Beyond A Doubt

Having finally seen the latest "Star Trek" movie, we suddenly realized that its theme is identical to Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan: "STRONGER TOGETHER." We cats PURR.

Hillary's Presser

By Miss Kubelik

For those of you worried that it's time for the Democratic nominee to hold a press conference, we cats have a suggestion that we think will be both radical and effective.

We agree with certain experts that, knowing the media's negative attitude toward all matters Clinton, a traditional presser could quickly devolve into a pointless free-for-all. Therefore, Secretary Clinton should resolve to throw everything right back into the media's face. (After all, everyone hates the press, right? Or does that tactic only work for Republicans?)

In short, after Hillary answers eight or so questions about emails and the Clinton Foundation, she should simply say, "Okay, everyone. Thanks to draconian Republican social policies, pregnant women are dying in Texas. Does anyone want to ask me about that? Or do we just want to ask questions I've already answered about things that American voters don't care about?"

Then, after the next question is about emails or the Foundation, Secretary Clinton should say, "Asked and answered. Who wants to give me a question about how Donald Trump wants to give Vladimir Putin the green light to overrun NATO countries? Anyone? Anyone?"

Then, assuming the reporters will persist on the so-called Clinton "scandals," Hillary should repeat: "Asked and answered. Does anyone want to ask me about the Supreme Court's decision to block the North Carolina voter ID law?"

Would it be risky? Sure. But it would brutally make the point that the media are fixated on crap instead of serious policy. And if Secretary Clinton could face down the so-called "Benghazi committee" for 11 hours, she can do this for 60 minutes. In fact, we cats would sell tickets, because it would make us PURR.

Sexting Anthony, Meet Amnesty Don

By Zamboni

No, we cats are not going to comment on the jackass Trump supporter and his defiant "apology" for tweeting Hillary Clinton in blackface. We're not going to waste time breathlessly anticipating Trump's "big immigration speech" tomorrow. And we're even going to refrain from discussing Maine Governor Paul LePage's latest mad dash outside the bounds of propriety.

Instead, we'd like to discuss the question of whether human beings are capable of changing their behavior. (We cats, of course, being perfect, have no behaviors to change.)

We've been thinking about it ever since we heard the news that Huma Abedin had finally had enough and was separating from husband Anthony Weiner. We now know that even after a series of self-inflicted public humiliations— including an entire film documentary, for heaven's sake — Weiner seemed unable to break himself of the habit of taking ew-y selfies and sending them to members of the opposite sex. Wow — we hope it was worth it, guy.

Call us cats flummoxed. There are several human worlds that we don't get — gambling, NASCAR, motorcycles, "Game of Thrones," beauty pageants — and sexting is one of them. We think, though, that it's less about sex and more about something else. Like maybe, inadequacy.

So, enter Donald Trump. Who also doesn't seem to be able to change his behavior.

Well, maybe he manages it for a day or two. The blather in Pundit World last week was that Kellyanne Conway had finally managed to get Trump to stop acting like a five-year-old — but then Dwyane Wade's cousin was shot to death in Chicago, and... well, you know what happened. It was back to the same old Trump (or, as the "Morning Joe" gang called him, "Amnesty Don").

If we had been on Joe and Mika's show yesterday morning (ideally, curled up in the lap of panel participant Howard Dean), we would have said that we don't know if the Republican nominee is a psychopath or a sociopath. But we're sure of two things: First, that something is deeply wrong with him. Two, that he would fiercely resent being compared in any way to Anthony Weiner. But we think the shoe fits. We cats PURR.

UPDATE: Frank Bruni of The New York Times has noticed the Trump-Weiner bedfellowship, too. We swear we posted this before we read it!

Anybody See A Resemblance?

Our apologies to Brent Spiner, whom we adore. But the resemblance between his star turn in "Independence Day" and Donald Drumpf's very strange doctor is eerie. We cats PURR and HISS.

Giving Drumpf The Byrd

By Baxter

Having visited the crazy-train world of the Freepers and other right-wing nutcases, we cats are already quite familiar with "the Robert Byrd Argument."

That is, that no accusations of racism can be hurled from any Democrats against Republicans because — wait for it — West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan. So of course they're trotting it out now that Hillary Clinton has called Donald Drumpf on his racist fellow travelers from Breitbart.com.

We cats say, this has always been idiotic, and still is. Because any extreme error like Klan membership always depends on what you do with it.

Byrd repented his racist past. "It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one’s life, career, and reputation," he wrote. And he became one of the Senate's consistent voices of support for the NAACP, voting rights and hate crimes prevention. 

We're not seeing Drumpf, Stephen Bannon and the other shady characters around them recanting their views and apologizing. Quite the opposite: Bannon has flat-out denied that the alt-right is racist or anti-Semitic.

