Readers tell me every day that this is the one Substack they never miss—the one they look forward to, open, and actually read. The one that makes them [*checks notes*] snort coffee out of their nose, startle the cat, annoy their spouse, and occasionally “pee a little.” If glowing reviews paid the bills, trust me,
I’d leave it at awe, thanks, and we could all skip the groveling.
Alas, this is—somewhat alarmingly—my one and only job, so here we are.
FWIW, an annual subscription works out to about 30 cents a post and comes with a free signed book. If you can’t swing it or aren’t sure you like me that much, free content will resume tomorrow. :)
A Republican governor released an ad this week promoting a policy so aggressively conservative it should come with a complimentary Reagan mug. The message was both simple and straightforward: if you’re able-bodied and capable of working, you’re going to have to get a job, go to school, be enrolled in some sort of training, or at the very least regularly pitch in at your local soup kitchen in order to qualify for government assistance.
The ad featured a twenty-something guy playing video games, eating cheese balls with a mechanical grabber claw, and otherwise perfecting the art of lazy, horizontal living.
“Meet Brad,” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders purrs from the screen. “Brad has turned relaxing into a full-time profession. But you? You actually work hard. You pay taxes to cover welfare for guys like Brad who just choose not to work. That’s why I launched a ‘welfare to work’ requirement. Now, more Arkansans are working than ever before. Even Brad.”
You might assume conservatives watched this and thought, Hell, yeah! Get a job, Brad!
Overwhelmingly, they did not.
What happened instead is they absolutely lost their minds. Not because conservatives object to work requirements attached to handouts in general, but because apparently Sanders picked the wrong welfare bum for her ad.


