#and if anybody tries to make this post more appeasing to men or 'not all men's this post you are getting blocked and hit with a hammer

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[ravensandwritings]

and then i plotted out a fuckton of hero academia fic

What is setting up a timeline for fics to follow We Are Here:

Tailor Made - The first step to acceptance is adjusting your life to the new normal, instead of trying to cling to the old normal, or: Toshinori gets clothes that fit. Midnight and Present Mic assist,  while Eraserhead is busy with Eri in the hospital.

Churning The Earth - As provisional classes continue, specialized education branches off from general seminars as students focus on their individual weaknesses and failures with an instructor. How do you teach compassion to one who is set single-minded on victory? With Bakugo knowing his secret, the boy needs more lessons that don't involve combat, but demand respect, dignity and quiet. Or did Bakugo think bodies just cleaned themselves up when a hero fails? (Address that All Might, due to status, never really did this -- it was unseemly for him to be seen assisting, due to his symbol of peace-ness. How did that affect him, how does the guilt linger? How does this affect Bakugo? How is Nighteye's death still looming over All Might?) (Before cultural fair)

Needs Must, Needs Met - Mirio, still quirkless, is a bit adrift. He can't go back to his internship, and school has him on leave. Toshinori, however, has his own ideas. When his needs can also help Mirio meet his own, they get a strange internship between two people who need to find new ways to be heroic. (The Ghost of Nighteye overshadows both of them, and perhaps this bargain will appease his his restless spirit.) (Immediately after Cultural Fair.)

Gravedust - At some point, All Might has to address that he never fixed things with Nighteye. That he could, perhaps, found a way to compromise. Approached him. Apologized. But that time is gone. There are now two graves to tend to in Toshinori's life.

The Ducklings - Taking cues from what they see from the educators, class 1-A start to follow suit in checking in on their teacher's well being. While well-intended, sometimes it can go to far. How can he lead them to great heights if they're busy propping him up?  

A Certain Lack - Featuring Gray-Ace Bi Might and gay as hell Eraserhead. How do you figure out how you feel about someone, when you've had this kind of feeling for a person maybe five times in your five decades? It's not that you haven't had sex -- you happily served other's needs as part of the line of duty. But what about your needs, when they suddenly arise? Do you really need or want it? Isn't it a complication? And what if these feelings are useless, lacking any reciprocation? He's not some twitterpaited schoolboy! But yet... but yet. (Slooooooooow buuuuuuuurnnnnnnnnnn.)

Unexpected Alliance - Between saving the world, each other, and and working toward becoming better heroes as Shinso also tries to join the Hero Course, something comes up in the course of his training: information about All Might that leads him to believe that he's totally got it for the homeroom teacher for 1-A. Who the hell does he take this information, other than Midoriya? But where Midoriya and All Might are involved, Bakugo is sure to follow.  Plans involving kittens, vulnerability, confidence boosters and a healthy dose of teenage meddling ensue. As more of class 1-A get involved, the more risky everything gets. Can they help out their idiot teachers? Can anybody? (Or, Class 1-A does the parent trap.)

Sharing Sleepless Space - Eri's an adorable bundle of PTSD, just like most of her caretakers. With both Eraserhead and All Might living in the teacher's wing with Eri, they take turns handing her off, sleeping in shifts when the nights are bad. Then they just start staying up together, because Toshinori is still a born entertainer-- and his bedtime stories are literally the things of legends.  Sleeping in heaps may ensue, which is good - Shinso and friends didn't work this hard to get those two to relax around each other to not recognized they're totally married already.

Kintsugi - Hot hot hot erasermight, scar acceptance, the body, even flawed, as beautiful. Dealing with body dysphoria and intimacy, All Might can't really fathom becoming intimate again with literally anyone. He still thinks of this body as alien, even if he's now stuck living in it full time.

THINGS WILL PROBABLY BE ADDED AS CANON APPEARS because that's just how i roll.

(And apparently @aerialsquid may either be writing or co-writing some of these bits so who knew, right?)

Stories that may relate or stand on their own?

Learning to Teach - Vigilante-era Aizawa has to deal with the fact that Midnight's not wrong, and his work with the vigilante's has been educational itself. Possibly guest-star of emotionally Wholesome Ingenium / Iida Tensei? Because he needs more pre-Stain love.

What Comes Next - When All Might and Eraserhead have to meet with Iida Tenya's parents, the conversation is very predictable. However, the request from Iida Tensei is not.

Grumpy Old Men - Look someone needs to write rarepair All Might/Knuckleduster, and I am more than willing to take that bullet.

Still nebulous: I want something to do with Nighteye and maybe some grief processing. Obon festival? Two graves to clean?

The Cycle of the Lotus - The lotus is a symbol of rebirth: it draws down beneath the muck every right, only to have its flower push back under the sun, waxy petals making it resistant to sticky mud or algae. Toshinori's got his own lotus blazoned on his side, but he's been down under the muck for far too long. What can get him to rise again? The Symbol of Peace needs a symbol of hope, and in what form does it arrive? Deku-and-Dadmight central? PTSD related probably? FIGURE THIS OUT. (This one's so amorphous still.)

Everything is going to spin off post-Nighteye's death, with some stuff potentially being earlier, Kamino-time stuff, and it will be a loose series of single story pieces? Maybe? Basically it looks like my brain is gearing up to have stuff between Massive Babydaddy Riddler chapters for Sins of the Father, and I'm okay with that. Let there be a cleanser, especially since that first Going Citizen story is, well, 2-3 chapters away from finish. (three years, novel length. Holy shit guys.)

