What A Day - USPS We Can

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Disruptions and delays to the postal service have prompted concern since so many people are planning to vote by mail this year. We break down what’s behind the delay, and how to ensure your vote is counted. Congress still can’t agree on how to structure unemployment benefits in the next relief bill. Midwestern states like Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin are emerging as coronavirus hotspots. And in headlines: NASA astronauts safely return to Earth aboard SpaceX’s shuttle, three hackers charged in July Twitter breach, and over 750 criminal cases are under review after LAPD officers are charged with falsifying documents.

It's Monday, August 3rd. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, where we are respectfully withdrawing ourselves from consideration to host Ellen. Yeah, look, I know she might need a replacement, but we just think the podcast space has more growth potential. Yeah, personally, I think daytime TV is a little too edgy. Oh, for sure. On today's show, a check-in on voting by mail and the U.S. Postal Service, then some headlines.

But first, the latest. What we're seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread. It's into the rural as equal urban areas. And to everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune or protected from this virus. That was the truth. But it was also White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx on CNN yesterday. She went on to say that the U.S. is in a, quote, new phase and encourage people living in multi-generational households to wear a mask at home if they live in a town or city with an outbreak, which more guidance. Things are bad. Yeah. And so on that

point, we are four months into America's true handling or lack thereof of the pandemic. We've known about it since January, but March was the true beginning of shutdowns and the like. And as we leave the worst month on record for America's COVID-19 crisis and start a new month, it's important to reiterate that there isn't really a national strategy for anything, not for testing, not for reopening schools, not a safe election. Yeah, and to top it off, Trump has no health care plan in the middle of a pandemic. Two weeks ago yesterday, Trump promised he would announce his health care plan in the middle of a pandemic. Two weeks ago yesterday, Trump promised he would announce his health care plan to rival that of Joe Biden's. And predictably, there is still not a plan at all. So to be clear, we have a presumptive presidential nominee that has released more and more plans with the help of renowned legislators. And we have Donald Trump,

who was golfing this weekend and not coming up with a health care plan that he's running on in the middle of a fucking pandemic. That's true. And on the point of the pandemic for a moment, nationally, new daily cases have flattened just above 60,000, which is quite bad. And there are new concerns about Midwestern states specifically. Correct. So what we have seen over the course of this public health crisis is that not everyone is going to be affected at the same time. When New York was going through the worst of it back in March and April, things were relatively calm everywhere else in the country. As they flattened their curve, it spiked around the rest of the country. And now we are moving from a major focus on Texas and Florida and Arizona and California, which have seen record numbers of cases, to Midwestern states like Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin.

And that was something Dr. Birx pointed out in her interview yesterday. That's right. And last we left off, Senate Republicans, the White House and Democrats were pretty far away from agreeing on a new relief package. They're meeting again today after negotiating over the weekend. So what's the quick update there? Well, the White House says conversations are moving in the right direction. But yesterday in an interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, quote, we will be close to an agreement when we have an agreement. So, you know, take that for what it is. One of the main differences is still unemployment benefits. Republicans want to reduce the federal aid from $600 a week to $200 a week. Democrats want to continue providing $600 a week

through January. There is one new thing, though. So yesterday, Pelosi said that the weekly amount should relate to the unemployment rate, suggesting that over time, if the economy improves, the $600 could wind down. Linking emergency relief to certain economic benchmarks is something that Democrats and economists have been suggesting for several months. If you've come across the term automatic stabilizers, that's what that means. The idea is that if things get worse, benefits increase. If things get better, benefits decrease. It's sort of an autopilot that avoids these last minute political fights like the one Republicans have dragged the country into at this very moment. Pelosi has been supportive of automatic stabilizers, but it wasn't written into the most recent relief bill that House

Democrats passed in May. But moving on to other things that need to get fixed during the pandemic, mail. There have been a lot of reports of delivery delays, prompting concerns about vote by mail. So let's walk through what's going on. Yeah, this is going to be a major point of discussion from now until the November election. So let's start with talking about two underlying factors here. One is that the pandemic has hurt the USPS financially. This is due to things like less mail advertising, for instance, and that comes on top of years of financial difficulty there. And two is that way, way more people are requesting or are planning to request absentee ballots because of the there. And two is that way, way more people are requesting or are planning to request absentee ballots because of the pandemic. And then into that complicated

situation walks Louis DeJoy, a name that we will be talking about for quite a long time. DeJoy is the Postmaster General or head of the USPS. He's also a top Republican donor who's given millions of dollars to President Trump and the RNC in the past few years. He was appointed by the Postal Service's Board of Governors, three Republicans and one Democrat in May. The current delivery problem that some places are experiencing now appears to stem directly from these cost-cutting changes that DeJoy approved, which began in mid-July.

