USPS Issues

[GMDino]

In typical Trump Administration fashion oversight is being removed too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/07/postal-service-investigation-dejoy/

Quote:Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s mail service, displacing the two top executives overseeing day-to-day operations, according to a reorganization memo released Friday. The shake-up came as congressional Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy and the cost-cutting measures that have slowed mail delivery and ensnared ballots in recent primary elections.


Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles.

The reshuffling threatens to heighten tensions between postal officials and lawmakers, who are troubled by delivery delays — the Postal Service banned employees from working overtime and making extra trips to deliver mail — and wary of the Trump administration’s influence on the Postal Service as the coronavirus pandemic rages and November’s election draws near.


It also adds another layer to DeJoy’s disputes with Democratic leaders, who have pushed him to rescind the cost-cutting directives that have caused days-long backlogs and steady the Postal Service in the run-up to the election. DeJoy clashed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in a meeting on the issue earlier this week.


Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chair of the House subcommittee responsible for postal oversight, called the reorganization “a deliberate sabotage” to the nation’s mail service and a “Trojan Horse.”

David E. Williams, formerly chief operating officer and executive vice president, will take the role of chief logistics and processing operations officer, a new position for a trusted adviser to former postmaster general Megan Brennan and members of the agency’s governing board. A new organizational chart also gives Williams the title “executive vice president,” though that role was not included in the internal restructuring announcement obtained by The Washington Post. The Postal Service’s Kevin L. McAdams, the vice president of delivery and retail operations and a 40-year USPS veteran, was not listed on the chart.

It’s not clear what the impact of all the changes will be. DeJoy wrote in an internal memo to employees obtained by The Post that the new structure would create “clear lines of authority and accountability,” but others are more skeptical. The USPS publicly released a shorter description of the changes that did not include DeJoy’s remarks to postal workers. The agency declined to comment further on the staffing changes.

“One of the things that’s led to a lot of head scratching is how some of these folks have been reassigned. We’re not sure he put the right players in the right spots, but maybe he sees something we don’t,” said one person with deep knowledge of the leadership team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to give a candid assessment. “We’re all going to wait and see and hope he’s done the right things, but who knows? It looks as if most of the people we’ve all worked with for years and years are still there, just moved around.”

The Postal Service will implement a hiring freeze, according to the reorganization announcement, and will ask for voluntary early retirements. It also will realign into three “operating units” — retail and delivery, logistics and processing, and commerce and business solutions — and scale down from seven regions to four.

The structure displaces postal executives with decades of experience, moving some to new positions and others out of leadership roles entirely, including McAdams, Williams and chief commerce and business solutions officer Jacqueline Krage Strako, who previously held the title of executive vice president and chief customer and marketing officer.

“As I said in the video remarks released on my first day, ‘I am decisive, and … when I see problems, I work to solve them.’ Early on, I concluded that our organizational structure was just such a problem to solve,” DeJoy wrote in his memo to employees. “I have decided we need to realign the organization to provide greater focus on the core aspects of our business and to give us a better chance for future success.”

But the changes worried postal analysts, who say the tone of DeJoy’s first eight weeks and his restructuring have recast the nation’s mail service as a for-profit arm of the government, rather than an essential service.

“He keeps referring to the USPS as ‘our business.’ But he’s been appointed postmaster general. You don’t run a business,” said Philip Rubio, a history professor at North Carolina A&T State University and a former postal worker. “He’s not accountable to shareholders. He’s accountable to the American people and Congress.”
Earlier Friday, congressional Democrats demanded an investigation of DeJoy’s cost-cutting initiatives, which postal workers blame for delivery slowdowns.

A letter signed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and seven other Democrats, including Connolly, urged Postal Service Inspector General Tammy L. Whitcomb to examine how DeJoy came to implement policies that prohibit postal workers from taking overtime or making extra trips to deliver mail on time, and how such delays specifically affect election mail.

“Given the ongoing concerns about the adverse impacts of Trump Administration policies on the quality and efficiency of the Postal Service, we ask that you conduct an audit of all operational changes put in place by Mr. DeJoy and other Trump Administration officials in 2020,” the letter states.

It also asks Whitcomb to review the finances of DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, the nominee for ambassador to Canada. The couple’s holdings include between $30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets in USPS competitors or contractors, according to a financial disclosure Wos filed with the Office of Government Ethics when she was nominated. Postal Service mail processing contractor XPO Logistics — which acquired DeJoy’s company New Breed Logistics in 2014 — represents the vast majority of those holdings. Their combined stake in competitors UPS and trucking company J.B. Hunt is roughly $265,000.

