WAGE THEFT PAS DEUX
Ladbrokes owner refuses to hand back furlough millions despite cashing in on an online gambling boom

FIRST AS PROFIT FROM WAGES

THEN AS PROFIT FROM TAXES (PAID BY WORKERS)
By MATT OLIVER FOR THE DAILY MAIL 13 August 2020 

Ladbrokes owner GVC is refusing to hand back money it took to furlough staff, despite cashing in on an online gambling boom and expanding into the US.

The FTSE 100 company said it used the taxpayer-funded furlough scheme to temporarily sideline 14,000 shop staff, helping it to cut costs.

But GVC, unlike one of its biggest rivals, would not commit to returning the money to the Government.
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Surging profits: Ladbrokes owner GVC is refusing to hand back money it took to furlough staff, despite cashing in on an online gambling boom

William Hill said it would repay £24.5million earlier this month following a 'robust recovery', while Paddy Power owner Flutter did not use the scheme.

When asked if GVC would follow suit, a spokesman insisted that a 'fair amount of uncertainty regarding further lockdowns and retail closures' still existed.

'We will keep the position under review,' she added. GVC, however, boasted it had seen 'double-digit growth' and rising profits from online gambling.

Online profits surged 53pc to £368.6million in the first half of the year, with growth in both sports and gaming categories. Online sales jumped by almost a fifth.

With the return of televised sport after a hiatus during the pandemic, GVC said it was now 'well placed' for the rest of 2020.

It also informed investors it is jointly investing £344million into expanding its US operations. Boss Shay Segev decribed it as an 'encouraging performance'.

The company's refusal so far to return furlough cash comes despite calls from campaigners for big businesses to hand back the grants if they can afford to do so.

The Taxpayers' Alliance has urged businesses to 'do the right thing', because of the huge strain the pandemic has placed on public finances.


Government figures show the cost of supporting 9.6billion jobs across the country is just shy of £35billion so far.

Companies including housebuilders Barratt, Taylor Wimpey and Redrow, retailers Asos, Ikea and Games Workshop, as well as The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator magazine, Bunzl and Dr Martens have vowed to give the money back.

But GVC said its revenues shrunk to £1.6billion in the first half of the year, down 11 per cent compared to the previous year.

The firm, which also scrapped its interim dividend, blamed betting shop closures and sport event cancellations during the virus lockdown.

It also revealed it shut down more than 200 shops permanently during this period.

GVC now expects full-year profits to be between £720million and £740million, down from the £761million it reported last year but above a previous forecast by analysts.

Shares in the gambling group rose 1.9 per cent, or 14.6p, to 800p after the announcement.

Locals in Mauritius are going to great lengths to help clean up a devastating oil spill off the country’s southeastern coast. A Japanese tanker ran aground late last month, and then started leaking more than a thousand tonnes of oil into the ocean. Residents have accused the government of not doing enough to contain the spill, but instead of tearing their hair out in frustration, they’re putting their tresses to good use. Yashini Padayachee explains. #Mauritiusoilspill #oilspillinMauritius #Mauritius




SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/locals-in-mauritius-are-going-to-great.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritian-prime-minister-seeks.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-oil-spill-at-mauritius-is-disaster.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/update-mauritius-battles-devastating.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritius-oil-spill-locals-scramble-to.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/oil-spill-off-mauritius-is-visible-from.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/france-offers-aid-as-mauritius-declares.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritius-facing-catastrophe-as-oil.html

All-female ranger team in Kenya challenge gender stereotypes and protects the wildlife in the country’s vast National Park from poachers. #Kenya #NationalPark #Wildfire

Israel planned to transfer Palestinians to Paraguay in late 60s


The Latin American state had agreed to ‘absorb’ 60,000 Palestinian Muslims as a counterweight to Communists.

Israeli intelligence officials planned to transfer tens of thousands of Palestinians to the Latin American nation of Paraguay as part of a secret plan to tighten Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, according to newly discovered documents.

