Kitty Barf 9: Timmy Barf

This column was spawned by a realization of how much my children’s cat and the Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA) are alike. To know why it’s called Kitty Barf, you can begin reading here.

Onto the barf of the week.

In addition to being an avid writer for this news organization, your trusty author enjoys reading other publications as well.  This past Sunday morning (February 23, 2025), I was leisurely eating my granola and perusing the opinion section of a print publication.  One would think that such an event held from my own dining table would be a moment of comfort and safety. 

But along came kitty. 

There, in black and white, in the “perspective” section was a kitty article.  Kitty says that it is an expert at word usage and history.  To this end, woofs kitty, there is a phrase we have all been using wrong. “Regnant Populus,” the state’s motto, does not literally mean “the people rule.”

Say what, kitty? 

I liken this moment to one where you see some gender confused person with fluorescent purple hair wearing a hat shaped like a woman’s breast with a nipple taped to her forehead screaming at a crying baby because the baby is not a vocal proponent of abortion.  Not that I have had the privilege of suffering through many of these types of moments, but I bring it up to compare it to kitty’s position on regnant populus. 

Some things are just so bizarre that you have to watch—like watching a car wreck in real time. We hate it for the people in the vehicle (depending on who is, in fact, in the vehicle), but we still want to watch.  That was how kitty’s statement left me feeling.

According to kitty, regnant populus does not literally mean that the people rule through self-legislation—even though self-legislation is the “first power” reserved by the people in the Arkansas Constitution.  No, no, says kitty.  Regnant populus means the people rule by and through the officials they elect. In other words, people do not rule but are ruled, and are to be ruled, by elected government officials. 

See, kitty really means it when kitty says your opinion, peasant, does not count.  At least not when it comes to governing ourselves.  Such high and mighty aspirations should be left to the floors of the houses of the legislature where the common man is not allowed to tread (literally, only members of the house and senate get to come onto the floors with the plushy carpet–I only know the carpet is plushy because I once represented a Senator on the Senate floor before the body in an interdisciplinary matter).

This, according to kitty, is why kitty must save the common man and woman from themselves by using an illegal power to thwart ballot measures.  Like a frank, this is a power not meant for the average Arkansan to wield.  But don’t worry, kitty is telling us that we have been interpreting “the people rule” all wrong for over 100 years. Therefore, we are not really losing the right to self-legislate because that “right” was a mere illusion brought about by an error of semantics.

Kitty barfed up some cake for the peasants.  Eat the cake, peasant, and be grateful.

Regnant Timmy? 

Clinton W. Lancaster

Attorney. America First. Sued Hunter Biden for child support. Represented President Trump in the 2020 Wisconsin election challenge. Former attorney for the Wisconsin Special Counsel. An official “Tough Cookie” per President Trump.