(lively music)
- Yo.
What is up my quaran-queens.
Let's have news.
Some more of it.
Disney's Marvel's Fox's The New Mutants
is coming out in theaters
and boy, are we excited
to see the movie that started
filming three years ago.
Now in theaters, still plan to
be released this August 28th.
In physical theaters.
And in other, totally not related news,
the Corona virus might
be a smidge airborne
as researchers have
managed to detect the virus
from aerosols collected up to
16 feet from COVID patients.
It's not yet peer reviewed,
so don't freak out on
your pets or whatever.
But you know, something
to be concerned about,
but also it's unrelated
to unrelated news stories.
Also, there's an election
in like a few months,
which I guess is more important
than The New Mutants, I guess.
And maybe, just perhaps, we
should try to help people
not die while voting, but also vote.
Just like how it would be nice to not die
while seeing The New Mutants.
A film everyone is definitely excited for.
And perhaps, could watch on some kind of,
like a digital medium that
I guess doesn't exist.
Luckily for voting, however,
we do have an extremely
helpful alternative
to physically going
out and waiting in line
and standing in a weird booth
while surrounded by the aged and agitated.
And that alternative is mail-in voting.
A thing we have been
doing since the civil war.
So yeah, it sure seems like
this shouldn't be an issue then.
Unlike the impossible task of
seeing movies in our homes,
we have a really common system in place
for the event of voting during a pandemic.
You know, assuming we continue to have
the extremely popular and widespread
United States Postal Service.
A thing that as I just
said, is extremely popular
and important for this and
pretty much every country.
We made a whole movie about the importance
of the post office and it was unwatchable
unlike The New Mutants, which
is going to be so watchable
that it might kill you.
So now that I've established
the mail-in voting
and the post office and how
they're extremely helpful,
popular and perfect for the pandemic,
it's only natural to talk about
how Trump and the GOP absolutely hate it.
And want it to stop existing
because they always seem
to do the wrong thing.
It's very cute of him to keep doing that.
And this isn't new news,
we're all talking about it right now
and whether or not we need to be panicked
and what this means for the election
and whether or not Trump
is trying to undermine it.
And we had a whole
Senate hearing about this
that no one watched.
And a ton of Twitter misinformation,
and whole bunches of very smart people
telling us that we're overreacting.
And I guess this video
is to sort through it all
and put everything in its
proper cubby of truth.
Something that USPS is actually gonna have
some trouble with now.
But first, a little
word from our president.
- And when you have this mail-in voting,
it's very susceptible.
It's just something that
can be easily attacked
by foreign countries and by frankly,
Democrats and by Republicans.
And I think that it's something you have
to start thinking about very seriously.
Our system is not equipped for it.
The post office is not equipped for it.
And people should vote like
they did in World War I
and World War II.
- Oh yeah.
Let's vote like it's World War II folks.
We love that World War II voting
and a lot of other things from then too.
Why can't America be like
it was during World War II?
When, by the way, a whole
lot of overseas soldiers
voted through the mail.
So I'm what the (bleep)
is he even talking about?
Also, and I feel like
we're long past this fact,
but I guess I'll say it,
there has been no evidence
of significant voter fraud
through mail-in ballots.
Like go ahead and Google
that if you're having trouble
being it, if you're nasty.
If you need any more dismantling
of our good president's
smart words about mail-in voting,
just look at the fact that
he wholeheartedly supports it
when it's done in states
likely to vote for him.
Because it turns out that voting by mail
actually helps Republicans just as much
as it can help Democrats.
And it's a totally nonpartisan solution.
Like, who do you think benefits the most
in the state like Florida,
we're old people would be
able to mail in their ballots?
It's so weird and
transparent and desperate
that I can't believe I
have to talk about it.
But I do because Trump is the
president for some reason.
And if he loses in November,
he's going to blame the mail,
like an old coot and his loser supporters
who are losers, whether or
not he wins in November,
but also they're more than welcome
on the right side of history.
Anytime, folks.
But anyway, those losers will gobble it up
like a hot turd pie.
Even though the only
thing hurting his chances
of getting mail-in votes is
him and his weird beef with it
that seems to go against his own party
who is desperately trying to catch up
with Democrats' push for this
extremely easy voting option.
It's going to be insufferable
and might possibly
cripple our country as this weird battle
with mail-in voting greatly
affects our US postal service,
which I don't know if you know this,
isn't doing great right now.
And hasn't been doing great for a while.
Even though again, wildly popular.
And that's mostly what I wanna talk about.
Because while we're all very concerned
about the obvious attacks by Trump,
on mail-in voting and how
it relates to the USPS,
it's not the only thing going on here.
The survival of the post office
isn't just extremely important to anyone
who isn't a rich person,
but oddly complicated as well
and spans decades of (bleep) decisions
that happened long before the internet
threatened the mail delivery.
Let's start at the top
with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
A man who looks like
he's definitely hiding
some kind of monstrous kink.
And that kink is probably
(bleep) over the post office,
not the shame or anything.
But he looks super horny
for ruining trusted American institutions.
And despite having zero
background in the postal service,
he was appointed by our
president just this year.
But technically not by our president,
but also sort of by him.
And we'll get to that.
This started mid, mid, mid,
mid, mid, mid, mid, mid June.
And exactly one month
later, began cutting costs,
causing massive delays in delivery,
and also sparking accusations
that the USPS was
deliberately slowing down mail
to give preferential treatment to Amazon,
a company that, and this is real life,
Louis DeJoy purchased stock options for,
right as he was appointed to his position.
