Mail Toxicity
A proposed U.S. Postal Service rule would effectively end mail-in voting in states that don't deliver up their voter rolls
June 25: Postmaster general wins Trump’s commemorative stamp of approval with illegal plan to block mailed ballots … Trump cancels signing of bipartisan housing bill because fuck your rent … Democrats outraged that Mamdani did what Dems say people should do … Lutnick launching robot war …
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Longtime Newsfuckers know that the hair around here is rarely on fire. Today, however, it’s a little on fire.
And, yes, I should’ve caught this weeks ago. But Postmaster General David Steiner testified before a Senate panel Wednesday and what he said ignited a fair amount of follicle singeing.
Steiner told the Homeland Security Committee that, in the upcoming general election, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will not deliver mail ballots in states that haven’t shared lists of absentee voters with the federal government.
And states would have to use federally mandated barcodes on the envelopes, a biblical omen clearly identified in the Media Mail of Revelation as a postal regulation of The Antichrist.
This is bad. And by “bad,” I mean “illegal,” “unconstitutional,” and “not good.”
It’s unconstitutional because the Constitution doesn’t give the federal government the power to refuse to deliver mail based on state compliance with unconstitutional executive orders about elections.
It’s illegal because everyone knows it’s illegal to fuck with the mail — and though it’s federal, yes, some states have laws giving them the power to file state charges, too.
It’s not good because it’s an end run for Pres. Donald Trump to get his hands on voter lists which the federal government could then seek to purge, robbing citizens of their constitutional right to vote.
Trump has said banning voting by mail would help Republicans, which under the current Supreme Court is pretty much all the legal basis you need to do something.
Mailed ballots are used disproportionately by Democrats, due to their increased ability to master the process and not believing the president who claims mail-in voting is a fraud and uses it himself.
As part of his mail pattern badness, Trump issued an executive order in March 2026 on mailed ballots. In May, the USPS proposed a new, vague-ass rule to comply with Trump’s order.
On Wednesday, Steiner was asked whether the USPS would deliver mail ballots as required by law when counties send them out, if the new rule is approved by the USPS board, which Trump hand-stamped and delivered to himself.
“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said. “We would tell the state that we need the manifest.”
Of course, my conspiracy theorizing brain first concluded that this is all an elaborate plan to make the states use FedEx instead. (No! Wait! Listen! Steiner used to sit on the board, man! It’s all connected, man!)
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told Steiner the proposed refusal to deliver the mail was “unacceptable.” Ooh, sorry, your senator highness, wrong answer.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), to whom I have hand-delivered shit in the past, did better than Peters’s poorly packaged delivery.
Hassan called the proposed rule “blatantly illegal.”
Hassan also nailed the bonus round. She told Steiner that the proposed rule would “reduce participation in our democracy.”
Some states are mostly or even almost entirely mail-in ballots now, because science. Eight states automatically mail ballots to every registered voter:
California
Colorado
Hawaii
Nevada
Oregon
Utah
Vermont
Washington (both the state and the Columbia district).
Which means they’d have to turn over the names of every voter.
As Democracy Docket pointed out, because elections are their mailbag, the USPS just last year approved a new rule saying the USPS does not “determine whether or how election jurisdictions utilize the mail.”
In fact, the USPS is ostensibly an independent agency, ostensibly independent of Trump and his executive orders, even if sent priority mail with tracking.
The good news: This bullshit is already being challenged in the courts.
The you news: You can do somethings!
The rule proposal is still in the public-comment stage. You are the public. You may comment.
The deadline to submit your comment is July 2. You can do so by mail to the address here or by email to PCFederalRegister@usps.gov (with a subject heading of “Ballot Mail” — more instructions here). (h/t)
But also, Democratic officials and candidates can do something now. Some states may have law-enforcement options to prevent anyone from fucking with their ballot mailings. Democratic officials can say now that they will prosecute mail-fucking.
And Democrats can also promise federal prosecutions of anyone in the government executing Trump’s executive order. Y’know, in the after times.
In a letter to the USPS Tuesday, all 47 senators in the Democratic caucus called the proposed rule “unconstitutional and illegal,” which will put Steiner on notice if he lets the letter be delivered to himself.
