Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The willow is too close to the house.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

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

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

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(Bad) Sportsball Open Thread: FIFA Fo Fum

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Of course they did. Let me say it again; FIFA is corrupt.

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— Kenneth Peterson (@krpete.bsky.social) April 16, 2026 at 8:53 PM

Shanley Hunt, at Mary Geddry’s SubStack — “Trump’s Very Expensive Double Bogey”:

… Trump, naturally, has treated the World Cup as a chance to convert an actual global sporting event into one of his preferred genres, which is the American pageant of inflated claims, premium seating, and men in lanyards congratulating one another for monetizing oxygen. He created a White House task force for the tournament and put himself in charge, because in Trump’s mind there is no institution on earth that cannot be improved by making it slightly tackier and much more about him. The problem is that fans are not cooperating.

Ticket prices have inspired backlash, match travel is absurdly expensive, seating complaints keep surfacing, and hospitality packages are hanging around like luxury condos in a soft market. And so, the glowing civic celebration we were promised has started to take on the air of a destination wedding thrown by private equity. Yes, everyone is invited; no, nobody can afford to come.

The tournament is not failing because people hate soccer; it is struggling because too many of the people running it seem to hate the idea of an ordinary person attending soccer. The World Cup is supposed to be the great democratic carnival of the sport; America has somehow managed to recast it as a rolling demonstration of contempt for the middle class.

And because this is America under Trump, the indignities do not stop at price. They continue into the broader atmosphere, which is to say the ambient feeling that entering the country, moving around the country, and being tolerated by the country may all be separate premium tiers. The administration would like credit for helping smooth things over for official participants and select ticket holders, while still maintaining the larger politics of suspicion, restriction, and nationalist theater. It is a very Trump arrangement, he wants the glamour of internationalism without any of the openness. He wants the world to visit, but in an orderly, flattering way, and preferably after proving it has enough money.

So, the World Cup is becoming a perfect Trumpian object: it is ostentatious, over-managed, and hostile to regular people. It keeps advertising itself as history while functioning like an extraction scheme, it’s less a festival than a toll road with mascots…

Trump did not personally set every ticket price or draft every failed golf term sheet. That would almost be too competent. What he did do was champion both projects in the particular Trumpian style, which is to say as monuments to winning before the winning had occurred. He stood beside two glossy machines built on money, status, and bluster and assumed that reality, as always, would eventually be bullied into submission. Instead, reality has done what it occasionally does in the presence of very rich men. It has remained embarrassing…

Exclusive
A formal union complaint has been filed with the National Labor Relations Board against FIFA and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which accuses them of failing to restrict ICE access to SoFi Stadium ahead of the World Cup.
www.nytimes.com/athletic/720…

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— Adam Crafton (@adamcrafton.bsky.social) April 17, 2026 at 7:42 AM

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(Bad) Sportsball Open Thread: FIFA Fo FumPost + Comments (100)

Late Night Diversion Open Thread: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Mother Is *Very* Disappointed…

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www.citationneeded.news/sam-bankman-…

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— Anne Laurie (@annelaurie.bsky.social) March 30, 2026 at 1:39 AM

… That very nasty judge simply refuses to understand why her favorite performing pet beloved son should not be treated like some common felon!!!… Molly White’s Citation Needed, always a good read:

On Monday, Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan issued an order: Sam Bankman-Fried — currently serving a 25-year sentence for the massive fraud he perpetrated at his FTX cryptocurrency exchange — must declare, under penalty of perjury, whether attorneys drafted the supposedly pro se filings submitted under his name.

The order is the latest episode in an increasingly bizarre saga involving Bankman-Fried and his Stanford law professor parents, who are filing — and perhaps also drafting — legal documents on behalf of their 34-year-old son.

