@eric3579 had it right, because the first link looks like the source:
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/08/us-workers-are-highly-taxed-when-you-count-health-premiums/

But when that source lists the graph that Cross used as "labor tax", it is listed as coming from OECD NTCP, with NTCP standing for "Non-Tax Compulsary Payments" and has the same 11% for Canada and other numbers. So, the OECD 'original' source of the data is 100% excluding Federal and State/Provincial income taxes, and potentially sales taxes as well.

So with that knowledge, yeah, gross misrepresentation.

And it gets worse in that peoplespolicyproject is showing 2017 numbers, so maybe that is the only difference... But they list Belgium at 38.3% while the OECD current 2019 data shows 44.5, so maybe some year-year change, but the US data from OECD for 2019 comes in at 24.1%, and at the least in the middle of EU countries while whatever source ppp used pegged Us at 43%.

So not only is it deceptive in describing it as 'tax' when the numbers are expressly sourced from NonTax data(named as such), it's also at BEST number that can double or drop by half within 2 years as well and so maybe not a great policy benchmark either unless you average out multiple years at minimum

And so, the self crushing beer can was invented.

At some point, you can only lay out so many cables of anchor chain. I'm guessing she was anchored bow and stern to come in sideways like this? Otherwise she got super lucky to hit broadside on (and so did the dock). Really, if you can't be in a sheltered cove, you want to be at sea in conditions like this and get some sea room and take on the wind and waves on the best possible terms.

Oh yeah, libel per se is a -bitch- if you're nailed with it. In libel per quod ("lost-cause libel"), you have to prove damages. Generally, this is what prevents people from filing lawsuits every time someone calls them a dick on 4chan.

Libel per se is different. Oh, it is SO different. Libel per se means y'all fucked up. Y'all fucked up BAD. In LPS, what you printed was such bullshit and so obviously damaging, the plaintiff don't have to prove SHIT; they sort-of name a figure and the judge works from that.

In the case of Dominion, I'm 99% certain it'll be LPS. Also, the Gold Standard defense against libel -- what you printed is actually true -- will not apply here, and it'd be comedy gold if the defendants actually tried this defense. At that point, the three fastest winds ever recorded on the planet would be Typhoon Li, Hurricane Katrina and the explosive laughter and legal pimp slap from the bench. It'd make Rudy's immense clusterfucks in court seem like goddamn Perry Mason cross-examining a 6-year-old.

It gets better.

So, on the billion-to-one chance you win a libel per quod suit, you get "damages", which can be surprisingly little as you have to prove every single dollar in very narrow legal ways. Libel per se, on the other hand, is the BIG PRIZES. Your ass is at least catching dollar damages that would make Jerome Powell say "Y'all niggas need to tone them digits down, yo!". Those damages are ANYTHING THE COURT DECIDES. Again, LPS means the plaintiff doesn't have to prove a single dime of loss to claim damages of damned near any amount. Given that Dominion is asking for a cool bil-point-something, I wouldn't be hugely surprised if another zero wasn't slapped on the end of that figure.

That's just the "actual" damages. If you egregiously fucked up, like claiming a company overthrew a US election and was in league with a dead dictator, you get to spin the wheel of punitive damages. Punitive damages are how the court hands out spankings, only they're not spankings, they're that scene from 12 Years A Slave, only with less tickles and kittens. Given the shitstorm that followed the lies about Dominion, those damages could make the initial billion-dollar claim look quaint.

(By the way, you can't discharge the settlement in bankruptcy, given that libel per se is considered 'malicious', meaning the laughter from the judge presiding over your initial case will be roughly 1/10,000th the laughter coming from the bankruptcy judge.)

If I was Newsmax, OAN, Fox News, Rush or Alex, I'd be lawyering up but good, because the Wrath of Fucking God is coming and there ain't no rock big enough to hide behind.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of traitorous, America-hating, back-stabbing cocksuckers (and good luck to them on their per quod claim should they decide to sue me over the previous statement).

I came into the world with my legs forward:

The midwife wonder'd and the women cried
'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.

Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.

I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
Therefore use none:




my opinion of people like this has changed -


Save your lectures for people who need them. Talk to my mother who is afraid to wear a mask because it might give her covid.

Every appointment by Trump since the election should be removed and every firing during his lame duck term reconsidered on Jan 20.