DeJoy and his wife also own assets
in several other USPS competitors
like the UPS trucking company, J.B. Hunt,
as well as the postal service
contractor, XPO Logistics.
And like, are you even surprised?
This has been the entire smash and grab
we told you about with
the Trump administration.
Where our very smart
business president of deals
hires other rich people to hold positions
long enough to get even
more rich and then bounce.
And yes, if you're wondering our pal,
Louis DeJoy is a top GOP
fundraiser for Trump.
Yay.
Who cares?
Nothing matters.
That's not true, that's not true.
Something matters.
And that's something is nothing.
Anyway, that company XPO Logistics,
the one whose name I just said before,
they actually bought up
a smaller company in 2014
called New Breed Logistics
of which DeJoy was the CEO.
See, because he has a business background,
a big boy degree in
business administration.
That makes him super qualified
to run the post office.
And I guess like, logistics helps.
So it's like logistics for that.
I don't know, anyway,
over an XPO Logistics
and or New Breed Logistics,
they believe in such wonderful job
creating techniques as automation
and $1.5 million settled in
a sexual harassment lawsuit
and paying $41 million in wage violations.
And most importantly, miscarriages.
As in three employees
suffering miscarriages
in their warehouse after
having their doctor's note,
asking for lighter duties,
being ignored by supervisors.
That's our guy, our guy
in charge of the mail.
Who just reassigned and
displaced 23 postal executives
as a measure to quote,
"Realign the organization
to provide greater focus
on the core aspects
of our business.
And to give us a better
chance for future success."
You know, our business, the post office,
which has the primary goal to make money
is definitely the goal of the post office.
Like when we think of the post office,
we definitely think
business and not service.
And we'll get to that in a bit
because we have to, because my goodness,
but first, we need to address
just what the heck is happening here.
Because I don't wanna jump
to any wild conclusions,
but it sure seems like the
United States president
just hired a weird
little corporate gargoyle
with money ties to private
delivery companies,
to deliberately sabotage
the us postal service
and by extension, democracy.
And while there's a little bit of debate
about whether or not
these types of shakeups
are business as usual,
the overall reaction
coming from our mail carriers
has been alarm and concern.
For example, it sure doesn't
seem to be business as usual
or cost cutting when post
offices are reporting
that their sorting equipment
is being taken away
at alarmingly high levels,
a measure that would only
exist to purposefully undermine
mail delivery in exchange
for cost cutting,
which is now delaying the mail.
Which according to one postal
workers union president,
is actually costing more money
in man hours than it is saving.
And thus, not even doing the cost cutting
as well as it should.
According to one memo
sent out to employees,
one aspect of these changes
that may be difficult
for employees is that temporarily,
we may see mail left behind
or mail on the workroom floor or docks.
But hey, that's just like paper
and cards and rotting food,
and also important medication
for United States' veterans
that's now being delayed
and endangering the lives
of people who fought in
bad wars for our country.
No biggie.
It's just some dead baby chicks.
Thousands of them.
You know, just a few
unintended consequences
of firing a bunch of postal executives
and removing sorting machines.
Who could have seen it coming?
So, yeah, sure seems like fetish boy DeJoy
might be undermining the post office
to sway people against mail-in voting.
Or at the very least is functioning
as if the post office is
supposed to be a business,
which it isn't.
But also for some reason, technically is,
but also, ah, boners, this
just in, sorta, not really,
it turns out that we're
all wrong for doubting him
and postmaster DeJoy has just announced
that he will be suspending
all of his shady new changes
until after the election,
quelling all fears that
Trump will try to interfere
with the election mail.
Nevermind everyone.
End of video, I guess.
I mean, he absolutely won't return
the sorting machines already
taken away, but okay.
It's something.
All it took was 20 States suing.
And I'm sure we can take
this guy at word on this.
He seems super honest.
What, with all the causing
miscarriages and junk.
Bye everyone, enjoy The New Mutants.
(lively music)
But heck, you know what?
We got more to say about this.
Because while this new
story is going to be used
by certain creeps to assure us,
we were all overreacting,
something we'll touch on later,
this actually goes beyond
whatever dumb (bleep)
the president and his
kinky postal boss is doing.
After all, they aren't
promising to stop gutting
the USPS entirely, but to
just wait until after November
to keep doing it.
And by doing it, I mean,
continuing to dismantle
10% of their sorting machines.
A way higher amount than
ever previously done.
And also probably fire more people
and definitely increased service rates
and slow down the mail more.
And if not these specific ghouls,
someone else is going
to come around and try.
You know, ghouls is like
the, postmaster under Obama.
Who back in 2011, asked Congress
for permission to lay
off 120,000 employees.
After having laid off 7,500
employees earlier in the year.
And also try to eliminate
delivering directly
to your mailbox altogether.
All under Obama, who we love and like,
not to sound like an absolute asshole,
but if we got these headlines
from a certain other president,
we would be very alarmed.
But to be fairer, more balanced-er,
that's because this
certain other president
has very vocally attacked the post office
and mail in voting and
enacted postal changes
right before the election.
And is also really, really bad.
But my point here is
that while we absolutely
should be extremely (bleep) concerned
about what kind of goblin rat (bleep)
Trump is going to pull
during this election,
our country's recent history
of the post office's decline
is actually an entirely
different breed of rat (bleep).
Dating long before our current president.
Spanning across the aisle at times.
All based on a very dumb expectation
for how the post office functions.
And if you need it summed up,
here's a kind of long quote
from that pervert DeJoy
during the aforementioned Senate hearing.
