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Progressives have always fought for the U.S. Postal Service, as part of a broad commitment to public services and a special commitment to meet the needs of the rural communities from whence the populist and progressive movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries emerged.

When Robert M. La Follette sought the presidency in 1924, he did so on a Progressive Party platform that made a specific commitment to fight for the Postal Service.

We believe that a prompt and dependable Postal Service is essential to the social and economic welfare of the nation, declared La Follettes supporters. Their campaign made a specific commitment not merely to maintain the USPS but also to aid postal workers, declaring: As one of the most important steps toward establishing and maintaining such a service, it is necessary to fix wage standards that will secure and retain employees of character, energy and ability.

La Follette and the progressives of the past were right to fight for the Postal Service, and for postal workers.

And it is right to maintain that fight today. That is why U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is leading a bipartisan group of senators in seeking a moratorium on irresponsible and unnecessary cuts to the Postal Service.

Ignorant and irresponsible politicians and pundits keep trying to perpetuate fantasies about supposed debts run up by the USPS. But the reality, notes Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who worked with Baldwin and Montana Sen. Jon Tester to craft the moratorium letter, is: The Postal Service is not going broke. Instead of slashing decent-paying jobs and slowing down mail, the Postal Service must be allowed to sell more products and offer more services that the American people need. We must also end the Bush-era mandate to prefund 75 years of future retiree health benefits. This mandate is responsible for all of the losses at the Postal Service for the past two years.

The mandate must be lifted as part of a broader plan for modernizing and expanding postal services. But, in the meantime, USPS infrastructure must be maintained.

That's why Baldwin and Sanders both speakers at Saturdays Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo are calling for a one-year moratorium on implementation of an austerity agenda that would undermine the integrity of the system by slowing down mail delivery nationwide, closing up to 82 mail processing plants and eliminating up to 15,000 jobs.

This is an essential struggle for all Americans who recognize that austerity attacks on the Postal Service like attacks on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid represent an attempt by corporate interests and their political pawns to weaken essential public services. They do so to ease the process of privatization, which will lead to less service at a higher price.

Some politicians are more than ready to do the bidding of the privatizers. But Baldwin and Sanders have gotten a majority of senators to sign the call for a moratorium. In addition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Republicans such as Utahs Orrin Hatch and Missouris Roy Blunt are signers.

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Fight for Postal Service is a progressive fight

BAD Trade Deals killed America -Right Wing fascists blame progressives
This is a topic libertarians generally ignore and blame liberals and Democrats over.

By: Ellie likeswater

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BAD Trade Deals killed America -Right Wing fascists blame progressives - Video

Why is the best that progressives offer the poor so second-rate?

We ask this question in light of Scott Stringers just-released housing report. The city comptroller compares owner-occupied units, market-rate rentals, rent-regulated and public housing (run by the New York City Housing Authority).

Of these, he says, public housing shows the greatest frequency of maintenance deficiencies. Rental units regulated by government come in second.

Check out the chart: The more government control, the worse the condition. Other data in the report confirm the trend more generally, with owner-occupied units typically in the best shape and public housing and rent-regulated units in the worst.

Yet Stringers answer is to dump even more money into a losing proposition: Securing funding for NYCHAmust be a priority, he says. Others claiming to champion the poor will no doubt echo this folly.

For his part, even before this report was out, Mayor de Blasio was looking to bring more apartments under government control by getting Albany to cede rent-regulation authority to the city.

Its not just housing where the needy get shafted by government. Medicaid patients often get lousy health care. And parents with kids trapped in failing public schools can tell you what thats like.

If progressives want to help the poor get ahead, why not help them get what better-off people already have private housing, private care, private schools rather than consigning them to the inferior government alternative?

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Government housing

TheNational Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Oyegun, says the party will transform Nigeria if elected into power in 2015.

Oyegun spoke on Monday in Sokoto at the inauguration of the north west executive committee and a special rally.

The party wants to ensure the complete transformation of the nation when elected into power at all levels during the forthcoming polls.

This transformation will include the power sector, security, education, eradication of unemployment and poverty, among others, he added.

Oyegun commended GovernorAliyu Wamakko of the state for transforming the state in the past seven years.

Governor Aliyu Wamakko and his Kano, Imo, Edo and Zamfara colleagues, said that the partywas capable of bringing the desired change to Nigeria.

The governors also said, Nigerians want change and to maximise the God-given potentials of the country.

The APC governors and members across Nigeria are bonded by sheer vision and mission to effect change in the country, the governors added.

The Deputy National Chairman of the party, Sen. Lawal Shuaibu, said that the rally was the beginning of the crusade to bring the change Nigerians needed.

The state chairman of the party, Alhaji Bala Hassan, saidthat APC wouldemerge victorious in 2015 at all levels in the country.

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APC promises to transform Nigeria in 2015

Paul Ryan claims to be Wisconsinite through and through." But there is one thing about Wisconsin that he despises: the states progressive tradition. Wall Streets favorite congressman gives speeches decrying the legacy of Republicans like Wisconsin Sens. Robert M. La Follette and John Blaine, and he devotes several pages of his 2016 presidential campaign book to ripping the Wisconsin progressives for looking to methods of science to guide government and society.

The House Budget Committee chairman even appeared on Glenn Becks radio show to announce that: "What Ive been trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism because I see progressivism as the source, the intellectual source for the big government problems that are plaguing us today. And so to me its really important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate so people can actually see what this ideology means and where its going to lead us and how it attacks the American idea."

"I love you!" gushed Beck.

Beck referred to progressivism as "a cancer."

"Exactly, replied Ryan.

It is probably a good bet, then, that Ryan will miss Saturdays Fighting Bob Fest, the annual gathering of thousands of progressives that takes its name from Robert M. La Follette, celebrates La Follettes legacy and argues that his vision and that of the generations of Wisconsin leaders who have embraced it -- from his sons, Gov. Phil La Follette and Sen. Robert M. La Follette Jr., to Gaylord Nelson and Robert Kastenmeier, to Russ Feingold and Peg Lautenschlager, to Tammy Baldwin and Mark Pocan -- remains the truest expression of the state and its ideals.

When Ryan attacks La Follette, it is for national consumption. Like Gov. Scott Walker, who also rages against La Follette and the progressive tradition, Ryan wants to be considered as a 2016 presidential prospect. Both men would have a tough time winning Wisconsin as leaders of a national Republican ticket, as Ryan learned when he and Mitt Romney got whipped in 2012. So they are ripping on progressivism as part of a broader strategy of appealing to the new generation of robber barons who fund a degenerate remnant of the Republican Party of Lincoln, La Follette, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.

Charles and David Koch, and the network of billionaire and millionaire donors they lead, delight in attacks on progressive policies and politics. As a source for New Yorker writer Jane Mayers classic portrait of the Kochs explained, They are out to destroy progressivism.

And understandably so.

Progressivism as it has always been understood in Wisconsin seeks to bust the trusts, to break up the monopolies, to end the crony capitalist deals that help multimillionaires become billionaires. Above all, progressives have favored tax fairness that shifts the burden of maintaining government and a civil society off the shoulders of working families. This is done by addressing the abuses of the robber barons and corporate monopolies that use every method -- including foreign bank accounts and addresses -- to avoid paying their fair share.

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John Nichols: Why Paul Ryan and Scott Walker fear Bob La Follette