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[personal profile] solarbird

Pamela Bondi went before Senate Oversight on Tuesday determined not to testify to Democrats, and to help Republicans deflect and defend the Trump regime’s fascism. That’s obvious; it happens fairly regularly.

But usually, people doing this routine at least pretend to answer the questions. They don’t provide answers, no, of course not. But they pretend and follow forms.

Bondi wasn’t even pretending. Her responses were unrelated, spurious – and as Senator Schiff put it, “pre-canned” – attacks on and insults of Democratic questioners, over and over again. We couldn’t be entirely sure of it at the moment, but Reuters managed to photograph her notes during her “testimony”, and now we absolutely know for sure they were prewritten.

Later, she started launching these prewritten lie clusters during questions, while Democratic senators were speaking. Here’s an example of her interrupting Senator Schiff over and over again with literal unrelated whatabouts and insults.

Eventually, I guess she ran out of pre-installed lie clusters, because she ran out during a response to a question from Senator Whitehouse and froze up. She literally couldn’t seem to talk.

It’s quite the clip. Watch her, she just shuts down. Here’s the moment she realised she didn’t have anything left so couldn’t come up with another lie cluster attack and just sits there, stalled out:

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) posting "has anybody ever been more obviously full of shit than Pam Bondi is at the end of this 20 second clip?" over a video of Pamela Bondi not saying anything with "An error occurred" superimposed over the image below her face.

(I swear to you – I swear to you – I did not add that caption over the video. It was a player issue. But I couldn’t not keep it, now could I?)

But I do think there was a point here, and it wasn’t just not answering questions while giving Republican Senators time to lie and deflect on behalf of the regime. That’s all too normal.

No, I think the intent was to show their utter contempt for the legislature. I think this a stupid version of Caligula’s expression of contempt for the Senate, when he said he was going to appoint his favourite horse as a member.

(He didn’t actually do it, legend aside. The record is reasonably clear on that. He just mocked them with the idea.)

At least Caligula’s version was funny. This, by contrast, is just sad. But sad or not, I do think there was a point, and that point was to display contempt for representative government and to metaphorically blow a horse’s fart in the faces of elected representatives.

And I think that’s something people should understand.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

The Dark Crystal

Oct. 7th, 2025 06:34 pm
senmut: Two seahorse-shaped water splashes facing each other (General: Double Seahorse)
[personal profile] senmut
Have my rambling live watch of The Dark Crystal (1982) below the cut.

this movie is so dear to me )

I quite enjoyed this rewatch. I'd chosen it for background noise, to have a controlled, constant, known audial stimulation while I contended with pain. I honestly didn't mean to get drawn into ACTIVELY watching it, and yet.

Crueltide 2025

Oct. 6th, 2025 10:08 am
for_sorrow: icon is a crop from http://gizus.deviantart.com/ (Default)
[personal profile] for_sorrow posting in [community profile] yuletide

(Thank you everyone who has made these posts in my absence. May you always find something bright and shiny!)

Not every story is pleasant. Not every story has a happy ending, and not all happy endings come without a dark and painful journey. And sometimes, those are the kinds of stories that we really, really want to read.

If you're one of the many people interested in either writing or receiving darkfic or horror, then Crueltide is here to devour your soul for you!


The short version

Read the comments to find people to treat with darkfic.
Tag your yuletide darkfic with 'crueltide'

The long version is beneath the cut 
Read more... )

Belated Podfic Notice

Oct. 5th, 2025 11:47 am
senmut: Autobot symbol (Transformers: Autobots)
[personal profile] senmut
[Podfic] Where He Soars (53 words) by Gilraina
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Cosmos (Transformers)
Additional Tags: Introspection, Drabble, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Voiceteam 2023
Series: Part 16 of Dabble in Drabbles (Voiceteam 2023)
Summary:

Cosmos is not a land-mech.

An audio recording of Where He Soars by Merfilly.

Sunflower Auction - ST:TOS ficlet

Oct. 4th, 2025 09:22 pm
senmut: A painted picture of Bones McCoy (Star Trek: Bones McCoy)
[personal profile] senmut
Thank you, [personal profile] kingstoken!

K-7 Surprise or Here on AdAstra (853 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: James T. Kirk, Spock (Star Trek), Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Joanna McCoy
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Charity Auctions, Fluff
Summary:

A much needed R&R rotation garners a visitor eager to meet the other parts of her daddy's life.



