The Carpet's An Affront, Too

By Hubie and Bertie

We cats are highly qualified, trustworthy and patriotic, but we've never had clearance to read top-secret government documents. That doesn't make us bad — it just means that this morning, we've been searching for folks who did have that privilege. We wanted to see their reactions to last night's DOJ filing against Benedict Donald.

We think that Ken Harbaugh, former Navy pilot and Democratic candidate for OH-07 in 2018, has probably said it best. (More from us later.) We cats PURR.

"I remember the feeling of having a TS/SCI brief in my hands. The first few times, I was nervous. If I f--ked up, even accidentally, I would go to jail. My combat recon aircrew handled this kind of material almost every day on our deployments. Every time we used one of these documents in a briefing or planning session, the room got quiet. 

"There was a palpable seriousness in the air, bordering on solemnity. Some of us understood what had gone into generating this information — the resources, the risks. We knew that our efforts would soon inform reports with these same covers, and we trusted that the people holding them would feel their weight. 

"To see them treated like this makes my stomach turn. It is an affront to every American in uniform, every covert operative, every member of the State Department. And it should be an affront to every American who cares about our national security, and the men and women who put their lives at risk to defend it.

"But this isn't just an affront. It's a crime."

Explaining Canadian News To Americans

 

Just when we were despairing at the Trumpification of Canadian politics, Brittlestar here manages to make it funny. We cats PURR.

Reasons To Smile?

via GIPHY

By Miss Kubelik

How exciting! The moniker "Benedict Donald" is trending on Twitter. Could it be that our favorite nickname for the most destructive person in American history has finally caught on?

Meanwhile, the mainstream punditheads are catching up to what we've known for some time now: "Republicans in disarray." Between the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs, which has led to massive voter registration among women across the country, and Benedict's resurfacing with his top-secret document scandal, the GOP has seen its fortunes change for the midterms.

This excerpt from The New York Times's political newsletter makes us grin and hack up a bunch of hairballs at the same time.

"What [has] happened is what you might call a vibe shift among what the original insider tipsheet, The Note by ABC, used to call the Gang of 500 — the motley collection of columnists, journalists and other political opinion-makes who haunt the green rooms in Washington and New York and collectively make up the 'conventional wisdom.'

"'We've gone from Republicans will win every single election in the universe' to 'Republicans will not win a single election. The pundits' narrative has shifted overnight.'"

Every single one of these pundits is not only clueless and lazy, but also male, we suspect. In short, they're nobody with the kind of plumbing that would render them without bodily autonomy in a post-Roe world. We cats cannot stand them, and we HISS.

Killing A Million Americans From COVID Was Just The Start

By Zamboni

Back in October — 10 months ago — The New York Times reported on a disturbing trend. The CIA, it appeared, was losing a lot of overseas informants, a.k.a., spies.

"Top American counterintelligence officials warned every CIA station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed," the article said. Why? It wasn't clear.

Now, we cats are afraid to say, we know. Benedict Donald has been selling US secrets to our adversaries. Because he stole tons and tons of documents from the White House last year and spirited them off to Mar-a-Lago. In fact, you have to assume that he's been selling our secrets to people like Putin and MBS for years now. Well, maybe not Putin, since Putin obviously has something on him — but the Saudis, and the North Koreans, and the Chinese? You betcha.

Perhaps this explains how quiet the Republicans have gone since the release of the DOJ affidavit this week. With the exception of The Wall Street Journal, which has stupidly adopted the "it's only documents" argument, the GOP is waiting to see just how bad this will get.

Take it from us: It will get plenty bad.

Some Twitter wag speculated that Benedict Donald could be sentenced to 20,000 years in prison. And that's just for taking the documents — not for sharing them. "The largest espionage case in US history," he said. Yep, it seems so.

The only question for us is when journalists will officially make this connection. Their reticence so far has been baffling, but perhaps it won't last. Meanwhile, when the time comes, we can all look forward to hot takes on this from Dark Brandon. The White House's official Twitter account has been taken over by a spunky young firecracker from New Jersey, and we are totally there for it. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Trump at his Saudi-sponsored golf tournament. Could he look any worse? Yes, he could.)

