Tara Dublin

Give me the confidence of a mediocre MAGA man hiding behind his false bravado.

Seriously, I wish I had whatever lack of awareness these men possess so that I could just skate through life and never have to face any consequences from anything I say or do.

This week, women watched our voting rights being ritualistically gutted by the mediocre MAGA men on the Supreme Court. At the same time, we’ve witnessed multiple MAGA sycophants publicly declare their love for a convicted felon Epstein Bestie who whines when anyone makes a joke about him.

Acting Attorney General Todd “Thank You Sir, May I Have Another” Blanche proved himself to Trump by moving Jeffrey Epstein’s side piece and fellow sex trafficking rapist, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a Club Fed instead of putting her on Death Row where she belongs. Here’s Blanche--clearly just seconds after extracting himself from his new office inside Trump’s alimentary canal--giving Juliet’s balcony soliloquy a run for its money.

Ew. My cringe has cringe.

Another Trump suck-up who sucks at his job is CNN’s resident smug frat boy, Scott Jennings. Aside from being the worst part of every panel discussion helmed by the long-suffering Abby Phillip, who really should have had enough by now, Jennings has never once landed a point based on facts.

Like all mediocre MAGA “men,” Jennings is easily baited and triggered, mainly because there’s a part of him that knows Trump is all of the worst things. But Jennings isn’t being paid to be authentic; he’s paid to scream over anyone who dares to speak ill of Dear Leader.

Jennings was famously owned by Leigh McGowan, aka “I Am Politics Girl,” during a segment where he showcased his patented MAGA disregard for facts and human life.

That exchange led to this screenshot, which now lives on my phone because we are all Leigh whenever Scott Jennings opens his smug frat boy mouth.

But then the internet got another gift on Thursday night, thanks to another gifted political commentator, Adam Mockler. A rising star in the Democratic influencer space, the 23-year-old Mockler was speaking truthfully about the situation in Iran when Jennings began to use his usual smug tactics. Aside from talking over Mockler, Jennings muttered something about him “being up past his bedtime,” because the show airs at 10 P.M.

And then this happened.

Yes, the same smug frat boy who whines about Democrats being mean to Trump dropped an expletive live on CNN because he’s a giant babyman.

The Jennings/Mockler moment set off a social media firestorm, with the kind of meme game that could make you appreciate that the internet exists. They don’t even need words to capture the MAGA default setting of self-victimization anytime the truth about Trump hurts their delicate snowflake feelings.

“Mooommm! He’s telling the truth about Trump again!”

Or, “Moooomm! He took the last piece of meat loaf, and you said I could have it!”

This one is also good and embarrassing for him, because you can see how the father of four sons probably treats his own kids.

Jennings whined that Adam’s hand was “in his face, which clearly isn’t the case, but at least we have this evergreen reply to him from now on.

Seriously, for one second, you thought, “Oh, I love the internet!”

The fallout from this encounter is accumulating A LOT of MAGA snowflakes on the ground, by Smug Scotty’s fellow Trumpsimp, FCC sycophant Brendan Carr, was tweeting on Friday night about how he would essentially let Trump punch someone in the face while dropping F bombs, but Jimmy Kimmel isn’t allowed to say that Melania Trump has “the glow of an expectant widow.”

Brendan seems to have forgotten he once had a firm grasp on how the First Amendment works. I’ve repeatedly asked him what’s changed for him over the last seven years, because the Constitution remains the same, but he keeps ignoring me to chat with his fellow MAGA bullies instead. Weird!

Feel free to screenshot that and use it to haunt Brendan Carr’s replies, because MAGA receipts are my favorite kind of receipts. Using their own words against them will forever be the best tactic.

Trump held another ego rally on Friday night at The Villages, aka Ground Zero for Geriatric MAGA, because his approval rating is at an historic low and he has to show the world he can still draw a crowd. Only a full-on cult would accept this behavior from the Commander-In-Chief of the allegedly most powerful military on Earth.

Donny Dementia once again bragged about acing a cognitive test that no other president ever had to take because no one was concerned their brains had turned to rancid tapioca pudding. He also did an impression of what he classified as a transgender woman weightlifter. Just imagine the reaction from MAGA if any Democrat behaved like this.

But as a result, we have this to use at our leisure to show MAGA what their guy really looks like instead of those AI memes he posts in the middle of the night, where he has defined abs and friends.

Trump was joined by another mediocre MAGA man, “Dr.” Phil McGraw, whom we wouldn’t know existed without Oprah (Same for Dr. Oz, and really, that’s two YUGE strikes, ma’am).

To his credit, Trump fully checked out as soon as Foghorn Leghorn really got going.

Instead of being embarrassed by any of Trump’s antics, MAGA will just keep bullying anyone who challenges their cult narratives. They wrap themselves in their false pearl-clutching manufactured MAGA outrage and act all put-upon if you make them face the reality they’ve been willfully ignoring for over a decade.

Just like Dear Leader.

Multiple MAGA bombshells dropped on Wednesday, from the SCOTUS decision to let Republicans keep cheating to steal elections to Punch-Drunk Pete Hegseth’s sloppy House hearing on the Pentagon going off the rails so badly that he had to be shut down by the Republican Committee Chair.

Meanwhile, MAGA is still weakly trying to scapegoat Jimmy Kimmel for making roughly the same “expectant widow” joke Donald Trump did about Melania. Except that Trump did it in front of the king of England instead of on his own TV show.

And there’s still the fallout from whatever happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The biggest part of that story should be how we can’t trust anything coming from this White House or anyone supporting its current occupant.

I don’t know why we’re being forced to live in the stupidest timeline ever, but I do know sometimes we still get to enjoy it when the smart kids prevail. One of them got Trump’s biggest confession on camera thus far.

Kudos to Norah O’Donnell of CBS News, who apparently shreds all of the memos from Bari Weiss and instead sticks to her job of asking questions to get real answers.

Her sharp reply of “Oh, you think he was talking about you?” is the stuff of legend. The Smartest Girl in School just shut down the biggest, dumbest bully in eight words.

Trump claimed to have read the White House Congressional Dinner shooter’s manifesto, but of course, he didn’t, because he doesn’t read anything. If he had, he’d know it never specifically names him. His fixation on that part of it, and his reaction to O’Donnell reading it, are also part of the tell.

Trump hates women who tell the truth about him so much because he knows we’re right about him.

Yeah, I include myself in that group, because I got under his thin skin in August 2015, and I remain blocked by Trump on both Twitter and Instagram to this day.

O’Donnell pushed back a bit when Trump went after her for *checks notes* reading the words another person wrote. But he kept verbally abusing her, and while she didn’t push back against all of it, she gave a textbook example on how to hold your ground when you also have to deal with whatever’s going on under his suit.

Just as the women of the Supreme Court all stood against Trump in the Voting Rights Act decision, another smart woman returned on Wednesday to ruin it for him.

Our Shero, E. Jean Carroll, was once again vindicated in her defamation case. A federal appeals court in New York rejected Trump's request (number eleventy billion, is it?) to rehear his challenges.

You might recall that a jury awarded E. Jean $83 million in damages in 2024 after her lawyers successfully proved that Trump defamed her with comments he made disputing her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.

MAGA loves to blame the judge and the jury for Trump sexually abusing E. Jean, which is weird when you learn exactly who was on that jury. As she writes in her excellent book Not My Type, one of the jurors who slipped through the voir dire process turned out to only get his news from right-wing podcaster Tim Pool. And he still voted to award her the $83 million in damages.

