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You are here: Home / Post Office Woes

Post Office Woes

by John Cole|  February 6, 20134:37 pm| 119 Comments

This post is in: Our Failed Political Establishment

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I really do think Congress is up for a rude awakening when the post office eventually dies, because most of them have been in the beltway so long or are so stinking rich that they have no idea how much the rest of the country relies on the post office. It’s as big a blind spot for the privileged Congress as anything else out there. They just don’t get how big of a deal this will be for most of God’s country.

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Reader Interactions

119Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    February 6, 2013 at 4:38 pm

    Here’s where the rural folks who vote GOP are really going to feel it.

    Aren’t Amazon and other retailers lobbying about this? Why aren’t they getting involved?

  2. 2.

    SteveM

    February 6, 2013 at 4:41 pm

    They’ll just persuade angry white men that black people still have awesome secret post offices, and the stamps are free if you have a welfare card.

  3. 3.

    Comrade Dread

    February 6, 2013 at 4:41 pm

    I just don’t think they give a flying f***.

    They probably figure Wal-Mart or someone will step in and pay letter carriers minimum wage with no benefits and it will all work because the Invisible Hand shall lead us to a new Promised Land where old men shall work until they die and children can take their place.

  4. 4.

    jheartney

    February 6, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    This loss of Saturday delivery will be a big stink, but the real problem is that dysfunctional Congress has been doing irrational micromanagement. They may come up with a mandate to force Saturday delivery to continue, albeit without any money to make it happen.

    Of course by my back of the envelope calculations we could fund Saturday delivery with a 3 tenths of a percent decrease in the Defense budget, but apparently that’s unthinkable.

  5. 5.

    Redshift

    February 6, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Aren’t Amazon and other retailers lobbying about this? Why aren’t they getting involved?

    I’m guessing this is why packages are still going to be delivered on Saturdays. I forget exactly what percentage of UPS packages use “last mile” delivery by the Post Office, but it’s a lot.

  6. 6.

    Chris

    February 6, 2013 at 4:43 pm

    @SteveM:

    This.

    I hope you’re right, but the country I’ve grown up in, I seriously expect a fuckton of my countrymen to simply throw up their hands and say “see how wasteful and expensive this government has become! Blame the bums abusing the welfare state and the bureaucrats getting fat off my tax dollars while letting them abuse the welfare state!”

  7. 7.

    scav

    February 6, 2013 at 4:43 pm

    Infrastructure is a real blind spot. Even in a city I’ve been watching the USPS pick up the last leg of some of those Flashy free-market alternatives.

  8. 8.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 4:43 pm

    What’s great though is how our elected Democrats have fought tooth and nail for the last five years to make certain this did not happen.

    Oh. Wait…

  9. 9.

    Rosalita

    February 6, 2013 at 4:46 pm

    they don’t get how much of a big deal a lot of things are to regular people. fucking swine that they are.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    February 6, 2013 at 4:47 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Here’s where the rural folks who vote GOP are really going to feel it.

    I agree. The irony is that virtually no group benefits more for a socialist, liberal philosophy of government than rural areas of the country.

  11. 11.

    Cluttered Mind

    February 6, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    I saw the saddest post ever on facebook. Someone whom a friend of mine lets write on his wall for some reason was ranting about the post office cutbacks and his identified target for responsibility was “greedy unions”, and “everything government run is fail”. Yeah, that’s right. The greedy unions are killing the post office. This is why I do not believe that there will be any backlash even if this hurts the GOP base severely. People just don’t know what really happened here, and are all too eager to place blame where they always place blame when anything bad happens.

  12. 12.

    Violet

    February 6, 2013 at 4:50 pm

    @Redshift:

    I forget exactly what percentage of UPS packages use “last mile” delivery by the Post Office, but it’s a lot.

    The Post Office needs to quadruple what they charge for this service. Businesses are making money off the backs of the Post Office. They need to pay their own way. Free market, bitches.

  13. 13.

    Ben Franklin

    February 6, 2013 at 4:51 pm

    Just under 600,000 employees in 2010. That business failure would make a dent in the jobs recovery.

    They’ve done some good marketing with those flat-rate shipping boxes that could hold up to 20 lbs of unobtainables. It was great for my marine who relied on me to make ship’s fare palatable.

  14. 14.

    rda909

    February 6, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    The Post Office and Department of Defence are the only government agencies listed by name in the US Constitution. Trying to eliminate the Post Office, as Republicans have been doing for decades, is unconstitutional on its face, and treasonous.

    And of course, the “free market” delivery companies give no credit to the centuries of learning and infrastructure the Post Office has provided that industry. Republicans are a pathetic people.

  15. 15.

