by Pamela Powers Hannley AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong reported that the highly profitable, multi-million-dollar company was forced to cut employee benefits because of increased insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the cost of care for two sick dependent children born to AOL employees. Armstrong (who made $12 million in 2012) said because … Read more
In today's Arizona Daily Star, columnist Tim Steller chides the Pima County Democratic Party for trying to take down "moderate" Republican LD9 Legislator Ethan Orr.
First of all, a quick look at Orr's voting record and political endorsements reveal that the "Ethan Orr is a moderate" meme is a myth. For example:
Orr voted FOR voter suppression on multiple occasions. Most recently, Orr cast the deciding vote in committee and sided Republicans who want to do an "end run" around voters by repealing last year's Omnibus Voter Suppression Bill (HB2305), in order to pass several other voter suppression bills this session. The bill to repeal HB2305– if passed by the Legislature– will eliminate the citizens' right to vote for or against voter suppression in the 2014 election. Orr voted for voter suppression last week, and he was part of the Republican block that originally passed HB2305 in the dead of night in the waning hours of the 2013 Legislative session.
Orr signed an anti-abortion pledge to defend the rights of the unborn. Orr– along with Governor Jan Brewer, Republican legislators, and three weak-kneed Democrats– signed the Christian conservative Center for Arizona Policy's pledge to fight for the rights of unborn fetuses, while ignoring the legal rights of adult women to make choices about their bodies, their children, and their lives. Steller soft-sells Orr's pro-fetus stance by saying that Orr "tends toward a pro-life viewpoint on abortion." Orr signed a pledge to fight for fetal personhood; this is an extreme viewpoint that confers rights upon fetuses– while taking away the rights of American women. This goes far beyond tending "toward pro-life". [Pledge text and more after the jump.]
Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com
There was a lot of hand-wringing among progressives/secular types before, during, and after “Science Guy” Bill Nye’s debate with Creation Museum founder Ken Ham on Tuesday night, which was held at the aforementioned “museum” in Kentucky. There is certainly a good argument for avoiding such debates entirely, as Richard Dawkins does. Eschewing them is probably a wise general rule for proponents of evolution since the debate format gives undeserved credibility to evidence-free assertions like Creationism. Also, debates are too often focused on performance over substance and “winners” and “losers”. For example, Mitt Romney “won” his first Presidential debate by boldly lying about his positions and catching President Obama off-guard. But, having watched it, I’m glad that Nye took the risk with this particular debate.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Remember the $700 billion lie that will not die (up fro $500 billion in 2010) about "cuts" to Medicare, even after every media fact check organization in America rated the GOP claim a "pants on fire" lie repeatedly since 2010? NRCC's 'pants on fire' – the $700 billion lie that will not die returns. Expect to see this lie return in 2014.
This week it was the epic media fail on the CBO report that GOPropagandists tweeted and retweeted: Obamacare to mean 2 million fewer workers. Corporate 'lamestream' media fail on CBO reports. Even the GOP-friendly AP (All Propaganda) has fact-checked this lie, Anti-Obamacare chorus on job losses is off key, as has the GOP-friendly FactCheck.org. The ACA: Losing Jobs vs. Choosing Not to Work – FactCheck.org.
One would think the GOP would simply admit to making an error, as Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) did on Wednesday, Paul Ryan has momentary lapse into truthfulness, and say "my bad, it won't happen again."
Oh, you would be so wrong.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Tea-Publicans in Congress were tripping all over themselves to get to a microphone on Tuesday to trumpet a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that the conservative media entertainment complex, and its enablers in the corporate "lamestream" media either did not read or purposefully misrepresented with headlines like this in the Washington Post: CBO: Health law to mean 2 million fewer workers.
After initially blowing the story, the Washington Post at least did an admirable job of walking it back. It's media critic Eric Wemple wrote, The media’s massive revisions on CBO-Obamacare story:
The [Washington Post’s "Fact Checker"] Glenn Kessler today published a fact-checking post breaking some news: No, he wrote, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) never, ever reported that Obamacare would somehow or other kill more than 2 million U.S. jobs.
Okay, to say that Kessler broke this news is a rhetorical exaggeration to highlight the point that many-o-many media outlets misconstrued the CBO findings. For a while this morning, the Internet was hopping with job-killing hype, when in fact the truth was vastly different. Obamacare’s impact, the CBO concluded, would lessen the supply of labor by encouraging certain folks not to work: “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked. . . .”
For someone approaching retirement, notes Kessler, Obamacare could well mean that they needn’t hold onto a bad job just to keep health insurance. That’s a far different dynamic from job-killing.