The CDC has approved a second COVID booster shot for Americans who have, ahem, been around for a half-century or more. We cats have a question: Do we have to get nine second boosters? One for each life? Not sure who in the Biden Administration can tell us, but maybe we'll send a DM to Willow. (By the way, she is one pretty cat.)
Meanwhile, big news on the health front. If you're an admirer of former President Jimmy Carter as we are, you probably know that one of the main goals of The Carter Center is to eradicate the dreaded guinea worm. Take it from us, you don't want the gory details of this disease. Suffice to say that it's awful, and when Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter took it on back in 1986, there were 3.5 million people a year, in 21 countries in Africa and Asia, who were suffering from it. Ugh.
Now, however, it's just been announced: Incidence of guinea worm has dropped more than 99.99 percent, to 14 cases in 2021. Fourteen!
President Carter has often said he wants to see the last guinea worm die before he does. Thanks to the efforts of the center that bears his name, at 97, he's giving the worm a run for its money. We hope Carter hangs on to age 100 and beyond — but we're betting he'll get his guinea worm wish soon. We cats PURR.
We cats have declined to jump on the Bash-Merrick-Garland train because we always had this nagging feeling that there are goings-on we can't be privy to. As in, the Department of Justice can't talk about what they're doing because, well, talking could screw everything up and let the miscreants off scot-free.
Yes, it's frustrating that the insurrection was over a year ago and we have yet to see anyone big hauled off to the hoosegow for it. But it must be a YUGE investigation. Any case DOJ builds has to be airtight.
And now, this quiet snippet from The Washington Post (see above).
As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance observes, "Unlike Congress, DOJ has the authority to enforce its own subpoenas. One solution is sending out the US Marshals with handcuffs to bring in recalcitrant witnesses who miss their date, which means witnesses usually don’t." She also believes that DOJ hasn't yet charged Mark Meadows with contempt because he's either cooperating or a target.
We cats don't pretend to understand any of this legal stuff. One thing we do get, though, is that the wheels of justice grind slowly. But they grind. We resolve to be patient, and we PURR.
If, like us cats, you have more than one life, you'll remember back to this moment in 1974, when Tricky Dick Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods tried to cover for her boss by saying she had inadvertently caused 18-1/2-minutes of silence on the White House Watergate tapes.
It was all nonsense, of course, Woods's gymnastics notwithstanding. The only question remaining is whether Nixon erased the incriminating minutes, or Roger Stone did. (We're serious. Alexander Haig suggested "a sinister force" was responsible, and Stone is still pretty sinister.)
Today, as usual, Benedict Donald is making Nixon and his merry band of felons look good. Turns out that there's a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes in the phone logs that Team Trump has turned over to the January 6 Committee — from 11:17 AM to 6:54 PM on that fateful day. Meanwhile, Benedict Donald is claiming he doesn't know what a burner phone is. More nonsense.
What's interesting is the timing of this story. Apparently leaked to The Washington Post and CBS News, it came on the heels of other leaks and stories — Ginni Thomas foremost among them — that imply we're ramping up to something significant. We can't know about DOJ, because despite all the squealing, which we completely understand, DOJ can say nothing. But the January 6 Committee is getting ready to hold public hearings, and no doubt we'll learn a lot — a lot — more about what evidence they've got that hasn't come to light yet.
Meanwhile, drip, drip, leak, leak. It's a canny strategy — to do a buildup to the Big Reveal (or Reveals). We cats approve, and we PURR.
It didn't seem possible that would be something in today's news more ridiculous than last night's Oscars. But we found it: the behavior of the White House press corps.
Reporters had the opportunity to question the President of the United States this afternoon about anything and everything: How does he think the Ukrainians are doing against their Russian invaders? Should the January 6 committee subpoena Ginni Thomas? What's up with the latest COVID variant? And hey, howzabout that judge in California who just said that Benedict Donald and John Eastman "more likely than not" committed a federal crime to overturn the 2020 election?
But they asked none of these things. Instead, they just paraphrased the same question over and over. You know what about.
One of the things we suspect Biden has developed over the course of his long and eventful life is a preternatural patience. Far more than we've got, that's for sure. He just kept calmly answering. "I’m not walking anything back," he said. "I wasn’t articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel and I make no apologies for it."