Fruits Of Crime (Or, Just Fruits)

By Baxter

As the country digests the scanty revelations of the DOJ's redacted affidavit behind the search at Mar-a-Lago comes this news: that a mysterious imposter named Inna Yashchyshyn gained access to Trump's club by posing as a member of the famed banking de Rothschild family.

In truth, she was not who she pretended to be, and we're all wondering just into whose hands all those classified documents fell. That and, of course, what Lindsey Graham knows. (Here he is, pictured above with Donald and the Russian spy.) Lady Lindsey, you are a world of trouble — and not just because Georgia's Fani Willis is after you for election fraud. Lawyer up, girlfriend.

Lots of jokes to be made about all this, because Benedict Donald and his merry band of traitors are, essentially, clowns. But underneath it all is the deadly serious prospect that the United States has been severely compromised by the perfidy of Trump. We probably won't know the extent of this until long after Trump is dead. But suffice to say for now that the identities of human sources of intelligence have been revealed, our troops have been endangered, and — who knows? — maybe even our nuclear secrets have been shared.

Why? Because nobody trusts Trump to keep this information secret. Either he's given it to Putin, or he's sold it to someone to whom he is less in thrall. Either way, American journalists have tiptoed around these possibilities, and that alone is unfathomable.

Our most sensitive secrets have probably ended up in the lap of Inna Yashchyshyn and worse. Yet it was Trump who said that Hillary Clinton should be in jail, and millions of Americans believed him. If we cats think about that too much, we would never stop hacking up hairballs. So instead, we choose to focus on Merrick Garland bringing Trump to justice. The thought of that makes us PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Going Our Way Edition

By Sniffles

Let's celebrate successes. There are a few in the news just now that are worth sitting back and savoring (or dancing about). While we all wait for the (redacted) affidavit to be released tomorrow, here they are:

A Plano, Texas, woman who confronted, insulted, physically attacked and, ultimately, pulled a gun on four Indian-American women in a restaurant parking lot has been arrested and charged with assault and making terroristic threats. Definitely a Trumpster. Lock her up!

Sean Hannity, Judge Box o' Wine, the Murdochs, Tuckums, Lou Dobbs and Steve Doocy are being called for depositions in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.5 billion defamation suit against Fox "News."

Trump's silly social media platform Truth Social is having financial difficulties.

The "Dark Brandon" spirit continues to rule at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Not only did Joe Biden give a fiery campaign speech in Maryland tonight (we didn't see lasers shoot out of his eyes, but they might have), but the White House Twitter account is trolling Republicans who have bitched about student loan forgiveness. Seems that many of them have been let off the hook for their PPP loans, and Team Biden is calling them out by name (and dollar amount).

Biden has just appointed the second woman ever to head the US Secret Service. Boy, does she have a job to do.

Political talking heads appear to be in agreement that one of the biggest losers of this week's primary in New York was Elise "Elsie" Stefanik. The two Republican candidates she backed, one of whom is a Hitler lover, got their asses kicked. As we noted, it's not clear that Democrat Matt Castelli can do the same to Elsie. But it's pretty neat that people are talking about it. If things were going well for the GOP right now, these conversations would not be happening. We cats PURR.

Why We Fight (And Where)

By Hubie and Bertie

It turns out that the Matt for whom we were going to vote in yesterday's New York Congressional primary got some nice exposure in today's Times — coverage that may even inspire our former fellow citizens of NY-21 to give "Elsie" Stefanik a run for her money. More power to 'em, we say. And wouldn't it be loverly if she lost?

It's easy to succumb to that kind of thinking after last night's stunning Democratic victory by Pat Ryan in the NY-19 special election. Heck, even the cable news punditheads are admitting that maybe, maybe things don't look quite so dire for Democrats as they've insisted. Choice, guns, and defending democracy are definitely on the ballot, as Ryan has said, which is good for us.

However, when we cats publish our recommendations for House races to support in 2022, we probably (*sigh*) won't include NY-21. Here's the argument for that, in the words of one of our favorite political analysts:

"NY-19 is a swing district. It always goes slightly one way or the other. The polls that had the Republican winning by 10 points were obviously wrong. It was a swing district, we put in more work than the other side did, and we won it.

