A cat like that

@onesparkfire.bsky.social

1389 Followers 892 Following

I'm a cat like that. She/her NW Mississippi, Memphis-made, "knows just enough to be absolutely insufferable," if you see Roger Wicker, tell him I said he's no Thad Cochran.

Straw Hat helmsman, first son of the sea, Jinbei
Title card of the 1995 TV show Legend, starring Richard Dean Anderson (right) as a dime store novelist mistaken for his own fictitious hero, Nicodemus Legend, and John de Lancie (left) as an eccentric scientist whose steampunk inventions aid their adventures.
Like so many in the GOP today, Paxton is a male supremacist with a record of villainies against women, children, and other men who do not conform to or uphold his authoritarian and misogynistic vision of society. That’s clear in his attacks on Talarico. It’s clear in his terrorizing of trans kids and their parents. And it’s clear in his own wife’s words about their marriage. For Paxton, the world must submit to his needs and his hunger. If it doesn’t, he feels he can take what he wants. In that sense, he is a paragon of the Trumpian politician—a man whose fascism flows as much from his prejudices as his own adolescent, libidinal self-indulgence.
President Trump is returning to the U.S. after a two-day state visit to China. The president said that China would buy soybeans and Boeing aircraft, but nothing has been seen in writing yet. As Trump celebrated the announcement of the deal, he didn't sound completely solid, NPR's Tamara Keith tells Up First. China has made purchase promises before only for them to fall short. A year ago, a destructive trade war raged between the two countries. Last fall, Trump and China's President Xi Jinping reached a truce. Keith says the bigger picture now is that this visit further strengthens that agreement. Trump also said he and Xi discussed the Middle East, and agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should remain open and Iran should never have a nuclear weapon. Keith says it doesn't appear that the U.S. secured any commitments from China to help pressure Iran to reopen the Strait or agree to turn over its nuclear material.
But then . . . the autopsy never went out. News coverage has focused on why the DNC shelved it. My understanding—based on Dem-world hearsay—is that the truth is stupider than the fiction: No autopsy was released because there is no actual autopsy. The members of the “autopsy team” were in over their heads and struggled to put the thing together. What they produced was a loose summary of a bunch of interviews that were largely done without talking to the campaign or big spenders.1
The Republicans and their Supreme Court are waging revolution by demolishing the institutions and rules of American liberty. Democrats who stand on procedure and pontificate about exercising caution and restraint are catastrophically out of step with events. Virginia must implement the map anyway. Democrats must be prepared to play hardball throughout the midterms and in 2028. And when the time comes, they’ll have to embrace an expansion of the Supreme Court, perhaps along the lines outlined here by Jonathan V. Last. This isn’t a call to violence. It’s a call to play hardball, fill the streets, and embrace ambitious and aggressive reform.
Whiskey and a squeeze of lemon over two scoops of mango sorbet with tajin sprinkled over it. The glass has a gold rim and gold mushroom designs around the outside. It is a gift from my mother-in-law and belonged to her mom, a world-traveling former Rockette.
Do you understand how heavy a lift it was to gut the Voting Rights Act? It took decades of placing the right (wrong) people in power and weaponizing bad-faith legalism to destroy one of the great achievements in the history of western democracy. You would have been laughed out of the room if, in the late 90s or early 2000s, you said the Supreme Court would nullify the VRA by 2026. You gotta hand it to these right-wing ghouls for imagining the return of Jim Crow and following through on it. This took tremendous political imagination.
Randy Fine being racist and unprofessional announcing his run for Congress.
The Republican party, from its fascist leadership to its grassroots, is no longer something with which decent people can make common cause. They're fascists. The whole of it, all of it, has to go. Root and branch. No "more both sides," no more "we go high," no more "my fellow Americans," these are not my fellow Americans these are fascist enemies of my country. If your plan has, as its long-term objective, the destruction of the American fascist party, and all of its infrastructure, you have our attention. If you still think there's a decent, vital, viable Republican party somewhere in there, and you want us to spend our precious time and energy mining for it? You can fuck right off. -- Driftglass The Professional Left Podcast
A figurine of One Piece character Tony Tony Chopper seated on the back of racing duck Karoo. The base of the figure a book titled after the arc Karoo is from, Arabasta (Alabasta in other translations)
A shelf with several figurines of the One Piece character Tony Tony Chopper. He is a reindeer who ate a magic fruit that turned him into a part human.
