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[guido]

Is the Postal Service Being Manipulated to Help Trump Get Reelected? | The New Yorker

"The American system for organizing elections is a crazy quilt of decentralization. More than eight thousand counties and towns administer voting. There is something admirably earnest and grassroots about the network of town clerks and gray-haired volunteers who fuss over the mechanisms of our democracy. Yet, because the system is embedded in local politics, even in this era of relatively clean local administration (by the standards of American history), it remains susceptible to bribery and scams. More consequently, because election authorities are subordinate to city, county, and state politicians, they have contributed to systematic racist voter suppression, as happened on a grand scale during the Jim Crow era and continues in subtler but important ways today.

This year, owing to the coronavirus pandemic, election technocrats face intense problems of a new kind, largely due to an unexpected surge in the use of mailed ballots. Absentee voting exploded during the spring primary season; in Wisconsin, in April, a million voters sent ballots through the mail, a fivefold increase over 2016. Growth on that scale is all but certain to continue into November. The ways that legal votes may fail to be counted are as diverse as the jurisdictions that will process the ballots, yet there is one big national institution that will play a decisive part: the United States Postal Service. And there are many reasons to doubt that the service is ready to backstop American democracy in this time of peril.

In theory, elections by mail are good for the Postal Service—they are a source of revenue and a prominent reminder of the value of its mission of universal service, which has been under assault for years from advocates of privatization. The pandemic has already made obvious the value of a service that still delivers mail reliably—even if unprofitably—to the most isolated rural households. “The Postal Service has never been more important in modern times than it is today,” Devin Leonard, the author of “Neither Snow Nor Rain,” a lively history of the institution, told me. “You can’t have stay-at-home orders and not have efficient and equal home delivery” of medicine and other essential goods. Now, facing a Presidential election that is likely to be heavily conducted through the mail, he said, “You need a governmental postal service to do that.”

Some of the problems with election by mail arise from the interplay between dated state election laws and slower mail-delivery times. Inspired by successes in places such as Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Utah, some states began expanding options for mail-in voting even before the pandemic. Other states, such as Ohio, quickly pivoted to mail in response to the virus. Yet too many of the mail-voting regimes did not adequately account for the fact that, during the Obama Administration, to cope with deteriorating finances caused by punitive congressional accounting mandates and a decline in traditional mail volumes, the Postal Service formally adopted standards allowing slower delivery of first-class mail—in some cases, taking up to five days.

Some states accept any ballot postmarked before Election Day, even if it arrives late. Yet a majority of states—including the Presidential battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona—don’t count mailed ballots unless they arrive by Election Day. Voters who mail ballots close to Election Day in states without the postmark rule have to gamble on mail-delivery times. In Arizona’s 2018 election, more than three thousand votes were rejected because they turned up too late. Election officials in Georgia rejected more than seven thousand mailed ballots in the 2018 midterms, or three per cent of all the ballots sent by mail. In a close election, those are significant numbers. During this year’s primary season, “Mail delays meant that voters who did everything they were supposed to do” were nonetheless disenfranchised, Wendy Weiser, who directs the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, told me. “We saw a lot of ballots that were rejected that shouldn’t have been rejected, cast by eligible voters, because of [deadlines] that don’t make sense during the pandemic.”"

[guido]

Your Money Might Be Working Against the Environment | Outside Online

"If you keep your money in a checking account with a major bank in the United States, there’s a good chance you’re inadvertently funding projects that directly negate the efforts you make to mitigate your climate impact. If you’re signed up with a big bank like Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, or Bank of America, bad news: your money is working against the environment.

Massive oil and gas companies need to borrow money to build new pipelines or start extracting from new areas. They get that money from institutions, like JPMorgan Chase—the bank I’ve used for the past several years—which reportedly lent $195 billion to the fossil fuel industry over the past three years. And Chase gets that money from people like us, who store our paychecks and savings with the bank in exchange for a paltry few cents of interest each year.

During conversations I had with several leaders from financial institutions and environmental agencies, the same idea kept coming up: we often think of our money as a pile of cash sitting in a bank vault, waiting for us to need it. But in reality, about 90 percent of that money is being lent out at any given time, and it’s “driving the destruction of the planet,” says Andrei Cherny, CEO and co-founder of Aspiration, a new banking option. Banks have invested an average of roughly $2.4 billion per day in fossil fuel companies since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, according to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, a group that assesses greenhouse gas emissions associated with loans and investments. And while some major players have recently promised to slow down such funding or pull out of Arctic drilling, a total environmental ceasefire is a long way off. In May, Chase shareholders narrowly defeated a resolution to force the company to be more transparent about its fossil fuel investments and outline plans to reduce its impact in line with the Paris Agreement.

“There are a lot of people out there who are recycling their aluminum cans and drinking out of metal straws and making all kinds of differences in their lives, and yet thinking nothing about buying that drink with a Wells Fargo debit card,” Cherny says. “Their money sitting in a big bank is actually having a much bigger negative impact than all the other positive impacts they’re making.”"

