https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpq4SNJNcmA&feature
Friday, August 14, 2020
House Democrats Introduce Urgent Bill to End 'Deliberate Sabotage' of Postal Service by Postmaster General
"A once-in-a-century pandemic is no time to enact changes that threaten service reliability and transparency."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/12/house-democrats-introduce-urgent-bill-end-deliberate-sabotage-postal-service
Declaring that Congress must act swiftly to "stop the Trump administration's deliberate sabotage" of the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the November elections, House Democrats on Wednesday unveiled legislation that would reverse Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's disruptive new policies and prevent additional changes at the agency until the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sponsored by House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the Delivering for America Act (pdf) would bar USPS leadership from implementing or approving "any change to the operations or the level of service provided by the Postal Service from those in effect on January 1, 2020, that would impede prompt reliable, and efficient services."
Specifically, the legislation would prohibit:
Any change in the nature of postal services which will generally affect service on a nationwide or substantially nationwide basis;
Any revision of service standards;
Any closure or consolidation any post office or reduction of facility hours;
Any prohibition on payments of overtime pay to Postal Service officers or employees;
Any change that would prevent the Postal Service from meeting its service standards or cause a decline in measurements of performance relative to those service standards;
Any change that would have the effect of delaying mail, allowing for the non-delivery of mail to a delivery route, or increasing the volume of undelivered mail.
"Our Postal Service should not become an instrument of partisan politics, but instead must be protected as a neutral, independent entity that focuses on one thing and one thing only—delivering the mail," Maloney said in a statement. "Millions of people rely on the Postal Service every day to communicate, to access critical medications, and to vote."
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a House Oversight Committee member and co-sponsor of the new bill, tweeted that "Congress must stop the Trump administration's deliberate sabotage to disrupt mail service in the leadup to November elections.""At this juncture in our nation's history, when the number of Americans voting by mail for this presidential election is expected to more than double from the last, Congress must protect the right of all eligible citizens to have their vote counted," Maloney added. "A once-in-a-century pandemic is no time to enact changes that threaten service reliability and transparency."
During talks with the Trump administration over a broad Covid-19 relief package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) demanded the reversal of DeJoy's policies barring overtime and prohibiting postal workers from sorting mail ahead of their morning deliveries.
But the relief negotiations collapsed last week, leaving the postmaster general's policies in place and the USPS without desperately needed emergency funding.
The Delivering for America Act comes as DeJoy—a major Republican donor to President Donald Trump—is facing a Senate investigation and growing calls to step down over his sweeping policy changes, which have resulted in major mail backlogs nationwide and sparked concerns about the timely delivery of mail-in ballots in November.
Postal workers have also blamed DeJoy's new policies for drastic reductions in Post Office hours and removal of mail sorting equipment at USPS facilities across the country.
In a statement Wednesday, Connolly said "Postmaster General DeJoy could better use his time by shelving his 'reorganization plan' and instead imploring Republicans and the president to provide the Postal Service the financial resources needed to ensure a smooth process of mail-in ballots for the November election."
'Emergency Was a Sham': Top Democrat Says IG Report on Saudi Arms Deal 'Deeply Damning' for Pompeo
"What sort of emergency makes itself known a few months in advance and can be resolved with weapons delivered years later?"
by
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/12/emergency-was-sham-top-democrat-says-ig-report-saudi-arms-deal-deeply-damning-pompeo
Rep. Eliot Engel, Democratic chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Tuesday that an inspector general report revealed the State Department's claim last year of an "emergency" to sell billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates "was a sham" and accused the department of deploying "scare tactics to try to keep a lid on the report."
"This report is deeply damning for Secretary Pompeo and the administration. The lengths to which the State Department has gone in the last day to spin and obscure the facts show how desperate they are to hide the truth," Engel said in a statement.
The comments follow the release of an Office of Inspector General report (pdf) into the 2019 weapons transfer, for which the Trump administration dodged congressional oversight by invoking a provision in the Arms Export Control Act that allows the president to take such action if "an emergency exists which requires the proposed sale in the national security interest of the United States."
