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Post Office warns states across US about mail voting

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service is warning states coast to coast that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted, even if mailed by state deadlines, raising the possibility that millions of voters could be disenfranchised.

Voters and lawmakers in several states are also complaining that some curbside mail collection boxes are being removed.

Even as President Donald Trump rails against widescale voting by mail, the post office is bracing for an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The warning letters sent to states raise the possibility that many Americans eligible for mail-in ballots this fall will not have them counted. But that is not the intent, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in his own letter to Democratic congressional leaders.

The post office is merely “asking elected officials and voters to realistically consider how the mail works, and be mindful of our delivery standards, in order to provide voters ample time to cast ballots through the mail,” wrote DeJoy, a prominent Trump political donor who was recently appointed.

The back-and-forth comes amid a vigorous campaign by Trump to sow doubts about mail-in voting as he faces a difficult fight for reelection against Democrat Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, members of Congress from both parties have voiced concerns that curbside mail boxes, which is how many will cast their ballots, have abruptly been removed in some states.

At the same time that the need for timely delivery of the mail is peaking, service has been curtailed amid cost-cutting and efficiency measures ordered by the DeJoy, the new postmaster general, who is a former supply-chain CEO . He has implemented measures to eliminate overtime pay and hold mail over if distribution centers are running late.

The Post Office released letters it sent to all 50 states and the District Columbia on its website. While some states with permissive vote-by- mail laws were given a less stringent warning, the majority with more restrictive requirements that limit when a ballot must be cast were given a more dire warning.

The laws, the letter said, create a “risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted.”

Many state officials criticized the move.

“This is a deeply troubling development in what is becoming a clear pattern of attempted voter suppression by the Trump administration,” Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement. “I am committed to making sure all Virginians have access to the ballot box, and will continue to work with state and federal lawmakers to ensure safe, secure and accessible elections this fall.”

Kim Wyman, the Republican secretary of state in Washington state, where all voting is by mail, said sending fall ballot material to millions of voters there is a “routine operation of the U.S. Postal Service.”

“Politicizing these administrative processes is dangerous and undermines public confidence in our elections,” she said in a statement. “This volume of work is by no means unusual, and is an operation I am confident the U.S. Postal Service is sufficiently prepared to fulfill.”

Meanwhile, the removal of Postal Service collection mail boxes triggered concerns and anger in Oregon and Montana. Boxes were also removed in Indiana.

In Montana, postal officials said the removals were part of a program to eliminate underused drop boxes. But after the outcry, which included upset members of Congress, the officials said they were suspending the program in Montana. It was unclear if the program was also suspended in other states.

At least 25 mail boxes were removed in mid-July in Montana with another 30 scheduled to be taken away soon, said Julie Quilliam, president of the Montana Letter Carriers Association. She rejected the claim that the boxes were removed because of low usage.

“Some of the boxes scheduled to be removed from downtown Billings are nearly overflowing daily,” Quilliam wrote in a Facebook message.

All three members of Montana’s congressional delegation — two of whom are Republican — raised concerns about the removal of mail boxes in letters sent to Postmaster DeJoy.

“These actions set my hair on fire and they have real life implications for folks in rural America and their ability to access critical postal services like paying their bills and voting in upcoming elections,” said Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat.

Republican Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte, also a Republican, raised similar concerns in letters to DeJoy about the effect the removal of the mail boxes might have on delivery times. All three asked for information on how the agency decided which boxes to remove and whether any more removals were planned.

“During the current public health crisis it is more important than ever the USPS continue to provide prompt, dependable delivery service,” said Gianforte.

Postal Service spokesperson Ernie Swanson said the Oregon removals were due to declining mail volume and that duplicate mail boxes were taken from places that had more than one. The Postal Service said four mail boxes were removed in Portland this week.

“First-class mail volume has declined significantly in the U.S., especially since the pandemic,” Swanson said. “That translates to less mail in collection boxes.”

Separately, the National Association of Letter Carriers, which represents 300,000 current and retired workers, endorsed Biden.

The union said Trump has been hostile to the post office and has undermined it and its workers while Biden “is – was – and will continue to be – a fierce ally and defender of the United States Postal Service,” said union president Fredric Rolando.

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Hanson reported from Helena, Montana. Associated Press writers across the U.S. contributed to this report.