You know what? We feel a moral outrage, too. So does every clear-thinking, halfway-empathetic, sentient being on the planet. The videos out of Ukraine are monstrous, and the sight of millions of people uprooted from their lives almost too hard to take. (Biden knows, he was just there.) The President spoke for billions around the world when he said what he said about Putin, and it really makes you wonder when our political press is going to stop failing us. We cats HISS.
If you were looking for Nazis to offend last night, you could have stopped by Benedict Donald's "show" in north Georgia. Even though it was poorly attended, there were probably plenty of people there whom you could get to dislike you. We cats PURR.
The Republicans tried to inject so much hate and negativity into the Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee Katanji Brown Jackson, and to a great extent, they succeeded. It was such a downer.
But Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) rescued the whole, miserable week, with his uplifting statement to Judge Jackson. He made her cry — discreetly. Us, too.
Cory is the kind of guy who, when he was Mayor of Newark, would drive around his city's streets at night and rescue dogs that had been left out on porches in the frigid cold. He is a mensch. Trust him to remind the Senate that we can be great — in spite of ourselves. We cats PURR.
There's a little thing called the Hatch Act, which the Trumpsters flouted with impunity when they were in office. Put simply, it forbids electioneering on the public dime.
Probably the most egregious example of Trump-Hatch violations occurred on the night of August 27, 2020, when Benedict Donald hosted the Republican National Convention on White House grounds. We cats could not stop hacking up hairballs.
On a smaller scale, the Hatch Act forbids Presidential appointees from simultaneously engaging in political activities. So the Biden White House was quite correct this week in demanding the resignations of "Dr." Oz and Herschel Walker from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. Both the Turk and the jerk are running for Senate (in Pennsylvania and Georgia, respectively).
"Dr." Oz bleated and moaned on the Twitter machine. We have no idea what Walker had to say, nor do we care. Because Biden's replacement nominees were SO GREAT.
Elena Della Donne of the WNBA's Washington Mystics, has personified athletic grit in the face of physical challenges. (Following back surgeries, she's set to return playing soon.) And Chef José Andrés, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself, has to be the biggest hero of the war in Ukraine right now. World Central Kitchen is making and delivering thousands of meals to 75+ shelters in Lviv, and they've distributed more than 2,000 tons of food to cities across Ukraine.
Della Donne and Chef José are people who truly deserve the honor of a Presidential appointment. It's probably not the most important thing in the world at the moment, but it's one story that makes us feel good — because the miscreants have been turned out, and the righteous rewarded. We cats PURR.
It's always distressing to lose a smart woman, especially when you have Republican idiots like Marsha Blackburn claiming that the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" appears in the Constitution. But wow — having to say goodbye to Madeleine Albright is tough.
Maddy was a diplomat, trailblazer, writer, teacher, and superb brooch-wearer (Jill Wine-Banks, take up the baton, please). She spoke a whole grab-bag of languages and, despite her family having to flee first the Nazis and then the Communists, grew into not just one of the Women of the Century but also international mega-celebrityhood. Meaning that she knew just about everybody important in the world.
It's too bad that she died before seeing the end of Vladimir Putin and Benedict Donald. She had both their numbers. As the author of Fascism: A Warning, in a 2020 interview she said:
"Fascism is not an ideology. It is a process for gaining power and it begins with a demagogic leader who is able to exacerbate the differences that are kind of normal in any society, who thinks that he's above the law, who thinks the press is the enemy of the people, and is somebody who is willing to do pretty much anything to be in power."
That was before January 6 — eerie, isn't it?
The United States was lucky to have Madeleine Albright's brilliance at its disposal for so many years. We cats will miss her, and we PURR.
Okay, there's more to it than just free dental and expanded Rx coverage, but you get the idea. We cats PURR.
Lots of big things going on in the US these days — SCOTUS nomination hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, for example (and yes, GOP Senators are beclowning themselves as you'd expect). But something fairly seismic has just happened in Canada, too.
With a surprise deal between the Liberals and the progressive New Democratic Party, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau effectively now has a majority government. Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced the partnership today, which should keep the current government going until 2025.
The Conservatives are big mad. Well, nerts to them — they have only themselves to blame.
This happened because:
Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen was left to sputter about "backdoor socialism" and power grabs. Oh, well! We cats PURR.
Ever hear the saying that all news is local? It really is.
