CRAP (Congressional Republicans Always Punt)

By Sniffles

John Thune and his merry band of spineless Senate enablers were — well, not so merry today. With the entire world throwing up over Benedict Donald's billion-dollar slush fund for Trumpsters who beat cops, their reconciliation bill was stuck. Finally, they just called it a day and went home. (This was after House Republicans put the Iran war powers resolution on ice — they didn't have the votes to kill it.)

Meanwhile, Americans are paying a shit-ton more for gas, groceries, and healthcare, and the GOP — in charge of all branches of the federal government — are doing nothing about any of it. It's not governing by morons — it's complete and utter non-governing. (By morons.)

It's becoming increasingly clear that if you stand up and say no, good stuff happens. Remember, Democrats refused to bend on funding for ICE and border patrol. Eventually, the Republicans buckled and passed Homeland Security funding, thinking they would take care of the rest in reconciliation. Well, it didn't quite turn out that way, did it?

Donald, wanting billions for his silly ballroom and for insurrectionists, has put his party — you know, the one that the media say he has in an "iron grip" — in this terrible bind. And now, we have unhappy Republicans in disarray. Hanging tough pays off. We cats PURR.

Paxton Wins Endorsement — Cornyn, Senate Republicans, And Texas Kids All Lose

By Hubie and Bertie

The Republican Senate runoff in Texas is next Tuesday, May 26. And now the hapless incumbent, John Cornyn, has gotten a nasty surprise.

Benedict Donald had neglected to support either Cornyn or his crazy and corrupt primary opponent, state Attorney General Ken Paxton — even though he had promised an endorsement ages ago. Then, he somehow let it slide, and some pundits and observers were wondering if he'd just stand aside and let things play out.

Well, not anymore. Today, Trump endorsed Paxton.

Cornyn is stunned, and Senate Republicans are furious. Paxton, they believe, is the much weaker candidate, so Trump may have just handed the seat to Democrat James Talarico (wouldn't it be loverly)? Majority Leader John Thune, who had been lobbying Donald for Cornyn, tried to get past reporters without saying much of anything beyond "It's his decision." We cats offer a shake of the hand and a fat Daniel Webster cigar to the first journalist who asks, "And you're surprised?"

Any Republican who's shocked by this is too stupid to be in the Senate. But there they are. It's baffling how they continue to delude themselves about the malevolent toddler who controls their party. Each one of these guys is certain that he'll be the one to figure out, sidestep, or somehow survive Trump's wrath.

And one other thing: If they had been paying attention, they would have noticed Paxton's "settlement" with Texas Children's Hospital last week. The unholy agreement is making the hospital pay $10 million in Medicaid reimbursements (even though it denies any fraud took place), fire five doctors who provided gender-affirming care, and establish a "detransition clinic" (ugh). In other words, Texas Children's caved to Paxton and agreed to bully trans kids.

Did these shocked Republicans not figure out that maybe Paxton timed the settlement to force an endorsement in his Senate race? After all, transgender people are one of the groups at the top of Trump's hate list. It's kind of beyond coincidental, don't you think? We cats HISS.

Le Chandail De Hockey

By Miss Kubelik

The jury is out on the new Quebec premier, Christine Fréchette. Everybody hated her predecessor, but we're expecting Fréchette to still champion a separation referendum — even though a majority of Quebec voters are not interested. (Can't let Alberta have all the fun, right?)

But she sorta gets points for giving French President Emmanuel Macron a Canadiens hockey jersey today. (The name on the jersey is Canadien forward Alexandre Texier, a native of Grenoble, France).

She has to be happy that her gesture turned out not to be an empty one, since the Habs managed to eliminate the Buffalo Sabres in the Stanley Cup playoffs tonight. But we'd caution her on the fall referendum. Canada is feeling especially unified these days, and we can all thank Benedict Donald for it. Like the Republicans' efforts at gerrymandering, perhaps the Canadian separatists should be careful what they wish for — or at least come to realize that they've chosen the wrong time. We'll see. In the meantime, we cats PURR.

Large Numbers

  

By Zamboni

For awhile this morning, the lede story on the homepage of The New York Times was about its latest NYT/Siena poll, which had Benedict Donald's approval ratings — across the board — in the toilet.

It's really tough to find a historical precedent for numbers like this. You're reaching back to Richard Nixon in the last throes of Watergate (approval at 24 percent), but the poll's internals tell an even starker story. It's so bad that you'd be forgiven for expecting to see Rabbi Korff show up in the East Room soon.

