Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

This fight is for everything.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

This really is a full service blog.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

No one could have predicted…

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The words do not have to be perfect.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Thursday Evening Open Thread: ONE. WEIRD. TRICK!

Thursday Evening Open Thread: ONE. WEIRD. TRICK!

by | 141 Comments

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I remember being taught, starting in around the fifth grade, the ‘good’ effect of the Black Plague was that the resultant shortage of workers gave serfs a chance to bargain their way up the income scale. Maybe this historical nugget only got shared in parochial schools? Or did it get written out of the textbooks, perhaps during the ‘Greed Is Good’ era?

So, of course, the Palmetto State leadership demands: Why can’t we just bring back indentured servitude, if you’re gonna insist chattel slavery is a ‘bad thing’?…

Reader Interactions

141Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    It seems a little unfair to make businesses compete for customers and workers. Pick one.

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Sounds similar to farmers who planted orchards during the drought, now the drought is back and they wonder why the “gummint takin’ our water and giving it to fish.”

    Fuck that noise.

    Also, Numer zwei.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Joy Reid just said (about some statement by Elise Stefanik) “That’s just bullshit!”

    I laughed.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @debbie:

    She has totally whored out to Trump.

    I assume, and sure as hell hope, your “she” refers to Stefanik and not Reid!

  13. 13.

    DRickard

    Ain’t it funny how the glibertarian economics pundits all insist that offering ginormous pay/benefits packages are the only way to attract the best talent for executive positions… but never apply the same logic to jobs filled by the plebeians.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    Restaurant owner: “workers will only take my unpleasant, poorly paid job if they’re desperate.” Credulous reporter: “well, let’s hope workers become desperate again soon! I see no other solution.”

    SC Gov. McMaster: I know how to make them desperate!

  17. 17.

    Jay

    “In the US…905,000 people have died of Covid since the start of the pandemic…about 38% higher than the current death estimate from the CDC, 561,594…The new figure also surpasses the estimated number of U.S. deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic…” https://t.co/ItgtOCogLm— Jeffrey Duchin, MD (@DocJeffD) May 6, 2021

  19. 19.

    Roger Moore

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    That McMaster guy has nerve. I hope his voters know what he’s doing.

    They know exactly what he’s doing.  He’s making those lazy n*****s work for a living instead of sitting on their asses collecting welfare.

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    Attorney for Capitol defendant Anthony Antonio said his client had “Foxitus” and “Foxmania” from watching six months of Fox News and started “believing what was being fed to him” by Fox News and the president. pic.twitter.com/aHMppeb1yc— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) May 6, 2021

    I prefer the old-fashioned “is a white supremacist Nazi shitstain,” as in, “Anthony Antonio is a white supremacist Nazi shitstain – allegedly.”

  22. 22.

    Kent

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:Holy shit. That McMaster guy has nerve. I hope his voters know what he’s doing.

    HIS voters agree with it.  Can’t have those “other” folks getting something for nothing with the T-bones and Cadillacs.

  23. 23.

    Betsy

    The APTLY named governor of South Carolina, Henry “McMaster.”

    Jeepers.  You really cannot make this stuff up.

  24. 24.

    bbleh

    Yes!  supporting unemployed workers with my tax dollars is not only an unconstitutional taking of my private property but also is depriving our economy of the essential desperate need that is our only way to drive people to work as hard as they are able and still be below the poverty line.

    I mean, what’s the alternative?  Paying them a living wage might actually cause a small uptick in INFLATION!!11!!  Obviously we can’t have that.  What would happen to the value of my bond portfolio?

  25. 25.

    Betsy

    @Betsy:   I mean it’s like fast food and chattel slavery had a baby and couldn’t think of what else to call it.

    In freaking SOUTH CAROLINA.

  26. 26.

    Betsy

    @Betsy: You’d think with a name like that, a person would have a little shame about forcing people back to work.

  27. 27.

    Cacti

    Has any FPer mentioned Caitlyn Jenner’s Hannity interview?

    It was a hoot.

    She attempted to be relatable by sharing an anecdote about a friend she spoke to at the private jet hangar, who said he was leaving California because he couldn’t stand the sight of homeless people.

