Cockburn

Cockburn

Mischief, mayhem and Washington gossip. Send tips and party invites to cockburn@thespectator.com.

Tuesday

Cockburn

The QAnon Shaman is running for Congress

MAGA shaman Jake Chansley is trading in his horned helmet, bare chest and spear for a suit and tie. The January 6 rioter who led the charge into the Senate chamber is hoping to return to the Capitol in 2024 as a congressman.  Chansley filed paperwork last week to run in Arizona’s 8th congressional district as a Libertarian. The seat is currently held by Representative Debbie Lesko, a sixty-four-year-old Republican, who announced last month that she would not seek re-election.   The announcement comes after Chansley was released early from prison this past year. Chansley was sentenced to forty-one months in federal prison for obstructing election proceedings but was transferred to a community correctional center in Phoenix after serving just twenty-seven months.

qanon shaman jake angeli-chansley
donald trump transition
Cockburn

Has the Trump transition fight already begun?

With less than a year until the 2024 election, the Republican universe is coming together to seamlessly advise the White House transition of the GOP nominee — or is it? While publicly, groups such as the America First Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA present a kumbaya vision, multiple Republicans working on transition projects tell Cockburn that rough seas are ahead, particularly as competition heats up for credit, attention and donors.Tensions between these groups boiled over in recent weeks. James Bacon, a former low-level Trump bureaucrat-turned senior advisor at Heritage, wrote — perhaps accidentally — to his AFPI counterparts, skewering them as a “Trojan horse by which the establishment can retake control of personnel.

Monday

Cockburn

How the Trump-Kardashian team-up came to an end

Kim Kardashian was once cozy with the Trump White House. Together, the former president and the celebrity entrepreneur spearheaded criminal justice reform, providing the Kardashian with the political experience she desired and giving Trump one of the PR stunts he lives for. But the snuggling ended when Trump found out that Kim wasn’t all in with Team Trump, as she expressed her support for Joe Biden, hitting Trump where it hurts him most — loyalty. Jonathan Karl takes us behind the scenes of this spat in his new book Tired of Winning. According to the ABC News personality, when Kim called Trump for help with a clemency case, Trump hung up on her. According to an excerpt obtained by Axios, at the end of the Trump presidency, Kim attempted to get Trump to commute more sentences.

donald trump kim kardashian

Sunday

Cockburn

Donald Trump is UFC royalty

Donald Trump’s ninety-one felony charges can’t keep him down, nor the thunderous applause of his fans. The former president and well-known mixed martial arts fan was given the celebrity treatment at UFC 295 at New York's Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, complete with his own walkout song.   Kid Rock’s “American Badass” blared as UFC announcers turned their undivided attention to Trump’s arrival. The 20,000-person stadium erupted in cheers as Trump made his way to his ringside seats flanked by his entourage — UFC president Dana White, Kid Rock, Tucker Carlson and Don Jr.  https://twitter.com/ufcontnt/status/1723536824843243833?

donald trump UFC

Friday

Cockburn

Which presidency does Joe Manchin want more?

Elves and Epstein with Peter Thiel “Peter Thiel has lost interest in democracy,” a lengthy profile from Barton Gellman at the Atlantic announces. The piece reveals that Thiel, the techno-libertarian billionaire behind the Senate runs of Blake Masters and J.D. Vance, has no intention of donating to politicians in the 2024 election cycle.What does Thiel consider to be a better use of his money? Triumphing over death. “He has spent enormous sums trying to evade his own end but feels that, if anything, he should devote even more time and money to solving the problem of human mortality,” Gellman writes. Thiel draws a lot of his vision from The Lord of the Rings:“How are the elves different from the humans in Tolkien?

Thursday

Cockburn

NewsNation to host next GOP debate in Alabama

It looks like the Republican National Committee will partner with just about anyone to put on a presidential debate. In a press release released Thursday morning, NewsNation, an upstart cable news network with less than 65,000 nightly viewers as of last year, announced that they will be hosting the fourth GOP debate in December.  It will take place in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “All of us at NewsNation are incredibly honored to be hosting a presidential primary debate and to be part of what will be another historic election season,” said Sean Compton, president of Nexstar Networks which owns NewsNation.

newsnation

Tuesday

Cockburn

Internet poet Rupi Kaur boycotts White House Diwali celebration for Palestine

Cockburn was surprised to learn the war in Israel has a more global impact than he had previously imagined. The carnage in Gaza is affecting the way that Indian women living in the United States celebrate Diwali, at least according to the Canadian-Indian poet Rupi Kaur. South Asian women are now the latest group with a moral imperative to weigh in on the war.  Kaur’s crusade to involve an Indian holiday in a regional conflict all started when the internet poet, famous only to her 4 million Instagram followers and readers of New York women’s websites, rejected an invitation to a Diwali celebration that will be hosted by Kamala Harris on Wednesday. https://twitter.

