Scotland Shines — Canada Says, "Hold My Beer"

By Zamboni

Scotland wins raves for its treatment of Trump? Now, it's Canada's turn.

Until a few days ago, we cats were blissfully unaware of the existence of someone called Sean Feucht, but we know who he is now. Feucht is a so-called "Christian" singer who is pro-MAGA, anti-abortion and anti-gay. One of his claims to fame is fighting COVID restrictions in 2020. This summer, he's been trying to tour Canada, and not meeting with much success. Venues in cities like Quebec, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton and Gatineau have canceled their contracts with him.

In Quebec, for example, the city-owned venue said they'd been lied to — by omission. "The presence of a controversial artist was not mentioned when the contract was signed between ExpoCité and the promoter of the concert planned for the site," said a spokesman.

In Montréal, Feucht performed at a church on the Plateau, even though the venue, Église MR, did not have the proper city permit to hold the event, and had been warned not to proceed without one. Protesters showed up, outnumbering the small crowd inside, and the police had to intervene. On Saturday, the city fined the church $2,500 for hosting the Trumpy Feucht in the first place.

As you'd imagine, Feucht is one of those proudly obnoxious MAGAts who thinks that rules don't apply to him. So we're glad that municipalities in Canada are making it clear that his right-wing beliefs are not welcome there. Still, we'd love to go back to the days when we had no idea who Sean Feucht was. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

(PHOTO: Sean hangs out in DC with Lauren Boebert. Need we say more?)

The Scots Understood The Assignment

Scotland didn't give Benedict Donald a very warm welcome today. In fact, Scotland leads the UK in despising Trump: 71 percent disapprove of him, compared to 57 percent in the United Kingdom generally. We cats wish the comedian Janey Godley were still with us — she would have some choice words indeed. Meanwhile, we PURR.

"Family Values"

By Baxter

Back in the early days of Pizzagate and QAnon, we cats were still learning about the crazy fringe people that the Republican Party eventually ended up mainstreaming as Trumpism overtook them.

Their charges of pedophilia against Democrats were bewildering to us at first. But now, we get it — because every accusation was, and is, a confession. Distract everyone by accusing your opponents of the worst thing you do yourself.

The root of it all is surely Epstein, but child rapists seem to be everywhere in the GOP. This story from Florida is just the latest:

"Fort Pierce City Commissioner James Taylor was arrested July 24 on felony charges after allegations of having an inappropriate relationship with a teen girl," Yahoo News reports.

"Taylor, 38, was jailed on charges including six counts each of transmission of material harmful to a minor by electronic equipment, transfer or display of obscenity to a minor, and harmful communication to a minor; four counts of lewd computer solicitation of a child; and two counts of solicitation of transmission of child pornography by electronic device or equipment, the St. Lucie County sheriff's office stated. All 24 counts are felonies.

"Sheriff’s officials reported the investigation started in August 2024 when police in Evanston, Illinois, got a report from the mother of a 13-year-old girl. The mother advised that her daughter, who was only 12 years old when the communications began, had been contacted by an adult male via Snapchat.

"Over time, the conversations became sexually explicit, and the suspect allegedly sent multiple nude images to the minor."

Jesus Christ, Republicans, when are you going to come clean on this and call it out? When Trump pardons Ghislaine Maxwell? We cats HISS.

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows

 (IMAGE: Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times-Free Press)

Art But Make It Epstein

 Marie-Thérèse, Face and Profile, Pablo Picasso, 1931

(IMAGE: Art But Make It Sports)

"Many People Are Saying"

 

By Sniffles

Today's Epstein-du-Jour breaking news is that Pam Bondi told Benedict Donald that he was in the Epstein files back in May. Well, of course she did, and of course he is. That probably means that a whole lot of other people in Washington got the news back then, too.

We've gotten to the point where a dead man is running our government. Donald has gone completely batty, posting bizarre things on his social media platform and forgetting that he appointed Jerome Powell chair of the Fed. Congress is shut down. Preacher of the House Mike Johnson sent his members home early so they would stop fighting about releasing the whole Epstein caboodle. (It won't work, Mike.)

All of this means that voters who live in red Congressional districts need to spend the next six weeks tying up the phone lines and beating down the doors of their members' local offices, demanding answers. (Republicans sure as heck won't be holding any town halls.) As for us Democrats, we should all follow the example of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who has accused Trump and his team of committing an updated, MAGA version of Nixon's 18-and-a-half-minute gap.

"We may still be talking about it come September, when we come back into session, but to go from 'It’s on my desk' to 'It doesn’t exist,' they may be engaging in destroying evidence," Crockett said on a podcast. "We know that [Trump] is not above that."

Yep, and yep. Did Crockett offer any proof? No, but who cares? Isn't it Trump who is always floating stuff to get it into the media narrative? Why not give him a taste of his own medicine? And by the way, could some intrepid journalist make it his or her mission to figure out if the Trumpsters are burning and shredding stuff? We cats would appreciate it. Meanwhile, we HISS and PURR at the same time. 

