De Adder Du Jour

 

(IMAGE: Michael de Adder, The Washington Post)

Fox Is A Dangerous Farce

By Zamboni

Snow is coming tonight! Finally, after weeks of springlike silliness, winter is hitting us... and it's almost March. Plus there's more forecast for later this week. So weird. Don't tell us climate change isn't real.

Meanwhile, today's big story is a court filing in the Dominion v. Fox "News" case, in which Rupert Murdoch, the only man who's done more damage to American democracy than Donald Trump, testified that Fox's "election fraud" lies were — well, lies. Not only that, but Fox shared Joe Biden's campaign ads with Jared Kushner, before they aired.

Can we all just agree now that none of us should have to pay our cable stations for a package that includes Fox? Who wants to volunteer to start the drumbeat?

Yet there's one consoling thought. In spite of some observations that "It is hard to overstate how much of an advantage it is to have your opponent's ads in advance during a close election," Biden still beat Trump by seven million votes. That's how badly Dark Brandon humiliated Benedict Donald. Really badly. We cats PURR.

Dear Mr. Adams, You Are Obnoxious And Disliked.

By Baxter

The creator of the comic strip "Dilbert" has self-defenestrated, and it's glorious to see. Scott Adams has been dancing up against the boundaries of acceptance for so long now that it's kind of a jolt to realize that he's committed professional suicide at last. But he has.

Adams went off on a racist rant in response to a Rasmussen poll that asked silly questions about whether it was "okay" to be white. Now, any sophisticated political observer would already know that Rasmussen polls are Republican-skewing and garbage. So it seems to us that Adams was just tired of playing the game, and finally decided to end it all with a bunch of nonsense tweets about how white Americans should "get the hell away from Black people." 

Adams was already on the ropes with his support for Benedict Donald and his opposition to COVID vaccines. Might as well finish the job, right?

Anyway, here are our predictions:

• Trump will woo him hard for a 2024 endorsement.
• He will be a speaker at the GOP convention.
• He will be signed as a frequent contributor to Fox "News," OANN, Newsmax or any of the other Nazi Party organs.
• Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and the other right-wing snowflakes will stampede one another to decry anti-Adams wokeism. There may be injuries in the process.
• Karine will deftly take him down from the White House podium.

That last one will make us cats PURR.

Le Stade Olympique: Slava Ukraini

Lots of solidarity with Ukraine today. The street in front of the Russian embassy in London was painted with the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Landmarks like the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Peace Tower in Ottawa are lit in yellow and blue. And now, here's the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. We cats PURR.

Love Trumps Hate, But Make Republicans Own This

By Sniffles

In a headline that would make the Greatest Generation never stop throwing up, anti-Semitic groups across the US have declared tomorrow a "National Day of Hate." Gee, we just saluted the victors at Iwo Jima yesterday, and now, neo-Nazi types are proudly flying the flag of one of the defeated Axis powers. Ugh.

We're torn between not wanting to give these awful people attention and spreading the news as a warning to our Jewish (and other minority-representing) friends and loved ones. Ultimately, it's probably best to acknowledge and respond — and then hang these haters around Republicans' necks for years to come.

So please take note of the banner that the Nazi on the left is holding in this photo. (It's important because they're already trying to gaslight people into blaming Biden and "antifa" for this event.) And get those campaign ads ready, so every Republican in America has to either support hate or condemn it. We cats HISS.

Throwback Thursday: The Greatest Generation Takes Iwo Jima

Seventy-eight years ago today, US Marines raised the American flag on Iwo Jima. This image by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal was later immortalized in Washington, DC's Iwo Jima monument, honoring the 6,800 Marines — including three of the flag-raisers — who eventually died taking the island.

"The Japanese fought to the death, with more than 18,000 fatalities, making the path ahead in the Pacific War abundantly clear and terrifying," The Globe & Mail reports. Have you ever wondered about Harry Truman's reasons for dropping the atomic bomb? That's why.

