Tidbits And Cat Treats: Halloween Edition

By Sniffles

Lots of scary notions floating around today: like if the Republicans take even one of two houses of Congress next year, they'll refuse to certify the 2024 election if a Democrat wins. So let's all make sure we gain some seats in 2022, shall we? Meanwhile, here are some other thoughts for our first semi-post-pandemic, kinda-sorta socially distanced, and very definitely masked Halloween.

Election Day in Virginia is nearly here. The lines this weekend to early vote have been long. But Democrats, please brace yourselves: As soon as the polls close at 7 pm on Tuesday, Glenn Trumpkin and his merry band of fascist Republican lawyers will be besieging the courts to turn away anyone left in line. Even though the Virginia Department of Elections says: "As long as you are in line by 7 pm, you will be able to vote." (Sorry, we just realized that "fascist Republican" is redundant these days.)

It's been difficult to put up with the coverage of the Virginia race, which in our view has been over-the-top and horse race-y to gin up cable news ratings. It's additionally frustrating because you know that even if Terry McAuliffe wins, the talking heads will shrug and say, "Democrats always win Virginia now." Darned if you do and darned if you don't.

We don't understand this whole Brandon thing, but we're not flying Southwest Airlines any time soon. Maybe ever.

The scariest Halloween costume for 2021? A justice of the US Supreme Court. We cats HISS.

Tout Va Bien

Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron met today. Everything is fine. Will the media report it accurately? We cats HISS.

That Was Then. This Is Now.

Everywhere we look, we see people sharing these two images today. All those right-wing American bishops must be so mad. Thanks, Pope Frankie! We cats PURR.

What, Us Worry?

Randy Rainbow is on tour, so it's a good thing Stewart Reynolds is around to fill in the funny videos void! We cats PURR.

Rare Gems

By Hubie and Bertie

If you're a Floridian who's worried that your state will never not be the nuttiest in the nation, take comfort: There's lots of competition out there.

Idahoans, for example, have been vewwy bad puddy tats on pandemic precautions, and as a result have been swamping healthcare providers in neighboring Washington State with zillions of COVID cases. To put it mildly, Washingtonians are not amused.

But some Idahoans are doing the right thing. Although Idaho overall has the next-to-worst* vaccination rate in the country, 86.8 percent of residents in Blaine County, home of Ketchum and Sun Valley, have gotten their shots.

Yes, Blaine County is wealthy and older. And it's had a robust community effort to promote vaccination. But it also gave 67 percent of its 2020 vote to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. With all due respect to the experts, that's all the information we need.

So congratulations, Blaine! And Florida? You're still not off the crazy hook — not with a surgeon general who refuses to mask up in the presence of a state senator with cancer. We cats HISS.

(*You guessed it: West Virginia is dead, no pun intended, last.)

Sinematic

By Miss Kubelik

As you might imagine, we cats have seen a lot of people trashing Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on Twitter. We haven't joined in. Yes, we're frustrated with the slow pace of the Build Back Better negotiations, but A) progressives are being just as stubborn, B) we don't believe in attacking fellow Democrats, and C) Republicans on the Hill have effectively given up on governing, which means that all the arguing is on our side. Perspective, everyone!

(Besides, if there's anything January 6 and the last few nightmarish years have taught us, it's who we really need to worry about. We have met the enemy, and he is Trump.)

Today's big objection to Sinema is that she presided over the Senate wearing a denim vest. As usual, we refuse to jump on the Outrage Train — first, because of item B (above). But also because, goodness gracious. Are we so upset with Sinema that we'd rather go back to the days of Martha McSally?

Thanks, but we'll pass: Arizona is a swing state, and it's because of victorious Democrats like Sinema and Mark Kelly and, yes, Manchin (the only Democrat who could possibly win in West Virginia) that Chuck Schumer is Senate Majority Leader and not Mitch McConnell. And Schumer's Senate has confirmed a record number of judges for President Joe Biden since January.