Critchley Vs. The Carpetbagger

By Hubie and Bertie

Does Pete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to Canada, think that Canadians don't read news from across the border on the interwebs? Maybe so. Yesterday he spoke to a business group in Bellevue, Washington, and said that Benedict Donald thinks Canadians are "nasty" for boycotting American travel and goods.

Well, that certainly sounds like Trump. It isn't clear how it's going to help relations with our closest ally, though. (P.S.: Canadian customs, if you'd like to check Hoekstra's car for US booze when he crosses the border from Michigan, please be our guest.)

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney's poll numbers are still riding high, and the Conservative Party is a mess. As we've reported, their leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost his seat in Parliament in the April 28 election. On August 18, he will face the voters in the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, which was gifted to him by its previous MP, who had just been re-elected but resigned to help PP stay in Parliament. Battle River-Crowfoot is deep Tory blue (that's "red," in American parlance). But Poilievre does have some opposition there. 

Meet Bonnie Critchley, who, quite frankly, is a hoot.

Critchley touches on all the important points in this CBC interview, which is well worth your time even if you aren't intimately familiar with Canadian politics. The bottom line: She's furious — a concept that many of us Americans get all too well these days. And since Poilievre styles himself as a mini-Trump, if he were to get humiliated in this Alberta election next month, it would be a delicious case of schadenfreude for all Donald-loathing people around the world.

PP might be feeling the heat. Yesterday, he posted a complimentary message on Twitter about the convicted leaders of the 2022 Ottawa trucking convoy, who will be sentenced for their crimes tomorrow. Perhaps he thinks he needed to shore up the anti-Ottawa vote in Battle River-Crowfoot. But no matter what his motivation, it's a safe bet that Bonnie Critchley will have a withering response. We cats PURR.

Bernice King Wins The Interwebs

We cats PURR.

Cheating Is A Terrible Thing

 

By Miss Kubelik

In the Lack Of Self-Awareness Department, future Presidential candidate (after his dad succumbs to something the White House hasn't told us about yet) Donald Junior posted and then trashed this on Saturday. You have to wonder who was the lucky staffer who had to break it to him.

But Andy Byron's wife isn't the only one feeling super-wronged tonight. Another is Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski — who is simply astounded that a bargain she made with the Trumpsters to save Alaskan wind and solar projects in the Big Ugly Bill is now being torn into little pieces.

"I feel cheated," Murkowski said. "I feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else. Do I feel like the administration was not being up-front with us? Yes."

Oh, Lisa, please. After 10 years, don't you know that you can't trust Benedict Donald and his MAGA minions? They are the original mountebanks. We would suggest that if you're truly that disgusted, you may want to become an Independent and caucus with the Democrats — but now we're thinking you're so stupid, we don't want you. Maybe we'll just bet on our Senate chances in 2026 instead. We cats HISS.

We're Playing In Elsie's Backyard

 

From the local TV coverage, it looks like today's Plattsburgh town hall with Congressman Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was a big success. These town halls in Republican districts are a smart idea. More of them, please. We cats PURR.

Is There An Epstein Version Of This?

Our biggest objection to the Andy Byron kiss cam scandal is that he was obviously shagging his CHRO. Surely she'll lose her job, too? Meanwhile, Russia-wise, de Adder does it again. We cats PURR.

Smart Politics

By Zamboni

"Why aren't Democrats doing anything?" You may have heard this lament since January 20. Why aren't they burning things down? Why are they just writing stern letters? Why don't we have a voice?

Well, the simple answer is, we have no power. We're not in control of the Executive Branch, and not in the majority of either House of Congress. So if we're writing stern letters, that's because it's how we lay the groundwork for future action. We follow rules and procedure, even if the Republicans abandoned both long ago.

The other thing Democrats can do is shame the Republicans for their cowardice, and we're happy to report that Democrats across the country have been doing that by showing up at town halls in GOP districts. Which means we're thrilled to report that our Congressman, Paul Tonko (D-NY), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will host a town hall in Plattsburgh, New York, on Sunday.

This is so great — NY-21 is a pretty red district, but may be ripe for picking with the recent revelations about Benedict Donald and Jeffrey Epstein. It's also Elise "Elsie" Stefanik's district, which has been thrown into turmoil since A) her nomination to be ambassador to the UN was yanked, and B) she's been threatening to run for New York Governor against incumbent Kathy Hochul.

Hah — bring it on, Elsie. It's also fabulous that our Congressman and one of the Democratic Party's brightest stars will travel to the largest city in NY-21 to highlight the Republicans' many failures. We cats PURR.

Speaking Of Art...

By Baxter

The last time we cats were at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the staff told us that an early Picasso from their current Berte Weill exhibit had been vandalized by climate activists and removed from display.

The painting was one of the works that caught Weill's eye after she opened her Paris gallery in 1901. Pablo was just a kid then, but as with other then-unknown or underappreciated artists, Weill saw his potential, and bought three paintings from him. (Her story is worth checking out — like a lot of women, she was pretty much erased by art historians and is just now being rediscovered and celebrated.)

