Jailbird

By Baxter

The Mesa County, Colorado, Sheriff’s Office released the booking photo for former County Clerk Tina Peters after she was sentenced to jail for nine years for tampering with voting machines. Looking at this, you have to think that the enormity of what's happened to her hadn't sunk in yet. Maybe now that she's had her first night of not-sleeping on her special "magnetic" mattress, she knows better. Nine years!

This woman was the epitome of MAGA entitlement and privilege, and the judge who sentenced her yesterday made that crystal clear. Check out — and savor — his withering 12-minute statement to her, after which she was unceremoniously handcuffed and hauled off to the hoosegow instead of staying free on appeal. Clearly, the judge considered her an unrepentant danger to the community. Which, with a national election just around the corner, she is.

P.S. In case you're wondering, no, Donald Trump can't pardon her if he's elected in November. (He won't be, of course, but that's not the point.) Tina Peters was charged and convicted by the state of Colorado. She's outta luck. We cats PURR. 

What We Can Do

By Sniffles

Because they are horrible people who never shy away from exploiting others' suffering for political gain, MAGA Republicans are trying to spread the lie that the Biden-Harris Administration is falling down on the job when it comes to Hurricane Helene recovery. (Are they still feeling stung about criticisms of George W. Bush's screw-ups — and that infamous photo — after Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Nah. They're just frantically trying everything they can to stop Kamala Harris.)

All this lie-mongering has made humanitarians like Chef José Andrés, who is actually doing something to help victims of Helene, push back strongly on social media. And even a Republican with Presidential ambitions like Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia has refused to toe the MAGA line. "I'm incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and cooperation by the federal team," he said.

If you have friends in Western North Carolina like we do, you may be wondering how you can help them while they dig themselves out of the muck and the mud. We cats have avoided giving to the Red Cross for years — they've turned very crooked. So we have two suggestions: Give Chef José and his team at World Central Kitchen some dollars and love by clicking here. And if you're worried about how Helene may affect the election in North Carolina, you can click here to support the organizing efforts of the state Democratic Party. We cats PURR.

"So What"? Here's What.

By Hubie and Bertie

Football fans famously say that when the chips are down, you can win in the last few minutes of the fourth quarter. Or, at least... we think so. We cats aren't into that particular game, mostly because we just don't understand downs. But we get the concept of pulling out a last-second victory as the clock ticks down.

Earlier today, folks were saying that Coach Walz won last night's debate in the final minutes, when he shamed JD Vance over January 6. You have to wonder if "That's a damning non-answer" is the harshest response a Minnesota nice guy can give. Whether it is or not, what Walz said was absolutely correct. Vance was smarmy and unbelievable.

And we were pleasantly surprised, because all the talking heads had assured us that Team Harris was not going to focus on the 2021 insurrection the way Team Biden wanted to. But here was Walz, directly addressing Vance and asking him if Trump lost in 2020 or not. (What an indictment of today's journalists, by the way.)

Turns out, Walz's timing was perfect, because today's unsealing of Jack Smith's filing against Benedict Donald in the January 6 case shows just how contemptuous of democracy Team Trump was. Lots of new information revealed in 165 pages, including Donald's "so what" response to an aide's concern for Mike Pence's safety. If that doesn't give JD Vance pause, we don't know what will.

The bottom line is that with a mere month to go, January 6 has once again become — and will remain — part of the 2024 election conversation. Sorry, JD. We cats PURR.

Getting Likes

By Miss Kubelik

Let's discuss the elusive quality of likability. In politics, it's the natural gift of being appealing to and connecting with other people. But pundits and historians question it. Does it really matter? After all, if it did, Richard Nixon wouldn't have won a single election in his lifetime.

We cats think it matters. Last night's VP debate was the latest example.

