Patrick's Notebook

by Darmi Msarko

DeJoy said postal workers would prioritise election mail as they have in the past, he would personally vote by mailProtesters holding a demonstration against changes in the postal service, outside of the condo of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in Washington, DC

US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday told senators that the Postal Service has not changed the way it handles election mail as he sought to assure the public that ballots would be handled “securely and on time” in the November presidential election.

In his first public appearance before Congress, DeJoy sought to tamp down Democratic concerns that service delays prompted by his cost-cutting measures could result in millions of uncounted ballots in the November 3 election and help Republican President Donald Trump.

As he testified, six states led by Pennsylvania sued the US Postal Service and DeJoy, saying service changes in recent weeks have harmed the ability of states to conduct free and fair elections.

DeJoy, who has donated millions of dollars to Trump and other Republicans, said he has not spoken with the Trump campaign or White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, about postal service operations. DeJoy said postal workers will prioritise election mail as they have in the past, adding that he would personally vote by mail. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Tyler Durden

Back on July 14 when a wave of new covid cases was sweeping the sunbelt states prompting many to speculate if a new round of shutdowns was imminent, we took the other side of the argument and said that the pandemic peak had hit, and that in Arizona – an early recent outbreak state, “the worst was over for the COVID breakout.” We were right, and as Bank of America writes today, Arizona has seen a 66% decline since its peak on July 14th, while the US excl. the four major recent outbreak states (AZ, CA, FL, TX) experiencing a 13% decline since the peak on July 30th.

There’s more: as BofA also points out, “we continue to see clear signs the Coronavirus is rolling over in the US as the number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 declines at a rapid pace of about one percent a day (26% in 23 days).”

Extrapolating, this rate of decline means that there will be zero covid-related hospitalizations around the Nov 3 election day, a feat that if marketed properly, could mean the differnce for Trump between victory and defeat. » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Julia Manchester and Brett Samuels

Former President Obama on Wednesday warned Americans that democracy is at stake in November’s election, admonishing President Trump as categorically unfit for the job and pleading with voters to back his onetime vice president.

“I am also asking you to believe in your own ability — to embrace your own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure,” Obama said from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, where he was flanked by the text of the U.S. Constitution. “Because that’s what’s at stake right now. Our democracy.”

Obama used Wednesday’s speech and its symbolic backdrop to frame the upcoming election in stark terms. He warned against complacency, arguing that cynicism and apathy in the face of Trump’s attacks on democratic norms would cause the entire system to wither away “until there’s no democracy at all.”

“This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win,” Obama said. “So we have to get busy building it up — by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before — for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country we love stands for — today and for all our days to come.”

Obama’s stinging remarks mark his most direct attacks against Trump to date, and a remarkable rebuke by a former president of a sitting president. He has periodically swiped at Trump, but otherwise remained out of the public eye save for when he hit the trail during the 2018 midterms. » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Kit Knightly

It was supposed to be about life and death, but for weeks now we’re only hearing about cases

Do you remember five months ago? Normally I wouldn’t ask, but the world is moving incredibly fast these days.

Do you remember that it was predicted that covid19 would kill literally millions of people?

Do you remember that hospitals were going to be over-run with patients and our struggling medical infrastructure was going to collapse under their weight?

Do you remember that locking down global society was the only way to prevent this disaster? That we had to do it, regardless of how much damage it did to the livelihoods and security of countless millions of people?

Final question – do you know how many people in the United Kingdom officially died with (not of) the coronavirus yesterday?

It’s 12.

Twelve people. You probably didn’t hear about that, because sometime in the last five weeks or so the media completely stopped using the word “deaths”, and started talking only about “cases”.

A “case” is anyone who tests positive for Sars-Cov-2, using the notoriously unreliable PCR tests which produce huge numbers of false positives. » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Nick Harper

A lot of fear and misinformation has been spreading throughout social media the past few days about the post office. People seem to think the sky is falling. But they’re missing a lot of important context.

I am here to tell you that yes, you should be concerned about the future of the United States Postal Service (USPS), but the whole sky isn’t falling quite yet.

So, stop panicking! Being concerned and taking specific, practical action is good; panicking on social media is bad.

Let’s check some facts, shall we? I know this is long, but please stay with me.

False.

Several people seem to be under the belief that the Constitution mandates the existence or funding of the United States Postal Service. The U.S. Constitution does mention the postal system in a sense, but doesn’t create the post office or require its funding. Article I, section 8, clause 7 of the Constitution gives Congress “the Power […] To establish Post Offices and Post Roads.”

It requires nothing; it merely permits Congress to act, if Congress so chooses. The clause gives Congress the ability to create post offices and the implied authority to create and provide services through the United States Postal Service. And Congress has.

False.

USPS is an independent agency that is almost exclusively self-funded since 1971. It may receive some small appropriations for “public service costs” and “revenue forgone.” » Read the rest of this entry «

written by George C. Fareed, MD Brawley, et al.

Dear Dr. Fauci:

You were placed into the most high-profile role regarding America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Americans have relied on your medical expertise concerning the wearing of masks, resuming employment, returning to school, and of course medical treatment.

You are largely unchallenged in terms of your medical opinions. You are the de facto “COVID-19 Czar.” This is unusual in the medical profession in which doctors’ opinions are challenged by other physicians in the form of exchanges between doctors at hospitals, medical conferences, as well as debate in medical journals. You render your opinions unchallenged, without formal public opposition from physicians who passionately disagree with you. It is incontestable that the public is best served when opinions and policy are based on the prevailing evidence and science, and able to withstand the scrutiny of medical professionals.

As experience accrued in treating COVID-19 infections, physicians worldwide discovered that high-risk patients can be treated successfully as an outpatient, within the first five to seven days of the onset of symptoms, with a “cocktail” consisting of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin (or doxycycline). Multiple scholarly contributions to the literature detail the efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine-based combination treatment. » Read the rest of this entry «

from CounterCurrents.org

because doing anything — and I mean anything — to ‘win’ has always been his business model and way of life”

Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, has released a foreword to his new book in which he calls the president “a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” and accuses him of cheating in the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen also makes reference to “golden showers in a sex club in Vegas,” without specifically stating that the president took part in such acts, and alludes to “catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump’s clandestine lovers.”

“Apart from his wife and children, I knew Trump better than anyone else did,” Cohen wrote in the foreword to the book Disloyal, which was released on Thursday.

“In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” he added.

The foreword of the book contains several serious allegations against the president. » Read the rest of this entry «