The nation has had worse days, politically speaking. We're seeing lots of headlines that bring satisfied Cheshire cat grins to our furry faces. Here are a few of them.
The Senate just voted to protect marriage equality for interracial and same-sex couples. Mitch McConnell, who is in an interracial marriage, voted "no." Good thing Clarence Thomas isn't a Senator!
Stewart Rhodes and his sidekick Kelly Meggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy this afternoon, with three of their minions convicted on lesser but still serious charges. Look for all of them to be hauled off to the hoosegow for a long, long time. And look for other January 6 defendants to maybe decide they should plead guilty and/or cooperate with prosecutors.
Once again, Georgia voter turnout for the December 6 Senate runoff has been off the charts. With the GOP having performed so poorly on Election Day, it's hard to believe that it's energized Republicans who are thronging to the polls. And Senator Raphael Warnock has three times more money than Herschel Walker — to fund even more GOTV.
Republicans continue to flail, with more of them jumping on the we're-not-anti-Semitic bandwagon. Donald Trump must be furious. And the MyPillow dude has declared his candidacy for chairman of the RNC — to run against a woman who literally changed her name for Trump. Could the party finally be circling the drain? You'd love to see it.
But our favorite thing might be the pictures that have come out of President Biden's meeting with Congressional leaders today. See how happy Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer look! Check out those morose/forced smile expressions on McConnell and the hapless Kevin McCarthy! We cats PURR.
Benedict Donald has tried to explain away his infamous dinner with that vile pair, Kanye West and Nick Fuentes — like, a hundred times. Or at least three. It was just supposed to be with Kanye! Trump didn't know who Fuentes was! But then he was allegedly impressed with him. What?
It is all ridiculous and would be laughable if racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism weren't involved.
Meanwhile, what has the Republican Party done in the last near-week since? Not much. But at least "not much" is slightly better than "nothing," which is what they were previously doing.
Finally, today, a few spoke up. The first to appear on our Twitter timeline were Senators Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, and Willard "Mitt" Romney. Fine, but what took them so long? Is it because the RNC fielded a quick poll to see if their voters would be okay with demonizing Jews, denying the Holocaust, suppressing women, and hating on gays, people of color, and anyone who is not white, straight, Christian and male? (Betcha they did, and betcha it came back that yes, thank you, they'd be perfectly fine with it.)
So at this point, it would be reasonable to assume that every Republican other than Cassidy, Collins and Romney is wholly supportive of the leader of their party consorting with neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. Including New Yorkers Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin — and, of course, Carl Paladino. We cats HISS.
(IMAGE: In the midst of the GOP's ugliness, some beauty. Here are some of Jill Biden's White House Christmas decorations. They make us PURR.)
Normally, we cats would treat anything Benedict Donald-related as a sideshow. Mainly because we're sick of him, but also because he's just pretending to run for President in 2024 because he thinks it will protect him from Tish James, Alvin Bragg, Merrick Garland and Jack Smith. (It won't, but never mind.) It's purely performative.
But the alleged dinner at Mar-a-Lago with anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes appears to have kicked up some dust. At least, some Republicans like Chris Christie are speaking out. But not nearly enough. So we cats are putting the news media on notice.
Journalists of America: Every single one of you must ask every Republican — from Kevin McCarthy to Mitch McConnell to all House members, and any Republican lamebrain thinking of running for President, like Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pompeo — to either approve or condemn this Mar-a-Lago dinner.
No dodging allowed. No "I didn't see that." Approve or condemn. Period.
As Brian Schatz, Democratic Senator from Hawaii, deftly imagined, Republicans will probably try to skate by with: "I am (confidentially and off the record) appalled at Trump dining with anti-Semites. There is no (again, to reiterate this is on background and not for attribution) place for him in our party. This is the final straw (unless it looks like he’s winning, and then I’m all in.)"
