Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General, a Dangerous National Scandal
.
We are nearing another presidential election, this one of vast impact on the future of this country as a democracy. Recall that as we were nearing the previous presidential elections, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy did everything possible to disrupt and delay the postal service, ostensibly for the benefit of the Republican party and Trump since, statistically, mailed-in ballots are much more often used by Democratic voters. Among the well-recorded deeds of this so-called postmaster was the full-scale decommissioning or outright destruction of highly efficient mail sorting machines worth $M100 each. The justification was to cut costs, but the targeting of these machines (that were already operating, and paid for) was the worst way of achieving this goal.
It is beyond my understanding how this man is allowed to be at the helm of the once-sacred US mail service that still many people in this country rely on. Looking up the history we learn that the first national postal agency in the US, known as the United States Post Office, was founded by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 26, 1775, at the beginning of the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general; he also served a similar position for the American colonies. Compare his stature with the stature of the current scoundrel!
Moreover, DeJoy owns stocks in private companies that perform mail distribution in competition with the postal service, so he is a living and breathing example of conflict of interest at the top level of government. I still remember his performance at a congressional hearing in 2020 where he perjured himself with answers that were outright lies.
I have only now discovered DeJoy’s performance in a hearing of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee back in April of this year, when the postal service proposed closing the mail distribution center in Reno, Nevada, and have it served by the Sacramento center in California, instead. Thus mail collected or distributed in Nevada would have to go 130 miles either way over the Donner pass, a pass that is known to be impassable because of snow and ice for a good five weeks of the year. Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Senator serving on the committee, came up with the example of a Christmas postcard sent by a woman to her grandchild from one place in Reno to another. Under the new plan, it would be collected and go by truck to Sacramento, be sorted there and go back by truck to Reno. Postmaster DeJoy withered under the questions of Jacky Rosen but has remained in office to this day, and he is still allowed to wreak havoc in this coming election.
I got a taste of the current performance of the Post Office when a package was mailed from Great Barrington to New York, promised to be the fastest priority way. It was mailed on a Thursday and arrived 12 days later, on the Tuesday folowing the next week, having taken 8 business days altogether. This is probably what is happening right now with mailed-in ballots, which will face a cut-off date a few days after November 7.
.
.
Leave a Reply