DNA Stands For "Don't," "No," "Absolutelynot"

By Sniffles

We cats have a rule not to trash other Democrats on this blog. Even if the opposition were not so terrible, infighting is ridiculous. But we're willing to make a quick exception today for Elizabeth Warren.

Clarification: We're not really trashing her. Her career fighting on behalf of consumers' rights is exemplary. We're happy that she's the bane of bankers' existence and a member of the Senate. But now that she's announced an exploratory committee for a 2020 Presidential run, we can't wait to receive her first fundraising email so we can immediately hit UNSUBSCRIBE.

Why? Because "Pocahontas." Warren committed the stupidest error of her life when she allowed herself to be goaded by Donald Trump and took a DNA test that raised more questions than it answered. Trump sure had fun with that! (And take it from us and the Interwebs — the memes will never stop.)

The most important qualification for the 2020 Democratic nominee is whether he/she can beat Benedict Donald. Warren has already proven she can't. We cats HISS.

Spitting Image

By Hubie and Bertie

Is there anyone who doesn't think the Republican Party has a woman problem? Oh — maybe the Republicans themselves. Or, at least, Republican men.

Take the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives. Stunned to be facing minority status (many for the first time), with their female members down to just a handful, they still think that if they only improve their messaging, they can stage a comeback with women in 2020. It's the PR — not the policies — that's the problem, they aver.

We cats say, fine, let them think that. But the Republicans could have already taken a small, symbolic step in the right direction last month, by electing a woman as chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-MO) wanted the job, and it would have been a nice gesture to female voters that maybe, just maybe, the GOP hears them.

But whoops! — guess what? They didn't. Tom Emmer of Minnesota will spearhead the Republicans' efforts to climb back into the majority. Yep, a very conservative white dude will lead the charge to keep Republicans from being abandoned by American women for generations.

Here's how we'll judge his performance: How many of the candidates Emmer recruits to run for the 40 seats the Republicans lost will look and think exactly like him? We cats think we know the answer, and we HISS and PURR at the same time.

Dim On Perffaith

We cats are sick and tired of hearing stories about black people and other minorities being threatened and abused by Trumpster-types for simply going about their business in public. So we just had to share this.

Choice, And No Choice

By Baxter

We cats used to live in Ohio. Boy, are we glad we moved.

Today, the Ohio Senate failed to override a veto by Governor John Kasich of a "heartbeat bill" that would have denied the state's women their Constitutional right to choose. But it was only by one vote, and as the jackass Senate President reminds everyone, next session the anti-woman Republicans will have a supermajority in the state legislature.

We find it hard to believe that the majority of people in the Buckeye State want that level of government interference in their personal lives. Nevertheless, the sword of Damocles continues to dangle over female Ohioans — and over countless women in other states of the union.

Meanwhile, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was discharged from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center yesterday. Talk about close votes — she ruled on Benedict Donald's asylum restrictions while she was hospitalized, resulting in a 5-4 smackdown. And with the Rapist Kavanaugh on the court now, what's to become of Roe v. Wade?

We can guarantee you that the anti-choice forces are already grooming court cases to send up to the SCOTUS so Roe can be struck down. And then women — and especially young women — all across America will have to decide what to do.

We cats are fixed, and therefore don't have to personally worry about Roe's fate. But we care anyway. Because a woman cannot be a free citizen unless she has the right to determine her reproductive destiny. With that in jeopardy, we HISS.

Benedict "Bone Spurs" Donald Screws Up Again

"Donald Trump and the White House communications team revealed that a US Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the President secretly traveled to the region to meet with American forces serving in a combat zone for the first time since being elected to office.

"While the Commander-in-Chief can declassify information, usually the presence of a special operations unit...showing their faces would not be revealed to the American public, especially while the US service members were still deployed. [T]he information is almost always classified and is a violation of operational security.

"'Even during special operation demonstrations for Congressional delegations or for the President or Vice President, personnel either have their faces covered or their face is digitally blurred prior to a release to the general public,' [a DOD] official said.

