Free Republic

Beatrice17 wrote: First of all, the USPS is NOT a government organization, but a private business. (sigh). Second, the USPS does NOT photograph every piece of mail. (sigh) It does run it thru multiple scanners. One is a bio scanner - developed since the "white powder" scare - that can locate poisons, etc. Another is a zip code scanner, to electronically put zip codes on the mail so that it can be electronically sorted. This saves time and money... except when your Grammy writes so illegibly that her letter has to be kicked out and a real live human has...

Earlier in the week many lawful firearms owners applauded Senator Rand Paul when he introduced an amendment to the Postal Reform bill to rescind a nearly five decade old ban on the carry of firearms for self defense into Post Offices.Anyone who has been paying attention to decades following the ban know that there have been several incidents of lunatics opening fire in these ‘gun free’ zones.  In fact it got so bad the term “Going Postal” was coined.  These bans never work and lead to environments where madmen know their victims will all be disarmed, making their murderous plots more...

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has posted a request to purchase “assorted small arms ammunition,” reports political analyst Michael Lotfi. The solicitation by the USPS was posted on FBO.gov, the federal government’s federal business opportunities website. The process is now underway to arrange for the purchase of guns and ammo for some undisclosed use by the post office. As Lotfi points out, it is curious that the postal service can afford to arm itself given their precarious financial position: The USPS has been posting $1-5 billion quarterly losses for years. In fiscal year (FY) 2012 alone the USPS lost a...

Going postal, in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment. In the oddest solicitation to date, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has submitted a pre-solicitation notice for ammunition to add to its inventory of government supplies. Never, in the last ten years, has the USPS posted solicitations for ammunition of any kind via the government’s Federal Business Online website. Other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the National Weather Service have made unusually large purchases of .40 caliber S&W ammunition, and agencies...

Have you ever wondered why you can't pull your pickup truck into the parking lot of the Gillette, Wyoming, post office, go in, and mail a letter -- without giving up your Second Amendment rights?The answer is that a bunch of gun-hating legislators -- who are terrified of the very thought of guns -- slammed through a law prohibiting guns in any federal facility.  It is now contained at 18 U.S.C. 930.The original law contained a provision, at subsection (d)(3), which would allow you to carry your gun for "other lawful purposes" -- including, presumably, self-defense.But, not surprisingly, the ATF...

If you have letters or bills to mail, you might want to rush. Saturday is the last day when it will cost you 46 cents. Starting Sunday, you'll pay more -- 49 cents. On Sunday, the cost of mailing a post card will also go up to 34 cents, a 1-cent increase. The current rate hike brings a much-needed cash influx to the financially struggling postal service. Much of its cash problems stem from a congressional mandate to make annual $5 billion payments for future retiree health care benefits.

The opening of Postal Service retail centers in dozens of Staples stores around the country is being met with threats of protests and boycotts by the agency's unions. The new outlets are staffed by Staples employees, not postal workers, and labor officials say that move replaces good-paying union jobs with low-wage, nonunion workers. "It's a direct assault on our jobs and on public postal services," said Mark Dimondstein, president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union. The dispute comes as the financially struggling Postal Service continues to form partnerships with private companies, and looks to cut costs and boost revenues....

How lazy are some postal workers? Well one decided she wasn`t in the mood for walking a few feet from the street to the front door to drop off a package... so she drove. She drove over the curb and on the front lawn. The entire scene was caught on the home`s surveillance camera.

The United States Postal Service is operating according to a paradigm set up 100 years ago. In spite of protected monopolies and immunity from paying taxes or even parking tickets, the USPS is losing business and losing money. The problem is that the paradigm is technologically obsolete and has lost its usefulness. I gave up receiving bills in the mail years ago. I pay all my bills by credit card or automatic bank withdrawal. Most of my service providers don't even send me bills in the mail. So far this year I've written only 3 checks to providers of goods...

FULL TITLE: Lance Armstrong Says It's The Postal Service's Fault For Giving Him $41 Million When He Was On Drugs Lance Armstrong' defense of the false claims lawsuit brought against him by former cycling teammate Floyd Landis is a breathtaking act of chutzpah: It is the government's fault that his sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service, did not know he was taking drugs when he won all those Tour de Frances, Armstrong argues. In fact, the post office liked sponsoring Armstrong when he was doping, the cyclist argues, and "got exactly what it bargained for." Armstrong made the argument in legal...

