The Barking Cat

"In an August 2021 tweet, amid the chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal, Collins suggested American military and political leaders deserved to be hanged from a helicopter. He also joked about pushing then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi out of an airplane."

Not two weeks after the Tennessee legislature carved Memphis into three congressional districts this spring, in a move designed to eliminate Democratic representation, Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor made his electoral expectations clear.

It is atrocious we have to operate under this constant credible and explicit threat from one political party, the fact we keep calling it a “free and fair election” needs some light revising

The red square is the $1 trillion the Republicans cut from Medicaid (over 10 years). The green square is the $50 billion Rural Health Fund they're all so proud of (over 5 years). The blue square is the $190 million that Susan Collins is crowing about in her Maine rural health care ad.

Authoritarians lost in Serbia too! www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/w...

Three days after the August primary, election workers in one Washington county went to check for late mail-in ballots. They expected no more than a few dozen. Instead, there were more than 500 — each a vote that wouldn’t count.

from me: some reflections on the russo-japanese war, hyperpolitics before social media, and why functional mechanisms of power and accountability are essential for well-informed, well-led democratic publics

This was such a great answer from Abdul El-Sayed about his previous criticisms of President Obama.

North Korea is a democratic republic. Literally in the name of the country!

no matter how sure you are that these guys have broken a whole bunch of laws, you aren't nearly as certain as they are

from underwhelming cars over on FB, note the Euro-spec tailights

All these so-called “independent” Republicans will go right back to voting for Johnson as speaker, confirm every Trump nominee, vote with Trump on everything, and continue doing zero oversight on his corrupt regime. A vote for any one of them is a vote to continue all of that.

Amy Acton’s Estranged Mother Killed Kittens, Court Records Show

Hegseth: We are banning reporters from the Pentagon. Washpost: We have exclusive photos of the historic Dwight Eisenhower globe that was damaged in Hegseth's zeal to move it out of storage and into his office. Gift link ⤵️ wapo.st/3WF2YQo

Everything these guys do to avoid the billionaire’s’ tax is going to radicalize people to vote for it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/t...

Just a reminder that the ad does not, in fact, "call it out like it is." As even National Review has detailed, Acton's accusations about her stepfather's abuse, her mother's complicity and even the fact that they were living in a test are well documented

A Florida man was found dead in his home during a welfare check in July 2022. Weeks later, one of the officers who discovered his body moved into the home and spent years impersonating him, according to investigators.

This guy was President of hisCollege Republicans. Here he is opposing Sharia law! It is amazing how many stories of "ordinary Americans" are Republican political operatives

Wages above $184,500 are not taxed for Social Security. As incomes become increasingly unequal, that means only 82.6% of covered earnings are taxed, down from 90% in 1983. Our Good Life resident Tyler Bond shows how scrapping the cap could close up to two-thirds of the shortfall.

WITKOFF TO PUTIN (yes, that Putin): “You talk so much about Trump being a humanitarian — you are a humanitarian also, sir. I salute that. I commend you.” 🤯 we are so cooked. Russia was never a hoax.

(WSJ) - 5,000 for every American adult. An $8 billion bailout for farmers; $90 payments for seniors. @wsj.com www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

Private equity-owned companies ruthlessly squeezing profit out of any sources they can? Say it ain't so. www.wsj.com/health/healt...

And yet the vast majority of Republicans running this year in Arizona are pushing tax cuts in their ads. I realize they don’t have a lot to run on but this seems to be consistent.

AUTOMOTIVE JOURNALIST TAKE: I think if you buy a car from this guy you’re not as good a person as you think

I see that JD Vance, who flew to Hungary to campaign on behalf of Viktor Orban, now says that his great respect for the independence of other countries' democratic politics prevents him from endorsing (((Bibi Netanyahu))) www.politico.com/news/2026/10...

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in public subsidies goes to funding internet service to unlivable buildings on Alaska’s Adak Island. We knocked on every door and talked to every person we could find. Not a single one told us they used the service. (Published July with @adn.com)

As we said in March, blocking the Internet Archive is like newspapers telling physical libraries they’re no longer allowed to collect past issues. Whatever happens in AI-copyright disputes, publishers shouldn’t make libraries collateral damage.

The Republican running for Senate in Michigan is directing campaign funds toward chartered flights, a Miami car service, and BMW repairs. theintercept.com/2026/10/19/m...

Oregon is the first state to have every Democratic Member of Congress as a cosponsor of Medicare for All! This is a huge step forward towards making universal healthcare a reality in this country. Which state will be next?

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I feel like this message, delivered this way, oughta work.

NEW - DHS appointees made an unusual request of CISA, its agency that protects election systems: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. Though not acted on, the request shows how the Trump administration has tried to use CISA for its own ends.

140 days of protests triggered by a corrupt kushner/trump family luxury island deal… yet 🇺🇸 media is essentially crickets 🦗 🦗

Susan Collins says she once went a year without health insurance. What she’s less eager to talk about: after she lost the 1994 governor’s race, an assault-rifle maker who’d donated to her campaign helped her land her next job. 🧵

we are at a much more dangerous juncture than most people realize, and legacy media is completely unequipped (and unwilling) to comprehend that basic fact.

Meanwhile cutting taxes is a major theme of sooo many Arizona campaign ads right now. “Some states, including Arizona, cannot say how many private schools exist or where they operate despite spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on voucher-style programs.”

Absurd: Elon Musk tells biographer Walter Isaacson in a new podcast interview that the fizzled DOGE experiment proved there's "no way we were gonna solve the deficit from within the government." "The only way we're going to solve the national debt is with AI and robots" www.axios.com/2026/10/17/e...

A billionaire-backed dark money group is pushing Democrats toward a watered-down alternative to Medicare for All that keeps private insurers in the picture. The group claims Medicare for All would cost too much–but the research tells a different story.

Apparently at around 1:30 PM ET, the main accounts for the No Kings coalition on Instagram were frozen and pulled down. Admins have lost access to the account and are unable to log in. This happened at the peak of the organization's national day of action. Instagram, of course, is owned by Meta.

The war profiteers say the “demand” for war is “permanent” 🤔🇺🇸😕

“A SMALL PRICE TO PAY” “A company that just lost to Tennessee in court (KALSHI) is now helping fund a campaign to elect the state’s next governor (@MarshaBlackburn)” 🤔🤷🏼‍♀️ Looking for a Gov with a “FOR SALE” sign? Marsha’s the one for you! WKRN: www.wkrn.com/news/tenness...

"When you're a billionaire and you have a weird hobby and someone tries to stop you, you have complete impunity."

Alef Trolls Tesla With Video of Its Car Flying Over a Roadster gizmodo.com/alef-trolls-...

A helpful chart

Corporate profits are approaching 12% of national income, near a historic high. The neoliberal project was about restoring the power of capital by weakening unions, deregulating industries, & cutting taxes on corporations. This is the outcome of policies that prioritized corporations over workers.

Unlike the raid on John Bolton, the targeting of Omar has elicited zero condemnation from NYT, WSJ, and Washington Post.