If We Cats Could Curl Up In A Chair Next To Your Hospital Bed, We Would

We cats are spending a quiet New Year's Eve at home, relaxing and savoring the events of 2012. But tonight our thoughts turn to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. We wish you a speedy recovery, Madam Secretary, and a deservedly restful 2013!

A Quickie: Separated At Birth?

By Baxter

As President Obama's first term draws to a close, and with his second one soon to dawn, we cats are thinking back on the last couple of years. And we're struck by how much two losers — Willard Mitt Romney and former BP CEO Tony Hayward — have in common.

They both presided over disasters — one natural, one unnatural.

They both spent a ton of money in a fruitless pursuit: trying to convince people that they cared.

They both suffered from an overdeveloped sense of entitlement and felt that their respective journeys were all about them.

They both screwed up with disastrous video appearances.

Best of all: They both have their lives back.

Worried About The 2 Percent (Milk, That Is)

By Zamboni

If you think that the current gang on Capitol Hill is making the 80th "Do-Nothing" Congress look like industrious worker bees, you're right. It's caught the pundits' attention that the 112th Congress has passed the fewest bills since — well, since the 104th, back in 1995-96.

Hmmm. We cats wonder who was in control of those Congresses? You'll never guess! (Answers below.)

Republicans just continue to prove that people who don't believe in government are lousy at doing it. For example, nearly lost in all the fiscal-cliff hand wringing is the fact that the latest farm bill, which has always passed in five-year increments without much fanfare, is also stuck in the mud of GOP intransigence and, unpassed, threatens to make all our pocketbooks explode.

"Progress stopped when House Republican leadership refused to allow floor debate on the [current proposed] package even with [a] promise of tens of billions of savings over the next decade," POLITICO reports.

We cats just can't understand it. The GOP's in charge, most representatives from farm states are Republicans, and it's in their interest to pass it. But, like so many other pressing matters that the Republicans hold hostage to obstreperousness, it's going nowhere.

This Congress — and specifically, this House — is an embarrassment. Thanks to their incompetence, soon we'll all have to pay $8 for a gallon of milk. Which makes us cats HISS.

(ANSWERS: 80th Congress: Republicans, both chambers. 104th Congress: Republicans, both chambers. 112th Congress: Republicans, House of Representatives. Surprise!)

Christmas In Connecticut

By Miss Kubelik

Having just returned from La Belle Province, we cats must bid everyone joyeuses fetes, and a soon-to-be Happy New Year. How wonderful to be spending the holidays without the specter of a Willard Presidency looming over us.

We also should report how pleased we were to be out of the country in the immediate aftermath of the Newtown-gun-control-Wayne-LaPierre-meltdown thing. It was a relief to be able to enter restaurants, movies, shops and museums in Montreal without worrying about who might be packing heat.

What does amuse us, however, is the hue and cry over The Journal-News's online posting of a gun-owner database in Connecticut. We cats heartily endorse this publication, and wish it were available in our area. It would be nice to know which one of our neighbors could blow us away if we have a disagreement over, say, birds getting killed at our respective backyard feeders.

It also strikes us as hilarious that gun owners feel their privacy has been violated. First — if they own weapons, what are they worried about? Second — how likely is it that these are the same people who posted, or approved of posting, abortion providers' names and addresses online?

Since we cats see the irony, we PURR.

Republican Senators From Idaho: Drunken Gay Mormons

By Sniffles

What is it about Idaho? Is it the mountains, the potatoes, the fact that Ernest Hemingway committed suicide there?

Whatever it is, Idaho has had some bad luck with its Senators lately. First, Larry Craig gets caught playing footsie with an undercover cop in an airport men's room. Now, the unfortunately named "Mike Crapo" has been arrested for drunk driving in Alexandria, Virginia.

Okay, so this recent incident is interesting. We cats didn't know that Mormons like "Crapo" could possibly get in trouble with strong drink. See, in one of the earlier of our nine lives, we had a boss who was a Mormon, and he wouldn't even order a pot of coffee for an 8 AM staff meeting. So what's with this DUI?

For that matter, what is "Crapo" doing in Washington so close to Christmas? Why isn't he home in Idaho Falls with the family? We cats suspect that there's a whole lot more to this story than we currently know, and we just hope that the media won't be too busy with lazy end-of-the-year wrap-ups to do a little digging.

Well, off to our holiday revels. Before we go, though, we must correct our headline to note that Larry Craig is not Mormon but a Methodist. And oh, by the way, he's also on the board of the National Rifle Association. Which we find way more disturbing than being gay.

If You're Going To Rail Against Affirmative Action, You'd Better Be Competent Yourself

By Baxter

We cats want to know why Republicans keep giving white men these important jobs. Like Speaker of the House.

Hot on the heels of stories about Willard Mitt Romney's mismanagement of his Presidential campaign, John Boehner suffers an unprecedented public humiliation at the hands of his own GOP caucus — over which, by the way, he has never had control.

