After all the free media coverage given to the Koch Brothers’ Tea Party “Movement”, it’s hard to believe that some people still think the media have a left wing bias (especially given the almost total blackout on coverage of the Occupy Wall Street event), but consider this- Darrell Issa, the self-appointed “watchdog” of the US Postal Service, gets interviewed by all the networks and news outlets about his bill that would destroy the USPS, while Rep. Stephen Lynch has to write a letter to the editor to get his point across to his hometown newspaper!

And why does Darrell get so much attention? Good question- while Lynch’s bill has been co-sponsored by 222 members of the House- a bipartisan majority, Darrell’s bill has exactly one co-sponsor- Darrell‘s faithful man-servant, Dennis Ross.

So how is it that the news media is supposed to have a liberal bias?

The following information was released by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri:

Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former postal employee was charged in federal court today with stealing hundreds of Netflix movies, gift cards and other mail.

Felipe S. Lara, 35, of Blue Springs, Mo., waived his right to a grand jury and was charged in a federal information with theft of mail matter by an employee.

Lara was employed as a rural carrier associate for the U.S. Postal Service. From June 19, 2009, through Feb. 15, 2011, Lara allegedly removed 120 Netflix DVDs and approximately 1,000 pieces of mail, including gift cards valued at $215, from the mail that he was supposed to deliver in the 64151-64155 zip codes.

According to court documents, the federal investigation began when Netflix alerted the Postal Service about high volume losses in those zip codes. Investigators conducted a trash pull at Lara’s residence and found hundreds of pieces of mail that weren’t addressed to him. A search warrant was executed on Feb. 15, 2011, and investigators found the DVDs from Netflix and the gift cards, as well as two black trash bags that contained 444 pieces of mail, 80 rifled envelopes and several magazines, none of which was addressed to Lara.

The total loss alleged as a result of Lara’s actions is $2,560, which includes individual victim losses of $513 and Netflix losses of $2,046.

BOSTON – Two United States Postal Service employees, along with two others, were indicted on drug trafficking charges.

GERARD HARRINGTON, 48, of Stoneham; JOHN THIBEDEAU, 48, of Waltham; SEAN WILLIAMSON, 41, of Peabody; and WILLIAM ZULUAGA, 57, of East Boston, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine and possession with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine. At a hearing this afternoon, the prosecutor told the court that, Harrington and Williamson, Postal employees, allegedly sold cocaine while on duty at the Somerville Post Office.

The indictment alleges that beginning on at least May 13, 2011, and on at least five different occasions thereafter, the defendants knowingly possessed with the intent to distribute and did distribute, cocaine.

If convicted on these charges, Harrington, Thibedeau, Williamson and Zuluaga each face up to 20 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Jane Hughes, Special Agent in Charge, United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, Northeast Area Field Office made the announcement today. Also assisting in the investigation are the Massachusetts State Police, Middlesex County, PACT Unit, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston and the Somerville Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia M. Carris of Ortiz’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.

Congressman Darrell Issa has set up a web site he calls “American Job Creators” to promote his agenda of rolling back health and safety protections for American workers. But when it comes down to actual jobs, Darrell is much more interested in putting Americans out of work:

The California Republican reiterated at a Monday event that he believes his USPS legislation would allow the agency to shed as many as 200,000 workers in the next few years

Learn more about Darrell‘s plans at AmericanJobKillers.com…

via Issa: USPS must shave labor costs – The Hill’s On The Money.

In an sloppily written article by Randall Stross published yesterday, the New York Times jumped on the Big Lie Bandwagon, ridiculing the idea that the USPS is being forced into bankruptcy by Republicans in Congress:

The postal unions avert their eyes. They say that the service ran into trouble solely because Congress has required huge payments for future retirees’ health care costs. Silly me: I thought funding benefits fully was a good thing.

The one thing Stross gets right is the fact that he’s silly. The gentleman is supposedly a professor of business at San Jose State University, but he tosses off the real cause of the USPS’s problems with a totally dishonest one-liner. No one disputes the proposition that benefits should be fully funded. What the chuckleheaded prof ignores is that the USPS is being required to PREfund benefits 75 years in advance- for people who have yet to be born, and may never actually work for the USPS. Silly me- I thought college professors dealt in facts and careful research, not talking points authored by the Tea Party…

via In the Post Office Crisis, a National Paralysis – NYTimes.com.

From the APWU’s Western Region:

APWU Western Regional Alert

PMG Pat Donahoe has announced the selection of Richard Uluski to be vice president, Area Operations, Northeast Area.

Uluski will be responsible for postal operations, including mail processing and distribution, customer service and administrative operations, over a geographic area that includes Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, parts of New York and New Jersey, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. He reports to the chief operating officer and executive vice president.

Previously, Uluski was manager, Operations Support, for the Northeast Area. He supervised the daily operations of all mail processing, delivery and customer service operations in the Northeast Area, including 45 plants, 4,000 delivery and retail units and approximately 90,000 employees.

Throughout his career, Uluski held a series of managerial positions until he received his executive appointment in 2002 as the plant manager, Stamford, CT, Processing and Distribution Center. In 2003, he was named Northeast Area manager, In-Plant Support and joined the Massachusetts Performance Cluster as lead plant manager in July 2003, overseeing operations for seven plants.

A graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, CT, Uluski’s postal career began in 1980 when he was hired as a letter sorting machine operator at the New Haven, CT, General Post Office.

