In the face of continued pressure to weaken the United States Postal Service and attack the unionized working families who work for the USPS, Ed Schultz offers up the most comprehensive defense of the agency to date. In addition to pointing out the facts of the case that have been widely reported in the blogosphere, Schultz takes on a new angle — that cutting back on postal service equates to voter suppression in states that have vote by mail, particularly Oregon, which votes exclusively by mail.

As previously pointed out, the USPS would have a surplus right now if it wasn't for the fact that Republicans in Congress in 2006 required the service to prefund 75 years of pensions in just 10 years — a requirement no other private or public organization has to deal with. Other than a slight dip because of the recession, the USPS was at record highs in terms of volume, despite claims that the Internet and email were hurting traditional mail.

Square State also points to the first of several ads from the American Postal Workers Union that highlights a Colorado Springs postal worker. Two other APWU ads showcase the problems created by the assault on the USPS.

At Daily Kos, Laura Clawson notes that the Senate passed a bill that would give the Postal Service some time to avoid extreme measures:

The Senate passed S. 1789, the bill generally reported to be aimed at "saving" or "fixing" the postal service, by a vote of 62-37 Wednesday. Less widely reported were the origins of the postal service's problems in a crisis manufactured by Congress and exacerbated less by the shift online than by the recession. The Senate bill buys the postal service some time before the worst proposed post office and processing center closures, cuts to delivery and lengthened delivery times, and jobs cuts can begin to kick in. But while it prevents postal executives from kicking off an immediate death spiral, it doesn't create the conditions for the postal service's success by reversing the conditions that manufactured the crisis to begin with.

The Senate's bill would bar the postal service from ending Saturday mail delivery for two years, keeps overnight first-class mail delivery for some mail sent short distances while allowing longer delivery times over greater distances, prevents pre-Election Day closures in states that vote by mail, and prevents the closure of post offices if there are no other post offices within 10 miles, among other things.

The American Postal Worker Union is launching a national ad buy that will appear on NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, designed to raise awareness about the easy solution to the current funding problems that the United States Postal Service is facing. As previously reported, there is literally no legitimate reason for the funding shortfall. Conservatives in Congress and elsewhere are purposefully trying to hurt the Postal Service so they can privatize it:

The problem lies elsewhere: the 2006 congressional mandate that the USPS pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so within a decade, an obligation no other public agency or private firm faces. The roughly $5.5 billion annual payments since 2007 — $21 billion total — are the difference between a positive and negative ledger.

APWU is not taking the assault on their livelihood lightly, they are going on the offensive to let the American public know the reality behind what is being done to undercut the USPS.

Says APWU President Cliff Guffey:

"The ads are intended to build public awareness and support for congressional efforts to resolve the Postal Service’s financial crisis without cutting pay, reducing benefits, eliminating collective bargaining rights or slashing service."

On the congressional front, APWU supports a package of amendments to the 21st Century Postal Service Act (S. 1789) that would prevent the closures and other service cutbacks. The bill is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate soon.

AWPU members can take action to support the campaign. Others can call 202-224-3121 and tell their senators to support the amendments that would stop layoffs and office closures.

CREDO Mobile is calling on activists to contact Congress in order to save rural post offices, many of which are slated to be closed as part of a conservative effort to, it seems, privatize the United States Postal Services, a vital and successful program. The Postmaster General has announced the closing of 3,000 mostly rural post offices, which also will lead to the laying off of more than 200,000 workers. The supposed reason for the layoffs and closings is the false idea that the postal service is in financial trouble, something we previously reported on. The real problem is something else:

It's true the post office faces financial challenges. But the financial problems are in large part a direct result of an onerous and ill-considered 2006 law that mandates that the postal service pre-fund its retiree health care and pension benefits for 75 years -- something that no other government agency or private company is forced to do.

Eighty-five percent of the red ink comes from this pre-funding mandate despite the fact that, according to the Post Office Inspector General, the pension is over-funded and reserves for retiree health care are far higher than the federal government as a whole, the military and almost all Fortune 1000 companies.

Simply modifying the 2006 pre-funding mandate would provide considerable breathing room for the post office. And while some changes to the post office are certainly necessary to preserve and improve it in the 21st Century, now's not the time to close post offices and cut hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The money "saved" by these closings and layoffs wouldn't even affect the overall financial situation of the post office, but they could devastate the local communities and the poorer citizens that rely on the postal service. Take action now to stop this assault.

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To give our beloved staff a chance to celebrate the holidays, we are going to revisit the most popular videos of 2011. Some of them are golden oldies that you, our C&L readers, keep going back to, some are highlights from this year. What's clear is that there is little worry that C&L will suffer from content as we head full force into an election year.

We hope that you have a lovely holiday weekend, full of comfort and joy. And we'll start our recap with the 50th most popular video on the C&L archives.

