Democrats Mullin' Votin' for Election-Denyin' DHS Nominee

Despite folksy, Palinesque headline, this is not good

March 10: Mullin confirmation hearing set for next week … Some Democrats already open to Mullin despite his election denial … Democrats threaten to paralyze the Senate the way their fundraising emails keep saying they can’t … Shrapnel from Iran school-bombing missile was made in the USA …

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Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) reflects on his profound love for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, AZ, at the Kirk Memorial and All-Star Revue on Sept. 21, 2025. (Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons photo.)

Senate Republicans are aiming to hold a confirmation hearing a week from Wednesday for the nomination of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to run the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS).

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who chairs the Homeland (sic) Security Committee, said Monday the timing depends on whether “all the paperwork comes in.”

Nominees have to submit all kinds of forms and disclosures about their vast experience and all the work they’ve done. It’s a complicated task that’s a lot more involved than a résumé and can sometimes take weeks unless you have as little experience as Markwayne Mullin. None of which is relevant to homeland (sic) securing.

Except for the stuff I revealed on Sunday.

The real issue with the timing may be that one week is not enough time for Democrats on the committee to read my fucking article exposing all kinds of fucked-up shit about Mullin. Or the two coming articles!

As I reported Sunday, a ragtag band of election deniers — who multiple journalists have now confirmed are feeding their info and crazy to the administration — were first connected with Team Trump by Mullin.

Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV went so far as to suggest that Mullin helped facilitate an illegal international computer hack of Dominion Voting Systems computers in Serbia just days before the 2024 election.

What, as the Senate Homeland (sic) Security Committee might ask, the fuck? I mean, if you can’t trust Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV, who can you trust?

Now, is it possible that Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV somehow got some facts wrong? I feel like that question was answered with “Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV.” But Robinson’s credibility isn’t the point.

The point is Mullin appears to believe this stuff. And will be in charge of the world’s largest police force at a time when Pres. Donald Trump is ratcheting up pressure to use it to suppress voting in the name of a vast international voting conspiracy that the head of the DHS should. not. believe. in.

The seven Democrats who voted for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem a year ago — providing the votes needed to confirm her! — were:

• Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)

• Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH)

• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)

• Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ)

• Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI)

• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)

• Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)

The seven who sit on the Senate Homeland (sic) Security Committee are:

• Peters, the ranking Democrat

• Hassan

• Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)

• Fetterman

• Kim

• Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)

• Slotkin

Notice something? Five of the seven Democratic votes that Republicans needed to confirm Noem came from the Homeland (sic) Security Committee, literally the committee made up of people who are supposed to know this shit better than other people.

And, yet, in this case, being not on the committee proved a far more valuable credential for assessing Noem’s fitness for DHS.

Fetterman has already said he’s a yes again, because what could go wrong for Renee Good and Alex Pretti? Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a known addict to bipartisanship, is “open” to voting for Mullin.

Coons is also addicted to fanfic, telling Politico that Mullin is “going to have to make real changes,” without explaining why, or why Noem didn’t have to make doody, let alone real changes, or real doody.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) on Monday predicted Mullin will be confirmed, suggesting that more Democrats are privately yeses than are publicly yeses, so maybe Democrats are not great champions of democracy?

“We’re going to have an opportunity to speak with Senator Mullin and go to the heart of some of these questions that I think are troubling,” Welch said like someone preparing to cave.

The fact that we’re not already hearing flat-out nos from every Senate Democrat should be scarier than the prospect of another Scream movie.

And we know that Trump is hellbent on asserting that American voting is vulnerable, not only because those conspiracy guys convinced him it is — according to Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV — but also because look at what Trump’s toadies are already toadally doing.

Arizona officials said Monday that they’re cooperating with a Justice Department subpoena for records related to the state Senate’s audit of the 2020 Maricopa County vote. A county spokesperson said they’ll comply.