Seems like maybe both MAGA and Trump need to learn how to take NO for an answer already.

Let’s also pour another one out for Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas, who withstood horrifically racist and misogynistic bullying from MAGA online while preventing Republicans from gerrymandering their way into stealing House seats.

And then there’s the fruitless pursuit of trying to get MAGA to hold Trump accountable for the Epstein Files. His latest manufactured distraction from the files, along with the stupid ballroom, is indicting James Comey again over an AI screenshot of rocks spelling out “86 47” on a beach.

Seriously, this is what passes as a “threat” to the same guy who gleefully celebrated the death of Bob Mueller.

Not only does MAGA still refuse to believe he’s in the Files, but the way they defend him is the same way he defends himself: by bullying the messengers to make us their scapegoats. They also like to try to move the goalposts back to the Biden administration, but that doesn’t really work when Joe Biden’s name isn’t anywhere in the Epstein Files, but Trump’s is in there tens of thousands of times.

Whenever I tweet something about the Epstein Files, MAGA likes to troll me with “Trump should sue you!”

Trump has never sued anyone for saying he’s in the Epstein Files. The most lawsuit-happy loser in this country’s history will gladly keep people tied up in court for years with his appeals, but not when it comes to Epstein.

Weird, huh?

I realize it’s wrong of me to hope that MAGA will follow our example with Eric Swalwell and hold Trump accountable, but I can’t help but believe that they know what Trump did. They don’t want to have to admit they were wrong.

One more story that broke on Wednesday: it turns out that former AG Pam Bondi would rather not go to jail, so she’ll show up for her Congressional subpoena after all. It’s more likely she’ll perjure herself rather than tell the truth about the Epstein Files, so who knows what consequences she might face.

Any would be good at this point, please.

It's very possible somebody is making a lot of money on Polymarket off of Sleepy Don.

Trump has been falling asleep on camera more often than not lately, but most Americans wouldn’t know that because the media is too busy pretending it’s not happening. Multiple mental health experts have shared their opinions that Trump is in the late stages of dementia, and the sundowning has reversed his circadian rhythms. Day is night, night is day, falling asleep standing up at a press conference at 11 a.m. is just Trump having a normal one here in Idiocracy.

Videos of Trump nodding off during the most recent Oval Office press conference this week have gone viral, along with still photos, both real and slightly altered.

That’s a real photo. The guy behind him seems to have smelled something foul.

This fake one has gotten a huge amount of engagement, mainly because it’s so easy to believe at this point.

If all of social media is mocking “Sleepy Don,” why isn’t the actual media covering it, especially when they were breathlessly watching President Joe Biden’s every step, hoping he’d once again do an Olds so they could yell a lot of ageist questions about his fitness to lead?

Joe Biden is living with Stage 4 prostate cancer that’s metastasized to his bones, and he’s still more spry than Sleepy Don. The former President has been spotted on Amtrak and airplanes amiably chatting with his fellow passengers, still looking like a million damn dollars. Meanwhile, Trump looks like someone left a pumpkin spice candle sitting on a hot stove for a little too long.

Trump’s doctor, osteopath Sean Barbabella, (why does everyone connected to Trump sound like they’re characters in a 3rd rate straight-to-video movie about wannabe mobsters?), refuses to comply with repeated requests from House Democrats to share his full medical report. The guy seems to have multiple “annual checkups” at Walter Reed, so where are those deets, Dr. Barbarella (as Trump calls him, even though he’s NOT an MD)?

Trump also has snake oil salesman/crudite critic Dr. Mehmet Oz, lying about his health.

From the media: Nothing but crickets, because his enablers have a chokehold on the truth.

In a world where Polymarket and Kalshi are making people a lot of money with prediction bets, projections on Trump's sundowning could be a prime market.

All jokes aside, Trump’s mental decline is the top story they’re not covering.

Trump throws tantrums over comparisons to “Sleepy Joe” (a moniker based on petty jealousy and projection language, especially when accompanied by photos of Joe driving cool cars or looking nice and fit while riding a bike. Trump doesn’t have a driver’s license and also can’t ride a bike, because no one has ever loved him enough to teach him.

Also, I don’t know who made this meme, but I do know the way it made me cackle scared my cats enough to jump off the couch.

Anyway, you’re not going to see anything about Sleep Don on “60 Minutes” or CBS Sunday Morning. The only way you’ll hear about it on CNN is if a liberal panelist brings it up before smug Scott Jennings can shout over them. And oddly, Jake Tapper hasn’t yet announced his book on Trump’s mental decline, although he IS getting dragged to filth over it on Twitter.

And guess why? Say it with me, smart kids: THE OLIGARCHY.

That visual should hit you hard, because this kind of monopoly is going to have far more influence over how you vote, along with what you watch. It’s already starting to seep into their scripted programming; witness the “liberal cities are swill pits and everyone should live in Red States like Montana” vibe recently added series The Madison on Paramount+

Sidebar--Taylor Sheridan really hates Democrats, and he doesn’t have a lot of regard for women, which is why his shows are huge hits on that network. That’s the prevailing attitude that has leeched from Trump and his like-minded misogynists to create a MAGA mainstream that continues to decenter women.

The point is, any media monopolies are very, very bad. The seeds Trump started planting in 2015 with his attacks on the “Fake News” stories he didn’t like have now sprouted a forest of dead trees that bear no fruit of any real substance.

All of Trump’s pals from the Heritage Foundation are ahead of schedule carrying out that part of their plan from Project 2025. They’ve gotten control of the flow of information. They got Stephen Colbert removed from the late-night landscape, to be replaced by--and this is TRUE-- “Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed.”

Honestly, I’m surprised it’s not going to be Hitler’s Reichstag speech on an endless loop. In any case, while they can claim those comics are “unleashed,” I’m guessing they’re going to be very much on a leash and won’t ever be allowed to say anything that will make the Dear Leader look bad. Not that he’d be awake to see it.

Tuesday night’s victory for Democrats in Virginia was a major turning point in the midterms, once again delivering a message to Republicans that they can’t just keep trying to gerrymander their way into stealing seats in Congress.

But “Why won’t you just let us cheat?” is fully on brand for the GOP, but that wasn’t going to happen on the State Senate’s President pro Tempore’s watch, though. Leave it to a Black woman to protect the entire state from being assaulted by the GOP.

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the ferocity that is L. Louise Lucas, who has a history of standing up to anything the MAGA mediocrity tries with her. Permanent Trump sycophant Ted Cruz found out what happens when you come for Sen. Lucas when she hasn’t sent for you.

Since the GOP loves to scapegoat Black women more than any other group, they found plenty of racist and misogynistic ways to use AI as a weak way to try to bully her on social media. If you have any experience with Black Twitter--which has always been the best part of Twitter--you’ll know how well that’s gone over.

But Sen. Lucas is social media savvy and knows exactly how to use their dumb tactics against them.

Queen Louise Lucas could not be reached for comment for this piece, as she’s currently being fitted for her crown.

If any of the GOP’s tactics against Sen. Lucas seem familiar, it’s because you’ve seen it all before whenever a Black woman has stood in the way of the Trumplicans. Letitia James, Fani Willis, and Ruby and Shaye Moss have all been targeted by MAGA for having the audacity to do their jobs, which just happened to include holding Trump legally accountable.

