Background Briefing: July 16, 2020

 

Will Trump Be Able to Kill the Postal Service Before November to Stop Mail-in Ballots?

We begin with the Republicans’ on-going efforts to destroy the post office which Trump has accelerated by putting in an unqualified crony as postmaster general to make sure mail-in ballots are either not delivered or are delivered late. Lisa Graves, the Executive Director of the new corporate watchdog group True North Research joins us to discuss her new report “The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Post Office”. A Former Deputy Attorney General in the Justice Department, Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Deputy Chief of the Article 3 judges division of the U.S. Courts, she has uncovered how the 50 year-long dream of the billionaire Charles Koch to privatize the Post Office is coming close to being realized. With Trump’s appointment of the new postmaster general Louis DeJoy who has already ordered mail-carriers to slow down deliveries, the writing appears to be on the wall for a deathblow to the USPS after decades of sabotage from Republicans in Congress doing the Koch Brothers’ bidding. Meanwhile Trump is ranting more and more about the dangers of mail-in ballots which make democracy safe and voting easy, but clearly are a danger to him.

 

Biden May Be Ahead in the Polls But 16 Million Likely Democratic Voters Have Already Been Purged

Then we investigate further the electoral landscape ahead of November where the polls increasingly give Biden wider and wider margins of victory and speak with Greg Palast, an investigative reporter for The Guardian, BBC Television and Rolling Stone about his latest book just out, How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt For America’s Vanished Voters. He joins us to discuss how over 16 million votes from likely Democratic voters have already been purged from the rolls without voters knowing it. So the potential landslide against Trump will only happen if people start checking that their names are on the voting rolls NOW and that they can get their mail-in ballots posted early and securely without even the slightest mistakes in filling out their ballots.

 

Can School Kids Be Protected From Covid in the Classroom?

Then finally with pressure from President Trump and Education Secretary DeVos to withhold federal funds unless schools open while states facing a $765 billion budget shortfall over the next three years run out of money, we assess what can be done to protect students from spreading coronavirus in classrooms as one third of kids in Florida just tested positive for Covid.  Dr. Dan Cooper, a Professor of Pediatrics at U.C. Irvine and Chief of the Pulmonology Division and Program Director of the U.C. Irvine Research Center joins us to discuss the work he is doing to provide scientific data to school boards considering opening up their schools.