ARI HERZOG

My Personal Blog

141,900 Blue Boxes

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The United States Postal Service needs about $50 billion to stay open.

Without it, you can say goodbye to 31,322 post offices and 141,900 blue collection boxes before the end of September.

Here’s why:

First, because the pandemic is causing less people to buy stamps and mail letters and packages, USPS mail volume was down 30% in the first week of March. The agency projects being down 50% by the end of June.

Second, the USPS employs over 630,000 workers. Since the coronavirus reached the United States, 500 workers tested positive for COVID-19, 462 are presumptive positive, 19 died from it, and 6,000 are in self-quarantine. These numbers are increasing.

Third, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 requires the USPS to pre-fund future pension obligations for 75 years. There is no other government agency or private corporation that does this. It’s a crazy law.

Imagine the repercussions if the USPS shut down:

  • Grandma’s birthday card would need to be sent by UPS, FedEx, DHL, or another courier service. And, because those couriers probably won’t pick up the card at your home or deliver it to every home in the country, you’ll need to go somewhere to send it and she’ll need to go somewhere to get it.
  • UPS SurePost and FedEx SmartPost would stop, forcing those companies to deliver mail to customer destinations; but since when does UPS or FedEx deliver to the Grand Canyon or remote Alaska?
  • Companies will need to use those couriers to mail bills and customer letters at a higher cost. Catalogs and magazines might end.
  • Small businesses and nonprofits that require low USPS mailing rates would be put out of business.
  • Rural towns that rely on the post office to share gossip and the news would lose their hub of information.
  • 100,000 employed veterans would be furloughed or laid off.
  • Passport processing (for post offices that offer it) would stop.

And with a presidential election in November, you can say goodbye to voting by mail. How’s that going to happen? FedEx?

Privatization has its pros and cons.

In one camp is former Postmaster General William Henderson, who served under Presidents G.W. Bush and Clinton. He penned an insightful op-ed in 2001 arguing for privatization.

In another camp is Senator Bernie Sanders. “If the goal of the Postal Service is to make as much money as possible,” he said in 2018, “tens of millions of people, particularly low-income people and people in rural areas, will see a decline in or doing away with basic mail services.”

Let’s have the privatization debate another time.

For now, we need to keep the American institution alive. Buying stamps and mailing letters isn’t enough. We need to insist that the President and Congress save the USPS. If the airlines and large corporations can receive federal stimulus money, then why can’t the postal service?

Oh, right. Because you know who doesn’t like the postal service.

Trump Administration Hires Official Bloggers

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A funny.

In response to the rising tide of fake news and misinformation, senior White House officials are approaching bloggers who may not have necessarily voted for the President to nevertheless work for the administration, counterpunch the naive, and promote verified stories.

Tim DeGolden, a senior advisor to President Trump on new media and citizen journalism, believes this is a positive step.

“Bloggers are influencers,” DeGolden said on Federal Online News Radio this week. “They have existing distributions and social media relationships. It’s irrelevant if someone voted for the President. What’s most important is the person acknowledges that Trump is the President and that there is willingness to serve as a full-time consultant of sorts, but as a W-2 employee. I think it’s a great idea.”

The President is supportive. He’s very familiar with blogging.

It’s unclear who will be hired or whether they’ll be allowed to work remotely. Some of the junior bloggers for The Onion expressed interest. I’m willing. All that’s known as of April 1 is the 45th White House wants to swing back at swingers and accurately represent the online American people.

P.S. April Fools. This is satire. Happy reading.

Alt and Rogue Twitter Accounts are Unofficial But They Are Not Necessarily Fake

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Flags.

Shortly after Inauguration Day, the Trump Administration issued a gag order to federal agencies to cease online communications and other media outreach until transition teams were in place.

The White House is creating national unrest on multiple fronts. President Trump called climate change a “hoax” during his campaign. He signed an executive order eliminating funding to health groups that advise on abortions. He hires advisors who represent far-right conservative movements.

It doesn’t help that the Senate confirmation process is taking a long time. Votes are not yet scheduled for the Secretaries of Energy, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, and Labor; or for the Director of National Intelligence or the U.S. Trade Representative. The delay is causing agency outreach to be restricted if not halted.

Adding to the confusion are public comments by Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Counselor Kellyanne Conway using terms such as “alternative facts” and “fake news.”

Is it a surprise to you that government employees went rogue and created Twitter accounts to share real facts and real news?

This grassroots movement began with the National Park Service and spread to other federal agencies that created their own alt and rogue accounts. To date, I maintain a Twitter list of over 120 alt accounts for you to peruse and follow.

How do you determine if a tweet or an account is real or fake?

NOAA is an acronym for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With over 136,000 followers, altNOAA’s bio is specific: “The Unofficial ‘Resistance’ team of the NOAA. Account not taxpayer subsidized. The NOAA studies the oceans and the atmosphere to understand our planet.”

Is this account real? Or is it fake? Or is it somewhere in between?

