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Letter carriers and voting rights advocates are warning that sabotage of the US Postal Service by the Trump administration and new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a major Republican donor to the president — could imperil the agency’s ability to deliver mail-in ballots on time, potentially impacting the results of the November elections.
“I’m actually terrified to see election season under the new procedure,” Lori Cash, president of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) Local 183 in Western New York, told the Washington Post.
The Post reported Thursday that key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are already experiencing significant mail delays due to DeJoy’s changes, which include overtime cuts and a new pilot program that bars postal workers from sorting mail in the morning.
“The cardinal rule is, ‘don’t delay the mail,’ and we’re in a 180-degree switch where we’re delaying mail every day,” said Cash. If DeJoy’s system isn’t fixed before election season, Cash warned, “it’s going to be a catastrophe at the Post Office.”
The Post noted that any delay in “delivering ballots to voters and then returning them to election officials could cause people to be disenfranchised — especially in states that require ballots to be returned by Election Day.”
“Already, tens of thousands of ballots across the country have been disqualified in this year’s primaries, many because they did not arrive in time,” the Post reported. “In Wisconsin, 2,659 ballots that were returned after the April 13 deadline for the spring primary were not counted due to their late arrival.”
Wendy Fields, executive director of the Democracy Initiative, a coalition of voting rights organizations, said in a statement earlier this month that “slower mail service is unfair — and dangerous — for the millions of Americans who rely on the mail for food, medicine, medical supplies, unemployment checks and other critical mail and packages.”
“Slowing down our Postal Service also could interfere with this year’s election,” Fields said. “Voting by mail has become more popular than ever — and 34 states require ballots to be received — not just postmarked — by Election Day.”
Trump is attacking the very machinery of government that makes legitimate elections possible in a pandemic. https://t.co/e32GkVGRIc
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 31, 2020
An anonymous postal worker from California told the Post that if major mail backlogs persist, “there’s no telling how many days-worth of delays there could be” come election time.
“I mean, we’ll be delivering political mail days after the election,” the worker said.
Anticipating that mail delays are likely to continue, the USPS recommended in a statement this week that localities “immediately communicate and advise voters to request ballots at the earliest point allowable but no later than 15 days prior to election date.”
Warnings from postal workers come as President Donald Trump continues to peddle unfounded claims about the prevalence of vote-by-mail fraud. On Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, Trump floated the possibility of the delaying the November election, claiming without evidence that the surge in mail-in ballots will cause “the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history.”
While the president does not have the authority to delay elections, critics said Trump’s comments represent yet another insidious attempt to undermine trust in the electoral process.
The New Yorker’s Steve Coll wrote Wednesday that Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy of the November election combined with his administration’s undermining of the US Postal Service “raise obvious questions about whether the management of voting by mail will be manipulated in service of Trump’s reelection.”
In a tweet Friday, Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman wrote that “Trump’s unprecedented politicization and gutting of USPS is a much greater threat to American democracy than his bogus call to delay the election.”
Trump’s gutting of USPS could lead to 1000s of ballots thrown out. “If they keep this up until the election, there’s no telling how many days-worth of delays there could be. I mean, we’ll be delivering political mail days after the election” a postal worker from California said.
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) July 31, 2020
In April, Trump called the USPS “a joke” and demanded that the agency dramatically raise package prices during the Covid-19 pandemic.
With the USPS at risk of running out of cash by the end of September, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced Thursday that he reached a deal with DeJoy to give the Postal Service access to $10 billion in funding approved by Congress in March.
Democratic lawmakers warned in a joint statement late Thursday that the terms of the agreement would “would inappropriately insert the Treasury into the internal operations of the Postal Service.”
“Secretary Mnuchin and the leadership of the US Postal Service appear to be exploiting this public health pandemic to hold the Postal Service to unreasonable loan terms without even consulting Congress,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). “We will not stop fighting to protect this critical service that communities depend on and to ensure that every American can safely participate in the November elections.”
