Still Kinda The Worst Person

By Zamboni

In case you were wondering whether George W. Bush is still terrible, the answer is yes.

Years ago, we cats dubbed Bush "The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived." He deserved it — aside from PEPFAR, his African AIDS relief initiative, he was singularly destructive: ending stem cell research, brushing off a pre-9/11 PDB about bin Laden, lying the US into the war in Iraq, appointing cretins to the Supreme Court, bungling Hurricane Katrina, etc. The list goes on and on. And then Donald Trump came along and knocked him off his Worst-Person perch. Who'da thunk it?

Bush has faded into an uneventful and generally meaningless retirement. Occasionally he'll show up at events like the opening of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, hamming it up with Michelle Obama (who for some reason seems to genuinely like him). But as his Republican Party has become Trumpier and Trumpier — and more and more fascistic — Bush has stayed silent.

This is despicable, especially today, when Dr. Anthony Fauci — who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 — had to sit and endure insults and accusations from GOP members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The hearing was a ridiculous outrage. Go ahead and read about it if you must, but a good summation of it is that Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, Bernie Moreno and the rest all acted like embarrassing dipshits. 

Has George W. Bush ever firmly pushed back against his fellow Republicans on Fauci? Will he come out and say that their abusive behavior today was offensive to all Americans whose lives Fauci helped save during the COVID pandemic? Dream on.

Bush has, to our knowledge, never said boo about any of the damage the Trumpsters are doing. He hasn't seriously protested the cuts to PEPFAR, objected to the platforming of open racists, or opposed the Gestapo-like tactics of ICE (an insult to all the Hispanics who voted for him in 2000 and 2004). He's been quiet about the trashing of the White House and the death blow that Trump recently delivered to his Texas pal John Cornyn. He didn't even get in Trump's face when Donald abused his kid brother back in the 2016 campaign.

What's he afraid of? Is the political future of hapless nephew George P. Bush really that important? How pathetic. We cats HISS.

Dick At Rest

By Sniffles

There was an interesting turnout at Dick Cheney's Washington Cathedral funeral today. By now, we all know that Benedict Donald and Couch Enthusiast JD Vance were pointedly not invited. (Yay, Cheney family.) The folks who did attend were a mix of Republicans and Democrats, former Presidents and Vice Presidents, and other blasts from the past. Here are a few observations from our corner of the litter box:

It's awfully good to know that George W. Bush (The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, until Trump came along) is not suffering from any kind of laryngitis or dementia or other impairment, since he gave one of the eulogies. But that also means we can't figure out why he's been so mind-blowingly silent on the perfidies of Team Trump. Does his nephew's worthless political career really need that much protection?

Any reflection on Cheney's life and career must include a no-holds-barred indictment of his and Bush's prosecution of the unnecessary and stupid Iraq War. Simply put, we attacked a country that didn't attack us. (But yesterday in the tarted-up Oval Office, Trump proudly hosted the prince of the country that spawned 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers. How big a hairball can we hack up?)

It was appropriate (and smart) that Democratic House leaders showed up, since Cheney once was a Congressman from Wyoming: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar, plus Jamie Raskin and Bennie Thompson, who served with Liz Cheney on the January 6th Committee. And we hope that the Cheneys had an acceptable red wine for John Boehner at the post-funeral reception.

Oh, and Rachel Maddow was there, too.

So, should we join the party, and try to say something nice about Dick Cheney? After all, he endorsed Kamala Harris last year — but it's still a tough assignment. Perhaps the best thing we can come up with is that if he were still alive and hosting a podcast, he would choose not to platform Nick Fuentes. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Hairball-Inducing

By Miss Kubelik

We cats welcome everyone to the cause of defending democracy against Benedict Donald and the MAGAts. We refuse to bicker about policy differences (because what will they matter if our democratic form of government is destroyed?), and we will not take converts to task on social media with messages of "What took you so long?" Sure, it's tempting. But this is an emergency.

Still and all, we have to make some observations about Nicolle Wallace's plea today to George W. Bush to publicly endorse Vice President Harris. What a reminder that before Trump, we used to call Bush the younger the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived. He sent thousands of Americans to die in a phony, trumped-up war, abandoned thousands of others during and after Hurricane Katrina, and plunged the country into an economic freefall in 2008 — all of which took us years to recover from.