According to the Washington Post, some of those changes include prohibiting overtime pay, shutting down mail sorting machines early, and having mail carriers sometimes leave mail behind to avoid extra trips or late delivery. Union leaders and workers told the Post that those things have combined in recent weeks to create delays of two days or more in different parts of the country. Right. So union leaders and others are speaking out about the issue. But what are DeJoy's people saying? Yeah. So a spokesperson for the USPS says the disruption is temporary and rejected any notion that DeJoy's actions are meant to slow mail down or are being directed by Trump.

But you can understand why people think this way. Already, there is a concern that these actions are politically motivated, given Trump's unfounded position on mail ballots, that they lead to widespread fraud. Again, that is not true. It's not backed up by any real evidence. Yeah. And it's also like how he's always voted was by mail. So like, if it's fine for him, it should be fine for everybody. Correct. Correct. And long before this year and trailing in polls to Joe Biden,

Trump has also been mad about the Postal Service and has been taking steps to privatize it in part because of his dislike of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, insisting that the post office charges Amazon too little. In recent days, the Postal Service said that it would give the Treasury Department information on its contracts in exchange for a $10 billion loan. Okay, so I really want to make a joke about the Postal Service, the band, but I am refraining, so you're all welcome. All right. Okay, but the top line concern, of course, is the possibility of voter disenfranchisement if these delays and disruptions continue and if they're widespread. Yeah, for sure. And in addition to that, there are worries that states are also unprepared to handle the challenges of processing all this

mail-in voting, along with safely staffing polling locations during the pandemic. And Trump seems poised to try to call the election results into question no matter what happens. And by the way, a note on those results, it is very possible, if not likely, that we're looking at an election week or weeks as opposed to election day to count all the votes and call the result, especially if it is close. So that's just something to be primed for. In the meantime, voting rights experts are laser focused on making sure that mail ballots are counted. And one simple solve for this very moment, if you are planning to vote by mail, just mail in that ballot as soon as possible. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk quickly about the rules around mail ballots and how

they're counted. For sure. So there are different rules for different states, but per the New York Times, completed ballots that don't come back by election day are invalidated in 34 states. So most of them. And there are other states where the ballot just has to be postmarked by election day. We're already seeing some issues play out in the primaries this year with thousands of mail ballots being thrown out in a number of different primary races. And that is something that could be an issue if the margins are small. So it's important to ask why do these ballots get thrown out? It's not some grand conspiracy theory, but rather a bunch of different rules that vary across the country. It might simply be if they get turned in late, if they are missing signatures from the voter, if they're missing a postmark, or in some cases, even something like a torn envelope.

Yeah, really cool democracy we have. But we should say Crooked has been putting out really great resources on voting and specifically voting by mail at votesaveamerica.com. So please go check that out. 100%. And there are lots of people that are working on this and lots of different lawsuits going on around ballot access and absentee voting. And some states have just been doing it longer and are better at it than others. For instance, the Post points to a good example in Maricopa County, Arizona. They have a huge majority of voters that vote by mail. And in 2018, about 300 mail ballots out of 1.2 million got rejected. So a tiny, tiny number. And the good news is that more places are expanding ballot access and already there was $400 million set aside in the CARES Act for helping

these states administer elections during the pandemic, though Democrats did and have pushed for a lot more with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanting $4 billion for this. So a ton to discuss on this topic, and we surely did not get to all of it. We'll be keeping track of this crucial story as time goes on, but that is the latest for now. It's Monday, WOD Squad, and for today's Temp Check, we're talking about the hottest fashion drop of the year. It's Fy WOD Squad, and for today's Temp Check, we're talking about the hottest fashion drop of the year.

It's Fyre Fest merch, which was just put up for auction by the U.S. government. The clothes were seized from organizer Billy McFarlane, and profits from their sale will go to victims of the Fyre Fest scam. Fyre Fest sweatshirts are already seeing bids above $300, so even if the event was a disaster, it at least made for some expensive clothes. So Gideon, have you been buying clothes in quarantine and what fits are standing out to you now?

The clothes I've been buying mostly shorts, other things that keep me comfortable and cool. Not, not really stressing in the looks department too much right now, but one of the same. Yeah. I mean, you know who,

who is frankly one of the same yeah i mean you know who who is frankly um one of the fits that seems cool though are these ups outfits that are being sold you know you can get that crop apparently the crop is only available in excel now which might mean it fits my torso in a way that you have a really long torso i honestly don't remember what you look like because i just see your head in a Zoom now. Yeah, I would say regular, but I think if it's XL, it won't be Cropped and it'll be normal shirt. So I'm eyeing that. I might have to go there in a little bit.

