Tidbits and Cat Treats: Snowed-In Edition

By Miss Kubelik

Mother Nature and not Ted Cruz shut down the government today. Which meant that after shoveling snow, we cats had plenty of time to catch the headlines. Here are a few that warrant mentioning.

Why do the media never circle back to the authors of the Republican "autopsy" to ask how the "reboot" is going? We're just wondering, thanks to the latest outrageous, offensive and homophobic remarks by an RNC member from Michigan. We say "latest" because anti-gay slurs seem to emanate constantly from today's GOP. So why aren't reporters asking for comment from people like Ken Mehlman, Richard Tisei, Carl DeMaio, the authors of the "autopsy," and, of course, Rancid Pieface?

Oh, thank God President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro at the Mandela celebration today. Now we can talk about something other than that stupid selfie. (And did anyone notice that Castro bowed to Obama?)

We don't know in what world John Cornyn, the two-time head of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, qualifies as a liberal — but that pronouncement's happened on the same day that Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed Pat Roberts' primary challenger. That's right, folks: John Cornyn and Pat Roberts — two bastions of the Senate's left-wing caucus.

Count us as completely unsurprised that Ron Paul says that Rand Paul will "probably" run for President in 2016. Unlike the rest of the lemmings in Pundit World, we cats have privately suspected that the GOP nominee next time will not be a Governor, but a member of the U.S. Senate. And the fact that the Paulites have taken over the party in key primary states like Iowa and Nevada is the kind of boring detail that nobody really notices until later — when it makes a difference.

Finally, we are awed and amazed at today's events in South Africa. It's pretty hard to be cynical and hateful when you see so much love pouring out from so many people (although we're sure the Freepers are managing it). We were concerned about the rain until we heard that Africans believe it marks the passing of a great soul. But of course, we all knew that already, didn't we? We cats salute Madiba, and we PURR.

South Carolina Half-Wit Won't Go Half-Staff

By Sniffles

The entire world is celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela. Except for one Pickens County, South Carolina sheriff.

A jackass named Rick Clark has refused to comply with President Obama's executive order that all flags on government property should be lowered to half-staff in the wake of Mandela's death. Clark claims that such an honor should be reserved solely for Americans.

We're wondering what his department did back in 2005, when the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived ordered flags to fly at half-staff for Pope John Paul II. And of course, John Paul was white, while Mandela was — not. (But don't you dare try to say this is racially motivated!)

Isn't it obvious what Clark is doing? He's laying the groundwork for teabaggers in the far-distant future to resist lowering the flag for another "African," President Obama.

We cats don't look forward to being proven right on this any time soon. But it's all plenty disgusting in the meantime. So we HISS.

A Slight Detour From The Norm

This is not a movie blog, but we cats must recognize today's passing of the exquisite Eleanor Parker. Anyone who thinks "The Sound of Music" is overly sentimental would do well do remember that screenwriter Ernest Lehman gave Ms. Parker the best line in the film. "Why didn't you tell me," she accuses sidekick Richard Haydn, "to bring my harmonica?"

"Shut Up And Deal"

 We cats know no greater profession of love.

—Shirley MacLaine, Kennedy Center honoree,"The Apartment," 1960

Cootchy Out, Chinless In?

By Baxter

Aw! It looks like we cats won't have Ken "Let Us Now Praise Famous Fetuses" Cuccinelli to kick around any more. At the Virginia Republican heads-in-the-sand confab at The Homestead last night, Cootchy announced that he wouldn't try to run against Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner next year.

(The Cootch also continued his streak of ungracious speeches, using his time in the Homestead spotlight to slam his fellow GOPers for deserting him. The very thing that Eric Cantor urged Republicans not to do any more. What were we just saying about heads in the sand?)

Well, never mind. Gearing up for a run — and thus riding to our funny-bone rescue — is maybe, just possibly, and totally tantalizingly: The Chinless Wonder, Ed Gillespie.