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Yandel, con Rubén Blades y Snoop Dogg – Fama
https://youtu.be/J75swU_SKcU
Ela Minus – megapunk
https://youtu.be/M35HLWF6PeA
Ngiyazfela & Mlindo The Vocalist – Donald
https://youtu.be/Bus8sMSjdiA
Churupaca – Miren
https://youtu.be/a_5Uj990-Uo
Edgar Mondragón – Estaba Brava la Luna
https://youtu.be/16FT0tPRFKA
Residente – René
https://youtu.be/O4f58BU_Hbs
Estación Sub_Trópico – Synthetaicer
https://youtu.be/EJFzHRWh5k8
Lila Tirando a Violeta & Lighght – Dry Season
https://youtu.be/pt3zErELC2g
Kafu Banton – WOYABENG
https://youtu.be/nFyqTX9ZdF8
Afro Soul Beat – Day 6 Lockdown Beats
https://youtu.be/NuWcsHKRtD0
Aalok Bala – Moon Juice
https://youtu.be/HSV7NXkvOIQ
Dj Xtreme – Mix Plena Panamá 2019
https://youtu.be/0MZmRjvQH94
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Investigadores del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI) en Panamá han publicado en Global Change Biology impresionantes mapas que muestran la ubicación de impactos de rayos en los trópicos. Basado en datos de tierra y satélite, estiman que más de 100 millones de estos impactos en tierra al año alterarán radicalmente los bosques y otros ecosistemas en la región entre el Trópico de Cáncer y el Trópico de Capricornio.
“Los rayos influyen en la capacidad de los bosques para almacenar biomasa y, por lo tanto, carbono, porque tienden a impactar los árboles más grandes”, comentó Evan Gora, becario postdoctoral en STRI que recientemente terminó su doctorado en la Universidad de Louisville. “Y los rayos también pueden ser muy importantes en los ecosistemas de sabana”.
Debido a que los rayos son tan difíciles de estudiar, se han pasado por alto como agentes de cambio en los bosques tropicales, donde los investigadores enfocan su energía en perturbaciones más obvias como sequías, incendios y fuertes vientos.
En un estudio anterior, el primero en examinar los efectos de los rayos en un paisaje de bosque tropical, el mismo equipo descubrió que en un bosque panameño, los rayos probablemente matan a la mitad de los árboles más grandes. El ecologista tropical Steve Yanoviak, coautor del estudio y profesor de la Universidad de Louisville que estudiaba hormigas en el dosel del bosque tropical, y a menudo pensaba en el papel de los rayos mientras trepaba árboles, invitó a los investigadores de rayos Jeffrey Burchfield y Phillip Bitzer de la Universidad de Alabama en Huntsville a instalar detectores de rayos en la Estación de Investigación de STRI en Isla Barro Colorado.
“Descubrimos que, en promedio, un rayo impacta un total de 23.6 árboles y mata a 5.5 de estos árboles en un año”, comentó Yanoviak.
Ahora el equipo se pregunta cómo los rayos afectan los ecosistemas tropicales en todas partes. Gora dirigió el esfuerzo de mapear los recuentos de rayos basados en imágenes de la Red Global de Rayos de Earth Networks (ENGLN) en un mapa de ecosistemas tropicales creado usando categorías de cobertura terrestre del Programa Internacional de Geosfera-Biosfera y el Espectro-radiómetro de Resolución Moderada (MODIS) de modelado climático.
Basado en datos satelitales sobre las ubicaciones de los impactos y los efectos sobre el terreno alrededor de 92 rayos, incluidos muchos del estudio anterior, Gora y sus colegas estimaron que los rayos dañan aproximadamente 832 millones de árboles tropicales cada año. Aproximadamente una cuarta parte de los árboles probablemente mueren a causa de sus afectaciones.
Gora y sus colegas luego se preguntaron si había una conexión entre la cantidad de rayos y el tipo de ecosistema, su biomasa y las variables climáticas como la lluvia y la temperatura. Descubrieron que los rayos eran más frecuentes en bosques, sabanas y áreas urbanas que en pastizales, matorrales y tierras de cultivo.