Fine Messes

By Hubie and Bertie

We're going to ignore Benedict Donald's silly trip to East Palestine, Ohio, today — not just because the sight of him handing out 13-year-old bottled water and tossing MAGA caps is ridiculous, but because we'd so much rather publish a photo of the ravishingly handsome head of the EPA, Michael Regan.

Regan has been at the train wreck site for some time now, meeting with residents and tasting the tap water. Today, he put some teeth — no, fangs — in the government's response, ordering Norfolk Southern to pay for the entire cleanup or face fines of $70,000 a day. This is the kind of stuff you can do when you hold the reins of government, unlike an out-of-power has-been like Donald Trump.

As much as the Trumpsters and their allies on the ground in East Palestine would like it, they're not controlling the narrative there. That they're trying so hard is proof that they know things are looking pretty dicey on their side. The story about Arizona's former attorney general, Republican Mark Brnovich, covering up an investigation that revealed no 2020 voter fraud in Maricopa County is just one of the latest headlines to hit our screens.

Another is today's news that special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed Ivanka Trump and her creepy husband in Smith's January 6 investigation. And there's some interesting speculation that their subpoenas have something to do with Mike Pence trying to dodge his.

"What [Pence's] call with #45 that Ivanka overheard may have included were words to the effect that Pence agreed to do it and backed out. If Pence said something like 'I changed my mind,' he's admitted he was part of the conspiracy. But like the driver in a bank heist who gets cold feet and drives off...he is liable for everything that comes after, and remains fully responsible for all crimes committed."

Intriguing! Ivanka may find it tougher to skate through her testimony this time, because Smith will be sitting her down not on a Zoom with Congressional staff but before a grand jury. (And while they've got Jared there, maybe they can ask him to explain that $2 billion he got from the Saudis.) We cats PURR.

Dark Brandon Needs No Rest

By Miss Kubelik

In keeping with their Joe-Biden-is-so-old-OMG-he's-too-old-how-can-he-possibly-run-again-when-he's-so-old mindset — the better to goose ratings with, of course, which is all they care about — the news media talking heads have been breathlessly chattering away the last couple of days about whether the President has gotten any sleep. And boy, they say — he must really need it!

We heard the prattling ourselves last night, when we watched live coverage of Biden's arrival in Warsaw after his arduous trek to Kyiv. "Bet he can't wait to get to the hotel!" they bleated. But the visuals said otherwise: Biden was lingering on the tarmac, chatting up his Ambassador and all the other folks who'd turned out to greet him. In short, it was journalists embarrassing themselves, as usual.

Well, Biden gave a pretty long and important speech in Warsaw today, but even after that, he got on the phone. Why? That train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, that the Trumpsters have desperately been trying to blame him for. He called worthless GOP Governor Mike DeWine, Senator Sherrod Brown, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Representative Bill Johnson, to assess progress on the cleanup. Then he tweeted a long update of everything the government is doing — and has been doing since the crisis began.

The best part? He took a well-deserved shot at the Republicans in the thread. "For years, elected officials — including the last administration — have limited our ability to implement and strengthen rail safety measures," he said. "Heck, many of the elected officials pointing fingers right now want to dismantle the EPA — the agency that is making sure this cleanup happens."

Note to the POTUS doubters: Don't worry about Joe Biden's age or how much sleep he's getting. He tolerates no malarkey, and he looooves this stuff. It is his Dark Brandon super power. We cats PURR.

Surprise!

By Zamboni

President Biden paid an unexpected visit to Ukraine today, and the Trumpsters are big mad. Specifically, the person with the three names to whom Jamie Raskin generously refers as "the gentle lady from Georgia" (never have we heard a courtesy title wielded with such contempt).

The so-called gentle lady then followed up with a torrent of tweets demanding the breakup of the United States. Now, we couldn't care less what she says, because she's ridiculous and it's all performative. But going forward, no Republican should have an interview in which the reporter does not ask if he or she agrees.