Trump is underwater with Latino voters by 51 points. Down with young voters age 18 to 29 by 57 points. Lagging among independents by 43 points. These three groups were key to his win in 2024, and it makes you wonder how wiped out the Republicans would be without all their desperate, racist gerrymandering and voter suppression.

The poll also found Democrats with an eye-popping 14-percent advantage on the generic ballot — despite the corporate media's lazy drumbeat that nobody likes us. Heck, the poll shows Latinos favoring Democrats by 30 points. When will the press wake up and smell the cafecito? We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Disrespecting Our Honored Dead

By Baxter

We cats were trying to think of the most affecting video to accompany the story about FBI Director Kash Patel's special "VIP snorkel" excursion at the USS Arizona memorial last summer.

Was it the newsreels from 1941? (Too many "Jap" references, ugh.) Or the clips from 1943's Air Force, or 1953's From To Here to Eternity? In the end, we decided on Pearl Harbor (2001), which, despite its faults, really packed a punch about how ordinary people — military and non-military alike — experienced the attack.

We're only doing this to (we hope) show how disrespectful it was for FBI Idiot-in-Chief and third-rate podcaster Kash Patel to have snorkeled above the USS Arizona memorial last year.

VIP snorkels are only granted on rare occasions. As in: You have the cremains of an Arizona survivor, and you want to scatter them there. Otherwise, recreational excursions are strongly discouraged.

Benedict Donald has already called the Americans who fell at Normandy "suckers and losers." Now, we have this Patel party dive on the Arizona. How revolting. And how much more will it take for Americans to turn on these Trumpsters? We cats HISS.

"Play-It-Down-The-Middle" Bill Cassidy Loses Big

By Sniffles

Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy lost his primary for re-election yesterday. In fact, he came in third. The last Republican Senator to come up this short was Luther Strange in Alabama, in 2017.

But Luther Strange didn't vote to convict Benedict Donald in his second impeachment trial. So there you go. (We'll see if the Trumpsters can similarly unseat Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie on Tuesday.)

We cats are not crying big tears over Dr. Cassidy, since he compromised all his principles to shepherd through RFK Jr.'s confirmation as HHS secretary. Sorry, Bill — you've actually also violated your Hippocratic oath. Allying with the Trumpsters not only has put Americans at risk but has been a death sentence for thousands of people abroad who depended on support from USAID. We don't know how you can live with yourself, but perhaps you have some innovative coping mechanisms.

Anyway, as the saying goes, Everything Trump Touches Dies. The other interesting aspect of yesterday's election is that Democratic turnout was nearly 345,000 votes — a respectable number in a crazily red state. We're thinking that people of color and other minorities don't like it when the ruling class decides to try to erase them. Maybe they channel that anger by turning out to vote instead. We cats PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Stuff We Don't Love Edition

By Hubie and Bertie

There are times when the news isn't so bad. This past week didn't qualify. Here are the stories that we found especially annoying today.

Why in the world would Governor Jared Polis commute the unrepentant Tina Peters's jail sentence? Especially now, with all the Trumpy election f*ckery going on around the midterms. This is a despicable act — and by a Democrat, no less. As Senator Michael Bennet said, Peters "broke the law, undermined our elections, and was convicted by a jury of her peers. With Trump continuing to attack Colorado, we must stand strong for our institutions and the rule of law." (And Jared, you can kiss any Presidential ambitions you had goodbye.)

In the category of "Not A Surprise," SCOTUS has refused to let Virginia use the new map that the voters endorsed and which the Virginia top court unceremoniously tossed out. You'd think we'd be used to it by now, but the hypocrisy of the Roberts Court is still breathtaking — they allowed Texas's mid-decade gerrymander, even though it wasn't approved by anybody except Greg Abbott. Maddening.

On the sporting side, about 13,000 fans turned out in Quebec City's Videotron Centre last night to watch the Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres — on a jumbotron, not on the ice. No players skating in front of them, but they still cheered the Habs on to victory. But hey — let's try a new expansion team in Arizona or Atlanta instead. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman just knows it's going to work this time.

And of course the biggest and most awful thing is the rapid re-descent into Jim Crow that we're witnessing since the Supremes' Callais decision. We haven't been this depressed since they overturned Roe and Southern states rushed to deny women their bodily autonomy. But if you're looking for a way to vent your frustration, make plans to join an All Roads Lead to the South rally tomorrow. We cats PURR. 