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/politics/tulsi-gabbard-phenomenon/

The Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon as a diagnostic tool

[This column was written for the Unz Review]

Ever since Tulsi Gabbard announced that she will be running for President in 2020 her personality and candidacy have been a subject of heated debates and after I posted a rather small message from her, I have been getting panicked emails warning me that she is a fake and that I should not “jump on her bandwagon” or otherwise endorse her.

So, first and foremost, I am not – repeat NOT – endorsing her in any way shape or fashion.

However, I do find her and what is taking place around her extremely interesting and I want to look at it a little closer.  This won’t be a review or analysis of her ideas, political platform or chance of getting elected.  Neither will I try to read her mind and do what so many other folks are doing and confidently declare that I know what her true values, ideas or plans are.  I don’t.

But there are a few things which can already be observed about her which I want to comment on.

Ask yourself: why do liberals hate this lady?

First, one might imagine that she would be the *dream* candidate for the Democratic Party: she is a female, she is not White, she has impeccable “patriotic” credentials, she is obviously both very good looking and very smart, she does not have any skeletons in her past (at least none that we know of for the time being) and she is not associated with the notorious Clinton gang.  So what’s there not to like about her if you are a Democrat?

Well, as we all saw, the putatively “liberal” legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion.  Maybe not as much as that legacy Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing.  This may seem bizarre until you realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly “enough” to please the US Ziolobby.  Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-tulsi-gabbard-the-pro-assad-iraq-war-vet-critical-of-israel-loved-by-adelson-evangelicals-1.6831029

https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Democratic-presidential-contender-Gabbard-supports-and-criticizes-Israel-577149

https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Ex-KKK-head-David-Duke-praises-Tulsi-Gabbard-because-she-wont-put-Israel-first-579917

https://www.timesofisrael.com/democrat-gabbard-who-slammed-israel-for-live-fire-use-in-gaza-to-run-in-2020/

https://www.jns.org/record-at-a-glance-hawaii-rep-tulsi-gabbard-on-the-middle-east-in-her-bid-for-president/

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/rep-tulsi-gabbard-who-met-syrian-president-bashar-assad-announces-2020-presidential-bid

This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search.  It could be summed up “Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough”.  But is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her?

I don’t think so.

I believe that Gabbard’s real “ultimate sin” is that she is against foreign wars of choice.  That is really her Crime Of Crimes!

The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to “animal Assad”, the (latest) “New Hitler”, who “gasses his own people”.  And this is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined!  She dared to *disobey* her AngloZionist masters.

So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times.  And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male and “liberal” does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of “crimes”.

What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?

Appeasing *never* works with the Neocons

It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did *not* come from “conservative” media outlets or journalists.  Not at all!  Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly “liberal” sources, which tell us that in 2019 USA “liberals” do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who don’t care one bit about any real “liberal” values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.

As for Gabbard herself, she already managed to publicly back-peddle to one obnoxious lobby (the homo lobby) on the issue of marriage (see here, here, here and here) and I fully expect her to cave in to the Zio-lobby just like Trump has been doing every day since he made it to the White House.  Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don’t understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby (see here for a perfect example of that attitude from Commentary).

[Sidebar: this entire business about Rep. Ilhan Omar also illustrated something very crucial to Donald Trump’s personality.  Let me explain:

A typical “lowered” “rooster” (and no, in Russia they are not Presidents!)

In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, one of the tricks used by the prison/camp administration to break a prisoner (be he political or not) was to stick him into a cell with the so-called “roosters���.  In the slang of the Russian criminal underworld, the “roosters” are the very lowest category of prisoners (in what is a rather complex hierarchy): “roosters” are either homosexuals, rapists, child molesters or men who have been down-ranked (“lowered” in slang) to that status as a punishment for some kind of action which the criminals consider reprehensible (like interacting with other “roosters”, mistakenly sitting down next to one, not repaying a card-debt, etc.).  I won’t go into all the details here, but suffice to say that one thing which was well known in the Soviet jails/camps is that somebody who has committed some kind of trespass can be “lowered” to the status of “rooster” and that the prison/camp administration often uses these man as “combat roosters” – they send them to attack and even rape some prisoner who needs to be broken.  And, needless to say, after you have been raped by such “roosters” you yourself get that status for the rest of your life.

Trump wants her to resign from Congress

What Trump did in the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar is act like a “lowered combat rooster”, sent to abuse somebody else on the behalf of the prison/camp administration.  Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. This is just a verbal whip used by AIPAC/ADL/etc to beat up their opponents.  In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter  that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).  Duh?!  Is that really news to anybody?  Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign.

By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ .  This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!

But the Neocons have now “lowered” Trump to the status of “rooster” and he now is acting like a willing “combat rooster” for those who “lowered” him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of “rooster”: one who willingly serves his own rapists.  See for yourself:

The amazing thing is that Trump seems to be  completely oblivious to how utterly dishonorable, spineless, subservient, weak and cowardly he looks every time he tries to so crudely brown-nose the Neocons.  Apparently being a narcissist does not include the ability to be aware of how others might see you.]

In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:

Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign

Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump

Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to “drain the swamp” (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State).  This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power, by the way.  Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a “US Putin” nor does she have the kind of institutional and popular backing Putin had.  So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one…

Finally, if Gabbard truly is “for real” then the Deep State will probably “Kennedy” her and blame Russia or Iran for it.

Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like this one:

I don’t know about you, but I am rather impressed!

At the very least, she does what “Occupy Wall Street” did with its “1%” which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much lower but politically very effective.  In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like “warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die“.  This is all very good and useful for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethinkconcepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing!