Meanwhile, Dark Brandon sure pulled it off, didn't he? You have to take a moment to appreciate how risky it was to go into a war zone with no American boots on the ground. (On the other hand, Joe Biden finds it difficult to resist train trips.) He's not only upstaging Putin, he's given us all the opportunity to remember the humiliating images of Benedict Donald's trip to Helsinki in 2018. You love to see it. We cats PURR.

Sad News Today... And More To Come

 

Now we know we have a heart, because it's breaking. (And so is Twitter.)

Train Wreck Says He'll Visit Train Wreck

By Baxter

Is it true? Benedict Donald has announced he'll visit the site of the ghastly train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, next week?

We cats say, no way. First, any time Trump has visited a disaster, it's turned out to be a paper-towel-throwing disaster in itself. Donald Trump does not mix well with beleaguered survivors. He has no natural talent for empathy (or any other human emotion).

Second, even though we understand he wants to beat other Republicans to the scene of the crime, the press will descend — and any questions that they'll have will be about (we hope) the Atlanta grand jury, or Jack Smith, Tish James or E. Jean Carroll. Nothing else.

Since the announcement was about "next week," we'll believe it when we see it. Right now, we think the chances of Trump actually going through with it are about 50-50. We'll be happy to be wrong — but only if the media ask him about all of the subjects listed above. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Justin, Justified

By Sniffles

A year after the "Freedom Convoy" took over the streets of Ottawa, trashed the city, and terrorized its residents — with current Tory leader Pierre Poilievre personally delivering them coffee and doughnuts — the Public Order Emergency Commission has released its verdict: The government's invocation of the Emergencies Act was appropriate.

"In my view, there was credible and compelling information supporting a reasonable belief that the definition of a threat to the security of Canada was met," Justice Paul Rouleau, the commission's leader, said in the report. "I have concluded that Cabinet was reasonably concerned that the situation it was facing was worsening, and at risk of becoming dangerous and unmanageable."

The report was also critical of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his do-nothing government: "I find the Province of Ontario's reluctance to become fully engaged in such efforts directed at resolving the situation in Ottawa troubling," Rouleau stated — a mild rebuke when you remember that Ford absented himself from the crisis by going on a snowmobiling trip, even posting photos from his vacay on social media.

So there. The only thing we'd quibble with is the Canadian press and its insistence that the convoy "truckers" were legitimate in any way. "The protesters were angry with the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including vaccine requirements," the CBC says. Nope, nope, nope. That was their cover story. In reality, they were a bunch of slobby Canadian-style Trumpster types who hated Justin Trudeau and wanted to change the government, not by election but by force.

This crap has happened in three democratic countries now, in three different ways — the US, Canada and Brazil. When are people going to wake up? We cats HISS.

Ugh.

By Hubie and Bertie

We cats were hoping to take a pass on writing or even thinking about Nimrata Randhawa Haley, because she is ridiculous and offends us. But then, the entire GOP does, too, so what else can we do?

It's not just that she tries to pretend that she isn't a sycophant to Benedict Donald — dancing around his 2024 candidacy by calling for a "new generation" of Republican leaders, and claiming that she's sure Trump would pass her proposed over-70 cognitive test. (Anybody remember her being concerned that Strom Thurmond was still representing her state in the Senate at age 100? Neither do we.) It's also that, with the exceptions of Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and a few other awful places, the US really doesn't need to look more like South Carolina.

And who needs another person joining the dubious ranks of Republicans who try to reinvent themselves? Raphael Cruz is quite enough, thanks.

But there's one thing about Nimrata that may make her stand out. It's tempting to think that the GOP girls who are either hinting at running or frantically trying to raise their political profiles — Kari Lake or Kristi Noem come to mind — are actually vying to be Benedict Donald's Vice President. It might even be tempting to think Nimrata is, too. But no. Haley's in it to be Ron DeSantis's running mate. We cats HISS.

