Who's The Real Devil Here?

By Miss Kubelik

We cats have always been fond of Halloween, but here's a reason to celebrate it even more.

Pat Robertson doesn't like it.

It's satanic! Yes, the idiot who joined Jerry Falwell in blaming 9/11 on gays and abortion is issuing dire warnings that donning a fun costume and going door-to-door to ask for candy is taking the sure road to hell.

How ironic that a right-wing fool who spends his time on TV begging for cash from gullible teabags should have a problem with kids ringing doorbells and demanding treats.

Better to party tonight dressed as Beelzebub than to hoodwink old folks out of their Social Security, we cats say. Happy Halloween, everyone! (And we HISS.)

Jeb!'s Campaign Is Looking Awfully Schiavo-esque

By Zamboni

What does Jeb! Bush's campaign have in common with Terri Schiavo? We cats have decided, a lot.

For those of you faithful readers who are not from Florida or who were not watching the news in March 2005, the Terri Schiavo case was probably Jeb!'s biggest bid to supplant his brother as The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived.

Ridiculous performances were turned in by various members of Congress, as well as the aforementioned Worst Person. But it was truly Jeb! who, as Florida Governor, decided to interfere with a family's private medical decisions — mostly at the behest of Michael Schiavo's rabid in-laws and a bunch of bat-guano-crazy Catholic priests.

What a difference 10 years makes. Today, Terri Schiavo is at rest, Michael Schiavo has started a new life (but is still warning about Republican overreach), and Jeb! Bush's Presidential campaign is — appropriately — on life support. Ha, ha! In fact, we've seen headlines that Jeb! has been forced to deny that his campaign is "terminal."

So what other bad puns and references are in order here? We cats can think of a few:

Should Jeb! just come to his senses and pull the plug?

Should he send the FDLE in to rescue the patient?

Can we get a special act of Congress to extend the campaign beyond its natural life?

Can Bill Frist do a remote video diagnosis?

Is the campaign brain-dead?

Answer: Yes, and for a long time. Except for members of the Bush family, who claim it is a living, breathing, eating, walking and talking thing that just needs time to recover. We cats HISS.

RUN AWAY!

By Baxter

What nervous nellies right-wing Republicans are. Virginia State Senator and all-around gun nut William Stanley (R-Franklin) has gone crying to police that Andy Parker's been mean to him online.

Parker, whose TV journalist daughter was gunned down on live TV two months ago, has been campaigning against Old Dominion legislators who are beholden to the NRA, of which Stanley — with an "A" rating from LaPierre & Co. — is one. "I'm going to be your worst nightmare," Parker told Stanley on the Face Thing.

Waaahhh! Which made Stanley lose it — bleating to the press that he "felt threatened," calling Parker "dangerous" and taking out applications for two concealed-weapons permits. (Parker, who does not own a gun, scoffed. "If I wanted to threaten [Stanley] personally, the last thing I would do is post it on his Facebook page," he said.)

So here's to William Stanley, the little, little man with a gun. What a wimp! We continue to marvel at the victim mentality of the heavily armed, white Republican male. Is there any group in America more aggrieved than they? You wouldn't think so, from their pathetic mewling. Which makes us cats HISS.

UPDATE, Oct. 29: Andy Parker has now apologized for scaring William Stanley to death. Bill, you can come out from under the bed now, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper, you.

It's Nice To Have The Other Side Called "Baby Killer" For A Change

By Sniffles

It's been a week since Justin Trudeau's Liberals wiped out Stephen Harper and the Conservatives up in Canada, and the whining continues.

The latest whinger is Chris Alexander, Stephen Harper's pasty-faced blond Minister of Immigration who is just the type you'd expect to see on a Nazi recruiting poster from the 1930s. His electoral district was high on the list of races to watch as the countdown to October 19 began. And, swamped early by the Liberal wave, he lost it, big.

So now Alexander is cleaning out his offices and moaning to the media about how incredibly unfair it is that he was ridden out of Ottawa on a rail because of one photo of a dead Syrian kid on a beach. Just because he and his party didn't move quickly enough to get refugees to Canada, it isn't right that they've lost their jobs, says he.

