Happy Halloween!

The news is scary enough. Here's a cute kitten to say we hope you had a wonderful Halloween. And now rest up, because tomorrow we have to all get back to work to elect Democrats. We cats PURR.

Saying What Needs To Be Said

By Miss Kubelik

Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, age 102, once reminisced about her relationship with Errol Flynn — who had wanted to seduce her when they were co-stars, but never succeeded.

In an interview many years later, Dame Olivia told a story. It was the late 1950s, she said, and for the first time in many years she viewed the classic 1938 feature she and Flynn had starred in together, "The Adventures of Robin Hood."

"Seeing Robin Hood after all those years made me realize how good all our adventure films were," she said. "I was astounded at its vitality, its effervescence. I thought it was simply wonderful. It was a revelation to me. It was a classic." She decided to write Flynn a letter, saying as much — but because of their somewhat dicey relationship, she had second thoughts, and tore the letter up.

"She later said she always regretted not sending the note, because just a few weeks later, Flynn died at the age of 50."

We cats thought about this story today — not just because we're fans of the Golden Age of Hollywood, but because we learned that one of the people killed in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre on Saturday was Jerry Rabinowitz, a physician who treated AIDS patients in the epidemic's early days.

One of his patients from Pittsburgh, who now lives in New York, thought about communicating with Dr. Rabinowitz recently — just to say, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, "I'm still here."

"And I didn’t. I didn’t," he said. "I thought: 'Oh, I’m just one of many.' He had my back, but I know he had everyone’s backs. And [now] he’s never going to know that I made it."

Moral of the story: Write that letter. We cats salute the city of Pittsburgh for its grace in the face of tragedy, and we PURR.

Georgia Gov Race, Not Too Peachy

By Baxter

When it comes to free and fair elections, former President Jimmy Carter knows what he's talking about. Through its democracy program, The Carter Center has observed more than 100 elections in 39 countries around the world.

And considering what the Republican Party is doing to disenfranchise people and steal votes, we could use a bit of The Carter Center's election expertise right here in the United States.

Both of the Carters have been asked why their folks can't monitor elections here at home like they do in emerging democracies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Their answer always is: "We have to be formally invited, and all parties have to agree to our presence as independent, nonpartisan observers." So getting involved in any US elections has always been a dead idea.

However, something about this year's Georgia gubernatorial race has caused Jimmy Carter to stir: Secretary of State (and Republican candidate for Governor) Brian Kemp.

Kemp's day job means he runs next week's Peach State elections. Awkward! He's also been keeping busy suppressing votes by tossing Georgians of color off the rolls. And he refuses to recuse himself in the event of a recount.

It's all become too much for President Carter, who sent this in a letter to Kemp the other day:

"You are now overseeing the election in which you are a candidate. This runs counter to the most fundamental principle of democratic elections — that the electoral process be managed by an independent and impartial election authority.

"Other secretaries of state have stepped down while running for election within their jurisdiction, to ensure that officials without a direct stake in the process can take charge and eliminate concerns about a conflict of interest.

"In order to foster voter confidence in the upcoming election, which will be especially important if the race ends up very close, I urge you to step aside and hand over to a neutral authority the responsibility of overseeing the governor’s election. This would not address every concern, but it would be a sign that you recognize the importance of this key democratic principle and want to ensure the confidence of our citizens in the outcome."

Somehow we can't picture Kemp having a come-to-Jesus moment on this. So we're left wondering: Will Georgia's election next week be any more legitimate and participatory than, say, Kenya's recent one, or Zimbabwe's? We cats HISS. 

When You Need Cheering Up And You're Fresh Out Of Red Pandas...

Clever signs are always good for a much-needed grin. We don't know where or when this photo was taken, but we cats love it. And we PURR.

The Company He Keeps

By Zamboni

We cats are hearing rumors that the Pittsburgh shooter didn't like Donald Trump because Trump didn't hate Jews enough. No doubt the White House and its Republican apologists will use that as a shield against any charges that they've encouraged and enabled crazy right wingers to shoot up synagogues — or to mail a bomb to, among others, Holocaust survivor George Soros.

Sorry, Trumpsters, there's too much in the record already.

