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Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

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Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#261

Post by chillwaves »

Simulacra wrote: post #213
chillwaves wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will need to find some evidence of voter fraud for mail in ballots. Many states have it as an option and it hasn't happened. The military regularly votes by mail and it hasn't happened. It's funny you open your reply about "absurdly dramatic" then lay an equally absurd claim about vote-by-mail having a problem with fraud. Your reply also conveniently ignores the historical pattern of voter suppression coming from…

But the military I think we can trust more than the Postal Service, every time we hear of a postal employee destroying or throwing away mail should be a significant enough reason that the agency is simply not ready to take this on. Maybe at the next election, maybe with a significantly more funding, transparency, and security, but not now. Mail in voting would be great, but not now. It’s far too dangerous.

The coronavirus has been recognized as an issue since before March. The only reason why there is not better safeguards in place for vote by mail is because the ruling party does not want it to happen.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#262

Post by formercoder »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #48
throwaway5752 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not a point about government effectiveness or efficiency. They kneecapped the USPS when they forced prefunding of pension liabilities ( https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-off... ). They had more legislative leverage prior to 2018, so they could have done all this much earlier. It is not possible to honestly discuss this in a meaningful way without acknowledging it's 3 months out from a presi…

Retirement benefits should be funded as they are accrued. That is not the problem. The problem is the USPS doesn’t have the power to price their products appropriately in order to pay for their expenses (including payroll which includes retirement benefits). If anything, all entities promising retirement benefits should be forced to do it the way USPS does. In fact, non government entities were forced to via the Pens…

Exactly. I don’t understand why sending a letter isn’t $5. We’d get less junk, and you could still do if you really wanted / needed to.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#263

Post by mcguire »

jb775 wrote: post #234
chillwaves wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will need to find some evidence of voter fraud for mail in ballots. Many states have it as an option and it hasn't happened. The military regularly votes by mail and it hasn't happened. It's funny you open your reply about "absurdly dramatic" then lay an equally absurd claim about vote-by-mail having a problem with fraud. Your reply also conveniently ignores the historical pattern of voter suppression coming from…

You realize the polling places WILL BE OPEN. No one is taking away anyone's constitutional right , you're just playing the victim card. The left only cares about this bc they want the votes of the bottom-feeders of society, who are too lazy to vote. It's also why the left wants criminals in jails to be able to vote. Chasing those votes shows you right there the misguided mindset of the democratic party.

Some of the polling places will be open.

Louisville, Ky., with 600,000 people, gets one voting location today (https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/23/louisville-ky-with-60...)

Did Consolidating Polling Places in Milwaukee Depress Turnout? (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/did-...)

Polling Places Remain a Target Ahead of November Elections (https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...)

IN SOUTH CAROLINA, A PEEK AT COVID-19’S IMPACT ON ELECTIONS (https://publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/in-south-caro...)

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#264

Post by mcguire »

phkahler wrote: post #231
lotsofpulp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement benefits should be funded as they are accrued. That is not the problem. The problem is the USPS doesn’t have the power to price their products appropriately in order to pay for their expenses (including payroll which includes retirement benefits). If anything, all entities promising retirement benefits should be forced to do it the way USPS does. In fact, non government entities were forced to via the Pens…

>> The problem is the USPS doesn’t have the power to price their products appropriately in order to pay for their expenses Technically that shouldn't matter. It's a government service and if postage doesnt cover the cost the federal government should. But I'd be happy to see first class mail stop subsidising other stuff.

Inflation adjusted first class postage rate, 1885-present.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_posta...

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#265

Post by eggsmediumrare »

jb775 wrote: post #255
eggsmediumrare wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the bottom feeders... The people slaving away at two minimum wage jobs trying to make ends meet? The criminals... The small time weed dealers who decided they didn't want to work two minimum wage jobs to make ends meet? Demeaning these people shows you right there the misguided mindset of the arrogant.