The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called “liberals” don’t give a damn about race, don’t give a damn about gender, don’t give a damn about minorities, don’t give a damn about “thanking our veterans” or anything else.  They don’t even care about Israel all that much.  But what they do care about is power, Empire and war.  That they *really* care about.  Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend “liberals” are hell bent on power, empire and war.  They also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a “normal” country and they couldn’t care less about the fate of the people of the USA.  All they want is for us all to become their serfs.

All of this is hardly big news.  But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard’s candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy.  As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy.  Be it the ongoing US aggression against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical euphemism and say with confidence: “the prognosis is poor”.

The Saker

[trashangel-dee]

if ur still taking prompts would u consider writing something from charlie's pov involving dee's pregnancy? i'm a massive sucker for domestic shit, even if it is slightly ooc alskdflj

I feel like it took me forever to write this. Sorry! Hope it turned out okay- I was really excited to write it. Maybe that’ll make up for the glaring errors and clunkyness of it all. It takes place same day as King of the Rats ep.

Dee watched Charlie sittingin a booth, his dreambook and a few empty beer bottles scattered on the table.He was clearly not sober, a mixture of whatever he found in the basement and afew beers. They were alone in the bar; Frank had left to celebrate under thebridge, and the other two had left claiming that, as owners and those who didall the setting up, they didn’t have to tear down the decorations, and that thejanitor and waitress could do it.

Dee groaned to herself, realizingthat she still felt some affection towards him that day. Goddamit, stupid baby hormones were making her soft. She smirked,sliding into the seat across the table, “Since it’s not really your birthday, I think you may be a little too shitfaced.”

He looked up. “Nah, I’m good.‘Sides this day was supposed to help me and shit,” he answered, gesturing tothe half down decorations.

They sat in silence for amoment, looking around and enjoying the calm after a stressful day, beforeCharlie’s words cut through almost sing-songy.

“You’re having a baby.”

“Yeah,” Dee chuckled, lightlyrunning a hand over her stomach, “not that you assholes care.”

He squinted at her, “’Coursewe do.”

The first time she told themshe was pregnant, he didn’t really care. Then things began changing, she hadstopped drinking, and sat out on some schemes; she was getting bigger, andsuddenly the full meaning hit and it felt as if he was drenched with ice water,or did too many Charlie One-Twos. There was a sense of shock and dread. Everythingwas going to be different. 20 yearsand everything was going to change. Sweet Dee was going to have a baby andleave them, or the gang was going to ditch her.

He tried to remember any guysshe might have brought around, which one might have done this, but none stayed.None seemed to really care. Charlie never liked the guys she flaunted, hell evenMac, who would’ve been the most happy to have Dee out of the gang, said that shehad the worst taste in men.

This jabroni wasn’t around,and that made Charlie angry; whether it was for Dee or because he knew what itwas like being abandoned by a dad, he wasn’t sure.

Of course, learning that hewasn’t the father was a relief. But ever since the others brought Schmittyback, casting Charlie out of the gang, did he feel a kinship with Dee. Theywere the two worst treated members of the gang; maybe Ernesto was ontosomething with the soulmates of pain thing.

Charlie didn’t want a lot ofresponsibility, to sacrifice his fun, laidback life, but had to do something. He couldn’t stand by and makeDee do this alone, or let this kid feel like he did. “I mean… I can do stuff.” Charlie explained, “Teach him somehockey, have a catch. This kid’s gonna need a dad. Or someone to just, y’know…be there.”

Dee shook her head, “You’re highas shit, Charlie.”

“I can do it, Dee. I thought about it before;when we got those school jobs and were best friends. I knew this kid would haveto fit in there somewhere.”

She looked doubtful.

“Come on. The guy’s not even around. I know you think we don’t care,but we do. When that stuff came out of the screen today, I was thinkin’ I gotto protect Dee and the baby. I never really thought stuff like that before.”

Feeling both amused andtouched at his confessions, Dee decided to press further, asking, maybe evenchallenging, “What if it’s a girl?”

He looked surprised for amoment, almost as if the possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. “Well, that’sokay. Girls can do that shit, too. You’re a girl, and we do fun stuff.” A touchof excitement lit in his eyes, “is ita girl?” This threw off his plans, but it just went from just being a baby to aperson, it felt more real, and thatwas pretty cool.

“Don’t know yet. Might wait untilit to pops out. Be a surprise,” Dee shrugged.

Charlie nodded, and it washard to tell if he was confused or disappointed, “Cool. Cool.”

He was definitely very intoxicated,but there was a sincerity that told her these weren’t drunken ramblings, but atruth that came from deep down- one that was only shared without inhibitions;he sounded more determined as he spoke. His determination was strange, italmost seemed like he wanted this,and it was making her feel strangely guilty.

Looking at his current state,Dee decided to tell him- it’d appease him for the moment, but there was no wayhe’d remember in the morning. They would all go back to ignoring it and thingswould quit feeling so personal, be back to normal.

She sighed lightly, “it’s notmy baby, Charlie.”

His eyes narrowed inconfusion, head tilting slightly to the side, “oh? I didn’t know that possiblefor the lady. Like, how could that even work?”

“I’m doing the surrogatething, for real this time.”

“Oh, right, yeah. Didn’t knowyou were trying that again.”

Dee laughed. “Yeah, well, youguys blew it for me last time. Didn’t want you to screw it up again,” beforecontinuing more softly, “It’s going to be good, Charlie. This kid’s going to have a dad. And a mom. Onesthat actually want it. Better thanany of us had.”

He smiled back, “yeah, that’sgood.”

 ———————————-

I like to imagine that Dee doesn’t say it’s Carmen because she doesn’t want the gang to know to make stupid comments. (almost protective in a way) 

Someone talked about protecting the baby in their tags on gifs of that scene and it’s so good and I can’t take credit

Thanks for sending- I love getting prompts! I’ll give it a little time and do some minor editing then post to my ao3 collection too.

