Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Ask any fool she ever knew

Ask any fool she ever knew

by | 99 Comments

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It turns out that a person who is often deeply concerned about Trump spearheaded the move to fuck up the post office:

Postal workers say the agency would not be in a financial hole if not for the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), a bill co-sponsored by Collins back in 2005. The bill required the agency to pre-fund retirement health benefits 75 years in advance, something not required of any other federal entity.

Let’s raise some money for her opponent. Sara Gideon.

Goal Thermometer

Reader Interactions

99Comments

  3. 3.

    Shell4747

    …and to pre fund 100% in 10 yrs, 2006 to 2016, putting USPS in a hole wrt investment in equipment & process updates that made it vulnerable to attack by the fake efficiency fetishists. That a pandemic would come aong with the chance to finish it off is lagniappe. Collins has been every bit the fully doctrinaire ideologist that Newt Gingrich ever was. Her voice just shakes while she lies about it to her constituents

  5. 5.

    joel hanes

    To be scrupfair, Henry Waxman and Danny Davis, both liberal Democrats, co-sponsored the bill in the House.

    I’m told it was a “sausage” bill, hastily assembled, barely read, and passed under time pressure.

    It would be most interesting to find out who/how the destructive pension/health benefits pre-funding article of the bill came to be there.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    I read that last week and it sent me into a rage.  Please please please let her be voted out.  Repudiated in a landslide would be best.

  7. 7.

    Kropacetic

    @Shell4747: Her voice just shakes while she lies about it to her constituents

    I’m so sorry we HAVE to do this, but it’s for your own good.

  8. 8.

    Kropacetic

    @joel hanes: I’m told it was a “sausage” bill, hastily assembled, barely read, and passed under time pressure.

    Can we please fund proper staffing for Congressional offices and not wait til the last minute to pass critical legislation?

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    @joel hanes:

    What I want to know is how nothing has been done about it since it was passed.  It’s been clear from very early on that the pension pre-funding requirement was nonsensical and was driving the Post Office into a ditch.  How is it that nothing has been done to eliminate it?

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    @Kropacetic: Thank Newt Gingrich for that ‘innovation’. That’s my go-to example to counter anyone who tries to claim that Trump is unique among Republicans in his disdain for expertise.

  13. 13.

    Ken

    @Kropacetic: I’d prefer introducing a proper revision control and document tracking system to Congress. So often it seems a bill passes, and no one quite knows how sections 115-118 got into the text.

  14. 14.

    Kropacetic

    @Ken: So often it seems a bill passes, and no one quite knows how sections 115-118 got into the text.

    Hold on, I had 119 right here, I hope I didn’t use the napkin it was on.

  15. 15.

    lashonharangue

    @dmsilev: That was when the Office of Technology Assessment was killed. Might have been useful to have around to explain to tech iliterate congress persons how the internet was creating winner take all companies.

  16. 16.

    PsiFighter37

    @Roger Moore: With all the Republican appointees – none of the Democratic ones. Mnuchin is an evil, venal bastard, which is why he hasn’t been fired yet.

  18. 18.

    joel hanes

    @Roger Moore:

    How is it that nothing has been done to eliminate it?

    Republicans exist and have had considerable power to block legislation during many of the intevening years.

  19. 19.

    cmorenc

    Has Collins furrowed her brow yet about Trump / Joy’s roles in this unfortunate development?  Of course, whocouldaknowed back in 2005 that the bill she co-sponsored would wreck rather than stabilize the long-term finances of the Post Office, since before she gave her approval to the bill she got the most sincere assurances from Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich that she would be joining a rescue effort, not a wrecking crew, if she co-sponsored and voted for the bill?

    We should expect a sternly worded letter out of Dear Susan any day now.

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @Jay: That gets an injunction Monday morning. Although by the time the Supreme Court would get around to it (if they touch it) it will be after November at least.

  27. 27.

    Mai naem mobile

    @PsiFighter37: when Mnuchin gets done in DC he’ll probably still be welcomed back in Hollywood. Evil asshole that he is it would be nice if he was shunned. It would be nice if all these fuckers were shunned by money always talks.

  29. 29.

    Jay

    Today, in over 200 cities across the country, people will be attending “Save Our Children” marches. According to the Facebook event pages for many of these marches, they are simply meant “to spread awareness of trafficking and other crimes against children.”

    That is not what they are.

