More ike this, please.
Wow!
Senator My Boo went all the way in on DeJoy
When he started off with his, “Did you get my letter?,” line of questioning I knew, and DeJoy knew, it was going to be fire and flames 🔥 pic.twitter.com/BZ3KX7XYAK
— Qondi (@QondiNtini) April 16, 2024
Nominations for the other sitting senators who don’t need to be upgraded to this level of senator?
Every single person here who contributed to the $700,000 we raised for Georgia in 2020 should understand that we helped the two great senators from GA get elected to the Senate.
Open thread.
Scout211
AP News
jackmac
How is this incompetent hack still in charge of USPS?
Baud
@jackmac:
From what I’ve read, the postal unions supposed him.
Another Scott
Excellent questioning by Sen. Ossoff. They have limited time and need to make a real impact with that time. He did.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Wapiti
When I was in the Army, when our unit got a Congressional inquiry, we were expected to have any investigation done and a reply back up the chain (to the first general) in two days. I’m sure they spent some time massaging the message, but I don’t think the big A Army wanted those queries delayed at all.
Post Office needs to tighten things up.
NutmegAgain
Wow! fantastic. I really hope getting rid of deJoy is in the near future.
Nora
I feel like I need a cigarette after that — wow! Thinly veiled rage and impatience with all the bullshit DeJoy is trying to throw out there.
Old School
Who reads mail these days? Ossoff should have texted.
Baud
@Wapiti:
Yeah, I don’t know if most agencies move that quickly, but most agency heads would know what letters from committee members they’ve received.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
That asshole disassembled automatic sorting machinery and threw it in the dumpster to deliberately slow down operations. I am still mad about that.
Also about baby chicks dying in the mail. Has that been fixed yet? Apparently farmers used to be able to count on the USPS delivering chicks on time and alive, pre-DeJoy. Seems like pictures of cute little dead chicks would make a nice centerpiece for an anti-DeJoy campaign.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Old School: I would not be surprised to find out he saw the letter, said, “Eh, it’s a Democrat” and tossed in the trash unread.
TBone
If I were that incompetent, as in not bringing a congressional inquiry to my boss’s attention immediately upon opening and date-stamping the letter, I would’ve been immediately fired and possibly prosecuted. They never bring their best, ever. They don’t even know what it means. I’m glad the Senator got to take that approach. You didn’t even read the mail addressed directly to you under my official seal.
Old School
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: My assumption is that he read the letter and is lying to Sen. Ossoff, but who knows?
Dan B
@jackmac: Apparently there is one Democrat appointed member of the Postal board who supports DeJoy’s “modernizing” the Post Office. He’s obviously blind to DeJoy’s goal of eliminating it.
Leto
@Wapiti: right there with you. If we ever had something like that come down the pike, it was assholes and elbows to get an answer/resolution to whatever it was. He simply has contempt for the entire process of oversight, and that’s part of why he was chosen.
Why the fuck do we keep these conservative assclowns around when their entire purpose is to break/hobble shit? Why do we continue to select conservatives for anything within a Democratic admin? Yes yes, I know, Trumpov pick. Along with every other Trumpov pick, should’ve been immediately fired. “You serve at the pleasure of the President, and it’s no longer a pleasure.”
Pennsylvanian
Somebody has to be on the take to keep this fucking prick in his position.
Leto
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I haven’t forgotten about any of that. Or how he sabotaged the vehicle replacement procedure. There’s just so. Much. Shit. That he’s directly responsible for, and it’s just down the memory hole for most people. It’s infuriating.
Craig
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I remember walking into the main post office in Oakland for the first, and there were a couple of guys with a few huge carts stacked 5ft. high with chicken coops. The was the day I learned that you could ship chickens through the US Mail.
TBone
Letitia James will challenge the bond
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-civil-fraud-bond/
Sister Golden Bear
As someone on BlueSky Law said: Placing unnecessarily legal hurdles is part of Republicans’ strategy.
raven
We just watched Mr Bates vs the Post Office. It’s in the UK but it was spot on.