This is fantastic entry from Heather, whom Amato fondly refers to as "The Machine" for her ability to stomach so many hours of broadcasts and make so many of the clips you'll see on this list.

Here's the thing all these tea party Republicans need to remember, we liberals know our stuff. You can yell and spout off your talking points, but we're gonna get you on the facts every time. Rep. Joe Walsh is a particularly disgusting Republican--a big bully, deadbeat dad and petulant drama queen--but he picked the wrong letter carrier to abuse at a town hall meeting. In a nice bit of comeuppance, Ed Schultz talked to that letter carrier, Melissa Rakestraw and she proved that we average Joes and Janes are far better than what passes for progressive pundits these days.

The Republican plans to weaken the United States Postal Service are starting to get more and more attention, including Sam Seder's Majority Report, Thom Hartmann, Nicole Sandler's radio show and Allison Kilkenny's brilliant Truthout article:

It was only a few years ago that the USPS was considered not only stable, but thriving. The biggest volume in pieces of mail handled by the Postal Service in its 236-year history was in 2006. The second and third busiest years were in 2005 and 2007, respectively. But it was two events: one crafted during the Bush years and another supervised by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, that would cripple this once great institution.

Perhaps it was its booming history that first drew Congress' attention to the Postal Service in 2006 when it passed the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA), which mandated that the Postal Service would have to fully fund retiree health benefits for future retirees. That's right. Congress was demanding universal health care coverage.

But it even went beyond that. Congress was mandating coverage for future human beings.

"It's almost hard to comprehend what they're talking about, but basically they said that the Postal Service would have to fully fund future retirees' health benefits for the next 75 years and they would have to do it within a ten-year window," says Chuck Zlatkin, political director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.

It was an impossible order, and strangely, a task unshared by any other government service, agency, corporation or organization within the United States. The act meant that every September 30th, the USPS had to cough up $5.5 billion to the Treasury for the pre-funding of future retirees' health benefits, meaning the Postal Service pays for employees 75 years into the future. The USPS is funding the retirement packages of people who haven't even been born yet.

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NALC President Fredric Rolando testifies before Congress (beginning at minute 40).

In an article that ran the day before the Labor Day holiday, the New York Times took the opportunity to fear monger about the current financial problems at the United States Postal Service and blame workers for the financial shortfalls the agency faces.

According to reporter Steven Greenhouse:

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

...

In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts.

...

As any computer user knows, the Internet revolution has led to people and businesses sending far less conventional mail.

At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.

...

Meanwhile, the agency has had a tough time cutting its costs to match the revenue drop, with a history of labor contracts offering good health and pension benefits, underused post offices, and laws that restrict its ability to make basic business decisions, like reducing the frequency of deliveries.

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NALC President Fredric Rolando testifies before Congress (beginning at minute 40).

Recently, a number of proposals have been floated about cutting back on the offerings of the United States Postal Service. Among the suggestions are eliminating Saturday service and closing numerous post offices across the country. These ideas are said to be necessary, according to Postal Service officials, because the Service is losing large sums of money in delivering the mail.

Current proposals include eliminating 220,000 postal jobs through cuts and attrition by 2015. This is in a climate where the USPS has already eliminated 212,000 jobs in the last ten years. Also proposed is a plan to withdraw postal employees and retirees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the creation of a new program that would almost certainly have weaker benefits.

United States Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is on record as also proposing cuts to postal employees' health and pension benefits. National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando sees clear signs that Donahoe is intent on attacking the collective bargaining rights of postal workers and that he wants to "override lay-off protection provisions in the postal unions’ contracts." In a recent white paper titled "Workforce Optimization," the Postal Service directly asked Congress to void lay-off protection provisions. The USPS developed its proposals without any input from NALC or any other unions.

Rolando lays out the real root of the problem: "The problem lies elsewhere: the 2006 congressional mandate that the USPS pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so within a decade, an obligation no other public agency or private firm faces. The roughly $5.5 billion annual payments since 2007 — $21 billion total — are the difference between a positive and negative ledger."

Postal Service management recently claimed: “If we were a private company, we would have already filed for bankruptcy and gone through restructuring—much like major automakers did two years ago.” NALC responded by calling this claim the "Big Lie." If the USPS were a private company, NALC argued, it wouldn't have been subjected to the pre-funding requirement and it would've been profitable, since the pre-funding requirement is responsible for 100 percent of the Service's losses in recent years.

NALC suggests that the problem has an easy fix. Instead of eliminating the requirement for pre-funding future benefits, Rolando says that the Postal Service should be allowed to transfer funds from pension surpluses instead of operating funds. That would continue to fund both pensions and retiree health benefits funded well into the future while putting the operations budget back into a surplus without cutting back on services or laying off workers.

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