CommentsEASTSIDER-We all know that the way Donald Trump appoints folks. They pay him off and get a franchise to loot their piece of the U.S. Government.
But when his crooked appointee Louis DeJoy messes with my U.S. Postal Service, may they rot in hell.
And the corrupt practices he has committed (without even denial), are detailed in his Wikipedia article:
“Upon assuming office in June 2020, he instituted a number of cost-cutting measures such as banning overtime, forbidding late or extra trips to deliver mail, removing and dismantling hundreds of high-speed sorting machines, and removing some mail collection boxes from streets. The changes caused significant delays of mail delivery, resulting in investigations by Congressional committees and the USPS Inspector General. In August, DeJoy announced that the changes would be suspended, and in October the USPS agreed to reverse all the changes.”
Follow the Money
We all knew that DeJoy was a major player in the President’s campaign.
“Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has faced intense scrutiny from Democrats over changes he has made to the US Postal Service, donated more than $685,000 to the host committee that worked to stage the Republican National Convention, new filings show.
DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman and Republican mega-donor, was the lead fundraiser for the convention before he was tapped to lead the USPS. DeJoy's relationship with President Donald Trump, along with the President's repeated false claims that mail-in voting is rife with fraud, has sparked allegations that the administration is using the nation's mail system to sway the election. DeJoy has denied the allegations.
The new filings Friday at the Federal Election Commission from the Charlotte Host Committee show four donations from DeJoy between late December 2018 and late March 2020, totaling $685,230.”
Insiders also knew that DeJoy’s companies were contractors to USPS and that he made a pile of money on them.
“Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has come under fire for his continuing financial ties to a company that does business with the Postal Service, received $1.2 million to $7 million in income last year from that firm, according to financial disclosure forms reviewed by The New York Times.
Mr. DeJoy continues to hold $25 million to $50 million in that company, XPO Logistics, where he served as the chief executive of the company’s supply chain business until 2015 and was a board member until 2018. Documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics show that Mr. DeJoy also received millions of dollars in rental payments from XPO through leasing agreements at buildings that he owns.
The revelations are likely to further fuel scrutiny of Mr. DeJoy, a major donor to President Trump who has made a series of cost-cutting moves and other changes at the Postal Service that Democrats warn are aimed at undermining the 2020 election. Mr. DeJoy agreed on Monday to testify before the House Oversight Committee next week, and Democrats are expected to press him on the justification behind his new policies and question his potential conflicts of interest.
XPO, a $16 billion logistics and transportation company, assists the Postal Service during busy shipping periods, such as around the holidays, moving bulk shipments of packages from fulfillment centers and taking them to local Postal Service centers so mail carriers can deliver them to residences.
So just like magic, Trump’s captive Postal Service Board of Governors ignored all 53 candidates who applied for the position, backdoor’d DeJoy’s magical application, and slammed through his appointment. As the LA Times reported:
“During its search for a new postmaster general, the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors was presented with 53 candidates screened by an outside company. Not on the list:
Louis DeJoy, who ultimately got the job.
Instead, in what Democrats call a breach of protocol and blatant cronyism, DeJoy’s name was added as a contender by the board member leading the search, John Barger. He was acting on behalf of the board’s chairman, Robert “Mike” Duncan, a former Republican National Committee chairman who knew DeJoy and his wife through work on a White House advisory group. DeJoy, Barger and Duncan were prominent donors to President Trump and other Republicans.”
Ain’t graft wonderful.
Destroying the USPS for a Private Takeover?
Almost everyone has been affected one way or another by DeJoy’s draconian changes to the postal service. I sent a key via registered mail (for tracking purposes) from Los Angeles to Tehachapi not that long ago. It took two weeks! Also, a rent check from Los Angeles to South Pasadena sent regular mail took over a month.
That doesn’t even account for his orders to tear postal service mail handling hardware out of their buildings and trashing and/or disassembling them. Ripping out the Blue Post Office boxes on our streets, eliminating overtime, and putting political cronies in charge of the operations.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the House members to return to the Capitol to vote on legislation that aims to protect the Postal Service from changes being implemented by the Trump administration, which Democrats described as an effort to "sabotage" the agency ahead of the November election.
Concerns about the administration's actions have mounted since Louis DeJoy – a major donor to President Donald Trump's campaign with large financial interests in the Postal Service's private competitors – became postmaster general in June.
Trump further fueled Democrats' fears after indicating in an interview that he opposed additional funds for the USPS, even though that money would be needed to manage the anticipated surge of mailed-in ballots in the fall election from voters seeking to avoid crowded polling places amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
Breaking the Bank
Over the years, the USPS has developed an enviable reputation for delivering the mail (and prescriptions) accurately and on time. Mostly, Congress left them alone, until 2006. That’s when the geniuses in Congress passed a post-retirement pre-funding law which broke the bank.
“In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.
If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.
In its December 2018 report, President Trump’s Task Force on the United States Postal Service reaffirmed current rules related to postal retiree health benefits, calling it “part of a mandate for postal self-sustainability.” However, the Task Force also recognized that the aggressive and accelerated timetable for funding the mandate has proved unworkable. They call for past deficits to be “restructured with the payments re-amortized with new actuarial calculation based on the population of employees at or near retirement age.”
This piece of Congressional “pigs in a trough” was bipartisan! Authored by a Republican, our very own Henry Waxman was a co-sponsor. Cowards that they were, it passed the House on a voice vote, and then the Senate by unanimous consent. No ownership. Lordy.
The Takeaway
It seems to me that a logical argument can be made that would explain DeJoy’s constant attacks on the system to screw up the Post Office’s reputation. The President routinely sells off pieces of the U.S. Government in a kickback franchise deal, so that the successful bidders can be ambassadors, acting Department Heads, or simply licensed to loot.
In the case of DeJoy, he already makes a bundle with his private contracts and rental agreements with the USPS. I think that he wants the whole enchilada. Get the Donald to privatize the USPS, take it over as a private entity, dump the unions and the pension obligations, as well as all checks and balances, and become a zillionaire.
And maybe, just maybe, promise the President to put the fix in on the Post Office’s handling of mail in ballots.
Sorry for the rant, but with the Presidential elections marred by the USPS failing to comply with a federal judge’s orders to sweep their facilities to find the mail in ballots still there -- which could affect the outcome of who’s President, it’s pretty obvious that DeJoy and his godfather, Donald Trump, are quite capable of anything.
Using the USPS as an unwilling pawn. Think Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia.
And destroying the Post Office in the mix, on the grounds that it loses money! Loses money? The whole federal government does little besides lose money. Does the military make money? Does Congress balance a budget? Do elephants fly?
The real cost? Besmirching the USPS is but a part of a larger goal. That of deliberately undermining any faith in the Federal bureaucracy and all of the millions of people who work for it. The “little people” who go to work every day, do their job, follow the law, and do so with integrity.
That’s right. Destroy all faith in the system, divide our country into tribal chunks at war with each other, and let the crooks run the joint without any worries about the law. Hope I’m wrong.
In the meantime, I say the least we can do is to charge Louis DeJoy with corruption, prove the case, and send him to the gates of Hell!
(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Photo: Tom Brenner/Pool/Getty Images. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
