Cats Support Occupy Wall Street

By Adele

Wall Street would be swarming with cats if only:

1) We had thumbs so we could draw clever signs

2) We could march around on 2 legs while holding our signs

3) We weren’t so short, we’d probably get trampled

4) Karen would ever let us out of the house

But we want all the humans who love us to know that we CATS ARE MAD AS HELL, AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. 

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re staging subtle solidarity protests every single day. We call them Occupy Couch.

You may be wondering, “What do corporate greed and political corruption have to do with housecats? Cats have it made!”

Let me tell you…

Humans who get laid off and can’t find work, or who get sick and end up buried under medical debt, start sliding into bankruptcy. That’s whey they start buying us cheapo poisoned cat food from China.

When humans lose their homes to foreclosure, we end up in shelters or on the street.

This isn’t about cats losing cushy perks. Our very survival as pets depends on the prosperity of the 99%.

Besides, any protests that Virginia’s disgrace in Congress, Rep. Eric Cantor, calls “gathering mobs” are doing something right. Cantor’s attitude is, “Let them eat cake!”

Critics say Occupy Wall Streeters are pointless because their demands don’t fit on a bumper sticker.

Wall Street is a symbolic ground zero for greed and corruption. The protesters could be marching on almost any government building, health insurers and Big Pharma, retailers whose inventory consists of cheap goods made by slave labor, any company that has outsourced jobs or has an incomprehensible call center in India, any company that hides profits off-shore and pays almost no taxes. 

The list could go on and on. You can’t “boil down” the myriad ways the wealthy, wily 1% steal from and screw everybody else — unless we fire up the cauldrons and literally boil down a few of them as examples.

The Tea Party should love that. They’re one step from burning witches themselves.

We hope the protests keep growing — and people follow through at the polls and unemploy every rich, self-serving, two-faced politician who thinks the 99% should go pound sand.

Eric Cantor, we’re looking at YOU.

Christie Lets the Loonies Churn

By Cole

What part of “I’m not running for president” don’t the Republicans understand? New Jersey governor Chris Christie has told them for the MILLIONTH time he doesn’t want the job.

If Republicans hadn’t humored Tea Party wackos, they wouldn’t have ended up with the motley collection of fools and misfits who have risen to the top of the party like swamp scum.

Now they’ve got to live with it.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin in her garish bus is popping wheelies in Walmart parking lots all over Nowhere, USA, trying to get somebody’s attention and praying for the Tea Party to come and beg her to be the savior who drives Obama out of office.

Her requirements for the job are simple:

• No participating in debates
• No interviews or Q&As she hasn’t scripted
• No running in pesky primaries

If Palin had it her way, there would be no election, either. She’d just be anointed — and probably get bored and quit 2 years into her term.

I have no idea how good or bad a governor Chris Christie is (I’m sure reader MorganLF can fill us in), but his refusal to let himself be talked into running seems like a sign of integrity, which is unheard of in a politician.

Of what remains, here’s my feline take …

• Michele Bachmann – Talked herself into oblivion, thank goodness.
• Rick Santorum – Invisible Man.
• Mitt Romney – Sleeps in a coffin.
• Newt Gingrich – Senile.
• Rick Perry – Keeps letting his mouth shoot him in the foot.
• Ron Paul – Flake with a few good ideas.
• Jon Huntsman – My favorite, but reason and common sense doom him.
• Herman Cain – Hmmmm…

Cain’s star is rising, but could the Tea Party ever stomach a race between 2 black cats?

I suspect TPers would stay home in droves on election day, finally dispelling any doubt they’re a bunch of racists. If it came down to casting a vote for ANOTHER black man (I mean, where’s it going to end?), they’d just let Obama stay in the White House.

Did Newsweek Trick Bachmann Into Looking Crazy?

By Adele

The Tea Party’s in a snit over Michele Bachmann’s Newsweek cover photo and I don’t get it. It’s not like they crammed spinach between her teeth.

Bachmann’s a middle-aged woman with crows’ feet who looks like her contacts are uncomfortable.

Hillary Clinton has been photographed many, many times looking a lot worse — with grimy hair, no makeup, a SCRUNCHIE — and you don’t hear Hillary whining.

In all fairness, Bachmann hasn’t complained, either. She’s got her rabid fan base for that.

But they’re not charging that Newsweek retouched the photo to make Bachmann look bat-shit. Nor has it been suggested the photographer said, “OK, Michele, now let’s get a shot where you’re fantasizing about Mitt Romney or Obama getting hit by a bus.”

Just Google images of Bachmann. She sometimes gets a creepy look in her eye. The Tea Party just doesn’t want you to see it.