True confessions here: Sinema's look is something we secretly wish we could pull off. It must require a lot more gym time than we're interested in, and it isn't always great. (Remember that junior-high getup she wore when she voted down the $15 minimum wage?) But we'll always admire her ensemble on her Senate swearing-in day, and how uncomfortable it must have made Mike Pence. We cats PURR.

Virginia Visions

By Zamboni

The political media's yawning over the alarming revelations that keep coming out about January 6 is hair-raising and tail-fattening. It's doubly disturbing because it's intrepid reporting — from Peril to The Washington Post's Willard Hotel piece to, most recently, Rolling Stone — that's lifting the lid on these very scary stories. Maybe other media outlets are jealous of the scoops?

Whatever the reason, it's a not-very-reassuring predictor of how the press is bound to handle Election Night in Virginia.

The early returns will come from small precincts in southwestern and rural parts of the state. Which means that even with zero percent of the vote officially counted, Glenn Youngkin will take a lead. Later, when Youngkin's lead is overtaken by returns from Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon, Prince William and Alexandria counties, Benedict Donald will issue a statement (since, thank God, he can't tweet any more). He'll say that it will be proof that the election is being stolen.

You know, just know, that some reporters or talking heads will cover Trump's bleating without pointing out that a precinct in Northern Virginia with 5,000 voters takes longer to count than a 125-voter precinct in Roanoke. When that happens, they should be booted off the air and banned from journalism forever.

In fact, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison should make the rounds of the Sunday shows this weekend and make this very prediction. There's no getting through to Trump, but maybe some in the press will listen. That would make us cats PURR.

Excellent Christmas Gift Idea!

They say we should shop early. Check your local bookstore today!

An Uplifting Thought For A Sunday

 

It turns out that Gurdeep Pandher of the Yukon is not the only Canadian spreading joy and positivity around. We cats PURR.

Terry Time

By Baxter

We cats are skepticacious as to whether the Virginia gubernatorial race is truly neck and neck. As we've noted, accurate polls are few and far between these days.

Nevertheless, Virginia is an important state, and it's good that many Democratic heavy hitters have campaigned there for Terry McAuliffe. Vice President Harris and President Biden are just the latest — and it's great. We're in an off-year election, and if Democratic stars will help goose Democratic turnout, all the better.

What drives us crazy is the media's willingness to call this a horse race, and their refusal to hold Glenn "Trumpkin's" feet to the fire on his extreme, pro-Trump positions. We have yet to understand how Youngkin sucking up to the MAGA base will help him in Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William and Loudon counties. Yet at the same time, if McAuliffe wins, the media will simply brush it off with "Well, Democrats always win Virginia these days."

Oh, well. Since we know that we can only count on ourselves, consider sending some support Terry McAuliffe's way. We cats PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Halloween Hasn't Even Happened Yet Edition

By Sniffles

Some scary stuff in the news in the final two-week run-up to Halloween. We cats have some thoughts.

There is still more information to come out about the bizarre incident on the "Rust" set in New Mexico, but we cats are still sorry that this had to happen to Alex Baldwin. First, as you'd imagine, right-wing idiots are having a field day with it on social media. But also, it would have been so much better if it had happened to a third-rate actor like Scott Baio or Jon Voight — you know, a Trumpster who thinks the Second Amendment is the greatest thing ever written. A shame.

We hate Glenn Youngkin and the stupid dad-vests he wears on the campaign trail. And we find it hard to believe that Virginians are split 50-50 on him and Terry McAuliffe — particularly since thanks to Caller ID and cellphones, accurate polls are so hard to come by these days. But we really, really hate the fact that Youngkin has gone down the anti-Semitic "George Soros is to blame for everything" path. We're guessing that he saw some numbers that suggested his support from Virginia Trumpsters was soft. But stuff like this is certainly not going to help him with suburbanites in NoVa. Come on, Virginians — give this bigot his walking papers, please.