In fact, with those three acts, George W. Bush paved the way for Trumpism. Matt Bai in The Washington Post (from which we unsubscribed, by the way) recently observed this.

Those facts alone make us cats want to hack up a hairball. But Wallace's reference to Bush's 2004 declaration that they should "leave everything on the field" as a justification for her argument really makes us sick. Do you remember what that entailed 20 years ago? Republicans demonizing gay people in battleground states, led by Karl Rove and (the, of course, very gay) Ken Mehlman — banking on voters' fear of "the other" to gain support in advance of terrifying concepts like marriage equality.

That said, why did Wallace do this?

Was it a public plea because her private entreaties weren't being heard, or were rejected outright? Did she do it because of Trump's recent comments on Liz Cheney? Did Barbara the daughter (who's endorsed Harris), or Laura, or someone else close to Smirky, tell her he would listen if she went public? Did she want to strengthen the platform for former Republicans on MSNBC during a Harris Administration? Or did she just want to give cover to other GOP late endorsers? We think the backstory on this is hugely complex — and maybe someday we'll find out the details. Meanwhile, we cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Bibi Hits Bottom

By Baxter

Remember how the world rallied around the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? The headline in the French newspaper Le Monde probably said it best: "We are all Americans." For the first time in a long time, everyone was in our corner.

Then, in just the next two years, George W. Bush — who we used to call, pre-Trump, The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived — squandered all that goodwill by invading Iraq, a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Benjamin Netanyahu has done nearly the same thing to Israel. Immediately after the attacks by Hamas on October 7, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, we were all leaping to Israel's side. But Netanyahu's scorched-earth campaign in Gaza has been turning sympathizers away for some time. And now, an IDF killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers threatens to alienate whoever is left.

Netanyahu's actions have not only killed countless Gazans but have also helped blind the world to Hamas's innate culpability. This is enraging. Hamas fighters built — and have been hiding in — miles of tunnels under Gaza. They were perfectly willing from the get-go to sacrifice civilians on the surface. But Netanyahu's awfulness obscures that. The World Central Kitchen debacle, a tragedy in and of itself, makes it even worse.

The good news is that Israelis, angry about the deaths, the mismanagement, and the failure to get their hostages back, have been demonstrating against their government by the thousands. Can they force their much-loathed Prime Minister to resign? We cats live for the day that Netanyahu's out of office (and, we hope, hauled off to the hoosegow). That would make us PURR.

Silence Is Not Golden

By Baxter

Shutting down the vote count in the state of Florida in 2000 handed the White House to George W. Bush. (Remember him? The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived? Of course, that was before Benedict Donald.)

Now, Miami-Dade County has restricted Amanda Gorman's poetry in its public schools on the basis of a complaint by a single parent — who has turned out to be an anti-Semite with ties to white supremacist groups. But that's Florida under the helm of Ron DeSantis. In short, the state that gave Bush the Presidency is on a right-wing roll, curtailing freedoms, suppressing the vote, denying body autonomy, and basically rigging everything so that Ron can run for President without having to disclose his expenses or step away from the governorship. Ugh.

But this Nazi-ish book banning made us wonder: When Bush II was in the White House, America's First Lady spent her time championing libraries, literacy, and language. As someone who earned a degree in library science, Laura Bush couldn't stop talking about how important it was for kids to read and to learn. Books, how she loved them.

So where is Laura the Librarian now? Why doesn't she speak up about what's going on in the state that put her at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? The state that elected her brother-in-law governor twice?

Republicans are such cowards. While we dearly hope they will finally destroy themselves over Benedict Donald in the next couple of years, it would be nice if some of them would call out the fascism that the GOP is fomenting across the country. We cats are frustrated, and we HISS.

Lest We Furr-get: People Trump Doesn't Want You To Remember

By Baxter

In the wake of yesterday's hostage-taking at the synagogue in Texas and the all-out white supremacist bullshit that Benedict Donald spewed at last night's Arizona Trump "show," we cats think it's time to put on the brakes and say, whoa.

This really needs to stop. Thankfully, the FBI team (flying in from Quantico — thanks, President Biden) was able to free the Texas hostages. Trump, meanwhile, continues to walk free and spew misinformation and hate.

"If you’re white you don’t get the vaccine or if you’re white you don’t get therapeutics. In New York state, if you’re white, you have to go to the back of the line to get medical health," he said in Florence, Arizona. Complete crap from beginning to end (and we're in New York, so we know). But at least he's open about his racism, right?