Arizona state Senate President Warren Petersen said he’s already handed his records over to the FBI. Somehow, the FBI is still run by Director Kash Patel, the same FBI director who assured us there was nothing Trumpy in The Epstein Files™ even though there was and also said there was evidence of 2020 voting fraud even though there wasn’t. And said he’d find Nancy Guthrie even though he hasn’t.

AND At the House Republican retreat on Monday, Trump said that passing new restrictions on voting, including the SAVE America Act, “will guarantee the midterms.” He said, “if you send it [the bill] up there [the White House? Heaven?], you will win the midterms and you will win every election for a long time.”

How would the federal government unconstitutionally enforce new unconstitutional voting restrictions, making sure that counties were checking IDs according to unconstitutional federal law? That’d be DHS, which would be Mullin, the election-conspiracy buyer who won’t have to make real changes.

Democrats Reveal They Had the Power To Go Home All Along

Despite more than a year of enraging fundraising emails swearing to Democratic donors that the only thing Democrats can do to return America to democracy is to win control of at least one house of Congress…

…on Monday, they apparently inadvertently revealed that that’s bullshit.

“We’re not going to let the Senate continue business as usual,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), referring to a group of Senate Democrats. Reportedly, the group includes:

• Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)

• Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)

• Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA)

• Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Booker explained — just as the party’s critics have been explaining for a year — that “Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate as well as certain privileges that we can exercise.”

Specifically, Murphy explained, “As senators we have the right to force a vote and debate every single day in the Senate. That’s not a right under the rules, by the way, granted to us by the majority. That’s a right given to us by the statute.”

The Hill explained that the 1973 War Powers Act gives Democrats the power to force votes on military action not authorized by Congress. Democrats didn’t use this power to stop unauthorized military action of the National Guard in U.S. cities.

Nor to stop The Boat-iac Killings™ in the Caribbean.

So what is it that Democrats want that’s only now leading them to threaten shutting the Senate down? Hearings!

Yes, you’re hearing that right, Democrats want Secretaries Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth to testify.

That’s it. That’s the demand. It’s not clear what Rubio and Hegseth will reveal that they aren’t already bragging about online, but at least Democrats have revealed they can do more than they’ve said. Progress!

More Evidence of Worst Trump School Attack Ever

Pres. Donald Trump and his friends are known for preying on school girls. Trump has bragged about invading teen pageant dressing rooms. His best friend Jeffrey Epstein, of course, fished for girls outside their schools and in the recruiting pool that Trump helpfully created at Mar-a-Lago (no, really).

But last week was the first time Trump blew up a school, killing multiple girls at one time (I am definitely not implying there’s anything to those rumors that the president killed some of his victims or punched one who bit his dick, and by “his dick” I do not mean Vice President JD Vance).

And now there’s new evidence that we can actually see, because it’s not in The Epstein Files™.

A New York Times analysis concludes that debris from last week’s school bombing that killed 175 people, most of them school girls, includes American-made components found in Tomahawk missiles. Right down to the serial numbers.

On Monday, Trump lied about it again. “Iran also has some Tomahawks,” Trump said. In fact, the only Tomahawks Iran has are the ones Trump sent them last week.

Trump also said, “As you know, numerous other nations have Tomahawks.” But unless Trump is claiming that Australia blew up the girls school, as we know, none of the nations involved in this conflict have Tomahawks. Except the U.S.

So not only is Trump lying, he knows he’s lying, and, in fact, he knows he’s guilty, according to the trustworthy journalists at Fox who are even more trustworthy than Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV!

Fox’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin said Monday that Trump “just knows that this is certainly a mistake, a big mistake, and it’s being investigated. But, he is trying to sort of muddy the waters by talking about the Tomahawks.”

Got that, Fox viewers? Your president is trying to muddy the waters.

YOU ARE THE WATERS.

