How it Will All End ... As it Does in Most Banana Republics Like the USA

Members of the Armed Forces of the United States take the following oath:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

While it does eventually get around to mentioning obeying the orders of the President of the United States, this oath’s phrasing clearly describes its primary pledge in its first words where it states that the person taking this oath “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That duty, sworn to by all members of our Armed Forces, takes precedence over any secondary mention of obeying the orders of the President, whose powers are clearly described in the Constitution which the oath taker swears to support and defend.  If obeying the President was the primary purpose of the Oath, it would come first … but no, defending the Constitution does.

Okay, here is the way it very well may come down.  Our President will violate the Constitution either by trying to postpone the 2020 election, or if defeated in it, refusing to give up his office.  The Democrats, with the support of the Supreme Court, will challenge the President’s actions.  If he doesn’t comply, the Armed Forces will step in, removing him from office, living up to the Oath its members take.

With each passing day, this scenario seems increasingly likely.  The likelihood of a Presidential resignation beforehand is minimal because that is not Trump’s style.  When one of his ventures fails, which his defeat in November would amount to, his modus operandi is to walk away, leaving a trail of litigation to foul things up for the next decade, but there will be no formal resignation.  That would amount to an admission of guilt. This is what he will attempt to do if he manages to avoid incarceration.  The Presidency?  Just another Trump University or Taj Majal Casino to walk away from.

JL

Stay Safe ... Wear a Mask When Not at Home ...  Observe Physical Distancing ...  Listen to Scientists and Physicians ...  Ignore Ignorami like President Trump and Florida Governor DeSantis.  Their words are worthless ... and wash your hands frequently!

Three Op-Ed Items You Should Read

Here are three items from today's Op-Ed page of the Palm Beach Post.  If you’ve read them, fine.  If not, do so now!  Please.  One of the reasons our country is in such bad shape is the failure of many Americans to subscribe to and read a daily newspaper!  How many of you have a paper delivered to you daily ... or read one in its entirety on line each day.  If not, you're on your way to not mattering in determining what direction this nation is going.

Maureen Dowd on AOC and the Republicans

AOC and the Jurassic jerks of the GOP

President Donald Trump is oh so proud of having mastered the ability to intone, “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”

But the more pressing issue is whether he is a person who can master talking to women through a TV camera without sounding like a caveman.

We continually debate whether Trump is a madman, but there’s no doubt he’s a Mad Man. He’s a ring-a-ding-ding guy, stuck in a time warp redolent of Vegas with the Rat Pack in 1959, talking about how “broads” and “skirts” rate.

Trump’s idea of wooing the women’s vote, which is decisive in this election, was to tweet out a New York Post story headlined “Joe Biden’s disastrous plans for America’s suburbs” with the directive: “The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article.”

Clearly, the 74-yearold president thinks that American women are in the kitchen; clutching their pearls à la June Cleaver; sheltered in the ’burbs, waiting for their big, brave breadwinners to come home after a hard day’s work manhandling their secretaries.

Trump believes that the coveted electoral cohort that used to be known as soccer moms are actually sucker moms, naive enough to fall for his shtick that the unleashed forces of urban America are marching toward their manicured lawns.

On the Bulwark, a conservative website, Sarah Longwell wrote about her three years’ worth of focus groups with women who voted for Trump in 2016. She found that they chose Trump over Hillary Clinton because they did not like Clinton and because they felt that Bill Clinton’s bad behavior with women canceled out Trump’s bad behavior with women.

But the relationship with women voters has soured, not only because of his pugnacity and bullying but also because of his lack of compassion and competence dealing with the coronavirus and painful issues about race.

“They don’t see Trump as someone who can protect them from the chaos,” Longwell wrote. “They think he’s the source of it.”

And his party is on board with the antediluvian vibe. R-Misogyny.

Ted Yoho, a Florida Republican, tried to slap down Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A reporter overheard him muttering that the congresswoman was “a f--king bitch” as Yoho walked away after having an argument with her about crime and policing (Yoho denies he said it.) The youngest woman to ever serve in Congress is so full of natural political talent that the 2020 field seems dull next to her luster. It was a remarkable moment on Capitol Hill, where for years superachieving women have let such sexist remarks slide. She went to the House floor Thursday and schooled Yoho the Yahoo and the retrograde crowd.

“Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters,” she said. “I am two years younger than Mr. Yoho’s youngest daughter. I am someone’s daughter, too.” She added, “I am here because I have to show my parents... that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.”

Showing her skill in a generational dimension foreign to Congress until now, AOC posted a video of herself strutting to the rap tune “Boss Bitch,” her long hair whipping to the music, with the Capitol in the background. She captioned it: “Shine on, fight for others, and let the haters stay mad.”

And that’s the way you make Paleolithic men understand that they are history.

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd is a columnist for The New York Times.

Michael Gerson and Lies

Truth is, the nation is headed by a compulsive liar 

President Donald Trump, who constantly and falsely claims superlative achievements in every field of human endeavor, has every right to one historical claim: He is the king of lies. Trump's presidency has offered up an endless Las Vegas buffet of completely shameless, sometimes laughable, often malicious, always self-serving falsehoods.

Among the most relentless chroniclers of this record have been The Washington Post's Fact Checker staff: Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, Meg Kelly and Sarah Cahlan. Their use of a Pinocchio scale to rate the truthfulness of political statements has become a Washington tradition. Its application is meticulously bipartisan. But for the past five or so years, Trump has been the predominant source of content. Now the president's prodigious Pinocchios have been gathered into a thick volume, 'Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth.'

The authors present not just a paper trail but an avalanche of confirmation for their thesis. They recount Trump's deceptions about his academic career, his business accomplishments, his enemies, his achievements, his sex and corruption scandals.

There is a kind of truth shading that normally attends politics. And when a public official intends to deceive, journalists sometimes debate whether to term this a 'lie,' or whether to call its author a 'liar.' We are far past this point with Trump.

This is not a case of omitting inconvenient truths. It is deception as a lifestyle choice. The president is a bold, intentional liar, by any moral definition. A habitual liar. A blatant liar. An instinctual liar. A reckless liar. An ignorant liar. A pathological liar. A hopeless liar. A gratuitous liar. A malevolent liar.

Trump fans may support him despite his lies. They may support him because he lies. But they cannot deny that he is a liar.

Why does lying really matter? There are, of course, compelling moral reasons. But there are also practical and compelling civic reasons why truth makes a difference. As the pandemic has shown, we need reliable information to make rational, healthy choices. Deceptive optimism, distrust of experts and the circulation of myths have a human cost — measured in lost lives and delayed national recovery.

Trump's lies purposely and effectively disconnect a portion of the public from political reality. In this manufactured world, the United States is on the edge of ruin by scheming subversives. Political opponents are not fellow citizens but  

traitors plotting against the country. Political dialogue and shared democratic purpose become almost impossible.  Such distortions are the dangerous culmination of polarization — the polarization of truth itself.

Trump's lies are especially destructive because they are often designed to encourage dehumanization. Immigrants and outsiders are frequent targets. Lies are particularly useful in the manipulation of fear.

Reading 'Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth' is an exercise in civic awareness. This is what happens when a great many Americans ignore character and dismiss deception. We can't expect our leaders to be perfect men and women. But we have every right and reason to demand that they are honest and decent.

Fortunately an election result, like a lie, can be corrected.

Michael Gerson

Michael Gerson is a columnist for The Washington Post.

   

And here’s why Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is the worst thing that happened to education in the United States ever.  She wants to destruct public education!

US SUPREME COURT: PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHERS

Will religious minorities, nonbelievers and state autonomy lose on voucher decision?

By Frank S. Ravitch

 (Ravitch is a professor of Law and the Walter H. Stowers Chair of Law and Religion at Michigan State University. He wrote this for The Conversation,)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month that Montana cannot exclude donations that go to religious schools from a small tax credit program could have consequences felt far beyond the state.

The 5-4 ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which came down June 30, follows on from recent cases that have expanded what counts as discrimination against religion under the U.S. Constitution, making it harder for states to deny grants to faithbased institutions.