Courtesan with a Jeweled Collar had a glass cover and wasn't damaged in the attack. But its frame needed some fixing. Now, it's back. Gives us a good excuse to revisit the Weill exhibit, which is excellent.

Meanwhile, a note to climate activists:

You are idiots. Trying to damage or destroy works of art may get you attention, but it turns people off, bigly. We agree on the urgency of global warming, but throwing paint at a Picasso not only sets the cause back, it puts you in the same category as the nutcase who vandalized Michelangelo's Pietà. If you do this, you suck. We cats HISS.

Starry Starry Cat

 

Van Gogh allegedly did a first draft of The Starry Night, but it can't be true. Surely after painting this, he would have said his work was done. We cats wait for the next round of Epstein news, and we PURR.

Donald Can't Shake The Epstink

By Sniffles

Another fun day in the never-ending Jeffrey Epstein scandal. For us, that is, not for the Trumpsters.

Speaker Mike Johnson has spoken up at last, saying Pam Bondi needs to 'splain herself. MSM is portraying this as a "major break" from Trump, but in our view, it just means that Mikey has gotten so much pressure from the conspiracy theorists in his caucus that he had to mildly jump into the fight. Still, you've got to know that Trump can't be happy about it.

Wired broke the bombshell story that the raw video from outside Epstein's prison cell actually has nearly three minutes missing, not just one. (But... but... the DOJ said the video was unedited! Gosh!) Obviously, all hell will continue to break loose, but what we're wondering is how a 32-year-old bimonthly tech magazine is running journalistic rings around august news outlets like AP and proud papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Donald keeps getting asked about it, and he responds, and his answers keep getting worse. Today he said of Epstein, "He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the fascination is. The credible information has been given. It's pretty boring stuff." Since everything Trump says is a lie, including the words "and" and "the," we all know for sure now that the full Epstein material is the very, very opposite of boring.

Last night, House Republicans outvoted Democrats on the Rules Committee and managed to smack down any call on the committee for the Epstein files' release. But Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) isn't giving up. He and co-sponsor Ro Khanna (D-CA) are trying to use a discharge petition to force a vote of the full House. Remember, the point is not necessarily whether they'll succeed, although getting every weaselly Republican on record about this would be swell. The point also is to keep the story, unlike Epstein himself, alive.

Even though he keeps stumbling, Trump is still trying to change the subject. Today he accused Senator Adam Schiff of mortgage fraud. Sorry, Donald, but your shiny object isn't going to work. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: The boys with Moose & Squirrel in 2000. Has anyone asked her what she thinks about all this? Or can't she be found?)

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Bastille Day Edition

By Hubie and Bertie

Know any autocrats who are just champing at the bit to take away your rights? We cats can think of one. Do us a favor, and don't remind him that today is Le Quatorze Juilliet — he'll want another one of those military parades in DC, and we all know how that turned out. (You can, though, tell him that the storming of the Bastille was the kickoff to the destruction of the French monarchy. Not that he'll get it.)

Meanwhile, here are some stories that are catching our attention — and in some cases, disgusting us.

We're glad Jimmy Carter isn't around to witness Team Trump's decimation of the Education Department. So, will Linda McMahon get fired, since she won't have anything to do now, or will they keep around a skeleton crew to harass higher ed? On the bright side, though, think of all those formerly employed federal workers who will have tons of free time now to volunteer for Abigail Spanberger's campaign and for Democrats running for office across Virginia.

The Jeffrey Epstein fallout is still going strong. In just a couple more days it'll hit one Scaramucci! Now, the Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court not to take up Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal of her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction. Maxwell, who will stay hunkered down in the hoosegow until 2037, has got to be furious. After all, if there's no Epstein client list, why is she in jail?

The only reason we can think of for firing your top DOJ ethics attorney is that you're not planning to do anything ethical.

CNBC has named the American states with the worst quality of life in the nation. They are Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Utah, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee (the worst of the nine). Gee, what do these states have in common? Can you guess?

Let's end on the potentially positive note that Americans might not be as hateful and awful as we fear — Trump's gleeful roundups of immigrants (and frankly, of anyone who has a brown skin or speaks Spanish) appears to be going over like a lead balloon. A new Gallup poll has Trump’s handling of immigration losing favor by a wide margin: 62 percent to 35 percent. More than twice as many people (45 percent) strongly disapproved as strongly approved (21 percent). Nearly 80 percent described immigration as a "good thing" for the country. Nice work, Donald! We cats PURR.

"Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter"

By Miss Kubelik

It's been a week, an eternity in politics, and the Jeffrey Epstein files story just won't die. Even though Epstein himself did.

