A Cat’s Picks for the 2018 Kentucky Derby

By Adele

It’s time for another Run for the Roses at the Kentucky Derby on May 5 at Churchill Downs.

You can watch it on NBC from 2:30-7:30 p.m. ET. It’s all yak, hats, and juleps until the “most exciting 2 minutes in sports” happens at 6:50.

I had a hard time picking a favorite until I learned that Bolt d’Oro is a half-brother of Rachel Alexandra on his father’s (Medaglia d’Oro) side.

If you’ll remember, I was a Rachel groupie back in the day. Among her 13 career wins, in 2009, she crashed the Preakness and beat all the boys. These days Rachel devotes herself to pedicures and motherhood.

Bolt d’Oro pulled post position 11 and his odds are 8-1. He’s having a jockey switch to Victor Espinoza, and I’ve got paws crossed it doesn’t rattle him and he doesn’t notice his most recent jockey, Javier Castellano, sitting on Audible (pp 5, 8-1).

Bolt has unfinished business to settle with the Derby’s current favorite, Justify (pp 7, 3-1, jockey Mike Smith).

On April 7, Bolt and Justify both ran in the Santa Anita Derby. Justify pulled off a 3-length win and a 114 BRIS for speed.

(BRIS is a point scoring system for Kentucky Derby eligibility that Brisnet.com started six years ago. 114 is the highest score ever.)

Bolt came in second with a BRIS of 110, which also broke the record of 107 set by Audible just few weeks earlier.

So, this Derby is Bolt d’Oro’s big chance to make Justify find out what loser dust tastes like.

Bolt will come out of the gate right beside his half-brother, Enticed (pp 12, 30-1).

But Justify has the job of outrunning THREE half-brothers. Their father was Scat Daddy, who suffered a career-ending tendon injury in the 2007 Kentucky Derby, and sadly died at age 11 in 2015.

Justify’s bros are: Flameaway (pp 4, 30-1), Mendelssohn (pp 14, 5-1), and Combatant (pp 20, 50-1).

The horses I bet my fish flakes on to place and show are any of the half-brothers and offspring of Curlin, 2007 and 2008 Horse of the Year. They are: Good Magic (pp 6, 12-1), Solomini (pp 17, 30-1), and Vino Rosso (pp 18, 12-1).

Solomini has been known to bump others (specifically, Instilled Regard, pp 15, 50-1) and got himself kicked back from first to third place in that race, so he may have to watch himself.

Vino Rosso may have the edge because his jockey, John Velazquez, won the 2017 Derby on Always Dreaming.

As always, may the best horses win and may they all cross the finish line safely.

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Michelle Wolf Deserves Thanks, Not Dissing

By Karen

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and comedian Michelle Wolf’s serving of it at the White House Correspondents Dinner was as frosty and satisfying as her joke about Fox “News” defector Megyn Kelly…

“Megyn Kelly got paid $23 million by NBC, then NBC didn’t let Megyn go to the Winter Olympics. Why not? She’s so white, cold and expensive, she might as well BE the Winter Olympics.”

Republicans are crying “Foul!” They claim they were verbally punched in the face while refusing to admit Dear Leader Trump’s bullying and insulting tweets and lie-laced rants on Fox and at rallies have made it open season on mean.

Like all passive-aggressive bullies, Trump himself was too gutless to be there and face journalists he insults, threatens, lies about, calls the “enemy of the people,” and says he’d like to jail. Instead, he had Sarah Huckabee Sanders take his place on the dais.

Sanders has been shoveling shit down our throats since her first day in the White House press briefing room. Wolf logically homed in on Sanders’ incessant lying, and I thought her take-down about how Sanders creates her signature “smoky eye” look from the burnt ashes of facts was pretty mild, considering.

If Wolf had stooped to Trump’s level, she’d have gone after the lank, style-free hair, the dumpy figure that makes a dandy Trump repellant, the lifeless, monotone delivery that makes Mike Pence seem like a court jester, and the pearls inspired by Marge Simpson.