    BGinCHI

    February 6, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    It’s clear now why that motto “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…” didn’t include Republican congressmen.

  16. 16.

    Chyron HR

    February 6, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    @Ted & Hellen:

    It’s all the Democrat Party’s fault for letting it happen.

    Why does the logic of a spouse abuser come so easily to you, Tim? And does it have anything to do with the many times your “Obotomized Obot” husband has “fallen down the stairs”?

  17. 17.

    WJS

    February 6, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    UPS and FedEx, et al, will, of course, reduce their rates for rural deliveries because the private sector is always cheaper and more efficient than anything the gub-ment can do.

  18. 18.

    General Stuck

    February 6, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    Some nutter will introduce legislation to bring back The Pony Express under the rubric of freedom mail and savings from alfalfa fed mail trucks.

    And in other news, the GOP civil war is a go, so remember to duck when the heated bullshit flies.
    http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/02/roves-no-more-akins-group-outrages-conservatives/61761/

    Rove’s ‘No More Akins’ Group Outrages Conservatives

    Well, bully for Karl

    Free Republic posters mocked “Tokyo Rove.”

    A Freeperville awakening does not bode well for republican unity for next few elections. And neither does this.

    The Snakes in the GOP Grass

    We are looking for one party that is willing to fight for the restoration of our Republic, not jettison every tenet of our Constitution under the false allurement of electoral success. One by one, people like Karl Rove seek to crush another sacred belief of the conservative base. All social issues? Gone. Enforcement before

    Purity beyond electoral success. Sounds familiar. Bring on The Transvaginal Wand of Freedom

    We are headed where no man has gone before

  19. 19.

    El Cid

    February 6, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    @Violet: They are prevented by law from making a profit, aren’t they? Because being the gubmit, they’re unfairly competing with private bidness, so, free market and all, so they can only charge enough to get by.

    And pay their employees’ health benefits forward for the next 75 years just like all good companies do, right?

  20. 20.

    rda909

    February 6, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    @Cluttered Mind: Result of decades of Republican propaganda pounded into their heads 24/7, or what is often called “the mainstream media.” It’s all designed to divide and conquer the working the class and get them voting against their best interests, which means voting Republican.

  21. 21.

    David in NY

    February 6, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    Does this mean Saturday post office closings as well? Because when do they think folks will actually be able to go to the post office?

  22. 22.

    Baud

    February 6, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    @General Stuck:

    We are looking for one party that is willing to fight for the restoration of our Republic, not jettison every tenet of our Constitution under the false allurement of electoral success

    I am so happy the Democratic Party has found a way to start exporting the crazy. Sunny days ahead.

  23. 23.

    Redshift

    February 6, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    @Cluttered Mind: Out of all the local news stories I’ve seen about the Post Office woes over the past several, no more than one in ten even mentioned the pension prefunding issue, and that’s in the DC area. It sucks, but under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that nobody who’s not politically active knows about it. (They also don’t generally mention unions, unless it’s Fox.)

    “Everybody knows” the reason the Post Office is in trouble is because everybody is emailing instead of sending letters, even while brick-and-mortar retailers are going out of business because we’re buying massively more stuff online. Feh.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    February 6, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    It’s clear now why that motto “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…” didn’t include Republican congressmen.

    Because it was originally written in Greek centuries before the birth of Christ?

  25. 25.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    February 6, 2013 at 4:58 pm

    @Chyron HR:

    Ted & Hellen:

    Ted & Hellen Says:

    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, it is best to serve pie.

  26. 26.

    Violet

    February 6, 2013 at 4:59 pm

    @David in NY:

    Does this mean Saturday post office closings as well? Because when do they think folks will actually be able to go to the post office?

    Only a handful of post offices are even open on Saturdays.

  27. 27.

    melissa

    February 6, 2013 at 5:02 pm

    I bought some jewelry from the Art Institute of Chicago for something like $35 and they sent it to me FedEX. I was required to go to their Saskatoon office, then charged $25 for “border and important costs” (not duty; under the limit). I refused the packaged and emailed the AOI, They resent it USPS and it was delivered by the Canada Post with no problems.

  28. 28.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    February 6, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    @Cluttered Mind:

    This is sadly why I believe John to be deludedly optimistic about how much of a proper backlash this will create. All it takes is a little misdirection and suddenly the architects of the Post Office’s demise become the heroes that saves the mail system to the rubes.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 6, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    @Ted & Hellen:

    I don’t know about your elected Democrats, Timmeh the fucking stupid, but mine have been screaming about this.

    The stupid of Timmeh. Burns as much as the stupid of the Rethugs.