Future SecDef Pete Hegseth standing with Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, head of the Armed Services Committee that was charged with vetting Hegseth.
Through dozens of freedom of information requests, we amassed a first-of-its-kind trove of audio and video evidence documenting the police practice of criminalizing those who report sexual assault. We found examples of police officers lying, deploying interrogation techniques meant for criminal suspects that, when used on unsuspecting, traumatized people, can undercut their credibility and even cause them to recant. Of 52 cases analyzed closely, nearly two-thirds resulted in the alleged victim recanting. In nine cases, the recantation was the only evidence cited by police.
I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination... Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee.
1️⃣ US-Iran ceasefire After weeks of escalating conflict in the Middle East, the US and Iran agreed on Tuesday to a two-week ceasefire — just hours before President Donald Trump’s deadline, after which he had promised to wipe out a “whole civilization.” That threat, which critics warned could be a war crime if carried out, appears to have been staved off for now. As part of the deal, Iran’s military will coordinate the passage of vessels through the critical Strait of Hormuz, the country’s foreign minister said — a key condition Trump had pushed for. The ceasefire offers a pause to a conflict that has rattled global markets, disrupted energy flows
Indeed, among roughly two dozen workers and regulars interviewed this week at Rome’s three Waffle House locations, none said they were aware of anyone traveling to the 24-hour restaurants by paranormal means, despite their reputation as powerful magnets for the sort of idiosyncratic characters who tend to surf the psychic fringes of the American South.
Molly Pitcher on the battlefield, by C. Y. Turner Death to kings.
Octopath Traveler II
Hand holding a red white and blue sticker proclaiming "I voted today!"
A handsome and very large orange cat with a white beard faces the camera while lying on his caretaker. He is actively being petted by them. His paws are folded regally in front of himself, and you see they are large and lion-like. You can't hear it, but the photographer assures you he is also purring like a buzzsaw.
A rotund pale orange cat sits in a wooden tray. He fits.
When Musk and Hegseth argue that a racially diverse nation is inherently weak, they're not returning us to some long-established American tradition from which we've recently strayed. They are, instead, parroting the exact same propaganda that Nazi Germany promoted against America during World War II. For just one example, read this analysis the Nazis made of the American population in 1942, where they confidently concluded that America's diversity would be its undoing: "During a war, only a people can fight for its future, not a mere population that is racially, religiously, linguistically, ideologically, and governmentally disunified. Given all that has been said, the USA has no unified people, only a population."
Another OpenAI executive, Ryan Beiermeister, lost her job in the safety division after complaining about ChatGPT's rollout of A.I. erotica, The Journal disclosed. Beiermeister, The Journal said, did not think the company had enough guardrails in place to stop the child-exploitation content and wall off adult content from teens. OpenAI claimed Beiermeister's departure was due to sexual discrimination against a male colleague. She adamantly denied that to The Journal.
Another OpenAI executive, Ryan Beiermeister, lost her job in the safety division after complaining about ChatGPT's rollout of A.I. erotica, The Journal disclosed. Beiermeister, The Journal said, did not think the company had enough guardrails in place to stop the child-exploitation content and wall off adult content from teens. OpenAI claimed Beiermeister's departure was due to sexual discrimination against a male colleague. She adamantly denied that to The Journal.
Grand jury rejections are extraordinarily unusual, but have happened repeatedly in recent months in Washington as citizens who have heard the government’s evidence have come away underwhelmed in a number of cases. Prosecutors could try again to secure an indictment.