    “Save Our Children,” as regular readers will know, is simply the latest rebrand of the Qanon bullshit. At first it was “Save The Children,” but now it’s “Save Our Children” because these people realized that not only was “Save The Children” an actual, real-life organization, but that it was funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and they think Bill Gates is trying to mark of the beast everyone with 5G technology and vaccines.

    It’s an attempt to gain some respectability by people who are absolutely wacky but wish to pretend they are just normal people who really care about child sex trafficking and exploitation. Thus, these invites contain no mention of QAnon, no mention of Satanists, no mention of what they actually believe — and then, likely, attempt to “redpill” whoever shows up

    https://www.wonkette.com/dont-go-attending-any-save-our-children-marches-they-are-not-what-youd-think

  30. 30.

    Don K

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    And Reps want the USPS in a ditch so it can be given away to their buddies who will charge ten bucks to get a birthday card to Aunt Martha in Aroostook County.

    Repealing this senseless law needs to be high on the agenda for next year. And yeah, I don’t care how bi-partisan it was originally.

  31. 31.

    Tom Levenson

    Done. I think my wife has set up a monthly for Gideon, but I chucked in a couple of bucks anyway.

  32. 32.

    Jay

    @Don K:

    it was intended as a “incentive” for the privatization of the USPS.

    a great big bag of cash in the form of pensions, benefits and liabilities funds that once privatized, could be looted.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thanks to you and Yutsano for making me laugh. I’ve spent far too much time being outraged by the photos of the new WH Rose Garden, about the trees and roses they yanked out and the poor choices that replaced them.

  34. 34.

    joel hanes

    @Don K:

    [Republicans] want the USPS in a ditch so it can be given away to their buddies who will

    plunder the absolutely enormous retiree pension/healthcare fund after laying off all the employees.

    As Bain did at Ampad.

    Socialize the costs; privatize the profits; screw the workers.

    ETA:  Jay is faster on the draw than I.

  36. 36.

    Kent

    @joel hanes: No, this isn’t a time to be scrupfair.   Tie this around Collins’ neck and run 24/7 ads in Maine pointing out that she’s the architect of much of what is wrong at USPS and why aunt May in rural Maine can’t get her meds and Readers Digest.

    Let Collins try to explain that Waxman is also at fault.  Wax-who?  When you are explaining you are loosing.

    And then demand that Dems do better.

  39. 39.

    Haroldo

    We’re monthly donors to Sara Gideon, but threw some extra just now out of my bottomless contempt for Collins.  (And once we were Mainers.)

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jay:

    My greatest fear is that at some point in the future a critical mass is reached with these wacko freaks; that there would be more of them than there are of us. And then society as we know it would radically change

  41. 41.

    pamelabrown53

    @Kent:

    I agree. Does anyone know if Sara Gideon is using any of the $$$ to inform Mainers of Susan Collins’s role in the killing of the USPS?

  43. 43.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Jay: it was a twofer. Loot the pensions and privatize the post office and rip off Americans by increasing postal costs. Now ofcourse its a threefer because they get to control government because of mail in voting.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kent:

    Agreed. And anyhow, Waxman is retired, and Danny Davis regularly wins with around 85-90% of the total vote.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @Kent: Also too, I thought I read recently that W’s people put in the pre-fund the pensions stuff during conference during the lame duck session? True? Dunno.

    https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40983.pdf (16 page .pdf)

    Additionally, the USPS, its board of governors, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), mailers’ organizations, postal labor unions, and most recently a presidential commission said that the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 no longer provided a viable business model.4 The ratesetting process was criticized for preventing the USPS from responding quickly to an
    increasingly competitive marketplace. Critics also argued that long-standing political and statutory restrictions impeded efforts to modernize the mail processing network and close unneeded facilities.

    Finally, passage of the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003
    (PCSRSFRA; P.L. 108-18; 117 Stat. 624) helped sow the seeds for reform. The PCSRSFRA was enacted after it was discovered that the USPS was over-funding its retirees’ pensions.5 The act reduced the USPS’s pension outlays. However, it shifted the costs of postal employees’ military service-related pension costs from the U.S. Treasury to the USPS—a $27 billion obligation.6 The PCSRSFRA also required much of the reduction from the previous pension outlay levels to be put toward lowering the USPS’s debt and funding an escrow account. The law did not, however, dedicate the escrow fund to any particular use (e.g., postal worker benefits), meaning that the USPS had to make a large annual payment that neither provided operational benefits nor generated revenues.7

    The USPS legislation is a mess and has been for a while. Maybe the 2006 “reforms” were intended to fix things, but from reading that report they really made a mess of it and still haven’t provided a decent path forward for this essential service.

