Earlier quoted context omitted.
He isn't saying it's okay .
He’s trying to justify that it is okay because it’s about privatization...months before a crucial election year. Doesn’t make sense. It’s gaslighting.
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Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
131–140 of 325 posts
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters, or is it just that subsidized postage stamps are so cheap no private company can profit off paper mail delivery? Because letters are paper but so are magazines, newspapers, etc that I know are delivered by non-USPS mail carriers. It isn't a very persuasive argument to destroy cheap post for the masses to... let investors make mone…
The USPS actually has two legally enforced monopolies, as per Title 39 of the US Code. One is over the delivery of anything defined as a “letter,” which is within certain size and weight limits. The second is over the use of your mailbox. That is correct: there are criminal violations if anyone puts anything in your mail box that is not US government approved “mail.”
It doesn’t really seem enforceable though since there is an explicit cutout in that for “urgent” letters. Every letter I send is urgent!
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Voting in person the old fashioned way for all but those with a good physical excuse seems to be the best way to maintain the integrity of our voting process. Yes, in-person voting has the potential for fraud, but mail-in voting has all of the same problems and more. It's hard to find a mechanism for fraud that applies to in-person but not mail in. Furthermore, the issues with COVID seem overblown. I've waited in lin…
I voted by mail in Seattle for years and never had an issue or even heard of one. The ballot goes in a tamper-evident envelope, sealed within the mailing envelope. You also get online tracking to know your ballot was received and processed.
You're welcome.
Me and my peeps did the yeoman work to both protect the secret ballot and ensure end-to-end auditability.
If every jurisdiction nationwide adopted the rules, procedures, and operations used by King County Elections, we'd be in good shape.
But they won't.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#134This is problematic to voting in the same way closing polling sites is, framed as cost cutting or inefficiency reduction with the intention of reducing access to a subset of the population. This is just frustration, but the fact that we could pass a massive defense bill (again, I know), but are unable to fund basic services shows the integrity of our government. Moreover, it shows the culpability of most of the elect…
Voting in person the old fashioned way for all but those with a good physical excuse seems to be the best way to maintain the integrity of our voting process. Yes, in-person voting has the potential for fraud, but mail-in voting has all of the same problems and more. It's hard to find a mechanism for fraud that applies to in-person but not mail in. Furthermore, the issues with COVID seem overblown. I've waited in lin…
This would be more credible if US in person voting didn’t often involve electronic voting machines with closed source software, no paper trail, and proven exploits.
That’s what mail in voting compares to.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concern for the GOP isn’t that democrats favor voting by mail, it’s that the GOP has worked hard to make it as hard as possible to vote in person in targeted (eg non Republican) communities. Widespread vote from mail defeats that as it means that their selective polling closures, and arbitrary barriers to voting in person, go away
Out of curiosity, what are those barriers?
Photo ID laws is a big one.
Closing polling stations in minority communities.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#136Are they de-prioritizing all the spam and useless pre-sort stuff? That would be the first order of business for me.
The only mail I have received in the last two weeks is the usual Tuesday junk mail. There is routine mail I receive that is at least a week late so far.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
USPS has a government granted monopoly on letter delivery end it and these problems will also go away.
Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters, or is it just that subsidized postage stamps are so cheap no private company can profit off paper mail delivery? Because letters are paper but so are magazines, newspapers, etc that I know are delivered by non-USPS mail carriers. It isn't a very persuasive argument to destroy cheap post for the masses to... let investors make mone…
Fedex can (and do) deliver letters. They cannot deliver first class mail or use the mailbox, the interior of which is technically property of the US post office.
First class mail is a "monopoly" as someone downthread noted, but not the kind that anyone trying to make a profit would want. The post office cannot set prices on first class mail (that's done by Congress) and needs to deliver mail everywhere at the price Congress has mandated, even when it is done at a loss.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If anything, all entities promising retirement benefits should be forced to do it the way USPS does That would be nice but [insert financing excuse here] others cant do it too. > Too bad it didn’t apply to governments, because if it did, then my kids and I wouldn’t be stuck paying for labor performed 30+ years ago because all the city and state governments decided they can just promise to pay people with future tax…
> That would be nice but [insert financing excuse here] others cant do it too. I don’t know what this means. >Yes but forcing just USPS to do it was an attack on USPS because it has to compete with private companies. FedEx and UPS are subject to the same pension and retirement benefit funding requirements as USPS. It’s only government entities that aren’t regulated (because politicians like to be able to pay current…
>FedEx and UPS are subject to the same pension and retirement benefit funding requirements as USPS.
No they FedEx and UPS were required to prefund pensions in the 1970s, but they were given 40 years in which to do it.
USPS was given 10 years. In addition USPS was required to prefund retirement medical benefits, and unlike a private company who can cut retirement medical benefits at any time, USPS requires an act of congress to cut retirement medical benefits.
Furthermore, when calculating how much they need to set aside for retirement medical benefits, USPS can only use a much lower interest rate than private companies are allowed to use because they are forced to invest only in T-bills.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#139The underlying motivation here is to accomplish two things: 1. Destroy the viability of the post office as a business (a long running campaign) 2. Disenfranchise voters (a relatively recent campaign) Tens of thousands of people were disenfranchised during the primaries because their ballots were received too late, even if they were postmarked on time. [1] Tax returns are considered to be submitted on the date of thei…
> 2. Disenfranchise voters (a relatively recent campaign) Recent as in it started the instant the 15th amendment was passed.
I'm referring to disenfranchisement by way of disrupting the operation of the mail, which I don't think has been a major focus for quite that long.
Jim Crow laws were much more effective means of disenfranchisement during Reconstruction.
Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
The craziest thing about the whole situations is there actually isn’t much evidence that vote by mail favors republicans; and yet they’re willing to degrade postal service to a country more reliant on it than ever, just for a small hope of electoral advantage. Edit: article in case anyone isn’t convinced (I was skeptical at first, given the tone of the discussion): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/politics/vote-…
There are other reasons they want to disband the post office beyond just its impact on voting. If they replace it with private entities it becomes easier to surveil and censor the mail, for instance.
There was this incident a while back. Some psychopath sent letters threatening to kidnap young females, rape them, and kill them. He talked about how he had rigged out a van to facilitate this.
His letters got turned over to the FBI, since they would up in different states. Turns out that each stamp has microprinting on it that identifies it. Given the stamp, they were able to identify which post office it was sold at. They guessed at approximately when it was sold, and then from the security cameras they identified the letter writer.
So... explain how private entities are going to do more surveillance?