Oh, and there's one other thing: Bob Byrd would trounce Donald "Article 12" Drumpf in a contest about the US Constitution. (In fact, Byrd was the first person we thought of when we saw Khizr Khan reach into his jacket pocket and pull out his copy during his spellbinding speech at the Democratic Convention.) We cats PURR.

Must Get Stephen Bannon Off The Top Of The Blog. Time For Some Red Panda!

The Anti-Role-Model

By Sniffles

You know what makes us cats happiest? The fact that the words "racist" and "bigot" are labels that people today want to avoid.

How far we've come from the days that we, with our nine lives, unfortunately remember: When Lester Maddox wielded an ax handle, when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, when Richard Nixon appealed to Southern Democrats' opposition to civil rights and welcomed them (with Roger Ailes's help) into the Republican Party.

We cats say, today is so much better — because collectively, we recognize how wrong those positions were. And how right Hillary Clinton was to call out the GOP on their coddling of racists and anti-Semites.

In fact, how amazing it is that anti-Semitism has become a topic in the Presidential campaign at all.

Those of us who love persons of the Jewish faith — and who have been fortunate enough for them to become soul mates and intimate players in our lives — can especially appreciate the fact that Secretary Clinton went after the white supremacists supporting Trump yesterday. Never before has anti-Semitism risen to this level of discussion.

Now, because of Trump, it's a thing. We cats are glad about this. Not just because Hillary has a Jewish son-in-law (so does Trump), but because calling horsehockey on them is the right thing to do.

Refusing to discuss the alt-right's ties to Trump would be the worst political failure. We cats applaud Secretary Clinton for doing it. And we PURR.

And At Some Point We Have To Figure Out Why Trump Was In Mississippi

By Miss Kubelik

How do we think Donald Drumpf and his legion of super-haters would react if Angela Merkel came to the US and campaigned for Hillary Clinton?

Merkel is one of the bugbears of the alt-right Breitbart mob for many reasons, but a lot of it has to do with her steadfast support of liberal immigration policies. (Surely they pine for a German chancellor of an earlier era.)

But we're all supposed to be okay with Nigel Farage, the anti-immigrant Brexit jackass from the UK, coming to Mississippi (Mississippi?) and appearing with Drumpf. As we were reminded when Hillary gave her terrific speech in Reno today, Farage is a race-baiting, sexist moron.

Who's next? Marine Le Pen? Geert Wilders? We cats HISS.

P.S. Re that Reno speech: Contrary to what Donald Drumpf says, we don't think that the candidate who's beating him by 10 points in the latest Quinnipiac poll is "desperate."

Good Deed Doers

By Zamboni

In Trump World, there must be no such thing as a good NGO.

So we cats are not surprised that a greedy, hateful despiser of losers like Donald Trump would demand that The Clinton Foundation be shut down. How terrible, terrible that the foundation has distributed AIDS drugs to poor people in 70 countries, planted five million trees in Haiti, and helped reduce US greenhouse gas emissions more than 33,000 tons every year! It absolutely must be stopped.

In fact, while he's at it, why doesn't Trump demand that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation — or, for that matter, The Carter Center — close up shop? They're all loser and suckers, right? They could be using their money to buy his real estate and join his golf clubs instead? Right? Right?

Somehow, some way, we cats have faith that people who do good will outlast people who have no idea what doing good is. And we PURR.

Weighing The Options In Missouri

By Baxter

Missouri is one of those states that, contrary to many others around the nation, has gotten redder over the years. So we cats were pleasantly surprised to see a new Monmouth poll that had Donald Drumpf only leading Hillary Clinton by a percentage point. It also had GOP Senator Roy Blunt ahead of Jason Kander by just five. And goodness gracious, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Koster is ahead of Republican Eric Greitens by 11! (Plus, Monmouth isn't a particularly "D-friendly" pollster. Hmmm!)

But let's not get carried away. We tend to stay sane by keeping our expectations as realistic as possible — low, even. And as everyone keeps saying, things could change in 77 days.

In the meantime, though, remember that politics is a zero-sum game. Faced with these polls, the Republicans will have to start planning to spend their limited assets on the Show Me State — not just for the Presidential race, but for the other two as well. And the super PACs that aren't playing in the Presidential (like Rove's) will have to take money away from characters like Kelly Ayotte, Baby Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey to help shore up Blunt. Or they'll have to cut off what little they're still sending to Ron Johnson. Pity.

It's all a question of the allocation of scarce resources, don'tcha know. So whether or not these polls are good for Democrats (and we think they're pretty okay), they're for sure not good for the GOP. We cats PURR.

You've Got Mail (And From The Trumpsters, Racist Social Media Posts)

By Sniffles

In case you need more proof that we Democrats are nicer than Republicans — and definitely nicer than Trump fans —  check out the social media posts of the Donald Trump campaign's paid state staffers, which the AP has uncovered and which are, shall we say, impolitic.