"The President’s video did not blur the faces of special operation forces."

 —Newsweek, December 26, 2018

Inconvenient Truths

When the President is a demon of darkness, we rely on people like the former Director of the Office of Government Ethics to shine a light.

Spirit Of Christmas

By Miss Kubelik

While Benedict Donald is whining about being "alone" in the White House (didn't Moose & Squirrel and Prince Fancy Pants fly back from Florida to be with him?), Beto O'Rourke is volunteering his butt off for migrants in El Paso, Texas.

That's because ICE released hundreds of them onto the streets without any help — no money, no resources. Revoltingly, ICE did this on Christmas Eve, and intends to release more people today and tomorrow. Beto is organizing volunteers to give the migrants food, clothing and transportation. He's also directing people across the country who want to help to give to El Paso's immigrant support organization, Annunciation House. (To contribute, click here.)

We got the terrible news today that another migrant child died in US custody today. Thankfully, at least the asylum seekers in El Paso are getting the help they need. We cats PURR.

No Holiday Cheer In Benedict Donald's World

By Zamboni

Admittedly, all the Presidents and First Ladies pictured here with their families on Christmas are Democrats. But if we cats wanted to, we could easily add holiday photos of Bushes, Fords, Eisenhowers and Nixons.

Our point is this: No matter how much we disagreed with them, past Republican Presidents behaved normally at the holidays and served as a good-will rallying point for all Americans, no matter what their faiths or belief systems. It's just something that Presidents do.

Except now. Today, we have a malevolent creature in the White House who is isolated and aggrieved — not even trying to wish the country well. "A picture of a lost and damaged soul," as a conservative writer for The New York Times put it.

Scary stuff, folks. We can only hope, as the world enters another Silent Night, that somebody on the national security team keeps Mr. Pity Party away from the nuclear football. We cats HISS.

Christmas 2018: A Summary, By The Incoming (Thank God) Speaker Of The House

"It's Christmas Eve, and Donald Trump is plunging the country into chaos. The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve — after he just fired the Secretary of Defense.

"Instead of bringing certainty into people's lives, Donald Trump is continuing the Trump Shutdown, just to please right-wing radio and TV hosts.

"Meanwhile, different people from the same White House are saying different things about what Donald Trump would accept or not accept to end his Trump Shutdown, making it impossible to know where they stand at any given moment.

"Donald Trump wanted the Trump Shutdown, but he seems not to know how to get himself out of it.

"As long as Donald Trump is guided by the House Freedom Caucus, it's hard to see how he can come up with a solution that can pass both the House and the Senate and end his Trump Shutdown."

These Days, It Pays To Accentuate The Positive

By Sniffles

It's Christmas week, and everything is terrible. We're wondering if America has spent a worse, more sword-of-Damocles holiday season than 2018. Maybe in the depths of the Great Depression? After the Kennedy assassination? We're finding it hard to come up with a parallel, because the nation's very institutions today are at risk.

And Vladimir Putin is doing cartwheels.

So let's focus on a happy political subject, shall we? Specifically, how fortunate the state of Hawaii is in its Senators.

It wasn't too long ago that the Aloha State was represented by two dudes with a ton of seniority — one of whom was a storied war (and Watergate) hero. When the two Daniels — Akaka and Inouye — passed from the scene, plenty of people asked if Hawaii could recover from losing their big clout in Washington.

Well, wonder no more. Hawaii is represented in the Senate by a badass and a Twitter fiend.

Mazie Horono is someone Donald Trump should think twice about crossing. A member of the Senate Judiciary and Armed Services Committees and an intrepid cancer survivor, Mazie has called out the Trumpsters — literally — on their BS many times. Asked about the current government shutdown, Hirono said, "Trump has to take responsibility for it. Any effort on his part to blame the Democrats will be such bullshit, that I would hardly be able to stand it."

