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Elizabeth MacDonough doesn’t give fiery speeches on the Senate floor. She doesn’t pound podiums, tweet clapbacks, or beg for airtime on cable news. Most people couldn’t pick her out of a photo lineup. But this week, she did more to derail Donald Trump’s legislative fever dream than any Democrat in Congress. With nothing but a binder, a brain, and a spine forged from 230 years of procedural precedent, she calmly gutted the “Big, Beautiful Bill” — and sent the Republican Party into a frothing, incandescent rage.

Here’s the part that should terrify the GOP: she’s not even elected. She’s the Senate Parliamentarian, the nonpartisan referee responsible for interpreting the arcane rulebook that governs the world’s most dysfunctional deliberative body. She doesn’t write laws. She doesn’t vote. She doesn’t grandstand. Her job is simple: enforce the rules, no matter who’s in charge. And when Republicans tried to use reconciliation — a fast-track process meant for tweaking budgets — to shove through a far-right wishlist of land seizures, healthcare rollbacks, and anti-trans cruelty, she read the fine print and dropped the hammer.

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” was supposed to be Trump’s magnum opus: a tax-slashing, Medicaid-burning, land-devouring beast of a bill that would reshape America in his image. It included everything from selling off millions of acres of federal public land to states and private developers, to gutting Medicaid for low-income families, immigrants, and trans people, to defunding Planned Parenthood and hacking away at environmental protections like they were weeds in a billionaire’s backyard. It was grotesque. It was rushed. And it was entirely dependent on sliding past Senate rules without a fight.

Elizabeth MacDonough was the fight. She reviewed the bill’s contents and ruled — piece by piece — that major provisions violated the Byrd Rule, which bars unrelated ideological junk from hitching a ride on budget bills. The land sell-off? Not budgetary. Out. The Medicaid provider tax cap? Out. The bans on gender-affirming care, immigrant coverage, and ACA subsidies? Out. The GOP was left holding a gutted husk, their legislative trophy reduced to a few tax cuts and a pile of redacted dreams.

This wasn’t sabotage. This was MacDonough doing her job — the job she’s held since 2012, appointed under a Democratic majority, and respected by both parties until it became inconvenient. She is the Senate’s quiet guardian of process, a civil servant who doesn’t answer to polls, Super PACs, or social media mobs. Her loyalty is to the rules — even as the people around her treat those rules like a hotel minibar. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t yield. She simply reads the law and applies it, with the precision of a scalpel and the force of a freight train.

And oh, how the GOP hates her for it.

Mike Lee, who tried to shove his public lands fire sale into the bill like it was a foreclosure listing, is already scrambling to rewrite the language and sneak it back in. Trump, fuming from whatever taxpayer-funded golf course he’s currently defiling, is screaming about “deep state rule tyrants.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune is getting asked uncomfortable questions about whether it’s time to “review” the Parliamentarian’s role — a polite way of saying, “Can we fire her for being smarter than us?”

Because that’s the rub. They didn’t lose because the Democrats outmaneuvered them. They didn’t lose because of public pressure or media backlash. They lost because a woman they barely understand said, quite plainly, “You can’t do that.” And when they asked why, she handed them the rulebook. And when they tried to argue, she pointed to precedent. And when they blustered, she didn’t even blink.

Elizabeth MacDonough has no political agenda. That’s what makes her so dangerous to people who do. She exists outside their theater. She answers to no party. And yet, she is currently one of the most powerful people in Washington — not because she makes the laws, but because she refuses to let anyone break them.

So no, she didn’t kill the Big, Beautiful Bill. The GOP killed it themselves — by trying to use budget procedure as a battering ram for authoritarian fantasy. MacDonough simply told the truth. And in 2025, that might be the most radical thing anyone in government can do.

Let the Republicans rant. Let them plot her removal. Let them rewrite their monstrosities and try again. But remember this: when the bulldozers were revving, when the Medicaid cuts were inked, and when Trump’s wrecking ball of a bill was barreling toward the American people — it wasn’t a senator who stopped it. It wasn’t a protest. It was a woman with a binder and a backbone.

We see you, Elizabeth. And we thank you.

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Yes yes the Chicago Vortex, this happens whenever the djinn in the local pagan Facebook group forgets to close the portal

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One of the funniest things about Mormonism is that I’m sure Joseph Smith never believed any of the bullshit he said. There are some religions and cults where you have faith the original prophet actually thought they were talking to angels or believed the set of principles they laid out for their followers were for the greater good. Joseph Smith was a dumbass but like PT Barnum he realized a sucker was born every day and he was one step above the average 1830s sucker. He went from making people pay him to look at a rock in a top hat and ‘locate buried treasure’ to receiving lost bits of scripture, through the rock and top hat method. His wife caught him cheating and he said an angel visited him and told him men should be allowed multiple wives and not obeying that would send her to hell. I’m fairly convinced that dude was an atheist. He was on that hustler grindset. Brigham Young might have actually believed some of the shit he said but I don’t think Joseph Smith genuinely had faith in Mormonism or gave a fuck about humanity in the slightest.

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learning how to drive in america is like a fucking saw trap.

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where’s that meme about not arguing with jews because they get sexual pleasure from it when you need it

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Welcome

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ppl in the age of cell phones: fucking up their necks

ppl in the age of books: fucking up their necks

ppl in the age of textile art: fucking up their necks

ppl in the age of picking lice: fucking up their necks

ppl in the age of cooking: fucking up their necks

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googling images of peter capaldi is crazy every third image is like okay please welcome miss pussy pussy cunt cunt glasgow 1993

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words of affirmation for those seeking a werewolf girlfriend

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Ace hardware store guy: "Anything I can help you find?"

Me: "I need caulk"

Ace hardware store guy: "Sorry, I'm not really into women, or anyone actually, so I can't help you with that. Tracy over in the pipes section can though"

Me: "What?"

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Ace hardware store guy: "Anything I can help you find?"

Me: "I need caulk"

Ace hardware store guy: "Sorry, I'm not really into women, or anyone actually, so I can't help you with that. Tracy over in the pipes section can though"

Me: "What?"

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#i'm STILL HERE i'm STILL THINKING about this 🥴

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#i'm STILL HERE i'm STILL THINKING about this 🥴

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they're hiring me at the extra virgin olive oil factory as the oathsworn knight who protects the chastity of the olives

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love how Sims players call themselves simmers. you mean like a stew

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sometimes i think about how i’ve effectively dug myself a grave with this blog. half my internet presence is about being queer and ukrainian, famously two things russia hates the most.

if trump proceeds with the “peaceful negotiations” that happen without ukraine even present, if he pushes to implement another leader in ukraine (meaning, of course, a pro-russian puppet) and makes my country a quote unquote neutral territory, it obviously means occupation. when there are bombs over my head, i’m at least an abstract target, i can rely on luck not to get hit. if russians come to power tho? i’m toast.

i wish i was exaggerating, but this is already happening to people in occupied parts of the country. those who had social media posts in ukrainian, about queer rights, etc. are being seeked out and threatened. my acquaintance was once on call with her friend on crimea, who had weird noises in the background. when questioned, she casually said that they were coming from russian police beating her neighbour for listening to ukrainian music.

i constantly hear from people who miraculously left the occupied territories how they had to delete everything from their phones, because russian soldiers would do random phone searches — both just on the street or when a person tries to leave the occupied city. it’s not uncommon that people get shot over it.

everything about “peaceful negotiations” and “compromises”, trading “land for a peace agreement” promises me a death sentence