Apparently there's a deranged individual in Amsterdam, New York, who is an ophthalmologist with a serious case of the Trumpies. David Kwiat has now been sued by the New York Department of Labor for allegedly firing a whistle-blower employee who reported his office for COVID violations. The guy really, really doesn't like it when people wear masks.
In fact, he believes that COVID is pretty much a hoax, with a very low death rate, and he also threatened to fire any employee who even dared to get a PCR test. Betcha Dr. Kwiat's office isn't going to land on any "best places to work" lists anytime soon!
But what really blew us away was that this isn't the bad Dr. Kwiat's first blowup about masking. In December, he walked into our local butcher shop — yes, our shop, we kid you not — without a mask, and demanded to be sold a steak. The manager said he needed to mask up to be waited on. (The Empire State's mandate was in effect at the time.) Dr. Kwiat got, shall we say, noisy, and stormed out. And then he sued the shop for $250,000. (He dropped the suit a couple of weeks ago.)
David Kwiat sounds like the wackiest eye doctor this side of Rand Paul. Meanwhile, we'd like to report that that corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner we bought from that very butcher the other day was yummy. We cats hope that New York State takes a big bite out of Kwiat's bank account, and we PURR.
Thank you for all the warm birthday wishes! Yes, we were born around this time in 2018. Our humans don't know precisely when, so they assigned St. Patrick's Day as our birth date. And a swell date it is.
Corned beef and cabbage was on the menu in our house tonight, and there's a rumor that a new toy is in the offing. Meanwhile, we were pleased to see our quite-Irish President, Joe Biden, visiting with members of the Riverdance company on Capitol Hill.
If we're going to get sentimental about St. Paddy's, though, we probably want to reflect on Jack Kennedy's trip to Ireland in 1963. He was greeted with universal adulation, just five months before his assassination — which of course breaks everyone's heart. So lest we fall in a weepy puddle, let's recall instead what Yogi Berra is alleged to have said when Kennedy met with the first elected Jewish mayor of Dublin: "Only in America!" We cats PURR.
We cats had hoped to avoid getting into the "But if Trump were President, Putin wouldn't be doing this" argument — because it was so patently obvious that it was nonsense. But since Vladimir Putin has decided to purposely bomb a children's shelter in Mariupul, Ukraine, today, let's explore that notion a bit.
Putin would not have had to take such drastic — and, apparently, catastrophic — steps if Benedict Donald had won re-election outright, or if Benedict Donald had been able to overturn the results of the 2020 election afterward. Because Benedict Donald had basically pledged to withdraw the US from NATO.
But 81 million of us Americans turned Trump out of office.
At which point, it not only became clear that the election results couldn't be reversed, but that Congress and the DOJ would investigate the sedition, and hold people accountable. So Putin's "in" in the United States was off — despite the fact that Trumpsters, QAnoners, plus Republican nutcases like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn and Janice McGeachin, would continue to serve as useful idiots to Russian dreams of domination.
Now, it's possible that even Trump himself has read the writing on the wall. He's given an interview to some right-wing rag, saying that he's surprised at what Vlad has done, and that Putin has "changed."
Here's the real measure of how Putin has miscalculated, and how all the Trumpy talk is bullshit. China came out today, praising Ukrainians' resistance, and declaring economic and political support for Kyiv. This, after Putin had asked for China for military support. WHOOPS.
No wonder President Biden felt comfortable this afternoon to characterize Putin as a war criminal. With all of Biden's experience in foreign affairs, and his personal knowledge of leaders across the globe, he has laid the groundwork for a bulwark against Putin that Vlad will surely not be able to breach. You know what? It kinda seems like an old guy who has been around for a billion years, and who knows everybody in the world, has turned out to be the right kind of President for these times. We cats salute him, and we PURR.
Oooooh! Vlad the Invader is so upset at Canada, he's banned all sitting members of the House of Commons from entering Russia. Maybe we should write "our" MP, Marc Miller from Montreal, and ask him if he's had to cancel his summer travel plans. What a joke.