"Here's what we really learned: Biden narrowly won NY-19 in 2020. The Democrat narrowly won NY-19 last night. In other words, the swing districts are all in play. Democratic House candidates [in 2022] can hit Biden 2020-like numbers in their districts.

"So we focus our efforts and resources on the House districts where the vote was about 50-50 in 2020. Those are the races that are likely to be about 50-50 again in 2022. And those are the races we can win by rolling up our sleeves and shifting them by just one or two points.

"There's a reason I steered you toward NY-19 and not NY-23. NY-19 was going to be close, and was winnable if we put in the work. NY-23 is deep red. The Democrat impressively outperformed, but still lost by six points. Additional resources would not have turned it into a win.

"Mathematically, the NY-23 loss was arguably better news for the Democrats than the NY-19 win, because the Democrats outperformed by a bigger margin in NY-23. But no, we weren't going to be able to win NY-23, and the results prove as much.

"Last night confirmed the winning formula. Put your resources into 50-50 districts like NY-19, where it can mean the difference between a narrow loss and a narrow win."

This advice makes a whole lot of sense. We cats PURR.

Totally Tonko

By Miss Kubelik

This is primary day in New York, as well as other places. While the results come in, here's some exciting news: We cats learned today that Super-Trumpette Elise "Elsie" Stefanik is no longer our Congresswoman.

That's right, we've been redistricted from NY-21 into NY-20. We strolled into the polling place this afternoon fully expecting to vote for one of the guys named Matt who's running to oppose Elsie in November. Instead, our ballot had — gasp! — the name of incumbent Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko, and some other guy.

Mildly embarrassing, since we're supposed to be political mavens. But the New York maps have been such a nightmare this year that we had long since given up trying to figure things out. We had a better handle on what was going on with our State Senate and State Assembly districts than with our federal CD. We assumed we'd be stuck with Elsie.

The new map was a compromise between Ds and Rs, and one of the spoils the Rs got was protection for Stefanik. Devoted Democrats like us being put into Tonko's district makes her (and him) safer. But to be selfish about it, hurray! We cats PURR.

Donating To Democrats: Senate Version

By Zamboni

Back by popular demand: It's the official My Cats Donating-to-Democrats Cheat Sheet! Following are our recommendations for the most important 2022 Senate races to support with your hard-earned cash. (House version to come.) We cats PURR.

Tier One

• Mandela Barnes — Wisconsin*
  
• Cheri Beasley — North Carolina**
  
• Val Demings — Florida*
• John Fetterman — Pennsylvania**
  
• Tim Ryan — Ohio**
• Raphael Warnock — Georgia§ 

*Repellent Republican incumbent running ineptly for re-election

**Republican retiring, appalling GOP nominee trying to hold the seat

§Democrat running to hold the seat, pathetic candidate cynically nominated by the GOP

Tier Two

• Nevada — Catherine Cortez Masto should be at the top of your Tier Two donation list.
  
• Arizona — Mark Kelly has a lot of money, but sure, throw some his way if you feel like it.
• New Hampshire — Maggie Hassan is in better shape than she was before, but oh, go ahead.
• Iowa — We still like to think that Iowans won't go for 88-year-old Chuck Grassley's "Make Me the Next Strom Thurmond" campaign, and that something bad is going to come out about him in the next round of January 6 hearings. Plus, Admiral Mike (not Al) Franken is a good candidate. Let's put him in striking distance.
  

"I will stand by my predictions a few weeks ago that if the Democrats keep working as hard as they are now, we will add three seats net in the Senate. And that’s the floor. Depending on events, it could be six."  (Former DNC chair Howard Dean)

"Public polls in recent weeks show Rubio [in Florida] in the mid-40s and struggling. In the last two public polls in North Carolina, Budd is at 42. Keep an eye on both these states. Republicans are underperforming there as they are just about everywhere else." (Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg) 

The Power Of Play

By Baxter

Here are the women who run Michigan — Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and Attorney General Dana Nessel — striking a Charlie's Angels pose.

Some women leaders have stepped up, purposely lightheartedly, to mock the faux outrage over Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who was recently caught on video dancing and partying with friends. We suspect that this is what Whitmer, Benson and Nessel are up to here.