Journalists, don't let the Republicans get away with this. We're at a serious crossroads in our country, and your reporting could make the difference between complicity and accountability. If you choose the latter, we cats would PURR.
One of the requirements of Canada's Emergencies Act is a hearing afterward, to debrief on the use of the Act and to identify any problems with having invoked it. In other words, a formality. (We're pointing that out in case you hear anything different.)
Therefore, any elected official who was involved in, say, the invocation of the Emergencies Act to clear the streets of Ottawa last February should be ready and willing to testify, right? Well, no — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland appeared. But no Conservative politicians felt the sense of responsibility — or had the guts — to do likewise. Even though some of them, like Tory leader Pierre Poilievre, openly supported the Trumpy truckers at the time.
In an interesting echo of his father invoking the War Measures Act in Quebec in 1970, Justin said today that he was completely "serene" about his decision, because the Ottawa police, the RCMP and the Ontario provincial police had no plan to deal with the crisis. (Gee, the premier of Ontario is a Tory. Like his counterparts at the federal level, he apparently wanted the truckers to become "Trudeau's problem.")
Oh, and by the way, Trudeau kicked off his testimony in French, because there's been the usual amount of grousing that the hearing has been dominated by English. Justin is perfectly bilingual, as we all know. Take that, opposition.
Trudeau said that the moment of truth occurred late in the afternoon of February 14, when he was advised by the Clerk of the Privy Council to invoke the Act. He said that he asked himself, "What if the worst had happened in those following days? What if someone had gotten hurt? What if a police officer had been put in a hospital? What if, when I had an opportunity to do something, I had waited?"
We're very glad Trudeau did not wait. Ottawa was under siege, and border crossings in both Ontario and Alberta were blocked, with both the US and Canadian economies losing zillions as a result. Somebody had to be the adult in the room. Like his dad, Justin decided to be that person. The final EA report is due in February, and we'll see. In the meantime, we cats PURR.
This Thanksgiving Eve, we cats are grateful for the election results out of Alaska. Representative Mary Peltola has defeated Sarah Palin to win a full term in Congress. Yay!
Palin, of course, was endorsed by Benedict Donald — as was the nutcase whose clock Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski just cleaned in the Senate race. So Trump's terrible week continues.
It's amazing when you think about it: Sarah Palin is a former popular Alaska Governor who was on the GOP Presidential ticket in 2008. Now, she's just lost a statewide race for the second time in a few months, and the Congressional seat she was running for will be held by a Democrat — for the first time in 50 years. Incredible. We cats PURR.
For some reason, this Vogue cover has sent the Washington press around the bend. The White House barred media from Naomi Biden's wedding this past weekend, but a pre-nuptials cover shoot with Anna Wintour's magazine just made their heads explode.
Is there nothing else for the Washington media to cover right now? There must be! In fact, let's make a list:
BUT THE WEDDING! We can't begin to describe how reporters like Maggie Haberman of The New York Times and Ashley Parker of The Washington Post have embarrassed themselves on social media today. It doesn't bode well for their coverage of the upcoming antics of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, does it? We cats HISS.
Faithful readers probably recall how we cats had our fur on fire about the Trump-like "Freedom Convoy" protesters who took over Ottawa and abused its citizens last February.
They danced and urinated on the Canadian War Memorial, terrorized residential neighborhoods, and basically trashed the place while the Ottawa police stood by helplessly (or sympathetically, depending on whom you talk to). At least, they did until the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act, and hustled their asses out of town.
Now, the government has been holding a public inquiry over the use of the EA. This is not an investigation — it's a routine look-back that the act itself requires, to confirm that it was used appropriately.
You won't be surprised to hear that the lawyer representing the protesting "truckers" is as obnoxious and unattractive as they are. Today, the judge presiding over the inquiry threw him out for interrupting testimony and making demands. Then, Bannon-like, he stood in front of the building where the hearing was being held, grousing and whining until one of the convoy leaders yanked him away.
