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Trump versus the United States Post Office

20 Aug 20 - 04:02 PM (#4068981)
Subject: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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


Employees at California postal facilities provide a glimpse of the chaos amid both the pandemic and widespread cuts imposed by the USPS.


(Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union- Tribune)
By LAURA J. NELSON,
MAYA LAU
AUG. 20, 2020
11:07 AM

Six weeks ago, U.S. Postal Service workers in the high desert town of Tehachapi, Calif., began to notice crates of mail sitting in the post office in the early morning that should have been shipped out for delivery the night before.

At a mail processing facility in Santa Clarita in July, workers discovered that their automated sorting machines had been disabled and padlocked.

And inside a massive mail-sorting facility in South Los Angeles, workers fell so far behind processing packages that by early August, gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes.

Accounts of conditions from employees at California mail facilities provide a glimpse of what some say are the consequences of widespread cutbacks in staffing and equipment recently imposed by the postal service.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, responding to a national outcry over service disruptions and fears of voter disenfranchisement, said this week he would suspend many planned changes until after the election. But postal workers say significant damage has already been done, including the removal of mail-sorting machines, which may not be replaced.

While the long-term effect of the cuts on U.S. mail service is unclear, the evidence of serious disruptions appears to be mounting, according to postal employees interviewed by The Times as well as customers, lawmakers and union leaders.

Until this week, the postal service was implementing a sweeping plan to remove 671 mail-sorting machines, or about 10% of its total, from facilities across the U.S. — including 76 in California. Officials also slashed overtime pay and imposed a new policy that could delay outgoing mail.

The cuts have had a ripple effect in California, snarling the operation of one of the biggest mail-processing facilities in the country and delaying the delivery of prescriptions, rent payments and unemployment checks. Some people have complained of going days without receiving any mail at all.

At least five high-speed mail-sorting machines have been removed from a processing plant in Sacramento, according to Omar Gonzalez, the Western regional coordinator for the American Postal Workers Union. Additionally, two of the machines have been removed in Santa Ana and six in San Diego, Gonzalez said.

Processing plants serve more than 1,000 California post offices, some of which deliver to far-flung, rural addresses that could be faced with high delivery costs if serviced by private mail carriers.

Inside one sprawling facility at Florence and Central avenues in Los Angeles, which serves 92 L.A.-area post offices, seven delivery bar code sorters were removed in June, leaving three, Gonzalez said.

Each of those machines, which would handle mail-in ballots, can process up to 35,000 pieces of mail per hour.

“A lot of the machinery has already been gutted. Some of it has been dismantled and relocated or trashed,” Gonzalez said. “Although we welcome the news of the suspension of these changes, it’s just that — a suspension. The attacks and undermining of our operations will resume, maybe at the worst possible time, in December, our peak season.”

Before the recent cuts, workers at the facility were working six days per week, and were still struggling to keep up with the volume of packages driven by an influx of online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, said mail handler Aukushan Scantlebury, 47.

When DeJoy restricted overtime two months ago, Scantlebury and other workers saw their schedules cut back to five days per week. Within days, he said, the facility was in chaos.

Packages piled up, blocking the aisles and the heavy sorting machinery. Boxes of steaks, fruit and other perishables rotted. Rats dashed across the floor. At one point, Scantlebury said, the “whole building was filled with gnats.”

The delays were particularly tragic for live animals, including baby chickens and crickets, that are transported through the U.S. Postal Service. Usually, mail handlers say, they can hear the birds peeping and rustling around in their boxes.

This month, one worker said, she found a box with air holes in a pile of packages. Instead of hearing the gentle sounds of baby chicks, she heard nothing.

Workers sometimes see shipments of crickets jumping around inside their packaging, said Eddie Cowan, a mail handler and the president of a local chapter of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Now, he said, “you can see in the packages those crickets are dead.”

Sumi Ali, the co-owner of the Yes Plz coffee subscription company, arrived July 25 to mail a batch of freshly roasted beans to customers. A frequent visitor to the complex, he was shocked at what he saw.

The parking lot was crammed with semi trailers piled high with unsorted mail; the warehouse-like facility was packed “wall to wall” with mail; and there were very few employees in sight.

“It was like Armageddon,” Ali said. “It was a total maze. You could not walk through the facility without having to move things out of your way. I don’t know how they got forklifts through there. There were only inches of space between containers.”

Since then, Ali said, the backlog of packages seems to have improved a little. But, he said, the chaos continues to be as bad, if not worse, than the usual holiday season.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Wednesday that DeJoy informed her he did not intend to restore the removed sorting machines or blue mailboxes that have been removed in several cities, nor did he have plans to allow for adequate overtime for workers.

