Dallas

"He’s smoking meth,” I heard on the police radio. Lieutenant Jordan Colunga promised to take me to the action, but maintained his leisurely pace. He chuckled as the undercover officers dictated their observations from a gas station. The pipe fiend, having wisely decided he had had his fill, unwisely began wandering the pumps to sell his surplus to passersby. Undercover cops don’t blow their cover for spontaneous drug dealers, so the observers passed along the information to a nearby squad car. The suspect was back in his vehicle by the time the beat cops arrived on scene. “He’s getting out of the car, he’s getting out of the car,” an officer said apprehensively on the radio before yelling, “He’s reaching, he’s reaching!” The laughter stopped. Colunga hit the gas.

How should we assess the value of a US president? In the case of John F. Kennedy, who died sixty years ago, the box denoting youthful vigor clearly gets a checkmark. Kennedy was just forty-six at the time of his assassination, which makes him younger than Hunter Biden is now. The box denoting the “vision thing” gets checked as well, if only because Kennedy saw the potential for beating the Soviets in the race to put a man on the moon, famously declaring, “We choose to do this, not because [it is] easy, but because it is hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” Also to be considered is the collective trauma of the events of November 22, 1963.

Donald Trump headlined CPAC Texas, delivering a series of broadsides to the Biden administration to a packed arena at Dallas’s Hilton Anatole. The more than 2,500 seats were filled — with even more guests lining the aisles. Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was supposed to introduce the 45th president — but found herself bumped at the expense of Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, for reasons that remain unclear. Prior to the former president’s speech, a short film played on the large TV monitors. “We are a nation in decline,” a Trump voiceover began. “We are a failing nation.” Gloomy black-and-white footage followed, accompanied by thunder and rain sounds. A screenshot of Trump’s suspended Twitter account was perhaps the most moving image.

Dallas, Texas Howdy from the Lone Star State, where Cockburn is braving 100-degree heat, overpriced IPAs and America First applause lines to bring you coverage of CPAC Texas. The conservative conference has come to the Hilton Anatole in Dallas for the second year — and is once again headlined by former president Donald Trump, set to speak this evening. Appropriately, the hotel’s two bars are called “Media” and “Gossip,” as if they’d been purpose-built for your intrepid correspondent. Cockburn managed to finagle his way into the $375-a-head Cattleman’s Ball for free on Friday night, where he sat at a table with a cadre of fellow hacks, chief among them John Fredericks, the “Godzilla of Truth.

The circus came to Dallas this weekend with a who's-who of Adderall-ridden e-celebrities for the Texas edition of Conservative Political Action Conference. The scandalous former Olympian-turned-California gubernatorial recall candidate Caitlyn Jenner faced harassment on Saturday while making her way through the conference in a viral video. A heckler calls the transgender politician by her former name, Bruce, and shouts, 'What do you think about the stuff they're teaching schools about LGBT? Don't forget about Jesus!' 'Look at that sick freak! Why do people want a picture with him,' the man recording the video asks. 'Why do we want a picture with a tranny?