Bottom line is that these stupid Trumpy truckers were breaking the law. They targeted officeholders' homes, blocked streets with hundreds of giant vehicles, and jammed up border crossings with the US. They deserved to have their rights to assemble suspended and their bank accounts frozen. And their lawyer acting up doesn't help their cause.
We cats can't wait for the verdict on this inquiry. If it's fair at all, it will justify implementing the EA, and we cats will PURR.
(IMAGE: Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller. Why do they all look like this?)
The newest national hero has to be Richard Fierro, the Army vet who tackled the Club Q gunman in Colorado Springs on Saturday night and beat the shit out of him. (We cats were wondering why Anderson Lee Aldrich had to be sent to the hospital, and now we know.)
The next newest national hero is surely the drag queen dancer who, answering the call from Fierro to help, stomped the gunman with her high heels. Everyone, absolutely everyone on social media wants to buy that dancer a drink. Or two or three or four. For life.
We admit it — we got a ton of satisfaction from that image. And we were so pleased that when Colorado Springs police chief Adrian Vasquez named the victims, he included the pronouns they preferred:
"We respect all of our community members, including our LGBTQ community," Vasquez said. "Therefore, we will be identifying the victims by how they identified themselves and how their families have loved and identified them." We cats PURR.
(IMAGE: Richard Fierro, who was out for an evening of family-friendly fun at Club Q, and whose moxie ended up saving an untold number of lives that night. We cats salute him — and the drag queen.)
Just as there was no "red wave" for the Republicans this year, there was no "red flag" for the shooter in Colorado Springs last night.
Which is ridiculous. How many Anderson Lee Aldriches can there be in the world? With the same birth date, no less. But it appears that the gunman who targeted the LGBTQ+ club was the same guy who was arrested for a bomb threat incident last year — the sort of thing that should immediately put him on a "No-guns-for you!" list.
Despite that, Aldrich walked into the club with a long rifle and other guns and killed five people. Amazingly, two club patrons who were not armed were able to subdue him and save who knows how many lives. So much for the "good guy with a gun" theory.
We cats are weary — of the Trumpy 2A crowd, of their hatred for gay people, and of police departments screwing up. It all makes us HISS.
Is it just us, or does Merrick Garland's anointed go-after-Trump guy give off a distinctly "Untouchables" vibe?
We never heard of Jack Smith before today, but he's just earned himself a follow on Twitter. Not because he'll say anything about his work — these prosecutors are notoriously tight-lipped — but because he went after Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague. How perfect. You know, Benedict Donald really is a kind of war criminal, now that we think about it. At the very least, he's a crime against humanity.
So we're generally approving of Dark Merrick's special-counsel move. We've seen enough endorsements of Smith from career DOJ folks to be assured that he's a no-nonsense, by-the-book, let's-not-hold-up-the-parade kind of prosecutor. And Trump sounds kind of nervous.
Meanwhile, speaking of nervous — goodness gracious, Twitter was in a state last night. It was like everyone was on a plane that they knew was going to crash. When we all woke up this morning and it hadn't, it was a relief. (Especially for us, since we didn't know how to download our Twitter archive until today.) We don't know about you, but we're awfully tired of billionaire (and fake billionaire) man-babies expecting the world to indulge them. Our kingdom for a grownup. We cats HISS.
By Zamboni
Was the best thing about today the part in Nancy Pelosi's speech where she thanked three Presidents she's worked with — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden? Because she's worked with four.
Or maybe it's that we could soon get House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries! If he wins the job, he would be the first Black member to lead his party in Congress. As New York Attorney General Tish James tweeted, "Chuck and Hakeem. Brooklyn, we back on the map." And just as important: Jeffries is a badass and a fighter. Republicans beware.
As for them, they're already showing their stripes. After spending weeks screaming about inflation and gas prices and caravans, they've announced absolutely zero plans to tackle any of them. Looks like the GOP "Commitment to America" consists only of Hunter Biden's laptop (whatever that is). And Kevin McCarthy declined to attend Pelosi's speech today — which means that he is classless, chicken, or was caught off-guard by the House Democrats' unexpected command of the news cycle. Or all three.