Charlottesville is the biggie, of course — when Trump claimed that Dockers-clad white guys who marched with tiki torches and chanted "Jews will not replace us" had "very fine people" on their side. But there are plenty of other instances and episodes that we could cite:

Steve Bannon's ex-wife testified in her divorce proceedings that Bannon didn't want their daughters to go to L.A.'s Archer School for Girls because "he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews."

On his media tour for Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff said that Trump is the kind of guy who's "aware of who in the room is Jewish and who is not in a really creepy way."

Trump's ghostwriter Tony Schwartz has tweeted, "Anti-semites feel comfortable with Trump. You don't need to know more than that." (This reminds us of Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum's simple and devastating smackdown of his Republican gubernatorial opponent, Ron DeSantis: "The racists think you're a racist.")

But hey — why should we go on, when the Jewish leaders of Pittsburgh have been more eloquent on the subject than anyone? Writing today to Trump, who is threatening to visit, they've said this:

"You are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism.

"Yesterday's massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country... The murderer...killed Jews in order to undermine the efforts of all those who find shared humanity with immigrants and refugees. You are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you commit yourself to compassionate, democratic policies that recognize the dignity in all of us."

Guess that means the trip's off, eh, White House? We cats HISS.

This Is What Decency Looks Like

We cats will have more to say on yesterday's terrible hate crime in Pennsylvania — but in the meantime, we'd just like to state that we think the Pittsburgh Steelers are a class act.

Before The Tree Of Life, There Was George Tiller

We cats just want to know why, when this medical doctor was murdered in his church in Wichita, Donald Trump didn't demand that all houses of worship have armed guards.

We are disgusted with everything today. And we HISS.

King Of The Jerks

By Sniffles

Wow, pretty ironic that the obnoxious Peter King was first elected to Congress in 1992 — "The Year of the Woman." Because he certainly interrupted, dismissed and disparaged his Democratic opponent, Liuba Grechen Shirley, at Wednesday night's debate. A lot.

So on this, Hillary Clinton's 71st birthday, we wonder: Where on the "Rick Lazio Scale" did King's behavior fall? Just mildly disrespectful, or full-bore rude and crude?

As former Vermont Governor and DNC Chair Howard Dean has observed, if enough people see this despicable performance by King, Liuba Shirley wins. "This berating style that King has served him well for his long tenure but his time is up," Dean tweeted. "Trying to push women around is not a good look with Trump in the White House."

We're also wondering how Republicans like King can defend their long Washington tenures when in the early 1990s they campaigned vigorously on term limits. It is time for them to go. The King is dead — long live Liuba. We cats PURR.

Megyn No More

By Miss Kubelik

We cats have been shocked that the long national nightmare that is Donald Trump has required us all to re-fight World War II. (Before Charlottesville, and "good people on both sides," it was always a given that Nazis were bad.)

But honestly: We never thought America would have to revisit — ugh — minstrelsy. How could it be anything but dated, racist and wrong? (Even when the otherwise great Al Jolson does it, at right.) Yet thanks to Megyn Kelly, the badness of blackface has to be explained, over and over again.

Here's our point: Megyn Kelly is on her way out from NBC, but she never had any business being there in the first place — not to mention for zillions of undeserved dollars. We are tired of the news media mainstreaming FOX "News" crazies and haters. The network of Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Pauline Frederick and Betty Furness should be heartily ashamed of itself. We cats HISS.

Lest We Furr-get: The Art Of Teleprompting

By Baxter

We cats well remember the previous Administration, when Freepers, teabags and other right-wing nutcases were highly critical of President Obama for his teleprompter reading.

They hated the way he looked left and right, and accused him of rote delivery, of being lost without it. None of that was true. But they despised Obama so much that even if he'd delivered his speeches with Shakespearean flair (and many of us thought he did), they would have found something to complain about.

In retrospect, it's pretty hilarious considering the pathetic performance put in by their hero Trump on the pipe bombs the other day.

Benedict Donald was given a script, and he read it. Less than 24 hours later, he was back to rage-tweeting. So where are the right wingers and their Teleprompter brickbats now?