  30. 30.

    dlwchico

    February 6, 2013 at 5:04 pm

    We used to close on federal holidays at my old job, not because management was being nice, but because there was no mail delivered that day so no claims to process.

    Don’t know how they would deal with mail only getting delivered MWF.

  31. 31.

    BGinCHI

    February 6, 2013 at 5:06 pm

    @Roger Moore: Excuses, excuses.

  32. 32.

    SatanicPanic

    February 6, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    @Ted & Hellen: You really should just copy and paste this one every thread, I think it would be quicker for you:

    Shame on the witless Democrats for not anticipating that Republicans, given the chance, would resort to dirty tricks

  33. 33.

    Gindy51

    February 6, 2013 at 5:08 pm

    I was talking with my postmistress the other day and she was bitching about this big time. She didn’t even know about the 75 year healthcare funding crap and just assumed it was email and online bill payments. If the rank and file postal workers have no clue how can anyone expect the average Joe or Jane to know?

  34. 34.

    Violet

    February 6, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    OT–Cracked up at this:

    A Republican state senator in Idaho on Tuesday introduced legislation that would require every high school student in the Gem State to read Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. reported.

    Aren’t high school students the ones who read Atlas Shrugged anyway?

  35. 35.

    jo6pac

    February 6, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    This is easy put the fully funded retirement plan back the way it was, then charge junk mail the same fee we pay. I love the PO and yes I recieved a package yesterday that came across the nation ups then delievered by the postal person

  36. 36.

    IowaOldLady

    February 6, 2013 at 5:11 pm

    As it happens, I live in god’s country, and last week I was sitting in a coffee shop subjected to the loud talk of two guys going on about the Post Office. We should just close it, one of them says. Use UPS. It’s stupid. Why is it there? And the other one says, “There’s a whole lot of people working for it they have to keep busy.”

    Never underestimate the power of stupidity combined with racism and anti-government hostility.

  37. 37.

    Zifnab25

    February 6, 2013 at 5:12 pm

    @Ted & Hellen:

    What’s great though is how our elected Democrats have fought tooth and nail for the last five years to make certain this did not happen.

    There has been a lot of tooth-and-nail fighting in Congress. Nancy Pelosi’s House was throwing up progressive legislation like it was going out of style back in ’09-’10 – climate change, health care, immigration, you name it. Now she’s squeezing GOP votes out of a Republican controlled House. So I think its Sofa King We Todd Did to claim progressives are asleep at the switch.

    By contrast, the Senate has always been where good legislation goes to die under either party, thanks to the “60th Statewide Office Holder Gets a Veto” standing policy in a chamber that already heavily favors rural conservatives. If you’re pissed at anyone, get pissed at Weeping Boehner, Harry limp-dick Reid, and Senator Turtle in that order.

  38. 38.

    Violet

    February 6, 2013 at 5:13 pm

    @Gindy51: A liberal SuperPAC needs to do a series of ads explaining the situation.

  39. 39.

    Sharl

    February 6, 2013 at 5:16 pm

    @Violet: Wonkette front-pager and Idaho denizen Doktor Zoom has a great front book cover graphic to go with his post on this.

  40. 40.

    JaneE

    February 6, 2013 at 5:16 pm

    Priority mail delivers small packages faster and cheaper than UPS or FedEx, at least from where I am out in the boondocks. 2 1/2 days to deliver vs 4 or 5 days, and half the price. That is the real reason the Republicans want to eliminate the Post Office. It is an example of where private enterprise does not compare favorably to a government operation (even after the PO was “privatized”). I am sure that there are scenarios where the private carriers are better, but not for the what I need to ship. OTOH, I only mail thank you cards. Even birthdays are email now, except for one 91 year old aunt.

    Let the PO handle all kinds of communication like other countries do. There would still be plenty of high volume business for private firms, and the rest of the country would have a cheaper way to get small volume modern online/telcomm services.

    I would love for any of my local governments to grab some of the new WIFI spectrum and put up a couple of hotspots. If the range is really 2 miles, I could probably use it. Certainly it would cover everything within the city limits.
    Not likely to happen, I live in red country.

  41. 41.

    jo6pac

    February 6, 2013 at 5:17 pm

    Here’s the problem and there wasn’t one until repugs did this.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/06/u-s-mail-to-cut-saturday-delivery/

  42. 42.

    Violet

    February 6, 2013 at 5:17 pm

    Another OT–Too stupid for Fox News:

    Long time contributor Dick Morris will no longer be a talking head on Fox News Channel. “His contract is up and we will not be renewing it, ” a spokesperson for the news network confirmed today. A perpetual presence during last year’s Presidential election, Morris has not been seen on FNC since November 12.

    HA HA!

  43. 43.