As for the November election — the spark that ignited a national firestorm over USPS cutbacks — postal service and California elections officials say there’s less concern here than in other states.

USPS spokesman David Partenheimer did not comment on the reductions, but referred to a statement from DeJoy that said the postal service is equipped to fully handle election mail this fall.

The postal service also said DeJoy was expanding a task force to strengthen coordination with election officials to handle mail-in ballots. The postal service had earlier warned 46 states, including California, that some ballots might not be delivered in time to be counted.

In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring that all ballots postmarked by election day and delivered by Nov. 20 be counted — five times longer than California’s normal grace period. Still, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the concerns raised in other states merit close scrutiny.

“Given this administration’s track record with the truth, seeing is believing,” Padilla said in a written statement. “My office will continue constant communication with the U.S. Postal Service, and will continue to monitor for any signs of disruption to service.”

At the Santa Clarita processing and distribution center, two delivery bar code sorters were padlocked and gutted of their cameras and computers in July so that workers couldn’t plug them in and start using them again.

For an unknown reason, the devices came back online Wednesday, but a third delivery bar code sorter was missing from the facility, according to a worker who did not want to named because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency.

Merchant Stephen Tu of Pasadena said in the past two months he has noticed his first-class packages have been getting stuck for as many as 10 days in the Santa Clarita facility, whereas normally they would pass through in one day. Tu, who tracks shipments of baby clothing and accessories he sells on EBay and Facebook Marketplace, said he’s never endured delays this long — up to 20 days for packages sent outside Southern California — in the 15 years he has been selling items online.

Tu said his customers sometimes ask him whether he has even shipped their goods at all. In order to guarantee on-time deliveries, he said, he’s considering switching to private services like FedEx and UPS.

About six weeks ago on a Wednesday morning, postal clerk Kenny Diaz, 35, showed up to work at the Tehachapi post office and saw something new in his nine years on the job: a plastic tub full of mail that should have gone out for delivery the night before.

Every afternoon, Diaz said, a truck driver picked up the post office’s outgoing mail and took it to a processing facility in Bakersfield. If the post office was running behind, the last driver of the day would wait to pick up every bill, package and letter, he said.

“They always waited — they always waited,” Diaz said. “Our No. 1 priority is getting the mail where it has to go. We’d rather delay the truck by two hours than delay the mail by a whole day.”

Now, Diaz said, the truck drivers have been instructed to leave on time, regardless of whether all the outgoing mail is on the truck. That means some mail is arriving a day later at the processing facility, where it could be delayed again, he said.

“Just think of our little town, times a million across the nation,” Diaz said. “You can see the domino effect that it’s going to have.”

Times staff writer John Myers contributed to this report.


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).

20 Aug 20 - 05:18 PM (#4068987)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

The post office's revenue comes from all of us mailing stuff, which was on the decline even before the lockdown. But Davis says the government has put a lot of restrictions on its ability to raise new funds.

"We've hamstrung their ability to turn a profit, but at the same time, we require them to do this universal service obligation that no other carrier has that requirement of," Davis says.

There was a push by some conservative lawmakers to privatize all mail deliveries long before the recent political battle over mail-in voting. But there has been a bipartisan backlash to the Trump administration's recent cuts, even in red states that the president carried easily.

20 Aug 20 - 06:51 PM (#4069002)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Rapparee

Back in 1966, the battle cry at the Illinois Young Republicans College Foundation meeting was "Don't Let Them Sell The Post Office!"

21 Aug 20 - 11:09 AM (#4069068)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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/

21 Aug 20 - 10:07 PM (#4069104)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

21 Aug 20 - 10:48 PM (#4069110)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

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.

22 Aug 20 - 03:54 AM (#4069127)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Mr Red

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.

22 Aug 20 - 08:14 AM (#4069148)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: McGrath of Harlow

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.

22 Aug 20 - 09:50 AM (#4069156)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

22 Aug 20 - 09:57 AM (#4069158)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

22 Aug 20 - 10:02 AM (#4069159)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

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.

22 Aug 20 - 01:25 PM (#4069185)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Mrrzy

More fun stuff here. If there is a paywall lemme know, I'll post the article.

22 Aug 20 - 05:17 PM (#4069211)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Mrrzy

The guardian reports post office money thing passed

23 Aug 20 - 01:31 AM (#4069247)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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

23 Aug 20 - 02:25 AM (#4069253)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Thompson

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.)

23 Aug 20 - 04:33 AM (#4069275)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: John MacKenzie

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 ?