Donald Trump went after Meghan McCain today — and, by extension, her dead father. We're not fans of the McCains, and we won't replicate Trump's stupid statement here, because we don't believe in giving him more oxygen. But we can't comprehend the Republican Party's willingness to endorse Trump's petty, idiotic, childish behavior. Of all the objections we have to Trump — and they are infinite — acting like an eight-year-old, and dragging the Presidency down to that level, is among our top five. We will never understand it.

That said, it is ridiculous that POLITICO has decided that Joe Biden's fondness for the F-word in private is a story. Soledad O'Brien is right: POLITICO is trash.

On the bright side, Joe Biden apparently held a great town hall last night, and he didn't say the F-word once.

It's also really cool that vaccine mandates are weeding out all the bad cops. You guys wanna quit? Go ahead and quit!

Finally, on the subject of great horror films, we have to take issue with "The Shining" — only because to us, any movie that has Jack Nicholson in it is already a horror film. We cats HISS.

Show Stopper

By Hubie and Bertie

Condoleezza Rice continues to prove what we always knew: that she's irrelevant, overrated, a total zero.

You'd think that a former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State would understand the threat to the United States that the January 6 insurrection poses. But in Rice's case, of course no.

"Time to move on"? Nope, nope, nope, Madam Secretary. Stanford University should fire you.

January 6 was a deal breaker. Any incumbent or candidate who doesn't recognize the existential danger that Donald Trump and his MAGA minions pose to American democracy — personified by the attack on the Capitol — doesn't deserve to hold public office.

This goes for everybody, whether they're running for federal office all the way down to town board. If a local candidate dares to knock our door this fall or next fall, our first question will be the person's stance on what happened on January 6.

So, Republican Party, the answer is no. You will not be able to whitewash this horrific event, or wish it away, or somehow disassociate yourself from it. America won't get over it until the truth is uncovered and the perpetrators punished. Until then, it's an electoral litmus test that you apparently will always fail to pass. We cats HISS.

Meanwhile, This Oughta Drive Tucker Carlson Crazy

 

Dr. Rachel Levine made history on Tuesday when she was sworn in as an admiral to the US Public Health Service.

"I am honored to serve as the first female four-star officer of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the first openly transgender four-star officer to serve across any of the eight uniformed services," Levine said at the swearing-in ceremony.

In March, Levine became the highest-ranking openly transgender official in the US as Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services. We cats PURR.

Trouble For "Trumpkin"

By Miss Kubelik

Interesting take from Benedict Donald today on the death of Colin Powell. While we cats also noted the "blot" on Powell's record from the 2003 Iraq war, we are mere feline bloggers and not a former POTUS. But the nation should probably be unsurprised that Trump has never mastered the nuances of proper Presidential behavior.

Not only that, but he's been extremely careless in the run-up to the Virginia governor's race.

So far, the media have let Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin off easy on Trump's endorsement, which the candidate has tried to finesse by saying he's "totally honored" and yet refusing to speak Benedict Donald's actual name — lest it offend the billions of suburban votes he'll need on November 2. Will that change now?

Virginia is the home of the Virginia Military Institute and has thousands and thousands of veterans and active-duty service members, who may not take kindly to Trump's sentiments on Powell. But it goes without saying that the press should no longer allow Glenn Youngkin to weasel out of commenting on this.

Come on, journalists, do your jobs! Until then, we cats HISS.

Lest We Furr-get: The Big Blot

By Zamboni

It's too bad that the country lost a prominent anti-Trump Republican voice today. Benedict Donald is so destructive, and the GOP has descended into such madness, that we Democrats have even welcomed guys like former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh to our side (imagine!). So we long ago were pleased to see Colin Powell training his verbal guns on Trump and Trumpism. 

But for us, the defining image of Colin Powell is this one. Back in 2003, he sat before the United Nations and lied us into the Iraq War. Although he later admitted it was a mistake and claimed that he had warned George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2002 about breaking and owning stuff, we were never impressed — particularly when Powell stood by as the administration he worked for smeared a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran so the GOP could pick up his Georgia Senate seat that year.