Vlad is mad because President Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the Canadian Parliament yesterday, and they gave him a three-minute standing ovation. Today, he spoke to Congress. Let's face it, Vlad is mostly miffed because Zelenskyy is the biggest world celebrity since Barack Obama, and we all know what Putin thought of Obama.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party is taking pains to applaud Zelenskyy, express support, and wear the colors of the Ukrainian flag. (Even Marjorie Taylor Greene was in yellow today.) But it's a farce: Every GOP Senator but Willard Mitt Romney voted to acquit Benedict Donald for withholding Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine unless Zelenskyy agreed to dig up (nonexistent) dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden. See, Republicans? People remember.
We cats were watching MTG closely today, and so were the interwebs. When Zelenskyy was introduced, she stood, but appeared too busy grabbing her cellphone to participate in the ovation. When he finished his speech, she applauded very tepidly — hands at her waist, and then clasping each other so she could look occupied. But at least she clapped. In the Canadian Parliament, interim Conservative Party leader Candice Bergen didn't even bother.
How many children do the Russians have to kill? How many bread lines do the Russians need to mow down, or hospital staff to terrorize, before these so-called "right-to-life" Republicans quit their adoration of Vlad? They are stained by Putin for all eternity, and we cats HISS.
We cats are optimists, and so even with horrible reports crossing our screens, we always look for the good news. Today, we found some.
First, the Senate has confirmed Shalanda Young, President Biden's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget. Young is the first African-American woman to serve as OMB Director, and we are totally there for it. The Republicans had a hissy fit over Neera Tanden, only to see Biden replace her with another highly qualified woman of color. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Russia has also given us a lot of laughs today, by issuing some ridiculous sanctions against Americans. Boy, whoever is in charge over there is really screwing up. First, like so many of these autocrats and Trumpsters, they don't bother to proofread: Someone left the suffix "Junior" off the President's name when they created the list. (White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had a lot of fun with that.) Then they included private citizens like Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden. (We don't know what Hunter's reaction was, but Hillary's was classic.) And of course they omitted anyone named Trump — or any Republicans, for that matter. Voters, take note.
Biden also signed into law the recently passed bipartisan funding bill — which includes money for Ukraine, and, by the way, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Once again, HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Finally, oil prices have fallen. We noticed today that our local gas station's price per gallon had already dropped by about 16 cents. We not only expect but demand that it go lower. In the meantime, if you have some extra cash and are looking for a way to help the people (and animals) of Ukraine, click here and here. Chef José Andrés is a treasure — and kudos to all the European countries who are relaxing their border-crossing regulations to allow Ukrainian refugees to reach safety with their pets. We cats PURR.
Well before March 2020, we cats avidly read about the 1918 "Spanish flu" epidemic — and, bizarrely, how people around the world seemed to set it aside after it was over.
"The Great Forgetting" — how did that happen? More than 50 million people had died, but did everyone choose to move past it because, coupled with the destruction of the First World War, it just was too painful to contemplate once it was done?
"When it was over, our grandparents and great-grandparents turned away and didn't look back. They simply dropped it from memory," journalist Nina Burleigh wrote. "Donald Trump's grandfather's death from the Spanish flu in 1919 changed the fortunes of his family forever, yet Trump never spoke of it — even while confronting a similar natural disaster."
Burleigh cited the success of vaccines for the Great Forgetting that's sure to happen with COVID. We agree. And seeing what's going on in vast swaths of the country right now, we think we understand how another Forgetting is about to take place.
Here in New York, even with mask mandates relaxed, we are still going out with them on. (To protect ourselves, and to protect the immunocompromised, some of whom we care deeply about.) But in other states, people are behaving as if COVID no longer exists. Why they want to take their chances with long-term cardiac and pulmonary complications, we have no idea. But it seems to be a thing.
Americans appear to be ready to be done with the coronavirus, even if the virus isn't quite done with them. And since the 1918 epidemic lasted into 1920, you can make the comparison: After two years, nobody wants to hear about it any more. The Great Forgetting of the 21st century is already underway.
It's understandable. But it isn't right. COVID still gallops among us. We cats urge caution, care and compassion, and we HISS.
"Thank you for your service," Vice President Harris told Polish troops on her trip to Europe this week, raising the specter (at least, in our minds) of the brave Polish pilots who volunteered for the RAF in World War II.
It was clever of President Joe Biden to send Harris on this mission, because it helped raise her international profile, in case — well, just in case. And we always knew that she was more than up to it. Biden just positioned her to the world not only as his Vice President, but as a potential President. This is really smart.
