Gallipacci

By Baxter

Maybe you've seen a lot of retrospectives about famous people who have died this year. While we admit that many folks we care about have checked out in 2017, let's take a moment to salute the long-running performers who are still with us.

Here are Carl Reiner, 95, and Nanette Fabray, 97. God bless them!

Some Cold, Hard Facts About Puerto Rico

By Miss Kubelik

Twenty years ago this January, a crippling ice storm paralyzed Quebec. Nearly four million people in the province were without power for weeks. Businesses closed, the Montreal subway ground to a halt, banks and their ATMs shut down, no mail was delivered, and people lined up for gas. In short, life stopped in its tracks.

So imagine what Quebec went through in cold temperatures, and transpose that to Puerto Rico in the tropics, today. The difference? The weather event that crippled Puerto Rico happened 100 days ago, not yesterday. The fact that American citizens in this US territory are still struggling is unconscionable.

Look: Climate change means that extreme temperatures are going to occur, hot or cold. Right now, the US and Canada are dealing with subzero weather, but the rest of the world is baking. And while the original disaster to befall Puerto Rico was quite possibly due to global warming, its aftermath is totally the fault of humans. (That is, if you consider Trump Administration officials human.)

We don't. As far as we're concerned, Trump has committed Puerto Rican genocide. He should be impeached, removed from office and sent to Guantanamo — just for that. But since no one will hold him to account for a US territory's suffering, we'll have to nail him on foreign collusion and obstruction of justice. Go, Bob Mueller, go! We cats PURR.

Yeah, We Still Hate Mike Pence

By Zamboni

Lost in all the chatter about impeachment and the 25th amendment is how truly, deeply, madly awful Mike Pence is.

We cats will never support removing Trump from office as long as Pence is next in line. Let the Democrats win the House next year, and let a Democratically-chaired House Judiciary Committee impeach both Trump and Pence, and we'll think about it. But until then, nyet.

In the meantime, this banner erected next door to where Pence and "Mother" are spending the weekend in Aspen will have to do. In fact, it's pretty darn swell. We cats PURR.

"Now, This Is A Knife"

By Sniffles

Turns out that the Trumpsters' claim that the Russia investigation is illegitimate because it sprang from the Steele dossier is a lie — like everything else Team Trump says, right? Thanks to today's reporting from The New York Times, it was, instead, a squiffy conversation that the hapless George Papadopoulos had with the Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom that got the whole thing started.

Alexander Downer passed along Papadopoulos's drunken "the Russians have dirt on Hillary" boasts to US intelligence, and the rest is history.

In light of this important reporting, we send kudos to our Australian allies — and will refrain from saying that the ratting out of Papadopoulos was, for a Trumpsters, a real "downer." Oops, we just did. We cats PURR.

Tidbits And Cat Treats: The Day After The Day After Boxing Day Edition

By Baxter

We cats haven't finished opening our presents yet, preferring to extend the gift-giving as long as possible. But we'll start tearing at them soon. While we cavort among the crumpled paper, ribbons and bows, consider some of these stories floating around the political world today.

Happy Certification Day, Doug Jones. The Democrat prevailed in Alabama's Senate race by 21,924 votes after a last-ditch effort by sore loser Roy Moore to stop the final count. Moore alleged election fraud in black precincts that turned out in record numbers to vote against him. Gee... we can't imagine why African Americans would want to defeat a guy who openly pined for the good ol' days of slavery — can you?

Donald Drumpf's tweet about today's Vanity Fair-Hillary Clinton dust-up seemed to imply that he thought Vogue editor Anna Wintour was at the helm of VF, too. We certainly thought it did. Some folks on Twitter tried to defend Trump by pointing out that Wintour holds an executive position at Condé Nast, the two magazines' joint publisher. We don't buy it. But you can bet that if HRC had made such a slip, Trump would have been all over it — tweeting that she'd lost her mental faculties and needed to check into an assisted living facility.

Speaking of ordering Hillary Clinton around, we have no interest in watching the silly Vanity Fair video that got everyone so upset. But we thought that actress Patricia Arquette had the best response: "STOP TELLING WOMEN," she tweeted with the F-word, what “THEY SHOULD DO OR CAN DO." Perfect.

