Recess over: Pelosi calls the House back to D.C. for emergency USPS vote, hearing scheduled

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she was calling House members back to Washington to work on the coronavirus funding package – specifically addressing the U.S. Postal Service funding. Apparently she is finished thinking about doing so because on Sunday night it was reported that she pulled the trigger and cut short their summer recess. Members of Congress will be expected to vote this week on a bill that would bar changes to the U.S. Postal Service because of fears over delayed ballots.

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Last week Rep.Carolyn Maloney, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, introduced a bill that would prohibit USPS from implementing a planned organizational overhaul that critics maintain would handicap mail-in voting. It is called the Delivering for America Act. Here we are at the beginning of the Democrat convention which will take up most of this week, though mostly virtually, and yet the Democrats are so obsessed with promoting their conspiracy theory that the House will hold a vote while convention activities are happening. The conspiracy theory is that President Trump is trying to sabotage the November election by instructing the new Postmaster General to make changes that would allegedly benefit his re-election. As I wrote about Sunday, her decision is likely because she is realizing that Democrats are not covering themselves in glory by refusing to work with Republicans to pass another coronavirus funding package, which includes billions of taxpayer dollars.

Democrats proposed $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service. Concerns over the Postal Service accelerated late last week after Trump told Fox Business that voting by mail would be difficult if the emergency funding, in addition to $3.6 billion in vote-by-mail funding, was blocked.

“Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

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Pelosi sent a letter to Democrats and released a statement announcing that an emergency hearing will be scheduled this month for Postmaster General DeJoy to testify before Congress.

In a letter to Democrats, Pelosi, D-Calif., cited President Donald Trump’s “campaign to sabotage the election,” saying he was manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters.

“Alarmingly, the Postmaster General — a Trump mega-donor — has acted as an accomplice in the president’s campaign to cheat in the election, as he launches sweeping new operational changes that degrade delivery standards and delay the mail,” Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement earlier.

“The Postal Service itself has warned that voters — even if they send in their ballots by state deadlines — may be disenfranchised in 46 states and in Washington, D.C., by continued delays,” the statement continued. “This constitutes a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy.”

The Democrats requested that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Republican fundraiser and top donor to Trump who took over the Postal Service in June, and Postal Service Board of Governors Chairman Michael Duncan, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, testify before the House Oversight Committee on Aug. 24.

The hearing, Democrats said, “will examine the sweeping operational and organizational changes at the Postal Service that experts warn could degrade delivery standards, slow the mail and potentially impair the rights of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming November elections.”

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Schumer also wants the Senate to hold hearings on the USPS and question DeJoy. Naturally, it is all about removing DeJoy from the position because Democrats and the union workers don’t approve of the changes he is making. The U.S.P.S. union members have endorsed Joe Biden for president.

In a separate statement, Schumer called on the Senate to hold similar hearings and to legislate to undo recent changes.

“If Mr. DeJoy refuses to appear before Congress and the American people to testify, he should be stamped ‘Return to Sender,'” Schumer said. “He shouldn’t be allowed to be the postmaster general.”

Friday the postal service filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission seeking a short-term end-of-the-year rate increase. The reasons given were due to increased expenses, heightened demand for online packages due to the coronavirus pandemic, and an expected increase in holiday mail volume. And, if predictions come true, there will be a marked increase in mail-in voting, too. The Democrats are busy scaring voters to apply for mail-in ballots and to return them as early as possible. Imagine that. Democrats are telling people to bypass the polling places and vote by mail. There is no reason to think a voter can’t vote in person unless the person has underlying health issues and is confined to home. Dr. Fauci said if people can go to the grocery store, they can vote in person. Every state is putting precautions into place to make that possible.

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Expect this phony conspiracy theory to continue by the Democrats and their cohorts in the media. All of the Sunday morning political shows included questioning of Trump campaign surrogates and administration officials about mail-in voting. Democrats want to use the coronavirus pandemic as a reason to implement universal mail-in voting across the country. Never let a crisis go to waste.

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David Strom 3:20 PM | November 15, 2024
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David Strom 12:40 PM | November 15, 2024
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