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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

He really is that stupid.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

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You are here: Home / Archives for Politics / Republicans in Disarray!

Republicans in Disarray!

Late Night Open Thread: Buyer’s Remorse

by Anne Laurie|  July 13, 202510:48 pm| 108 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Trumpery

america as a country may now simply be too stupid for democracy https://t.co/MNPCTOeKjF

— Fordow Focused (@canderaid) July 12, 2025


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as this gets worse you're going to see endless efforts at reputational retcon by people who knew EXACTLY what they signed up for
and by people who were too ignorant or dis/misinformed to understand what they were signing up for, but lack the humility to own that

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— Karl Bode (@karlbode.com) July 11, 2025 at 11:09 AM

Of course the PodBros are lying — they encouraged their listeners to vote for Trump because another Trump administration would be entertaining, and besides, at least he wasn’t a Black female Democrat. But the Epstein files botchery is giving them an excuse to pretend they were somehow mislead by yet another dishonest pol. Per the Daily Beast:

Podcaster Andrew Schulz gave Donald Trump street cred in the world of chronically online young men, but he’s been having second thoughts.

On a Thursday episode of his Flagrant podcast, the comedian torched the president for “doing the exact opposite” of his campaign promises.

“There’ll be people that they’ll DM me like, ‘You see what your boy’s doing? You voted for this.’ I’m like, ‘I voted for none of this,’” he said. “He’s doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for. I want him to stop the wars—he’s funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the budget—he’s increasing it.”

Schulz voted for Trump last year even after laughing in his face during a 90-minute podcast that has racked up nearly 10 million views. Schulz erupted in a fit of giggles after the then-Republican candidate called himself “basically a truthful person.”…

The podcaster, who commands an audience composed chiefly of young men, predicted that Trump would win by a landslide after their interview. He was gleeful after a listener declared that “Flagrant is gonna get Trump elected.”

But the recent controversies that have roiled the administration, from its aggressive deportation blitz to the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s megabill, have forced Schulz to rethink his support.

“I already expect politicians to not do most of the s-–t they say,” he said. “I don’t want to be too cynical, but now I’m getting to the point where it’s like, ‘Can they do anything?’”…

Actions have consequences? What hellworld is this?

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I'm all for people admitting error and apologizing for their poor choices, but much like journalists who kissed Elon Musk's ass for 15 years that's not what you're going to get.
A lot of these guys are going to claim Trump suddenly and mysteriously changed, dodging any personal responsibility

— Karl Bode (@karlbode.com) July 11, 2025 at 11:11 AM

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maga: “I am not to blame, this seemed vague!”

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— This Machine Kills Malarkey (@lavendesic.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 2:48 PM

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So hard to predict that Trump would be a bad president based on nothing more than his entire life and also that time he was already president for four years and it went horribly and ended in a recession and a pandemic where a million Americans died.

— Benjamin Johns (@baj.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 11:26 AM

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These manosphere douche saddles are a bunch of poorly educated, failed stand-ups who stand for nothing and fell ass backwards into a way to make a buck. You have to be a world class dipshit to let them inform your politics in the first place.

— Nicky Six Names (he/him) (@sicksnames.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 11:34 AM

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But it does (Murphy the Trickster God willing) seem that a lot of non-MAGA cultists are using Trump’s sweaty disavowals as an excuse to sidle towards the exits… and the True Believers are no longer buying ‘Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?’.

Dry-eyed summary from the Atlantic — “Conspiracy Theorists Are Turning on the President” [gift link].

This is, after all, deeply suspicious behavior!…

a deranged Trump claims Obama and Hillary wrote the Epstein files and urges people to not care about them 🥴

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) July 12, 2025 at 5:26 PM

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An unusual sight: President Trump is getting ratio’d on Truth Social for asking his followers to move on from the Epstein files. Some say he’s “gaslighting,” others say it will cost him supporters or even “kill MAGA.” A sampling of some replies getting heavy engagement.

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— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 10:05 PM

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Sad update: it appears that the crazy people I've spent years training to be rabid animals have, for reasons too complicated to explain right now, completely turned against me

— Matt Jordan (@itsmattjordan.com) July 12, 2025 at 10:33 PM

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Just checked the bad place and can confirm they’re losing their fucking minds

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— Laura Bassett (@lebassett.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 7:06 PM

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Trump (sobbing): I never thought leopards would eat MY face.