- The legislation is that we
deliver it to 161 address,
161 million addresses six days a week.
I'm committed to that.
I believe that's a strength
of the postal service.
And that we be self sustaining.
Those are the two pieces of legislation
that I'm working towards.
After, we are not self-sustained.
We have a $10-billion shortfall
and we'll continue to have
over the next 10 years while
the $245-billion shortfall.
So we need to, we need to,
and our management team
and our board need,
there is a path that we are planning.
Okay, with, you know, with
the help of some legislation,
with some cost impacts, with
some new revenue strategies,
and that will help, and
some pricing freedom
from the PRC, we believe
we have a plan to do that,
but one thing that's not in the plan
is not doing anything after the election.
It is an ambitious plan
because we have $10 billion to bridge.
Now the plan has not been finalized.
We have hundreds of
initiatives we look like,
like take the Alaska Bypass
Plan, the discussion.
That's an item on a table.
There's too, that's an unfunded mandate.
It costs us like $500 million a year.
And if, I'm not saying,
what I ask for is all the
unfunded mandates, right?
That's a way for us to get healthy,
pay something for the unfunded mandates.
If we just throw $25 billion this year,
and we don't do anything,
we'll be back in two years.
Then maybe we should
change the legislation
and not make us be self-sustaining.
But as a leadership team and a board,
that's what our mission is,
to be self sustaining and deliver
at a high level of precision.
And I'm committed to both.
- I might have to explain that a bit.
What he's talking about at the start
is how, while he's suspending cost cutting
before the election, he's absolutely
going to continue it afterward
because his mission is for the USPS
to be self-sustaining as a business.
And one example he gives
of something to cut
is the Alaska Bypass Mail system.
In which commercial planes
are used to ship mail
to people in Alaska who are hard to reach.
For people in Alaska, it's like
a pretty important thing to have.
And you can kinda hear in his
perv voice, this frustration,
as he explains that in
order to remain afloat,
he simply has to cut off
some large chunks of the raft
he is now the captain of.
Because he's a business ghoul, you know.
That's what they do.
They ghoul around.
And then he ends it all
with this statement,
which I'm going to play again.
- Then maybe we should
change the legislation
and not make us be self-sustaining.
But as a leadership team and a board,
that's what our mission is,
to be self-sustaining and deliver
at a high level of precision.
And I'm committed to both.
- "Then maybe we should
change the legislation
and not make us self-sustaining," he adds.
And this is a pretty key
moment in this hearing.
Mainly because it goes completely ignored
for the rest of it.
DeJoy is basically saying, look,
unless you want to not make the USPS
a self-sustaining business,
but rather a branch of the
government funded by taxpayers,
then I have to treat it
like a business and gut it.
And he's not technically wrong.
And then I gotta stress this.
It goes ignored because
they don't actually
want that to happen.
And to DeJoy's credit, he
seems genuinely bothered
by the situation he's in.
And actually defends aspects
of the post office later on
to our good friend, Rand Paul.
You know Rand.
- I think you should go farther.
And instead of assessing
people more of a postal charge
if they live 20 miles down on dirt road,
simply just have less frequent delivery.
And I think that alone would be tolerable.
It's still that personal service,
but it would be less frequent.
And I think you could make
it up for a large amount
of your shortfall if you went actually
below five days for some very rural areas.
- Senator, if I may, when
I first came here coming,
when I first got this assignment,
that wasn't an obvious thing to me.
You know, cut back five
days or four days, whatever.
And as I've worked through the process
and then researched and
studied the organization,
I think the six-day delivery,
the connection that the,
that the postal letter carrier
has with the American people
that gives us this highly trusted brand
and where the economy's
going in the future,
I think that is probably
our biggest strength
to capitalize on.
- See, that's Rand.
Casually saying that the USPS
could maybe perhaps stop delivering
six days a week to cut costs.
Because you gotta cut costs, right?
You just gotta.
And this is the game they keep playing.
Where Congress people
complain about inefficiencies
of the post office, suggest
ways to (bleep) over Americans
to cut costs and kind of
deflect everything with,
I mean, gosh, it's not
like we're gonna stop
making you self-sustaining.
So what other choice do we have?
And they're gonna keep
doing this until it's dead.
And by the way, when I say
complain about the post office, I am.
Check this out.
- I have to admit that I have
felt picked on not by you,
but by the postal service recently.
And I was glad to hear your explanation,
that you're having some
difficulty with people
to deliver the mail in
light of the pandemic.
I don't think a lot of
people understand that.
I didn't understand that.
But I know that we had a
package that we were expecting
that was being traced and we
paid extra to have it traced.
And we know it sat in the
DC post office for 11 days
before it was delivered to me.
I hope that you will take
a look at the urban areas.
We've been picked on in the
rural areas for a long time,
but we have some really
efficient people out here
that are dealing with long
distances and doing it very well.
But when I go to my post office in DC,
I find that there's only one
person working at the counter.
And if the person that
comes up to the counter
needs a box to mail it in,
the boxes are not out where
people can actually get them.
So the person behind
the counter has to leave
and go get a box.
And when they bring the box back,
it still has to be sealed and addressed,
and they don't move them over to the side
to see if they can wait
on the next customer.
Everybody waits at social distancing.
I've been to the post office
before during my lunch hour
and found that the postal workers
decided that was their lunch hour as well.
No business lets their employees sit down
and eat in front of customers
during their lunch hour.
- US Senator Mike Enzi,
God bless his oily heart,
actually uses time at the hearing
to air personal complaints
with specific post offices
that bothered him.