DeJoy had 30 days from taking over the agency to disclose any assets that present a conflict of interest, according to the Postal Service. DeJoy in a statement said he had “done what is necessary to ensure that I am and will remain in compliance with those obligations.”

“We would welcome the Inspector General to look into the steps we are taking to make the Postal Service more efficient,” Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said. “She will find that much of what we are doing is designed to address recommendations that her office has made in recent years.”
Agapi Doulaveris, a spokesperson for the Office of Inspector General, said the department had received the letter, but could not comment on ongoing work.

“I would absolutely hope the inspector general would look into why the mail is being slowed, because that’s outrageous,” Rubio said. “Especially during the pandemic and with America about to vote, this is the worst time to be changing policies.”


DeJoy met Wednesday with Pelosi, Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to discuss the new mail-handling procedures and the Postal Service’s tenuous financial position. The agency is projected to run out of money between March and October 2021, though it just accessed a $10 billion Treasury loan authorized last week in an early coronavirus relief package.

During the USPS’s quarterly board of governors meeting Friday, DeJoy said he negotiated the loan terms with Mnuchin. Upon accessing the loan, the Postal Service, subject to confidentiality restrictions, will hand over proprietary contracts for its 10 largest service agreements with private sector shippers. Those businesses use the mail service for “last mile” package delivery from distribution centers to consumers’ homes or businesses.
Mnuchin had sought sweeping operational control of the Postal Service in previous loan terms, including provisions that would allow the Trump administration to approve senior postal personnel decisions, service contracts with third-party shippers, collective bargaining negotiation strategies and high package prices.
In April, shortly after Congress authorized the loan, Trump called the Postal Service “a joke” and said he would not approve any emergency funding unless the USPS quadrupled package delivery prices, a move analysts said would quickly bankrupt the agency by chasing away customers to private-sector competitors.

DeJoy, at the governors meeting Friday, said that though he has a “good relationship” with Trump — he’s donated more than $2 million to the Trump campaign or Republican causes since 2016, and chaired the finance committee for the 2020 GOP convention — he does not take direction from Trump on postal issues.
“While I certainly have a good relationship with the President of the United States, the notion that I would ever make decisions concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the President, or anyone else in the administration, is wholly off-base,” he said. “I serve at the pleasure of the governors of the Postal Service, a group that is bipartisan by statute and that will evaluate my performance in a nonpartisan fashion.”


Coronavirus funding for the Postal Service — and Schumer and Pelosi’s demand that DeJoy roll back the cost-cutting policies — emerged as a sticking point between Democrats and the White House in negotiations on a “Phase IV” relief package. The House passed a package with $25 billion for the Postal Service that does not need to be repaid to replace the Treasury loan. The Trump administration has objected to any direct aid to the Postal Service.

[*Nately120*]

How can the MAGA crowd be so down on the post office when there are multiple Norman Rockwell paintings of the guys? Geez.

[grampahol]

Not only is the PMG "reorganizing" things to make things very slow and inefficient they're removing sorting equipment that's been in place for a long time, equipment that has proven its value to our nation over years of high quality delivery capabilities to intentionally drive the postal service into the ground and it's absolutely no accident. It's intentional for a few reasons. First, there are certain investors who want nothing more than to carve up the nations best run organization to privatize it AND republican lawmakers know that the demographics are absolutely against them and within a few short years they won't be able to get elected to toilet clearners in run down gas stations. It's part of the Reagan self fulfilling prophecy of the government can't do anything right so elect us and we'll prove it. 
America, you voted for these schmucks so now is not the time to whine about the government. It's time to get rid of the schmucks.  
Last week I ordered some sliding shelf brackets online. For more than 4 days now they've been sitting in a USPS facility in Florida not budging. Any other time in the past 50 years I would have had them by now. Florida is just two states away. I'd probably get it faster now if I'd ordered them from Moscow. 

[*Nately120*]

(08-13-2020, 08:36 AM)grampahol Wrote: America, you voted for these schmucks so now is not the time to whine about the government. It's time to get rid of the schmucks.  

In America's defense the electoral college is the one that made the guy who came in 2nd place the winner on this one.

[GMDino]

Trump announced he would be interviewed on FOX this morning (I'm at work and missed it) so I am waiting for the audio for this.

Trump saying clearly on Fox why he won’t fund USPS. “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots...But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting...”

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) August 13, 2020

 

[hollodero]

(08-13-2020, 09:59 AM)GMDino Wrote: Trump announced he would be interviewed on FOX this morning (I'm at work and missed it) so I am waiting for the audio for this.