We don’t need pictures to show us Bachmann’s nutty. Almost every time she opens her mouth or signs some rankly discriminatory, racist pledge, she proves it.

She’s a slightly more coherent Sarah Palin, puffing her mere wisps of experience into qualifications to run the country. She mangles facts a lot, like when she tried to score brownie points in Iowa by confusing the late, revered actor John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer.

This was a lose-lose for Newsweek. If they’d airbrushed Bachmann to be a perky cheerleader like Palin, the Tea Party would be screaming she’d been trivialized.

As usual, what the Tea Party fails to grasp is that when Newsweek called Bachmann “The Queen of Mean,” (which the TP is largely OK with), they needed a picture to match. 

Eric Cantor Needs to GO

By Adele

Despite polls that resoundingly reflect Americans’ disgust with intractable brats in Congress, Virginia’s Eric Cantor can’t bring himself to grow up, and he’s trying to rally the other bullies.

Today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch’s front page ran excerpts from a memo Cantor just sent to House Republicans…

Over the next several months, there will be tremendous pressure on Congress to prove that (the Standard & Poor’s) analysis of the inability of the political parties to bridge our differences is wrong.

In plain English…

Keep fighting. Let’s shut the government down unless the Dems lay off our bread and butter, the rich and big business. Don’t give an inch. Never cooperate. Make Obama regret he was ever born.

If John Boehner was worth his weight in self-tanner, he’d take Cantor out behind the woodshed and give him what-for, then jerk a knot in Cantor’s leash and muzzle him.

Cantor and those impressionable reps who dance to the Tea Party’s tune may not know it, but to plot the downfall of your own government is to flirt with treason.

Cantor probably sees it as heroically seizing the moment, showing what a strong, tough leader he can be. He probably already has “PC” (“President Cantor”) embroidered on his towels.

But “Just Say No” is a suicidal strategy when it comes to the potential collapse of our economy. Shooting down everything the Democrats suggest and offering no viable alternatives but cutting programs that actually help people isn’t leadership. It’s insane.

Eric, when S&P downgraded the country’s credit rating, they were looking straight at YOU.

Cantor’s been playing both ends against the middle for years. He keeps his cushy congressional seat by pretending to be “for the little people,” then stabbing them in the back to serve special interests.

Virginia voters need to bounce the weasel out of Congress or they’ll deserve every smarmy, lie-filled “Cantor for President” ad they get in 2016.

DWTS is a Tea Party Tool

By Adele

Sarah Palin sits there gloating in the audience, tacitly reminding her Mama Grizzlies to prove she’s got clout by calling in and shredding what’s left of Dancing with the Stars’ credibility.

There’s NO WAY IN HELL Bristol Palin should be one of the top 3 dancers in the finals next week. For 7 WEEKS OUT OF 9, she has been at or near the bottom of judges’ scores, including this week. Yet Brandy, who has danced better than Bristol since Week 1, got the boot, narrowing it down to Bristol, Jennifer Grey, and Kyle Massey.

Granted, dancing has made Bristol more outgoing, but her routines are still beginner stuff, and she has remained chubby. Either rumors she’s pregnant again are true, or she’s not working at it very hard. Many past contenders have lost weight and gotten into shape, and it shows. Not so with Bristol.

Bristol rationalizes that her popularity is due to ordinary people identifying with her. Sorry, kid. Mom and her Grizzlies are trying to buy you a trophy you simply don’t deserve, and they’re shafting much better dancers to do it. You guys are fooling nobody.

DWTS has always been a toss-up dance/popularity contest. But after this flaming fiasco, future contestants might as well skip the aches and blisters. Dancing well has nothing to do with the outcome.

Bristol’s partner, Mark Ballas, undoubtedly knows they don’t belong in the finals. In Bristol’s paso doble “solo” bit, he just had her stalk the floor like a giant bat. Even on a good night, Bristol’s footwork is sloppy, if she remembers it.

The judges have probably been ordered to ignore all her shortcomings, because instead they gush about how much Bristol has “blossomed.”

The Tea Party has an undeniable death grip on this season. They’d vote for Bristol if she fell on her face and crawled. Palin proudly told People magazine she’s been paying for people from Alaska to fill the audience and cheer for Bristol.

ABC can bask in their high ratings now, but selling out to Palin this season may spell the beginning of the end of DWTS.

Should Anita Hill Apologize?

By Adele

Can pigs fly?

Like everybody else, I’m wondering what — other than early-onset dementia — could have possessed Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Virginia, to suddenly ring up Anita Hill’s office and leave this message…

“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Virginia Thomas later told the press that her motive was to “extend an olive branch.”

