This weekend, Irving Park became a very rowdy place as a mass of angry protesters gathered outside the home of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Country Club Drive.
However, the noted Greensboro success story has at least one big backer – President Donald Trump.
In recent weeks, Dejoy has made headlines and been the subject of ridicule over his running of the US Postal Service – with many accusing DeJoy of enacting changes meant to disrupt the mail service across the country in an effort to help Trump get reelected.
DeJoy, who is one of the wealthiest people in Greensboro, made his fortune through the success and ultimate sale of the company New Breed Logistics. His Irving Park home has been the scene of many lavish Republican fundraisers over the years.
This week, especially, DeJoy faced a barrage of attacks. To name one of a countless number, he was raked over the coals on the popular podcast “Pod Save America,” which called him a “political hack” who’s doing Trump’s bidding.
However, the president of the United States jumped to DeJoy’s defense this weekend. In comments from Bedminster New Jersey, Trump had nothing but praise for the man who was appointed postmaster general earlier this year by the Board of Governors of the US Postal Service.
“He’s a brilliant business person and he’s done great.” Trump said. “He’s a very nice man also.”
“Louis DeJoy is working very hard,” the president said, adding, “The post office has, for decades, lost billions and billions.”
Trump said that DeJoy would make the post office “great again.”
“He’s a fantastic man,” Trump concluded.
The president said the problems were in reality due to a “ridiculous plan” by the Democrats to have universal mail-in voting across the country, which would, Trump warned, lead to “catastrophe” in the election.
The Trumpster made en errerr. I wrote a letter on this a week or two ago. I merely repeated what I had found, which was researched.
Mr. DeJoy needs to do what it takes to get the mail delivered, no matter the overtime, no matter the cost. The USPS is a mail SERVICE. It is not a business. It does not collect nearly enough in postage to pay it’s on way. So Congress must fund it.
Between emails, faxes, electronic payments, & competition, the USPS is dying. To survive, it needs to morph into something else – but not at the expense of bad service.
Kan the Koop
While I do not agree with removing mail sorting machinery and, if true, intentional slowing of mail service to delay voter response for by mail voting, why should ANY organization or business define good organizational practice as it’s ok to PLAN for working overtime? Why not understand the amount of time and equipment to do the job correctly and divide that across a normal work balance of what we consider a full week of work with no overtime?
Be upset that people are trying to rig your election by removing sorting equipment designed to sort your mail in ballots. Be upset that, if true, Amazon is taking advantage of the American tax payer by finding an agreement for lower than market value delivery By the USPS, costing us Billions or Trillions in tax dollars – maybe going into Jeff Bezos and others’ pockets.
Employee overtime payments to hourly paid employees, wreaks havoc on the budget of any organization, government or business. Planning the right amount of labor for the job needing to be done is a better solution
The tribute “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” for the postal worker talks about “Swift completion”, not mandatory OT
Good article. I did not know the background of DeJoy. What I’m seeing is the following. The president has a acquaintance who has run a fairly strong business involving logistics (moving things from one place to another). He has brought this person in to get the Post Office (which is a logistics operation) to oversee and bring in outside ideas to an operation that is rife with antiquated standards. I’ll bet his biggest problem will be working with the USPS employees who are not willing to try something new. Not to mention the occasional “blue flu” outbreaks that will serve to try and undermine his cost savings concepts so the postal employees can keep spending the taxpayer monies.
Do the protesters not know the the abject stupidity of gathering together to protest gathering together to vote?? This whole thing is another manufactured lie by the Democrats. There are still mailboxes and sorting machines galore. 14,000 mailboxes were eliminated under Obama because the post office has been shrinking as mail has been replaced to a large degree by email. IT is in the statistics.