On Tuesday, Schaffer made strange X posts about his family being “kidnapped” and claimed the FBI was out to murder him, prompting worries on the right that he himself had hurt or endangered his own family. In a mark of how twisted the online right has become, far-right YouTuber Jean-François Gariépy, whose own wife disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2023 and was never found, wondered openly whether Schaffer was smart enough to murder his spouse without being discovered. “Poor Elijah,” Gariépy asked. “Does he have the brains to get away with it?”
A large buttery orange male cat lying in sunbeams on a black chair, his head raised and looking around, and he is lit with rainbows from the window film.
Screen shot from the United States Senate website Roll Call Vote 119th Congress - 1st Session
Perry had made numerous posts and direct messages on social media where he had expressed his desire to shoot protesters, which, along with contradictory statements to eyewitness accounts, brought into question his claim of self-defense. Following his murder conviction, messages Perry sent of him self-identifying as "a racist" and of him calling black protesters "monkeys" were revealed to the public.
The federal government has defended the ICE agent who shot Ms. Good, saying he acted in self-defense, a narrative state and local officials have disputed repeatedly. The shooting had set off over a week of intense protests in the city, prompting Gov. Tim Walz to plead for peaceful demonstrations. At the same time, Mr. Walz and local officials called for the federal government to end its immigration crackdown in the city.
Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT X.com "Suck it up, raise your game, success isn't a birthright" is a good response to modest unfairnesses. It's a message that stops selling when the system doesn't seem interested in rewarding people of your race and sex at all. 9:01 AM - 12/17/25 126K Views •
Poster for Last Holiday, 2006 Christmas movie starring Queen Latifah as a sales clerk who learns that she has weeks to live and decides to take the holiday trip of her dreams.
None of this is to dispute that the Democratic Party is in dire straits. It is unpopular with its own voters, unpopular with much of the broad middle of the public, and is so weak in rural areas that it may not be able to win anything other than a bare majority in the Senate, if that. But despite those red-dominant county-by-county maps you sometimes see, Democrats aren’t dealing with a crimson MAGA electorate. They are facing a familiar problem, one that’s plagued American political parties for most of this century: how to build durable ties to a fickle, cynical and often uninterested electorate that is skeptical of the ability of the political system to work at all, much less improve Americans’ lives. To face this successfully may take a fundamental rethinking of the American-style political party, and a move away from a model of political consumerism — in which parties attract voters with minor message tweaks and appeals to identity and self-expression — and toward one of association, where the party is a participatory organization with purpose and structure beyond electing a handful of ambitious people to office.
Distefano, chatting with Halkias, joked that an upside to the kingdom’s repression of women is that his fiancee can’t come with him. Mark Normand, on the other hand, joked he would bring his wife to show her how good she has it in America: “I want to be like, ‘You see? You think I’m an asshole? Well, they’ll cut your clit off, bitch.’”
An absolutely stunning before and after photo comparison, first showing brown bear 901 in early summer, and then a current photo. In his before photo, 901 is so thin from his winter hibernation he is naught but fur and bones. This is a bear nobody wants. This is a bear that makes us feel sad and worried that he's not eating well. On the right in his after photo, bear 901 is enormous, a magnificent specimen. His coat is sleeker. His face is plump. He is shaped like a furry light bulb with paws and ears. This bear is hauling a dump truck. This is a spectacular bear. This is a bear that successful and is going to make it through winter. This is a champion fat bear, and we should crown this plump king.
A screenshot from the Wikipedia entry on Arthur Bremer: In his memoir, Hunt reports that the day after the assassination attempt he received a call from Chuck Colson, asking him to break into Bremer's apartment and plant "leftist literature to connect him to the Democrats". Hunt recalls that he was highly skeptical of the plan due to the apartment being guarded by the FBI but investigated the feasibility of it anyway at Colson's insistence.[23] G. Gordon Liddy also discusses the plan in his memoir.[24]
Presidential health, however, should not be left to gossip. It is central to governance, stability, and public trust. The president’s ability to serve out his term is not something the country should have to infer from zoomed-in Getty Images. But as bruises appear and are covered up with concealer, as swelling is alternately dismissed and explained away, the White House continues to release carefully worded notes while the press politely accepts them.