Los bosques que experimentan más rayos cada año tienen menos árboles grandes por hectárea, tal vez porque los árboles grandes individuales en estos bosques se destacan más, tienen tasas más altas de rotación de biomasa leñosa (más biomasa arbórea muere cada año) y menos biomasa aérea total.
Pero quedan más interrogantes candentes. Nadie sabe por qué algunos árboles sobreviven a los rayos mientras otros mueren, aunque es probable que los árboles hayan desarrollado formas de hacer frente a una amenaza tan común.
Y, a medida que el cambio climático se acelera, el aire contaminado y caliente sobre las ciudades también puede aumentar el número de rayos allí. ¿Cuáles serán los efectos sobre la vegetación en las zonas urbanas?
“Esta es la mejor evidencia hasta la fecha de que los rayos son una perturbación importante que influye en la dinámica y estructura de los bosques tropicales”, comentó la científica de STRI y coautora del estudio, Helene Muller-Landau, “Sospechamos que nuestro estudio subestima enormemente el efecto total de los rayos. Los rayos pueden desempeñar un papel importante en el ciclo de la biomasa forestal/carbono, no solo en los bosques tropicales sino también en otros ecosistemas tropicales”.
Referencia: Gora, E.M., Burchfield, J.C., Muller-Landau, H.C., et al. 2020. Pantropical geography of lightning-caused disturbance and its implications for tropical forests. Global Change Biology, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15227
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Since the days of painting on cave walls, people have been representing information through figures and images. Nowadays, data visualization experts know that presenting information visually helps people better understand complicated data. The problem is that data visualizations can also leave you with the wrong idea – whether the images are sloppily made or intentionally misleading.
Take for example the bar graph presented at an April 6 press briefing by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. It’s titled “COVID-19 testing in the U.S.” and illustrates almost 2 million coronavirus tests completed up to that point. President Trump used the graph to support his assertion that testing was “going up at a rapid rate.” Based on this graphic many viewers likely took away the same conclusion – but it is incorrect.
The graph shows the total cumulative number of tests performed over months, not the number of new tests each day.
When you graph the number of new tests by date, you can see the number of COVID-19 tests performed between March and April did increase through time, but not rapidly. This instance is one of many when important information was not properly understood or well communicated.
As a researcher of hazard and risk communication, I think a lot about how people interpret the charts, graphs and maps they encounter daily.
Whether they show COVID-19 cases, global warming trends, high-risk tsunami zones, or utility usage, being able to correctly assess and interpret figures allows you to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, not all figures are created equal.
If you can spot a figure’s pitfalls you can avoid the bad ones. Consider the following three key questions the next time you see a graph, map or other data visual so you can confidently decide what to do with that new nugget of information.
Start by reading the title, looking at the labels and checking the caption. If these are not available – be very wary. Labels will be on the horizontal and vertical axes on graphs or in a legend on maps. People often overlook them, but this information is crucial for putting everything you see in the visualization into context.
Look at the units of measure – are they in days or years, Celsius or Fahrenheit, counts, age, or what? Are they evenly spaced along the axis? Many of the recent COVID-19 cumulative case graphs use a logarithmic scale, where the the intervals along the vertical axis are not equally spaced. This creates confusion for people unfamiliar with this format.
For instance, a graph from “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, showed coronavirus cases in the United States between Jan. 21 and March 11. The x-axis units on the horizontal are time (in a month-day format) and the y-axis units on the vertical are presumably cumulative case counts, though it does not specify.
The main issue with this graph is that the time periods between consecutive dates are uneven.
In a revised graph, with dates properly spaced through time, and coronavirus diagnoses plotted as a line graph, you can see more clearly what exponential growth in the rate of infection really looks like. It took the first 30 days to add 33 cases, but only the last four to add 584 cases.
What may seem like a slight difference could help people understand how quickly exponential growth can go sky high and maybe change how they perceive the importance of curbing it.
Color plays an important role in how people interpret information. Color choices can make you notice particular patterns or draw your eye to certain aspects of a graphic.
Consider two maps depicting landslide susceptibility, which are exactly the same except for reversed color schemes. Your eye may be be drawn to darker shades, intuitively seeing those areas as at higher risk. After looking at the legend, which color order do you think best represents the information? By paying attention to how color is used, you can better understand how it influences what stands out to you and what you perceive.