Which is great, but who cares why? They're having a good time, and most important, this kind of thing simply drives the right-wing, Trumpy misogynists crazy.

So hurry for Democratic diversion. But is anyone having more fun than John Fetterman? Maybe not! We cats PURR.

The Politics Of Joy

By Sniffles

Maybe 2022 will turn out well for Democrats because of this. We don't know what's going on on the other side, but we're having fun.

Case in point is this Twitter account, which, for all we can tell, exists to ogle men — but which also pays extra loving attention to the Democratic Senators from Georgia, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

Whoops, sorry — we meant Senators My Boo and Bae, because that's what she calls them. She thinks they are very hot, and she says so.

You know, it's stuff like this that makes us happy we sent a ton of money Ossoff's and Warnock's way. It's also, we think, a sign we're on the winning team. Can you picture someone tweeting about J.D. Vance, Herschel Walker or Dr. Oz this way? Nope, nope, nopity nope. We own the grins — they own the awkward and embarrassing.

"Why do Senator My Boo and Senator Bae look like they are on their way to a movie premiere or an album launch?" Qondi asked when she posted this photo. And she is so right. They are cool, they are phat, and they our OURS. We cats PURR.

Changing Their Tune

By Hubie and Bertie

The pundit heads are scrambling to rewrite their lame, lazy narrative about the 2022 midterms, on which they've been leaning for... how many months, now? We can't keep track, because we haven't been watching cable news or listening to NPR for many months.

In fact, we gave up on NPR after the 2016 election, because we remembered how off the cliff they behaved when the Republicans won the midterms in 1994. It was a historic win, Congressionally speaking — but NPR's anti-Clinton glee was too much to stomach. So we weren't going to subject ourselves to it again 22 years later.

And since cable TV news has proven itself totally inadequate in covering Trump, we've pretty much boycotted them as well. Needing to fill 24 hours of news has forced journalists to coddle and kowtow to their sources so much that it compromises their reporting. No, thanks.

Yes, news coverage was always somewhat transactional, but never more so than when the media had to provide round-the-clock content. And for some reason, they have always leaned toward pleasing the Republicans. Maybe the narrative of the "liberal media" took hold with too much vengeance. If so, it was always a mirage.

But we digress. The short story here tonight is that the Beltway prognosticators have been forecasting a GOP wave this November and — guess what? It's not going to happen.

Why? Three reasons: The Dobbs decision. (Women are registering to vote in record numbers.) Team Biden's recent legislative successes. And the fabulous storytelling of the January 6 hearings (more to come on that score). We cats saw these developments coming from a mile away — the talking heads, not so much.

It's interesting that the knee-jerk liberal losers at sites like The Atlantic caution that this is only August. We cats say: Exactly. In the past, you never would have seen such movement in the polls before Labor Day. Instead, in 2022, the electorate is awakened and furious and making its mark. Just ask the voters of Kansas. Ask how Dobbs has affected voter registration across the country.

No wonder Mitch McConnell has been walking GOP expectations back. We'd like to see the Washington media do the same. They should admit that their lazy narratives have no credence. Until they do, we cats HISS.

Yesterday, Grift Was Such An Easy Game To Play

 

Fun fact: Did you know that the working title for "Yesterday" was "Scrambled Eggs"? Are those hard words, too? We cats PURR.

Truly A BFD

By Miss Kubelik

Did you know? President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act has many thrilling aspects. No, really.

Start with its name. We cats saw some progressives on social media criticizing it as lame or insipid. But what could be better than forcing Republicans to vote against reducing inflation? That's an election-season conundrum that we're happy to inflict on them, because as Biden pointed out at the signing, not a single member of the GOP in Congress supported the bill. HAHAHAHAHA.

We also love the fact that it's just the latest accomplishment in a long list of Biden wins: gun safety, the PACT Act, $280 billion for semiconductor research and production, Postal Service reform, infrastructure, more judges confirmed since JFK (including record numbers of women and people of color), the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, and a national holiday for Juneteenth. Still on deck: codifying marriage equality — which could prove to be a significantly bipartisan vote — and reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887, a key to preserving the integrity of our elections.