Hatred of Mexicans, African Americans, Muslims — and John Kerry, whom they'd like to kill — it's all there. Oh, and toss in sharia law, inflated claims of black-on-white crime, and a coming new American civil war, and you have quite a stew.

Strikingly, the AP reviewed social media commentary by Hillary Clinton's paid staff, as well as the stolen emails from the DNC. And found nothing racist or bigoted. Of course.

We cats think this is a pretty ironic story, coming on a day when Pundit World is agog about 15,000 new State Department emails that have surfaced. So, yes: Secretary Clinton has already offered up thousands and thousands and thousands of messages — and yes, it appears that there are thousands more. (When you're Secretary of State, you communicate a lot.) Have any of them turned out to be the "smoking gun" of Judicial Watch's dreams? No. Will any of them? No. But these Trump social media posts — goodness gracious.

We would so rather have our team use a private server (which was probably more secure than government systems would be any day) — and get caught up in a manufactured right-wing "scandal" because of it — than to have cretins working for us who post hate-filled bile on the interwebs. Birds of a feather, and all that. And that, friends, is the difference between Us and Them. We cats HISS.

Note To France: You're Being Ridiculous

By Miss Kubelik

It's amazing how applicable Sarah Silverman's convention smackdown of the Bernie Bros is to larger issues in the world. Latest case in point: France's assault on conservative Muslim dress for women (as in, the "burkini").

What is France's problem? In a liberal, tolerant, pluralistic society, people should be able to be comfortable in their own skin. And if this means they want to cover up that skin, BFD.

Dear France: We're sorry, but this is exactly the wrong tack to take. Let them wear whatever they want. It's when you start banning things like burkinis that you sow resentment and anger. It's so simple and so logical, that we can't believe you don't get it. We cats HISS.

Trump's United States Of Hate

By Zamboni

Just a tad southwest of us cats here in Virginia lies the hamlet of Harrisonburg, in Rockingham County. We've never visited, but since it's in the Shenandoah Valley we're sure it's picturesque. And because it's the home of several colleges, including James Madison University, we also assume that it's not a town of rubes.

Except for two jackasses who recently visited a Harrisonburg sandwich shop and stiffed an 18-year-old Latina waitress on her tip, leaving the charming note pictured above instead.

You can guess the rest, right? Sadie Elledge, the young woman in question, is an American citizen, born and raised. Her outraged grandfather posted the note on the Face Thing, where it's gone viral — after which the couple showed back up at the restaurant and complained. (Yep, you read that right.) And now, local businesses in Harrisonburg have banded together to send Sadie a letter of support and replace her lost tip. So we assume this will not be a life-scarring event for her — but consider us disgusted anyway.

Welcome to Donald Trump's America, folks: Where you make wrong assumptions about people who don't look like you, write racist slurs to them, and then take offense when you're rightly called out for your bigotry. We cats HISS.

Let Me Photograph You In This Light, Part II

By Baxter

This is not a music blog, but we cats feel the need to recognize Leonard Cohen's last letter to his dying former lover, Marianne Ihlen, as an expression of universal truth.

"Well, Marianne," Cohen wrote, "it's come to this time when we are really so old, and our bodies are falling apart, and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you, that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine."

May all of us who have tried to make a difference in the world salute the source of our inspirations so eloquently. We cats PURR.

The Dirty Thirties — And The Faces In The Crowd

By Sniffles

Donald Drumpf hasn't been bragging about the polls much lately, has he? Well, he's probably been too busy tending to his imploding campaign, but we know that he's been tweeting away nevertheless — his latest salvo some stupid attempt to impugn Hillary Clinton's health. (Somehow, we don't think that 60-year-old working women across America, whatever their race or income, are going to be charmed by that attack.)

But as for those polls: We can't help noticing that Drumpf has sunk below 40 percent in a few of them: a couple in Florida, one in Ohio, three in Pennsylvania, five in Michigan (where in one, he's as low as 29 percent!), three in New Hampshire, and three in Virginia. These are key battleground states, folks — with Trump hovering in George McGovern territory. Just sayin'.

We've noticed another McGovernesque parallel. The Trumpies keep screaming about how YUUUGE Donald's rallies are. We cats say, big woo. McGovern had big crowds in '72. Walter Mondale had them in 1984. Howard Dean had them in 2004. And of course, Bernie Sanders drew huge numbers this year. But, as Dean noticed in '04, the throngs, large as they were, were the same people. Call it the Grateful Dead Effect: Big crowds mean nothing.