John S.
@jackmac:
A few reasons:
1) Only the Board of Governors for the Postal Service can hire or fire the Postmaster and Deputy Postmaster General.
2) The board is still missing 2 members, who should have been appointed by President Biden.
3) The current board only has 9 members: 4 Republicans, 3 Democrats and 2 “Independents”. So the usual fair and balanced makeup we have all become accustomed to.
Also interesting to note that Trump’s appointees were both Republicans. Biden has nominated 3 Democrats, 1 Independent and 1 Republican. Because only Democrats have agency to be non-partisan.
Prescott Cactus
Ruben Gallego, Arizona is going to be a good senator. I was in his house district in Phoenix and his office was engaged and responsive. Kyrsten Sinema is an example of what goes wrong when ego and self interest take over the brain box. Ossoff is awesome in that clip and I imagine in all things.
schrodingers_cat
Speaking of mail. I ordered 3 coloring books illustrated by Rita Berman to complete my seasons series from a bookstore in England. I got a much better deal than Amazon! I love USPS. Without it I would be stuck with what art supplies I can find in my neck of the woods. The pickings are meager
Dan B
@Scout211: Great news from the 4th Circuit. Hormones make your musculature similar to your preferred gender in six months.
Sister Golden Bear
@Sister Golden Bear: Also too, I’ve been meaning to write about the shitshow of the recently released “Cass Review” of trans youth healthcare, commissioned by the National Health System, and headed by a woman who helped DeSantis craft Florida’s ban on healthcare.
tl;dr The reviewers — which included no trans people — decided to throw out 100 of 102 peer-reviewed studies, and then decided there was no solid evidence that gender affirming healthcare for trans youth had any benefits. They also recommended that the NHS said up a special services for trans people 17-25 that essentially would engage in conversion therapy to make them not trans.
Despite all the TERF-driven moral panic about “trans kids” being railroaded into transitioning, the NHS currently has a 10 year waiting list just to get the first appointment. So that would mean trans people would have to wait until age 35 to get any gender-affirming care — after being forced to go through the unwanted puberty as the “wrong gender,” since puberty blockers would be banned. Barbaric.
Thankfully the report is currently being shredded, but not just trans people, but a wide variety of healthcare professionals.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
It’s kind of nice when the US isn’t the worst at something healthcare related.
schrodingers_cat
@Sister Golden Bear: I am sorry that you have to go through this. The RWNJs are always on a lookout for groups to demonize that are not powerful enough to retaliate.
Sure Lurkalot
@TBone:
It looks more and more like they were willfully and intentionally trying to deceive the court. It’s way past seizure time. Start the process and let’s hope Trump goes so apoplectic that his ears match the color of his painted-on despicable face.
Manyakitty
@Sister Golden Bear: the pile-on never ends.
Trollhattan
@raven: Good movie of a case I’d just happened to read of.
The way those postal folks were treated was simply criminal. “Oops, terribly sorry, it WAS the software after all. Bygones.”
eclare
Wow Ossoff was awesome.
Sure Lurkalot
@Sister Golden Bear: I wish that we could deny these horrid people the medical procedures necessary for them to live their best lives. Their cruelty shows no boundaries.
Jeffro
Ossoff rocks!
I have to say, I’m thrilled to see the number of seated jurors sloooooooowly creep up (and now, there will be a delay until Thursday morning ’cause I think court’s out tomorrow)
POUND THAT ADDERALL, ORANGE MORON!!!1! SAY STUPID SHIT ON YOUR BLESSED ‘TRUTH SOCIAL’ THAT’LL GET YOU TOSSED IN JAIL!!
ahem, where was I? Ah yes…loving that the suspense, the agony, is just building Building BUILDING for this murderous clown.