Von Nukem Nukes Himself

By Miss Kubelik

Fred Guttenberg didn't have a very good day today. Neither did any of the other Parkland parents who lost kids at Marjory Stoneman High School five years ago. But as one of the most activist survivors of an American mass shooting, Fred is a familiar face and voice on cable TV and social media, and he was absolutely furious about last night's incident at Michigan State University.

Yes, America's gun problem is beyond depressing. And so is a lot of the other news on our screens tonight — the train derailment in Ohio, the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, and everything Rhonda Santis is doing to the state of Florida. But here's a glimmer of light we can all celebrate.

Joseph Von Nukem has committed suicide.

You're probably asking, "Who?" So check out this picture of the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, Tiki torchers: He's the dude in the black shirt in the middle, and by the looks of it, he and the others are chanting, "Jews will not replace us." Well, he doesn't need to worry about being "replaced" any more, because, facing trial for trying to smuggle fetanyl from Mexico, he shot himself a couple of weeks ago. (Yep, fetanyl. And yep, Biden's border patrol caught him. The irony!)

So we'll take this for the good news it is. As Charlottesville journalist Molly Conger tweeted, "You probably remember this photograph...the man in the center was elated to see himself on the cover of papers across the country. Today, I can tell you he is dead." We cats PURR.

Happy Valentine's Day

Yes, we're early — but there will probably be other things we'll want to blog about tomorrow. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Klaatu Barada Nikto

By Zamboni

We cats will be really annoyed if alien invaders arrive before Donald Trump is indicted. Talk about pushing important news off the front page — and the Trump indictment is the story we've been waiting for most. However, with the recent subpoena of Mike Pence, it's probably not out of bounds to assume that Jack Smith is reaching the end of his investigation. Won't be long now, kids!

But just this afternoon, another "unidentified aerial phenomenon" ("UAP") — thanks, but we really prefer UFO — has been shot down over Lake Huron, so it seems that something is going on. Let's just assume that whatever the Biden Administration has to announce, that news will step all over the "weaponization of the government" hearings that House Republicans have been embarrassing themselves with.

See, the thing is, these UFOs and spy balloons and flying octagons are a Trump scandal. It's been pretty plain that Benedict Donald allowed America's adversaries to fly whatever they wanted in our airspace. He loved the world's dictators so much that it's obvious, at least to us, that he let them to spy on us. But you have to wonder: Why have these flights continued, two years after Trump's departure?

Whatever the answer to that, Trump compromised this country — or allowed it to be compromised — from the first minutes of his tainted, traitorous, scandalous Presidency. These UAPs are just more of the Trumpy rot that we have yet to uncover. There's still so much to find out, and we cats HISS.

Stupid Doesn't Stop At The Border

By Baxter

Well, either we're being invaded by extraterrestrials or there's another Chinese (or maybe Russian) spy thingy floating in the skies, because NORAD just shot down a cylindrical UFO over the Yukon Territory in Canada. (Don't worry, team, Gurdeep Pandher of the Yukon has reported that he's just fine.)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced tonight that the object, whatever it was, was taken down by an American F-22 because, at 40,000 feet, it was dangerous to commercial aircraft. Okay, fine. We're standing by to hear more whenever our respective governments decide to brief us.

Meanwhile, it's probably par for the course that Conservative politicians in Canada are feigning ignorance of NORAD and criticizing Trudeau for the fact that it was a US plane that shot the thing down. Here are the facts: The defense of Canadian airspace is actually a joint command responsibility between us and the True North, and whichever plane is closest to the target gets to destroy it — on the order of the Canadian Prime Minister, i.e., Justin Trudeau.

Seems pretty simple to us, but we're shocked to see some Canadian journalists jumping on the why-not-Canada bandwagon. We may have to rethink our follows. In the meantime, we cats HISS.