And of course the credulous media had to pause and comment on the "Presidentialness" of Drumpf's demeanor. What an eyeroll. As our social media fave Randy Rainbow has tweeted, "Stop praising Trump for 'doing the right thing' when he reads from a teleprompter. I read the haftarah at my bar mitzvah and I didn’t mean a fuckin' word."

To be honest, we'd choose Teleprompter-induced boredom over the OMG-he's-got-the-nuclear-football terror of Donald Trump's 3:14 AM tweets. But we have the terrible feeling that we don't get to choose — at least, not until Tuesday, November 6. (And for some of you lucky ducks with the early vote, right now.) We cats PURR.

"Very Fine People"

By Zamboni

At the same time the Republican Party enabled the rise of Donald Trump, it also enabled fringe-y right-wing hate to move to the mainstream. We saw it in Charlottesville in August 2017, and we've seen it in the neo-Nazis who have popped up at rallies, in curbside fights in New York City, on GOP ballots and even at the White House.

Today we apparently saw it in at least five pipe bombs delivered to prominent Democrats and to a major cable news network, all of whom Trump has specifically vilified in tweets and at his cultish MAGA "shows" across America.

None of the bombs went off, thank goodness. But all day we've been thinking of the four young girls killed at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, and the 168 people murdered in Oklahoma City in 1995. Domestic terrorism can target the famous or the obscure, but its source is almost always right-wing.

We heard an MSNBC commentator state this afternoon that Trump is not responsible for the pipe bombs. He merely "encouraged" some basement-dwelling hater to assemble and deliver them.

We disagree. These bombs were assassination attempts, for which Trump is totally and completely responsible. And so is the soulless, unprincipled Republican Party. We cats HISS.

Crunch Time

With just two weeks until Election Day, we're looking to add to our staff. So today we're interviewing potential bloggers to see how well they measure up. These two look promising. And although they're named after (gulp) mice, they're definitely cats — and Democrats! Maybe we'll make them an offer. That will make us PURR.

In Arrears

By Sniffles

Perhaps you've heard: Republican members of Congress are being poky about paying their dues to the GOP Senate and House campaign committees. The teabaggers elected in 2010 and 2014 have been particularly delinquent  — not to mention members who are retiring, even though they're sitting on some fat campaign bank accounts.

Hey, aren't these very guys who see George Soros writing checks to Democrats around every corner? Why are they being so stingy?

After all, Democrats are raising a ton of money this cycle. And things will get even grimmer for the NRSC and the NRCC in 2020. Not only will many dues-owing Republicans be gone from Capitol Hill by then, the Congressional campaign committees will be competing for cash with Benedict Donald's re-elect campaign. And a number of vulnerable freshman GOP Senators, elected in an off-year, will be facing their first Presidential-turnout election.

Political pundits who are so fond of looking at "the map" too often neglect these money questions. So we cats are raising them. Since voting Democratic in November is the only way to save the country, we'll advise these tightwad Republicans to keep their wallets shut. That would make us PURR.

The Killers

By Miss Kubelik

Have American journalists woken up?

In 2016, they didn't seem to care that Armageddon was looming. They preferred to focus on Hillary Clinton's email server instead of the eloquent warnings she gave about how disastrous a Benedict Donald Presidency would be. They rarely challenged outrageous Republican lies while giving statements by Democrats the 12th degree. They didn't even seem swayed by the tauntings and abuse they suffered from the MAGA crowd at Trump rallies. And of course they assumed they were fulfilling their professional responsibilities by having two talking heads, one from the right and one from the left, yell over each other on TV.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin was killing journalists, Donald Drumpf was talking about "rewriting the libel laws," and the Beltway pundit class couldn't have cared less.

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi, however, might have finally gotten their attention.

Sure, Khashoggi was a Washington Post contributor, so this one hits closer to home. But the gruesome details of his death have unnerved the press — more than Anna Politkovskaya, ambushed and shot in a Moscow elevator, more than Natalya Estemirova, kidnapped and dumped in the woods, and more than Yuri Shchekochikhin, who family members are certain was poisoned.

We don't know why the current and well-deserved alarm over Khashoggi took so long, but we won't quibble if American journalists have finally had their come-to-Jesus moment. Still, it's infuriating how their inside-the-newsroom bubbles gave them a false sense of security — blinding them to the dangers posed by the mobster Trump and the unsavory dictators with whom he makes, or wants to make, money. Did we say "unsavory"? Perhaps the better word is "murderous." We cats HISS.