    Baud

    February 6, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    @Violet:

    Fox and CNN have both let go of a lot of people recently. It seems so odd that it’s all happening at once.

  44. 44.

    David in NY

    February 6, 2013 at 5:20 pm

    @Violet: They are in NYC and upstate as well — everywhere I go. Maybe depends on how much business gets done at them. (But still, zip 12529 is not your hot commercial spot.)

  45. 45.

    Tonal Crow

    February 6, 2013 at 5:20 pm

    To the inevitable GOPer whine when the Post Office discontinues rural routes:

    Is there no FedEx? Is there no UPS? Are there no PRIVATE couriers?

  46. 46.

    Kirk

    February 6, 2013 at 5:20 pm

    When Sandy landed, FedEx and UPS suspended operations for about a week.

    USPS was delivering, or notifying non-delivery locations where they could go for pick up, the next day.

  47. 47.

    aimai

    February 6, 2013 at 5:21 pm

    @SteveM:

    Internets. Yours. Would be Delivered. If the Post Office hadn’t died.

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    February 6, 2013 at 5:24 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    Those heartlanders pay to ship anything by UPS lately; buy a stamp lately? Which was more affordable? I don’t think they want what they think they want.

  49. 49.

    Tonal Crow

    February 6, 2013 at 5:24 pm

    @Violet:

    OT–Cracked up at this:

    A Republican state senator in Idaho on Tuesday introduced legislation that would require every high school student in the Gem State to read Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. reported.

    Republicans become more Sovietsky every day. Now it’s forced indoctrination. Next it’ll be concentration camps for refuseniks.

  50. 50.

    Violet

    February 6, 2013 at 5:25 pm

    @David in NY: Interesting. I’m in a major metropolitan area and there are only a few post offices open on Saturdays, and those are only open until noon. Many people would have to travel quite a distance to get to one of those post offices.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 6, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY POST OFFICE!

  52. 52.

    Aji

    February 6, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    You do realize, right, that this is all by design, and feeds into Kay’s post about voter suppression. What’s been one of the recent targets in a lot of states? Absentee ballots, which, at least in some jurisdictions, you can request by mail. to say nothing of the rare-bird states where you can actually vote by mail (OR? Or is that online only?).

    But if you can’t mail in an absentee ballot request, but have to do it in person, that’s going to cut deeply into the number of people voting who, for whatever reason, can’t get to their county clerk’s office/polling station to do everything in person on Election Day.

  53. 53.

    trollhattan

    February 6, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    @Violet:

    Smiling little toad will probably head right to CNN. I’m not lucky enough to be rid of him.

  54. 54.

    cosima

    February 6, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    About a year ago I was listening to the radio and the DJ did a “hilarious” bit on the post office — talking about how much it would be missed (sarcastically) because nobody would be able to pay their bills (ha ha she pays hers online) or make bank deposits (ha ha she does all hers online) and send letters to friends (ha ha she emails & texts & facebooks). Made me so angry that I A) turned the radio channel and have never turned it back to that station, and B) on the station’s contact us page I sent them a message telling them it was a stupid bit, not funny at all, and that I’d never listen to them again.

    I use the he!! out of the post office — sometimes there a few times a week. All of my banking is done online or by driving down to the local branch, but I send my daughter in uni the flat rate parcels nearly every week, and sometimes more than once a week. Yesterday I sent some documents via registered mail.

    Yesterday my husband checked w/UPS about their fabulous thing where they will send your luggage ahead so that you won’t have to pay the extra baggage fee. Apparently their site makes it seem as though it’s a great deal. Granted we are going to the UK, but really, $550 each bag?

    When are the GOP’s old rural constituents going to ask what’s in place to replace their mail prescriptions, SS checks, etc?

    I love the post office. And I tell the nice people at our post office that often.

  55. 55.

    JasperL

    February 6, 2013 at 5:27 pm

    The problem with the Post Office is a lot of ordinary people without extraordinary skills are simply doing their jobs competently from day to day and delivering a needed service, often for an entire career, AND making a decent wage with good benefits.

    That’s obviously unacceptable, something has to be done about that, and that is destroy the P.O. or, alternatively, just the union that fights for those decent wages and good benefits.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    February 6, 2013 at 5:28 pm

    @Aji:

    And congressional franking privileges will be limited to free Hebrew Nationals.

  57. 57.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:29 pm

    @Chyron HR:

    Why does the logic of a spouse abuser come so easily to you, Tim? And does it have anything to do with the many times your “Obotomized Obot” husband has “fallen down the stairs”?

    Wow. What the fuck are you babbling about?

  58. 58.

