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Why You May Not Like Ted Cruz's Face, According To Science (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ted Cruz pitches himself as an overcomer, an underdog, an outsider who beats the odds. While the Republic candidate has won four states in this nomination race so far, a neurologist says he still faces a big obstacle with voters: his own face. In an interview with Quartz, George Washington University's Richard E. Cytowic said the unusual movements of Cruz's face may make him seem less sincere to the human brain than other candidates. "The normal way a face moves is what's called the Duchenne smile, named after the 19th century French neurologist. So the mouth goes up, the eyes narrow and the eyes crinkle at the outside, forming crows feet," said Cytowic, a professor of neurology.
"Cruz doesn't give a Duchenne smile. His mouth goes in a tight line across or else it curves down in an anti-Duchenne smile. So he doesn't come across as sincere at all."
Visceral reactions probably drive a lot more of politics than anyone likes to admit; seeming trustworthy isn't the same as being trustworthy, but it sure helps win people over.
He appears insincere because, guess fuckin' what, he *is.*
Cruz is a Dominionist. None of this means anything to him except insofar as he can grab the reins of power and usher in some dystopic nightmare fusion of 1984 and The Handmaiden's Tale. Dominionists have been a scary powerful group since the Nixon years and they went absolutely metastaticwhen Bush II was elected.
If he is not stopped, we're going to end up ruled by the Christian Taliban.
I wrote this for another forum which was focused on trump. But basically only 21% of Ted Cruz's statements are true or mostly true. He lies twice as often as Clinton and Sanders and almost twice as often as Rubio. He's facile at lying. Lying is a tool in his tool box. It has little to do with his face.
From politifact, the Pulitzer prize winning political fact checking site.
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
51% of Clinton's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 21% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
48% of Sander's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 21% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
35% of Rubio's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 22% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
21% of Ted Cruz's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 13% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers...
8% of Trump's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 14% are half true.
yes.. 8% is yoooge.
Trump is saying mostly false statements to outright lies 78% of the time. When caught in a lie, he just lies again.
I was suprised to see Cruz had such a high lie rating given that he's christian and christians are against the lord of lies but his particular sect does approve of lying in the service of the lord so that may be playing a factor here.
Trump is almost a full order of magnitude more dishonest however.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That creates an interesting question assuming you agree with the empirical evidence that Ted Cruz is very dishonest.
I basically see three main possibilities:
1) It's just a coincidence that a very insincere face is coupled with a very insincere man. The researcher suggests this though he's basically just repeating the null hypothesis.
2) Cruz's face behaves the way it does because he's so dishonest. The brain uses different circuits when lying or manipulating (ie fake smile vs genuine smile). If he's spent years being highly manipulative the circuits that control how his face move might work subtly different.
3) Finally he might be lying so much because he realizes he looks dishonest and has come to identify as such (or he's learned people won't believe him regardless).
I suspect it's one of the latter two, our brains don't do perfect heuristics but they're often based on something real.
This reminds me of the study that found hockey players with rounder faces were more aggressive. Of course that doesn't tell you if the aggression and round face were both caused by the same underlying factor (ie testosterone) or if the players were acting more aggressive because they looked more aggressive.
I stole this Sig
"delivered on a campaign promise to deliver affordable health care to everyone"
After my last company meeting on healthcare benefits, 6 years into the affordable care act, I can say for certain that "affordable" healthcare has not been delivered to "everyone".
Every single person I know is paying significantly more for healthcare than they were 6 years ago. Even worse, many are paying for plans with such high deductibles, that their so-called health insurance is never used.
The ACA did absolutely nothing to contain cost increases that have been outstripping inflation and wages by many many times. At best the ACA can be credited with bringing catastrophic coverage to some folks who never had any coverage at all - at a significant cost to everyone else.
The ACA needs to be put in the trash and replaced with something that actually controls cost increases.
The actual statistics do not agree with Politico.com (you'd be on firmer ground citing Wikipedia, by far):
http://kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/analysis-of-2016-premium-changes-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marketplaces/
The sticker shock is higher - but not after the tax credit. If you make over 4x the federal, then yeah, you're not eligible for the tax credit and you're probably going to pay more. But that's the whole point. It's a progressive legislation, designed to subsidize health insurance for people with low incomes.
Also worth pointing out that overall health care costs are growing much more slowly than the decade prior to the ACA.
And this brilliant plan helps families that have someone with a preexisting condition obtain insurance, HOW?
If you have a preexisting condition, that means you were betting on not getting sick and not paying into the pool. You played the lottery and you lost. Your problem, not mine.
Dead wrong.
I changed jobs. The insurance company of my new employer denied benefits because I "now" had a pre-existing condition.
Had I stayed with my old employer, my old insurance company would have continued to pay. Instead I had to cough up a large chunk of cash out of my own pocket, because it was only after being treated that it became known that they wouldn't pay.
I know someone who spent 30 years at the same employer, whether it was good or bad because of his cancer and their insurance. Back when you could spend 30 years with the same employer, of course.
That's one of the reasons Obamacare had to kill the pre-existing conditions loophole. The old rules were designed when people had job security.