Sarah Palin: Media double standard for Kamala Harris proves 'if you're conservative, you'll get beat up'

The mainstream media's favorable coverage of presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is further proof that "if you’re conservative, you’re going to get beat up," former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told Fox News "Watters' World" in an exclusive interview airing Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
"I don't know if it's so much a gender thing ..." Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, told host Jesse Watters. "It’s like what Trump faces all the time. It’s three against one: you have the Democrat Party, you have the media and you have the RINOs in your own party that are always, always trying to clobber you."
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced the choice of Harris to be his running mate Tuesday. Much of the ensuing media coverage has highlighted the trailblazing nature of Biden's selection.
Harris is the first Black woman to appear on a major party ticket and only the third woman --after Palin in 2008 and Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 -- to run for vice president. Some critics have pointed out major differences in the media's treatment of Harris and Palin.
"When Palin ran, [liberal talk show host] Ed Schultz talked about a 'bimbo alert,' Harry Reid's [press secretary] called her 'shrill,' Donny Deutsch on CNBC talked about her 'sex appeal' and Joe Biden called her 'good-looking,'" Fox News contributor and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer recalled on "The Daily Briefing" Thursday.
"I'm no different than any other conservative, I think, in offering myself up to serve the people," Palin told Watters. "We expect it. I expect it. And you just deal with it and it makes you work harder."
Palin also noted the irony of Biden choosing Harris to be his running mate after, in Palin's words, Harris "kicked the crud out of Joe Biden in the primaries. And then ... then they hook up as buddies.
"That always just kind of cracks me up," she added. "It’s like the illustration of politics that [makes] people, you know, just shake their heads, roll their eyes and say, 'God, come on, you guys. Where’s the sincerity?'"
Elsewhere in the interview, Palin advised Trump's reelection campaign not to dive into "personal, petty stuff" and instead focus on going after Biden and Harris on the issues.
"They are so extremely liberal. I can’t stress that enough," she said. "People just need to do their own homework and find out what their record is and what their view of the future is under a pretty much, I guess you could say, the socialist-Marxist view that they desire. Let their record speak for itself."

Trump says NYC was 'so good' before he left, not so much anymore

Start spreading the news: They're leaving "in droves."
New York City was in far better shape when he was campaigning for the White House in 2016 than it is today, President Trump lamented in a Twitter message Friday.
The president's tweet came amid media reports that residents have been fleeing the Big Apple.
“It was showing signs of future problems, but was so good when I left 4 years ago!” the president wrote.
Wealthy New Yorkers began leaving for their second homes in the suburbs and rural areas as the coronavirus overwhelmed the city in early spring -- but now many have started moving away for good, the New York Post reported this week.
Moon Salahie, owner of Elite Moving & Storing in New York City, told the Post that 90% of his clients are moving to the suburbs.
“People are fleeing the city in droves,” he said. Many of his clients are families with young children concerned about the coronavirus possibly spreading in schools when classes resume.
Oz Moving told Fox Business it has seen a “drastic” increase in quote requests, around 30% year over year.
Ross Sapir, president of Roadway Moving, said for the last three months his company "couldn’t keep up with the demand.”
Many New Yorkers are moving to Florida, California, Texas and North Carolina, Fox Business reported.
A New York Post editorial that Trump retweeted in his post called the virus the “last straw" for those leaving.
"New Yorkers are fed up with the shootings and lootings, homelessness on the streets, sub-par online schools, sky-high taxes and the sheer obliviousness of pols like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo," the editorial said.

New York City's Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio, left, was a target of a blistering editorial about the Big Apple that President Trump retweeted Friday.

Cuomo, a Democrat, acknowledged the problem during a news conference earlier this month.
“We’re trying to get people to come back. They’re not coming back right now,” he said.
Trump told the Post this week that his campaign team believes they can win New York, a normally deep-blue state.
“Over the last six months what’s happened is insane,” the president told the Post. “So we’re going to try very hard to win New York and that will be the first time — is that since Ronald Reagan, I guess?”
“I will bring down taxes and I’ll make sure that New York City is a safe place,” he added. “I mean, this is one of our cherished — this is a cherished diamond of this country. And we can’t let this happen to New York.”

Tensions linger between Biden and Obama camps throughout 2020 primary campaign: report