In short, Lyndon Johnson must be looking down from heaven (or up from hell) and saying, "Damn, son."

But the best news of all is that Team Biden — the President, and we assume, Pete Buttigieg, Jennifer Granholm, and other equally fabulous spokespeople — will fan out in the coming days and weeks across the country to sell what the Administration has accomplished.

This is so critical, and so reassuring. Because if President Obama had barnstormed the nation back in 2010 — explaining to Americans what the Affordable Care Act that he had just signed would do for them — we believe the midterms that year would have been mighty different. We still fault Obama for that, but at least it seems that Joe Biden has learned from the experience. Which makes us PURR.

Sick Joke

By Zamboni

If Harriet Hageman isn't The Joker, she's definitely a joke.

Tweeps are comparing the woman who defeated Liz Cheney in Wyoming last night to a Batman villain we remember being played by Cesar Romero (that's how many of our nine lives we cats have run through). She definitely gives off crazy-person vibes. Think of Marjorie Taylor Greene, except in weird, heavy makeup and over-the-top drop earrings.

It makes you wonder how the hapless Kevin McCarthy is going to handle another nutcase in his caucus. Because if there's anything these last few months has proven, it's that Kev is in over his head. And what a great result: Wyoming sends the House a new whackjob freshman. But the person she beat is a celebrated anti-Trump crusader who does not need her seat in Congress to retain her prominence, and who is not going away. Fair trade, as they say.

Liz Cheney has nothing to do for the rest of her career but keep a laser-focus on Trump and the perfidy of the cowed, insurrectionist GOP. Bad decision, Republicans — bad for you, that is. We cats PURR.

Top-Level Trolling

By Baxter

Today was already good for grins, what with President Biden signing the Inflation Reduction Act into law and pointing out that no Republicans voted for it. And then we saw this. Fabulous!

John Fetterman is running a terrific campaign for US Senate. He has defined his hapless Republican opponent, "Dr." Oz, as a rich carpetbagger who couldn't care less about Pennsylvania because, whoops, he lives in New Jersey. John's been doing lots of fun things like putting up amusing billboards at the state line and nominating Oz for the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Great stuff.

Now he's wasted no time mocking Oz's fake shopping trip for "crudités," pointing out that most regular voters know them as cut-up veggies with dip. In fact, stores even cut them up for you. No wonder the National Republican Senatorial Committee has canceled $7.5 million in Pennsylvania ad buys.

Yes, Oz is ridiculous, and the GOP is saddled with him, courtesy of Donald Trump. But Fetterman has been an excellent candidate — not bad for someone who had a stroke a couple of months ago. But he's recovered and back on the trail, meeting voters and using plain language. We cats are there for it, and we PURR.

Brilliance, No Matter Where

 

By Sniffles

We were just alerted to the fact that today is Julia Child's birthday.

Believe it or not, we were just listening to Beethoven. Because we just spent a glorious weekend in Montreal, attending concerts in the OSM Summer Spree series, which gave us a renewed appreciation for the geniuses who have lived among us.

And you know what? Julia Child was another one of those geniuses — just in a different creative endeavor. Thank you, Julia, for being the Beethoven's Ninth of French cuisine. We cats PURR.

Rumors & Gossip: Midterms Edition

By Hubie and Bertie

Lots of scuttlebutt circulating around Tweep World these days about the change in direction, midterm-wise. 

Mind you, we cats were never into the "2022 will be a Democratic disaster" narrative that the execrable media kept trying to push on everybody. Our attitude was: Wait and see. But when you have a 24/7 broadcast schedule to fill, doomsaying is often the easiest, laziest way out. (Don't get us started on how the rise of the cable news networks was actually terrible for journalism. That's a post for another day.)

But back to the scuttlebutt: "The GOP just canceled $10 million in fall ads for the Senate in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin. This is a clear sign of financial problems. Hardest hit is Pennsylvania, more than $5 million in Philly alone. They've given up on Oz."

Well, this sounds true. How can you not give up on Oz when polls have him down to John Fetterman by double digits, and he videos campaign commercials set in grocery stores, in which he's trying to shop for "crudités"? As Fetterman pointed out, Pennsylvanians call these cold-cut platters. And who is advising this Oz fool?