    Yep.  Definitely a Republican.

  29. 29.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @bbleh:

    They’re the same people that drive by a road crew and get incensed that the crew isn’t hitting it every single moment while on the clock.

  30. 30.

    Betsy

    @Betsy: There really is no level of parody that doesn’t reflect wingnut reality, is there.

    (That’s not Cleek’s Law, is it?  I’m mixing up my BJ rules-of-thumb)

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:  Of course, because they know from personal experience how easy it is to do heavy manual work outdoors in full safety equipment for 8 hours a day. Nothing like the REAL work of, say, taking a deposition, or calculating withholding for nonsalaried staff. (That requires actual multiplication, did you know that?!)

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    I remember being taught, starting in around the fifth grade, the ‘good’ effect of the Black Plague was that the resultant shortage of workers gave serfs a chance to bargain their way up the income scale. Maybe this historical nugget only got shared in parochial schools?

    This used to be almost conventional wisdom. But as is usually the case, then and now, what is taught in schools is over-simplified.

    For example, crops went unharvested, creating some food shortages. In England and elsewhere, peasants agitated for higher wages, and also were able to move to areas where wages were higher.  One response to this were laws imposing controls on wages (fixing them at pre-plague levels) and freedom of movement. Also there were laws making it a crime to refuse work.

    And one counter-response to all this was the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

    With this pandemic, there are still millions unemployed and under-employed. Women have been heavily affected in many communities.

    The disruption is very uneven. Some industries, especially where people could work remotely, have seen wages rise or at least continue steadily, while “essential workers” have taken a harder hit.

    The Democrats are trying to create a smooth re-opening of the economy. So far, so good. Let’s hope that right wing goof balls don’t screw things up with their opposition.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @Cacti:What I’ve seen of the interview confirms for me that Caitlyn Jenner knows very little about California’s issues or how to address them, far less than she realises; and she is hopelessly unqualified to be Governor.​

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Heh, reminds me of the time I shot a nail thru my hand. One of the other carpenters, a guy who looked sounded and acted like Thor, went from God of Thunder to pansy on the fainting couch in 0.6 seconds: “OH MY GAAAAWD!!!!”

    I turned to Terry: “Your driving me.”

  48. 48.

    Betsy

    @Baud:  I do think there is some maxim that goes something like, “There is no parody so extreme that it can’t be mistaken for wingnut reality.”

    Perhaps this is simply a corollary of “there is no peak wingnut.”

    I feel like I should know the BJ shortcuts and all applicable memes by now (surely felt I used to) but  maybe TFG’s administration robbed me of my memory as well as my peace of mind.

  49. 49.

    Mo Salad

    Here’s the thing with these fuckers.
    The employee retention tax credit has been extended throughout 2021 and provides a $7,000 credit for the first $10,000 of wages and benefits paid to each employee that is a non-owner or owner family member, EACH AND EVERY QUARTER provided that your gross receipts are 80% or less of what they were in the equivalent 2019 quarter. Employers should be using this to goose up wages and/or be overstaffed for a while as the business recovers. You can’t double dip and use wages that you use for the calculation of PPP loan forgiveness, so some caution must be paid.
    So these employers have TWO big ass government handouts, meant to help employees and these greedy/idiot owners of all of these under 500 employee businesses are not taking advantage of it to get that pay to their staffs.
    If my business is still limping along and I can hire someone for $20 an hour and have the feds pickup $14 of it, I’d over-staff and overpay (relative to other businesses) and have them help me with all of those long term projects that businesses never seem to get to, while gearing up for recovery.​

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    @Betsy:

    That’s not Cleek’s Law, is it? I’m mixing up my BJ rules-of-thumb

    You’re thinking of Poe’s law.  Cleek’s Law is that what conservatives want is the opposite of what liberals want, updated daily.

  52. 52.

    Steve in the ATL

    Was about to add South Carolina to my list of states I will never live in, but it’s already on there.  Near the top.

  53. 53.

    Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    last “big” job I worked, as a Contractor,  ran a router with a half inch bit over my left hand.

    one second of being tired, inattentive or distracted can kill or cripple.

