Delta Surges, Masks Disappear. WTF?

By Karen

During the one brief, shining moment COVID was on the decline, I still never went out frivolously or stopped wearing a mask — not even after July 1, when it once again became a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conceal your face in public. (Luckily, I haven’t heard of anybody going down on a mask rap.)

Virginia’s mask prohibition went back into effect when Governor Ralph Northam allowed the pandemic state of emergency to expire on June 30. Now, the Delta variant is rampaging through our red regions. But instead of again requiring masks in indoor settings, Northam’s wussing out and says just to follow CDC guidelines, which seem to change every five fucking minutes.

(I don’t blame the CDC, but keeping up with this shit is exhausting.)

Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon in real life, just mandated masks for everyone in K-12 when schools open in the fall. Some parents are outraged, because they must want their kids sick or dead.

But many adults are NOT following CDC guidelines. As of this moment, the CDC says EVERYONE, vaccinated or not, should mask up indoors in “high” or “substantial” transmission areas. According to this map, that’s most of Virginia.

Many vaccinated people are apparently unaware they can inhale snootfuls of Delta from unvaxxed maskholes who walk among us. Even if the vaxxed themselves don’t get sick, they become walking COVID carriers.

This past week at Food Lion and Sam’s Club, I was gobsmacked to see predominantly barefaced customers, and some employees. The ones in masks mostly seemed to be older ladies like me who don’t want even a dab of COVID.

I blame this on the myriad stupid sources people consider “news.” I’m not just talking about Trumpy media outlets and Facebook.

With the proliferation of cable channels, streaming, social media, and even CNN’s sketchy coverage of most things, there’s no longer any main trusted source where everyone gets the same story. We used to get our news from competently staffed newspapers and career journalists like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Huntley and Brinkley, and other professionals committed to reporting the facts without putting their own editorial spin on them.

Speaking of news, spare me any more tales of how COVID is ravaging states in the South and Midwest — a.k.a. Trump Country.

Last year, they were all oblivious while hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans suffered and died. Today, they still refuse the vaccinations that could save their lives because their ignorance has become impenetrable after soaking in so many lies and conspiracy theories from God-knows-where.

So, now it’s their turn to get deathly ill and die, and in the immortal words of Melania’s jacket, “I really don’t care, do you?”

My sympathy goes to the selfless medical providers tasked with trying to save these morons from horrible, 100% preventable, self-inflicted deaths after they thoughtlessly sucked in a deadly virus through their maskless pieholes, mistaking it for “freedom.”

Now that it’s no longer blue states bearing the brunt of fatalities, some Republican leaders are admitting masks and vaccines aren’t so bad after all. It’s finally dawning on them that they’re screwed when they succeed in killing off much of their base in those sparsely populated, vast swaths of nowhere. They forgot to ram through any laws in those states giving livestock the right to vote.

Instead of Accountability, Committees and Investigations

By Karen

So we have yet another example of yet another powerful politician — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — investigated by the state’s attorney general and found to have “violated federal and state” laws against sexual harassment.

Cuomo denies all of it and remains governor while the state legislature conducts ANOTHER investigation before impeaching him.

If you or I “violated federal AND state law,” we could scream our innocence until our lungs burst while we were thrown in jail to await trial, with the certainty of a guilty verdict.

But if you’re an old white guy who wears ties, it’s OK to commit felonies willy-nilly. The only consequences you’ll face are a harsh speech and some hand-wringing while the so-called “authorities” form a new committee to confirm their already-completed investigation into the misdeeds the world already knows you committed because you yourself left a complete, bloody trail of video and audio we’ve all seen, as well as written evidence and a queue of witnesses eager to rat you out.

What I’d like to know is, who kidnapped accountability, and how do we get it back?

Five members of Trump’s Cabinet were referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, yet they all walked away unscathed with their fresh taxpayer-funded fortunes to write their lying memoirs.

