Dick's Sticks It To The NRA, Stops Selling Assault Rifles And Other Bad Stuff

By Miss Kubelik

We cats are more than willing to hop on the let's-all-laud-Dick's bandwagon today — not just because their statement (above) was very impressive, but because we know it's driving the NRA crazy.

And we appreciate the fact that, since Dick's is one of the nation's largest gun retailers, this is a huge move for them. Guns are a big part of their business — which is under stress, even with the death of Sports Authority and other firms, thanks to online competition.

Finally, we're willing to praise Dick's because we've been their customers in the past for cycling, skating and fitness supplies — never failing to make jokes about their company name along the way.

But we just have to ask: Why did they sell assault weapons in the first place? Dick's is a sporting goods store. Unless the sport in question is hunting humans, not deer, why would an assault rifle be necessary? Asking for 17 dead people in Parkland. We cats HISS.

Beyond Tone-Deaf

By Zamboni

Do you think "Delta" and "Atlanta" are the same thing? Yeah, we do, too. Or at least it's seemed that way since we were kittens. And the Georgia state legislature just solidified it by voting in a $40 million tax break for the airline. Call it a late valentine, just to show the love.

Except now the Peach State's lieutenant governor is threatening to blow the whole thing up — because Delta has cut ties with the NRA. "Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back," the improbably named Casey Cagle huffed.

As the Parkland kids would say, we cats call BS: It's politicians whose expectations need to change.

Politicians should not expect companies to locate their corporate headquarters, or even major satellites, in places where they come under attack from Neanderthal Republicans like Cagle. Atlanta is not only home to Delta, it's on Amazon's list of 20 finalists for its 50,000-plus-employee second HQ. Could this outburst of Cagle's be any more detrimental to the interests of his state? What's to stop Jeff Bezos from deciding against Atlanta just on this alone?

And there's the huge contribution that an Atlanta-based Amazon would make to Delta's bottom line. So the costs just keep piling up.

Idiot. But looking at his picture, we guess we knew that. (What is up with that suit?) We cats HISS.

Still Stirring The Pot

By Sniffles

It's unclear to us cats if Mark Zuckerberg and the folks over at Facebook are true-blue Americans or Russian sympathizers. But before we got too umbrage-y about it, we always reminded ourselves that we were on Twitter — which may not be any better.

Then Twitter started cleaning up Russian bots, prompting the right-wing nutcases to complain about "censorship," and we thought, okay — that's a point for their side. (We also wondered why right wingers would worry about the First Amendment rights of Russian-origin accounts that weren't even human, but never mind.)

But Russia hasn't given up. The bots sprang up in droves in defense of the NRA after the Parkland, Florida, Valentine's Day massacre, further reminding us that A, they're still at it, and B, the NRA is in danger of being unmasked as a bunch of Russia-loving traitors. But let's save B for later. We need to deal with A right now, and here's what they're doing:

Allegedly "progressive" Russian bots are popping up to take the place of the banned accounts, with the purpose of sowing further discord among Democrats. We cats haven't seen any of them in our own threads (yet), but others whom we follow have. Vladimir Putin obviously knows that it's still worthwhile to pit Bernie Bros against Hillary supporters, because 2018 is shaping up to be a terrible year for Republicans and he must protect his investment in Donald Trump. It's only one tactic, mind you, but it's happening.

We don't pretend to be Twitter experts, but if you run into any of these jerks trying to pick internecine fights, here's what you do:

1. Block them.
2. Don't fall for Democrat-versus-Democrat squabbles. Don't engage. Mute or block.
3. Stay positive and concentrate on promoting our party's core values: equality, diversity, inclusion and opportunity.

Last but not least, stick together and spread the word. We cats PURR.

Emma Spanks Wayne

By Baxter

Emma Gonzalez, a high school student whose existence we cats were ignorant of less than two weeks ago — but whom we now adore — just beat the NRA in followers on Twitter.

In other words, in terms that right-wing jackass and convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza would understand: Emma, 588,000 — NRA 552,000.

It's just another measure of how the Parkland kids are changing the rules of the game, and how — maybe, just maybe — the gun debate this time will be different. God knows the NRA is losing corporate support left and right. And if the anti-gun teens get their peers to boycott Florida for spring break? Hoo boy — that would be great. Like Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep," except in the reverse.

