We Love NY

By Baxter

It's easy to forget with all the bad weather stories dominating the news, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues — even while Ukraine is kicking Russian butt and Vlad Pooty is resorting to sham referendums to support his annexation of Ukrainian territory.

Brrrrrr — that word, "annexation." Coincidentally, today is the 84th anniversary of the signing of the Munich agreement. Brrrrr again.

Anyway, feast your eyes on the Russian Consulate on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Sometime in the dark of last night, vandals with an artistic bent let their views be known. And that was before Vlad delivered his unhinged speech today at the Grand Kremlin Palace. (Don't miss the fact that in the middle of all the Ukraine stuff, he made a point of going after LGBTQ+ rights. Putin was clearly trying to appeal to the MAGA fools in the US, but it's equally clear that he's uncomfortable with his own masculinity... just sayin'.)

We don't know about Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, but we're with the red paint guys. We cats PURR.

As Tim Russert Would Say: Florida Recovery, Florida Recovery, Florida Recovery

By Sniffles

Just catching up now on the horrific photos and videos coming out of Florida. Looks like Hurricane Ian's damage will dwarf the cost of Hurricane Andrew — and the 2005 hurricanes together.

And the rebuild will take... well, forever. It's not just a question of repairing infrastructure — it's building new: roads, bridges, causeways, the electrical grid (hopefully, underground), networks, etc. For commercial real estate and residential real estate.

This is on top of the "human question" — helping millions of people rebuild their lives.

How will Florida keep its economy growing? How will it keep businesses from relocating to other states? How will it get tourists to come back and spend the sales tax dollars that keep the state budget afloat? It will be a full-time job, period.

So to put the heat on the ever-repulsive Ron DeSantis, Charlie Crist needs to pledge that if elected, he will serve his entire four-year term. Not run off to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada, or any of the other vital stops on the 2024 primary calendar. He will not prep for cattle calls and debates, or spend a single day at the Iowa State Fair. Floridians deserve no less.

And then Crist needs to challenge DeSantis to make the same pledge. Again and again and again. We cats PURR.

P.S. If either Rick Scott or Baby Marco Rubio have (GURK!) 2024 Presidential ambitions, they need to resign their Senate seats for similar reasons. Although surely Val Demings will have beaten Baby Marco by then. We cats PURR again.

Size Matters

 

By Hubie and Bertie

Is it possible that the petulant brat Ron DeSantis and his MAGA minions will admit that climate change exists now? Hurricane Ian hit Florida's west coast today as such a monster, they probably should create a Category 6. How did it get so strong so fast?

"The Gulf of Mexico has been unseasonably warm this summer, according to the National Weather Service," Axios reports. "And climate change is heating the Caribbean by a little over 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) per century."

But DeSantis, unbelievably, already started whining about not talking to President Biden last night (a conversation which, actually, did take place). It reminds us of Republicans' bitching about "the border crisis" while taking no action: Trump's wall didn't get built, Mexico didn't pay for it — and as Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently pointed out, DeSantis used to be in Congress, and got nothing done on immigration while he was there. Always easier to complain about problems to score political points with angry people than to try to solve those problems, isn't it?

Somebody tell Ron it's not going to work with Ian. There's amazing video posted today that shows houses floating away in Naples and live sharks swimming up the street in Fort Myers. But just wait until the waters recede and people start realizing that they needed windstorm and flood insurance on top of their other coverage. They're in for a rude awakening — and it would be perfectly fine with us if they take it out on DeSantis at the polls in November. We cats PURR.

Things Are Getting "Ian" Worse

By Miss Kubelik

When we cats lived in Florida, we were never brazen (or foolish) enough to go without property insurance. Call us neurotic, but we had all the coverage you'd want for wind and water damage — plus we dropped a ton of money on hurricane shutters.

The hurricanes we lived through felled a lot of palm trees and tore off a few of our barrel shingles, and our house didn't flood — but if it had, we would have been good.

That was a while ago, however. Now, years later, many people are new to Florida (and hurricanes), haven't a clue what they're like, and have blown off insurance as unaffordable. Hard to blame them, but still.

