Crooks and Liars: “Ed Schultz talked to USPS letter carrier and Rep. Joe Walsh constituent Melissa Rakestraw about her encounter with Walsh at a recent meeting he had where he basically melted down and started screaming at Rakestraw and some of the others who were unfortunate enough to be attending that event.”
source: Ed Schultz Talks to USPS Letter Carrier Who Was Screamed at By Rep. Joe Walsh
keep that chair between you and that congressional whack-job! i viewed this video without sound, and even without hearing his tirade you could tell he was about to get violent (aka:going postal). his body language betrayed how unprofessional he is. what school did he matriculate from?—the school of postal management (aka: prick school)??? what a national embarrassment that he is one of our country’s “leaders”. melissa for congress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Occupy APWU HQ at 1300 L Street in Wash DC !
Why doesn’t Mr Walsh retire. Let him go work for the 6 mega banks in charge of this country. He’ll fit right in…
Big Ed Schultz has been following this story right along, and has been a staunch supporter of the Post Office and its employees. Thank you, Ed, for speaking on our behalf. In the off chance you are following up this article, I’d like to share a few thoughts that aren’t really being discussed anywhere in this debate.
ALL of the postal reform bills being discussed in Congress are wrong minded, inept, and will do little to set the USPS back on track. Republicans have been trying to bust the postal unions for decades. And Democrats don’t have the backbone to do what is really needed, so instead they play this appeasement game with postal legislation, tempering their constituents needs with perks they think will satisfy their Republican counterparts.
Every single bill supports downsizing, lessening service, and closing rural post offices. Since when would you offer less service to grow your business? At a time when we should be expanding window services and lobby hours to increase business and make ourselves more valuable to the customer, instead we are debating just how many employees to get rid of. This plays right into the long term plan of privatizing the postal service. Less employees means longer lines at the window, and more unsatisfied customers.
It is worth noting that 2006 was the single largest volume year in the postal service’s history. Some 210 BILLION pieces of mail were delivered by the P.O. at a time when the internet was supposed to destroy our business. This past year, we delivered 170 BILLION pieces. That’s a lot of mail. Cutting our workforce by 20% is insane.
Putting your experienced workers out to pasture is yet another way to INCREASE customer dissatisfaction, while further weakening an already beleaguered union. Service can’t help but slip. If you’ve watched an acting foreman show a PSE how to process mail, you know what I am talking about.
But perhaps the biggest scam being perpetrated by Congress, is the neatly packaged reform idea that is finding its way to the head of the list. I’m referring to the return of the FERS pension overpayment back to the USPS. Selling it as a bipartisan way to “help right size the post office”, this is nothing more than sleight of hand. Funny that Congress, who can’t seem to agree on anything, all speak in favor of this accounting gimmick.
Here is what they are NOT telling you. Despite several independent audits of postal finances, including the OIG, showing an overpayment up to ten times the amount overpaid to FERS overpaid into the CSRS fund, there is NO MENTION of this unaccounted money in ANY bill before Congress. They quietly supplanted the multiple CSRS overpayment reports with a single study by the GAO which said essentially, that there was NO OVERPAYMENT to the CSRS pension fund.
All of a sudden, they willingly give back the FERS money, and pretend the CSRS money never existed. Nobody connected to the USPS from the Postmaster General on down to the most junior PSE should support any legislation that does not include the reimbursement of the CSRS overpayments along with the FERS overpayments.
Neither should the postal customer. After all, it will be the customer that gets stuck with the tab, in this case, much higher shipping costs, less quality service, and the eventual loss of the right to constitutionally mandated universal service for a very low cost. And once that ship has sailed, there will be no getting it back.
Do tell?
This is called screaming?? They obviously don’t know what screaming is.
Tom from UPS…you’re spot on but tell only part of the story. I have a great relationship with my regular UPS guy but even he would agree that he DELIVERS to those places ONLY WHEN there is a package to deliver. The USPS stops at every address in America 6 days a week to see if there is outgoing mail not only when there is a piece of mail for that address. For that service the USPS continues to charge less than 50cents for first class mail when it is there and continues to stop every work day regardless. The heated rhetoric from those that think abolishing the USPS and handing it over to the two large parcel companies aren’t listening to or reading the facts. Were it not for the pre-payment of 75 years of retirement benefits the USPS would be in the black to the tune of 600 million bucks over the past five years. Even during the recession they have been profitable. Would any of your non-USPS companies be able to stay afloat if they were paying for employee retirement and health benefits for people that haven’t been born yet? Not likely. Yet that is what the lame duck congress did to the USPS in ’06 and now the bill is just too high.
We continue to hear how the internet is killing the USPS and the loss of volume seems to be linked to it. However, the two largest volume years occurred less than five years ago. I’m pretty sure we had the internet then. Unfortunately people look at those two years and compare and say how much decline there is. Why not look at the impressive spike in usage and compare losses to an average over the past five or ten years? Because it doesn’t fit their goal of privatizing the USPS!
Fix the pre-funding to manageable levels, return some of the overpayment and let the USPS continue to right size and all will be well.
First of all I support the USPS but I wish postal workers would get the facts straight also. I am a Ups driver and we go to every address the post office does and more. We take our packages to the door or wherever the customer wants them. Not just to a mail box or a community box or to a post office box. And it is absolutely absurd that the usps delivers 25% of our packages. Many of our drivers deliver up to 400 pkgs a day and deliver maybe 2-5 USPS packages a day. You do the math. This may be true for Fed Ex, I can’t say. And finally, Joe Walsh is a sh*t head.