Brian Schatz's tweets, meanwhile, continue to make us LOL. Even a 22-hour round-trip between Washington and Honolulu and back to Washington again did not keep him from hitting the nail on the head this week about the Republicans' idiocy. "Wheels down IAD ready to vote no on this stupid wall," he tweeted on Friday morning. He's also been trying to figure out Trump's strange obsession with a non-wall wall. "Can someone explain this slats thing to me?" he pleaded. "Update: No one knows why slats."

Summary: Hawaii has two great, progressive US Senators who reflect the diversity of their great state, are media savvy and, most of all, fearless. We cats love them both. And we PURR.

The GOP Is Killing America — And Women

By Hubie and Bertie

Today was the shortest day of the year. Thank God.

It also seemed like the longest. The stock market, Syria, the Mattis resignation, the "I won't blame you Democrats" Trump shutdown, on top of Mueller and the SDNY closing in... seems like somebody — either Benedict Donald or the Vichy Republicans — will crack soon. The only question is which one.

Meanwhile, in addition to letting the government shut down, the GOP has allowed the Violence Against Women Act to lapse. Again.

We cats would like our Republican Congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, to explain this to us. Elise was haplessly charged with recruiting more Republican women to run for Congress this year, to help bolster the GOP's female representation on Capitol Hill in 2019 and beyond. Suffice to say, she failed miserably. Gee! Maybe it was because of her party's policies, which are repulsive to any thinking person who has a vagina?

Stefanik, like her party, is a joke. Sadly, the rest of America isn't laughing. We cats HISS.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Impending Doom Edition

By Baxter

It's been another stellar week in the Drumpf Administration (not). The stock market is cratering, government's in chaos, and Benedict Donald is about to jet off to Florida to play golf while thousands of federal workers are furloughed right before Christmas. Trump sure is mad that his foundation got shuttered, isn't he?? (P.S. The Clinton Foundation, which Trump accused of all sorts of malfeasance, is open and operating.)

After all these dizzying adventures, we have a few thoughts.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has resigned over Trump's withdrawal from Syria. (We hear his resignation letter is a real barn-burner.) Now Trump is making noises about leaving Afghanistan. We can only come to one conclusion: Trump is pulling troops out so he won't have to go visit any of them.

We have to admit we've only come to social media fairly recently, but we've never seen such a primal scream over the resignation of the head DOD guy. Suddenly, we have a case of the jitters.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who just flew 11 hours home for the holiday and, thanks to a Senate vote on a House bill that's not going to pass, has to turn around and fly 11 hours back to DC. Maybe he can use his flight time to figure out that whole slats thing. (P.S. Senator, when you do, please clue us cats in.)

Finally, our hero, Virginia Delegate Danica Roem (D-Prince William County), had the best riposte to Benedict Donald and his Imma-shutting-the-gummint-down hissy fit:

"When you’re President of the United States, your Christmas vacation to Florida should be the least of your concerns when your constituents — hundreds of whom are also mine — have their livelihoods on the line as federal workers and contractors. Stop screwing with their paychecks.

"Respect civil servants. Pay them and pay them on time." We cats PURR.

Farewell To A Failure And A Fraud

By Miss Kubelik

Paul Ryan has never held a job outside the public sector, which he is now leaving. We assume that he'll land cushily at some right-wing think tank, at which not much thinking will go on.

But at the moment Ryan is preparing his "farewell address" to the House of Representatives, over whose flip to Democratic control he presided as a lame-duck Speaker. It's hard to believe that anyone could make us long for the days of John Boehner, but Ryan pulled it off.

Mr. Ayn Rand has spent the last two years presiding over a ballooning deficit (now touching $779 billion) and busily not pushing back on Benedict Donald's perfidy and treason. He handed his party over to Trump in 2016 with barely a whimper, and it's gotten worse since. His silence about all the Trumpian outrages, punctuated by occasional bleats of feeble protest, makes us wonder how much NRA-laundered Russian money has filled campaign coffers. Not as much as that huge national deficit, but surely it's a lot.