Baud
@Jeffro:
You’ll never get seated as a juror with that attitude.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: Thanks fir the details. I’d heard the NHS was bad but not why or any specifics. There are people who despise any variation from “normal”. I find variety to be exciting. It’s part of the reason our neighborhood is great. I think we’re the most diverse zip code in the PNW.
Dan B
@eclare: Demands a new word: Ossome!
OlFroth
I sent a check to my health care provider, which is located seven miles away. Before DeJoy, this sort of local mail was delivered within two days. It took nine days for the check to get there. My college routinely sends out birthday cards to alumni (containing a fundraising pitch, of course). For decades, I received these cards on, or within a day or two of my birthday. From the school’s front gate to my front door is 166 miles. From the postmark on the card (mailed four days before my birthday) it took 71 days for the postcard to get to my mailbox. Someone could have WALKED it to my house in less time.
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: I read an article about this report and it sounded suspicious as hell. The article was credulous — from The Atlantic, which annoyed me greatly. I don’t mind saying that I do feel qualms about anyone making major, irrevocable decisions like this at any age, but especially at a young age, but the sum total of my advice is, I hope everyone is really careful about these things.
glc
Well, with this theme, I’ll drop in the UK version.
Rather more vicious ineptitude, but less strategical malfeasance. Suicides resulted.
Peke Daddy
@Old School: Can’t count on the head of the USPS to read mail addressed to him? He’s not the head of the United States Texting Service.
Prescott Cactus
@Sister Golden Bear:
SGB, I tried to find Bluesky Law, but couldn’t as there are so many.
Could you help ?
TBone
@Sure Lurkalot: I couldn’t agree more.
Now’s the time, especially while he is tied up in court 😆
MisterForkbeard
@Jeffro: I’m worried about the jurors, to be honest. The foreman says he mostly reads the New York Times, but also likes… the Daily Mail, and then watches Fox News sometimes and occasionally MSNBC.
Meanwhile, other jurors were tossed out for making tweet jokes 4 years ago that implied Donald Trump was a stupid person.
Freemark
This should be run as an ad in Georgia for Ossoff. No editing, no talkover, maybe, maybe a very short intro. Even most people who hate Democrats would respect this.
Peke Daddy
@Peke Daddy: Sheldon Whitehouse is right up there as he is laying out chapter and verse about the right wing machinery that installed the best right wing SCOTUS majority money can buy
TBone
@Peke Daddy: 👍 seconded
Starfish
@Barbara: The Atlantic and a number of other large publications have been on the “Let’s concern troll trans folks” train for a while.
randy khan
@Old School:
I wouldn’t be surprised, but I also wouldn’t be any more surprised if his personal staff never told him about it, as I don’t expect he has anyone who has any idea of how to respond to legislative inquiries.
The agency I work with – the FCC – has an office specifically devoted to responding to Congressional inquiries (among other duties), and in my experience every FCC Chair really, really wants to know what has come over from Congress, and wants to know very quickly. But there’s nothing that says any other agency has to do it that way.
However, it happened, this is a really bad own goal on DeJoy’s part.
Martin
@Baud: Well, in fairness, that varies by state. Very happy that SGB is in one of the good ones. As fucked up as the UK position on this is, they haven’t banned care – they’ve just made it ludicrously difficult to get that care (good walkthrough here). There are several states where it’s simply banned, and a felony to provide care. That’s objectively worse.
Had been more hopeful the UK would find their way on this, but I think Brexit should have made it pretty clear they had no interest in being sensible.
TBone
President Biden: “If Trump’s stock in his Truth Social company drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his.”
Baud
@TBone:
Link bad but hahaha.
I don’t know why I’m still surprised at how funny he is.
Ruckus
@Old School:
I wouldn’t assume anything, at any time, in discussing anything with any rethuglican in any governmental office. And it isn’t that they always lie, it’s that they often do not seem to even know what their actual official duties are – other than get paid.
