Subject: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Aug 20 - 04:02 PM This has reached such an awful state that it might just be the move that finally get's Trump's ass kicked out for sure. The post office serves everyone, and Trump's proxy, DeJoy, has wrenched it apart. Here is a transcript of an article from the Los Angeles Times I am sharing here because they have a robust pay wall. (I am going to subscribe. Hopefully you can read a free article or four this month.) ‘Like Armageddon’: Rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities amid cutbacks
Trump is trying to destroy the place that he wants to keep power. Cutting off his nose to spite his face. I predict that this will be the straw that finally breaks this camel's back. I look forward to listening to the hearings on Friday and Monday (if the Monday ones are broadcast - that will be in the senate where who knows what will happen). |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Aug 20 - 05:18 PM Why Rural America Is Fighting The Trump Administration On The Post Office A recent study she led at the California-based security think tank showed that the Postal Service ranks high in terms of federal institutions that the public has trust in. In an era when, generally, faith in institutions seems to be eroding, this doesn't go unnoticed. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Rapparee Date: 20 Aug 20 - 06:51 PM Back in 1966, the battle cry at the Illinois Young Republicans College Foundation meeting was "Don't Let Them Sell The Post Office!" |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Aug 20 - 11:09 AM The senate hearings are this morning, I just tuned in and see that the senators are offering softball questions and DeJoy is a demagogue - telling them what they want to hear without any apparent intent to fix the tangled mess that he has created. The house hearings on Monday should hold his feet close to the fire. This isn't just about ballots, this is about DeJoy pushing delivery times so late that people start using the private enterprise delivery services for business services. Rand Paul is suggesting cutting back delivery to four or five days a week. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/21/dejoy-testimony-usps-senate/ |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Aug 20 - 10:07 PM DeJoy said he couldn't have statistical report materials ready by Sunday night for the house. He didn't even suggest he would try; he operates with impunity. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 21 Aug 20 - 10:48 PM Meanwhile Trump claims he is ordering armed law enforcement to watch the polls. This claim rounds out his recipe of fear in voting by any means. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Mr Red Date: 22 Aug 20 - 03:54 AM Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Trump surprises you. Welcome to the "not quite third world - yet" America! The water is lovely, if a little choppy. Goggle Ads are getting cheeky. Amid posts of a spectacle of delays and failing deliveries at US Post was an ad for glasses re-glazed by post. (free postage both ways!) Would you risk your spectacles being out of reach for weeks, or worse? Goggle is getting clever, too clever by half. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 22 Aug 20 - 08:14 AM Of course in England we haven't had a national post office or mail service for years - the Tories sold them off to be private companies years ago. I suppose in the States it would be harder to do that, since it's in your Constitution. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 22 Aug 20 - 09:50 AM I was mulling this topic earlier today - I'm doing a "news free day" but the brain still thinks about stuff even no data is coming in right now. What would resourceful companies try to do when faced with a completely stalled parcel delivery in their mail hub? I imagine they're loading up trucks and transporting their parcels out of the region to other hubs. Perhaps leaving Los Angeles for Las Vegas or Tucson or Phoenix. But all of their parcels have indicia from their home postal franking machines. It can still be messy. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 22 Aug 20 - 09:57 AM In Canada the postal dropoff areas are in malls and shopping centers, they seem to be franchises? It has been many years since I was in Canada, but I mailed things a couple of times from a local mall. I've always thought the idea of banking at the post office was a good one, I think that used to be a feature of the British post offices? It's a shame they were privatized. Must have been by one of those politicians who wanted to scrape the value out of the public institution or offer more business to the private sector. Thatcher? Sounds like Trump's goal. It was Bush II whose administration put the unreasonable qualification that the USPS pay retiree health benefits for 75 years out that brought it to it's knees. Damn. Yes, having it in the Constitution does make it more difficult for him to convert it to private, but right now he's intent on breaking it. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 22 Aug 20 - 10:02 AM I don't know how the sausage is made or delivered but 11 removed high speed letter sorting machines sounds diabolical. Mr. Red remember my liquid glass product? Thats what can reglaze glasses for pennies. Horribly scratched lenses are not good cndidates even with multiple coats. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Mrrzy Date: 22 Aug 20 - 01:25 PM More fun stuff here. If there is a paywall lemme know, I'll post the article. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Mrrzy Date: 22 Aug 20 - 05:17 PM The guardian reports post office money thing passed |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Aug 20 - 01:31 AM The House. Now for the Senate. And to get signed into law by Trump. The House vote was bi-partisan. The Senate is less cooperative on most things, and to overturn a presidential veto takes a lot more people than usually step up. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/politics/usps-bill-congress-vote.html |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Thompson Date: 23 Aug 20 - 02:25 AM James Meek wrote in the London Review of Books about the Dutch privatising their postal service a few years ago, and the horrible effects for working people. (A sign-up screen appears but you can dismiss it.) |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: John MacKenzie Date: 23 Aug 20 - 04:33 AM An interesting point was made by someone on F*c*book recently. They ask why the post office is losing money, while the army is costing money? Both are essential services, yet only one is characterised as loss making. It makes one wonder whether, if there were enough commercially run mercenary forces looking for profitable work, whether the gubmint might consider selling off the armed forces as well? Maybe Vlad could put in a tender ? |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Thompson Date: 23 Aug 20 - 05:48 AM ThatcheReaganism meant that essential services stopped referring to people as passengers and recipients and so on; instead, we became "customers", with the implication that everything is paid for, and if you can't pay, you're a useless, valueless worm. