Say Nothing (Well, Okay, Just This Once)

By Zamboni

There are several topics that we cats have refused to engage on, because they are 1) Republican concoctions, 2) media malpractice and misdirection, 3) needless Democratic worries, or 4) just plain silly. But they keep popping up in our social media timeline, so it appears we must squash them forever. Here goes:

"The Biden crime family." So ridiculous! And so clearly GOP projection. If there's any family that fits the mobster bill, it's the Trumps. And Republican Congress members who keep bleating about "having proof" about Hunter and Joe keep coming up empty. Ignore them.

"There's gonna be a recession! Or at least, no soft landing." As we've pointed out before, Morgan Stanley begs to differ. So our little lips are zipped on this from now on. Enjoy the strong economy, and remember that no Republican voted for it.

"Trump is going to be able delay or defer justice." Nope. For example, today a Georgia judge — "forcefully," in the words of The New York Times — smacked down Benedict Donald, tossing Trump's bid to keep Fulton County from indicting him on overturning the 2020 election. Next week, another bogus Trump attempt will be heard (and tossed). He keeps losing, and nothing's been delayed. As Fulton County DA Fani Willis told reporters yesterday, she and her team are ready to rumble.

"If Trump keeps getting indicted, his supporters will get violent." MAGAts have certainly gotten violent before. (Capitol Hill police still aren't over it.) And goodness knows they're heavily armed. But we still don't lose any catnaps over it. First of all, Trumpsters are mostly cowards. Second, a lot of them are in jail. But even if they haven't been hauled off to the hoosegow, they might be dead. Thanks, COVID.

"Elon Musk is killing Twitter." Unlike the others, this one seems to take on more weight every day. Musk's latest bizarre attempt to erase the brand is the first time that we've seriously wondered whether we can wait him out. But we haven't left the platform yet. He had to take his stupid "X" off the Twitter building in San Francisco today. Now, if only we could get it off our phone. We cats HISS.

Temperate

By Baxter

Upstate New York was braced for severe weather today, but it didn't happen — just a few hours of steady rain, after which temperatures have dropped into the 60s.

This coming week, it's supposed to be in the 70s and (maybe) low 80s.

So we're still trying to figure out why people are moving to Phoenix, where the average temps were 110F and more these last several weeks, or even the mid-Atlantic, which was pummeled by severe storms today after highs of 97F in Washington, 98F at Dulles and 99F in Baltimore. And Florida? Fuhgeddabout it.

There's no escaping climate change until we convince Republicans to do something about it. But in the meantime, the Northeast seems to be the place to ride it out. We cats PURR.

(UPDATE, July 31: It was 54F this morning! We cats PURR.)

Doing Good For Girls

By Sniffles

Having Dark Brandon as President is almost like having Hillary. Has anyone noticed that?

Women and women's rights appear to be at the forefront of his Presidential brain. He started out, of course, by picking Kamala Harris as his running mate (And what a stellar job she's done as the nation's first female Vice President.) But that was just the beginning.

He worked with Congress to reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act. He issued a Presidential memorandum to revoke the global gag rule on abortion counseling and services among nongovernmental organizations. (He has always supported codifying Roe into federal law, but we need Congress to do that.) He appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court, and just named the first potential female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And more.

Today, Dark Brandon took prosecution of rape in the military out of the chain of command. How great is that? "Senior Biden administration officials said it was the most sweeping change to the military legal code since it was created in 1950," PBS reports.

Why is he so good for women? Has he been trying to make up for his ham-handed handling of Anita Hill when she testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Clarence Thomas? We're not sure — but whatever his motivation, American women have benefited. Including, perhaps, Vice President Harris, who could be on a path to election to the Presidency. Get back to us in 2028. Meanwhile, we cats PURR.

The Decency Of Dark Brandon

 

By Hubie and Bertie

Mitch McConnell is an evil POS who helped steal the Supreme Court and is therefore responsible for the death and suffering that American women in red states have endured since Dobbs. But you didn't see any Democrats gloating over what appeared to be his TIA at the Senate lectern today. Compare that to the Trumpsters who raked John Fetterman over the coals for his stroke and for seeking mental health support. They are monsters, and we are not.

Want more proof? McConnell told the press that President Biden called him today to check on him. Biden is a good guy. Although we can't pretend to be in his league, we're glad he's our President. We cats PURR.

