Turn turtle

The Turtle plays the old shell game. Original photo by Susan Walsh | AP

“I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route. It’s saved some cities, and there’s no good reason for it not to be available … My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don’t have to do that. That’s not something I’m going to be in favor of. Or perhaps they might consider marrying into a wealthy maritime shipping family.” — Mitch McConnell on borrowing to assist state and local governments.*

* Except for that last sentence, which he’s never gonna say out loud the way he did when he was looking for a rich woman to marry.

The Charlie Fox Show

“Plan? Plan? What plan? Oh, that plan. Lemme keep looking, I’m sure it’s up here somewhere.”

Hm, lessee here:

• “Glitches prevent $1,200 stimulus checks from reaching millions.” (WaPo).

• “Small businesses in despair as fund for government aid runs out.” (NYT)

• “Trump’s ‘Open our country council’ runs into its own opening problems.” (NYT)

• “Clusterfuck: a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged situation : a muddled mess.” (Merriam-Webster)

Comrade Eeyore stands down

Adios, muchacho, compañero de me vida. …

Well, that, as they say, is that. Comrade Eeyore is hanging up his hammer and sickle.

Quick, somebody tell me why I should be thrilled that Daffy Uncle Joe is going to be our nominee.

As The New York Times notes: “Mr. Sanders, 78, leaves the campaign having almost single-handedly moved the Democratic Party to the left. … But Mr. Sanders stirred deep unease among party leaders, and as he ascended to the top of the field in February, establishment Democrats scrambled to block his path, convinced his far-reaching proposals would alienate great swaths of the electorate and make him an easy target for Mr. Trump.”

Thank God for that, eh? Because the party leaders and establishment Democrats got it so right the last time around.

We’re in the soup

This soup didn’t come out of a packet.

We were not Jewish. But whenever one of us was sick, Mom would break out the chicken soup.

Well, kinda, sorta.

It was the sort of soup a harried Midwestern Presbyterian considered suitable for ailing children, a saucepan of rehydrated Lipton chicken noodle, with a side of Premium saltines. And if I played my cards right, I could work Mom for the fake soup and a couple of comic books. Winning!

Well, here we are again. The Plague is upon us, we’re shivering under the comforter, and someone is bringing us a plastic bowl of industrial soup with some dried-up old white crackers.

Say, who is that wearing Mom’s apron? It’s … it’s … oh, my God, it’s. …

Yes, it’s another thrilling episode of Radio Free Dogpatch!

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: It’s another low-and-slow-fi episode this week. I used an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic, and skipped the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder in favor of recording directly to the MacBook Pro using Rogue Amoeba’s nifty little app Piezo. Editing was as usual, in GarageBand. You’ll recognize Babe and the gang from The Firesign Theatre (“How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All”) and the doctor from “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.” The background music is by Your Humble Narrator, assembled from bits and pieces in the iOS version of GarageBand on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

Revolver

It is not dying. But it is sucking.

Hey, what can I tell you? The old Beatles album seemed appropriate for today’s indoor-cycling soundtrack.

“Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.”

Downstream appears to be where we’re headed, a’ight. In the SS Wall Street, a cruise ship full of coronavirus and cheap oil, captained by a drug-addled golf cheat with a crew of button-down barnacles, lampreys and other hangers-on.

Tomorrow may never know, but today isn’t exactly up to speed, either.