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.
Kropacetic
This coming to light is excellent news for
John McCainSusan Collins.Barbara
Done. I loathe Collins.
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
Roger Moore
Has anyone around here mentioned Mnuchin’s role in the current Post Office problems? It sounds as if he’s been using the Treasury Department’s role in providing credit to the Post Office to enforce Trump’s demands. He also allegedly had personal meetings with all the board members before they appointed DeJoy.
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.
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.
Kropacetic
I’m so sorry we HAVE to do this, but it’s for
your own good.Kropacetic
Can we please fund proper staffing for Congressional offices and not wait til the last minute to pass critical legislation?
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?
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: We didn’t have full control of Congress long enough under a Dem president.
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.
John Revolta
“Postal workers say”? C’mon fucking Salon. There’s no controversy at all about this.
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.
Kropacetic
Hold on, I had 119 right here, I hope I didn’t use the napkin it was on.
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.
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.
Jay
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.
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.
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.
Benw
can’t spell collaborator without Collins!
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Stop not being reflexively outraged.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benw: You have a few excess letters though. Unless some are silent.
Sister Golden Bear
This is my unshocked face.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: You have no control over my lack of outrage!
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I am a part of the American people, bub, and you work for me.
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.
Benw
@Omnes Omnibus: collaborationist?
Jay
https://www.wonkette.com/dont-go-attending-any-save-our-children-marches-they-are-not-what-youd-think
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.
Tom Levenson
Done. I think my wife has set up a monthly for Gideon, but I chucked in a couple of bucks anyway.
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.
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.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: I’m outraged at your lack of outrage.
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.
Yutsano
Has anyone mentioned yet that Alexandra Petri REALLY likes calamari?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: You’ve gotta take out few trees to create good sightlines for the cameras for Dear Leader.
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.)
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
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?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@opiejeanne:
Just looked at the before and after pictures. The new renovations look boring. There’s no color
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.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kent:
Agreed. And anyhow, Waxman is retired, and Danny Davis regularly wins with around 85-90% of the total vote.
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)
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.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
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.
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.
Jay
Danielx
@Mai naem mobile:
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.
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.
Central Planning
@Omnes Omnibus:
Body part? Which one? Inquiring minds want to know
different-church-lady
@Jay: Facebook: more proof that every Dr. Frankenstein thinks he can control his monster.
joel hanes
@Kent:
The audience on this blog is not confused.
It’s important to know the facts.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Central Planning: The spleen.
trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
Ugh. “Don’t worry, we can make more.” Uh, nope.
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.
JPL
@Sister Golden Bear: A friend is heartbroken since it’s his favorite park. He thinks that a lot of the Redwoods survive though, but said the park headquarters can’t be replaces.
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.
Another Scott
Wonder Woman 1984 official trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW2E2Fnh52w (2:23)
Kristen Wiig as the heavy??!! Excellent.
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
The current red flag warning.
Putting out a big pointing hand sign telling Hurricane Geneviev “Florida is thataway.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Danielx:
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.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
It must have been hard to find all those period cars in such good condition
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Very sad and scary times ahead
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.
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
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.
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: There was too much of a contrast between the slender, beautiful trees and the bloated, repulsive form of Putin’s Chief Eunuch.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: From the great philosopher, Randy Newman:
MomSense
This race is by no means a sure thing. CD2 is going to be a nail biter for both Gideon and Biden.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: What is CD2?
zhena gogolia
OT but I recently discovered this tweeter Nitrate Diva, and she and I are really on the same page:
Yutsano
@MomSense: We’ll see what happens there, but isn’t it the least populated district in Maine?
Ken
@zhena gogolia: Maine 2nd congressional district. Maine is one of the states that awards electors by district so it might go Trump while the rest of the state goes Biden.
@Yutsano: By definition all the districts have about the same population, or did ten years ago.
NotMax
OT.
Just came across the newswires that fire is approaching Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara, CA.
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!
Origuy
This would be a long shot, but any interest in supporting the Democratic candidate for Wyoming’s at-large House seat?
NoraLenderbee
@joel hanes: Webcam photos from 2 PM today show the Observatory. To the right on HamCam #2 you can see where the hillside was burned.
https://mthamilton.ucolick.org/hamcam/
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.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom:
You know. Morons.
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.
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.
Aleta
Below is from the Post. (The same info and more, with more climate science, is explained at Daniel Swain’s blog here. )
…
Miss Bianca
@Sister Golden Bear:
Oh, no! This is terrible news! Something about that image is just tragic and terrifying.
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.
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.
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®ion=&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.”)
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.
Just Chuck
@Jay:
We should get John DeLancey on the horn and see if he can encourage them on that
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.
Another Scott
@Ken: https://www.topgear.com.ph/features/feature-articles/wonder-woman-1984-trailer-a2584-20191211
;-)
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the cars, etc., was CGI (but some undoubtedly is real). (e.g. The scene of the cows getting machine-gunned in O Brother Where Art Thou? was CGI, and that was a long time ago.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Eunicecycle
@Another Scott: I always thought dewpoint was easier to understand than relative humidity.
joel hanes
@NoraLenderbee:
Thank you for this. I feel much better.
Another Scott
@Eunicecycle: +eleventy billion. :-)
https://www.weather.gov/arx/why_dewpoint_vs_humidity
Cheers,
Scott.
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.
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.
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?
Another Scott
@Uncle Cosmo: Nobody is preventing you (or anyone else) from posting an ActBlue link for a favorite candidate. People can donate to them when they want (and I’ve done so on occasions).
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/grey-bull-for-congress-1
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/1904-web-kw
We don’t have to wait for DougJ. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.