"Dignity, Always Dignity"

By Baxter

A small story in our local paper caught our eye this morning because it was a reminder of how insidious — and trickle-down — Trumpian boorishness is in the Republican Party.

Eighty-nine absentee ballots in Montgomery County in New York State were sent to voters in Amsterdam this month with an error: The name of the GOP's Congressional candidate in NY-20 was missing.

That's because the county's Republican deputy commissioner for the elections board wasn't there to proofread the ballots. He had died in that horrific limousine crash in Schoharie on October 6.

The faulty ballots were quickly called back and new ones mailed to every recipient. Problem solved, time to move on — right?

Nope. The jackass whose name had been left out just couldn't resist acting the victim.

"I personally think the Democrats are crooked and they are doing illegal things," Republican Joe Vitollo said. "I'm missing 500 yard signs in areas where everyone else's signs are up."

Dude, your guy was just killed in a car crash with 19 other people. And you're whining about yard signs? We cats SNARL.

Bedtime For Sniffles

As in the Warner Bros. classic cartoon, sometimes you have to accept that it's time to finally hit the sack. After 20+ great years, we can get behind that. Sleep is good. And we PURR.

En Avance Sur La Courbe

By Zamboni

We cats are enjoying Cheshire-cat grins that Montreal, a city we call our second home, was one of a handful of places in Canada in which legal pot was actually on the store shelves yesterday. The other provinces will follow suit, of course, but it's amusing that it's Quebeckers who are most out in front on this.

We had further notice this was coming when, driving back across the border from Montreal on Sunday, we saw new signs up, warning Americans not to try to bring anything naughty into New York. (At least, not yet: Medical marijuana is legal here, and Governor Cuomo has ordered a study on legalizing it for recreational use. No doubt he'll keep an eye on how things go in Canada.)

So, chalk up one more thing that the True North has us beat on: Pot, universal healthcare, welcoming immigration policies, and a national commitment to diversity, inclusion and human rights. Oh, and they were way ahead of us on Saudi barbarity — a fact that continues to embarrass us more by the hour. We cats HISS.

Madelyn Linsenmeir, 1988-2018

By Sniffles

So, how is the Drumpf Administration's war on opioids going?

We're wondering because we just read the most amazing, gone-viral obituary of a young woman in Burlington, Vermont — who died at age 30 from the deadly drugs that Purdue Pharma and the evil Sackler family misbranded and sold like hotcakes.

And Burlington police chief Brandon del Pozo is mad.

"Why did it take a grieving relative with a good literary sense to get people to pay attention for a moment and shed a tear when nearly a quarter of a million people have already died in the same way as Maddie as this epidemic grew?" he asked. And he proceeded to point out all the things that the state of Vermont is doing, like testing for fentanyl, distributing Naxolone to EMTs, training physicians, and refusing to arrest for misdemeanor drug possession.

But don't expect Benedict Donald's crew of knaves, thieves and mobsters to push for anything like that at the federal level. They announced a "program" to combat what they casually called "a national health emergency," but earmarked no funding for it. They put the embarrassing cipher Kellyanne Conway "in charge" of it. They've threatened the death penalty for "drug dealers" — when the "dealers" in question are the Sacklers, their company and the doctors they hoodwinked, pressured and bribed into prescribing. What a bunch of crap.

So we cats are mad, too. We leave you with some closing comments from the young Vermonter's obit.

"We take comfort in knowing that Maddie is surrounded by light, free from the struggle that haunted her. We would have given anything for her to experience that freedom in this lifetime. Our grief over losing her is infinite. And now so is she."

Well, At Least It's Not Dogs Playing Poker

By Miss Kubelik

Donald Drumpf's bad taste, amazingly, still has the capacity to shock. We cats aren't sure what could be worse than his Trump Tower apartment, but then, "South American Dictator" just isn't our cup of tea.

Today, people are appalled that he's hung a Republican version of this painting in the White House. (The most recent iteration, that is — one that doesn't stop with George W. Bush. Ugh.)