Despite the best-friend bond Joe Biden touts with former President Obama, tensions have lingered between the two statesmen over their vastly different governing styles, according to a Politico report.
To start, a number of anonymously sourced quotes from Obama leaked out throughout the 2020 Biden campaign where the former president allegedly expressed doubts about his former running mates’ fitness for office.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f--k things up,” one Democrat who spoke to the former president recalled him saying.
When lamenting his own diminishing relationship with the current Democratic electorate, particularly in Iowa, Obama reportedly told one 2020 candidate: “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”
Some Biden aides pointed out that, when Obama’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 finally did arrive, it didn’t have nearly the energy of his endorsement of Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office,” Obama said of Clinton in 2016 in an endorsement video. “I believe Joe has all of the qualities we need in a president right now … and I know he will surround himself with good people,” Obama said in Biden’s endorsement video.
And while some senior Democrats credited Biden’s ties to Obama for his strong relationship with Black voters, Biden has emphasized that he earned their votes all on his own. He told aides after his South Carolina primary win Obama hadn’t “lifted a finger” to help him.
Going back to 2016 when Obama glossed over Biden for Clinton when he expressed interest in a presidential run, Obama aides tried to frame the president’s snub as an act of compassion: Biden-- grieving the loss of his son Beau in 2015 -- would not be mentally equipped to handle a campaign.
“But numerous administration veterans, including loyalists to both Obama and Biden, remember it differently: Obama had begun embracing Clinton as a possible successor years before Biden lost his son, while the vice president was laying the groundwork for his own campaign,” the Politico report read.
Obama “had been subtly weighing in against,” Biden himself recalled in Promise Me, Dad, his 2017 book.
“I also believe he had concluded that Hillary Clinton was almost certain to be the nominee, which was good by him,” Biden wrote.
But many credit their differences in leadership style for any perceived tension. Biden loyalists and some Republicans found the formal, scholarly statesman Obama  had a hard time connecting with those in Congress.
“Negotiating with President Obama was all about the fact that he felt that he knew the world better than you,” said Eric Cantor, the Republican House majority leader from 2011 to 2014. “And he felt that he thought about it so much, that he figured it all out, and no matter what conclusion you had come to with the same set of facts, his way was right.” Biden, he said, understood that “you’re gonna have to agree to disagree about some things.”
A former Republican leadership described Obama’s style as “mansplaining, basically.”
Meanwhile, Obama’s camp reportedly rolled their eyes at the plainspoken, gaffe-prone Biden.
“You could certainly see technocratic eye-rolling at times,” said Jen Psaki, the former White House communications director.
White House aides reportedly mocked Biden’s frequent slipups and lack of discipline next to “almost clerical” Obama.
They would sneer at how Biden, “like an elderly uncle at Thanksgiving,” would launch into anecdotes everyone in the room had heard before.

2020 Pollster Cartoons

National security adviser O'Brien says Trump deserves Nobel Peace Prize after Israel, UAE announce deal

President Trump should be eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize after the "historic" agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told “Hannity” Thursday.
“He brought forth the ... vision for Middle East peace to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan back in play and he’s brought peace to Afghanistan, at least between the U.S. and the Taliban,” O'Brien told host Sean Hannity. “We haven't lost a soldier in Afghanistan since February 29 in combat and we're going to be down to 5,000 troops in Afghanistan. And now he's brought peace to Israel and the UAE.
"I mean, it's a pretty remarkable record of achievement. I don't know who else would be in the running for a Nobel Prize if it's not President Trump.”
O’Brien described the Middle East deal as a “huge accomplishment” for the president, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zyad and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“What courage it took for those men to come together and what skill it took for the president to bring them together to bring peace to the Middle East,” he said. “The first time in 25 years that Israel and an Arab country have signed a peace accord.”
O'Brien echnoed White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in saying that the Israel-UAE agreement, known as the Abraham Accord, may be the first of many fruitful negotiations in the near future.
“I think we're just getting rolling here,” he said. “The president's already been in touch with other leaders in the region. His diplomats and our team have been out talking to folks ... I think we're going to see peace breaking out in a number of countries and even in some different regions. I think we're going to see something interesting happen in Serbia, Kosovo soon.”
“The president’s known as a great dealmaker,” O'Brien added. “History is going to remember him as a great peacemaker.”

Ben Shapiro: Dems who didn't want feds in US cities now want to 'send the feds to yell at you about masks?'

Ben Shapiro

 

 

Joe Biden would rather have federal officers enforce his proposed nationwide mask mandate than have them work to quell the violence ravaging several U.S. cities, Ben Shapiro observed Thursday.

Shapiro, who hosts "The Ben Shapiro Show" podcast, accused Democrats of the supposed double standard on Twitter, responding to a news alert that read "Joe Biden & Kamala Harris call for nationwide face mask mandate."
"Are the same people complaining when federal law enforcement is sent to stop destruction of federal property now proposing we send the feds to yell at you about masks?" Shapiro wrote.
During a conversation with reporters after a coronavirus briefing on Thursday, Biden, who was joined by his newly minted running mate Kamala Harris declared that “Every American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months at a minimum."
"Let’s institute a mask mandate nationwide starting immediately and we will save lives. The estimates are we will save over 40,000 lives in the next three months if that is done," Biden emphasized.
Shapiro, an outspoken conservative commentator and Harvard Law School graduate, questioned the "constitutional authority" for such a move.
"Where would they get the constitutional authority for this, and which federal force would they activate to enforce it, exactly?" he wrote.
Last month, President Trump said that while he is “a believer in masks” he’s leaving it up to state governors to decide whether or not to implement an order requiring people to wear them in public.
During the Thursday event, Biden took two questions from reporters, but neither the former vice president nor Harris answered questions after making their comments regarding the mask mandate.
The mask mandate was showcased in a TV commercial that the Biden campaign quickly turned around on Thursday. In the 60-second spot, Biden also calls for increased coronavirus testing, personal protective equipment for all health care workers on the front lines of the battle against the pandemic and more support for schools and child care programs.
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser and Madeleine Rivera contributed to this report,