But if it’s illegal, then Democrats are remiss in not vowing prosecutions. You can ask your senators of any party not to be remiss using the link at the top of every day’s TFN.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), for instance, told Steiner to “push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” and while she scored high for use of current buzzwords, she failed to push back concretely on Steiner not pushing back.
She didn’t say what she’d do if he didn’t push back, let alone if he pulled forward. Even though threatening legal consequences would help Steiner push back!
MODEL PLAIN On the issue of finances, Steiner predicted the USPS will run out of money next year and said it has a “broken business model.”
This could be tied to the fact that it’s not a business!
The TFN editorial board would like to suggest that the USPS switch to the non-business model utilized for decades by the Pentagon, which never has to turn a profit and yet somehow grows earnings every fucking year despite selling a product literally no one wants shipped to them.
Trump Holds Homes Hostage, Demands Ransom in the Form of Unmarked Votes
Pres. Donald Trump was scheduled on Wednesday to sign new, bipartisan legislation billed as easing housing costs in part by limiting Wall Street’s ability to hoard housing stock.
Then he canceled it. The bill was supposed to help Republicans heading into the general election pretend they’re doing something about rising costs. But Trump couldn’t help snatching defeat from the single-family home of victory.
He said he won’t sign the bill at all until he gets what he wants: Legislation he doesn’t have the votes for to limit the constitutionally protected right to vote by requiring photo IDs and proof of citizenship so Democrats won’t win in November and he won’t get re-re-impeached.
As Semafor noted, Trump threatened back in March not to sign any laws until he gets his voter-suppression bill. But the housing bill comes with a new little twist.
Because Semafor also reported that a Republican senator dared to say, on the record, the dreaded Irish-Italian name no president wants to hear: Vito O’Verride.
Here’s Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), contemplating out loud — albeit to Semafor, but still! — the prospect of Republican senators voting to override a potential Trump veto of the housing bill:
“I just want it to become law, so I’d like to have him tell us whether he’s going to let it become law without a signing, or if it’s got to be returned to us for veto override, or whatever.”
Or whatever? There is no whatever, sir!
“Or whatever” is just what you add after “veto override” to try to get Rounds the fact that you just threatened to override Trump’s veto!
Anyhoo, remember early this year, TFN almost-swore that congressional Republicans would get more rebellious? Promises almost-made, promises kept!
Democratic Leaders Lose Their Minds Over Losing Primaries
Leading Democrats — just kidding, no one’s following these people — lost their minds Wednesday about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) successfully unseating two incumbent House Democrats on Tuesday.
It’s very underappreciated how much this is a battle about going after incumbents, maybe more so even than ideology. But ideology is the gripe Democrats can gripe out loud, so that’s what we’re hearing.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY) told CNN some Democrats are “disappointed” in Mamdani. And she said some of the candidates he backed on Tuesday “do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic.”
Which is funny, cuz I coulda swore the party thought it was important to bring in new people and votesmax the body politic.
James is referring to the fact that some of the losers had longstanding ties to non-white constituencies and organizations. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), for instance, chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
But if those longstanding ties didn’t motivate enough voters to save them, maybe it’s them who don’t understand the politics of New York City? (Writer Charlotte Clymer has a totally rude thread embarrassing the shit out of the losers by sharing Tuesday’s turnout numbers.)
In fact, Democrats are pissed that Mamdani did exactly what Democrats keep saying they want. Change the party from within! Engage new people in politics!
Wait: Not like that!
And then there’s understanding the politics of the Democratic Party. I generally pride myself on ignoring James Carville, but who among us has not sinned?
On Wednesday, Carville lost what’s left of his mind over the victory of Darializa Avila Chevalier, and it’s not clear even his lizard biology can grow it all back.
Avila Chevalier has already renounced some of her most inflammatory past social-media posts, like appearing to disparage interracial relationships. But that wasn’t enough to stop Carville from performatively bailing on the party he’s had a toxic relationship with for decades.
“We’re a big tent,” Carville said, “and there’s just some shit I can’t be in the same tent with.”
Let the record show, because TFN is the fucking record, that Carville was not done, and remained in that fucking political party when some shit in it was that the Senate Democratic Leader was former KKK member Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who I’m pretty sure at one point also frowned on interracial marriage, before renouncing all the Ks.
