Welcome back, Cocaine Mitch!
Cockburn reported Thursday that three top Republican senators — John Barrasso, John Cornyn and John Thune — had been “actively reaching out” to other GOP senators ahead of a possible leadership vote, “including the sixteen who voted to delay the leadership election earlier this year.” Shortly after publication, Leader McConnell tweeted, “I am looking forward to returning to the Senate on Monday.”
And in an emphatic response to his Senate colleagues’ machinations, McConnell returned to the Capitol on Friday afternoon, for the first time in over a month.
By George: top Jesuit school tries to shut Mulvaney out of daughter’s graduation
Georgetown University told former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney that he couldn’t attend his daughter’s graduation from the school in 2021 due to his prior affiliation with the Trump administration, a well-placed source tells Cockburn. Georgetown was apparently quite rankled by Trump’s connection to the January 6 riots, even though Mulvaney had left the administration by then and had condemned the violence. Mulvaney protested the soft ban and was allowed to attend the graduation — but was told not to post publicly that he was on campus. Georgetown did not return a request for comment.
Jussie Smollett hoaxers: Trump indictment a ‘tragedy’
Maybe this really is MAGA country? Ola and Bola Osundairo, the two brothers hired by Jussie Smollett to stage a hate crime on him, appeared on Newsmax Thursday night with Bola wearing a MAGA hat.
“My brother and I… we support all of our presidents,” Bola told Eric Bolling. “We support President Trump and we think that what’s happening with him right now, is-
“A tragedy,” Ola cuts in.
Cockburn can’t wait to see their double act at CPAC in the months ahead…
Down with Dulles
Washington Dulles Airport is a “demoralizing gateway to America.” That’s according to a new piece in the Washington Examiner from the Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne, a Brit abroad.
“The last three times I’ve disembarked from the Star Wars cantina-like mobile lounges to passport control, the lines have been ninety minutes-plus long. That’s, sadly, no longer unusual,” Bourne writes. “Stats show that from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, there were 348 days with maximum waiting times of over an hour, 233 days of over ninety minutes, and 98 days in which some people were slinking around the hall for two hours or more.”
Bourne says the plight of Dulles is “untenable, wasteful, and getting worse. Yet nobody seems to care.” But hey, at least the Silver Line goes there now. Occasionally.
A slice of Santos
Unlikeliest crossover event of the week: Congressman George Santos and Barstool Sports. The controversial representative-cum-drag queen was at the offices of the macho sports blog this week, posing with podcast host “Frank the Tank” and describing himself as “the 2nd BIGGEST Mets fan of all time!”
Santos also invited Barstool founder Dave Portnoy to do a pizza review in New York’s 3rd congressional district. “Let’s do it,” Portnoy replied, saying he heard Santos’s dad “invented pizza.”