Best news of all is that Pelosi will still be around to lend a hand behind the scenes. Staying in Congress, but stepping out of leadership, she'll be able to keep contributing and make sure hubby Paul recovers from last month's MAGA hammer attack.
Kinda different from John Boehner — who in 2015 couldn't wait to leave Washington and devote himself to his cigarettes and Merlot. That's the difference between a Speaker who was run out of town by his own party, and a Speaker who is beloved and will go down in history as one of the most consequential ever. We cats PURR.
(IMAGE: Michael de Adder)
The AP has called the House for the Republicans tonight, but we don't know by how many seats. It won't be by many, which is a good thing, because a slim majority requires a leader who really knows what he's doing. And Kevin McCarthy is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier (he hasn't even clinched the Speakership yet). Get ready for a lot of GOP infighting as Kev tries (and will probably fail) to walk a tightrope between the crazies and the less-crazies.
Mitch McConnell will remain Senate Minority Leader (accent on minority, yay!). Didn't he say he was going to resign or something if he couldn't be Majority Leader again? Well, no matter. He obliterated Florida's first Martian Senator, Rick Scott, who was endorsed for Leader by Benedict Donald, in a closed Senate caucus meeting, 37 to 10. Which means, that since those votes are usually secret, Mitch might never find out who the other nine Senators were. (We're actually surprised to learn that Scott has nine friends.)
Out in the states, what was the Michigan Republican Party's reaction to getting wiped out in the midterms? They launched a new campaign they called "the Grand 'New' Party," because — wait for it — the old Michigan GOP is "too moderate." This is why other Republicans who are urging a swing to the center (like Larry Hogan) are whistling in the wind. HAHAHAHA
Finally, in a bit of potentially good legislative news, the Senate has advanced a marriage equality bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriage. Here's hoping this will eventually head our reactionary SCOTUS off at the pass. Did you think all Republicans voted against it? Indeed no! It advanced 62 to 37, with support from GOP Senators Blunt, Burr, Capito, Collins, Ernst, Lummis, Murkowski, Portman, Romney, Sullivan, Tillis and Young. Should make for some interesting intra-party arguments in the Senate lunch room. Food fight? We cats PURR.
Benedict Donald is down in Florida at his bad-taste-rococo golf motel, about to do something that the Republican Party he's destroying doesn't want him to do. And we couldn't be happier. The only downside is knowing that the GOP isn't suddenly trying to dump him because he's awful — they're as bad as he is. They want to dump him because he makes them lose. That's all that matters to them. We cats HISS.
Do the pundits admit now that 2022 was not a change election?
We have no idea, actually, because our TVs are off. And we don't know when the sets are going to go back on again, because the talking heads are insufferable — so why subject ourselves to them? We've also seen no prominent mea culpas on social media or in the online MSM — which is concerning, because even with subpar performers like Chuck Todd, credibility (or, at least, an attempt at it) is important.
We're also annoyed with former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, who is generally someone we like. But on Election Day she posted an incredibly dumb tweet about how she was flashing on 2010, when the Democrats lost 63 seats. So stupid. So defeatist. So wrong.
Here's why 2022 was no 2010, and no 2014: Voters have been through so much crap in the last two years — COVID, Benedict Donald, January 6, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dobbs, Uvalde, and all the economic disruptions (supply chain, inflation, gas) — that they said, "Enough." Biden Calm trumped MAGA Chaos once more.
Now, while we wait for whatever happens with the House, it's super-duper-fun to watch all the Republicans fight with each other. McCarthy, McConnell, the Trumpster nutcases, even Ginni Thomas — they've all taken their places in the circular firing squad, and are shooting away. This should be an interesting week! We cats PURR.