    Yet another thing to be fixed starting January…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    TECH NEWS
    QAnon groups have millions of members on Facebook, documents show
    The preliminary results of an investigation by Facebook shed new light on the scope of activity and content from the QAnon community on the platform.

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1236317

    I don’t know how this ends, but Neizehi who has been “on” QAnon for years, notes that the vast majority are people who have driven away family, supports, to follow and join a cult. She sadly thinks it will end like Aum Shinkiro. Minor terrorism by the “leaders” and mass suicide by much of the cult.

  47. 47.

    JPL

    Collins was also on the intelligence committee that decided Russia interfered with our election, and trump’s campaign gave material to help them out.   When it came time for impeachment, how did Susan Vote?   yup Russia before country.

  50. 50.

    Calouste

    @Danielx: That reminds me of years ago when I worked for a small software company. The owner was rich, (tens of millions, he had sold his previous company and started a new one) and one of my colleagues, who knew him a bit, said that all the boss’s friends were these washed-up sports celebrities.

  54. 54.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Just saw heartbreaking photos from the Big Basin State Park near Santa Cruz, home to redwoods ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 years old.

    Park headquarters burned down to the ground. Some of the trees will probably survive, but others burned all the way up to the crown, which is fatal for them.

  57. 57.

    joel hanes

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    The fire is walking into the lesser known Butano State Park, another stand of magnificent old coast redwoods.

    On the other side of the Bay, the peak of Mt. Hamilton has burned, and I’m afraid that the venerable observatory may have burnt; have heard no news.

    The fires are still mostly not contained and are actively spreading.   Another dry lightning storm is forecast for late tomorrow night.

  59. 59.

    brantl

    I wish Susan Collins would finally revert to the human raisin that she’s destined to be. Her fretful con is wearing very thin.

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    @joel hanes:

    The current red flag warning.

    …RED FlAG WARNING FOR DRY THUNDERSTORMS BEGINNING SUNDAY MORNING
    AND CONTINUING THROUGH AT LEAST MONDAY EVENING…

    .Remnant moisture from decaying hurricane Geneviev will spread
    northward over northern California late tonight and Sunday. This
    will lead to the increasing potential for isolated to scattered
    dry thunderstorms over much of Northern California. Lightning
    from dry thunderstorms will have the potential to start new
    fires. The dry layer beneath the storms may lead to gusty
    winds.

    Putting out a big pointing hand sign telling Hurricane Geneviev “Florida is thataway.”

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Danielx:

    First rule of being rich: if you have to choose between friends and money, always take the money. You can use it to buy new friends.

    And the corollary: Money can’t buy love, but it can buy you a fancy car to drive around in while you look for it.

  65. 65.

    Ken

    @trollhattan: Laura and Marco are already taking up most of the available room in the Gulf. Current forecast has them both making landfall at the Mississippi delta, Marco on Monday afternoon and Laura Wednesday afternoon, both at hurricane strength.

  66. 66.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Ken:

    Bad timing to raid FEMA for unemployment funds, eh Trump?  How is that even legal btw? I thought it was unconstitutional

  67. 67.

    zhena gogolia

    @Yutsano:

    That’s a great column! I’m glad to have been vindicated (in the comments) by thinking that the Democrats Abroad video was shot in Prague.

  69. 69.

    Ken

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): As far as I know the FEMA money hasn’t been moved because none of the states took him up on the offer – they’ve got no matching funds, and some of them may also have been wondering “how is that even legal?”

    But I’m expecting we’ll find he zeroed out and/or illegally diverted the maintenance funding for the Old River Control Structure for the last three years. Ah well, it was only a matter of time before the Mississippi changed course.

  70. 70.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @SiubhanDuinne: From the great philosopher, Randy Newman:

    They say that’s money
    Can’t buy love in this world
    But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine
    And a sixteen-year-old girl
    And a great big long limousine
    On a hot September night
    Now that may not be love but it is all right

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    This race is by no means a sure thing.  CD2 is going to be a nail biter for both Gideon and Biden.