And you saw it on the national level when former Vice President Kamala Harris had a mere 107 days to create a campaign that stood apart from that of President Joe Biden’s. You’ll recall the famous Black Women Zoom call from the night President Biden dropped out, which was a weekly scheduled call they were already going to have. And that alone should tell you that Black women have been carrying the Democratic Party on their backs, which is where the history of our country was built.

We really don’t have the time or space to delve into the role of Black women in America, but Democratic Black women in particular have saved this nation from the brink of destruction over and over. I’ve spent time thinking about what the world would look like right now if someone had put Black women in charge of figuring out the 2000 election mess in Florida, and I can tell you it wouldn’t have a convicted felon Epstein Bestie blowing up Iran over the Epstein Files.

That Zoom call didn’t just set records; it set off a FOMO-based chain reaction where literally every subgroup of Democratic voters was holding their own calls for Kamala. White women, in particular, decided this was the moment for all of us to finally step up and be better allies to Black women.

I was on the White Women for Kamala Zoom call, so many of the speakers were so cringingly self-serving and performative. I had applied to be a speaker, but much more famous women got the spots, and they all seemed to do the same thing when it was their turn. They all apologized for not being “more vocal allies” for Black women and swore to do better because they understood “the moment.” I understood that they had no idea how to be proper allies to Black women because they kept making it about themselves. They still couldn’t figure out how to have a conversation with Black women without sounding like they were in an amateur production of “The Help.”

It doesn’t really take a lot to be an ally to the communities you weren’t born into. I’ve always thought it was our responsibility as humans to learn about those who are different and honor those differences, not hate them. No one is born prejudiced against anyone; hate is carefully taught and passed down. The history of our country is often ugly and unpleasant, and since there is no justification for slavery, Republicans would rather literally whitewash it. How long did it take us to learn the real stories of Christopher Columbus and the first Thanksgiving? Where were the Japanese internment camps in our history books growing up? Why do too many Americans think the Holocaust wasn’t real?

Yet they accept all stories about America when it makes white people look good.

So once the White Women wrapped up that call in June 2024, I waited for the next one to be scheduled, and it never happened. The white women seemed to think that was enough, along with their “Brat Summer” memes, most likely posted from the Hamptons. The way white women evaporated long before the DNC in August led me to rename the standalone Zoom “The White Claw Women’s Call.”

White women were absolutely in the minority when I was in Chicago for the DNC. By that point, I’d been welcomed into a Twitter room for Kamala that was mostly Black women, and I read their comments about white women still failing to meet “the moment.” I’d had years of learning to listen, to come from a place of elevation and appreciation without cultural appropriation.

It’s never about “who’s the best white woman,” it’s about showing up with Black women at the polls and voting not just like Black women, but for Black women.

Black women belong in all the highest positions of power. Smoke 'em if you’ve got 'em, Queen Louise!

If you’ve noticed an uptick in female rage online over the last week, we have our reasons.

Women have been reeling over the Eric Swalwell scandal, which saw our former collective Dem Crush fall from grace in the span of a mere 11 days. Republicans really could learn a lot about accountability from Democrats, but why would they bother doing anything that makes sense?

And while we were still trying to sort out the disappointment of learning that a supposedly Good Guy Ally is actually the polar opposite, we found out about the “Online Rape Academy,” exposed by a lengthy global CNN investigation.

All of the details revealed about the “Motherless” website are unspeakably horrifying. While women have always been fully aware of the potential dangers of sexual assault as a result of being drugged in public spaces, we never considered the possibility of it happening thanks to a trusted intimate partner. The website received 62 million unique hits in the month of February, and over 82 million in March. While its founder has been arrested, the site was still very much active at the time of this writing.

The site contains multiple subforums where men share videos of themselves assaulting and raping their female partners, who are fully passed out thanks to drinking spiked tea or being drugged some other way. They also share tips on which drugs are better than others, meaning which ones stay in a woman’s system for the shortest amount of time so that they can’t remember any of the rapey parts and therefore can’t report the men they trust most in the world to the police.

These and other horror movie details have created the kind of reaction from women that you’d expect, while too many men are pulling the “Not All Men” defense. And fellas, you need to drop that one like a counterfeit $100 bill.

Women are rightfully enraged by our collective lived experiences. After all, we’ve been watching men get away with sexual crimes since the dawn of recorded history. It’s only now in the digital age that women are finally able to shed the shame so often associated with sexual assault. We have lived with “harmless” catcalls on the street (my first one was at the age of 14 in Manhattan). We know what it’s like to be sexualized by adult men from very young ages (including by our own fathers), to be shamed over our bodies as a male power move, to be assigned our value from men based on our breast sizes, hip widths, belly fat, leg lengths, and ass shapes.

All too many of us know what it’s like when men cross the line into committing crimes against women, ranging from stalking to rape and murder. We have a man found liable of sexual abuse currently squatting in the White House who’s being enabled by the entire Republican Party, including members of his Cabinet who’ve been named along with him in the Epstein Files.

It also doesn’t help that Substack is platforming accused international sex trafficker Andrew Tate, who was given safe harbor in Florida by Donald Trump, who also welcomed Tate’s brother, Tristan, back to America. Andrew is somehow the #1 Bestseller this week, with over 1.1 million subscribers, which just shouldn’t be allowed on the app where the smart kids post. Or ANYWHERE ELSE, because he’s an accused CRIMINAL.

I’m very proud to say that all three of them blocked me on Twitter, because women need to stand up to men who abuse women, not enable them with our silence.

Understandably, women are gathering online to figure out how to channel this rage in the most effective ways. The main conversations are happening on Threads and Instagram, where women have dubbed the movement “MeTwo.” They can simply ask the Threads algorithm to put fellow raging females in their feeds so we can all take over everything as quickly as possible.

Along with the rightfully furious women are the male allies who are standing with us and calling out their fellow men to join them in smashing the patriarchy in the right way. We need much more of this energy, fellas.

Of course, there are the fragile MAGA snowflakes who are triggered and freaking out over women holding men accountable--and therefore keep proving our points for us. We know it’s “not all men,” but it is ALWAYS men, and it’s happened to literally ALL women.

ALL OF US.

If you’re a man reading that, read it again. And again. And really take it in.

Because when I say all of us, I’m telling you that there’s not a woman who’s ever walked this planet who, at the very bare minimum, hasn’t been the target of an inappropriate comment from a man. It’s really not a question of IF a woman you know--from your mom to your sister to your aunts, cousins, friends, girlfriends, and wives--has a story to tell about a Bad Man. The question is WHEN was the first time she can remember something happening to her?

Any follow-up questions? Before you ask them, remember that no woman “asks for it.” Especially not a woman who’s been drugged by her partner. More men need to be taught never to shame the victims of sexual violence, only the perpetrators. And yet, protecting a man’s professional reputation has all too often been the focus, instead of believing the women.

Women have had it, guys. There’s been a very real and perceptible shift in our attitudes. Women are naming and shaming their attackers, going back to their childhoods. Women are done protecting the men who’ve hurt us, and we’re also done staying silent if you start anything with us in public.

Women are going to get louder and louder. I’d advise all men trying the “not all men” thing to think about what all women live with, and then say nothing instead.

In the current social media swamp climate that’s laden with AI deep fakes and X bots pushing propaganda, there’s been a fascinating reaction to the Eric Swalwell scandal, which ended one of the worst weeks in this country’s history when we desperately could’ve used a win.