So yes, appreciate Powell's disdain for Trump, his support for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for President, and his head-butting with Cheney. But never forget that his 76 minutes before the UN helped send us into a ridiculous war that killed more than 4,400 US servicemen. Maybe that pales next to the hundreds of thousands Trump murdered with COVID, but it's troubling nevertheless. We cats HISS.

Good News

 

We hear that Bill Clinton will be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. Good. Please, nobody cough on him. We cats PURR.

You've Made Us Feel Alive Again / You've Given Us The Drive Again

By Baxter

This is not an entertainment blog, but if you've read us long enough, you know that we have paused from time to time to pay homage to quelques grandes dames of film and theater.

Olivia de Havilland was always our go-to for posts like that — but alas, she passed at the age of 104 last July.

So now we call on Angela Lansbury to fill the void. Today is Dame Angela's 96th birthday, and we wish her well. She always played older than she was, and now, she is ageless. We cats adore her, and we PURR.

Acting Like Babies

By Sniffles

We cats admit it: We had a politically incorrect reaction to the news that Pete Buttigieg has gone on paternity leave.

WHAT?!?!?!? The Secretary of Transportation is going on leave when the Build Back Better bill is still under debate in Congress??? Isn't he in the key Cabinet position to lobby for this legislation? Get us the smelling salts, please.

But as always, the ridicule that the right wing jackasses heaped on Buttigieg brought us around to our senses. First, it seems to us like there are more important stories today. Because even if Mayor Pete is on leave, he has a staff and a structure that will support the department in his absence. And since the infrastructure bill doesn't seem to be going anywhere for the moment, he might as well bond with his children.

Which brings us to the overall question at hand: Why aren't things happening fast?

Perhaps we all got spoiled by how swiftly Team Biden took the pandemic in hand. Perhaps we've just been conditioned by reality TV (and other TV) to expect a quick resolution — or at least, a declaration of "You're fired!" You know what? Life is not like that. And most especially, government is not like that, either.

Which means that the charge of criminal contempt against Steve Bannon won't happen until Tuesday, and the negotiations about the Biden agenda will continue, day after day, week after week. You got a problem with that? Would you rather live in Russia, or Hungary, or Poland? We think not. We cats counsel patience, and we PURR.

Lest We Furr-get: From Bush To Trump

By Hubie and Bertie

Ah, the good old days: When George W. "Smirky" Bush, whom we called The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, resided in the White House thanks to a 5-4 vote by a politicized Supreme Court, and our fondest wish was to see Karl Rove hauled off to the hoosegow for helping to out a CIA operative. 

How innocent we were then! That was all before the utter disaster known as Donald Trump, who has done more damage to our country than anyone else in history. Team Bush committed a slew of outrages — the needless and costly Iraq War, torture, Hurricane Katrina, and the financial meltdown, to name a few. But Benedict Donald fomented an insurrection against the United States and, nine months later, is still going at it — with a lot of scary help from the Republican Party.

Which means that Trump has overtaken Smirky in the Worst Person Ever category, and there are many, many more of his henchmen who should be languishing in jail cells formerly earmarked for the likes of Rove, "Scooter" Libby, "Dick" Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al. Principally among them: Steve Bannon.

While Mark Meadows and Kashyap Patel are apparently "engaging" — which we guess means cooperating, at least somewhat — with subpoenas from the Select Committee on January 6, Bannon is not. (The status of the fourth Trumpster served in that group, Dan Scavino, is unclear at this moment. Stay tuned.) Therefore, the House will vote on holding Bannon in criminal contempt when it reconvenes on Tuesday.

This is normal Congressional procedure, so don't assume that Bannon will get away with anything — unless he flees the country between now and then. So while you won't see the frog-march for a while, we promise you that the Trumpsters' time will come. As President Biden likes to say, never bet against the United States of America. We cats PURR.

