Elizabeth On The Rocks

By Sniffles

It's Platinum Jubilee Week. We cats have nine lives, and Elizabeth II has been Queen for every one of them — so we're watching closely for reports on all the, shall we say, interesting festivities.

Among them are images of HM that have been projected onto Stonehenge. This isn't the first time the UK's famous prehistoric wonder has served as a screen for events and people the country wishes to commemorate (e.g., veterans, COVID heroes). But it's amusing to see one ancient English relic serving as a backdrop for another.

Controversial? Nah. The images don't harm the site any more than they harm the Marble Arch in London, which has received the same treatment. And it's no different from bathing the White House in rainbow colors after the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality in 2015. We cats PURR.

Happy 105th, JFK

 

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage — and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."

—John Fitzgerald Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

Waiting.

 

This cartoon is a heartbreaker because you know that it's true. And yes, it's a dog. But we're sure that there are Uvalde felines who are wondering where their little humans are, too. We cats are very sad.

Canada Immediately Bans 1,500 Assault-Style Weapons

By Hubie and Bertie

PMJT didn't wait long after the Uvalde massacre. "Starting today, licensed gun owners will no longer be allowed to sell, transport, import or use [assault-style] weapons" in Canada.

"The market for assault weapons in Canada is closed," Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said. "Enough is enough. Banning these firearms will save Canadian lives."

See how easy it is? We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Gosh, we miss that pandemic beard.)

Shifting Tides?

By Miss Kubelik

Will Uvalde be different? Parkland kid and gun safety activist David Hogg thinks so. He's organizing a big rally against gun violence next month in Washington, but right now he's seeing signs that makes him think maybe... maybe... something will get done.

At last night's game, the Miami Heat announcer urged fans to call their Senators and lobby for gun reform (Baby Marco Rubio was very unhappy about that), and today, the New York Yankees issued this statement. Yes, it could be ephemeral, and in a few weeks big sports could revert to "normal." We'll see.

The other reason Uvalde might be different is that it's happened in an election year. Recall that the Sandy Hook massacre took place right after the elections in 2012, and so Congressional Republicans decided they could weasel out of doing anything. This time, since we're six months out from November, you can really smell the GOP's fear. First they tried to claim that the shooter was a transsexual illegal immigrant. Now, they're prattling on about doors. Ted Cruz flounced away from a Sky News interview that he surely thought was going to be friendly. And of course there's Beto.

One more point: There's been more discussion this time about the value of publishing crime-scene photos. We cats have long thought that if such photos were made public, gun reform legislation would pass Congress tomorrow. But how to release them without causing more agony to the families? It's a terrible choice.

At this point, we're leaning toward publication, as nightmarish as that would be. But it's disgusting. Why should Americans only be moved by shocking, graphic images — and not by the mere fact that 19 kids got slaughtered in school this week? Still, we should do what we have to do. We cats HISS.

Badasses

By Zamboni

So now, after 19 little kids and two teachers have been gunned down in Uvalde, Texas, the media and Republicans are pearl-clutching over Democrats', shall we say, colorful metaphors.

We call it more badassery, and we are loving it.

It started with John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, who just won the Democratic Senate primary in the race to replace hapless Republican Pat Toomey. But now that Fetterman is resting up from his recent minor stroke, several other Democrats are taking up the baton.

Chief among them is Congressman Ruben Gallegos, the Iraq combat war veteran who stood on desks on January 6 to direct his House colleagues to safety during the Trump insurrection. Yesterday he tweeted the following love notes to a Texas Senator: "Just to be clear, fuck you, Ted Cruz, you fucking baby killer," and "Fuck you, Ted Cruz. You care about a fetus, but you will let our children get slaughtered. Just get your ass to Cancun. You are useless."

Parkland dad Fred Guttenberg was feeling similarly frustrated and profane. "I’m done," he said when Nicolle Wallace asked him about Republicans who oppose gun legislation. "They fucking failed our kids again. I’ve had it. How many more times are we gonna sit back? I’m gonna listen to that governor of Texas talk about why he pushed the fight for laws that made it easier for the guns to be had by those that want to kill? How many more times?"