The last we checked, Dan Bongino was about to bolt the FBI (a job he seems to hate anyway), and MAGA world was still erupting over Pam Bondi's Epstein announcement back on July 6. All this was happening because not only did Donald himself campaign on releasing Epstein's client list, he told Bondi to get the ball rolling — after which she told the world in February that the files were "on her desk." But now the administration was saying that Epstein's client list doesn't exist at all — and, oh, by the way, Jeffrey really, truly did commit suicide. (Did somebody in the press ask that recently? We don't recall.)

Then Donald tweeted this weekend that the "Files" actually did exist, and were created by his political enemies. 

"For years, it's Epstein, over and over again," Benedict Donald huffed and puffed on Saturday. "Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration?"

Well, all righty, then. Are you following all this?

MAGA's Epstein meltdown has been so alarming to Trump that he's been desperately trying to change the subject. Out of the blue, he threatened to take away Rosie O'Donnell's American citizenship. (Sorry, Donald, but that's not a thing.) And O'Donnell promptly responded with the most Epstein-y thing ever. See above.

Nice job, Rosie — 10/10, as they say, no notes. We cats PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Republican Perfidy Edition

By Zamboni

Happy Friday, everyone. Let's all try to ignore Benedict Donald's trip to Texas today, secure in the knowledge that questions about authorities' failure to send alerts about the Guadalupe River floods — and Puppy Killer Noem's fatal stranglehold on FEMA — will not go away. Mary Trump has the best take on her uncle's visit:

"He appeared genuinely baffled by the magnitude of the disaster — as though natural catastrophes of this scale have never happened before. It's a tactic," she declared. "He's setting the stage to deflect responsibility." Absolutely!

True to Trumpy form, here are some more GOP antics that got our attention this week:

Joni Ernst's Senate career may be on life support — In response to questions about healthcare cuts at a recent town hall, Ernst infamously said, "We're all going to die." Maybe her time in the Senate will, too. Rumors abound that she's considering not running in 2026, even though she's gone through the motions of putting a campaign together. At this point, we cats are not sure whether Ernst dropping out will be a net positive or a net negative. A lot will depend on whether Benedict Donald weighs in with a primary endorsement, or whether he lets Iowa Republicans fight it out.

MAGA is probably not divorcing Ken Paxton — The lazy corporate media immediately jumped to speculate whether Texas State Senator Angela Paxton filing for divorce from her corrupt, duplicitous, adulterous husband Ken would damage his candidacy for next year's Republican Senate race. Please. Not only has the despicable Ken banked impressive fundraising totals against the hapless John Cornyn, but the divorce brouhaha will surely redound to his benefit in a GOP primary. The MAGA base, including its women, hate women. 'Nuff said.

Bedtime for Bongino? — Right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino, who was recently (and ridiculously) installed as Deputy Director of the FBI, whined a month or so ago about how hard his job was and how much he hated it. Now he's threatened to resign over Pam Bondi's decision to quash the Epstein files. Oh, come on, Dan. We know this is just the excuse you were looking for to check out. (Still, if you want to publicly fight with Trump's DOJ, don't let us get in your way.)

Team Leo steps up to the plate — Who would have thought that the scandal-ridden Catholic Church would be the prime antagonist to Trumpism? (After all, many priests and Donald have shared an attraction to minors, right?) But newly installed Pope Leo is repositioning the church to defend the powerless. Priests and nuns are escorting migrants to immigration court. The bishop in LA is excusing parishioners from mass. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami has denounced Concentration Camp Donald on Alligator Alley. Gosh! Someone's punching back!

Folks, we won't try to soft-pedal anything — the state of the country is pretty bad. But developments like this give us hope. Maybe our dream that the Trumpsters will collapse under the weight of their own idiocy is not unfounded. We cats cross our paws, and we PURR.

Chrystia's Barbecue Bash Beats Pete's Paltry Party

By Baxter

We can't put the July 4 weekend firmly in the rear-view mirror without a bit of schadenfreude over Pete Hoekstra's Friday party in Ottawa.

If you know Hoekstra, it's because as a Congressman from Michigan, he was a founding member of the Tea Party 15 years ago. Since then, he's served as a Trump ambassador, first to the Netherlands (where he was born — an immigrant!), and, lately, to Canada. Poor Canada.

Anyway, for years there's been an annual Independence Day jamboree for American and Canadian pooh-bahs at Lornado,the ambassador's official residence. Members of Parliament and other bigwigs have had it on their calendars as a must-do for ages, and because the US and the True North are such close allies and friends, the event has always been packed. Not this year, as Ian Austen reports in The New York Times.

"The turnout was decidedly smaller," says Austen, who was there. "Many guests who have attended in past years told me they estimated the crowd was about half the usual size."

In his welcoming remarks, Hoekstra tried to put a positive spin on things. "We're going to get through this little kerfuffle," he joked, hoping that his Canadian guests would view Trump threatening and insulting their country and destabilizing their economy as just a minor fuss. As you'd expect, crickets ensued. L-A-M-E!