From my perspective as a scholar of law and religion, this latest ruling could massively limit states’ ability to exclude religious schools from all sorts of funding, including controversial voucher programs which allow state funds to be used by parents to send children to a private school. And rather than preventing religious discrimination, the court’s decision may actually support a system that discriminates against religious minorities and those of no faith.

The Espinoza decision was quickly hailed as a major win by supporters of school vouchers, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. It isn’t the first time they have cheered the court.

In 2002, the Supreme Court, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, ruled in favor of a voucher program in Ohio which overwhelmingly benefited religious schools. The court held that the program did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause which limits government support for, and promotion of, religion.  That decision broke with a long line of previous cases, which held that government could not use taxpayer dollars to fund religious education.

In the years following the Zelman decision, public support for school voucher programs has grown. The election of President Donald Trump and appointment of DeVos as education secretary gave the provoucher lobby powerful advocates in the administration. The White House has made vouchers a central plank of their schools policy, with Trump likening “school choice” – a term that includes the use of vouchers – as the “civil rights statement” of the decade.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has paved the way for religious schools to benefit from vouchers through a series of rulings.

In addition to Zelman, and as a precursor to Espinoza, the justices ruled in 2017 that a Missouri program that provided free playground chips for resurfacing, could not deny access to a religious school seeking to resurface its playground. In that case, Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, the justices held that refusing the grant contravened the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause, which prohibits discrimination against religion, among other things.

Until then, the doctrine had been limited to situations in which a government discriminated against a religion through hostility toward that faith, such as when the City of Hialeah, Florida, created a series of ordinances to discriminate against the practice of Santeria.

In a footnote in the Trinity Lutheran case, the justices specifically noted that the decision was limited and did “not address religious uses of funding” such as for

attendance at religious schools. But in Espinoza, the Supreme Court has essentially ignored that narrower reading. Instead, the court held that exclusion of donations to religious schools from the state tax credit program discriminates against religion.

This has significant implications for school vouchers. It could force states to include religious schools in any program that is open to private nonreligious schools.

So if a state allows for parents to use vouchers to take a child out of the public school system, then religious schools must be allowed to benefit from those funds.

But rather than preventing religious discrimination, the expansion of voucher plans, in my view, may actually encourage it.

The majority of private schools are religious – and in some areas with voucher programs, religious schools make up more than 90% of private schools.

In most districts, religious schools that can afford to take voucher students represent only a few larger denominations that are able to highly subsidize religious education. For example, in the Cleveland School District involved in the Zelman case, 96% of voucher recipients went to religious schools representing just one or two denominations.

But vouchers strip money from public education – every voucher going to a private school means a loss of per student funding for public schools.  This would force the parents of religious minorities, agnostics and atheists to choose between sending their children to a school that may provide religious teaching that goes against their wishes or leave their children in public schools that will be further drained of funding and students. The Espinoza ruling did leave the door ajar a little when it comes to limiting vouchers to religious private schools. The court draws a tightrope-like line between discrimination based on religious status – the fact that a school is religious – and situations where the denial of funding is based on concerns the funds will support religious functions.

But precedent suggests walking this tightrope might be difficult for states and school districts. The Supreme Court’s decision in Zelman upheld vouchers for religious schools including those which proselytize. It is hard to imagine how a state might prevent funds from going to a faithbased school without it being seen as denying funding based on that school’s religious status.

Of course, states can simply not have voucher or tax credit programs for private schools – the Espinoza decision makes it clear that this is acceptable. And some states already do this. For example, Michigan explicitly prevents taxpayer money going to private schools regardless of whether those schools are religious or not.

But even these bans on taxpayer funding for private education are increasingly being challenged by school voucher enthusiasts and religious groups.

Make sure you are registered to vote.  And be sure to Vote by Mail!  Meanwhile, stay safe and healthy and ignore anything the President says or does.  He speaks from the depths of ignorance and cares nothing for anyone but himself.  Now, go and wash your hands.

Frank Cerabino on Voting by Mail

I am an advocate of reading a local paper.  Sure, the New York Times and the Washington Post are fine “national” newspapers, but you are missing a bet by not subscribing to a local paper wherever you live.  Today’s column by Frank Cerabino in the Palm Beach Post is one good reason why you should read a local paper.

