USPS Mail Delays, Chicago Shootings, and DC Confusion

 #Haley Sweetland Edwards, "Undeliverable" TIME, August 31/September 2020.

"The Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged that prescription drugs mailed to  veterans via USPS had been delayed by a average of almost 25% over the past year." "In all, more than 159 million registered voters live in the 40 states that received the mot urgent warnings according to the Washington 'Post.' " 

"In 2001, the USPS moved more than 103.7 billion pieces of first-class mail; in 2019, the number was almost half that, at 55 billion." "In 2018, the White House suggested for the USPS a 'future conversion from a government agency into a privately held corporation.' "

"According to an Axios-Ipso poll in August, 47% of voters supporting Vice President Joe Biden said they planned to vote by mail compared with just 11% of Trump supporters."  

#W.J. Hennigan, "Battle field Chicago," TIME, August/September 2020.

"Tempers flared, particularly in the South Side and West Side communities, where a legacy of segregation, police discrimination, failed schools and misguided public-housing policy have thwarted advancement of Black families for generations." But locals close to the ground, including mayors, are in position to tell the difference between damage done by a protest that spins out of control -- and by those simply using social unrest as cover for personal gain." 

"After decades of declining cities across the U.S. are experiencing a spike in shootings and homicides this summer." "The 443 homicides recorded in Chicago through July were a 53% increase over a year earlier. (New York City, with three times the population, had just 244 murders)." "Police say there are 117,000 gang member across the city, which counts 55 known gangs." "Now during the pandemic, gun sales are hitting record highs across the country. FBI background checks, a proxy to track  sales, have surged." "Chicago police have seized more than 6,400 guns, a pace set to match the 10,000 confiscated last year." 

"A 2017 Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation found officers in the city had acted with 'a pattern and practice of excessive force,' disproportionally targeting people of color in stops, searches, arrests and shootings including the notorious 2014 killing of 17-year-old Laquen McDonald."

#The CDC once said that anyone who has contact with an infected person should get tested. It then changed this policy and modified guidelines to exclude persons with no symptoms. The CDC didn't, however, change its website -- all the DC had to do was change one sentence. Tom Friedman, former head of the CDC, has said that the White House is preventing the CDC from changing its guidelines.

The CDC may have exceeded its authority by issuing an order banning landlords from evicting tenants that can no longer pay rent due to a pandemic-related expense or hardship through the end of 2020. This is a test of CDC's power that will likely prompt  several legal challenges. Advocates for both tenants and the real estate industry fear that the expiring at the end of the year could create a dangerous housing crisis at the start of 2021.

ADDENDUMS:

*In 2019,when union membership in the U.S. fell to 10.1%, it was 90.4% in Iceland, 66.1% in Sweden, 54.2% in Belgium, 34.3% in Italy, 25.9% in Canada, 24.2% in Ireland, and 23.2% in Britain. In a 2020 report, the International Trade Union Confederation, representing 200 million workers in 163 countries, ranked the U.S. as the worst among the nations with the world's leading economies for workers' rights.  

*Josiah Bates, "The police are a broken legacy..." TIME, August 17/24, 2020.

"In the past three months [back to June 2020] Trump allies alone got between double and triple the Facebook interactions of all these Democrats combined..." 'There's no doubt that Democrats are fighting an uphill digital battle, outspent and outgunned. But they're betting their adversary may self-destruct."

*The CBO finds that this year's deficit will reach $3.3 trillion, more than double the $1.4 trillion in 2009 during the Great Recession.

*Trump created 6.6 million jobs in his first 3 years, while Obama created 8.1 million jobs in his last three years. Trump lagged behind Eisenhower, Johnson, and Clinton on job creation.