The rise of the sex-positive pro-porn politico

Rising from the ashes of anti-porn laws racked up by hardline Republicans in Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma comes a team-switcher who flipped from flying his freak flag to wiping his history of porn likes on Twitter. 

Dan Osborn, who is married with children per his website, is the Democrat-turned-Independent running for a US Senate seat in Nebraska this November. He’s leaning heavily on his time helming a local union, but it’s his extracurricular activities that raised Cockburn’s eyebrows — mostly the slew of hardcore gay and straight porn he’s liked on Twitter. The faint-hearted should skip to the next item now… 

One post, from @pansexboy4, liked by Osborn, reads “afternoon fuck with my friend #gay #anal #sex #assworhip #fuckmyhole #analdreams #bisexual #pansexual #kinkiestmanme.” His hole, we can confirm, was being fucked in the video. Another video, posted by “H🅰️rry P🅾️ppers 🇫🇷🇺🇸 30K🔞,” depicts a gay three-way. 

However, as befits a party-switcher, Osborn worked hard to appeal to the straight camp too; in one instance, he liked a tweet from “🌙 Hotties Promo 100k 🎉” of a woman’s fully exposed backside and undercarriage that is, sorry, drenched in semen.

Osborn’s sordid internet history is nothing to be ashamed of — instead he loses Cockburn’s faith for removing these NSFW likes shortly after announcing his Senate campaign late last year. Where’s the integrity in that? 

While Osborn’s Twitter profile is now safe for work, one thing he can’t clear out is the record of email addresses found in databases from the 2015 Ashley Madison hack. One email linked to Osborn on LexisNexis appears on the database. Of course, it’s possible that someone else signed Osborn up, but if he’s been public about his porn preferences, a private account on a site built for having extramarital affairs would not be the most shocking development. Cockburn contacted the email associated with Osborn on the LexisNexis database, which also appeared on the Ashley Madison hack database — and did not hear back.

But fear not: public support for pornography is bipartisan. For years, many have remarked to Cockburn that Doug Stafford, a strategist for Republicans such as Nancy Mace and Rand Paul, is wildly horny on main. Wherever there is an e-girl, the odds are that he is in her replies.

Stafford’s work for Mace makes a decent amount of sense, going beyond just their shared libertarian, or libertine, sensibilities. As Cockburn has previously reported, Mace’s email address was in the Ashley Madison hack, along with Osborn’s. And so too, it turns out, was an email address Cockburn is told belongs to… Doug Stafford.

Sources: GOP lawmaker under federal investigation for Russia ties

As the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on, some Republicans have shifted their stances over time, moving towards greater suspicion of Ukraine funding — which culminated in over 100 members of the House GOP voting against providing billions in aid last month.

But one House Republican’s shift is particularly noteworthy — and as a result, Cockburn’s spies tell him, they are in fact being investigated by the feds. Cockburn has been told by multiple sources that this lawmaker may have had a staffer who was gathering intelligence for the Russians — and the lawmaker may have been aware.

Interestingly, a review of this member’s staff shows that almost all senior jobs are currently open, in case any other foreign government would like to slot its spies in there.

Of course, adversaries planting their agents in our government is nothing new. Congressman Don Beyer had a Chinese spy on staff — and we all know about Fang Fang’s extracurricular activities…

A star-studded UTA WHCD party

Cockburn somehow managed to blag himself into the most exclusive of Friday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner parties: the UTA shindig at Georgetown’s Fiola Mare. 

He first clocked Gisele Fetterman standing outside the restaurant on her phone and pointed her out to the New York Post’s Jon Levine, author of a series of “dressing like John Fetterman” stories. Gisele apologized for her absence on the day of the shoot — saying that hanging out with one guy in a hoodie at a time was more than enough. Levine in turn introduced Gisele to Harry Cole, a visiting British political correspondent from the Sun. His reaction to her learning she was Fetterman’s wife: “No!…… but you’re so well-dressed!” 

Cockburn also noticed Jake Tapper on the way in, who was one of a number of big media names present: NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, CNN’s Jim Acosta and Dana Bash, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, Katie Phang and Ari Melber, Fox’s Jimmy Failla, Reason and Rising’s Robby Soave, Kennedy, Charlotte Clymer and Kara Swisher. From the world of politics, Cockburn spotted Psaki’s successor, Karine Jean-Pierre, as well as Julián and Joaquin Castro and, of course, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. 

As for real celebrities? How about Bill Nye the Science Guy, who was posing for selfies with Emhoff for a big chunk of the night? More retiring was Arrested Development’s David Cross, who kept himself to a quieter corner of the restaurant. Out on the terrace, Brendan Hunt — Ted Lasso’s Coach Beard — socialized and sipped on a Peroni. 

The right were not all that well represented at the swanky Georgetown do — but British troublemaker Raheem Kassam, editor of the National Pulse, was present, even securing a bit of face-time with Emhoff.

He shook the second gentleman’s hand and said, “I just want to thank you for all that you do.” Emhoff was gracious… but sadly Kassam missed the chance to follow up with “…which is what, exactly?”

Source: internal NYT freakout over being unfollowed by Jack Dorsey on Twitter

It’s the New York Times op-ed that will live forever in infamy. Four years on from Senator Tom Cotton writing in the Gray Lady that the National Guard should be sent in to put down the 2020 George Floyd riots, stories of just how apoplectically the newsroom reacted continue to proliferate. Business Insider reported at the time that then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey unfollowed the Times in the wake of the controversial column, which saw Times staff declaring in a public Twitter campaign that the op-ed had put black staffers lives in danger.

A source familiar with the newsroom blow-up told Cockburn that Times employees were horrified when they learned of Dorsey’s defection and whined incessantly about the development in Slack channels. To them, the source noted, losing Dorsey’s follow was one of the worst things that could happen to the paper. Never mind the actual long-term reputational damage that came from the NYT deciding to oust the editors involved in publishing the perfectly fine piece.

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