Cockburn’s Diary

Love is in the air at Casa Cockburn this Friday — it’s Valentine’s Day and politicos are pairing off. The most shocking? The revelation in the New York Post that divorced former mayor Bill de Blasio is dating Nomiki Konst, a Democratic activist and former host of HillTV’s Rising.  “Nomi and I have started a really lovely relationship, just in time for Valentine’s Day. We’ve known each other for a long time and are very kindred souls ❤️,” the mayor texted the Post. “We’re going to cuddle up and watch romantic movies and drink Greek wine, in honor of Nomi’s heritage.” Cute. Forty-one-year-old Konst previously interviewed de Blasio and his then-wife Chirlane McCray in 2018.

While some Fortune 500 companies are dropping DEI programs like hot cakes, many in the Democratic Party are not so eager. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who was almost the official face of the House Democrats’ messaging, has been taking her message that “mediocre white boys” are the ones complaining about DEI to the airwaves of cable news.Now the Democrats’ Senate committee is rolling out a job application form with an optional DEI section where applicants can pick between five sexualities and five genders, with options including “trans* woman / Transfeminine” and “pansexual.” This form was one of the first actions that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s (DSCC) new chief diversity and inclusion officer.

Source: Trump appointee struggles for coherence before TV hit Which top Trump pick caused concern — bordering on panic — at a major news network this week, by turning up in a daze, slurring their words so heavily employees couldn’t understand them? The appointee claimed to have slipped on the ice and was moving “like a cripple” around the studio and spilling food, a source tells Cockburn. “To me,” the tipster says, the pick “seemed addled on pain meds. Could barely stand.” Cockburn of course wishes nothing but the finest health to the incoming administration — they need to stay safe if they’re serious about taking on the Big Pharma cartel!

A very Special Relationship On Friday night, Cockburn began at the British Embassy for send-off drinks with outgoing ambassador Karen Pierce. Several foreign correspondents were present, along with the Washington Post’s John Hudson, Robert Costa and Fin Gomez of CBS. They all tucked into sparkling wine and beer and fish and chips hors d’oeuvres.Britain was also on the agenda for Cockburn’s next event, the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack Celebration thrown by the Gunster Group, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore on the roof of the Hay-Adams. Upon hearing an accent, Natalie Winters of the War Room podcast asked of one British guest, “so, groomer or groomée?”Cockburn watched the esteemed Dr. Sebastian Gorka exiting in a long military-style trenchcoat.

Brett Cooper, former host of The Comment Section on the Daily Wire, has sparked rumors after liking a controversial Instagram post by former colleague Candace Owens. Speculation follows a clip from Piers Morgan Uncensored last month in which Owens accused Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a war criminal with “genocidal ambitions.” Owens told Morgan, “I want to use my platform to say that I believe they are intentionally executing a holocaust.” Cooper liking Owens’s post raised questions: does Cooper agree with Owens’s take on the war in Gaza? Could this be tied to her departure from the Daily Wire? And does she plan to collaborate with Owens moving forward?

In one of the grubby little hypocrisies that have come to characterize Joe Biden’s single term, the president awarded Jose Andrés the Presidential Medal of Freedom last weekend — at around the same time as signing off on another $8 billion weapons sale to Israel. A previous lot to head off to our top Middle East ally may well have played a part in the air strike that killed seven people working for Andrés’s World Central Kitchen in Gaza. Such complex contradictions may explain Andrés’s muted reaction to receiving the honor: one of Cockburn’s sources saw the chef dining with his family and friends at Nobu after the ceremony. When the spy approached Andrés at the bar the chef was ebullient — yet upon being congratulated he turned solemn.

What a difference a lot of snow and a Donald Trump victory makes. January 6, 2025 is shaping up to be vastly different from January 6, 2021, thanks to weather forecasts of almost a foot of snow in the DC area and a beaten-down Democratic Party that couldn’t steal an election if it tried to.Despite some left-wing fever dreams, Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to certify Trump’s victory as planned on Monday; the only potential hurdles will be whether Republicans can get a speaker of the House in time, and just how bad the snow fall ends up being. If it is substantial, Cockburn is happy to report, there will be a snowball fight on the grounds of the US Capitol, just like there have been in days of yore.

Who’s in charge of the executive branch? That question has been on many lips throughout the duration of President Joe Biden’s term, and has been asked even more often since his decision to stand aside as Democratic nominee in July. Perhaps the White House itself offers some visual clues to the answer: a source who has been heading in for transition meetings with the outgoing administration notes that virtually all of the jumbo portraits inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue feature Vice President Kamala Harris — visiting foreign countries, making speeches and the like. Biden, meanwhile, is barely featured. Perhaps all of his impressive pictures are displayed in the basement at Rehoboth Beach...

Gay-PMG Grüezi from Switzerland, friends. A Cockburn spy was recently hoping to enjoy a quiet lunch at an Irish pub in Zurich’s Old Town when he was sat next to a large group of somewhat intoxicated KPMG Switzerland employees. It was quite the liquid lunch, with beers and wine flowing for hours and one staffer suggesting a round of shots, a move that was quickly rejected from the already too-far-gone group. One American employee of the firm was waxing lyrical about KPMG’s alleged hopelessly bigoted management.

Lincoln in the Bardo “The economy has never been better,” top Democrats and their surrogates told voters during the 2024 elections. It turns out that’s because the economy was doing just fine for a lot of the party’s top vendors. After all, Kamala Harris’s $1 billion of campaign expenditures had to wet some beaks, if not win votes. One series of outlays stood out in particular: the millions of dollars spent by the Lincoln Project, despite the Democratic Party’s top infrastructure rolling out focus groups showing that the group’s work had zero impact on the 2020 presidential election. “Tragic,” elections analyst Rob Pyers wrote on X. “After raising $15.5 million for the year and burning through $16.