Things Are Looking UP(S)

By Miss Kubelik

Anyone who mainly shops by Amazon is happy today that there will be no UPS strike — the company and the Teamsters Union have reached a settlement. This is good for the UPS employees, who will get a pay raise, and good for the economy. So, yay!

We cats wasted absolutely no time worrying about an impending strike, because it just didn't make sense to fret about something over which only the union and the company had control. In fact, we've been ignoring a lot of doomsayers lately. They're all in the mainstream media, the members of which are in a constant state of hand-wringing, fearmongering, and anti-Biden frenzy.

The latest was the crew of Cassandras who were already predicting that a prolonged UPS strike would not just tank the economy but obliterate Biden's re-election chances. So, once again, they've been proven wrong. Never mind — they'll just start hunting for the next sparkly object that will magically destroy the Biden campaign.

It's all amusing, except for the media's irritating habit of portraying Biden-Harris as "getting lucky breaks" when it comes to the economy. Truth be told, most of the country's current economic state — cooling inflation, record-low unemployment, and fading fears of recession — is due not to good fortune but to the Administration's deliberate planning and choices. Elections matter, you see. We cats PURR.

Fighting Elephants

By Zamboni

This is interesting — despite (or maybe because of) the source, the right-wing National Review. It's also the kind of story that many journalists are too lazy or too uninformed or too lacking in institutional memory to care and/or write about.

"In at least a quartet of key states," the magazine reports, "the state Republican parties are collapsing — going broke and devolving into infighting little fiefdoms. Even worse for the GOP, these aren't just any states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota all rank as either key swing states or once-purple states that would be tantalizing targets in a good year."

If 2024 ends up being another GOP letdown, NR avers, it will be because these states replaced "competent, boring, regular state-party officials with...blustering nutjobs who have little or no interest in the basics of successfully managing a state party or the basic blocking and tackling involved in helping GOP candidates win elections."

All four parties are controlled by Trump loyalists. The Arizona and Minnesota Republican parties have no money, and Colorado's and, most famously, Michigan's are consumed with cat fights and circular firing squads. (And also broke.) Colorado is even talking about canceling next year's GOP primary. Just imagine the coverage if this were happening in blue states. You'd never hear the end of it (because as we all know, "Democrats" and "disarray" both start with the letter "d").

This bodes well for sane Americans like us. It's just another reason that we're choosing not to freak out about mid-2023 national polls, or endless predictions of a recession that's not going to happen, or even about the idiots behind the so-called "No Labels" group. Because behind all the third-party chatter lurks this ever-present question: Are they doing the work? Organizing in key states, getting on ballots, etc.? (It's overwhelming, and a grind.) Or are they just holding silly events, lending themselves out as talking heads on TV, and prattling away on social media? We suspect the latter. We cats PURR.

(IMAGE: Wyoming Tribune-Eagle)

In The Pink!

 

Dark Brandon loves the right's freakout over the Barbie movie, because nothing's more threatening to the Trumpsters than empowered women. And didn't Brandon just appoint the first woman to lead the Navy? Indeed he did! No word on what Admiral Lisa Franchetti's favorite color is — but once she's confirmed, she'll be the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We cats PURR.

He Made Every Town Paris

 

 

Was there ever a time that we didn't love Tony Bennett? We cats PURR.

It's The Economy, Stupid

By Baxter

Morgan Stanley is crediting President Joe Biden’s economic policies with driving an unexpected surge in the US economy that is so significant that the bank was forced to make a “sizable upward revision” to its estimates for the US gross domestic product.

Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is “driving a boom in large-scale infrastructure,” wrote Ellen Zentner, chief US economist for Morgan Stanley, in a research note released Thursday. In addition to infrastructure, “manufacturing construction has shown broad strength,” she wrote.

As a result of these unexpected swells, Morgan Stanley now projects 1.9% GDP growth for the first half of this year. That’s nearly four times higher than the bank’s previous forecast of 0.5%.

“The economy in the first half of the year is growing much stronger than we had anticipated, putting a more comfortable cushion under our long-held soft landing view,” Zentner wrote. We cats PURR.

Republicans Cannot Erase History

 

The Vice President's speech in Jacksonville today is worth a listen. There are no "benefits" to slavery. We cats PURR.