A journalist from Israel’s state broadcaster, KAN, made the discovery in minutes of an Israeli cabinet meeting in 1969.

Just two years earlier Israel had emphatically defeated three Arab states during the Six-Day War, conquering East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights.

While Israel has occupied the territories ever since and built settlements in them to further tighten its grip, the areas contained huge Palestinian and Arab populations that were the responsibility of Israel.

Addressing ministers in the meeting, Israel’s prime minister at the time, Golda Meir said: “We have to make a decision...it is very important that everyone agrees on it.”

Under the plan, the Palestinians would be given $100 each for living costs for their new lives in Paraguay, whose government would receive $33 per arrival in addition to an initial lump sum of $350,000.

‘Not communists’

As part of a deal agreed to by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, and Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner, 60,000 people would arrive in the Latin American state as part of the plan.

Stroessner wanted Palestinian Muslims as they were not inclined towards the communist ideology he was fighting at home.

Those Palestinians who agreed to come would have been given Paraguayan citizenship within five years. Israel was not ready to accept the return of all of those who were resettled.

Despite a $33m budget, only 30 Palestinians ended up moving and the programme was scrapped after the killing of an Israeli embassy worker by two Palestinians who had moved to Paraguay as part of the programme in 1970.

All the territories captured by the Israelis in 1967 remain under their effective control. With the exception of Gaza, which has been besieged by Israel since 2007, all host considerable Israeli settlements.

The founding of Israel led to the permanent expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from land that is now recognised as Israel proper.

Those expelled and their descendants now number around 7.2 million people, the majority of whom live as refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and other states.

Source: TRT World

US election: Donald Trump suggests Kamala Harris, a US citizen, is ineligible to be vice president

14 Aug, 2020

Donald Trump has turned birther again, suggesting the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president, Kamala Harris, might be ineligible for the job.

Joe Biden chose Harris, a serving US Senator and former prosecutor, to be his running mate earlier this week. She is the first black woman in US history to be picked for a presidential ticket.

After that decision was announced, law professor John Eastman published an article in Newsweek, claiming there were "some questions for Kamala Harris about eligibility".

Sen. Kamala Harris was born in the United States. Photo / AP

"The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position," Professor Eastman wrote.

"The 12th Amendment provides that 'no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice president of the United States'. And Article II of the Constitution specifies that 'no person except a natural born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of President'.

"Her father was, and is, a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalised US citizen at the time of Harris' birth in 1964.

"That, according to these commentators, makes her not a 'natural born citizen', and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president."

During today's White House media briefing, Mr Trump was asked about Prof Eastman's article.

"I just heard that. I heard it today, that she doesn't meet the requirements," Mr Trump said.

Kamala Harris, former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate, is eligible to serve as U.S. president, contrary to the false claims of viral posts on Facebook. Her mother is from India and her father from Jamaica — but Harris was born in Oakland. https://t.co/XnWfM9N8IL— FactCheck.org (@factcheckdotorg) August 11, 2020

"And by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer.

"I have no idea if that's right. I would have assumed the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice president.

"But that's a very serious – you're saying that, they're saying that she doesn't qualify because she wasn't born in this country?"

"No, she was born in this country, but her parents did not – the claims say that her parents did not receive their permanent residence at that time," a reporter told him.

"Yeah, I don't know about it, I just heard about it. I'll take a look," said the President.
There is nothing to look at.

Harris was born in Oakland, California in 1964. Legal precedent is that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, and therefore eligible to be president.

"All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States," the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution reads.

Nevertheless, one of Trump's campaign advisers, Jenna Ellis, told CBS News today Harris' eligibility was an "open question, and one I think Harris should answer so the American people know for sure".

CBS also spoke to constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, who is the dean of Berkeley Law School. He called it a "truly silly argument".

"Under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen. The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s," he said.

"Kamala Harris was born in the United States."

Before he became president, Trump was one of the most prominent people pushing the racist "birther" conspiracy theory.