In fact, this year, we cats believe that the crowds will help doom Donald Drumpf. Not only will they be repeat attenders, but they're all red-meat eaters, who will never be satisfied with Teleprompter Donald. Which means that sooner or later, Drumpf will revert to his bombastic, insulting self, turning off broad swaths of the fall electorate — which will kill his ability to "pivot." (Forget the pivot. The media are obsessed with the pivot. It ain't happening.)

There's a book in here somewhere — about agitators failing to present themselves as credible Presidents. We cats are kinda tempted to write it, because it's super-interesting. And while we're loath to compare our adored Dr. Dean to repulsive right-wing insurgents like Pat Buchanan and Trump, we recognize the similarities in their circumstances. Consider Dean's warning from 2004 a long-term cautionary tale:

"I couldn't change," he said. "And I knew I had to. But the crowd pulls you back. They're dying for you. They're bleeding for you. And it's very hard to do."

Let's Hear It For Calls And Canvassing

By Miss Kubelik

We cats are amused by all the commentary on Donald Drumpf's new "on message" self. Like that's the only thing he needs to fix.

Sure, any political campaigner worth his or her salt would say that Drumpf simply had to stop insulting Gold Star families and ginning up gun nuts to assassinate his opponent. And although he seems to have popped a few Xanax now, we can't help wondering how long this latest incarnation is going to last.

Meanwhile, the Trump operation is woefully, probably fatally, unprepared in the most important respect: GOTV — otherwise known as the ground game. As people we love and respect have pointed out, Team Trump has nothing: No state directors with experience, no field staff, no offices, no phone banks, no canvassers... zip. Because the candidate doesn't think that kind of stuff is important.

And he's just dead wrong about that. Even in the age of the interwebs and social media, it still takes human beings doing the grunt work to elect a President. We know this because, of course, Obama. And after she lost in 2008, Hillary Clinton — true to form, by the way — refused to pout and sulk, and instead dialed up people like David Plouffe and Jim Messina and asked, "What did I do wrong? How can I not make the same mistakes again?" And they told her.

Now, we're seeing the proof: With Robby Mook and a host of Obama veterans, Clinton 2016 is a formidable, smooth-running machine.

Which is a good thing. Do you know why? Because according to recent polls, we have a lot of voters to turn out this fall. We cats will be out there, ringing doorbells and making phone calls. After all, campaigns are still won the old-fashioned way. And Donald Trump, who doesn't know what he is doing, can't change that. We cats PURR.

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

Seventy? How did it happen? We cats remember when he was just the boyish Governor of Arkansas. But then, that was a few of our nine lives ago, wasn't it? Happy early birthday, Mr. President!

New Hire

By Zamboni

We cats have never been shy about saying that the sudden checking-out of the execrable Andrew Breitbart in 2012 was far from a tragedy. We even had hope that his death would leave our nation a better place. But sadly, there are always new troglodytes and haters to take the place of the old. America, meet Stephen Bannon — the suave sophisticate pictured above.

Donald Trump's hiring of Bannon — a man with absolutely no campaign experience at any level — reminds us of the wisdom, which we recently wrote about, of putting Presidential bids in professional hands. What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that this is proof that Trump wants to go back to his pugilistic, primary-season persona.

So: Buckle up for more vitriol, more lies, more bombast, more bigotry and racism, more sexism, more white nationalism and all the other lovely isms that Trump loves to traffic in. Which will only increase the the numbers by which he's losing groups like suburban women and college-educated whites. Sounds good to us.

Meanwhile, a memo to Clinton HQ: Please continue to do exactly what you're doing. Stay laser-focused on the battlegrounds. Try to gradually expand the map, particularly to states where Democrats could steal a Senate or House seat. You keep doing that, and you could drive Trump into Goldwater-McGovern territory. We cats PURR.

Will Trump Show Up At Hofstra In September? It's Debatable.

By Baxter

Will Donald Drumpf debate? We cats recall raising that topic awhile back, and now — because everyone reads us, of course — so is the rest of Pundit World. We're such trend-setters!

Naturally, the Clinton campaign has also taken notice. In fact, campaign chair John Podesta has issued a stern statement about it. Declaring Hillary's firm commitment to all three events, and as a shot across the bow of Team Trump, it reads in part:

"It is concerning that the Trump campaign is already engaged in shenanigans around these debates. It is not clear if he is trying to avoid debates, or merely toying with the press to create more drama. Either way, our campaign is not interested in playing along with a debate about debates or bargaining about them. The only issue now is whether Donald Trump is going to show up."

And today comes the bulletin that the always-repulsive Roger Ailes, looking for something to do since he can no longer prey upon women at FOX "News," will help Drumpf get debate-ready. So who knows if this is real, or Kabuki theater? One thing you can bet on, though: The Clintonistas, ever the well-oiled machine, have been deep into debate prep for awhile now.

