So here is what's going on with this many-layered situation. First this.
Followed, also, amazingly, by this.
An internal US Postal Service document obtained by NBC News reveals plans to remove 671 high-volume mail processing machines from postal facilities across the country. The document, circulated in June, is broken out by region and city/state.
Heck, our own Kansas City Star reported it did, in fact, happen here locally.
Can you imagine working for the Postal Service, walking in and seeing the mail sorting machine gone? Where does that happen? In what industry do they REMOVE automating equipment? Anywhere?
Then this came from the Orange Man's mouth himself.
Trump admitted that he is trying to stop mail-in votes from being counted with USPS sabotage during a Thursday Fox Business interview.
Once again, this President shows he wasn't/isn't smart enough, bright enough to even keep his mouth closed, keep quiet about his plans, nefarious and blatant as they are.
With all that, this is where we are now.
The House Oversight Committee is calling for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to testify at an "urgent" congressional hearing later this month amid growing concerns about whether cost-cutting measures will leave the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) ill-equipped to handle a rise in mail-in voting.
It seems the Trump's Postmaster General may have some significant conflicts of interest.
USPS head Louis DeJoy reportedly owns millions of stock in mail processor
With this President trying to under-fund or de-fund the Postal Service and the House Democrats planning to have the Postmaster General this coming week, here are some things I'd like to ask the head of the Postal Service, that Postmaster General, just now:
- Do you deny that 671 mail sorter machines--or some number--have been ordered out of our postal service facilities across the nation?
- Why are they being taken out?
- How does taking mail sorting machines out make any sense at any time but especially now when we need the postal service and all you do for this most killing pandemic in over 100 years?
- Why are post office mailboxes being carted away?
- How can anyone think this isn't to keep people from voting this Fall?
- Can you testify now, under oath, that you own no other investments that have to do with mailing or shipping of any sort in our nation?
- Can you testify here under oath that you would in no way benefit from having our United States Postal Service ceasing to exist?
- Can you testify here, now, under oath that it is not now nor will be in the future your goal or the goal of your boss, this current President, to end the existence of the United States Postal Service?
I hope someone asks them.
This, however, is how and where it gets difficult.
No matter what Trump says, the USPS has the money and the capacity to handle a huge surge in mail-in ballots. But new restrictions could disrupt the election.
President Donald Trump and his allies might well succeed in undermining the United States Postal Service’s ability to handle an expected surge in mail-in ballots this fall. But the biggest immediate threat to voting by mail isn’t blocked funding.
Trump acknowledged yesterday that he opposes a major stimulus deal with Democrats in part because he wants to stop an infusion of $25 billion to the Postal Service ahead of the election. “They need that money in order for the Post Office to work, to take in these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. But the president doesn’t want more voting by mail, and he doesn’t want the Postal Service to have any more money to help with it. “If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. That means they can’t have it.”
Democrats see the president’s comments as slam-dunk evidence of what they have been charging for weeks: that Trump is sabotaging the November election by purposely degrading the ostensibly independent Postal Service. They have assailed the appointment as postmaster general of a Trump donor, Louis DeJoy, who has moved rapidly to reorganize the Postal Service’s leadership and institute cost-cutting measures that have already resulted in slower mail delivery. Those service changes, rather than the congressional fight over funding, are what alarm advocates for mail-in voting the most. At stake is nothing less than the integrity of the election itself, which to a large degree rests on whether tens of millions of ballots can get into mailboxes and then back to their precincts in time to count.
Keeping in mind this, overall, from our own Constitution.
8 U.S. Code § 1701.Obstruction of mails generally
Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 778; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(B), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2146.)
I would never have thought a President, even this one, would attack and try to dismantle, destroy our Postal Service.
Unreal where we are.
Then this President said this.
Have we become, are we already some Third World banana republic backwater?
Are we going to tolerate this?
I'm sure as Hell not if I can do anything about it.
First, we can't respond to a pandemic---but all other nations can---and now this?
Oh, Hell no.
Once again, one more time, thanks, Republicans.
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