Color us unsurprised. We saw this artist's work in a gallery in Georgetown a few years back, and were kind of tickled by it. But tickling its viewers is this painting's sole purpose. It's whimsy — something you get for your rec room or playroom, or as a fun gift for your favorite politico.

The White House is home to some important art, including pieces by Frederick Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent and Frederic Remington. It is not a place for kitsch. But with Benedict Donald in residence, what else can we expect? We cats HISS.

Ella-Grace In The Big Chair

We cats are a little behind the curve on observing the International Day of the Girl Child, but that's not because we didn't think it was important. It was Thursday, October 11 — but girls should be cherished and celebrated every day. After all, are we going to overthrow the Trumpsters without them? In the meantime, let's focus on world leaders who love and value them, and PURR.

Caveat Emptor

By Baxter

We cats were alerted to a story today via the Twitter machine: that Benedict Donald is selling Republican candidates and interest groups access to his list of 20 million hard-core supporters' email addresses. Price: $35 per 1,000 addresses, or $700,000 to message the full list.

As political minds sharper than ours have pointed out, this is hardly a bargain. Like everything else Trump does, this move is to benefit himself and no one else. Anybody who buys this list is a chump. Shouldn't Republican candidates across the country already have the MAGA crowd in the bag?

Example: Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis is a racist. Why wouldn't he already appeal to Trump's base? In Missouri, Senate nominee Josh Hawley's Democratic opponent is everything Trump's base hates and fears. She's so easy for Hawley to demonize to GOP voters — why would he need help from an email list?

The only answer we can come up with is that Trump has threatened them: Buy my list or I won't come campaign for you.

Are we wrong? We think not. Consider Trump's mobster modus operandi and it makes total sense. Think of a down-in-the-polls Republican like Scott Walker, and it's even more crystal clear. We cats know what's going on here, and it makes us PURR.

Trump Isn't Welcome At Funerals, So He'll Have To Send Mike Pence To This One. (WHOOPS!)

By Zamboni

The Washington National Cathedral — burial place of legendary Americans like Helen Keller, Cordell Hull and Woodrow Wilson — has announced that Matthew Shepard, murdered 20 years ago this month for being gay, will be interred there in a special ceremony on October 26.

The cathedral, an official statement said, is "honored and humbled to receive the earthly remains of Matthew Shepard and entrust them to God. While Matthew died too young, his death nonetheless gave life to a new generation of activists and allies who are committed to proclaiming God's love for all of God's children — no exceptions or exclusions."

So, cue the haters and the homophobes, right? The Westboro Baptist yahoos and other faux Christians must be beside themselves that an openly gay kid could be laid to rest in a national monument. We cats say, tough noogies for them (or, in the words of Orrin Hatch, "grow up").

If you can't be at the cathedral that day, you can send a message of support to the Shepard family here. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: The National Cathedral's stained-glass windows have all the colors of... well, the rainbow.)

Desperate Measures

By Sniffles

You can tell that Republicans don't believe they can win next month's election without cheating.

In 2016, with Vladimir Putin's help, they were cheaters extraordinaire, and the Trumpsters are doing absolutely nothing to bolster America's election security this year — something that seems to us like treason on top of treason. At this point we're not sure what the Russians might be doing to keep Republicans in power after the midterms, but you can bet it's something.

Meanwhile, the GOP continues its familiar litany of incredibly effective tactics — like throwing people off the voter rolls. This is happening in multiple states, but the latest poster children include North Dakota, which has disenfranchised Native American voters courtesy of the newly Kavanaugh-ed Supreme Court, and Georgia, whose Secretary of State just happens to be running as the Republican nominee for Governor.

That dude, Brian Kemp — locked in a tight race with Democrat Stacey Abrams — is blocking the voting registrations of 53,000 Georgians, the vast majority of them African-American. He's not even trying to hide it, is he? (And the fact that he shares a last name with a man who was one of the most racially progressive Republicans is a depressing coincidence. May Jack Kemp rise from the grave and haunt him this Halloween.)

Now, the cheating is extending to stealing lawn signs. The homemade gem pictured above was confiscated by police in Hamilton, Texas, on the orders of Sid Miller, the Agriculture Commissioner, who's up for re-election next month. Seriously.