We’ve come to expect a giant news story dump on Fridays here in the Trumpian garbage fire, but it usually comes from the Republicans doing yet another terrible thing. After a week like the one we just survived, we needed the pendulum to swing back our way with the kind of uplifting news that rekindles our belief that we can still have nice things during the worst of times.

Seriously, the week began with Trump casually threatening to end a civilization, only to change his mind a few hours later by agreeing to a non-ceasefire ceasefire and a plan written by the Iranian government that he didn’t read and therefore explained very badly. The Republican non-response was yet another capitulation in a long line of never holding Trump accountable for anything, while they smugly kept blaming Joe Biden and the Democrats for everything.

Those same Democrats who were calling for impeachment and/or the 25th Amendment have now been pulled into the kind of scandal usually reserved for the worst of the Trump regime. The fallout from the bombshell allegations against Rep. Swalwell (D-CA) is still accumulating, with the sort of lurid and shocking details still coming to light that no one ever wants to hear, yet we hear over and over again about men abusing their positions of power.

We don’t have enough internet space to delve into the history of the patriarchy and why society ends up blaming victims of sexual violence far more than believing them. Or why this country is so provincial about sexuality that people are shamed into repression, then end up acting out in ways that can be harmful to themselves and others.

But there’s a pattern that always emerges online almost immediately as soon as a famous man is accused of being a sexual predator, and it has rarely been anyone’s first take that the women are telling the truth.

Look how many women have credibly accused convicted felon Donald Trump of various forms of sexual assault throughout his life. E. Jean Carroll is still waiting on her settlement, while his dozens of other accusers will never get any sort of justice.

It took multiple Epstein accusers coming forward after decades of anonymity before the media began seriously covering Trump’s relationship with him, and yet there’s still no accountability for his alleged decades of violence against women and children.

Think about how many women had to tell their stories about Harvey Weinstein before he ever saw the inside of a courtroom. Remember how Anita Hill was dismissed to clear a path for Clarence Thomas, and when Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony under oath wasn’t enough to keep Brett Kavanaugh off the country’s most powerful judicial bench.

So it’s not surprising to see what we’re seeing. This one just hits different.

My initial reaction to the story about Swalwell, whom I’d dubbed my “Dem Crush” all the way back during the first Trump impeachment trial, was “No! Not him!” That’s not my denial; that’s my disappointment. A LOT of women reacted this way, and it’s understandable. Democrats are supposed to be the good guys, champions of women, and Swalwell came across as a particularly good guy. His family was very much centered in his social media presence, the doting husband and devoted father of three adorable young kids, which makes all of this even worse.

While I was trying to get to the truth, various takes were happening all at the same time:

• The immediate shaming of the women who came forward, which of course conflicted with
• The immediate acceptance of the women who came forward
• Accusations that Roger Stone and Katie Porter were somehow involved
• Lots of people saying, “The timing is just weird!” when the article about Swalwell had been in the works for months
• Some Democrats are calling for Swalwell to drop out of the California Governor’s race — a bid he ended on Sunday. He then resigned from Congress on Monday.
• Other Democrats criticized anyone calling for Swalwell to drop out
• MAGA gleefully and unironically embracing the same kind of sex scandal that Republicans are far more often involved in, as if Swalwell’s story erases everything Trump has ever done

By Saturday morning, the Twitter consensus seemed to be that all Democrats are responsible for Eric Swalwell, but no Republicans are responsible for Donald Trump, but there’s been much more Democratic infighting than anything else. I got Instablocked by a longtime mutual follower because she was mad that I seemed to be jumping on an anti-Swalwell bandwagon, when I was in the very early stages of the Kubler-Ross grieving process.

This isn’t the same thing as when Democrats were prematurely abandoning Joe Biden in droves after he had a sore throat at his one debate with Trump. I never turned my back on Dark Brandon. But once I learned that someone I’ve known and trusted on social media for years, Adam Parkhomenko, is married to one of Swalwell’s accusers, Ally Sammarco, I knew I had to ignore all of the noise. Someone who’s zero degrees from Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to make up stories about anyone to get ahead.

Democratic women are facing a rough disappointment, one that feels similar to John Edwards breaking our collective hearts, but no one should be attacking each other over believing survivors of sexual violence.

The only person at fault for Eric Swalwell’s behavior is Eric Swalwell, and therefore, he’s the only one anyone should be mad at. And yet there’s already a divide among Democrats about this. Part of it is making sure a Republican never becomes Governor of California, but thankfully, the party has other choices besides Swalwell.

Hard truths take longer to get over, and this one is going to hurt for a while.

The President of the United States is supposed to set the standard for global leadership, from their track record of public service to their public behavior. There’s supposed to be a level of respect for the office that’s been earned, because a proper POTUS shows the people of the country how respected they are as well. Our president represents us on the global stage, and should have friendly relationships with our allies so that we, and the financial markets, aren’t kept in a state of constant chaos.

Think of Joe Biden’s affable, warm Irish humor and his ability to poke fun at himself. Recall his eight years of bromance with Barack Obama and how they made the country feel like Daddy and Uncle Joe were taking care of everyone. We took that for granted, even as there was darkness always under this country’s surface.

And it took the worst of this country to excavate it as they continue to create a new low for humanity on the daily.

Donald Trump has been in a bad mood for his entire life, and we’re the ones paying for it.

Unloved and ignored by his parents, Lil Donny learned that negative attention was better than no attention. He grew into the world’s most toxic narcissist, equally wearing down his allies and enemies with his tantrums and threats. His misery was mirrored back to him by his cult, as self-victimization is the MAGA default setting. He’s a literal Bully Pulpit, whining about his perceived slights, his weak jealousies based on coveting what others have that he will never have, resulting in the current Culture of Mean that we’ve been living in for over a decade.

Trump’s bullying and snide entitled tones permeated the Republican Party, which became the worst frat House and Senate in history. He wore the media down until they were enabling the bully they created, and now he can control most of them with a mean post on Truth Social or by singling them out at a press conference.

Often compared to an overgrown toddler in a giant blue suit, Trump’s petty petulance seeped into every aspect of American culture as his opponents and harshest critics fell by the wayside in 2016 and all became his sycophants once the Russians hacked the RNC and DNC servers.

Trump has such an inexplicable chokehold on the country’s mood because he has an inexplicable chokehold on the Republican Party, even as he casually threatened to end a civilization this week.

First, they ignored Trump’s threat and bullied the many Democrats who called for the 25th Amendment as “pearl-clutchers” instead of standing with them. Thankfully, that didn’t stop proper patriots like Rep. John Larson (D-CT) from filing brand new Articles of Impeachment against Trump.

Nobody voted for Trump to flatten Gaza to turn it into the Atlantic City of the Middle East, and the same nobodies voted for him to wipe the Iranian people from existence, all because he’s in the Epstein Files.

By the time TACO Tuesday rolled around at the expected time, Republicans were ready with their response, which was “ALL HAIL TRUMP for solving the Iran crisis,” without mentioning that he had manufactured it in the first place.

It’s the ultimate Started/Going meme:

Trump knows all too well by now that he can get away with this because Republicans and the media he owns will let him get away with it. This is what a typical manipulative bully does — they push to see how much their target will give them. When you give a bully an inch, they take more than a (school)yard, they take over your entire life. They seep into your subconscious and haunt your nightmares until that dark mood feels like it’s in your whole body. It changes your posture, drags you down physically and emotionally, and makes you want to surrender because you’re just so exhausted. And your bully knows this, and they love it. They’ll never stop pushing now that they know they’ve got all the ground they want.

