Of all the things I’d blame the guy for, this isn’t one of them. Money is money. People who sneer at picking up pennies from the sidewalk have never gone hungry, is all.

It’s not so much this attitude that’s the problem.  After all, voters like that aren’t the ones actually dismantling all social safety nets and public benefits programs.  It’s the cynical abuse of this natural, if ignorant, human tendancy by the Republican party that’s absolutely disgusting.

While I agree it’s not necessarily a good path to getting your message heard, understood, and accepted... show me where being an asshole or even acting like one, is mutually exclusive with being right?

These guys have lawyers that took on the IRS itself and didn’t just win, they got them to back down on their own. That never happens, since the IRS believes that pretty much all personal property in the U.S. belongs to them once you’ve made one tiny mistake or stepped 10 cents over the line somewhere.

The only thing that sounds strange about this story is Scientology setting up any operations whatsoever in low income neighborhoods. I thought their entire modus operandi was converting the wealthy, to keep their coffers nice and full of tax-free money.  I can’t imagine what they’d get out of a bunch of low-income…

Some of these I get, some I don’t.

If their POS system can document their meal as not containing sushi, all it will take is the Facebook post saying “I found a worm in my sushi”. That, and some declining sales figures, or possibly even a trend of bad reviews or even the comments & likes on the Facebook post. All pretty doable, compared to the usual…

To be fair, cashing a foreign check for so much as 10 cents - hell, even one issued by that bank - at a bank at which you do not have an account is an exercise in futility. They never EVER want to do it and will find reasons and make you jump through hoops for an hour then refuse anyway. I’ve never, ever seen it work,…

Whoever’s on the hook for that $300 is, in theory, supposed to be motivated by desire not to lose it, to make sure the accused shows up for court rather than having to be arrested on another charge and waste police manpower. In theory.

They literally have more money than most of the countries in the Western Hemisphere. They could buy and sell more than half of the states in the Union and still be liquid enough to operate.

I could have sworn that PA was a one-party consent state commonwealth?  I’m sure I heard of people being pissed but having no legal recourse regarding telephone conversations that were recorded without their knowledge.  I’ve no idea why that would be under a two-party statute.

You gotta figure that ice cream is a lot like fried chicken. Automatic, broad if not quite universal appeal, hard to screw up completely, sells itself, etc. As long as you have a remotely accessible location, it’s hard to imagine failing except through fierce competition with another business, or your own incompetence.

There’s no “h”, it’s just “waling,” meaning “to raise welts upon by striking vigorously.”

CHRIST, how hard is it to understand that what actually rules in Venezuela has as close a relationship to Democratic Socialism as what goes on in the U.S. economy does to a well-regulated Free Market as defined in the Wealth of Nations? Adam Smith’s grave should be hooked up to a turbine. We’ve perverted his ideas so…

GOP policy and propaganda hard at work, coupled with rigorous dismantling of public education. Rich folks can always pay for competent, private education. Everyone else is then more easily duped. “You can always pay half the poor to kill the other half”, as has been observed. All you have to do is convince them that…

Wrong tree, actually. I worked in higher ed for 20 years. It’s not the six-figure professors that are the waste. It’s the near-seven-figure Administrators and Coaches that are really not adding anything and titanic wastes of cash.

I imagine it’s a lot like insurance. Everybody resents being forced to pay, and either imagines getting nothing for it or is inevitably disappointed in what they do get for their money.

The ownership class always thinks they have enough tough guys with guns, axe-handles, teargas, saps, etc. to handle the violence.  They think the National Guard is a good Plan B for when that finally happens.  They’re always wrong, eventually.

It’s hard to fill out a union card on your 90-second once-a-day, timed bathroom break, especially when your mandatory GPS tracker will report on you if you don’t actually sprint to the bathroom 3 floors and a football field away.

White may trump everything else, but male still trumps female regardless of race.  A man can shoot a kid for walking down the street if he gets nervous, but if women started shooting the people who abuse them daily and keep them living in fear?  Can’t have that, the Patriarchy might end...