Chicken-Fried News: Show me the money

When it was made public that recipients of Paycheck Protection Programs might not be released, people were outraged. When the names of PPP recipients were released to the public last week, there was even more outrage.

In a joke so bad that professional comedians would not have dared write it into a script, the Ayn Rand Institute — named for “objectivist” philosopher, author and lionized capitalist Ayn Rand, whose laissez-faire politics stopped short of receiving social security benefits in her old age — also took its share of between $350,000 and $1 million.

Likewise, while thousands are still waiting to receive unemployment and back payments, Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin made sure to secure up to $1.35 million for his plumbing businesses (and up to another $700,000 for two other businesses), as nobody was using the bathrooms while they were locked away at home. Homeland’s parent company also took between $5 and $10 million because grocery stores were apparently on the verge of bankruptcy while restaurants were closed.

But in perhaps the most egregious instance from Oklahoma, LifeChurch — definitely hanging onto its hundreds of millions by a wing and a prayer — raked in between $5 and $10 million because, as it is written in the prosperity gospel of Matthew, what’s God’s is God’s but maybe God will take some of what Caesar is having too.