Don't let the shallow state (trump loyalists who are all unqualified and unfit) survive. That's why Joe needs transition funding and clearance, so he can both hire qualified people and have them ready January 20, and so he can have good cause to fire every Trump appointee and installation, all his acting department heads that couldn't survive a confirmation hearing. Trump is trying to fill the government with his loyalists who's sole mission is to block Biden's administration just like he spent 4 years accusing the Democrats of doing with no evidence.

Sorry sugar, newsmax isn't being honest with you.

Almost every challenge has already been tossed out of court or ruled against Trump. Those remaining deal with a miniscule number of votes that may have arrived (not mailed) late thanks to the USPS acting as a part of the Trump campaign and slowing deliveries, and ignoring court orders to "sweep" mail rooms for missing ballots. When forced, one single Houston mail room found over 800....most for Biden. The vote fraud that's been found are all Republican frauds, again, and the numbers aren't large enough to swing the election for Trump in any states. Some might turn blue if all legal votes were delivered.

Most lawsuits were asking to stop vote counting, and were tossed in the trash. Some were about observers, but have zero effect on the counts. The rest are based on pure assumptions, not evidence, of things like late votes being counted, or normal processes like ballot "curing" which is filling out the circle/box when the vote intent was clear but the box not totally blacked out. They're even trying g to disqualify ballots that only had a vote for president...as if that was abnormal or illegal.

Even his case for a recount in Georgia is highly unlikely to proceed, since the margin is over .25% the team requesting a recount must pay for it, and the Trump team is too broke to even hire real lawyers, forget paying up front for a statewide recount.

There aren't even enough votes being questioned by Trump's campaign to swing any states...so there aren't enough to cast doubt even if every one being questioned is fraudulent...and so far there aren't many if any verified fraudulent votes, and my bet is the few found are double votes for Trump anyway.

Sorry sunshine. You lost, and are just stewing in your sour grapes. Just another never Bidener. There's a decent chance you'll lose the Senate too when Georgia is through.
Red tsunami 2020!

Edit: if you donated to the legal defense fund, I hope you read the fine print, because at least half is going to pay pre-existing debts from the campaign, and still more goes directly into Trump's pocket for using his donation portal. Not much is going towards his legal battles, battles he knows are lost causes (most already lost in court). Don't be surprised if you also signed up for monthly donations too, watch your credit card bill, his campaign has repeatedly suckered donors into agreeing to that by hiding it in the fine print, now that his presidency is done he has no reason to not be a pure con man/thief again. Russia won't extradite him, so he's going to grab every penny of your money he can before he flees the country.

And so many sticking to their guns and doubling down with no remaining attempts at reason.

@newtboy and my list doesn't show all of the media reports that are glossing things over. Like the ones saying that Huber was just holding a skateboard and trying to disarm Kyle, that Rosenbaum was just shot for no reason, that don't mention the 'peaceful protesters' carrying or firing guns, and so on.

I feel sorry for the kid because he is being torched by the media mob and he'll never have a shot at a fair jury trial. It would be nice if all media could take a second and do a MINIMUM of research like I did to find out all angles, THEN report fully. But they don't. Conservative media does one thing and the Liberal media does the other, neither tell the whole truth ever.

I think there's room for debate about whether the policy was unevenly applied, but either way, it's an abuse of power. Goodyear should even be able to openly advocate for Biden without fearing the President would start a boycott.

The room for debate part:
Obviously MAGA hats are campaigning, and so is By/Bye Don 2020 clothing, and both should be disallowed according to the Goodyear policy.

The Black Lives Matter organization has policies for the defunding of police and other things that aren't directly opposing racism. So, however political Blue Lives Matter is, it's as political as Black Lives Matter in that regard, and either both should be allowed or both disallowed. Yet the image that jesus linked to above shows Blue Lives Matter as "Unacceptable".

Republicans said anyone over 65 would have a death panel decide if they were worth treating, a flat out lie, and miles away from suggesting maybe we wouldn't authorize a heart and lung transplant for 90 year olds, or other multimillion dollar procedures...of course nothing would stop them from paying for the procedures themselves. Now, under republican leadership, death panels are what's happening by necessity in Texas.

