Today is Monday, May 16, 2022. In the aftermath of Saturday’s senseless massacre in Buffalo, at least one brave repugnican, and the only one in the entire freaking party, Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney minced no words today when she lambasted her own colleagues for their enabling of white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism that sparked the tragic events over the weekend. This blunt assessment by Cheney is covered in an online analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN’s editor-at-large entitled “Liz Cheney just called out her fellow Republicans over the Buffalo shooting.”

In her blistering statement, Cheney wrote “The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism.” She adds, “History has taught us that what begins with words ends far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”

Cillizza calls out the entire repugnican party “that has been willing to look the other way as some of their rank and file have flirted with major figures in the white nationalist movement.”

Offering proof of this tolerance for vile figures in the white supremacist movement, Cillizza cites the attendance of two representatives in February at a conference organized by Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist. The two deplorable Congress members were Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (of course) and Paul Gosar of Arizona. For Gosar, who is totally isolated from his own siblings for a number of years, this was not his first embrace of white nationalism; he has been linked to other white nationalist leaders and rhetoric for some time now.

As I had predicted in yesterday’s blog, there has ben no other high-profile repugnican who has come out to denounce the actions of this crazed young man – especially by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Given McCarthy’s silence on the mass shooting, Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger suggested that New York Rep. Elise Stefanik (whom I mentioned in yesterday’s entry) pushed “white replacement theory” last year. Kinzinger was referencing Facebook ads paid for by Stefanik’s campaign that used language echoing replacement theory. The vile ad showed migrants crossing the border being reflected in President Biden’s sunglasses with the words emblazoned on top: “Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT [their capitals] ELECTION INSURRECTION (this ridiculous overemphasis was assuredly borrowed from Dumpf’s own Twitter style in which he capitalized everything).

“Republican leaders,” Cillizza claims, “have allowed intolerance – and noxious ideas like white replacement theory – to fester within a party of their ranks over the past few years.” He concludes that this inaction does have impactful consequences like the mass shooting on Saturday. That is why the entire far-right must be renounced for its winking at the more egregious conspiracy theories that have crept into the mainstream of the party.

For those of you who are watching our current races, tomorrow marks the Pennsylvania Senate primary in which three of the Republican Party nominees are as screwy as any repugnican in office today. They are as extreme as extreme gets. One of those candidates is loopy Kathy Barnette, a Black conservative who is a real threat to beat TV doctor Mehmet Oz and wealthy businessman David McCormick. She has been criticized for a series of Islamaphobic tweets and for harboring many other extreme views. In an online article today, it was revealed that Barnett confessed to bringing three buses of “pissed off patriots” to the Capitol on January 6, 2021. If Pennsylvania voters think that she should win the primary because of this proud confession on her part (which should really disqualify her for any elected office), then they deserve her. She called this “patriotic” act “our 1776 moment.” Boy, is she out there. There’s more that reveals her estrangement from reality, but I will not proceed with disclosing them here. That is why Kentucky “Bitch” McConnell is hoping that she will not win the primary because she’s considered even too extreme for his now-fringe party. He thinks if she does win, the party will be in deep trouble in November. Hallelujah, I say. Bring it on!

Even the former demagogue tweeted that “Kathy Barnett will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats,” so fumed twice-impeached president Donald Dumpf. He adds that the candidate has “many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted.” As if this would seriously perturb his orange head too much these days. Hey, he infamously endorsed that other candidate, Roy Moore, who was running against Doug Jones in Alabama who was accused of sexually assaulting and otherwise acting inappropriately with several underage women. Thank God, he did indeed lose to Jones. So let’s hope that the primary in Pennsylvania will go this route, with the most extreme candidate winning but eventually losing to the more decent, sane Democratic candidate, John Fetterman, who, surprisingly, just announced over the weekend that he has suffered a stroke. Hopefully, he will recover fast enough in order to get back into the race – to win it. He does say that he’s well on his way toward a full recovery. Let’s pray that this is so.