  73. 73.

    zhena gogolia

    OT but I recently discovered this tweeter Nitrate Diva, and she and I are really on the same page:

    Actors I'd love to see get #SummerUnderTheStars days in the future (in no particular order):Theresa HarrisKeye LukeElla RainesJean BrooksDona DrakeJuano HernandezEllen DrewNancy CarrollIsabel JewellJohn WilliamsLawrence TierneyCharles McGrawAnna LeeVirginia Gray— The Nitrate Diva (@NitrateDiva) August 21, 2020

  76. 76.

    NotMax

    OT.

    Just came across the newswires that fire is approaching Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara, CA.

  77. 77.

    John Revolta

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Ya beat me to it!

    Used to worry about the poor
    But I don’t worry anymore
    Used to worry about the black man
    Now, I don’t worry about the black man
    Used to worry
    ‘Bout the starving children of India
    You know what I say now about the starving children of India
    I say, oooohhh, mama!

  78. 78.

    Origuy

    This would be a long shot, but any interest in supporting the Democratic candidate for Wyoming’s at-large House seat?

    All four Native women running for office in Wyoming have won their primary elections, including Democrat Lynnette Grey Bull, who is believed to be the first Native person in the state to run for Congress.

    Grey Bull, Northern Arapaho and Hunkpapa Lakota, is seeking a U.S. House seat. She easily defeated two opponents Tuesday but faces a difficult race in November, when she is set to go up against Republican incumbent Liz Cheney.

  80. 80.

    Ohio Mom

    A quick google tells me Maine has two Congressional districts: CD1 is geographically small and hugs the coast where the more urban areas are; CD2 is everything else — the rural backwoods, full no doubt of real muricans, the simple clay, etc. The Susan Collins fan club.

  82. 82.

    Origuy

    The fire crews in the Mt Hamilton area are using Lick Observatory as a staging area. I follow @lickobservatory on Instagram. It seems to be updated the most. As of this morning, it looked in good shape. The fire has been moving east, toward Interstate 5. That area is very remote.

    Big Basin was devastated. The park HQ and visitor center were built by the CCC during the Great Depression. Although most of the great redwoods will survive, many won’t. And they won’t allow visitors in until it can be made save from trees and branches falling on people.

  83. 83.

    Aleta

     

     

    @Sister Golden Bear: Yes heartbreaking.  I loved the individual trees in Big Bend, and spent summer afternoons after work biking up there and down.  As  a kid I was always hoping for a different home, and I remember once making a plan that in the future I could just move into a particular Big Bend tree.  I looked for it last night in the photos.

    Last night I read Point Reyes land is now threatened.

  84. 84.

    Aleta

    Below is from the Post.  (The same info and more, with more climate science, is explained at Daniel Swain’s blog  here.  )

      The immediate trigger of most of the more than two dozen large fires burning in the Bay Area was an unusual August thunderstorm outbreak, which lit up the night skies above San Francisco on Sunday and Monday and moved inland, where lightning discharges struck trees and grasses at a time of year when vegetation is at its driest.

    Between midnight Saturday and midnight Wednesday, there were 20,203 cloud-to-ground strikes in California, according to Chris Vagasky of the company Vaisala, which operates the National Lightning Detection Network. The total number of lightning discharges, which includes lightning that jumped from cloud to cloud without hitting the ground, was equivalent to 11 percent of California’s average annual lightning activity, he said in a message on Twitter.

    The storms were the result of moisture moving north from former Tropical Storm Fausto near the Baja Peninsula and the sizzling heat across the state.

    The long-lasting and intense heat wave has played a key role in these blazes. Multiple monthly heat records have been set in the past 10 days, including in Death Valley, Calif., where one of the hottest temperatures on Earth, a high of 130 degrees Sunday, was recorded.

    UCLA’s Swain wrote online that the abundant lightning strikes that were seen in Northern California were able to spark more than 350 fires. ″Unusually dry vegetation following an extremely dry winter and in the midst of a record heat wave acted as tinder — and many of these lightning strikes ignited wildfires,” he wrote in an analysis of the event.

    “But the number of fires is actually not the most problematic aspect of this event — it’s the astonishing speed with which these fires grew and their relative proximity to many heavily populated areas,” Swain wrote.
    —

    One measure of fire risk is known as the evaporative demand drought index, or EDDI. It measures the “thirst” of the atmosphere and can help predict fire risk. In part because of the heat’s ability to speed up evaporation, the EDDI in Central and Northern California preceding these fires soared to record levels, indicating a high fire risk.

