Trump and US Postal Service

Soon after taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump seized on the US Postal Service as an emblem of the bloated bureaucracy. "A loser," he repeatedly labelled one of America's most beloved public institutions, according to aides who discussed the matter with him.

Allies coddled Trump by telling him the reason he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 was widespread mail-in balloting fraud - a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence - and the President's postal outrage coarsened further.

Advisers would tell Donald Trump that the reason Hillary Clinton won the overall vote in the 2016 US election was because of the US Postal Service. 

Advisers would tell Donald Trump that the reason Hillary Clinton won the overall vote in the 2016 US election was because of the US Postal Service. 

Then Trump complained to senior White House advisers that Jeff Bezos - a presidential foe in part because he owns The Washington Post, whose news coverage the President thought was unfair and too tough on him - was "getting rich" because Amazon had been "ripping off" the Postal Service with a "sweetheart deal" to ship millions of its packages. They explained that this was untrue and that the Postal Service actually benefited from Amazon's business. But the President railed for months about what he described as a "scam".

And now Trump has fixated again on the Postal Service, this time trying to make it a tool in his election campaign by slowing mail service, blocking an emergency infusion of federal funds and challenging the integrity of mail-in balloting. The President acknowledged last week that his opposition was rooted in his desire to restrict how many Americans can vote by mail.

The moves by the Trump administration to disrupt a constitutionally mandated government service during the coronavirus pandemic - under the argument that it will boost operational efficiencies - represent the culmination of Trump's grievance-fuelled crusade against the Postal Service that dates to the start of his presidency. Many of his complaints have centred on the post office's chronic financial problems.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Bruce Blair A leading expert on nuclear command and control, he focused especially on the risks of accidental nuclear war implicit in the “hair-trigger” postures of US and Soviet ballistic missiles. During his final 15 years, he led a campaign for the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons. He died on July 19 at the age of 72 as a result of a severe stroke.

With Blair’s death, the nuclear-disarmament movement has lost one of its most learned, creative and persistent leaders. The challenges of nuclear disarmament and, in the interim, reducing the danger of nuclear war, remain. Sadly, we must now carry on without Blair’s extraordinary focus, leadership, and innovative institution building. Those of us who have had the privilege of working with him will continue to be inspired by his quiet but dogged and comprehensive commitment to the mission.

Minuteman launch control officer. After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in communications, Blair served in the US Air Force from 1970 to 1974. He spent one year at Strategic Command’s headquarters in Nebraska as a support officer for the “Looking Glass” airborne command post. During the Cold War, one of these aircraft was in the air at all times and could launch the 1,000 US Minuteman missiles scattered over the northern Great Plains in case some of their launch-control facilities failed or were destroyed.

From 1972 to 1974, he served at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana as a launch control officer for a group of 50 Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missiles. His underground launch-control center also served as an alternate command post for the full wing of 200 missiles. Each Minuteman II, housed in a reinforced-concrete underground “silo,” carried a single nuclear warhead with roughly 80 times the power of the Hiroshima warhead.

Mandela At Sydney Opera House 1990

In his first year of freedom, Nelson Mandela visited Australia to say thanks for opposing apartheid.

Released from prison in May 1990, Mandela was still four years from becoming South Africa’s first black president. From the Sydney Opera House steps on October 24, the anti-apartheid leader addressed a crowd of 40,000,

The air of inspiration. The mixture of awe and celebration in those around me, and the choir’s rendition of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica ("God Bless Africa").

Mandela was initially so moved by the choir’s performance that he did not begin speaking. But he was soon praising the effect of sanctions in putting pressure on South Africa’s apartheid regime, which had segregated and racially discriminated against that nation’s black majority for decades.

“I can recall how we prisoners of apartheid whispered to each other about your very healthy and militant actions, about your disavowal of an all-white Springbok team from a country where your black brothers and sisters toiled under apartheid rule,” Mandela said.

Marrickville Blooms

 

Tree lined Street in Marrickville