So to keep the momentum going, we cats have a suggestion.

To the people who are in charge of Everytown for Gun Safety, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Giffords.org:

Please underwrite summer internships for kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High this year. The experience will be invaluable to them. And if you want to establish a fund for that effort, please let us know — we'll support it. We cats PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Republicans Down The Tubes Edition

By Miss Kubelik

It's another busy Friday wrapping up another crazy week, and another lost opportunity for the GOP to sell its tax cut to voters. Boo hoo! Here are some of the distracting news stories that are capturing our attention.

Yesterday's additional indictments against Trumpsters Paul Manafort and Rick Gates had us doubting whether Robert Mueller had gotten Gates to flip. But now we can lay those doubts to rest. We just want to take this opportunity, however, to point out that no Democrat we know has ever pleaded guilty to — GASP! — conspiracy against the United States. We don't know about you, but to us that kinda sounds like treason.

Missouri Republican Governor and all-around jackass Eric Greitens was arrested and charged with kidnapping and blackmail. And boy, is he acting pissy about it! Statements shot with umbrage have flown thick and fast, blaming the supposedly super-liberal St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner for persecuting him. So... who's going to break the news to Greitens and the Missouri GOP that he was indicted by a Grand Jury?

We have to admit we're a little surprised at how quickly big companies have cut ties with the National Rifle Association. The first one we saw was the First National Bank of Omaha, which discontinued its NRA VISA card. Now the latest is Chubb, the insurance giant. The business they get from their NRA-branded policy obviously isn't enough to risk the wrath of gun control states (like ours). Next up: Let's get rid of NRA specialty license plates. That would make us cats PURR.

C-PAC Is A Gun-Free Zone

What a bunch of snowflakes. No teachers around to defend them?

Journalists: Will Any Of You Call Him On This?

We also want to know why — even while traumatized students were spilling their guts about losing their best friends — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spent the entire White House "listening session" smiling like an idiot clown. Maybe because she is one?

Marjory Would Be Proud.

By Zamboni

The Republicans in the Florida House have been forced to fire a legislative aide who spread conspiracy theories against the student survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.

We're not convinced they sacked him because they were outraged. Instead, their objection seems to be that he circulated the calumny via his state government email account, thus putting them in a tight spot. But, okay. However it came about, suffice to say that the firing indicates the GOP is scared.

And they should be. The more we see of the kids from Parkland, the more convinced we are that this time will be different. Despite yesterday's setback in Tallahassee, the Republicans and their NRA friends are clearly feeling the heat.

And that's because the kids who didn't get killed are boldly going where no other students have gone before. Which is no reflection on previous victims: At Sandy Hook, the student survivors were too young, and the teachers too few in number, to take action. But with Parkland, you've got 3,000 social-media-savvy teens with enough time, anger, resources and maturity to channel their grief into positive energy and take on the cause. Their skills, both in person and online, truly outshine trolls on the right like convicted felon and total scumbag Dinesh D'Souza.

It's all pretty fitting, considering these kids attend a school named after somebody who was a badass in her own right. We cats PURR.

(PHOTO: Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who lived to be 108, was a journalist, feminist and conservationist. And she liked cats.)

Chin Up (And Welcome To The Fight)

By Sniffles

The Florida House has just refused to take up an assault weapons ban. With students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the room watching, 71 Republican members said, "Nah, that's not important enough to talk about today." Which was clearly shocking to the delegation from Douglas.

We cats have a message for those kids: We may not know what it's like to be shot at, but when it comes to something like this, we definitely know how you feel.

Ever since we were kittens and started to care about public policy and how politics can influence everybody's lives for the better, we've suffered our share of stinging and bitter defeats. They're even worse when you know that a malevolent power — Russia, the NRA or, let's just say it, the GOP — is behind them.

But here's another message: Don't give up. This is one vote in one ass-backward state capitol and there are many more battles to fight. You'll lose some, sure, but you'll also win. And oh, George and Amal Clooney have just given you a half a million dollars. We cats PURR.

Happy Presidents' Day

Twitter users are observing the day by changing their profile photos/avatars to honor American's rightful Commander-in-Chief. That should set off another tweetstorm! We cats PURR.