Naturally, A Canadian Finds A Much Funnier Way To Say What We Said In Our Previous Post

 

It's not often that human abilities surpass those of cats, but it happens every now and then. And that's okay, because this makes us PURR.

Contre Les Masques? Quel Noix!

By Miss Kubelik

We cats are back in Bidenland after a quick and pleasant weekend in Montreal. The weather was generally swell, the food was fabulous, and we were able to take a tour around town to see what's survived the pandemic and what has not. Happily, the "survived" side of the ledger is longer than the "died" side.

It was also sheer pleasure to observe 99.999999 percent of the people we encountered being compliant with masking. It's the rule on the subway system. We saw no one disobey — although there was one weird guy screaming at passengers in French. Maybe it was about masking, and maybe it wasn't. Everyone pretty much averted their eyes.

Then there's the vaccine passport. They're required to enter bars and restaurants. We showed our rabies shots records (and our humans flashed their New York Excelsior passes) with no trouble. Proper ID was also produced without fanfare. Dear crazy MAGAts who are stalking and assaulting school board members, teachers and even children: The process was painless and reassuring. Grow up.

Which is not to say that absolutely everyone on Montreal Island is a sane person. On Saturday, we passed a rally in support of unvaccinated healthcare workers. Brrr — an event like that sounds like a great way to get COVID, and in a city with so many great restaurants, why would you want to chance getting a virus that takes away your sense of taste? We avoided the demonstrators like — well, like the plague.

Sure hope those folks have good rainy day funds. Because as of Friday, any healthcare providers who haven't been vaccinated will be suspended without pay. While there are surely some nutcases in Quebec, we predict that a lot of those holdouts will give in as soon as they're faced with the prospect of no income. Also, a lot of people are just busy and/or lazy, and don't do what they have to until somebody pushes them. That's our theory, at least. We cats PURR.

True North, True Hospitality

By Zamboni

Canada has already settled more than 1,000 Afghan refugees in the last two months, and plans to accept up to 40,000. Overall, the country has taken in more immigrants recently than it has in more than 100 years. "Of all the refugees who resettled around the world in 2020, nearly half went to Canada," The Washington Monthly reports.

As everyone except Donald Trump and Stephen Miller knows, immigration strengthens a nation. New arrivals just need a helping hand so they can establish themselves and start over. So this Thanksgiving weekend, PMJT visited a group in Ottawa that is working to assemble gift baskets for Afghan refugees, and met one of the families.

South of the 49th parallel, Trump and his awful ilk are out, and the Bidens are in — something we can be thankful for when our own Thanksgiving rolls around. In the meantime, we can admire Justin's decency, leadership — and his boots and jeans. Yum. We cats PURR.

Nothing A Little Irish Spring Wouldn't Fix

By Baxter

When was the last time Steve Bannon took a shower? Wait — don't answer that. We don't really want to know, but every time we see a photo of him, he looks singularly... unkempt. That's putting it politely.

On the other hand, why be polite to a guy who is thumbing his nose at America by resisting a Congressional subpoena? As we recall, a subpoena leaves you with no choice: You show up. At least, that's what all those alleged Commies did, back in the Red Scare — they obeyed the law and testified. Some of them lost their livelihoods as a result. But clearly they respected American democracy more than these Trumpsters do.

(And let's not forget Hillary Clinton, who responded to a Congressional subpoena about Benghazi, and testified for 11 hours — during which the Republicans were unable to lay a glove on her. But we digress.)

So let's throw lots of purrs Joe Biden's way, for denying Benedict Donald's entreaty to shield the White House's records from the January 6 select Congressional committee. As we all know from Watergate days, executive privilege has its limits — especially if you're not the executive anymore.

As Republican Adam Kinzinger says: "We will not be deterred by those who want to obstruct our efforts to get answers for the American people. Our democracy was attacked, and we have to ensure what happened on January 6 can never happen again." We cats PURR.

