Meredith McClaren's Blog, page 109
April 12, 2020
Trump will deliver killing blow to the USPS
The USPS is about to declare bankruptcy. It’s at the center of the longstanding plans for disaster recover and has been since the Cold War. It’s the only institution that could (for example) deliver covid meds to every home in America in one day.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/25/national-emergency-library/#going-postal
But Congress has decided not to bail out the postal service, despite Art 1, Sec 8 of the US Constitution: “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”
Maybe it’s because without a USPS we couldn’t have a postal vote in 2020?
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/27/just-asking-questions/#save-usps
The proximate cause of the post office’s bankruptcy is the pandemic, but that is merely the finishing blow. The USPS was murdered in 2006, when Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.
The Act gave the USPS a mere 10 years to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years.” That is, to set aside cash to pay medical bills for future employees who hadn’t been born yet.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-6407
The Act gave the USPS a mere 10 years to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years.” That is, to set aside cash to pay medical bills for future employees who hadn’t been born yet.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-6407
The USPS’s murder is straight out of the neoliberal playbook: “1 Defund, 2 claim crisis, 3 call for privatizatization, 4 profit!”
As Lambert Strether points out, it was a bipartisan act of murder, cosponored by the “centrist” Democrat Henry Waxman.
Killing the USPS looms large in the Trump admin’s (nonmetaphorical, actual) privatization playbook, “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century Reform Plan and Reorganization Recommendations”:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Government-Reform-and-Reorg-Plan.pdf
The proposals are for USPS to become a Wework clone or franchisee, but not to become a publicly owned bank - a common line of business for other nations’ postal services, natural based on the amounts of cash they handle.
The USPS is the nation’s second largest employer of veterans, with 630,000 employees. Trump is about to allow it to collapse so that UPS, Fedex and other private firms can skim off the most profitable parts of its business and leave rural Americans totally isolated.
The loss of the USPS would mean the loss of the last truly universal federal program in America and would unduly hammer the people whom Trump claims to love – veterans and rural voters.
https://twitter.com/lildipshit3/status/1248741868440940544
I read a diary at Daily Kos which suggested that if half the households in America bought 2 sheets of Forever Stamps, for about 16 bucks, it would provide enough funding to keep the USPS alive.
How fucked up is this? We’re trying to save the fucking Postal Service, which is in the fucking CONSTITUTION, from Republican sabatoge.
There is no such thing as a moderate, or patriotic, Republican. They are anti-American Fascists.
[Description: I explain to my cat that I deeply regret letting...
[Description: I explain to my cat that I deeply regret letting her figure out that water comes from the sink. As that is the ONLY place she wants it from now.]
April 11, 2020
Chun Li belongs to Street Fighter . Artwork by Meredith...
Chun Li belongs to Street Fighter . Artwork by Meredith McClaren
[Description: An illustration of Chun Li doing a one armed handstand.]
[Description: A comic depicting myself, eating cereal for...
[Description: A comic depicting myself, eating cereal for dinner, because I’ve lost control of my life.]
April 10, 2020
Felicia belongs to Darkstalkers . Artwork by Meredith...
Felicia belongs to Darkstalkers . Artwork by Meredith McClaren
[Description: A quick doodle of Felicia from Darkstalkers.]
[Description: A three panel comic, depicting how I do my...
[Description: A three panel comic, depicting how I do my workout, rejoice, and then immediately go back to bed.]
April 9, 2020
(I am currently lying in bed, curled around a pillow, so I felt that last post) I only found your art recently, but it's very calming. I especially love the way you draw arms and legs (sorry if that's weird), they make your art feel soft and comforting.
This is the best response I could hope for. It means a lot that my art helps people feel a little less alone. Thank you.
(I am currently lying in bed, curled around a pillow, so I felt that last post) I only found your art recently, but it's very calming. I especially love the way you draw arms and legs (sorry if that's weird), they make your art feel soft and comforting. I
This is the best response I could hope for. It means a lot that my art helps people feel a little less alone. Thank you.
Some vampires.I feel like vampires don’t change their fashion...
Some vampires.
I feel like vampires don’t change their fashion preferences. They just wait for what they like to come back into vogue.
[Description: Three character designs for vampires.]
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