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— Aditya Sood (@adityasood.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 7:54 PM


 
Will this stay ‘news’ by tomorrow? Who knows — but any wounds we can help inflict are useful…

one read I think is right: an essential element of MAGA backlash over Epstein stuff is that Trump is fucking with MAGA grifter money

— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) July 13, 2025 at 10:27 AM


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btw these people are psychotic and have firearms

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— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) July 12, 2025 at 7:49 PM

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The combination of anecdotal evidence I've seen is a bunch of journalists saying "Huh, seeing people talk about this who never talk about politics."

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 13, 2025 at 8:25 PM

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as cliche as it sounds, my wife and i were out for breakfast yesterday and heard a boomer couple in the booth behind us talking about Trump/Epstein
ofc we live in a D+30 county but it was still a Midwestern Diner so hoping the NYT drop by for a profile at some point

— Bucky Workclothes (@buckybandido.bsky.social) July 13, 2025 at 8:29 PM

Late Night Open Thread: Buyer’s RemorsePost + Comments (108)

Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have Dug

by Anne Laurie|  July 12, 20255:24 am| 134 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Trump Crime Cartel, Lock Him Up...Lock Them All Up

lol

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM

Rolling Stone is on it — “The DOJ’s Epstein Memo Is Tearing the Trump Administration Apart”;

… The Department of Justice announced in a memo on Sunday that Jeffrey Epstein had indeed killed himself, that his potentially explosive “client list” doesn’t exist, and that the administration is effectively closing its case on the convicted sex offender, whose 2019 death in prison has been a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists — especially those who supported Trump, never mind the president’s own connections to Epstein.

Rolling Stone reported that the Trump administration was bracing for a MAGA revolt over its nothing to see here-style memo. MAGA revolted as expected, with scores of prominent right-wing influencers expressing outrage over the memo. Many are calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired, and some even seem to be souring on the president. “Trump has become the Deep State. What is more Deep State than covering up for pedophiles?” someone asked former Trump adviser Steve Bannon at a MAGA event on Friday.

It isn’t just outside onlookers and online MAGA diehards who are miffed. Rolling Stone can confirm that FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have also been furious since the memo’s release, and more broadly over Bondi’s handling of the Epstein investigation, including the public rollout of federal conclusions.

Laura Loomer — a far-right conspiracy theorist who is close with Trump and was also apoplectic over the memo — posted to X on Friday that Patel and Bongino are “LIVID” at Bondi, and that Bongino even took the day off from work on Friday. Axios corroborated soon after that Bongino ditched work on Friday after clashing with Bondi over these matters, with CNN adding that Bongino has talked to people about potentially resigning over the memo…

Trump promised before the election that his administration would release the so-called Epstein Files, which MAGA conspiracy theories long hoped would reveal a host of powerful figures who were in league with Epstein. After Bondi said Epstein’s client list was on her desk in February, she arranged a stunt in which she handed out folders consisting of “Phase 1” of the Epstein Files to prominent right-wing influencers.

Many of these influencers now feel betrayed by the DOJ’s memo, which noted that after an “exhaustive” investigation, the administration found “no incriminating ‘client list,’” nor any “credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” The DOJ also released a video of Epstein’s cell the night he died. The video skips a minute before midnight, however, which led to more speculation about a potential cover-up…

Trump, once a friend of Epstein’s, lashed out at a reporter who asked Bondi about the missing minute during a Cabinet meeting earlier this week, questioning why anyone was still bringing up Epstein, and calling it a “desecration.” Bondi attributed the missing minute in the footage to an old system that cuts out a minute when the video is reset every night, which hardly tamped down the uproar over the memo and video.

Elon Musk, a former Trump ally and megadonor who headed his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has added fuel to the fire as his relationship with the president has deteriorated. He wrote last month that the “real reason” the Epstein Files had not been made public is because Trump “is in” them. Musk then wondered after the memo’s release on Sunday, “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”

Unsympathetic observers have snarked that Bongino is finding his ‘FBI deputy director’ job harder and less personally rewarding than his old gig as a prominent right-wing podcaster, especially since Attorney General Pam Bondi has been suspiciously unsympathetic recently to Bongino’s most loyal QAnon-curious audience.