Does authenticity matter if the facts get out?

Why do alt and rogue accounts describe themselves and tweet as they do?

Pressing for more information via private messaging, I received a range of responses. Here’s one:

“What we hoped to accomplish was to support our fellow civil servants who are understandably alarmed about a new administration that does not appear to be operating within the norm. Most of us have gone through transitions and we all know that our role and obligation is to carry out the policies of a new administration subject to our oath to faithfully uphold the laws and Constitution. What we find so worrisome is that this administration appears to think that our role and obligation is to is carry out their policies without regard to the laws and Constitution. That is deeply troubling to anyone who believes in good government and, for that matter, democracy. As far as whether someone can tell we are real we can only say that we are and have no intention other than to encourage exercise of free speech within the bounds of our obligations as federal employees.”

I’m reminded of President Obama’s first inauguration when he promoted public participation and the concept of getting involved in political action.

Time will tell how these alt and rogue accounts change their messaging. For now, they share real facts and publicly-available information. And if something they tweet compels you to take action, that’s a good thing, right?

Why I Am Addicted to @CSPAN

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I admit it. I am addicted to CSPAN.

I don’t receive cable TV and I get my news from various sources. I don’t mind reading or watching news after the fact (as it’s sometimes better then) but I also enjoy real-time and unfiltered news. CSPAN fills that void.

Partially because of my political and government background and that it’s fascinating watching the Trump Administration get dissected and fall apart, but also because I’m applying for work, I’m passionately engrossed watching Senate confirmation hearings and White House press briefings.

In addition to my 100-plus Twitter list of White House reporters and watching CNN GO on Roku, CSPAN helps me gain awareness of Washington’s who’s who of players.

Many political reporters and White House correspondents use Twitter only to broadcast their own insights and investigations. Others recognize the power of sharing links and retweets. A smaller number of people will acknowledge you if you get on their radar.

In one example, I thanked a CNN roundtable of panelists.

I quickly received a notification that Karen Tumulty and Jonathan Martin, political reporters for the Washington Post and New York Times, manually “liked” my tweet thanking them.

In another example, as I watched Sean Spicer call upon a reporter and not knowing his affiliation, and seeing that CSPAN showed that part of the room, I observed Jared Rizzi (representing a SiriusXM channel) tweeting from behind. We interacted in the past, so I asked him to help me identify a face. He responded seconds later.

A lot of people are distracted by this political chaos and the initial weeks of the presidency.

I’m not distracted. I’m very productive. In fact, if I watch or read the media too much, I get bored — and my creativity surges.

I don’t know where my (or the larger) political world is going but I’m enjoying the CSPAN ride through this new normal.

If the Media Boycotts the White House

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This is the White House briefing room.

Will life go on if the White House Press Corps boycotts the daily briefing?

Yes, says David Frum, The Atlantic’s senior editor. He wrote a series of tweets on November 29, 2016 that suggest White House reporters boycott the daily briefings and focus on research-based accounting. In particular:

During the first week of White House press briefings, both live and as later reported by journalists and correspondents, 1) Press Secretary Sean Spicer yelled at the corps about inaccurate crowd sizes and other so-called alternative facts, and 2) he asked questions from the New York Post before the New York Times, from the Washington Times before the Washington Post, and from the Christian Broadcasting Network before the Cable News Network.

If Trump (and indirectly Spicer) care more about CBN than CNN, would anything change if CNN suddenly ceases to show up? After all, C-SPAN will continue to do their job of video-recording everything in government; and CNN could work out a deal with them for selected airings.

Keith Olbermann echoes this belief for the first three minutes of this video rant:

The White House reporter — as a regular face following the President — was developed after the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield.

The history is clear:

During the two-month period between when Garfield was shot and when he was taken to his New Jersey summer home, where he died, reporters for the first time covered the President at the White House around the clock.

Stephen Bannon, the former Breitbart chairman and now Trump’s chief strategist, is on record to the New York Times:

I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.

Media and people, what say you?

Trump and Nieto Reinvent Foreign Policy on Twitter

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This is Donald Trump.This is President Nieto.

Donald Trump and Enrique Pena Nieto, the respective Presidents of the USA and Mexico, are reinventing decades of foreign policy protocols — on Twitter.

Trump’s campaign was predicated on the belief that a contiguous wall would be built along the US-Mexico border and that Mexico would pay for it.

Nieto said that his country will not pay.

Fast forward to January 26, 2017 on the sixth day of the Trump Administration when Trump tweeted.

Nieto was quick to respond.

Translated from the Spanish: This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the @POTUS.

Several hours later, Trump spoke to Republican members of Congress and said that it was a mutual decision.

Reporters quickly tweeted his words and their own words for what will become TV and printed stories about this latest development. I don’t know if Trump and Nieto are saying the same thing in their own words; or if Trump is (once again) presenting doublethink to the people.

This is not normal. This is the new normal.