Happy Friday Slatesters.

Welcome back to another edition of Shoutin Friday.

These are our Slate Plus exclusive conversations for when we need to not just report the news,

but laugh at it.

And I realize I said this during our last episode of Shoutin Friday, but I really, really

needed a break this week.

Because you know the week is off to a bad start when there is a mass shooting and then you open your news alerts and realize there's been another one.

And that is to say nothing about the death of Rob Reiner and his wife, truly

horrifying situations all, which with seemingly more depressing details coming out every day.

That said, today we are going to hit pause on those stories, take a small break.

We're going to talk about karma.

Karma for people who could use a little karmic comeuppance.

And this week I've brought on Ben Jacobs.

He's a contributing writer at a number of outlets, including Slate.com. Ben, welcome to

what next? Thanks for having me. Okay, so Ben, there's a lot to shout on Friday about today.

Like, we could talk about all sorts of things. There was this Vanity Fair article about the West Wing

that included a lot of crazy, unflattering photos of the people

steering this president, some unexpected on the record comments from Trump's inner circle.

We could talk about how Republicans have been promising to fix health care all month long

and seem to have really been incapable of getting anything done, especially this week. But personally,

I think the most shout-in-fridiest thing happening right now revolves around the economy,

because I think you could argue and you will disagree with me if you think I'm wrong.

...