Despite being suspended from practicing law, raided and having his electronic devices seized weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani is still blathering threats on TV that anybody who dares to hold him accountable for any of his myriad crimes — for Trump and side gigs purely for profit — is a liar and will pay for it in heaven, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

While the Trump Organization itself and its chief financial officer Alan Weisselberg are under indictment, life goes grifting along for the other culpable executives, Trump’s demon spawn, Junior, Eric and Ivanka.

And Trump himself, the most hardcore, inept crook ever to befoul the Oval Office, has proven every day, on multimedia, beyond all doubt, that he’s a thief, cheat, mass murder, seditionist and traitor. Yet nearly seven months out of office, he’s still being treated like a monarch who answers to no law.

So, Trump merrily plots Phase 3 of his coup. Phase 1 was to overturn the election. Phase 2 was to dispatch his crazed MAGA cult to kill Congress.

This dementia patient is going around proclaiming himself our once and future dictator, and what accountability does he face? State, federal and congressional committees and investigations grinding at a pace to make even snails lose their shit.

Meanwhile, the halls of Congress reek from the stench of Republican vermin who commit daily treason by lying and aiding Trump’s coup attempts when they should be rotting in cells for engaging in sedition.

The only conclusions I can draw from all this stonewalling and inaction are:

1. Prosecutors (I’m looking at you, Merrick “Molasses” Garland) intend to foot-drag until statutes of limitations kick in and render certain crimes moot.

2. Prosecutors are waiting for the perps to die of natural causes before they’re brought to trial so nobody has to be the one to blame them for anything.

In the meantime, while Trump Republicans foment chaos and anarchy, Biden, bless his heart, ignores it and gaslights us with happy talk about bipartisanship and what a great country we are.

You know what would REALLY make this country great? The swift and safe return of accountability.

How the Media Could Rid Us of Trump

By Karen

When I watch TV pundits, I’m infuriated when they say things like, “If Trump runs in 2024,” or, “If Trump wins re-election,” or, “Trump’s making noises like he wants to run.”

WTF is wrong with them? Have they seen or heard that fat orange asshole lately? He’s a mess.

Every time CNN, MSNBC or any of Trump’s other “enemies of the people” give Trump a wisp of validation that his current grift is working, it’s fuel to him. It’s like feeding a Gremlin after midnight.

To destroy Trump and his delusion of regaining the White House after losing it by over 7 million votes, let’s follow Michael Cohen’s lead.

Remember Cohen? He was Trump’s lawyer/fixer who once said he’d “take a bullet” for the boss. Then he got three years in prison for a crime Trump made him commit and regained his senses.

Cohen’s under home confinement now and hosts a great podcast called Mea Culpa. It’s the only podcast I make time for because Trump always gets bashed.

(I also appreciate Lawrence O’Donnell’s Last Word because he heaps scorn and insults on Trump nearly every night. It feels like the next best thing to dancing on Trump’s grave.)

Cohen is sure Trump won’t run in 2024 because he’ll never risk the humiliation of losing again, and he never wanted the job in the first place. These days, he’s only stringing the MAGA cult along to keep wringing out campaign donations.

For some reason, Cohen never talks about Trump’s mental deterioration, so I’ll add that Trump continues his disintegration. Listen to some of this audio captured by reporters Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker when they interviewed Trump for their new book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.

Trump babbles the same old lies, delusions, exaggerations and boasts in disjointed fragments and nonsensical tangents. Afterward, Anderson Cooper says it sounded like “Nixon, drunk, rambling,” and it’s “stunning” to think Trump was ever president.

Perfectly put, Anderson.

The media MUST stop normalizing Trump and heed its own eyes and ears. Don’t clean up his quotes to be coherent for print. Reproduce the babbling as-is.

Listen to him for five minutes and realize it’s ridiculous to think he’ll be a factor in 2024.

And that’s without considering all the investigations into myriad felonies that — if there’s any justice left — will send him to prison.

Talking heads need to embrace that any next move for Trump other than bankruptcy, incarceration, or incapacitation is patently absurd. Because it is.

Any commentator who says, “If Trump runs in 2024,” should get a hearty laugh. Incredulity and ridicule must be our blanket response to Trump as anything but a political has-been who’s finished.