TBone
@Baud: just deleted the broken link, but he’s not pulling his punches today. I loved when he was yelling earlier.
TBone
@Ruckus: 🎯
Odds are that his staff is really just that dumb, I mean look who they work for.
Tony Jay
@Trollhattan:
The eternal folly of the modern British Establishment.
“There can’t possibly be a problem with our massively expensive new IT system, and any suggestion that its many failure points were ignored because of sweetheart deals agreed between careerist politicians and rich corporate donors is just crazy conspiracy nonsense.No, what must have happened is that hundreds of previously unsuspected criminal frauds all joined the Post Office at the same time so that they could attempt to steal a few thousand pounds each with no attempt to hide or explain away the losses. Simples”
And don’t miss the real scandal. This was known about for years, but the oh so outraged UK News Media didn’t give a toss about this ‘generational scandal’ until ITV made a fictional drama about it using information that any journalist could have pulled together, if they’d given a toss.
sdhays
I sent something fairly important to a friend of mine in Boston 2 weeks ago, only to find it never arrived. So I sent it again, certified mail at an extra cost of $5, on Friday and verified it finally arrived today. The initial estimate was that it would arrive yesterday, but whatever.
So their incompetence made them an extra $5+ from me. I know it’s not all like that, but it pisses me off.
HumboldtBlue
@Peke Daddy:
Yes he did.
TBone
@HumboldtBlue: 💙🔥
UncleEbeneezer
@Scout211: Awesome news!
TBone
I once saw Senator Sheldon Whitehouse so pissed (he was briefly on camera during someone else’s Rump impeachment presser) that his eyes flashed. I fell in love instantly. He didn’t have to say a word.
wjca
Yes, but DeJoy isn’t responsible for delivering texts. As it stands, he really can’t say he didn’t get it. Because then the next question is about how his organization is failing to do its job: delivering the mail.
WaterGirl
Okay, totally off topic, but too funny not to share.
UncleEbeneezer
@Barbara: I don’t think any country is really letting anyone do anything irreversible at young ages. Claims that they are is just a GOP/TERF talking point used as a scare tactic.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: It would be wonderful if DJT got so low that he’d owe money.
A boy can dream…
Mousebumples
Thanks also to the great Juicers who sent postcards to Georgia – for the November 2020 election, for the runoff, and again for Sen. Warnock in 2022. 🔥🔥🔥
I wonder if that effort helped flip GA to Biden…
Dan B
@UncleEbeneezer: Care for juveniles is limited to puberty blockers. SGB would know if hormone therapy can start before age 18.
Martin
@Barbara: So, I’m 100% with team SGB, but I will note that there is one concern that is getting some focus. Sweden has at least slowed down providing trans care to minors. Their concern is that despite being a country that provided that care for decades, there’s been a sudden surge in minors seeking that care. And they don’t understand why. It’s not that they suddenly opened up care – it was always available, so to their eyes, the fraction of the population that identify as trans (at least at that age) has suddenly increased, and that shouldn’t happen if being trans is something you are and not something you choose. They aren’t questioning that, but they are wondering if there are sociological or psychological variables at play here and want to understand those first.
There are studies that show that there is some overlap between autism and gender identity.
One theory behind all of this is that people with autism typically struggle with recognizing social traditions and so face less ‘friction’ overcoming them, so they identify with who they are over who society expects them to be a bit sooner. And that young people in general may simply be doing that because they have more exposure to people that contravene these social traditions in social media, and are increasingly more inclined to reject those social traditions more broadly – not just around gender identity, but economics, politics, race, religion, and so on. If you think of social traditions as a current that we all swim in and need to overcome in order to transition, or come out, and so on (and we know full well that current can be strong enough some people never overcome it), young people everywhere live in a social space that has a much weaker current so they get there a lot faster, easier. Covid probably contributed to this to a decent degree as everyone was locked down and lived in their online spaces. My sense is that this is a positive sociological phenomenon.
