Look, there goes former Squeaker of the House Charlie McCarthy, over the side, just like former Squeaker Pro Tem Patrick McBowtie before him.
What good news for the critical rubber-chicken sector of the nation’s economy. These hirelings spend years helping our corporate “citizens” turn the government into a $2 whorehouse, then travel the country proclaiming themselves* to be shocked — shocked! — that the government is a whorehouse.
And a cut-rate one, too. For them and their deep-pockets pals, of course. Not for you.
Charlie McCarthy, former Squeaker of the House of Reprehensibles.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. The House of Reprehensibles just lopped off their own head because Matt Gaetz (R-Swamp) thought it was a swell idea.
This is like taking investment advice from the smelly in the cardboard condo at the corner of Meth and Fentanyl.
Beats me. Christ knows McCarthy was no prize — he made Paul “Lyin'” Ryan look like Uncle Joe Cannon and was as trustworthy as a rat in a cheese shop — but who wants to wear the crown now, with Swamp Thing in charge of the guillotine?
• Ho, ho. And now we have that model of decorum, Newt Gingrich, slithering out from under his rock to say that Gaetz should get the heave, and also the ho, because “some behavior crosses the line.” Pots and kettles, etc.
The New York Times spent most of yesterday pitching live episodes of “Let’s Make a Deal” from the nation’s capital. And today they’re telling me that nobody could give a shit; they’d all rather be watching “The Golden Bachelor.”
Well. Sounds like poor editorial judgment to me. Should’ve led with another Taylor Swift story.
Well, I gave a shit — no, not about “The Golden Bachelor” or Taylor Swift, who gets more eyeballs than a TikTok video of kitties in a titty bar — but rather the brinksmanship peacockery so deplorably on display in DeeCee.
It’s a weakness. But I could afford to indulge it.
Dinner was leftovers from Friday night — Melissa Clark’s paprika chicken with taters and turnips — so cooking was a rerun, or, more precisely, a reheat, at 350° for 20 minutes.
This left me at liberty to observe, and screech, and curse, and place bets with myself about what would finally emerge from all the shit-talking, gesticulating, and shoving that usually precedes a whole bunch of nothing happening on the middle-school playground of your choice.
This is pointless idiocy, of course. Right up there with cashing out the 401(k) and putting it all into bitcoin and NFTs; playing poker with a man named “Doc;” or gambling in any of the various casinos masquerading as “sports” in this world.
By closing time, the can had gotten kicked another 45 days down the road and I had lost every bet.
Still, could be worse.
Ukraine must be wondering how they wound up out on the sidewalk with an IOU in one pocket of the fatigues puddled around their ankles. And the woodlice gnawing on Charlie McCarthy’s balsa-sack apparently found out this wasn’t an all-you-can-eat deal.
This morning I decided this class in Political Science Fiction 101 reminded me of a scene from “Cannery Row,” in which John Steinbeck describes the upshot of an uprising by “a group of high-minded ladies” in Monterey demanding the closure of “dens of vice” like Dora Flood’s Bear Flag Restaurant, which was not a sandwich shop but rather a “sporting house.”
Writes Steinbeck:
This happened about once a year in the dead period between the Fourth of July and the County Fair. Dora usually closed the Bear Flag for a week when it happened. It wasn’t so bad. Everyone got a vacation and little repairs to the plumbing and the walls could be made. But this year the ladies went on a real crusade. They wanted somebody’s scalp. It had been a dull summer and they were restless. It got so bad that they had to be told who actually owned the property where vice was practiced, what the rents were and what little hardships might be the result of their closing. That was how close they were to being a serious menace.
You think maybe the high-minded ladies in DeeCee got told who really owns this whore-House? And if so, did they get the message? Who knows? Not me, cousin. But we have 45 days to find out.
Anyway, once the cartoon was over we got straight to the featured attraction, which included the aforementioned leftovers; rewatching “Reservation Dogs,” which concluded its three-season run this past Wednesday; and debating whether we should take down our hummingbird feeders, which hadn’t been getting many (if any) customers the past few days.
I argued for staying open, and boom! Just like that a hummer appeared at one of the backyard feeders, which are visible from the living-room couch. Maybe he was an elder who didn’t care to make the trek to Mexico this fall. Maybe she likes the new landscaping. Maybe they like “Reservation Dogs.” Pronouns are a bitch.
Anyway, we reloaded those two feeders and called it a night. This morning, The Last Hummingbird Standing brought a cousin over for breakfast. It wasn’t Matt Gaetz. I’ll call that a win.
The backyard maple is trying to coax a bit of rain from those clouds.
June 1. Good gawd awmighty. Three weeks until the first day of summer.
Where the hell does the time go?
It doesn’t feel very summery, not yet. We’re slathering on the sunscreen when we go out and about, but highs have only reached the mid-70s to mid-80s, which are very much bearable.
Thus, we have no excuses for staying inside to watch Sleepy Joe and Charlie McCarthy make the sausage. We’ll be eating it soon enough.
It all reminds me very little of what we were taught in junior-high civics classes. Or home economics, for that matter.
What it reminds me of is gym class, specifically the shower portion, wherein a jock occasionally would pee surreptitiously on some poor geek’s leg while distracting him with conversation.
The geek was usually so astonished to be having a chat with one of his betters that he didn’t notice the augmented fluids coursing down his calf until the giggling began.
And then he couldn’t do anything about it anyway.
The geek didn’t yet know about the sausage. He still thought it was just something mom put on his plate with the scrambled eggs and toast. He still thought Bob Dylan was just singing a song.
“Gimme a minute, that Squeaker’s gavel has to be up here somewhere.”
The House of Reprehensibles is fixin’ to gavel itself on the noggin again starting at noon Swamp time, and you’ll want to have the popcorn and soda within easy reach.
From the sound of things Charlie McCarthy is prepared to give away everything that makes the Squeaker’s gig even halfway meaningful in order to get his pampered paws on the gavel.
Then the Freedumb Fighters will grab said gavel and run away, giggling. “Psych! Now we want a blood oath to the Constitution, mandatory open carry in the House Chamber, and the Squeaker has to do a daily dance on TikTok. In his tighty-whities.”
This is why it’s a bad idea to negotiate with terrorists. Their planning stops at the hostage-taking stage. From that point on it gets Western real quick, all horseshit and gunfire.
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