Legalectric

PJM’s “independent” Monitoring Analytics (don’t know how independent it really is) has released its State of the Market report for the first two quarters of 2020, and there are some most interesting observations in this report. First, here’s the report:

The intro is astounding for the admissions about the electric market, decreased demand, and coal’s role:

That’s from page 2 of the PJM 2Q SoM Report.

Much of this new world is due to COVID, but the changes you see were in the works prior to COVID, which hit primarily starting 2nd Quarter. Demand has been lessening for a long time (the big increase circa 2003-2005 was when PJM territory expanded). Note that unlike MISO, it’s not strictly summer peaking, three peaks were in winter!

The histrionic squeals of “freezing in the dark on a respirator without a job” … or is it “in an incubator without a job,” either way, those fears did not materialize, and with the billions of dollars in transmission based on those hyped-up fears, where are we now? Another day older and deeper in debt…

And if you need wallpaper, do put up the LMP maps:

PJM: https://www.pjm.com/library/maps/lmp-map.aspx

MISO: https://api.misoenergy.org/MISORTWD/lmpcontourmap.html (something weird is going in MISO, the entire upper half is YELLOW!

UPDATE — keep those complaints rolling in:

Exclusive: Postal service inspector general reviewing DeJoy’s policy changes and potential ethics conflicts

There have been articles saying that “the agency was prohibiting overtime and that postal workers should leave mail behind at processing plants if it would cause them to leave late.”

There has been tRump saying, admitting, he’s using funding of USPS as a weapon. From the Guardian, “Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail.”

Trump said on Thursday that congressional negotiations over stimulus aid were held up in part because of Democratic proposals to provide $3.6bn to states to run elections and $25bn in aid to the postal service. The president, who has falsely claimed that widespread mail-in voting will lead to fraud, suggested that without the funding it would be harder to vote by mail.

“They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”

There is no doubt that Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, has a conflict of interest, well… MANY:

Fact check: New postmaster general invested in Postal Service competitors

That alone should be enough to have him ejected. Yet there he is!

Warren and other top Democrats ask USPS watchdog to investigate practices

Specifically related to voting by mail and delays until after close of polls, there is this:

Management Alert – Timeliness of Ballot Mail in the Milwaukee P&DC Service Area and for details, Read full report HERE.

I found this, “Expedited to Street Afternoon Sortation,” which does support the claim of process and procedural changes that would result in delays. By delaying sorting until afternoon, that sets back delivery by a day at least:

There have been verified reports of mailboxes being removed, and of mail sorting machines being removed, though it looks as though this is a response to the drop in snail mail, which does make sense to me, so I don’t regard this as another problematic issue. Does anyone go to a corner mailbox anymore? Why when you can just clip mail to your home mailbox? Methinks this is a non-issue.

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What to do? It seems Congress has to act, but with the Senate stonewalling, then what? The House did send a letter, our Rep. Angie Craig signed, but it was sent to Postmaster General DeJoy, which he probably will put in the circular file:

Seems to me the thing to do is to contact the Inspector General at the United States Postal Service!

File a Complaint – FORM IS HERE!

Contact the USPS Board of Governors:

Making it easy, just cut and paste: mduncan@inezdepositbank.com, barger.jm@gmail.com, ron.bloom@brookfield.com, roman@rmiv.com, lee.moak@moakgroup.com, DirectorAccessMailbox@cigna.com

And contact your Senators and Representative and get them to file a Complaint!

• Who is my Senator? Contact info HERE!

• Who is my Representative? Contact info HERE!

Gotta do something, and it’s not the sort of thing that buying stamps will cure. But here’s the link for stamps, what the hell, buy some stamps, send out some “How are you?” COVID notes:

BUY STAMPS HERE

Association of Freeborn County Landowners filed a Complaint with the Public Utilities Commission against Commissioner John Tuma and Chair Katie Sieben last week.

The PUC responded with this… oh my… and an Affidavit from John Tuma, he DID contact a Freeborn County Commissioner about pre-empting the township’s Ordinance and local control:

And under the statute, Minn. Stat. §216A.037, the PUC must refer it to the Office of Administrative Hearings:

The administrative law judge assigned to the ex parte complaint proceeding by the Office of Administrative Hearings shall conduct a hearing investigation and shall issue a report within 30 days after the matter is referred. If the administrative law judge determines that the report cannot be properly completed within that time period, the judge shall report that fact to the commission within the 30-day period and shall file a final report within a reasonable time thereafter, no later than 60 days after the referral to the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Minn. Stat. §216A.03

… so today, it was referred. GOOD!

Why? Well, this is about the July 16, 2020 meeting, the one where you just have to listen to the video – yeah, we’ve got the transcript, but the video just conveys so much more:

It’s getting better, down from 2,700+ to ~370. I have the advantage of having the portable office in the back yard, with battery and charging right there! Can’t shut me down, Xcel Energy, and I’ll have no problem getting that Motion to Dismiss response done, and the Memorandum for Temporary Injunction too!!

However… our solar isn’t working now…

What really happened here? Well, note that this is pre-lawsuit stage of yet another of his outrageous Executive Orders (and remember his claims of outrage over Obama’s E.O.s?!?!).

But wait — it’s not an Executive Order, it a “Memorandum.”

So what does that mean? What authority does a “Memorandum” have?

What does it mean? Here’s Forbes take on it — note writer is calling it an Executive Order… but it isn’t! I haven’t a clue the difference…

President’s Executive Order On Payroll Taxes – Some Detail

And there is this:

Republican senator calls Trump’s stimulus executive order ‘unconstitutional slop’