For these and a million other reasons, we despise Paul Ryan as we loathe few other Republicans. He coasted along for years on a wholly undeserved reputation as a reasonable guy and a policy wonk, when in reality he was a far-right idealogue and a faux Catholic who never stopped trying to take safety-net support or healthcare away from his fellow Americans. Heck, even as the most important Republican in Congress, he couldn't save Wisconsin cheese. We cats won't miss him one iota, and we HISS.

FBI Guy Challenges House GOP To A Fight

By Zamboni

We cats generally greet any James Comey news item with a sigh and an eye roll. We'll never forget (or forgive) the fact that he stopped Hillary Clinton's momentum mere days before the 2016 election with another ridiculous email review.

Now he's decrying the Republicans' focus on emailsemailsemails, and obviously his protestations ring a little hollow. It's how we feel when we hear members of the mainstream GOP gnashing their teeth and hand-wringing over the Texas ruling on Obamacare. (You're so upset, don't bring the anti-ACA suit in the first place, you know?)

On the other hand, there are times when we're glad Comey's around. Like when he stopped Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card from getting reauthorization for domestic surveillance from a hospitalized John Ashcroft in 2004. Or when he's letting Republicans have it after six hours of closed-door testimony today.

"At some point, someone has to stand up and face the fear of Fox News, fear of their base, fear of mean tweets, stand up for the values of this country and not slink away into retirement but stand up and speak the truth," he said. "Republicans used to understand that the actions of a President matter, the words of a President matter, the rule of law matters and the truth matters. Where are those Republicans today?"

So James Comey's driving the GOP and the Trumpsters crazy? Fine.

And remember this: If James Comey had not gotten under Donald Trump's skin the way he did, and inspired Benedict Donald to fire him, there would be no Mueller investigation now. On such slender threads the survival of democracy hangs. We cats PURR.

Will What Goes Around Come Around?

By Sniffles

What looks like a cheesy gossip site is reporting that Melania Trump is worried about Benedict Donald's health.

"Donald is still under immense stress right now...He feels like he’s being attacked from all sides and that his enemies will stop at nothing to bring him down, and Melania can’t help worrying about how his body is dealing with all that stress, which keeps growing by the day."

Are we concerned? Only because Mike Pence cannot, under any circumstances, become President. (The media would give him a honeymoon like you wouldn't believe.) Otherwise, since Trump murdered this little Guatemalan girl at the Mexico-US border, we couldn't care less. And we HISS.

Decreasing The Surplus Population

By Hubie and Bertie

It's amazing how durable the message of A Christmas Carol is. No, not that a curmudgeonly misanthrope could be made to see the error of his ways — but that human beings are so guilty of neglecting the least among them.

As you can tell from nearly everything he wrote, Charles Dickens was appalled by the plight of the have-nots. Scrooge's protest of "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" echoes every time a privileged member of society protests that he needn't do more to alleviate the sufferings of his fellow human beings.

Similarly, how shocking and disgusting was the plight of Jackelin Caal Maquin, the seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died of dehydration and malnutrition in the custody of US Border Patrol. The circumstances of her death, while she was under the care of the United States, were positively — well, Dickensian. We cats put the blame for this girl's death squarely on Donald Trump, and we HISS.

Another Great Take On Melania's Hideous Red Christmas Trees

26 Reasons To Rip The Second Amendment Out Of The Constitution

It's been six years since Sandy Hook — the same amount of time that many of its victims spent on Earth.

Today we cats are heading for a country that's a little saner about guns than ours is. But we're taking a moment to remember the children (and adults) who lost their lives in Newtown.

Final Days?

By Baxter

We cats fully expect the Trump saga to grind on for some time, but — goodness gracious. Today's panel discussions on the pundithead shows sure felt like August 1974. Trump's been rebuked by the Senate over Saudi Arabia, he was bitch-slapped by a 78-year-old grandmother in front of the whole world (which was his fault, by the way), his attorney's getting hauled off to the hoosegow (and maybe dragging him with him), and now the feds are investigating his Inaugural committee. And we haven't even gotten to Maria Butina and the shutdown yet.

