Unlucky 13

By Baxter

We cats are tempted to discuss Bridgegate again, thanks to yesterday's court appearance of a haggard and unsmiling Bridget Kelly. But we have a few things to say about the special election for Florida's 13th Congressional district.

Was it a bellwether? Meh. The district is Republican, and the results were much too close to give Republicans the breathing room they'd prefer. The 13th is a former GOP bastion now split almost completely down the middle, which is encouraging. Still, we're getting awfully tired of Alex Sink's inability to win.

But we have to hang this one not only on Sink but around the neck of the entire Democratic establishment. A perfectly good candidate, Jessica Ehrlich, was chased from this special election to make room for Florida's almost-Democratic Governor.

In retrospect, one has to wonder why. Ehrlich, who is from St. Petersburg, ran for the seat in 2012 and lost. But that was against Bill Young — his last re-election before checking out last October. There's nothing like running for Congress once when it comes to laying a solid foundation for running again. Which Jessica was all set to do until the Democrats decided on Sink.

Unnecessary self-inflicted wounds like this drive us cats crazy. But before we HISS and dump a dirty litter box on somebody, we want to say that we hope Ehrlich runs against David Jolly in the fall. In fact, if she sends us a fundraising e-mail today, we'll shoot her a couple of bucks.

Preet-y Exciting!

By Miss Kubelik

Isn't it fun how Chris Christie's "Bridgegate" scandal keeps mushrooming? We cats are quite amused. The latest news flash is that the feds are subpoenaing Christie crony David Samson, who for some time now appears to have been treating the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as a personal cash register.

This is a pretty big deal. Not only is US attorney Preet Bharara not somebody whose cross-hairs you want to be in (just ask Wall Street), but we suspect that earlier stories about Samson's conflicts of interest were discreetly leaked to set the stage for these subpoenas. After all, that's how Christie operated when he was US attorney in New Jersey.

The timing of today's news is similarly interesting. Had the subpoenas surfaced on Friday — right after Christie made what was deemed an acceptable appearance at CPAC — the Republicans would have screamed that Bharara was playing politics. So it seems to us that somebody in the Southern District of New York knows what they're doing.

So, good! We cats are looking forward to further developments in this never-ending Christie cauchemar. In the meantime, though, we're wondering how it's possible that a guy implicated in a "traffic study" that imperiled public safety on the 12th anniversary of 9/11 could be represented by a former Secretary of Homeland Security. We cats HISS and dump a dirty litter box on Michael Chertoff's head.

(PHOTO: The official Bridgegate clown college: Baroni, Christie, Wildstein and Samson.)

The Age Of Ignorance

By Zamboni

So, CPAC has wrapped up and surprise, surprise — the forces of Paul have once again managed to pack the house and win the meaningless straw poll. Sadly for the Republicans, however, CPAC's love was spread too thin among too many candidates to achieve any sort of consensus.

We cats like our GOP that way: disagreeing, and disagreeably at that. One teabag-adored speaker managed to be rude enough about a former Republican nominee that another former Republican nominee has called for an apology. (Yeah, that'll happen.)

But those fireworks aside, what continues to fascinate us is why any woman would attend a lamebrain, angry-white-male confab like this. As observant journalists have pointed out, Republicans' most prominent females are cartoons who will never be seriously considered for high office. And with policy positions so hostile to their rights and their lives, the GOP offers no reason for clear-thinking American women to vote for them or work for them.

As for the ever-smaller percentage of women who doggedly toe the Republican line election to election, we cats have no clue. We can only suppose that, to paraphrase Edith Wharton, there's no use trying to emancipate a woman who hasn't the dimmest notion she's not free.

(IMAGE: Sarah Palin can read?)

Not A Pretty Picture

By Sniffles

A day after New Jersey's scandal-tarred "Puffer Fish" took the stage at the circus known as CPAC, staff e-mails about "Transvaginal Bob" McDonnell's squeezing, wrenching, grasping cheerleader wife have surfaced in The Washington Post.

You remember the McDonnells: They were recently indicted on 14 counts of accepting illegal gifts and loans and Rolexes and $15,000 New York shopping sprees. Now, with these previously unknown e-mails coming to light, and L'Affaire McDonnell washing over us anew, we cats have a few additional thoughts. Specifically:

1. You know what's amazing? How the Republicans' two shining stars of 2009 have not only gotten embroiled in stupid, avoidable scandals — they've both run offices that were mostly, or totally, dysfunctional and out of control.