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 23 Aug 20 - 09:34 AM The reason an increase in the cost of operations for the post office is that Republicans passed a law that requires the post office to cover and hold 100% of retirement benefits for even future employees that are not even born yet. It was designed to make the losing money argument easier for republicans and advance privatization arguments. If privatization ever happens, all those retirement benefits will probably go to or be stolen by the new owners. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 23 Aug 20 - 02:29 PM Or they'll be retained by the government, while the new owners start with a clean sheet. Then such benefitscan be run down and phased out at leisure. Your constitutional protection might not be too reliable. As I read it, it allows the federal government to organise postal services, but it doesn't seem to actually require it to do so... |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 23 Aug 20 - 06:38 PM Actually there is a board of Govenors that are respondsible for postal operations but they are being overlooked much like the Constitution. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:14 PM Yes, but all but one of them was appointed by Trump. They can't be trusted. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 25 Aug 20 - 02:07 PM DeJoy didn't pay attention to Rep. Katie Porter when she told him she wanted to manage her time during the hearings, but his answers were empty. He doesn't know much about the front end part of mailing stuff (except that a first class stamp is .55). Part of her questioning during the Monday hearings. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: leeneia Date: 26 Aug 20 - 07:21 PM I won't be mailing my ballot in. I'll wear a mask and keep my distance and let local people do the counting. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 26 Aug 20 - 08:04 PM The heart of the 11 trashed high speed mail sorters are the bar code readers which were specifically smashed beyond repair. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: EBarnacle Date: 27 Aug 20 - 03:51 PM This all goes to show our system is when our malware is disguised as a human. We are seeing the butterfly effect in full force. Break a few machines and entropy takes over for you. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 27 Aug 20 - 05:34 PM Tonight is the end of Trump's four-day rally on National television, when he is expected to try to make some big gesture of toward magnanimity the US. It won't involve mail boxes or sorting machines, but I'm willing to bet it WILL be another ethical violation of the Hatch Act. There have been so many offenses that pundits have lost count. What is happening in the post office (where his people are "planted goons," not appointees) is strictly designed to help him win. It is an impeachable offense all by itself. Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here is amazingly prescient for today's events. The self-appointed militia, the gun-toting rights protectors, Trumps free irrational army, they are Windrip's "Minute Men" in the novel. I'm up to chapter 15, right after his inauguration when non-compliant congressmen and senators were arrested "for their own protection." The post office is the tip of the iceberg, and Steven Miller is Lee Sarason. (An interesting note: I couldn't find this book at the US Project Gutenberg location, but a search brought me to a copy in the Australian site.) |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 28 Aug 20 - 05:36 AM General info https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: JHW Date: 28 Aug 20 - 06:14 AM Is this the same US Postal that sent Lance Armstrong round the Tour de France? |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Aug 20 - 11:58 AM The sponsorship stuff was just prior to the Bush administration (Congressional action) basically pushing the USPS back to the dark ages with the requirement, starting in 2005, that they prepay retiree health benefits out 75 years. No legitimate business has to comply with those regulations, but the USPS is a government service, not a business, as the last 15 years have illustrated. Trump is trying to put period to it, but I think his efforts will backfire. Other agencies of the Federal Government regularly promote and sponsor related activities, though recently none of them have had the money for it. From Wikipedia: The US Postal Service announced that it would cease sponsorship at the end of the 2004 racing season when its eight-year contract expired. It had previously been under fire for the expenditure from organizations such as Postal Watch, a website critical of the United States Postal Service. Legitimate problems of mismanagement and sloppy accounting were pointed out by the Postal Service itself, via the USPS Office of the Inspector General. Before the expiration of the USPS contract, Armstrong insisted that he would only continue to ride with the USPS team structure. This demand was met on June 15, 2004 when Discovery Networks stepped in and agreed to sponsor the team for the next three years as the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team. Lance Armstrong had to pay back $5m after he was found to have been doping. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 29 Aug 20 - 03:39 PM I'm seeing some dramatic and heartbreaking stories about the mess in the California post offices, and a judge in Washington State ordered DeJoy to show the paperwork on what he has done already. It does seem that Trump is targeting the west coast and Democratic states and cities. On the news today someone said that the White House put up their plan for the post office two years ago (published somewhere?) but it wasn't until DeJoy came in that it really started happening and crumbling. So the seeds of this mess may have been hiding in plain sight for a while. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Mrrzy Date: 01 Sep 20 - 11:40 AM Vote early... but not often! |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Sep 20 - 12:47 PM Just over two months until we can deliver a stinging defeat to this idiot. Too bad much of Joe's first term is going to be fixing stuff Trump broke. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 03 Sep 20 - 04:42 PM The President is encouraging Americans to vote by mail AND in person. I remind you that is illegal and punishable by law. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 03 Sep 20 - 05:15 PM There is speculation that he's hoping to throw elections this way; send in Homeland Security to "assist" if people do vote twice. The trouble is that any time some glimmer of an ideal drifts through that gray matter masquerading as a brain he blurts it out, without THINKING about it first. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Mrrzy Date: 05 Sep 20 - 06:05 PM In 13 days I can vote... |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 06 Sep 20 - 06:48 AM The extra stamp thing is bogus according to Snopes |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 06 Sep 20 - 03:46 PM I'm going to be watching for news of ballot collection boxes. The absentee ballot is prepared exactly the way it would be to go in the mail, but without the stamps it is dropped off directly, like a library book return is controlled by the library. Early voting here in Texas should start three weeks before election day, with perhaps a week between the end of early voting and election day. Ballots are sent out for absentee voting a couple of weeks prior to when early voting starts, so I'm guessing I may get a ballot in the end of September. I don't find a county page with exact dates, but I do find the Executive Order that is in effect until Nov. 30 (this is the fourth order extending the mask and distance requirements). So the election will be conducted under these COVID-19 restrictions. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 08 Sep 20 - 06:55 AM https://www.businessinsider.com/dejoy-reimbursed-former-employees-donating-to-gop-candidates-report-2020-9 |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 08 Sep 20 - 11:50 AM I heard that story discussed on MSNBC last night. Once they get their teeth into a story they don't let it go, so I expect more to come on this topic. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Donuel Date: 10 Sep 20 - 07:29 PM ALL my Amazon orders that were to be sent by USPS are late and deemed lost which make them eligible for refund. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Sep 20 - 11:10 PM I'm listing things on eBay and offering USPS, UPS, and FedEx, with a note that the buyer should choose based upon their experience of how long the USPS parcels are taking in their area. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Sep 20 - 02:34 PM The post office is sending out post cards telling voters to "plan ahead." It seems the folks who work in the post office who do the regular postal mailings want voters to succeed, despite what DeJoy is attempting from the post office C-suite. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: robomatic Date: 11 Sep 20 - 03:35 PM The one time I tried to vote in a national election with an absentee ballot I went to the post office on election day and was scandalized when the postal worker behind the counter refused to sign the envelope. I'm pretty sure the instructions actually mentioned getting a postal worker to sign. There was hardly anyone else around so he had not excuse as to being busy. But I had to wait for someone else to show up to mail a package to sign off for me. And it shook my faith in anything other than the good old voting booth in my own district. This was several administrations ago so I'm not blaming the current occupant. Just saying that the problem has been around for a while. My municipality has been doing local elections via mail and either postal delivery or ballot boxes placed in common collection areas such as high school parking lots. It has worked well, been economical and efficient over the past few years. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Sep 20 - 09:59 PM We have to sign our own envelopes across the sealed edge of the envelope. No one else is supposed to unless you're infirm in some way and need assistance. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: leeneia Date: 12 Sep 20 - 01:38 AM It took several days for a check to reach my dentist, but the junk mail seems to be getting through just fine. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Sep 20 - 09:36 AM I guess Penny S reads this thread but I keep seeing empty posts (that are deleted). Share your thoughts one of these times, Penny! |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Sep 20 - 09:37 AM First class mail between towns isn't as fast as it used to be years ago (it isn't sorted locally, it goes to someplace to be sorted then comes back, is what I guess). And it's taking longer now, a week or more to travel 20 miles. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Penny S. Date: 14 Sep 20 - 03:06 AM Actually, what happens is that I accidentally click the wrong place! Sorry about that. |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States - PERIOD From: Donuel Date: 15 Sep 20 - 09:21 AM It was 3 years ago That robomatic took the position that our Institutions and Constitution would protect us from Trump's worst instincts. I of course took the opposite position that a bad actor without good faith could not be reined in by law. All Trump has to do is ignore the law. I am in the unenviable and unfortunate position of being right. Well not officially until December 2nd when the election SHALL be finalized. But that may just be another law that will be ignored. What will be different is that there are no Obama appointees for Trump to slowly fire. Now only Trump cronies and criminals are in charge of the Institutions from the get go. A note to my critics: Fuck you and good luck surviving Authoritarianism |
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office From: Stilly River Sage Date: 17 Sep 20 - 04:46 PM The post office (return address is downtown Washington, D.C.) sent out postcards, mentioned above. I got another one, this time at my post office box. It turns out that they AREN'T helpful because they are stupidly mailed to all 50 states and the voting systems are different in all of those states. And it has been pointed out on news programs that the timing suggested is too short for ballots to truly make it back in time if mailed. Colorado's state attorney general got an injunction prohibiting the post office from mailing any more of those because they use mail in ballots for all citizens and the PO card is just going to confuse voters. |
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