And how employees need to
eat like a weird old bastard.
And again, no one is
suggesting a solution.
Just complaining that it doesn't work
while refusing to make the
USPS not self-sustaining
while also encouraging cost-cutting,
that would continue to
make the system work worse
until it's dead.
Dead and buried.
And so the impression you get
from this business pervert,
ghoul DeJoy is that he's not actually
like a sinister stooge of the president
answering late night calls
about the post office.
And in fact, at one point says this.
- Prior to implementing the
changes that you put forth
in the postal system, did
you discuss those changes
or are there potential impact
on the November election
with the president or
anyone at the White House?
And remind you you're under oath.
I have never spoken to the president
about the postal service
other than to congratulate me
when I accepted the position.
- And when you think about who Trump is,
you kinda believe that, right?
Like not only has he not talked
to Trump about the election,
but simply hasn't talked
to Trump like at all.
But then he's followed up with this
- Did you speak or discuss
any of these changes
with Secretary Mnuchin?
- During the discussion
and negotiating the note.
I told them I have a,
I'm working on a plan,
but I never discussed
the changes that I made.
I just said, I'm working on a plan.
- And ah, gosh.
He seems a little more shifty
about that one, doesn't he?
Because while a lot of
people on the internet
are gonna totally own us by pointing out
that DeJoy wasn't personally
appointed by Trump
and use that as a reason
to tell us all to calm down
and perhaps point out
that it was a bipartisan
board of governors that hired this obvious
pervert sicko, allegedly, DeJoy.
See?
He's not some stooge, not
some lapdog of the president.
Even though he loved that, the pervert.
Or so I've been told by myself
earlier with zero evidence.
But the detail they might skip over
is that right before this
sick monster DeJoy was hired,
the board was stacked by Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin,
in order to push them to choose someone
specific to Trump's liking.
Someone who would look
at the current situation
for USPS and do all the
business ghoul stuff
that would cut down their operation
and be pushed around politically.
And then one board
member named John Barger,
who happened to be a Republican donor,
pushed for DeJoy in an
effort that was outside
of the usual selection process.
And described as highly irregular.
So whether or not DeJoy is
earnestly trying to help
or insidiously bent on
destroying democracy,
he's there specifically
because his efforts
will continue to erode the mail.
Because the GOP and Trump
wanted him to be there.
So, yeah, I guess, DeJoy
isn't a stooge for Trump.
Because Mnuchin is actually
the stooge for Trump.
And DeJoy is the stooge for Mnuchin.
It's a stooge chain of command, people.
And along with fixing
the board in his favor,
Mnuchin is now being accused
of extorting the USPS
on behalf of Trump, in
order to slow them down
and meet specific demands.
As treasury secretary,
he is the guy providing
the postal service with a line of credit,
something he won't do unless he gets
a certain amount of loyalty to Trump.
But also, the GOP in general.
Because the GOP has been
trying to ruin the post office
long before Trump was even a gleam
in Republican's puffy, old man eyes.
And the motivations actually start
getting a little more
complicated and diverse
when you take a closer look.
It's kind of like that movie Smokin' Aces,
the one everyone loves.
Where a bunch of assassins
are all trying to kill Jeremy Piven.
And everyone has like their own gimmick
and reasoning to do it.
Only in this case, it's the post office.
Which is probably, when
you really think about it,
more important to than the star of PCU.
When you think about it.
So let's start with what Trump wants.
Separate from his party.
You know, besides stealing the election
While a lot of the GOP seemed to be happy
to turn mail and package delivery
over to private companies,
Trump might actually
be sabotaging the mail,
not just because of the election,
but specifically to get back at Amazon.
If you're wondering how compromising
the USPS would do that,
well, ironically, it turns out
that most major retailers
in shipping companies
use something called last mile delivery
to deliver packages in rural areas.
This is a service where the USPS
finishes the delivery for
the private companies.
Because unlike the private companies
that the GOP wants to take over the mail,
the USPS actually has
the resources to deliver
to everyone regardless of their complexion
and or level of being marginalized.
In other words, you
can't actually just let
private companies deliver everyone's mail,
because, and I really
can't stress this enough,
the private companies only
care about making money
and not actually serving everyone.
Something lawmakers
would know if they dare
to live somewhere that
wasn't heavily gated.
But anyhoo, before the hiring of DeJoy,
Trump was actually pushing the
previous postmaster general
to raise the fees charged for
these last mile deliveries.
Most likely as a way to
get back at Jeff Bezos.
And while that sounds like Trump
is trying to bolster the post office,
he's actually withholding aid
from them unless they do this.
Saying they need to raise
their prices for packages
by four times the current amount.
A plan that the director of retail studies
at Columbia University
Business School called a,
and Cody quotes, "About as
catastrophically stupid an idea
that anyone could ever imagine."
Because if they did raise their prices,
it would most likely screw
over small businesses
and cause Amazon to simply
extend their own delivery trucks,
ultimately screwing over the post office
as people would resort to
cheaper private companies.
In other words, Trump
is applying the extent
of his business savvy by
strong arming the post office
into making a really stupid
power play that would tank them.
Much like the result of
any good Trump business.
And it sounds like DeJoy is
going to do that for him.
You know, because of the
extortion and all of that.
So whether or not Trump
is tanking the post office
because of poor business knowledge
or because he's illogically
afraid of mail-in ballots
that might actually help his
chances of being reelected,
whichever reason, it's
most certainly stupid.