Why not be, when some of his insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 wore "Camp Auschwitz" T-shirts and toted Confederate flags? Why not be, when he jumped to defend the 2017 Charlottesville demonstrators who chanted, "Jews will not replace us"?

The best defense against such outrages, aside from calling Trump and his bigots out, is education. We cats follow the Auschwitz Museum on Twitter, and they give us daily reminders of what can happen when people succumb to indifference. Here's today's. We share it in the hope that more people will follow them, pay respect to the victims, and do everything possible to make sure that it will never happen again.

"January 6, 1938: Dutch Jewish boy Salomon Harschel was born in The Hague. In October 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after selection. His mother, Engeltje Harschel-Barendse, was with him." Take a moment to remember them. We cats have.

Even After Trump, Still The Worst Ever.

By Miss Kubelik

Did you know that you can draw a straight line from George W. and Jeb Bush directly to our current inability to sacrifice for one another in the fight against COVID?

This dawned on us when we heard a conversation this week on the Morning Schmoes — which is what we call Joe Scarborough's weekday show on MSNBC — about how the nation has lost its "connective tissue." Now, we get impatient with the Schmoes, because six years ago they were dedicated enablers of Donald Trump, the most destructive force in modern American history (perhaps all of American history). But every now and then we beam in to see what they're saying, because they tend to set the daily conversation inside the Beltway.

Anyway, Team Schmoe was claiming that the nation's so-called connective tissue has clearly been lost because even in a crisis like COVID, we haven't rallied together to defeat a common enemy. The "sleeping giant" that awakened to beat the Axis powers in World War II is gone. But what they didn't mention that there was one moment — since the war, and before the pandemic — in which America did come together. One moment when the nation was ready to join up and do something, anything, to sacrifice and help. It was 9/11, of course.

And the Bushes turned that desire away. "Go shopping," said President George W. "Go to Disney World," said Florida Governor Jeb.

We cats have loathed all Bushes for as long as we can remember, but that refusal to call Americans to national service after September 11 is probably the thing we'll never forgive them for. (Well, okay, Clarence Thomas is pretty bad, too. And so was Iraq. And the financial meltdown.) Dismissing Americans' zeal to serve was the epitome of the tragically missed opportunity. And then the very next year, Team Bush and the Republicans turned voters' anxiety about 9/11 into a political weapon, smearing Democrats like war hero Max Cleland and comparing them to Osama bin Laden to steal Congressional seats.

Who was in that Republican crowd? Joe Scarborough, elected to Congress in 1994 (the Gingrich class). Who didn't leave the GOP until 2017 — after helping to vault Trump to power by giving him hours and hours of free airtime? Joe again.

So, Mr. Scarborough, don't sit there and bemoan the nation's loss of connective tissue. Not when your former party and its disgusting Bushes are the ones who worked so hard to destroy it. We cats HISS.

Nikki Haley Pass

By Zamboni

How will Republicans recover from their subservience to Donald Trump? One of our favorite pundits has for years predicted that they would split into two parties — the traditionalists and the Know-Nothings — but that was before 2020. Now their utter destruction seems so imminent that we're not sure. Please, tell us — who besides impotent 60-year-old white guys would vote for a party that supported this?

Yes, "suburban housewives" across America will not look kindly on Trumpian storm troopers tear-gassing and manhandling the Portland, Oregon, Wall of Moms.

Meanwhile, leading lights (or lowlights) in the erstwhile Party of Lincoln are jockeying for position. Either they're deluded into thinking that Benedict Donald will coast to a glorious second term, or they're calculating how they can pick up the pieces in time for 2024. It's unclear. But certain folks are trying to stake out some territory. Nikki Haley, for example, has decided to suck up to Trump — apparently believing that she has a built-in GOP constituency, to which she just needs to add a sprinkling of the MAGA haters.

Sorry to rain on your parade, Nikki, but you are going to be the Jeb Bush of 2024. You'll get some fawning inside-the-Beltway media coverage about how you're the natural heir for the "reasonable" Republican Party. But that won't be enough. After a decorous interval of surface politeness, the Tom Cottons and the Ben Sasses and the Josh Hawleys and the Donald Trump Jrs. of the world — bloodthirsty extremists all — will savage you with Ted Yoho-type misogyny, abetted by a MAGA base still furious that you lowered the Confederate flag in South Carolina.