Grassley = Idiot, And That's No BS

By Baxter

We cats were thrilled by Douglas High student Emma Gonzalez's entire "We Call BS" speech yesterday — a tour de force if there ever was one — but we were particularly happy that she called out Iowa's Republican senior Senator, Chuck Grassley, for his mendacity on the mentally impaired, guns and the FBI.

It was Grassley's own legislation last year that not only made firearms more available to the mentally ill, it forbade the FBI from being alerted to the sales. Yet one day after the Parkland school shooting, Grassley was screaming on TV about how those names need to be in the FBI's database.

This contradiction has been pointed out by others, but Gonzalez had a unique platform yesterday. With the eyes of the world upon her, she slammed Grassley for his hypocrisy and lies.

So, let's revisit an Iowa Senate race, shall we? Not Grassley's re-election — but the 2014 race to replace the retiring Tom Harkin. The Democratic candidate, Bruce Braley, was slammed up one side and down the other when he said that flipping Harkin's seat from Democratic to Republican (in this case, to Joni Ernst) would also be a vote for Grassley — "a farmer who never went to law school" — to chair the Judiciary Committee. People went crazy, and he was forced to apologize.

Okay, we're the first to admit that Braley was an imperfect candidate. But he'd be a thousand times better than Ernst (who has an "A" rating from the NRA). And God knows he was right about the losing the Senate majority — and that Grassley is a moron. Take a bow, Bruce. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

The Best Words

By Miss Kubelik

Donald Drumpf, who is known for more sensationalist and incendiary speech, visited Broward County, Florida, last night after the Parkland school shooting. Did he have any Presidential words of condolence? "It’s sad something like that could happen," he said.

So on top of being nearly killed, the surviving Parkland kids had the supremely bad luck of being shot at when the eloquent Barack Obama was no longer President. Maybe Melania, who one of our Twitter buddies observed was dressed like a nurse, was able to offer them some deeper comfort. (OTOH, she could be in need of some herself.)

Can we all just admit it now? Even if Wee Donald were not a Russian-loving traitor, which Robert Mueller appears to be laying the groundwork to prove, he would be completely inadequate for his current job. Not just because he appeals to hate and divides Americans, but because even in normal political circumstances he'd be unable to muster words that the nation needs to hear.

With a more compliant audience, an ineffectual Commander-in-Chief could skate by on the reputation of his office. But this is different. The Broward teens who are fearlessly stepping up and speaking out have no regard for Drumpf and are unawed by this Presidency. Maybe because all they see is scandal and chaos in Washington? Or because the Republicans' tax law just screwed them over, student-loan-wise? Or maybe it's climate change or reproductive rights — or all the other things that got them mad before this week's massacre.

These kids know: The Trumpsters are waging war on them. So they're fighting back, with more fluency and wisdom than our ridiculous President will ever have. Our money's on them. We cats PURR.

It's Another Great Infrastructure Week!

By Zamboni

In a week that's already been dominated by the Rob Porter security-clearance scandal and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has stepped in today and set off an explosion. He's indicted 13 Russians for crimes against humanity (that's our characterization, not his) — and let's just say that nobody's talking about infrastructure, okay?

Or about the allegedly fabulous Republican tax bill. The Trumpsters and the GOP have lost another week, and the 2018 clock is ticking.

Suffice to say that although the Trumpsters — including the head Trump himself — are trying to spin Mueller's indictment as "no collusion," from what we've read, they have a lot to worry about. Mueller is laying groundwork for his case, and he must tell the Russian side of the story before he can tell the American one. And as a favorite tweeter of ours (a smart lawyer) has pointed out, it's only a matter of time before "unwitting" becomes "intentional."

We also need to mention that on the non-Russia front, Trump suffered a blow (pun intended) from another story by the intrepid Ronan Farrow, who — perhaps on a crusade against Woody Allen? — has made celebrity males' sexual mendacity his beat. A Playboy bunny has alleged an affair (ugh) with Trump at about the same time as the Stormy Daniels episode. Which makes us wonder a few things.