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And now Jamie Raskin is stirring the pot…

Top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee (which oversees DOJ) says "I'm going to be asking Chairman Jordan to call for a hearing where we subpoena the Attorney General and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel to come in and tell us everything that we know" about the Jeffrey Epstein files

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— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 9:49 PM

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yeah this feels different. They're getting hammered by their own base and its ripping the leadership of the administration apart.
Trump being totally checked out probably means this just rages for awhile, and who knows what happens with that being the case.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 3:15 PM

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@schnorkles.bsky.social yesyesyesyesyes he's not gonna go quietly fuck yeah fuck yeah fuck yeah fuck yeah

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— SpiderHyphenMan (@spiderhyphenman.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 6:45 PM

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Laura Loomer is currently referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi as “Scam Blondie”

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 4:09 PM

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White House backs Bondi

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— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 5:55 PM

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If you think Trump is going side with Bongino to fire Pamela Jo Bondi, who got her job by protecting Trump from a Florida investigation of Trump University's consumer fraud (after a $25,000 bribe), for protecting him again by withholding the Epstein list with his name on it, bless your little heart.

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 9:24 PM

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crank schism. Crank schism! CRANK SCHISM!

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— The Wrong Way Kid (@the-wrong-way-kid.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 5:52 PM

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after bellowing about epstein for years they’ve all backed themselves into a corner and i love that for them

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— shauna (@goldengateblond.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 5:38 PM

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Mob boss Donald Trump resorts to the crime of extortion in hopes of keeping some of his other crimes hidden from the public. This is evidence known as #ConsciousnessOfGuilt in criminal cases.

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— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 7:21 PM

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Like this was always how this ship of incompetence was going to go. The glue kind of keeps everything together while there aren't active catastrophic situations, but the second that happens, you have a federal government completely unable to respond because of Elon and Vought.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 5:28 PM

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Bondi, Patel, Bongino…I wonder which one Putin will fire.

— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 6:10 PM

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Watching different MAGA factions rip each other apart over Epstein because the truth is completely incidental to their various agendas is quite a sight to behold.

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 7:41 PM

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Amidst all the tragedy, stupidity, and horror of the Trump admin, it is good to finally have something incredibly stupid to lol about.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM

Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have DugPost + Comments (134)

Open Thread: ‘Look, Everyone Dies’

by Anne Laurie|  July 11, 20259:42 am| 54 Comments

This post is in: Local Races, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!

As I've written, Democrats face long odds in all of Iowa's statewide races in 2026, because of the structure of Iowa's electorate & the longstanding GOP turnout advantage in midterms.
www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/06/15/r…
But an open seat would be less of a long shot.

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— Laura Belin (@laurarbelin.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 4:54 PM

Per Politico, “Joni Ernst is the next GOP senator on retirement watch”:

… The two-term Iowa senator hasn’t officially announced her plans for 2026, and she’s gone through some of the motions of launching another campaign, including recently hiring someone to manage it and announcing her annual fall fundraiser.

But three people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions said there is rising concern among fellow Senate Republicans that Ernst will retire rather than run for reelection, giving Republicans another seat to defend next fall.

Many will be watching closely for clues next week when Ernst files new campaign fundraising totals. She raised just over $1 million in the first quarter of 2025, a solid but not overwhelming number for an in-cycle senator.

Asked about the senator’s 2026 plans, Ernst spokesperson Palmer Brigham declined to say definitively that she would run again: “Senator Ernst is focused on her work delivering for Iowans in the Senate to make Washington ‘squeal,’ making President Trump’s historic tax cuts permanent through the One Big Beautiful Bill, and advancing a strong NDAA.”

Ernst has told people as recently as the past month that she is still considering whether she wants to run again, according to a fourth person granted anonymity to discuss the matter…

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Multiple Democrats are already in the race, including — Iowa state Sen. Zach Wahls and state Rep. J.D. Scholten. If Ernst were to decide not to run, Republicans believe they already have at least one compelling candidate waiting in the wings. Two of the people granted anonymity said Rep. Ashley Hinson is highly likely to enter the race if Ernst bows out.