Which means they'll have practice sessions, with somebody playing the role of Trump. If they haven't already signed up some volunteers, we cats have a few suggestions. For example, if they're seeking somebody pugnacious, and want to go the traditional-politician route, we think they need look no further than Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer or Jennifer Granholm. Any one of those fine Democrats could punch back with aplomb.

But Drumpf is such a loose cannon and buffoon that perhaps Hillary will want to stretch a bit. In that case, we suggest that the only proper stand-in for the Republican nominee would be a comedian. And we're sure that Jon Stewart, Amy Schumer, Al Franken, Sarah Silverman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus would be happy to help. Wow, we'd buy tickets to that. We cats PURR.

Questions Of Protection

By Sniffles

Back in 2012, we cats signed up for poll-watching duty in Virginia. It meant we had to get up at 4 AM so we could be at our assigned precinct by 6 — and we ended up staying until close to midnight, because the staff had to run the numbers by hand to make them tally. With no cat naps! It was, to say the least, a challenging day.

But the most daunting thing about it was boning up on all those election laws. We're not lawyers — but we're cats, so we're pretty smart. But we still needed to attend training, and do some serious studying of the big fat book of rules and regs that we received before Election Day.

So we're curious: How is Donald Drumpf's "election observer" effort going? (Aside from John Oliver's very funny comment about whether Drumpf truly "knows what he is legally allowed to do.") A few questions come to mind:

Since Drumpf's key demographic is white men without college degrees (and the white women without college degrees who love them), how well are they going to navigate the complicated laws that occasionally baffled even us? Perhaps Drumpf will discover that loving "the poorly educated" has a price.

Will all the women lawyers who volunteered for Romney's voter protection campaign in 2012 show up for duty this year? With the huge gender gap that Drumpf's got going — and the fact that just today he called into question Hillary Clinton's "physical stamina" to be President — we wonder.

Finally, are Drumpf's overwhelmingly white election observers going to go into heavily black precincts in, say, Philadelphia, to make sure they aren't "voting 10 times"? Surely they'd be too chicken. But even if they did, what would they do — call a cop every time an African-American citizen goes to vote? Like with that very strange bathroom bill in North Carolina, we're having a hard time imagining enforcement. In the meantime, we cats PURR.

We Didn't Find "Beauty & The Beast" — But We Came Close

Toy store display window, Ithaca, New York, August 2016

Pedophiles For Trump

By Miss Kubelik

Tit for tat, as they say. Barely a day after the Donald Drumpf campaign screamed about an unsavory character showing up at a Hillary Clinton rally, they got one of their own.

Yep, that's Mark Foley, whose taste in Congressional pages ran to the underage and the male, sitting behind Drumpf and soaking in every word at a rally yesterday in Sunrise, Florida. You can't tell from this photo, but if you watch the video, you can see Foley jumping up and down, waving to Drumpf ("Me, Donald, me!") and applauding like a fool. Ugh.

It's really too bad that Foley couldn't have been joined at the rally by the House Speaker who so zealously protected him as he preyed upon pages. But Dennis Hastert — whose taste in high school wrestlers were oh so similar to Foley's — is rotting in jail. We cats PURR.

Fair Weather Fats

By Zamboni

The tsunami's begun: Dozens of Republicans are fleeing the Trump-Pence trainwreck — 50 national security pooh-bahs, former members of Congress, current members of Congress, moneybag gubernatorial candidates... even RNC staffers. See, children, this is what happens to your party when you nominate a sociopath for President.

But Trump can take comfort that two of his besties are still out there, sticking up for him: Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich.

Yup, Rootie and Nootie are making the rounds, defending Trump's verbal threats and abuse with gusto. Nothing seems to discourage them — even if the entire GOP manages to slink away and hide until Wednesday, November 9. They are undeterred!

But — hey, wait. There's somebody else who should be out on the campaign and talking-head trail. Where, oh where, is Chris Christie, who was so quick to endorse Trump back in February?

We could be wrong, but we haven't seen Chris Christie since he worked so hard to whip up the bloodthirsty crowd on the second night of the Republican National Convention.

How do you lose a 400-pound governor? We cats HISS.

Trump: Maybe "The Second Amendment People" Can Do Something

By Baxter

Sickening.

That's what we cats have to say about Donald Trump's latest verbal outrage. And that's coming from a bunch of felines who are experts at throwing up.

Paul Ryan? Mitch McConnell? Care to react? Is there nothing — not even a veiled suggestion that gun nuts should try to take out the Democratic nominee for President — that will shove you off that very uncomfortable tightrope that you're walking?

If you're a regular My Cats reader (and if so, we rub up against you and PURR), you know how thrilled we are by the 2016 GOP nominee's recent string of hideous gaffes and idiocies. But this time, it's different. Considering the number of American leaders — not to mention ordinary people — who have put their lives at risk for a righteous cause, we are completely, totally and utterly not amused.