If anybody wants to send more please do

[itsfinancethings]

New story in Politics from Time: Pelosi to Call House Back Into Session to Vote on Bill That Would Stop Changes at Postal Service

(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.

Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday after the Democratic National Convention on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak.

“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”

The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.

With heightened scrutiny of its operations, the Postal Service is now requesting a temporary preelection rate increase, from mid-October through Christmas, although not for first-class letters.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the two men would appear before the House committee. But it said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.

“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.

House Democrats are expected to discuss the lawmakers’ schedule details on a conference call on Monday and were likely to be in session next Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.

The legislation being prepared for the vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient, and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.

Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states. The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him reelection. The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.

On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.

But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of winning a second term.

“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, congressional Democrats said in a statement: “The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”

The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, Maloney’s committee had invited DeJoy to appear Sept. 17 at a hearing focusing on operational changes to the Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries.

But after Trump acknowledged in a Fox Business interview on Thursday that he’s starving the agency of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, the committee decided to move up their call for the appearance of DeJoy’ well as the governing board chair.

Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has quickly turned into a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office and make it great again.”

His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried on Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Biden.

“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Meadows said.

But Democrats said changes made by DeJoy constitute “a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The agency in the meantime is now seeking a short-term, end-of-the-year rate increase, according to a notice filed Friday with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The reasons: increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an expected increase in holiday mail volume.

The plan would raise prices on commercial domestic competitive parcels, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class package service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service.

Most of the proposed increases would be less than 10%. They range from 24 cents for Parcel Select Service, which starts at $3.05, to a $1.50 increase for Priority Mail Express Commercial, which starts at $22.75. The regulatory commission is expected to decide on the proposals next month.

The Postal Service is the country’s most popular government agency with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the service, according to a Pew Research Center Survey published in April.

“What concerns me is an all-out attack — they’re not even hiding it — by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows and Booker appeared on CNN’s ”State of the Union.”

___

Madhani reported from Bedminster, N.J. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3avKZzJ via IFTTT

[viralnewstime]

(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.

Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday after the Democratic National Convention on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak.

“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”

The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.

With heightened scrutiny of its operations, the Postal Service is now requesting a temporary preelection rate increase, from mid-October through Christmas, although not for first-class letters.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the two men would appear before the House committee. But it said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.

“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.

House Democrats are expected to discuss the lawmakers’ schedule details on a conference call on Monday and were likely to be in session next Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.

The legislation being prepared for the vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient, and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.

Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states. The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him reelection. The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.

On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.

But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of winning a second term.

“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, congressional Democrats said in a statement: “The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”

The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, Maloney’s committee had invited DeJoy to appear Sept. 17 at a hearing focusing on operational changes to the Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries.

But after Trump acknowledged in a Fox Business interview on Thursday that he’s starving the agency of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, the committee decided to move up their call for the appearance of DeJoy’ well as the governing board chair.

Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has quickly turned into a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office and make it great again.”

His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried on Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Biden.

“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Meadows said.

But Democrats said changes made by DeJoy constitute “a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The agency in the meantime is now seeking a short-term, end-of-the-year rate increase, according to a notice filed Friday with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The reasons: increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an expected increase in holiday mail volume.

The plan would raise prices on commercial domestic competitive parcels, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class package service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service.

Most of the proposed increases would be less than 10%. They range from 24 cents for Parcel Select Service, which starts at $3.05, to a $1.50 increase for Priority Mail Express Commercial, which starts at $22.75. The regulatory commission is expected to decide on the proposals next month.

The Postal Service is the country’s most popular government agency with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the service, according to a Pew Research Center Survey published in April.

“What concerns me is an all-out attack — they’re not even hiding it — by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows and Booker appeared on CNN’s ”State of the Union.”

___

Madhani reported from Bedminster, N.J. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

[hellofastestnewsfan]

(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.

Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday after the Democratic National Convention on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak.

“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”

The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.

With heightened scrutiny of its operations, the Postal Service is now requesting a temporary preelection rate increase, from mid-October through Christmas, although not for first-class letters.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the two men would appear before the House committee. But it said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.

“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.

House Democrats are expected to discuss the lawmakers’ schedule details on a conference call on Monday and were likely to be in session next Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.

The legislation being prepared for the vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient, and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.

Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states. The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him reelection. The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.

On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.

But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of winning a second term.

“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, congressional Democrats said in a statement: “The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”

The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, Maloney’s committee had invited DeJoy to appear Sept. 17 at a hearing focusing on operational changes to the Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries.

But after Trump acknowledged in a Fox Business interview on Thursday that he’s starving the agency of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, the committee decided to move up their call for the appearance of DeJoy’ well as the governing board chair.

Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has quickly turned into a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office and make it great again.”

His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried on Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Biden.

“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Meadows said.

But Democrats said changes made by DeJoy constitute “a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The agency in the meantime is now seeking a short-term, end-of-the-year rate increase, according to a notice filed Friday with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The reasons: increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an expected increase in holiday mail volume.

The plan would raise prices on commercial domestic competitive parcels, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class package service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service.

Most of the proposed increases would be less than 10%. They range from 24 cents for Parcel Select Service, which starts at $3.05, to a $1.50 increase for Priority Mail Express Commercial, which starts at $22.75. The regulatory commission is expected to decide on the proposals next month.

The Postal Service is the country’s most popular government agency with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the service, according to a Pew Research Center Survey published in April.

“What concerns me is an all-out attack — they’re not even hiding it — by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows and Booker appeared on CNN’s ”State of the Union.”

