Koch Brothers. LOL.

Silly Sarah Failin'

Je Suis ...!

Obama's Agenda!

Ok, We Finally Have An Answer For #Deflategate! Watch Video.

Unfair Burden Hurts Profitable Postal Service.

The Herald-Leader has done a good job reporting on the planned closing of the Lexington mail-processing facility, including how slowing the mail would inconvenience residents and how dozens of lawmakers contend that the Postal Service hasn't followed its own procedures for such actions.

But there's a bigger picture here — the financial factors cited by Postal Service leaders as necessitating these closings simply don't stand up to scrutiny.

In calling for shuttering Lexington's facility and 81 more nationwide, and also ending Saturday mail delivery and door-to-door delivery, the Postal Service resembles the boy who cried wolf.

The Internet has sent mail volume tumbling, it claims, and as a result revenue is shrinking and red ink abounds. So as distasteful as it may be to degrade service for Kentuckians and folks around the country, there's no choice.

Let's examine that claim, by looking at the facts.

The Postal Service, which supports itself by revenue earned from selling stamps — not by taxpayer money — had an operating profit of $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2014, and $633 million in the first month of fiscal year 2015. 

Its $6 billion in available cash is the highest it's been in years. The Postal Service has been operationally profitable since October 2012.

How has that happened? 

As the economy gradually improves from the worst recession in 80 years, letter revenue is again rising. Meanwhile, as folks in Lexington and elsewhere increasingly shop online, delivering those goods has boosted package revenue. 

That makes the Internet a net positive for USPS — auguring well for the future. And UPS and FedEx bring millions of their packages to the post office for "last-mile delivery," with the efficient postal network saving money for the private carriers and their customers.

It makes no sense to degrade postal networks that have returned to profitability.

Eliminating Saturday delivery would take a heavy toll on the elderly and on rural areas, as well as on Lexington's small businesses, which are open weekends. Ending door-to-door delivery would force Kentuckians to traipse around neighborhoods in Kentucky weather in search of "cluster boxes." And slowing the mail by closing Lexington's plant is illogical.

Such actions would send the Postal Service itself into a downward spiral by driving mail and revenue away. And they would cost jobs. 

The national mailing industry, which depends on a robust, six-days-a-week Postal Service, employs 7.5 million Americans in the private sector — including 114,212 in Kentucky. Meanwhile, 689,662 residents work for Kentucky's small businesses, which would see costs rise if they had to contract with expensive private carriers to receive checks on weekends.

There is red ink, but it stems from politics, not the mail. In 2006, a lame-duck Congress mandated that the Postal Service prefund future retiree health benefits. No other public agency or private company is required to prefund for even one year; the Postal Service is required to prefund 75 years into the future and pay for it all in a 10-year period. 

That $5.6 billion annual charge is the red ink.

This onerous and unfair mandate is what lawmakers need to address, rather than allowing service to be degraded to residents and businesses in the Lexington area.

Since it's flawed public policy — not technological change — that's damaging a national treasure, your readers have the ability to seek a change in that policy. And Kentucky's representatives in Washington can help undo the damage previous lawmakers have done.

If they do so, the Postal Service — which is based in the Constitution, is the nation's largest employer of military veterans, and is consistently rated the most trusted federal agency by the public — can continue to provide 153 million homes and businesses six and increasingly seven days a week with the world's most affordable delivery network. 

- Fredric Rolando, the author of this piece, is president of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/01/26/3660970_unfair-burden-hurts-profitable.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Eulogy For Kentucky's Governor/Senator, Wendell Ford. RIP.

Grand Juries: NOTHING Is Above Manipulation!

Work?!

#BBN God.

Bonus Friday Cartoon: Wendell Ford.

PHONY Mitt Roney!

update:

Barack Obama's State Of The Union Speech (SOTU).

Struggle Of Gays Not Same As Blacks.

Struggle of gays not same as blacks

As a country, America is greatly divided over the issue of same-sex marriage.

A recent Washington Post-ABC poll shows Americans are equally divided at 50 percent on whether Americans believe gay men and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said it will take up the issue to determine if the dozens of states in which voters overwhelmingly approved gay marriage bans are legal.

We believe voters in the states where these bans were voted in should have their voices upheld by the high court, but ultimately it is up to the justices to decide on the constitutionality.

One aspect of the same-sex marriage debate that is a concern and seems insulting to the black community is how some advocates compare the issue to the civil rights movement.

Comments such as these have rightfully brought angry responses from some leaders of the black and gay communities. They believe the struggle for civil rights and the issue of same-sex marriage couldn’t be any more different.

Last year, 110 black pastors filed an amicus brief in Michigan not only opposing same-sex marriage, but in the brief they particularly rejected comparisons between the gay movement and the civil rights movement.

Civil rights activist Rev. William Owens, who is founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, says there is no comparison between the civil rights movement and the gay community’s fight for same-sex marriage.

Even the conservative gay journalist Charles Winecoff once wrote, “Newsflash: blacks in America didn’t start out as hip-hop fashion designers; they were slaves. There’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a civil union with the same sex partner of your choice – and not being able to drink out of a water fountain, eat at a lunch counter, or use a rest room because you don’t have the right skin color.”

Another who tried to compare this to the civil rights movement is Saundra Ardrey, head of the political science department at Western Kentucky University.

Ardrey believes it’s a great issue for the courts to decide and believes it is reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s, when the Supreme Court stepped in to protect African-Americans’ right to vote.

However, voting rights protection for blacks was not given by the Supreme Court, but was rather enacted by Congress in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

To compare the very unfair treatment black Americans had to go through under Jim Crow laws and earlier discrimination in Northern cities to the fight to allow gays the right to get married is just wrong.

Blacks weren’t allowed to use the same bathroom or water fountains as whites, blacks couldn’t eat at the same restaurants as whites, blacks couldn’t attend the same schools as whites, stay at the same hotels as whites, weren’t allowed to live in the same neighborhoods as whites or go to public swimming pools and had to sit in balconies at all white theaters, etc.

Gays are allowed to do everything black people for so long weren’t able to do. How often do you hear stories of gays being denied access to theaters or restaurants, schools or swimming pools because of their sexuality?

That’s the difference. This is why people like Ardrey and others who support same-sex marriage are simply reaching to try to compare their struggle to practices that unjustly oppressed a people for 200-plus years.

These comparisons don’t come close to measuring up. Members of the black community should be offended that people would try to compare legalizing same-sex marriage to the civil rights movement.

We believe those who are doing so are simply trying to advance their agendas.

In doing so, they are wrongfully attempting to equate this effort to the oppression blacks experienced on multiple levels for far too long.

Did You Miss POTUS Barack Obama's State Of The /union (SOTU) Speech? Well, Watch It Here.

We Christians!

Hal Heiner Draws First Blood In The TV Ad Wars For Kentucky's Gubernatorial Election. Watch.

Back To Paris: Barack Obama Is Je Suis Clueless!

Bonus Cartoon: Non Violence Day.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.

Feminist Equality!

Bonus Friday Cartoon: The OSCARS!

Allah: They Did What?

A Cartoonist's Nightmare!

All Christians!

Je Suis Charley. Barack Obama: No?

The Pen And The Sword.

Brothers!

He Is Not Muhammed.

Jews Instead!

Pen Versus Sword.

Talk!

Mitch MCconnell Takes Over The Senate! This 'Toon Is Funny!

GOP And The Toga Party! IDIOT #MiaLove Will Be The Next Invitee To The Toga Party!!

Afghan War.

Experts!

Happy New Year From Barack Obama.