Actually, the place to be on the Fourth of July was not Lornado but Chrystia Freeland's backyard in Toronto. Freeland, Prime Minister Mark Carney's Transport and Internal Trade Minister, threw a barbecue that featured beef from Alberta and meat pie from Quebec — and except for the vacationing Carney, A-listers who have been working to defend Canada from Benedict Donald were there in force.

From the Liberal/NDP side, the guests included former PM Jean Chretien, Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic Leblanc, and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow. Conservative heavyweights showed up, too: Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, Rob Lantz, premier of Prince Edward Island, and — notably — Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who's been spending the last few months making federal Conservatives miserable.

It looks like fun! And you can be sure the word "kerfuffle" never crossed Freeland's lips. Very smart, Chrystia. We cats PURR.

Washroom Reading

 

This is perfect. We cats PURR.

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

Pendant Trump, Le Deluge

By Sniffles

When Team Trump 2.0 began taking a sledgehammer to the federal government this year, we cats just knew that disaster was in store. It was bad enough in the first term to have people who hate government in charge. Benedict Donald's COVID mismanagement — with the sole exception of Operation Warp Speed — was one of the inevitable results, and it helped defeat him for re-election in 2020.

But now, it's so much worse: Not only are the haters running the show again, they're dismantling whole departments and agencies, and chasing away the experts. Which guaranteed that something terrible was going to happen, and somebody was going to die. Maybe a lot of somebodys.

The death toll in the Texas flash floods is now more than 100, and will keep going up. Yes, the flooding happened at the worst possible time (in the middle of the night) and in the worst possible place (low-lying flatlands along the Guadalupe River). But the tragedy was compounded by the fact that important positions at the National Weather Service had stood vacant since the Trumpy DOGE onslaught began.

"Former Weather Service officials said their forecasts were as good as could be expected, given the enormous levels of rainfall and the storm’s unusually abrupt escalation," The New York Times reports."The staffing shortages suggested a separate problem, those former officials said — the loss of experienced people who would typically have helped communicate with local authorities in the hours after flash flood warnings were issued overnight."

Donald, of course, said none of this was his fault. When a reporter asked if he was looking into whether his cuts had left crucial vacancies at the NWS, he responded with a word salad. "They didn't, I'll tell you, uh, if you look at that, that water situation that all is and that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup." (Good heavens, his brain is mush. Would be nice if the press would cover that.)

Trump is continuing to scrounge around to either paper over this calamity or spin it — look how quickly he granted an emergency disaster declaration for Texas, but toyed with holding it hostage for California during the LA fires. Meanwhile, we hate to be Debbie Downers, but more terrible, awful, no-good things are bound to happen. Here are just some of the possibilities:

A hurricane will hit somewhere in the United States and kill more people than necessary because — well, you know.

Detainees at "Alligator Alcatraz" will die — maybe of heat stroke, maybe from malnutrition and abuse, or maybe just from despair.

People in rural America will have no Emergency Rooms to rush to because their local hospitals will be closed. Heart attack? Car accident? Mugging? Gunshot wound? No help for you!

Recipients tossed from Medicaid will lose their access to healthcare and medications (and die). Kids whose SNAP benefits get cut will go hungry. And, of course, women will keep bleeding out in hospital parking lots because of the Supreme Court and Dobbs.

It's hard to imagine that anything will change until we Democrats can get back some of the levers of power. In the meantime, we're stuck with a government that couldn't care less about its people, and that's a dangerous place to be. The loss of empathy is one of the first steps to authoritarianism. We cats HISS.

(PHOTO: Getty Images)

Or Maybe He'll Throw Paper Towels At Them

Rumor has it that Benedict Donald is planning to visit Texas in the aftermath of the Guadalupe River floods. Haven't those poor people suffered enough? Trump should leave them in peace. We cats HISS.

Happy Original No Kings Day

 

"I was very disappointed with my call with Putin [about Ukraine]. Frankly, it feels like Putin is just not there anymore. I don’t see any willingness to stop. And that’s very bad. Really. Just being honest, he doesn’t seem like someone who wants to end this war."  

—Benedict Donald

(IMAGE: Jesse Duquette)

Mike Luckovich Predicts The Future

"House and Senate Democrats fought like hell. There was nothing else to do. They left it all on the field. They need more numbers. Sweep the Republicans who perpetrated this horror on America out in 2026. Nothing else in politics matters."

—Jennifer Rubin (who was once a committed Republican)

The Face You Make When You've Ripped 15 Million People's Healthcare Away And Closed Hundreds Of Rural Hospitals

"I’ve been thinking a lot about Murkowski’s vote. It contains, in one action, so much that defines our pathetic political moment:

"Selfishness — I’m taking care of me and mine, the rest of you can pound sand.

"Lack of accountability — I know the bill is bad. Hopefully someone else will fix it.

"Cowardice — I’m scared of Trump and his voters, and need to go along to get along with my GOP colleagues.

"Moral rot — I know the difference between right and wrong, and actively chose wrong."