But today's biggest badass has got to be Beto O'Rourke, who spoiled all the fun that Governor Greg Abbott, Cruz, and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick were having at their Uvalde press conference, where they tried to pretend that the problem is mental health, not guns. Crashing the presser, O'Rourke said, "This is on you until you choose to do something different. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will be continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday." Security threw him out.

Beto has nothing to lose with a gesture like this — he's an underdog in a state that has more Republican registered voters than Democrats, so he needs to peel people away from the complacent GOP baby killers. He sensed an opening today, and he was right. Moms across Texas (and America) who are nervous about sending their kids to school are doubtless taking note.

What we're wondering is, how did Team Abbott miss the fact that O'Rourke was there? At six-feet-four, the dude kind of stands out in a crowd. Betcha a now-former Abbott advance man is looking for a job with the Herschel Walker for Senate campaign. We cats PURR.

Gun Crazy

By Baxter

We cats thought the Republicans didn't believe in politicizing mass shootings. At least, they're always scolding us for it. But here is wacky Arizona lout Paul Gosar, doing just that. (Apparently he's deleted the tweet, but as we all know, the interwebs live forever.)

And of course yesterday's gun"man" (again, only 18 years old) was born in North Dakota, USA. No news on his politics or gender identification, but in the meantime, Gosar really needs to stop putting two spaces after a period. He could use some comma help, too.

You know, other countries aren't immune to mass shootings. Montreal, Canada, where we are right now, had one in 1989, in which 14 women were killed at the École Polytechnique by a person we would today call an incel. New Zealand had that awful mosque massacre in 2019, which inspired the hater in Buffalo. Dunblane, Scotland, saw a school shooting back in the 1990s. And then there was that 2011 wipeout of the Workers' Youth League summer camp in Norway. Just awful.

The difference is that those other countries responded with stricter gun laws. The US, famously, has not.

The only way out of this is to vote Democratic this November. We have to hold the House and increase our Senate seats so that our recalcitrant members become irrelevant and what needs to get done gets done.

It will help if Chuck Schumer, if he fails to get agreement from GOP Senators (and of course he will fail), schedules continuous votes on gun legislation — to get Republicans on the record, again and again and again. It would also help if the press holds Republicans' feet to the fire by never letting them sit for an interview without being asked about 19 dead kids in Uvalde. But we're not confident. We cats HISS.

Just A Reminder That This Was The Gun The Founders Were Talking About When They Wrote The Constitution

And since the news out of Uvalde, Texas, is so terrible, and we all could use some cheering up, here's a picture of the ever-yummy Last of the Mohicans Daniel Day-Lewis. We cats PURR.

The Elise Pounding Continues

The Lincoln Project has taken aim at the corporate donors still supporting Stefanik the Despicable. Make your consumer choices accordingly. We cats PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Teslas Exploding Edition

By Sniffles

"Tesla IMploding" might be the more accurate headline these days, what with company stock dropping almost 30 percent and its annoying owner's bid for Twitter looking more precarious by the hour. Message to all those liberal tweeps who quit when Elon first made his move: You must have been looking for an excuse to leave, because you were way premature. Meanwhile, here are some other stories that are grabbing our attention today.

Interesting that the current lame, "both-sides" journalism that we all have to suffer through is not giving any kind of a pass to Elise Stefanik for her ignominious about-face on Trump and Trumpism. The damning headlines keep coming. Is it because she's a woman, because she's in GOP leadership, or because her "fall from promise and integrity" (Dana Milbank's words) has been incomparably jaw-dropping?

A hunting guide was arrested for baiting a bear with pastries so Donald Trump, Jr. could shoot it, and we cats can't even.

Steve Schmidt is still on his Twitter tear. He's turned his attention from the hapless Meghan McCain to avaricious grifter Sarah Palin, providing juicy details of all the stealing Palin did from the 2008 Republican Presidential campaign. Says Schmidt: "I remember telling a 22-year-old staffer who had rung up $40,000 of purchases for the Palins on her parents' credit card that, going forward, if Sarah Palin wanted a Kit-Kat [the staffer] needed to ask Palin for $0.50 cash in American coins."