Hinson, a former TV news anchor, is the most formidable fundraiser in the Iowa House delegation. The $2.2 million she reported in her campaign coffers earlier this year was only about $800,000 behind what Ernst had available to spend. Hinson and multiple aides did not respond to requests for comment…

Ernst said last year that she intended to run for reelection, but she’s had recent setbacks. She lost her bid to be the No. 3 GOP leader late last year to Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton. And her early concerns about Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, put Ernst under fierce scrutiny from MAGA allies — some of whom accused her of trying to angle to claim the top Pentagon job herself.…

Banging one’s head against the GOP glass ceiling is apparently discouraging, even for someone in a ‘secure’ seat.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) admitted to reporters that he is scrambling to prevent Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) from retiring from her seat, Politico reported on Thursday.

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— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) July 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM

Open Thread:<em> ‘Look, Everyone Dies’</em>Post + Comments (54)

C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: Repubs Humping the OBBBA ‘Yuge Ugly Horrible Budget’

by Anne Laurie|  June 28, 20252:57 pm| 70 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republicans in Disarray!

Quickly on the big bill:
– they released updated (not final) text overnight
– it got worse in many places (energy tax credits specifically) and the nods to moderates are token at best
– Paul, Johnson, and Tillis are confirmed no to move forward today
– Thune can't lose another vote

— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 11:23 AM

Nothing like spending a summer weekend watching the world’s worst semi-human beings debate the parameters of a bill that seems to have been named after the sprawling monster that comes for greedy children in a third-rate children’s book…

Thune is not very good at this. There's no way McConnell would have let this thing come out without 50 +1.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 11:56 AM


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I truly think it’s reprehensible that elected Republicans are calling the largest Medicaid cuts in history by far “protecting Medicaid.”
This bill would kick more than ten million people off Medicaid. It isn’t strengthening the program – it’s denying access for millions.

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— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 9:47 AM

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Right now, no one knows:
-how large the Medicaid cuts are
-how many people will lose health insurance
-how large the tax cuts are
-who wins/loses by how much
-how much it adds to the deficit
Rs are going at lightning speed BECAUSE they want to pass the “big beautiful bill” before anyone knows

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 1:10 PM

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TPM’s live feed: “Senate GOP Keeps Medicaid Cuts, Delays Implementation in Revised ‘Big Beautiful’ Bill”:

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The wildly unpopular “Big Beautiful” reconciliation package has encountered possibly existential challenges, though Senate Republicans still hope to bring it to the floor this weekend.

Senate Republicans rewrote key provisions of it after Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected many of Republicans’ proposed Medicaid cuts, forcing their hand. Senate Budget Committee released the updated legislative text, with changes to the Medicaid and clean energy portions, shortly before midnight on Friday. The new text keeps the controversial cut to the provider tax, pushing back the implementation up to 2028.

It is unclear if the changes will get Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to a favorable whip count this weekend to pass Trump’s megabill.

Several senators are still worried about the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts, specifically the proposal that would curtail provider taxes. Others continue to push back against the bill for not going far enough, claiming it does not cut nearly enough in spending…

I mean, what is funny about all this if we take a step back is how large a repudiation of everything going on is of Elon and what he was trying to accomplish.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 1:42 PM

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Elon, Johnson, Trump, et. al: "THIS IS WHEN WE'RE GOING TO GET THE HOUSE IN ORDER. REDUCE THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, DRAMATICALLY CUT SPENDING."
~*fast forward 5 months*~: Listen if you squint at the numbers right it prints money and we're not spending 4 trillion, bing bong

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 1:44 PM

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Fakest guy on the planet.

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— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 1:56 PM

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Mike Johnson would hate for the public to know anything.
Republicans rely on clueless constituents.

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— Being Liberal ®🗽🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇽🇪🇺🇺🇳🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@beingliberal.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 8:20 PM

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🚨🚨BREAKING: Susan Collins is concerned.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 3:20 PM

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No one ever loss money voting on Susan Collins to wimp out. What are the odds?

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— David Corn (@davidcorn.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 1:45 PM

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I will admit that it's kind of funny watching the GOP insist this bill is going to save their electoral prospects in the midterms when like 20% of the country actually likes it and it's even not in great shape with their own party.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 12:33 PM

C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: Repubs Humping the OBBBA ‘Yuge Ugly Horrible Budget’Post + Comments (70)

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Repub Influencers in Disarray

by Anne Laurie|  June 5, 20256:20 pm| 100 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!