The whole mess began in February, when Barbara Fried — professor emerita of legal ethics at Stanford who retired in 2022a — filed on her son’s behalf a motion seeking a new trial before a new judge. This was odd from the start, as Bankman-Fried currently has an appeal under consideration before the Second Circuit, where a panel of judges heard his arguments in November that FTX merely had a liquidity problem, not a solvency problem, and that all his customers were repaid anyway, so no harm no foul. He also argued that he was deprived of a fair trial by Judge Kaplan, who presided over his 2023 trial, and who had prohibited him from discussing his reliance on FTX attorneys’ counsel after he opted not to present a formal advice-of-counsel defense. With an appeal open in which he presents the same arguments with the assistance of high-powered legal counsel, why file a separate motion at all — and why opt to proceed pro se (represent himself) despite having no legal background, rather than use those attorneys to help him draft it?

He probably shouldn’t, and legally, he can’t. A defendant cannot simultaneously be represented by counsel and proceed pro se. Furthermore, if either of his parents, or any other attorney, drafted the motion and then filed it claiming it was from their son acting pro se, they would be misleading the court. The pro se designation exists to give judges discretion to be more lenient with defendants who lack legal training, not as a vehicle for attorneys to file motions in courts where they’re not admitted while avoiding the requirements that would apply if they were openly representing their client.

If an attorney drafted Bankman-Fried’s motion, then it’s not pro se. If Barbara Fried wrote it, she’s practicing law in a court where she’s not admitted. And if Sam Bankman-Fried signed off on a filing claiming he wrote something someone else actually wrote, he’s lying to a federal judge…

Also on March 11, Barbara Fried published a Substack post comparing Judge Kaplan to Irving Kaufman — the judge who sentenced the Rosenbergs to death in the 1950s — and wrote that Kaplan “seems to take pleasure in his cruelty.”…

Sam Bankman-Fried’s campaign
This motion for a new trial is part of a multi-front public relations and legal campaign by Bankman-Fried and his family to secure his freedom, alongside his ongoing Second Circuit appeal and an increasingly overt appeal for a presidential pardon.

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Late Night Diversion Open Thread: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Mother Is *Very* Disappointed…Post + Comments (32)

Open Thread: CPAC (It In, Losers)

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#CPAC Crowd Cheers for Trump #Impeachment TWICE
Conservative crowd work gone wrong #USPolitics
#ReeseWaters

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— Reese Waters (@troubledh2o.bsky.social) March 28, 2026 at 10:12 AM

The Schlapps, of course, are high-ranking professional GOP grifters, and it is satisfying to see them struggling. Per TNR, “CPAC Host Stunned as Crowd Erupts in Cheers for Trump Impeachment”:

Attendees at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference seem to be dazed and confused after a disastrously chaotic month for President Donald Trump. In the last 30 days, he has started a war in the Middle East, deployed federal agents to airports, and refused to end the partial government shutdown…

Though they’re united by red MAGA caps and American flag attire, the crowd at CPAC appears to be uncharacteristically disengaged after Trump’s tumultuous first year back in office. Younger and older members are divided over the war in Iran, affordability is plummeting, and the Epstein files have raised suspicions across MAGA. One young attendee told CNN many of his fellow Trump supporters now “can’t stand the guy.” It’s a starkly different mood from last year’s conference, where many declared Trump’s election was the start of the golden years.

In a separate instance Thursday, the crowd again did not know when or how to cheer. In a conversation with White House border czar Tom Homan, CPAC host Melody Schlapp asked how Trump immigration policies compared to the “Biden years.”

Waiting for a reaction, Schlapp paused and turned her head to the crowd. She was met with silence.

“I’m not hearing a boo when I say Joe Biden, people! Come on! We do audience participation here!”