No, Really, High Gas Prices Are Trump’s Fault

In Monday’s TFN, I talked about how Energy Secretary Chris Wright was right to blame Wall Street oil traders for gambling up the price of gas over the weekend. And I flagged my past reporting on how Pres. Donald Trump let that happen by protecting a legal loophole big enough for Wall Street to drive an oil tanker through.

Well, later on Monday I got confirmation that I’m not the only one crazy enough to blame Trump for high gas prices. As I reported exclusively on Monday over on my other Substack, I asked Public Citizen Energy Program Director Tyson Slocum whether lax regulation was to blame and he texted back, “Sure sounds like it!”

Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Dylan Gyauch-Lewis told me that deregulation has turned futures markets from a means of ensuring price stability into a means of not that, leaving the markets “transformed from a tool for hedging risk and stabilizing prices into yet another avenue for gambling on our economy.”

She told me that, “government has permitted Wall Street to run amok in our commodity markets.”

And if your brain started to glaze over the instant I said “futures markets,” I have good news for you…

MEdia WATCH Public Citizen Energy Program Director Tyson Slocum joins me today at 11am, eastern time, for a Substack Live, free to watch right here, explaining what the hell I’m talking about and how Trump could end the surge in gas prices as soon as noon, eastern time. Join us!

EXPOSED: Trump Only Bombing Iran at 1/20th of Full Potential

Pres. Donald Trump said Monday that if Iran blocks oil tankers from going through the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. will bomb Iran “TWENTY TIMES HARDER.”

Trump did not explain why the U.S. has only been bombing Iran to date with, at most, 1/20th of the military’s capacity. Ending the war sooner — which Trump said he already did over the weekend and on Monday said he will “very soon” and then said is already “very complete” — could have saved the lives of seven U.S. fatalities. It’s also not clear why Trump didn’t threaten to multiply U.S. attacks in defense of, say, Israel, or victims of Iran-affiliated terrorist groups.

Instead of oil. Because it’s raising prices. Which, as I just mentioned, is Wall Street’s fault. And Trump’s.

PS Strategerically speaking, it is a bad move to tell your opponent in a war that you’re about ready to pack it in. It’s like cops telling hostage-takers they’re gonna call it a night.

If you’re lying — which, given, is Trump’s go-to move — and you keep your war going, you demoralize the folks at home, and polls show Americans are already about as minimally moralized as they can be.

If you’re telling the truth and really will leave soon, then all the enemy has to do is sit tight. Which Trump just told Iran to do.

He also just told the Iranian people — including Kurds across the border waiting to attack — not to bother uprising. That’s because he’s no longer interested in regime change.

Trump said Monday he’ll be happy if the regime just puts someone in charge he can work with. We’re sorry if you trusted him, Iranian protesters and Kurds. You know America hates to say ayatollah you so.

MORE PS Trump’s vacillations and the breathless media scramble over each one are precisely why TFN is once a day. No one needs whiplash, okay? You’ve got better things to do than track this stuff hour by hour!

The Assault on America’s Values Is Coming from Inside the House

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) said Monday that, “Muslims don't belong in American society.”

Ogles, whose seat is being sought by these Democrats in the primary, defended his bigotry by citing terror attacks. (No one tell him about the Christians who just blew up a school in Iran.)

So let’s hear from some of the folks who created American society, shall we?

• “[I]t does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” - Thomas Jefferson

• “If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [Muslims], Jews or Christian of an[y] Sect, or they may be Atheists.” — George Washington, looking for workers that he’d actually pay to work on his home

• “[N]either Pagan nor Mahamedan [Muslim] nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion.” — Jefferson, quoting John Locke.

Jefferson not only owned a Koran, he advocated openly for the civil rights of Muslims. Not one of the founding fathers listed intolerant, shameless, terrorized scaredy-cat gasbags as worthy of including in the civil rights of the Commonwealth. (Although, in fairness, it was implied.)

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids! It’s what Emerald Robinson of Lindell TV would want you to do…

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.