For some reason, BlueSky has — temporarily, I hope — disabled its drop-down embed function. This is annoying, not only because it makes my posts less vivid, but because I stockpile those snippets for future use.

Anybody got a work=around for a tech illiterate like me?
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Meanwhile, we can but hope this is a harbinger. Will Sommer, at the Bulwark — MAGA World Starts Turning on Trump’s Star Vote Getter:

EVERY RIGHT-WING INFLUENCER needs a shtick. Scott Presler’s is that he registers tons and tons of new Republican voters. Whenever there’s a crucial election coming up, there’s a good chance Presler will be in the area, registering scads of new voters for the GOP—and posting about it. A lot.

Often, Presler advertises how he targets unique demographic groups, like truck drivers or the Amish. This has made him into a heroic figure on the right and earned him more than 2 million followers on X. Every time the RNC chair seat is open, Presler’s fanbase demands that he be appointed to run the party. The president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump nearly did hire Presler to work for the RNC last year, until the resurfacing of an unsavory incident from Presler’s past in which he had sex in a Republican office, then posted the pictures on Craigslist. Presler is also gay, which made the incident a bit harder to land in GOP circles.

That colorful backstory hasn’t dimmed Presler’s star much, though. Last year, Elon Musk gave $1 million to Presler’s voter-registration PAC. Presler criss-crossed Wisconsin ahead of the state’s much-watched Supreme Court election in April, vowing that “the cavalry is on the way.”

But the cavalry failed to prevent a 10-point Republican defeat in that race. And since April, Presler has faced a growing chorus of Republican critics who say he is overstating the value of his voter-registration work, particularly in the battleground state of Pennsylvania…

Presler’s most prominent critic on the right has been Brandon Straka, a former friend of his who made his own name on the right as the head of the “WalkAway” movement, which encourages traditionally Democratic groups like LGBTQ people and racial minorities to “walk away” and become Republicans.

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Presler and Straka have a lot in common. They’re both gay, they both have hairstyles that are unusually dramatic for operatives of the staid GOP, and they both claim to have brought new demographics into the Republican party…

They were also both in Washington on January 6th. But while Presler spent the day hugging his fans on the streets of D.C., according to his social media posts, Straka egged on the mob at the Capitol and was sentenced to three years of probation for it.1

Now the recipient of a presidential pardon, Straka has become an outspoken critic of Presler, claiming that he inflates his importance in a way that weakens Republican get-out-the-vote efforts. Straka calls it the “Scott Presler Early Vote Action delusion.”…

THE CLASH BETWEEN PRESLER AND HIS CRITICS is bigger than personalities. It’s about the fevered world of right-wing influencers seeking to position themselves as key to the party’s future—and whether anyone beyond Trump can take credit for GOP victories.

The 2024 election had seemed to quiet these debates. But they’ve revved back up with remarkable speed after Musk’s failed attempt to influence the Wisconsin Supreme Court race by flooding money into it. It raised the question of how valuable high-profile voter registration efforts actually are—or, more importantly, whether it’s election tactics or just Trump himself being on the ballot that is key for the GOP’s success…

Of course, the question of whether Don TACO’s unique apathetic-voter appeal has an ongoing legacy is not new. But I think this relatively niche bottom-feeder brouhaha might be an indicator that Elon Musk’s current public tantrums might be a leading indicator. To which I can only pray: As below, so above!

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Repub Influencers in DisarrayPost + Comments (100)

Open Thread: It’s Both Entertaining *and* Effective!

by Anne Laurie|  June 5, 202511:03 am| 49 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Response to Trump 2.0, Dems Fighting Back, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!

Why, asks our Very Serious Media, must we Dems be so meeeean to poor Don TACO?

To piggyback on this slightly, this is why "TACO" is such a brilliant piece of political speech. You can say it anywhere, people can say it on television or in public without swearing or w/e, and it perfectly encapsulates the fact that Trump is a whiny baby in a way that will infuriate him.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 4, 2025 at 10:22 AM

I know this is a hard concept to grasp for most of the brainwormed political posters on this site, but one of the ways that Rs were able to pull down Bidens favorables was millions of tiny cuts in the form of mockery, derision, & shitposting online over the years. Volume mattered more than quality.