Finally, Benedict Donald has suggested that Dr. "Oz" just declare himself the winner in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, which is headed toward a long, distracting and potentially politically costly recount. You know what? Since the Republican Party has no platform or positions aside from what Benedict Donald wants, why is David McCormick even in the race? Trump endorsed Oz. Just wondering. We cats HISS.

Georgia On His Mind

By Hubie and Bertie

The media love to insist that Benedict Donald still has a stranglehold on the Republican Party because hyping everything Trump is good for their ratings. (What? They're supposed to care about journalism? Forget it. They're in it for page views and clicks — just ask Michelle Wolf.)

But Trump is turning out to have less influence than Trumpism. And it appears that the Republican establishment is having a mini-comeback. Look what they did to Madison Cawthorn, after all.

And now, in Georgia, Trump is trying to take back his endorsement of former Senator David Perdue for Governor against Brian Kemp, who, in Benedict Donald's view, didn't do enough to steal the 2020 election. Perdue is down zillions of points to Kemp, and the election is Tuesday. So Mike Pence, who campaigned for Kemp, won this race. That must really rankle in Trump World.

Not to mention that Fulton County DA Fani Willis's grand jury is hard at work to determine if Trump broke the law by trying to sway Georgia's 2020 Presidential vote to his side. Between her and New York's Tish James, some powerful Black woman is going to call Trump to account.

Lesson for David Perdue: You hook your wagon to Trump, you get personally humiliated. ETTD, as they say. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Pence to Kemp: "Pssst! It's 60 percent to 28 percent! LOL!")

Not Quite The End Of The Line

By Miss Kubelik

We cats are in Canada, and so are Charles and Camilla. We haven't noticed a lot of swooning over either presence — but then, we're not going to end up on Canadian money someday, are we? (Neither will Charles, until his mother checks out. And even after that, it will take some time for the QEII bills to go out of circulation.)

And P.S.: Don't count Elizabeth out. After skipping several events, including the opening of Parliament, she suddenly showed up at a horse show and the dedication of the Elizabeth Line on London's Underground. The Queen is 96, and goodness gracious. She defines indefatigable.

Meanwhile, Canadians are wrestling with whether they'll be cool with Charles as King. Sounds like an unpleasant dilemma, but hey — parliamentary democracy doesn't seem so bad these days. Not when the Republican Party in the US is nominating election deniers for Governor and Secretary of State, and not when the erstwhile POTUS threatened* to execute officials who refused to overturn 2020 results. We cats HISS.

*Trump's spokesman says the official in question is lying. Well, Trumpsters sure are experts on that, aren't they? We cats HISS again.

Dems In PA: In Fine Fettle (Or Is That Fetter?)

By Zamboni

We cats will have more to say about yesterday's elections, but right out of the box (not litter box, but the box), we want to say we're happy about John Fetterman's win in Pennsylvania.

Yep, he's a Bernie Bro, and we're seeing some grousing from the Hillary fans on Twitter. But hey, we're grownups. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with Conor Lamb, Fetterman's the better candidate. He connects with voters — a good thing.

Plus, he's a badass, and we Democrats could use some badassery. We have to crush the insurrectionists and authoritarians, and a tall dude with a weird goatee, in shorts and a hoodie, seems like the kind of guy to do it. It appears he has some deep ties to the Biden White House, so they've got be happy about all this, too.

Meanwhile, best wishes to him on a speedy recovery after his stroke. We're not worried. Joe Biden had a couple of brain aneurysms back in the '80s, and he's still alive and at large. We cats PURR.

Elise Stefanik Is Still Public Enemy #1

By Baxter

When our Congresswoman — who, sadly, according to the newly redrawn New York map, will likely remain our Congresswoman — agreed to replace Liz Cheney in the House GOP leadership, she probably had visions of greatness dancing in her head.

Because make no mistake, Elise Stefanik is nothing if not ambitious. So despite having run in 2014 as a work-across-the-aisle, "reasonable" Republican, just a few years later she decided to embrace the Trumpy crazy. What a whirlwind she's reaping today.

