The kind of violence and lawlessness convulsing some U.S. cities recently is one example of how the mob gets its way – physical intimidation.
Another example can be found in the capitulation of the U.S. Postal Service to the Democrat-media-social media triumvirate that spread hysteria over the loss of some mailboxes. Misinformation was the weapon deployed to save the mailboxes, and it worked. Removal and replacement of the familiar blue metal boxes, and other cost-cutting measures implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, have been postponed until after the election.
Before the announcement, Trump derangement syndrome was on full display as the lie metastasized that the president was ordering the removal of mailboxes to try to prevent voters’ mail-in ballots from arriving on time to be counted.
As “proof,” celebrities Tweeted and Retweeted a photo of mailboxes haphazardly stacked up behind a chain-link fence. “I mean … in plain sight. Right there in the open. How is this okay?” Tweeted the “activist” Alyssa Milano.
Meanwhile, in the real world, some mailboxes in Oregon, Montana and New York were being removed as part of a regular process that the U.S. Postal Service employs as a cost-saving measure.
According to a report from the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General in Aug. 2016, when Barack Obama was president, 12,000 mailboxes had been removed in the previous five years. Another 6,000 additional mailboxes should have been removed but were not, the report noted.
The Postal Service removes mailboxes when they are underused, and replaces mailboxes that are old and rusty and dented. Mailboxes that are repeatedly tampered with have big red locks placed on them. Makes sense to me.
And that photo of the stack of unloved mailboxes? They were awaiting refurbishing at a Wisconsin company’s headquarters. Note to celebrities: Don’t believe everything you see on social media.
But the hysteria is not confined to social media.
As Fox host Tucker Carlson deadpanned this week, “According to elected Democrats and the news media they control, the president of the U.S. is working to eliminate the U.S. mail.”
The Democrat-controlled House, which fled D.C. before passing a second pandemic stimulus package, has been called back by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to deal with the issue she calls “Election Central,” – namely, getting to the bottom of the great mailbox disappearance of 2020.
DeJoy, who was threatened with arrest if he doesn’t show, is scheduled to be grilled by the House and even the Senate. His inquisitors are likely to want to get to the bottom of a letter the Postal Service sent to 46 states and Washington, D.C. asking for the states to mandate that voters request their ballots at least 15 days before Election Day. That would leave enough time for voters to mark their ballots, mail them back and have them received by election officials in time to be counted.
There’s nothing sinister about this. The Post Office is simply trying to forestall problems that could crop up in states that allow voters to request ballots too close to the election.
The problem, in other words, is not the Postal Service. They are equipped to deal with incredible amounts of mail, as they do each year at Christmas.
The problem, instead, is in the states.
It is not a problem with the traditional “absentee ballots” or early mail-in voting. This works fine, because people identify themselves, request the ballot, fill it out and return it.
The problem is with the novel plan, generated this year amid the coronavirus by some states, to mail actual ballots to every registered voter without them requesting them. The Democrats want every state to do that, right now. But the states are not equipped to process millions of ballots pouring in just days before Election Day. In New York primary elections recently, it took nine weeks to process the ballots that were received. In a presidential election, that would take us beyond the constitutionally mandated date when the Electoral College has to vote!
Nevada approved that plan earlier this month despite problems with mail-in ballots during the primary election in June, when more than 200,000 ballots were addressed to people who were not at those addresses! More than 2,000 voters who received ballots were dead.
The problem with sending millions of ballots out to people who have not requested them is that the data files aren’t accurate. People have died or moved or gone to federal prison. So the ballots arrive, the intended recipient is nowhere to be found, and then anyone could pick it up, fill it out, and mail it in. That’s the voter fraud President Trump is warning about and that is clearly a legitimate concern.
That’s Election Central. The problem is not the Post Office, nor President Trump. The problem is that the Democrat Party, already failing to stop chaos in the streets, seems not to care about chaos in the electoral process either.
But countless Americans do care, and nobody should be accused of “stealing” an election simply because they want it to be accurate and fair.