So Benedict Donald didn't show up to work yesterday. (Can you imagine the reaction on the right if Obama had done that?) And today he gave a shaky interview to — who else? — FOX "News," in which he spread more lies and managed to raise more questions than he answered.

Clearly Trump is feeling the heat, so how is the rest of the Republican Party doing?

For example, with the Benedict Donald sh*tstorm raging on so many fronts, we have RNC chairwoman Ronna ROMNEY McDaniel on our minds. You have to raise a lot of money when you're in an important position like party chair. Are any deep-pocket donors taking her calls for Trump's 2020 re-election campaign? That can't be fun.

Then there's our Congresswoman, Elise Stefanik. She was charged with increasing female representation in the House Republican caucus, but after the Blue Wave was embarrassed to see it drop to 13. Not 13 percent. Thirteen women. So now she's distancing herself from the RCCC and is focusing her efforts on recruiting Republican women to run in 2020 through her own "leadership" PAC. Gee! We wonder how her outreach to potential candidates is going. How many are telling her they're no longer Republicans?

Mind you, we're not feeling sorry for any Republicans these days. There's no sign of a 2018 version of Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes or Hugh Scott striding up to the White House to tell Trump he's finished. The GOP tied its fortunes to this grade-Z mobster — so when we contemplate the end of Donald Trump, we also have to wonder about the party that was crass, weak, frightened, opportunistic and treasonous enough to nominate him. It may be their Final Days, too. We cats HISS.

The Guardians Of The Galaxy (That's Our Way Of Saying These Guys Are Superheroes)

By Miss Kubelik

In a big up-yours to Donald "Enemies of the People" Trump, TIME magazine has chosen murdered and threatened journalists as their People of the Year.

Naturally, we think that TIME should pick Cats of the Year, and put us on the cover every time. But this "Guardians" thingy is good. It was obvious that Trump was irritated by it, because he picked a fight with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the Oval Office this morning with the cameras rolling. (We may be biased, but Nancy and Chuck won. Trump is on record, taking responsibility for a government shutdown. And "Please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting" is a Pelosi-to-Trump retort that will live for the ages.)

Meanwhile, while the hard-core Trumpsters will see 2018's Person of the Year as a big yawn — they don't care about journalists, and don't really understand the First Amendment — we find it a satisfying coda to some truly horrible and depressing stories. It doesn't quite make up for getting gunned down, charged with tax fraud, sent to jail, or strangled and dismembered by lackeys for a crown prince. But if Khashoggi were around, he might appreciate it. "It's...very rare that a person's influence grows so immensely in death," TIME's editor Edward Felsenthal said.

Why do we think that Donald Trump's influence will never, in the end, be even a fraction of these journalists'? We cats PURR.

Donald Trump Doesn't Want You To Do This

We all know how much the uber-hideous Trump cares about destroying a creation of Barack Obama's: It's more important to him than millions of Americans getting healthcare. What are you waiting for? Open Enrollment ends on December 15, so if you need Obamacare coverage in 2019, click here and sign up. You'll make us cats PURR.

Lock Him Up

By Zamboni

We all know by now that Donald Trump is the king of projection. Every accusation he makes is a confession, every slam on an opponent or disloyal former friend is an acknowledgement of something he's done himself.

Now, with the Democrats coming into power in the House of Representatives next month, the future Intelligence Committee Chairman is saying that Benedict Donald could be hauled off to the hoosegow.

"My takeaway is there's a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him," Congressman Adam Schiff said. "That he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time."

A fitting fate for the major-party candidate who, during one of the major Presidential debates, threatened his opponent with just that.