Finally, yes, it's freezing here in the Northeast, and teeth are chattering up in Canada, too. But before idiot Republicans start tossing snowballs on the Senate floor and denying climate change, let's remember that the rest of the planet is breaking records for warmth. As Neil deGrasse Tyson cautions, weather does not equal climate. Take note, North America. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

Always In Our Hearts

By Miss Kubelik

In a year in which Nazi sympathizers marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, and killed a woman there, it feels especially good to salute one of the 20th century's leading badass anti-Hitlerites, Marlene Dietrich, on her 116th birthday.

Google is sporting a stylish doodle today, and she was trending on Twitter, too. We cats would like to add our two cents and toast Madame Dietrich for her patriotic moxie during World War II.

Born in Germany and naturalized a US citizen in 1939, Dietrich was fiercely outspoken against the Nazis — which got her films banned in her home country, probably to her great delight. During the war, she visited and entertained American troops scarily close to the European front lines. She had spunk!

Oh, and did we mention she was gorgeous, and a terrific actress? Maybe those idiots who marched in Charlottesville should check out one of her best films, "Judgment at Nuremberg." They might learn a thing or two. We cats PURR.

Salt Lake Tribune: Bury The Hatch

By Zamboni

We cats were steaming the other day about Senator Orrin Hatch's pusillanimity on CHIP — the joint state-and-federal health insurance program for children that he and Ted Kennedy created back in the day. Funding for CHIP ran out weeks ago, and the GOP appears content to let it die — just like the kids with cancer who depend on the program to cover their lifesaving drugs, we guess.

So we were just teeing off on Twitter about how we hope Hatch is haunted by the ghost of Kennedy forever when we noticed that The Salt Lake Tribune agrees with us: Utah's senior senator is a disgrace, and should retire from Congress.

Heck, they didn't even mention CHIP. They went after Hatch for the tax bill and the environment — and his timidity in the face of this awful Administration's rapacious actions against America. Recognizing Hatch as 2017's "Utahan of the Year," the paper made it clear it wasn't a compliment — it was for Hatch's "utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power."

See? Republicans have a price to pay, even in the reddest of red states, when they sell their souls to Donald Trump. We cats take this as a further excellent omen for 2018, and we PURR.

Looking Ahead

We've had plenty of snow this holiday. How ironic that the first Christmas of the current, Nazi-loving Presidency is, um, a white one. Well, take heart, everyone — 2018 will help put America on the road to restoration. We cats PURR.

Is It Safe To Come Out Yet?

By Sniffles

Since Pope Francis has decided to speak out on the plight of the world's migrants tonight (in an assumed rebuke to the racist sociopath who currently occupies the Oval Office), we cats must report that politics have also touched our holiday revelries — at least a bit.

Having enjoyed a terrific performance last night at Montreal's House of Jazz, we've learned that the establishment was formerly named for its previous owner, Charles Biddle, an American bass player who relocated to Quebec after serving in World War II. Why did Biddle make the move? Because he was impressed that in Montreal, white and black musicians played together with no problem — unlike in the United States.

Of course, the civil rights movement came in the Fifties and Sixties, and things in the US got better. But lately, we've been feeling like we're backsliding. It's amazing how effectively hate can seem to take hold when it flows down from the top.

So our holiday wish is that, in 2018, love manages to trump all that — with a ton of Democratic votes. That would make us cats PURR.

"Miss America"... Is That Still A Thing?

By Baxter

It seems like every profession is being outed vis-a-vis bad behavior by the guys who inhabit it. Producers, actors, symphony conductors, CEOs, politicians, journalists, chefs, team owners — you name it, no field is immune. Because men are jerks, and they hold the reins of power pretty much everywhere.

With the possible exception of Al Franken, whom we've blogged about before, we cats are generally encouraged that abusive men are getting their just deserts. But we have to admit that we really don't care about the latest boor outing — Sam Haskell, the now-suspended head of the Miss America Organization.

Don't get us wrong — no Miss America contestant deserves to be referred to in a Haskell email as a "cunt." But gosh, in this year-of-our-Lord-almost-2018, beauty pageants are surely out of date, yes? There's no reason in this day and age for women to find affirmation by parading around in swimsuits and high heels — right? Can't we just disband the whole thing, and call it a day?

Well, we can discuss that. In the meantime, we think we know who the real cunt is: Sam Haskell. Screw you, asshole. We cats HISS.