Instead, Wolf went high. She let Sanders know what decent women think of her as Trump’s mouthpiece…

“And I’m never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You know, is it Sarah Sanders? Is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what’s Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? Oh, I know: Aunt Coulter.”

And now even the dinner’s sponsor, the White House Correspondents Association, has turned on Wolf, saying her speech wasn’t in “the spirit” of their mission.

Really?

Then why were they all there, to pay homage to the bloviating buffoon who keeps them scrabbling after tweets like street urchins chasing pennies tossed by a passing “noble” who otherwise kicks, taunts, and spits on them for having the gall to exist?

“Thank you, sir, may we have some more?”

If there’s ANYWHERE those representing the media should get up in Trump’s face and tell him…

“Enough’s enough. You may fool Fox and your brainless base, but we know bullshit when we see it. We’re going to call it out and continue to uncover the facts about your ignorance, bigotry, misogyny, corruption, and crime.”

…the WHCD is it.

Michelle Wolf spoke truth to the idiot squatter in the White House and did their job for them. Their thanks is to feign the vapors over her crudeness and throw her under the bus.

That’s gratitude, Trump-style.

Time to Face a Simple Truth About Donald Trump

By Karen

Do you feel an acceleration of pieces dropping into place from all corners to complete the damning picture of Trump’s reliance on Russia to swing the election his way, his ham-fisted attempts to obstruct the ensuing investigation, and his probable history of financial crimes involving Russians?

If that weren’t enough, we’ve also got never-ending conflicts of interest while Trump and his family shamelessly exploit his position to further enrich themselves. Not to mention his cabinet members who squander our taxes on themselves while they dismantle and destroy all the agencies created to protect us in myriad ways we’ll sorely miss once they’re gone.

I’m not even getting into the mess with Stormy Daniels, exposing how Trump for years has tried to cover his personal depravity through nondisclosure agreements and payoffs.

It’s been over a year, yet reporters and pundits still discuss each newly revealed Trump scandal as if he’s something better than an ignorant racist maniac hell-bent on destroying whatever stands between him and self-glorification and profit.

Here’s a partial list of words you should NEVER hear in the same sentence with “Trump,” yet they’re used every day:

• Agenda
• Policy
• Strategy
• Plan
• Tactic
• Idea
• Program
• Project
• Proposal
• Initiative
• Doctrine
• Intention

None of these make sense because they require rational thought, often forethought. Trump never thinks. He reacts. He never learns. He makes everything up. He can’t grasp any “What if…Then…” scenario before he spouts off and creates chaos.

His life’s mission now is to mentally ravage every person on the planet, every day, with incessant babbling or tweeting (more on that in a minute), usually about some perverted fantasy he saw on Fox News.

And newspapers and news shows persist in the futile pursuit of trying to make sense of it all.

IT MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. IT’S SENILITY MEETING IGNORANCE. Just listen to him for five minutes, rambling, repeating, spewing nonsense with no rational beginning or end.

Anyone who can’t recognize the simple fact that Trump is a rapidly degenerating moron either are, or have chosen to be, as stupid as Trump is.

Regarding Twitter: We need to completely ignore his tweets. They’re the mental diarrhea of a demented geezer. No U.S. president before has ever stooped to govern by tweet because it makes a mockery of leadership.

Take away Trump’s tweets and you force him to face people and answer for his lies.

As a craven, passive-aggressive bully, this is the last thing Trump wants. It’s so much easier to sit enthroned on his golden potty, pants around his feet, thumbing snarky tweets on his phone, trashing whatever pops into his head, facing no consequences.

It’s beyond disgusting that Paul Ryan, Mitch McDonnell, and the rest of Congress accept this from the so-called “executive” branch. No corporate executive who behaved like Trump would last a week anywhere.

Trump is such a supreme chickenshit, he even uses Twitter to fire people. How would you like to learn you’ve lost your job when your boss announces your replacement in a tweet — just hours after you spoke to him and he acted like everything was fine and dandy?

Trump has reduced us to Twitter roadkill. And Congress does nothing.

OK, you may have voted for Trump. He fooled you once, shame on him. But if you still support him now — or you’re in Congress and you’re doing NOTHING while this delusional dictator-wannabe sinks the United States from world leader to worldwide laughingstock — you’re guilty of treason. And may the Blue Wave wash away your political career in November.