First Nations Should Come First

By Miss Kubelik

Quite a smackdown yesterday for the silly separatists in Alberta, Canada. A judge in Calgary squashed their petition for an independence referendum, saying that Alberta should have checked in with its Indigenous citizens and how they think secession would affect their treaty rights.

No surprise that the Maple MAGA white guys who want to leave Canada brushed the First Nations off. But how sad for them, since they swore they had collected well over the 178,000 signatures needed to force the referendum onto October's ballot. (They also managed to screw up by posting the private data of almost three million Albertans on the interwebs, and somebody may get hauled off the hoosegow over it.)

Moral of the story: You can't hold a referendum on whether to take something that isn't yours in the first place — like land covered by treaties that predate the creation of your province. The separatists' racism and sense of entitlement blinded them to this simple fact. We cats HISS and them and PURR at everything else.

"Be Very Careful What You Pray For"

By Zamboni

The world is on tenterhooks, waiting for the results of FBI Director Kash Patel's alcohol test.

LOL. Like it's gonna happen.

So let's talk about something that did happen: The South Carolina state senate has refused to consider redistricting itself for the 2026 midterms. The vote was 29 to 17. The Republican governor didn't back redrawing the districts, either, but last week, the state house went ahead and passed a calendar extension to get it done. Yesterday's senate vote was a smackdown of that vote — and of Benedict Donald.

None of this especially noble. The state senators didn't suddenly wake up and realize how wrong it would be to erase the votes of more than a million Black citizens. They just didn't think they could redraw the maps in time for an early June primary. And maybe they took note of Jim Clyburn's warning the other day: Trying to wipe out his district could put three and maybe four Republican seats in play. We cats PURR.

Rock-A-Bye, Donald

By Baxter

After the rumpus that the media kicked up over Joe Biden's debate performance nearly two years ago, why don't journalists ask what the heck is up with Benedict Donald? Biden's bad debate was a single event. But Trump has appeared both mentally and physically compromised for months, in many different ways.

Today, he fell asleep during a public event (again). He can't walk a straight line from Marine One to the White House, and he when he descends the stairs from Air Force One, he grips the handrails for dear life. Every month he disappears for days at a time, and then re-emerges with bruises on the back of his hands, slathered in bad makeup.

He rarely holds road rallies now, and when he does go out in public, there are strange bulges under his suit that suggest Foley catheters or ventricular assist devices (placed as a bridge to a heart transplant).

Yes, it's an old saw at this point, but can you imagine if Joe Biden did stuff like this? Jake Tapper would be busy churning out his seventh book. (That's how many deadly sins there are, you know.)

The press's lack of curiosity has naturally left the rest of us to indulge in speculation. Currently, the favored narrative is that Team Trump is quietly preparing not just for a Democratic Congress (yes, please) but for a time, perhaps soon, when Donald is decedent or completely incapacitated — when the ruse can't be sustained anymore, even with our compliant, knee-bending media. The question in our furry minds is: What, if anything, are the Trumpsters telling Vance? We're guessing, not much. It might be the most flagrant instance of keeping a veep in the dark since Roosevelt and Truman in 1945. We cats HISS.

You Should Be Dancing, Yeah

By Sniffles

Sir David Attenborough's birthday bash in London wasn't the only fabulous party this weekend. Hungary's new Prime Minister, Péter Magyar, took the oath of office yesterday in Budapest amid daylong celebrations that inspired some, shall we say, ecstatic moves from the incoming Health Minister, Zsolt Hegedűs.

Here's a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: The Trumpsters were so openly rooting for Hungary's far-right, anti-EU autocrat, Viktor Orbán, that they sent the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, over there last month to campaign for him. Disgusting and humiliating — for Vance. Orbán lost in a landslide. Someday, Americans will be able to dance like this, too. We cats PURR.

Sir David At 100, Part Deux

 

Big party at the Royal Albert Hall last night. It looks like a lot more fun than the Bezos-benighted Met Gala this week. The only problem with this video is that there are no cats in it. But we PURR anyway.

Peace, Not Apartheid

By Hubie and Bertie

Full disclosure: We cats are white. And we couldn't care less about the prediction that by 2045, the United States will become a minority-majority country. Are we falling down on the job as the dominant caste? Should we be defending our whiteness more?

Nah. In fact, total nah.

Who cares about that crap? In a democracy like America claims to be, racial imbalances are not supposed to matter, right? But — oh! Maybe we're not really a democracy, or white folks wouldn't be so worried about being outnumbered. Is that it? Yep, that's probably it.