rupi kaur

Friday

Cockburn

Twitter Files triumphant at the Dao Prize

DC’s black tie season is in full swing — so naturally, Cockburn’s penguin suit is already reeking of stale smoke. This week took him to the National Press Club, for the awarding of the inaugural Dao Prize.  The prize, a $100,000 sum for the winner, followed by two lots of $10,000 for the other finalists, was awarded by the National Journalism Center in partnership with the Daofeng and Angela Foundation. The idea was to reward journalism that’s often overlooked by the Pulitzer Prize committee, who rarely if ever honor right-of-center reporting. There were over twenty nominees, from publications such as Breitbart, the Daily Caller and Townhall. And the big prize went to...

kamala harris islamophobia
Cockburn

White House announces effort to counter Islamophobia as antisemitism rises

War is raging in Israel and Kamala Harris is holding down the home front with the same political aplomb she handled the border crisis — that is to say, poorly. With thousands of lives lost in Israel and an increasing number of antisemitic attacks in the US, Harris is proud to announce the White House's new program to target... Islamophobia.   “Taking on hate is a national priority. Today, @POTUS and I are announcing the country’s first National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia. This action is the latest step forward in our work to combat a surge of hate in America,” Harris shared in a post on X Wednesday evening.   https://twitter.

Tuesday

Cockburn

Ron DeSantis slays in heels

Practical political wisdom says height is one of the few reliable indicators of electoral victory. In the case of Ron DeSantis, it explains why he is trailing behind 6’3” gargantuan Donald Trump. It also may explain why DeSantis is being accused of wearing four-inch lifts in his favorite pair of cowboy boots.   The Florida governor was confronted with a viral clip of his hidden heels during an episode of the Patrick Bet-David podcast this weekend but denied the allegation. “Those are just standard of-the-rack Lucchese boots,” DeSantis said, adding that he is indeed 5’11”.   https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1719095369412284594?

Friday

Cockburn

The solitary Senate life of John Fetterman

Source: CPAC in trouble? Heavy discounts offered for 2024 conference The next Conservative Political Action Conference isn’t until the end of February of next year, but the organization behind it is already calling past attendees to offer steep discounts, prompting speculation that the conference is experiencing some financial troubles. One longtime attendee shared with Cockburn that someone from the American Conservative Union, the Matt Schlapp-led organization that puts CPAC on every year, called him — offering a discounted price of only $99, a hefty decline from the standard $299. “The last few years I’ve had a badge and haven’t even gone in to hear the speakers. I’ve just hung out at hotel room parties.

Monday

Cockburn

Fans of a hit teen drama are trying to cancel its star actor

Fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty, a hit teen drama on Amazon Prime adapted from a young adult book series of the same name, are furious after discovering that one of the show's lead actors “liked” some conservative social media posts. Cockburn was first alerted to the controversy by his niece, who describes herself as the show's "biggest fan" and regularly trawls Reddit threads about the Amazon streaming series. The Summer I Turned Pretty is a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl, Isabella or "Belly,” who finds herself caught in a love triangle with a pair of brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher. Just like with the love triangles in the Twilight and Hunger Games series, fans endlessly debate over who Belly should end up with.

gavin casalegno

Friday

Cockburn

Greta Thunberg, milkshake duck

Is Peter Thiel a fed? Peter Thiel made billions of dollars working closely with the federal government, selling technologies like Palantir at massive profits. Now, there’s the suggestion that Thiel’s ties to the government may be a lot closer than previously thought — a bombshell report in Business Insider alleges that Thiel has worked as a confidential human source for the FBI starting in 2021, likely about foreign involvement in Silicon Valley. Per Insider, Thiel was recruited by controversial far-right activist Charles Johnson.Thiel’s political involvement has scaled back in recent months; in 2022, he batted 0.500 in getting his former employees elected to the United States Senate, helping get J.D.