But Is There Football?

Canada is starting the long Thanksgiving weekend. WHAT!? Thanksgiving? It's only October! And you haven't done your Christmas shopping yet! Relax — here's all you need to know. We cats PURR.

Volcanic About The Vaccine

By Sniffles

We cats don't have kittens, but we've heard lots of rumblings about MAGA-y parents and other nutcases who are extremely upset about COVID-related mandates for schools — not just masks, but also vaccines. In California, Gavin Newsom has blown their minds by being the first Governor to require the COVID shot for any student 12 and older.

One Californian, in fact, has gone viral (at least, in our corner of the Twitterverse), by uploading a video of himself screaming in rage about the vaccine mandate as he sits in his car. Thankfully, the car seems to be stationary at the time of recording.

We're not re-posting the video because this person is an asshole, and we refuse to give him more oxygen. He doesn't understand that thanks to a 1905 Supreme Court decision, states have the right to institute compulsory vaccines for children to attend school. (It wasn't a close vote, either: seven to two.) In fact, back in the day, the apoplectic California dude probably had to get a slew of vaccines to go to school himself. (See above.)

You know what? Vaccines are good. They've contributed the most to the incredible leap in human life spans over the last 200 years — even more than public health measures like infrastructure for sanitation and clean water. What's not good is the scary anger that you see in the video.

If California Man does this to a faceless camera from behind the wheel, what does he do to his children when the family is home and the curtains are drawn? We sure hope there aren't any pets in the house, either. We cats shudder, and we HISS.

"Death Panels" Come To Alaska

By Hubie and Bertie

Word broke today that the wife of Republican Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis has breast cancer. This is shocking. First, to imagine that anyone would be willing to marry that repugnant little troll. Second, that we are supposed to react with gracious concern about the wife of a mass murderer.

Over-the-top description, you say? Guess again: 55,300 Floridians have died of COVID-19. That number doesn't even include anyone — COVID and non-COVID patients alike — who's died because an ICU bed or a ventilator or dialysis machine wasn't available. So our sympathy for the DeSantises is limited. And besides, as the wife of a Governor, Mrs. Mass Murderer will no doubt receive the best of care, coronavirus be damned. After all, it's not like she lives in Alaska.

The pandemic is so dire up there that doctors and nurses are rationing care on the basis of who has the best chance to survive. Which can mean that, say, a cancer patient needing a vent is out of luck. And of course you have the crazies coming out to scream at healthcare workers and at state legislators who are thinking of instituting a mask mandate. Because — surprise, surprise — Alaska's Republican Governor has been handling this crisis in a most DeSantis-y way. So physicians in the state are having to decide who lives and who dies.

Gee, didn't Sarah Palin say that it would be Obamacare that would bring death panels to America? Republicans are so bad at practicing medicine. Sadly, they're very good at killing people. We cats HISS.

Twilight Of Reproductive Rights

By Miss Kubelik

On this 2021 March for Abortion Justice day, we cats must pause to observe that Biff Kavanaugh — one of the lackeys that Mitch McConnell, via Benedict Donald, installed on the Supreme Court to kill Roe — has tested positive for COVID-19.

Biff has been vaccinated, of course, so his symptoms are mild to nonexistent. Still, we can dream, can't we?

Never mind that with our luck, if any SCOTUS justice succumbs to the coronavirus, it'll probably be 83-year-old Stephen Breyer. But how tempting is it, to think that someone as young as Biff would check out from COVID and hand Joe Biden a balance-shifting nomination?

If that were to happen, of course, McConnell would have none of it. Yes, we know he's not Majority Leader any more, but he still thinks he is. Which means he would demand a new rule — say, that the Senate can't vote on a nominee in the year before an election when the body is split 50-50.