  54. 54.

    bbleh

    @Brachiator:

    So far, so good. Let’s hope that right wing goof balls don’t screw things up with their opposition.

    You bet!  I’m taking that to the bank!

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Hey, if Arnie could do it, anyone can.

    1. Arnie had been getting politically involved long before he ran for governor, long enough that it was turned into a gag.
    2. He still wasn’t particularly good as governor.
  56. 56.

    brendancalling

    Apropos of nothing, I coach middle school track for the next month or so and I’m hoping to do cross country next year.  I am the grumpiest MF around, and these kiddos melt me every day.

  57. 57.

    Mart

    @bbleh: “in full safety equipment for 8 hours a day.” For me that often included a dust mask. We did not think wearing it was against our rights, just knew when you got to three strikes you were fired.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax: yeah like, um, what urgent problem is this bill solving?

    (rhetorical question: I’m aware it’s performative trumpism, all the way down…)

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    What I’ve seen of the interview confirms for me that Caitlyn Jenner knows very little about California’s issues or how to address them, far less than she realises; and she is hopelessly unqualified to be Governor.​

    The last recall election in 2003 became a circus, with many clowns squeaking their lapel horns trying to get attention. We are getting the same nonsense again.

    The funny thing is I remember East Coast pundits making fun of California, and wisely noting that people in other states would never elect a TV or movie celebrity with no political experience to high political office.

    Those were more innocent times.

    I am not that concerned about Jenner, but I note that during recall madness, much craziness is unleashed and things get unpredictable. There is some degree of foolish anger directed at Newsom because of the pandemic. His opponents are hoping that they can capitalize on that anger before people wise up.

  62. 62.

    raven

    @Steve in the ATL: Whatcha gonna do when Kemp does it

     

    eta

     

    “Some Georgia employers are having trouble finding workers, prompting a warning from the state Department of Labor. Soon, those receiving unemployment benefits will have to prove they are trying to get a job or risk losing payments.”

  63. 63.

    Jeffro

    @Jay: makes sense, unfortunately.  Would also make sense to assume that the infection rate has been much higher than reported.

    Very excited to see how Covid-23 and Covid-27 are counted, reported, etc.  I’m sure we as a society will have learned from all of this and adjusted accordingly…

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    @Betsy:The APTLY named governor of South Carolina, Henry “McMaster.”  Jeepers.  You really cannot make this stuff up.

    the extremely lazy writing from 2020 has followed us into 2021…

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:

    yeah like, um, what urgent problem is this bill solving?

    Difficulty getting drugs for lethal injection.  Seriously, manufacturers of drugs used as part of the standard three drug cocktail used for lethal injection have been working hard to keep them from being diverted from healing to killing.  There have been various attempts to get the drugs and/or switch the cocktail, but legalizing other means of execution is most likely related to this rather than some Trumpian desire to go back to something more barbaric.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: we could avoid this kind of circus if only folks who currently held an elected office were eligible to run for a higher one, whether in the case of a recall election or any other.

    (sort of a variation on my ‘change the qualifications for president’ thingy – you can’t run unless you’ve already served/are serving as a Rep, Senator, or state Gov)

    No more Caitlyn for Gov, no Rock or Mark Cuban or Taylor Swift or Elon Must or Tucker Carlson or for President, etc etc.  Let them find some other way to stay in the limelight.

  69. 69.

    Delk

    After 1 year and 8 months my husband finally got a job offer. Two of them actually. He makes a decision tomorrow afternoon. <exhale>relief </exhale>

  70. 70.

    PaulWartenberg

    What we’re seeing from Republican governors cutting off unemployment benefits is their ill-informed and wrong-headed belief that the poor are intentionally lazy wanting to live off the dole. They would rather punish the poor and the unemployed for being that way, rather than provide enough aid to help us – I still remember my 4 years of unemployed hell – find jobs that pay well enough to cover shit like mortgages, groceries, clothing, cars, car insurance, gas, etc.

