Postmaster General Louis DeJoy purchased up to $305,000 in bonds from an investment firm whose managing partner also chairs the U.S. Postal Service’s governing board, the independent body responsible for evaluating DeJoy’s performance.
Between October and April, DeJoy purchased 11 bonds from Brookfield Asset Management each worth between $1,000 and $15,000, or $15,000 and $50,000, according to DeJoy’s financial disclosure paperwork. Ron Bloom, a Brookfield senior executive who manages the firm’s private equity division, has served on the postal board since 2019 and was elected its chairman in February.
Then, consider this:
Bloom, a Trump-appointed Democrat, has faced immense pressure for months from fellow partisans in Congress to trigger a board vote to oust DeJoy. Instead, in an April interview with the Atlantic, Bloom declared, “He’s earned my support, and he will have it until he doesn’t. And I have no particular reason to believe he will lose it.”
Bloom’s board term expired in December 2020, and he currently serves in a one-year holdover term. The Postal Service’s vocal and politically active industry and labor groups have already begun jockeying for the Biden administration’s attention over whether Bloom should be nominated in December for another term.
Jenkins’ comments came amid his legal battle over mask mandates with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). Abbott, a Donald Trump apologist, last month signed an executive order declaring local governments could not require their wearing.
Jenkins successfully challenged the ruling and issued his own order requiring masks at schools and certain businesses. Abbott appealed that ruling to the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas. The court upheld Jenkins’ order late Friday, reported The Dallas Morning News. Abbott has now filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court.
“Nero actually enacted sweeping relief efforts to try to quell the fire and also offer his people aid in the aftermath, particularly the lower class, so Abbott is somehow worse than a Roman emperor known today as being a psychotic tyrant.”
I hesitate to glory in schadenfreude, however this doesn’t depress me:
Elaine Kamarck, a Democrat who served in the Bill Clinton administration, said bluntly: “They’ve gone out of their minds. There’s just no other way to describe this. This is about the dumbest thing you could imagine because the only people listening to them are their voters. So this is the first time I’ve ever seen a political party advocating things that would harm their voters, maybe even kill their voters.”
I’m tellin’ ya. Just click on the NYT map of COVID hot spots, then click on each county. Virtually all the counties where the virus is raging are Trump counties.
Census data released this week — necessary to rework voting boundaries for House of Representative and Senate districts throughout the state — shows that Sussex and New Castle counties experienced the largest Hispanic/Latino population gains. Sussex went from 8.6% in 2010 to 11.3% in 2020, while New Castle increased from 8.7% to 11.1%. Meanwhile, Delaware’s White population decreased from 65.3% in 2010 to 58.6% in 2020.
Census data shows that Sussex County experienced the greatest population growth in the state, with an increase of 40,333 to 237,378 — a gain of 20.4% from the 2010 numbers.
Neighboring Kent County saw a 12% increase of 19,541, from 162,310 to 181,851, while New Castle County experienced only a 6% population gain of 32,240 to 570,719.
Well, I was wrong there. Didn’t expect that sort of growth in Kent County. The good news, throughout the entire state really, is that the growth was all based on increases in minority population. Here’s hoping that redistricting reflects it.
RIP: Nanci Griffith. Man, she was a great songwriter, and I much preferred to hear her own versions of her songs. It was probably that Texas twang. The Last Of The True Believers, an incredible album, has been hailed as a foundational touchstone in Americana/roots music. We’ll let Nanci sing us out today:
