When the US Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union reached a collective bargaining agreement in March, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe said “This is a responsible agreement that is in the best interest of our employees, our customers and the future of the Postal Service. The contract will help lay a foundation that is fair to our employees and stakeholders.”

A month later, when Donahoe and APWU President Cliff Guffey testified together before Darrell Issa’s committee, Donahoe was asked what the USPS needed from Congress. The PMG responded that there were only three things he needed- an end to the prefunding, return of the FERS overpayment, and five day delivery. “Get those things out of the way and you will never see us again!”

And then, just last week, he suddenly changed his mind. Which raises the question- why did Pat think the contract was a good deal just a few short months ago? When did the situation change so drastically that he not only wants to throw it out, but also needs to slash benefits for all postal workers and retirees? Shouldn’t a CEO be better at charting his company’s future?

Self-appointed postal “watchdog” Darrell Issa has been tweeting about his postal “reform” bill again- it’s the one, you may recall, that calls for adding two more layers to the postal bureaucracy, as well as increasing the USPS’s debts by $10 billion. In his tweets Issa repeats his false claim that the USPS is looking for a taxpayer bailout, and links to a press release from a group called “TheTeaParty.net”, that claims to have “sent more than 114,000 letters” to Congress supporting Issa’s bill. While the group’s name sounds like it might be part of the Koch Brothers’ Tea Party organization, it isn’t.

A conservative blogger earlier this year reported that visitors to the web site who signed up for updates ended up being “spammed with ads to buy gold, silverware and knick knacks and other items”. There’s more about the scam at Raw Story, which cites a local Phoenix TV station’s exposé on the group, alleging that the group took in lots of money, but spent most of it promoting its own web site.