—Sarah Longwell, The Bulwark

Eliminating Elsie

By Hubie and Bertie

When Elise "Elsie" Stefanik announced that she was running for Governor of New York in 2026, we figured that she'd seen some polling numbers that convinced her that Democrat Kathy Hochul was vulnerable.

After all, Elsie had just come off a humiliating non-nomination to be Ambassador to the United Nations, so surely she was looking for some way to save face — and pave her path to either Secretary of State in the last two years of the Benedict Donald administration, or just build her national network for a Presidential run in 2028.

But now, a new poll from the Siena Research Institute shows Hochul beating not only her Democratic primary opponents, but Elsie in the general. Elsie would win the Republican primary, but go on to lose to Hochul in the fall by double digits, 47 percent to 24 percent.

Poor Elsie! How simply frightful! How humiliating! How delightful!

Okay, it's one poll. But it's encouraging to see Hochul so far out in front this early. It means that she should put the pedal to the metal immediately, take nothing for granted, and — as Benedict Donald would say — obliterate Stefanik once and for all. Hochul has been making some smart moves lately — holding events in the North Country against Trump's billionaire bailout bill, and, of course, zipping down to New York City two weeks ago to defend Brad Lander in salty terms. Looks like she knows what the assignment is. We cats cheer her on, and we PURR.

Bonne Fete Du Canada

By Miss Kubelik

It's good to be in Canada on Canada Day. And it's impossible to think of a better time to be out of our own country. The Fête du Canada celebrations will make it easy to forget that Benedict Donald is spending today cutting the ribbon at his new Alligator Auschwitz. Disgusting, cruel, un-American, and unforgivable.

But oddly, there's one thing we can thank Trump for: The Liberals are still in power in the True North. And doing quite well.

Just months ago, Tory leader and Trump clone Pierre Poilievre was trying to figure out how he could be Prime Minister and still stay in the Opposition Leader's official residence, Stornoway (24 Sussex is in desperate need of renovations). After 10 years of Justin Trudeau it was clear that Canadians were ready for a change. To PP's dismay, however, the definition of "change," well, changed.

Benedict Donald's trade war, threats and insults infuriated Canadians and soured them on the Trumpy Tory. Now, Prime Minister Mark Carney is doing the rest since winning the election on April 28. He's taken a leading role on the world stage as American prestige has gone shaky. At home, his "nation-building" bill to fast-track projects that will bolster a new, non-US-dependent economy passed through Parliament in a fast three weeks, and he leads PP in net favorability by 70 points.

So, merci, Donald. Whenever we get anxious about what's happening in the United States, we remind ourselves that there's a very bright spot just to our north. (Although we'll pass on the bagged milk and the butter tarts, thanks.) Happy Canada Day, all! We cats PURR.

Melissa Hortman Is Laid To Rest

"It's incredible that neither the President nor the Vice President was here. The politicization of all facets of American life is coming from the White House. No other American President would have failed to pay his respects." —Joyce White Vance

"Whenever in my lifetime, a lawmaker, a public servant had been assassinated, every sitting President, regardless of party, would have attended their funeral, expressed condolences to the family, tried to comfort them, their community and the country. I really miss that grace, that compassion." —Mia Farrow

Consoler-In-Chief, Still On The Job

Once upon a time, a good and decent person was our President. It's completely unsurprising that Joe Biden showed up in Minnesota today to pay his respects to Melissa and Mark Hortman and their dog Gilbert. We cats are holding on for better days, and we PURR.

Bill Moyers, 1934-2025

So now we've lost Bill Moyers — one of those rare people, like Katharine Graham or Pamela Harriman, who knew everybody and did everything. We cats will miss him, and we PURR.

"Your Polo Shirts Are Nii-ii-ice"

By Zamboni

Remember this? To honor Andrew Cuomo's loss in the New York mayoral primary on Tuesday, here's a throwback to one of Randy Rainbow's best — before Cuomo destroyed everything by undercounting COVID deaths in nursing homes and harassing women. (Actually, that this video hasn't aged well makes it even better. Never take it down, Randy!)

It became clear from their comments in the after-hours Tuesday night that the big-money donors to Cuomo's campaign had bankrolled him because he was up in the polls and they wanted to get on a future mayor's good side. Ugh Let this be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks money doesn't taint politics, or that the Supreme Court's execrable decision in Citizens United was a good one.

(P.S.: There are reports that Andrew will not run in the fall as an Independent after all. Yay. He needs to find something new and redeeming to do instead. P.P.S.: Helping Eric Adams ain't it.)

Meanwhile, since Zohran Mamdani, the apparent winner (final numbers in ranked-choice voting won't be available until next week), is a mere kitten and not experienced in city government, there's a warning for him, too: Don't screw this up. Mamdani needs to bring highly experienced hands into his administration — people like Comptroller Brad Lander, who is getting massive props on social media for throwing himself on the tracks to help stop the Cuomo train.

Speaking of trains, we refuse to jump on the one that the pundits have cheerfully boarded, claiming that Mamdani's win is a problem for Democrats. *Sigh* — so many lazy takes from reporters who think most of the country cares who the mayor of New York City is (we do, but we get that most folks don't).

