Are you as tired of GOP faux outrage as we are? You've likely heard about the so-called Christians on the Republican side getting all upset that President Biden is observing International Transgender Visibility Day — simply because this year, it falls on the same day as Easter. (Or perhaps we should say, Easter falls on it, since Easter is the holiday with the date that moves.) Oh, well! Happy ITVD, everybody, and we'll see you at the White House Egg Roll tomorrow. We cats PURR.
By Miss Kubelik
After Thursday night's $26 million fundraiser in New York City, Team Biden made some important announcements about the campaign's battleground-state organization. One was that they're opening 10 (count 'em) 10 field offices in the state of North Carolina alone.
(North Carolina is a ripe opportunity for Democrats this year: Republicans have nominated a sweaty, yelling religious whackjob for Governor, and their candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction not only home-schools her kids, she's called for the public execution of the Presidents you see above.)
To put it in context, last night's haul was big that it could pay for the entire general election campaign — field and media — in the Tar Heel State. And Biden had great timing to piggy-back on the New York event and announce the field initiatives today. It will help drive the weekend conversation into the Sunday talk shows.
We cats also have some suggestions for the media's next logical steps:
And if any national newspeople would contact George W. Bush to ask him why he's been a no-show in the GOP version of last night's Radio City Music Hall event, we'd like to shake their hands and give them a Daniel Webster cigar. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.
Chalk up another excellent election result for Democrats post-Dobbs. This time, it's in Alabama, right smack in the middle of its post-IVF-ruling nightmare. How sweet it is.
Yep, it's a state house race, but don't let any pundits or panicked Republicans try to minimize it. This special election took place yesterday in a GOP district because its previous representative, David Cole, resigned and pleaded guilty to voter fraud last year. (Emphasis ours.) In 2022, Cole beat Democrat Marilyn Lands by about seven points. Yesterday, Lands beat another Republican by nearly 25 points.
That's roughly a 30-point flip, for those of you doing the math at home.
In her campaign, Lands emphasized reproductive rights and, in particular, the horrifying February ruling by the Alabama State Supreme Court on in vitro fertilization, which Republicans have desperately been trying to run from ever since. She also was very open about her own abortion due to a nonviable pregnancy. In short, her platform was that women and families need to have the freedom to determine their own reproductive futures — safely and privately.
Be afraid, GOP. Be very afraid. We cats PURR.
Ronna Romney appears to be out at NBC after less than a Scaramucci.
We're happy about that, because Ronna deserves everything bad that can happen to her. But we're not rushing back to MSNBC or cable news anytime soon. The Ronna hire was not only outrageous and objectionable in and of itself, but let's be honest — the on-air uproar seemed contrived. Chuck Todd's contract ends this year, so he had nothing to lose by calling out his bosses. Kristen Welker has had no credibility since she kicked off hosting Meet the Press by interviewing Benedict Donald. Even the protests lodged by MSNBC's other anchors will not change the fact that its parent network will owe, and will pay, a lot of money to a criminal. And it's not clear that anybody in the media has learned a lesson.
Which makes us crazy. So let's focus on some other important stories that are headlining the news today.
We hope that Governor Wes Moore's first phone call this morning was to Governor Josh Shapiro, who has deep experience in quickly fixing broken things. (Knowing, of course, that the Francis Scott Key Bridge is a little bit bigger than that highway overpass in Philadelphia.) Is Maersk prepared for the staggering lawsuits that are coming their way?
The judge in Benedict Donald's Stormy Daniels criminal case has just gagged him. How sweet! As legal beagles have pointed out, while it's not unusual for judges to issue such orders in due course, Judge Juan Merchan hastened to sign and issue it today — right after Trump publicly went after Michael Cohen and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's staff. Oh, and the judge's daughter. Does Donald not realize that Merchan could send him to jail if he's convicted? (Or if he violates the gag order? Hm!)
Meanwhile, Trump is now selling "God Bless the USA" Bibles. We were all set to hack up hairballs about that until we saw Liz Cheney's snappy response: "Happy Holy Week, Donald," she tweeted at him. "Instead of selling Bibles, you should probably buy one. And read it, including Exodus 20:14." (That's the commandment that Trump broke when he had sex with Stormy Daniels.)
Finally, we debated about sharing this horrific photo of Kimberly Guilfoyle from an event at Mar-A-Lago this past weekend. But it's so symbolic of everything that's terrible about Trump and his world. Guilfoyle, who was once married to California Governor Gavin Newsom and who used to look normal, is clearly unwell. We despise her, but find this picture disturbing. And we HISS.
