Cliff ‘Cheers’ on post office amid recent elex battle
agency.
The abrupt reversal comes as more than 20 states, from New York to California, announced they would sue to block the extensive cuts to service, including eliminating overtime for workers and removing postal collection boxes nationwide.
Critics want to ensure voters are able to vote by mail to avoid casting their ballots at physical polling places amid the coronavirus pandemic.
DeJoy and the head of the Postal Service Board of Governors will be facing both chambers of Congress to answer for the drastic changes, including testifying before the Senate on Friday and the House on Monday.
Congress is not in session, but Pelosi is calling the House back to Washington over the crisis at the Postal Service, setting up a political showdown amid growing concerns the Trump White House is trying to undermine the agency ahead of the election.
The House is expected to vote Saturday on the “Delivering for America Act,” which would prohibit the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1.
The package would include the $25 billion approved as part of the COVID-19 rescue that is stalled in the Senate.
Trump made clear last week that he was blocking emergency aid to the Postal Service, acknowledging he wanted to curtail election mail operations, as well as a Democratic proposal to provide $3.6 billion in additional election money to the states to help process an expected surge of mail-in ballots.
Cheers to that!
Actor John Ratzenberger channeled the beloved postal worker character he played on the hit sitcom “Cheers” from 1982 to 1993 to record a message supporting the struggling United States Postal Service.
“The post office is in a little bit of a pickle right now, it’s certainly in the news, being bounced back and forth,” Ratzenberger said in a video running just over a minute long.
The USPS has become a political football in recent months as Democrats argue mail-in balloting is more important than ever during the pandemic and President Trump — who votes by mail — argues the mail service can’t be trusted to protect against voter fraud.
Ratzenberger suggested that Americans start Christmas shopping now on the USPS website, where there’s a gift shop and a postage store.
“Why not translate the dollar amount you’re going to pay for Aunt Tilly’s hat and buy her that amount of stamps?” he said. “How many times is Aunt Tilly going to be wearing that hat? Once? Twice? But how many times will she be using those stamps?”
Ratzenberger, whose “Cheers” character Cliff Clavin was a know-it-all of questionably valid information, wrapped up the video by congratulating himself for conveying a plan designed to save one of the nation’s most-trusted institutions.
“That’s right,” he said. “Always thinking.”
The 73-year-old Bridgeport, Conn., native recorded the announcement at the behest of musician Tim Kasher, who sponsored the message on the video service Cameo.
If Trump can be convinced to make saving the
Postal Service a priority, Ratzenberger might be the right messenger.
He was an early supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign and told Fox Business in 2017 that he thought the president was “doing a wonderful job,” in terms of infrastructure and manufacturing.
“I think there are going to be a lot of people apologizing to him at the end of his first four years,” Ratzenberger said.
Cliff appeared to be a bipartisan clown on “Cheers,” though he wasn’t short on opinions.
Websites including Screen Rant have run lists of his most memorable allegations.
“I wonder if you know that the harp is a predecessor of the modern-day guitar,” he once told bargoers on the popular NBC show. “Early minstrels were much larger people. In fact, they had hands the size of small dogs.”
Several quotes attributed to Clavin can be found on a Twitter fan page called Cliff Says. One of those addresses ethics at the United States Postal Service.
“There’s no rule against postal workers not dating women,” he said. “It just works out that way.”