Carville not only stayed in the same tent with that shit, he fundraised for that tent and campaign managed for that tent. And cleaned up the predatory shit of his boss, Bill Clinton.
It’s worth reiterating what I’ve already iterated: Some establishment Democrats who get to run the tent and are allowed in polite society have both said and actually done monstrous, terrible things. Most don’t even involve Israel!
Seven months ago, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) said Mamdani’s “not a Democrat.” But six months ago, Suozzi was praising El Salvador Torturer-in-Chief President Nayib Bukele and at least six years ago, Suozzi moved in to the right-wing Christian theofrat house known as C Street.
Carville’s cool with that shit in his fucking party. And most of his fucking party has voted to fund the Republican Party agenda — while telling voters their funds are needed for Democrats to fight that agenda. Or whatever!
Let the record show that the two parties have now lost both Carville and Tucker Carlson. Oh noes, not Carville and Carlson. Whatever shallth we do without the self-driving Cars who drove us to here?
While House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has groused about Mamdani upsetting the failed order, he did defend Mamdani on Wednesday. Asked whether the party’s moving too far left, Jeffries said,
“No. Donald Trump has a working relationship with the mayor of the city of New York, and he’s made that publicly and explicitly clear to America not once but twice in the Oval Office.”
Not thrilled that Democrats are calibrating via Trump’s approval, but I’ll take it.
I’ll also note that it’s weird that the media are taking seriously the Republican prediction that Avila Chevalier will somehow bring the national party down the way they wrongly predicted Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) would.
MORE JEFFRIES Yes, I saw that Jeffries said Mamdani’s “got work to do” to mend his bridges with House Democrats, even though they usually vote for fixing bridges. But looking at the context it strikes me that Jeffries was more remarking on individual butt-hurt Democrats, rather than demanding a public groveling from Mamdani to the party writ large.
THE FUTURE There’s an interesting argument to be made — okay, already made by the American Prospect — that Mamdani isn’t quite the rogue he seems to be.
He targeted House candidates, yes, but when it came to the state legislature — which Mamdani very much needs — he stayed out of it. Conversely, Ocasio-Cortez didn’t go up against any House Democrats — whom she needs — but did get behind democratic socialists running for the state legislature. Successfully!
Point being, both were strategic about it. Other point being, according to the Prospect, that maybe this really was bigger than Mamdani. Democratic socialist victories without his help, “suggests that the movement on the ground, not candidates from on high, was the deciding factor in the sea change in New York politics.”
One Quickie
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Monday reportedly hinted to rich people who get government hints that his department is looking at going to war with Chinese robots. Lutnick suggested the administration could go beyond existing tariffs to stop these clinking, clanking, clattering, collections of collagenous junk — not to prevent them from stealing American jobs — but to ensure that American-owned (or domiciled) companies are the ones making robots that steal American jobs.
TCB
65 IS THE NEW 65 Pssst, Newsfuckers! Guess what happened Wednesday? The population of Newsfuckers passed 65,000. You are the wind beneath my fucking wings.
SUMMER FRIDAYS Okay, you convinced me. I’m officially taking Fridays off for the next few weeks while I recover from surgery for (on? in?) my broken foot. I’m not promising I won’t do anything over these self-indulgent three-day weekends, but you gracious Newsfuckers are on notice not to expect a standard-edition TFN on Fridays for a bit. Thank you for your understanding.
That said, I very much appreciate the one Newsfucker who came clean and said, “I have a hard time getting through the weekend without TFN.” I will keep this in mind and do my best!
For those who feel likewise, there will still be the Friday FTN — Facepalm The Nation — wrapping up the week’s TFNs. And you can usually count on me to spout off about something over on Bluesky on any given day, so I welcome folks to follow me there.
SUPPORTING TFN If TFN is helping to keep you sane, this would be a great time to consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help keep TFN keeping you sane.
Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.
And don’t forget every day’s TFN has links at the top if you wanna support TFN without going through Substack!
Go get ‘em, kids! We may have lost the Carville, but we’re winning the war.
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
Yay! Now with James Carville out of the party tent. No one will ever interview the shrunken apple head in a ball cap again and/or ask for his "take". Ever!
What? Why are you rolling your eyes?
Mail pattern badness!