican donor to Trump—for "considering changes that would increase costs for states at a time when millions of Americans are relying on voting by mail to exercise their right to vote."
"We have received reports that in the last several weeks, the Postal Service sent letters to state election officials that indicate that the Postal Service will not automatically treat all election mail as First Class," the senators wrote. "If any changes are made to longstanding practices of moving election mail just months ahead of the 2020 general election, it will cause further delays to election mail that will disenfranchise voters and put significant financial pressure on election jurisdictions."
During his press conference Wednesday, Trump praised DeJoy—a former logistics executive with tens of millions invested in USPS competitors—as "a great person" and "a great businessman."
Joining their Senate colleagues in raising alarm about DeJoy's policy changes at USPS, more than 170 House Democrats sent a letter condemning the Postmaster General's "reductions of overtime availability, restrictions on extra mail transportation trips, testing of new mail sorting and delivery policies at hundreds of Post Offices, and...reduction of the number and use of processing equipment at mail processing plants."
"During the once-in-a-century health and economic crisis of COVID-19, the Postal Service's smooth functioning is a matter of life-or-death, and is critical for protecting lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy," the lawmakers wrote. "The House is seriously concerned that you are implementing policies that accelerate the crisis at the Postal Service, including directing Post Offices to no longer treat all election mail as First Class."
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