Gosh! If we cats didn't know better, we'd think we were listening to a Bush, or a Romney — the Republicanesque sense of entitlement is so high. "That was not pleasant," Alexander wailed. "It's wrong."

Well, we cats think that drowning off the coast of Turkey was probably "not pleasant," either. It's amazing to us how these right wingers only worry about children before they're born, and never after. It all makes us HISS.

(IMAGE: Chris Alexander. Wow, is he creepy.)

Trey Gowdy — Timothy McVeigh — Same Person?

You be the judge! Although we never saw McVeigh as shiny-faced as Mr. Flop Sweat from South Carolina.

We'll Second That

"Why is it that so many Republican politicians are so down on America? Have you noticed that? I mean, they are gloomy. They're like Grumpycat."

—President Obama, Women's Leadership Forum

Hillary Clinton Proves She Could Be President Tomorrow

By Miss Kubelik

We cats would love to see any of the crazy passengers in the Republican Presidential clown car stand up to 11 hours of testimony about a deeply complicated event in a foreign country and never once betray consistency, get a sentence out of syntax or lose their cool. Take it from us, it would never happen.

So in a weird way, should we thank Shiny-Face Trey Gowdy (why was he sweating so much? The room was freezing) and his stumblebum GOP colleagues for giving Secretary Clinton a platform on which she could turn in such a magnificent performance?

We're tempted — but based on this statement, which she made at the end of a long, long day, we won't:

"I came here because I said I would. And I've done everything I know to do, as have the people with whom I worked to try to answer your questions. I cannot do any more than that.

"The answers have changed not at all since I appeared two years ago before the House and the Senate. And I recognize that there are many currents at work in this committee, but I can only hope that the statesmanship overcomes the partisanship. At some point we have to do this. It is deeply unfortunate that something as serious as what happened in Benghazi could ever be used for partisan political purposes."

One Year Later

By Zamboni

We cats know that there's a silly Republican clown show going on at the moment on Capitol Hill, and we'll have plenty of things to say about it in due course. But for now, let's just note that Canada's eventful week continues with the first anniversary of the attack on Parliament.

Stephen Harper spent that morning last year being hustled into a broom closet before Parliament's then-Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers took the gunman down, Bruce Willis-style. What a day.

And it's very touching that the City of Hamilton, Ontario, has named a dog park after Nathan Cirillo, the animal-loving solider killed at the National War Memorial. Okay, the park's for dogs. But we cats still say it's a wonderful thing to do. So we PURR.

Canada To Stephen Harper: Drop Dead

By Baxter

We cats have been waiting for the name of the notorious Lynton Crosby to surface in the Canadian election post-mortems and, interestingly, have yet to see it much. He's the Lee-Atwateresque Australian whom Stephen Harper imported last month to help him win an unprecedented fourth term as Prime Minister. But happily, nearly all of Canada threw up over the Harper-Crosby hatemongering.

And now, we've stumbled upon a little news nugget we hadn't seen before: Crosby ditched Harperman just days before Canadians went to the polls. Seeing that voters were rejecting his divisive tactics and were getting ready to give the Liberals a huge win, he turned tail and ran — even going so far as to start a Twitter hashtag: #notincanada. Well, what do you expect from people like that? Loyalty, integrity, fortitude? Nah.

So only a few months after Crosby helped David Cameron pull off an ugly win in the UK, his tactics have not only spectacularly failed in Canada but, ironically, may have given a Western left-leaning party its biggest victory since Tony Blair's landslide in 1997.

And just to add insult to injury, there's this: From what we're seeing of the final results — including this very informative set of maps on vote-change percentages across the country — Harper destroyed whatever vestige of respectability he had left, fomenting hate in a country that frowns upon hate, for just a 0.2% Tory increase in a single province. Zero-point-two, gang. We cats call that a bad investment. And it makes us PURR.

Just Another Republican Who Can't Speak English

By Sniffles

So Charlie Crist announced his candidacy for David Jolly's House seat today, and Jolly showed up and made an idiot of himself.