Mail delivery to the doorstep may be a thing of the past as lawmakers consider ways to cut costs to save the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, which lost $16 billion in 2012. According to CNN Money, the agency is working toward a more "centralized delivery" approach in which residents pick up their mail from a mailbox at the curb or at clusters of mailboxes within their neighborhoods. The practice already is being adopted for new houses and developments, and some House Republicans want it rolled out universally. "A balanced approach to saving the Postal Service means allowing USPS to adapt...

DENVER, CO.  A Colorado federal district court ruled today in favor of a Colorado man and a national gun rights group holding that a U.S. Postal Service regulation barring firearms in its parking lots violates their right to keep and bear arms under the Constitution.  The district court ruled, “openly carrying a firearm outside the home is a liberty protected by the Second Amendment [and the] parking lot adjacent to [Avon’s Post Office Building] is not a sensitive place [such that] an absolute ban on firearms is substantially related to [Defendants’] important public safety objective.”  Tab Bonidy, who is licensed...

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is reaching out across the aisle for suggestions on his new discussion draft to revamp the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Issa released the discussion draft last week, in an attempt to broaden the support for his efforts at postal reform. And in a "Dear Colleague" letter aimed at Democrats, the California Republican says that “while the challenges are great, I strongly believe that the Postal Service is a government institution worth saving.” “While we may not agree on every issue in how to save the Postal Service, I do believe that we all...

This scan of a completely blank signature card is what the USPS offered up as proof that the customer’s package had been delivered. A woman in California recently sold a laptop computer of hers on eBay for $1,300, but it never arrived at the buyer’s house. The seller had paid the U.S. Postal Service for insurance and delivery confirmation on the package, so she should be able to get her money back and see who signed for the package. Not quite. She tells CBS Sacramento’s Kurtis Ming that USPS denied her insurance claim because the package was delivered and signed...

Hundreds of employees affected by ETX mail processing center closureTYLER, TX (KLTV) - Mail is no longer being processed directly in East Texas. We first told you back in February that the East Texas Processing and Distribution Center would be closing its doors by June 1. Mail has gradually been moving out of the center since April 1, and last Saturday, May 18, the last pieces of mail were processed here in East Texas. And the closure affects more than just your mail. I sat down recently with two postal contractors whose routes have been affected by the closure. They...

Even parts of government that look like a business never get run with the efficiency of a business. Just look at the post office. They buy commercials and tout their services the way private businesses do. They offer a service that customers want. But a real business can't get away with losing billions every year. (I guess in the era of bailouts, I should say shouldn't get away with it.) The post office lost $16 billion last year, despite having all sorts of advantages that most private businesses don't have. They have a near monopoly on first-class mail delivery. You...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The financially beleaguered Postal Service suffered a setback in its plan to end Saturday delivery of first-class mail as Congress on Thursday passed legislation requiring six-day delivery. The Postal Service, which lost $16 billion last year, had announced last month its plan to switch to five-day mail service to save $2 billion annually. No law requires the Postal Service to deliver mail six days a week, but Congress has traditionally included a provision in legislation to fund the federal government each year that has prevented the Postal Service from reducing delivery service. The House of Representatives on...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark—A former Guantanamo detainee has been arrested in Denmark on suspicion of withdrawing $18,900 from other people's accounts using stolen debit cards and PIN codes, police said Thursday. Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, a Danish citizen, was released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in 2004 after nearly two years in captivity. Abderrahmane, 34, was arrested Wednesday and ordered held in jail for two weeks on preliminary fraud and theft charges, police said. He is suspected of stealing three debit cards—two corporate cards and one personal—and the corresponding PIN codes. Police did not say how he stole them. They said Abderrahmane,...

It's Saturday, and I went out on the front porch this morning after shoveling out from Nemo and got the mail as usual. There was an advertisement trying to get me to switch homeowner's insurance and a coupon flyer for the local grocery store. That sort of surprise waiting in the mailbox doesn't exactly get me all up in arms over the Post Office's idea to cancel Saturday mail delivery. Up until now, I’ve been assuming that the Post Office is simply an unprofitable enterprise and they may have to put trucks out on the road less often to reduce...

The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday that it plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays starting Aug. 1 — but will continue delivering packages. Unless forbidden to do so by Congress, which has moved in the past to prohibit five-day-a-week delivery, the agency for the first time will delivery mail only Monday through Friday. The move will save about $2 billion a year for the Postal Service, which has suffered tens of billions of dollars in losses in recent years with the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, officials said. “The American public understands the financial challenges of...