Did Trump Even Read the Nunes Memo?

By Karen

If Donald Trump thinks Devin Nunes’ memo about the big, bad FISA warrants on poor little Carter Page is Trump’s Get Out of Jail Free card, he clearly didn’t read the memo. As well-researched, considered, and compelling documents go, it ranks somewhere between a crock and utter bullshit.

What I don’t get is this: If Trump and circle are all innocent, why are they, and anyone willing to play defense for them, like Nunes, turning themselves inside out denying and deflecting?

If they have committed no crimes, they should be coolly confident that Mueller and his team will come up empty of all counts and conclude the investigation’s been a big nothingburger.

Never mind!

Don’t they see they’re behaving guilty and opening themselves to charges of obstruction of justice, even if there were no crimes?

Let’s cut right to the heart of it, the one major point they have yet to explain away. I’ll state it in the hyperbolic terms Trump loves so much…

No president in American history has ever had so many people around him so cozy with Russians, nor have so many Russians been involved in a president’s activities.

If it’s all good, clean fun, why weren’t they playing with England or France, instead of a country hell-bent on destroying Western-style democracy?

We now know for a FACT (just ask Facebook) that Russia flooded the U.S. with pro-Trump, anti-Clinton propaganda. If Trump’s people had nothing to do with that, why are their fingerprints all over the place?

And let’s not forget the tax returns Trump’s been so rabidly hiding. Would H&R Block vouch for them, or do they show a damning history of money laundering, tax evasion and fraud? And since he’s been president, what about Trump’s myriad conflicts of interest with businesses he still owns and profits from?

Trump probably knows his business deals make obstruction of justice the least of his worries. I have no doubt he thinks lucking into the presidency is his financial Get Out of Jail Free card because he mistakenly thinks he’s now above the law.

In the face of Russia and the financial questions, Nunes’ stupid memo as a defense is like spitting into a tidal wave, and now the FBI and DOJ must hate Trump’s guts.

I hope Mueller and his team are working at warp speed to end this madness ASAP. If not, we’ll have to wait until November when voters sweep the Trump enablers out of Congress so the new Democratic majority can begin the impeachment. By then, Trump’s incompetence will undoubtedly provide more grounds than they need.

Watching Trump Unravel

By Karen

Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address January 30. It promises to be an epic fact-free brag-fest about his omnipotence and imaginary “accomplishments.”

We’ll get to assess how his mental deterioration is progressing. Trump’s falling apart so fast, last week he couldn’t resist dissing most of black civilization as “shithole countries.”

Republicans limply called his remarks “unfortunate” and “unhelpful.” A few even accused Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who heard them firsthand and reported them, of lying. That makes zero sense. Durbin was the only Democrat there. Do they really think he’s so stupid, he’d falsely attribute obscenities to Trump and expect to get away with it?

Basically, Trump has thrown Republicans into a deep shithole they’ll never dig themselves out of, because Trump is incapable of salvaging this situation or his presidency.

The AP reported Trump called friends to gauge reaction to his shithole comments. You know he’s scheming some way to top himself now, so let me offer a suggestion for the State of the Union, when the eyes of the country and much of the world will be on him.

During his closing remarks, Trump should quietly drop his pants behind the podium. Then he should fill both his hands with fresh piles of his own steaming shit. Letting loose with a few contemptuous farts while he does it would be a nice touch and disgust Nancy Pelosi.

Then Trump should turn around and throw the shit into the faces of Mike Pence and Paul Ryan, sitting right behind him.

He would wrap up by turning back to face Congress with a self-satisfied smirk. “See? I told you. I can do ANYTHING! And you STILL support me!”

It would be no worse than Trump jerking off on Twitter, jizzing on whichever person or group he’s singled out to bully that day.

Other leaders now step over and around Trump like the orange heap of roadkill he’s made himself by pulling out of every meaningful global initiative.

For the orgasmic flash of godhood Trump gets in those brief moments when he renounces NAFTA, the Paris Climate Accord, the TPP, the UN, NATO, and every other positive collaboration of mankind, he renders himself more useless in the long run.

