The headlines about the U.S. economy are very “He loves me, he loves me not,” these days, and we gotta be honest, the GOP holding the economy hostage isn’t helping!
 

• The House Freedom Caucus (yes, these fucking jokers again) issued a new set of ransom demands today as part of their ongoing scheme to tank the United States economy for sport. Led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) this new series of “conditions” would gut federal health-care, education, science, and labor programs. They seek tougher(?) work requirements on welfare recipients, and to repeal the allocation of federal funds to fight the pandemic and climate change, you know, two things that are killing us now and will kill us in the future. And they’re demanding all of this in exchange for not shoving the U.S. economy into default on its debt, which would cause an international financial crisis. Cool! Good stuff! 
   

• In a speech on the House floor, Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) distilled the GOP worldview: “Too many Americans are getting paid not to work, in West Virginia, my home state, two unemployed parents with two children can make over $73k in unemployment and health-care subsidies. Unfortunately, this is more than essential workers make in a year.” This is one of those *chef’s kiss* perfect examples of Republicans being so close to identifying a real problem with an obvious solution but being too morally rotten to put it together. 
   

• Let’s start with the obvious: it is egregious that essential workers are paid so little that they would actually be better off in some instances not working, but do Republicans support raising the minimum wage, or paying essential workers what they're actually worth? Absolutely fucking not. Secondly, the implication that defunding the social safety net will “get people back to work” is false. A 2019 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than 60 percent of Medicaid recipients work either full or part-time. And that doesn’t even include all of the workers who are eligible for Medicaid. That speaks to a broader point always omitted from conservative rhetoric regarding “welfare” or social safety net benefits: a large percentage of Americans living in poverty who are eligible for the benefits don’t actually receive them. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than one-in-four working adults and nearly half of all American children receive social safety-net benefits.

These new demands were delivered via a one-pager, hilariously-titled “Shrink Washington, Grow America” because the Party that wants to inspect everyone’s genitals before they enter a bathroom just loves “small government.”
 

• When Republicans rage about the “excessive” number of Americans receiving social safety-net benefits, they want you to think that tens of millions of Americans are not working and receiving cash benefits. That’s simply false. First of all, most government assistance does not come in the form of cash, but a big one does: Social Security. According to Census data, over one-third of American households include someone who receives Social Security benefits, a program that those Americans paid into over the course of their working lives, before they retired. (The GOP: Get Granny Back To Work!) It’s not a “handout” it’s a program we all pay into and the money we get back is ours. Moreover, more than one-third of all American children, some 37 percent, receive health insurance through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Do those children “need to work”? Actually, Republicans, don’t answer that, because you’ll probably say yes. 

• So when someone like Rep. Mooney phrases his complaint the way he did on the House floor, he wants you to believe that those hypothetical two parents in a family of four are receiving that $73,000 total in cash, because that makes the Republican base mad, especially the ones whose household income is lower than that. But he’s including the monetary value of things like Medicaid and CHIP subsidies, so in reality, that family of four would still live well below the poverty line. Ronald Reagan has been dead for almost 20 years but his “Welfare Queen” myth lives on. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testified before the GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee today to implore “Congress” (Republicans) to agree to raise the debt limit, to avoid wiping out the hard-won economic recovery from the pandemic for no reason. Maybe one of them will be struck by lightning and shocked into sense, but until then, it’s imperative that Americans aren’t fooled by their appeals to “fiscal responsibility,” an objective they don’t actually care about, and realize that they’re threatening to wreck American livelihoods for partisan gain.

If you’re looking for a good laugh while staying up-to-date with what’s going on in the world - which we assume you are since you’re listening to us - then you’re in luck.
 

You can now follow Crooked Media on TikTok for daily curation of the hottest takes, biggest news, and funniest jokes from around the network.
 

To join the community, just do a quick search for Crooked Media and hit that follow button.

Networks of right-wing religious groups have worked tirelessly for years behind the scenes to pressure elected officials to enact hundreds of laws restricting abortion at the state level, all in anticipation of overturning Roe v. Wade. Now that they’ve gotten what they wanted, they’ve turned to a new target: legislating trans people out of public life. Mother Jones obtained hundreds of emails between state-Rep. Fred Deutsch (R-SD) and representatives of a network of anti-trans activists and organizations which give a close-up view of just how much influence conservative Christian groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom (ughhhh) have on Republican legislators who write these anti-trans bills, many of which have become law. Deutsch’s bill proposed making it a felony for doctors to give transgender minors gender-affirming care, despite the fact that the overwhelming medical consensus holds that trans minors should receive such care. So religious activists, not doctors, mental health professionals, or any other panel of experts, regularly become the main source for “information” that goes into anti-trans bills, and Republican legislators show them a shocking level of deference. This legislative session alone, at least 18 states have considered bills similar to the one Deutsch proposed, meaning the groups have a coordinated plan to use this method state by state until their bans get to the federal level.

Silicon Valley Bank financial group, a major startup-focused lender, became the largest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis today, with a sudden collapse that shook global markets and froze billions of dollars belonging to companies and investors. 

The former roommate of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) gave a sworn statement accusing Santos of orchestrating a credit card fraud scheme in which he would steal information from ATMs and credit cards. This fucking guy!

A judge has permitted E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers to use the infamous Access Hollywood tape as evidence in her defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping was given a third five-year term today, putting him on track to stay in power for life. Being a dictator sounds like a pretty stable gig!

The Republican-led House voted to overturn the Biden administration’s protections for thousands of streams, wetlands, and other waterways, but Biden has promised to veto it even in the likely event that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) pulls his usual bullshit. 

An Israeli settler shot and killed a Palestinian man who entered a settlement in the occupied West Bank armed with knives and explosives, just hours before a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli troops for throwing stones in the northern West Bank. 

Cases of reported sexual assaults at the United States’ military academies increased dramatically in the 2021-2022 school year, and in an anonymous survey, one-in-five female cadets said that they had experienced unwanted sexual contact. 

The House has voted unanimously to declassify government intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19 as we near the third anniversary of the pandemic. 

Facebook’s parent company Meta is reportedly planning to announce additional layoffs in multiple stages over the coming months, which are projected to affect roughly the same number of employees as the 13 percent cut to their work force last year.

There’s people who’ve got a lot of nerve, and then there’s Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After implicitly siding with Vladimir Putin against the west and prolonging Russia’s war against Ukraine by restricting oil production last year, MBS now says the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will normalize relations with Israel (fully selling out the Palestinian people)—but only if the U.S. provides Saudi Arabia a civilian (“civilian”) nuclear program, open-ended security guarantees, and arms sales without restrictions. Setting aside the question of why the Biden administration would want to concede anything more to either of these corrupt regimes—which, apart from their human-rights abuses, have thumbed partisan scales in U.S. politics—only to facilitate a diplomatic agreement between them… well, the specific asks seem quite bad! And they call back to one of the many forgotten Trump administration scandals (and one of the many unexplained facets of Donald Trump’s corrupt relationship with the Saudis) when his administration skirted the law in a desperate, failed effort to get nuclear technology and other arms to the Saudis for no apparent reason. MBS is apparently still desperate for that technology, and it would seem foolish to hand it over to him in exchange for nothing. Sadly, that doesn’t mean he won’t get what he wants.  

American employers added 311,000 jobs in February. Take that, Jerome Powell!!

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) called for deep funding cuts to sex education last week at CPAC, and today announced that she is becoming a grandmother at 36 because her 17-year-old son impregnated his girlfriend. Interesting how that works!!