Why I Voted by Mail this week for the First Time

Frank Cerabino (Palm Beach Post -12/29/20)

Voting by mail makes sense in this time of pandemic and in-person voter suppression efforts

For the first time in my life I voted by mail this week.

I didn’t want to do it. I’m one of those conscientious voters who likes to cast a ballot in person. And it’s not only for the satisfaction of seeing my card being fed into a tabulator.

I like the camaraderie of the voting line, even when I get the sense that the person I’m talking to is just going to cancel out my vote.

I don’t mind the wait. There’s something wholesome, patriotic and civilized about showing up to vote and being friendly to other people there.

I also like early voting, a chance to vote in person during the two-week period before Election Day. I have found it reassuring to know that if something happened on that day -- a flat tire, a work conflict, a family emergency -- I wouldn’t miss my chance to have casted a ballot in that election.

But I never once had been tempted to vote by mail. And when asked about it, I’d remind people that voting by mail was the easiest way to have your vote not count.

Statistically, people who mail in votes have a higher rate of their votes being disallowed. In the March presidential primary, more than 18,000 mail-in votes in Florida (about 1.3 percent of the total) were not counted because they either arrived late or had a missing or mismatched signature.

In the 2018 midterms, thousands of mail-in ballots were sent to Florida voters after the required deadline of six days before the election. The blown deadline meant that many completed ballots weren’t returned in time for them to count.

So, if you told me six months ago I’d be voting by mail this election cycle, I would have been shocked.

But two things changed my mind: The unknown effect that the continuing COVID-19 virus will have on the upcoming elections, and the brazen voter suppression strategies deployed by Republicans in recent elections, as they face the real possibility of losing Florida in November.

We got an inkling of COVID-19′s effect in a relatively smaller election in March, (with just a 27 percent turnout) while the virus’ effect was just starting to be realized.

Poll workers, who tend to be retirees, were suddenly faced with spending a long day in the proximity of a parade of strangers who could pass along a deadly virus to them.

About 800 of these poll workers didn’t show up to work on that Election Day, causing many of the county’s 454 polling places to be short-handed and not be opened the whole day.

Here’s an email I got from a local poll worker before that election:

“Frank, I value your opinion, so here goes. I have been a poll worker in West Palm Beach for five years. I am 78 years old in good health except for a cardiac incident twenty years ago.

“My wife does not want me to work on Tuesday. I am inclined to work at the polls as an inspector. What would you do?”

I told him I would listen to his wife when it came to the virus.

“The upside of you going is far less than the potential downside,” I wrote. “Plus, you’ve got to live with your wife -- and if you give it to her, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

We don’t know how prevalent the virus will be on November 3rd, but chances are that it will still be a pressing health issue.

And the effect that it will have on the ability of local elections officials to keep the polling places fully staffed and open is anybody’s guess. Plus, the line’s not going to be much fun if everybody is masked up, standing far apart and trying not to emit water vapor on each other.

My other rationale for voting by mail has to do with the indisputable fact that Florida is both a key state for Republicans to win, and one in which they trail Democrats in registered voters by about 250,000 people.

How do they overcome that?

Seven years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court turned its back on enforcing the Voting Rights Act, Republican legislators in Southern states went to work making it harder for some voters to cast a ballot on Election Day.

By closing more than 1,200 polling places in strategic locations, they created the now-common spectacle of seeing long lines of urban voters waiting for hours on Election Day trying to cast a ballot.

At the same time, President Donald Trump has been recklessly undermining mail-in voting and using it to already question the election results in November.

“Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED election in our nation’s history -- unless this stupidity is ended,” Trump tweeted last month.

But Trump’s a mail-in voter himself and Republicans plan to win the mail-in vote in Florida, as they have every year recently.

In the most recent statewide general election two years ago, Florida Republicans had a cushion of 54,208 more mail-in votes than Democrats -- which was more than the margin of victory in the governor’s race.

And in Trump’s own election in 2016, Republicans in Florida had a 58,244-vote advantage in mail-in votes, which was more than half the statewide margin in Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

So, while Trump is calling mail-in voting a scam, the Republican Party of Florida has sent out a mailer this summer to its voters urging them to vote by mail in the upcoming election.