Nobody in the tattered GOP will be buying what Nikki Haley will be selling. Especially since it'll be tainted by her support of the guy who allowed storm troopers to beat up Portland moms. We cats HISS.

UPDATE: Bill Kristol is predicting that Benedict Donald, desperate to shake up the race, will dump Mike Pence in favor of Haley on or around August 15. How would the other GOP contenders feel about Nikki getting handed the inside lane for 2024? Is that why Josh Hawley is suddenly drawing a line in the sand about Roe? Or why Tom Cotton is bleating about slavery? Stay tuned.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: Impeachment Edition

By Zamboni

What a day! So many observations knocking around in our furry heads. Shall we dive right in?

Best line we've seen on social media so far: "Impeachment may be the first thing Donald Trump has ever earned." Well played, sir!

For the first time since we cats can't remember when, we agree with Chuck Todd. Yes, he really shut down Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana on MTP Daily, but more memorable than that was his swift reaction to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's statement at 5 PM. "This was an address to the nation." Absolutely.

Glad to see that everyone realizes that what we want to see is the whistleblower complaint they're withholding, not a White House transcript that can be doctored faster than a weather map.

Finally, we did a serious flashback on Florida Governor Lawton Chiles and Jeb Bush today. Bear with us while we explain. In his famous 1994 gubernatorial debate with Bush, Chiles warned the Republican whipper-snapper that "the old He-coon walks just before the light of day." Jeb was flummoxed, native Floridians guffawed, and the race was over.

Lawton was saying, don't count me out, son. Before today, so many pundits and politicos, including people we respect, had hammered Nancy Pelosi for "failing to launch" — when, it appears, the Speaker knew what she was doing all along. Unlike the Mueller report, Ukraine-gate is a simple story of Benedict Donald betraying his oath, and it's taking place practically in real time. Folks out in flyover country will get it. And the so-called vulnerable freshman Democrats whom Pelosi is bent on protecting have decided they don't need protection after all.

Write Pelosi off at your peril. She is a She-coon. We cats PURR.

Cat Fight! Barbara Bush Vs. Nancy Reagan

By Sniffles

If there's a Washington title more ridiculous than "First Lady," it's the awkward and condescending "Second Lady," right? So stupid. But we cats are highly amused by the upcoming biography, The Matriarch, by Susan Page, particularly the juicy bits about how much the "Ladies" — the First (Nancy Reagan) and Second (Barbara Bush) — hated each other.

Boy, if there's ever a fight you don't want to pick a side in because both parties are despicable, this is one. The first was a third-rate actress and imperious phony, while the second was a self-entitled patrician who styled herself as a tart-but-lovable grandmother because was white-haired and stout. Oh, and as it turns out, she made a habit of compromising her beliefs.

So Nancy kept crossing George and Bar off her White House party lists? Horrors! That must have really hurt in 1985, when our Nation's Capital went batsh*t crazy for the visiting Prince and Princess of Wales. (We know, we were there.) We wish Bar had gotten quite as upset over her and her husband's knuckling under to anti-choice nutbags in the Republican Party. She had believed that women's reproductive decisions were "personal" — "but after her husband joined Ronald Reagan's anti-abortion ticket in 1980, she kept her views to herself."

Pathetic.

As for Bar's horror at Donald Trump? We'd bet money that it had nothing to do with a disgust at Trump's general odiousness and everything to do with the fact that he belittled (and beat) her adored and equally self-entitled son "Jeb" in the primaries. And you can draw a straight line from George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign, with its Willie Horton race-baiting, to the rise of Benedict Donald and his build-the-wall hate.

Finally, although not as important as the enabling the rise of the GOP's new fascism, there's this: An anonymous member of the "Bushes' inner circle" confirms to Page that GHWB had a long-running extramarital affair. (Ugh.) Remembering how aghast the Bushes were in 1992, not just to have lost the White House after only one term but to lose to someone they saw as a lesser man than Poppy, we just have to say that Republicans' hypocrisy continues to know no bounds. We cats HISS.

State Of The Lyin'

By Hubie and Bertie

Wow, another State of the Union coming up. We cats won't be watching (we can't stomach Benedict Donald), but we're curious as to how the Speaker of the House will handle sitting behind him.