I made that meme because that’s who he is. He loves toying with people’s feelings because he’s so miserable and mad. He’s mad that the Epstein Files aren’t going away, and when his mood gets worse, the body count increases.

American servicepeople have died because Trump is in the Epstein Files. The world was left holding its collective breath for an entire day until King Baby decided to fold. There’s literally no reason for us to be living like this. We need to be done with him and every last one of his enablers.

Look at Todd Blanche. Look at this weakness, this blatant display of treason, all because Trump has some sort of sway over him.

Trump shouldn’t ever be allowed to get away with making people worry that they’re going to die. He shouldn’t be allowed to threaten anyone, from the media to his perceived enemies — all of whom have one big thing in common:

They tell the truth about him. And King Baby really doesn’t like that.

Which is why we as a nation need to demand more truth. We need a daily Democratic press briefing, helmed by a dedicated Press Secretary, which would take place at the Capitol immediately after Karoline Lie-vitt is finished lying to the media for the day. All members of the media would be welcome, especially those Trump banned from the Press Room, and therefore, they would all show up to see what the Democratic Press Secretary would have to say.

Democrats are poised to steamroll over the GOP in the midterms, and there will be consequences for Trump and his enablers. But we shouldn’t have to live under Trump’s instability for another day, let alone two more years. Republicans must be forced to choose loyalty to Trump or to America, because he’s proven it can’t be both.

Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular right now, so that’s why he fired egregiously underqualified Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday. And Tulsi Gabbard is said to be next on the chopping block, to be replaced with an even less qualified MAGA sycophant.

In Bondi’s case, Todd Blanche will be Acting AG, but word is that Lee “Zippy” Zeldin, who’s currently not doing anything to help the environment as the Director of the EPA, will take over the role once he fully removes himself from his current position — which is inside Trump’s alimentary canal.

Rumor is Never-A-Real Democrat Gabbard, who favorite Trump target Hillary Clinton pegged as a Russian asset over a decade ago, is going to be replaced with a militarized version of Zippy Zeldin, but it won’t be Joe “I Told A Truth One Time” Kent. Look for her to be replaced by someone Pete Hegseth-adjacent.

It was also reported on Thursday that Trump has started his usual misogynistic Blame Game against one of his most devoted of devotees, Karoline “KKKaroline Lie-vitt” Leavitt. In Trump’s addled bowl of rancid rice pudding of a brain, the “bad publicity” he’s been receiving is her fault, not his.

Karoline’s departure was imminent, as her next forced birth approaches, but it now looks like her maternity leave could be indefinitely extended. She’s surprisingly lasted way more Scaramucci’s than anyone could have expected, probably because she looks like a lost Trump daughter. I’m sure there’s a Sean Spicer 2.0 just waiting to take over that podium so that the White House can complete its transition into a 1970s frat house.

And Trump's already demoted Kristi Noem and replaced her with MAGA hanger-on Markwayne Mullin.

Trump is a lifelong misogynist who claims to love women, when in fact he just loves to scapegoat women for his own failures. He prefers to blame Black women (Fani Willis, Letitia James, Omarosa) for holding him accountable on the legal tip for his multiple financial crimes and felony fraud convictions. But if he can’t pile on a woman of color or any other POC, then it’s fair game for any woman who doesn’t serve a purpose in the misogynistic MAGAverse he’s created. Just ask Rosie O’Donnell.

And witness his multiple attacks on female reporters like CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who keeps doing this weird thing called her job.

And then there’s the “Quiet, Piggy” moment heard round the world, which didn’t hurt his political career in the same way the “Access Hollywood” tape also didn’t hurt his political career.

The failed businessman is happy to take credit for good things other people do, but never takes the blame when things go south. You may recall that during the height of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Trump was scapegoating anyone he could for the rise in deaths. Instead of telling the country in February that it was a deadly airborne virus — as he told Bob Woodward, who also didn’t tell anyone until his book came out — Trump let a whole lot of people die and immediately shifted the blame to Dr. Deborah Birx.

The Republican Party is the original He-Man Women Haters Club, and they want nothing more than to return to the days when women were there to service them in some way and then go away. That’s basically how Trump was raised. He first learned indifference towards all others from his parents, then was taught to hate them in a whole new way by his first substitute daddy, Roy Cohn. His disregard for women who don’t help him in some way manifests in ridicule, reduction, and sexual abuse, which is a crime all about asserting power over someone else to feel more powerful.

ICYMI, male Trumpublicans are actively trying to silence women with the SAVE Act, the near-eradication of access to safe reproductive care, and the widespread Heritage Foundation-driven “Trad Wife” narrative setting back women’s rights a few centuries. But Trump’s unique brand of smarmy chauvinism that defined him in the '80s and '90s has now permeated the once Grand Old Party, giving the MAGA cult permission to act publicly the way they did in the “locker room.”

Watching the early Twitter reaction to Pam Bondi’s firing is only proving all of my points for me. The MAGA influencers are already blaming the “multiple Epstein Files blunders” on her, not Trump, who made multiple promises to MAGA that he’d release them if he won the 2024 election.

I’m not saying Bondi is blameless here; she’s been knowingly covering up evidence of Trump's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi has seen things in the Epstein Files that she doesn’t want the American people to see, and she remained in Trump’s employ anyway. She has an extended history of accepting bribes and other forms of corruption dating back to her stint as Florida’s AG. So she doesn’t get any kind of a pass here. But despite the language here, Trump is fully done with her.

No mention of Epstein, weird!

Blanche isn’t going to mention Epstein while he’s keeping the seat warm for Zippy Zeldin or even worse, Ken Paxton. A male Press Secretary won’t talk about the Epstein Files, because he’ll redirect the narrative with aggressive bullying. Soon, all female reporters will be removed from the Press Room, just like they’re being removed from the White House.

Trump hates all truths about himself, especially that he’s a failure. But he hates it the most when he’s rejected by women. Hence, my Trump block that I received in August 2015, which is still very much in effect. So brave!

Pam Bondi will take the ultimate fall for the Epstein Files, which remain at the heart of every other Trump scandal as well. Everything they’ve been doing as a distraction from the Epstein Files has failed, and Trump is taking it out on the women in his Klown Kar Kabinet, while constantly rewarding the men who have ceded to Trump.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Donald J. Trump.

And yet the MAGA cult refuses to see it.

Trump is Biff from Back to the Future, always giving noogies to MAGA’s George McFly. Only they enjoy it and ask for more.

He is the embodiment of “Rules for thee, but not for me,” by preaching a lifestyle he’s never lived to the same people he’s been grifting for over a decade. And they love him for it, fully unaware that he can’t stand any of them.

Trump isn’t a Christian, and he’s never read the Bible, because if he did, he’d be able to name his favorite passage when asked. He doesn’t read anything, not even his daily briefings, preferring a “Good Parts Only” video presentation because he has the attention span of a gnat.

Trump has no idea how much a gallon of gas costs, because he doesn’t drive a car (he also can’t ride a bike, because no one ever loved him enough to teach him how, which is why he mocked Joe Biden for falling off his bike one time).

Trump has no idea what food costs, because he’s never been grocery shopping once in his life. I like to imagine someone gently escorting Sundowning Paw Paw into his local Publix and him reacting to the abundance on the shelves with the wonderment of a caveman discovering fire. Telling him how much coffee prices have spiked would be meaningless to him, because he doesn’t drink coffee.