The world moves on without the U.S. while Trump plays in his little oval office, pretending he’s president by scribbling his name with big black Sharpies.

Republicans have a death wish in persisting to kowtow to the 30-35% comprising Trump’s “base.” Yes, “base” is the perfect word to describe the deliberately ignorant, racist people he attracts.

I’d give them a pass for voting for Trump, but after this past year, if they still refuse to admit that their bloated, piggy-eyed, deranged man-baby is shitting all over civility and decency, they’re dead to me.

My only comfort is a feeling that the end of Trump’s reign of terror will come this year.

Once Mueller starts fingering Don Jr. and Jared Kushner, Trump’s last mental gasket will blow and we’ll see him swinging naked from the chandeliers, bellowing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Trump claims Mueller has no reason to question him. It’s been said that Mueller’s got Trump’s taxes, and he knows that if Trump is breathing, he’s lying. What better reinforcement for charges of money laundering and obstruction of justice than perjury? If Trump testifies, perjury’s a slam-dunk.

And if Mueller’s investigation drags on, we’ve got the November midterm elections to look forward to. Republicans who continue enabling Trump are going down in flames. Bring marshmallows.

Once they take back Congress, Democrats will start undoing Trump’s legislative damage and then it’s “Laisser L’Impeachment Rouler!.”

There’s no happy ending here for Trump. He’s toast, and probably has flashes of realizing it whenever he takes a break from kicking over the furniture, trying to escape.

Trying to be a rational, decent American is exhausting right now. But I trust we will be delivered from Donald Trump, his trashy, greedy family, and the duplicitous Republicans who enable them. This evil WILL NOT triumph.

I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Pigsty

By Karen

Gayle King seemed visibly shaken to learn that, after years of her unrequited flirting on CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose had been dissing her behind her back by preying on many other women who crossed his path.

Now, NBC has stuck a fork in Matt Lauer. We should have seen it coming. In 2012, Katie Couric said Matt’s most annoying habit was pinching her ass. That same year, Lauer got Ann Curry fired from the Today Show because they lacked “chemistry.”

Curry karma’s a bitch. Turns out Matt’s the one with no chemistry, or his victims would have thanked him, not ratted him out.

Myriad stories of sexual harassment and assault lately feel to me like women’s bubbling rage at Donald Trump, the proud pussy-grabber who treats his current wife like a serf.

But I think we’ve reached a tipping point. The media needs to recognize that not all these tales are created equal. A fanny grab that lasts the length of a camera click is NOT the same as a rape, and the consequences shouldn’t be equal.

We need to permanently quarantine the truly disgusting pigs and give the mere piglets a slap on the rump and a time out.

Pigs are the ones who fantasize that women share their fascination with their penis. They’ll talk about it, display it, fondle it, and use it as a weapon when opportunity presents itself.

Trump has bragged about his penis size.

Trump identifies with and supports fellow pigs like Roy Moore in Alabama because they both have a thing for little girls. With Trump, it was Ivanka. Moore would settle for any child he could force to touch his penis.

Joining them in the sty are Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, probably Matt Lauer, if stories of his affairs prove true.

Piglets are men like George H.W. Bush and Al Franken. No penises involved, just wandering paws that would have recoiled in shame if any of the stupid women whose bums they touched had simply pulled away or said, “Move your hand.”

These women talking about it years later are being treated with the same gravity as women who were aggressively harassed or assaulted. WTF?

Here’s the infamous photo of Franken that supposedly shows him “grabbing” Leeann Tweeden. See the shadows under both of his hands? He’s not even touching her.

Was he being tasteless? Absolutely. Was she being assaulted? Not even close.

The worst thing Franken apparently did was force an unwanted tongue kiss on Tweeden during a USO skit rehearsal. He says he doesn’t remember it like that, but has the chivalry to let Tweeden’s story stand. He even wrote her a personal, sincere apology, which she read and accepted on The View…

Tweeden says she doesn’t want Franken to lose his Senate seat over this. So what’s her point? She’s hardly one to advance this cause. She has modeled for Frederick’s of Hollywood and Hooters, was named one of the Top Hooters Girls of All Time, and has posed nude in Playboy.