But anyway, let's move on to the next question. If they're cutting loose "Crudité Oz," Russian sympathizer Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, and crazy Blake Masters in Arizona, where will the GOP invest their money? In Baby Marco Rubio in Florida, since Val Demings has now tied him in the polls? In relative nonentity Ted Budd in North Carolina? And what about Iowa? Admiral Mike "Not Al" Franken is holding centenarian Chuck Grassley to his lowest lead in decades. Maybe the Republicans will have to rush to Chuck's defense, especially if more information comes to light when the January 6 Committee reconvenes next month.

It's all wonderful fodder for cocktail conversation, and a good sign three weeks out from Labor Day. We cats PURR.

UPDATE: Looks like it's true.

Yup.

We're having a fun, whirlwind weekend at Montreal's Classical Spree, so we'll just share this for now and catch up (we hope) with all of Benedict Donald's traitorous shenanigans later. We cats PURR.

Good Weeks, Bad Weeks

By Miss Kubelik

Joe Biden had a pretty good week. He signed the PACT Act into law, and now today the House of Representatives has passed the Inflation Reduction Act — which means that it's on its way to his desk soon. AND... wait for it: We now have every Republican on record as voting against reducing inflation. Midterms, here we come!

Meanwhile, goodness gracious. Should we even discuss Benedict Donald's week? What a nightmare. It seems like every possible travail converged upon him in five short days. From the feds searching Mar-a-Lago and investigating him for espionage, to pleading the Fifth before Tish James more than 440 times, to being told he has to turn over his tax returns to the House Ways & Means Committee — well, it was just, as they would say here in Quebec, a total merde show.

We cats want to add a personal note. As former worker bees in that special place called the White House, we are highly offended by the thought that anyone who served there had a cavalier attitude toward the responsibilities that were conferred upon them. It is disgusting.

Here's the deal: If you have the privilege of going to work every day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, you'd better take it seriously, and you'd better not screw around with the information you're privy to while you're there. Benedict Donald's treasonous behavior is a personal affront, and it makes us HISS.

Checkmate

By Zamboni

Merrick Garland, who apparently had everyone thinking was Wally Cox but who today turned out to be Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson instead, has just outmaneuvered Benedict Donald on the chessboard.

Garland has put Trump in the position of having to reject making the Mar-a-Lago search warrant public. Which Trump has not done since Monday, even though he has a copy. And which means all those Republicans who have been screaming for DOJ "transparency" will suddenly have to say, "You know what? Never mind."

Yes, Garland is driven only by the rule of law and the need to follow it regardless of political factors. But today he clearly got the political upper hand. Trump has until 3 pm tomorrow to declare whether he will oppose the disclosure of the warrant. Sweet!

Meanwhile, we're trying really hard not to think about what The Washington Post is reporting right now — that the documents Trump took were related to our nation's nuclear capability. Hmmm. As people more sage than we have pointed out, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg got the chair — and it was Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn, who helped send them there. We cats are pretty scared, and we HISS.

Big Hats, Small Brains, No Power

By Baxter

We cats are vomiting experts, right? Hacking up hairballs and all that? Well, allow us to barf all over this dude from The Atlantic, who is quaking in his boots that the Department of Justice pursuing the rule of law will make some Trumpsters mad.

We've really had it with the media's MAGA obsession and the "hopelessly divided" nonsense. We will die on this hill: The crazy Benedict Donald fan base represents, at most — at most — a third of the country. The rest of us, the sane 70 percent, defeated Trump by seven and a half million votes in 2020. Do you know how hard it is to defeat an incumbent President? It's only happened a handful of times.

Yet this Atlantic writer and the cable news talking heads and the hand-wringers on social media all act as if the Trumpy nutcases will start a civil war or stage another insurrection or set off nuclear warheads or who knows what. It's ridiculous and they need to cut it out. They're just imbuing these idiots with power they don't have.

Yes, we know America is awash in guns. But not every gun is owned by a Trumpster. And a lot of gun owners are level, responsible people who think the NRA is awful. So let's get a grip.