Idk if you’re keeping up with the right’s big gathering this week, but CPAC is a ghost town and the people that are there are demoralized

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— #1 Nate Blouin for Congress Stan (@purrtah.bsky.social) March 28, 2026 at 11:46 AM

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Open Thread: CPAC (It In, Losers)Post + Comments (56)

Late Night Open Thread: Bari Weiss (& David Ellison) Not Having A Great Month

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One would actually suggest with the debt load paramount is carrying, the current trajectory of CBS is very dangerous for it.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 27, 2026 at 10:12 AM

Noah Berlatsky, at his SubStack — “Bari Weiss Is A Losing Loser Who Is Losing”:

Bari Weiss, the fash-friendly new editor-in-chief of CBS News, has in six months turned a historic and respected news org into a punchline from which viewers are running like rats fleeing a ship that is sinking, on fire, and beset with plague. According to Oliver Darcy at Status, the network is “on track for its lowest-rated first quarter of the 21st century in both total viewers and the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demo.” Darcy also points out that ABC and NBC have had viewership increases in both morning and evening—which means that CBS is bucking positive trends, and/or is bleeding viewers to its competitors…

And yet, whenever more news of her disastrous tenure hits the interwebs, many on the left insist that the disasters were all part of the plan. Billionaire asshole Trump cronies David and Larry Ellison wanted to destroy CBS journalism and align the network with Trumpism, the argument goes. They don’t care if it bleeds viewers and dollars as long as its reporting is kneecapped and it toes the party line.

It’s true that the Ellisons wanted to make CBS into a Fox News clone. But part of the allure of Fox News clone status is cloning Fox’s audience numbers and revenue. Oligarchs like the Ellisons and Jeff Bezos sincerely believe that taking their media properties hard right will be a financial bonanza. When it isn’t, they lose—and the rest of us win, not everything, but real ground….

…[B]illionaires like the Ellisons and their sycophantic boot-lickers like Bari Weiss all sincerely, truly believe that they speak for the real, true core of Americanness. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Ackman, Donald Trump—all these heirs and hedge fund assholes and grotesque corrupt swindlers bloated with avarice and hate—they all think they are the true voice of the common man, and that the branch-campus professors pointing out that racism exists, or the trans middle-schoolers who want to play basketball, or the Palestinian-Americans existing, are the out of touch elite who must be stifled and ridiculed in the name of the volk. The oligarchs see themselves not as disgusting parasites bleeding the public dry, but as bold everydudes whose success demonstrates both their brilliance and their understanding of white male cishet bigoted Joe Average, who has been sitting in front of his television all day every day just waiting for the chance to turn his TV from Fox News to Johnny-come-lately Fox News that’s somewhat more ambivalent about being state TV for Trump and somewhat less ambivalent about being state TV for Netanyahu.

Obviously if you are not paid to stuff your head up a billionaire’s asshole every day, you are probably aware that billionaires are not in fact psychically connected to the volk. Also, it may have occurred to you that the conservative marketplace is incredibly saturated already, and that CBS viewers probably would turn on Fox News if they wanted Fox News…

Weiss believes she is the voice of the people and the people have solidly rejected her and her bullshit. That has to be a foul pill for her to swallow. Less discussed, but perhaps even more humiliating, is her utter failure to turn CBS into a force in the right-wing marketplace.

Weiss’ blogging platform, The Free Press (which CBS acquired) carved out a position as a clearinghouse for supposedly highbrow right-wing screeds, making the intellectual case for DEI, transphobia and hate—a place for Ivy Leaguers and would-be Ivy Leaguers to come together and rigorously apportion footnotes to their genocidal impulses. Weiss clearly hoped that with the oomph of CBS behind her, she could move more forcefully into the right-wing media sphere, influencing the discourse and poaching the audience of quasi-Nazi bloggers, Christofascist podcasters and manosphere YouTubers alike…

Ellison did get some of what he wanted. But he didn’t get the monetary windfall he expected. He almost surely still believes that right-wing news is a goldmine if only he could put the right person in charge. Weiss is clearly not that person—which means that her job is by no means secure. Ellison has to be doing a real gut check, too, about whether Weiss—who has destroyed CBS’ ratings and influence—is the right person to helm his new acquisition of CNN.

So yes, CBS and probably CNN have been badly damaged, oligarchy has been strengthened, journalism and a free press are harmed. But it’s also true that Weiss humiliating failures serve as a helpful tonic for all the mainstream media bozos constantly looking with wistful envy at Fox News and dreaming of a conservative turn that drives up viewer or reader numbers.

