It was a more literal quarantine than usual today, I didn’t even leave our property. No three mile walk with my sweet wife, like yesterday. Not even a walk in the neighborhood with our overgrown puppy. After a gorgeous spring day yesterday, it started light snowing in the evening and kept up most of the day. I broke house quarantine to go out and shovel snow. But it’s quite possible that none of our cars will even leave the driveway tomorrow. And I shoveled the walk so the mail could be delivered, but how long will that even continue? The Postal Service has been struggling financially for a long time now but the collapsing economy means almost nobody is spending money on print advertising “junk mail” which is a huge part of the Postal Service’s revenue stream.
I’ve seen several stories indicating that, as is, the United States Postal Service is on track to go broke by June. They’ve asked for loans and/or a bailout but Trump has indicated that the (next) stimulus/relief bill being considered in Congress won’t get his signature if it includes relief for the Postal Service. Hard to know if he’s serious or if he’s just bloviating to some subset of his base. Would Congress critters actually pass a bill that cut the Postal Service off at the knees and bailed out hedge funds? I guess that little in the way of mendacity and cowardice would surprise me any more.
Coronavirus News and Analysis:
”Italian Mafia Distributes Food To Low-Income Families Under Quarantine”
”Texas Judge Violates His Own Stay At Home Order To Go To Grandson’s Birthday Party”
”COVID-19 Patients Given Unproven Drug In Texas Nursing Home In 'Disconcerting' Move”
The Fed’s Balance Sheet: The Other Exponential Curve
Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build ‘the Architecture of Oppression’
As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what’s being built is the architecture of oppression.
More from Edward Snowden:
”No, You Did Not Get COVID-19 in the Fall of 2019”
”A massive wave of evictions is coming. Temporary bans won't help.”
”Mexico closes Minneapolis company’s plant for refusal to sell ventilators”
”Smithfield shutting U.S. pork plant indefinitely, warns of meat shortages during pandemic”
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