It would CRUSH him.

Inspired by Joseph Goebbels, Trump likes to say, “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you.”

How about we start speaking the whole truth about Trump enough, and keep saying it, until even his cult can’t ignore it?

When he turns on the TV, Trump needs to see himself belittled, mocked and dismissed on every network. His media outlets will shrink to Fox and OAN until they can’t stand listening to his delusional kvetching another minute and cut him off.

Then we can stick a fork in Trump. He’s done.

As for those clowns in Congress who still prop Trump up, like Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, they get the same treatment — derisive laughter until they STFU.

Just a thought.

Biden’s Trip Makes Everyone Feel Better

By Karen

For starters, while Biden was in Europe, it was great that we saw no pictures of world leaders wrinkling their noses behind his back because he’d crapped his pants. Or of Biden throwing a fit at a state dinner because he wasn’t served burnt steak with ketchup. Or of Biden declaring war in a speech on some country whose leader took offense at Biden shoving him during a photo op.

No, Biden navigated the G7, tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, a NATO summit, and a side trip to Geneva to rendezvous with Putin without heaping any more humiliation on us.

Remember Trump’s big meeting with Putin back in 2018 in Helsinki? They talked for several hours alone about God-knows-what, and we still don’t know. But this is how Trump looked after their tête-à-tête…

The only thing missing from this photo is Trump’s studded dog collar and leash.

At their joint press conference later, Putin may have been shaking Trump’s hand, but he was mentally twisting Trump’s balls into a knot…

Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Fast-forward to two days ago when Putin faced off with President Biden. Instead of cowering under the threat of a pee-pee tape premier or massive debts to Russian oligarchs suddenly coming due, Biden showed up armed with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and plenty of other American witnesses to take notes…

Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP

The difference in Putin’s demeanor with Biden is stark. While Biden sat straight, looking confident and collected, Putin slouched like an insolent slob. He knew that even with all his manspreading, nobody was wondering who swung the biggest dick.

Speaking of dicks, Putin also for once didn’t try his signature passive-aggression of keeping Biden waiting, as he’s done with Obama and many others…

After the summit, Biden wisely skipped the joint press conference and denied Putin the opportunity to preen and pretend to be an equal. Instead, they met with reporters separately, and Putin seemed to deeply miss playing with his Trump puppet. He told a reporter…

“In life there is no happiness; only the specter of it. There is only a mirage on the horizon. So cherish that.”

Huh?

Before his face-off with Putin, Biden mended fences with our former allies so they could unclench their sphincters, relieved at not being forced to kowtow to another arrogantly American abject moron.

But the world still needs irrefutable proof that Trump was only an aberration. Biden needs to encourage all law enforcement agencies to start kicking ass and flush Trump’s treasonous scum out of our government at every level.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is clearly not up to the task. I KNEW Biden should have put Sally Yates over the Justice Department. By now, she’d have Trump neck-deep in federal indictments, instead of letting him wander freely around Manhattan like a dementia patient on a day trip, trying to remember why people are staring at him…

You still think Trump isn’t too far gone? Get a load of him calling in to Sean Hannity and admitting, very clearly, “We didn’t win.” (0:35)…

Last night 06/16/2021 on Fox News during Sean Hannity telephone interview with Trump, Trump fully admits he lost to Biden. How is this not major breaking news?! pic.twitter.com/95moeYzyYU

— TheRealJoeFelker (@unsung_son) June 17, 2021

It’s Depressing to Be a Democrat

By Karen

After four years of Trump lying, gaslighting, and trying to kill us, survivors who retained a shred of sanity turned out in November — by a 7 MILLION-vote majority — to put a Democrat back in the White House. We expected Biden to deliver a swift return to honesty, decency, respect for the rule of law — and consequences for the crimes Trump and his cronies committed to our faces.

Unfortunately, we failed down-ballot to give Joe Biden large enough Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress to clean up the mess Trump left.

