SUPREME COURT GOES POSTAL

The Supreme Court issued its first opinions of the term today. Particularly timely is Gregory v. United States Postal Service, No. 00-758. Maria Gregory is identified as a "letter technician." Slip op. at 1. (And, along the same lines, I am a "dispute resolution engineer.") It turns out that she's a substitute mailman, who handles a route when one of the regular mailmen gets sick. Anyway, the case -- which was decided correctly -- is significant less for its legal merits than for its use as a case study in the difficulty of firing a federal bureaucrat. It took four years (almost to the day) and a Supreme Court decision to resolve whether the Postal Service could fire this employee who was charged with leaving her post against express instructions, "delaying the mail, after mail from another route was found in her truck at the end of the day," and other "various violations, including failing to deliver certified mail and attemppting to receive unauthorized or unnecessary overtime." Slip op. at 2. Is there a lesson here for the area of airport security? (11/13/01)

This article isn't very clear to me as to what the supreme court did or didn't do. It is not even clear why this case reached the supreme court or why they bothered making a decision when all they had to do was deny the cert like they do on 99.9 percent of cases anyway. It costs something like $300.00 to file a cert to the court, which is to cut down on frivolous cases, which are against the law anyway.

Heck Renquist said on C-Span not too long back that the SC doesn't even take cases that are erroneously decided anymore. In that case where is a person to appeal a case then?

I have had the unpleasant experience as a pro se litigant of sueing the IRS no less, and essentially all I can say is forget about it. The deck is so stacked against you, you might as well go play tiddley winks or pee into the wind.

Yes the government can fire you and its not that hard the way they go about it. The first thing one must remember is that it is not a law, but republicans in the federal workforce are few and far between. REPUBLICANS NEED NOT APPLY. The dims have had fifty years perfecting there obedient public disservants.

Where I worked at the Infernal Revenue Service they worshipped Bill Clinton like a saint, if that tells you anything. I don't know why I stuck it out as long as I did (8 years). I guess I thought I could make things better through hard work. Show 'em how its done kinda thing. Ever try beating your head against a brick wall? That's about what it's like.

Well of course I made some mistakes along the way, which didn't help my case, but essentially performance evaluations were rigged at every step of the way. Promotions are based purely on politics. The Union only defends the indefenseable and their system is very refined. They must teach management courses in how to make republicans quit the federal work force.

First they try to put hurdles in your way such as not training you for a job they assign you to and then accuse you of not performing. I jumped that one! (Studied solid state physics in college.)

Then they put you on leave restriction and when they deny your leave you were AWOL after the fact. They falsely accuse you of filing false tax returns and when you show them that you correctly filed (it was my job to know how to file tax returns) they ignore the evidence. They reversed the "assessment" six months later showing they owed me a refund, but only after they had already used it as the first charge in a letter recommending my "removal from the service" They accuse you of being AWOL from work when your at home receiving unemployment compensation for seasonal layoffs.

Then when you get "removed" you have 20 days to find a lawyer, (these people don't exist) who will take federal employment discrimination cases pro bono, because your a poor federal worker, who can't afford a lawyer and besides lawyers want to make money and they must all already know you can't sue the Federal govt. Then when you find a lawyer, he won't take the case anymore because the county subpoenaed every record in his office one week after you put his name on the court papers. Then when an appeal with the MSPB is scheduled they don't bother sending you the letter informing you of it until after the meeting has already taken place. ie. I received a letter in February telling me I have a meeting in January when the letter was dated in December of the previous year. (Kinda tricky huh?)

They bug your phone, send military helicopters to buzz your house (caught on tape), put your computer under real time surveilance (confirmed by the clerk at the court), frame you for crimes you didn't commit and kinda hope you just fall off the face of the earth before all the court proceedings wind themselves down.

Then to top it all off, they somehow get the judges ruling on your case to sign off on lies and manipulations of the facts along with other desultory things such as trying to say you threatened a federal judge, even if it never happened.

Then when you've lost your mind, your house, your family and your reputation, guess what happenes next? You lose your case.

FACE IT, THE IRS IS A WHOLEY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! WHO ELSE COULD GET AWAY WITH SUCH BS? My take on all of this is that if the federal government fires you from your job, take it as a blessing and run at full speed in the opposite direction and don't look back.

Do I think the federal govt, with the blessing of the democrap party, ought to federalize anything? Are you kidding me. If the government would spend as much time going after the bad guys as they do terrorizing honest law abiding republicans maybe we would have a chance in this war on terrorism instead of picking up all the pieces after all the damage is done. The above is true and correct to the best of my knowledge. "The mission, if you chose to accept it Mr. Phelps... this tape will self destruct in five seconds." A person would have better luck trying to sue the KGB IMHO.

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