Kevin McCarthy clearly loves attention, but also suffers from the all-too-common ailment of not having a single solitary clue what he’s talking about.
 

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave himself a one-day head start on President Biden’s Tuesday State of the Union Address in the form of a televised speech about a “responsible debt limit.” He naturally dedicated much of this bad-faith demonstration to several favorite Republican culture war talking points (undocumented immigrants, China = scary, etc.) before he got into some baffling nonsense regarding the debt ceiling, which he and his House GOP have taken hostage in the hopes of extracting even more sweeteners for the wealthy and corporate America that they have been unable to enact by, uh, winning elections. 
   

• McCarthy did some predictable, completely insincere pearl-clutching about the national debt, and made sure to neatly tie it up in a bow of It’s Never Been This Bad and It’s All Democrats’ Fault™ (that is, he lied). Infuriatingly, McCarthy cited a number of Republican-created economic inequalities, like 60 percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, (from the mouth of the leader of the party that blocks any attempt to raise the minimum wage! The party that loves to see American union jobs shipped overseas to maximize corporate profits!) and blamed it on inflation which he blamed entirely on  Joe Biden and the Democrats (another lie). 
   

• McCarthy complained about “four years of out-of-control discretionary spending” under Democratic congressional majorities, which is funny because his president was in the White House four years ago, and signed three clean debt ceiling increases, and oversaw a huge increase in discretionary spending, over the course of his single term, all of which McCarthy voted for. Speaking of disgraced former president Donald Trump, McCarthy somehow forgot to mention the $1.9 trillion tax cut for the wealthy and corporations that the GOP engineered and shoved down America’s throat in 2017, ballooning the national debt enormously and heavily contributing to the inflation we’ve seen in the past few years all while doing nothing to improve the material conditions of average Americans.  (McCarthy voted for that, too.) McCarthy can wax poetic about eggs all he wants (“a staple of America’s breakfast!”) but he’s not fooling anyone into thinking he’s Tom Joad.

Stop me before I have a rage stroke, because I currently have a blood clot in the shape of Kevin McCarthy’s goofy-ass face. 
 

• According to McCarthy and the GOP, the necessary allocations required to run a functional government responsible for the lives of over 330 million people is “wasteful Washington spending” or “excess” which drives inflation, but massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations insuring that the amount of money flowing into the government is wholly insufficient to pay the debts we’ve already incurred while also saddling the lion’s share of the tax burden on the working class is “fiscal responsibility.” Gotcha. 
   

• Another notable absence from McCarthy’s speech was any mention of the pandemic. You know, the factor that most impacted the global economy for the past three years? Yeah, that one. Pretty big thing to omit!. Looks like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)’s deranged COVID-19 denialism is rubbing off on ole’ Kev. Or maybe he figures it’s just best to not mention anything that can’t be blamed on Joe Biden. McCarthy rounded out his speech by assuring his audience that cuts to Medicare and Social Security “are off the table,” and “defaulting on our debts is not an option,” cosplaying a reasonable legislator. The implicit threat there is that everything else is on the table, including essential programs like Medicaid, which his swamp buddy, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), wants to slash by adding work requirements as part of any debt ceiling negotiations. Public education? Republicans famously hate that, too, so I’m sure they’ll try to take a whack at it. The Big Bloated military? Only if they can somehow make it hurt Ukraine.
   

Luckily for him, Kevin McCarthy had low name-recognition before becoming Speaker. Now the whole country’s gonna get to know him, his inability to speak sensibly, his total unseriousness, and his fealty to the MAGA crowd. Democrats are fortunate to have him as the face of the GOP threat to wreck the economy out of spite, and if they exploit it aggressively, maybe McCarthy et al will realize being evil is a bad political strategy and walk back from the brink.