2. As we head toward 2016, and Rancid Pieface and his GOP cohorts scream about how we should all remember Hillary the Harpy of the East Wing, let's take a moment to think about Maureen McDonnell and her slimy little Anatabloc friend.

3. Once again, Transvaginal Bob is totally MIA in these e-mails. In fact, his staff bemoans his absence. “We were begging for help, [but]... as soon as he had to go back and do his job, things went downhill again," one sighs. We cats wonder why Bob wasn't there for his Biblical helpmeet, inspiring her to befriend a sleazy tobacco hustler instead.

4. There is no greater sense of entitlement than that felt by the wife of a Republican politician. Perhaps instead of harassing SNAP recipients, we need to start asking GOP wives to pass a drug test before they can receive First Lady benefits. Just a thought.

(IMAGE: "Hey, Bob! This portrait makes me look 40 pounds thinner!")

Barbs, Slaps And Slurs

By Baxter

In the olden days, people avenged insults by fighting duels. Today, they don't even get that far, because we have talking head TV shows and social media.

The Republicans should know this better than anyone lately. Insulting others is their stock in trade, whether through their economic and social policies — which demonize the poor and say women are incapable of making their own medical decisions — or by their conduct at, say, Congressional committee hearings.

Darrell Issa, whose checkered past already makes him vulnerable to plenty of insults himself, has had to apologize to Congressman Elijah Cummings, whom Issa gifted with a priceless "I paid for this microphone!" moment that, to the Democrats' glee, will surely haunt Issa forever.

But the GOP insulter-in-chief has got to be Ted Cruz, mainly because we cats love it when Republicans train the abuse on one another. Speaking at the clown confab that is CPAC yesterday, Cruz jabbed three of his party's former standard bearers as "President Dole, President McCain and President Romney."

Whoa. In a hierarchical organization like the GOP, a young whipper-snapper zapping the old guys who have gone the distance will surely raise some eyebrows. (Even we devoted Democrats twitched our whiskers a bit.)

The CPACkers, of course — nutjobs that they are — lapped up Cruz's speech like kittens with a bowl of milk. But we caution our teabagger friends: Watch out for unintended consequences. Like... Bob and Elizabeth Dole endorsing Hillary in 2016. We cats PURR.

If God Hated, He Would Hate Haters

By Miss Kubelik

We cats think it's hilarious when homophobes get their panties in a twist because someone has called them out for what they are. Gosh, they really don't like that!

The current 'phobe in question is Virginia's own Loudon County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio, who is just beside himself that his stupid anti-civil-rights organization, "Public Advocate of the United States," has merited hate-group status courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As his lawyer whines, "Almost every article written about Supervisor Delgaudio mentions the designation of Public Advocate as a hate group." Awww! Like his compatriots in the Tea Party and the Minutemen, Delgaudio squirms and bleats every time he's tagged with the very label he personifies.

Well, allow us cats to set the record straight. We have visited Public Advocate, and we can report that the website proudly displays the following anti-gay "Testimonial" from "Wayne B." in Michigan:

"We sing from the same page in hatred for this lifestyle." (Emphasis ours.)

There it is! The H-word! In all its glory, enshrined in their "God bless you" messages of support for all the world to see.

Heck, even the nutjobs over at Free Republic moderate their comments. This guy Delgaudio is an idiot who doesn't deserve clear-thinking Americans' time of day. We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: Fred Phelps's merry band of — wait, "God hates Jews"? What???)

Not-So-Random Harvest

By Zamboni

Stephen Harper must be frustrated. He's tried even harder than President Obama to box Vlad Pootie's ears — not only putting the brakes on the G-8, but recalling his ambassador to Russia and flying the Ukrainian flag on Parliament Hill. Still, nobody seems to be noticing.

But no matter, because Canada is, alas, used to being eclipsed by its giant neighbor to the south. Besides, Harper has his mind on other things — like politics. Specifically, using a recent, official, invitation-only event with the Aga Khan to harvest the e-mail addresses of potential Conservative supporters. Hm.