But back at home, the sound decisions of the Biden-Harris Administration continue to clash with the idiocy of the opposition and their enablers. Right now, we cats are spitting mad at the Disney Corporation, for what they're doing in Florida.
After the state legislature enacted anti-gay laws in the Sunshine State — at the bidding of white supremacist Ron DeSantis — Disney, following a flaccid initial response, finally decided to act. Their solution? Suspend all political donations to candidates and incumbents in Florida.
But why penalize Florida Democrats who have been fighting DeSantis's bigotry since day one? Why punish those who bravely stood up to protect and preserve the rights of children and of Disney's 50,000+ Florida employees? Punish the Republicans, not them.
Florida Democrats should not suffer the same fate as the haters. "Bob Chapek," whoever you are, you are an idiot and a jerk. We cats HISS.
Back here at home, nutcase Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn called Zelenskyy a "thug," Trump-pardoned criminal Michael Flynn pleaded the Fifth to the January 6 Committee, and Rafael Cruz took a ride with the pointless People's Convoy on the Beltway.
Whose side would you rather be on? We cats know, and we PURR.
We cats have not been able to stomach much cable news lately — especially the fatuous talking heads who, when they're not posing as epidemiologists, seem to know all about strategic alliances and international defense. (How nice that they've been able to switch from one catastrophe to the next so easily.) So we haven't been exposed to much of gas-price hysteria that social media hints is saturating TV.
Why are they whipping up frenzies when polls have shown large majorities of Americans backing the ban on Russian oil imports? Quinnipiac, for example, reports that seven in 10 people surveyed have said "Da" to the ban, even if they have to pay more at the pump. And thanks to market volatility and the greedy energy companies, they are. (Although we could have sworn we saw our local station's price drop by a dime when we passed it running errands today.)
Is it possible that voters understand that Russia accounts for only seven percent of imported oil to the US? Or is it something else?
Maybe it's this: Unlike most wars, invasions, droughts and disasters, the people fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine look a heck of a lot like Americans. They're moms (and some dads), mostly with kids, carrying luggage and laptops, nervously scrolling on their smartphones. They have pets. They look middle-class. They are, above all, white.
It's pretty clear that America saw this appalling photo of a young Ukrainian family gunned down while trying to escape and thought, you know what? We don't have it so bad. We can pay more for gas.
We don't know how long US drivers will keep feeling this way. But every day, we hear more and more horrific stories of Russian war crimes — like bombing maternity hospitals. So, maybe we'll all practice some perspective and gratitude? We cats hope so, and we PURR.
As Ukraine continues to dominate the news, it's important to note that this weekend marked the anniversary of Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Vice President Kamala Harris led a march in support of American voting rights and civil rights, neither of which should be ignored as the people of Ukraine fight to defend their right to cleave to Western European democracy, not Russian autocracy.
(And, by the way, we want to buy her suit. Fabulous!)
The coverage of the Biden Administration's first year, we think, hasn't paid enough attention to Harris. It's no wonder, since Team Biden has been grappling with a ton of serious issues, from COVID to infrastructure to Afghanistan to January 6. But Joe promised Kamala she would be the last voice he would hear in the room when he made big decisions. We see no evidence that Biden has broken that promise.
In fact, quite the opposite — and the Trumpsters have taken note. Is that why two armed intruders tried to storm Joint Base Andrews when Harris returned there on Sunday? We cats are on high alert, since we were informed by a Democratic relative that, shall we say, non-Democratic relatives by marriage are terrified of Harris because "she's a socialist"?
No need to be naive: Kamala Harris, as the first woman, and first woman of color, in the position of Vice President, threatens a lot of people. Most of them, actually, are pointlessly circling the Beltway these days. Vice President Harris is where she is — advising the President, and casting crucial votes in the Senate as needed. Too bad, Republicans. We cats PURR.
This photo makes us cats all squishy and emotional. Germans have thronged Berlin's central train station, meeting refugees from Ukraine and offering them shelter in their homes. Complete strangers, who aren't even cats! (Or dogs.) We're impressed.
It reminds us of Fred Rogers's advice: Whenever you see something upsetting, focus on the people who are trying to make it right. "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news," Mr. Rogers said, "my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"
It's particularly wonderful because these folks are German. Yes, Poles are doing this, too, and probably a ton of other Europeans who are welcoming Ukrainian refugees. But if anybody knows what it's like to owe a debt to the world, it's Germans. Good on them.