Erick
I will get to retire!
You will NEVER be able to, along with everyone under 50 after the Republicans get done screwing you over to make the land free for the pickings of their SUPER RICH OVERLORDS.
Les Miserables….
Joe Walsh is another ignorant AH time to leave bye bye
This out burst by Rep. Joe Walsh is the reason our politicians need to be changed. just like a dirty diaper. Often and for the same reason.
i am sure the yelling and screaming and ignorant talk did NOT AT ALL bother her…..im sure she hears it everyday on the work room floor by the other idiots in charge
Just another idiot thta needs out of office.Get rid of theses fools and we can look forward to something Maybe
Really postalbabe you dont see somthing wrong with this picture?
I think we know now why your frist wife couldn’t live with you but please tell us why you owe over a $100 K in back child support… please pay up
joe Walsh sounded very frustrated. I work at the Post Office and I understand!!!! He has just as much right to talk and show his frustrations as anyone else!!!! Elected officials are people too…….
The Early Years
Isn’t Joe Walsh’s job a public sector job?
I am for the USPS for delivering the mail. If UPS and Fed Ex takes on the responsibiltiy as what the USPS has to do, you would probably see the rates for the mail that is being delivered go up dramaticaly. Who wants to pay one dollar to mail a letter or magazines that will charge from $75 dollars and up per year for a subscription. I also doubt that UPS and Fed Ex will deliver your medicine on Saturdays.
i love the passion flowing from postal workers at the “we are closing your facility and we must have this public meeting” meetings. looks to me like the average postal worker has seen enough and the rage is starting to come out. postal workers are saying we are postal workers and we are also postal customers with valuable insight into postal operations and postal workers are starting to talk. i think donahoe and his cronies are in deep doo-doo if the postal workers make their voices heard at these meetings and go public with what they know about how the post office is run and the amount of fraud, waste, and corruption that goes in the united states postal service. SPEAK UP POSTAL WORKERS! TELL EVERYONE WHO WILL LISTEN (AND EVEN THOSE THAT WON’T) ABOUT THE FRAUD, WASTE, CORRUPTION, AND INCOMPETENCE THAT YOU HAVE WITNESSED INSIDE YOUR POSTAL FACILITY!
Let’s not forget socialism bailed out capitalism!! 3 times- the gr depression,savings and loan in the 80s,and now we bailed out the no responsibility wallstreeters , bankers,and speculators .they have gambled away retirements that were in MODERATE FUNDS. Never mind the agressive funds. Until we get rid of derivatives,shortselling,hedge funds,and the packaging and selling of mortgages/commodities we will always be subsidizing the millionair/billionair types that make the prices of oil/nat gas/food/all other commodities rise 30 40 percent. Most repubs and some dems – like bluedog dem bill clinton chose deregulation and exotic financial investments wich inturn ruined our economy.
The repubs would have you blame welfare/illigal immigr/ssi/medicare/postal pensions for our economic problems.
Time to make ;corporations ( that pay little or no taxes and set up overseas),wall streeters,and the big banks pay our deficit off !!!
A Postal Service employee who votes Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
Oxymoron – is a postal worker who votes for a republican! Repubs have always wanted to privatize the PO period. They would take away most of our benefits like ; family med leave,cut our pay in half,no barganing ,more subsidization of multi million dollar mailers,postage would skyrocket under privatization!!! Postal workers who vote republican are well on there way to taking food off there families table. For all the faults the unions have they don’t hold a candle to what the repubs have instore for us. They throw the rightwing dummies a bag of bones- the pro life bone,th gay people bone, the take ur gun away bone,the personal responsibility bone(of course bankers/wall streeters/speculators/mortgage brokers – they don’t need to bring their personal responsibility to work with them.
Socialist Democrats? Try taking away any government benefits from Republicans and you’ll see who is socialist. And of course this would apply to the rest of us too. Let’s just not be such hypocrites about this.
Being a Republican I identify myself with them too, my buyout cost just went up to $70K & 80%.
Ed Schultz was quite deliberate in twice identifying THOSE people as Republicans. Wrong Ed. That’s who Joe Walsh is. And yes, there are others, to be sure, on both sides of the aisle. Joe Walsh is obviously one who does not lie about his corrupted convictions. I identify with the Republican Party and I am a Letter Carrier of 27 years. I do not identify with Joe Walsh on this issue.
I appreciate your interview with Melissa Rakestraw. She is an informed constituent and was in the right place at the right time. Thank you also for exposing the blatant ignorance of Rep. Joe Walsh.
I like his music though!
Melissa for PostMaster General these are the type of people NEEDED SO BAD.
Joe you give Walsh a bad name
Its all of your fault. By supporting the Socialist Democrats election after election, you caused what is going on in this country. You and the unions opened it up for the Republicans and the Tea Party to get in and decimate the working people of this country. Don’t give to COLPCE! I gave to COLPCE for 8 yrs. When the healthcare bill was passed and supported by the unions against the wishes of the people I cut COLPCE OFF! They will just continue to give money to the people who will screw this country. Remember the president was supported by the unions and now he is stabbing us in the back with 5day delivery.
What a fascinating video! It shows how ignorant (not stupid) elected officials are about the facts. The stupid part is his apparent disdain for public workers as if we are disposable. Because of this recurring theme amongst Republicans, I removed myself from the Republican Party two weeks ago.