23 Aug 20 - 05:48 AM (#4069290)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Thompson

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.

23 Aug 20 - 09:34 AM (#4069306)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

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.

23 Aug 20 - 02:29 PM (#4069350)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: McGrath of Harlow

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...

23 Aug 20 - 06:38 PM (#4069390)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

Actually there is a board of Govenors that are respondsible for postal operations but they are being overlooked much like the Constitution.

23 Aug 20 - 11:14 PM (#4069406)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

Yes, but all but one of them was appointed by Trump. They can't be trusted.

25 Aug 20 - 02:07 PM (#4069600)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

26 Aug 20 - 07:21 PM (#4069757)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: leeneia

I won't be mailing my ballot in. I'll wear a mask and keep my distance and let local people do the counting.

26 Aug 20 - 08:04 PM (#4069759)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

The heart of the 11 trashed high speed mail sorters are the bar code readers which were specifically smashed beyond repair.

27 Aug 20 - 03:51 PM (#4069880)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: EBarnacle

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.

27 Aug 20 - 05:34 PM (#4069891)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.)

28 Aug 20 - 05:36 AM (#4069939)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

General info https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx

28 Aug 20 - 06:14 AM (#4069943)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: JHW

Is this the same US Postal that sent Lance Armstrong round the Tour de France?

28 Aug 20 - 11:58 AM (#4069973)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

29 Aug 20 - 03:39 PM (#4070096)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

01 Sep 20 - 11:40 AM (#4070347)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Mrrzy

Vote early... but not often!

01 Sep 20 - 12:47 PM (#4070357)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

03 Sep 20 - 04:42 PM (#4070658)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

The President is encouraging Americans to vote by mail AND in person.
I remind you that is illegal and punishable by law.

03 Sep 20 - 05:15 PM (#4070661)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

05 Sep 20 - 06:05 PM (#4070904)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Mrrzy

In 13 days I can vote...

06 Sep 20 - 06:48 AM (#4070945)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

The extra stamp thing is bogus according to Snopes

06 Sep 20 - 03:46 PM (#4070993)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

08 Sep 20 - 06:55 AM (#4071174)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

https://www.businessinsider.com/dejoy-reimbursed-former-employees-donating-to-gop-candidates-report-2020-9

08 Sep 20 - 11:50 AM (#4071194)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

10 Sep 20 - 07:29 PM (#4071484)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

ALL my Amazon orders that were to be sent by USPS are late and deemed lost which make them eligible for refund.

10 Sep 20 - 11:10 PM (#4071494)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

11 Sep 20 - 02:34 PM (#4071556)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

11 Sep 20 - 03:35 PM (#4071564)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: robomatic

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.

11 Sep 20 - 09:59 PM (#4071578)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

12 Sep 20 - 01:38 AM (#4071593)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: leeneia

It took several days for a check to reach my dentist, but the junk mail seems to be getting through just fine.

13 Sep 20 - 09:36 AM (#4071725)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

I guess Penny S reads this thread but I keep seeing empty posts (that are deleted). Share your thoughts one of these times, Penny!

13 Sep 20 - 09:37 AM (#4071726)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

14 Sep 20 - 03:06 AM (#4071789)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Penny S.

Actually, what happens is that I accidentally click the wrong place! Sorry about that.

15 Sep 20 - 09:21 AM (#4071946)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States - PERIOD
From: Donuel

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

17 Sep 20 - 04:46 PM (#4072252)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

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.

18 Sep 20 - 04:02 PM (#4072408)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: leeneia

New news: fourteen states have filed suit in Yakima, Washington, and a federal judge has told the Administration to knock it off.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-post-office-idUSKBN26836Y

18 Sep 20 - 06:51 PM (#4072424)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Donuel

I don't want to enhance Donald's scare tactics but when the Judge ordered all 670 high speed mail sorting machines put back in place there is no way in hell to do that in 50 days.
They were disassembled and destroyed. I don't know but the critical reader part might be made in Pakistan and is on back order. The old machines are in scrap yards and landfills already. It would take a miracle to fix 2.
Meanwhile I am still confused as to voting by mail.

02 Oct 20 - 12:27 PM (#4074064)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

I heard a story a couple of days ago that this summer the USPS stopped processing change-of-address updates for people over a six week period. I can't find that article now, perhaps the topic got lost in the general post office chatter. Or I need some different keywords for the search.

In the meantime, there is this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/29/usps-workers-election-mail/
    This summer, as controversial new procedures at the U.S. Postal Service snarled the nation’s mail delivery and stirred fears of how the agency would handle the election, rank-and-file workers quietly began to resist.