Will she signal her caucus — perhaps with a white handkerchief to her forehead, a la "Darkest Hour" — whenever Trump lies? If so, that hanky will be fluttering without pause.

It almost makes us nostalgic for SOTUs of years past.

Take, for example, George W. Bush (who once held the title of The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, before being toppled by Trump) — and that whopper he told about Saddam Hussein, Niger and yellowcake. That was debunked pretty quickly by Joseph Wilson in The New York Times. And what was the Administration's response? They outed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent.

How quaint it all seems now. Because while Bush may have told one big lie in that SOTU, Trump's speech on Tuesday will be so jam-packed with falsehoods it will beggar description. But what concerns us most is that not just that we're becoming inured to fibs by Commanders-in-Chief — but that the Bush-Cheney crowd will be getting a pass by comparison.

That, folks, can never happen. This Trump Administration is the stuff of nightmares, but that doesn't make the crimes of the Bushies any less awful. They should all rot in hell, and we cats HISS.

(IMAGE: SOTU, 2003. Check it out: Two war criminals and a child molester. Just sayin'.)

Alone.

By Sniffles

One of the worst things about this nightmare of an administration is the abrogation of America's leading role in the world. This picture of Donald Trump at the current G-20 says it all. Our allies have abandoned us — while our adversaries believe (with good reason) that we are either in their pocket or they will not encounter any significant American resistance if they do something belligerent or violate human rights.

How ironic that George H.W. Bush, who by contrast was a leading internationalist, should choose to check out at the same time that Trump is embarrassing the United States overseas.

We're intrigued by the reports that Bush wanted Trump to attend his funeral. Trump was barred from Barbara Bush's services in the spring — does this mean that the Kennebunkport clan has something nefarious in store for him at the George Senior services? We cats are fantasizing that they're going to insult Trump from the pulpit. So we were trying to think which eulogist would be best at throwing Trump shade, and we came up with one name: Bill Clinton.

Bill would do it brilliantly, of course, for all kinds of reasons: He's really smart. He's unequaled as Consoler-in-Chief. He got to be really close friends with Bush. And he has a ton of reasons to strategically insult the traitor who, with the help of a foreign adversary, stole the 2016 Presidential election from his wife.

We may actually be watching. We cats love a great funeral, and if Bill speaks, we will PURR.

GOP To Reagan: Drop Dead

By Baxter

Today's pathetic Republican Party swears that it worships Ronald Reagan — but in reality, the party has long since left Reagan behind, and Ronnie and Nancy are surely both spinning in their graves.

How do we know? Because Sean "In Completely Over His Head" Spicer had to hide in the White House bushes the other night, and only agreed to answer reporters' questions if they "turned the lights off." Resulting in the classic image, above.

If there's a better metaphor for this administration, we cats don't know it. But over and above even that, why haven't the Republicans followed the example of Ronnie when it comes to dealing with the press (and everybody else)?

We well remember how Reagan used to cup a hand over one ear and pretend that he hadn't heard Sam Donaldson when the ABC newsman fired questions at him in the Rose Garden. Why don't the Trumpsters take a page from Ronnie's sunny ways, rather than inviting speculation about quashed FBI investigations, RICO violations and more?

Well, one answer is that they're guilty as hell. The other answer is that their boss is dark, divisive and disturbed — as opposed to Reagan, who was merely dotty and cheerful. (Goodness, if only we Democrats had known how good we had it back then.)

But you know what? If there was one thing that Reagan was dark and focused about, it was the Soviet Union. ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") This current GOP crowd? They love Russia. In fact, we think they have colluded with a hostile foreign power to subvert the autonomy of the United States.

Is there is a greater charge of treason than that? We think not. And so we — and Ronnie Reagan from the Great Beyond — HISS.

(IMAGE: Sean Spicer, hiding in the dark.)

Mr. Thirty-Six Percent

By Baxter

So — wow. It took the Previous Worst Person Who's Ever Lived five years to attain the depths of approval that the New Worst Person has reached in less than a week in office. And in George W. Bush's case, that was after the idiotic invasion of Iraq, the exposed lie of the WMD, and the horrors of the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

All of those disasters helped drive the Smirking One's ratings into the ditch. Will Donald Trump brag that he equaled that accomplishment in just days? We wouldn't be surprised.