Tweeps are upset about the reduction in Benedict Donald's bond in his New York civil fraud case today. We can't get on that train. First, it's exhausting. Second, we have no control over what the courts do with Trump. The only action we can definitely take — and it's a big one — is to vote against him in November.
But it's a little weird how all the folks who are rending garments and gnashing teeth are ignoring the fact that Trump's $464 million judgment hasn't gone away. "Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud," Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
"The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely
inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his
organization. The $464 million judgment — plus interest — against Donald
Trump and the other defendants still stands."
Yep. And Benedict Donald has to cough up the $175 million bond in 10 days. This actually seems humiliating for him: Just days ago, he said he had the original amount in cash! But now the court has basically called him a lying non-billionaire. Expect him to go on another endless Truth Social rant in the wee hours tonight.
Meanwhile, we'd like to put in a New York-y word here. Tish James is our state Attorney General. We vote for her, and she answers to us. Her responsibilities are to enforce New York law and, in this particular case, protect the interests of New York taxpayers (us). If today's decision means that the state will get some money, as opposed to chasing down and seizing properties — a dicey proposition at best — we find this acceptable. In the meantime, we can all be pleased that Benedict Donald's first criminal trial starts April 15. We cats PURR.
By Hubie and Bertie
Democrats got some good news today: Tammy Murphy has dropped out of the Senate race in New Jersey against the uber-indicted Bob Menendez, who's in terrible shape electorally and is mad that his fellow Democrats are disgusted with him. He says he'll run as an Independent. (Who cares?) Murphy's decision clears the way in our primary for Congressman Andy Kim, who is a mensch. Kim was so appalled at how the Trump insurrectionists defiled the Capitol on January 6 that the first thing he did after calm was restored was to help clean up. He'll be a good Senator. We cats approve, and we PURR.
The funeral of the former Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, was held in Montreal today. It was probably the most important memorial since Pierre Trudeau's in the fall of 2000. Distinguished Canadians from across the political spectrum attended, and spoke — including current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had received some important support from Mulroney last June.
Each speaker shone in his or her own way. Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky was appropriately humble. And Mulroney's own voice was piped through the sanctuary, singing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," his favorite tune. As funerals go, this one was apparently top-notch.
Sadly, current Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre didn't get the memo. In a man-on-the-street interview outside the Notre Dame basilica, Poilievre was given the softest of softballs — the opportunity to say some nice things about the deceased — and instead, standing in the falling snow next to his evidently miserable wife, he chose to make a political statement about how awful things are in Canada today. (Which they aren't.) How Trumpy — take an interview that any normal politician could have easily handled with taste and class, and turn it into a disgusting, self-promoting cauchemar.
Dude just doesn't know how to read a room. And although we were not fans of Mulroney, who was a big Ronald Reagan stan, we have to believe that he wouldn't have approved of Poilievre's behavior today, either. Poilievre may have gotten a new haircut, ditched his glasses, and now favors Steve-Jobs-type black turtlenecks — but there's no makeover that can improve his wretched personality. It's hard to believe that Canadians will overlook that in next year's elections. We cats HISS.
We cats used to watch a lot of MSNBC. Heck, it was only thanks to "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" that we were able to get through the second Bush Administration. For years, our cable boxes were set to tune directly into the channel whenever we turned them on.
But we've been watching less and less lately. The rise, fall, and re-emergence of Benedict Donald has revealed cable news for what it really is: a corporate enterprise that strives for eyeballs, clicks and likes by feeding viewers' anxiety instead of informing them — even in the face of Trump-inspired threats to democracy. MSNBC is no exception. All their talking heads and hosts — except perhaps Lawrence O'Donnell — are complicit. Even those who rail against Trump today were eager enablers eight and nine years ago. (Looking at you, Joe and Mika.)
Now, we and the network are done. NBC News has hired Ronna Romney McDaniel as an on-air commentator. Boy, are we glad we're not Jen Psaki, Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace or Symone Sanders, and have to share a set with this person. (Then again, they'll probably meekly go along, because they're all part of the wink-wink-anxiety-pumping operation that lands them their giant paychecks in the first place.)
The woman who's in charge of NBC's political coverage (and whom we shall not name because she doesn't deserve it) can try to dress up the appointment as providing "an insider's perspective," and all the other silly stuff you say when you hire a normal person to join the team. But Ronna Romney helped Benedict Donald try to overturn the 2020 election. She tried to cancel our votes. We won't be watching.
Why don't they just go back to airing Trump's "shows" without fact-checking, and allow him to call into "Morning Joe" and spew garbage for 30 minutes? So long, NBC. We cats HISS, hack up multiple hairballs and dump our dirty litter boxes over Ronna Romney's head.
