Cockburn

National Harbor, Maryland Cockburn has been poring over ostentatious Elon Musk fan art, reexamining that guide to which salutes are allowed and playing a mental game of “what’s that nice lady done to her face?” He is, of course, addressing you from the press pen of the Conservative Political Action Conference across the river from DC. The crowd seems older than previous years, with fewer college students milling around. Cockburn feels like the only person who wasn’t in the Capitol on January 6, 2021: he saw a couple of gents in Proud Boy attire rolling around, beers in hand, at 3 p.m. on Thursday — and while on his way in he was behind one recently freed prisoner and his four-month-old service dog in training, Whitney.

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.