    Ben Franklin

    February 6, 2013 at 5:30 pm

    Number of pieces handled by Fed Ex last year — 3 billion

    US Postal Service —168 Billion

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    February 6, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    @cosima:

    $550/bag?! You could just buy the same stuff there and give it to a [Brit term for hobo] on your way back home.

    Ridiculous.

  60. 60.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I don’t know about your elected Democrats, Timmeh the fucking stupid, but mine have been screaming about this.

    Links and quotes please.

    Has Obama had anything to say? Oh, in the last five years?

    Let the record show that as per usual, it is not I who began the name calling and cursing…

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    February 6, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    @Violet:

    Aren’t high school students the ones who read Atlas Shrugged anyway?

    And Randianism is all about having the government force people to do things supposedly for their own good.

  62. 62.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    You really should just copy and paste this one every thread, I think it would be quicker for you:

    No…I like mine better.

    But seriously, why do you think it is that the Dems get owned almost every time? And just keep taking it? Why do you think it is that the USPS is being systematically destroyed even after four years of obama?

    I mean, he has fought tooth and nail on this along with his amazing and relentless charge against climate change, but still it’s…oh wait.

    Never mind.

  63. 63.

    The Other Chuck

    February 6, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    @Violet: Considering the tone that Atlas Shrugged takes against religion … eh, he’ll probably just require those parts to be blacked out.

  64. 64.

    PNW_WarriorWoman

    February 6, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    I would disagree. I am sad we will lose Saturday service and the success Rethugs are having in trying to privitize the post office but I don’t think this will register on the radar of most Americans. They will adjust because they’re living their busy, stressful lives. Americans just don’t seem to be willing to fight for the Postal Service and I’m sad about that. My wonderment is what will be the next privitization move? We know the playbook: create a crisis, then press for action. Their next target is the whole service and the real estate that the government owns. By Right Winger estimates, the owned USPS property portfolio is worth about $105 billion. That’s a whole buncha property to monetize into REITS, bonds and other exotic Wall Street securities. What I wonder is what are Americans willing to do to expose and destroy this playbook?

  65. 65.

    Aji

    February 6, 2013 at 5:36 pm

    @trollhattan: [Snort] it does make you wonder whether they’ve even considered the impact on, you know, themselves or anything. Of course, they probably just assume that the Koch brothers will reimburse their monthly FedEx bills.

  66. 66.

    ranchandsyrup

    February 6, 2013 at 5:36 pm

    @Ted & Hellen:

    It puts the apples in the pie crust, or else it gets the hose again

    So awesome.

  67. 67.

    Baud

    February 6, 2013 at 5:37 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    I keep seeing those sayings. Is that what you get with the pie filter?

  68. 68.

    ranchandsyrup

    February 6, 2013 at 5:39 pm

    @Baud: Yup. I highly recommend.

  69. 69.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:40 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    It’s best that your tiny mind is sheltered. You’re not equipped to handle reality.

  70. 70.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 6, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    @Ted & Hellen:

    No links and quotes for you, dumbass.

    I’ve got infinitely more credibility than you do in the comments.

    I’ll Just leave it with “Peter DeFazio has been screaming about this for nearly a decade” and leave it at that.

  71. 71.

    Console

    February 6, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    Maybe… I dunno.

    The government seems built around protecting Americans from the idea that they are anything but self sufficient rugged individualists.

    Hell, during something like a government “shutdown” essential services are still provided. Which means people like air traffic controllers work for free and hope they get back pay when things are resolved.

    With this post office thing, all we’ll do is subsidize some private company to provide the same but shittier service. And people will complain about the private company instead of the government.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    February 6, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Seems like fun. But I just use the scroll bar as my pie filter. Besides, I like to keep up with the latest trends in trollery.

  73. 73.

    Yutsano

    February 6, 2013 at 5:42 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: Y’all are having way too much fun with this stuff.

  74. 74.

    bemused

    February 6, 2013 at 5:42 pm

    Give every senior citizen you know the phone numbers to their reps, particularly rural seniors. Hell hath no fury like pissed off seniors.They live for the mail and their checks to come. They know exactly what time their mail should land in their mail boxes and complain loudly if it is more than a half hour late.

  75. 75.

    TenguPhule

    February 6, 2013 at 5:43 pm

    I really do think Congress is up for a rude awakening when the post office eventually dies

    Only when the first Republican Congress Critter is beaten, castrated and then hung by the neck till dead in front of the House of Reps will they give a rip.

  76. 76.

    Schlemizel

    February 6, 2013 at 5:44 pm

    Doesn’t matter – the postal service has billions and billions sitting in pension funds, more than they will use in my grandchildrens life time (thanks to these crooks in DC) they will loot that money to pay for additional tax cuts for them & their wealthy friends and everyone will be happy as far as the media is concerned

  77. 77.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:44 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I’ve got infinitely more credibility than you do in the comments.

    hahahaha…yeah, guess I missed the questionnaire you passed around.

