Needlepoint

Wow, this was a terrible news day, and sadly, there are many more to come. We cats really didn't expect Christopher Wray to stay on as Director of the FBI, but we thought he might put up a little bit of a fight. Instead, he's just the latest example of way too much obeying in advance. Did he cut a deal with Trumpster Pam Bondi that she wouldn't throw him in jail if he resigned? If so, that agreement isn't worth the paper it's not printed on. We cats HISS.

Goosing Donald

"It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Premier Donald Trump of the great province of America. I look forward to seeing the Premier soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all!"

—Canada Goose (not the winter coat)

Tish James Won't Go Gently Into That Good Night

By Hubie and Bertie

Just when it seems like everybody's caving to Benedict Donald, New York Attorney General Letitia James is standing firm.

"What?" she said. "Toss the $497 million civil fraud judgment against Trump? Fuhgeddabboutit."

James's office refused to grant Trump's request to drop the case, sending Trump's attorney a letter that became public today. "The ordinary burdens of civil litigation do not impede the President’s official duties in a way that violates the U.S. Constitution," the deputy solicitor general wrote.

Good for Team James. It's been pretty discouraging to watch members of the media (and, to be frank, some world leaders) obeying in advance. It reminds us a lot of how cowed our side was after September 11, 2001, which was why we were thrilled when a fighter like Vermont Governor Howard Dean emerged to give the Bushies hell. We loved him for it then, and we still love him.

Today, we all have to take a page from Tish James's book and from other legal-beagle warriors like Marc Elias, and pound these Trumpsters into dust. We can do it because they will erf up — in fact, they're already doing it. And while we can't guarantee that we'll always win in court, we can absolutely help them collapse under the weight of their own idiocy by being loud and mocking. (Donald hates that.) We cats PURR.

Would Could Have Been / What's Going To Be

By Miss Kubelik

We cats will never not be mad that America didn't elect Kamala and Doug as First Couple. Here they are, all spiffed up to attend the Kennedy Center honors last night. Such style and elegance.

Another important aspect of a Harris-Walz Administration? It wouldn't have been staffed with people sympathetic to dictators and authoritarians. Sadly, that's what we're about to get with the return of the Trumpsters.

Those cretins include Tulsi Gabbard, whom Benedict Donald has said he'd like for Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi is not only wildly unqualified for the job, she has repeatedly defended monsters like (newly former) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — to the point where officials on both sides of the aisle were afraid that she'd leak sensitive information to Assad before he fled to Moscow this weekend. Are we really, really going to allow a person like this to be DNI?

The hope is that with Assad's fall, more and more details of his horrific regime will be revealed over the coming days and weeks, disqualifying Gabbard before she can even sit her butt in a Senate hearing chair. The notorious Saydnaya Prison, for example, has just been liberated. The stories are already hideous — Amnesty International named it a "human slaughterhouse" of mass hangings, solitary confinement, and torture to the point where prisoners forgot their own names. Gabbard needs to be humiliated over this, and we're looking forward to both journalists and elected officials doing the job. We cats PURR.

Sarah McBride (D-DE) On The Struggles To Come

"The biggest challenge is going to be to summon the hope necessary to see the fight through. I think that one of the challenges that we have in this country right now, particularly for Democrats, is that, really since the 1960s, it has felt like if we simply work for it, if we vote for it, if we volunteer, if we share our stories, if we lift our voices, that we can then inevitably bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. 

"And we felt that, I think particularly, in 2008 and when we elected Barack Obama, and then Affordable Care Act passed, and marriage equality became a law of the land. It just felt like there was this sort of unfolding sense of great progress.

"It feels different right now. It doesn't feel like if we simply work for it and fight for it, that change will come, that things will work out. But think about all of the advocates and activists and citizens who lived through different chapters in our country's history. We have to recognize that that sense of inevitability with hard work that we felt 20 years ago, 30 years ago — that’s the exception in our country's history.

"Every single previous generation of Americans has been called to conquer odds much greater than the ones that we're facing right now. And they had every reason to believe that change would not come. Enslaved people in the 1850s had no reason to believe that an Emancipation Proclamation was on the horizon. Unemployed workers during the early days of the Great Depression had never heard of a New Deal. Patrons at the Stonewall Inn never knew of a country where they could live openly and authentically as themselves. And yet they persevered. They summoned their hope, they found that light, and ultimately, they changed the world."

Remebering Les Filles De Poly

By Zamboni

Here's a cheery note: Today is the 107th anniversary of the Halifax Harbor explosion in Nova Scotia. It was so big that it ranked as the biggest explosion caused by humans until the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Today is also the 35th anniversary of the massacre at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. In less than 20 minutes, a gunman (yep, accent on man, no surprise) killed 14 women — because they were women. "I am fighting feminism," he declared before opening fire. Dude seemed to have a problem with girls learning engineering. Like most mass killers, he shot himself before police could get there, but left a suicide note saying that feminists "have always ruined my life."

The Polytechnique shooting isn't the only misogynist rampage to have happened in Canada, the other occurring in Toronto in 2018. Both give pundits and policymakers annual opportunities to mull over the continuing problem of violence against women. But we never seem to make any progress, do we? In fact, it's getting worse. "The concept of male supremacy has been popularized and normalized by social media influencers like Andrew Tate," writes columnist Allison Hanes in The Montreal Gazette. "Disillusioned and wayward young men are being fed the message their problems are women's fault. And the antidote to their ailments and inadequacies is to assert male dominance."

Ugh. Improving women's overall status and safety may never happen unless more and more of them can get elected to the corridors of political power. The US had a bit of a setback on that front this year, but we cats refuse to give up. In the meantime, we HISS.