In a perfect world, Democrats would be flushing out the treason by expelling and indicting every member of Congress who enabled Trump’s presidential crime spree, which would include Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Rubio, Cruz and many others.

Instead, riffing on Star Trek lingo, Democrats are letting Republicans put the needs of the few (themselves) above the needs of the many (us).

And if that weren’t enough, Senate Democrats saddled with with the most abjectly stupid member, Joe Manchin, are letting him put the imbecilic needs of the ONE (himself) above the needs of ALL.

For instance, just 35 Senate Republicans were able to squash a January 6 commission, back-stabbing the Democratic majority who foolishly gave them every concession they demanded. By doing nothing in the aftermath, it looks like Democrats may let their treasonous colleagues’ complicity in Trump’s insurrection remain hidden forever.

You know the old saying, “Fool us once, shame on you…”?

Congressional Democrats would finish it: “Fool us EVERY TIME, grind the government to a halt, no problem.”

Manchin insists on keeping the filibuster because he still believes in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the existence of 10 “good” Republicans. All by his lonesome — thanks to a fucked-up 50/50 Senate — Manchin can destroy all hope of getting the country back on track. Even though he heard, same as we did, that Moscow Mitch and his Murderous Minority will stop at nothing to make Biden fail.

Speaking of Trump, why is he still loose? The moment he left Washington, he should have been arrested and sentenced as “Individual 1” in the Stormy Daniels payoff crime that still has Michael Cohen under house arrest. Trump, confirmed in court as the mastermind, is MORE guilty than Cohen, yet, he’s free to spew demented lies and tear apart sanity itself to keep his MAGA cult sending him money and plotting a coup.

And how about that new attorney general, Merrick Garland? Who knew he’d be Bill Barr’s Mini-Me, covering for and defending Trump at every turn?

As I was writing this post, I read in The Washington Post that the DOJ is also fighting to keep hidden records from the Trump Hotel near the White House. The hotel where Trump raked in bribes from countries who booked rooms and events to curry favor.

I’ve had it. Chuck Schumer should be kicking McConnell and Manchin ass until they cooperate, and Nancy Pelosi should be hosting egg rolls of Republican heads down the Capitol steps to clean out the treason and corruption in the House.

Instead, they just talk, talk, talk and do NOTHING while McConnell responds with that creepy toothless, lipless grin of his.

Trump gave a speech in North Carolina last week, showing up in such a baggy, tatty blue suit that everyone thought he had his pants on backwards. Take a look at the babbling idiot Republicans are staking their futures on…

Depressed, disappointed, despairing, disillusioned, distraught, desperate. That’s how I feel. We voted for Democrats to hold Trump accountable and punish him for his crimes. We were counting on them to preserve the democracy Republicans are bent on destroying. But if Democrats refuse to do it, even though it means their own destruction, we’re doomed.

BONUS: The Boston Globe is publishing a six-part editorial series called “Future-Proofing the Presidency.” It calls outright for Trump to be held criminally accountable for obstructing justice. (The link works even if you don’t subscribe.)

Jan. 6 Rioters Peeling Away from Trump

By Karen

But first, a trailer for the Anthony Bourdain HBO documentary, Roadrunner, debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival June 11, in theaters July 16…

At 1:59, see a nanosecond of Tony in a red sports car with a brunette whose identity I can only suspect. The more her existence gets erased, the more heinously criminal I believe her involvement in his final days. Call me the suspicious type.

Now, to the present…

The FBI has rounded up roughly 500 Capitol rioters. Those with clean records are getting slapped wrists. But the violent ones caught on camera face felonies and promise to be great entertainment at their trials.

FYI, here’s a Justice Department list of everyone arrested and charged. Another list at Insider.com includes personal details on the perps.

The minute TV cameras stopped rolling, Trump forgot these people exist. Without presidential pardons, desperate defense lawyers are floating, “My client is too stupid to live.”

If we didn’t have such a woke culture, they’d be calling their clients the “R” word.

Defense places all blame on Trump, his enablers and Fox “News” for dishing out a diet of lies to ignorant dupes, and claims they bear as much responsibility as the rioters.