___

Madhani reported from Bedminster, N.J. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

from TIME https://ift.tt/3fXzm5S

[newstechreviews]

(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.

Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday after the Democratic National Convention on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak.

“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”

The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.

With heightened scrutiny of its operations, the Postal Service is now requesting a temporary preelection rate increase, from mid-October through Christmas, although not for first-class letters.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the two men would appear before the House committee. But it said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.

“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.

House Democrats are expected to discuss the lawmakers’ schedule details on a conference call on Monday and were likely to be in session next Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.

The legislation being prepared for the vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient, and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.

Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states. The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him reelection. The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.

On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.

But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of winning a second term.

“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, congressional Democrats said in a statement: “The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”

The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, Maloney’s committee had invited DeJoy to appear Sept. 17 at a hearing focusing on operational changes to the Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries.

But after Trump acknowledged in a Fox Business interview on Thursday that he’s starving the agency of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, the committee decided to move up their call for the appearance of DeJoy’ well as the governing board chair.

Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has quickly turned into a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office and make it great again.”

His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried on Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Biden.

“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Meadows said.

But Democrats said changes made by DeJoy constitute “a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The agency in the meantime is now seeking a short-term, end-of-the-year rate increase, according to a notice filed Friday with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The reasons: increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an expected increase in holiday mail volume.

The plan would raise prices on commercial domestic competitive parcels, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class package service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service.

Most of the proposed increases would be less than 10%. They range from 24 cents for Parcel Select Service, which starts at $3.05, to a $1.50 increase for Priority Mail Express Commercial, which starts at $22.75. The regulatory commission is expected to decide on the proposals next month.

The Postal Service is the country’s most popular government agency with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the service, according to a Pew Research Center Survey published in April.

“What concerns me is an all-out attack — they’re not even hiding it — by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows and Booker appeared on CNN’s ”State of the Union.”

___

Madhani reported from Bedminster, N.J. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

[phooll123]

New top story from Time: Pelosi to Call House Back Into Session to Vote on Bill That Would Stop Changes at Postal Service

(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.

Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday after the Democratic National Convention on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak.

“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”

The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.

With heightened scrutiny of its operations, the Postal Service is now requesting a temporary preelection rate increase, from mid-October through Christmas, although not for first-class letters.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the two men would appear before the House committee. But it said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.

“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.

House Democrats are expected to discuss the lawmakers’ schedule details on a conference call on Monday and were likely to be in session next Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.

The legislation being prepared for the vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient, and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.

Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states. The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him reelection. The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.

On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.

But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of winning a second term.

“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, congressional Democrats said in a statement: “The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”

The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, Maloney’s committee had invited DeJoy to appear Sept. 17 at a hearing focusing on operational changes to the Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries.

But after Trump acknowledged in a Fox Business interview on Thursday that he’s starving the agency of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, the committee decided to move up their call for the appearance of DeJoy’ well as the governing board chair.

Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has quickly turned into a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office and make it great again.”

His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried on Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Biden.

“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Meadows said.

But Democrats said changes made by DeJoy constitute “a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The agency in the meantime is now seeking a short-term, end-of-the-year rate increase, according to a notice filed Friday with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The reasons: increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an expected increase in holiday mail volume.

The plan would raise prices on commercial domestic competitive parcels, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class package service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service.

Most of the proposed increases would be less than 10%. They range from 24 cents for Parcel Select Service, which starts at $3.05, to a $1.50 increase for Priority Mail Express Commercial, which starts at $22.75. The regulatory commission is expected to decide on the proposals next month.

The Postal Service is the country’s most popular government agency with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the service, according to a Pew Research Center Survey published in April.

“What concerns me is an all-out attack — they’re not even hiding it — by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows and Booker appeared on CNN’s ”State of the Union.”

___

Madhani reported from Bedminster, N.J. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/34coa3f

[thisdaynews]

BreakingCo News: Comrade Oshiomhole - Defectors are big masqueraders without electoral value

New Post has been published on https://www.thisdaynews.net/2018/07/25/breakingco-news-comrade-oshiomhole-defectors-are-big-masqueraders-without-electoral-value/

BreakingCo News: Comrade Oshiomhole - Defectors are big masqueraders without electoral value

The National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, on Tuesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari a few hours after some members of the party in the National Assembly dumped the party.

Oshiomhole told State House correspondents at the end of the meeting with the President that he and the party were not disturbed by the gale of defection.

He said, “My attitude is like I have told you before, as the National Chairman, I am committed to listening to very legitimate grievances and engaging all those who are aggrieved that we can see through their grievances, but I insist that I will not miss sleep for one minute over mercenary activities.

“I have said it and I want to repeat it that this business of governance must be driven by men and women of honour.

“If the only motivation is personal interest; ‘what is in it for me?’ ‘What have I gained?’ and ‘How many people have I done xyz for?’ If that is the basis, the earlier those in this business of personal gains return to where they belong, the better.

“This party that I am privileged to chair is not worried at all, we are not disturbed. I am not going to miss my sleep and we will go into the campaign.

“Check the electoral results, you will find that a lot of those who claimed to have defected, on a good day, the votes they got that made them members of the Senate, our President got much more votes in their constituencies. So, we are not fooled at all.

“The thing going on is that you have a lot of so-called big masqueraders with very little and no electoral value.”

Oshiomhole said he had tried his best in trying to give comfort to those who claimed to be aggrieved.

He however said he would not appease those who had other hidden agendas that were not negotiable.

He said those under such category were those who expected a level of personal return and the system was not delivering.

The party chairman said he was happy that over time, water would find its level.

He added, “If you remember what I said the day I formally declared my interest to contest; I said to be a progressive party means we must be clear that it cannot be a party for everyone.

