Crooked Media - What A Day: Once more, with ceiling

So Republicans are really doing this, huh? 
 

• Congressional Republicans have decided to take their hostage crisis all the way to the 11th hour, and here we are. President Biden met with leaders from both parties on Tuesday and tried in particular to talk some sense into House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who seems hellbent on forcing the U.S. government to default on its debt (while publicly claiming he doesn’t want to), which will cause a global economic meltdown. 
   

• Before the meeting, (which, if you can believe it did not appear to talk any sense into the House Speaker) McCarthy said he would reject any proposal for a short-term deal to increase the debt limit (again, to avoid the economic catastrophe that would ensue from defaulting), saying he wants to “get this done now.” Okay, Kevin, then fucking get it done you rapacious psychopath. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who was also present at the meeting, pointed to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has urged McCarthy to come to the table in a serious way, as the House GOP’s extortion bill would never pass in the Senate anyways.
   

• Speaking after McCarthy, Biden said “I made it clear during our meeting that default is not an option…We pay our bills.” McCarthy also claims unconvincingly to oppose default, but he and congressional Republicans say they’ll only release the hostage (again, the global economy) if Biden agrees to sign their toxic agenda of drastic cuts to nearly all federal programs, particularly the social safety net. Biden (rightly) said he won’t do that, and, for the first time (also rightly) said he may invoke the 14th Amendment, which says the U.S. debt is inviolable, to continue paying for all the government’s obligations, even if McCarthy tries to force the U.S. into default and recession. Get ‘em, Joe!

As the standoff continues and our nation hurdles ever-closer towards default, we do not envy Janet Yellen right now. 
 

• Yellen—who has already taken many other extraordinary steps to ensure that the government doesn’t run out of money up until this point—is now pleading with Republicans not to play games with the debt limit. She told CNBC: “As every Treasury secretary has known, the only option that really leaves our economy in good shape…is raising the debt ceiling, and making clear that Congress stands behind the basic principle that America pays its bills, [that] we’re not a deadbeat country.”
   

• In an even more grim representation of how close to the cliff we are, Yellen has also been reaching out to American business and finance leaders (the GOP’s corporate patrons) to underline the disastrous impact a U.S. default would have on the global economy. Yes, the secretary of the Treasury is personally reaching out to individual CEOs to warn them about the “dangerous consequences of the current brinkmanship,” according to a source close to Yellen. This is a gross but necessary course of action for Yellen, who knows that the only people to whom elected Republicans feel accountable to are Fortune 500 CEOs. 

The debt limit fight shows that there are no winners when congressional Republicans have any sort of power or leverage, because they use it to advance the most nefarious ends 100 percent of the time. It’s good that Biden (seemingly a Big Tent reader?) appears to get this now. Because no measure is too drastic to stop Republicans from harming the global economy out of their bottomless spite and greed.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to unveil its long-awaited plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants next week, and will reportedly set greenhouse-gas emission limits for new and existing power plants based on projected reductions from carbon-capture equipment. This is the most aggressive approach the EPA can take to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, even if carbon capture is unproven, as critics claim. But the EPA is also a bit hamstrung due to the right-wing  Supreme Court’s ruling last year in West Virginia vs. EPA, which limited the agency’s legal power to regulate the power sector. It cannot force utilities to shut down their fossil-fuel sources and switch to renewable energy. Instead, the EPA could base its rule on improvements to power-plant efficiency. Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act also included huge tax credits for carbon capture, which allows the EPA to argue that carbon capture is an economically sound solution. Fossil-fuel interests sort of love carbon capture, because it requires little change to revenue sources. Meanwhile, environmental organizations have opposed the technology. Two years ago, over 500 such organizations signed a letter insisting that carbon capture is not a climate solution, calling it a “dangerous distraction” that “is unproven, too expensive, harms communities, and prolongs dependence on fossil fuels.” The Center for Biological Diversity submitted comments to the EPA’s proposed plan criticizing carbon-capture technology, but did not suggest an alternative to their rule.

A New York jury unanimously found disgraced former president Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing (read: assaulting) columnist E. Jean Caroll and defaming her with malicious intent, and awarded her $5 million in total damages.

Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against Rep. George Santos (R-NY). The precise charges haven’t been revealed yet, but the FBI and DOJ have been investigating allegations that Santos violated campaign-finance laws for some time now. Santos is expected to appear in federal court as soon as Wednesday, and because Republicans are super cool with crime (when Republicans commit it) House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will not force Santos to resign as he awaits trial. 

Tucker Carlson will forgo $25 million dollars from his Fox News termination agreement by breaking its non-compete clause in order to re-launch his show…on Twitter. Worst of luck in your terrible endeavor!

Disney has expanded its free speech lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is reportedly returning to the Senate after a nearly three-month absence. Okay, I guess!

Three of the mass-shooting victims in Allen, TX, were members of the same family, parents Kyu Song Cho and Cindo Cho and their three-year-old son. Their six-year-old son survived.

Disgraced crypto scammer and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried filed a request to dismiss the federal criminal charges against him late Monday. Lol.

The treasurer for the (for some reason) still-active presidential campaign account of rapper-Nazi Kanye West resigned after telling a federal regulator that Ye’s campaign advisor Milo Yiannopoulous (hooo boy) had possibly broken federal campaign-finance laws. 

Christie’s has come under fire for auctioning 700 pieces of jewelry from an Austrian empress whose German husband “built a retail empire” in the 1930’s on the backs of Jewish people who desperately sold all of their assets in an effort to flee Nazi Germany. 

New guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force propose that all women should start screening for breast cancer at age 40 instead of age 50, because the horrors of womanhood never cease!!!

Meta CEO and all-around weird guy Mark Zuckerberg won a gold and silver medal at his first jiu-jitsu competition. Glad to see Mark found a way to relieve the stress from running companies that have subverted global democracy!

Violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues to escalate. Israel carried out a series of airstrikes Tuesday morning in densely-populated areas of the Gaza Strip, killing three senior Islamic Jihad commanders as well as at least 10 civilians. Among those killed were two of the commanders’ wives and several of their children, as well as other civilian bystanders. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, around 20 more were wounded and some were in critical condition. By midday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets carrying the bodies on stretchers in Gaza City, with coffins for the children carried next to those of their parents. These kinds of targeted killings are rare, and it is expected that Palestinian militant groups will retaliate with rocket fire, as they have in the past. Israel’s domestic-security commanders ordered the closure of schools, beaches, and highways in cities and towns in southern Israel in anticipation of retaliation. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtyyeh, the Egyptian government, and the Arab League all denounced Israel’s airstrikes. 

In related news, on April 8, six masked Palestinian gunmen shot and killed 23-year-old Palestinian Zuhair al-Ghaleeth for his alleged collaboration with Israel. A bulldozer dropped his body, full of bullets, into an unmarked grave the following day, and his family and friends refused to pick up his body at the morgue. This is the first murder of a suspected Israeli intelligence asset in the West Bank in almost two decades.

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