    When was the last time any of these Republican assholes ever been unemployed themselves? I doubt they ever have. Either getting easy no-show jobs with their business buddies at a law firm or think tank somewhere, and telling each other lies about how some poor single mom with three kids at home doesn’t deserve to get $15 an hour, let alone any help juggling THREE different part-time jobs at $7.95 an hour.

  71. 71.

    Tazj

    @Mo Salad: Wow, somehow those facts never make it in to my local paper or newscasts. It’s been all “Local restaurant owners can’t find workers and they blame extended unemployment benefits from the Biden administration.”

    They might as well be saying “Workers made lazy by Biden administration ruin restaurant businesses.”

  73. 73.

    John Revolta

    @Roger Moore: Which in turn has led to some states going black market to obtain (In some cases, very dodgy) drugs to carry out their executions.

    Frankly, with the way things are being done currently, I’d choose the firing squad over lethal injection if I had that choice to make.

  74. 74.

    RSA

    @trollhattan:

    Also, Numer zwei.

    Spelling aside, I’ll observe that “Also Nummer zwei” is perfectly fine German—also means “so” or “therefore” or something comparable in English.

  76. 76.

    Captain C

    @Betsy:

    There really is no level of parody that doesn’t reflect wingnut reality, is there.

    This sounds like a really succinct generalization of Poe’s Law to all wingnut reality, which seems reasonable.

    @Baud:

    We shall call it “Betsy’s Law.”

    Seconded.

  77. 77.

    J R in WV

    Friend of mine nail-gunned his thumb to the palm of his hand. I was never clear on how that happened, there are safeties on those things. I do know how bad it hurt!

    He was somewhat pissed neither his wife nor daughters would pull the nail, they made him go to the ER for that part of the work. A good guy, hard worker.

  79. 79.

    jl

    Hey… wait. I thought the market only worked when it worked for the rich. I never actually was taught that in econ school, but I’ve heard it on the TV machine so often, I figure it must be true. I call this  high wages are good for you stuff Fake News!

    As economists like to say: ‘that might work in reality, but it never will in theory’.

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:

    we could avoid this kind of circus if only folks who currently held an elected office were eligible to run for a higher one, whether in the case of a recall election or any other.

    I think you’d better let people who have held those offices previously but are currently doing something different can run.  And maybe you’d want some kind of limit on how many steps in the ladder you’re allowed to jump, e.g. you can go from state legislator to US Senator but not POTUS.  That said, we have had some very successful Presidents with quite thin resumes, e.g. Lincoln and Eisenhower, and plenty of people who have successfully jumped to fairly high office without previous experience, e.g. Elizabeth Warren.

    The ultimate problem is with the voters, and there isn’t much you can do to fix that.  If you don’t let stupid voters vote for celebrities with no resume, they’ll just vote for people with resumes that prove they’re worthless.

  81. 81.

    Booger

    @Jay: You should switch to I.T. The routers are a lot harder to hurt yourself with.

    I mean, you can still do it.

  90. 90.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    we could avoid this kind of circus if only folks who currently held an elected office were eligible to run for a higher one, whether in the case of a recall election or any other.

    No. I am not interested in establishing a permanent political class. There might be some non-politicians who are qualified. In the 2003 California recall election, the Democratic Party alternative to Gray Davis was Cruz Bustamante, who had political experience, but who was not a good candidate (and that is putting it mildly).

    No easy answer here.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    I just don’t see any downside for me, personally, from these peoples wages going up :)

    It’s win/win!  Just great news.

  95. 95.

    Mallard Filmore

    @PaulWartenberg:

     

    telling each other lies about how some poor single mom with three kids at home doesn’t deserve to get $15 an hour, let alone any help juggling THREE different part-time jobs at $7.95 an hour.

    Hey! Those lazy good for nothings are STILL not doing anything between 1:00am and 5:30am. That’s plenty of time to pick up the extra money they need.

  96. 96.

    raven

    @Ken: “I been walkin all day I just cain’t find no job”.

     

    John Lee Hooker

    House Rent Blues

  99. 99.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jay: What if the reason for the restaurant worker shortage is so many of them died during the pandemic and no one could be arsed to count them because they were just little people?

  100. 100.

    Ksmiami

    Defund the red states then. Either follow federal guidelines or lose federal funding. Lately I’ve realized that America is a failed state that doesn’t know it. yet.

  101. 101.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Brachiator: Which means the historical pattern is repeating; there is a labor shortage, workers sense it and are takening advantage, the 1% is frantically trying to twist the law to deny the economic reality.

  103. 103.

    scav

    Paying employees!?!!  What kind of fresh Socialist hellscape is being unleashed now?

  108. 108.

    Betsy

    @Delk: That is fantastic. Well, it’s fantastic except for the after one year and eight months part. Keep us posted?!

  109. 109.

    Kayla Rudbek

    In further good news: the surgical drains and tape were removed today, and I can go back to taking ibuprofen for pain as all the patron saints of medicine intended. I seriously don’t think that Tylenol would make it through modern FDA approval.

    Although the crackling pain is also weirdly enough in the upper breast where I don’t see many surgical scars (even more so than the lower breasts where they actually took out material from what the scars indicate).  My system must be getting used to having less mass and a different distribution/shape than it’s had for the past 30 years. I find myself wanting to put some sort of lotion on, but I am not sure if I can apply any yet, and what I can apply at this stage.  I even find that I feel physically unbalanced and that my grip isn’t as strong as I want it to be  

    I will have a lot of shopping to do once I can get all the bandages off and take accurate measurements. Probably not replacing dresses, shirts, sweaters, and jackets yet, but definitely replacing underwear. If it weren’t for COVID, I’d probably go get professionally fitted.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Jay:

     Federal prosecutors said that Kolfage received hundreds of thousands of dollars from different organizations, including We Build the Wall Inc., which he deposited in his personal bank account,” reported David Voreacos. “

    Trumpsters doing their usual excellent stewardship of donor funds, I see.

  113. 113.

    TS (the original)

    @Amir Khalid:

    Caitlyn Jenner knows very little about California’s issues or how to address them, far less than she realises; and she is hopelessly unqualified to be Governor.​

    Someone with similar knowledge and qualifications became POTUS.

  114. 114.

    Kent

    @Mo Salad:Here’s the thing with these fuckers.
    The employee retention tax credit has been extended throughout 2021 and provides a $7,000 credit for the first $10,000 of wages and benefits paid to each employee that is a non-owner or owner family member, EACH AND EVERY QUARTER provided that your gross receipts are 80% or less of what they were in the equivalent 2019 quarter. Employers should be using this to goose up wages and/or be overstaffed for a while as the business recovers. You can’t double dip and use wages that you use for the calculation of PPP loan forgiveness, so some caution must be paid.
    So these employers have TWO big ass government handouts, meant to help employees and these greedy/idiot owners of all of these under 500 employee businesses are not taking advantage of it to get that pay to their staffs.
    If my business is still limping along and I can hire someone for $20 an hour and have the feds pickup $14 of it, I’d over-staff and overpay (relative to other businesses) and have them help me with all of those long term projects that businesses never seem to get to, while gearing up for recovery.​

    You know the real reason why they don’t do this?

    Because they don’t want to set the precedent of paying higher wages.  Because in a year or two they’d have to do it with their own money….gasp

  115. 115.

    CarolPW

    @Kayla Rudbek: That’s wonderful news. Depending on your size and support needs, a sports bra (the ones that are like putting a really wide ace bandage around your chest) may serve for a while without the need for fitting. And Vitamin E for the incision, it does help with the scarring.

  116. 116.

    Soprano2

    I look for other conservative states to follow South Carolina. I don’t know what businesses’ next excuse will be when it doesn’t improve the job market that much. I know it’s complicated,  but a lot of people don’t want to admit that. It’s easier to bitch about unemployment.

  117. 117.

    Jay

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    we can’t hire people, because in general, Corporate are morons.

    we have a Trade School 6 blocks away, and there is zero Corporate engagement with the Student Employment office.

    They hire people off of trade experience, when 90% of the job skills are customer service.

    So most of the full time staff are either lifers, or like me, crippled old tradesmen,

    and the part timers are students, having nothing to do with what we sell.