Not only was crashing the Crist kickoff childish and silly, but Jolly committed one of our most loathed grammatical errors in the process. No, David Jolly, you are not going to "'lay' down and let this huckster walk into office."

Jolly's behavior is so typical of the angry, immature people who make up the Republican Party these days. But for right now, we cats just hope he can lay (pun intended) his hands on The Elements of Style. And we HISS.

Trudeaumania 2015

By Miss Kubelik

We cats have one prediction tonight: The US will go nuts over the new Canadian prime minister. Mind you, we have gone out on exactly no limb in making that prognostication.

Red Wave

By Zamboni

So let's get one thing straight: In Canada, red versus blue is reversed. The color of the Liberal Party is red, and the Conservative Party is blue. So when you see a lot of red on tonight's election map, it's a good thing.

And since the media and the punditocracy have now called a Liberal government — minority or majority — the most exciting comment we cats have seen on the CBC blog is this: "Netanyahu will be truly sorry to see Stephen Harper go."

This makes us cats very happy. Not just because Benjamin Netanyahu is (next to Vladimir Putin) the world's biggest pain in the ass, but because Netanyahu, like Harper, is one of those disgusting politicians who is willing to take a page from the Lee Atwater Playbook and divide people in order to win.

From everything we've seen, with the exception of Quebec (and it's always "with the exception of Quebec"), Canadians have rejected the anti-Muslim crap that Harperman dished out in the final weeks of the campaign to drive haters to the polls. Which means that Justin Trudeau will be moving back into 24 Sussex Drive — the home that he knew as a child and which happens to be the Prime Minister's official residence in Ottawa. Amazing, isn't it? We cats are thrilled, and we PURR.

No More Mister

By Baxter

Polls don't close in Canada for awhile yet, so we cats will train our keen eyes back on the political silliness in the US. (Although we're very glad to learn that, like John Oliver, we won't be hauled off to the hoosegow the next time we visit Montreal.)

Meanwhile, every time we hear Canadian pundits and politicians refer to the Prime Minister as "Mr. Harper," we think of Jeb! Bush. Why? Because he has this totally weenie habit of calling his chief GOP torturer "Mr. Trump."

Gosh, that must be irritating to his supporters. And The Donald's totally accurate attack on The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived over 9/11 has, in our opinion, turned a huge page on Campaign Jeb! that we think the candidate will refuse to recognize.

In short, if we were Republicans (brrr!) and advising the Jebsters, we'd tell them that Bush should just go all out and attack Trump. Stop being polite about it, and stop calling him anything that begins with an honorific. And if Jeb! is asked about whether he risks alienating the teabags and the Freepers and the other Trump supporters, he should just say this: "They'll never vote for me in the primaries. So why should I worry about them? Rafael Cruz, Jr. is welcome to them when Trump inevitably fails."

He'll never do it, of course. It would be too bold — and unless it involves denying African Americans the vote, invading the personal medical decisions of Florida families, or putting money in the pockets of his political cronies, Jeb! doesn't do bold. That's why he'll never become Leader of the Free World. Which makes us cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Donald yapping, Jeb! looking like a twit.)

And Here's The Fat Drug Addict, Supporting Stephen Harper

"It seems pertinent at this point to rehash Rob Ford’s behavior in office, as variously described in sworn affidavits...and in some cases freely admitted by the man himself:

"Smoking crack with gangsters, who videotaped it, then offering $5,000 and a car to get it back; having his drug-dealer pal Sandro Lisi exchange 1.5 kilograms of marijuana for his cell phone, which had been stolen by gangsters; careering around City Hall drunk in the dead of night; driving drunk, including after having downed a mickey of vodka in two minutes, whereupon a staffer in the vehicle begged to be let out; being tailed around town by a police airplane; offering staff positions to his drug buddies; assaulting staff members; calling Justin Trudeau a 'fag'; racially abusing a taxi driver; prostitutes, maybe; and just generally lying about absolutely everything, absolutely all the time."

