Well, everybody, Election Day is almost here. There are lots of promising prognostications out there right now, from folks with long political resumes who are truly worthy of respect. But of course none of their predictions will come true if we all don't get out and vote.
Republicans like to make the process as endless, unfair and inefficient as possible. If you didn't early vote, please do it tomorrow, no matter how long it takes. Let's knock 'em off the table! We cats PURR.
The New York Times and Siena University published new set of Senate polls today, and goodness gracious. Adam Hamilton in Kansas is up five points, James Talarico in Texas is up by seven, and Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Troy Jackson in Maine are leading by six. In Alaska, Mary Peltola is just ahead by one. (Come on, Mary, you can do it.)
And Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is leading Mike Rogers in Michigan by 11 points. So can someone explain why Haley Stevens chose today of all days to politically self-immolate?
El-Sayed has been ahead of Rogers by more modest margins in other surveys, so this one's a real eye-catcher. But whether El-Sayed's ahead by that much or not, the fallout for Stevens today has been epic. Her Congressional staffers are resigning, folks who worked on her campaigns are ripping her to shreds on social media, and people are telling tales that they had resolved to keep under wraps even as her long, drawn-out unraveling tested their patience.
A lot of the stories involve Stevens's fiancé, Jason Turkish, who she only met after Michigan's August primary. Now they're engaged, and he's the only one whose political advice she'll follow — all of it bad. Can you imagine throwing your entire career away for... this guy? Barf.
Stevens's behavior is inexplicable, of course, and would be in any year, but in 2026 — with the very survival of democracy on the line — it's unforgivable. But it helped El-Sayed raise $1.2 million in four hours this afternoon. Backfire of the year? You be the judge. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.
Advice to Fox "News" from former CBS correspondent Scott MacFarlane: Never interview the dude who seems really eager to talk. Because he's probably setting you up.
It makes you wonder how the Fox crew is vetting their stand-ups. Maybe they're not doing a very good job? Like Team Trump not being able to keep hecklers from getting into Benedict Donald's rallies? Or canceling in-person rallies and then rescheduling them again? What a bunch of amateurs. Clearly, the White House and the GOP are in chaos — and not just in the run-up to Tuesday.
The Trumpsters clearly don't know what they're doing. Which means the only thing between us and the total destruction of America is the fact that they're so terribly inept. Thank God for that! We cats PURR.
Less than a week until Election Day, and so many stories to follow. Here are a few we've noticed.
A new New York Times/Siena poll has Democrat Peggy Flanagan leading Republican Michele Tafoya in the Minnesota Senate race, 54 percent to 40 percent. This got a lot of attention today, because it's far better for Flanagan than previous polls have been. Hmmm: Trump's approval rating in Minnesota is 35 percent — but Flanagan is associated with what is either a scandal-plagued or witch-hunted state government, depending on your point of view. But Tafoya can't outperform Trump's number by more than five? Sad!
Speaking of the Times, there's something really odd about its Mary Peltola article today. Peltola's former campaign manager, who was fired several months ago and was a source for the story, contacted the newspaper and said she wanted to take back everything she told them. "I am not willing to be a source for any story in any capacity," she said. Weird! Meanwhile, the article should have no bearing on the DOJ suit against the state of Alaska — the wording on the ballot is crystal clear (even though Trump thinks Alaska voters are too stupid to know what the term "incumbent" means).
PS: The GOP's hands are very, very dirty when it comes to running fake or "ghost" candidates. They've done it in Florida (of course), and this year in New York, they've recruited spoilers to run on ballot lines for smaller political parties, like Working Families. Pot, meet kettle.
Roll Call has published its lists of vulnerable Senators and House members. Of the 10 on the House list, eight are Republicans, while seven of the eight on the Senate list are. (And #8 is really a stretch, because it's Jon Ossoff. Jon Husted in Ohio is #1, and Susan Collins in Maine is #2.) But tell us again how all the polls are wrong, GOP.
Nobody seems to know what's going to happen with the election in Israel (although Benjamin Netanyahu has already accused the Arab-Israeli parties of "stealing" it). And after failed presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro said he would never leave Brazil, he skipped town and landed in Miami today. "I'm the leader of Brazil!" he bleated. God, we cats are so sick of these Trumpy right-wing crybabies. Is there not a man among them? They make us hack up hairballs, and we HISS.
Preacher of the House Mikey Johnson is the quintessential guy who never should have had his current job in the first place. Honestly, there's never been a time when he wasn't in over his head.
Recently, he daydreamed about going back to Louisiana and opening a lawn-care business if/when he loses his gavel. Now, he's telling pretend journalist Laura Ingraham that all the polls are wrong.
All of them. All. Never mind that in the last two midterm elections, 2022 and 2018, polling was spot on.
Ingraham didn't ask about this, of course, because she's a stupid, hateful fraud, but what happened to the 26 Congressional districts that the Republicans were once so confidently targeting, including ones they added because of their nefarious mid-decade gerrymandering?
A well-informed (and actual) journalist could ask:
(PHOTO: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
The more time that passes, the clearer it becomes that she was right about everything. We cats PURR.
Pop the champagne, kids! Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva has won the presidential election in Brazil. Wow!
Before tonight, clan Bolsonaro seemed like that bad rash that a topical ointment just can't cure. We cats were braced for Flávio to win and for the planet to die, because a Bolsonaro victory would have spelled doom for the Amazon rainforest. And it would have been something Benedict Donald could boast about (when he's not talking about Jon Husted's ass). Whew, what a pick-me-up. Obrigado, Brazil!
But that's not all, folks. Serbia has also turned out its right-wing strongman, Aleksandar Vučić. "The long-serving leader of Serbia has conceded defeat," The Guardian reported, "ushering in a seismic political shift after a historic election that saw the increasingly authoritarian leader pitted against a student-led movement that had spent two years protesting against his government."
This is all so great. Not just because the results are terrific in each of these countries, but because we've got a couple of really important other elections still coming up: Israel's on Tuesday, October 27, and — of course — our own midterms on Tuesday, November 3.
As with our midterms, the consensus is that Israel's election is the most pivotal in its history. Will Israelis reject the government that has turned the world against them, or stick with the war criminal Netanyahu? (We cats don't call him that with pleasure. It actually makes us sick that the entire world was on Israel's side after October 7 and that Netanyahu threw it all away — not unlike George W. Bush after 9/11.)
Hey, speaking of Bush — where the hell is he? Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have come out swinging on the campaign trail, but Smirky is nowhere to be seen. What a pathetic POS. We cats HISS.
