swordfish

First this: Then this:

FIFY..... BTW - you obviously missed the point of the meme.......

FTA: Between 2007 and 2016, the USPS lost $62.4 billion; the inspector general of the USPS estimated that $54.8 billion of that was due to prefunding retiree benefits.[9] By the end of 2019, the USPS had $160.9 billion in debt, due to growth of the Internet, the Great Recession, and prepaying for employee benefits as stipulated in PAEA.[10] Mail volume decreased from 97 billion to 68 billion items from 2006 to 2012. The employee benefits cost the USPS about $5.5 billion per year;[11] USPS began defaulting on this payment in 2012.[9] The COVID-19 pandemic further reduced income due to decreased demand in 2020.[10] But, yeah......I guess they're right, it's Trump's fault for trying to fix it.;....

I would suggest they just lost their argument.....

https://hannity.com/media-room/mixed-message-protesters-gather-in-person-to-claim-voting-in-person-too-dangerous-during-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR01P8ogvSlRGpRIh0js2coZTlZw4Jr-m12Zr44hj91STRHjEukAVRvn3HM Far-left protesters gathered in large crowds this week demanding mail-in voting across the country; ironically holding massive demonstrations in person while claiming in-person voting is too dangerous during the pandemic. Far-left squad-member Ayanna Pressley escalated her war-of-words with the White House over the weekend; calling for “unrest in the streets” as anti-police protests continue to take-over sections of Portland, Seattle, and other major American cities. “This is as much about public outcry, organizing and mobilizing and applying pressure,” Pressley said, “so that this GOP-led Senate and these governors that continue to carry water for this administration, putting American people in harm’s way, turning a deaf ear to the needs of our families and our communities – hold them accountable. “Make the phone calls, send the emails, show up,” she continued. “You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.” "Hey - let's protest in large numbers because it's too dangerous to vote in person......" SMH.....LOL......

51 shot, 7 dead in NYC over the weekend......and it's Trump's fault (according to Cuomo) .... Certainly wouldn't want to point the finger at NYC Mayor Deblassio ....or himself....... https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/cuomo-blames-trump-for-new-york-crime-after-rejecting-federal-assistance New York's tax base has fled both the city and the state en masse as rioters loot and shoot the Big Apple into a state of urban decay rivaling, if not surpassing, the days of Needle Parks and '70s crime sprees. This past weekend of urban America's summer of love included more than a 600% increase of shooting victims in New York City in comparison to this weekend last year. And who is to blame? According to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, it's President Trump. "Now, the genesis of the crime you can have a great debate about, but the Trump economy, Trump not providing COVID relief, the George Floyd murder, Trump’s response to the George Floyd murder, race relations stress, Trump, there are good people on both sides, Ku Klux Klan,” Cuomo said of Trump's guilt in the matter. “So, I think Trump has some liability for the increase in the crime." This would be rich coming from even the most sycophantic of Republicans looking for a last-minute scapegoat after months of actually working with the president. But Cuomo publicly rebuffed Trump's offer of federal law enforcement assistance. "I also said that at this point, I think the situation can be managed by the state to the extent anything can be done," Cuomo said in late July of a conversation with Trump. Apparently not. Arrests from the beginning of this year to Aug. 9 are down 39% from the same period of 2019. The result? An explosion of violent crime predominately targeting nonwhite New Yorkers, and the state's tax base chased out to Connecticut as robberies in the city's nicest neighborhoods triple. Trump is not the reason the New York's law enforcement has been strong-armed into letting rioters take over the street. Trump is not the reason Cuomo's ban on business has resulted in cataclysmic economic losses. And Trump is absolutely not the reason woke white folks feel empowered to turn the greatest city in the world into their intersectional playground of abolishing private property rights and basic law enforcement so criminals can run rampant.

Post office was fine until Trump got in there.....Next thing you know, they'll be kneeling for the post office they helped destroy........because Trump, and .....Coronavirus.......and stuff........

Yeah but......

A - Fricken - men....... Today's postal employees are working right now to pay for the past employee's pensions that were unable to be funded, and it isn't even enough nor will it ever be to compete with the other major carriers.

