Nancy Mace is effectively the first trans member of Congress

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.” The push is nonetheless consistent with the “NATIONAL NANCY” brief of her staff handbook, which the Daily Beast characterized as the work of “a politician obsessed with her public image and fixated on winning herself as much exposure as possible, often to the dismay of her staff.”

The representative has been firing off posts about trans people with the restraint of a new Hezbollah recruit. “Tweeting 262 times about a bill that applies to like .00000001% of Congress in 36 hours is definitely about protecting women. It’s certainly not just a ploy for media attention,” Natalie Johnson, a former Mace staffer, posted this week. In response to a fundraising text from Mace that read, “I don’t want to see your junk in my bathroom,” Johnson also wrote, “I don’t want to see your botched, cheap hooker-inspired boob job on my television. Can we introduce a bill to bar that?” Me-ow…

The congresswoman’s barrage began after the election of Sarah McBride, born Tim, to a Delaware seat in the US House. “Mace wanted to hit her fundraising lists which is why it was all performative BS, but when this dude tries to use a woman’s bathroom, what’s gonna happen? Are they gonna send Capitol police in?” one GOP staffer wondered to Cockburn. “The only mechanism they have is to fine them, which will spur a massive ACTBlue donate page every time we fine him. So what’s the end-goal? Unless you’re going to have the police go in and arrest them, you’ve taken what should be a great moment for us of winning and given the Dems a stupid easy lay-up for their base.”

McBride has been widely described as the first trans member of Congress — there are of course a number of other trans employees on the Hill in Democratic offices, but no one was paying much attention to them so they were not a worthy source of ire for Congresswoman Mace.

Yet Cockburn wonders if McBride is deserving of that moniker. After all, it is Mace who is image-obsessed, screaming for attention on social media, hormonal, loudly performing gender and beloved by DC gays. Much like Bill Clinton was “America’s first black president,” when you run down that list, culturally speaking, isn’t Mace about as trans as they come?

Who leaked the Mark Robinson forum posts?

Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s North Carolina gubernatorial bid went up in flames a couple of months before the election when CNN published comments allegedly made by Robinson on a porn forum where he talked about his love of the confederacy, support for slavery and bizarre family-related kinks. The exposé led to a mass staff exodus from Robinson’s campaign and he ultimately lost the election by nearly fifteen points.

How did the media get their hands on the kompromat? Rather than this being an oppo drop from his challenger, a well-placed source in North Carolina tells Cockburn that the leaks came from inside the campaign. One unnamed married staffer was allegedly caught in an, er, inappropriate workplace relationship with an intern and sought to blackmail the campaign with Robinson’s porn comments. The man was reported to be part of the staff exit, but Cockburn’s spy claims he was fired and released the materials as retribution…

Hello there!

Defeated congressman Jamaal Bowman has a lot free time on his hands as he waits out his final days in the House, which he has decided to dedicate to attacking the Star Wars franchise.

“If the lead Jedi is not a Black man I ain’t messing with yall” Bowman tweeted in response to a post from Complex Pop Culture that confirmed that a new Star Wars film trilogy is in the works. “Yall not about to make 12 Star Wars and have all white leads for all 12. Y’all wilding with that and I hate to say that I would not watch and will spend the rest of my days denouncing this franchise that I have loved forever. The new Jedi order better be multicultural with a Black super powerful lead. We ain’t playing yall!”

The late James Earl Jones, the iconic voice behind Darth Vader, was of course black. Samuel L. Jackson, who famously played the purple lightsaber-wielding Mace Windu, is also black. Disney even cast Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. In the original trilogy, Calrissian was played by Billy Dee Williams, who is also black. The New York congressman’s ire appears to be centered on the fact that the “lead” Jedi isn’t black: in the J.J. Abrams trilogy, John Boyega, a black actor, was one of the three leads, but was not a Jedi.

It’s unfortunate that Bowman has been particularly Twitter-happy this week, because his colleagues could have used his help one last time. A space heater caught fire in Congress, this week, sending columns of smoke into the halls of the Cannon House Office Building, where Bowman’s office is situated. Given Bowman’s fire alarm-pulling proclivities, he could have been first on the scene. Perhaps he was too busy posting…

A MAGA book party and an NYC gala

Cockburn attended a bizarre book party upstairs at Butterworth’s on Wednesday, marking the release of Rebels, Rogues, and Outlaws, a tome of portraits featuring the hosts and guests of Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast by Dan Fleuette, a longtime collaborator of Bannon’s. Large photographs of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bannon and Sebastian Gorka adorned the walls, as a hundred or so guests tucked into the free bar.

Cockburn spotted Gorka (in a MAGA hat), Raheem Kassam, Libby Emmons, former deputy USAID administrator Bonnie Glick, Terry Schilling, John and Kingsley Wilson, Dr. Robert Malone, Jeff Clark and Paul Dans. Bannon arrived midway through, wearing just the two collars. He was introduced by Congressman-elect Abe Hamadeh, who said, “Thank you Steve Bannon for fighting for all of us in that prison.”

“Is this the photo album for the new cabinet?” Bannon wondered aloud on stage. “Is Laura Loomer here tonight? Can I break the news that she’s gonna be in the cabinet?” he joked. (Though it pains Cockburn to admit it, Fleuette has somehow made Loomer look like an Old Hollywood ingenue in his portraits.) “We have an open bar here — I wanna set new lows here tonight,” Bannon said in closing.

Cockburn also popped up to New York Thursday to attend the Atlas Network’s Freedom Dinner, a black-tie affair at the conclusion of their two-day Liberty Forum.

The Lebanese Institute for Market Studies won the Templeton Freedom Award (and $100k) for their work advocating against subsidy programs during Lebanon’s period of hyperinflation. Around 700 guests dined on short rib in the ballroom at the Sheraton Times Square. In attendance: Cameron Winklevoss, Grover Norquist, Allison Schrager, Nick Gillespie, Jason Russell, Faisal al-Mutar and Barclay Crawford.

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