It’s knives-out season for Capitol Hill creeps. After Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales were forced to resign their congressional seats following allegations of sexual impropriety, Congress has turned into a circular firing squad of claims and callouts. Members past and present, not to mention the media, are encouraging staffers to come forward and reveal who did what on that Vegas trip or congressional retreat. Cockburn, who has some track record with these stories, has one eye on his inbox as ever.
The chatter has picked up over the past few days ahead of the House Ethics Committee today. A list of investigations of alleged sexual misconduct by members was published, detailing the outcomes. Former congressman George Santos, tweeted out his own list of unsubstantiated allegations on Sunday and has been encouraging staffers to contact him with anecdotes about Representatives Michael Guest and Nancy Mace. Mace in turn has been leading the charge to expel Representative Cory Mills, who she calls “the worst kind of pond scum in Congress.” Mills is the subject of an Ethics Committee probe examining allegations that he physically assaulted a mistress of his; Mills in turn branded Mace “a hypocrite who abuses her power and is an opportunist.”
No wonder, then, that the calls to reform Congress’s ethical procedures are mounting. Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican who led the charge to expel Swalwell and Gonzales, states her case in The Spectator today. “Addressing this problem demands a complete overhaul, starting with the committees meant to uphold the integrity of Congress, a standard they are currently failing to meet,” Luna writes. “The process for handling allegations must move with urgency and transparency – and leadership must be willing to act based on credible concerns rather than waiting for issues to escalate beyond control.”
How many more heads will roll on the Hill before that happens?
On our radar
VARSITY BLUES President Trump will host victorious college athletes at the White House today to mark the NCAA Collegiate National Champions Day.
WARSH STORIES Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh told a Senate Banking Committee hearing today that he would be “strictly independent.”
BLOODY VALENTINA Serial Republican candidate and troll Valentina Gomez has been banned from entering the United Kingdom by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who Gomez branded a “dirty Pakistani Muslim.”
‘Bodysnatchers… skin-walkers’
There is a fine line between conspiracy and comedy. The Onion, the parody website, has gained the rights to lease Alex Jones’s Infowars for $81,000 on a month-by-month basis, for six months, until potential renewal. In 2024, the Onion bid $1.75 million to buy Infowars during a bankruptcy auction after the parents of Sandy Hook victims won a defamation lawsuit that left Jones broke.
Comedian Tim Heidecker announced the change in a video during which he lists potential future uses for the site: “We’re not really sure what we’re gonna do with it… we were playing around with it being a real estate broker service or a cryptocurrency exchange market.”
Jones followed up with an explosive rant on his network. “Just because you’re wearing my shirt doesn’t mean you’re me,” he says – while shirtless.
In the video, Alex Jones claims that the Onion would like to pass themselves off as him in order to confuse people. “You can do a parody of somebody but not if you took something from them,” he says.
“So you guys, keep laughing, just like you did a year and a half ago.”
The screen flashes to an AI image of Jones slicing an onion with a chef’s knife, while an Infowars employee states that “I looked it up – the Onion gets about half the traffic that Infowars gets.”
“This is what the left does,” Jones continued. “They try to silence you, then they misrepresent who you are. They’re bodysnatchers. They’re skin-walkers. They literally take your skin. This is gonna backfire big time folks.”
Labor’s love lost
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned Monday after a series of misconduct allegations and an internal investigation. The New York Times reported, “The claims include that she was having an affair with a member of her security team and used department resources for personal trips.” Four other staffers from the Labor Department resigned over the accusations, which were first revealed by the New York Post.
Chavez-DeRemer posted a Notes app statement to X, like a canceled YouTuber, relaying that she was “looking forward to what the future has in store” and that it “has been an honor and a privilege to serve in this historic Administration and work for the greatest President of my lifetime.” She is the fourth cabinet member from Trump’s second term to be pushed out, following on from Mike Waltz, Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, who all published similar statements after losing their jobs.
Cockburn can’t help but notice that in this administration, it’s largely the ladies who have been getting into trouble and writing sycophantic X posts after the fact. At least, the female rebel rousers are the ones who have been punished most publicly.
Perhaps a “culture reset” is in order. Cockburn has some advice: lock in, stop allegedly having affairs with your subordinates, ground yourself in reality, and at least pretend to be less corrupt than your predecessors.
Gossip guys
TMZ dispatched three producers to Capitol Hill earlier this month, announcing they’d be covering “the intersection of pop culture and politics.” Congressional staffers have been getting TMZ’d in public – that is, given a TMZ business card – but things might get worse once the online tabloid gets its bearings. Online, TMZ’s new political presence has induced mayhem through troll posts passing off well-known DC restaurants and locations as niche recommendations.
Jacob Wasserman, one of the TMZ producers, wrote on X: “DC people – if you’re looking to start off your day the right way, I highly recommend Tatte Bakery & Cafe. Pretty great way to celebrate one week in The District!” DC residents have begun mocking them by suggesting their own little-known DC locations: “TMZ next discovers this super cute indie art gallery called the Smithsonian.”
TMZ’s output includes charming footage of the three musketeers exploring the Hill and explaining the typical day of a congressman, which is the second-best job in the country.
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