Because he's stupid and reckless
and has no idea what he's doing.
In Smokin' Aces' terms,
he's those redneck Nazis
played by Blob and Captain
Kirk, you know the ones.
Because like all of us,
you've definitely watched
that movie recently and
know the references.
Ah, dang.
This just in from weeks ago.
- [Trump] They want $25 billion, billion,
for the post office.
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.
Now, in the meantime,
they aren't getting there.
By the way, those are just two items,
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.
- Well, there you go.
It turns out the specific
stupid reason at the moment
for sabotaging the post office is in fact
to also sabotage the election
and by extension, democracy.
Because of course, that's the reason.
Like how weird is it that Trump not only
is against the mail-in voting,
but also ballot drop boxes as well?
what a weird coincidence that all the ways
that help people vote
easier are all bad and wrong
according to the GOP.
Who are also trying to stop these
for absolutely fabricated reasons.
Because not only if ballot
drop box have been used
for years in certain States,
but they're usually handled
with extra security.
Under camera surveillance,
collected daily by both Republican
and democratic representatives.
And audited for signs of
fraud to be extra sure.
Anyway, the president sucks.
He sucks and is wrong all
of the time, we know this.
But Trump is in theory, a fleeting threat.
I mean, unless the election goes,
you know, terribly wrong.
But like what are the odds of that?
You know, like what, what are,
what are, what are the odds?
someone just imagine what
the odds are of that?
Like, like what are the vaguest odds
of the Dems completely whiffing it?
Or if Trump finding a way to drag it out
and sabotage the election.
And like the Democrats will be like,
they'll tweet something
about how it's terrible
and someone to do something about it.
Like really imagine that,
really imagine the election.
Anyway, it's quite important
to talk about the larger,
more organized effort to
dismantle the postal service.
One that is specifically
coming from the GOP.
For that, we have to go back to 2006
when the Republican-led Congress
passed the Postal Accountability
and Enhancement Act.
Which was then signed into
law by Ellen-confidant
and known painter and
that's it, George W. Bush.
Now to be fair and also balanced,
the rise of electronic
mail or electro M's,
as we call them today, created a situation
where there was less
need for the post office
and the steady decline
began in the early 2000s.
But to be even more fair
and even more balanced-er
and bold and beautiful and ready for love,
this was only part of why the post office
began to hemorrhage money.
But to be the most fair, the fairest
and the king of balanced-er-ness,
the establishment of post offices
is like in the constitution.
And nowhere in that document,
or like the logic of the world we live in,
does it say that mail
delivery has to make money.
And it's weird that we would expect it to,
and it wasn't always like this.
It wasn't created as a moneymaking entity
and was changed to one way later.
The United States post office
was founded during the revolutionary war.
Have you heard of it?
And it was established as a
way for businesses and people
to communicate without the
interference of the British,
who we weren't too keen on at the time.
It wasn't put in place as
a bonus feature to America
or a cool money-making scheme,
but to empower the people
in the face of tyranny.
Kinda seems weird that people in power
want to get rid of it
when you think about it
from a historical perspective, you know.
Anyhoosers, back then, the old PO
was all the rage with the oldtimeys
and kinda sorta helped establish America.
A thing one could argue
wasn't the best idea
and led to the suffering of
countless, not white people,
but still we got the Grand
Canyon and other junk,
so that's pretty neat, I guess.
The point here though, is that
it wasn't a partisan issue
up until the early 1800s.
When our very old and
racist president's favorite
other old and racist
President Andrew Jackson
used the postal system to withhold
political material from his rivals.
Specifically abolitionist mailers.
Which has postmaster general
instructed Southern postmasters
to withhold unless specifically requested.
What a novel idea to use the mail system
to maintain a system of racism
from the current president's favorite guy.
Super coincidence there, side note,
isn't it weird that Trump and cohorts
will claim to be the party of Lincoln
and also claim that the Southern strategy
where this party switched doesn't exist,
but also Andrew Jackson, a Democrat
is his favorite president?
I don't know, kinda weird.
Anyway, this Andrew Jackson politicizing
and manipulating the post office.
So it was to curb the
movement to abolish slavery,
was intertwined with something
called the Spoils System.
A practice created by Jackson
where civil service jobs
were awarded to the people who supported
whatever party was in power.
You know, cronyism.
Totally not familiar
are any of those words
that I am saying, of course.
Now, this wasn't the post
office we know today,
but rather the United States
Post Office Department,
a predecessor to the USPS
and cabinet department
that was paid for by the government
to create before largely making a profit.
Not that it mattered if it made money.
It was only until the
postal strike of 1970.
And our boy Richard Nixon, seen here,
and his official presidential portrait
did the United States
Post Office Department
turned into the United
States Postal Service.
This was via the postal
reorganization act of 1970,
which transformed the department
into a government-owned corporation,
expected to make a profit.
A totally smart idea that
certainly didn't create
any future problems or
weird misunderstandings
about what the post office is.
So while Jackson set up the
wonders of abusing the mail,
this was probably the most damning moment
in the USPS history.
This is that (bleep) Jar Jar,
giving Palpatine emergency
powers over the Senate,
and then everyone just clapping
because I guess that's how
they vote in Star Wars.
It's not a great film.
Anyway, let's watch
the whole clip of that,
even though we don't actually need to.
- Missa propose that the
senate give immediately
emergency powers to
the Supreme Chancellor.
- (bleep) nonsense.
So going into 2006, just a year
after a young Darth Vader shouted,
but from my point of
view, the Jedi are evil.