There's always been a gap between what the US stands for and what it really is. We all know this. Thomas Jefferson may have written that famous line about everybody being created equal, but he was an enslaver, and his definition also didn't include non-property-owners, or Indigenous people, or women. But his words are immortal — so we've spent the last 250 years trying to live up to them. Sometimes we've done well. Most often, we haven't. It's a continuing struggle.

Even knowing this, though, it's been mighty dispiriting to see the developments over the last week: the Supreme Court obliterating the Voting Rights Act, the Southern states' rush to gerrymander Black people out of existence, and Virginia's top court tossing the Commonwealth's new map out on a technicality.

The Republicans' goal is clear. They're freaked out about 2045, so they're trying to make America a 21st-century version of apartheid South Africa, through draconian immigration enforcement and voter suppression. To see what they're doing in Tennessee, as just one example, is wildly depressing. But we can't believe they'll be successful in the long term.

First, the political and economic forces against the GOP in 2026 are just too strong to overcome. In a wave election, all the gerrymandering and suppressing in the world still won't be able to cancel out the will of the voters. (Important message here: Let's make it a wave, everybody. It doesn't happen without us.)

Second, the United States of America is a far more diverse country than apartheid South Africa ever was. We are too big and too cumbersome for minority rule to be effectively enforced (apartheid South Africa was, at most, 40 million people, with Black Africans accounting for 75 percent, while the current population of the US is 340 million, with 50 million identifying as Black). Still, the racist Trumpsters will try for it. But we have to believe most people in the US are not okay with segregation. Paws crossed.

We have our marching orders. The states will continue to wrangle over redistricting, but we have to keep registering people and getting out the vote in numbers like we've never seen before. We must have that wave election — not just to recapture the House, but also the Senate.

And once we do manage to get back into control, we have to follow South Africa's example in one respect: Hold a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Unless we grapple with our racist, enslaving past, and are willing to extend the American dream of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to all people, we'll still fall short of the ideal that the Founders envisioned. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

(IMAGE: Nicole Hester, The Tennessean)

Sir David At 100

By Miss Kubelik

On this, the eve of naturalist Sir David Attenborough's centenary — which, we're happy to say, he's with us to celebrate — we cats are in search of some gentler news.

So what better opportunity to revisit his memorable walk through the Buckingham Palace gardens with Queen Elizabeth in 2018?

You have to think that the Queen's interest in global warming was encouraged by her son Charles, but also by her keen sense of succeeding generations and what issues and challenges they will face. (The impending collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is our latest freakout, not to mention the 2026 El Niño, which promises to wreak some additional havoc this year.)

"I won't be here then," the Queen said, quite sensibly, eight years ago. But the rest of us are, at least for now. And in spite of everything, the United States is still the country the world looks to on existential issues like climate change. We have to lead on it, which means that we have to vote all these Trumpsters and Republicans out of office — this year, in 2028, and beyond. Let's get working, everyone. In the meantime, happy birthday, Sir David. You inspire us all. We cats PURR.

Chedrick Crushes It

By Zamboni

The press is buzzing about all those Indiana Republicans who got their heads handed to them in yesterday's primary election there (except for the one high-profile Trump resister who survived). But there was also a special election in Michigan, which (as you'd imagine, given the state of journalism today) isn't getting nearly as much attention.

Democrat Chedrick Greene was elected to the Michigan State Senate, which will keep the chamber in Democrats' hands until the end of 2026. Greene is replacing a Democrat who was elected to the US House of Representatives, and he'll run for a full term in November. Meanwhile, the Republican he defeated yesterday will have to earn his place on the November ballot in a contested GOP primary in August. (Greene is unopposed on the Democratic side.)

What's astounding, once again, is that Greene won big with 60 percent, in a district that Kamala Harris won in 2024 by just one point. Hello, everyone! We Democrats are still overperforming like gangbusters, but you wouldn't know it from reading corporate media. The story in The New York Times made absolutely no mention of Greene's margin of victory — journalistic malpractice, as far as we're concerned.

So forgive us if we find this result more important at the moment than Trump retribution in a solid-red state like Indiana. We cats congratulate Chedrick Greene, and we PURR.

Dear Donald, We All Hate You

By Baxter

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and his blow-up sex-doll wife may be presiding over the Met Gala tonight, but his newspaper, along with Ipsos, just published a poll that shows Benedict Donald in deep doo-doo. (Bezos's paper also won a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service today, in spite of everything he's done to destroy it.)

But back to the poll. It's brutal.