This is so great. You remember Chinless. He's the former Republican party chair and Beltway consultant who said he was going to fix the Romney campaign and then didn't. He's a lifelong political hack who's thinking of competing with a successful Democratic entrepreneur and real-life job creator. He's one of the gay haters who helped craft the 2004 anti-marriage-equality strategy for the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived. But most of all, he's a Washington insider who, at next June's nominating convention, is going to have to woo scores of rabid teabaggers who despise people exactly like him.

"It's a very winnable race," Chinless said. There's that GOP heads-in-the-sand thing again. We cats PURR.

There's No Topping This Tweet.

The Key To The Long Walk To Freedom

"I realized if I still hated them after I left [prison], they would still have me. I wanted to be free. And so I let it go."

—Nelson Mandela

How's That "Reboot" Going For Ya? (Reprise)

By Zamboni

From the "Cutting Off Their Noses To Spite Their Faces" file: A GOP jackass from Virginia, Representative Randy Forbes, has declared that his party should refuse to fund any gay Congressional candidates.

The two openly gay Republicans who are the subjects of Forbes's disdain are Richard Tisei in Massaschusetts and Carl DeMaio in California. Never mind that both of these guys have a reasonable chance to flip a couple of seats from the Democrats. They're gay, so they're bad.

While we cats sit back to watch the resulting infighting, we can't help but wonder how these two GOP candidates will function should they win their respective elections next year. Tisei, for example, says he'll work across the aisle on important issues. But how can he do that when there are colleagues on his side who think he has no right to be there? (Or no right to be, period.)

Well, it's not really our problem. If the GOP Congressional campaign committee wants to stiff strong candidates in winnable races, that's okay by us. But on principle, we still HISS.

The Only Thing The GOP Wants To Abort Is Obamacare

By Miss Kubelik

We cats are fixed, so we don't have to worry about having kittens, wanted or otherwise. But the Republicans' war on human women of childbearing age continues.

For example, catch this latest news out of Georgia. The Peach State has more women dying from pregnancy-related conditions than any other place in America: 35 maternal deaths per 1,000 live births. Just a few years ago, Georgia's rate was 20 per 1,000.

Gosh! It's a good thing that Republican Governor and all-around idiot Nathan Deal rejected Obamacare and the zillions of free Medicaid dollars he could have had from the feds. Because it's not as if they need any help with their healthcare down there.

And speaking of Obamacare, get this. Unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act or to get the Supreme Court to invalidate it, Republicans' latest gambit is to claim that the law is horrible because it butts into the patient-doctor relationship.

Really, GOP? Really? Let us cats get this straight. Obamacare is an evil government intrusion into our doctor's (or, in our case, our vet's) office — but it's okay to mandate that physicians prescribe unnecessary ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. And it's just fine to force docs to lie to women about the alleged medical consequences of terminating a pregnancy. And it's hunky-dory to make physicians have hospital admitting privileges before they can perform abortions. And we haven't even gotten to limiting access to birth control.

Do Republicans really not see the contradictions here? It is truly amazing. And while we cats are gladder than ever that our kitten-bearing years are behind us, we still worry about the GOP pushing American women back into the dark ages. Which makes us HISS.

Note To GOP: How's That "Reboot" Going For Ya?

By Sniffles

We cats can think of few things more insulting than to file federal income tax as a recognized married couple, and then have to turn around and check "Single" on a state tax form. Yet that's exactly what the Commonwealth of Virginia is forcing same-sex couples to do.

And surprise, surprise: The Virginia Department of Taxation made that decision after checking with state Attorney General Ken "I Hate Everybody But Straight White Males and Fetuses" Cuccinelli — who, as we've thankfully noted, will not be our Governor next year.

We look to Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe to right this repulsive wrong. But in the meantime, we take consolation in the fact that Virginia residents Mary Cheney and Heather Poe, legally married in Washington, D.C., will be forced to deny each other's existence on their Old Dominion form.

In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if Liz, Mary's hatemonger sister (and current family feuder) had a hand in this. We can just hear her phone call to Cucinnelli now: "Okay, Ken — I said I'd run for Senate in Wyoming so you could run against Mark Warner next year if you lost to McAuliffe. You owe me."

You know what they say payback is. We cats PURR.