For instance, shall we discuss the abortion doctors who have been targeted and murdered for providing women with reproductive healthcare? Shall we talk about the civil rights crusaders who were beaten and killed for registering African Americans in the South? Shall we cite Harvey Milk, who knew in his heart that he was a candidate for assassination? (Heck, even Howard Dean had to wear a bullet-proof vest back in 2000, and that was just over Vermont's struggle to enact civil unions.) We salute anyone who's willing to shoulder the dangerous burden to make other Americans' lives better than they were.

The bottom line is this: How many of us would willingly make ourselves targets for causes that are greater than ourselves? Not many, we think.

We are reminded of Khizr Khan's dramatic declaration to Trump: "You have sacrificed nothing, and no one." So let's ask Republicans and conservatives like Michael Reagan, or the Ford kids, or the children of George Wallace — who actually have sacrificed something — how they feel about nutcases taking things into their own hands. What do they have to say about Donald Trump's statement today?

Because, goodness gracious, Trump has issued such a mega dog whistle that we cats are glad we're cats. And we HISS.

Bounces — And Bouncing Babies

 
By Sniffles

Even we cats are a little surprised at the wide margins by which Hillary Clinton is beating Donald Drumpf in the polls. Sure, we expected a post-convention bounce — and goodness gracious, our convention in Philadelphia was faaaaaab-u-lous, wasn't it? (See above.)

But couple that inspiring, uplifting and, yes, amusing confab with Drumpf's self-immolation of the last week and you've got one durable Clinton bump. (At least, so far.)

From the evidence we've seen, a big part of this swelling support is due to women voters. Hillary leads Drumpf 58 percent to 35 percent among them — and we suspect that maybe even some of those 35 percent will do what Edith Bunker did to hubby Archie and not vote for the candidate he wanted her to. God bless that secret ballot!

And now, more reason for that YUUUUUUGE 23-point gender gap to spread even wider. Check out this pronouncement from Andrea Peyser, one of the most execrable right wingers over at The New York Post. Under the headline "I Can No Longer Justify Calling Myself a Trump Supporter," she writes:

"When I visited [Trump] about two months after his lovely wife, Melania, now 46, gave birth to the couple’s son, Barron, now 10, the infamous germophobe boasted that after fathering five children, he’d never changed a diaper.

"I enthused that Melania, who stood quietly nearby aboard five-inch stilettos, had lost all her baby weight. Trump corrected me: 'She’s almost lost all the baby weight.'"

Hmmmm. We'll take a pass on the weight comment, except to say that in a country in which most women are a size 14 or larger, that's a wildly dangerous thing for a candidate to say to a reporter. But the diaper declaration? Even worse.

Has Tim Kaine, America's favorite new suburban dad, changed a diaper? Yeah, we think so. We'll even go so far as to guess that Mike Pence might have changed a nappie or two. And certainly, our Presidential nominee, being a mom and a grandmother, has been up to her elbows in diapers. It comes with the job.

So will American women — heck, will Americans — vote for a guy who's never done a minute of diaper duty? Sounds like the kiss of death to us. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Mapping November

By Miss Kubelik

We cats would like to congratulate the authors of the GOP's post-2012 "autopsy" — Henry Barbour, Sally Bradshaw, Ari Fleischer, Zori Fonalledas and Glenn McCall. You were right!

That is, they were completely correct in warning their fellow Republicans that their party would shrink to the size of Grover Norquist's storied bathtub — and their opportunities on the electoral map would seriously retract — if the GOP continued to repel key constituent groups such as women, African Americans, Latinos (especially Latinos), young people and the LGBT community.

Because guess what? The Republican Party has nominated a standard-bearer who is not only offensive to all of those groups, but also to the majority of college-educated whites, including men. And right now, the battlegrounds are dropping off Trump's electoral map faster than his casinos are closing.

You've seen the polls. Today's latest, the ABC News/Washington Post national survey, has Hillary Clinton beating Trump by eight points. But the reports from the swing states are just as dire. Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan are just three that, if the election were held today, would be solidly in the Democratic column — while Ohio, Arizona and, incredibly, Georgia, could also join them. Clinton-Kaine's map is expanding. Trump-Pence's is starting to resemble Beetlejuice's head.

So the autopsy gang ought to be really proud of themselves. (Except of course, for Fleischer, who is lately spending hours of his worthless life going on cable TV to defend Donald Trump. At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency? Meanwhile, Sally Bradshaw has left the Republican Party, and says that if Florida is close, she'll be With Her.)

So here's some advice for our Clinton-Kaine friends in Brooklyn:

We know that you're pulling down your ads in states like Colorado and in our own Commonwealth of Virginia. We think this is smart. But please do continue to behave exactly as you are: organizing on the ground, making those phone calls, knocking on doors, holding rallies, generating local news coverage, meeting voters one-on-one, and doing all the difficult campaign grunt work that the Trump people, because they are clueless, can't be bothered with.