    Other fire weather indicators also spiked to unusually high levels for this time of year at the time these blazes ignited.

    …

    Daniel Swain @Weather_West

    “Vapor pressure deficit” (gap between how much moisture *could* be in the air vs. how much is *actually* there) is key determinant of wildfire risk, and is increasing in a warming climate. This week, VPD in California reached highest Aug. levels in at least 40 yrs

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Some of the trees will probably survive, but others burned all the way up to the crown, which is fatal for them.

    Oh, no! This is terrible news! Something about that image is just tragic and terrifying.

  86. 86.

    opiejeanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They chose poorly with the replacement roses, Peace and JFK, and they probably put in #2 grade rose bushes because they are a lot cheaper. In the photos, they look scraggly and small, and a #1 grade hybrid tea would be a bigger plant and make more of a statement, but especially if they hadn’t chosen bland colors, a pastel blend rose and a greenish white rose. I’ve never seen JFK flourish in a public garden, and rarely in a private one belonging to a rose expert. It’s just not a great rose, which is a shame.

  87. 87.

    opiejeanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No, a lot of car collectors in SoCal regularly rent them to the studios. You’d be surprised at what people collect. We had a friend who had 9 Edsels at one time that he was restoring.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @Aleta: Another way to think about how moist (or dry) the air is is the dew point temperature.  75F or above is brutally hot and humid.  (If the dew point is too high, it’s actually dangerous because our bodies can’t get rid of excess heat via sweat if the dew point is too high.)

    A simple way to think of what the dew point means is – it’s the temperature at which fog forms.

    It was 75F for a few days in the DC area recently.

    https://www.weatherwx.com/forecast.php?config=&forecast=pass&pass=currentwx&usecountry=us&region=&useplace=&usestate=ca&plot=dewpt&period=&usemetric=0&dpp=0 is a map of dew points in CA and the west.  44F at Ft. Irwin, CA.  14F in Winnemucca, NV??!?!

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“For comparison, the dew point is now 61F at El Aaiún, Western Sahara.”)

  89. 89.

    Ken

    @opiejeanne: Do the studios also create replica cars?  I’m thinking particularly of the recent series City of Angels, which had a scene where a beautiful 1930s car was shot up with a machine gun. I can’t see any collector allowing that.

  90. 90.

    Just Chuck

    @Jay:

    mass suicide by much of the cult.

    We should get John DeLancey on the horn and see if he can encourage them on that

  91. 91.

    Just Chuck

    @Ken:

    A company I’m doing work for does a lot of restorations, including making entirely new body panels.  Seems likely Hollywood would hire such an outfit to make a plausible-looking classic.  Only needs to be a chassis at that, since they rip out the engines, transmissions, and seats of cars they’re blowing up.  Not sure about bullet pyrotechnics though.  Though if it’s a new series, I wouldn’t rule out CG either.

  95. 95.

    Another Scott

    @Eunicecycle: +eleventy billion.  :-)

    https://www.weather.gov/arx/why_dewpoint_vs_humidity

    The higher the dew point rises, the greater the amount of moisture in the air. This directly affects how “comfortable” it will feel outside. Many times, relative humidity can be misleading. For example, a temperature of 30 and a dew point of 30 will give you a relative humidity of 100%, but a temperature of 80 and a dew point of 60 produces a relative humidity of 50%. It would feel much more “humid” on the 80 degree day with 50% relative humidity than on the 30 degree day with a 100% relative humidity. This is because of the higher dew point.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  96. 96.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @zhena gogolia: I suspected the locale for the DA vid in half a second from the chisel-top tower at the far end – just had to make sure there were statues on the bridge. After you’ve seen Karluv most a couple of times it’s hard to forget.

  97. 97.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Origuy: Probably not.

    On DougJ’s fundraising blegs I’ve suggested supporting Kathleen Williams, the Democrat running for the MT House seat, who is far more likely to flip that seat (& therefore the delegation) from red to blue than anyone in Wyoming – to resounding silence. You’d think reducing the GOP edge in House delegations might be worth doing, just in case Orangecandyass manages to block enough state results in the courts with enough EVs to throw the election into the House. Resounding silence.

  98. 98.

    Jay

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    sorry about that. I’d donate, but you know, I’m Canadian as you often mention.

    maybe, bring it up every time you post, so even if it bypasses Doug, Jackals respond.

     

    maybe add a donate link?

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