(IMAGES: These are just some of the Democrats who were big winners last week. Bet we can add Katie Hobbs of Arizona here soon.)
Isn't it incredible that majorities in the House and Senate still can't be called? Well, maybe not so much. Elections are run by the states, and there are 50 states, and they're all different. Add onto that early voting and (especially) mail-in voting, and we get a lot of counting taking place over a lot of days.
So, we wait. No biggie. In the meantime, what is incredible is that the so-called "red wave" has been shrinking to a red ripple — if that. Sure, the GOP flipped a lot of seats in New York, and Florida is pretty much solid crimson. But every time we check, we're seeing Democrat after Democrat secure a House race that, per the pundits, had been teetering on the edge.
So maybe the Republicans will end up with, say, a 220-member majority? Could be interesting! You have to be as smart as Nancy Pelosi to handle tight margins like that, and Kevin McCarthy is no Nancy.
Which brings us to the most delicious suggestion we've heard in a long time: Liz Cheney for Speaker. What a grand idea. Contrary to popular belief, the Speaker does not technically need to be a member of the House, which is why all those MAGA idiots were floating Benedict Donald for the job. So whoever came up with the idea that Cheney should be nominated gets a gold star for originality.
In fact, we cats heartily endorse it, especially if the chamber ends up razor's-edge-Republican. Because without a Democratic House majority, we're not going to codify Roe, anyway, so why not nominate pro-life Liz? Here are three good reasons to do it:
Defeat the MAGAts. Save Ukraine. Rescue democracy. We cats can get behind all of it. And we PURR.
House races continue to be decided, and although some Democrats have gone down (how embarrassing for you, Sean Patrick Maloney), many have not. Many, in fact, that the Republicans and the clueless pundits simply assumed would lose, because, you know, "red wave." There's satisfaction in that, but it's grim satisfaction knowing that the political prognosticators will never admit they were wrong.
And out in Colorado, the tug-of-war between the odious Lauren Boebert and her Democratic challenger, Adam Frisch, continues to seesaw. One NBC affiliate out there called it for Frisch, but no one else has, and Boebert currently leads. It appears we're all waiting for Pueblo to weigh in, but that's somewhat murky at the moment. It would be sweet to take that one, wouldn't it?
Finally, on the Senate side, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and that abortion-loving football person are headed for a December 6 runoff because neither got 50 percent. But, wait! As the votes continue to trickle in, Warnock has reached 49.6 percent. Hmmm...what would the Republicans say if Joe Biden called Brad Raffensberger and asked him to "find" the votes Warnock needs?
Being total hypocrites, they'd scream bloody murder, of course. But the question is moot, because Joe Biden, even as the darkest of Dark Brandons, believes in the rule of law. We cats PURR.
While there were definitely some midterm heartbreakers last night, we cats are feeling pretty good. The endlessly hyped "red wave" was more like a trickle, and a lot of GOP finger-pointing is going on. (And fighting. Good.) But the most heartening sight was all the young people standing in line for hours to vote because they're furious about their rights being taken away. Their turnout was amazing.
And that's not all. An exit poll by the Edison Research National Election Pool showed that the choice for House candidates by voters age 18 to 29 was 63 percent for Democrats, 35 percent for Republicans — the only age group in which more than half of votes were Democratic.
But definitely don't wring your paws over the other groups. As our favorite DNC chair once said, if you get young people to vote Democratic, you've likely got a voter for life. That's a great investment.
Can you imagine what the Republicans would have to do to get young Americans to switch their party allegiance at this point? The GOP is so thoroughly backward on reproductive rights, the environment, LBGTQ+ rights, civil rights, preserving democracy, student loans, and the rest of it, that they'd have to blow themselves up for a complete reinvention. We encourage them to do it — for the sake of the country. In the meantime, thanks, young people. We cats PURR.
If you've been reading us lately, you must be aware of how growly we feel toward political journalism in America today. In short, it sucks.