“We have to be sure that you subscribe to the values and ideals of a progressive party. If indeed you belong to the extreme right, and you mistakenly find yourself in a progressive party, obviously that is not where you belong.

“As soon as you realise that you can’t adjust to the requirement of the progressive, which is people-driven, people-based, people-oriented and you choose to return to the right wing where you know that the name of the game is, share the money, it is your choice.”

On the adjournment of Senate plenary, Oshiomhole said it was their choice if the lawmakers found it more politically convenient to suspend the process of legislation ahead of time because it was not convenient for their political interests.

He also said he was not privy to the circumstances surrounding the reported siege at the houses of the Senate President and Deputy Senate President, hence he could not comment on it.

“To be very honest with you, it is better you formalise where you belong and be properly identified by your father’s name than purporting to bear my name and you are working for my opponent.

“Every observer knows that there has been opposition to this APC government, that opposition has come within the ranks of members of the APC, some in the National Assembly.

“I mean, how can we be in the majority for example and we use that majority to elect opposition to take the number two slots in our own party? How could we have been in the majority and the President makes nominations and those nominations are lying on the floor of the Senate and the Senate will not confirm those nominations?

“Even if that Senate was formally led by the opposition, the issue will be much clearer. But they have become much more complicated when those refusing to confirm the nominees purport to be members of our party. The earlier everybody properly identifies where he belongs in my view, the better.

“It is not in anybody’s interest, certainly not in the national interest that we continue to patch this democracy in a way that birds that are incompatible find themselves in the same nest.

“The point I have been trying to make is that we need to build a political party that goes beyond the platform for election. So, if you find that you can’t win because there is somebody in your constituency in the same party then you jump to other party so that you can win. And once the election is over we wait for the next four years, that’s not good enough,” he added.

[365footballorg-blog]

Moyes and Allardyce both uncertain over future

West Ham moved up two places in the Premier League table to finish 13th after a Manuel Lanzini-inspired win over Everton in what could be the final game in charge for both managers.

Striker Marko Arnautovic’s thumping second-half goal added to playmaker Lanzini’s opener before the break and David Moyes’ men ended a turbulent campaign on a high when the Argentine curled a third past Jordan Pickford near the end.

Everton, who pulled one back through Oumar Niasse, finished eighth after ninth-placed Leicester’s defeat[1] but some supporters chanted for manager Sam Allardyce to be sacked, as out-of-contract Moyes will also reflect on his next step.

West Ham goalkeeper Adrian made late saves to deny Niasse and Everton substitute Theo Walcott.

Moyes, who hinted his preference was to stay, said: “Everybody always thinks the grass is greener and there’s something better out there. I would say more often than not I bet you it’s proved wrong.

“We’ve shown we’re trying to improve. I don’t know if anybody can come and make that big a difference in six months. Even Pep Guardiola took a bit of time to get his team right.

“I’d think you’d need to give a bit longer. But every manager now is in transit. I don’t think there is a long period.”

Echoing that air of uncertainty – Allardyce gave a curt response to questions on his future. He said: “I can’t quite say confident after all the rumours I’m reading in the paper. Generally there’s no smoke without fire. We’ll wait and see when we meet up.”

West Ham defender James Collins, who is yet to sign a new deal and is out of contract in the summer, received a standing ovation when he replaced Aaron Cresswell near the end and wept at the final whistle, suggesting his 10 years of service over two spells may be coming to an end.

And the Hammers’ supporters cheered the players as they made their lap of appreciation around the London Stadium pitch in the sunshine, a markedly more upbeat atmosphere than at times this season.

Man City were behind in games for just 153 minutes this season – final-day stats round-up[2]

The Premier League table – from August to May[3]

Star man Arnie shines

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Seven points from the last three games and another impressive showing from Arnautovic ensured the Hammers signed off the campaign with a smile.

The Austrian forward was referred to as the “star man” by team-mate Cresswell afterwards and Moyes believes changing his role from the wing to up front was a turning point in their season.

“Maybe he wasn’t doing as much and tracking back on the wing,” said the Scot before Sunday’s win. “He’s been a sensation up front, he’s been playing as well as most strikers.”

The man they call ‘Arnie’ brushed past the visiting defence with ease to smash the second goal of the game past Pickford and led the line strongly throughout while also making five key passes.

Moyes’ ability to get the best out of a player who underwhelmed initially after joining from Stoke last summer certainly helped West Ham remain in the top flight.

Arnautovic scored 11 goals and applied himself consistently as the club pulled away from danger to secure survival last weekend.

Moyes could not add further clarity on his future after the final whistle but even if he departs, he can reflect on a job well done in his brief reign since taking over from Slaven Bilic in November.

Uncertainty lingers for Allardyce

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A change in manager ultimately ensured Premier League survival for both of these clubs, but fan unrest continues.

Some Evertonians have been unhappy with Allardyce’s reign in recent weeks, and those dissenters will not have been appeased with this result.

The former England boss started with a back three, bringing Argentina international Ramiro Funes Mori into his line-up next to Phil Jagielka and Michael Keane.

It didn’t work, however, as Lanzini scored an impressive opener and Arnautovic was allowed to turn and run at goal too easily in the build-up to his strike.

Despite changing to a back four in the second half, which brought Everton back into the contest for a while, they still conceded to Lanzini again when he got ahead of Seamus Coleman and curled a shot into the top corner.

Allardyce will point to key saves by Adrian which denied his men but supporters in the away end booed his decision to take off striker Cenk Tosun in the second half, with the Turk also visibly unhappy after receiving precious little service throughout.

Despite having more shots on target than the hosts, Everton came away with nothing.

