Nightmare In NY-21

 

By Baxter

Every time we're even vaguely tempted to feel sorry for Republicans yoked to the antics of Benedict Donald, we instantly remind ourselves that they made their bed, and they must lie in it. (See above.)

They passed up so many off-ramp opportunities in the last 10 years. And now, things are much worse for them. Trump 2.0 is way more erratic and weird. MAGA is furious about the Epstein files, the war in Iran, and gas and food prices. Impeachment and the 25th amendment are openly discussed. And Donald just made the GOP's upcoming midterm massacre even bloodier — at least in our neck of the woods.

"President Donald Trump endorsed the CEO of a sticker company to fill outgoing Rep. Elise Stefanik's House seat," POLITICO reports, "[announcing] over social media Tuesday that he's backing Republican Anthony Constantino over Assemblyman Robert Smullen, the preferred nominee of the New York GOP and the state Conservative Party."

Constantino is a nutcase, and Smullen is pretty awful, too. With Trump's interference, what was already promising to be a fun Republican-on-Republican cat fight for Elsie's seat just got more delicious. And what a huge middle finger to GOP state party chair Ed (Tricia Nixon) Cox and the hapless county chairs in the district who had confidently endorsed Smullen before Sticker Mule Man jumped into the race.

As for Elsie, she's on her silly book tour, and no doubt will try to dodge questions. But Trump has just put her in another awkward position. Can she really stay silent? Reporters should hound her mercilessly.

Here's the best part: Smullen is guaranteed to be on the November ballot, on the Conservative Party line. If Constantino wins the Republican primary in June, we don't see how Democrat Blake Gendebien loses a three-way race. We cats PURR.

Happy Queen Elizabeth Centenary To All Who Celebrate!

 

April 21, 1926—September 8, 2022

Labor Pains

By Sniffles

If you've ever had a bad boss, you can imagine how relieved staffers at the Department of Labor must feel tonight.

Because Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is out. Like Attorney General Pam Bondi before her, she is allegedly "returning to the private sector." Wherever she (God forbid) lands, you can only imagine she'll continue to terrorize employees with her boozing, her absences, her inappropriate requests, her misuse of financial and other resources, her affairs, and her handsy husband. Ugh. (And gee, drinking on the job. Can Kash Patel's defenestration be far behind?)

Although Chavez-DeRemer was really the only non-100-percent-MAGA person in the Cabinet — some in organized labor, like the Teamsters and the Transport Workers, supported her nomination — we cats agree with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries: The Republicans who keep voting to confirm clowns like her are just as much to blame for this screwy Cabinet as anyone. And sadly, they'll probably vote for whatever worse clown Benedict Donald picks to take her place.

Meanwhile, we'll keep playing the "What If Biden Did This?" game. Can you imagine if Joe, or any Democratic President, had lost so many senior people to scandal in his first 16 months in office? The media would have a feeding frenzy. But with Trump, a new and different outrage will keep us all spinning on the hamster wheel by tomorrow. Besides, the White House press corps is about to honor Trump at their upcoming silly dinner, so they're not about to hold him to account. (Of all the years to boycott the WHCD, this is the year to boycott it the most.) We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: Now-former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer blows out candles at an office birthday party that she said under oath had never taken place. Whoops.)

The Wheels On The GOP Bus Are Coming Off

Please allow this lovely video to brighten your Sunday.

Meanwhile, the special elections roll on. Tuesday, Virginians will go to the polls to vote on redrawing their Congressional districts for the 2026 midterms. This fight wouldn't be happening if the Texas GOP hadn't started it, so if Republicans end up with just one Representative from the Old Dominion, they'll have only themselves to blame.

Are you a voter in Virginia? To check the status of your registration and for information on polling place locations, click here.

Magyar Deep-Sixes MAGA

By Hubie and Bertie

Another lopsided victory for Democrats in a special election last night: Analilia Mejia won Governor Mikie Sherrill's former seat in NJ-11 by 60-40. We can quibble later about whether Mejia would have been our first choice in the primary. The more important point is that she outperformed our 2024 margin in that district by five points, and bested Kamala Harris's Presidential margin there by 12 points.

People are motivated, and they keep voting in outsize numbers. This is what we need for November.

That point was proved by the election in Hungary last weekend. So many pundits and prognosticators said that Victor Orbán would never have to worry about relinquishing power because of how deeply he had gerrymandered the country, and taken over the media and the courts. But Péter Magyar's Tisza party's margin of victory was so enormous, there was no disputing it. Orbán caved. MAGA is sad.

(True to form, Benedict Donald promptly put his good buddy Orbán firmly in the rear-view mirror, because, you know, Orbán's a loser, and everything with Trump is transactional. Plus it's so convenient to just let JD Vance absorb the humiliation, right?)

Maybe the best thing about Magyar's huge win — aside from cutting off Hungary's version of CPAC from any further funding — is his speedy vow to shut down Orbán's version of Fox News/One America/Newsmax. Magyar called it "a factory of lies" and promised to create a "real, independent public broadcaster, one where the opposition finally has a voice too." As the saying goes, this is how you do it. Democrats, we hope you're taking notes, because the poll numbers for both the House and Senate this November are looking good. We cats PURR.