(IMAGE: Yes, this is the alien visitor from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. We don't know if the object shot down over the Yukon was trying to communicate with whales. We cats PURR.)

Bem-vindo, Lula

By Sniffles

President Biden hosted Brazilian President Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva at the White House today. This simple declarative sentence is filled with comforting facts: Biden, not Trump, is the US President. Lula, not Jair Bolsonaro, is President of Brazil. We should all be grateful.

Because even though Biden and Lula were legitimately elected to their positions, both have faced insurrections from their countries' rabid right wings — flames that have been fanned by their predecessors. Lula acknowledged as much in his Oval Office meeting.

"Brazil marginalized itself for four years,” he said. "Bolsonaro's world started and ended with fake news."

"Sounds familiar," Biden replied.

See, this is another reason we cats love Joe Biden. He's been around the block for so long — 50 years! — that he's able to cut to the chase with incredible ease, and with complete credibility. As for Lula, what a gift to him that Bolsonaro, under investigation for corruption, is hiding out in Orlando, Florida. It's hard to look statesmanlike when you're cowering in the shadow of Rhonda Santis.

Challenges for the US and Brazil remain. But President Biden was right when he said today, "Both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed." Yes, it has. Take that, Trumpsters. We cats PURR.

De Adder Du Jour

(IMAGE: Michael de Adder)

Dark Brandon Rules

By Hubie and Bertie

People have been underestimating Joe Biden for a long time. Last night was just more proof.

As columnist Rex Huppke observed in USA Today: "I’ve never seen anything like it in a State of the Union speech — [Republicans] ran at [Biden] like a pack of lemmings and, with a wink and a grin, he politely directed them to the cliff."

There were so many instances of "There's the cliff, guys," but of course the leading one was Dark Brandon's deft rope-a-dope (emphasis on "dope") in which he got 222 House Republicans to swear they wouldn't cut Social Security and Medicare. Those MAGAts! — outfoxed by an 80-year-old happy warrior they keep calling senile. You love to see it.

(What you don't love to see is a big SOTU fashion "don't." Kyrsten Sinema and Marjorie Taylor Greene were both guilty of that, and a lot of tweeps have been invoking Big Bird and Cruella de Vil.)

Adding to the fun: As Biden looked incredibly strong last night, "Kev" McCarthy never looked weaker — except maybe during the 15 votes it took for the House to elect him Speaker. Nervously glancing over at his caucus to see how he should react, impotently shushing his braying banshees like the hapless parent of an out-of-control toddler at Toys "R" Us, McCarthy's lack of control was there for all to see. And he couldn't even stand and clap for democracy. What a tool. We cats HISS at him (and PURR at Dark Brandon).

UPDATE: Forget Cruella. The more apt comparison appears to be Tonya Harding. We cats PURR.

He's Not Called Prime Minister Disney Prince For Nothing

By Miss Kubelik

Remember back in 2017 — you know, 100 years ago — when Justin Trudeau outfoxed Benedict Donald with a nifty, nimble handshake?

Trump thought he had perfected the art of the dominating clasp (hello, Shinzo Abe) — until he met Trudeau. This was particularly important because Canadians are always on the lookout for any subservience to their southern neighbor (i.e., they don't like it).

Well, Trudeau's done it again — this time, with the execrable Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

A word about Smith: She is like a Greg Abbott or a Rhonda Santis or any number of other repugnant Republican governors we could name. She didn't even win a provincial election: She was appointed premier in October after her equally awful predecessor, Jason Kenney, resigned. Since then, she's embarrassed herself repeatedly, talking nonsense about Ukraine, vaccines and energy, and threatening secession while accepting all sorts of financial support from Ottawa.

Yep, GOP to the core. And today, at Trudeau's meeting with all the provincial premiers to discuss healthcare (among other topics), Smith got faked out. We could watch this all day.

