SUNDAY NOTE: Save the United States Postal ServiceThe president is trying to steal the election, he said so himself.
This newsletter is produced w/ Zach Peterson (@zachprague). Scroll down for Read Something; Watch Something; Tech Tips; and a weekly tech tip from Robert S. Anthony (@newyorkbob). TUNE IN: Today’s Sunday NYT Readaalong is special. My guest is Veronica Chambers, Editor of Narrative Projects at The New York Times and co-author of “Finish the Fight!” a history of the American suffrage movement for middle-grade readers. It will be an amazing show! 8:30-10:15 am ET – watch live or later. The best way to know when I’m on the air, and see all my archived Covid19 shows, is to subscribe to my YouTube channel. We’ve been going for 158 straight days and we have no plans of stopping! My Digimentors team is working with companies and nonprofits around the world to create virtual events. We’ve worked on events for 50 people and 100,000 people. See our new brochure. Don’t cancel or postpone your conference – contact us! sree@sree.net *** Right this second, the president is crippling the Postal Service (USPS) so that he will win the election on November 3rd. His goal is to make it hard-to-impossible to vote by mail across the country, severely depress turnout, and steal the election. It’s not speculation. He said it on TV. In Oregon, it’s already happening.  Mailboxes update: A Eugene resident told me the outbound slots in his neighborhood’s mailbox have been locked shut. He said residents don’t have individual boxes, so to send mail, they either have to find a roadside dropbox or risk a trip to the PO. Nationwide, it’s ramping up as well. According to the Washington Post, 46 states and the District of Columbia have already received letters from the USPS saying it “cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted.” With the Senate out of session for the month (without passing a new Covid19 relief bill, of course), recourse lies with the states — specifically state attorneys general. This feels like the 1000th time over the last 3+ years that we’ve had to rely on another branch of government to save us from the president’s corruption-laden whims and, once again, it’s on an issue absolutely fundamental to the functioning of the country. Per the Washington Post report, 671 USPS mail sorting machines have been removed across the country since over the last two months – a reduction in national mail sorting capacity of 21.4 million pieces of mail per hour. Soon, that will include ballots for the presidential election. Right now, it means late medicine, late paychecks, late Social Security/Medicare funds, and a lot more. Please write, call, email, text — whatever you can do — your senators and representatives and put pressure on them to get involved and stop this madness. After you do that, go to your state’s secretary of state’s office (or whatever state agency manages elections) and check out every option you have to vote. Some tweets to note:  Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen The Postal Workers Union is done fucking around. https://t.co/MDB2e8LGU9 Here’s a great thread from my friend Vanita Gupta, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, with avenues for you to reach out: Make some calls. I’m going to. – Sree Read SomethingThis spot is usually reserved for a particularly poignant piece of writing, but I’m invoking editorial privilege and sharing my recent piece for Newsday; it’s all about why Kamala Harris is an excellent choice for VP. Read it and let me know what you think!  I’m not sure where he found the time for this, but here’s hubby @sree on the significance of Kamala Harris’s selection in @Newsday |