The sale prompted swift ire from lawmakers who'd blocked similar sales over justified concerns such weapons were being used to kill civilians in Yemen.
The OIG review of the matter began under IG Steve Linick, who was ousted in May by Pompeo and who told lawmakers State Department Undersecretary Brian Bulatao tried to bully him into dropping the probe.
A redacted version of the watchdog's report was published online Tuesday, with acting IG Diana Shaw noting in an accompanying memo that the document reflects redactions requested by the State Department.
Shaw wrote, in part:
Although the Department withheld relatively little information in the unclassified portion of the report, it withheld significant information in the classified annex necessary to understand OIG's finding and recommendation. The Department asserted that the redactions made to the classified annex should be withheld from Congress because the underlying information implicates "executive branch confidentiality interests, including executive privilege." While OIG continues to favor release to the greatest extent possible, the privilege belongs to the Department and OIG is not in a position to overrule the assertion but must instead rely on the good faith of the Department. Accordingly, OIG will make available to Congress a version of its classified annex with the Department's redactions applied.
As detailed by Politico on Tuesday,
The inspector general determined that, on a technical level, Pompeo carried out his use of emergency authorities in accordance with the legal regulations, which give him considerable discretion in, among other things, determining what counts as an emergency.
Yet the IG also said the department "did not fully assess risks and implement mitigation measures to reduce civilian casualties and legal concerns."
In his statement, Engel said the report suggested that Pompeo overreached in his authority.
"No one ever doubted that the law provides for the authority to expedite the sale of weapons in the case of an emergency. The question was always, 'Did the administration abuse that authority in order to ram through more than $8 billion in sales to Gulf countries?' The IG didn't offer an opinion on that. But the report's details signal a resounding, 'Yes.'"
The lawmaker said that was likely behind the Department's insistence "on redacting the most salient information and trying to tell us what the report said before it was out," similar to Attorney General Bill Barr's public take on the Mueller report ahead of its release.
What's more, Politico reported that the differing timelines of events between the redacted and unredacted versions of the report were telling, writing that the uncensored version gives "a fuller picture of the timelines involved and rais[es] questions as to whether an emergency existed."
From the outlet:
For instance, an unredacted timeline shows that State Department staffers proposed using emergency authorities on April 3, 2019, that drafts of the emergency certification were circulated 20 days later, and that it wasn’t until May 4 that Pompeo directed that the emergency be certified by May 24.
The report released online, however, said Pompeo briefed Congress on Iranian threats on May 21, approved the paperwork two days later and then certified that the emergency authorization was transmitted to Congress the next day.
In essence, the public version gives the impression that Pompeo moved quickly on an urgent issue, whereas the unredacted version shows a much longer timeframe of deliberation and action, undermining the argument that an emergency existed at all.
The differing timelines were seized upon by Engel as well.
"Beneath those pesky redactions, we find that nearly two months went by from when the Department first began considering an emergency declaration until Mr. Pompeo signed it. The draft emergency certification circulated more than a month before its actual declaration. And Mr. Pompeo decided on the exact date to declare an emergency 20 days ahead of time," said Engel.
"The Office of Inspector General also found that at the time of its review, the foreign countries had completely received only four of 22 arms packages that were part of the deal and that five of the weapons packages wouldn't even begin delivery until this year or later," he said, adding that "some of the agreements weren't even signed by the time the IG issued his report."
"What sort of emergency makes itself known a few months in advance and can be resolved with weapons delivered years later?" Engel said.
The evidence of the administration's wrongdoing regarding the weapons sale is now clear, the congressman said.
"This report tells us everything we suspected: the emergency was a sham," he said. "It was cooked up to get around congressional review of a bad policy choice. And ever since Mr. Pompeo declared that 'emergency,' he and his top lieutenants have worked to bury the truth."
The State Department, for its part, said the OIG report "confirms no wrongdoing" by Pompeo.
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