Trump has vowed to block emergency funding of $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service necessary to allow it to handle and process expected enormous increases in mailed ballots as a result of the coronavirus crisis, and $3.5 billion for election security due to the high price tag.
His comments came on top of complaints that his newly-appointed postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, is making steep- cuts in the service in the name of reducing costs. Trump has reshaped the US postal Service in his own image – getting the Board of Directors to appoint the North Carolina businessman and Trump campaign donor to the helm.
These cost-cutting measures include cutbacks in the number and use of mail processing equipment, declassifying election mail as first class, altering mail sorting and delivery policies, restricting mail delivery, and reducing overtime for postal workers. This will end up making it harder to vote by mail because the USPS is already saying there will be a delay in sorting the mail-in ballots.
Blatent interference
But isn’t it strange that the new Postmaster General and his “cost-cutting” measures come at this particular time? Trump is doing very badly in the polls, swamped by the worst public health crisis this country has seen in over 100 years. He has been deprived of the economic gains he promised his supporters, and now is actively trying his best to sway the upcoming election in his favor.
“If it’s not going to be an honest and fair election, people really need to think long and hard about it,” Trump said Thursday in some of the most foreboding and loaded comments ever uttered by a leader of the world’s most powerful democracy, reports CNN News.
According to the BBC, Trump blatantly said his reason for blocking the $25 billion in emergency funds was due to his opposition to mail-in ballots.
“They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent. That’s election money, basically,” Trump said in a telephone interview with Fox Business News.“Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he continued.
“Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”
Just who is the actual criminal here?
I will not rehash all the false information, conspiracy theories, outright lies or racist comments made by Trump lately. Everyone has heard or read them too many times, and it is sickening. Now he is politicizing the coronavirus pandemic by playing on voter fear over mingling in a crowd at the polls.
He is making outrageous claims that the most corrupt election in US history is looming. Trump is spewing outright lies in an effort to stir up dissent – blaming anyone but himself for the interference.
The NAACP asserts that Trump has “attacked voting by mail generally, repeating false claims that mail-in ballots lead to fraud which have been widely disproven. He has specifically stated that allowing voting by mail would harm his reelection chances.”
Every voter in America should be up in arms over what this despicable man is doing to our country, and he is blatantly telling the whole world why he is doing it – Because he might lose the election. Congress must stand up as a body, and do their damned job of protecting our country.
This fight is now non-partisan. Trump should be impeached and Congress has the power to stop him. It doesn’t matter what your political bent may be. Our Constitution and very lives are now under threat and no one seems to care.
