Nancy Mace appeared on her new video podcast Get Maced Thursday, wearing a garment X posters called a “cat suit.” Technically speaking, it was a skin-tight black leather top with a zipper down the front. The outgoing (in every sense) South Carolina Congresswoman did resemble Catwoman from the DC Universe. Was the DC pun somehow intended? Graphics appeared on the screen during the video in the style of comic book drawings.
The video pushed her YouTube audience to just over 70,000 subscribers. She spoke in an unsettlingly calm voice about topics such as the Iran war (“why we want it to end”), potential Democratic nominees and Hasan Piker (not yet a potential Democratic nominee).
Throughout the video, Mace unpacked opinions on Yemen and Qatar as they relate to the war. Unlike many politicians and political influencers of the moment, she did not seem to be yelling at the viewer. “Ladies be louder,” she said, referring to “common-sense” responses to gender. “You can’t protect women if you can’t define them.”
Cockburn can define them alright. A woman is a person who can wear purple eye-shadow and an outfit that would gain her admittance to Berghain – and get elected to Congress in South Carolina.
On our radar
‘I’M DONALD TRUMP, WELCOME TO JACKASS’ Johnny Knoxville will be the guest picker on tomorrow’s edition of ESPN’s College GameDay – not President Trump, as widely speculated on social media.
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR The US government will be allowed to use Social Security data to identify non-citizen voters, the Supreme Court ruled.
SOUTHERN SWING Trump will host rallies in Durant, Oklahoma, and Mobile, Alabama at the end of next week.
Chinamaxxing
Just how big is the Chinese threat to the US? Cockburn slinked into the White House yesterday morning to take the measure of Xi Jinping’s delegation, as they observed a silent military drill in the Rose Garden with President Trump and his cabinet. A photographer came in with a warning about the true danger: “the Chinese press are coming.” The visiting Beijing press pack are infamously sharp-elbowed: a couple of hours beforehand, they had clashed with White House wranglers and the Secret Service over where they were allowed to post up.
“Tempers began to flare when a Chinese photographer demanded to be in front of the official White House snapper. Not even the Secret Service could get him to budge. Some forcible shoving got him moving. But it didn’t stop another trying his luck on the red carpet. He was quickly pulled away by two female officers,” one White House reporter told Cockburn. “Chinese press corps are the most disobedient and aggressive to visit the White House. We expected the worst from their antics in Beijing. And today they didn’t disappoint.”
Tensions continued in the Rose Garden as the Chinese tried to squeeze into areas outside of the press cordon. “We’ll show you where to go, but you’re in the way of these soldiers,” one wrangler told them. Perhaps CNN, MS NOW and Politico aren’t such nightmares after all.
The press behaved themselves better in the evening as they filtered onto a riser opposite the North Portico steps to watch the arrivals for the state dinner. Well-heeled guests sauntered past – Bezoses, Baiers, Dells – as the chants rang out from a decently sized anti-CCP protest across the park. The activists name-checked all of Xi’s favorite places: Tibet, Hong Kong, East Turkistan, Burma, Taiwan. A military band all but drowned them out as the Chinese President and his wife got out of their car to be greeted by the Trumps. No need to let dissent get in the way of dessert.
Political prisoners liberated
The protesters outside the White House yesterday called for the release of Jimmy Lai, the Hong Konger founder of the Apple Daily serving a 20-year sentence in Chinese prison. Lai is one of at least 50 journalists currently imprisoned by China. But remember: the real heroes of the Fourth Estate are the CNN, MS NOW and Politico White House teams, who returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and were garnered with a laudatory response following their brief ban this week.
When Cockburn entered White House grounds yesterday morning, he overheard a German reporter filming a vertical video. The reporter spoke into the tiny microphone of his wired headphones, gravely intoning about “CNN, MS NOW und Politico.” Not like there were any bigger Washington stories that might interest unsere Freunde in Berlin.
Mary, did you know?
Former Alaska congresswoman Mary Peltola, a Democrat, is currently the slim favorite to beat Senator Dan Sullivan for a US Senate seat this November. As the midterms approach, so the chance of “oppo dumps” and “October surprises” increases. Yet Cockburn suspects the New York Times exposé into Peltola’s language and temperament could end up backfiring.
Disgruntled former staffers tattled to the Times about Peltola’s “angry and profane outbursts,” how she once “shoved” a male aide and how she asked staff to “feed live crickets to her family’s pet chameleon, Meatball.”
“Four former staff members said they directly heard her use the word ‘faggot’ over the years, in some cases about her own staff members, an allegation the campaign denied,” the Times reports. “She also used the word ‘retarded,’ according to former aides and text messages viewed by the New York Times.” The screenshot below indicates one such usage. Cockburn likes her bitmoji!
Then there’s this text message, expressing her irritation at Planned Parenthood after the nonprofit scrutinized her hesitation on a defense bill that contained anti-abortion provisions:
For a Democratic woman to win Alaska, you’d need to be tough as boots. Cockburn thinks her staffers should have bitten their tongues and fed Meatball.
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