And we were in a situation
where the post office,
now recognized as a
corporation for some reason
was naturally, on a decline,
but still extremely important.
And instead of creating
a way to keep it afloat
during the age of electro Ms,
the Postal Accountability
and Enhancement Act
served as a way to step even harder
on the post office's neck.
Specifically by requiring
the postal service
to prepay retiree health benefits,
the cost of which adding up
to roughly $5 billion a year.
Now, to be clear, this is something
that no other federal
agency is required to do.
And by 2012, caused the USPS
to begin defaulting on the payments.
The grand total of which
has grown to $47.2 billion.
In their fact sheet about this,
the USPS specifically
pointed to the 2006 law
as the reason their current business model
had become unsustainable.
In other words, we
(bleep) loan shark them.
Instead of giving the
post office a bailout,
something we have no problem
doing with other entities,
we put them in so much debt
that they can never get out from under it.
And now, we're literally
removing mailboxes from cities
like we're Tony (bleep) Soprano,
strip mining and insolvent business.
But it's not Robert Patrick's canoe shop.
It's the goddamn post office.
And you should be very angry about this.
In the country where we
declared predatory ass banks
as being too big to fail,
the GOP can't muster
even a fraction of the same passion
for one of the most essential services
this country has to offer.
America is diseased. (bleep)
God.
I'm gonna get tickets to The New Mutants.
I do not give a (bleep).
I'm gonna lick all of the armrests.
What makes this all very frustrating
is that the conservative
side on this issue
is at the very best, not
lying, but extremely dumb.
Or to be as charitable
as possible, ignorant.
You might hear someone say, hey now,
I thought, I thought you
liberals were all about progress.
And now you wanna keep this
outdated mail delivery system?
Or maybe they'll say, oh, the post office
is obsolete and losing money.
We don't need it anymore
because we have electro M.
Let Amazon handle package delivery.
I mean, they probably won't say it
in such a dumb strongman voice,
but this is the popular
argument post from the right.
And it either comes from people who
a, don't understand that
the USPS not only handles
a lot of Amazon deliveries,
but is the only option
for lower class citizens
and has access to neighborhoods
that private delivery companies don't,
or b, are infected with the
absolutely dumb (bleep) idea
that the post office needs to make money.
A thing I keep bringing up
and can't stress enough,
isn't the point of the post office.
Like, if you learned
that our public highway
maintenance system or the city's
water and power department,
wasn't turning a profit,
you wouldn't conclude
that we just stopped having that thing.
The government's job isn't to make money.
It's not a business, we're not employees.
We're not getting a cut of profits.
It's there to spend money, our
money, that it takes from us.
So going back to Mr. DeJoy's statement
about how he wants to
provide a greater focus
on the core aspects of our
business for future success.
Well, that should really alarm you.
Because while it seems
like he fundamentally
doesn't understand the purpose of his job,
the GOP has been slowly
transforming the postal service
into a business for quite some time now.
Because that's how they want it to be.
Even though that's not what it exists for.
And the people doing this
either don't understand that,
or are up to something
a lot more nefarious.
It means that they are in a
position of power and wealth
and do not value the basic
needs of their citizens,
because those aren't the
same needs as theirs.
And in the worst case,
they're actively undermining
those needs in an effort
to maintain their power
and continue to keep
the most helpless people
in a perpetual state of struggle.
They are not your friend,
and they need to be stopped.
The very core of their ideology is caustic
to the wellbeing of our post office.
That's why we gotta buy their merch
or call our Congress people or governors
and be like, hey, no, you
stop, no, you stop it.
And they'll tweet back
to us that we should,
we should do something about this.
Hey, pass it on, everyone.
Thanks, Gavin Newsom, governor
of California, a state.
For telling us that we
need to tell others people
to fund the USPS.
Way to fix the problem.
Hey, thanks, AOC for
challenging the president
to a grade off to fund the post office.
You slay, you.
This is all very helpful and productive.
Ah, hey, thanks for the hashtag
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Thanks for the fun mail
puns, Senator Chuck Schumer,
but okay, I guess you're now doing
the absolute bare minimum action.
So thumbs way up.
And for people wondering, like,
what do you want them to do about it?
I don't know.
Why not actually subpoena DeJoy
instead of just requesting him to testify
with stern tweets worded,
like the joke section
of a USPS coloring book?
And subpoena the
president, perhaps, maybe.
And like, if he rejects the subpoenas,
which he will, arrest him.
Something Congress can do,
but just hasn't done for a century
and maybe should perhaps
bring back or not,
because apparently executive
privilege might veto that,
but they could still arrest DeJoy.
But well he showed up, we
did a whole thing about it.
Because holding someone
in contempt of Congress
apparently requires a
year's long legal battle.
So I guess let's just go
back to the pun system
we've been using.
But Hey, I guess, you know,
DeJoy did agree to testify.
He was there after all.
So there's no need to think about
or improve this system whatsoever.
Feeling super empowered right now.
Look, the terrible truth here
is that things might have to get worse
before they get better.
Hopefully without
society crumbling so hard
that we all gain a new
appreciation for the post office.
But frankly, that's not off the table.
You know, like that
film, none of us watched.
There's a lot of stuff we
need to do to fix this.
Including, but not limited,
to completely changing the way
this country thinks about the post office.
And also, capitalism.
For example, during the Great Depression,
we realized that maybe we
should perhaps not trust banks.
And so as a response to this,
the United States introduced
the US Postal Savings System.
It was a system designed to
provide banking for immigrants
and folks in the lower classes,
but actually having post
offices double as banks.