That theory claimed Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, was born outside the United States, and therefore ineligible for the presidency.

Obama was born in Hawaii.

An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

"Why doesn't he show his birth certificate?" Trump asked during an appearance on The View in 2011.

"I would like to have him show his birth certificate," he told NBC's Today Show around the same time.

"Because if he can't, if he can't, if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility – then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics."

Trump famously claimed he had sent investigators to Hawaii.
"You have people now, down there searching. I mean in Hawaii?" Today Show host Meredith Vieira asked him.

"Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump replied.

Let's take a closer look at that birth certificate. @BarackObama was described in 2003 as being "born in Kenya." http://t.co/vfqJesJL— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2012

There has never been any evidence that the investigators in question existed.

Read this--@BarackObama's birth certificate "cannot survive judicial scrutiny" because of "phantom numbers" http://t.co/DIv9sLI2— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2012

When Obama did eventually produce his long-form birth certificate in an effort to stamp out the theory, Trump claimed it was fraudulent.

He continued to promote the conspiracy theory for five years, and didn't acknowledge Mr Obama had been born in the US until his 2016 presidential campaign.

"President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period," Trump said.

He claimed the birther theory has been started by Hillary Clinton.

In her 2018 memoir Becoming, former first lady Michelle Obama said she would "never forgive" Trump for spreading the lie about her husband.

"The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed," she wrote.

"But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls?

"Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family's safety at risk. And for this, I would never forgive him."

SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/aoc-tears-into-trump-over-white.html 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/trump-promotes-false-conspiracy.html

RED BULL GIVES EXEC.S WINGS
Red Bull fires top North American executives following internal controversy over Black Lives Matter and the leak of an offensive presentation slide

Red Bull global CEO Dietrich Mateschitz. David Geieregger/SEPA.Media/Getty Images

Red Bull fired its top two North American executives, CEO Stefan Kozak and president and CMO Amy Taylor.

The company also fired global head of music, entertainment, and culture marketing Florian Klaass and reduced or dissolved its cultural marketing teams in the UK, Canada, and its home country of Austria.

The moves came weeks after employees leaked a letter to leadership that criticized Red Bull's "public silence" on Black Lives Matter and an offensive slide from a company presentation.

Insiders said it was widely believed the North American execs were fired because corporate leaders in Austria blamed them for the leaks and internal tensions behind them.

Red Bull fired its top two North American executives, CEO Stefan Kozak and president and CMO Amy Taylor, and global head of music, entertainment, and culture marketing Florian Klaass.

A person with direct knowledge of the firings, who is known to Business Insider but requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss it, said Klaass was let go over his role in a February corporate event, first reported by Business Insider, where a presentation slide was shown that featured racist stereotypes.

The slide, which was leaked to Business Insider, showed a world map that labeled the Middle East and Southeast Asia as "evil doers," continental Europe as "pussies," and South America as "coffee comes from here I think." Multiple employees said Klaass' Austria-based team included the slide despite being warned not to do so by US colleagues.

Red Bull more recently has been rife with internal tensions over Black Lives Matter. Employees leaked a letter that was sent June 1 to Kozak and Taylor criticizing the company's "public silence" on the movement.

The three fired executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An internal memo confirming the North American changes is printed at the bottom of this story.
Employees said the firings were acts of retaliation

Several insiders close to the situation said it was widely believed that Kozak and Taylor were fired by Austrian leadership over the leak and internal tension over diversity issues. Two employees said Taylor had been working on a project to increase Black representation at Red Bull but that the leadership wasn't interested.

Another employee said that managers urged staff not to leak any more information, warning that Kozak and Taylor could be fired if leaks continued.

Red Bull also cancelled several major cultural events and dissolved the teams that oversee them

Along with firing the executives, Red Bull cut or dissolved entertainment and culture teams in Canada, the UK, and Austria and canceled most of its major cultural events, including its annual Red Bull Music Festival and Red Bull Presents.

