Chrystia's Barbecue Bash Beats Pete's Paltry Party

By Baxter

We can't put the July 4 weekend firmly in the rear-view mirror without a bit of schadenfreude over Pete Hoekstra's Friday party in Ottawa.

If you know Hoekstra, it's because as a Congressman from Michigan, he was a founding member of the Tea Party 15 years ago. Since then, he's served as a Trump ambassador, first to the Netherlands (where he was born — an immigrant!), and, lately, to Canada. Poor Canada.

Anyway, for years there's been an annual Independence Day jamboree for American and Canadian pooh-bahs at Lornado,the ambassador's official residence. Members of Parliament and other bigwigs have had it on their calendars as a must-do for ages, and because the US and the True North are such close allies and friends, the event has always been packed. Not this year, as Ian Austen reports in The New York Times.

"The turnout was decidedly smaller," says Austen, who was there. "Many guests who have attended in past years told me they estimated the crowd was about half the usual size."

In his welcoming remarks, Hoekstra tried to put a positive spin on things. "We're going to get through this little kerfuffle," he joked, hoping that his Canadian guests would view Trump threatening and insulting their country and destabilizing their economy as just a minor fuss. As you'd expect, crickets ensued. L-A-M-E!

Actually, the place to be on the Fourth of July was not Lornado but Chrystia Freeland's backyard in Toronto. Freeland, Prime Minister Mark Carney's Transport and Internal Trade Minister, threw a barbecue that featured beef from Alberta and meat pie from Quebec — and except for the vacationing Carney, A-listers who have been working to defend Canada from Benedict Donald were there in force.

From the Liberal/NDP side, the guests included former PM Jean Chretien, Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic Leblanc, and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow. Conservative heavyweights showed up, too: Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, Rob Lantz, premier of Prince Edward Island, and — notably — Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who's been spending the last few months making federal Conservatives miserable.

It looks like fun! And you can be sure the word "kerfuffle" never crossed Freeland's lips. Very smart, Chrystia. We cats PURR.

Washroom Reading

 

This is perfect. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Pendant Trump, Le Deluge

By Sniffles

When Team Trump 2.0 began taking a sledgehammer to the federal government this year, we cats just knew that disaster was in store. It was bad enough in the first term to have people who hate government in charge. Benedict Donald's COVID mismanagement — with the sole exception of Operation Warp Speed — was one of the inevitable results, and it helped defeat him for re-election in 2020.

But now, it's so much worse: Not only are the haters running the show again, they're dismantling whole departments and agencies, and chasing away the experts. Which guaranteed that something terrible was going to happen, and somebody was going to die. Maybe a lot of somebodys.

The death toll in the Texas flash floods is now more than 100, and will keep going up. Yes, the flooding happened at the worst possible time (in the middle of the night) and in the worst possible place (low-lying flatlands along the Guadalupe River). But the tragedy was compounded by the fact that important positions at the National Weather Service had stood vacant since the Trumpy DOGE onslaught began.

"Former Weather Service officials said their forecasts were as good as could be expected, given the enormous levels of rainfall and the storm’s unusually abrupt escalation," The New York Times reports."The staffing shortages suggested a separate problem, those former officials said — the loss of experienced people who would typically have helped communicate with local authorities in the hours after flash flood warnings were issued overnight."

Donald, of course, said none of this was his fault. When a reporter asked if he was looking into whether his cuts had left crucial vacancies at the NWS, he responded with a word salad. "They didn't, I'll tell you, uh, if you look at that, that water situation that all is and that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup." (Good heavens, his brain is mush. Would be nice if the press would cover that.)

Trump is continuing to scrounge around to either paper over this calamity or spin it — look how quickly he granted an emergency disaster declaration for Texas, but toyed with holding it hostage for California during the LA fires. Meanwhile, we hate to be Debbie Downers, but more terrible, awful, no-good things are bound to happen. Here are just some of the possibilities:

A hurricane will hit somewhere in the United States and kill more people than necessary because — well, you know.

Detainees at "Alligator Alcatraz" will die — maybe of heat stroke, maybe from malnutrition and abuse, or maybe just from despair.

People in rural America will have no Emergency Rooms to rush to because their local hospitals will be closed. Heart attack? Car accident? Mugging? Gunshot wound? No help for you!

Recipients tossed from Medicaid will lose their access to healthcare and medications (and die). Kids whose SNAP benefits get cut will go hungry. And, of course, women will keep bleeding out in hospital parking lots because of the Supreme Court and Dobbs.

It's hard to imagine that anything will change until we Democrats can get back some of the levers of power. In the meantime, we're stuck with a government that couldn't care less about its people, and that's a dangerous place to be. The loss of empathy is one of the first steps to authoritarianism. We cats HISS.

