The Angry Bear

Steve Hutkins authors Save the Post Office on issues affecting the Post Office. First, a disclaimer. The following analysis is largely speculative. It’s not based on insider information. The evidence comes from news articles, government reports, legal filings, and a few leaked internal USPS documents that were published on postal news sites. The analysis could be totally wrong. The hypothesis is simply this: The Postal Service has embarked on a plan to...

Is U.S. mail delivery becoming slower for First Class mail? A New York Times analysis of more than 28 million pieces of mail found that on-time delivery declined noticeably in July and August. This comes after PMG Louis DeJoy put cost-cutting measures in place. Delivery has sped up slightly since the summer but remains slower than earlier this year. Twenty-eight million pieces of first-class letters were tracked by SnailWorks. The results of the analysis...

Coronavirus dashboard for September 14: cases in the Midwest surge; the Northeast still lags Canada Total US cases: 6,519,573 Average cases last 7 days: 34,744 Total US deaths: 194,071 Average deaths last 7 days: 733  Source: COVID Tracking Project I continue to expect the pandemic to wax and wane in relative terms at least until next January 20, as the public reaction in various States varies between panic and complacency. Let’s start by comparing...

The 2020 Presidential and Senate nowcast: the races congeal Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College. Remember that polls are really only nowcasts, not forecasts. They are snapshots of the present; there is no guarantee they will be identical or nearly identical in early November. Let’s begin with Trump’s...

Just click the link

The COVID-19 Pandemic, the inadequate response thereto, and the incompetency of the Trump Presidency in general, combined, have exposed our nation’s weaknesses and failings to an extent unknown since at least the Great Depression. This is likely a do or die moment for America. Recovery will be difficult. Improbable unless we are careful in our choice of goals and daring in our efforts to achieve them. The margins for error do not allow for dawdling....

Au Revoir, Robert J. Samuelson  For quite a few years not so long ago I was regularly posting here variations on “Today is Monday, so on the WaPo editorial page Robert J. (not related to Paul A.)* Samuelson is calling yet again for Social Security benefits to be cut,” and he did indeed do that very frequently over a long time.  However, today was his final column for the Washington Post, so we shall no longer have RJS to kick around, sob! It was titled,...

(Dan here…this post has been lightly edited in format for readability) Trump’s Law & Order = Ronnie Thompson’s Shoot First and Ask Questions Later Summer Concepcion reports on something I find very alarming: President Trump leaned into his self-proclamation of being the President of “law and order” further as he appeared to approve of the “retribution” of federal law enforcement officers fatally shooting a man suspected of killing a pro-Trump...

In a  recent conversation with one person who I would consider knowledgeable, I was led to this site. COVID-19 Live Vaccine Tracker. This is an initial rundown of various Covid vaccines being worked on by international companies and the phase they are in today. I will attempt to update this from time to time. “A compilation of the active vaccine candidates being studied for coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) cures. This tracker will update periodically and will...