To the so-called religious leaders who defend Trump: How many mulligans does he get? Is there a limit? How many affairs equal one Supreme Court justice? Does he get a mulligan for each extramarital affair, or does one mulligan cover a multitude of them? Dear readers, if you're planning to attend church this weekend, perhaps you could ask someone about this. We cats PURR.

And One Great Idea.

We cats love this, and can't wait to send one to our Republican member of Congress. Midterms, here we come!

Two Ideas.

By Sniffles

We cats have been inspired by the fearless students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, several of whom got on TV today and told the sociopath in the Oval Office and the Republican cowards in Congress to do something.

We sincerely hope that Douglas students will have the chance to get into Trump's face on his visit tomorrow. Knowing, though, that Trump will be loath to put himself in the kind of situation where that could happen, we would like to make the following two suggestions.

Trump will no doubt meet with first responders — that's the kind of crowd he feels safe in. When he does, one of them should ask him to recite verbatim and aloud the prayer that Trump claimed he said for them yesterday. And whoever makes the request should starting sinking to his knees when he asks it, so everyone can join in. Because of course Trump would be able to comply... right?

Some bereaved Broward parent, grandparent or just plain outraged resident should immediately declare his or her candidacy for the Senate against Baby Marco Rubio, and spend the next four years harassing his NRA-funded ass. Why wait? That would make us cats PURR.

It's Valentine's Day, And We've Had A Massacre

By Baxter

Guess this is another week that the Republicans haven't been able to sell their tax cut, isn't it?

It isn't just that 17 people were mowed down by an AR-15 at a South Florida secondary school today. The bad news for the GOP started way before bullets started flying at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High:

1. Stormy Daniels said that all bets were off now that Michael Cohen has 'fessed up to personally paying her $130,000. Their deal has been broken, she says, and she's ready to talk.

2. The Trumpsters' revolting box o' bad food for SNAP families went over like a lead balloon.

3. Mike Pence at the Olympics? He went over like a lead balloon, too.

4. Scott Pruitt's travel abuses are getting almost as much scrutiny as David Shulkin's. What is it about these rich guys who think they can steal from American taxpayers? This is also an excellent opportunity to remind everybody that Janet Reno flew coach.

5. Finally, on the Rob Porter security scandal front, turns out it wasn't just 30 or 40 White House staffers who didn't have proper clearance — it was more like 100. Including Ivanka. Lock them up! We cats HISS.

Sean Hannity's Optical Delusion

By Miss Kubelik

Well! The Obama-portraits story probably won't have as long a shelf life as the Rob Porter security-clearance scandal — which just keeps getting worse for the Trumpsters. (And ironic beyond words, after all the screams of "Lock her up!" last year.) But for paintings that were unveiled more than 24 hours ago, they're still getting a fair amount of what in the pre-digital age we used to call ink.

It seems that Sean Hannity saw something naughty in the Barack portrait, posted about it on his website, and then tried to remove the post. Clearly he's suffering from the same delusion Paul Ryan has — that the Internet isn't forever. Sorry, Sean, but you've already been archived.

So what we're left with is not just the notion that idiotic right-wing white guys are obsessed with a handsome African-American man's sex life — but that maybe the Obama-ensconced-in-the-ivy-at-Wrigley-Field painting is... well, growing on us. We weren't in love with it at first, but if it's driving the enemy crazy, it must be pretty good.

Meanwhile, we offer this retrospective. It reminds us all how terribly pedestrian Presidential portraits can be, and how, when they digress from the usual — as Obama's has, and as Aaron Shikler's painting of John F. Kennedy did — they can be a lot more interesting. We cats PURR.

Portrait Of A (First) Lady

We like Amy Sherald's painting of Michelle Obama. We're not so sure about Barack's. Check it out: Did our former President pose at Wrigley Field? That can't be right for a South Side kind of guy.

Still and all, we cats enjoyed hearing the speeches by both Obamas today. They reminded us of better days, and we PURR.

They Showed HIM Who Was King Of The Forest

By Zamboni

It's a pretty gruesome story, for sure — but we cats have to applaud our wild (and much larger) cousins in South Africa, who have just had a poacher for dinner.

They ate everything except his head. Either the lions left it on purpose as a warning to others, or they figured it wouldn't taste good — proving they are just as picky about their food as we are.