With Hurricane Ian set to hit the state this week, we're all suddenly reminded that Ron DeSantis and his awful Republicans in the state legislature have done nothing to fix Florida's property and windstorm insurance crisis. In fact, the situation is continuing to go south.

"State regulators Friday asked a judge to place a property-insurance company in receivership, making it the sixth Florida property insurer declared insolvent this year amid widespread financial problems in the industry," The Miami Herald reports.

Gosh! It's so great that Florida's GOP legislature and heroic Governor would rather persecute trans kids, school teachers, and migrants legally asking for asylum — instead of solving pressing (and life-threatening) issues for their constituents. We cats HISS.

The Ledger Stone Revealed

Buckingham Palace released this photo of Queen Elizabeth's grave at Windsor today. Plus, Charles got the red boxes. So it looks like all this really happened. We hate to quote Boris Johnson on anything, but he was right to say she made us think she might be eternal. We cats PURR.

P.S.: When we visited Windsor, George VI was the only one in there. But that, as the Queen Mum once said, was a very long time ago.

Atlantic Canada Battens Down

By Zamboni

We cats are very worried about the Canadian Maritimes tonight. Hurricane Fiona is bearing down on them, with landfall expected very early tomorrow morning, and it won't be pretty.

Fiona is predicted to make landfall as the strongest storm to hit Canada ever — mostly because the oceans have warmed enough to keep it at its highest intensity in the North Atlantic. Climate skeptics, take note.

"Weather models continue to indicate that Fiona will make landfall in eastern Nova Scotia early Saturday morning and will produce very heavy rainfall, severe winds and storm surge," reports the Canadian Hurricane Centre. We cats wait and watch in hope. And in support, we PURR.

UPDATE: As it approached Nova Scotia, Fiona's pressure was down to 928 mb. "No hurricane has ever made landfall with such a low pressure north of Florida since 1851," meteorologist Craig CeeCee tweeted. "That shows how intense the storm is — truly once in a lifetime."

De Adder Du Jour

Michael de Adder pretty much sums up Benedict Donald's terrible week. The only question is whether there's a scrap of paper with Elise Stefanik's name on it lying at the bottom of the bowl. We cats PURR.

Connecticut Canary In The Coal Mine?

By Baxter

Did Mitch McConnell pull $10 million of Republican money out of the Arizona Senate race to save a GOP candidate in the Nutmeg State?

The reason we're asking: Quinnipiac University just released a poll that showed Republicans getting creamed in Connecticut, thanks to women who are furious about Roe.

"An overwhelming majority of women have abandoned the top of the Republican ticket...producing huge leads for Governor Ned Lamont and US Senator Richard Blumenthal," The CT Mirror reports. Both Democrats are ahead by 17 points. (Oh, and Trump isn't helping.)

So, this is interesting for a couple of reasons. While Leora Levy, the GOP candidate for Senate, is an off-the-wall, Trump-loving nutcase, Bob Stefanowski, running against Lamont, is pretty establishment-y — just the kind of "reasonable" candidate that Republicans used to hoodwink people into supporting. The fact that he's down by the same margin as Levy tells us one thing: The only GOP voters in Connecticut right now are hard-core extremists. Middle-of-the-roadsters and center-righters have deserted the party. There's no ticket-splitting here.

Does this Connecticut poll portend anything in New York? Vermont? Massachusetts? Maine? Rhode Island? Does this mean a blue wave will crash over New England in November?

No wonder Mitch is worried. We cats PURR.

Empty Throne, Empty Chair

 

This cartoon by Morten Morland in The Times shows how, inescapably, the rituals of the Queen's funeral remind us of our own losses. We also like Morland for his great November 9, 2020, rendering of a Trump-trashed Oval Office. We cats PURR.

Adieu To The Queue (And The Queen)

Queen Elizabeth's funeral is over, and we cats will miss checking in on the progress of the queue every day. It was amazing and fun.

So in honor of it all, here are a couple more photos of the corgis. They're not superior beings like we are, but it was nice that they turned out at Windsor Castle to say goodbye to their mistress — and we have to admit they're pretty cute. We cats PURR.