[guido]

Alexander Vindman: Coming forward ended my career. I still believe doing what’s right matters. | Washington Post

"Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Ret.), a career U.S. Army officer, served on the National Security Council as the director for Eastern European, Caucasus and Russian affairs, as the Russia political-military affairs officer for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as a military attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

After 21 years, six months and 10 days of active military service, I am now a civilian. I made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career.

This experience has been painful, but I am not alone in this ignominious fate. The circumstances of my departure might have been more public, yet they are little different from those of dozens of other lifelong public servants who have left this administration with their integrity intact but their careers irreparably harmed.

A year ago, having served the nation in uniform in positions of critical importance, I was on the cusp of a career-topping promotion to colonel. A year ago, unknown to me, my concerns over the president’s conduct and the president’s efforts to undermine the very foundations of our democracy were precipitating tremors that would ultimately shake loose the facade of good governance and publicly expose the corruption of the Trump administration.

At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment. Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.

Our citizens are being subjected to the same kinds of attacks tyrants launch against their critics and political opponents. Those who choose loyalty to American values and allegiance to the Constitution over devotion to a mendacious president and his enablers are punished. The president recklessly downplayed the threat of the pandemic even as it swept through our country. The economic collapse that followed highlighted the growing income disparities in our society. Millions are grieving the loss of loved ones and many more have lost their livelihoods while the president publicly bemoans his approval ratings.

There is another way."

[ides1056]

this is worth reading

Think 'sanctions' will trouble China? Then you're stuck in the politics of the past | China | The Guardian

[SpeedyChix]

It's not reading but some great watching. I don't recall any posts about Andrew J Duffer, I've been watching his stuff since he started. A brief summary about his work: "fighting back against the racism and intolerance of Trump supporters in hilarious fashion". If you like this one, most of his work is on his YouTube channel now.

[htwoopup]

The common good...It is what I was brought up to think government/ society/ civilizaition etc was for ....A well written piece of how that concept seems to be disappearing.

Opinion | Beirut’s Blast Is a Warning for America - The New York Times

[htwoopup]

I read the article on the teenagers cycling from SFO to NYC this summer in the Times. Ok article but this....

A recommended “similar” article. From a year and change ago. Friggin awe inspiring. The comments are pretty amazing also.

After reading not only what the article is ostensibly about but about all of the rest about this woman, I feel like I have accomplished absolutely nothing in my life but am inspired to reach for so much more.

Just totally amazing. If you didn’t see this last May, please read it.

She Had Stage 4 Lung Cancer, and a Mountain to Climb - The New York Times

[ides1056]

The knowledge lost when steam supplanted sail will never be recovered, but there are some who are still literate.

This man was.

Marvin Creamer, a Mariner Who Sailed Like the Ancients, Dies at 14 - The New York Times

[guido]

Final Report on Russian Interference and Ties to Trump Is Released by G.O.P.-Led Senate Panel - The New York Times

[guido]

The Senate’s ‘grave’ Russia report: What we learned, and what it means | Washington Post

"The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released its fifth and final report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, and the notably bipartisan report raises plenty of new questions about that effort’s links to the Trump campaign.

The report, like its predecessors, does not allege a conspiracy or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. But it does detail significant new information and raises questions about potentially vital information that has been withheld both by Trump allies and the administration — and renders the full picture of what happened obscured to this day.

Below are some of the most important things we learned."

[guido]

In doping news...

An 80-year-old cycling grandma set a world record. Then she was accused of doping. | Washington Post

"When her private, year-long nightmare finally became public, in the form of a terse news release, Barbara Gicquel sat down at the keyboard and started typing.

“The time has come for me to fill you in on why I have been fairly incommunicado since Sept. 27th of last year,” she wrote in a recent Facebook post for family and friends. “I did not feel I could talk with you and be real about what was happening in my life that was difficult to share … difficult on many levels.”

Nearly a year ago, Gicquel, an 80-year-old grandmother, therapist and avid cyclist from California, set a world record for her age group at the 2019 USA Cycling Masters Track National Championships. She had been a regular on the medal podium at masters cycling events for years and was thrilled with her latest achievement.

But because a record was involved, Gicquel was subject to drug testing. She failed the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s urine test, which set off a year-long legal battle and raised questions about whether prescription medication that Gicquel had used for years enhanced her performance on the track.

“It’s been a roller-coaster ride emotionally,” she told The Washington Post in an email, “fraught with anxiety, some depression, and disbelief that they wanted to believe I was doping, rather than just trying to live.”

Gicquel took up cycling at 57 and wasn’t content pedaling around the neighborhood. Twice she traversed the country, trying to ride in every velodrome in the United States. She has raced in about a dozen now and is at home navigating the steep, sharp-angled turns around the track.

“Racing motivates me to work hard,” she said. “It’s been great fun to race, and so I’ve worked hard almost daily to be able to do it well.”

A doctor first prescribed her a drug called Estratest in 2005 to treat bronchitis and issues related to menopause. She had also developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Since then, she has taken a half-tablet every other day and, she said, thought little about the effects it could have on her cycling. She faced drug testing following other age-group records but never tested positive until Aug. 29, 2019, when at 79 she broke her own mark in the 500-meter time trials. Estratest contains an anabolic steroid called methyltestosterone that has long been on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances.