(PHOTO: Getty Images)

"Treason Worship Shouldn't Be Tax-Deductible"

By Miss Kubelik

Let's all just sidestep the repulsive news about Eric Swalwell, Benedict Donald's continued weird Jesus meltdown, and the deliciousness of JD Vance's sparsely attended rally in Athens, Georgia, to celebrate recent developments in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Governor Abigail Spanberger has been impressive in her first 100 days — giving the Democratic response to Trump's silly State of the Union, signing a flurry of executive orders in support of housing, healthcare, and education, and backing legislation to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution. Now she's signed a bill that ends tax breaks for groups aligned with the former Confederacy. Only 161 years after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, but heck, we'll take it!

The affected organizations include the United Daughters of the Confederacy's Virginia division and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, and for the life of us we have no idea why they didn't pay state property taxes in the first place.

"And oh, the horror," humorist and Substack star John Fugelsang wrote. "Somewhere, a bunch of genteel Lost Cause enthusiasts are clutching pearls —and wallets: 'If our Confederate organizations now have to pay property taxes, how will we continue honoring our ancestors who fought to keep other people as property?'"

Yes, the South lost the war but won the peace, thanks to the federal abandonment of Reconstruction, a hundred years of Jim Crow, and romantic literary and Hollywood treatments that whitewashed America's original sin right out of our collective consciousness. But there's no reason that taxpayers of the Old Dominion need to support Confederate monuments and mythologies. We cats PURR.

Time To Take The Keys Away

"This is not the behavior of a stable, healthy leader. Pope Leo, for his part, said he has no fear of the Administration and will continue to preach the messages of the Gospel. The rest of us, however, should be very worried about a Commander in Chief who is trying to govern the country between social-media binges, who attacks religious leaders in narcissistic frenzy, and who imagines himself as a deity. If an elderly parent did such things, most people would be concerned. The President doing such things is far more alarming.

"The American people must not look away, as they have done so often in the past. They must pay attention to the President’s deterioration, and insist that the House and Senate start acting like functioning branches of the government by asking the White House to explain what is happening, without insults or evasions, before the eyes of the country and the world."

—Tom Nichols, The Atlantic

How The Veep Sweeps Matter

By Zamboni

Eighty-one years ago today, Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia — stunning a world that had no idea how sick he really was. Most stunned of all was probably his Vice President, Harry S. Truman, who had been picked as a running mate only the year before. FDR probably didn't handle the Truman selection as gracefully as he could have, but it soon became clear that he'd made the right choice.

Some Presidents select their running mates wisely. (Walter Mondale is a case in point.) Others make really stupid choices — and then humiliate them in a million ways. Which brings us to the subject of JD Vance.

Vance has just suffered not one but two major embarrassments in less than week. He was dispatched to "negotiate" with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, and he was sent to Hungary to campaign for the despicable strongman Victor Orbán. Iran rolled us in the first instance (and we're all about to pay more at the pump because of it) — and Hungary just overwhelmingly handed Orbán his walking papers. Orbán quickly conceded today's election, but surely only because the margin of victory for his opponent was so wide, he had no other choice.

There are two lessons for us here: One, the best way to defeat a fascist is to do it so resoundingly that he can't possibly claim fraud. Two, the person you pick to step in if you: 1) go under anesthesia, 2) unexpectedly suffer a cerebral hemorrhage at the Little White House, or 3) keel over in the golden-gewgawed Oval Office from too many Double Whoppers, really matters. We cats salute Harry Truman, and dump our dirty litter boxes over JD Vance's head. And we PURR.

Artemis Perfect

 "We went out to dinner and listened to re-entry in the car. Everything has been so shitty and nothing has been good, we really needed this win. So glad everything worked out. Welcome home."

Liberal Love-In

By Baxter

The Canadian Liberal Party is meeting this week in Montreal, and will wrap up tomorrow with an address by Prime Minister Mark Carney at 2 PM. No, we cats aren't there (yet), but we agree with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that for first-time convention attendees, to be able to meet in Montreal is something special.

A year ago, we cats would never have thought we'd write this, but the Liberals are riding high. They not only have historically positive approval ratings, they're also on the brink of a majority, thanks to a few by-elections that are scheduled for April 13. (Merci, Donald!)

Two elections are in reliably Liberal ridings, and the third is in Terrebonne, outside of Montreal, which the Liberals won last time by — literally — one vote. That result was tossed by the courts, and the re-vote is Monday. But because of the recent floor-crossings, Mark Carney doesn't need Terrebonne to get a majority.

Carney has been wily and smart, keeping his caucus together and wooing newcomers, inviting them to join his "big tent." This is all very impressive for an international banker who wasn't exactly known as a savvy politician before 2025. But as he is with the French language, Carney is a quick study. We cats admit it: We're star-struck.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, is in a bad place. How many more defections can he survive before his party demands he resign? We're already seeing calls for him to step down, because his brand of "Maple MAGA" is just not playing well in Canada. And why should it? PP is incapable of surveying the landscape and pivoting to address the reality — all he knows are the talking points that Benedict Donald provides him, and they don't translate well. C'est comme ça que ça devrait être. We cats PURR.