As for people who are not helping, just look to the Republican Party. Today, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy held a Zoom call with members of Congress. Baby Marco Rubio and Steve Daines both posted screenshots of Zelenskyy in real time on social media, theoretically endangering his safety. (So, they're working for Vladimir Putin? Inquiring minds want to know.) During the same call, Zelenskyy was forced to ask Florida's first Martian Senator, Rick Scott, to mute his microphone.
What the hell is the matter with these people? Could their behavior be any more egregious in comparison with the Berliners who are opening their homes to fleeing Ukrainians? We cats are disgusted, and we HISS.
Winston Churchill, dead in 1965, couldn't have imagined the interwebs. But his language survives: People are talking about a new Iron Curtain descending in Eastern Europe, thanks to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
And as Ukrainians fight for democracy in their country, the metaphorical struggle continues in the United States. We're learning more and more about Benedict Donald's efforts to subvert the 2020 election and stay in power. Exhibit A is Roger Stone. WTF is going on there, we ask?
Listen, everyone: You don't have to steep yourselves in every detail to know that our American democracy — and democracies around the world — are under siege. Or to know that the Trumpsters are on the side of the Putinesque opponents of the democratic ideal.
Take it from us: If Churchill were alive today, he'd be warning the West against Rupert Murdoch's "news" empire and Benedict Donald's (and Republicans') support of Vladimir Putin. He would have railed against January 6. We could use a voice like his right now. We cats PURR.
As Russia continues to push into Ukraine, up in Canada, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is getting hailed as a Cabinet minister who was made for this moment.
"No one in the Canadian political class has studied Russia, or its now-pariah president, more than Ms. Freeland," says The Globe & Mail. "As a student of Russian history at Harvard and exchange student in Kyiv in the 1980s. As the Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times in the 1990s. Or, since 2015, in her successive roles as Canada’s minister of international trade, foreign affairs and finance."
Freeland's bio and her deeply credible, in-your-face "Vladitude" raises an interesting question.
Where is our Russian expert in all this?
This is a time that should shine on Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State for Bush 43 and, before that, a Soviet scholar at Stanford. There should be calls for President Biden to consult her for a bipartisan take on what Vlad is up to. Republicans in the Senate should be demanding that Foreign Relations Committee bring her in for briefings. The editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, etc. should be chock-full of her thoughtful views and analysis. And she shouldn't just be on Fox — she should be all over cable news. But, no.
Is it because Republicans know she's a fraud? Or that the party has left her, even though she hasn't left the party (a whole 'nuther question, by the way). Is it because she's worried about coming under attack from the Republican Treason Caucus? Or is it because she thinks that if she opens her mouth she'd destroy any hope of becoming NFL Commissioner? We cats don't know, but as always when it comes to "Condi," we HISS.
Gee, Nancy Pelosi looked so happy last night, to not have the Orange Monster standing in front of her delivering an imbecilic SOTU. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Lauren Boebert's bad behavior couldn't wipe the smile from her face — and there was no reason for her to rip up her copy of the speech afterward. Best of all: She had another smart, strong woman sitting next to her for the first time in American history.
With all the Republicans in the House chamber sporting Ukrainian colors, we couldn't help thinking about their cowed loyalty to Benedict Donald. Things have only gotten worse since they handed out little Russian flags with "Trump" on them at 2017's CPAC.
All their enthusiasm last night for the plucky Ukrainians, though, might not be able to mask anxiety the GOP could be feeling about their Russian ties. Since DOJ has launched a new task force to enforce the West's sanctions — and to particularly focus on the egregious oligarchs who do Vlad the Invader's bidding — betcha they'll uncover lots of money trails to Republican coffers. In fact, some have already been found.
So Nancy was smiling for a lot of reasons. Remember, she's the one who stood up in the Cabinet room in October 2019 and questioned Trump's loyalty to the United States to his fat orange face. She took a lot of heat from the GOP for that, but it's helpful to remember that she did it because Trump had pulled American troops out of northern Syria, giving Putin free rein there. (Easy to forget, since it happened pre-pandemic, a hundred lifetimes ago.) Now, she knows that Vlad's miscalculations will ensnare Benedict Donald, too. We cats PURR.