The best thing that could happen now would be if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other progressives immediately capitalized on Mamdani's momentum by barnstorming against Benedict Donald's Billionaires' Bailout Bill in working-class red districts across the country. That would make us cats PURR.

Bonne St-Jean!

Happy Fête Nationale (a.k.a. St-Jean Baptiste Day) to all Quebecers! And try to stay cool, everyone. We cats PURR.

(IMAGES: Ponto: Because We All Love Montréal)

Mad For Brad

By Baxter

Tomorrow is primary day in New York. Nobody really knows how this week's intense heat wave will affect turnout in New York City, so the successful campaign for Mayor will most likely have banked a lot of early votes in the last couple of weeks. Will Bernie Bro Zohran Mamdani edge out Andrew Cuomo? (Polls say it's possible.)

But if we cats were registered to vote in the city, we'd vote for Brad Lander. And probably not rank anybody else.

You may have first become aware of Brad Lander when he was tackled, handcuffed and arrested by alleged goons from ICE for attempting to escort migrants safely out of their immigration hearings. (Which is something a true mensch would do, by the way.) But Lander's tenure as New York City Comptroller makes him the most qualified candidate.

"The mayoralty sits atop more than 40 agencies and 300,000 employees," Ezra Klein wrote in the Times. "You have to be at least a little bit nuts to think you can manage this city. But Lander...knows how those agencies function and which do and don’t work."

Lander's main competition on the Democratic side? A former Governor who had to resign in disgrace and a 33-year-old who's only been in the State Assembly for four years. Curtis Sliwa (ugh) is the lone Republican candidate, and the incumbent, the supremely corrupt Eric Adams, is running as an Independent. Gee, New York City just can't catch a break. We cats hope for the best, but meanwhile, we HISS.

True. And Scary.

"Do you remember what I taught you, Rafe? Did you not read the Book of Henry, which I wrote for you? Never say what the King will not do."

De Adder Du Jour

There are some days — and this is one of them — that we don't know what we would do without Michael de Adder. We cats PURR.

Joe's Juneteenth

By Sniffles

So, okay — things are really bad at the White House. Benedict Donald is paving over the Rose Garden and erecting car-dealership-sized flags on the North and South Lawns. (Will inflatable tube men be far behind?) And he's threatening to build a ballroom. (Where?) We can't even. So we've decided to ignore it all until a Democratic — or, even, a sane — President can come in and set things right. (Please, God.)

During these dark days, we need to grasp for all the decency we can. Since Trump decided to pointedly ignore Juneteenth yesterday, let's note that former President Joe Biden traveled to Galveston to observe it. (Flying commercial, by the way. How Jimmy Carter-esque.)

Biden, of course, was the American President who first officially recognized Juneteenth as a national holiday. And Galveston was the city to which Union General Gordon Granger traveled in 1865 to inform enslaved people there that the Emancipation Proclamation had set them free. (Communications were slower, then. No social media. If there had been, though, Black Twitter would have been lit.)

Maybe the media you consume chose not to cover Biden's trip to Texas, so in case it didn't, here it is. We have a few thoughts. First, that Joe looks pretty good for someone with Jake-Tapper-level cancer. Second, that the base of the Democratic Party has always loved him — with good reason — and always will. We're with them. We cats PURR.

The Green Mountain State's Not Seeing A Lot Of Green These Days

By Hubie and Bertie

It's Juneteenth — a national holiday for which, as we all know, racist Benedict Donald has no use. But Trump's terrible second term is also bad news for Americans who are, um, not of color. Let's see how his policies have affected one of the whitest states in the union, Vermont.

Trump's offensive "51st state" bluster against Canada and his ruinous tariff threats are battering the state from top to bottom.

In Vermont's northernmost counties, businesses that depend on Canadian visitors are seeing their tourist traffic take a nosedive. Only four percent of Quebecers, for example, tell the Canadian Automobile Association that they have plans to vacation in the US this summer. That's down from 12 percent who said they'd visit last year — back when Joe Biden, a sane person who didn't insult them, was President.

In the south, sportswear and outdoor gear retailer Orvis, based in Manchester Center, just announced they're laying off at least 50 employees in the coming months. "Tariffs disrupted our business model in ways we haven’t faced before," the company's president said. Why? Because so much of Orvis's clothes and other products are made in Asia. (We cats have noticed this because our humans are big Orvis fans.)

It makes you wonder what Republican Governor Phil Scott is going to do about all this. Vermonters should ask him. Even though Scott has said for years that he wouldn't vote for Trump, that doesn't let him off the hook. We cats HISS.

Adding Iinsult To Narcissistic Injury

By Miss Kubelik

Benedict Donald's abrupt exit from the G7 yesterday was not unexpected. Some actually speculated days ahead of the summit that Trump would find an excuse to leave. It ended up being events in the Middle East (or so the White House said), but the true reason was that Trump is a sociopath who had just suffered a lot of humiliation:

Eleven million (and still counting) Americans turned out on No Kings Day to protest Trump's Administration and his policies. And, quite simply, to tell the world that they hate his guts.