The press has been so effectively baited by the right wing's accusations of "the liberal media" that they not only practice incessant bothsidesism, they sometimes just repeat Republican talking points. So the coverage of the 2022 midterms has been enough to make us tear our newspaper apart.
Plus, they're not delving into some interesting questions. Such as: What are the non-MAGA Republicans doing in the voting booth? It's been suggested that slices of the anti-Trump Republican electorate could make a difference in some of these very close midterm races.
Do they vote for the insurrectionists and democracy deniers? Do they vote Democratic? Do they not vote? We have theories:
We'd like to see some discussion about this, but it might be too complex for the lazy talking heads who populate cable news. And it's probably also too much to expect some analysis about the possible impact of COVID death rates — especially since they're higher for Republicans than Democrats, who are more vaccine-compliant. We cats HISS.
For weeks, we cats have been hit with MSM headlines about "Democratic drubbings" and "red waves." This morning, however, The Washington Post called the midterms "evenly split." So what's happened?
Well, maybe nothing, or maybe everything. The continued fury over the Supreme Court and Dobbs. The disgust with Benedict Donald and his merry band of insurrectionists. The Republican assaults on student loan forgiveness (young people are taking note). The GOP's loathsome candidates (Oz, Vance, Walker, Lake) and their rampant dishonesty (claiming credit for infrastructure funds they voted against).
Early turnout, as we've been saying, has been breaking records. It's hard to know how Republicans waiting to show up on Election Day are going to counter it. Maybe they will — we'll see. But all we know is that a year ago, the ABC/Washington Post poll of registered voters had Republicans up, 51 percent to 41 percent. Today, it's 49 percent to 48 percent. Although you wouldn't know it from the recent credulous media coverage, this one-point margin hasn't changed in the last six weeks.
An NBC poll shows an even split: Democrats and Republicans both at 47 percent among registered voters, with likely voters putting Democrats ahead by one point. A level playing field.
So, what to do, two days out? We've written post cards, tweeted, blogged, given money, and voted. Tonight, we gave more money to a short list of Senate and gubernatorial candidates who are in tight races. For folks like those, a little extra oomph of cash at the end can help them buy late ads or get more voters out. Organizations like ActBlue make it easy for you to find candidates to support.
Want to do more? You don't even have to live in a key state to help a campaign there. If you're interested in remote GOTV phone banking, for example, SwingLeft will sign you up. Keep up the good work, everybody! We cats PURR.
We cats do not especially admire Oprah Winfrey, as shocking as that may seem. Yes, she is far more accomplished than we could ever hope to be — but we're just naturally suspicious of billionaires. It's in our Democratic DNA.
Since we don't feel an Oprah-ish connection to her, any time she would do something, we wouldn't pay a ton of attention to it. Daytime TV? Weight loss? Handing out free cars? None of it captivated us. When it came to politics, she was more on our side than the Republicans', but since she took pains to style herself as an "independent," we always wondered. "Independents" are generally just Republicans who have gotten uncomfortable about something too late. And she's so damn rich.
Anyway, when we saw lefty tweeps complaining about how Oprah vaulted Dr. Oz to his original prominence, we didn't feel engaged. We never watched her show, and she had Oz on it, what? — 20 years ago? It seemed like a stretch to hang his current awfulness around her neck. When folks on Twitter bitched about her, we refrained from comment.
Now, however, Oprah has said that if she lived in Pennsylvania, she'd have voted for John Fetterman over Oz "long ago."
Okay! This is a good thing. But lefty tweeps are still complaining that it's too little, too late. You know what? People who would be motivated by Oprah are not deeply politically engaged to begin with. They would probably vote late in the process, or on Election Day. So Oprah's comment is probably perfect timing.
It's four days to the midterms, and by all accounts, Democrats are crushing the early vote. Let's keep up the momentum, and take Oprah's comment for the good news it is. We cats PURR.