Trump saying clearly on Fox why he won’t fund USPS. “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots...But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting...”

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) August 13, 2020

 

Ruining the post office to avoid wide-spread election participation. That is pretty bold. Lukaschenko could learn something from this guy.

[GMDino]

Here is the audio.

Trump is blocking money to help the USPS because he thinks mail in voting will turn out to be fraudulent.

He is literally trying to block voting because he is afraid he will lose.

When given a chance to remove this man for asking a foreign govt to rig the election, 247-of-248 republican senators & reps voted to keep trump in office. Now he’s doing it here.

This tragedy could’ve been avoided but gop leaders value power more than democracy or even your life https://t.co/eKiP5twg5z

— Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) August 13, 2020

[*Nately120*]

Can we just make Trump the king of America and be done with it? Any country that allows this guy to be the president doesn't want to be a democracy anymore. We want this, give it to us. Tie us down and just force it in there. We love it.

[GMDino]

(08-13-2020, 11:34 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Can we just make Trump the king of America and be done with it?  Any country that allows this guy to be the president doesn't want to be a democracy anymore.  We want this, give it to us.  Tie us down and just force it in there.  We love it.

But people just CAN'T vote for Biden because he will take away their rights and freedoms!!! 

[*Nately120*]

(08-13-2020, 11:56 AM)GMDino Wrote: But people just CAN'T vote for Biden because he will take away their rights and freedoms!!! 

Either god dies or democracy dies in 2020...I'd say take your pick but we may not get a chance to do that.

I will say the part of me that just revels in agony loves the idea of Trump losing the popular vote in 2020 and still being president.  It's just such a slap in the face to the democratic process.  I'm actually on the edge of my seat wondering how absolutely insane Trump can get with 4 more years as the president followed by him spending the rest of his life slagging off on our country via twitter.

Who saw this coming?  Donald Trump the guy from reality TV and Home Alone 2 would become a major force in the process of dismantling American democracy.  If I were still 15 years old I'd be in heaven watching Trump force his will all over us.  I need a lobotomy. 

On the plus side, my job depends upon people declaring bankruptcy, not paying their taxes, joining the army, and having zounds of unpaid medical bills. If I made a decent wage I'd be livin' large! Keep up the good work!

[masterpanthera_t]

Even if people who voted for Trump don't trust non outsider politicians, surely they have to see that this type of move is concerning from a democracy point of view, no?

Vote for an outsider next time, but one who actually understands the way the constitution limits powers and respects that, maybe?

At this point in their fervor to revamp the building, I'm concerned that they're missing that their choice is now trying to burn the whole building to the ground including the structure. I sure hope I'm wrong.

[NATI BENGALS]

So a new impeachment should be initiated today for this.

He is literally obstructing our democracy

[*Nately120*]

(08-13-2020, 12:54 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: So a new impeachment should be initiated today for this.

He is literally obstructing our democracy

Yes, but how good could that democracy actually be if it would allow the voting public to elect someone other than Donald Trump to be president?

[CJD]

Maybe if the USPS were more properly funded, Trump's concerns about mail in voting would be resolved.

That is...unless his concerns about mail in voting are based more on suppressing voting than ensuring the security of mail in voting...

[NATI BENGALS]

Warren demands probe of Amazon options purchase by Postal chief DeJoy

And the trump donor who trump appointed to head the usps invests in usps competitors.

F this shit. This is broad daylight corruption and voter suppression.

[Dill]

(08-13-2020, 12:05 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Either god dies or democracy dies in 2020...I'd say take your pick but we may not get a chance to do that.

I will say the part of me that just revels in agony loves the idea of Trump losing the popular vote in 2020 and still being president.  It's just such a slap in the face to the democratic process.  I'm actually on the edge of my seat wondering how absolutely insane Trump can get with 4 more years as the president followed by him spending the rest of his life slagging off on our country via twitter.

Who saw this coming?  Donald Trump the guy from reality TV and Home Alone 2 would become a major force in the process of dismantling American democracy.  If I were still 15 years old I'd be in heaven watching Trump force his will all over us.  I need a lobotomy. 

On the plus side, my job depends upon people declaring bankruptcy, not paying their taxes, joining the army, and having zounds of unpaid medical bills.  If I made a decent wage I'd be livin' large!  Keep up the good work!

It would be God's judgment on his chosen people (the new, Christian ones). 

What was clear to some in 2016 would finally become clear to almost all by 2022. Then the impeachment would go through. 