Essentially, defense hopes to thread a needle with an elephant. They can’t go all-out and declare their clients mentally incompetent, because that lets Trump and Fox slither off the hook. Instead, the rioters were relentlessly attacked by incendiary rhetoric and finally succumbed on January 6.

Prosecutors are going to love destroying this argument.

As convicted rioters begin marching off to prison, MAGA cultists who stayed home 1/6 but still believe the Big Lie are left no choice but to wonder where their own willingness to continue eating Trump-Fox garbage may lead.

Rioter Anthony Antonio (the guy who screamed nonsensically about it being 1776), has said: “I kind of sound like an idiot now saying it, but my faith was in him [Trump].”

Antonio’s lawyer Joseph Hurley explained, “You can catch this disease.” Misinformation “is not a defense. It’s not. But it will be brought up to say: This is why he was there. Because he was a dumbass and believed what he heard on Fox News.”

I would add, and because he probably flunked history.

Footnote: Antonio has never voted in a presidential election, so he had no skin in the game.

With a pandemic fresh in their minds, MAGA cultists who hear these dipshits called, by their own lawyers, dumbasses who caught “Big Lie Disease” may realize they’re also infected.

Who needs COVID or masks when you can ingest toxic lies from your TV until your brain mush no longer comprehends that a guy who gets the fewest votes is the LOSER?

The lawyer for “QAnon shaman” Jacob Chansley claims repeated exposure to lies overwhelmed Chansley’s ability to discern reality (and fashion, obviously)…

Although I despise them, I don’t think all cultists are 100% evil — they’re ignorant. They’ll get the shock of their lives when the trials reveal exactly how Trump and Fox have twisted their sad little minds.

Defections are happening already. On Memorial Day in Florida, Trump falsely claimed “thousands” of boaters waved Trump flags on parade. WTSP in Tampa Bay reported…

Just north of the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago, “Trump 2024” flags waved in the wind as dozens of boats took to the water.

Two days later, Trump pulled the plug on his 29-day-old From the Desk of blog to “put it out of its misery” (his words) because few were reading.

Trump’s ability to spread poison is waning. His mental faculties are more often discussed than his positions on anything, especially since his delusion that he’ll regain power in August. He’s making no major personal appearances with press allowed. The great showman who lives to feed off crowds like an energy vampire will be babbling remotely via Jumbotron at a Wisconsin rally on June 12.

Rioters’ trials condemning the “Foxitis” contagion and Trump’s growing inability to hide his dementia should thin the cult. Treasonous Republicans still courting Trump’s dwindling base may find themselves like Wile E. Coyote come reelection…

BONUS: Searching YouTube, I came upon this golden oldie cat video that still makes me laugh. In the original version, these cats were meowing at each other. Then someone gave them dialogue…

Republicans Continue Their Spiral Down the Drain

By Karen

Today, all but six Senate Republicans voted against (or were too chicken to vote on) formation of an outside commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot. The expression of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski — who voted for the commission — seems to sum up the reaction of all decent people to this new depravity…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference he thinks they’re all afraid of Trump. I don’t agree at all. Trump has no clout anymore. He’s an idiot babbling from the fringe about imaginary crimes against him. He thinks his dwindling cult of ignorant, gullible racists will somehow kick Biden to the curb and restore Trump to the White House. He’s in La-La Land.

Reality is that Trump is about to be balls-deep in legal trouble, now that a grand jury in New York has begun digging into his dirtiest financial secrets. What’s left of his rotting brain will be too occupied with trying to evade prison to care about who’s in or out of Congress.

Power-hungry sycophants who helped Trump stage the insurrection will be swinging in the breeze if they expect to win reelection with Trump’s endorsement.

Without a bipartisan commission, House and Senate Democrats are now free to do their own investigations and here’s what I predict they’ll uncover about their morally bankrupt colleagues:

• Phone records of conversations with “constituents” who subsequently got arrested for their roles in the riot.
• Logs showing they scheduled or personally conducted tours of the Capitol to help the insurrectionists case the joint.
• Meetings with Trump and his circle to plan how to overthrow the election by any means, the riot being just one component.