With 10 innocent, mostly Black people dead in Buffalo at the hands of a shooter who wrote the n-word on his AR-15, and who apparently plagiarized most of the Christchurch killer's manifesto in writing his own, Stefanik, Tucker Carlson and the other GOP haters have suddenly had their promotion of the "Great Replacement Theory" plastered all over the media and the interwebs. Everywhere we look today, our member of Congress is the poster child for hate and intolerance.

Lincoln Project founder Steve Schmidt has been pounding her relentlessly, and his latest screed is too powerful not to quote:

"Elise Stefanik decided to run on Replacement. She put it in her ads. She did it to prove her bonafides and [to] advance. The people of upstate New York took a chance on the local girl done good. The Harvard-educated Stefanik ran as a bridge builder, and yielded to insanity. She let it wash over her. She accepted it. She fueled it until it fully revealed who she was all along. She was Elizabeth Holmes: a striving, preening, unctuous sociopath trying to take as much as she could. 

"Did Elise Stefanik pull the trigger? NO. She loaded the gun, though. She loaded it with hate and venom. She helped make the war real. [The Buffalo shooter] took action after her incitements chronologically. They believe the same things. They do. Look at the words. Look at her ads. Look at his manifesto. That’s real life. It’s deadly, violent and dangerous. 

"It’s more so because Elise Stefanik, the gentle sociopath and fascist, was given the honor of trust by the voters. What a mistake that was. What a disgrace she turned out to be."

We agree. And Stefanik will never be able to come back from this. She will forever be associated with murderous white supremacy and anti-Semitism. She will probably always be a favorite of the Trumpsters. But as a winning national candidate? No. We cats HISS.

Elise Stefanik, Enemy Of The People

By Sniffles

We cats are embarrassed to say that we are represented in Congress by Elise Stefanik. "Elsie" first ran in 2014 as a work-across-the-aisle, "sensible" Republican. Now, although she holds the #3 position in House Republican leadership (after they defenestrated Liz Cheney), she has gone completely off the Trumpy deep end.

Not only has she tweeted this week that the federal government should allow babies in customs detention at the southern border to starve, but in the wake of today's Tops supermarket massacre in Buffalo, she's being fingered as a source of the racist "great replacement" theory.

So, our member of Congress is no better than Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorne, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, Jim Jordan, and all the other nutcases that populate 2022's GOP. We are disgusted and ashamed.

In the words of Congressman Eric Swalwell: "You know why Elise’s tweet is so awful? We just suffered another mass shooting as a country from a shooter motivated by extremism. You know what feeds extremism? [Tweets] from Elise. We can have community or we can have chaos. Elise has chosen chaos. Let’s all make her own this."

Yes, let's make her. We cats hate Elise, and we HISS.

"Bans Off" Is Making Some Noise

"Bans Off Our Bodies" demonstrations are taking place across the country today. Here are some scenes from Washington, DC, St. Louis, New York City, and — gasp! — Boise, Idaho. We cats PURR.

Don't Be Sad, Be Mad

By Hubie and Bertie

The leak of the Supreme Court's draft decision on overturning Roe v. Wade has freed Democrats to go on the offensive. What a relief, after having to play defense for so many years.

And now, abortion has vaulted into the top tier of issues that voters say will matter to them this fall. So come on, Democrats, don't be shy. To inspire you, here is New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, showing how it's done. We cats PURR.

Strategy

By Miss Kubelik

Yes, the vote to codify Roe v. Wade went down in the Senate today. But that was the point.

Every Republican is on the record: A zygote has more rights than a living, breathing American woman. In fact, Chuck Schumer should keep at it: Bring the Women's Health Protection Act back to the floor again and again. Make them vote on it countless times until November 8.

And then there's Joe Manchin. We cats are seeing lots of laughable tweets declaring that the Democrats must primary him. Forget about it.

There is no other kind of Democrat who could win a Senate seat in West Virginia now. The state is hopeless. And although sometimes Joe Manchin seems hopeless too, these tweeps need to remember that if he were not a Democrat, we would not have the Senate.

