Anyway you slice it, Papa John's a jerk

Papa John's owner John Schattner has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Affordable Care Act, affectionately known as Obamacare. And to prove how consumers will be affected by this legislation Papa john is threaten to raise the price of a pizza by $0.11.

As many have noted already the "free" pizza give away offer that Papa John's is currently running will cost the company between $24 and $32 million in profit this year which far exceeds the cost of supplying health insurance to his employees ($5 to $8 million). But John Schattner might also want to consider that by offering health insurance the Papa John's corporation will experience more productive employees who miss less work time which will further diminish the expense of providing insurance.

But the one thing I really don't understand is why this is big news. Reports show that 90 to 99 percent of large businesses offer health insurance. Does anyone think that these companies are not passing along the costs of providing their employee’s health insurance to the consumer?

The reality is that companies are always trying to maximize profit so consumers are forced to pay for things we may or may not like with every product we purchase. If you buy an American car a portion of your money goes to support the UAW, if you use electricity a portion of your money goes to support green energy, and if you buy a pizza from Papa John's a portion of your money goes to pay their tax bill which supports Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, NASA, Education, Oil subsidies, and Big Bird.

In the end, when your company has a profit of $87 million and you whine about providing a benefit that nearly every American wants and needs, it doesn't make you look like a virtuous patriot. It makes you look like a jerk.

The Party that cried wolf

I used to think that the conservative crutch of "liberal media bias" was one of the worst things about politics. After all it solves exactly zero actual problems facing the nation. It is a mainly opinion based measure which is why you can find some "studies" that show a liberal media bias, some that show a conservative media bias and others that show no media bias.

But that was before November 6th 2012. On Election Day it became apparent that Conservatives desire to insulate themselves from reality may have handed the election to the Democrats. Poll after poll showed the election favoring Democrats yet Conservative talking heads convinced themselves and their viewers, listeners and readers that it was all a lie. The media was lying, the polls were lying, the experts were lying, and the data was lying. The election was in the bag for Republicans.

Ironically it could be this conservative meme that cost them the Presidency and seats in congress. If this was an election that was going to be decided by who could best mobilize their base, having Fox News predicting a big win for Republicans may have had the opposite effect. Why should conservatives make any extra effort to get to the polls if all the "lame stream" media outlets were lying and Republicans were assured a win? Conversely Democrats may have gone out of their way to fill out their ballot given how close media reports showed the election to be.

What should really scare Republicans now is that they risk becoming and unreliable narrator. After all if Conservative "experts" had Romney winning the popular vote by five to ten points and then he loses by over a point it could call into question all of the other "facts" that these pundits offer. For example John Boehner thinks retaining control of the House somehow equates to an endorsement of the Republican obstinanace to a tax increase for the rich. Yet the same polls that show Boehner was wrong on his election day prediction also show that only 35% of American's share John Boehner's view on taxes.

This of course is only one item in a long list of items where Republicans ignore the experts and the data in favor of their "beliefs". From the science of conception to climate change to gun rights to taxes to the president’s birth place, Conservatives have made up their own reality. And this insistence that their opinions are correct in the face of piles of data to the contrary means these Republicans could soon turn themselves into the boy who cried wolf.

If Republicans can root out the tea party extremism that has become their party platform in favor of the more moderate views held by the majority of Americans they can easily restore the public’s faith in their party, but if they continue to insist that the media, the polls, the experts and the data are all bias for Democrats, November 8th 2016 may feel a lot like groundhogs day.

Mitch McConnell should resign as leader

On December 7th 2010 Mitch McConnell said "Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term." Yet with the deck stacked in his favor Mitch McConnell failed to put together a winning hand.

This seems to be a massive miscalculation by McConnell given that the majority of Americans put jobs as their top priority over the past two years. To accomplish his goal Mitch McConnell obstructed the president's jobs bill, blocked a veteran's jobs bill, and forced the country to accept a reductions in government jobs totaling almost 700,000 jobs. And he did all of this so he could pin the tail on the donkey for all of the medicore recovery data.

But while this should anger those who are looking for work or put American well being ahead of political power, this failure should also bother moderate Republicans. Thanks to Mitch McConnell's obsession with Barack Obama he let the tea party legitimately rape the Republican party. And this oversight cost Mitch the change to be the majority leader as extreme tea party candidates lost to moderate Democrats. Instead of taking control of the senate as many Republican talking heads had predicted they actually lost seats.

Bottom line, if the leader of the Senate Republicans can't deliver on his top priority and loses seats in an election that was gift wrapped by a global recession, perhaps he isn't the right man for the job.

Another half truth about Proposal 2

If you have watched any television recently you know there is no shortage of ads debating Proposal 2. Unfortunately there seems to be a vacuum of truth in many of these ads.

One of the big talking points for those opposed to Proposal 2 is the idea that we don't need to amend the constitution to guarantee the right to collectively bargain since it is already guaranteed by Federal law.

The reality is that the Federal law covering collective bargaining (the National Labor Relations Act of 1935) does not cover all unions. Public unions for instance are not guaranteed the right to collective bargaining under this law which is why it is currently illegal to form a public sector union in five states. Additionally according to Wikipedia "The Act does not apply to workers who are covered by the Railway Labor Act, agricultural employees, domestic employees, supervisors, and independent contractors."

But even if this were covered under Federal law Republicans don't have much a leg to stand on with this particular argument given the redundancy they insist on in bills pertaining to government money and abortions or illegal immigrants. If having something covered multiple times is OK for their priorities then it should be OK for the priorities of other groups as well.

Voting against Proposal 2 because you don't think that a person should have the right to collectively bargain is fine. But misleading people into believing that these rights are already part of Federal law is not.