I guess the rest of the world is Democrats, because the rest of the world shutdown, but really shutdown not a voluntary minimal social distancing 1/2 ass shutdown where most businesses and public spaces stayed open. Where shutdowns actually happened, Covid was quickly under control. Where they weren't or where they were lifted, Covid is exploding....like America and Brazil.
150000 dead Americans citizens and counting is a nothing burger. 4 dead in Benghazi calls for shutting the government down until we lock her up.

I'll tell my politicians to follow at least minimal health guidelines and not open until two weeks of serious declines, and to make masks mandatory with large fines and jail time for repeat offenders.

If Trump had closed down and told his morons to wear masks, not incited them to gather in large groups without masks over and over, he could have been a hero, but instead he ignored the problem and encouraged the worst, most unsafe, guaranteed to extend shutdowns behavior and so we have the worst death rates on earth, with India closing fast.

Biden is good, but even he can't solve the Trump virus crisis in two months now...if he were president in Jan 2020, yeah, two months is about right.

By their own admission, these arrests are "proactive arrests" - Chad Wolf, Acting Homeland Security Chief

So we're not even arresting them for committing a crime, we're anticipating maybe they MIGHT commit one. This is wholly illegal, and so long as we allow this type of overreaching authority, the closer we get to an actual authoritarian dystopia. Wait til it happens to you.

They're already a step ahead.

Even though they've ALL voted by mail at some point, they now claim it's too open to fraud (never mind that most of those caught were on the Republican side). They know vote by mail will be big in the fall, so he'll use it as an excuse to claim victory anyhow and refuse to relinquish the office.

BTW, did you see the black woman who through genuine accident voted twice argued with a judge's sentence and so he doubled it?

Meanwhile, President Trump registered to vote in Florida, using Mar a Lago as his "home address" in Florida in September 2019.

Dude.... I think even @bobknight33 knows enough to realize there's an issue there.

Also, a Republican Congressman representing Kansas registered himself to a Kansas apartment he rented for a few months while claiming the benefits of being an Alaska resident and later changed his home address to a UPS store to cast a vote in a specific district for the municipal election. Want to bet whether he'll get shown leniency because he just made an "honest" mistake. (Honest here meaning, 'I agree with you politically, so won't punish you for cheating'.)

America is in for a serious wake up call when schools don't reopen, because spoiler alert. They're not reopening. And guess what, there's no alternative child care that will be available. Really. None. This is fine for the upper middle class and the wealthy, they can afford it, but the middle and lower class are going to be absolutely destroyed. Having a child unable to return to school means they can't work.

Don't believe me? here's what's going to happen. Currently in my state there's already a shortage of substitutes. They've cancelled classes numerous times because they simply can't find a sub when a teacher is sick. Now imagine what happens when a school has an outbreak and 30 or 40 students and staff gets sick. It's going to completely destroy the school, and the morale of teachers who are still there will be in the toilet. The classes they do continue are going to be absolutely worthless. The teachers will be miserable, and so will the kids. Now imagine the fact that school districts in Republican counties will refuse to shut down.You think these teachers are going to continue going to work and risking their lives? Nope. Not for what they get paid. So eventually the teachers union is going to stand up for the working conditions, and if they don't go online, they're going to strike. This will effectively shut down public schools across the entire US and costs billions and billions of dollars. But here's the worst part, all these schools that follow Betsy Devos' advice, and are taking the Republican approach of "stay in school no matter what!" are going to have zero alternate plans. You think it was bad back in march when schools were closing and didn't know what the fuck to do, take that times ten. Now, we've got another complication on top of everything else, and that's that parents are already fucking crazy about their kids education. They're not only going to be losing their shit because their kids will have to stay home, and they can't work, but their kids also won't be getting educated. Think of the gathering of the juggalos, and imagine it's Karens at a school board meeting. That's where we're headed. It's going to be an absolute shit show, and all because Americans are too fucking dumb and arrogant to simply wear a mask, and social distance for a few weeks. really, we could have this behind us like the rest of the world, but we've got to sit in time out and watch 100s of thousands die because we're acting like toddlers.

I would encourage everyonw to watch the latest interview with Betsy Devos. When asked what should be done when there's an outbreak at schools she said "we need to reopen schools", when asked again, she just repeated herself. They literally have no alternate plan. None. When the outbreaks happen, these schools are going to close, and the schools will have no contingency plans. Because the leadership in the US has been so abysmal, and the rich people making decisions have nothing to worry about. Fuck the poor, make them bring their kids to work, that's where we're at.