All right. So for those of you that don't know, the USPS, which is similar to the UPS but is not UPS, has a website and they were selling really sick merch. A lot of people started noticing this past weekend. Yeah, I don't know that the UPS has crop tops. That is my bad. But what other shopping have you been doing right now? I mean, I would say the biggest thing has been like masks for me, which like I promise I'm not part of big mask, but I have been buying masks online. If you follow my Instagram, which you should, I look pretty good in masks regularly, which I don't know if that's saying something about me or the masks, but I did buy socks from

the USPS today. So this feels good. I feel like I'm contributing. Hopefully our mail gets there. Hopefully you get a new president. That's how I feel. Yeah. You know, you're you're wrapping it all into one.

I think the final thing is that USPS could maybe sell masks. That seems like a good opportunity for them. If they're thinking about things right now in terms of generating revenue, I would get one. I would also get one of the blue hats that the guys have in delivery in cold weather. I like those too. Oh, yeah, the little fuzzies. All right. Well, I dig it.

And just like that, we have checked our temps. It's not cold enough for those very cute hats, but still, we want them. Please stay safe and we will check in with you all again tomorrow. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. database along with fake evidence. Side note, these gang allegations lead to harsher sentences. The district attorney's office reached out to over 750 people whose cases were handled by the charged officers, with some cases dating back to 2002. It's possible that some of these cases could get overturned or thrown out. Only one of the three charged officers was relieved of duty, while the other two were assigned home. 16 other LAPD officers are also currently under investigation for similar reasons.

If this is part of their campaign to make us want to fund the police, it's not good. All right. Three people have been charged in the massive Twitter hack that targeted popular accounts and led to the great blue check silencing of July 2020. They include the mastermind behind the hack, a 17 year old from Tampa, Florida, who went by Kirk, now facing 30 felony counts and is being charged as an adult. This wasn't Kirk's first encounter with law enforcement. He has frequently participated in online scams and hacks. And in April of this year, the Secret Service seized over $700,000 worth of Bitcoin that he had stolen from

a Seattle tech investor. The fact that he started hacking Twitter just a few weeks after that proves how willing he is to cause trouble on the internet, but also how boring this summer is for our nation's young people. Kirk's accomplices were a 19-year-old from the UK and a 22-year-old from Orlando. Hope the legal system goes easy on these kids so they can put their talents towards something useful like shutting down Twitter for an hour without also stealing from people. Yeah, and I hope they have more to do with their summer in the future. In lighter Gen Z tech news, after getting more clarity from Trump,

Microsoft said it will be continuing its talks to buy TikTok. This is without a doubt our only shot at getting TikTok working on Zoom, folks. Over the weekend, Trump borrowed a tactic from many angry dads and threatened to take away the country's TikTok privileges forever. This led to chaos among teens, and it also caused some confusion for Microsoft and ByteDance, a company that owns TikTok, who had been working towards a sale. According to the Wall Street Journal, someone involved in the talks said they were doing what the White House wanted, which included making the app, quote, American-owned. The Trump administration previously expressed concerns that the app could pass on data it collects from Americans to the Chinese government, though TikTok has refuted

those claims. Personally, I only want my data to be mined by my fellow patriots in these United States. Microsoft and ByteDance are currently set to continue their negotiations worry free. I hope that TikTok lives forever. All right. NASA astronauts on SpaceX's Crew Dragon made history yesterday as they splashed down after two months carrying out the first ever space mission to orbit by a private company. It's a story that combines our favorite and least favorite kind of news, American space excellence and very public victories for Elon Musk. Astronauts Bob Binkin and Doug Hurley took off on May 30th, docked on the International Space Station the next day, and on August 1st began their journey back to a country still overrun with COVID-19, presumably because they like space, but it didn't feel dangerous enough.

Their water landing was the first in the USA since 1975 and the first ever in the Gulf of Mexico. And a slight misstep for our country's beautiful boaters. Dozens of them swarmed the landing site, some flying Trump flags, and they had to be shooed away by the Coast Guard. Sad that we couldn't let our brave astronauts have just one minute of peace on Earth before they had to learn about the concept of a MAGA boat parade.

That's the whole reason why they didn't have Wi-Fi up there. There you go. And those are the headlines. One last thing before we go. We told you last week all about Vote Save America's Every Last Vote week of action, and it turns out you were listening. Over 300,000 people requested their vote by mail ballots on votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote.

We sent over 3.5 million texts and made over 50,000 calls to young voters in 11 key battleground states, and over 2,000 of you signed up to work as poll workers on election day. Dude, that's really incredible. And if you are at home and you want to be involved, you can still request your vote-by-mail ballot or volunteer to be a poll worker on votesaveamerica.com slash everylastvote. That is all for today.

If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, swarm us with votes, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just my direct messages that you've accessed through my social media accounts, yikes. What A Date is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And welcome home, astronauts.

Yay, you did it. Welcome. Sorry that it's so shitty here. Yeah. We could have cleaned, but we didn't. It's our bad. What a day is a Crooked Media production. It's recorded and mixed by

Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.