These Trumpy Canadian "leaders" need to realize that Justin Trudeau couldn't care less about their idiocies and insults, and he's happy to work with just about anybody. (Unless you're trashing the streets and monuments of Ottawa.) We cats adore PMJT, and we PURR.

Lest We Furr-get: 1619 And 1776

By Zamboni

We cats are plowing our way slowly through The 1619 Project — partly because it's nearly 600 pages, and mostly because wow, it really makes you stop and think.

That is, if you're white, of a certain age, and learned mostly American pablum, not history, in school. It kinda blows you away if — whenever you deign to think about it (which probably isn't often) — you unthinkingly accept the "freedom and liberty for all" themes that resonate every Fourth of July.

Instead, The 1619 Project re-centers everything for you. The founding of our nation was about enslavement just as much as throwing tea in Boston Harbor, and never mind about the later genocide against Indigenous North Americans. That's a lot of blood to have on your paws, but it's best that, instead of demonizing accurate history as the Republicans do, we all grow up and reconsider what we believe.

One of The 1619 Project's key takeaways is that Britain's pledge to free any enslaved Americans who fought on their side helped drive Southerners to support the Revolution. As writer and editor Nikole Hannah-Jones observes, "So much of the response was people saying, 'It can’t possibly be true,' or 'I certainly would have heard this before'...'I’ve never heard of this, so it must be a lie.'"

How about this instead: "I've never heard of this because my history classes were white-centered, so it must be true"?

Heck, even the musical 1776, written 54 years ago, recognized that Southern members of the Continental Congress threatened to defeat the Declaration of Independence unless "the peculiar institution" went unmentioned. Sounds like the truths Hannah-Jones and her team of historians and writers have unearthed could add another song or two to the show. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: "Why?" Edition

By Baxter

So many questions this Sunday afternoon. Let's get right to them:

Why did Congressional Republicans raise the debt limit three times under Trump without controversy, but are suddenly against doing it now?

Why are Republicans going after marginalized communities like trans people to appeal to their crazy base, instead of offering solutions on issues like the economy, inflation and climate change?

Why did a family of three in York County, Pennsylvania, all die in a murder-suicide pact?

Why didn't Republicans scream and yell about the three times that a Chinese spy balloon flew over the US when Trump was in office, but are screaming and yelling about it now?

Answer to all these questions: Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is President. We cats HISS.

Omar, Out In The Cold

By Sniffles

We're not sure what House Republicans accomplished today when they voted to boot Rep. Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee. The Squeaker of the House (for he's as timid as a mouse) Kevin McCarthy appeased his lunatic caucus with one of the most Inside Baseball of all Inside Baseball moves — will it really matter to regular folks who don't follow politics? — but the spectacle didn't exactly work in his favor.

Not only did the anti-Omar campaign bring Democrats (and plenty of Republicans we follow on Twitter) together in solidarity, it gave members like Adam Schiff, Jan Schakowsky, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Eric Swalwell the chance to give some pretty great speeches. (Omar, too.) So perhaps the story will penetrate beyond the Beltway — but not in the way McCarthy intended. The GOP looks just like what it is: petty and small.

Meanwhile, McCarthy has elevated the "Jewish space laser" lady to positions of influence, let Paul Gosar slide on his AOC death threats, and refuses to ban guns on Capitol Hill. Fun times, folks.

What idiocy is next? Here's a guess: The GOP will jump back on the climate-change-isn't-real-because-it's-so-cold-out bandwagon. Of course, that's only if they pay attention to what's happening in Canada, which they might not know how to find on a map. But tonight, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and the Maritimes are set for some record-breaking temperatures and wind chills these next couple of days.

Sorry, MAGA, but weather isn't climate. Maybe, though, the cold will discourage some of those crazy "Freedom Convoy" nutjobs from returning to Ottawa this month. Authorities won't be quite as indulgent about their hot tubs this time. We cats PURR.

"We Need A White History Month"

Ever wonder why Ron DeSantis and the GOP don't want actual American history taught in school? We cats PURR.