But on the other hand.....(FTA) the same article..... In a statement, VA disputed the notion that mail-order prescriptions were arriving weeks late and pointed to guidance on its website encouraging veterans to request refills at least 10 days before they need it. “VA always encourages veterans to order routine prescriptions in advance,” said VA spokeswoman Christina Noel. “When it comes to emergent prescriptions, VA either fills them onsite or uses commercial carriers to ensure timely delivery.” She said prescriptions delivered by the Postal Service are averaging less than three days for delivery, while 95% of those sent by UPS next-day service have been on time. VA fills about 80% of veteran prescriptions by mail. That translates to almost 120 million prescriptions a year, with deliveries arriving daily to about 330,000 veterans across the country.

The first domino falls? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/kevin-clinesmith-fbi-trump-russia-john-durham/2020/08/14/2f579994-de26-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html A former FBI lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to altering an email that helped justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser as part of the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the election, according to his lawyer and a person familiar with the matter. Kevin Clinesmith, who worked in the FBI general counsel’s office, is expected to admit he doctored an email so it said that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was not a source for the CIA, even though Page previously had a relationship with the agency. Relying on what Clinesmith had said, the FBI ultimately did not disclose Page’s relationship with the CIA as it applied to renew a warrant to monitor him as a possible agent of a foreign power. The case is the first against someone involved in the Russia probe brought by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was specially tapped by Attorney General William P. Barr to broadly look into how the FBI handled that matter. Clinesmith is hardly a household name, and the allegations against him have been known since last year, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a report excoriating the bureau for its handling of the applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for permission to monitor Page. Court documents filed in the Clinesmith case do not allege a broader political or anti-Trump conspiracy within the FBI or Justice Department, and a person familiar with the matter said Clinesmith does not intend to describe any such efforts when he enters his plea. It was not immediately clear when Clinesmith would formally enter his plea. President Trump brought up the expected plea at the beginning of an afternoon news conference, calling Clinesmith “a very corrupt FBI attorney who falsified FISA warrants in James Comey’s very corrupt FBI” and suggesting Durham would uncover more broad wrongdoing. FISA is an acronym for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law under which the FBI was applying to monitor Page. “That’s just the beginning, I would imagine, because what happened should never happen again,” he said. Clinesmith had previously been found to have sent text messages indicating a dislike of Trump. A lawyer for Clinesmith said: “Kevin deeply regrets having altered the email. It was never his intent to mislead the court or his colleagues as he believed the information he relayed was accurate. But Kevin understands what he did was wrong and accepts responsibility.” The expected plea was first reported by the New York Times. The Justice Department revealed in May 2019 that Barr had tapped Durham to review the Russia probe, which Trump has derided as a “witch hunt” designed to undermine his campaign and presidency. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, has been interviewing witnesses on a range of topics, and increasingly his probe has become politically fraught. Republicans are hopeful Durham will validate their long-held skepticism of the Russia probe, and they are growing inpatient with the pace of his work. Democrats, meanwhile, have asserted they fear Barr and Durham might be planning a late revelation of his findings in a way that might alter the presidential race. To Democrats’ dismay, Barr has said he will not delay Durham’s probe because of the election. Justice Department policies call for prosecutors not to time steps in cases to affect elections, though Barr has said they do not apply to Durham’s investigation because those whose conduct is at issue are not political candidates. He has stressed former vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent in the 2020 race, is not under investigation, nor is former president Barack Obama. On Thursday, Trump seemed to take a veiled swipe at his attorney general, telling Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, “Bill Barr has the chance to be the greatest of all time, but if he wants to be politically correct, he’ll be just another guy, because he knows all the answers, he knows what they have, and it goes right to Obama and it goes right to Biden.” Thursday evening, Barr appeared on Fox News and seemed to try to