Not about diversity; they have only a little to connect them other than I saw them and thought we’d be interested. I don’t know if I’m still recovering from DST, or if have come down with a weak little something, but I’ve been tired the past few days, and have some upcoming commitments, so will be taking things a little easier for a few days. Enjoy!

How Mail Delivery Has Shaped America

The United States Postal Service is under federal scrutiny. It’s not the first time.

A United States Postal Service mail handler works to unload her mail truck at the Processing and Distribution Center in Miami, Florida. Getty

Though the Postal Service might not come to mind as a great factor in the long march toward social equity in the United States, its policies have had a serious impact on the rights of marginalized Americans since its inception in 1775. Activism, civil rights, and politics are ingrained—at least implicitly—in postal history.

Benjamin Franklin worked for the colonial postal service, controlled by the British, for years before he helped establish the independent American Post Office. Back in 1737, he ran the Philadelphia Post Office where he was focused more on the logistics of such a large operation than on how the institution might affect different demographic groups. Still, his work left a legacy of social transformation.

“Franklin’s methods for organizing the movement of letters provided him with a model for the transformation of colonial subjects into national citizens,” writes Christy L. Pottroff in the edited volume Intermediate Horizons: Book History and Digital Humanities. Franklin observed communications trends, noting, for instance, which cities Philadelphians wrote to most often and in turn increased the frequency of inter-city deliveries to encourage their correspondence. He had invaluable insight into how to help would-be citizens of a budding nation connect with one another.

In Southern post offices, predominately white clientele balked at conducting personal transactions with Black postal employees.

Many of these letters were delivered by enslaved African Americans, some of whom were forced in the years before emancipation to serve as messengers going relatively short distances between plantations and towns.

“If the inhabitants … should deem their letters safe with a faithful black, I should not refuse him,” Postmaster General Timothy Pickering wrote in 1794 regarding a mail route in Maryland. “I suppose the planters entrust more valuable things to some of their blacks.”

Yet this trust was soon eroded as slave rebellions increased throughout the Americas, and, in 1802, Black Americans were banned from carrying mail until Reconstruction.

The Post Office Department, like the rest of the federal government, updated its policies to become more inclusive in its hiring practices over the centuries. But the Post Office was unique in hiring Black Americans and white women beginning in significant numbers in the 1860s—before either group had been granted the right to vote nationwide (white women got it in 1920; Black men in 1870). Postal jobs were generally desirable. They were salaried and safe. (snip-MORE, and it’s good; not tl, dr)

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Open for Firing by Clay Jones

Let the firing resume Read on Substack

Republicans, with the help of a few Democrats, voted to keep the government open so they can keep destroying it.

It’s not like Republicans voted to keep the government open so they can do their jobs. They didn’t keep it open to provide oversight. They didn’t keep it open so they can serve as the third branch of the federal government. They didn’t even keep it open to do their job of restraining Elon Musk and DOGE.

DOGE is not an official agency of the government, meaning what it’s doing is not legal. A lot of lawsuits have been fired against the Trump administration over all the bullshit DOGE is doing, but there should be a lawsuit questioning DOGE’s existent.

The President can NOT create agencies or departments. Article 1, Section 1 of the United States Constitution gives that power to Congress. Donald Trump should not be able to create a new department and have it cut budgets and fire government employees. Not only is Congress allowing this happen, but they won’t even talk to Elon Musk about it in public.

Republicans in Congress have had a lunch with Elon but behind closed doors. Neither the Republican-controlled House nor the Republican-controlled Senate will even subpoena Elon. What’s even worse is that Elon is conducting all this business in secret. Saying you’re transparent doesn’t make you transparent.

It astounds me that there are so many Republicans who trust that DOGE is transparent just because Elon says it is. Don’t they have eyes? Haven’t they noticed they’re not seeing anything?

Trump and Republicans even use unelected bureaucrats to justify giving carte blanche to Elon, an unelected bureaucrat. You don’t replace a swamp with a bigger swamp.

Even while Elon is destroying our government and the lives of federal workers, Trump is building sympathy for him. You may have lost your job, but at least Trump got a brand new Tesla.

I can’t tell you how much sleep I’ve lost worrying about Elon’s finances. At least Germany only had ONE Hitler.

America, this is the beginning of the end.

Creative note: I started on this idea, but I wasn’t feeling great about it, so I started on another idea, finished drawing most of it, and realized I wasn’t loving it either. So, I came back to this, started feeling it, and the next thing I knew, it was after 5 p.m. on a Saturday. That’s why you got a short blog. I need food.

I’m punching out until tomorrow, when you will get TWO cartoons and blogs. I’m not reading any emails until Monday. I get 20 from readers on a slow day (though several of them are from the same readers).

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-Go See!)