Personally, we cats find the VP speculation for Benedict Donald to be pretty silly. There's no guarantee that, cognitively, he's even going to be able to make it to the Republican convention, so how is he going to choose? (Maybe Susie Wiles will make the decision for him.)
But the media still hasn't figured out how to cover Trump, so they treat him like a normal candidate looking for a running mate — instead of as the threat to democracy that he is. Which means that a horror story like Kristi Noem's dog execution immediately becomes one of whether she's torpedoed herself from the GOP ticket. (Unlike the poor dog, that's a story that refuses to die.)
Now, Kari Lake, the woman who we always thought had the inside track, has apparently fallen into disfavor. As The Washington Post reports, multiple strikes have developed against her. Donald considers her a loser since she didn't win the Arizona Governor's race in 2022. She secretly taped a call with the head of the state GOP, embarrassing him into stepping down. (Donald doesn't like to be taped.) She dissed supporters of John McCain, which has caused her numbers to sag. She hangs out at Mar-a-Lago too much.
Perhaps most important, Lake is running a stupid campaign in a state that's suddenly on the verge of becoming radioactive for Republicans, thanks to Dobbs and their now-infamous 1864 anti-abortion law. Sounds like Kari is cooked.
Noem's and Lake's problems invariably led to a mini-boomlet for Elise "Elsie" Stefanik on Twitter. After all, she voted against aid to Ukraine, most certainly as a sop to Trump. But we just don't see what she would bring to the ticket. Republicans are not going to carry the state of New York in November. Not even close. And at this point, too many people see Elsie for what she is: an opportunist.
As we said, the whole conversation is pretty dumb. But if we're going to engage in it, it might be time to speculate that Benedict Donald (or, um, Susie) will not choose a woman at all. Keep an eye on super suck-up JD Vance of Ohio. We cats HISS.
So many questions about last night's White House Correspondents' Dinner. Why did Kristen Welker wear a pink dress that looked like a bathrobe? Why was Dana Bash dressed in a towel? Why in the world was Lara Trump, who is speaking openly about Republicans committing more election shenanigans this fall, even invited?
And here we thought it was bad enough that Reince Preibus and Bruce Jenner were there. (Sorry, everybody — but Jenner has turned out to be such a Trumpy traitor to her trans community that we now insist on using her dead name.)
On the bright side, President Biden did such a great job that Benedict Donald felt that a furious social media post at one o'clock in the morning was warranted. Nice going, Dark Brandon! The event also reminded folks out there in America that Trump never once attended this dinner when he was in the White House. Too terrified to be part of the program, we suppose — plus, he has no sense of humor. (The Washington Post has accurately pointed out that the press doesn't have one, either.)
Final questions: Will journalists take to heart Biden's urging to avoid the horse race and false equivalencies and cover the 2024 election for what it is? Will they take the trouble to explain what's at stake? Sadly, we cats don't have a lot of confidence in that, because US political journalism is awful. We'll keep looking, though. In the meantime, we HISS.
Our feed on Twitter has been consumed with dog content, we're sorry to report. Not because we hate dogs (although we cats are vastly superior to them), but because any story about an animal mistreated or murdered chills us to our feline bones.
Enter this very strange story about South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem bragging about killing one of her dogs, execution style, because it was "untrainable." After the dirty deed, Noem's daughter asked, "Mom, where's Cricket?" "Cricket is dead," Noem allegedly replied. And the interwebs went wild.
It got to the point where we were desperately searching for Trump trial news, but couldn't find anything amid the anti-Noem outrage by dog lovers like ex-Republicans George Conway and Rick Wilson. (Even Trumpsters like Laura Loomer took offense.) People were posting photos of their beloved canines to drive home the point that Noem is a soulless monster. But that's okay. Because she is.
Also, if you're looking for more Nazi parallels for today's Republican Party, Noem just provided one. In 1945, Adolf Hitler killed his German shepherd Blondi, to test the cyanide he had in case the Red Army closed in on him. It worked. Happily, though, Hitler shot himself in the mouth the next day. We cats PURR.
By Hubie and Bertie
It may be Moose & Squirrel's 54th birthday, but we Democrats are the ones who got the best present. One day after a POLITICO story broke about the pooh-bahs at The New York Times printing anti-Biden stories out of spite, the President gave an hourlong interview to radio host and erstwhile shock jock Howard Stern on Sirius XM.
This is Dark Brandon at his finest.
Not only did Biden chat up Howard about a range of topics — his life in politics, his family, SCOTUS, the Violence Against Women Act, and more — he ended up making news by saying he'd be willing to debate Benedict Donald in the general election. This is hilarious, because of course Trump has avoided all Republican debates this season, and most likely will be incapacitated enough mentally and cognitively that he'll have to duck any head-to-heads this fall. But Stern getting the scoop still has to rankle at the Times.
It could not happen to a nicer newspaper. We cats have been torn about keeping our (very expensive) print and digital subscription to the Grey Lady, but have dithered on it because so much of their reporting — arts, books, science, New York-y stuff — is enriching and valuable. But their political coverage is frankly terrible. In the old-media days, they just had to one-up The Washington Post, but now they're up against a proliferation of journalists at online vehicles like The Daily Beast who often put them to shame. Or who at least act more honorably and less thin-skinned than the sniffy people at 620 Eighth Avenue.
Side note: President Biden was in New York because he attended a fundraiser headlined by the actor Michael Douglas last night. Meanwhile, Trump was in criminal court, whining that he couldn't be with his cheated-on wife for her birthday (who could have easily joined him in Manhattan for his court appearance and natal-day celebration), unable to campaign, dial for dollars, or do anything else to promote his alleged candidacy. A really good day for Biden-Harris, we'd say. We cats PURR.
Another week, another Presidential primary. Yesterday, it was in Pennsylvania, and Benedict Donald continued to underperform. At this point, though, perhaps you'd just want to say the Republican results showed the latest example of a full-blown anti-Trump protest vote.
Yes, Trump won the primary and all of the commonwealth's 16 delegates to the convention. But Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race more than a month ago, pulled in 157,388 votes* — nearly 17 percent. This was in a closed primary, with no Democratic voters making mischief, so you have to believe something's going on here.
Voting against Benedict Donald has been pretty consistent in GOP-only primaries and caucuses this year, in fact. It was 15 percent against him in Idaho, 18 percent in Oklahoma, almost 20 percent in Tennessee, and a whopping 44 percent in Utah (before Haley withdrew her candidacy). After that, she still pulled 19 percent in Florida, about 25 percent in Connecticut, 22 percent in New York, and now this.
The numbers from Pennsylvania were especially striking because Republicans voted for Haley not just in the Philadelphia suburbs, but also in Cumberland County outside Harrisburg, and the counties of Lancaster, Erie and Berks, all of which are traditionally swingy.
Which means that even with getting 83 percent of the overall vote, Benedict Donald has a real base problem. Political journalism in the US is pretty awful, so don't expect to see a lot of reporters chasing this story. They need their likes and clicks, so they'll always try to prop up Trump as a powerful, competitive candidate. The reality is that he's got a splintered and angry GOP, very little money, deteriorating cognition, and four criminal trials, one of which is underway and already doing damage. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.
*Fun fact: Joe Biden won Pennsylvania in the 2020 general election by about 80,000 votes. We cats PURR.