So, short of refusing to vacate 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (something we've worried he'd do), after Trump loses in 2020, how can he keep himself out of the slammer? Simple: All he has to do is resign on January 19 and have Pence (or whoever gets to be President for a day) pardon him. It would also have the added advantage of excusing Trump from welcoming Kamala Harris/Beto O'Rourke/Cory Booker to the White House the next day, and then go to the Capitol and have to sit and watch the guy/gal who beat him sworn in.

We're kidding, of course. Unless we're not. These days, you never know what's going to happen. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

The Donald, Him Not Be Very Best

By Sniffles

Those of us who had the "pleasure" of living through the Monica Lewinsky scandal remember how obsessed the press was with Hillary's reaction to the whole sorry saga. Would she stay with Bill? If so, would that make her a loyal wife, or a doormat? How would her handling of the Monica revelations square with her identity as a woman/feminist/First Lady/ambitious-person-with-lady-parts? (God knows the pundits never could, and still never can, handle the idea of an ambitious-person-with-lady-parts.)

Now, Robert Mueller has issued two sentencing memos that discuss illicit payments to silence women with whom Donald Drumpf had sexual relations outside of marriage. And not only is the evangelical community silent on the subject — we're not hearing anybody talk about Melania.

What is Melania thinking? Is she mad? Humiliated? Shrugging? Will she stay with Donald, or not? If she does stay with him, or if she divorces him after he's left the White House/dead/in prison, what does that say about her?

Crickets. Dead air. Is it because it's been 20 years, and times have changed? Or because the press is disgustingly, relentlessly Hillary-hating and hypocritical? We cats are betting on the latter, and we HISS.

A New York State Of Fine

By Hubie and Bertie

We cats have to say it: We're mighty glad to be living in a blue state.

We mean, really blue. With the 2018 election in the rear-view mirror, our Governor, Comptroller, Attorney General, our two US Senators, most of our members of Congress, and the majority of members in the state legislature will all be Democrats.

Sure, we know Albany's reputation for corruption. But we'll take that over disgruntled losers trying to overturn or nullify election results. North Carolina Republicans famously tried to limit the powers of incoming Democratic Governor Roy Cooper after he beat Pat McCrory in 2016. (They lost in the courts, but the battles rage on.) Now, copycat Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan are trying to do the same thing — and the GOP in Florida, where voters overwhelmingly supported re-enfranchising felons, is attempting to end-run that election result, too.

And maybe you've heard that outgoing Governor Paul LePage in Maine has been refusing for months to follow his constituents' wishes and expand Medicaid? Why do Republicans hate democracy?

We're so happy that in our part of the world, people with Ds after their names are in charge. We cats are tickled pink to be blue, and we PURR.

Don't Call Her Back, George

via GIPHY

By Miss Kubelik

Can we stop talking about those reprobates from the Face Thing running for President now?

We cats gagged when the idea was first floated, and we're definitely hacking hairballs up now. We could never bring ourselves to get on the Thing for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones was that we instinctively loathed that Zuckerberg person and didn't want to have anything to do with him.

And we never bought a copy of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In because we don't read crap like that. Also, we don't have kittens.

So we felt quite smug when we realized that not being on the Thing meant that we hadn't been exposed to their Russian trolls. We loved it when Congress hauled Zuckerjerk in to testify, and we took pleasure in his and Sandberg's contorted apologies for their 2016 transgressions. Every new outrage makes us so glad we didn't join the FB parade.

But Sandberg asking a creepy Republican PR firm full of anti-Semites and haters for dirt on George Soros really sent us over the brink.

We hear that Sandberg has tried to reach Soros by phone. He hasn't called her back. We hope he never does. Happy Hanukkah, you disgusting Face Thing jackasses. We cats think the world should unfriend you both forever, and we HISS.

P.S. Yes, we know that Twitter is probably just as bad. Let us know when Jack Dorsey tries to hire Definers Public Affairs for something. Until then...

How To Make Nice People Mad

By Baxter

We cats have just returned from Wisconsin, and we can testify that it's indeed cold there. But we never thought the place would remind us of warm, sunny Florida in 2000.