As grisly as the poacher's end was, though, he totally deserved it. We have never understood how any human would want to shoot animals with something other than a camera.

Perhaps the vile Trump spawn should take this as a cautionary tale. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Messaging

By Sniffles

We cats rarely concern ourselves with the well-being of Congressional Republicans, but the twelve members who were given the green light by Paul Ryan to vote against the tax scam must be in a jam.

That's because some dude named Corry Bliss from the "American Action Network" (i.e., Republican super-PAC) says the only way for the GOP to campaign in 2018 is on the huge giveaway that the party just gave to the top one percent.

"Every member of the Republican Party should be spending all of their [sic] time selling the tax plan," Bliss burbled. "Everything else is a waste of time and money."

Really? So what's an endangered House Republican who voted against it to do? Hope that the middle class is so in love with its $1.50-a-week raise that it looks the other way and votes GOP?

Or does a Republican House member — like Elise Stafanik, John Faso or Lee Zeldin, to name three from New York — not talk about the tax cut? If so, what should they talk about, exactly? The EPA Administrator who's trying to melt the polar ice caps? The Education Secretary who wants to destroy public schools? A State Department that's filled with empty desks while the Doomsday Clock ticks closer to midnight? A White House that wants to blow up the FBI? An Oval Office occupant who hires wife beaters and who's confessed on tape to assaulting women himself?

We despise these House Republicans who try to skate by on their alleged moderateness while they take marching orders from their odious Speaker. And there's so little that's positive for them to pivot to on the campaign trail this year that we're tempted to feel sorry for them. But we don't. We cats HISS.

Burying The John Kelly Lede

By Baxter

The media gave a total pass to John Kelly when he became White House Chief of Staff — first, because he was supposed to rein in the malevolent toddler who occupies the Oval Office, and second, because he's a retired four-star general with a son who was killed in Afghanistan.

John Kelly didn't deserve that pass. And we'd like the punditheads to wipe those gape-jawed expressions off their faces, because guess what? John Kelly is an awful person, and always has been.

Here's a quick list of why:

1. As DHS secretary and in his current role, he's proven himself to be no better than your garden-variety racist and hater — a hard-liner on immigration who says vile and untrue things (some just this week) about DREAMers and others who come to America for a better life.

2. He blamed the Civil War on a "lack of the ability to compromise." We can only assume that he means that the North should have compromised with the South on slavery. No, thanks.

3. He insulted a long-serving African-American member of Congress over Donald Trump's botched call to a soldier's widow, and then refused to apologize for it.

4. He helped place a minion in his old job at DHS who, just as vile and racist as Kelly is, recently had to submit to a well-deserved tongue-lashing by Senator Cory Booker.

5. Now, he's passionately defended a wife-beater and is lying about his involvement in keeping said wife-beater's access to classified materials without a security clearance.

Journalists are hot on Kelly's trail now, and we're glad. But that doesn't come anywhere close to making up for their credulous treatment of him before. We're sick of reporters and TV talking heads buying these phony narratives. We cats HISS.

C'est Ironique, N'est-ce Pas?

Par Mademoiselle Kubelik

Here's a trip down Memory Lane for you kittens out there: In America's dark past (okay, 15 years ago), we had a terrible President who invaded a country that hadn't attacked us. Like many nations around the world, France did not support this. Republicans went chauve-souris-merde.

Things got so dicey that our favorite French restaurant felt compelled to hang a huge American flag in its front window. Thankfully, the national madness faded — generally, around the time that everybody figured out the Iraq war was an embarrassing blunder and that France was right.

Why the fond reminiscing? Because the current occupant of the Oval Office — who makes that awful Iraq invader look good — has decided that the French are onto something when it comes to military parades. Emmanuel Macron had one, so now he wants one.

We advise "Wee Donald" to tread cautiously. Military parades are really more the hallmark of dictatorships, not democracies. North Korea, Russia, China and Nazi Germany come to mind.

You know, maybe people would stop comparing Trump to Hitler if he would stop acting like Hitler. We cats HISS.