But even very trans-inclusive cultures like Sweden are slowing things down for minors because this has been so abrupt and also of such large magnitude. If it was a 10% increase in minors seeking care, I don’t think they’d have changed anything, but it’s multiples. Why are 5x as many minors coming in? What changed? Let’s pump the brakes until we can sort it out.
I don’t think this is a particularly intractable problem. I have a lot of experience working with young people and while they can be impulsive with some things, for big decisions they are much better decision makers than adults typically give them credit for, and they are pretty easy to read in that regard. You do want to interrogate that decision, but I don’t think you have to work all that hard to discern just how much thought and commitment they have to that decision, and when you see that, you can confidently go forward.
Raoul Paste
@Baud: LOL!
Quaker in a Basement
“Letter? You sent me a letter? I never got it. I guess it got lost in the, um….no. Wait.”
H.E.Wolf
I like to think that it did – and for sure Four Directions helped flip GA! They were there, in concert with Stacey Abram’s Fair Fight group, and got out the Native American Vote in the state.
Chief Oshkosh
Ossoff did really well.
I’m a big Biden supporter, but this is one issue he should have fixed early on. We know he has the political chops to do what it takes to re-populate that board and get rid of that pinhead. Given who this affects the most (lower income and older people who use the USPS proportionately more), I am flummoxed as to why he hasn’t.
I guess this is about the only thing that I can complain about wrt to Uncle Joe, though. :)
Martin
@Dan B: It can. But it always could? Intersex children would normally have a gender chosen for them and that would be reinforced by hormone therapy and surgery. That’s been true for decades (school friend of my wife had that in the 70s/80s). That was never particularly controversial and the child typically had no input to the decision – parents/doctor would choose. And leaving them in some way ambiguous was not a consideration – a choice would always be made.
So yes, hormone therapy and surgery can be done before age 18 for transgender youth. Puberty blockers work by delaying the effects of puberty to make that transition easier (or to start it later), but different states have different laws and views on medical age of consent. In California, generally speaking medical age of consent is 12 for a lot of things – mental health care, reproductive care, vaccines, etc. In most states it’s 12-16. And some of that is life-altering stuff, particularly if treatment is denied. But in CA gender identity care is age 18 – you need your parents ok.
I know 3 kids that have done this. The first was also the earliest – insisted on pronoun change in 4th grade. Was part of my wife’s mom’s club (parents who all had kids at roughly the same time) so my son was 4th grade at the time. The kids parents were on the conservative side of things (not hugely – my experience is that really conservative parents only interact with other people in their church, so mildly conservative is about as far as you’ll get a chance to interact with) and in some denial about their daughter. And every parent that interacted with her was like ‘oh, no, this is not a phase – there is not a single thing about this child that isn’t female’ and the moms worked with her parents to bring them there and she started puberty blockers quite young. I don’t know the details of her care, but it went beyond that while she was still a minor. One other friend of my daughters started his transition around age 15. And my neighbors daughter started hers around 17 – so she was 18 before anything more invasive than hormone blockers started.
My sense is that because this is a state where kids, particularly around reproductive care decisions, can make their own decisions that it’s more receptive to young people having that kind of agency earlier. A state where they don’t have that culture even with the same laws I would expect for the medical community to push back a bit more.
Melancholy Jaques
The staying power of Louis DeJoy is another one of those things that I just cannot understand. If they ever remade It’s a Wonderful Life, he could play Mr. Potter.
What added value does he bring? Why do we need him and not some other person? He’s been in charge of the US Postal Service for four years. Is it better now than it was before? What did he improve?
Jay
@Martin:
Sam came out last year at age 24.
He knew his proper gender when he was 6.
Just stayed in the closet.
Martin, his partner, was the first person he raised the subject with. They have been with each other since Grade 11.
Martin’s response was “ok”.
