Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Where I live there's no mail delivery. All USPS mail has to be picked up at the post office. And at the post office the address is, well, a P.O. Box with its number.

If one sends a piece of mail to the house address, the zip code must contain the post office box number at the end of the regular five digit number. And it is usually no problem to do this! Except, of course, with some government bureaus.

In particular, the Department of Motor Vehicles in California refuses to accept the additional numbers for the zip code. No matter how often one calls them about this, no matter how often one sends them messages from their web site, they refuse to add the extra numbers, so when they send citizens their license plates or any other official government mail, these often get returned "undeliverable."

Now one would think there is no big problem with adding those extra numbers but for the 12 years I have lived where I do, I have tried and tried to get this accomplished with the DMV but to no avail. And when I explain this to the people at the post office, they say this is happening to everyone where I live and they cannot get things changed either. Multiply this by all those who live where mail needs to be fetched from post office boxes and you can fathom the situation.

Fortunately, when such mail is sent to homes in my canyon community, they often get rerouted to the post office anyway, as a matter of courtesy. But not always – especially when a new person or temp takes over handing of the mail. Then such materials, often pretty important, get sent back to the DMV. (This can include drivers licenses, fee notifications, tags and such, so it can be quite disruptive to people who experiences this bureaucratic snafu.)

I realize that this is hardly a major obstacle to the functioning of our republic. Nonetheless it is somewhat indicative of just the sort of malfeasance that governments often perpetrate. Since the management of more and more issues is being taken over by government – e.g., health insurance – one need not be a rocket scientist to imagine that these kinds of foibles will probably increase several fold in the future. And it all seems to be impervious to being remedied by even the most vigilant citizenship action. The DMV will not budge, the post office seems helpless and there seems to be nothing citizens can do to fix it.

Even apart from the general matter of the political flaw of government's taking over so much of our social life, trying to manage everything for us – the hallmark of welfare statism – why is such elementary stuff not being dealt with competently? It should give supporters of the greater and greater involvement of the public authorities in our lives some pause when simple things will not be handled with even the most elementary competence.

- Dr. Tibor Machan

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

This is better:

Obama Administration Under Mounting Pressure for Botched Gun Trafficking Investigation

Congress and the Department of Justice appear to be headed for a showdown this week over documents detailing Operation Fast and Furious, the botched gunrunning sting set up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that funneled more than 1,700 smuggled weapons from Arizona to Mexico.

The Justice Department has until Wednesday to deliver to congressional investigators a stack of records and emails naming the individuals responsible for the gun trafficking operation that may have killed dozens, if not hundreds of Mexicans, and is becoming a growing embarrassment for the Obama administration.

Under Project Gunrunner and the Phoenix off-shoot, dubbed Fast and Furious, the ATF encouraged gun store owners to sell to straw buyers -- consumers who they suspected of working on behalf of Mexican drug cartels.

Project Gunrunner purposely allowed the straw buyers to illegally buy and export guns only to see where they surfaced in Mexico. Using this investigative technique, the ATF hoped to take down the entire gun trafficking organization. Instead, records show it allowed more than 1,700 guns, including hundreds of AK-47s and high-powered, armor-piercing .50-caliber rifles to be trafficked to Mexico

Buying guns for non-personal use is illegal. Yet gun store owners were assured by ATF agents the buyers were under investigation and the guns were being intercepted before crossing into Mexico.

Instead, whistleblowers say the guns were allowed "to walk."

President Obama, speaking for the first time about the growing scandal, conceded last week Fast and Furious may have been "a serious mistake," but he claimed, "I did not authorize it; Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it. He's been very clear that our policy is to catch gunrunners and put them into jail."

But an investigation by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, could show otherwise.

The ATF operates under Justice Department, and two assistant U.S. attorneys in Phoenix authorized virtually every wiretap, affidavit and investigation conducted in Operation Fast and Furious.

Some, like Issa, wonder how Holder could not have known about an investigation that size.

"One of the questions we always ask is who is lying," Issa told Fox News. "We lose our credibility if we don't come clean and make the changes necessary to save lives on both sides of the border."

If the Justice Department and ATF refuse to deliver the records Issa requested, as it already has done with similar requests by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Issa can subpoena the records.

"We will subpoena if we have to, we'll hold hearings if we have to, we'll call in officials if we have to. But at the end of the day, the two Americans likely to have died as a result of this action pale in comparison to the countless numbers of Mexicans who have been killed," said Issa.

He is referring to Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata. The guns used to kill both men have been linked to Project Gunrunner.

Humberto Trevino, a senior Mexican lawmaker, says at least 150 people have been shot with ATF-monitored guns.

Two of the gun stores involved were Carter's Country in Houston and J&G Gun Sales in Prescott, Ariz.

"Let me tell you something about Carter's Country. They have been co-operating with ATF from the get-go," says Carter's County attorney Dick Deguerin.

"They were told to go through with what they considered to be questionable sales. They were told to go through with sales of three or more assault rifles at the same time or five or more 9-mm guns at the same time or a young Hispanic male paying in cash. It's all profiling, but they went through with it."

Both gun stores felt burned by the ATF -- first by leaked records to The Washington Post that showed the two stores responsible for dozens of guns found at Mexican crime scenes, and now by Operation Fast and Furious.

"You assumed they had your back," added J&G President Brad Desaye. "Absolutely, we felt like partners with ATF in a lot of ways."

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in a Feb. 4 letter the operation's purpose was "to dismantle the entire trafficking organization, not merely to arrest straw purchasers."

"The allegation -- that ATF 'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico -- is false," he wrote.

Holder also says his department policy is not to "let guns walk."

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

It would probably cost 1M to fiz that zip code problem. Probably need to overhaul some old comuter system.

fmowry

iTrader: (8)

The original post is retarded. You would think a guy with a PHD would understand

The standard for addressing to a PO box is:

Name
PO Box
City, State, Zip

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

reading comphrension fail.


The DMV has to mail registrations to the address you've registered the car. You cannot register a car to a PO box.

Therefore you must register the car to the address in this format:
Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip

Since this area has no door-to-door delivery, they assign everyone a "PO Box" number and have them recieve mail with the following format:
Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip-POBOX


The DMV will only send registrations to the follow format:
Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip

not:
Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip-POBOX


do you see the problem? That the DMV can ONLY send mail to:
Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip

not:
Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip-POBOX

which is required in order for the citizen to recieve his registration and plates?

y8s

iTrader: (8)

axe the govmint and just getchown dam mail.

sjmarcy

Rest easy, Obama is monitoring the situation...