“Overall we managed to seal eighth spot and a few more coffers in the pot for the club,” said Allardyce, who will meet the club’s owner Farhad Moshiri in the next few days.

Man of the match – Manuel Lanzini (West Ham)

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‘There is something to build on here’ – what they said

West Ham manager David Moyes said: “I can’t say (about the future) because I am no further forward. We will meet and talk next week, we haven’t arranged a date or a time.

“What will influence me? When you get good performances. It makes you feel ‘hey, there’s something to build on here’.”

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Everton manager Sam Allardyce, speaking to BBC Sport: “It is disappointing to lose the game when the chances we missed were better than the chances they scored with.

“But then you have to credit Adrian for being absolutely outstanding with three top-class saves.

“All three should have gone in – that’s where the difference was. I am pleased with the second half, not so pleased with the first half.”

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Moyes retains upper hand over Allardyce – the stats

David Moyes has won eight of his last nine meetings with Sam Allardyce in the competition (L1), including each of his last six in a row.

Allardyce has lost four of his last five final-day games (D1), with his last win coming with the Hammers against Reading in May 2013.

Allardyce lost his 200th Premier League game, becoming only the second manager to do so (after Harry Redknapp, 238 defeats).

West Ham’s 13th-place finish is their lowest since 2013-14 when they also finished 13th.

Everton have won just one of their last 15 away Premier League games in London (D6 L8), winning 1-0 at Crystal Palace in January 2017.

Manuel Lanzini has been directly involved in 11 Premier League goals this season (five goals, six assists), his best figures in an English top-flight campaign.

After failing to register a goal involvement in his first 11 Premier League games for West Ham, Marko Arnautovic scored 11 and assisted six in his following 20 appearances.

Arnautovic has scored 11 Premier League goals this season, the most by a West Ham player in a single top-flight campaign since Bobby Zamora in 2006-07 (also 11).

Oumar Niasse netted eight goals in the Premier League for Everton in 2017-18 – double his tally from his previous two top-flight campaigns (4).

Line-ups[4]

Match Stats[5]

Live Text[6]

Line-ups

West Ham

13Adrián

41Rice

21Ogbonna

3CresswellSubstituted forCollinsat 88'minutes

5Zabaleta

8Kouyaté

16Noble

26MasuakuSubstituted forFernandesat 21'minutes

18João Mário

10LanziniSubstituted forObiangat 86'minutes

7Arnautovic

Substitutes

9Carroll

14Obiang

17Hernández

19Collins

25Hart

27Evra

31Fernandes

Everton

1Pickford

4Keane

6Jagielka

25Funes MoriBooked at 16minsSubstituted forKlaassenat 45'minutes

2Schneiderlin

23Coleman

26DaviesSubstituted forBolasieat 83'minutes

17Gueye

3Baines

14TosunSubstituted forWalcottat 61'minutes

19Niasse

Substitutes

7Bolasie

11Walcott

15Martina

20Klaassen

30Holgate

33Robles

43Kenny

Referee:

Graham Scott

Attendance:

56,926

Match Stats

Home TeamWest HamAway TeamEverton

Possession

Home57%

Away43%

Shots

Home15

Away14

Shots on Target

Home4

Away7

Corners

Home6

Away6

Fouls

Home10

Away13

Live Text

Posted at

Match ends, West Ham United 3, Everton 1.

Full Time

Posted at 90'+3'

Second Half ends, West Ham United 3, Everton 1.

Posted at 90'+3'

Attempt missed. James Collins (West Ham United) header from the centre of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by João Mário with a cross following a corner.

Posted at 90'+2'

Corner, West Ham United. Conceded by Leighton Baines.

Posted at 90'+2'

Mark Noble (West Ham United) wins a free kick on the right wing.

Posted at 90'+2'

Foul by Davy Klaassen (Everton).

Posted at 90'

Foul by Marko Arnautovic (West Ham United).

Posted at 90'

Phil Jagielka (Everton) wins a free kick in the defensive half.

Substitution

Posted at 88'

Substitution, West Ham United. James Collins replaces Aaron Cresswell.

Posted at 88'

Edimilson Fernandes (West Ham United) wins a free kick on the left wing.

Posted at 88'

Foul by Idrissa Gueye (Everton).

Posted at 87'

Edimilson Fernandes (West Ham United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.

Posted at 87'

Foul by Yannick Bolasie (Everton).

Substitution

Posted at 86'

Substitution, West Ham United. Pedro Obiang replaces Manuel Lanzini.

Posted at 85'

Corner, Everton. Conceded by Adrián.

Posted at 85'

Attempt saved. Oumar Niasse (Everton) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the top right corner.

Posted at 85'

Attempt saved. Theo Walcott (Everton) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Oumar Niasse with a through ball.

Posted at 84'

Offside, Everton. Oumar Niasse tries a through ball, but Theo Walcott is caught offside.

Substitution

Posted at 83'

Substitution, Everton. Yannick Bolasie replaces Tom Davies.

Goal!

Posted at 82'

Goal! West Ham United 3, Everton 1. Manuel Lanzini (West Ham United) right footed shot from the left side of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Pablo Zabaleta.

Posted at 80'

Attempt blocked. Declan Rice (West Ham United) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by João Mário.

Posted at 79'

João Mário (West Ham United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.

Posted at 79'

Foul by Tom Davies (Everton).

Posted at 78'

Corner, West Ham United. Conceded by Leighton Baines.

Posted at 78'

Attempt blocked. Edimilson Fernandes (West Ham United) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.

Posted at 77'

Corner, West Ham United. Conceded by Leighton Baines.

Posted at 76'

Attempt missed. Pablo Zabaleta (West Ham United) left footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Marko Arnautovic.

Goal!

