At this game in 2012ish I asked Speaker Boehner to sing his birthday song to my friend who worked in a Dem office, he did (hey!), then we all took a picture. GOP went on to lose by a million. (IYKYK) It really doesnโt have to be this way.
JORDAN: How much fraud is too much fraud?
JORDAN: How many foreign contributions did you accept?
JORDAN: How much did you receive from Russia?
JORDAN: Why did your legal team quit?
ActBlue CEO: I plead the fifth x4
Anyone who has ever extracted themselves from a relationship with a narcissistic abuser knows it isnโt clean or easy.
I cringe remembering how many times I tried to play the โcool girlโ or fawn in response to what was clearly abusive, coercively controlling behavior by Graham.
I also know how dangerous it is to become the target of a narcissist โ so even long after our relationship ended I continued to be upbeat any time he reached out, though I would also immediately shut down any attempts on his part to initiate flirting or romanticizing of the past.
Yes, the day I saw him announce he was running I wanted to make sure people knew he had a Nazi tattoo โ and I was terrified he would find out it was me.
But of course he knew it was me.
Whatโs ironic is I absolutely never would have shared my story if he hadnโt been relentlessly attacking my character behind the scenes for months once the tattoo story came out.
I tried to signal that I wasnโt the source and stayed completely silent about him on social media even as most of my friends posted regularly about what a bad person he is.
But then in early April the New York Times came to me. I asked how they got my number. I said I was not interested in sharing my story. They said but waitโthere are other women. Women terrified to tell their stories, too, and you need to band together. WE will help you. We will protect you. Men canโt keep getting away with this.
Hours before their first call to me I saw Eric Swalwellโs name plate get removed from his office door in Cannon. It felt like fate.
I welcomed the two journalists into my home days later, nervous and overwhelmed. Justin Fairfax had just murdered his wife and himself the previous day and even conservative pundits were conjecturing that โif only those women hadnโt accused him of abuse, this never would have happenedโฆโ
But I told them my story. I let them take pictures of my diary pages. I sent them screenshots of messages and gave them phone numbers and contacts. It was excruciating. I was surprised by what details I remembered, and as I poured through old messages I was horrified by how much I had forgotten.
I explained very clearly that, like many women abused by their partners, I had not told anyone about his violence at the timeโI had covered for and defended it. I accepted his earnest apologies. They said thatโs fine because the diary entries and my on the record story was enough.
They connected me to two of the other victims so we wouldnโt feel so alone. I insisted to each of them that I trusted the NYT journalists and that we were doing the right thing despite their (sadly very accurate) sense that something was wrong.
One of the victims and I realized our relationships with Graham overlapped completely - he had been cheating on both of us the entire time we were together.
I should note here that my life is justโฆ beautiful. These are the best years of my life. Raising two young girls in a safe, beautiful neighborhood where I work from home and shuffle my children from dance classes and soccer to church events โ I am blessed far beyond what I deserve with wonderful friends and family and the most loving, brilliant husband in the world. Why would I blow my life up like this? Why would I risk the psychotic doxxing from violent leftist activists?
Because while I have been terrified to come forward I decided this was the โhard right thingโ to do. The guilt of staying silent has nagged me.
Most therapists recommend a โgray rockโ approach to extracting yourself from narcissistic abuse โ it works really well, but it is a gift to the abuser, allowing them to persist in their delusion that theyโve done nothing wrong.
I couldnโt stay silent as he continued to lie and lie and lie. I want my daughters to boldly speak out if theyโre ever abused as I was.
I bucked all advice from my friends (and resisted my conservative bias) and decided to fully trust the Times journalists.
As they left my home they asked that I not talk to any other outlets and I insisted then and repeatedly over the following weeks that I would keep my word and only share this story with them.
But then the weeks dragged on. They kept coming back to us saying the editors needed more. I needed to go on the record (okay). We need more screenshots (okay). I met every bench mark they set, eager to provide more sources or evidence as needed.
After the story went up I began to ask them โฆ wait, where are the stories from the other women? Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Grahamโs by far)?
Why does it say โnobody could corroborateโ when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?
Why did they include an out of context quote from a friend joking โdo not call Grahamโ after I called off my wedding? (Because she knew I would never).
Where were the screenshots theyโd said they would use? Or the mention that Iโd supported local democrats and that most of my family (and husband) are liberal?
The editors said it was too much, they explained.
The Times also failed to include any mention that I DID confide in multiple friends through the years that Graham had been abusive โ long before he was running for office. Those friends confirm they told the Times so.
It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along. The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life.
And at the end of my call with them I reluctantly accepted their insistence that this was still a powerful story and that I had done a brave thing. And I thanked them for all the hard work they had put into it.
Still fawning after all these years.
NYT published uncorroborated accusations against @grahamformaine of โunsettlingโ and โtoxicโ behavior that came from a Heritage staffer who previously worked for a conservative org that backs Collins.
POWERFUL: @BUngarSargon SLAMS Graham Platner and Democrats lining up to defend him...
"Well, I'll just say my grandfather's whole family was murdered in the Sobibor concentration camp. Graham Platner doesn't just have a Nazi tattoo. For 18 years, he had a tattoo of the concentration camp guards on his chest, and he knew what it was. He knew what it was. And to hear people compare that to anything else in the public sphere in America is insane. And it is insanely offensive. These people who are defending him called me, and every other MAGA person a Nazi for ten years, because we voted for someone who we thought would improve the lives of working-class Americans, and now they are lining up and defending a guy who had a Nazi tattoo -- which he knew about -- for 18 years. It is so insane to act like anything Donald Trump did was anywhere close to having a Taunton Cup on his chest for 18 years. This guy is a Nazi, and Democrats are lining up behind him because they think he can win."
I canโt be the only one to see the humor and irony in all of these progressive who think the right wants to put them in handmaid tales costumes, and they willingly put themselves in costumes to humor the Islamists. The things of the world hate the things of God and will ally together.
Your porch light is killing the night shift pollinators by the hundreds. The fix is a $5 light bulb swap.
Insects navigate by celestial light from the moon and stars. They're especially sensitive to UV and blue wavelengths, which is what cool-white and standard white bulbs put out. Cool-white and standard white light bulbs are short-wavelength and disrupt that navigation.
Moths circle the bulb until they die of exhaustion. Beetles, midges, fireflies, mayflies, lacewings, and small predatory wasps are pulled out of their habitat the same way, all summer, every night the light is on.
The result, if your porch light has been white for years, is a steady local depletion of the nocturnal pollinators, predators, and decomposers your local ecosystem runs on. Moths alone pollinate dozens of native plants no day insect visits.
Warm amber bulbs (2700K or lower on the package) attract a fraction of the insects. Red bulbs attract almost none.
Either one costs about $5 and lasts a decade if you get an LED.
You get the same visibility with a fraction of the dead insects.
Today, we remember a legend.
On this day in history, Harambe would have celebrated another birthday. An icon that became part of internet history, American culture, and an entire generationโs timeline.
Tomorrow marks 10 years since we lost him. Ten years since the moment the world stopped scrolling and collectively mourned something bigger than a meme.
He became a symbol of loyalty, strength, chaos, unity, and the strange beauty of the internet bringing millions of people together for one cause: never forgetting Harambe.
Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. And somehow, a decade later, his legacy still lives on.
Gone, but never forgotten.
Rest easy to a true patriot. ๐๏ธ๐บ๐ธ
May 27, 1999 โ May 28, 2016
Forever in our hearts.
๐จWATCH: Fairfax County Commonwealthโs Attorney Steve Descano took office in January 2020. Violent crime has increased 92% in the county under his watch.