Knocking Another Year Off The Counter

Stay safe, everyone. See you in 2022. We cats PURR.

Bye, Betty

By Miss Kubelik

Gosh, as if this New Year's Eve weren't depressing enough! Not only did Montreal lock down last night (10 PM curfew, all restaurants closed, etc.), but news has just broken that on the cusp of her big 100th-birthday celebration next month, the legendary Betty White has died.

Kind of spooky that the four remaining major cast members of The Mary Tyler Moore Show all died in 2021: Betty, Cloris Leachman, Gavin MacLeod and Ed Asner. Every one of them was wonderful, but we'll miss Betty the most: She was a great friend of animals and a generous supporter of species conservation. We cats salute her, and we PURR.

(IMAGE: White House photo by Pete Souza)

Credit Where Credit Is Due

By Zamboni

The news business is in the toilet. The only thing that matters is money, via clicks and likes and shares. Which means that Michelle Wolf's brutal and brilliant stand-up performance at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner was exactly right: Journalists love Donald Trump. He was, and is, their gravy train.

And the media probably can't wait for Benedict Donald's January 6 press conference at Mar-a-Lago next week. It won't be a "press conference," of course — it'll be a hours-long, wounded, self-pitying, nonsensical diatribe, with no questions allowed. It shouldn't be given a second of airtime. But sadly, the coverage will no doubt be wall-to-wall.

Meanwhile, the media's take on the Biden Administration has been unbelievably negative. After all, why recognize the accomplishments of the current President when you can get loads of eyeballs aiding and abetting his predecessor, the democracy destroyer?

But some of the pundit class are starting to come around. Here are a few observations by Norman Ornstein to help us close 2021. And if you have a platform, please amplify them.

"If we had said at Biden's inaugural that after his first year, with a 50-50 Senate and a margin of three or four in the House, the result would be $3 trillion in COVID relief and infrastructure, the best economic performance in 40 years, and a historic set of judicial confirmations, the common reaction would have been, 'Impossible!' ...No one should discount these quite remarkable achievements against multiple headwinds." We cats PURR.

Punching Out To Paradise

By Baxter

The wily Harry Reid, the Fightin' Mormon, has died at 82. 

We've lost too many people lately. The bright side of this one is that while pancreatic cancer usually kills swiftly, Senator Reid stared his down for three years. How very Harry. We'll miss him.

Cat Fight! "Schmeck" v. Rittenhouse

By Sniffles

See above: This is what Kyle Rittenhouse is now, since classless Oregon Biden-insulter Jared "Schmeck" outed himself to Steve Bannon today as a major Trumpster who thinks the 2020 election was stolen. Benedict Donald Junior has called "Schmeck" a hero. So now the Turning Pointers and the CPACkers and other right-wing nutcases will be clamoring for "Schmeck" to speak at their conferences, fundraisers and other super-spreader events. With poor little Kyle left in the dust.

Here's a scary thought: Either Kyle will go out and kill a few more people to get back into the Trumpsters' good graces, or some other crazy idiot will try something even more outrageous for the adoration of MAGA's madding crowd. Goodness gracious, but COVID can't fell these people quickly enough. We cats HISS.

Goodbye, Sarah

By Hubie and Bertie

Because the news media are made up of lazy people with no institutional memory, the majority of Sarah Weddington obits will be dominated by "observations" that Roe v. Wade, which she argued before the Supreme Court in 1972, is on the chopping block.

No doubt that Roe will be in the first paragraph of her many obits. What will probably not be as explored is how many liberal women emerged from Texas at the same pivotal moment in American social history. Weddington is one of them, but they also include Molly Ivins, Ann Richards and, of course, Barbara Jordan. 

We cats had the privilege of crossing paths with Weddington in 1981. She was meeting with our boss at the time, after which she retired to a typewriter in our office to pound out her notes. What we'll never forget is that she was the fastest typist we'd ever heard. This alone made her more competent than 99 percent of the men she competed with in her whole career. And how much more she accomplished than that. We cats personally thank Sarah Weddington for her service to us, and we PURR.

"If People Aren't Careful, They're Going To Wake Up And There's Not Going To Be Rural Healthcare"

By Miss Kubelik

Here's an important story that the mainstream news media can't be bothered with covering (yet). But it's looming, and it's real, and it will have an impact on all our political futures. It's about how inaccessible healthcare is becoming in rural (read: Trumpy) areas of the country.

As Kaiser Health News reports: "Georgia’s Echols County, which borders Florida, could be called a healthcare desert.

"It has no hospital, no local ambulances. A medical provider comes to treat patients at a migrant farmworker clinic, but other than a small public health department with two full-time employees, that’s about the extent of the medical care in the rural county of 4,000 people.

"In an emergency, a patient must wait for an ambulance from Valdosta and be driven to a hospital there, or rely on a medical helicopter. Ambulances coming from Valdosta can take up to 20 minutes to arrive, said Bobby Walker, county commission chairman. 'That’s a pretty good wait for an ambulance,' he added."

Key facts not cited in the Kaiser coverage: Echols County gave 87 percent of its 2020 Presidential vote to Benedict Donald. It gave 88 percent of its 2018 gubernatorial vote to Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams. Echols County is only 6 percent African-American. It's also worth noting that Georgia is one of 12 states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

We don't understand why Republicans don't want to keep their voters alive and healthy to participate in future elections. But with all the gerrymandering and other voter-suppression machinations going on, their willingness to kill their own supporters may be the thing that saves American democracy. In the meantime, we cats HISS.

In Case You're Wondering What Precedes "Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag"

 

Justin's Half-Century

By Zamboni

Justin Trudeau turns 50 today, which means that this famous photo of Canada's current Prime Minister riding the hip of a former one — his dad — was taken a mighty long time ago.

By a wacky twist of fate, Justin's younger brother Alexandre (aka "Sacha") was also born on Christmas Day, two years later. (Sadly, Michel, the third son of Pierre and Margaret, died in an avalanche in British Columbia in 1998.)

As for Justin, tweeps are marveling today at how he still looks like he's 25. We cats have a solution for that. Grow that pandemic beard back, Prime Minister! That would make us PURR.

La Veille De Noel

 

By Baxter

As Charles Dickens would say, "Let us all see to good use these wares might be put."

If you're in Montreal, consider taking a walk on the mountain. "It’s Montreal’s crown jewel, our pride and joy, and for good reason. It offers a little piece of countryside in the middle of the city.

"Walk up to the lookout and back down, and you’ve just spent a half-day outdoors, soaking up precious vitamin D, breathing fresh air and getting the blood pumping. And how about that lookout? It offers quite the view. Along the way, stop at Beaver Lake and go for a skate. Or bring a crazy carpet and take a run down the hill that faces it."

We cats are privileged to spend a lot of time in Montreal. If you're somewhere else, which we are at the moment, let's all pause for now and take a few minutes to breathe. We cats PURR.