J.d. vance

Happy Trans Day of Visibility, Bryon Noem!

Kristi Noem has just started her new role as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. She might need even more protection than a mere shield. The Daily Mail (who else?) this morning published bombshell photos and messages of her husband Bryon, wearing humongous prosthetic breasts and women’s leggings. While his wife was serving as President Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, Bryon was exchanging “hundreds of messages” with at least “three women from the ‘bimbofication’ scene – where porn performers transform themselves into real-life Barbie dolls by pumping colossal amounts of saline into their breasts.” The Mail has the images. Cockburn is opting not to publish them. Needless to say, the selfies suggest Bryon prefers actual

What Signalgate tells us about Iran

Remember Signalgate? It was quite the story, and worth revisiting now in light of Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and its dire implications for the global economy.  In March last year, Donald Trump’s then National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, somehow added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a Signal messaging group for senior government officials to discuss top secret military action against the Houthis in Yemen. The group included the Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller,

hegseth signalgate walt

Is Trump turning GOP succession into The Apprentice?

At a private dinner with two dozen donors, President Trump surveyed the room and asked which candidate they would choose to follow him in leading the MAGA movement. The vote was almost unanimously in favor of Marco Rubio over J.D. Vance. As the two men vie to be next-in-line to the throne, Trump seems to be enjoying the spectacle. If Rubio was indeed preferred in this (albeit skewed) environment, it is not much of a surprise to Cockburn. Vance has appealed strongly to an online contingency which is… overrepresented online. Remember when Rubio fell on his sword because he wanted to keep Trump out of office? Of course not; that was over

Could the Donroe Doctrine turn Marco Rubio into the president-in-waiting?

It required an incredible amount of sophistication to achieve the desired result in Caracas: a dictator detained and transported alive. The mission had been planned and mapped out for months, worked and reworked at the behest of the Commander-in-Chief. No American casualties would be tolerated. Special Forces had been circling and at the ready for weeks. The helicopters were easy targets, so a vital part of the mission was to eliminate Nicolás Maduro’s ground- to-air response beforehand and claim total air superiority. There must have been any number of worries that such a risky mission could go wrong, yet mere hours before it started, Marco Rubio was calmly sitting at

marco rubio

The plot against J.D. Vance

The Republican establishment is on the verge of extinction. Donald Trump’s first term wasn’t enough to kill it off: Trump came into office in 2017 with establishment figures such as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan leading the party in Congress, and Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, had been chosen for that role as a reassurance to the old guard. Trump made some efforts to staff his administration with outsiders, but the likes of Steve Bannon or the ill-fated Rex Tillerson were heavily outnumbered by Republicans who would have been just as happy – or a great deal happier – to serve in another Bush administration.  This time, though, things are

Peter Thiel predicts the future

Peter Thiel has been described variously as “America’s leading public intellectual,” the “architect of Silicon Valley’s contemporary ethos” or as an “incoherent and alarmingly super-nationalistic” malevolent force. The PayPal and Palantir founder, a prominent early supporter of Donald Trump, is one of the world’s richest and most influential men. Throughout his career, his principal concern has always been the future, so when The Spectator asked to interview him, he wanted to talk to young people. To that effect, three young members of the editorial team were sent to Los Angeles to meet him. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. WILLIAM ATKINSON: Following Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New