Kamala Harris promises national mask mandate if elected

Kamala Harris said on Friday that a nationwide mask mandate would be among the first orders of business if she and Joe Biden were elected to the White House in November, calling it the “responsible” thing to do. The Democratic vice presidential nominee expanded on the three-month plan that Biden has promised to enact if he won the White House, explaining that every American would be expected to wear a face covering amid the pandemic. “Yes,” Harris, 55, said when asked if that would be one of their first actions in power during an interview on NBC’s “TODAY.” “It’s a standard. I mean, nobody’s going to be punished,” Harris continued when asked how it would be enforced. “Nobody likes to wear a mask, this is a universal feeling, right? So, that’s not the point,” she said. “The the point is this is what we as responsible people who love our neighbor, we have to just do that right now. God willing, it won’t be forever.”

The CDC recommends mask-wearing in public when you are unable to stay 6-feet away from others so as to stop the spread of disease. President Trump rejected Biden’s mandate earlier this month during a White House briefing, telling reporters the Democratic nominee had showed an “appalling lack of respect” for the American people. “It’s up to the governors. We want to have a certain freedom,” Trump said. “If the president has the unilateral power to order every single citizen to cover their face in nearly all instances, what other powers does he have?” he asked.

In the TODAY interview, Harris was also asked about the police shooting of Jacob Blake which continues to case racial unrest across the nation. Harris, a former prosecutor who identifies as black, was probed on whether she thought the officer who shot Blake needed to be charged. ‘”The use of force that was seven bullets coming out of a gun at close range in the back of the man? I don’t see how anybody could reason that that was justifiable,” Harris said. “I think there should be a through investigation and based on what I’ve seen, it seems the officer should be charged,” the lawmaker added. When pressed on the fact Blake reportedly resisted arrested and a knife was later found in his vehicle, Harris responded: “Everyone should be afforded due process.” “I agree with that completely. But we know these cases keep happening and we have had too many black men in America who have been the subject of this kind of conduct,” she said.

https://nypost.com/2020/08/28/kamala-harris-calls-for-usa-mask-mandate-if-biden-wins/

Audit exposes Postal Service’s overtime racket as Democrats seek bailout

Extra pay grew by billions, even as mail delivery slowed. More than 4,000 workers earned more in OT than base pay.

The U.S. Postal Service has racked up billions of dollars in excessive overtime from its workers over the last several years, even as its employee numbers have gone up and its mail delivery has declined, according to a new audit likely to raise questions about congressional Democrats' demands for a bailout. Overtime pay has become so predominant at America's premier mail delivery service that more than 4,000 postal workers last year actually earned more in OT pay than their base pay, a 429% increase in highly compensated overtime earners since 2014, the agency's internal watchdog reported this week. The situation exists in part because postal employees are allowed to determine their own overtime hours without needing prior management approval, and management does not always keep accurate payroll records, the audit report concluded. "The Postal Service needs to strengthen controls over managing overtime to successfully contain these costs," the Postal Service inspector general warned Wednesday. Between 2014 and 2019, "overtime costs and hours have trended upward and consistently exceeded their planned overtime budgets. Although package volume grew, these costs increased despite declining mail volume and increased employee levels."

The audit paints a picture of a postal service that is highly dysfunctional: Managers don't keep good records, staffing levels aren't maintained at authorized levels, and workers decide for themselves when they can charge overtime, "Employees must be paid for all overtime work they perform, even if that time was not authorized. Unauthorized overtime occurs when an employee's clock time exceeds eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week without prior authorization from a manager,” the report noted. The audit revealed just how costly this OT tab has become: The annual bill for overtime charged by postal employees grew 35% from $3.7 billion in 2014 to $5 billion last year. Over the course of those five years, workers charged for an average of more than 100 million OT hours per year, the report said. Overtime, according to the IG, now accounts for between 13% and 16% of USPS' total costs. Determining whether such overtime was warranted is made harder because "management did not have complete, accurate, and reliable payroll workhours data for FY 2019," the report noted. But based on the inspector general's analysis, as much as a half billion dollars a year in overtime was avoidable. "We estimated the Postal Service incurred about $521.6 million in questioned costs" in 2019 alone, according to the report.

Investigators flagged the massive growth in postal workers who earned 2x and 3x through overtime pay, citing some specific examples ranging from postmen to mechanics whose inflated paychecks raised questions about whether employees could really have worked as many hours as they charged. "A mail handler in the Northeast Area earned $141,153 in total overtime pay by working 3,329 regular overtime hours, which resulted in $205,018 in total pay" the report noted." This was equivalent to more than three times the amount of this employee's base salary. For perspective, this amount of overtime would have required this employee to work an average of 17-hour days, consisting of eight regular workhours and about nine overtime hours every day for 365 days a year,. Despite such remarkable findings, the Postal Service said it is not sure whether it should try to work to reduce massively rising overtime. "Increasing complement with the intent of reducing overtime may not be the best long term solution," the service said in response to the IG report. "The appropriate use of overtime continues to give management the greatest latitude to utilize its resources at the least possible cost while controlling future salaries and benefits of new employees." In other words, the Postal Service is signaling the OT racket will continue.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/watchdogs/audit-exposes-postal-services-overtime-racket-democrats-seek-bailout

Audit

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2020-08/PostalServiceOTAudit.pdf

>>10455382

Concur anon..there is a statement she made on the Today show, that was resoundingly familiar on other sites..inducing people to wear the face diaper..

“The the point is this is what we as responsible people who love our neighbor, we have to just do that right now. God willing, it won’t be forever.”

Typical guilt control which I have seen in comments on ssm..in addition to denial of the facts.