Posted at 74'

Goal! West Ham United 2, Everton 1. Oumar Niasse (Everton) right footed shot from very close range to the bottom right corner following a corner.

Posted at 73'

Corner, Everton. Conceded by Aaron Cresswell.

Posted at 73'

Attempt blocked. Morgan Schneiderlin (Everton) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Idrissa Gueye.

Posted at 73'

Attempt saved. Oumar Niasse (Everton) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Davy Klaassen.

Posted at 73'

Attempt blocked. João Mário (West Ham United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Marko Arnautovic.

Posted at 72'

Foul by João Mário (West Ham United).

Posted at 72'

Phil Jagielka (Everton) wins a free kick in the defensive half.

Posted at 69'

Offside, West Ham United. Aaron Cresswell tries a through ball, but Marko Arnautovic is caught offside.

Posted at 68'

Cheikhou Kouyaté (West Ham United) wins a free kick on the left wing.

Posted at 68'

Foul by Idrissa Gueye (Everton).

Posted at 67'

Foul by Pablo Zabaleta (West Ham United).

Posted at 67'

Tom Davies (Everton) wins a free kick in the attacking half.

Posted at 65'

Offside, West Ham United. Manuel Lanzini tries a through ball, but Marko Arnautovic is caught offside.

Show more updates

goal

References

^ ninth-placed Leicester’s defeat (www.bbc.co.uk)

^ Man City were behind in games for just 153 minutes this season – final-day stats round-up (www.bbc.co.uk)

^ The Premier League table – from August to May (www.facebook.com)

^ Line-ups (www.bbc.co.uk)

^ Match Stats (www.bbc.co.uk)

^ Live Text (www.bbc.co.uk)

BBC Sport – Football

Moyes and Allardyce both uncertain over future was originally published on 365 Football

[itsfinancethings]

(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is calling the House back into session over the crisis at the U.S. Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns that the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.

Pelosi is cutting short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected the Saturday after the Democratic National Convention on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency as tensions mount. President Donald Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new prices and cutbacks just as millions of Americans will be trying to vote by mail to avoid polling places during the coronavirus outbreak.

“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been expected to be out of session until September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”

The decision to recall the House, made after a weekend of high-level leadership discussions, carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.

Earlier Sunday, Democratic lawmakers demanded that leaders of the Postal Service testify at an emergency oversight hearing Aug. 24 on mail delays.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said it wants to hear from DeJoy and from the chair of the Postal Service board of governors, Robert “Mike” Duncan.

With heightened scrutiny of its operations, the Postal Service is now requesting a temporary preelection rate increase, from mid-October through Christmas, although not for first-class letters.

The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the two men would appear before the House committee. But it said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away.

“Given the recent customer concerns the Postal Service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Postal Service spokeswoman Kimberly Frum said.

House Democrats are expected to discuss the lawmakers’ schedule details on a conference call on Monday and were likely to be in session next Saturday, a senior Democratic aide said on condition of anonymity because the plans were private.

The legislation being prepared for the vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.

DeJoy, a major Republican donor and ally of the president who took control of the agency in June, has pledged to modernize the money-losing agency to make it more efficient, and has eliminated most overtime for postal workers, imposed restrictions on transportation and reduced of the quantity and use of mail-processing equipment.

Trump said last week that he was blocking a $25 billion emergency injection sought by the Postal Service, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states. The Republican president worries that mail-in voting could cost him reelection. The money for the post office is intended to help with processing an expected surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package.

On Saturday, Trump tried to massage his message, saying he supports increasing money for the Postal Service. He said he was refusing to capitulate to Democrats on other parts of the relief package, including funding for states weighed down by debt accumulated before the pandemic.

But the president’s critics were not appeased, contending that Trump has made the calculation that a lower voter turnout would improve his chances of winning a second term.

“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, congressional Democrats said in a statement: “The postmaster general and top Postal Service leadership must answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”

The lawmakers included Pelosi of California and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the committee chair, along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, Maloney’s committee had invited DeJoy to appear Sept. 17 at a hearing focusing on operational changes to the Postal Service that are causing delays in mail deliveries.

But after Trump acknowledged in a Fox Business interview on Thursday that he’s starving the agency of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, the committee decided to move up their call for the appearance of DeJoy’ well as the governing board chair.

Funding a cash-strapped Postal Service has quickly turned into a top campaign issue as Trump presses his unsupported claim that increased mail-in voting will undermine the credibility of the election and Democrats push back.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his New Jersey golf club, derided universal mail-in voting as a “scam” and defended DeJoy as the right person to “streamline the post office and make it great again.”

His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tried on Sunday to counter criticism that Trump was trying to stifle turnout with national and battleground state polls showing him facing a difficult path to reelection against Biden.

“I’ll give you that guarantee right now: The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else,” Meadows said.

But Democrats said changes made by DeJoy constitute “a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The agency in the meantime is now seeking a short-term, end-of-the-year rate increase, according to a notice filed Friday with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The reasons: increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an expected increase in holiday mail volume.

The plan would raise prices on commercial domestic competitive parcels, including Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class package service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service.

Most of the proposed increases would be less than 10%. They range from 24 cents for Parcel Select Service, which starts at $3.05, to a $1.50 increase for Priority Mail Express Commercial, which starts at $22.75. The regulatory commission is expected to decide on the proposals next month.

The Postal Service is the country’s most popular government agency with 91% of Americans having a favorable opinion of the service, according to a Pew Research Center Survey published in April.

“What concerns me is an all-out attack — they’re not even hiding it — by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Sanders was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while Meadows and Booker appeared on CNN’s ”State of the Union.”

___

Madhani reported from Bedminster, N.J. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.