The price of his beloved Diet Coke, like all other Coca-Cola products, has increased 4% thanks to his arbitrary tariffs, but he doesn’t care because he never pays for anything.

Trump is a con man who’s bankrupted multiple casinos while laundering money for the Russian mob and also has multiple other bankruptcies, but he’s told MAGA he knows more about all of the things than anyone else. In reality, they’re the constant dupes who can’t stop falling for the never-ending game of Three Card Monte he’s been playing since he descended that gold escalator in 2015 and flung his loaded diaper all over our political norms.

Trump’s hair is fake, he wears lifts in his shoes, and he spackles on makeup in hues that vary from Circus Peanut to Burnt Umber without bothering to blend. I call this look the MAGA-not Line *rimshot*

While MAGA makes fun of drag queens. Trumpocrites are gonna Trumpocrite to the last.

Trump bullies reporters who ask him questions based on facts. He never answers, but turns it around by asking “Who do you work for?” as if they’re not standing in the same room with OAN, Fox, and Newsmax, and therefore everything he says is being covered by all of them at the same time. MAGA can’t grasp that the truth about Trump is true no matter who’s reporting it, but that’s also why he’s buying up the media. “Fake news” is just the truth he hates, but ten years of eating his lies has left them unable to consume anything good for them.

Trump violates the Constitution just by existing. He makes untold millions, even billions, on crypto deals and shady investments, has accepted “donations” from foreign interests that most people would call “bribes,” and has invited war criminals to the White House. He’s never gone hungry a day in his life, but he was fine with cutting off SNAP benefits during the holidays and expected Americans to simply buy fewer gifts and cut out a few Thanksgiving side dishes.

Trump is a petty, thin-skinned, jealous, convicted felon and sexual abuser whose name appears in the Epstein Files just as much as Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s, if not more. His fear of being revealed as the fraud he is has led to the current chaos he’s causing in Iran and elsewhere around the globe. It’s why he attacked Greenland and Venezuela, then moved on to the Middle East, even after promising MAGA “no new wars.” U.S. Navy ships have taken up a presence around Cuba, which will be the next Epstein distraction that only adds to Trump’s unspeakable body count.

Trump has never once delivered on a promise. He stole Joe Biden’s campaign slogan, “Promises Made, Promises Kept,” as if being willfully obtuse is a replacement for doing any actual work. Trump promised “No new wars,” but tell that to the families of the dead kids in Iran. He promised to lower prices and has instead brought the global markets to the brink of another Depression.

The MAGA cult is happy to keep up the Trumpocrisy. They called President Biden “Genocide Joe” while they ignore Trump and Netanyahu in cahoots with Putin to flatten Gaza, turn it into the Atlantic City of the Middle East, and install Jared Kushner as their Nucky Thompson.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on the brink of expulsion thanks to cheating on her Congressional expense report, still tweets about the Epstein survivors without mentioning Trump. Openly gay married father of two, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, ignores Trump’s homophobia, as well as the demands to comply with the Senate Finance and House Oversight Committees by giving them access to the US Treasury’s own set of Epstein Files. Which not enough people know about, because of Trump’s inexplicable chokehold on the media.

This week, while still calling any elections Republicans lose “rigged” ahead of the 2026 midterms, it was revealed that Trump had voted by mail. Which is the exact opposite of what he wants MAGA to do. And when he was asked about such egregious hypocrisy, guess what happened?

He was in Palm Beach, but he was so busy cheating at golf that he had someone else fill out his ballot for him and drop it in the mail. And yet, he gets away with that non-answer because the media can’t push back with any consistency, and MAGA will never hold him accountable.

But I always will.

I don’t know when being wrong on the internet became the worst thing in the world, but nothing sets off the MAGA cult more than being confronted with the truth about Donald Trump that they’ve been ducking for a decade.

One of their favorite ways to troll liberals is to say things like “prove it” when you tweet things from the Epstein Files or remind them that Trump still owes E. Jean Carroll nearly $84 million. It’s one of the many ways they move the goalposts when going after us, thinking that sending someone on a Google chase will make the truth go away, too.

Even when they’re shown things like court documents, verified statistics, and live video feeds, they’ll cry “Fake news!” They copy Trump’s bullying, attacking the messengers so that they never have to admit they were ever wrong. None of them seems to grasp that the truth is always true, no matter where it comes from, or whether anyone likes it or not. When Trump holds a press conference in the Oval Office, every camera captures him doing the same thing at the same time. CNN’s cameras aren’t any different than Fox’s, NBC’s, or the BBC’s. You get my point.

But MAGA never does. The truth is usually something we don’t like, but somewhere along the line, someone taught us to buck up and deal with it.

But not the Boss Baby playing at being the President.

Since no one loved Donald Trump enough to teach him how to accept difficult truths or accept loss like most people, he throws toddler tantrums while being a giant bully baby.

And MAGA acts just like him. It really doesn’t take much to trigger these thin-skinned self-victimizers, but they especially hate it when someone makes them confront things about Donald Trump that they don’t want to believe are true.

MAGA hates anything good, so when they see the world literally uniting against them, as they did on Saturday when they saw the videos from the global No Kings protests, they lost their collective IQ point and responded in the only way they could:

By telling us exactly how triggered they were.

Elon did what he could to suppress the No Kings posts on Twitter, and the Trump-controlled media may not have given it the coverage it merited. But the March 28th No Kings was the biggest one thus far. Over 8 million Americans were in the streets, and millions more were holding their own protests worldwide. Trump himself was shocked by the turnout, even as he mocked the protests.

I protested in Portland, Oregon, with an estimated crowd of 40,000, on a stunningly beautiful day. Thanks to Trump’s Gestapo installed at our ICE facility--which takes up all of one city block--most people think all Portland protests are violent, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. There was no ICE presence at the big downtown protest, no violence, and no arrests. But even before I walked out the door, I managed to set off the MAGA kids who were Big Mad about our big day.

Despite how suppressed my account is, that tweet has gotten a ton of engagement. If you’re inclined to peruse the comments, I need to warn you that they really embrace bodyshaming the woman holding the sign. If they can make her into the topic, they don’t have to address what her sign says. It’s so painfully obvious, and I called a couple of them out who tried it.

Shaun didn’t like it. Trump is the only reason we even began talking about the Epstein Files in the first place. MAGA doesn’t like to be reminded of how many times Trump promised to release them, and then kept changing his story about them, and now all of his excuses about the Epstein Files have come with a body count. That meme is all of MAGA, and I can tell you how much it sets them off based on how many fake accounts always reply to it.

MAGA also didn’t like this one. Sad!

It only hurts you if it’s true, Snowflakes.

This MAGA Mean Girl deployed a favorite Trumpian tactic: basic weak bullying followed by the weak semantics argument.

Oh, no, MAGA Mean Girl did a mean! I’m so not hurt at all. Astonishingly, they think any of this upsets me, when it’s just pathetic. Plus, none of them can spell. Not a single one of them.

And there’s the resurgence of the R word. All of these are fake accounts--and one of these days I should really write up a primer on how to spot them so you don’t waste your time if you’re still on Twitter. But every so often, an actual carbon-based one uses it, and my response to that is the only proper response, which is that anyone who uses the R word is immediately discredited and is barred from adult conversations.