—Chris Selley, The National Post, October 18, 2015

Polls Are Almost Open! (Um, In Canada)

By Sniffles

Hello, America! Did you know that there's an election in Canada tomorrow? Of course you didn't. It never fails to amaze us cats how blind the US media are when it comes to anything that happens above the 49th parallel. (Except maybe for hockey, and possibly not even then.)

Anyway, you can count on two things about Monday's vote: Despite consistent polls showing a Liberal Party lead, prognosticators are saying that, basically, anything can happen. Oh, and Justin Trudeau will be seen somewhere with a baby.

We're not really surprised by the latter, since Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a doting if late-in-life father, and clearly passed an appreciation for small humans to his sons.

But what did puzzle us was the punditocracy's insistence that there could still be a "Conservative surprise," despite the fact that the Liberals have led in 17 consecutive polls, nearly all outside the margin of error. What was it, we wondered, about the ever-unappealing Stephen Harper that made observers refuse to count him out?

And then we realized that the answer is: the niqab. Never underestimate the power of teabaggy hate — personified by Harper's scaremongering about veiled Muslim women taking the oath of Canadian citizenship — to drive white, male, immature, Rob Ford types to the polls. (We cats realize that Ford metaphor is probably way too redundant.)

In polite terms, this phenomenon is known as "shy Tories." Originating with David Cameron's unexpected win in the UK this spring, the concept refers to voters who are too embarrassed to self-identify as Conservatives to pollsters. However, once in the voting booth, they succumb to Tory tactics and indulge their inner xenophobes.

We cats sincerely hope that all the strategic voting sites, the early-voting ballot shortages, and the continued popularity of "Harperman" all spell doom for the worst Prime Minister that Canada has ever had. We'll have to wait to see what happens, but that would make us PURR.

Cat Fight! The Donald vs. The Worst Person vs. Jeb!

By Miss Kubelik

Wow! Some very interesting items in today's headlines. We cats are getting ready to slide into the weekend, but here's one we just have to comment on.

Does Donald Trump read this blog? We're beginning to think so, because we've surely spent enough time screaming about The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived and how he brushed off the Presidential Daily Brief of August 6, 2001. You know the one: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

You can be dim-dam-double-damn sure that if President Al Gore had ignored that thing, the Republicans would have impeached him on September 12. But the Bush-Cheney Administration gets a total pass — until now. Donald Trump has dared to question why the World Trade Center was destroyed with The Worst Person in the White House.

We cats think this is just great. Not only because we're happy to have somebody on the other side repeat what we've been howling about for years, but because it's just going to throw the Republican clown car into another deadly, tire-screeching spin.

Yes, the Democrats have been too meek on this issue. And the media enabled Bush-Cheney from the start. But with The Worst Person's incredibly priggish and umbrage-y brother in the GOP race with Trump, we can't wait to see the brawl that breaks out from this. It all makes us PURR.

Tempest In A... Well, You Know

By Zamboni

So now that Pundit World has decided that Hillary Clinton's bold performance last night has passed Joe Biden by, can we use this coffee mug again? Just wondering, because we love Joe. (And support Hillary.)

Hillary Takes Charge — Jeb!? Not So Much

By Baxter

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic debate last night for a lot of reasons (Bernie Sanders's unexpected assist being one of them), but the one that sticks most in our furry little brains is that the execrable inhabits of Pundit World thought she would lose. Sadly, a lot of them are lefties who desperately wanted to see Clinton fail and who, we guess, are pretty vexed today that she didn't.

Which is a great reminder that every negative headline you see about Hillary Clinton should be read through that annoyed-pundithead lens. It's not for nothing that the former Secretary of State knows an entire industry thrives on sliming her — she's been living it for years. It's our hope that with her strong performance last night, Kevin "The Boob" McCarthy's Benghazi Blurt, and Clinton's upcoming testimony to the Select Committee on Whatever It Takes to Destroy Hillary's Candidacy, we can all quietly turn the corner on this crap and do what Bernie Sanders suggests: Talk about the issues that matter to the American people.