Ya know, any Democrat who is babbling about trying to "work with" this gang of Nazis and thugs in the White House should just give up and resign office right now. These people are, as our 2016 candidate once said, irredeemable. They are trying to enact off-the-charts policies that nobody gave them a mandate for. So only out-and-out resistance will stop them in their tracks.

We cats agree with these guys — and we don't need a 270-foot construction crane to say it. And, of course, we PURR.

Lest We Furr-get: A Tale Of Two Cousins

By Miss Kubelik

Al Gore, always the dry wit of whom we cats have been fond, campaigned for Hillary Clinton in Miami yesterday and declared himself "Exhibit A" as to why your vote matters. Really, really matters.

We thought that was an interesting confluence of events, since the total screw-over of President Gore back in 2000 began with a Bush cousin named John Ellis — while today, Republican World is roiled by a vulgar "Access Hollywood" tape featuring a Bush cousin named Billy.

Perhaps a little background is in order.

John Ellis Bush, working the FOX "News" "decision desk" on Election Night 2000, instructed the network to call Florida for the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived — even though every other news outlet was saying, whoa, wait a minute. Thousands of hanging chads, one Brooks Brothers riot and a Bush-engineered Supreme Court pronouncement later, Al Gore got cheated out of the Presidency he had won.

Fast forward 16 years to Donald Drumpf's epic Pussy Galore weekend, and we find that there's another, um, Bush involved.

That Billy Bush — whose media persona is apparently that of a clueless celebrity hanger-on with no moral, intellectual or ethical grounding — was present for what may prove to be the most important disqualifying event in Donald Trump's political life and failed to alert the Jeb! campaign back in the GOP primaries, even when Trump was trashing Jeb! every second and implying that he was low-T....

Well, it's too ironic to fathom. Is the Bush family still speaking to him?

And the idea that a bumbling member of the Worst Person clan might help deliver the White House to another Clinton in 2016 will be sweet payback for the nefarious acts of John Ellis Bush in 2000.

We hope that President Gore can find some wry amusement in all of this. And we jump in his lap and PURR.

And Now, From The Department Of Horrifying Thoughts Department...

By Miss Kubelik

Item #1: The political world is agog that George H.W. Bush has refused to deny the cat that Kathleen Kennedy Townsend recently let out of the bag: He'll vote for Hillary Clinton. However, we think few pundits are taking the Bush-Trump conundrum far enough into the future.

When will someone observe what the Bushes have already figured out — namely, that if Donald Drumpf doesn't go down to defeat in 2016, George P. Bush will have to run against Donald Jr. for the Republican nomination in 2024? (Whoa, hairball time.)

Item #2: Newt Gingrich is claiming that Drumpf is "the first conservative" courageous enough to brave America's hideous "inner cities" and "talk change." Obviously, what the former House Speaker meant was that Drumpf is a whitey who's not afraid to talk to black folk.

This statement is not only condescending, it is a lie. We cats are not in the habit of defending Republicans, but does anybody remember the GOP's 1996 Vice Presidential nominee? Jack Kemp was a trailblazer in reaching out to the African-American community, citing his football career as the basis for his belief in racial equality. If Kemp were alive today, he'd be spinning in his grave.

Item #3: This one is probably more scary for Republicans than for us. But there's a report that Mike Pence is going to attend Monday night's debate. He wants to "be there" for Drumpf. Okay, we'll set aside the bromance-y implications of that assertion and just say that it's a stupid waste of campaign resources. (Pence should be in a key battleground state, watching with supporters — oh, never mind.)

But maybe we do know why. Take Pence away, and who's going to be in the spin room for Drumpf afterwards? Gingrich, whom Garry Trudeau used to portray as a bomb with a lit fuse? Crazy Rudy Giuliani, foaming at the mouth? The Drumpf campaign needs a grownup, and since Kellyanne Conway can't seem to handle questions about Donald Trump's tax returns, and Steve Bannon and his white hood are under wraps, it looks like Mikey gets the job. We cats HISS.

More Than A Cat Fight

By Zamboni

The combat that's escalating between two American Gold Star parents and the repulsive, spoiled, ignorant sociopath known as the Republican nominee for President is reaching new heights. We cats can just imagine how much the GOP establishment now wants to kill Donald Drumpf — unless they kill themselves first.