The story of CBS and the Washington Post over the last two years is a cautionary tale about right-wing branding. The country does not have some huge untapped well of underserved rabid fascists; Trump’s narrow 2024 victory did not herald a massive cultural shift for all time. Oligarchs and their minions who ignore that truth are going to lose (a lot) of money and (even more) status. And yes, billionaires hate to lose money and status. Not enough to admit they’re wrong, perhaps. But enough to take it out on people like Bari Weiss.

If I understand correctly, David Ellison is doing all this on his Daddy’s dollars. Of course, Oracle can afford to throw away a billion here & there, and Larry has been extremely indulgent of his #failson’s grandious fantasies… but one would suspect that eventually, the old man is gonna decide that it’s time for a little #tough love, yes?

Bari Weiss was given a role outside of her skillset. She’s good at finding issues the enemy coalition is cross-pressured on and relentlessly hammering them from a facially neutral position. But doing that from a Substack is different from doing it at CBS.

— William B. Fuckley (@opinionhaver.bsky.social) March 18, 2026 at 10:06 PM

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Late Night Open Thread: Bari Weiss (& David Ellison) Not Having A Great MonthPost + Comments (41)

Open Thread: South Texas Poujadists Are *Outraged* At the Face-Eating Leopards!

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how we got here

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— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 2:23 PM

The deal was: they demagogue about “illegal aliens,” they militarize the border, they deport people who get reported by their bosses… but they don’t actually go looking for undocumented workers at farms, in kitchens, or on job sites. It was there to discipline labor, not create a shortage of it.

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— Emma the Sewer Socialist (@mayorseidel.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 2:15 PM

The Money Bidniz wing of the GOP is starting to feud with its Crazed Racist faction:

… Construction executives have held multiple meetings over the last month with the White House and Congress to discuss how immigration busts on job sites and in communities are scaring away employees, making it more expensive to build homes in a market desperate for new supply. Beyond the affordability issue, the executives made an electability argument, raising concerns to GOP leaders that support among Hispanic voters is eroding, particularly in regions that swung to Trump in 2024.

Hill Republicans have held separate meetings with White House officials to share their own electoral concerns…

The construction industry is one of the latest and clearest examples of how the president’s mass deportation agenda continues to clash with his economic goals of bringing down prices and political aims of keeping control of Congress. Even the president’s allies fear disruptions to labor-heavy industries will undermine the gains with Latino voters Republicans have made in recent years, in large part because of Trump’s economic agenda.

These concerns were the central focus of a White House meeting this week between chief of staff Susie Wiles, Speaker Mike Johnson, and a group of Republican lawmakers, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss it. The group talked about growing concerns that Hispanic voters are abandoning the Republican Party in droves, as well as the policies driving these losses — immigration and affordability concerns…

The White House meeting with lawmakers followed others with builders and trade groups this month. A number of industry representatives met at the White House in early February, and the South Texas Builders Association traveled to Washington last week for meetings with lawmakers, including Reps. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and an ICE official. All three sit on the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, with Amodei and Cuellar the top Republican and Democrat on the panel.

“They started off with, ‘hey, we were all Trump supporters, and we thought he was going to secure the border and then kick out criminals, we just never thought that they were going to be coming after our folks, our workers, on that,’” Cuellar said, recounting the message the builders shared the first time he met with them. “They’re builders, contractors, lumber companies, cement companies, in the finance part of it. That type of ripple effect has hurt their economy. Not only individuals, but their economy.”

Cuellar also said that he has asked acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to set up a business liaison to work with the builders, an idea he said the director was receptive to but stalled amid immigration-related clashes in Minnesota…

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Open Thread: South Texas <em>Poujadists</em> Are *Outraged* At the Face-Eating Leopards!Post + Comments (121)

Open Thread: Trump Tanks the Economy, *And* His Party

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Dark week for economic headlines.
@bloomberg.com @wsj.com @nytimes.com @financialtimes.com

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 7:00 PM

Enten: "Failure, failure, failure going into the midterm elections, because Donald Trump was elected to fix the economy, and people still believe lowering prices should be the top priority, and at this point 55% of people say the economy is getting worse."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 6, 2026 at 9:35 AM

Fox Business: A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows 72% of Americans feel the economy is in poor or only fair condition.