Still and all, we cats are pleased about one very specific thing: Compared to the clown car on the other side, the Democratic debate was substantive and dignified. Unlike the GOP sideshows, viewers could actually imagine that they were watching a potential President. Hooray!

And here's another thing we couldn't help noticing: Our front-runner has fared a lot better in her first debate than their (Establishment-presumed) front-runner has.

Think about it: All the punditheads are saying that the Trump and Carson and Fiorina nutcases have no chance of winning the Republican nomination, and that sooner or later, the party will turn to Jeb! Yet Bush not only has had no debate breakthroughs, he's done actual harm to his candidacy. Will any of the TV talking heads compare that to Clinton's masterful turn last night? Sadly, we cats think not. And so we HISS.

We'd Still Rather Be Us Than Them

With the Republican Party tearing itself apart, we cats just want to say that we love this picture. And we PURR.

Dear Great Pumpkin: Please Bring Us A New Government

By Sniffles

Is this Canada's next Prime Minister? We cats hate to even ask the question, because when it comes to other countries' elections, we're still feeling mighty burned from Israel's in March. Brrr!

But up in Canada, the Liberal Party has led Stephen Harper's Tories in eight of the last 10 polls — which leads us to believe that maybe, just maybe, Justin Trudeau is peaking at precisely the right time.

Or perhaps it's just that Canadians, sick of Harper and the Republicanesque behavior of the Conservatives, have decided that voting Liberal rather than NDP is the best way to get rid of them. Hey — either way, we'll take it.

There's no doubt that Harper — with his partisanship, his secrecy, his economic mismanagement, his slavish devotion to the oil industry and the gun lobby, his demagoguery of Canadians' ethnic differences, and his Bushian scaremongering about terrorism — has been incredibly bad for the True North. So those are reasons enough to send him packing.

But there's also this: The only time the world knew who was Prime Minister of Canada was when someone named Trudeau held the job. Let's do it again. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Justin Trudeau and his son Hadrian, whom he usually likes to toss up in the air. Here they are, unusually, terra-firma-bound.)

George Allen's "Accidental" Death

By Miss Kubelik

Yes, we cats know that the big debate is happening as we write this, but we're not prepared to comment on it yet. In the meantime, we have a bone to pick with someone named "Quentin Kidd," who was cited as an expert on Virginia politics in a story on the debate that WAMU-FM broadcast this morning.

Jim Webb (left, above) "accidentally won a seat in the US Senate," this Kidd person said. To which we cats say, WTF?

There was no "accidentally" about it. Jim Webb won his Virginia Senate seat in 2006 for a lot of reasons — but a big one was the videotape of Republican incumbent George Allen ridiculing a Democratic tracker and calling the young lad, who happened to be of Indian-American descent, "Macaca" — a racial slur.

Webb's victory was no accident for two reasons: 1) S.R. Sidarth, the Democratic Party operative, attended the Allen event with a purpose, not on a lark. 2) George Allen, a bigoted, entitled fool, acted accordingly. Both reasons are based in logic and fact, not serendipity.

Folks, this is what Republicans are like. We know it better now, after seven years of Barack Obama in the White House. But George Allen's ignorance and hate was the first faint glimmer of how badly the GOP would behave in the social media age. Now, in fact, it almost seems quaint. Except that it's not. We cats HISS.

Abbott Swings And Misses

By Zamboni

Since we cats have nine lives, we're old enough to remember the message that flashed on Shea Stadium's scoreboard on a cold October night back in 1986: "Congratulations World Series Champs Boston Red Sox."

Whoops! That message came down mighty quick once the New York Mets rallied when they were one out away.

Well, now mistakes like that go out on that Twitter thing, and not just to 50,000 people in a baseball stadium but to the entire world. So it behooves you even more to wait until the last out of the freaking game before you start popping champagne corks — or try to score stupid political points by send warm hugs to your home-state team for winning the division championship. (In case you're wondering, yes, the Kansas City Royals came back from the dead in the eighth inning and won the game, 9-6.)