Yes, there were key moments on the issues when JD Vance disqualified himself from public office. Tim Walz brutally cornered him on January 6 (it's already a Harris campaign ad). And then there's "The rules were you guys weren't going to fact-check" about Haitian immigrants. (Like his boss, what a whiner.) But overall, there was his constant attitude of smug contempt. (We won't get into the fuschia tie, which he may have worn as some weird gesture to women, or the eyeliner, which he obviously uses because his peepers are so deep-set.)

While the elite media focused on Vance's smooth ability to lie, it was surely Walz's authenticity that won the night. For example, a CNN poll handed Walz a plus-37 net-favorable advantage after the debate. Although Vice Presidential match-ups almost never matter in the end, perhaps voters have decided they just don't want to see Vance in their living rooms for the next four years, let alone be a 78-year-old, junk-food-eating heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Speaking of Benedict Donald, he may very well have ruined an unlikable candidate's ability to win — at least, for some time. His awful performance against Kamala Harris reminded tens of millions of viewers of all the reasons they despise him. (And he knows he screwed up, because he's still obsessing over it three weeks later.) GOP "bad candidates" are struggling in races across the country — folks like Mark Robinson, Kari Lake, Bernie Moreno and Tim Sheehy just plain turn people off. You could even apply this to Canada, where a very Vancey leader of the Conservative opposition can't seem to cobble together a vote of no confidence against Justin Trudeau's nine-year government.

Voters make decisions based on their guts. And the more they see of Harris and Walz, the more they like them. Also, and most important, Tim Walz likes cats. This makes us PURR.

Simon Says

By Zamboni

Steve Bannon still has another month to go in his prison sentence, but the tactic he helped unleash — to "flood the zone with sh*t" — is, unfortunately, alive and well this Presidential election. It's known among us Democrats as "red-wave polling," and what it does it make polling averages skewed and unreliable.

Republicans did this back in the 2022 midterms, and they successfully suckered pundits and analysts who should have known better into predicting a GOP wipeout. As you know, that didn't happen. The House of Representatives flipped from our control, but by a very tight margin, and the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision clearly played a big role. So all those lazy journos and talking heads ended up with egg-covered faces. A word of caution, however:

"This problem is still with us in 2024, and it may be about to become a serious problem," says Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. He has a list of nearly 20 right-wing or GOP-leaning polls that are trying mightily to shift the poll averages to Benedict Donald, including Fox News, McLaughlin, Public Opinion Strategies, and Trafalgar, just to name a few. Unsurprisingly, they're especially active in trying to skew perceptions of the race in North Carolina, a make-or-break state for Trump.

"This close to an election, spending money on anything other than things that help you win is an extravagance," Rosenberg says. "Thus, the right must view spending so much money on these polls as something that helps them win, which makes them a new form of partisan political activity — not 'polling' as we understand it."

It would be nice if the media would start recognizing and acknowledging this phenomenon, especially after the embarrassment they suffered two years ago. But holding out hope for any kind of intelligent political analysis from today's so-called journalists is probably a waste of time.

In the meantime, then, while we're not the types to say "Ignore all the polls," at least keep red-wave polling in mind when you see cable news performers tout the tightness of the race or an alleged shift to Republicans. It's in their interest because they want eyeballs, likes, and clicks. And obviously it's in the Trumpsters' interest because they're anxious to suppress an enthusiastic early vote for Harris-Walz.

What can we do about all this? "Support our candidates, outhustle the Republicans, run up the score in the early vote, and go win this election, together," Rosenberg says. We cats PURR.

Peacemaker

By Baxter

Well, he made it! Today is Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday, and he's here with all of us to celebrate it. According to Jason Carter, his grandfather Jimmy is excited about voting for Kamala Harris for President, and intends to stick around in order to do so. It's good to have goals. (And good for Dark Brandon for giving him this one.)

Meanwhile, the tributes are all over the interwebs, and no doubt pouring into The Carter Center. He's earned them — including, we can't help thinking, some famous words of his old 1980 Democratic nemesis, Ted Kennedy. He's a "good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." We cats PURR.