Elsewhere in the world, they just call Thanksgiving “Thursday.” But in the addled minds of some on America’s progressive left, it’s something far worse. Joy Reid aired her “Thanksgiving message to MAGA trolls,” in which she discussed her “alternative” Thanksgiving idea for those who voted for Donald Trump: “Make your own dinner, MAGA, make your own sandwiches, wipe your own tears, troll among yourselves with Elon and leave us alone. You’ve got your heart’s desire: the president you dreamed of, and worship instead of Jesus.

Nancy Mace has embarked on her newfound crusade against the trans employees of the Hill — a group of people so uncomfortable in their own skin that many undergo plastic surgery in order to feel more like their true selves. Mace’s campaign to ban biological men from the women’s restrooms of Congress marks a change in tack for the congresswoman — not the first one, obviously. “I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality,” the South Carolina congresswoman told the Washington Examiner back in 2021. “No one should be discriminated against.

A new betting pool emerged on the Hill at the tail-end of this week: who will get fewer votes in his confirmation hearing? Matt Gaetz or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?So far, most of President-elect Donald Trump’s staffing announcements have prompted either jubilation or downright astonishment — and that’s only among his supporters. When Matt Gaetz was announced, some suspected a typo: surely Trump had meant to tap his former attorney general, Matt Whitaker? One top Judiciary Committee staffer compared Gaetz’s bid to helm the DoJ to that of Neera Tanden to helm the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget: an effort that was doomed from the start but meant to reward a Twitter-happy loyalist of the new president.

The flawed logic of the anti-Trump sex strike No one really knows what a second Trump administration will hold for America — given the breadth of his coalition of contradictory factions, some of his voters are bound to be disappointed. But the prospect of the Donald’s mere presence back in the White House has led to a spasm of outrage on social media, with young women and members of the LGBTQIAA+ community fearful of the erosion of “rights” in case Trump, J.D. Vance and the Republicans eschew the campaign manifesto and draw instead from the Heritage Foundation’s more hardline Project 2025 agenda.Drastic measures are being mooted.

Against Buttons-bashing It’s hiring season at the Manhattan Institute — Christopher Rufo this week announced that Christina Buttons and Hannah Grossman are joining its Logos Initiative team as investigative reporters. “We’re building the best investigative team in right-leaning media. Whatever happens with the election next week, we will be shaping the news to come,” Rufo tweeted. Yet no good deed goes unpunished. X users have been poring over Buttons’s history. Some are outraged that Buttons is a former Democrat who voted for Obama, Hillary and Biden; others harped over the fact that she quit the Daily Wire over the strength of some of Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles’s language about trans people.

Clinton dips in the Lake You can’t teach the Big Dog new tricks… Bill Clinton cemented his reputation as the Harris campaign’s least helpful surrogate this week in an appearance where he branded Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Arizona, “someone who is physically attractive.”“Bill Clinton has officially turned into every other married man over the age of sixty-five in Scottsdale — embarrassing themselves by publicly hitting on women thirty-three years their junior,” a Lake staffer told Cockburn. Lake is only two years older than Monica Lewinsky.

In spooky season, it’s only appropriate that the “joy” has been drawn out of the Harris campaign like a demon facing an exorcist. It may have found a new host in her opponent: former president Donald Trump brought down the house at the Al Smith dinner for Catholic charities in New York City last night, which Kamala opted to skip. Trump has also faced criticism this week for canceling events and dodging interviews with CNBC and the Shade Room. His remarks are worth watching in their entirety (you can do so below), but here are some choice one-liners. Clearly Trump has benefited from keeping the company of comedians Andrew Schulz and Theo Von lately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Early voting has started and the efforts to sway undecided voters are growing more unorthodox as we head toward Election Day. Donald Trump deconstructed the art of the dismissive nickname on Andrew Schulz’s podcast; Kamala Harris likewise partook in a much-vaunted “media blitz” through the friendly studios of The View, Call Her Daddy, Stephen Colbert — and the slightly more testing environs of 60 Minutes. Dem VP pick Tim Walz is also kicking off what Politico bills as a “man-focused media blitz,” which comes across a bit Harvey Fierstein. As for high-profile Harris backers?

“When Boeing fails... BET ON SPORTS! #STRIKE #IAM751 #NFL #MLB,” a striking Boeing employee recently posted on Facebook, geotagging a three-star hotel and casino in Washington State. Posts in a private Facebook group purporting to belong to the striking workers of Boeing reveal that, amid the first Boeing employee strike in almost two decades, the workers of the world are uniting on vacation. The group, called “Boeing Employees (Lazy B),” contains a multitude of posts from striking members on vacation in Mexico, gambling in casinos and on fishing trips. “On strike in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco Mexico. #iam751 #boeing,” another post reads. A third reads, “strike fishing again.

“Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America,” now-Mayor Eric Adams told a pair of Turks on camera after they asked him for political favors in a cameo he made in a Turkish romcom. Now, in real life, Adams is accused of doing just that, following a sweeping indictment unsealed by prosecutors in Manhattan who allege that he fraudulently obtained $10 million in public campaign funds and accepted over $100,000 in bribes in order to facilitate a new Turkish consulate.“In 2014, Eric Adams, the defendant, became Brooklyn borough president.