Washington, Sep 30 -

Lakeland, FL – Congressman Dennis A. Ross (R-FL), Chairman of the Federal Workforce, Postal Service & Labor Policy Subcommittee, today released a copy of a letter sent to GAO, signed by the bipartisan leadership on the issue of postal reform.

Postal unions have consistently claimed the service is “owed” $75 billion because of “overpayments” into CSRS retirement funds. This week’s nationwide protests at Congressional offices by postal employees was intended to underscore this claim. OPM and editorial boards have consistently recognized no overpayment. Republicans in the House remain committed to opposing any taxpayer bailout of the Postal Service and want to determine, once and for all, the extent of any financial issue, if any.

On top of the issue of a bailout, Chairman Ross, along with Full Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, has introduced HR 2309, The Postal Reform Act (www.savingthepostalservice.com) that would address the challenges facing the Postal Service, require market reform and give postal leadership greater flexibility to operate the service as it was intended – like a business.

The letter to GAO was signed by and is as follows –

Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa
Rep. Dennis Ross
Rep. Elijah Cummings
Rep. Stephen Lynch
Chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman
Sen. Tom Carper
Sen. Susan Collins
Sen. Scott Brown

September 15, 2011

The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. Government Accountability Office
441 G St. NW
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Dodaro:

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is facing deteriorating financial conditions as mail volumes– the primary source of revenue–continue to decrease at faster rates than projected. USPS has experienced a cumulative net loss of nearly $20 billion over the last 5 fiscal years, including an $8.5 billion loss in 2010; and a reported net loss of $5.7 billion in the first 9 months of fiscal year 2011. By the end of this fiscal year, USPS projects that it will incur a $10 billion loss, experience a substantial cash shortfall, reach its $15 billion borrowing limit, and not be able to make its statutorily mandated $5.5 billion retiree health benefits payment to the federal government.

USPS, several members of the House and Senate, and a variety of stakeholders have proposed a number of operational and restructuring options to address USPS’s dire financial situation, and have also made certain claims and recommendations regarding the financing of its retirement obligations. Among these is the assertion by the USPS Office of Inspector General, the Postal Regulatory Commission, and two outside accounting firms these agencies contracted with that USPS has overfunded its obligations to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) by as much as $75 billion. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate to give the Postal Service access to the funds it is alleged to have overpaid into CSRS. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), its Office of Inspector General, and other stakeholders have called the existence of a USPS overpayment into CSRS into question.

Given the substantial amount of funds at issue, the potential impact on the OPM-administered CSRS fund of giving USPS access to the funds some believe it has overpaid, and the need to resolve conflicting information and positions about this issue, we request that GAO: (1) determine if the current methodology employed by OPM for allocating obligations between USPS and the federal government for CSRS is consistent with the law; (2) comment on the actuarial analysis the USPS IG and Postal Regulatory Commission are using in their assertion that OPM should refund the CSRS contributions in question; and (3) comment on (a) the potential impacts that such a refund would have on the CSRS fund and CSRS stakeholders, (b) USPS’s financial outlook, and (c) other impacts you may identify.

We would appreciate a briefing on these issues by the end of September with a report to follow by the end of October. If you have any questions, please contact …

via Bipartisan Postal Reform Members Ask GAO to Settle Postal “Overpayment” Issue Once and for All | Congressman Dennis Ross.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 27 — The U.S. Department of Justice’s U.S. Attorney’s office for Northern District of Alabama issued the following press release:

A federal grand jury today returned separate indictments charging two U.S. Postal Service employees with mail related violations, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and Postal Service Office of Inspector General Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kenny Smith.

The indictments filed in U.S. District Court charge the two Postal Service employees with delaying mail delivery and stealing from the mail.

ERWIN MICHELLE WATSON, 28, of Moulton, is charged with one count of delay of mail and one count of mail theft by a postal employee, both on Nov. 4, 2010. Watson worked as a mail carrier at the Decatur Post Office.

LENNIE MATTHEW WILLIAMS JR., 25, of Birmingham, is charged with delaying mail delivery and stealing from the mail between Aug. 9 and 10, 2010. Williams worked as a mail handler in the Birmingham Processing and Distribution Center Annex.

"Postal employees who abuse this system do us all a great disservice," Vance said. "My office prosecutes these cases aggressively because we are all entitled to rely on the security of the U.S. Postal Service."

The maximum sentence for mail theft by a postal employee and for delay and destruction of mail is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General investigated the cases. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank M. Salter is prosecuting the cases.

That’s the impression given by this recent tweet:

Darrell pretends to be ignorant of a couple of facts-

• The political contributions dispensed by labor union PACs come from voluntary contributions from members, not union dues
• The current APWU ad campaign is supported by a dues increase that was publicly announced by the elected representatives of the APWU membership. The members elected the leadership and gave them the authority to make that call- if the members aren’t happy with that, they can vote the leadership out.
• Unlike Darrell Issa, postal workers are not allowed to use taxpayer dollars to get their point across- they use the money they earn by actually working
• “Big Labor” is a term the right wing likes to use to make unions sound just as bad as Big Business- it ignores the simple fact that labor unions are organizations whose leaders are elected by the members, supported by the members’ dues.
• Darrell also ignores the simple fact that union members probably contribute more money to right wing politicians involuntarily- for example, every time they buy “Brawny” paper towels, “Angel Soft” toilet paper, and a host of other products sold by the Koch Brothers, some of that money ends up in the hands of the Tea Party “movement”. That’s the real scandal, not the money postal workers contribute voluntarily to protect their jobs.

I think I prefer fake Darrell: