Lucko's Latest

Sometime in the future, Americans will look back on Trump 2.0 and wonder how in the world we allowed it to happen. We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

De Adder Du Jour

(IMAGE: Michael de Adder, deadder.net)

Grand Old Pervs

By Miss Kubelik

Just one look at Ryan Walters was all it took to know that behind his Christian fanaticism, he was a skeevy hypocrite. 

Last week, he proved it. This fine upstanding family man (cough, cough), otherwise known as Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction, was caught with his proverbial pants down when his office television showed porn during a state board executive meeting. After two board members reported seeing naked women prancing across the screen, Walters feigned surprise but couldn't seem to figure out how to turn it off. Bedlam has ensued.

Well, of course Ryan Walters watches porn! This is right out of Central Casting. Walters has built his brand on crusading against filth and perversion — grabbing harmless books off library shelves, banning the teaching of so-called critical race theory, and foisting the Bible on public schools throughout Oklahoma. (The Trump-endorsed, Lee Greenwood Bible, of course.) He's also anti-choice, pro-gun, and pro-ICE. In other words, awful to the nth degree, and then some.

Since last Thursday, when the porn-y incident occurred, Walters has taken multiple pages from the Trump-MAGA playbook, dissembling and accusing. "Some of these board members are blatantly dishonest and cannot hide their political agenda," he bleated. The board members who saw the porn are "creating distractions," he claimed. Wow, he sounds just like Benedict Donald's frantic flailings in L'Affaire Epstein. 

But now Walters has really embraced the crazy. He's claiming a sheriff's investigation has cleared him (it has not) and has accused ruby-red Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of being behind the whole thing. "The governor needs to answer the questions," Walters said today. "Did he tell these board members to come in here and do this? Did you coordinate with them afterwards to set all this up after the fact when you couldn’t disrupt the meeting?"

Gee, this is fun. Keep fighting, Oklahoma Republicans. (Meanwhile, a short memo to Mrs. Ryan Walters: We know any dreams you may have had of being Oklahoma's first lady are probably over, but girl, get yourself a fashion consultant, like, yesterday. We cats PURR.)

Scotland Shines — Canada Says, "Hold My Beer"

By Zamboni

Scotland wins raves for its treatment of Trump? Now, it's Canada's turn.

Until a few days ago, we cats were blissfully unaware of the existence of someone called Sean Feucht, but we know who he is now. Feucht is a so-called "Christian" singer who is pro-MAGA, anti-abortion and anti-gay. One of his claims to fame is fighting COVID restrictions in 2020. This summer, he's been trying to tour Canada, and not meeting with much success. Venues in cities like Quebec, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton and Gatineau have canceled their contracts with him.

In Quebec, for example, the city-owned venue said they'd been lied to — by omission. "The presence of a controversial artist was not mentioned when the contract was signed between ExpoCité and the promoter of the concert planned for the site," said a spokesman.

In Montréal, Feucht performed at a church on the Plateau, even though the venue, Église MR, did not have the proper city permit to hold the event, and had been warned not to proceed without one. Protesters showed up, outnumbering the small crowd inside, and the police had to intervene. On Saturday, the city fined the church $2,500 for hosting the Trumpy Feucht in the first place.

As you'd imagine, Feucht is one of those proudly obnoxious MAGAts who thinks that rules don't apply to him. So we're glad that municipalities in Canada are making it clear that his right-wing beliefs are not welcome there. Still, we'd love to go back to the days when we had no idea who Sean Feucht was. We cats HISS and PURR at the same time.

(PHOTO: Sean hangs out in DC with Lauren Boebert. Need we say more?)

The Scots Understood The Assignment

Scotland didn't give Benedict Donald a very warm welcome today. In fact, Scotland leads the UK in despising Trump: 71 percent disapprove of him, compared to 57 percent in the United Kingdom generally. We cats wish the comedian Janey Godley were still with us — she would have some choice words indeed. Meanwhile, we PURR.

"Family Values"

By Baxter

Back in the early days of Pizzagate and QAnon, we cats were still learning about the crazy fringe people that the Republican Party eventually ended up mainstreaming as Trumpism overtook them.

Their charges of pedophilia against Democrats were bewildering to us at first. But now, we get it — because every accusation was, and is, a confession. Distract everyone by accusing your opponents of the worst thing you do yourself.

The root of it all is surely Epstein, but child rapists seem to be everywhere in the GOP. This story from Florida is just the latest:

"Fort Pierce City Commissioner James Taylor was arrested July 24 on felony charges after allegations of having an inappropriate relationship with a teen girl," Yahoo News reports.

"Taylor, 38, was jailed on charges including six counts each of transmission of material harmful to a minor by electronic equipment, transfer or display of obscenity to a minor, and harmful communication to a minor; four counts of lewd computer solicitation of a child; and two counts of solicitation of transmission of child pornography by electronic device or equipment, the St. Lucie County sheriff's office stated. All 24 counts are felonies.

"Sheriff’s officials reported the investigation started in August 2024 when police in Evanston, Illinois, got a report from the mother of a 13-year-old girl. The mother advised that her daughter, who was only 12 years old when the communications began, had been contacted by an adult male via Snapchat.

"Over time, the conversations became sexually explicit, and the suspect allegedly sent multiple nude images to the minor."

Jesus Christ, Republicans, when are you going to come clean on this and call it out? When Trump pardons Ghislaine Maxwell? We cats HISS.

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows

 (IMAGE: Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times-Free Press)

Art But Make It Epstein

 Marie-Thérèse, Face and Profile, Pablo Picasso, 1931

(IMAGE: Art But Make It Sports)

"Many People Are Saying"

 

By Sniffles

Today's Epstein-du-Jour breaking news is that Pam Bondi told Benedict Donald that he was in the Epstein files back in May. Well, of course she did, and of course he is. That probably means that a whole lot of other people in Washington got the news back then, too.

We've gotten to the point where a dead man is running our government. Donald has gone completely batty, posting bizarre things on his social media platform and forgetting that he appointed Jerome Powell chair of the Fed. Congress is shut down. Preacher of the House Mike Johnson sent his members home early so they would stop fighting about releasing the whole Epstein caboodle. (It won't work, Mike.)

All of this means that voters who live in red Congressional districts need to spend the next six weeks tying up the phone lines and beating down the doors of their members' local offices, demanding answers. (Republicans sure as heck won't be holding any town halls.) As for us Democrats, we should all follow the example of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who has accused Trump and his team of committing an updated, MAGA version of Nixon's 18-and-a-half-minute gap.

"We may still be talking about it come September, when we come back into session, but to go from 'It’s on my desk' to 'It doesn’t exist,' they may be engaging in destroying evidence," Crockett said on a podcast. "We know that [Trump] is not above that."

Yep, and yep. Did Crockett offer any proof? No, but who cares? Isn't it Trump who is always floating stuff to get it into the media narrative? Why not give him a taste of his own medicine? And by the way, could some intrepid journalist make it his or her mission to figure out if the Trumpsters are burning and shredding stuff? We cats would appreciate it. Meanwhile, we HISS and PURR at the same time. 

Critchley Vs. The Carpetbagger

By Hubie and Bertie

Does Pete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to Canada, think that Canadians don't read news from across the border on the interwebs? Maybe so. Yesterday he spoke to a business group in Bellevue, Washington, and said that Benedict Donald thinks Canadians are "nasty" for boycotting American travel and goods.

Well, that certainly sounds like Trump. It isn't clear how it's going to help relations with our closest ally, though. (P.S.: Canadian customs, if you'd like to check Hoekstra's car for US booze when he crosses the border from Michigan, please be our guest.)

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney's poll numbers are still riding high, and the Conservative Party is a mess. As we've reported, their leader, Pierre Poilievre, lost his seat in Parliament in the April 28 election. On August 18, he will face the voters in the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, which was gifted to him by its previous MP, who had just been re-elected but resigned to help PP stay in Parliament. Battle River-Crowfoot is deep Tory blue (that's "red," in American parlance). But Poilievre does have some opposition there. 

Meet Bonnie Critchley, who, quite frankly, is a hoot.

Critchley touches on all the important points in this CBC interview, which is well worth your time even if you aren't intimately familiar with Canadian politics. The bottom line: She's furious — a concept that many of us Americans get all too well these days. And since Poilievre styles himself as a mini-Trump, if he were to get humiliated in this Alberta election next month, it would be a delicious case of schadenfreude for all Donald-loathing people around the world.

PP might be feeling the heat. Yesterday, he posted a complimentary message on Twitter about the convicted leaders of the 2022 Ottawa trucking convoy, who will be sentenced for their crimes tomorrow. Perhaps he thinks he needed to shore up the anti-Ottawa vote in Battle River-Crowfoot. But no matter what his motivation, it's a safe bet that Bonnie Critchley will have a withering response. We cats PURR.