Sam then broached the subject with his parents. Their response was “ok, but why didn’t you tell us sooner?”.
Sam’s response was “it’s much safer now”.
Then Sam and Martin told Martin’s parents, their response was “ok”.
This summer, Sam and Martin are getting married. This fall, Sam starts transitioning.
WaterGirl
@H.E.Wolf: @Mousebumples:
In 2020 we funded Four Directions, both campaigns for the senator. And America Votes, GA, which brought out the asian vote. Fair Fight. I know I’m forgetting some. We were everywhere in GA in 2020.
It was the rest of our results in 2020 that led us to change course and focus more on boots on the ground.
Jeffro
I would literally collapse in a fit of giggles when they asked me, “Do you have any reason why you cannot serve as a fair and impartial juror in this trial?”
…annnnnnd out of the chair and on to the floor I go!
Or would I? I dunno.
Oh wait, never mind. My social media is um ahem AFIRE with my “incriminating” (ie, truthful) thoughts about trumpov.
So giggles and a swift exit it is!
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: I’m with you on all of that.
RSA
On the civilian side, in the Department of Defense, it’s about the same. When your bosses send you a tasker that comes from a Congressional staffer, there’s typically a very short deadline for a response.
Matt McIrvin
@Mousebumples: I would not be at all surprised to learn that Balloon Juice’s efforts flipped Arizona and/or Georgia, if there were some way to ascertain that, which there isn’t.
Starfish
@HumboldtBlue: That was really good.
Jackie
@Sure Lurkalot:
I hope James starts with TIFG’s apartment in the Tower. Make him homeless in Manhattan, where he’s living during his criminal trial.
Jackie
@MisterForkbeard:
FWIW, he’s not the jury foreman – at least as of now. The jury doesn’t select a foreman UNTIL all jurors have been selected.
wjca
He could get an apartment. Except that they’d want cash for first and last months’ rent. Has he got that kind of cash available?
/s
Jager
@randy khan:
This is off-topic, but does anyone at the FCC realize what a massive fuck up the ownership rule changes (and all the others) have been? Audacy ( the 2nd largest radio group) just completed a billion-dollar plus bankruptcy and is now asking for a change in the foreign ownership rules.
I’m a retired broadcaster from the generation that put rock on FM. My job before I retired was running 3 FM stations in LA. I know how to serve the audience and make money, ask Micheal Fields if he knows how to do that? Audacy should lose their licenses and the FCC should auction them off to a bunch of kids and tell them to “Make their Friends Happy”. The NAB, the RAB, the guys who owned the big city sticks and the banks have destroyed one of the finest services and local businesses in the country.
Nobody (I’m looking at you Mitt Romney) can make money when you pay 15-21 times (depending on market size) cash flow for a license.
I’ve been out of it for a long time and I’m still pissed.
Darkrose
@Sister Golden Bear: I first heard about that on the Guardian, which neglected to point out Cass’ connections to transphobes, or to note that the standard she used to throw out the 100 studies was bullshit, because you can’t ethically do double-blind, randomized control trials on kids who need treatment. Oh, and the only evidence of “social contagion” is It’s infuriating and rather telling that they allegedly leftist paper is TERF-friendly.
Jackie
@wjca: With TIFG’s track record of NOT paying, a potential landlord with any smarts, would insist on four months rent cash only, NOW.
The price for Manhattan apartments being what they are… I doubt TIFG has that kind of cash on hand.😂
Darkrose
I really think it’s because kids have more information. I was in my thirties before I ever heard the term “non-binary”, and in my fifties before it every occurred to me that the term might apply to me.
I will also never forget trying to explain to my mother in 1986 that I liked boys and girls, and I didn’t know why I had to choose, and her response, “Oh baby, society will make you choose.” That wasn’t true then, and not only is it not true now, kids have resources that they can access that let them know there’s not something wrong with them, and that they have options.
wjca
@Jackie: Excellent point.