caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

No, it’s no longer a democracy and our country will be in crisis no matter who wins. The wheels of government grind slowly and those with their hands on the levers of power will have their way with us, the ‘useless eaters’.

There will be an election. It will likely be contested because it was unfair or rigged. In any case we will not know the winner on the day of the election. The path to Nov 3, 2020 will be fraught with hyperbole, wings will flap vigorously. Count on it.

Either the ruling class is getting sloppy and lazy or the American people are just getting dumber. Because these phony conspiracy theories have become transparent.
For the Democrats it was Russia being able to overturn our election based on puppy memes on Facebook.

AOC's win in 2018 was a surprise. As was Bowman's win this year.
But the establishment saw Cori Bush coming from a mile away and they still couldn't stop her.

Veteran War Correspondent: Covered & lived for +3 decades in Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan & more.

Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai 6h
Thread on #Lebanon #Beirut explosion: Yesterday there were 3 waves: 1. The first waves felt and sounded like an explosion with a positive pressure 2. The second wave was a suction negative pressure that pulled eye witness (who were injured and told me this) around the room

The eye withness is a PhD Chemical Engineer teacher at Universities in #Beirut who was in his office close to the harbour. 3. The last explosion (always of the same source) was the biggest blast, more powerful than the previous two, with positive pressure

(and will try not to get too unbalanced). There are many pieces/threads to this. Some aren't static, some are incomplete, and some remain hidden. (And despite my best efforts it may be excruciatingly boring to others.)

Are we "free" to enter grocery stores without wearing masks?

(a companion piece is this  July 25, 2020 ‘Grim News’ that contains a lot of the history of privatization attempts, mass numbers of PO closures, suggestions by Save the Post Office, etc.)

First up: ‘Who decides the fate of the US Postal Service?’  Kayla Costa and Shuvu Batta, 4 August 2020, wsws.org  (with permission)

“Workers have responded with outrage to the recent leaked memos detailing efforts to privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS) by implementing major cost-cutting measures, slowing down the mail delivery speed, and making the federal agency seem unreliable in the middle of an election year that will see an increase of mail-in voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The internal memo, released July 10, stated that mail deliveries would be delayed due to cost-cutting and prohibitions on overtime, with “more to come.”

“The fact is, inner peace isn't something that comes when you finally paint the whole house a nice shade of cream and start drinking herbal tea. Inner peace is something that is shaped by the wisdom that 'this too shall pass' and is fired in the kiln of self-knowledge...” ~ Tania Ahsan, Finding Inner Peace in a Chaotic World

Two weeks ago, I posted an essay entitled, "Constitutional Crisis." It was followed shortly by another essay called "What Constitutional Crisis?" Both threads considered what, if anything, the institutional Democratic Party would do to defend the Constitution from the Federal Invasion of Oregon and other states in defiance of State and Local