"Red Bull has decided to strengthen the focus of its culture marketing programs on where it makes most impact," a spokeswoman said. "Culture programs that remain include Red Bull BC One, Red Bull Dance Your Style, Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos."

Two employees said global CEO Dietrich Mateschitz told staff earlier this year that there wouldn't be any layoffs in 2020.

Two others who work in marketing, however, said management told them that between 20 and 50 people were laid off or told that they would have to choose between new jobs and exit packages.

Another employee said the culture teams were seen as the most vocal about racial justice matters and that US staffers saw the restructuring as a form of punishment.

The company's board said it rejected racism

Red Bull consists of two separate organizations: Austria-based Red Bull GmbH and Red Bull North America, headquartered in Santa Monica.

Employees told Business Insider the firings and leaks illustrate a divide between the company's US culture and its more conservative Austrian leaders.

Red Bull's board of directors addressed the leaks in a June 26 memo that read: "We reject racism in every form, we always have, and we always will. Anyone who knows anything about our company knows this."

"Red Bull has always put people and their dreams and accomplishments at its core and values the contribution of each and every person — no matter who they are. We want everyone who feels this way to be welcome in Red Bull," it concluded.

Kozak spent 16 years with the company, running its Canadian and Latin American divisions before being named North American CEO in July 2010. Taylor had been with Red Bull for 20 years after working with the Atlanta Hawks organization. Klaass was a 14-year veteran.

Read the memo announcing the North American restructuring below.

RBNA,

I would like to share with you the changes that will happen in Red Bull North America this week.

Stefan Kozak and Amy Taylor will leave Red Bull. We would like to thank Stefan and Amy for their contribution and wish them the best for the future. Stefan and Amy's successors as CEO and CMO respectively will be announced at a later stage.

In the interim period and for the Business Planning process:
Matt Rosenmayr and Alexandre Ruberti will be responsible for local co-ordination in the US and will represent the US Leadership Team in Austria.
Alexandre Ruberti will continue to lead Sales and Distribution for RBNA and RBDC and in the interim will take on the responsibility of our 3 Business Units.
Bill Connors, Eddie Hayden and Joe Waters will report to Alexandre.
Anjelica Garcia, Djenaba Parker and Marc Rosenmayr will continue to lead their respective teams.
Ken Turner will, on top of his current role as Head of Brand Marketing, coordinate the other Marketing disciplines with the support of Markus Obrist (Area Marketing Manager NA)
Alexandre, Anjelica, Djenaba, Ken, Marc and Keith DeGrace will report to him.

These changes are effective immediately.

We are extremely proud of what the North American business has been able to achieve including increasing our market share in what has been a challenging year for all of us and we want to say thank you to everyone for your commitment to continue to deliver excellent results. We look forward to your 2021 plans to help grow our brand for the future.

We will work closely with the business leaders to ensure a successful 2020 and Business Plan 2021 and I will travel to the US and Canada as soon as I am able to do so.

Regards,
Franz Watzlawick
Chief Commercial Officer

Meet Trump's new coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, a Stanford physician who frequently criticized lockdown measures and believes in the full reopening of schools

Scott Atlas listens to President Donald Trump at a briefing at the White House on August 10, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty

President Donald Trump announced the hiring of Dr. Scott Atlas as a coronavirus adviser on Monday. 

Atlas is a healthcare policy expert who works at the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. He is not an infectious-diseases expert. 

He has been a frequent guest on Fox News in recent months, where he frequently spoke out against lockdown measures and for the full reopening of schools in the fall. 

Atlas' appointment comes as Trump appears to be tiring of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, two experts who have been on the White House coronavirus task force for months.

President Donald Trump has taken on a new coronavirus adviser who shares his belief that schools and college football should resume in the fall — as he continues to be at odds with top experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci.

At the White House's coronavirus briefing on Monday, Trump announced the hiring of Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University.