    I’ll Just leave it with “Peter DeFazio has been screaming about this for nearly a decade” and leave it at that.

    If you say so, given your awesome credibility. But then, again…after all his screaming…here we are, the USPS slowly being destroyed by the Repukes. Tell me again why we elect Dems?

    Also too: Where’s Obama been on this?

  78. 78.

    ranchandsyrup

    February 6, 2013 at 5:45 pm

    @Baud: I resisted for a long time. Now I wonder why I took so long. But I get your rationale.

    @Yutsano: Schadenfreude usually makes me feel conflicted. Not with Timbo and his almost eaten bag of salted dicks.

  79. 79.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    @Yutsano:

    Y’all are having way too much fun with this stuff.

    Yeah, ha ha ha…I totally agree. This is so much awesome fun! We are having lots of fun here. Ya’ll I mean…

  80. 80.

    Citizen Alan

    February 6, 2013 at 5:47 pm

    @Violet:

    Part of me is actually okay with making Atlas Shrugged required in the curriculum. For every impressionable youth who gets hooked on Objectivism, there will be ten who know exactly what it is but who loath the book so much that they will recoil in disgust from people who cite it approvingly.

  81. 81.

    scav

    February 6, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    @Violet: Better still, aren’t their ads to written about why are the repubs forcing young impressionable minds to read the writings of an someone who held that Abortion is a moral right? Even as a symbolic gesture.

  82. 82.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    @Baud:

    But I just use the scroll bar as my pie filter. Besides, I like to keep up with the latest trends in trollery.

    There is a core group of simpletons here who don’t have your inner strength.

    As far as the trollery goes, I’m still working off last week’s directives from Cole. He’s busy this week and hasn’t put out a new one.

  83. 83.

    dollared

    February 6, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    @Ted & Hellen: Obama: he’s been busy proposing cuts and layoffs at the USPS. His latest bid was “let’s cut 30,000 heads.”

  84. 84.

    bemused

    February 6, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    Young guys that do everything online?

  85. 85.

    IowaOldLady

    February 6, 2013 at 5:57 pm

    @bemused: Nope. Late middle age guys who think they know everything.

  86. 86.

    goldenbrowns

    February 6, 2013 at 6:03 pm

    I respectfully disagree. The average congesscritter sends TONS of mail to constituents all through the year. Congress also spends TONS of time naming local post offices and hearing from rural constituents about they don’t want their local post office to close. The problem is that the republican party has decided that bashing unions and starving the government are higher priorities.

  87. 87.

    Davis X. Machina

    February 6, 2013 at 6:11 pm

    There are 50-90 million voters in this country who will happily pay $6.95 to send Aunt Lois a birthday card via FedEx or UPS, if it means that fat colored mail-lady who dances in in the soul food joint with Aretha in the Blues Brothers movie loses her job. Or that Townshend guy in Hollywood Shuffle.

    The Confederacy never really had a postal system. Why would it suddenly need one now?

  88. 88.

    bemused

    February 6, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    No excuse whatsoever then. Idiots.

  89. 89.

    Bill Arnold

    February 6, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    …two guys going on about the Post Office. We should just close it, one of them says. Use UPS. It’s stupid. Why is it there?

    There’s always the U.S. Constitution argument:

    Article. I.
    Section. 8.
    The Congress shall have Power…
    To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

    This is alongside items like
    To provide and maintain a Navy;

    (No mention of the Air Force. :-) )

  90. 90.

    MazeDancer

    February 6, 2013 at 6:40 pm

    @JaneE:

    Priority mail delivers small packages faster and cheaper than UPS or FedEx, at least from where I am out in the boondocks. 2 1/2 days to deliver vs 4 or 5 days, and half the price.

    Priority Mail is also the backbone of indie artisan types – yarn dyers, herbalists, artists, jewelry makers, Etsy strivers. Plus quite a few small businesses – BJ stalwart Upton Tea for example – and most vitamin suppliers. Destroying the Post Office is going to destroy plenty of small businesses.

    A dirty little secret of the NE corridor is that Priority Mail usually delivered the next day all over the East. Including from the Berkshires, Hudson Valley and the Hamptons to NYC. Lotta people working by laptop would save a little dough if overnight wasn’t absolutely required. And since delivery confirmation on Priority became a 75 cent thing, it has been more appealing. Except, part of the PO cutbacks has been to no longer routinely deliver Priority and First Class mail around the East Coast the next day.

  91. 91.