placate Republican concern over the pace of Durham’s probe, telling host Sean Hannity there would be “significant developments before the election.” He said one development would come Friday, but played down its significance. “It’s not an earth-shattering development, but it is an indication that things are moving along at the proper pace, as dictated by the facts in this investigation,” Barr said. Barr has previously said that Durham is mainly focused on uncovering criminal wrongdoing but that he expects “there will be public disclosure in some form of report.” Horowitz, the inspector general, had first exposed Clinesmith’s alleged wrongdoing in a 2019 report in which he examined the applications to surveil Page and other aspects of the Russia probe. He detailed a series of troubling errors that showed officials repeatedly emphasized damaging information about Page while downplaying any material that might show he should not be kept under surveillance. Among the failures was what the bureau told the court about Page’s relationship with another U.S. government agency, and what an FBI lawyer relayed internally about that relationship. Horowitz’s report does not name the agency or the lawyer, but people familiar with the matter have said they are the CIA and Clinesmith. The agency had told the FBI in August 2016 that it had a relationship with Page. That was before the bureau applied to monitor him. In the spring of 2017, when Page was under surveillance, he asserted publicly that he had worked in the past with the CIA. That might undercut the idea that he was an agent of a foreign power worthy of invasive monitoring. In June 2017, an FBI agent working on the application to renew the warrant to surveil Page decided he wanted a “definitive answer” on whether Page had been a CIA source. Clinesmith, according to Horowitz’s report and people familiar with the matter, got in touch with a CIA liaison, and the liaison indicated in an email that Page “had or continued to have a relationship” with them. But when Clinesmith forwarded that email to the FBI agent, he added the words “not a source,” according to the report. The agent then did not disclose Page’s relationship with the CIA to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, according to the report. A criminal information — a court document filed Friday with the defendant’s consent — describes in detail the exchanges that led to Clinesmith’s planned plea. In a series of instant messages with the FBI agent, Clinesmith wrote the CIA liaison “confirmed explicitly” that Page was never a source of theirs, according to the information. When the agent asked if they had that in writing, Clinesmith said yes and forwarded him the email with the altered phrase. Clinesmith “did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document,” the information said. In 2018, then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), now the White House chief of staff, publicly named Clinesmith as the lawyer referred to only as “FBI Attorney 2” in a separate inspector general report documenting the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Horowitz found that the lawyer, who was the primary FBI attorney assigned to the Russia probe in its early days, sent multiple instant messages indicating a strong dislike of Trump, including one saying “Viva le resistance.” Clinesmith insisted to Horowitz’s investigators that many of them were jokes and that he did not let his political views affect his work. Meadows tweeted Friday, “One down, hopefully several more to go.” Horowitz’s report concluded the bureau had an “authorized purpose” to initiate the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign. Page was only a part of that inquiry, and Horowitz has said he did not find evidence of the problems there “infecting” the rest of the probe. But Horowitz has said he was concerned the FBI did not reevaluate its examination of Page, particularly as agents failed to uncover wrongdoing and wondered among themselves why they were still investigating the former Trump campaign adviser. Inspector general: FBI should have reassessed whether to continue investigating former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page Durham has said he disagrees with some of Horowitz’s findings on the cause the FBI had to open the 2016 investigation. In questioning witnesses, his investigators have shown particular interest in why the bureau kept pressing forward after it came to have doubts about the credibility of Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer whose work the FBI relied on in part to obtain the secret court order to surveil Page, people familiar with the matter said. Investigators were particularly interested in doubts raised about Steele by one of his sources of information, the people said, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing case. Barr told Fox News host Mark Levin this week that Durham has “a sprawling number of issues” to examine, though he did not elaborate. “There are a lot of different conspiracy theories, and part of our responsibility is to look at all of these things so we can assure people that these various theories have been looked at, and so this takes some time,” he said.