Since the beginning of the US coronavirus outbreak, Atlas has spoken out against imposing lockdown measures, saying it impedes herd immunity and is costing the lives of people too afraid to seek emergency medical treatment for other issues.

"In the absence of immunization, society needs circulation of the virus, assuming high-risk people can be isolated," he wrote in an op-ed for The Hill in April. "It is very possible that whole-population isolation prevented natural herd immunity from developing."

—KUSI News (@KUSINews) August 12, 2020

Since May, Atlas has also appeared on Fox News regularly to speak on the US coronavirus crisis, and shared opinions often at odds with many public-health experts' warnings.

For one, Atlas has said that he thinks schools should reopen and that the college football season should be able to start without any issues.

These ideas seem to line up with the president's own ideas about the pandemic.

At the Monday press briefing, Trump called Atlas a "very famous man who's also very highly respected," according to a pool report.


"He has many great ideas," Trump said. "He thinks what we've done is really good, and now we'll take it to a new level."
Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci at a White House coronavirus briefing in April 2020. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

In an interview with Fox News on Monday night, Atlas said about his new appointment: "Any way I can help, I will do so."

During this interview Atlas also said that it was perfectly safe for the college football season to start this fall.

He said that athletes would be in a "very sophisticated environment" to prevent the spread of the disease, and claimed that being "physical specimens" meant there was "virtually zero risk" of the virus hurting them.


While young and otherwise healthy people have a lower risk of contracting a severe version of COVID-19, several athletes have tested positive for COVID-19. Athletic people have also contracted severe coronavirus symptoms.

However, Atlas did acknowledge that there may be some coaches or players with other health conditions who may need to sit the season out.

"There is such fear in the community and unfortunately it's been propagated by people who are doing some really sloppy thinking and really sensationalistic media reporting," Atlas said.

Trump and many other top Republicans have recently called on organizing bodies to continue with the fall season of college football, though several conferences and players have already dropped out over coronavirus fears.
Trump listens as Atlas speaks at a White House coronavirus briefing on August 12, 2020. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Atlas also spoke on Wednesday at an event Trump held on reopening America's schools.


According to a pool report from the event, Atlas said that the "risk of the disease is extremely low for children, even less than that of seasonal flu" and that the "harms of locking out the children from school are enormous."

His comments came two days after the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association reported that more than 97,000 children in the US had tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two weeks of July.

Studies have also shown that children can be carriers for the disease, posing threats to the adults who teach them if schools reopen.

This isn't the first time that Atlas has supported reopening schools. In July, he told Fox News that the idea of not reopening schools in the fall was "hysteria" and "ludicrous."


Forbes has pointed out that Atlas is not an infectious disease expert, like Fauci, but focuses on healthcare policy instead.

Prior to joining the Hoover Institute at Stanford, Atlas was the chief of neuroradiology at the school's medical center from 1998 to 2012, according to his profile on Stanford's website. Neuroradiologists analyze x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs.

Atlas has also previously advised on the presidential campaigns of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, according to Forbes.

Atlas' appointment as an adviser to the president comes as Trump appears to be tiring of Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, two top experts who have been advising the White House coronavirus task force for months.

He has called Fauci "a bit of an alarmist" and called out Birx on Twitter for saying that the disease was "extraordinarily widespread."

The USPS is shutting down mail-sorting machines crucial for processing absentee ballots as the 2020 election looms

ITS NOT JUST ABOUT THE ELECTION ITS ABOUT SELLING OFF THE POST OFFICE A LONG TIME REPUBLICAN WET DREAM

Ben Margot/AP

The United States Postal Service is deactivating mail-sorting machines at processing centers across the US.

At least 19 sorting machines, which can process 35,000 pieces of mail per hour, have been dismantled and removed in recent weeks, postal workers told Motherboard.

The president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union and Democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns about sorting machines being dismantled and about sweeping changes to the USPS made by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a top Trump donor who took office earlier this summer.

Mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to cause a surge in mail volume ahead of the 2020 election. President Donald Trump has said he would withhold funding from the USPS to sabotage mail-in voting.

United States Postal Service workers say mail-sorting machines are being taken apart and removed from distribution facilities across the US, raising concerns about their ability to handle a surge in mail-in ballots for the general election in November.

At least 19 mail-sorting machines, which can process up to 35,000 pieces of mail per hour, have been removed without any explanation, postal workers told Motherboard. And an internal letter published by the USPS in June outlines a plan to remove hundreds of mail-sorting machines from operation this year.

It's the latest in a series of sweeping changes that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump, has made to the agency since taking office earlier this summer. Postal workers and elected officials have said the changes dismantle the US Postal Service and could have devastating effects on the election, when many people are expected to vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kimberly Karol, the president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, confirmed that machines were being removed and told NPR in an interview this week that DeJoy's policies were "now affecting the way that we do business and not allowing us to deliver every piece every day."


In a letter to DeJoy last week, the Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said that the removal of mail-sorting machines and other cost-cutting measures "threaten the timely delivery of mail," including absentee ballots.

In a statement to Business Insider, a USPS representative, Dave Partenheimer, said the notion that mail-sorting machines were being deactivated to sabotage mail-in voting was "erroneous."

"The Postal Service routinely moves equipment around its network as necessary to match changing mail and package volumes," Partenheimer said. "Package volume is up, but mail volume continues to decline. Adapting our processing infrastructure to the current volumes will ensure more efficient, cost effective operations and better service for our customers."

Trump has repeatedly attacked the USPS and its role in the 2020 election, claiming that voting by mail is inherently fraudulent despite evidence that the rate of fraud is extremely low and that mail-in voting doesn't help or hurt one political party over the other. On Thursday, Trump told Fox Business that he would withhold funding from the USPS to harm mail-in voting.


"They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump said, adding, "But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting."

DeJoy, a major Trump donor, has overseen sweeping changes at the USPS, slashing its budget amid the COVID-19 pandemic and freezing hiring since he took control of the agency in May.

Postal workers told Motherboard that while it wasn't unusual for mail-sorting machines to be deactivated or moved among facilities, the timing coincided with Trump's push to destabilize the USPS before the election.

"When you take out one of the machines, it takes away our ability to respond to unforeseen things that may happen," Karol told Motherboard.

But experts have said that Trump's assertion that the USPS won't be able to process mail-in voting without a larger budget is faulty. Amber McReynolds, the former director of the Denver Elections Division and the CEO of the National Vote At Home Institute, told Business Insider in April that election-related mail likely wouldn't strain the service.

"The Postal Services estimates they process about 140 billion pieces of mail a year. And when we talk about 250 million mail ballots for, say, every American, that's only about 0.2% of their normal volume," she said.


Trump admits he's refusing to fund the US Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting

Postal workers in Oakland, California, wearing masks and gloves as they work during the coronavirus pandemic. Ben Margot/AP

President Donald Trump told Fox Business on Thursday morning that he would block additional funding and election assistance for the US Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Trump said he would not sign off on any relief bill that includes emergency federal funds for the USPS and more money to process election-related mail.

"They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump said on Thursday, adding, "But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting."

Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the cash-strapped USPS has implemented cost-cutting measures that experts say could harm the delivery of election-related mail.



President Donald Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning that he would block additional funding and election assistance for the US Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting.

Throughout the pandemic, Trump has rejected giving emergency funds or grants to the cash-strapped USPS, which has seen a major revenue shortfall. He has also aggressively spread false and exaggerated claims that voting by mail is inherently fraudulent. In reality, rates of fraud are extremely low, and there's no evidence that expanding voting by mail hurts or benefits either political party.

Trump said in a press conference on Wednesday evening that he would not sign off on either the $25 billion in emergency funds for the USPS or the $3.5 billion in election assistance to help states that Democrats have advocated in a federal COVID-19 relief bill.