P.S.: On the subject of gun violence, there's no doubt that healthcare insurance companies are rapacious bastions of evil. But shooting their CEOs in the back is also bad. We cats HISS again.

"I Never Thought This Could Happen In Korea"

By Baxter

Are we all fully immersed in the Christmas spirit? We cats noticed that even before Thanksgiving Day, and immediately thereafter, decorated trees, holiday lights, and (ugh) Christmas inflatables started popping up around us. Even though we live in a 50-50 Republican-Democratic area, we assumed it was folks depressed about the election and deciding to waste no time throwing themselves into tidings of comfort and joy.

Unfortunately, though, current events still exert their tug. Here's one that really got our attention: the failed declaration of martial law in South Korea. (MAGAts, please note: It's not spelled "Marshall law.")

The video from Seoul was, at first glance, a bizarre mirror-image of January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol. This time, it was lawmakers trying to get into the South Korean parliament to override President Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law declaration, with the South Korean military attempting to keep them out. Long story short (and thank goodness), the forces of democracy prevailed. Lawmakers unanimously voted to reject the martial law declaration, and Yoon walked it back.

What led up to this confrontation? Lots of stuff. First, we all have to recognize that South Korea has not always been a model of good government. But it's been a lot better since 1987, when constitutional democracy was consolidated. And obviously, South Korea has been a valued ally against Benedict Donald's good buddy, Kim Jung Un, in North Korea. But in 2022, politics in South Korea took a turn to the right.

It not only took that rightward turn, it eerily presaged the events of 2024 in the United States. Here's how the Toronto-based Globe & Mail summed up the path to this week's events:

"In 2022, Yoon and his conservative People Power Party won South Korea's election in an absolute squeaker, capturing the Presidency...with 0.73 percent of the vote. It was a bitter race dubbed 'the unlikable election' because of the candidates' high disapproval ratings and frequent smear campaigns.

"Another commentator termed it 'the incel election' instead, with Yoon capitalizing on a wave of male resentment. He blamed feminism for assorted troubles that ranged from soaring housing costs and waning upward mobility to plummeting birth rates — and he captured 65 percent of male voters age 18 to 29. By contrast, 68 percent of female voters that age broke for [the opposition] Democratic Party."

Did we cats notice all this happening in South Korea in 2022? We freely admit we didn't. But now, Yoon is facing possible impeachment, which he richly deserves. And we wonder if here in the US, Republicans in Congress will have the gumption to stand up to Benedict Donald the way Korean parliamentarians have stood up to Yoon. We cats wait and watch — but expecting nothing, we HISS.

"The Time For Cautious Restraint Is Over"

By Sniffles

The reactions from Democrats and the press to President Biden's pardon of his son Hunter have been infuriating. Do they not understand how completely reality has changed? Do they not realize how out of control the Department of Justice will be next year? If not, why not? They've had nine years to figure Trump and the MAGA movement out, and they've utterly failed — or they insist on being ostriches.

A few reactions from Democrats have made us grin. Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas's tweet from yesterday is one: "If you are coming here looking for someone to bash Joe Biden, you came to the wrong place. My focus is entirely on Trump and the thugs he is trying to place in his Administration." Outgoing Montana Senator Jon Tester's response is another. Approached by reporters on Capitol Hill, he said, "I'm about to get the fuck out of here. Ask somebody else."

For other Democrats, we have this advice: Just tell the media that you haven't seen the pardon, haven't read the pardon, haven't heard anything about it. So you can't comment. Sound silly? It's worked for Republicans with the press for simply years.

It's so discouraging that Democrats have this circular firing squad going when Washington is about to go straight into the toilet in just 47 days. We need to spend our energies on fighting them, not each other. In a previous political world, there might have been opportunities to indulge in lofty intellectual discussions about Presidential pardons and the rule of law. Not anymore. The rules have changed — or don't exist. Everybody's back has a target. Wake up!

Dark Brandon seems to know, though. Word has it Team Biden is discussing pre-emptive pardons for those in the Trumpsters' cross-hairs: people like Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, others. Our take? As the great Carrie Fisher used to say, "Doooooo eeeeeet." We cats PURR.

The White House Wears The Ribbon

Here's just one of the many decent aspects of White House life that's going to disappear come January 20: On Sunday, the AIDS memorial quilt was displayed on the South Lawn for the first time. If Benedict Donald called Americans killed in war "suckers and losers," we can only imagine how he describes people with HIV. We cats HISS.

Merry Early Christmas, Hunter Biden

By Hubie and Bertie

Events occur, circumstances alter, and people change their minds. For Joe Biden, November 5 resolved the question of whether he would pardon his son Hunter before leaving office. Of course he would. As one of our favorite Twitter accounts pointed out, "We live in a world where you pardon the kid, not because you can but because you have to."

So we cats have a few things to say.

To Trumpsters who are heading for their fainting couches — Hey, team, elections have consequences.  You can scream about the Hunter pardon all you want. But it will have exactly zero political impact, especially considering the horrors you're about to inflict on the country next year.

To the earnest doubters on our side — Get a grip. Sadly, we have to stop thinking in terms of the way things used to be.

To the Great Forgetters — Benedict Donald pardoned reprobates like Mike Flynn, soon-to-be-ambassador Charles Kushner, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Eddie Gallagher, and Steve Bannon. Hunter Biden, with all his problems, is a one-hundred-percent better man than any of them.

To the Morning Schmoes — We don't give a damn what you think about this, pro or con. Or about anything, for that matter.

To President Biden — We're happy for you, and hope that you and your family can find some peace and joy together this holiday season. That's our angel side speaking. The devil side, which we always love to indulge in, hopes that you do lots more Dark-Brandon-type stuff between now and January 20. Give 'em hell, DB! We cats PURR.