    NR

    February 6, 2013 at 7:05 pm

    @Zifnab25:

    By contrast, the Senate has always been where good legislation goes to die under either party, thanks to the “60th Statewide Office Holder Gets a Veto” standing policy in a chamber that already heavily favors rural conservatives.

    A standing policy that the Democratic party fully endorses and supports.

    That’s a key point that should not get lost in any of these discussions.

  92. 92.

    magurakurin

    February 6, 2013 at 7:14 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I’ve got infinitely more credibility than you do in the comments.

    understatement of the Century, right there. Comparing your credibility with Dipshit’s is like dividing by zero. null set. error. does not compute. danger Will Robinson.

  93. 93.

    Wally Ballou

    February 6, 2013 at 7:17 pm

    @Ted & Hellen: Mailbagger!

  94. 94.

    kc

    February 6, 2013 at 7:39 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    Hell, I was IN LINE at my PO a couple of weeks ago, and some asshole behind me was bitching loudly about how everything run by the government sucks and he wasn’t going to give the government any more money than he had too, etc. Meanwhile, the counter clerks, who are wonderful people (I’m in there at least once a week) were working their asses off serving people and keeping the line moving as fast as it possibly could.

    I wanted to turn around and punch this joker right in the face.

  95. 95.

    Mike G

    February 6, 2013 at 7:42 pm

    @General Stuck:

    Free Republic posters mocked “Tokyo Rove.”

    That’s possibly the only funny thing said by a Repuke in years.

  96. 96.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    @magurakurin:

    I’ve got infinitely more credibility than you do in the comments.

    That is important to you as part of your self image, isn’t it?

    Tell us more about that…

  97. 97.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 6, 2013 at 7:58 pm

    @IowaOldLady: yeah, that’s a real smart view those dudes have. I don’t think some brash entrepreneur is going to come along, eyes sparkling, with a foolproof moneymaking proposition: a fleet of jeeps to drive greeting cards door to door to old people in rural Iowa, day after day after day after day, for less than 50 cents a pop.

  98. 98.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 6, 2013 at 8:02 pm

    @NR: Does a nefarious centrally administered entity called The Democrats support such a thing, at the risk of brutal retaliation, or do a few too many Democrat*s* do it individually? I know you’ve proved irresistibly committed to total obliviousness on the significant distinction between these in the past, let’s see, how many years is it now, ah yes, forever. But maybe one day it will break through anyway.

  99. 99.

    weaselone

    February 6, 2013 at 8:14 pm

    Honestly, hitting the Post Office with the onerous pension plan requirements was a brilliant move by the Republicans. Not only did it drive another nail into the Post Office’s coffin, but it fattened the calf for the day they slaughter it on the alter of privatization. All that extra cash piled in the pensions from the combination of public taxes, increased rates and cutting employees will rush at warp speed into the pockets of the hedge funds and leveraged buyout firms that buy the pieces of the Post Office’s dismembered corpse.

  100. 100.

    fuckwit

    February 6, 2013 at 8:15 pm

    Privatize all the things!!!

    How can these clowns not see that privatizing hurts rural (Republican) America way worse than it hurts urban (Democratic) America? Do they even care?

    Maybe next is reversing those liberal New Deal rural electrification and telephony projects, so that out in the boonies you get a shack, and all your information from the nearest (evangelical, of course) pastor.

  101. 101.

    Kathleen

    February 6, 2013 at 8:45 pm

    @weaselone: I agree that was the plan all along.

  102. 102.

    weaselone

    February 6, 2013 at 8:45 pm

    @fuckwit: Why would they care? It’s not as though the rural Republicans will stop being rural Republicans and start pulling the lever for Democrats. They’ll likely blame their plight on unions or inefficient government.

  103. 103.

    Ted & Hellen

    February 6, 2013 at 8:46 pm

    testing

  104. 104.

    Chris

    February 6, 2013 at 9:05 pm

    @Baud:

    I agree. The irony is that virtually no group benefits more for a socialist, liberal philosophy of government than rural areas of the country.

    This. But it makes sense that rural people would rally to this – they’re people who’ve been living in the shadow of “socialism” for so long they don’t even realize the extent to which it protects them. Roads? What roads? We’ve always had roads. Heck, Jeebus probably put them there before kicking Adam and Eve out of Eden, just so they’d have something to ride on.

  105. 105.

    Lee Hartmann

    February 6, 2013 at 9:15 pm

    @El Cid: exactly. The Repugs forced this on the USPS to try to kill it.

  106. 106.

    Chris

    February 6, 2013 at 9:15 pm

    @Console:

    The government seems built around protecting Americans from the idea that they are anything but self sufficient rugged individualists.