    Mechanics in New York drew out the dismantling and removal of mail-sorting machines until their supervisor gave up on the order. In Michigan, a group of letter carriers did an end run around a supervisor’s directive to leave election mail behind, starting their routes late to sift through it. In Ohio, postal clerks culled prescriptions and benefit checks from bins of stalled mail to make sure they were delivered, while some carriers ran late items out on their own time. In Pennsylvania, some postal workers looked for any excuse — a missed turn, heavy traffic, a rowdy dog — to buy enough time to finish their daily rounds.

    “I can’t see any postal worker not bending those rules,” one Philadelphia staffer said in an interview.

    With the Postal Service expected to play a historic role in this year’s election, some of the agency’s 630,000 workers say they felt a responsibility to counteract cost-cutting changes from their new boss, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, that they blame for the mail slowdowns. They question whether DeJoy — a top Republican fundraiser and booster of President Trump — is politicizing the institution in service to a president who has actively tried to sow distrust of mail-in voting, insisting without evidence that it will lead to massive fraud.



and this

A few USPS plants are reinstalling mail sorting machines. But in Philly, more changes that could cause delays are happening.

    After four federal judges blocked additional operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service and ordered it to reverse the changes that had been made, South Jersey and Delaware processing and delivery plants have started reinstalling some of the mail sorting machines that had been removed.

    But in Philadelphia, nothing has changed. No machines in the Lindbergh Boulevard facility have been replaced, local union leaders and employees say, trucks are still being forced to leave on time, with or without the mail, and mail delivery is still being delayed.

    In fact, despite federal court orders, more operational changes have occurred in the Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Delaware processing facilities in the last week, according to union employees at all three locations.

    Employees at the Southwest Philadelphia, New Castle, and Bellmawr plants were told that mail sorting machines must stop sorting the mail by 5 a.m., whether all the mail has been sorted or not. Typically, the machines start sorting mail around 1 p.m., and don’t stop until the job is done. The time a machine usually finishes varies greatly and depends on the volume of mail that day.

    The goal, employees believe, is to make sure all the mail makes it onto the delivery trucks by the time they need to leave, so that no mail is left behind. But instead, at least in Philadelphia, it’s resulting in thousands of letter pieces going unsorted, said Laurence Love, an assistant clerk craft director who operates mail sorting machines at the Philadelphia plant.

    “I’ve been here for 35 years and we have never had any directive to shut off a machine,” said Love.

    The massive sorting machines are programmed to sort mail based on address and route, making it easy for carriers to grab their bins of mail and hit the road. Carriers are usually only left to hand sort a few letters and flats that are unable to go through the machines.
    But by 5 a.m., those items that haven’t been sorted yet are then only divided by route, not address, leaving some carriers with hundreds of pieces to sort themselves.

    Not every machine has unsorted mail, but those sorting zip codes with heavy volumes, are struggling to finish, Love said. Last Sunday, which is usually the Postal Service’s heaviest mail volume day, at least 20,000 pieces of mail were left unsorted across four machines.

    But by 5 a.m., those items that haven’t been sorted yet are then only divided by route, not address, leaving some carriers with hundreds of pieces to sort themselves.

    Not every machine has unsorted mail, but those sorting zip codes with heavy volumes, are struggling to finish, Love said. Last Sunday, which is usually the Postal Service’s heaviest mail volume day, at least 20,000 pieces of mail were left unsorted across four machines.


The rest of the articles can be read at each link.

03 Oct 20 - 03:24 PM (#4074188)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

We have an online service called "Informed Delivery" that shares a scanned image of the mail coming to your address each day. A heads up that is useful for me, so I don't have to go over to the post office to check the mail box every day. Lately I'm seeing delays regarding the mail that shows me what is coming to my house. What shows up as today's mail online doesn't arrive until the next day. This is still part of DeJoy's making trucks leave the hubs before all of the mail is loaded.

They don't make a scan just for these users, the scan is part of the sorting process and they're just taking advantage of already having that scan to share with interested mail customers. No charge. These sorting machines are what DeJoy was trying to take offline.

04 Oct 20 - 07:20 PM (#4074337)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: keberoxu

Whatever this lot are about,
they held up the payment
which I sent certified mail with return receipt.
The payment is now four days overdue.
When I went online to USPS,
the tracker assured me that
the shipment was still around somewhere
and still "in transit" ...

maybe registered mail next time?

04 Oct 20 - 11:42 PM (#4074353)
Subject: RE: Trump versus the United States Post Office
From: Stilly River Sage

It's taking a week for local mail to travel 20 miles from one town to another in the same county.