[Dill]

(08-13-2020, 11:26 AM)GMDino Wrote: Here is the audio.

Trump is blocking money to help the USPS because he thinks mail in voting will turn out to be fraudulent.

He is literally trying to block voting because he is afraid he will lose.

Politicians are always trying to use the government for partisan ends. E.g. requiring voter ids or reducing the number of polling sites or gerrymandering districts.

BUT UNTIL TRUMP THEY NEVER SAID SO OUT LOUD. 

Reminds of when he explained why he fired the FBI chief prosecuting him.

[BmorePat87]

It's interesting that we're at the point where Trump is openly stating that he will not support emergency funding for the USPS because he just doesn't want people to vote, and a number of people are happily nodding along.

In the past their support of voter suppression was said to be based off of their pathetically idiotic fabrications regarding mass voter fraud that could only be countered by closing voting stations in minority-majority neighborhoods, ID cards, and banning Native Americans from using PO boxes as their addresses.

[Benton]

(08-14-2020, 12:11 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: It's interesting that we're at the point where Trump is openly stating that he will not support emergency funding for the USPS because he just doesn't want people to vote, and a number of people are happily nodding along.

In the past their support of voter suppression was said to be based off of their pathetically idiotic fabrications regarding mass voter fraud that could only be countered by closing voting stations in minority-majority neighborhoods, ID cards, and banning Native Americans from using PO boxes as their addresses.

I think the GOP has abandoned the need for fabrications. By and large, they've been able to gerrymander and manipulate enough to have a pretty steady "majority" despite being in the minority.  At this point, as Trump is demonstrating and as Cheney and McConnell have done in the past, there's not really any reason to keep up some sham. They can crap on procedure and tradition and laws all they want, as long as those checks keep cashing.

Dismantling the USPS has been a long-term goal of the GOP. Despite it employing a huge number of veterans, being 100% solvent if not for GOP pension requirements and providing a necessary service, the 'let's outsource everything!' group of Reagan-era Republicans are still cashing those checks and trying to do away with it.

Unfortunately, for many small businesses, the USPS makes a huge difference in profitability. Personally, for my small business, using one of the other options out there would more than triple my mailing cost, which is the second biggest issue behind printing. Which means, to the consumer, my product price would have to more than double. Which likely means fewer customers and people able to afford it.

[Von Cichlid]

(08-13-2020, 12:15 PM)masterpanthera_t Wrote: Even if people who voted for Trump don't trust non outsider politicians, surely they have to see that this type of move is concerning from a democracy point of view, no?

Vote for an outsider next time, but one who actually understands the way the constitution limits powers and respects that, maybe?

At this point in their fervor to revamp the building, I'm concerned that they're missing that their choice is now trying to burn the whole building to the ground including the structure. I sure hope I'm wrong.

Look, as a Trump voter, this is impossible to defend.  I'll admit it.

Trump is mulling out loud everything he thinks he could do to keep himself in power.  It's what people who make it all the way to the top tend to do, although most do have the tendency to not say things like that out loud. 

I would think younger liberals (you don't strike me as one) might be more positive though.  In reality, it is a high likelihood that the 2016 election was the last gasp of a dying subset of this country.  A lot of stars had to align for that upset.

Ask yourself though:  What do Democrats need to do to stay in power?  

1.  They could promise a welfare state. 
2.  They could support open borders and guaranteed citizenship at the same time.
3.  They could allow 16 year old's to vote.

Why do they want these things?  Out of the kindness of their hearts, right?  Out of their benevolent desire for justice and equity for all?    

There is simply no way you can have open borders and a welfare state.  If you think such a thing is possible, then I don't know what to say to you.  The Democratic leaders know that too.  They are making promises they good and well know they can't keep, and they are doing it to stay in power  

At least they are not being unconstitutional.  Unless lying through your teeth is unconstitutional.   

Look, if Biden gets this election, then the only thing I know is that there will be two people not running things.  Trump and Biden.  Who knows what long standing principles will guide Harris?  She is another who made it to the top, and I don't think it was by helping out the little guy.  

If the demographic shifts stay shifting in the same direction, then this country will never have a Republican in the presidency again.  

In an alternate reality were there was no covid-19, Trump would have had another round.  That is why Biden was chosen in the first place.  The Democratic party was literally phoning it in.  Covid-19 was the best thing the Democratic establishment could have ever hoped for.  There is a very strong chance it derailed a 2nd Trump term, and I don't think the stars would align for another 2016  ever again.