We'd like to think that this frantic move by Miller means that he secretly knows his party is toast. Because with a post-Kavanaugh gender gap of 30 points, he'd be right. We cats PURR.

Sure You're Registered? You'd Better Check.

By Miss Kubelik

There's a hurricane bearing down on the panhandle of Florida, on the very last day that you can register to vote there. Why do we cats think that a lot of people are going to fall through the cracks?

But we're not sure we should be concerned. With the exception of Leon County, this part of Florida is Trumpster territory: Panama City, Okaloosa and Pensacola, for example. It's really okay if those folks are too busy cleaning up to make it to the polls in four weeks.

But overall, this is no time to be complacent. Republicans are purging voters across America, and people who think they're registered today could turn out on November 6 to find they're off the rolls.

Don't let that happen to you: Here's a handy guide to checking on your registration, with links to state and local elections offices. Get cracking! We cats PURR.

Nous Etions Avec Eux En Esprit

By Baxter

A word of warning for beleaguered Americans thinking that the True North might be a safe haven: Canada is not immune from the rise of the alt-right that we've been seeing in Europe and the US. Since the Liberals' big sweep in the October 2015 federal election, a fat Trumpster has become the premier of Ontario — and one week ago, the CAQ, an anti-immigrant party, won the provincial election in Quebec.

Coming on top of all the bad news here, this is alarming and kind of depressing. Not because we don't understand that parties run out of steam after awhile — the Liberals had been running Quebec for 15 years — but it just feels like we see emboldened racists and haters everywhere we turn. Like this past weekend, when someone vandalized the Fairfax Jewish Community Center in Virginia.

So take note, you Canada yearners — but also be hopeful. Because yesterday there was a big demonstration against racism in downtown Montreal. Decent people are still around! We cats PURR.

Kavanaugh's In, But Nazis Are Still Mad

By Zamboni

Here is the Jewish Community Center in Fairfax, Virginia, this morning.

This not only makes us cats sick, it makes us want to ask people like Sheldon Adelson and Ari Fleischer and Eric Cantor:

You're Republican why?

Because surely it's the rise of Donald Trump, coddled and enabled by the GOP, that has emboldened racist and anti-Semitic scum to do stuff like this. Tim Kaine has spoken out against it — has Corey Stewart?

Gosh. The news these days is awfully depressing. But we know that it won't last forever. (November is coming.) What's truly frightening, though, is this: How were Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin cronies able to exploit America's Achilles heel — racism, bigotry and resentment — so completely? We'll explore this question more, but for today, just color us disgusted and depressed. Time for a nap. We cats HISS.

A Warning From Winchester

By Sniffles

It's worth wondering why any US Senator would vote for a Supreme Court nominee who's opposed by the American Bar Association, the Jesuits, 2,500 law professors, a 98-year-old former Justice, and even his former drinking buddies.

But after tomorrow, endangered Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock might also wonder how any Senator could vote for a nominee who inspires a walkout at two of her district's high schools.

More than 200 kids from John Handley High and Sherando High left class to protest the execrable Brett Kavanaugh, sexual violence in their community and rape culture in their schools. Several of the kids said they personally knew victims of assault.

"We stand in protest of the leaders of this country, who are willing to overlook the abhorrent and disqualifying actions of a Supreme Court nominee for the sake of political gain," speechified one 15-year-old.

Why should Comstock care? The high schools are in Winchester, Virginia — one of the reddest parts of Virginia's 10th district. And even there, it's KavaNope. We cats PURR.

Now, This Is An Alert Worth Reading

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Daddy Issues Edition

By Miss Kubelik

Are you ready to firebomb something? If you're female, you might be. Lots of amazed men are tweeting to ask why women don't have enraged meltdowns and stage mass shootings every day. We've wondered the same thing ourselves lately — but here are a few other thoughts we're kicking around between naps.

Michael Bloomberg just gave $20 million to help flip the Senate to Democrats. That's on top of the $80 million he gave to Democrats running for the House of Representatives. You know what? Michael Bloomberg doesn't strike us as a guy who throws a lot of money at bad investments. (Insert smiley emoticon here.)