He said the same thing during the Fox Business interview on Thursday morning.


"They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump said. "Now, in the meantime, they aren't getting there. By the way, those are just two items. But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting ... because they're not equipped."
—The Recount (@therecount) August 13, 2020

Trump has previously opposed measures to help the Postal Service. He said he would refuse to sign the Cares Act stimulus package in March if it included a bailout for the agency, The Washington Post reported on April 11.

"We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if [money for the Postal Service] was in it," an administration official told The Post. "I don't know if we used the v-bomb, but the president was not going to sign it, and we told them that."

The Post reported that while Congress initially intended to give the Postal Service a $13 billion grant, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stepped in to quash the measure, telling lawmakers, "You can have a loan, or you can have nothing at all."


Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina shipping-and-logistics executive and a prolific Republican donor with no experience working at the Postal Service, the USPS has implemented cost-cutting measures including limiting overtime for postal carriers, cracking down on late trips to deliver mail, and freezing hiring. Critics have said the measures are slowing mail delivery in some areas and could prevent voters' ballots for the November election from being delivered on time.

The reasoning behind Trump's opposition to more USPS funding is faulty. The United States does not have "universal mail-in voting." Before the pandemic, five states mailed all registered voters a ballot that could be returned by mail or put in a ballot drop box; Washington and Oregon have done so for decades.

Four more states — Nevada, Montana, California, and Vermont — and Washington, DC, have said they will mail all or most registered voters a ballot while also offering scaled-back in-person voting for the November election.

Ten more states are planning to send all or most active registered voters a ballot application in the mail, The Post reported.


And while the USPS policy changes appear to be slowing down timely mail delivery in some areas, experts have disputed Trump's assertion that the Postal Service cannot handle an additional load of ballots.

Amber McReynolds, the former director of the Denver Elections Division and the CEO of the National Vote At Home Institute, told Insider in April that, when properly funded, the USPS is a remarkably effective tool for administering mail-in elections.

"They have the ability with their equipment and everything to run it at a level that must of us would never expect — it's massive," McReynolds said. When put into perspective, she said, the number of ballots the Postal Service processes is just a blip on the radar.

"The Postal Services estimates they process about 140 billion pieces of mail a year. And when we talk about 250 million mail ballots for, say, every American, that's only about 0.2% of their normal volume," she said.

THIRD WORLD USA

Slashing extra federal unemployment benefits to $200 per week would lead to a 28% drop in consumer spending, study finds

Aug 11, 2020,

Reuters

If extra federal unemployment insurance is cut to $200 per week, consumer spending will slump 28%, according to a study released Monday from the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

Consumer spending would drop 12% if the extra unemployment benefit is slashed to $400 per week, the study found. 

The study comes as Congress discusses restarting debate of the next round of coronavirus stimulus. While Democrats have pushed to extend the additional $600 weekly UI benefit, Republicans have proposed cutting it.

Cutting the extra federal unemployment insurance amid the coronavirus pandemic will lower consumer spending, according to a study released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

If extra federal unemployment insurance is cut to $200 per week, it will reduce the wage replacement rate by 44% and lead to a 28% drop in consumer spending, according to the paper, titled "The Effect of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence From COVID-19."

Even a cut to $400 in extra weekly unemployment insurance would lower the wage replacement rate by 29%, and lead to a 12% fall in consumer spending, the study found.

"We find that higher replacement rates lead to significantly more consumer spending – even with increases in the unemployment rate – consistent with the goal of the fiscal stimulus," authors of the paper wrote.

The study comes amid a debate on the future of the extra federal unemployment insurance benefit. In March, the CARES Act established an additional $600 per week to unemployed Americans, which helped replace wages lost due to the pandemic and boosted the economic recovery from the ensuing recession.

But at the end of July, the benefit expired without a plan in place for what aid is coming next to the roughly 30 million Americans who are still unemployed. When it expired, the average weekly UI benefit fell to about $257 from $812, suggesting a 68% decline in the wage replacement rate, the study found.

