Mitch McConnell, meanwhile...

...channels his inner spirit animal for the American Fourth of July break, to beguile and charm fellow Republican senators into supporting his greatest-hits version of the the Trump Wealthcare Bill...

The Greitch Who Stole Christmas -- a seasonal bed time tory

...with deepest apologies to Dr. Theodor Geisel, whom we trust would probably understand, given his views on Sneetches...

Kellie Leitch's Bold New Statement: Chapter 11

Oh, America. . .

...what the hell did you just do...?

Trump's Lessons Learned -- October 2016

Update, October 21, 2016: Ackshully, scratch that thought. He has learned zip. And is unlikely to improve upon that scholastic record. . .

An End to Fear, Loathing, And All That...?

What a hell of an election campaign. Bearing down hard on the "hell".

Despite the fact that we semimythical coyotes watched our 6,000th birthday skitter away on the slipstream in the rearview awhile back, and thus have an, ummm, elastic take on time and reality, we're glad the rotten neverending thing is near barbecued. And if common wisdom says HarperCo counts on voter disengagement to haywire together an ill-earned plurality in parliament, most of the late signs look good for the rest of us.

But there's no denying that I'll feel more secure if we can slog ghrough Monday without those last poll figures upending, or rampant yet strangely untraceable dirty tricks arising, or in the aftermath, some evilly twisted, desperate attempt at a constitution- and/or convention-flouting end-run occurs. You know, to hang onto the keys to the PMO far longer than is seemly or legal, because Canada was supposed to be locked in as a Conservative satrap, and losing now would obviously mean The End Times.

Oh. And it'd be nice to see notarized witness statements attesting that a wood tent peg has been hammered through whatever passes for a certain rat-bastard heart. Without those, we who do not share whatever passes for Conservative "values" these days are gonna need a vintage red convertible trunkload of booze and random hallucinogenics -- including the ether -- to claw our way through the next four years. Because it has transpired that the soon-to-be-ex PM has an even more startlingly irresponsible take on, ummm, reality than I...

That I even consider any the above might come to pass disturbs me profoundly. Well, except for the private polling firm screwup scenario. Enough thinly-veiled partisan upstarts now exploit that loophole in the telecommunications legislation that the Coyotephone's call display started smokin' from overuse weeks ago. The pollsters can be wrong any way they like, as long as it doesn't get the Cons another majority. Then they can go back to the ring of hell (heh...) reserved especially for all telemarketers and phone solicitors.

I digress. It's an old habit. Cut me a little slack! At the moment, the sweet smell of blessed change seems to be starting to dispel the black, sulfurous reek of flopsweat, desperation and despair billowing from the Tory war room's smokestacks. And since I've become well-practiced during most of the last decade, I'm pretty sure I can hold my doggy nose long enough to suck in purer air sometime real soon.

Now, for crissakes: Dunno if all those big black flittering nightmares swirling round the Peace Tower are flying monkeys or just big freakin' bats -- but help me whack 'em away before I hafta scream...

Beer pong at the big debate...

Harper congratulates self on economic skillz -- crowd goes wild

Newsflash: Con campaign (finally) concedes Harper not perfect. Grudgingly.

Very grudgingly. They still cling, though, against a great deal of strong evidence, to their quaint illusion that their Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Guy is some kinda economic genius. And also to that wobbly alternate-reality bubble, inside which they're not wrong, all the rest of us are. . .

The Kool Aid in there must be getting awful warm and yucky by now...

This in from our campaign correspondent...

On the Heartburn Campaign Trail...

Day four of former Prime Ministerial Chief of Staff Nigel Wright's testimony at the Senator Mike Duffy Trial:

...and yes, that is Comic Sans in the caption. He deserves it.

The secret Stephen Harper, revealed

The Nigel Wright Stuff

Meanwhile to the south, Trumpenstein slouches toward Washington. . .

Ta-Duh!!!!! Presenting the Trumpenstein Monster... because, well, hell, us coyotes are lazy and unoriginal (really lazy... did I mention lazy...?), so always ready to pile onto a semi-clever trope...enstein...

Although in this case we may just sail outside the tropical bounds and relabel him as a Trumpenstain. Because well, hell, us coyotes are meta-punny, ummm, funny that way.

And now a message from the Party of Fiscal, ummm, Responsibility...

Just, maybe, not the definition of responsibility they thought they meant. . .

Item: PM orders MPs to flog child care bribe

Sigh. Back to kitty blogging...

Mike Duffy on the taxpayers' dime

Some of us were knocking idly around the echoing expanses of the mothballed ESI product development labs over the weekend, raking out the mountain of junk mail under the slot by the door and checking to see if the little red blinky lights on the smoke alarms were still being irritating enough, when the Research Director alerted us that we were in in midst of what may only be called a serendipitous convergence of seemingly-disparate events.

First, Week Three of the Senator Mike Duffy Trial of the Decade (TM) was cannonballing toward us like a watermelon on a waterslide. And now the Royal Canadian Mint is urging people to enter its keen-o Design a Coin for Canada's 150th Anniversary contest online. The web page of which loads aggravatingly slowly, just so you know before you click on that link. Clicked already? Oops. Sorry! I digress. Where were we? Oh yeah:

"I'm kind of surprised nobody has entered a Mike Duffy on the Taxpayers' Dime design yet," said the Research Director, staring pointedly at us through his safety reading glasses.

We'd already started doodling something to celebrate Nickelback's decade of artistic integrity and photo ops in which their lead singer and the current PM shamelessly try to use each other for publicity purposes. But hey. We know a better idea when we hear it. And the Research Director has lasers. We picked out some different-coloured crayons and got to work.

So here you go, Royal Canadian Mint. It's a honey. You're welcome. And, uh, Canada? All we ask is that when it comes time, you remember which trained economic snake-oil marketer it was who put Senator Duffy on your public dime and told him to have at it, especially in the small matter of billing ya for purely partisan events, in the first place. . .

More like doggerel. . .

News Item: Supreme Court of Canada strikes down minimum sentencing law as unconstitutional.

Just like the last half-dozen other pieces of badly-thought-out and hastily-rammed-through HarperCo centrepiece legislation that have shown up before it.

Now, I'm just a dumb ol' semi-mythical coyote. So obviously not nearly as smart as the guy who runs roughshod over the country 'n all. But I think there might be a pattern developing here...

Jason Kenney: Maybe a brain transplant would help...?

"O, Harper Can-a-Duh,

VainGloreee-us and Free-eeee *

Our Bombs are Smart,

Much Smarter than Me-eeee..."

* Actual freedom may vary, depending on definition and pending legislation.