Ohhh, Noooo... It's Olympics Time Again.

via GIPHY

By Zamboni

We cats will not be watching the Olympics. If you're a faithful reader, you know we have a long, proud history of hating the games. You should hate them, too. Here's why:

1. The IOC is one of the most corrupt, evil organizations ever to walk the earth. They grease each other's palms, give dictators a platform on which to preen themselves, make cities jump through stupid hoops to host, bankrupt the ones that are chosen, and refuse to cancel games in the wake of murders and other outrages. They make the Republican Party look decent and honorable.

2. The Olympics are in Korea. They eat dogs there. Okay, we cats don't like dogs much, but that still grosses us out.

3. Russian athletes are being allowed to compete even though Russia is supposed to be banned from the games. See #1.

4. NBC is covering the games again, which means more insipid athlete profiles, commercials that pose as "news," and endless, endless jingoism. But at least, no Matt Lauer.

5. That doctor in Michigan who abused Olympic gymnasts — which everyone seemed to know but nobody did anything about. We cats HISS.

Enemies At The Gaetz

By Sniffles

Is Matt Gaetz an overt racist, or just one of the dumbest guys ever to darken the halls of Congress?

In the news already for a wily Democrat's billboard against him, Gaetz is now under fire for inviting an avowed anti-Semite and white supremacist to the State of the Union. (And with a Holocaust denier about to get the Republican nomination for an Illinois House seat, we cats are sensing a GOP pattern here.)

Gaetz at first claimed he had no idea who Charles Johnson was. (Yeah, we get it — you totally invite people to the SOTU without knowing them.) Now he's claiming "poor vetting" and vowing not to do it again.

We hope that someone in the media has already put in a FOIA request for any and all correspondence between Gaetz and Johnson about the speech. It should make for interesting reading. We cats HISS.

What? No Executive Order To Reverse The Score Of The Game?

The Tweet He Can't Delete

By Baxter

Paul Ryan, whose heart is filled with unwashed socks and whose soul is filled with gunk, has yet to learn an important fact: Nothing goes away on the Internet.

So his hapless attempt to scrub this silly tweet failed. But reading it, you can see why he tried.

Not only is it utterly ridiculous to tout a $1.50 weekly raise (yeah, that'll help a lot when this woman loses her healthcare coverage), but Costco is a Democratic company headquartered in the highly Democratic state of Washington. So this tweet just served a whole bunch of missions — none of which we think are dear to the Speaker of the House's heart.

Well, never mind. Whatever 22-year-old Ryan staffer made the mistake of tweeting this "boast" from the Speaker just raised a ton of money for the Iron Stache, Randy Bryce. But surely he/she will soon land a job at the Make America Great Again Political Action Committee, yes? We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Six More Weeks Of Winter? Okay By Us.

We cats love the change of seasons and are happily preparing for more snow in Upstate New York this weekend. We don't have to drive anywhere, so what's not to love? PURRS all around.

Devin's "Bombshell" Memo ... Bombs

By Miss Kubelik

"It is telling that Chairman Nunes put out this memo without bothering to read the underlying materials, and that he ordered changes to the document without informing his own committee members. It is a terrible lapse in leadership that Speaker Ryan failed to intervene and prevent the abuse of classified materials in this way.

"It is tragic, if all too predictable, that this President would allow the release of the memo despite FBI and DOJ’s expressions of 'grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the [Republicans’] memo’s accuracy.' But most destructive of all may be the announcement by Chairman Nunes that he has placed the FBI and DOJ under investigation, impugning and impairing the work of the dedicated professionals trying to keep our country safe."

—Adam Schiff, D-CA, Ranking Member, 

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, February 2, 2018

"The Tories Said WHAT?"

By Zamboni

If you think right wingers in America are nuts, check out the Conservatives in the Canadian Senate, who think that changing one word in the lyrics to the national anthem is "trampling upon democracy."

The O Canada line in question is "true patriot love / in all thy sons command," and dates to 1914. Yep, more than 100 years ago, right before women even got the right to vote. More recently, "in all of us command" was proposed, and yesterday, after multiple readings, the Senate finally approved it.

Over the objections of the Tories, who saw Armageddon approaching.

What the hell is the matter with these people? Conservatives are crying foul on the Liberals' parliamentary tactics, but we sense a bigger grievance at work. So we have to ask: Why do right wingers, in both Canada and the US, find the concept of "us" so alarming? We're not sure we want to know the answer. We cats HISS.