MOST fearful of this exposure because of their intimate involvement and coordination are Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. It’s the only explanation for their total obstruction of finding motives and means.

Let’s face it, the Republican Party no longer exists. It has decomposed into a pack of traitors who want to install a dictator, naively thinking they’ll be showered with money and power for their devotion. To achieve that end, they’re willing to cheat, lie, steal and sabotage every democratic system we’ve got.

In a word, Republicans are the party of treason. Here’s the definition, straight from Merriam-Webster…

1: the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign’s family

2: the betrayal of a trust: TREACHERY

They fight the Biden presidency, and every good thing he’s trying to do for Americans, while continuing to toady to a demented, decisively defeated wannabe dictator.

They are A-OK with a gallows erected for the former vice president at the Capitol. Nothing to see there. Move on.

They call rioters “ordinary tourists” despite the WORLD watching them scream, fight and beat police with Trump flags while trying to find congresspeople to attack.

They support election “fraudits” like the travesty in Arizona, but only attempt them where they have willing cheaters in red state legislatures to help.

This sick behavior all boils down to treason. Until they’re brought to justice and punished — or at the very least, driven out of Congress by disgusted voters (who DO outnumber the cult) — democracy as we know it is doomed. They will befoul every future election until we eradicate them. And we must. They’ve given us no choice.

From the Notebook

By Karen

I’ve shifted to a Tuesday-Friday posting schedule due to my day job. Here are the bits I’ve been making note of…

Mask Update from Virginia: Today I went to the Post Office, Target, and Food Lion. The PO still had a door sign requiring masks, and everyone inside wore one. Target had removed its mask sign, but kept the social distancing sign. However, I didn’t see anyone maskless. At Food Lion, I forgot to look for the signs, but everyone was masked. I’m thrilled.

Medina Spirit Triple Screwed: The New York Racing Association suspended trainer Bob Baffert from its tracks, including Belmont, home of the third Triple Crown race June 5. So, Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit can’t compete, even if he wanted to win two out of three.

In any case, Medina will probably forfeit the Derby because Baffert let Medina receive a rash ointment containing the banned substance betamethasone. We await a second drug test to confirm the first failed test, but it’s using more of the same blood sample, so another positive seems certain.

Medina may have shot Baffert a “middle hoof up” in the Preakness. Medina led balls to the wall the whole race, only to fall a distant third to Rombauer and Midnight Bourbon in the final stretch.

So, a promising Triple Crown season will probably fizzle, with Medina Spirit a drug-convicted also-ran. Leave it to humans, right?

What’s No. 3 Worth Outside Horse Racing?: Demonic Dick Cheney’s daughter, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a wisp of conscience that infuriates Republicans. First, she voted to impeach Trump (on 2nd try). Then she admitted he’s lying about the election being stolen, painting also as liars every Republican scumbag still spouting that bullshit. It was the first and only time I’ll probably ever agree with a Cheney.

So, Liz had to be punished. Through a weaselly, passive-aggressive secret vote, they stripped Liz of her No. 3 position in the House.

Did it ever matter? Did she get wear a special ring or something? I have no idea who No. 2 is. That position may not even need to exist because Kevin McCarthy reeks of No. 2 from constantly rolling in Trump’s crap.

Republicans Remember Insurrectionists as “Normal Tourists”: In real time, the world watched our Capitol swarmed by human Plague rats egged on by Trump to overthrow the presidential election. They smashed windows and doors, beat police, brandished weapons, smeared feces, ransacked offices and stole, and erected a gallows out front for the vice president.

We’ve been seeing video and hearing eyewitness accounts ever since about this nightmare that killed five people.

I’m waiting for Democrats to slam the lid on this garbage that it was a “normal tourist visit” NOW. Arrest the instigators who still sit fat and happy in Congress. Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor-Greene et al. need a little “me time” in jail to face the fact that that Trump’s out and so is gaslighting.