Sounded more like a switch to me. Did she really expect Anita Hill to come out of the blue 19 years later and turn her life as a Brandeis University professor upside down by saying she made it all up? That Clarence Thomas was really a swell boss? That she got herself dragged through the mud for nothing?

Has anyone seen Clarence moping around about it, since his alleged misogyny got rewarded with a seat on the Supreme Court?

If anyone should be apologizing here, it should be the Thomases to Anita Hill.

Virginia Thomas founded Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group affiliated to the Tea Party, whose agenda is to wreak havoc with Obama. She was one of the featured speakers at the recent Tea Party shindig held right here in Richmond.

Unfortunately, it’s not illegal for Clarence Thomas to be married to a neocon nut job who uses prayer as a weapon and doesn’t know how to pick her battles. It’s just very disturbing to know this guy has Lady MacBeth trying to pull strings behind him while he’s sitting on the bench.

DC Bend Over, Here Comes Glenn Beck

By Yul

If you can’t get enough of Glenn Beck’s rants on TV and radio, you have a chance to catch his act live on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow, where he’s holding a “Restoring Honor” rally.

Beck claims it’s pure coincidence it’s exactly 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his immortal “I Have a Dream” speech there. Surely, Beck would never try to hijack such an historic occasion for self-glorification. He’s probably just humbly hoping that TV crews catch any black people who might be milling around looking for Al Sharpton’s King commemoration and make them look on the evening news like Beck rally attendees.

And how much do you want to bet that Fox will report attendance in figures astronomically higher than any other news outlet?

Beck also claims the rally isn’t political because he invited no politicians. That’s why he’s holding it in DC instead of some Kansas cornfield. Apparently, royalty doesn’t count, because Sara Palin, the Tea Party’s unofficial queen, will be by Beck’s side so they can egg each other on, criticizing and mocking Obama and Democrats right on their home turf.

I mean, who needs hope and change when the world would be perfect with NO progress — and even better if we could turn the clock back 50 years?

But Jon Stewart ripped Beck a new one on The Daily Show far better than this cat ever could. The segment is called “I Have a Scheme,” and I’ll let Jon take it from here.

Why Bourdain Won’t Be Invited to Tea

By Karen

On May 21, Anthony Bourdain appeared on Anderson Cooper’s 360° and described Tea Partiers as “very angry white people” who are as “dumb as a sack full of hammers.” In case you missed it, here’s video.

The TP contingent struck back all over the Internet with trademark maturity and restraint. Many disparage Tony’s level of education without knowing what it is. They also dismiss that he’s been to roughly 100 countries and has friends in myriad cultures on every continent, so he probably recognizes stupidity when he sees it.

A few of the names they’ve called him are “uneducated dolt” and “f**king druged [sic] out moron.”

Breitbart TV’s literate readers venomously deemed Bourdain a “meron [sic]” and “an crabby white guy [sic]” and called for a No Reservations boycott.

But I have to give the prize for wit to the U.S. Constitutional Free Press, who called Tony a “gastronomical moonbat“ with “rectal-cranial inversion.”

I suspect they’re upset partly because Bourdain prefaced his assessment by mentioning he’s been reading Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides.

No, Tea Partiers aren’t racists. And you’ll never get them to admit there’s an unread copy of Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, propping a door open somewhere in their house.

As a counterpoint to all this bashing, Jeff the Zombie wrote an inspiring account of how he developed a true low-sodium diet for his congestive heart failure after seeing so many of the options during a 3-day No Reservations marathon.

But back to that fateful night in DC… Earlier, Bourdain and Eric Ripert made an appearance together. My Eclectic Favorites covered it with lots of photos — and even met them. Famous DC got some decent video.

Newsweek talked to Bourdain about his recent trip to Beirut. He says it has a Miami vibe.

On May 22, Bourdain and Eric Ripert did another joint appearance in Baltimore, and Baltimore Dining Examiner reported. I didn’t know Ripert is a Buddhist with past anger management issues.

The Baltimore Sun described how Tony deftly got himself off the hook for dissing Baltimore in the Rust Belt episode of No Reservations.

And in case you missed it, Sandra Lee’s boyfriend, Andrew Cuomo, is running for governor of New York. Can you imagine the dinner parties they’ll have? Times Union inspired quite a bit of speculation.

USAToday reports that Tony wants to write for the HBO series Treme, after doing some consulting on Season 1.

Bonus…

Came across this 2007 article Tony wrote for Spin, “Eat to the Beat,” that I don’t recall ever reading before.