Our hot take is that the crazies and the insurrectionists felt confident about going "wild" on January 6 because they believed that Benedict Donald, President at the time, would have their backs. (Spoiler alert: He didn't. Lots of them are going to jail.) Now, even though they're shouting and blustering and making threats on social media, they're not spilling into the streets because they don't have their precious Trump in the White House to protect them. They will fold. We cats PURR.

Trump's Safe Wasn't Safe, But Maybe We Are

By Sniffles

Beyond a wry couple of plugs for her "But Her Emails" swag, Hillary Clinton has not tweeted about yesterday's FBI search of Benedict Donald's over-the-top Rococo dump in Palm Beach.

That's because she's a billion times smarter than all the faux-outraged Republicans who are posting and tweeting and putting out statements from what is clearly the same lazy playbook (they all use some form of the word "weaponize"). This includes Kevin Never-Gonna-Be-Speaker McCarthy, Matt "Pudgy" Schlapp, and "Toilet Bowl" Elise Stefanik. Boy, are they gonna look stupid when we figure out what the raid was about.

And we can figure it out, because all Benedict Donald has to do is release his copy of the search warrant. It's customary for the FBI to leave it behind, as many legal beagles and others have pointed out.

So we cats are going to be Hillaryesque and wait for more information — beyond observing the obvious, that no one is above the law. But it's striking to remember that Attorney General Merrick Garland has no illusions about the danger of America's violent right wing. He prosecuted Timothy McVeigh, after all. So whatever reason it was for the FBI to go into Mar-a-Lago, it must have been super-duper serious. We cats thank federal law enforcement for what appears to be the protection of our country's national security, and we PURR.

(IMAGE: Mike Luckovich)

Another Big Win For Dark Brandon

By Hubie and Bertie

Joe Biden was already having a pretty good day. After testing negative for COVID a second time, he was sprung from isolation at the White House and zoomed off to Delaware to be with Jill again. Tomorrow it's back to work — but there's still more to celebrate.

Yep, the Inflation Reduction Act just passed the Senate, and we cats are simply amazed at how the Republicans keep writing our 2022 campaign ads for us. Thanks, guys! They've given us such priceless gems as:

• Chuck Grassley whining on Twitter that he couldn't attend his annual family reunion because he had to be in Washington instead
• Baby Marco Rubio tweeting out his canceled flight to DC, big mad that he had to do his job
  
• Baby Marco again, apparently still furious, going full-bore anti-Semite on the Senate floor
• Forty-three Republicans ostentatiously voting against the $35 cap on insulin, stripping it from the bill (guess they don't have any constituents who are diabetic)
• The entire Republican caucus voting against a bill called "Inflation Reduction" — what a gift!

With everything that Team Biden and Chuck Schumer have accomplished — CHIPS, the PACT Act, the American Rescue Plan, Violence Against Women Act, record job creation, gas prices falling, and now this — just imagine what Democrats can do when John Fetterman, Tim Ryan, Val Demings, Mike Franken, Cheri Beasley and Mandela Barnes get to the Senate. (Did we leave anyone out? Apologies if we did.) We cats PURR.

Biden Booms

By Miss Kubelik

"Dark Brandon" is the hot topic on social media today. It started after Team Biden announced on Monday that a US drone had taken out al-Qaeda mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri — and now, with the Friday jobs report out, it's resurfaced with a vengeance.

Bwwaaah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!

Dark Brandon has just had one of the most successful weeks any President could have. In fact, all the current living former Presidents must be jealous. Here's what Biden has presided over just since Monday:

• Zawahiri killed
• CHIPS Act passes
• PACT Act passes
• Democrats reach a deal on Inflation Reduction Act (go ahead, Republicans, try voting against an act called "Inflation Reduction")
• Gas prices hit a 50-day low, with a median price below $4 a gallon
• Kansas protects abortion rights (YAY!)
  
• 528,000 jobs added in July
• And, what the heck, we'll add in today's $45 million judgment against Alex Jones — not because Biden had anything to do with it, but because it makes us feel so good!

Need we mention that Biden presided over all of this from his COVID isolation booth? Social distancing has its advantages, because only Dark Brandon would speak to the nation today from the Truman Balcony — wearing his aviator sunglasses. We think Joe gets the meme.