Now, far be it for us cats to be offended by promotional data mining. Goodness knows, we've received plenty of e-mails asking us to wish the President, Mrs. Obama, President Clinton, and other Democratic luminaries a "happy birthday!" — and we know that if we do, we'll get a fundraising appeal down the road. We also are not shocked that anyone sending congratulations to Justin and Sophie Trudeau on the birth of their new baby would land in the Liberal Party's database. (Harper himself, in fact, has asked Tory supporters to wish wifey Laureen a happy Mother's Day... same result.)

But placing the livestream of an official event on the Conservative Party website and restricting it to those who sign up with a name and e-mail address? That just doesn't pass the smell test. And we cats have very good noses. Which makes us HISS.

Republicans: "We Are All Hypocrites Now"

By Sniffles

When we cats were kittens, we learned in political science class that in times of foreign policy crisis the American political world rallies around the President. Boy, has that ever changed.

John McCain — who has forever disqualified himself from substantive discourse with his 2008 Vice Presidential pick — Lindsey Graham and Rudy Giuliani are just a few of the lamebrains screaming about how wonderful Vladimir Putin is (and by contrast, how... you get the idea).

We cats have learned to swat Lady Lindsey away like the irritating feather toy he is. He has a primary challenge from the right, and so he's frantically bleating away, hoping to survive that. But McCain and Giuliani, has-beens that they are, have no excuse.

McCain, Graham and Giuliani comprise just the tip of a repulsive iceberg: Republicans raining down abuse on a Democratic President over the Ukraine when they had nothing to say about their own commander-in-chief back in 2008, when Pootie invaded Georgia.

We're not saying that American foreign policy should never be questioned at home. But the GOP's ever-heightening hypocrisy when it comes to cutting slack for The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived versus piling on the thoughtful, careful, non-knee-jerk Obama makes us want to dump a whole bunch of litter boxes on people's heads.

What's next? Swift-boating John Kerry's trip to Kiev? We cats wouldn't be surprised. And we HISS.

(IMAGE: Rudy Giuliani, otherwise known as Vladimir Putin's new best friend. Think Vlad knows?)

Mean Tweeters Suck, Too

By Baxter

This is not an entertainment blog — but as long as we're on the subject of snark, we cats just want to say screw all those people who tweeted nastily about Kim Novak last night.

See, this is one of the reasons we cats avoid Twitter like the plague. Not only is it a huge time-suck, it encourages ignorant and obnoxious behavior — the exact opposite of the grown-up deference that Matthew McConaughey showed his fellow Oscar presenter.

(Thank goodness the Twitterverse didn't subject the equally elderly Sidney Poitier to the same treatment — unless we missed it somewhere. Isn't it disgusting that it's the female, and not the male, Hollywood legend who gets snarked about?)

To all those lamebrains who have no sense of history, here is the woman you were mocking last night. You'd better all be Republicans, because you make us cats HISS.

Mean Republicans Suck

By Miss Kubelik

The e-mails from Chris Christie's gang of thugs keep coming. Little by little, messages between Bridget Kelly and David Wildstein and Bill Stepian and Bill Baroni — and the other bright lights who were in positions of authority, thanks to the media darling who was never going to be nominated by the Republican Party in 2016 anyway — are dribbling out.

Here are some of the the deathless words of the folks who fomented the greatest disregard for public safety since The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived ignored the Presidential daily brief of August 6, 2001:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."
"Is it wrong that I am smiling?"
"They are the children of Buono voters."
"[Rabbi Mendy Carlebach] has officially pissed me off."
"He is the Jewish Cid Wilson."
"We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?"
"Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed."
"Holy [expletive], who does [Pat Foye] think he is, Captain America?"
"Bad guy. Welcome to our world."

Other details are slowly emerging — like the involvement of the Port Authority Police Department — but what strikes us most about these e-mails is their sheer hatefulness. Just endless, endless snark.

Now, we cats can snark along with the best of 'em — that's part of the fun of politics. But that's not all there is. There's policy, and law, and the public interest, and governance, and all the interesting aspects of democracy that makes it so continuously compelling — the stuff you're entrusted with if you're lucky enough to be, or work for, an elected official.

These Christie hooligans will have none of that. All they care about is power — with which they were once endowed and which, as the little, little people they are, they thoroughly abused.

Just like their boss? Of course. We cats know about birds of a feather. And if the Romneys drank, we would buy them cocktails until they spilled the real reasons they didn't pick Pufferfish for V.P. We bet there's an earful. And we PURR.