Basically, Tweeden’s a woman who was fine with men jerking off to pictures of her posing as a piece of meat, but a kiss from Al Franken scarred her for life. Puleez.

So far, Al Franken has been the only man to strike a tone of appropriate guilt and remorse. He’s even saying more women may claim he did something. He’s no fool. He realizes women are out for blood, and no man who’s ever been in the same room with one is safe right now.

Which brings me to the other story that sticks in my craw and happens to involve Anthony Bourdain’s current girlfriend, an Italian actress named Asia Argento.

Argento was the first to tell her story about Harvey Weinstein to The New Yorker. She claims he forced oral sex on her when she was 21 years old, and she feigned enjoyment to make him stop. Must have been an Oscar-worthy performance because Weinstein was in her life for the next five years. She described their consensual intimacy as “one-sided and onanistic,” but he introduced her to his mother, apparently gave her “fur coats and apartments,” and helped pay for her childcare.

The Italian press didn’t buy it. And I’m sorry, but when Argento dated and accepted gifts from Weinstein, unless he held a gun on her, she was more about ambition than victimhood.

Women who spin their brief encounters with public figures into traumas they dared not reveal until a shot at five minutes of fame presented itself come off as opportunistic and muddy the waters for women who actually suffered harm.

Even worse, they don’t help the cause — which is to make men keep their hands, penises, and tongues to themselves and treat women with the respect we deserve.

Virginia to Trump: We’ve Had Enough of You

By Karen

My head almost exploded with joy when I saw the election returns here in Virginia. Democrats swept the races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and many more.

Even better, Democrat Ralph Northam beat Republican Ed Gillespie by 9 POINTS.

I’ve heard a few desperate Republican grumbles about former felons having voting rights, but I doubt Virginia has 233,179 and they’re all registered Democrats. That’s the margin Northam won by.

That said, Virginia still looks pretty red, including my county, but the good news is that a lot of that ground is farms or wilderness.

Washington Post

If Gillespie had won, he’d have replaced current governor Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe. Trump would be gushing, “Virginia, you love me, you REALLY love me!” even though he lost Virginia to Hillary.

Instead, Trump sulked, tweeting, “Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for,” implying it had nothing to do him.

Steve Bannon spouted similar bullshit. He may be butt-hurt that Gillespie turned down his kind offer to come rally the KKKers and neo-Nazis.

They’re both lying — they both know it — and here’s why.

Ed Gillespie’s opponent in the Republican primary was Corey Stewart.

Stewart fancies himself a southern-fried Trump Mini-Me. He was born and raised in Minnesota, but now embraces the Confederacy, white supremacists, and guns. He served as Virginia chairman of Trump’s campaign but got himself fired after staging an unauthorized pro-Trump demonstration in D.C.

Stewart has previously run for lieutenant governor and senator and lost.

So, if a hardcore Trump-lover like that couldn’t even win the primary, how the hell do Republicans get off saying Gillespie wasn’t Trumpy ENOUGH?

Gillespie never had Trump campaign for him except attack-tweets on Northam and a rambling, last-ditch robocall released on election eve. Mike Pence came to Virginia once. Gillespie did run some Trump-like ads I didn’t really watch because they accused Northam of far-fetched garbage like supporting gangs.

In the end, poetic justice was served all around. Eleven Democratic women beat male Republicans in the House of Delegates. Among the winners are two Latinas, an Asian-American, a lesbian, and a transgender woman who sent the 13-term geezer who calls himself Virginia’s “chief homophobe” into retirement.

And a young man named Chris Hurst, who advocates stricter gun control after his girlfriend, a TV news reporter, was gunned down on air, beat a three-term incumbent with an A rating from the NRA.

Good sense and decency triumphed for a change, and things are looking good in Virginia. We have a strong firewall against whatever mayhem Trump tries to unleash before we can get rid of him.

PS: A shout-out to Morgan in New Jersey for replacing toxic Governor Chris Christie with Democrat Phil Murphy.