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— The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) February 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM

Bitcoin's price continues its decline, dropping another 11% to $67,000. It has lost nearly half its value since hitting a record high in October.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) February 6, 2026 at 2:00 AM

The post-industrial period of a developed economy is characterized by three phases.
Until the 2010s, we were in a service economy. Now we are in a scam economy. And we are about to find out what phase comes next.

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— Pavel (@spavel.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 1:45 PM

Fox: This a new poll shows 59% of voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. That's his worst rating on the economy since he took office. I'm laughing because that's a terrible number.

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— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 11:36 AM

TRUMP: “I’m starting to get great polls on the economy…”
NBC: “The polls on the economy are not great.”
TRUMP: “They SHOULD be great.”🙃

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 11:15 PM

We SHOULD still have Biden’s booming economy.

— 🇺🇸𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕪 ℝ𝕖𝕗𝕦𝕘𝕖𝕖🇺🇸 𝚍𝚋𝚊 𝙱𝚊𝚍 𝙱𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚢 (@indyrefugee.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 11:32 PM

The Trump economy. www.semafor.com/article/02/0…

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— Jill Lawrence (@jilldlawrence.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 8:49 AM

Fox Business, Semafor, Axios — not exactly Dem-friendly outlets!

(AXIOS) – Top Republicans are increasingly worried about private polling that paints a dire picture of the midterms — and it's not just the House they're afraid of losing, it's also the Senate.
@axios.com
www.axios.com/2026/02/06/g…

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 7:10 AM

… Why it matters: President Trump has warned Republicans that losing their slim House majority could lead to a third impeachment. But a Democratic takeover of the Senate would be a political earthquake — and neuter his last two years in office.

Zoom in: For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that losing the Senate — where Republicans have a 53-47 majority — is a distinct possibility, and that they’ll have to fight harder than expected to keep control.

– Operatives say they’ve reviewed polling that shows the GOP facing competitive Senate races not just in traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, Maine and North Carolina, but also in conservative states like Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

– Top GOP strategists acknowledge that immigration and the economy — the two issues that drove Trump’s win in 2024 — are now liabilities.

– “A year ago, I would have told you we were almost guaranteed to win the Senate,” one GOP operative who’s reviewed internal polling told Axios. “Today, I would have to tell you it’s far less certain.”…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is taking a lot of darts from his own party these days. But Republicans privately concede he’s done a good job of recruiting Senate candidates in conservative states once seen as out of reach for Democrats…

Open Thread: Trump Tanks the Economy, *And* His PartyPost + Comments (127)

Schadenfreude Open Thread: GOP / Trumpist Fire Drill

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They kind of need attorneys for this

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 12:53 PM

I think it's also worth noting that Trump is actually legit aware of what's going on in specials and that the GOP is getting creamed and is distinctly worried about spending his last two years in office getting impeached non stop

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 1:50 PM

Speaking of which…

goodnight, sweet prince

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— Quinta Jurecic (@qjurecic.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 2:23 PM

🤔This combined with the piece on "they're meeting every day to figure out how to go after people" tells me that they are realizing that the group of idiots they've put in charge, are in fact, idiots, and they're trying to figure out how to move forward.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 2:35 PM

One would also note that these stories come literally two days after Mizelle and Miller were openly soliciting AUSA applications on twitter lmao

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 2:38 PM

Honestly the entire DOJ apparatus of crank lawyers falling apart is a good thing

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 2:29 PM

imo its generally unclear and seems fairly unlikely that "competent trump loyalists" is a thing that actually exists.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 3:25 PM

Below the fold, some sercon (serious + constructive) arguments, from people with experience in these areas:

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Schadenfreude Open Thread: GOP / Trumpist Fire DrillPost + Comments (123)