“President Trump and Florida conservatives are counting on you!” the mailer says. “Request your absentee ballot today.”

Between the virus and the voter suppression strategy, I’ve come to the conclusion that voting in person in November makes less sense than voting by mail.

So, I updated my signature, requested and received a ballot, and this week mailed in a completed ballot for the August 18th primary. I consider it a dry run for November.

How did I feel mailing the ballot? Not as good as showing up in person. But satisfied in a different, unfamiliar way -- one, I hope, that is only temporary.

Extraordinary times require flexibility.

fcerabino@pbpost.com

@FranklyFlorida

Convinced?  If you live in Palm Beach County, and not already signed up to vote by mail, and want to join Frank in doing so, CLICK HERE or just visit

https://www.pbcelections.org/Voters/Vote-By-Mail

If you live elsewhere, do a google search for your State and the words “vote by mail."

"Positiviity" Testing, Canadian Asylum Law Challenged and a Kathleen Parker Column

Goodbye, Yoho

I was all set to start a fund raising drive to defeat Florida's legislative asshole of the month, Congressman Ted Yoho, who represents the State's Third Congressional District.  His sexist, bigoted views were made clear by his words on the Capitol steps and by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez on the floor of the House.  

AOC, subject pf Yoho's insults

Hurrah! I have found that he is not running for re-election in November. Hurrah! One less piece of Republican dirt in Washington, serving to enable the President's misdeeds. Let him go back to treating animals in his veterinary practice.  And I pity the poor creatures.  

I wonder who will replace him.  There's a primary on August 18. The Third District includes Gainesville, a college town which should go Democratic.  Unfortunately, gerrymandering has included in the District many nearby areas which are filled with typical Florida nitwits.  Duh.

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Defining "Positivity" in Coronavirus Testing

I started emphasizing “positivity” in testing for Coronavirus several postings ago, and I see more and more mention of it in the papers.   Briefly, it means how many people tested positively for the virus, making them a “case,” out of the total number tested.  It is encouraging when that percentage goes down.

Some clarification is necessary, however.  The group tested should be large enough to encompass the general population.  If it consists of nursing home residents, older people, farm laborers, people already manifesting symptoms, etc., it is more likely to produce more positive results than a group more representative of the general population.  That is why much, much, more testing is needed to get valid numbers from large enough, demographically diverse representative groups.  When the President says we do not need more testing, he doesn’t know what he is talking about, par for the course for him.

Time is another factor.  The number of positive tests found over a given period should be relative to tests given over that same period.  Today’s new “cases,” the “positivity” percentage, cannot be developed by comparing it to an earlier or a cumulative number of total tests given.  The number of bad apples in a bushel basket can be compared only with the full contents of that same basket.  Not doing so will result in a flawed “positivity” percentage. 

I doubt if the numbers our individual States are using to come up with “positivity” percentages meet these criteria.

JL

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Parker Column - Read it, Please                         

Here's an interesting column by Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, who is not so optimistic about the November election as are others sickened by the President:  PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ IT.  If the link doesn't work, just paste this on you browser line and get it from there.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-let-poll-numbers-fool-you-trump-could-still-win-reelection/2020/07/21/1c303c7c-cb70-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html

Parker's column is syndicated to more newspapers than any other columnist in the country.  She is a Republican, leaning toward the center.

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Canadian Court Invalidates Asylum Pact

By Wilson Ring

The Associated Press  (7/22/20)

A Canadian court Wednesday invalidated the country’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States, ruling elements of the law violate Canadian constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security.

But Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald delayed the implementation of her decision for six months, to give the Canadian Parliament time to respond.

“I conclude that the provisions enacting the (safe third country agreement) infringe the guarantees in section 7 of theCharter,”McDonaldwrote in her decision, referring to the Canadian Charter of Rights andFreedom,partofCanada’s Constitution. “I have also concluded that the infringement is not justified under section 1 of the Charter.”

Under the agreement, immigrants who want to seek asylum in Canada and present themselves at ground ports of entry from the United States are returned to the U.S. and told to seek asylum there.