Which means that Vice President Kamala Harris wouldn't be breaking any 50-50 ties — like she did on Alvaro Bedoya's nomination to the Federal Trade Commission. (Sound obscure? It isn't. It gives Democrats a majority on the FTC so they can go after the oil companies on price gouging, which is pretty relevant to Americans' lives right now.) And like Harris did on Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

Want to have to not worry about Joe Manchin? Elect more Democratic Senators this year: Tim Ryan in Ohio, John Fetterman or Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, Val Demings in Florida, and whoever wins the nomination to run against that fool Ron Johnson in Wisconsin — just to name a few. And of course keep Senators Warnock and Kelly. We cats PURR.

Cat Fight! Steve Schmidt vs. Meghan McCain (vs. Sarah Palin vs. Et. Al.)

By Zamboni

In a week that gets more alarming by the minute, the recent, barn-burning Twitter fight between Steve Schmidt and Meghan McCain has been a welcome diversion.

Unfortunately, it's only part of a saga in which Schmidt has decided to simply vomit up everything he's been holding back for the last 14 years — about John McCain's duplicity about his personal life, and an apparent Russian infiltration of the 2008 nominee's campaign via its manager, Rick Davis. You read that right: If you thought it all started in 2016 with Trump, it didn't.

The media, however, with a big helping hand from The New York Times, have chosen to focus on the duplicity over the Russia stuff. But according to Schmidt, McCain did have the affair that he, Schmidt, lied on his behalf to the press about. McCain did look the other way as Davis advanced Russian interests with campaign deciders. And brave POW McCain was, yes, scared to death of Sarah Palin.

It's hard to wrap your head around the whole, messy story if you first stumbled across it this past weekend, as Schmidt and Meghan began to tweet each other to shreds. It kicked off after Schmidt, who clearly had already decided to offload his McCain-related psychic burdens, reacted to the news that Meghan's stupid "memoir," Bad Republican, had only sold 244 copies. After that, they were off to the races. But since Schmidt's gift of turning a phrase is only bested on social media by the elfin wickedness of Rick Wilson, Meghan never had a chance.

People are asking Schmidt if he's worried about seeming unhinged. He said no, and he's more than capable of defending himself. But check out this photo of Meghan with her failed memoir propped up against her father's gravestone. Who's the unhinged one here? We cats HISS.

"Victory Day"

By Baxter

Surprise! Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid a previously unannounced visit to Kyiv yesterday, and with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of National Defence Anita Anand, raised the flag outside the Canadian embassy once again.

They and First Lady Jill Biden were the latest in a small but impressive parade of leaders who have beamed into Ukraine to hang out with President Zelenskyy in the 11th week of what was supposed to be Vlad the Invader's three-day war.

So, things could be going worse over there. While the best thing would be for Vlad to keel over or get bumped off by Russians who want the invasion to end, the desultory "Victory Parade" in Moscow today wasn't exactly boisterous about glory on the current battlefield. Ha.

Meanwhile, back home in the soon-to-be Disunited States, the furor over Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court leak continues. We cats have to differ with our lefty friends who keep insisting that the leak is not the story — the draft opinion is. While Alito's draft is indeed hideous, the leak is also a 10 on the SCOTUS Richter scale. And this analysis in yesterday's New York Times about the reign of terror that exists inside the Court drove home once again just how momentous it is.

While the rules on Court confidentiality have no law behind them, they're intimidating as hell. For years, clerks have been told that if they don't keep their lips zipped, their careers will be destroyed. (Antonin Scalia once threatened to do it himself.) Staffers are afraid to be seen speaking to journalists — say, in a cafeteria line — for more than 20 seconds. They even try not to smile in the hallways, lest some reporters see them and think an opinion their justices support is coming down.

So while we flirted briefly with the idea that a Justice Breyer clerk is the source — after all, he's retiring — the Times has convinced us anew that it was some nutcase like Ginni Thomas. Or just Ginni Thomas herself. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Hitting Home

 

By Sniffles

Some pundits and commentators are upset that people would have the nerve to protest outside a Supreme Court justice's home. Here are a couple of photos of the scene outside Chez Biff. Good for them. Turns out that one of the organizers lives on the same street, so spare us any arguments about how terrible it is to disrupt the neighborhood.