Because this election will be won in Michigan, and Ohio, and Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and Georgia, and Iowa, and New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, and Florida, and Colorado, and — oh, goodness gracious, Howard Dean was right. We cats PURR.

Pocket-Size Protests

By Zamboni

We cats just want to put it on the record that we owned a pocket Constitution before it was cool. We got it as a stocking stuffer a couple of Christmases ago, and we keep it on the shelf over our desk for fast, handy reference. (Like when we have to check, say, "Article XII.")

Did you know that the US Constitution is the oldest, and the shortest-written, constitution of any major government in the world? As writers, we value economy of speech, so we're very proud.

What we're not proud of is that people who hold up copies of the Constitution are getting tossed out of Trump rallies (sorry, "shows"). Is anything sadder?

Who are the patriots here? We cats think that, come November 8, we'll all know. And goodness gracious, do we HISS.

SO Glad We're Us And Not Them

By Baxter

Since Donald Drumpf had the most nightmarish week any Presidential candidate could possibly have — and since he caved in to the Republican establishment and endorsed the Ryan-McCain-Ayotte troika at an event in Wisconsin tonight — we cats just had to check on our favorite teabagger friends over at Free Republic, to gather their thoughts.

They appear to be split — between those that feel endorsements are silly and meaningless, and those holdouts who just can't stomach any kind words for hated RINOs like Ryan. Here's a sampling:

"Now will Ryan and McCain stop sniping at Trump?"

"Let the chips fall. Bastards all."

"Sorry, this is a betrayal."

"Hopefully, they will lose anyway."

"Disappointed."

"I think we have been shafted again. Looks like Trump has done a 180 and is now mainstream Republican."

"He is now supporting the people he fought against. Depressing."

"Next comes the 'immigration compromise.'"

"I hope I'm wrong but I smell a rat..."

And it just goes on like that — for hundreds and hundreds of comments. Yep, the Freepers are mighty, mighty upset. What will they do? Get drunk tonight and beat their wives? OD on heroin over the weekend? Forget to register to vote in time, and get turned away from the polls on November 8?

Okay, so maybe we cats are being kinda snarky. But we're wondering: Wouldn't it be great if, after all this, Ryan were to lose to his teabagger upstart primary opponent this Tuesday? Knowing in our heart of hearts that that won't happen, we'll settle for Ryan winning by just 60-40 instead of 80-20. That would make us PURR.

Nobody Does It Better

By Sniffles

So, okay. Among the world's major democracies, we Americans are a little slow on the uptake when it comes to transitions. We admit it. Take Canada: There's no way we would have been able to pull off the switch from the ever-unappealing Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper to our fave new PM, Justin Trudeau — which took place last year in a mere few weeks.

No, we Americans need months. So both of our major parties' Presidential candidates have begun planning for the handover from the Obama Administration to whoever the 45th President will be.

John Podesta is in charge of the Clinton team — which somehow, looking at the polls today, we think is the more likely of the two. Donald Drumpf's pipe dream is allegedly being coordinated by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie — who we think might not be getting a lot of work done, seeing as how he's distracted by his candidate bashing the Khan family so much.

Suffice to say that if the Presidential race settles into the patterns that it's in today, Americans can expect the smoothest transition in the history of the US Presidency. It won't quite measure up to Canadian standards, but it will come close. We cats PURR.

Memo To Paul Ryan: Don't Expect The Freepers To Vote You Prom King

By Miss Kubelik

Wow, Paul Ryan is such a weenie, isn't he? Here we cats thought that E.J. Dionne had already fatally skewered him for his Trump Timidity — but after what Ryan said today, E.J. might have a blistering addendum to write.

While we work to pick our jaws off the floor at the incredibly bad week the Republicans continue to have, here's a point of order. We have to view Paul's pusillanimity through two lenses: 2020, certainly — for which an endless parade of lip-licking Republicans (Cruz, Rubio, Pence [yes, Pence], Perry, Jindal, Ernst, et. al.) are already laying plans. And also, we need to see it through the prism of next week's primary election in Wisconsin's first Congressional District, where Paul Ryan faces a teabag insurgent, Paul Nehlen.

We've searched for some polling in that race, and so far our paws have come up empty. But from the latest reporting we've been able to find, it appears that Ryan is in no danger. Our crazy right-wing friends over at Free Republic, on the other hand, think otherwise.

Mind you, the Freepers are not in a happy state of mind. The conventions are over, the polls are bad, and their hero, Donald Drumpf, is suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — all propelled, they believe, by the hateful Hillary, the liberal media and the Republican establishment. Very, very bad moods they are in. Which probably is why they're sure — or, at least, hoping — that Ryan will get his butt kicked next Tuesday.