Israel – Hamas War: In its latest burst of impotent rage, Hamas started shooting rockets at Israel again, with predictable results: Israel’s Iron Dome is swatting the rockets away like flies, but in retaliation flattening huge swaths of what little they’ve allowed to remain of Palestinian territory.

In the U.S., it seems anything less than 100% unconditional support for everything Israel does is labeled anti-Semitism. But this has nothing to do with race or religion. It’s about oppression and human rights abuse.

Let me put it this way. Say your neighbor has a dog he encourages to poop all over your yard. This makes you angry and you feel he’s violating your land, so you start flinging the feces back over the fence into the dog-owner’s yard. One night, he responds by fire-bombing your house, destroying it and killing your whole family.

You can usually tell who’s “winning” a conflict by counting the casualties (as of this minute):

Palestinians: 212 dead (including 61 children, 35 women), 1,400+ wounded, 2,500 homeless.

Israelis: 12 dead (including 1 child).

Israel absolutely has the right defend itself from attack, but the disproportionate brutality is where I draw the line.

In a perfect world, Netanyahu and Trump would be sharing a prison cell for their lives of financial corruption and depraved indifference to human life, and we’d all be better off.

Medina Spirit on Trump: “He’s Wack”

By Tony

Trump, desperate for a social media fix after getting banned everywhere for lying, created his own website, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.” (No link. Cats Working is dedicated to stamping out ignorance.)

Trump spews gibberish that people may ♥ or repeat on Facebook or Twitter. We hope journalists don’t scamper after Trump down his new rabbit hole, fouling the media with his garbage.

But on Sunday Trump called Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit a “junky.”

That’s because after the Derby, Medina failed a drug test. It showed too much betamethasone, a steroid horses are given for pain or inflammation. It’s forbidden when they race. Medina’s trainer Bob Baffert has been suspended at Churchill Downs, and the world waits for results from a second test on another portion of Medina’s sample to find out if Medina has to forfeit his Derby win and give up his Triple Crown dream.

Max and Roc helped me “borrow” Karen’s phone and call Medina Spirit to get an opinion straight from the horse’s mouth…

I caught him just before he hit the road to Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.

Tony: Hi, Mr. Spirit? Do you have a few minutes to talk to Cats Working?

Medina Spirit: Cats? Working? Are you kidding? The cats prowling our stable hunt purely for sport. But they’re cool, so sure. Make it quick, though. My trailer’s almost ready to go. Call me Medina.

T: Thanks. You were amazing in the Derby. I’m so sorry they might disqualify you for doing drugs.

M: That’s some crazy shit, right? I can’t believe it myself.

T: Did you realize your people doped you before the race?

M: It comes down to this. When they show up with a big horse needle before a major race, you can either kick their balls off and earn a trip to the glue factory, or you can trust that they’re not SO stupid, they’d kill their own meal ticket, so you take the shot.

T: I get it. Why do you think Baffert would let that happen?

M: We call that guy “Baffling” around the stalls. One day he loves his horseys, the next day, we hear he’s shooting them up and getting suspended. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

T: What do you think about Donald Trump calling you a “junky.”

M: To be honest, I’m more pissed that Baffling keeps calling me a “little horse.” What’s that mean? A Shetland? A Falabella? I’ll tell you, I’ve got one thing I’d like to show Baffert any day that makes his own look downright puny, and that’s my —

T: — Horses put cats to shame in that department, too. Speaking of mushrooms, back to Trump.

M: Oh, yeah. What does Trump mean by “junky”? Was my saddle tatty? Was my jockey wearing rags? I don’t get it.

T: I think he meant “junkie,” like drug addict.

M: Oh, right. That clown never could spell. But he knows junkies. He sees one every time he looks in a mirror. And he’s not seeing an orange horse with a fucked-up mane. What a washed-up wack job. It doesn’t take even a lick of horse sense to see that. Why isn’t he in jail yet? People need to muck out his worthless opinions. When it comes to crime, Trump makes Baffert’s horse-rigging seem trifling.