For decades, women seeking abortions have been hassled, yelled at, told they're going to hell, and otherwise harassed by anti-choice protesters outside clinics. Abortion doctors have been murdered while standing in their kitchens and attending church. Clinic staff have been targeted, shot at and killed. Why should we be worried about maintaining the serenity of Biff Kavanaugh's part of Chevy Chase?

Most Americans believe in upholding Roe. No one knows what kind of decision is actually going to be handed down next month, but between now and then, things will probably only escalate. As long as it all translates to registering people to vote and kicking Republican ass in November, we're good with it. We cats PURR.

Another Nail In The Coffin Of E Pluribus Unum

By Hubie and Bertie

The potential overturning of Roe v. Wade will have repercussions far beyond a woman's ability to get an abortion. When you have a federal law guaranteeing rights across the board, people don't have to think about where they'd live, where they'd take a job, where they'd vacation.

Now, with the draft Alito decision leaked, Americans are suddenly thinking, OMG. Will I accept that job in Austin? I want to get married and raise a family — will I have any rights if I move there? 

Or, further: Would I be willing to live in a red state if I'm of childbearing age and could die from an ectopic pregnancy? Can I go on that vacation in the Ozarks if I'm pregnant? What if I run into trouble while I'm there? Will the ER docs let me die because the embryo in my fallopian tube takes precedence over my life?

Because of these questions, we cats are seeing plenty of conversations on social media about the US breaking up. Yes, those arguments carry weight. They are scary. And red states definitely benefit from the taxes that blue states pay. But we can't help thinking that a red-state-blue-state breakup is exactly what Vladimir Putin wants.

The United States of America has influence abroad because of just what it is — the United States. Please, let's find a way to continue to be the land of "out of many, one." We cats PURR.

Down In The Mouth

By Miss Kubelik

We cats know why the Republicans are more alarmed by the leak of the draft Alito Roe decision than they are by the contents of the decision itself. The leak has wrecked everything!

Instead of a nice, clean and — most important — authoritative ruling to send millions of American women back to the 1950s, they have a mess. The decision, if handled properly and not surfacing until the end of June, still would have caused an earthquake, of course. But the Court would have handed it down on firmer footing. They would have seemed their usual implacable, unreachable selves, and in control. Under those circumstances, in a virtual stare decisis staredown, they wouldn't blink.

Now, however, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health will be tainted forever. Whether the Court ultimately goes full Alito or does some sort of pullback from his draconian draft, Dobbs will have a million asterisks after its name. Everyone, not just on our side but on all sides, will be big mad, and the firestorm will start all over again. (Or maybe the word is "intensify." Alito has already had to cancel a public appearance today, and tall security fences are going up around the Court building.)

The victory over choice that the right wing has pursued for so long is spoiled. Republicans know this, which is why they've been bitching and moaning about it ever since it broke Monday night. 

But we still don't believe the draft was leaked by a liberal justice's staff. As we've said before, surely it was a clerk or some other staffer on the Court's right wing — a true-believer-idiot graduate of Liberty University who thought the news would rally the troops. We mostly suspect someone who works for Biff or Coat Hanger (or, to a lesser extent, Gorsuch). Those three haven't been justices long enough to have office cultures that respect the Court as an institution. After 30 years, even Clarence Thomas's team might have that. We cats HISS.

Fraying Rights

Canada has big-time noticed what's going on in the US with the Supreme Court leak and the potential death of Roe v. Wade. (Here's legendary Montreal Gazette cartoonist Aislin's take.) The Roe fallout could affect elections there, too. First up will be the Conservative Party leadership race, with candidates falling over one another to see who can be the most Trumpy. The good news: That doesn't bode well for the Tories' future nationally. We cats PURR.

"We Have Awakened A Sleeping Giant"

By Zamboni

In the latest installment of Hillary Clinton Was Right About Everything, a leaked draft opinion by the detestable Samuel Alito set all of our TVs and social media on fire last night. And in a wild coincidence, the "Word.A.Day" that landed in our email inbox this morning was "omnishambles." (See "Court, Supreme." See also "Roberts, John.")