On a more personal level, yesterday was a dark day for Elliot and me: We thought we would lose our dear cat, Jocelyn. The morning started with my remarking to Elliot that Jocelyn looked as if she was having difficulty breathing. I noted this on Saturday night, but didn’t say anything until Sunday morning. She didn’t appear as if she were in distress at that time, but when Elliot observed her, he determined to call the vet and schedule an appointment for Monday. However, that appointment was changed to hastening to Juniper Valley Hospital immediately when Jocelyn’s breathing didn’t improve with time. So we rushed to take her in her new cat carrier that practically fell apart when Elliot put her into it. (Guess who assembled the gray carrier from Amazon here?) The door came off in the front, so I rushed downstairs to pick up our replacement carrier from the storage room and brought it upstairs. Now we could put Jocelyn into the new carrier without any problems.

We walked Jocelyn to the car which was parked on the street and drove to Middle Village where the vet was located. Fortunately, the waiting room was now open to bring pets inside, so we brought Jocelyn in and registered at the front desk. We had to sit awhile since we had no scheduled appointment, but we didn’t have to wait too long, luckily.

While we waited, I took the car to a local bakery/bistro on Eliot Avenue to have some breakfast. Elliot was too distraught to go with me.

When I returned, I found Elliot was still sitting in the waiting room; I received no calls from the physician while I was sitting in Panepinto Bakery having my brioche French toast. It was quite good, by the way.

Eventually, we were escorted into a waiting room to confer with the vet, Dr. Jasper, whom we met for the first time, I believe. She told us the bad news first – that Jocelyn has an enlarged heart and is suffering from digestive heart failure. We knew this from a while back; this diagnosis was made way back in 2021, I think. Jocelyn has been on a regimen of three medications for some time now. She seems to have responded well from this daily practice of Elliot plopping three pills down her throat. However, Elliot let it be known that he skipped two days of giving Jocelyn her pills out of sheer laziness or whatever. Dr. Jasper wouldn’t say that this omission helped to cause her ragged breathing. She did say that we should “up” her intake of Lasix three times a day, instead of two, for at least five days. She said that she was given oxygen for about an hour and appeared to have responded well. Recounting her initial exposure to Jocelyn in her carrier, the vet humorously mentioned that when she got close to her, Jocelyn hissed at her. “Oh, she seems fine then,” she declared.

The terror associated with that day didn’t actually occur until after we brought her upstairs to the apartment. That is when I first observed Jocelyn gasping for air and heaving for some time after I opened the top of the cat carrier. I brought her up first, while Elliot parked the car. When he entered the apartment, he was immediately taken aback by how Jocelyn was behaving. We both thought that this moment was indeed her last, as she lay outside the kitchen, seemingly gasping for air. At that moment, Elliot got down on the ground, petting her, and began crying. I didn’t know what to think. Could this have been a reaction to the greater dosage that she received at the vet’s office? Eventually, Jocelyn came out of this downward spiral. Elliot gave her one more pill that she ingested, and several moments later, she seemed to have miraculously recovered.

Since yesterday afternoon, we have become vigilant in watching every nuance of Jocelyn’s behavior. She appears to have returned to some normalcy; she has gone back to eating food and is getting more alert. She slept more yesterday afternoon after coming home from the vet.

Today she is about 90 percent herself. We were supposed to have driven to Weston, Massachusetts, on Friday to see Elliot’s daughter and granddaughter, but we have already canceled that. We think it’s too close to seeing how she will improve after taking the third dosage of her medication, since we now have to return next Monday for a follow-up appointment.

So there you have our distressing day with our 11-year-old cat. We do hope that she has indeed used up, only, three of her nine lives but not all of her lives. We would like to have a few more years with her – if possible. Anyone with a pet – or who’s had a pet – will empathize with our situation with Jocelyn yesterday.

Stay safe and be well.