His birthday "perade" on Saturday was a bust. Nobody came who didn't have to. He didn't even try to look like he was enjoying it.

At the G7, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shut down his press avail once Donald started blabbing about "Democrat-run cities." Somebody also apparently cut off Trump's mic. Sad!

Soon after Donald sat down at the G7 meeting table, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had a whispered conversation that ended in a spectacular eye-roll from Meloni (and a fabulous internet meme for the rest of us).

Trump appeared to fall asleep at the table, giving us all another priceless Mark Carney reaction shot.

Donald tried to announce a trade deal with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but dropped the documents they had just signed. He also confused the UK with the EU. (Yes, this is a broken record, but just imagine if Joe Biden had done something like this.)

After Trump left Kananaskis, Carney greeted Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the summit — two leaders Trump undoubtedly wanted to avoid. Throwing a delicious bit of shade, Carney gave Zelenskyy Trump's seat at the table.

The Trump-less end-of-the-G7 group photo was something to see.

We don't really know what's going to happen with this Israel-Iran thing (although Donald is trying very hard to play catch-up to Netanyahu — not very convincingly, either). But we can all enjoy this schadenfreude in the meantime, right? By the way, maybe the real reason Trump fled the summit was his health — or lack thereof. His limitations are finally getting noticed (no thanks to the corporate media). We cats wish for more of the same, and we HISS and PURR at the same time.

An Email To The Staff Of Senator Mike Lee

"I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did.

"She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith's, who had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you'll forgive my candor as I speak through enormous grief.

"It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you've caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue.

"But that is not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people's grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of a US Senator to post not just one byt a series of jokes about an assassination — is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend?

"Let's recap Saturday so you fully understand what Minnesota was going through. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered. Senator Hoffman and his wife were shot numerous times and remain hospitalized. By the grace of God, it appears they will survive.

"Senators are discovered to be on a hit list of an armed man on the run — Senator Lee's colleagues. And the decision of the office of Senator Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children — it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Do you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families?

"You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweets? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?

"I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Senator Lee and your office beging to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Senator Mike Lee could not muster.

"Lastly, I suggest you take a few minutes today to read about Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. They were remarkable people...She was a force. And a human being. And I beg of you to exercise some restraint on social media as we continue to grieve."

—Ed Shelleby, Office of Senator Tina Smith (D-MN)

Lack Of Logistics

By Zamboni

People have been arguing about the appropriateness of a military parade in America. Yesterday's sad spectacle in Washington made it pretty clear that Russian-style processions that celebrating war and weaponry just aren't in our country's DNA. (Thank goodness.)

But beyond that, Benedict Donald's organizers proved something else: They just didn't nail down the necessary details.

Check out this report from The Guardian:

"Although the Army's marching went smoothly, the larger public event seemed less than well-planned. The garbage cans, few and far between, were overflowing. There weren’t enough exits. The only food source for thousands of people was a handful of food trucks with lines of 40 or 50 people waiting at each. Because the parade closed down blocks and blocks and there was a dearth of signs with clear directions, it was also extraordinarily difficult to find one’s way in or out.

"A Secret Service officer, trying to explain the general confusion, just sighed. 'Nobody knows what’s going on.'

"A little over an hour into the parade, which was still going strong, the crowd was beginning to show some signs of restlessness. Even a few people in MAGA hats appeared to be packing up their things and heading home. The first wave of hundreds of people slowly funneled through the gates, and past entrepreneurs hawking MAGA gear and baseball caps with ICE written on them.

"A young man, asked what he thought of the parade, remarked that he was not impressed. He felt that Trump’s close association with the celebration had politicized it and 'made a mockery' of the Army, though it wasn’t the Army’s fault.

"More to the point, he added, the event was 'just kind of…lame.'"

We cats PURR.

One Last Thought For "No Kings" Day

We cats will have more to say about the fabulous anti-Trump, pro-democracy events we've witnessed today. Until then, let's just give a nod to the interwebs influencers who have proclaimed today "Obama Appreciation Day." That's terrific, but we'd suggest amending it to a day for Obama-Biden Appreciation. Because those two guys make MAGA equally infuriated. That's good in our book. We cats PURR.

Sorry, It's This

Are we really going to pretend that this pathetic asshole has any power or influence at all? Asking journalists across America. We cats HISS.

No, Wait — THIS Is L'Image Du Jour!

Perfect. Thank you. We cats PURR.

L'Image Du Jour

What can we say? We cats PURR.

5.5 Million And Counting

From the top:

• Indianapolis (Nice!)
• Charlotte, North Carolina (Also nice!)
• Maryland (Hey, that's Harry Dunn!)
• Alexandria, Virginia (We hear the crowds across the Potomac are pretty thin, by the way!)
• Minnesota (Sending you love, support, and solidarity 💔)