Thursday

Cockburn

Sassy senator Mitt Romney spills the tea

Utah senator Mitt Romney is not holding back in an upcoming biography set to be released Tuesday, Romney: A Reckoning. According to one publishing source, McKay Coppins's book offers Romney's lively and at times devastating take on nearly every major political figure of the last twenty-five years. After reading several titillating and tantalizing excerpts from the biography, Cockburn fears he may be dethroned as DC’s cattiest gossip columnist. Unsurprisingly, the two biggest victims of Romney’s snark are Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Romney doesn’t try to hide his resentment at the two politicians' success and instead wastes no time calling them both authoritarians and Trump a fool.

mitt romney

Tuesday

Cockburn

A conservative education reform PAC is outraising 2024 candidates

Campaign finance data for the third quarter was released this weekend and the numbers aren’t looking good — Ron DeSantis is trailing far behind Donald Trump, Mike Pence’s cash-on-hand is dangerously low and Tim Scott somehow has more money than any candidate bar Joe Biden and Trump.   One group is doing great though — the 1776 Project PAC, a conservative activist organization, which raised $683,915 from July to September. They even came out ahead of two 2024 hopefuls, raising more than both GOP candidate Asa Hutchinson and Cornel West, the professor and activist running as an Independent. Cockburn wonders if the fact that a small conservative group is walloping the field will make some candidates realize it's finally time to drop out of the race.   https://twitter.

Ryan Girdusky of the 1776 Project PAC (BBC screenshot)

Friday

Cockburn

Tim Ballard accused of sexual assault by multiple women

Do you have to be a predator to catch a predator? Two lawsuits filed this week make claim to that, accusing Tim Ballard, the self-proclaimed savior of hundreds of trafficked children who inspired the movie Sound of Freedom, of sexual assault. On Wednesday, the attorney representing five women who filed a lawsuit against Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad earlier this week confirmed that a second lawsuit has been filed. The latest suit, brought against Ballard by a couple, accuses him of sexual assault, financial damages and ruining the couple’s marriage.  “Tim has taken everything from me. He has purposefully destroyed my marriage, manipulated my wife, ruined the relationship with my kids and with my wife's family,” the plaintiff and husband, known as FT, said.

tim ballard
nancy mace
Cockburn

Nancy Mace busted by the Capitol Hill fashion police

With her vote to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, Nancy Mace has made herself the pariah of the House. And after donning a red, Scarlet Letter-style “A” on her chest to reflect this as she headed into House GOP meetings this week, she caught the ire of the Capitol Hill Fashion Police too. One of her colleagues intimated the “A” must stand for “attention” — and lamented that “there wasn’t enough bling” on it and that “a light-up version would’ve been better.” In a Congress filled with all but literal skeletons, Mace stands out for her relative youth. One staffer had no problem with her choice of outfits this week.

Wednesday

Cockburn

Another nude Biden pic scandal?

There’s something about mirrors and cameras that the Biden men just can’t seem to resist — they are compelled to photograph their appendages. First it was Hunter’s heroin selfies. Now thirst traps from the president’s brother have been uncovered. If the trend continues, a leaked pic of Joe should be coming soon, but Cockburn prays we never see that dark day.   A nude selfie of Frank Biden, the president’s youngest brother, was discovered on a gay porn site, GuysWithiPhones.com, over the weekend. The picture, originally posted in 2018 when Frank was sixty-four, shows the tan, buff Biden posing in nothing but his glasses and a hat. Frank has some serious explaining to do to his partner of more than a decade, Mindy Ward.

frank biden nude

Sunday

Cockburn

The fall of the MyPillow empire

If you’ve ever thought about buying a MyPillow, Cockburn advises that you do so now — they may not be around for much longer. After months of lawsuits, the company’s owner and Donald Trump devotee Mike Lindell announced last week that he is broke and millions of dollars behind in unpaid legal bills. "We've lost everything, every dime," Lindell told NBC News. "All of it is gone."  Last Thursday, the legal team representing Lindell in three defamation lawsuits filed to separate themselves from the company due to millions in unpaid bills. The pillow magnate said he is not trying to stiff his attorneys but simply cannot afford to pay them.

mypillow

Friday

Cockburn

Kristi Noem’s thirst traps

Kristi Noem isn’t playing coy with Donald Trump. The South Dakota governor wants to be the former president’s running mate and she’s sending almost daily thirst traps to catch his eye. Her latest attempt — cowgirl riding. In a move that will doubtless put Corey Lewandowski in heat, Noem dropped a video of herself Wednesday participating in her state’s annual Buffalo Roundup, where she helped round up over 15,000 bison for the state’s conservation efforts. A certified cowgirl in her chaps and wide-brimmed hat, Noem majestically rides the plains, her hair blowing in slow-motion behind her. If that doesn’t turn Trump’s head, Cockburn isn’t sure what will.

kristi noem