Look, let's be real: Today's demonstrations in favor of reproductive freedom were wonderful. But with this Court, abortion rights are dead in America. The only bright spot is that the decision will come down next June, driving billions of people to the polls in the 2022 midterms to vote Democratic. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

And The Award For Best Women's March Sign Goes To...

 

Austin, Texas. We cats PURR.

The Price We Pay (Spoiler Alert: It's Affordable)

By Zamboni

Did you hear the story about Republican nutcase Dan Crenshaw being fined $5,000 for evading House security? Boy! We bet that other countries' legislatures wouldn't be nearly as tough as the anti-freedom Democrats are on Capitol Hill! Right?

Nope. Just look northward to Quebec's National Assembly. ("National," even though they're provincial — but then, we all indulge them.) Yesterday, the Assembly voted to require vaccine passports of all their members who want to do business on the floor. You know what, kids? When the famously contrarian Quebeckers demand it, proof of vaccination is here to stay. Count on it.

Around the same time, about two hours west of Quebec City, Dr. Anthony Fauci received an honorary degree and gave a lecture at McGill University in Montreal. Maybe he felt more free to speak his mind outside the US, who knows? But the frankness of his comments was pretty striking.

"If ever you could imagine the worst possible environment into which a global pandemic emerges, (it) would be in an environment of anti-science, complete normalization of lies, complete normalization of equating the true scientific data with complete nonsense," he said. "This is something that is so disturbing to me as a physician, as a scientist and as a public health person."

Asked about the anti-mask idiots who are making fools of themselves in restaurants and at school board meetings, Fauci said this:

"I think what people have to appreciate is that indeed, you do have personal liberties for yourself and you should be in control of that. But you are a member of society, and as a member of society — reaping all the benefits of being a member of society — you have a responsibility to society. And I think each of us, particularly in the context of a pandemic that’s killing millions of people, you have got to look at it and say there comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision, for the greater good of society."

In short, your right to spread the virus ends at the border of my right not to get it. Maybe someday we'll all learn this. But American democracy is a constant re-evaluation of who gets what when, isn't it? We know that, and yet we still believe. We cats PURR.

The Tug Of War Goes On (And That's Okay)

By Baxter

We cats rarely brag (we don't need to — our superiority is self-evident), but we've opined many times in the past about how complicated and difficult governing in a democracy is. "If Lyndon Johnson could rise from the grave," we wrote back in 2017, "he would tell you that major legislation — the kind that defines Presidencies for generations — is the result of hard work, long-time relationships, arm twisting and compromise."

So all the over-the-top headlines about how Building Back Better is teetering on the precipice and threatening to tank every Democrat in 2022 and beyond is a little hard to take. (Although we'd like to underscore that last word, "compromise," for the left and right flanks of our party — particularly the left. But that's a topic for another blog post.) A delayed vote is not the same thing as a failed vote. Nancy Pelosi knows this. Too bad the press doesn't.

The wisest take on this week's developments has come from Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who knows a thing or two about how Congress works, and who has reminded us all that voting rights is also on the to-do list. "I said dozens of times in the summer that both pieces of legislation would face multiple near-death experiences before passing," he tweeted. "I’m not naive about our opportunity or about our challenges. I’m just saying don’t flip out over an internal deadline."

Schatzy is spot-on there. But we're frustrated that none of the talking heads seem to be spending time on the question of why the Democrats, with their slim Congressional majorities, are having to publicly wrangle. It's because no Republicans will join them in doing what's right for America. As they've amply demonstrated, the GOP would rather destroy the country than give Team Biden a "win." It's disgusting.

Moral of the story: Take a deep breath and the long view — even if today's instantaneous, 24/7 media world compels us to react, analyze and hand-wring every second. Perhaps we can all take a lesson on that from former President Jimmy Carter, who turns 97 today. When you've been on the planet nearly a century, maybe you don't get so worked up as twentysomething tweeters and baby political reporters do. Happy birthday, Mr. President! We cats PURR.

(P.S.: Greg Sargent of The Washington Post agrees with us.)