George Santos thinks the Hobbit movies were better than Lord of the Rings

Hammer time

Cockburn hears that Jamie Kirchick, the New York Times bestselling author and sometime Speccie writer, has scored an exclusive interview with Armie Hammer, the disgraced Call Me By Your Name star that just might be a cannibal, out this weekend in Graydon Carter’s Air Mail. Cockburn wonders whether the meet was over dinner — and if so, who was on the menu…

Will CPAC be wack?

We are just a month away from CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, which in the Trump era was one of the highlights of Cockburn’s year (as you can see from his previous coverage). But buzz ahead of the flagship conservative conference this year has been muted — and right now the line-up lacks the dazzle of previous years, though it does, of course, include President Trump. At the time of writing, CPAC offers no Ted Cruz, no Ron DeSantis, no Diamond (RIP) or Silk.

Why the lull? Leftie critics would have you believe that the male crotch-groping scandal ensnaring ACU chief Matt Schlapp would result in big right-wing names keeping their distance. But a conservative CPAC veteran doubts this theory: “Lots of people are bummed that it was moved from Florida back to DC,” she tells Cockburn.

How can the press expected to be treated in National Harbor in four weeks’ time? Schlapp himself told Steve Bannon:

We’ve decided to go a little bit Hungarian on the left wing, I don’t want to call it press or media because they’re not, the left-wing activists that like to think they’re media, I don’t know why we’re letting them come into our house every year so they can beat the hell out of us and lie to us. So I’m not so sure we’re going to do so much of that anymore.

If you’re a real journalist, OK, fine. But if you’re a faux journalist who’s just trying to go after and attack people, I don’t think you’re constructive to the conversation.

Cockburn is left wondering whether he counts as a real journalist. If not, what about the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger, who wrote three stories about Schlapp last month?

George Santos, movie critic extraordinaire

What’s the maddest thing George Santos has ever said? Most people have a favorite: whether that’s claiming to be “Jew-ish” rather than Jewish, his invented stint on the CUNY Baruch volleyball team or that his mother had died on 9/11.Well, Matthew Foldi has rustled up a new contender in a forthcoming interview with the New York congressman. Discussing his tastes in film and television, Santos reveals that he’s seen every Lord of the Rings movie. But then he claimed that the Hobbit prequels are better as they “give you more depth” and that The Battle of the Five Armies is “my favorite fucking movie.” Utterly demented — surely that’s got to be the final straw.

Apparently there are currently twenty reporters staked outside Santos’s office. All of them missed this scoop…

Sheldon Whitehouse disses female athletes

On Wednesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted a live event with female athletes to mark National Girls & Women in Sports Day. The athletes in question included former University of Kentucky swimmer (and CPAC speaker) Riley Gaines, who competed against Lia Thomas last year, and had all been vocal on the issue of whether trans women should be able to compete in female categories. During the event, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island senator best known for frequenting whites-only clubs walked by, and was seen to make what one attendee called a “gagging motion with his hand” as if vomiting.

Another source who was there told Cockburn that Whitehouse’s crude gestures “mocked and defamed female athletes.” And they say decorum is dead!

Blind item: reportedly engaged actor spreading his seed around London

What’s the point in being famous if you didn’t partake in a few affairs? One Irish actor has recently proved that the world of acting is still full of debauchery after checking into a London hotel for a few weeks while he’s performing there. The actor has found a favorite pub already, the Old Queen’s Head in Angel. He must be of the impression that what you don’t know can’t hurt you, as he’s apparently “taking all comers when it comes to shagging.” Or perhaps he’s in an open relationship? Cockburn hopes his supposed fiancée knows if so…