“Why mock Trump and point out that he sucks at doing the things that he says he’ll do?”

Bc Trumps *entire fucking political project* depends on projecting strength and inevitability. Mockery works to undercut that and the more of it that happens in places where ppl consume info online, the better.

We don't even have to guess on this! A reporter asked about it and he nearly lost his shit!

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 4, 2025 at 10:22 AM


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Another day on bluesky

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— tmbhmltn.bsky.social (@tmbhmltn.bsky.social) June 4, 2025 at 11:18 AM

Open Thread: It’s Both Entertaining *and* Effective!Post + Comments (49)

Late Night Open Thread: Vulgar Schadenfreude

by Anne Laurie|  June 3, 20253:11 am| 102 Comments

This post is in: Republicans in Disarray!, Elon Musk, social media

If you're feeling bad about your life choices, remember that there's a woman in this world who not only married Stephen Miller, but she left him for Elon Musk.

— soonergrunt (@soonergrunt.bsky.social) June 1, 2025 at 12:01 AM


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i swear to god, if naziferatu’s wife is leaving him to go be a sister womb donor in the chief weeb for boers technocommune, i may need to find a church to go repent in

[image or embed]

— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) May 28, 2025 at 9:02 PM

As a descriptor, Naziferatu is *golden*.

Major media speculation about a threesome seem to have appeared first in Wired, back in February: Elon Musk’s Takeover Is Being Aided by a Trumpworld Power Couple – Stephen and Katie Miller—he’s “the prime minister,” sources say; she’s DOGE’s comms guru—liaise between the White House and Elon Musk, and are centrally involved as he tears the government apart.

If you find the idea distasteful, do not go brlow the fold…

show full post on front page

so Musk out and he’s taking Stephen Miller’s wife with him? do I have that right

— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 8:52 PM

From a widely shared BlueSky thread:

All of this would be funny in and of itself, but the (published!) DC rumor mill also has Stephen and Katie Miller in a torrid polycule situation together, so now it very much looks like Stephen tried to use his wife to honeypot Musk into compliance, but managed to lose his wife to Musk instead…

Obviously this is all speculation rooted in circumstantial fact and gossip. But what gloriously damnlng circumstantial fact and gossip it is

Miller's marriage undergoing a rapid unscheduled disassembly, like so many things in which Musk is involved.

— (CMDR) Alan Crowe (@alancrowe.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 1:35 PM


===

I forgot that Katie Miller, who wed Stephen five years ago, was Mike Pence's press secretary at the time. So she's not exactly a stranger to betrayals and infighting in the inner circles of the MAGA movement.

— Brainspore (@brainspore.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 1:13 AM


===

I am going to laugh so hard if this sparks an actual rift between the government and Musk, or Trump fires Miller for getting in the way of what the money man wants. Either way it counts as a win.

— Robert Hill (@vonotar.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 11:32 PM


===

this is a black eye delivered by someone who can’t throw a punch and Stephen Miller’s wife just left him for Elon Musk

also Stephen Miller is left handed

probably unrelated pic.twitter.com/HCKfsYABML

— Kristi Yamaguccimane (@TheWapplehouse) May 30, 2025


===

All of this talk about Elon Musk and Stephen and Katie Miller is making me throuple 🤮 in my mouth

— Jay Jaffe (@jayjaffe.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 2:40 PM


===

She is 100% sleeping with Musk

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— Rude Law Dog (@esghound.com) May 29, 2025 at 1:25 PM


===

Whatever's going on with Stephen Miller, his wife Katie Miller, and Elon Musk is between the three of them, Musk's army of baby mommas, their personal assistants, Trump admin staffers, various fertility professionals, high value donors, and the D.C. press corps.
It's really none of my business.

— Charlotte Clymer (@charlotteclymer.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 12:55 AM


===

When the whistle blows, and the work day's done, that's when Elon knows: it's Miller time.

[image or embed]

— Greg Olear (@gregolear.bsky.social) May 30, 2025 at 10:00 PM

Late Night Open Thread: Vulgar SchadenfreudePost + Comments (102)

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