Benedict Donald sank to new lows at his Mississippi "show" last night, as the world well knows (well, maybe not the folks at "Morning Joe"). But here's a question: How many people attended? News reports we saw said "thousands." Was it 58,000? Because that's the number of people who rallied for Beto O'Rourke in Austin on Saturday night.

Here's the danger in Trump's latest behavior: He's made fun of a disabled journalist, a Viet Nam POW, a Gold Star family, and — now — a woman who's made a credible charge of sexual assault. There are respectable numbers of disabled people, former POWs and Gold Star families in the United States who are probably already pissed off. But there are 167 million females. Stay tuned.

Finally, we cats are gratified that The New York Times has so effectively outed the Trumps as the crime family they are. It's abundantly clear that the nightmare that is Donald Trump sprang completely from his deep-seated need to deny his father's enabling. But while teasing out psychological issues aren't necessarily the job of the media, responsible coverage of candidates for President certainly is. Where was the Times in 2015-2016? Ohhhh, right... "her emails." We cats SNARL.

Truth In Advertising

By Baxter

It is really important that this story doesn't get buried in the horrors of our usual news — Kavanaugh perjuries, the Indonesian tsunami, families still separated at the border, etc., etc.

The Washington Times, Sun Myung Moon's right-wing rag that has masqueraded as a newspaper since 1982, has been forced to retract a despicable "investigation" that promoted conspiracy theories about the murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. The paper has also apologized to the Rich family.

The retraction was the result of a lawsuit which the Riches brought and which they are still pursuing on multiple fronts. So while they've drawn blood in Moonieland, the fight goes on.

We cats are glad for this victory, but we are also disgusted. The right's cruelty knows no bounds — just check out what they're saying about Christine Blasey Ford — and nothing will ever compensate the Rich family for the additional grief they've suffered.

But here's an idea: Somebody on our side with money — like Tom Steyer, maybe? — should take out a full-page in the Times (and if the Times won’t take the ad, then maybe The Washington Examiner or even The Washington Post) to list, by name, every Republican elected official, political hack, and “commentator” or “reporter” who tweeted about/wrote about the Times's original Seth Rich “investigation.” And then run the entirety of the Times's apology underneath, demanding the same from every one of the cretins named.

We cats would love to see how long that list would be. And we HISS.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Carter (Governor, President, Nobel Laureate, Leading Feminist)

By Zamboni

Today is Jimmy Carter's (GASP!) 94th birthday, and we cats are seeing good wishes for him flying all around social media. That's a warm and fuzzy feeling — even if we are a bit bewildered. Having served in his campaign and Administration, we well remember how everyone hated us in 1981 and couldn't wait for us to leave town. Now, there are Carter groupies everywhere. Amazing!

Not that there isn't reason for that. In retrospect, the accomplishments of the Carter Administration are earning new appreciation. Championing human rights, opening China, achieving Middle East peace, defending the environment and bringing honesty and accountability to government are just some of the achievements of Carter's that Americans, after two years of the Trump nightmare, must look back on with yearning.

And then there's women. You may have noticed these last few days that people have been talking a lot about who really respects and supports women, and who would champion their rights on, say, the Supreme Court. (That little thing called the Kavanaugh hearing has seared itself permanently onto our brains.) But Jimmy Carter was in office 40 years ago. How good was he on women's rights?

"President Carter appointed a record 41 women to federal judgeships," White House domestic policy adviser Stuart Eizenstat reports. "When he took office, there was only one female federal judge. While Carter never had the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice, he appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the US Court of Appeals. In a recent interview, asked why she was a judge, Ginsburg replied, 'Because of Jimmy Carter, that's why.'

"He appointed three women as Cabinet secretaries...He also appointed a record number of women to subcabinet officer positions. With help from First Lady Rosalynn Carter, he worked to extend the deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and established the first National Advisory Commission on Women."

(Hmmm, interesting. Lots of folks are saying we could use that Equal Rights Amendment now.)

Of course, there was that Playboy interview and lusting in his heart. But how positively quaint that is compared to all the pussy grabbing and Devil's Triangle-ing and boofing of today. We cats wish President Carter the happiest of birthday celebrations. And of course we PURR.