Shape, size and orientation of features can also influence how you interpret a figure.
Pie charts, like this one showing employment breakdown for a region, are notoriously difficult to parse. Notice how hard it is to pull out which employment category is highest or how they rank. The pie chart’s wedges are not organized by size, there are too many categories (11!), the 3D perspective distorts the wedge sizes, and some wedges are separate from others making size comparisons almost impossible.
The source of data matters in terms of quality and reliability. This is especially true for partisan or politicized data. If the data are collected from a group that isn’t a good approximation of the population as a whole, then it may be biased.
For example, on March 18, Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs polled his audience with the question “How would you grade President Trump’s leadership in the nation’s fight against the Wuhan Virus?”
Imagine if only Republicans were asked this question and how the results would compare if only Democrats were asked. In this case, respondents were part of a self-selecting group who already chose to watch Dobbs’ show. The poll can only tell you about that group’s opinions, not people in the U.S. generally, for instance.
Then consider that Dobbs provided only positive responses in his multiple choice options – “superb, great or very good” – and it is clear that this data has a bias.
Spotting bias and improper data collection methods allows you to decide which information is trustworthy.
During this pandemic, information is emerging hour by hour. Media consumers are inundated with facts, charts, graphs and maps every day. If you can take a moment to ask yourself a few questions about what you see in these data visualizations, you may walk away with a completely different conclusion than you might have had at first glance.
Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, PhD Candidate in Geosciences, Boise State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Just talking to the FBI doesn’t necessarily mean an agreement or a disposition to cooperate with them. Generally, however, when someone in a position to spend millions of dollars on a criminal defense effort breaks his or her silence when approached by the FBI it’s either a foolish move or an indication of a readiness to strike a deal. Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares did talk to the FBI. The two could get 20 years each if the books gets thrown on the money laundering and conspiracy charges, so there might be a temptation to sing in exchange for leniency. See the two affidavits and the complaint, in PDF format, Below:
Affidavit with respect to Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares
Affidavid with respect to Ricardo Alberto Martinelli Linares
The complaint in the case, which is likely to be amended
Do keep in mind, presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty, both as to the sons and the father, the latter who may or may not be charged. The Martinelli Linares brothers are fighting extradition from Guatemala to the United States, where if granted they would face trial before a US federal district court in Brooklyn. Guatemalan courts have never denied a US extradition request.
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It’s a long and complicated bilateral relationship, now featuring two deeply troubled countries. Are Panamanians over blaming the Gringos for everything that goes wrong here? Are Panamanian over the expectation that it takes the Americans to resolve Panama’s most serious problems?
The main truth of the matter is that Panamanians are the only ones who can save Panama. But it’s also true that we are the crossroads of the world, necessarily intermingled with, helping and being helped by other nations on this planet. Even when we are hurting, even when our old partners are hurting.
US hospitals have their own shortages. The United States has suffered a terrible death toll in this pandemic. It’s a suffering USA that extends a helping hand. Just as a suffering Panama has to give up on hosting some important sporting events that would have helped to rebuild our tourism, but we have not renounced our role of playing host to the regional humanitarian relief hub at Howard. It’s the wounded helping the wounded. What can we say?
Thanks, Uncle Sam – for starters.
“Nobody likes me. It could only be my personality. I don’t know.” Thus spake the president of the United States.
You know, there’s an American tradition about that. Now that Donald Trump can sit in the White House gardens with enhanced privacy, he has the opportunity to learn what he apparently never did in nursery school.
Life is not just receiving, it is giving. No matter how messed up you are, you always have something to give.
Pepe Mujica
When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the “division” of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
Simone de Beauvoir
At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organizational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognized by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic “men of destiny.”
Antonio Gramsci
We women live a moment of transition, of yearnings and grievances.
Clara González
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In a floor speech late Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described the GOP’s newly released coronavirus stimulus package as a “carefully tailored” plan to provide financial relief to desperate Americans.