In short, the far-far-far-right-wing Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) didn't just jump the gun when the Royals had their backs against the wall — he tweeted felicitations at the end of the seventh inning! Call us cats crazy, but in our book, there was plenty of time left for Kansas City to stage their comeback, which of course they did. Don't mess around with the baseball gods — they will always bite you. (Then again, Abbott is the same idiot who put Texas on high alert for the nonexistent Jade Helm conspiracy this summer, so how smart is he?)

What Abbott and his staff did was so typical of one-party rule. When you're in that position — like the Republicans are in Texas — you feel entitled, you're omnipotent, you can't possibly be wrong, and you have nobody to put the brakes on you when you're about to do something stupid. Which as we know from recent antics on Capitol Hill, Republicans are awfully good at. We cats HISS.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Shucks, Folks, We're Speakerless

By Baxter

We cats returned from our travels thinking that surely the nation would have a Speaker of the House by now. Au contraire! It truly is appalling that the Republicans have allowed one-half of Congress to become a new edition of the Keystone Kops. Have we mentioned how effective Nancy Pelosi was?

Meanwhile, tomorrow night is the Democrats' big debate. Here's what we hope to see: "Wolf Blitzer" or some other lamebrain CNN moderator trying to get Clinton, Sanders, et. al. to say negative stuff about Barack Obama (you know, like about Syria, or the ACA or gun control, just to goose up the ratings) — and every one of the candidates responding with something like, "Sorry, Wolf, we hear enough from the Republicans and the teabags about how absolutely horrible Obama is supposed to be, coupled with complete and total amnesia about the disaster that was Bush/Cheney. Not playing your game, thanks very much."

And gosh! As if Jeb! Bush needs another thing to go wrong, ya know? It turns that in addition to his measly 7 percent in Iowa, his top campaign guy in the Hawkeye State has just been diagnosed with an incredibly aggressive form of leukemia. Not much chance he'll be rounding up folks on caucus day, we think.

Finally, to all those yahoos who keep trying to insist that the Confederate battle flag is not racist, we offer this. We cats say, it's not heritage, it's hate. And we HISS.

Halloween Comes Early

By Sniffles

We cats are traveling this weekend, but before we hit the road we want to make one more observation about the Republican chaos in Washington.

It is not funny.

So why did we see so many TV talking heads giggling and grinning yesterday? Rachel Maddow reveled in silly props, and her guest, Jay Newton-Small from TIME magazine, couldn't stop smirking. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, irritatingly, can always be depended upon to serve as Chuckler-in-Chief. And so on and so forth.

So we wonder: What is so amusing about the fact that one of our political parties has been taken hostage by inept racists and haters who would rather see government fail than serve the American people? Why is it hilarious that the Republican establishment has not only allowed but enabled it? Sorry, but we don't get it. Include us out.

This is serious stuff, folks. Our country needs to function. And unless we Democrats — who believe in government and in enacting sound legislation that lifts all boats — can win the White House and get the Congress back, we don't see how it will. We cats HISS.

Memo To House Republicans: "YOU'RE NEXT!"

By Miss Kubelik

We cats would pay a lot to see the look on Nancy Pelosi's face when she heard the news that Kevin "The Boob" McCarthy was dropping out of the race for Speaker of the House. Did anyone take cellphone video? Please say yes!

Because for the umpteenth time since January 2011, the Republicans have proved themselves incapable of — well, of anything. They certainly can't count. And gee, we Democrats never had these problems when we were in charge. Think of all the stuff we got done: The stimulus package (which, by the way, saved the nation from another Great Depression), healthcare reform, financial reform, ethics reform, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Lily Ledbetter Act... shall we go on?

And under the Republicans: zip, zilch, nada. Except obstruction and chaos. We sincerely hope that their lack of legislative accomplishment doesn't get lost in all the breathless coverage today. Their institutional idiocy is on top of their neglect of the nation's best interest. It's one of many sins, not their only one.