We’re officially in the phase of the George Santos news cycle where it’s time to make merch. Since the biggest fabulist in Congress has his hands full making up stories about the time someone tried to steal his shoes, we decided to get his merch shop started for him. The Crooked Store now has mugs and tees for three venerable institutions that George Santos did not claim to found, but it’s only a matter of time until he does. The George Santos Center for Middle East Peace and Bird Rescue? That’s just a good idea. He should lie about founding that. By the time this newsletter comes out, maybe he has! 
 

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has killed over 4,000 people in Turkey and Syria, with rescuers still working and searching for bodies in near-freezing temperatures, amid scores of aftershocks.

Pro-choice advocacy groups are sounding the alarm about a lawsuit in Texas filed by conservative anti-choice groups seeking a nationwide ban on the abortion pill ​​mifepristone, which has been FDA-approved for over two decades. The case is widely ridiculed by legal experts as “rooted in baseless and debunked arguments,” but that’s never stopped ultraconservative, Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk before. 

The first hearing of the House GOP’s “Weaponization of Government” subcommittee (we live in hell) will feature testimony from Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) andRon Johnson (R-WI), and former-Democratic-congresswoman-turned-conservative-darling Tulsi Gabbard. A full roster of Fox News’ favorite unhinged windbags! What luck.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), who won't ban assault rifles or open carry or even institute basic background checks after decades of mass shootings, says Texans need to be protected from...TikTok and announced plans for a statewide ban of the app. 

Pakistan’s former President Pervez Musharraf died on Sunday at the age of 79 after a prolonged illness. He was a key United States ally in the fight against al Qaeda after September 11th, but also an iron-fisted autocrat eventually ousted by his own constituents. 

The Federal Aviation Administration is considering fining United Airlines $1.15 million for flying Boeing 777s that were “not in airworthy condition,” because the airline suspended pre-flight fire-system safety checks. That number seems low considering what could have happened but okay!!

The group of billionaire donors to the Republican Party headed by Charles Koch signaled that they will support a primary challenger to Donald Trump in 2024, divesting from the former president. Before anyone perceived this as a positive development, Koch and his cronies have clearly just arrived at the realization that Trump is a political landmine who can’t win in the general. 

Federal authorities announced today that they have intercepted an attempt by “racially-motivated extremists” (we prefer to call them neo-Nazis) to bring down Baltimore’s electrical grid with assault weapons. 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that only if Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) chooses not to run for re-election (what are we doing here, Nancy) she will support Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in the primary contest for the vacant California senate seat. 

Longtime Texas GOP booster Harry Whittington (the guy who Dick Cheney shot in the face on a hunting trip in 2006) has died at the age of 95. He will be remembered for immediately publicly forgiving Cheney, who never actually apologized for the incident.

This week marks the 30-year anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, a landmark piece of legislation from the Clinton administration guaranteeing most workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for children, sick family members, or themselves if they fall ill. If you’re thinking “That…doesn’t even sound that good,” you’re right, but before it was passed in 1993, workers had no guaranteed protections to retain their jobs if they needed time off for an illness or maternity leave, even if they went unpaid. According to former president Clinton, who stopped by the White House to commemorate its passage, FMLA was not meant to be the final destination, but rather a floor to begin building upon. A 2018 Department of Labor survey found that some 44 percent of workers aren’t covered by it, despite 11 states having approved their own paid-leave policies in the intervening three decades. A higher proportion of workers have paid leave via their employers now than in 1993 (I should fucking hope so), but a more comprehensive federal bill remains elusive, and the United States is, somewhat infamously, the only wealthy country that offers zero days of guaranteed paid maternity leave. Love that for us! Perfect system! No notes!

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The Democratic National Committee has ratified a 2024 primary calendar that mercifully boots Iowa and (possibly) New Hampshire out of the opening slots (apologies to folks in those states, but you knew your time was up) and replaces them with South Carolina (first) and Nevada (second). Michigan and Georgia will also join the early states, so move over, predominantly White, rural states!

Viola Davis won a Grammy yesterday for the recording of her audiobook, elevating her to the prestigious EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony winner) club, where she has always belonged!

Manhattan prosecutors may file new fraud charges against longtime top Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, who is already in jail and facing a lengthy prison sentence.