But if they request asylum on Canadian soil at a location other than an official crossing, the process is allowed to go forward. In most cases, the refugees are released and allowed to live in Canada, taking advantage

In this Aug. 7, 2017, file photo, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers greet migrants as they enter into Canada at an unofficial border crossing at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y. [CHARLES KRUPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO]

of generous social welfare benefits while their asylum applications are reviewed, a process that can take years.

Last fall Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Council of Churches sued, arguing that the Canadian government has no guarantee that those returned to the United States will be safe because of the treatment of immigrants by the administration of President Donald Trump.

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Gee, I wonder if there is any connection between the two preceding articles.  If you don't see one, go back and re-read Parker's column!
JL

Repression in Portland, Coiffing MSNBC .. and Vote by Mail Suppression

Federal Intervention in Portland is Risky

A State's National Guard has two bosses:  the Federal Government and the State's Government.  

There is no question that the President can activate any State’s National Guard and incorporate it as part of the Armed Forces, of which it is a component part.   The conditions which can lead to that are basically those in which the regular armed forces would be involved in defending the nation’s security but require additional personnel.  That’s why the National Guard has been activated to fight in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and other “hot spots.”  Federal activation of the Guard does not include such use however, unless the nation’s security is threatened, for purely domestic purposes.

Such use falls into the area in which a State’s Governor has the power to call upon that State’s National guard to deal with local problems such as floods, hurricanes and local disturbances beyond the capacity of local law enforcement to handle.

It is conceivable that the disturbances by mostly peaceful demonstrators, such as what has been going on in Portland, Oregon, are rightly the kind of thing a State, not the Federal government, should deal with.   A Governor can call out the National Guard of its State for that purpose but not the Federal Government!  The mostly unidentified Federal law enforcement  personnel (not part of the National Guard, but probably recruited from various agencies such as the federal prison system, the Border Patrol and Homeland Security) should have no role in dealing with them, as is the case in Portland and threatened by the President for Chicago.  These are State, not Federal, matters. 

 

Portland Street Scene

But getting back to the role of the National Guard: Consider whether a Governor would be within his or her rights if they activated their State’s National Guard to face down, with weapons drawn,  the specifically unidentified law enforcement people the Federal Government is using in places like Portland, and whose presence there amounts to an act contributing to the disturbances there.  This is a touchy situation because both sides are heavily armed.  It could start a Civil War.

JL

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Hair Department

Men’s hair versus women’s hair!   When I watch news on TV, I am impressed with the steadiness and reliability of the coiffing of the male anchors or newsreaders (except of course the bald ones like MSNBC’s Ali Velshi). 

Their hair always looks the same.  Not so with some of the women doing that job. 

One of my favorites is Stephanie Ruhle who anchors MSNBC at 9 a.m. daily following Morning Joe.  Her hair has always been plain and simple, like a first grade teacher in Kansas City.  But when Avi Melber (MSNBC at 6 p.m. daily) was off on a vacation recently, Ruhle filled in for him.  At first I didn’t know who was filling in because of the radically different way her hair was arranged.  But it was her, alright, and amazingly, it was back the way it usually is at 9 a.m. the next morning.  And sticking with MSNBC, Joy Reid just took over the 7 p.m. slot there but with it came a new hairdo or maybe it's a wig.  I preferred her the old way.

Ruhle and Velshi

Reid

I suspect these stations have in-house hairdressers, probably contractually, for their female talent but leave it the men to find their own local barber shop.  But regardless of how good or bad a head looks, what is more important is what is within it.  Just a thought.

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Attack on Post Office Finances is Sneaky Way of Hurting Vote-by-Mail - That's Trump's Aim 

Suggested change in the Post Office’s motto as engraved on the façade of the main Post Office in New York City: (Proposed change shown in red)  

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor Trump nor the Republican Party stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." 

 "Vote by Mail" is an important asset for right minded Americans in ridding the country of Trump and his enablers, particularly in view of the Pandemic.  That is why Republicans oppose it.  Weakening the Post Office weakens advocates of "Vote by Mail."

JL