We share these charming comments not because we necessarily think they're prescient — but because we don't want to lose sight of the civil war the Republican Party is in:

"Screw off, RINO jerk."

"You’re about to lose your own election, Ryan."

"I’m sick of Paul Pukefest Ryan...Please, Wisconsin — get rid of him."

"Ryan has certainly become an arrogant little wanker."

"It would so sweet if Nehlen managed to Cantor Paul Rino."

"Poofter."

"Wisconsin CD1 had better Cantorize this puke."

Have any of the Bernie-Hillary arguments sunk this low in the quagmire? We cats are thinking not. Heck, we don't even have a quagmire. That's a Republican problem, and we PURR.

The State Of The Secretaries

By Zamboni

Ruth Marcus is not our favorite Washington Post columnist, but she wrote something today that we totally agree with: The most dangerous thing that the batshit-crazy Republican Party nominee has said so far is not "Why can't we use our nuclear weapons?" but "The election is going to be rigged."

Yes, Donald Drumpf is stoking the fires of resistance, rebellion and death. It wasn't enough for the GOP to oppose a decisively elected, African-American Democratic President on every single issue, even if they hurt the country by doing it. Now, Drumpf is trying to cast doubt on a Hillary Clinton win. It's pitchfork and torch time.

This is totally ridiculous on its face — not just because the courts are wildly agreeing that it's the GOP that's been trying to rig the vote by denying minorities the franchise, but because of the simple fact that most Secretaries of State in November's battlegrounds are.... Republicans.

Florida? Ken Detzner, appointed by GOP Governor (and Trump supporter) Rick Scott.

Ohio? OMG, Jon Husted, a total Republican pig.

Georgia? We cats heard Jason Carter describe himself as being from "the swing state of Georgia" on TV last week, and although we know he was being cute and funny, we also kind of think he's right. The Georgia Secretary of State is Brian Kemp (yep, Republican).

Michigan? Republican. Colorado? Republican. Arizona? Republican.

Just about the only battleground with a Democratic Secretary of State that we could find is North Carolina. (Unless you count Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which, to our minds, are not nearly as much in play.)

So it's laughable that Donald Drumpf is starting to scream about the election being rigged. After all, we all remember what the very, very Republican Katherine Harris did in Florida 16 years ago. We cats do a huge eyeroll, and we HISS.

Lest We Furr-get: Heavy Medals

By Baxter

What's worse? John Kerry throwing his Vietnam combat medals over a Capitol Hill fence because hundreds of Americans were dying in that war every week — for nothing?

Or some guy giving his Purple Heart to a veteran-dissing, Gold-Star-family-bashing, draft-dodging, lying, clueless psychopath?

We cats have never been in the military or in combat. But we have to believe that nobody ever wants to '"get" a Purple Heart.

What else can happen to the Republicans? Ever since Donald Drumpf wrapped up the GOP nomination, it's been one disaster after another — and there's no end in sight. We Democratic cats are so glad we're Us and not Them. And we PURR.

Ira Gershwin Takes On Trump

"The man who only lives for making money
"Lives a life that isn't necessarily sunny.
"Likewise, the man who works for fame?
"There's no guarantee that time won't erase his name."

—Nice Work If You Can Get It, 1937

Note To GOP Cowards: You're Being Ridiculous

By Sniffles

Republicans who are trying to walk a tortured path between condemning Donald Drumpf's sociopathic outrages and not alienating their Drumpf-loving base really need a smackdown from the likes of Sarah Silverman. (Except we don't think a Sarah Silverman exists in the GOP — their loss.)

John McCain is the latest flabby example. Our choice of adjective might surprise you, since the statement McCain issued yesterday against Drumpf's Khan-bashing was blistering in the extreme. Two problems: He didn't take back his endorsement. And he said this: "I hope Americans understand that [Trump's] remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates."

Um — yes, they do. You guys freaking nominated him, John! He got nearly 14 million votes in the GOP primaries — more than any other Republican on record. We call that a candidate who truly represents his party.

It's too, too delicious that the GOP's 40-year gulling and mollycoddling of racists and ignoramuses have been unmasked in what will probably be the most devastating election in their party's history. But although we're basking in schadenfreude, their continued prevaricating on Drumpf still makes us crazy.

Who will be the first major Republican to have the courage to step off the tightrope and say that America cannot elect a walking, talking personality disorder? Mark Kirk is surely going down in flames come November, so who does that leave? Susan Collins? Kelly Ayotte? Somebody big needs to have the pluck to repudiate and rescind.

So come on, establishment Republicans: The winking and the nodding have to end. The teabaggers and the Freepers can't get any madder at you. And Ted Cruz is looking awfully smart right now. We cats HISS.