What is your point?

Terrorists don't get permits IO.......

So this is OK, but getting kids back to school with data (statistics, BTW) that show how little this virus will affect them isn't OK?

Yeah, really peaceful protests in Indy......Drive around, see for yourself all the boarded-up businesses, the destroyed properties that the BLM protesters/rioters had nothing to do with.......

Thanks Muda......

Yeah.....but that headline wouldn't conjure a desire to get him a golden casket.......

Hold the phone - today: 751,000 global deaths, 166,000 US deaths (using questionable death numbers)..........Compared to 50,000,000 (+) globally, and 675,000 US........ Really.....? SMH.......socially distant of course.....and with a mask on.....alone in my office........

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/13/trump-israel-united-arab-emirates-agree-establish-diplomatic-ties/3364243001/ WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump announced Thursday the United Arab Emirates and Israel had agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations, a potentially historic agreement and a rare foreign policy win for the president during an election year. As part of the deal, Israel agreed to halt its controversial plan to annex parts of the West Bank, land that Palestinians see as vital to their hopes of a future state. A joint statement, released by the White House Thursday, said Israel and the United Arab Emirates "agreed to the full normalization of relations" and negotiators from the two countries would meet in the coming weeks to sign a series of bilateral agreements on everything from investment to tourism to security. The deal was finalized during a phone call Thursday between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi. "This is an icebreaker between these two countries," Jared Kushner, a top Trump adviser and the president's son-in-law, said in a rare appearance in the White House briefing room. Kushner said the agreement would allow flights from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv, which he said would “allow Muslims a real entree to come and visit Israel peacefully and to come and pray at the mosque with whatever frequency they deem appropriate.” In a pair of tweets, Netanyahu called it a "historic day," while Bin Zayed highlighted Israel's agreement to "stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories." With the annexation plan paused, Israel will instead "focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world," the joint statement says. Trump officials and other experts said the agreement could usher in a broader rapproachement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. "Israel’s broader acceptance in the region is good for Israel and good for American interests in the Middle East, and we hope that other countries will follow suit," the Israeli Policy Forum, a group focused on building support in the U.S. for a two-state solution, said in a statement Thursday. The agreement makes the UAE only the third Arab nation to have active diplomatic ties with Israel. The other two are Egypt and Jordan. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he welcomed the agreement. "The UAE’s offer to publicly recognize the state of Israel is a welcome, brave, and badly-needed act of statesmanship," Biden said in a statement. Biden said Israel's annexation plan "would be a body blow to the cause of peace," and said he strongly opposes it. "It would virtually end any chance of a two-state solution that would secure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state and uphold the right of Palestinians to a state of their own." There's "only one reason" Netanyahu would give up his annexation proposal right now, said Tamara Cofman Wittes, a senior fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration. "Because he expects he will not have an annexation-friendly president in DC soon, and he wants to maximize his gains," Wittes said in a tweet. Asked how long Israel had agreed to suspend its annexation plan on the West Bank, Kushner refused to give a direct answer. He said he believed Israel would "not take action to move forward unless we have an understanding between America and Israel that it's the right action at the right time." Kushner also said it would be “a while" for the agreements to be fully implemented. Israel "sees a lot of exciting opportunity in doing what's being done today with other Arab and Muslim countries," he added. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued the development could boost Trump’s Middle East peace plan, which had been widely seen as dead on arrival. "I hope the Palestinians will see this for what it is ... a historic opportunity for the Middle East to be stable and peaceful," Pompeo told reporters traveling with him in Europe. Trump's Middle East peace plan endorsed a "two-state" solution – an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. That has been a hallmark of Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives for years, but Trump's commitment to it has been an open question. Trump's proposal also essentially gave a green light to Netanyahu's plan to annex up to 30% of the occupied West Bank, and it sought to limit Palestinians to specific parts of East Jerusalem and leave Israel in sole charge of holy sites that are sacred to both sides. Israel and the Arab Gulf countries have been quietly working to improve ties for years, according to Omar Rahman, a visiting fellow at Brookings Doha Center, a think tank. But Arab leaders have been hesitant to go public for fear of alienating the Palestinians and inflaming the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he wrote in a 2019 analysis of the Israel-Arab Gulf state relationship. A 2002 Arab peace initiative envisioned that Arab countries would only normalize relations with Israel in exchange for returning territory Israel seized in 1967, among other concessions. Some said this agreement represented an "abandonment" of the Palestinians. "While normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab states is in itself to be desired, this abandonment of the Palestinians, will not serve the interests of peace, nor the real interests of Israel," said Jerome Segal, president of the Jewish Peace Lobby, an advocacy group based in Maryland. "Unfortunately, it will underscore the narrative of the Israeli right-wing, that any semblance of justice for the Palestinians can be ignored." Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a global research and consulting firm, said the deal signaled a "new geopolitics" in the region and suggested that the Palestine issue was no longer a priority for Gulf States. It is also "very bad news for Iran," Bremmer said in a tweet. Mark Dubowitz, an Iran hardliner and executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, agreed. “The peace deal between UAE and Israel is an extraordinary breakthrough that will bring even greater opportunities for regional peace and prosperity in its wake. The mullahs in Iran are the only losers,” Dubowitz said. He said the agreement likely means that Israel and the UAE will deepen their intelligence, security and military cooperation – to the detriment of Iran. "The agreement also paves the way for Bahrain, Oman, and eventually Saudi Arabia to deepen this cooperation and promote a more stable and peaceful Middle East," he said. "The regime in Iran is weakened by peace and stability elsewhere in the region. It means the Islamic Republic will be less able to export their destabilizing revolution.” While they are sharply divided over the fate of the Palestinians, Israel and the Gulf states share their concern about Iran's growing influence in the region. The rest of the US - "Yeah, but COVID"...........