Hey, look, kid, I gotta run. Literally. In the Preakness on Saturday. Against Mandaloun again. He almost beat my ass in the Derby.

T: OK, Medina. I’ve got paws crossed you win again. I hear Baffert’s watching the race from California, so it’s all on you at Pimlico. Best of luck!

From the Notebook

By Karen

First, I must report Tony has had his first culinary mishap. I’d just turned off the stove and was pouring a pot of boiling pasta into a colander in the sink while Tony watched. Here’s an old photo of Tony with the same burner/pot…

In the seconds I was at the sink, the tip of Tony’s tail touched the still-hot burner. When I returned to the stove, I pushed his tail away and smelled burning fur. Tony jumped down in utter confusion.

Later upon inspection, I found 1) No burnt skin, so tragedy averted (as the late Yul’s tail amputations taught me), and 2) more tail got singed than I realized.

Tony eventually noticed it himself and started licking. Today the singed part feels almost smooth again. Whew!

While the cats were picking horses, I’ve been taking notes on the news.

With SCOTUS, Smaller is Better: I stand by my compromise of rightsizing SCOTUS by reducing the number justices. The elegant simplicity is that Biden doesn’t have to nominate anyone who will immediately have Fox trashing their reputation. It also eliminates confirmation hearings, so Senate Republicans can’t spew treason on live TV.

Just cut the court back to seven justices with an impartial LIFO layoff, last in, first out. That rids us of the worst two: Amy “I Hate Women” Barrett and Brett “I Love Beer” Kavanaugh.

Republicans Refuse to Govern, Hate America: Moscow Mitch McConnell just announced, “100% of my focus is on stopping this new administration,” just like he vowed to make Obama a one-term president. McConnell also blabbered, “Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle just can’t resist stretching out the pandemic, using it as a rationale for additional spending far beyond what is best for the country.”

Yeah, it was the Democrats dragging their feet the whole year Trump was dancing in the blood of 500M+ COVID victims and trying to get a crazed mob to murder Congress. Sure, Mitch.

Clearly, Republicans’ mission is to keep Americans destitute or dead and the country’s infrastructure in rubble as long as they’re rich. No matter what Biden does, McConnell says it has no Republican support. So, it’s past time to end the filibuster and make every traitorous, useless Republican roadkill under the steamroller of Democratic progress.

Give Vax Deniers the Right to Die: If Biden won’t mandate vaccinations for feckless morons who are the REAL ones “stretching out the pandemic,” let’s shun them like smokers. If they can’t show proof of vaccination, don’t let them in anywhere without a mask, and throw them out if they refuse to keep their distance. We need to isolate these disease-carrying vermin as a herd so may infect and kill off each other and end the pandemic.

Trump Returns to Social Media — Not: Facebook just banned Trump for another six months, but we all know they’ll eventually let him spread lies and stoke violence again, because Facebook is an intellectual landfill where facts and wisdom go to die.

Law enforcement — anywhere — needs to wrap up “investigating” and arrest Trump on any of his myriad felonies. They’ve got video, audio, paper trail and witnesses in most cases. Imprison Trump as a flight risk until his trials. Cutting Trump off from call-in interviews and social media would bring peace of mind to the world.

So Bill Barr Lied — Now What?: A judge finally admitted it. Former Attorney General Bill Barr’s four-page “summary” of the Mueller report was all lies and he never had the slightest intention of prosecuting Trump for anything — EVER.

As always, criminal behavior of Trump and his cronies was exactly what it seemed when we watched them do it, no investigations or hearings necessary. Bill Barr has been exposed as the Trump-loving, DOJ-sabotaging toady he presented himself as. Will he be disbarred? Charged with perjury? Obstruction of justice? Or allowed to shrug it off, as so many of Trump’s criminal accomplices have done so far?

Bringing Trump and his enablers to justice would force Republicans to face consequences, and force them to Plan B. Whatever Plan B is, it can’t possibly be worse than propping up a demented wannabe dictator with lies so they can make the U.S. an autocracy.