  118. 118.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: it doesn’t establish a permanent class, it establishes a permanent system.  Give me a break.

    That’s like complaining that “the way you’re setting it up, the only way to get to 8th grade is to go to 7th grade, and 6th grade before that”.  Well, yes.  You don’t get to just jump into 10th grade, you don’t get to be CEO on the basis of Instagram follows, and you shouldn’t be able to be president of the most powerful country on earth just because you have awesome name recognition as a tech CEO/pop music star/pro wrestler/reality tv con man.

  121. 121.

    Jeffro

    @TS (the original): my point, upthread.

    Take that away from them.  Make it not an option.  Go find some other way to garner publicity/clicks/follows/whatever, celebs and wanna-be celebs.

  123. 123.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Zounds!

    Everything Georgia @GAFollowers 1h
    BREAKING: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has announced that she will not seek re-election in 2022.

     I hope it’s not a health situation. As I recall her husband had a bad case of Covid.

  124. 124.

    The Pale Scot

    @raven: 

    Shit, just tripping over a root and falling backwards on my back while mowing last week was good enough!

    What, you didn’t fall into a wasp nest? Amateur

  126. 126.

    The Pale Scot

    @Ken:

    “I’ve applied at every right wing think tank in the country, no one is hiring”

  129. 129.

    JoyceH

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    Back to the Black Death discussion. I was taught that the effect of the Black Death wasn’t so much about wages, but that it essentially killed feudalism. In the feudal system, the serf was bound to the land and couldn’t just up and move and get a better job somewhere else without his lord’s permission. But the labor shortage after the plague knocked that off – if a fellow showed up looking for a job, you were less likely to ask to see his papers to make sure he was allowed to be there when you were so short of workers. So it basically decoupled the lowest level of workers from a specific piece of land and allowed them to move around to find a job of their own choosing.

  130. 130.

    The Pale Scot

    @Kent:

    Because they don’t want to set the precedent of paying higher wages.  Because in a year or two they’d have to do it with their own money….gasp

    WORD

  131. 131.

    Victor Matheson

    BTW, I teach that fact about the Black Plague raising wages all of the time in both Principles and Intermediate Macroeconomics.

  132. 132.

    Mo Salad

    @Kent: ​
      And of course, you are absolutely right. But these businesses could have been taking advantage of these credits to switch their employment model to that of better paid full time staffers, as opposed to a perpetual turnover of underpaid minions. See Costco V. Sam’s club. They’d be shocked by the gains in efficiency.

  133. 133.

    Noskilz

    It might be one of those “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” – but substitute “business model” for “salary.”

    I’m sure the plague was covered –  but if they remember being exposed to it, I’m sure they’ve done their best to put it out of their minds.

  134. 134.

    NotMax

    Well, there goes the appetite.

    Roku home screen, which randomly shows one ad (to which I generally pay no attention) on a sidebar promoting a channel or a show, chose to feature one with a close-up shot of the head of Bill O’Reilly, for some channel called The First. My limited understanding is that Roku gets paid by the service provider to include such ads in their rotation.

    A little snooping around on the intertoobz garnered this:

    The First is the premiere network for free speech and big ideas, as well as your election headquarters and the new TV home of Bill O’Reilly. The First is designed for Americans who love freedom and bold opinions. Hosts include Dana Loesch, Buck Sexton, Jesse Kelly, Mike Slater, and top contributors.

    Ptui. Yuckety yuck yuck yuck yuck.

  135. 135.

    Citizen Alan

    @scav: You laugh, but I genuinely believe most Republicans want to reinstitute slavery. They don’t want to call it that, but that’s what they want.

  136. 136.

    Tehanu

    @Betsy: ​
      What an evil sumbitch. I really can’t think of anything bad enough to call him. Thinking about “people” like him helps me understand what Thomas Aquinas said about one of the pleasures of Heaven being the ability to watch sinners tortured in Hell.

  140. 140.

    Jake Gibson

    @Brachiator: 
    Also have read that the aristocracy and Catholic Church made a deal to ban abortion in exchange for control of education.

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