This is all Elon’s doing, btw.

As I’ve written before, bullying is the ultimate display of weakness. It’s been Trump’s and MAGA’s default setting forever.

They can’t accept the deepest truth about Trump, which is that he thinks they’re all losers. And he’s told them repeatedly, from calling them “the Poorly Educated” to reprimanding them as “stupid’ for asking about the Epstein Files that he promised to release, but was never going to release, because he knows the truth about them.

That’s what happens when people don’t respect themselves.

None of them can cope. Just watch CNN’s smug Scott Jennings try to minimize the global protests and massive unified crowds. And quit nodding your head, Nancy Mace. You won’t even say Trump is in the Epstein Files.

TRIGGERED.

It’s just so satisfying for me on a very deep level to know just how scared they all are. That’s how we’re going to win.

No one entity should control the truth, especially when they’re doing it to cover up the Epstein Files.

The Federal Communications Commission was established in 1934 to regulate our airwaves (radio, broadcast television, wire, satellite, and cable), both at home and around the world.

“Regulate” does a lot of heavy lifting there. From making sure sensitive government information about World War II didn’t get into the mainstream to keeping the airwaves swear-free, the FCC’s oversight has always determined what does and doesn’t get heard and seen. But it was never meant to regulate news broadcasts to help protect a president who’s committed unspeakable crimes against humanity.

Their power was famously summed up in George Carlin’s classic “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on TV” bit. It’s still pretty much true, although broadcast TV has figured out plenty of ways to work around the restrictions, pushing the envelope as far as it can.

Those of us who grew up in the pre-Internet era never could have imagined someone like Heritage Foundation stooge Brendan Carr being installed to control information via multiple corporate media mergers and acquisitions. Which is weird, because during Trump’s first administration, Carr still had a grasp on how the First Amendment works.

Yeah, I wonder what’s changed in the last seven years?

No one could have imagined anything like what we’re witnessing when President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a massive overhaul of what was seen as an antiquated system. While it “aimed to eliminate monopolies in local telephone service, allowing competition and deregulation to reduce consumer costs,” it actually allowed corporations to own multiple radio and TV stations in multiple cities across the country. This led to mergers between corporations, enriching the already rich, who then got to decide what content went out over the frequencies they had bought.

That’s why anyone listening to the radio in the mid-'90s suddenly started hearing a lot of the same music across the dials, no matter where they lived. More than one station in the same market could be playing the same playlists, dividing audiences while creating monopolies. The formerly powerful DJs who decided what made it onto the air were reduced to following corporate playlists packed with artists from labels with whom they had relationships. It was payola without it being exactly payola, when record label execs could still expense trips and send swag to radio stations to make sure their artists got extra airtime.

This led to radio companies losing money and then merging, and why we now have iHeart Media, Audacy, and Cumulus dominating the corporate-owned frequencies, drowning out local and community stations, and homogenizing music to the point where it all becomes like an audible McDonald’s. No matter where you are in America, the radio will now sound the same instead of giving you a local vibe.

Most significantly, it’s why right-wing talk radio exploded on the AM dial and still dominates it today. Those greedy guys at companies like Sinclair gobbled up those cheap little frequencies nobody wanted and flooded the airwaves with propaganda. The one liberal attempt to capture an audience in the same way — ah, Air America, you were so ahead of your time — was pushed out by the monopoly of what is now MAGA.

In 1996, no one could have imagined a traitor would be placed in charge at CBS News. Bari Weiss has already killed stories on 60 Minutes and scorched the earth of the news division. Now she’s pulled the entire plus on CBS Radio.

As a former alternative radio DJ, this topic is very close to my heart. I’m a GenX kid who grew up in New Jersey, and all of my earliest musical memories are tied to the New York radio stations. My first on-air gig was in 1993, when the music was still on CDs, and I recorded commercial spots on reel-to-reel, which I then physically cut with a razor blade to edit and then transfer to an 8-track cart to play on the air.

By the time I landed my dream gig on KNRK (“94/7 Alternative Portland”) in Portland, Oregon, in 2004, radio was enjoying what would be its final glory years. Everything had been computerized by then, so a station could save tons of money by essentially being a jukebox without the need for humans to tell the audience what they just heard, and the concept of voicetracking (one person in one studio in one city being broadcast to multiple stations wherever the company owned frequencies) wasn’t too far off.

During the five years I was on the air, I warned my bosses about the combination of iPods, Satellite Radio, and the internet demolishing any power terrestrial radio had left. I was sadly right about that, because no one cares about radio anymore the way I do.

That’s why I was extra worried when I learned about what Project 2025 had planned for the FCC, as well as the Voice of America ( least KKKari Lake is being deregulated, shall we say).

I spent a lot of 2024 screaming into the abyss (and directly at Brendan Carr on Twitter) about the dangers of Trump controlling the airwaves. I think you’ve all seen enough to know that “NosTARAdamus” was right about that, too.

But all is not lost, thanks to Democrats.

Oregon State AG Dan Rayfield is suing to block a merger that would leave my city, Portland, with three of our four major local stations owned by media companies that have caved to Trump. Seven other states also filed motions for temporary restraining orders a day after Brendan Carr’s compromised FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion purchase of its rival, Tegna. And more states need to get in on this ASAP, because Trump’s control of the media needs to be not just stopped, but undone.

Don’t give Joe Kent any kind of a pass just yet, because he’s still MAGA. And he’s about to become even more dangerous than he already was.

The DNI was under a microscope on Wednesday in the wake of the unexpected resignation letter bombshell released by the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent.

Tulsi “Hillary Told Us All About You” Gabbard was being grilled by the Senate Intelligence Committee and lied under oath yet again when being questioned by my Senator, Ron Wyden (D-OR). Senator Chutzpah here is the embodiment of “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” because he definitely stuck it to Tulsi.

It’s been fascinating to watch the MAGA reaction to Kent’s resignation unfold on Twitter, because Joe Kent wasn’t even on their radar before they were told what to say about him in their tweets.

The official message from the White House was, “Kent is a liar who was always weak on national security,” which is a weird thing to say about the person you hired to help oversee our national security. Another L for the world’s least successful businessman

Before Tuesday, Kent had been a MAGA darling and special favorite of Trump’s ever since they met at Kent’s wife’s Dignified Transfer in 2019, one of the few times Trump met the coffins of service people killed in action during his first term. Kent soon joined the Trump 2020 campaign and was a full-on America First MAGA mouthpiece, whom I dubbed “Rand Paul Lite” early on thanks to their resemblance in both looks and disregard for the truth.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Kent positioned himself to run for Congress in Washington’s 3rd District — where I lived from 2001 until 2022 — to challenge then-Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), who had fallen out of favor with Trump after she voted for his second impeachment. Herrera Beutler famously testified that she was with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-FL, via Trump’s alimentary canal) in his office on January 6, 2021, when he called Trump at the White House and begged him to call off the MAGA crowd that was attempting to break into his office window.

“Well, Kevin,” Trump told him, “I guess some people are more upset about the election results than others.” And then hung up on him.

Ah, 2021, a time when Republicans quietly told the truth about Trump once he left office. That was a real thing that the media also fumbled back then.

In September 2021, I was writing for the now-defunct website Hill Reporter when I heard that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was being dispatched to appear with Joe Kent in Vancouver to boost his campaign. The full story has been archived, and once you’re done here, I’d appreciate it if you could take the time. But I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version here.