It all makes us flash back on The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived — the appointed-by-the-Supreme-Court President who sent Captain Humayan Khan to Iraq in the first place.

Ya know what? Even if you ascribe the most positive, the most charitable, and the most benign motivations to the Worst Person's efforts to embrace Muslim Americans after 9/11, the impact that George W. Bush was able to have in promoting tolerance in the months after the World Trade Towers fell pale in comparison to what Khizr Khan has been able to accomplish in less than a week.

The irony is striking. And when you remember that the Khans originally hail from a country whose president George W. Bush could not name back in the 2000 campaign... well, that's why we call Bush the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived.

And why is he being silent? We cats HISS.

We Know What You're Up To, Stephen Harper

By Baxter

Donald Trump will be a no-show at this week's Vegas confab of the Republican Jewish Coalition, the world learned today.

We cats are always amused by the silliness of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and especially now that The Donald has said he will snub them. Trump must have figured that having recently hosted folks like Jeb! Bush, the RJC is a forum for losers. (Interesting note: John Kasich is also taking a pass.)

But wait! — here's a fun fact that got buried at the end of the story. Hotel owner and RJC host Sheldon Adelson will welcome his fellow GOP-MOT friends to the Venetian on Thursday night with a kickoff dinner featuring... former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper!

Now, it's always a pleasure to type the words "former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper." But Stevie's planned presence in Vegas says to us cats two things: He's desperately trying to be relevant to somebody these days, and we were right all along about that direct line that the Bushies had to his phone in the PMO.

That line has to go to his personal cellphone now that Canada has shown Harper the door. But this RJC invite is just more proof that the insidiousness of the conservative network in North America knows no bounds. What will he speak to them about? What it feels like to have your right-wing butt kicked by a young, charismatic liberal guy with an attractive family? We cats PURR.

Wake Baby Marco When It's Over

By Baxter

We cats are still digesting the "Super Saturday" results, but on the Republican side, our initial reaction is that we couldn't be more pleased. Trump and Cruz each winning two states means the race continues to be roiled up, and the GOP establishment is still apoplectic. Baby Marco Rubio is humiliated, but (in our view) can't drop out before Florida since he's on the ballot there.

And — get this — Michael Reagan has endorsed.... John Kasich. John Kasich? Just goes to show you Kasich is no moderate, but then, we knew that already.

But back to Baby Marco, the poor darling. We cats would have never thought it possible that two of our most despised Republicans from Florida could suffer such electoral disgrace, and within weeks of each other! Icing on the cake: How silly all those GOP endorsers who stampeded to Rubio look now. It all makes us PURR.

The Republican Establishment Still Doesn't Understand How Much Trouble It's In

By Miss Kubelik

What are they going to do with all those leftover exclamation points from the Bush campaign?

Answer: Give them to the Freepers. Yes, our favorite friends over at Free Republic, one of the Internet's most paranoid corners of what passes for right-wing thought, are positively giddy that The Donald has vanquished the $130-million-dollar-man from Florida and chased him from the race. Their posts are so heavily punctuated they could find immortality on this blog. Sample: "The guy was just NOT likable!!!! W. was likable!!!!!" Sheesh.

But if you're assuming that the Freeps are ready to call a truce and fall into line with whatever post-Bush candidate the frantic Republican establishment tries to foist on them, think again. They've tasted blood, and they want more.

The next victim on their list: Baby Marco Rubio, who has been gobbling endorsements from old-timers like Bob Dole and Orrin Hatch and from new-timers like Dean Heller and Tim Scott and Nikki Haley.

The Freepers are unimpressed, because gosh, they hate Baby Marco, and they hate the endorsers almost more. This semi-vulgar Freep comment pretty much says it all: "Rubio, with our ball-less RINOs in Congress, will implement total amnesty for untold tens of millions of illegals." Hm.

All of which makes us wonder: Where will Baby Marco win? Because he can't keep losing these states and spinning it as some moral victory.

The last we checked, Nate Silver & Co. had Donald Trump at a 65 percent chance of winning Nevada tomorrow. And Super Tuesday? Goodness gracious. Trump leads in every survey except for one little poll that had Rubio up by, like, two points in Minnesota. And Pundit World seems to have just suddenly discovered the same thing.

A lot can change in a week, but for now, it seems like Donald's in the driver's seat. Fasten your seat belts, Cleveland. It's going to be a bumpy July. We cats PURR.