    I’ve long been fascinated by the hypocrisy built into certain political systems, where society sustains belief in the official ideology basically by violating its tenets.

    America using the New Deal state to make up for the flaws in the free market economy, thus allowing itself to believe “rugged individualism works,” is one example. The flip side would be communist economies tolerating a black market to move around goods and services that the “legitimate,” state-controlled economy is having trouble providing. In both cases, the idea is that your people will find it easier to believe in the official ideology if they don’t have to face the consequences of applying it all the way.

  107. 107.

    Chris

    February 6, 2013 at 9:23 pm

    @kc:

    I really fucking hate these people. Guys who scream like banshees the first time the power goes out for ten seconds, but devote no thought to the fact that it’s been on for all of their lives.

  108. 108.

    Chris

    February 6, 2013 at 9:27 pm

    @fuckwit:

    1) See above. The New Deal state’s been nannying them for so long they don’t even realize it’s there anymore.

    2) Even when things go wrong, they’ll simply blame wasteful government bureaucrats and greedy poor people sucking up all their money. The Nixon/Reagan system’s been on for nearly fifty years; it’s fucking Pavlovian at this point.

  109. 109.

    Kip the Wonder Rat

    February 6, 2013 at 9:54 pm

    @Ted & Hellen: Lack of self-awareness…Check.

  110. 110.

    Wally Ballou

    February 7, 2013 at 12:11 am

    @MazeDancer: Those sound more like DFH types than Real American entrepreneurs. So, you know, fuck ’em.

  111. 111.

    Joey Giraud

    February 7, 2013 at 1:49 am

    @Ted & Hellen:

    testing

    Yes, you are.

  112. 112.

    Another Halocene Human

    February 7, 2013 at 4:29 am

    @Gindy51: RTW state post offices are full of SCABS who have no fuckin clue what the union does for them there. They’re pissed because they had to take some concessions, but look at the big picture for longer than 2 seconds and think about somebody other than yourself. Ugh.

    I have met a number of USPS union activists (they have more than one union) in Florida. They work so damn hard. Civil service jobs are important and the union is important.

    Mail service is important too and anyone who says otherwise can go fuck themselves.

  113. 113.

    Another Halocene Human

    February 7, 2013 at 4:33 am

    @jo6pac: Junk mail will never cost the same as first class because it is cheaper to deliver.

    I mean, depends on what you’re calling junk mail because charities pay close to first class rates sometimes to send you those unsolicited appeal letters (plus, they paid for printing and the mailing list), whereas those coupon mailers usually are delivered the cheapest way there is.

  114. 114.

    Another Halocene Human

    February 7, 2013 at 4:35 am

    @Violet: There have been ads running on cable about the situation.

    I think they’re too fuddy-duddy to use social media effectively or play the media well. Too bad.

  115. 115.

    Another Halocene Human

    February 7, 2013 at 4:42 am

    @Davis X. Machina: Ha ha, the Confederates already figured that out–they outsourced a bunch of USPS work, was supposed to be temp work for snowbirds but morphed into a fulltime thing. These basically permanent contractors bid on it.

    I’m negatively inclined towards them for driving like maniacs in the middle of the night.

    Anyway, these Aryan Galtian Heroes have been complaining lately that there’s no profit in it anymore, I guess since diesel went up. Mwahahahaha!

  116. 116.

    Another Halocene Human

    February 7, 2013 at 4:45 am

    @fuckwit: Buleeve u me, rural telephone service has already been offered up as a burnt sacrifice on the altar of progressfits.

  117. 117.

    Ramalama

    February 7, 2013 at 7:51 am

    I had to deal with Fedex billing for a job a few years back and while I appreciated their pick-up service, I found them to be horrible when they lost things, and the whole billing aspect. It was if the Mitt Romney campaign for president were running the financials. Totally more work, much more needless frustration than USPS or DHL for that matter. Made no sense how they were still in business and DHL wasn’t (except for shipping stuff overseas). I got into some battles with a few irate conservatives online somewhere about how private company did not always = better service. Sigh, think I might have to carry on about that. Again.

  118. 118.

    bemused

    February 7, 2013 at 11:06 am

    @IowaOldLady:

    A lot of people kept “busy” earning money and spending it supporting the economy. So these dim bulbs think it’s much better for PO workers to get laid off, receive government “handouts” in unemployment, food stamps or other help than to support themselves with quasi-government jobs.

  119. 119.

    Lex

    February 7, 2013 at 1:35 pm

    Our liberal media — in this case, NPR — did a full 8-MINUTE segment on the postal service yesterday afternoon, including a live talk with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, without once using the word “pension.”

    Somewhat better background here.

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