“I did break a rule by taking a banned substance,” she concedes. “But I did not dope.”"

[guido]

Trump Phone Calls Add to Lingering Questions About Russian Interference | New York Times

"The Republican-led committee rejected Mr. Trump’s statement to prosecutors investigating Russia’s interference that he did not recall conversations with his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. about the emails, which were later released by WikiLeaks. Senators leveled a blunt assessment: “Despite Trump’s recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions.”"

[guido]

From Paul Manafort to Steve Bannon, a Brief History of MAGA Money-Grubbing | The New Yorker

"Four years ago Thursday, Paul Manafort resigned as Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, just days after the New York Times reported that ledgers discovered in Kiev indicated that the veteran Republican political consultant and influence peddler had received $12.7 million in cash payments from a pro-Russian party controlled by Ukraine’s former leader, Viktor Yanukovych. Eric Trump told Fox News that his father didn’t want the “distraction” of Manafort’s troubles looming over his White House bid. To replace Manafort, Trump appointed Kellyanne Conway as manager of his campaign, and Steve Bannon, the right-wing-media provocateur, who was then head of Breitbart News, as the campaign’s chief executive.

Today, Manafort is a convicted felon. He is currently in home confinement, serving a seven-year sentence for tax fraud and conspiracy, witness tampering, and foreign-lobbying violations. In May, the Bureau of Prisons released him from a federal prison in Florida, because of health concerns related to the coronavirus. Earlier this week, he returned to the news when a Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election described him as a “grave counterintelligence threat,” partly because one of his longtime business partners was, in fact, a Russian intelligence officer.

Bannon isn’t in prison, but he is facing accusations of fraud and money laundering that could land him in the slammer for up to forty years. On Thursday, federal agents arrested him on a luxury motor yacht docked off Westbrook, Connecticut. Later in the day, he appeared handcuffed in a Manhattan court, where he pleaded not guilty to charges that he and three other men had covertly diverted millions of dollars that had been donated to an online GoFundMe campaign supposedly meant to fund construction of Trump’s wall across the southern border. A judge released Bannon on a five-million-dollar bond, ordering him to say away from yachts and private jets."

[Todd Amunrud]

Susan B. Anthony Museum Rejects President Trump's Pardon Of The Suffragist : NPR

“She suggested that the best way to honor Anthony would be taking a clear stance against voter suppression and advocating for human rights for all.”

[guido]

Jazz Lives in Clubs. The Pandemic Is Threatening Its Future. | New York Times

"When Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah led his septet at the Blue Note in mid-March, the headlines about coronavirus were growing more urgent by the day. But Mr. Adjuah, a New Orleans-born trumpeter with a cutting-edge style, had no idea that those performances would be his last shows — or the Blue Note’s — for the foreseeable future.

“You know, wash your damn hands,” he told the crowd, as can be heard on “Axiom,” a new live album culled from that weeklong residency. “But we’re not running.”

The concert world as a whole is in crisis, but perhaps no genre is as vulnerable as jazz, which depends on a fragile ecosystem of performance venues. In pre-pandemic New York, the genre’s creative and commercial center, young players still converged to hone their craft and veterans held court in prestigious rooms like the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note. It’s an economic and creative network that has sustained the genre for decades.

But after suffering nearly six months of lost business, New York jazz venues have begun sounding the alarm that without significant government relief, they might not last much longer. Even with support, some proprietors said, the virus may have rendered their business model extinct.

One such room is the Iridium, a subterranean 170-seater near Times Square that was the longtime home of the guitar legend Les Paul. “There’s a better than 50-50 chance that the Iridium doesn’t reopen,” said Ken Sturm, one of its owners. “Small clubs like us are not going to exist anymore,” he added."

[slwrnu]

if you like quizzes, and hard ones hosted by an attractive and clever woman. loads of of Only Connect available on youtube

[htwoopup]

This isn't just about Orlando. This is right next to you and me and everyone else. This is all so hauntingly sad. Read the comments too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...ge%2Fstory-ans

[ides1056]

I read the article, but had not read the comments.

Thanks.

[guido]

Climate Change Impact by County

" For most of us, climate change can feel like an amorphous threat — with the greatest dangers lingering ominously in the future and the solutions frustratingly out of reach.

So perhaps focusing on today’s real harms could help us figure out how to start dealing with climate change. Here’s one way to do that: by looking at the most significant climate threat unfolding in your own backyard. "

[ides1056]

Too much water is a concern in my county, from rain and hurricanes.

Sudden demographic shifts are not included in the analysis, but I see many new people locally- I have lived here long enough and the town is small enough that this is apparent. People are flocking to the area from Boston and New York, buying up pretty much all real estate that is for sale. We'll see what this looks like in a few years. This eventuality was clear enough to me years ago that I sold much of the land and road frontage we owned to the State Division of Fish and Wildlife, protection that is as permanent as can be.