Meanwhile, what's happening back in Trump World? Well, Tish James has deposed Donald Jr. and Ivanka, and soon will depose Benedict Donald himself. Trump's lawyers are warning him that the Department of Justice may indict him. And the January 6 Committee has subpoenaed Alex Jones's cellphone. So much winning! We cats PURR.

Randy Rainbow Is Back!

We're taking a pass on Randy's upcoming show in Albany (we've seen him before, and the tickets this time are way expensive). But this latest gem helps make up for that. We cats PURR.

GOP Burned, The Sequel

By Zamboni

So, will Matt Gaetz say that the only reason Republicans got their clock cleaned in Kansas last night is because a lot of ugly women vote there? Personal insults seem to be the only weapon the GOP has in its war against reproductive rights. 

Despite the Republican Party's voter suppression efforts, despite their gerrymandering, and despite their confusing ballot language, the people of Kansas were able to figure out what "yes" meant, and what "no" meant, and refused by an overwhelming margin to strip out abortion protections from their state constitution.

There was nothing else on the ballot to drive Democrats to the polls. And with 50 percent turnout in what the GOP obviously had hoped would be a sleepy August primary, you're looking at voting levels that match the 2008 Presidential election. Which means a lot of Republicans were telling Samuel Alito, his fellow fascists on the Supreme Court, and their own party to take a hike.

Very fun to view the photos from a Kansas forced-birth watch party last night. (Note to Matt Gaetz: The guy on the right in the top picture looks like a thumb.) Cry more, kids! Your fellow Kansans — and voters across the country — want no part of your reproductive police state.

Oh, and by the way: This makes Alito's recent bad-taste speech in Italy look particularly bad. We cats PURR.

GOP Burned

By Baxter

Apparently it takes a bunch of sick and dying veterans sitting on the steps of the Capitol for six days and a furious Jon Stewart trashing them on all channels (including Fox and Newsmax) to force Republican Senators to cave and vote once again for the PACT Act.

Well, most of them, anyway. We've seen reports that the 11 burn-pit "no" votes were Crapo, Lankford, Lee, Lummis, Paul, Risch, Romney, Shelby, Tillis, Toomey and Tuberville. That's down from the 41 who voted in a hissy fit to kill the bill last week. (And it's another reminder that yes, Willard Mitt Romney continues to be terrible, and thank God he didn't get elected President in 2012.)

So we don't understand what any of this accomplished for the Republican Party — except to rile up another key constituency that they'll need in the fall and to be subjected to constant humiliation from Jon Stewart, who is — sorry, Senator Toomey — definitely not a "pseudo-celebrity." Jon has 1.5 million followers on Twitter. Toomey, 193,000.

And it may also have stirred the pot — and not in a good way for the GOP — on the race to choose Toomey's successor in the Senate. We trust John Fetterman will know how to keep Pennsylvanians damn mad about it, and that "Dr." Oz will be clueless as to how to defend it.

As for the rest of the 11 GOP deplorables, at least they stuck to their awfulness, unlike their colleagues who, after getting relentlessly pounded over it, voted for the same bill they opposed last week. It's hard to know who's worse. We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: The fist-bump that will live in infamy. Democrats, the midterms are coming. You know what to do.)

De Adder Du Jour

 IMAGE: Michael de Adder, Canadian, Washington Post cartoonist

Justice By Joe

By Sniffles

Listening to Joe Biden talk tonight about the drone strike on 9/11 mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri, we cats were reminded that he was in the Situation Room the last time a Democratic administration took out a big-time al-Qaeda baddie.

This time, though, was a little different from 2012. While the al-Zawahiri operation was going down, Biden's immediate predecessor was at a Saudi-funded golf tournament in Bedminster, New Jersey (where, bizarrely, his first wife is now buried). Here's your handy reminder that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. And that the Saudis recently gave $2 billion to Jared Kushner for — well, we're not sure what, but we're afraid to ask. We simply that Team Biden didn't give Benedict Donald a former President's courtesy update on what was going on.

You know what, though? Between this al-Zawahiri news and the sentence handed down to the January 6 insurrectionist from Texas who threatened his own kids, today was a pretty good day. We cats PURR.