So, when Kevin "The Boob" McCarthy praises the House Republicans and says that it's time for a "new face," we cats ask, why? Why do you guys need somebody new if you've been doing such a bang-up job for the American people in the first place? Please explain. In the meantime, we cats shake our heads at your utter incompetence, and we HISS.

(IMAGE: The "other" Kevin McCarthy, the one who was decidedly not a boob, in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)

A Message From Kevin McCarthy (Iowa Version)

We cats love everything about this video — but especially the Monty Python music. It makes us PURR.

True Twits

By Zamboni

Why do Republicans think that gunfights are like something out of the movies?

We cats have never even gotten near a gun, which probably accounts for at least eight of our nine long lives. Our philosophy? Steer clear, stay safe. But as America's never-ending mass shootings, countless gang killings and umpteen family murders have shown, sometimes you get close to a weapon even when you don't want to be. 'Cuz somebody sticks it in your face.

Yet despite our total inexperience, we know damn well that faced with a James Holmes or an Adam Lanza or a Chris Harper Mercer, nobody's suddenly going to turn into John Wayne and drop the bad guy in his tracks.

Which means that idiot pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson's idea that kindergarten teachers should have guns in class is ridiculous. Even crazier is his suggestion that the victims at Umpqua Community College in Oregon are somehow to blame for allowing this Harper Mercer guy to shoot them. It's not only an insult to grieving families, it's dumb.

How would all this fighting back that Carson recommends work, exactly? Would kindergarten teachers wear their firearms? No, Carson said, they should be locked in a desk drawer. So, if a gunman bursts into a classroom and starts firing, then.... does the teacher have time to unlock the drawer, load her weapon, and fire back? Um, no. Ben has clearly seen way too many celluloid shootouts and has confused them with reality. We hope he didn't watch too many doctor shows on TV before operating.

Same deal with the Umpqua victims whom Carson has so blithely slandered. But get this: Turns out that Oregon is one of the many states that allows concealed-carry, so the professor and students whom Harper Mercer attacked would have been legally permitted to pack heat to class. Nevertheless, they're all dead. As Sarah Palin would say, how's that CCW law workin' for ya?

Long story short, putting more guns in the hands of civilians is no solution. Making them harder to buy without background checks is. And it would be really nice if Republicans would stop their adolescent fantasies, and quit maligning the murdered and the bereaved. We're talking to you, too, Bobby Jindal. We cats HISS.

Divided, Not United?

By Baxter

We cats have been screaming so long about how Stephen Harper and his "Progressive Conservatives" are the Canadian version of George W. Bush/Dick Cheney/Karl Rove/Ari Fleischer that we're sure you faithful readers are tired of it. But the Tories keep proving our point!

Not only is Harper singling out niqab-wearing immigrant women as a yooooooooge issue in this month's federal election — now he's oh-so-conveniently revoked the citizenship of a Jordanian who was long ago hauled off to the hoosegow for a 2006 terrorist plot.

That is, Harper has taken away the guy's Canadian half, because Hoosegow Harry held dual citizenship — as so many immigrants in Canada do. This has all happened thanks to a repulsive new law known as C-24, which targets dual citizens who do nasty things, and which the Tory government conveniently pushed through (and exercised) in this highly charged political year.

Gosh! Raising the specter of terrorism to win an election? Who would do that?!?

Thankfully, the media and Harper's electoral opponents have cried foul on all this. Dual-citizenship holders say they feel like second-class Canadians. Pundits point out that citizenship is a right, not a privilege. And the most memorable sound bite so far is Justin Trudeau's. The Supreme Court may decide if the Charter of Rights and Freedoms cancels out any divisive law that Stephen Harper wants to exploit for his political gain.

But will Canadians let him? We cats have bad memories of Americans succumbing to fearmongering like this. We hope that they'll see through Harper's attempts to divide and conquer, and toss him and the Tories out on their butts in two weeks. That would make us PURR.

Now It's REALLY Time For Harper To Go

By Sniffles

Stephen Harper thinks he's going to ride to re-election in Canada on the "issue" of the niqab.

