U_Stormcrow
Crossing the Road
I don't. And I haven't.
USPS has been having protracted problems for decades. The GAO (arguably non-partisan), during the tenure of a different administration, designated USPS a "high risk" back in 2009, and has never removed that status. Current events have only magnified the extent of them, and various media sources are reporting on various politicians trying to "make hay" with them for purposes which may, or may not, relate to the USPS directly.
USPS relies on commercial airlines to transfer most of the mail from place to place, including live chicks. Legislation was passed sometime back forcing air carriers to accept live cargo, but commercial airlines (and commercial / passenger rail) have been carrying US Post since roughly the 30s (I believe that the rail no longer carries post, however).
For the past year, commercial air travel has been *severely* curtailed by the pandemic, and air carriers commitment to the USPS are defined by contract volumes. So USPS was pinched by fewer flights and more bulky mail as a consequence of the pandemic. Commercial trucking availability was also reduced, and in some cases, commercial airlines simply lied about delivery speeds. Not just American, United too. USPS contracts with larger commercial carriers and shippers (Amazon, FedEx, etc) to handle "last mile deliveries", which have been the subject of considerable debate for many years related to their rates (and whether same are economically viable or backdoor subsidies to megacorps) - last addressed in 2006 legislation - have also seen a jump in volume, again due to the pandemic.
On the other hand, the USPS budget is set by Congress' willingness to allow the USPS to borrow in excess of revenues. They aren't authorized unlimited overtime, and Congress only recently got around to pouring more money into that hole. NPR WSJ Politico etc. First class mail, a major past revenue source, continues its decline. Paid advertising bulk mail dropped almost 60% during the pandemic, another significant USPS revenue source with little cost. Basically, the small, routine, easy to deliver has become less and less of USPS volume, while the bulky, non-standard, atypical, and more expensive to deliver volume has increased - and USPS had no flexibility to adapt during the pandemic, particularly as their own vendors that help with moving mail from place to place (commercial airlines, fedex, etc) were reducing their own service, and were legally protected in doing so by force majeure clauses.
Then add a once in a life time cold front covering the majority of the nation not for hours or days, but nearly a week? Too many stresses on that system. Suspending live animal delivery while transporting critical goods (when they could) to areas without power and/or water was higher priority. USPS had just (sort of) made progress digging out from the huge backlogs in December, as people mailed holiday gifts, rather than delivering them themselves.
Our USPS isn't alone in many of those pandemic issues, see for instance, the IMEX Global page with alerts regarding postal delays across the pond.
So yes, my view of USPS is a little more nuanced than "DeJoy bad", and I'm willing to talk policy, history, and trends. Unlike others.
Currently, there are no nationwide embargoes on the shipment of live animals by USPS, anecdotally based on comments here, they appear to be arriving mostly timely. Nor do there appear to be any specific policies recently enacted by DeJoy or the rest of the PRC deliberately impacting live animal shipments, for good or ill.
I propose you look higher, if you would see the top of the organization, than the figurehead so conveniently serving as strawman.