Cheap gas, or the survival of democracy? Next week, American voters will decide which matters more. (Oh, and don't forget abortion, voting rights, Ukraine, Social Security, Medicare, and the climate crisis. They're all on the ballot.) The Lincoln Project gets it — and snagged Peter Coyote as their voice-over artist for this one. We cats PURR.
Everything we said in our previous post about Democratic turnout still goes. But we cats continue to be amazed at the media's shortsightedness about what's at stake in politics these days.
Joe Biden, who wanted to be President for 50 years and who clearly loves the job, gave a speech tonight about threats to democracy. It was an important speech, and a good one. But what's the first thing a politico from The New York Times decided to post? "Two topics that didn't make Biden's speech: the economy and inflation...Democracy is clearly what Biden wanted to talk about."
Ya think, NYT politico? Please, let us have your job, because you clearly don't know what you're doing.
Biden is a President who knows it's possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. His administration has been working to solve the issues that are pressing on Americans post-pandemic — like inflation, energy costs, and supply chain problems. (Although please remember that inflation is lower in the US than in most of the rest of the world.) Meanwhile, our democratic system is under serious threat from the Trumpsters. As President, he must address it — especially since that MAGA goon broke into Nancy Pelosi's home and nearly killed Paul Pelosi with a hammer. It would be political malpractice to ignore it.
In short, American political journalism continues to fail us. It just focuses on polling and the horse race, because that's easy, and today's reporters are lazy. It's far more difficult, and challenging, to put one's institutional knowledge — if, indeed, one has any — to work, and provide proper context for the problems the nation faces today. If journalists were able to do that, their coverage would be far more thoughtful and enlightening. But there's not much hope for that in today's world of clicks and likes, is there? We cats HISS.
We cats are not into rose-colored glasses. Refusing to accept reality does nobody any favors. But we are perplexed that the media are still peddling this "red wave" nonsense about the midterms. It seems to have no relation to what is actually happening on the ground.
Is it that political "journalists" no longer understand how campaigns and elections work? Quite possibly. It's 50 years since The Boys on the Bus, and now it's not just boys, and there's no bus — only fundraisers, the interwebs, social media, and texts. Phone banking doesn't even work that well anymore. And polls? Forget about it — caller ID and cellphones have probably killed them. Meanwhile, the GOP is flooding the zone with Republican-weighted surveys that a credulous press is amplifying.
So, we're left with turnout. You know, actual people voting! What a concept! And that's where the "red wave" narrative starts to fall apart.
In state after state so far, Democrats are overperforming in the early vote — in some states, in the double digits over Democratic turnout in 2020, a Presidential year. That includes Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Twenty-six million Americans have cast ballots already, with Democrats leading Republicans by three million votes. In short, it's a pattern that was evident in the Kansas abortion vote this year and the five special elections for the House.
There is no "red wave" — at least, not yet. The Republicans are trying to manufacture one by zone-flooding GOP polls and by tweeting lies to suppress the Democratic vote. They're being aided by journalists who call up pundits (their fellow rich neighbors) and ask them for "analysis" that will feed the inside-the-Beltway hand-wringing. We are ignoring it all, and so should you. Keep working, everybody! We cats PURR.
Hey, did anyone get fetanyl-laced Halloween candy last night? We've seen zero reports in the news of the thing that Fox "News" and other right-wing purveyors of disinformation swore was absolutely going to happen. Just another lie, then.
Speaking of food, there was a surprising (and sad) obit making the rounds today. Julie Powell, the writer who blogged her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking 20 years ago, died last week at the young age of 49. The cause was cardiac arrest, and we have to admit it: The first thought that popped into our furry heads was: All that butter!
Julia Child was a fervent believer in the stuff. "With enough butter, anything is good," she said. We agree — except maybe not on tuna.
So forgive us, Julie Powell, for our cattiness. We're sorry to see you go so soon, but you (and Julia) left behind a lot of joy. We cats PURR.