Yep, somehow — despite the country's current recession and all the other struggles that Canadian families are having every day — whether or not a woman wears or doffs her religious veil during a new-citizen swearing-in ceremony has allegedly lifted the Tories in recent polls.

We cats would like to point out how disgusting this is. First, new Canadian citizens are required by law to confirm their identities prior to any public ceremonies. Second, as we've argued before, open, pluralistic democracies should be able to tolerate silly dress. (Just look at the Tea Party.) Third,  this is a dog whistle engineered by a right wing desperate to turn the conversation away from the issues that really matter. So we hope that Canadians will not succumb.

How, though? In a parliamentary system with at least three major political parties, how can the True North keep Stevie from squeaking through? Answer: Only if those who oppose him refuse to stay in their ideological corners and cast their votes on October 19 as anti-Harper rather than pro-anybody-else.

To that end, we respectfully propose adding a new verse to Tony Turner's big election hit, "Harperman." We hope that since our favorite mild-mannered Environment Canada scientist has decided to retire from the civil service rather than suffer the government's drawn-out "investigation" into his political activity, he'll have the chance to endorse our lyrics. Thanks for your consideration, Tony! We cats PURR.

How can we get ride of Steve?
Harperman, Harperman
What can we do to make him leave?
Harperman, Harperman
Cast our votes strategically
Liberal or NDP
Harperman, it's time for you to go!

Campaign Surveillance: No Joyride

By Miss Kubelik

There's a lot of delicious political news to chew on this morning, but one of our favorites is this: A video tracker from Jeb! Bush's ridiculously named Super PAC, "Right to Rise," got kicked out of a Rubio event in Iowa last night.

They're spying on Baby Marco! We thought Republican trackers were just supposed to shadow Democrats. (And vice versa.) But in the unruly mob that passes for the GOP these days, anything goes.

We cats just have three questions.

Jeb! yammers constantly about campaigning with "joy" in his heart. How does video tracking a fellow Republican (and alleged protege) qualify as "joy"?

Jeb! also says that he's willing "to lose the primary to win the general election." How is video tracking Baby Marco all about losing the primary?

Finally, will any member of the lamebrain pundit class ask these questions of the man they're so reluctant to declassify as the "front runner"? We cats HISS.

Is Frankie FUBAR?

By Zamboni

Is there any bigger political goof than Kevin "The Boob" McCarthy's unforced error about Benghazi the other night? Well, the alleged meeting between Pope Frankie and Kentucky's most famous homophobic county clerk might qualify.

We totally don't know, of course, but we like to think that this is driving Frankie crazy.

Think about it: His trip to America came off impeccably. He and his little Fiat charmed the nation (well, except for Hispanic-hating teabags who think he's a socialist), and we all just melted whenever he got within two feet of a special-needs kid or disabled person. (We cats admit we found that touching, too.) He made all the right moves: Lunching with the homeless, doing a better mea culpa with priest-abuse victims, and most important, soft-pedaling abortion and gay marriage in favor of immigration, income inequality and climate change. This must have totally frustrated wild-eyed religious nut cases like Fat Mike Huckabee. Fun!

So what happens? No sooner does he get back home than the Kim Davis news hits, and the world throws up on it.

Frankie is such a canny politician that this seems seriously out of step. And the details are murky. Who proposed the meeting and when? Why was it Davis's weirdly named attorney who broke the story, and not the Vatican? Why is the Vatican being so cagey about confirming or denying? It's like a terrorist attack that no one's claiming credit for.

So, we're fascinated. After all, did we ever doubt that Pope Francis is against gay people getting hitched? Of course he is, and he can go jump in the lake about that. But we don't really care — not just because marriage equality in America is a done deal, but because if Frankie can shame the world into tackling global warming, at least we know there'll be a lake left to jump into. So we cats turn the other cheek, HISSing and PURRing at the same time.

UPDATE: Maybe Frankie isn't FUBAR yet. He's just distanced himself from the Kim confab, which we cats think is more delicious than a plateful of fresh mice. Look for right-wing balloons to be deflated, and somebody in the Vatican to get quietly reassigned. Time to PURR.