I’d arranged for an interview with both Gaetz and Kent for Labor Day via Kent’s campaign manager. We were set to meet at a coffee shop ahead of a planned private fundraiser, which would be followed by a rally at the Clark County Fairgrounds. The morning of the interview, I was told Gaetz wasn’t available, but Kent was still a go.

I was fully prepared, but Kent wasn’t ready for my competence. Kent, his tattoo sleeves partially covered by shirtsleeves even in the warm weather (SUS!), told me everything I needed to know about him by not answering the questions I asked him during our 40-minute interview, in which I repeatedly nailed him with these pesky things I brought with me called FACTS. We were only a couple of minutes in before he remarked, “Wow, I usually get softball questions.”

“Yeah, I don’t play softball,” I quipped.

My questions were enough for his campaign manager, who was furiously texting during the interview. Before the promised hour I’d arranged had elapsed, our conversation was cut short by Matt Braynard, a MAGA strategist and devoted J6er.

But I’d gleaned some very important info, mainly that there were already plans to challenge the results of the 2022 midterms, a full 14 months before a vote had been cast.

The fundraiser had been moved from a skate park (Matt Gaetz + teenagers = Bad Optics) to a private residence. Even though Kent had denounced the violence of January 6th in our interview, these were the kinds of bumper stickers on the cars of those who were welcome inside--unlike myself and my pal/bodyguard, Eugene.

There was also a heavy presence of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers at the very small rally, which wasn’t advertised, to both avoid protests as well as to keep the crowd to just “their” people--who threatened me.

Matt Gaetz quote-tweeted this from his then-official Congressional Twitter account. He used MAGA virtue signaling words like “triggered” and “Karen,” and then took his harassment of an American citizen even further by doing a segment about me on his “Firebrand” podcast. A sitting member of Congress used his platform to encourage his followers to “seek out” my social media, which they definitely did. What followed were weeks of targeted harassment, both online and off. Aside from getting multiple rape and death threats via every platform, there were calls and texts. Someone used Facebook Messenger to claim someone was on the way to film themselves killing me. Two hours later, a car was parked outside my apartment, and someone was taunting me from a burner phone, screaming, “COME OUTSIDE, TARA!”

Which I did not.

Law enforcement did nothing, not then and not when I reported being followed around town. House Ethics did nothing. The Florida Bar did nothing. Those tweets and two Firebrand episodes are still live.

Gaetz no longer has the protection of Congress, and I can only hope he’ll face charges for sex trafficking teenagers.

As for Joe Kent, keep your eye on him. Watch his friendship with Tucker Carlson. He’s still got those Nazi tattoos. He’s still dangerous, thanks to what he knows and what he believes. I’ve seen how he operates, up close and all too personal.

Hey, DNC, I’ve got your unifying message right here.

A new poll shows that the majority of Americans believe Donald Trump is using the Iranian people as human distractions for his crimes against humanity. Deploying 2,500 Marines to Iran is a clear signal that Trump is willing to send our military to die for him just because his name is so embedded in the Epstein Files.

This is the kind of thing Democrats should be talking about every chance they get. Trump’s failures are all they need to campaign on. Every last one of his sycophants in Congress shoulders the blame for everything he does, and that’s what Democrats need to focus on.

MAKE TRUMP’S FAILURES STICK TO MAGA CANDIDATES.

That’s it.

That’s the Democratic Party’s unifying message for the 2026 midterms.

You’re welcome, Ken Martin! It’s okay, you can send me a small stipend for that and the other ideas I have about the aggressive campaign every Democratic candidate needs.

Call it OPERATION TRUMP’S FAULT.

Gas prices? Trump’s fault.

Grocery prices? Trump’s fault.

Epstein Files and the Iran body count thus far? Soooo Trump’s fault.

Trump is the Republican Party, and they are him (maybe not Rep. Thomas Massie at the moment, but the rest for sure).

Democrats have been accused of not bragging about our accomplishments while also not holding their Republican colleagues accountable. It’s time to switch things up ahead of a midterm election that Trump is already telling everyone is rigged. Sound familiar? Do any of us need to relive any of our previous elections over the last decade of Trump Blight?

Democrats need to quit campaigning nicely and use the truth as a weapon against their Republican opponents, who are barely holding on to their simple majority because they’ve been dropping like flies in the House.

CNN reports that a record 35 House Republicans are either retiring or seeking higher office, such as Senator or Governor. It’s the most since at least 1930, according to data cited from the Brookings Institution.

The recent scandal surrounding Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX) is just the latest gift handed to the Democrats from the Trumpublicans. Despite his initial refusals to resign, Gonzalez has now acquiesced and isn’t seeking reelection. And the House Ethics Committee’s investigation into Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) falsifying her Congressional expense report could cost them their majority even before the midterms.

Mace’s seat was already going to be vacated before January 2027 because she’s running a failing campaign for Governor of South Carolina. Her erratic online behavior and support of Trump instead of the Epstein Survivors have made her incredibly unpopular both online and off. And now she might be expelled from Congress over the more than $9,000 she allegedly embezzled from the United States government.

That’s another glorious advantage for Democrats if it happens. No bills are going to get passed when there’s every chance of a 217-217 tie. It weakens the Hastert Rule (not bringing bills to the floor without majority party support), and passing any bills out of committee becomes more difficult.

While there have been plenty of Democrats speaking out against the Trump regime and the Epstein Files, they’re still facing the very real problem of getting the truth to rise to the top, where Americans can see it. Trump and his allies are doing all they can to control the flow of information. FCC Chair Brendan Carr is now threatening to pull broadcast licenses if networks don’t air Trump’s Iran propaganda. At the same time, the 2026 midterms will be the first election truly impacted by the advances in AI technology and deepfakes. Whatever Elon did to help Trump in 2024 is going to not just be repeated, but worsened by whatever his Grok can be programmed to say or show.

As someone who makes my meager living by telling the truth, I’ve only grown more worried about how we’re supposed to believe anything we see or hear at this very critical moment. Our democracy is at stake. Nobody should be playing nice when every decision Trump makes comes with a body count.

But I’m not here to complain without providing solutions. The way to get the truth to the American public is to deliver it to them in a way that can’t be ignored. How does Trump’s propaganda get shared? It starts with a briefing from Press Secretary Karoline “KKKaroline Lie-vitt” Leavitt in a Press Room full of chosen right-wing media outlets. Seems a little biased, right?

So where’s our Democratic Press Secretary to give a daily briefing to counter those lies, like a daily response to the State of the Union? I’ve had this idea since about a week after Trump slithered back into the White House, and every time I’ve written or posted about it on social media, the response is overwhelming.

All members of the media would be invited to the Democratic Press briefing, which would be held at the Capitol. There’s no way the press wouldn’t show up, regardless of the outlet. The so-called “liberal” media that’s been jettisoned from the daily White House briefings is starved for access to the truth and would relish the chance to get real answers to their questions. The right-wing media would show up with their biased questions and get owned by someone smart, informed, and experienced at handling people like Peter Doocy.

I’ve often suggested Jessica Tarlov from Fox News for the job, because she shuts down the pile of stalking smarm that is Jesse Watters five days a week without raising her voice. I don’t know that she’d take the pay cut, but that’s the vibe we need from a Democratic Press Secretary. They’d meet the press while Democratic members of Congress go on TV to keep pushing the unifying message:

EVERYTHING IS TRUMP’S FAULT.