Once world war II ended,
banks became able to compete
with the Postal Savings' interest rates
and the service was quickly reversed.
And maybe it shouldn't have been.
Along with providing delivery
for medication and bills
and greeting cards, and the
goddamn Amazon packages,
the USPS is one of the only institutions
that is available to otherwise
isolated parts of the country.
And using these already
embedded post offices
as a banking service would
provide much needed support
for otherwise underserved
and lower-class communities.
Often communities of color.
Communities where banks have been replaced
with predatory lenders
designed to keep them
in a state of dependency and poverty.
In a country where 28% of the people
don't have bank accounts,
where American debt is
expected to exceed $80 billion.
All of which go to banks.
The idea of creating a
federal banking system
within the post office,
wouldn't just save the mail.
And makes like, a lot of sense,
or at the very least is
something worth talking about.
And something that a few
politicians have been pushing for.
Doesn't it just click in your head
as a very obvious solution
to a lot of problems,
specifically hurting the lower class?
(lively music)
The institutions are in place.
It's an extremely practical solution
to both the waning of the post office
and a lack of access to banks
in places like Appalachia
or any low income neighborhood,
or just any place anywhere.
Because that's where post offices are.
Unlike the banks.
Let's put a bank in every
post office because ah,
wacky idea wowee Ben!
Who looked at this extremely good idea
and threw up his arms and
very smartly was like,
well, why don't we put mailboxes in banks
and shoes on our heads?
Ah, geez.
What a silly idea to bank in post offices.
A thing that is literally
done throughout the world
in many countries but not ours.
What a pie in the sky idea.
That France, Japan and China
all do it full service,
but we don't for some dumb piss reason.
Like, holy (bleep), holy (bleep).
I know this isn't the Ben Shapiro video
and we've done like, I don't know,
10 or 50 of those already.
But this single tweet Ben made,
completely ignorant of
the historical context
of postal banking or the fact that banks
aren't available in a lot of areas.
It sure makes me wonder why anyone
would ever take him seriously
as a political voice.
Like, hey Ben, are you lying?
Or just don't understand the conversation?
Either way maybe you should
shut the everliving (bleep) up.
Right, Ben?
You should shut the everliving (bleep) up?
Ben, that's what you're gonna do, right?
Oh, shucks.
He's still going.
So Ben, the calm boy who uses facts
to destroy our panic over the post office,
very calm boy points out
that the US post office
has been losing money
for 14 straight years
and still has enough liquidity
to operate halfway into 2021.
And therefore, we should calm down
with our conspiracy theories
about Trump and the GOP
trying to undermine the
election and the postal service.
And perhaps not look too
hard into it, you know.
Calm down.
No need to subtract the
14 years he mentioned
that the USPS has been losing money
from the current date of 2020
coming up with the number 2006,
also known as the year that the GOP
created the Postal Accountability
and Enhancement Act
that I just told you about.
You know, the one that put them into debt
for nearly $50 billion.
But Ben is too busy with
facts to do things like math
or think critically, or
let's be honest honestly,
about how maybe it's
still a big (bleep) deal
that the post office will
run out of operating money
in less than a year from now.
He's got other things to do.
Such as totally hand-waving any fears
that the president and GOP
are going after the election
as a conspiracy theory.
It's the Left's Qanon folks.
Everyone calm down.
You know, some of those photos
of mailboxes being taken away
or locked up are fake.
And therefore, everything is fake,
except for the mailboxes that
were actually taken away.
And did I mention that
we should calm down?
I mean, the only other
evidence that the president
might be trying to
undermine mail-in voting
is nothing more than the president saying
that he wants to undermine
mail-in voting out loud
with his stupid (bleep) mouth.
And that's just like Trump
being Trump, am I right?
You can't like listen to the
president's words, you know.
Like, who even does that?
Everyone just calm down and do nothing.
And especially, calm down.
And this is gonna keep going.
The Ben Shapiros of the world.
The lying twerps are gonna be spending
a considerable amount
out of time assuring us
that we're being paranoid
and overreacting.
And it's really not that bad.
They'll be sharing articles like this one.
And most of it is a series of fact checks
that have very little to do
with the current situation
with the post office
and begins with the very reassuring words.
Yes, you should be
concerned about the future
of the United States Postal Service,
but the whole sky isn't falling quite yet.
It as the headline's
saying, hey, don't panic,
but also we seriously need
to fund the post office ASAP.
Because nothing in this article
disproves anything I've already said.
It just words it as being sorta
kinda not as big of a deal.
And I can't stress enough how
much of this damage control,
the it's no big deal bullshit
we're going to get in the coming months.
Where very dumb people who
think they're being very smart,
share a few full stories about
mailboxes getting taken away
as proof that this is totally
not worth worrying about.
Pointing out that the post office
won't be broke until 2021.
And therefore we don't have to worry,
is like saying sure, that
the lower decks of the ship
are filling with water,
but it's not like we're
totally drowning right now.
So don't panic.
You look stupid with how
much you're panicking.
And you know, just go ahead and apply this
to a lot of things like climate change
and income inequality, and
the president continuing
to joke about more than two terms
and healthcare and Corona virus and Nazis
and all of the things
that GOPs and centrists
and Democrats too all love to say
is no big deal until it's suddenly becomes
a really big damn (bleep) deal.
It's like that phrase, you know,
about the slowly boiling frog.
Don't panic, frog.
Those bubbles are small right now.
(lively music)
Our dear sweet friend Ben's
catdick tweets really sum it up.