This is the same John Boehner who was supposed to be a breath of fresh air after the allegedly difficult and temperamental Nancy Pelosi. Well, it turns out that Pelosi was a master — healthcare reform wouldn't have passed without her, for example — while Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy cannot even count.

On the one hand, what can we expect? You can hardly be good at governing when you hate government itself. On the other hand, the Republicans' rush to set themselves up for failure still is pretty stunning.

We cats would be PURRING in glee, except for the fact that Boehner's incompetence leaves the country only days away from the fiscal cliff. And here we thought white males were only dangerous with assault weapons in their hands.

Our New Plan For Gun Control

By Zamboni

It always astounds us cats that the right-wing teabagger types are indignant about alleged infringements on one Constitutional right, but perfectly happy to have the hated government play buttinsky when it comes to another Constitutional right sanctioned by the Supreme Court in January 1973.

But on the other hand, their lack of logic could be downright inspiring. Check this out.

Want to buy a gun? Okay — but here's what you have to do.

First, you're only allowed to buy at certain specified and highly regulated Firearms Distribution Centers, which are in incredibly inconvenient places located hours and hours away (sometimes, in fact, in another state).

Then, when you arrive at the FDC, you must run a gantlet of anti-gun protesters shoving posters of bloody corpses in your face and pleading with you not to go through with it.

Once inside, you have to submit to a series of embarrassing questions as well as a completely unnecessary and invasive physical procedure — say, a test to see if you can properly shoot a gun with a probe stuck up an orifice — after which you'll be made to pay a couple of hundred dollars out of your own pocket for the privilege of undergoing that procedure. (Cash only, no credit cards or checks accepted.)

At the same time, photos of dead bodies — for example, people gunned down in gang wars, domestic disputes, or Connecticut elementary schools — will flash on a screen off to the side. Of course, this is not at all an imposition, because you'll always have the option of looking away.

After this, you'll be escorted into a waiting room, where you'll have to submit to about an hour of "counseling" from Brady Campaign representatives, who will try to get you to change your mind.

Finally, after all the probing, poking, hurdles and hassles, you'll be forced to wait 24, 48 or 72 hours before being allowed to finally buy your gun. And it won't matter if burglars are breaking into your home at that very minute. You'll still have to wait.

Sound good, right wingers?

Disarmed

By Miss Kubelik

When we cats were kittens, we read Senator Daniel Inouye's surprisingly engaging autobiography, Journey to Washington. Not because he was particularly famous at the time (the Watergate hearings had yet to happen), but because his story as a Japanese-American soldier in World War II was such a compelling one.

To this day, we remember the following scene: Inouye, lying in a hospital bed after battle, minus one arm, asks a nurse for a cigarette. He assumes she'll take one out and light it for him. Instead, she tosses him the pack and a box of matches and lets him fend for himself. Cursing her the whole time, Inouye finally extracts a butt with one hand and somehow manages to strike a match.

Thanks to that nurse, Senator Inouye learned that as an amputee, he would have to figure out how to do stuff for himself. After all, it was the 1940s. There was no ADA back then.

We cats believe that Americans who have served, and who have given an arm or a leg or more to their country, deserve a little more accommodation. So as Capitol Hill prepares to honor Inouye tomorrow with a lying-in-state, let's all remember what Senate Republicans did to the UN treaty on the disabled.

Tidbits and Cat Treats: Republicans Are Anti-Choice So That Babies Can Be Born And Shot Later Edition

By Sniffles

We cats are so disgusted and appalled at what happened in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday that it's taken us a couple of days to wrap our furry heads around it. But this morning, we have a few thoughts. (Most of them angry.) Here we go:

Unlike those idiot parents in Aurora who brought a baby to a midnight movie, the children of Newtown were where they were supposed to be — in school, learning. Sometimes, there just are no words.

Chalk up 26 more bodies on the kill list of the Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, who back in 2004 allowed the assault weapons ban to expire.

Speaking of which, if this incident had been an act of international terrorism, we'd not only be moving heaven and earth to keep it from happening again — we'd be restricting a hell of a lot of Constitutional rights to do so.

We cats can't imagine how the first responder or police official — a public employee, no doubt — who had to inform Newtown parents that their children were killed will avoid intensive PTSD therapy for the rest of his or her life.

So Louie Gohmert (R-TX) believes the Sandy Hook principal should have had a gun. Why do these moronic Republicans think that life is like the movies?

Good for Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, for vowing to introduce a new assault weapons ban. We don't expect any miracles, but we need to get all the gun nuts on the record.

And by the way, not a single pro-gun Republican Senator had the guts to go on the Sunday shows yesterday. Cowards!

Then again, perhaps they sense that the tables have turned. Even somebody on Free Republic, our favorite corner of the paranoid right-wing universe, posted this: "We must have more laws against guns. [Lanza] simply ignored about 20 laws and still went ahead with his plan." NRA, you are on notice.

And finally, to any Republican who has criticized teachers, we cats dump our dirty litter boxes over your head, in your breakfast, and in every single one of your dresser drawers. Although what we'd really like to do is punch you in the face.

Baby Killers