Remember the Florida recount that the Supreme Court halted, handing the President to the then-Worst Person Who's Ever Lived? (You know who the current Worst Person Who's Ever Lived is. Don't make us say it.) Anyway, we remember. We specifically recall how the GOP sent chinos-clad white boys to try to shut down the vote counting in Miami-Dade County. They called President Gore and his running mate, Joe Lieberman, "Sore Losermen."

Well, as it turns out, all that was just a massive case of projection. Because hard on the heels of the example just set by sour grapey Republicans in North Carolina, the Wisconsin GOP is trying to limit the powers of the incoming (Democratic) governor, Tony Evers, before he's even sworn in. Wow, the GOP's lack of respect for democracy is breathtaking, isn't it?

So outraged Wisconsinites have been turning out in droves in bone-chilling winter weather to protest in Madison. They even drowned cross-eyed college dropout (and defeated Republican incumbent) Scott Walker in lusty boos during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. HAW!

We honestly didn't see that blind fury building in the pleasant people we encountered during our quick visit to the Badger State. But now that it's burst forth full-throated, at least we know that — unlike the Brooks Brothers Riot in Florida 18 years ago — the anger in Wisconsin is genuine and not staged. We cats PURR.

Before He Was With Her

By Zamboni

You know what your mother said: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." So we cats have tried to be restrained about the death of George H.W. Bush, because we wanted to see how it would all play out. And it's still playing out. But we can't resist chiming in with a few observations:

It is pathetic that a middling President like Bush would, according to pundits, attain an aura of greatness merely because he was nowhere near as bad as Donald Trump.

It is difficult to favorably eulogize the man who is responsible for Clarence Thomas's presence on the Supreme Court.

Unlike some, we're not moved to declare that Bush Sr. had "class." We well remember how he said he'd "kicked a little ass" after his VP debate with Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. That's about as far from classy as you can get.

Similarly, Barbara Bush called Ferraro a bitch and was never forced to admit it. Gee, what was it about Geraldine that made the Bushes' well-masked awfulness come out?

It is also similarly difficult to favorably eulogize the man who fathered George W. Bush, a war criminal who cannot travel to countries where he would be arrested for invading Iraq on a lie.

And it's tough to admire the guy who ran in 1988 on Willie Horton — the racist ad that paved the way for all other Republican racist ads. We assume that Bush Senior will have lots of notes to compare with Lee Atwater when he meets Atwater in hell.

So the best thing about the Bush news? That Trump will have to endure hours and days in which he will not be the center of attention. Our hopes that a eulogizer — like, say, Bill Clinton — would throw shade have been dashed, since Bill is not among the odd selection of speakers. But Trump will have to sit there knowing that the predecessor being honored cast the last Presidential vote of his life for Hillary Rodham Clinton. That makes us cats PURR.

Alone.

By Sniffles

One of the worst things about this nightmare of an administration is the abrogation of America's leading role in the world. This picture of Donald Trump at the current G-20 says it all. Our allies have abandoned us — while our adversaries believe (with good reason) that we are either in their pocket or they will not encounter any significant American resistance if they do something belligerent or violate human rights.

How ironic that George H.W. Bush, who by contrast was a leading internationalist, should choose to check out at the same time that Trump is embarrassing the United States overseas.

We're intrigued by the reports that Bush wanted Trump to attend his funeral. Trump was barred from Barbara Bush's services in the spring — does this mean that the Kennebunkport clan has something nefarious in store for him at the George Senior services? We cats are fantasizing that they're going to insult Trump from the pulpit. So we were trying to think which eulogist would be best at throwing Trump shade, and we came up with one name: Bill Clinton.

Bill would do it brilliantly, of course, for all kinds of reasons: He's really smart. He's unequaled as Consoler-in-Chief. He got to be really close friends with Bush. And he has a ton of reasons to strategically insult the traitor who, with the help of a foreign adversary, stole the 2016 Presidential election from his wife.

We may actually be watching. We cats love a great funeral, and if Bill speaks, we will PURR.