But a look at the legislative text (pdf) released by Senate Republicans shows the HEALS Act is replete with massive gifts to the Pentagon and defense contractors that would do nothing to aid the unemployed, provide nutrition assistance to hungry children, prevent an avalanche of evictions, or stop the spread of coronavirus.
“Last time I checked F-35s don’t help families pay their bills,” Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) tweeted in response to the GOP’s proposal of $686 million in spending on new fighter jets.
The legislation also includes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for surveillance planes, Apache helicopters, and armored vehicles.
Just how twisted is the Senate GOP #coronavirus bill you ask?
It includes $686 million for new #F35 fighter jets. As you know, fighter jets are well known for their pandemic fighting abilities.
— Stephen Miles (@SPMiles42) July 27, 2020
The HEALS Act proposes a total of $29.4 billion in new military spending just a week after the House and Senate approved a $740.5 billion Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2021.
Meanwhile, as Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, the Republican package includes no money for state and local governments, election assistance, or the U.S. Postal Service. The legislation would also slash the weekly federal unemployment insurance boost from $600 to $200.
The Senate Republican plan:
– $29,400,000,000 for the Pentagon
– $0 for hazard pay
– $0 for nutrition assistance
– $0 for the uninsured/under-insured
– $0 for the Postal Service
– $0 for state and local governments
– 100% deduction for three-martini CEO lunchesWhat a disaster.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 27, 2020
Roll Call’s John Donnelly reported Monday that “Senate Republicans have laced their roughly $1 trillion coronavirus relief package with at least $7 billion for weapons, most of which are built by leading contractors that contribute heavily to congressional campaigns.”
According to Donnelly:
The draft appropriations portion, made public Monday evening, includes money for fighter jets, helicopters, radars, ships, and armored vehicles that the measure’s authors have deemed “emergency” spending that is not capped by the budget control law…
The top two defense contractors, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., would do especially well under the measure.
The list of weapons is topped by fully $1 billion for an unstated number of Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance jets. Also on the list is $283 million for Boeing Apache helicopters for the Army.
Boeing’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense anti-missile system, which is aimed at intercepting incoming ballistic missiles from sites in Alaska and California, would receive $200 million, and $243 million more would go to a missile defense radar program.
“People are dying, or worried about keeping a roof over their families’ heads, or cutting hours because their kids’ schools are closed,” said Anthony Weir, a lobbyist on nuclear disarmament and Pentagon spending at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “And this is the time to jam some military procurement into this year that you didn’t get last year?”
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Remaining indifferent to what is happening, rather than difficult, is impossible. However, the Panamanian people address our misfortune with a sick complicity. This is the result of decades of inequalities that have been increasing, qualitatively and quantitatively, over the years.
Today, as the first COVID-19 wave intensifies in our midst, we cannot afford to continue with the dehumanized logic of individual benefit. Those who govern today, their followers and above all, the most troglodyte group in the business sector, persist in that sort of thinking with zero social awareness.
We must recover the courage to feel and be part of a community that cannot accept borders or flags. But the Cortizo-Carrizo administration, in each and every one of its decrees and resolutions over the last six months (without forgetting the first six), seeks to atomize society and promoted labor insecurity, along with isolation, indifference and confrontations.
They have loved us, they want us to believe. Also, that the social, economic, health, and education problems (etc.) first came to us with the pandemic. Worst of all, they’d have us believe that these problems can be solved by individual choices.
They cackle “wash your hands” while IDAAN cuts the water. They say “stay at home,” with 80 bucks and a food package that doesn’t reach everyone who should get them. It all confirms the how little respect those in power have for human dignity.
Today, when the dead number over a thousand and the infected in the tens of thousands, when the hospitals have collapsed, the morgues are overflowing, the cemeteries have no space and unemployment and hunger are the lot of so many Panamanians, the previous balance leads us to react, to arm ourselves with civic courage, to shed these faint-hearted leeches from the national treasury, to demand a change,
But not the Gatopardo change, so that nothing changes. No! A 180º turn is required. Only a truly participatory constituent process can do that. There is nothing more worthy than fighting for what is just. To do that we must remove the unjust who misgovern us.
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