Reality has a Liberal Bias

https://twitter.com/HemlockMartinis/status/3924757...

https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/3906861123325378...

If Ted Cruz didn’t exist, Democrats would have to invent him

By Ezra Klein, Published: October 16

"A true cynic about American politics would, at this point, be forced to one conclusion: Sen. Ted Cruz is a Democratic sleeper agent.

"It is tough to appreciate just how much good Ted Cruz has done the Democrats over these last few weeks.

- He convinced Republicans to shut down the government rather than wait and fight over the debt ceiling, where they would have had more -- and more dangerous -- leverage.

- He splintered the Republican Party such that, from day one, it was clear that the GOP leadership opposed the strategy they were executing, and GOP senators were publicly blasting House Republicans. That also cut the GOP's leverage.

- He made this a fight over defunding Obamacare, which polls showed was a wildly unpopular reason to shut down the government, and which united Democrats against him.

- He shut the government down on Oct. 1, the same day Obamacare began, thus distracting the American people from the law's catastrophic rollout.

- He drove the Republican Party to its lowest levels of popularity ever recorded in polls.

- He actually managed to make Obamacare more popular at a time when, by all rights, the law's extremely troubled launch should've been eroding its standing in the polls.

- The culmination of the strategy, today, is that Republicans are reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling in return for...nothing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/20...

Cumberland Gulf is converting part-time workers to FULL-TIME and giving more workers health insurance.

"The Cumberland Gulf Group, which includes Cumberland Farms, the highly successful 600-unit convenience store chain, and Gulf Oil, the nation’s fastest growing branded marketer of energy products, announced today that as part of its ongoing initiative to be one of the nation’s employers of choice, it will be proactively expanding its health care program to include approximately 1,500 additional employees effective October 1, 2013.

The Cumberland Gulf Group has been formulating its strategy to address the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as Healthcare Reform, since January of this year. Even though the new law does not become effective until January 1, 2014, the Company has decided to implement its plan early; thus expanding the number of employees who will be eligible for health care benefits by moving a significant portion of its workforce from part-time to full-time status."

http://www.cumberlandgulf.com/press/news.aspx?ID=2...

...You can fool ALL the people ALL the time?

'We will shut down the government.'

'We have shut down the government.'

'We won't re-open the government.'

'The Democrats did it.'

"Unless Republicans agree to my proposal for gun control, I will use my authority as commander in chief to scuttle one aircraft carrier a week in the bottom of the ocean.

"I invite Republican leaders to come to the White House and negotiate a deal to preserve our military strength. I hope Republicans will work with me to prevent the loss of our carrier fleet.

"If the Republicans refuse to negotiate, I will be compelled to begin by scuttling the U.S.S. George Washington in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, with 80 aircraft on board."

Representative: Marlin Stutzman (R-IN)

“We aren't going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

The requirement is that people have to buy insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, members of Congress ARE REQUIRED to get insurance.

How is that "exempt"?

Like the Republicans are doing now with the Affordable Care Act?

Be specific. Which program did Democrats want to de-fund?

"A government shutdown would hinder the economy, waste billions of dollars in federal funds and put a scare in the markets, according to experts. It’s already causing a slowdown in normal operations for agencies and businesses.

"The Office of Management and Budget estimated in 1996 that the two closures in that fiscal year, which lasted 26 days total, cost the government $1.4 billion, or roughly $2.1 billion in today’s dollars."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_gov...

...why are Republicans trying to shut down the government?

From the CNBC Poll by the same company that does polls for the Wall Street Journal:

"The CNBC All-America Economic Survey of 800 people across the country conducted by Hart-McInturff, finds that, in general, Americans oppose defunding Obamacare by a plurality of 44 percent to 38 percent.

"Opposition to defunding increases sharply when the issue of shutting down the government and defaulting is included. In that case, Americans oppose defunding 59 percent to 19 percent, with 18 percent of respondents unsure. The final 4 percent is a group of people who want to defund Obamacare, but become unsure when asked if they still hold that view if it means shutting down the government. …

"In general, men are roughly split on the issue, with 43 percent supporting defunding, 42 percent opposing and 15 percent unsure. But when the issue of a government shutdown and default is included their support declines: 56 percent oppose defunding and only 14 percent solidly favor the measure.

"Women are more firmly opposed to defunding the new health care law under any circumstances, with 47 percent opposed, 33 percent in favor and 20 percent unsure."

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/23/cnbc-poll-ma...

...and how did the CBO score it?

...why haven't they done that?

"This paper argues that, for a given overall level of labour income taxation, a more progressive tax schedule reduces the unemployment rate and increases the employment rate. From a theoretical point of view, higher progressivity induces a wage-moderation effect and increases overall employment since employment of low-paid workers is more responsive. We test these theoretical predictions on a panel of 21 OECD countries over 1998-2008. Controlling for the burden of taxation at the average wage, we show that a more progressive taxation reduces the unemployment rate and increases the employment rate. These findings are confirmed when we account for the potential endogeneity of both average taxation and progressivity. Overall our results suggest that policy-makers should not only focus on the detrimental effects of tax progressivity on in-work effort."

http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2013018.pdf

"Pay for chief executives has risen to 277 times the average workers’ pay, from 20 times in 1965, according to the Economic Policy Institute."

"Pay for chief executives has risen to 277 times the average workers’ pay, from 20 times in 1965, according to the Economic Policy Institute."

The study is from the Kaiser Family Foundation, not the NY Times.

Health Care Costs Climb Moderately, Survey Says

By ANDREW POLLACK

Premiums for employer-provided health insurance have increased by relatively modest amounts this year, according to a new survey, a further sign that once-torrid health care inflation has abated for now.

The average annual premium for a family rose 4 percent in 2013, to $16,351, according to the survey results released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Annual premiums for individual policies purchased through an employer rose 5 percent, to $5,884.

...

The data also suggest that the new health care law is not leading, at least so far, to a rapid escalation of insurance costs.

“The critics will have a much harder time blaming big premium increases in employer insurance on Obamacare this year, because there aren’t any big premium increases,” Drew Altman, chief executive of the Kaiser foundation, said in a telephone news conference Tuesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/business/survey-...