I don't have a problem with people like that, I have a problem with people like you acting like you're their friend until it actually costs you something. And I have a problem with the left painting a facade of caring, then implementing policies and taxes that eventually backsplatter all over those people, and leaves them holding the bag. Your mindset is what lays the groundwork for systemic problems...see Joe Biden'…

Sometimes when you find yourself throwing out baseless accusations and making sweeping generalizations about the root causes of complex systemic issues, it can be useful to step back and ask yourself if your opinion is really bulletproof and rooted in reality, or if you just think it is.

btw calling people bottom feeders generally implies that you have a problem with them.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#266

Post by Ericson2314 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #92
Ericson2314 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's still stupid. The government creates dollars. Asking individual agencies to save money for pensions just distorts monetary and fiscal policy. When will people understand fractional reserve banking...

The federal government creates dollars. Ask the taxpayers in IL, NJ, CT, KY, Chicago, Detroit how their money printing presses are doing and if fractional reserve banking is coming to their rescue. And it still results in devaluation of the dollar. You don’t get to pull resources from the future for free, especially if the expected economic growth doesn’t materialize.

> Ask the taxpayers in IL, NJ, CT, KY, Chicago, Detroit...

We're talking about federal agencies.

> And it still results in devaluation of the dollar.

We could probably use more inflation, to be honest.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#267

Post by alextheparrot »

js2 wrote: post #202
alextheparrot wrote: post #26

This is problematic to voting in the same way closing polling sites is, framed as cost cutting or inefficiency reduction with the intention of reducing access to a subset of the population. This is just frustration, but the fact that we could pass a massive defense bill (again, I know), but are unable to fund basic services shows the integrity of our government. Moreover, it shows the culpability of most of the elect…

I don't like to leave political comments here, but this gets my goad: > it shows the culpability of most of the elected officials, from both parties. The "both parties" remark drives me crazy, as if they are equally culpable in how we got to today, or equally culpable in their current leadership of America, so let's just back up for a moment. No Democratic president has won a majority of the white vote since 1964. Th…

The reason I felt a need to add it is that it differs from the common bad-side/good-side dichotomy, there is nuance in terms of degrees of culpability but the statement is true irrespective

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#268

Post by [deleted] »

flywheel wrote: post #157
refurb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to break it to you, but it’s more complicated than that. You may want to do some reading from the other side, you sound like you’re parroting Democratic talking points. NYTimes disagrees with you that higher turnout always helps the Democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/upshot/2020-election-turn... Typically increased turnout helps the Democrats, but that’s not necessarily true now.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#269

Post by epistasis »

Simulacra wrote: post #210
epistasis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parsimonious explanation is that it's a political move to delegitimize voting by mail. It's hard to imagine such intentionally bad management without some sort of motivation.

par·si·mo·ni·ous /ˌpärsəˈmōnēəs/ Learn to pronounce adjective unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal. With respect, I don’t think that means what you think it means. We should work to remove ambiguity and threats to voting, not adding, and entrusting your ballot which is your most sacred right as an American citizen, to the Postal Service considering it’s history over the past 30 years, is far to…

Modern usage of 'parsimony' has diverged significantly from that definition. Check out usages from the Cambridge corpus here:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/parsimon...

I encounter it almost exclusively in the context of statistical and machine learning.

Voting by mail has proven exceptionally safe with extensive modern use, and greatly increases the safety of elections and democratic participation. All claims to the contrary are based in partisan politics and have no data to back them up. You are sorely wrong and pushing a purely political agenda.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#270

Post by rabidrat »

newsclues wrote: post #235
throwaway5752 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I hadn't mentioned the pension, because it takes away from the immediate and much worse problem that the governing party is trying to stay in power by preventing members of the other party from voting.

The idea that we would be voting in 2020 by mail is crazy. I cannot believe that no one foresaw an election in a pandemic and said, “let’s build an app for this”

Extremely relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2030/
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