K-7 Surprise

The U.S.S. Enterprise limped into Deep Space Station K-7's orbit, glad that no Klingon ships were in sight. They had a lot of scientific data to upload, needed time in friendly space to effect repairs, and would spend some time revising the data from their battle with the unknown vessels to forward to Starfleet Command.

Right now, though, Captain James T. Kirk intended to see that all of his crew took at least a full day of leisure aboard the station. He had gone over the roster with Bones, scheduling the away parties with an eye to who needed the down time fastest, and who needed specific crewmen to go with them. Spock had added a few tweaks to the rosters on his own, showing deep insight to the needs of the science personnel.

Bones had even nodded, with a wave for Jim to listen, because that bunch was almost as insular and workaholic as Scotty's engineers.

Scotty showed up on the bridge just as the good doctor was counter-signing the rosters, and his face was set in purposeful glares at the CMO, Captain, and First Officer.

"The three of ye, off the ship on the first rotation, aye?" he demanded.

Spock opened his mouth, closed it, arched an eye brow, then nodded. "Logical. If we go first, we will be back in time to allow you your time away, and then true repairs can begin without anything interrupting you as all of us will be back on duty."

"Annotated and amended in the report," Jim said, smiling as his chief engineer proved as wedded to the ship as he was. "Well, gentlemen, shall we?"

"We shall," Bones agreed, grinning at Scotty a moment before the trio made their way to quarters to gather their away bags.





Bones was discussing with Spock about the effectiveness of various types of scheduling for different crew needs. Jim supposed to outsiders it looked like arguing, but he could tell his friends were practicing their own version of relaxation from stress. That meant it was Jim who spotted the woman turning their way, her face lighting up, and he placed that dimpling smile against pictures in Bones' quarters.

"Gentlemen, we have company coming," he said, breaking the give-and-take of conversation so that both looked, and then it was Bones with matching dimples to the young woman.

"Joanna!" Bones cried out with joy, and then the pair were hugging with the intensity of people who only rarely got to see one another.

"When the leader of my project found out your ship was incoming, she insisted I take some time off and come up!"

"Up? You didn't tell me Sherman's Planet was your residency project!" Bones said, while placing a hand at the small of her back to guide her to a table.

"You two come sit with us," Joanna said firmly. "I want to actually talk to the two men Daddy has filled his comms with."

Spock's look was a study in Vulcan-not-being-smug-and-curious, while Jim bet his own let a little surprise show.

"Does he now?" Jim twitted, as Bones reached up to rub the back of his neck.

"Well, I see more of you and our resident pointy-eared hobgoblin than just about anyone other than Christine!"

"Statistically speaking, I find that highly improbable," Spock said, "but I am interested in making your acquaintance, Miss McCoy."

"If you would, call me Joanne; I get Miss McCoy'd all day by the colony children taking my first aid course."

"A worthwhile subject to teach." Spock glanced, briefly, at Bones, and the doctor rolled his eyes heavenward with a knowledge of where this would go. "Likely without causing any injuries to be demonstrated on."

"One time, Joanne. One time, because someone failed to secure a storage bin, not even my doing!" Bones protested, leading to his daughter laughing and smiling. She then looked at Jim, sizing him up.

"How do you manage to put up with Daddy's ways and sayings, sir?"

Jim gave a smile. "Once I realized the gruff and pretense of good-ole country doc hid more expertise than the medical academy, I rolled with it. And it does provide unique counterpoints to my executive officer's logical ways."

"Counter-intuitive arguments, you likely meant to say, Captain," Spock said in his mildest tone.

Joanna propped her chin on her hands, watching the interplay, soaking it up as part of the happy chance of seeing her father again.





Jim glanced over the efficiency reports starting to come in from various departments, now that they were back underway. He was unsurprised to find them top-notch, given how thorough everyone had been once they had had their needed rests.

Even Spock was more… nuanced in his reports without being a stickler for the science of them. And Bones?

Jim smiled to himself. Bones was going to be walking on air for weeks, just for the sheer happiness of seeing for himself that Joanna was thriving.

It promised to make off-shift mingling with both men that mattered to him almost as much as the ship all the better for that rest.

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