That the entire argument
from conservatives
in terms of the post
office is based around
some of the biggest Mad Hatter logic.
And when offered any solution,
they will reject it without
giving it a moment's thought
because deep down, they've always wanted
to privatize the post office.
To finish what Nixon started.
That's just one of their
goals and why they're holding
the USPS up to these weird
moneymaking expectations.
And hand-waving any
solutions that don't get us
to that one result.
It's why when Trump hilariously tweets,
save the post office,
while actively killing it.
He doesn't think that
that's what he's doing.
He thinks by cutting costs
and making it less effective,
he's saving it because it
has to make money, folks,
like a business would.
And if it doesn't, then
it just shouldn't exist.
And to them, the post office has no use
outside of that goal.
It's a service solely
designed to assist the lower
and middle class American people,
and therefore, has so little value to them
that they can't even understand
why people would be
angry that it's missing.
And, you know, that's the same thing goes
for some Democrats or
moderates or any politician.
So out of touch that they don't
understand what's at stake.
It's important to note that
neither side is perfect here.
And like, as I already pointed out,
Obama also seemed to think the post office
was an entity designed to make a profit,
but also did try to specifically
relieve some of their debt
from the Postal Accountability
and Enhancement Act.
So that's good, but
also not nearly enough.
So it's mainly conservatives,
many of which are now tossing
out the idea of handing off
our (bleep) election mail to UPS or FedEx.
It's just a great, great, great
idea, The Lincoln Project.
You're one of the good
ones with the good ideas.
This is not the solution
because, and again,
I really can't stress it enough.
These companies don't care about democracy
or getting everyone their ballots,
or even reaching everyone.
Because their entire
purpose is to make money,
which is fine, I guess.
But absolutely shouldn't be the purpose
of a United States Post Office.
Turning our ballots over
to private companies
is exactly what the GOP wants to happen.
And probably why they're doing all of this
in the first place.
Just ask Veterans For Biden,
who very correctly point out
that people's lives
literally depend on the USPS.
Very good point, Veterans For Biden,
who I agree with on that.
So what can we do?
I mean, (bleep) I know I just mocked it,
but honestly, we really
should buy their merch.
Some of it is pretty sexy.
And also, I guess we can hashtag about it,
buy stamps and be as loud as
we possibly can with our voices
that quite frankly
might fall on deaf ears.
But since a lot of that
isn't going to do much,
we mostly need to pay
attention to the liars,
to the people pushing to screw us over
and remember who those people
are and not vote for them
and tell them every day that
they can get absolutely (bleep)
and eat all of our (bleep) and our piss.
Garnish our (bleep) with our
piss and then slurp it up
from Tupperware, the old Tupperware,
not the new, good Tupperware.
And never shut up about our
support for the post office
and perhaps support bringing back
a postal banking system
and making the post office
not a corporation again,
because it (bleep) isn't one.
And we shouldn't be calm.
We should continue to be very uncalm
and vocal about our concerns
and make videos for the internet about it,
where we talk about how
much bull (bleep) it is,
and also incorporate clips from star Wars.
Here's another one.
- Someone to see you aye. (indistinct)
- Kofi Wang.
- Hello, Dex.
- Absolutely horrifying and necessary.
It like hurts the pacing of this video,
but we did it anyway.
So while a lot of these
ghouls and people telling us
to calm down, we'll be
Trumpists or Republicans,
which are kind of the same thing.
Some of them won't be,
and it shouldn't matter.
This isn't partisan.
It's an attack on everyone,
on the country and democracy.
And it's not enough that they're waiting
until after the election,
because this has been
happening for a while now,
We should have been outraged and angry
and not calm about this
years before Trump.
The USPS has been under attack for decades
by stupid people who are degrading it
because of a flawed ideology.
The post office has been
on the ropes for a while,
but amazingly, have
managed to stay upright
and we need to join them in the
fight, refuse to let it die.
Even after years of attacks
and delays and reshoots
and a Disney merger, The New
Mutans is finally here, folks,
in theaters that you shouldn't go to.
Unlike the post office,
which you should go to,
wearing a mask and make
sure to safely vote.
Information on those steps in
the description of this video,
which is over now.
Play us out, postal service.
♪ I've got a cupboard with cans of food ♪
♪ Filtered water and pictures of you ♪
♪ I'm not coming out
till this is all over. ♪
♪ And I'm looking through the glass ♪
♪ Where the light bends at the cracks ♪
♪ And I'm screaming at
the top of my lungs ♪
♪ Pretending the echos belong to someone ♪
♪ Someone I used to know ♪
♪ And we become ♪
♪ Silhouettes when our bodies
finally go bum bum bum bum ♪
♪ Bum bum bum bum to walk
through the empty streets ♪
♪ Feel something constant under my feet ♪
♪ But all the news reports
recommended that I stay indoors ♪
♪ 'Cause the air outside will make ♪
♪ Ourselves divide at an alarming rate ♪
♪ Still our shells simply cannot hold ♪
♪ All the insides in and
that sink will explode ♪
♪ Won't be a pretty sight ♪
♪ And be become ♪
♪ Silhouettes when our bodies
finally go bum bum bum bum ♪
♪ Bum bum bum bum ♪
♪ Bum bum bum bum ♪
♪ Bum bum bum bum ♪
It's the postal service,
but it's quarantined themed
on account of the situation, so.
Hi, very hot today.
Like and subscribe the
video and then the channel.
Check out our patreon.com.
So there's some more news and
our podcast, even more news,
other links to maybe, I don't know.
Bye.
