US Postal Service

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

10-28-2020

The politics surround the United States Postal Service during the COVID-19 pandemic continued on Tuesday.

“United States Postal Service leadership received a sweeping set of orders from a federal judge on Tuesday, laying out ways the Postal Service must make sure ballots are delivered quickly because of the ongoing election and absentee voting deadlines,” CNN reported Tuesday.

“One week ahead of Election Day, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the DC District Court told the Postal Service to inform its employees that late delivery trips are allowed and the delivery of ballots by state elections deadlines is important.”

“The order is some of the most aggressive oversight USPS has faced yet in its handling of election mail.
It adds to several directives the Post Office has weathered in court in recent months, after state governments won injunctions that would prevent policy changes put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that could have disrupted the quick delivery of mailed ballots to election officials,” CNN explained.

DeJoy has been highly controversial for slowing down the delivery of mail during the pandemic.

“The Postal Service also must provide daily updates to the court on mail delivery data and will appear daily before the judge,” CNN noted.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

11-4-2020

‘Haul Louis DeJoy in front of a grand jury’:
Outrage after USPS misses court-ordered Election Day deadline.

Election experts and other critics of voter suppression responded with alarm Tuesday after the United States Postal Service failed to meet a court-ordered afternoon deadline to conduct sweeps at mail processing facilities to “ensure that no ballots have been held up and that any identified ballots are immediately sent out for delivery.”

Earlier Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia had ordered the sweeps between 12:30 pm and 3:00 pm ET, and set a 4:30 pm ET deadline for facilities to file a status update. John Kruzel, a reporter at The Hill, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the USPS failed to comply, in spite of saying this week that about 300,000 ballots had entered the mail sorting system but lacked a delivery scan.

In response to Kruzel’s long tweet thread,
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) took aim at the postmaster general, tweeting:
“Haul Louis DeJoy in front of a criminal grand jury.”

Journalist Ari Berman, who has extensively covered voting rights in the United States, similarly declared that “Louis DeJoy should be held in contempt of court and face criminal charges for obstructing an election if these ballots are not delivered on time.”

Berman noted that mail delays have gotten worse in the lead-up to Election Day. For months, voting rights advocates have slammed DeJoy—a GOP megadonor who took over the Postal Service earlier this year—for forcing mail operations changes that critics charge were intended in part to sabotage the November election.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

3-22-2021

Postal Service to promise Americans will pay more money for longer delivery times:

The Donald Trump mega-donor who continues to oversee the U.S. Postal Service is set to announce plans to drastically cut services performed by the constitutionally mandated agency.

"Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will unveil the largest rollback of consumer mail services in a generation as part of his 10-year plan for the U.S. Postal Service, according to two people briefed on the proposal--
including longer first-class delivery windows, reduced post office hours and higher postage prices," The Washington Post reported Monday evening.

"The announcement set for Tuesday is part of DeJoy's strategic vision for the agency, one that has left postal advocates wary of any changes that could further diminish operations.

Mailing industry experts have warned that substantial service cuts could drive away business and worsen the Postal Service's already-battered balance sheet," the newspaper explained.

"DeJoy is expected to emphasize the need for austerity to ensure more consistent delivery and rein in billions of dollars in financial losses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

DeJoy's plan will be released as Democrats continue to press for his ouster.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

8-18-2021

'A big win': USPS must turn over docs about DeJoy's potential conflicts of interest.

A leading government ethics watchdog on Wednesday cheered a federal judge's ruling ordering the United States Postal Service to hand over documents concerning potential conflicts of interest involving embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Tuesday granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) a full summary judgment (pdf) and ordered the United States Postal Service (USPS) to give the advocacy group seven documents it requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

USPS claimed the documents were FOIA-exempt. According to Law & Crime, "Four of the documents concerned a request for a certificate of divestiture from DeJoy and the remaining three concern his recusal from matters where he may have a conflict
of interest."

As CREW explained Wednesday:

Over the past seven years, the USPS has reportedly paid approximately $286 million to XPO Logistics, DeJoy's ex-employer, and has "ramped up its business" with the company since DeJoy's appointment as postmaster general. After his appointment, DeJoy continued to hold financial interests in XPO totaling between $30 and $75 million.

DeJoy also held a significant amount of stock in Amazon, a major USPS competitor.
Earlier this month, Common Dreams reported on growing calls to fire DeJoy following the revelation by The Washington Post that USPS will pay XPO Logistics $120 million over the next five years. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) responded to the Post report by calling DeJoy a "walking conflict of interest."

Last Friday, a Post report that DeJoy had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of publicly traded bonds from Brookfield Asset Management—where USPS Board of Governors Chair Ron Bloom is a managing partner—fueled further calls for DeJoy's termination, with Connolly calling Bloom and the postmaster general "bandits" whose "conflicts of interest do nothing but harm the Postal Service and the American people."

CREW communications director Jordan Libowitz called Bates' order "a big win not just for CREW, but for transparency advocates everywhere."

"DeJoy's decision-making as postmaster general has raised some serious ethical questions—now we should finally get some answers," Libowitz added.

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) on Monday sent President Joe Biden a letter urging him to sack everyone former President Donald Trump appointed to the USPS board. Pascrell welcomed the Tuesday court order and reiterated his call for Biden to fire Trump appointees and "show DeJoy the door now before it's too late."

DeJoy and six of the nine USPS governors, including Bloom, were appointed by Trump; the rest are Biden appointees.

In addition to the alleged conflicts of interest in connection with XPO Logistics and Brookfield Asset Management, CREW, in advocating DeJoy's ouster, notes that:

DeJoy and his wife, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada, got their jobs after contributing $2 million to Trump's campaign coffers;DeJoy is the first person in decades to lead the USPS without any previous experience in the agency;

DeJoy is under federal investigation for allegedly operating a scheme where he asked employees of his former company to make campaign contributions, then arranged for bonus payments to reimburse the employees; andDeJoy apparently violated federal criminal laws by commanding the USPS to make policy changes at the agency that would depress or delay voting by mail in the 2020 election.

"Bottom line: Louis DeJoy has overseen an attack on the Postal Service and on American democracy itself," CREW tweeted Wednesday. "The USPS Board of Governors must fire him before it's too late."

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