(PHOTO: Getty Images)

Or Maybe He'll Throw Paper Towels At Them

Rumor has it that Benedict Donald is planning to visit Texas in the aftermath of the Guadalupe River floods. Haven't those poor people suffered enough? Trump should leave them in peace. We cats HISS.

Happy Original No Kings Day

 

"I was very disappointed with my call with Putin [about Ukraine]. Frankly, it feels like Putin is just not there anymore. I don’t see any willingness to stop. And that’s very bad. Really. Just being honest, he doesn’t seem like someone who wants to end this war."  

—Benedict Donald

(IMAGE: Jesse Duquette)

Mike Luckovich Predicts The Future

"House and Senate Democrats fought like hell. There was nothing else to do. They left it all on the field. They need more numbers. Sweep the Republicans who perpetrated this horror on America out in 2026. Nothing else in politics matters."

—Jennifer Rubin (who was once a committed Republican)

The Face You Make When You've Ripped 15 Million People's Healthcare Away And Closed Hundreds Of Rural Hospitals

"I’ve been thinking a lot about Murkowski’s vote. It contains, in one action, so much that defines our pathetic political moment:

"Selfishness — I’m taking care of me and mine, the rest of you can pound sand.

"Lack of accountability — I know the bill is bad. Hopefully someone else will fix it.

"Cowardice — I’m scared of Trump and his voters, and need to go along to get along with my GOP colleagues.

"Moral rot — I know the difference between right and wrong, and actively chose wrong."

—Sarah Longwell, The Bulwark

Eliminating Elsie

By Hubie and Bertie

When Elise "Elsie" Stefanik announced that she was running for Governor of New York in 2026, we figured that she'd seen some polling numbers that convinced her that Democrat Kathy Hochul was vulnerable.

After all, Elsie had just come off a humiliating non-nomination to be Ambassador to the United Nations, so surely she was looking for some way to save face — and pave her path to either Secretary of State in the last two years of the Benedict Donald administration, or just build her national network for a Presidential run in 2028.

But now, a new poll from the Siena Research Institute shows Hochul beating not only her Democratic primary opponents, but Elsie in the general. Elsie would win the Republican primary, but go on to lose to Hochul in the fall by double digits, 47 percent to 24 percent.

Poor Elsie! How simply frightful! How humiliating! How delightful!

Okay, it's one poll. But it's encouraging to see Hochul so far out in front this early. It means that she should put the pedal to the metal immediately, take nothing for granted, and — as Benedict Donald would say — obliterate Stefanik once and for all. Hochul has been making some smart moves lately — holding events in the North Country against Trump's billionaire bailout bill, and, of course, zipping down to New York City two weeks ago to defend Brad Lander in salty terms. Looks like she knows what the assignment is. We cats cheer her on, and we PURR.

Bonne Fete Du Canada

By Miss Kubelik

It's good to be in Canada on Canada Day. And it's impossible to think of a better time to be out of our own country. The Fête du Canada celebrations will make it easy to forget that Benedict Donald is spending today cutting the ribbon at his new Alligator Auschwitz. Disgusting, cruel, un-American, and unforgivable.

But oddly, there's one thing we can thank Trump for: The Liberals are still in power in the True North. And doing quite well.

Just months ago, Tory leader and Trump clone Pierre Poilievre was trying to figure out how he could be Prime Minister and still stay in the Opposition Leader's official residence, Stornoway (24 Sussex is in desperate need of renovations). After 10 years of Justin Trudeau it was clear that Canadians were ready for a change. To PP's dismay, however, the definition of "change," well, changed.

Benedict Donald's trade war, threats and insults infuriated Canadians and soured them on the Trumpy Tory. Now, Prime Minister Mark Carney is doing the rest since winning the election on April 28. He's taken a leading role on the world stage as American prestige has gone shaky. At home, his "nation-building" bill to fast-track projects that will bolster a new, non-US-dependent economy passed through Parliament in a fast three weeks, and he leads PP in net favorability by 70 points.

So, merci, Donald. Whenever we get anxious about what's happening in the United States, we remind ourselves that there's a very bright spot just to our north. (Although we'll pass on the bagged milk and the butter tarts, thanks.) Happy Canada Day, all! We cats PURR.

Melissa Hortman Is Laid To Rest

"It's incredible that neither the President nor the Vice President was here. The politicization of all facets of American life is coming from the White House. No other American President would have failed to pay his respects." —Joyce White Vance

"Whenever in my lifetime, a lawmaker, a public servant had been assassinated, every sitting President, regardless of party, would have attended their funeral, expressed condolences to the family, tried to comfort them, their community and the country. I really miss that grace, that compassion." —Mia Farrow