Consumer spending is an important part of the economy and recession recovery because it makes up roughly 70% of US gross domestic product. Spending is also related to hiring — the more consumers shop, the more small businesses are able to expand and hire more workers.


The fate of the extra weekly unemployment benefit is up in the air. Last week, Democrats and Republicans failed to come to an agreement on the next round of stimulus, in part because of different ideas on how to extend additional unemployment benefits.

While Democrats have pushed to extend the extra $600 per week, Republicans proposed in the HEALS Act lowering the weekly amount to $200 for two months until states can set up unemployment benefits to replace 70% of workers lost wages.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders including one that would extend $300 per week in federal unemployment insurance, with states covering another $100 per week. Trump's orders could face legal and other challenges, and experts have said that many states won't be able to cover an additional $100 per week.

While the US economy added back jobs in July and the unemployment rate declined to 10.2%, there are also signs that the recovery is losing steam. Jobs were gained back at a slower pace than in previous months, and consumer sentiment has slipped amid spiking COVID-19 cases.

Vocal critics of the US pandemic response are emerging: central bankers

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's President Eric Rosengren. Reuters

Presidents of Federal Reserve Banks in major American cities are speaking out about the poor federal response to the pandemic, saying that it eliminates any potential of a quick economic recovery.

The president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that the economy may never recover from the pandemic — and eliminating aid like $600 unemployment benefits only underscores that.

On the same day, the president of the Boston Federal Reserve said the US response to the virus has been "inconsistent" and that economic activity likely won't spike upwards until Americans no longer feel threatened by the virus.

Similarly, the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve said people must follow "protocols like wearing masks" because the virus' resurgence this summer has led to a "muted" economic recovery.

The coronavirus pandemic has decimated the US economy in just a few months. More than 56 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the last 21 weeks. Business Insider's Carmen Reinicke previously reported that unemployment claims swiftly surpassed the 37 million filed during the 18-month Great Recession.

The road to economic recovery is expected to take years — and now the country's central bankers are starting to speak out about how that recovery has been further hindered by the federal coronavirus response.

Most recently, congress failed to replace the stimulus package that lapsed at the end of July. With negotiations seemingly deadlocked, President Donald Trump filed a series of executive actions of questionable legality to temporarily extend certain stimulus provisions.

Mary Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told reporters on Wednesday that congress needs to agree on a new stimulus package as the US economy may flat out never recover from the pandemic, according to the Financial Times.


"It's certainly possible that we don't come back, at least in certain sectors in the same way as before," she said. "That will mean a large number of workers are not able to go back to the same jobs they had before the pandemic."

Central bankers in other major US cities have echoed Daly's statements.

Eric Rosengren, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, slammed the country's coronavirus pandemic response in a Wednesday virtual meeting with the South Shore Chamber of Commerce in Massachusetts, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"Limited or inconsistent efforts by states to control the virus based on public health guidance are not only placing citizens at unnecessary risk of severe illness and possible death, but are also likely to prolong the economic downturn," he said.


He noted that as long as the virus "poses significant threats to public health," economic activity will not tick up as individuals will "voluntarily avoid activities that place their health at risk." He stated that tighter restrictions on economic activity in Europe at the height of the virus in the spring allowed for successful retail and recreational reopenings and a fast economic recovery period.

Daly also pointed to the US government letting unemployment lapse on July 31 as an example of the inconsistent response that is ultimately further hobbling the economy. Letting the $600 unemployment benefit expire "creates the potential for a little bit of a hole in consumer spending," she said. As congress debates the next round of stimulus, millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet — let alone increase consumer spending by the amount needed to prop up the economy.

Robert Kaplan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said that the recent resurgence of the coronavirus has "muted" the economic recovery in virtual remarks to the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. Bolstering the recovery "requires adherence to protocols, particularly wearing masks," he said. "If we don't follow that, while people may feel freer, the economy will grow slower.