• Sixty-two percent of respondents disapprove of Trump overall.
• Seventy-two percent disapprove of how Trump is handling inflation.
• Seventy-six percent disapprove of how Trump is handling the cost of living.
• Sixty-six percent disapprove of how Trump is handling Iran.
• Sixty-five percent disapprove of how Trump is handling relations with our allies.

Have we ever seen numbers like this? This might be one instance in which Trump's bombast is justified (but of course about the wrong things, from his point of view). We cats will try not to ask how the media would handle this if it were about Joe Biden.

Well, we know the answer to that. Meanwhile, Republicans are saddled with catastrophe, but still don't seem to be able to grab an off-ramp from the disaster that is Donald. They won't support a War Powers Resolution, pull back their support for ICE, or condemn the non-release of the complete Epstein files. To those of us clear-thinking Americans, any one of these stances seems commonsense and obvious. But they're caught between a rock and a hard place — partially because they've already gerrymandered themselves into ruby-red districts where it would be fatal for them to break with Trump.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added eight newly competitive candidates to their "Red to Blue" initiative — including two in Texas's recently redistricted map, LOL.

You know, it's only May, and a long way to November. But you'd be tempted to think that things have gotten so dire for the Trumpsters and the GOP that try as they might, they won't be able to redraw their way out of it. That would be hilarious, and would make us cats PURR.

Rococo Loco

"The White House was designed by James Hoban, an Irish architect who migrated to the US for economic opportunities (what a great American story!). He originally designed it in the Neoclassical style, drawing on Palladian and Georgian influences.

"Neoclassicalism was a reaction against the Rococo movement, which reactionaries saw as overly ornate and frivolous. A bit of gold used sparingly and strategically can look fine in a Neoclassical building, but the amount Trump used has so radically encrusted the room that it's now in Rococo territory, making it look like a mismatch of aesthetics.

"The Oval Office offends on at least three levels: the ersatz nature of the decor, the way it grates against Hoban’s Neoclassical vision, and the way it misunderstands the classical-republican symbolism that the White House was meant to project in the first place.

"As others have noted, this is the kind of decor you'd expect from dictators who rob their own country."

—Derek Guy, on Twitter

Geography

We don't know how Round One of the Stanley Cup playoffs will end up, but we can say for sure that the island of Montréal looks like this right now. (Even after last night's game.) We cats PURR.

Our Plan

This says it all. We cats PURR.

Charles Schools The Trumpsters

"The Founding Fathers were bold and imaginative rebels with a cause. Two hundred and fifty years ago— or, as we say in the United Kingdom 'just the other day'—they declared independence. By balancing contending forces and drawing strength in diversity, they united 13 disparate colonies to forge a nation on the revolutionary idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

"They carried with them, and carried forward, the great inheritance of the British Enlightenment—as well as the ideals which had an even deeper history in English common law and Magna Carta.

"These roots run deep, and they are still vital. Our Declaration of Rights of 1689 was not only the foundation of our constitutional monarchy, but also provided the source of so many of the principles reiterated, often verbatim, in the American Bill of Rights of 1791.

"And those roots go even further back in our history: the US Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789—not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.

"This is the reason why there stands a stone, by the River Thames at Runnymede where Magna Carta was signed in the year 1215. This stone records that an acre of that ancient and historic site was given to the United States of America by the people of the United Kingdom, to symbolize our shared resolve in support of liberty, and in memory of President John F. Kennedy."

—King Charles III, Address to Congress, April 29, 2026

In All Our Hearts Command

By Sniffles

It's been a crappy week, thanks to the Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (google "mifepristone" to find out why), and Benedict Donald posting another ridiculous Jesus meme that his evangelical apologists will refuse to find outrageous. But once again, the world of sports — specifically, hockey — is providing some reassurance.

Quick back story: Did you know that the Buffalo Sabres start each home game with both the Canadian and the American national anthems, even if the Sabres aren't playing a Canadian team? That's because so many Ontarians cross the border to attend. Or at least, they did before Trump started threatening and insulting them.

So it was pretty swell the other night when the anthem singer's mic cut out and the 19,000 fans in the arena immediately rushed to her rescue and sang "O Canada" for her. (Note: Thanks to Trump's tariffs and his menacing jokes about annexation and "the 51st state," one can assume that Canadians' presence in the crowd was sparse. These were overwhelmingly American fans who knew "O Canada" well.)

Donald Trump is a disaster for America and the world. But this terrific moment in the KeyBank Center is a reminder that bullies like him are destined to fade. Well done, Buffalo. We cats PURR.