Yep, the SCOTUS leak is a stunner all right. This has never happened in history, and the explosion you just heard came from First Street, NE, right across from the Capitol building. Our theory: The culprit is a hard-right clerk or assistant to Clarence Thomas, Amy Coathanger or Biff, blabbing to POLITICO in the hope it would energize Republican voters to elect the Trumpiest candidates in this month's primary elections. (Of course, that would set the GOP up for a wipeout in November, but remember, they don't believe that.)

As for the upcoming decision itself, lots of blame to go around. Let's go back to Bush v. Gore, which happened thanks to idiots who voted for Ralph Nader — enough to tip the balance in Florida. Their objection? Al Gore was too orange (before it became fashionable in Republican circles) and sighed too much in a debate. On such trivia the rights — and lives — of American women can rest.

It also may be fair to criticize Barack Obama, for presiding over the statehouse disasters of 2010 and 2014, and for not fighting harder for Merrick Garland's nomination. And of course all the Bernie Bros and liberal losers who sat on their hands in November 2016 because they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary.

But okay, enough of that. Let's accentuate the positive instead. None of us want Roe to go, but if it has to — and given the makeup of this Court, you know it will — it's good that it happened this way. Instead of a bombshell detonating at the end of June and driving everyone into the streets in protest, it's blown up in early May. That gives us two extra months to mobilize and organize for the midterms.

Sadly, no matter what the January 6 Committee hearings reveal this summer, it's not a given that Americans will feel urgently enough about protecting democracy to vote Democratic this year. The workings of government can seem removed from their daily experience. But outlawing abortion, and after that, contraception, privacy, interracial marriage and marriage equality? That people can understand. So let's get going, folks: We have a busy six months ahead of us. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Terrible Tucker

By Baxter

Tucker Carlson says he won't read the four-part (four-part!) series about him in The New York Times. Which means we cats have something in common with Tucker Carlson. (We're not linking to it, either.)

The series must be thousands and thousands and thousands of words, and we can't imagine spending that much time with America's biggest on-air racist. So it's a good thing newsies are circulating "takeaway" lists that pretty much boil down to this: The frozen-fish heir is the country's leading seller of hate, lies and nativism.

"Here is the Tucker Carlson Tonight playbook: Go straight for the third rail, be it race, immigration or another hot-button issue; harvest the inevitable backlash; return the next evening to skewer critics for how they responded. Then, do it all again."

It wouldn't be surprising to learn that Carlson himself pitched the Times on the series as a run-up to 2024. He's already planning to speak at a right-wing event in Iowa this summer. Can't you just picture him taking his show out there for a week, too, to "see what's on Republican voters' minds" and to lay further groundwork?

Meanwhile, the little bigot must be loving the attention. Let's put it a particularly dreadful way: If Tucker Carlson is elected President, we'll have The New York Times to blame. We cats HISS.

Trevor And Nancy Own The News

By Sniffles

The world's stupidest event returned to the Washington Hilton last night. We were hoping that the White House Correspondents' Dinner would never come back after COVID. We hatehatehate it, and we will die on this hill (nine times!). But we have to admit that Trevor Noah and Joe Biden made good use of their star turns.

That one fabulous dig of Trevor's at Chuck Todd was enough to put him in the WHCD hall of fame forever. But his closing? Incredible. It was brilliant and affecting and profound and insulting, all at the same time. (And many people who call themselves journalists really deserved the insult — we're so tired of bothsidesism). While Stephen Colbert was highly critical of his audience back in 2006, he was acidic and nervy. Trevor is so charming that maybe a good part of the audience didn't realize what he'd done until later.

And President Biden's swipes at Fox "News" and "horrible plague" that was the Trump Administration were delicious.

It turned out that while everyone was yukking it up at the Hilton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led a Congressional delegation to Ukraine and met with President Zelenskyy in Kiev — sporting a blue suit that echoed the Ukrainian flag and a wicked pair of matching Joan Crawford pumps! (Do Nancy and Chrystia Freeland shoe-shop together?) Our Speaker is a badass, all right.

Pelosi's trip to Ukraine, a country still under brutal Russian attack, was a reminder of the importance of what Trevor Noah said last night. Will journalists hear him? We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.