Cockburn’s Diary

Against Buttons-bashing It’s hiring season at the Manhattan Institute — Christopher Rufo this week announced that Christina Buttons and Hannah Grossman are joining its Logos Initiative team as investigative reporters. “We’re building the best investigative team in right-leaning media. Whatever happens with the election next week, we will be shaping the news to come,” Rufo tweeted. Yet no good deed goes unpunished. X users have been poring over Buttons’s history. Some are outraged that Buttons is a former Democrat who voted for Obama, Hillary and Biden; others harped over the fact that she quit the Daily Wire over the strength of some of Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles’s language about trans people.

Clinton dips in the Lake You can’t teach the Big Dog new tricks… Bill Clinton cemented his reputation as the Harris campaign’s least helpful surrogate this week in an appearance where he branded Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Arizona, “someone who is physically attractive.”“Bill Clinton has officially turned into every other married man over the age of sixty-five in Scottsdale — embarrassing themselves by publicly hitting on women thirty-three years their junior,” a Lake staffer told Cockburn. Lake is only two years older than Monica Lewinsky.

In spooky season, it’s only appropriate that the “joy” has been drawn out of the Harris campaign like a demon facing an exorcist. It may have found a new host in her opponent: former president Donald Trump brought down the house at the Al Smith dinner for Catholic charities in New York City last night, which Kamala opted to skip. Trump has also faced criticism this week for canceling events and dodging interviews with CNBC and the Shade Room. His remarks are worth watching in their entirety (you can do so below), but here are some choice one-liners. Clearly Trump has benefited from keeping the company of comedians Andrew Schulz and Theo Von lately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Early voting has started and the efforts to sway undecided voters are growing more unorthodox as we head toward Election Day. Donald Trump deconstructed the art of the dismissive nickname on Andrew Schulz’s podcast; Kamala Harris likewise partook in a much-vaunted “media blitz” through the friendly studios of The View, Call Her Daddy, Stephen Colbert — and the slightly more testing environs of 60 Minutes. Dem VP pick Tim Walz is also kicking off what Politico bills as a “man-focused media blitz,” which comes across a bit Harvey Fierstein. As for high-profile Harris backers?

“When Boeing fails... BET ON SPORTS! #STRIKE #IAM751 #NFL #MLB,” a striking Boeing employee recently posted on Facebook, geotagging a three-star hotel and casino in Washington State. Posts in a private Facebook group purporting to belong to the striking workers of Boeing reveal that, amid the first Boeing employee strike in almost two decades, the workers of the world are uniting on vacation. The group, called “Boeing Employees (Lazy B),” contains a multitude of posts from striking members on vacation in Mexico, gambling in casinos and on fishing trips. “On strike in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco Mexico. #iam751 #boeing,” another post reads. A third reads, “strike fishing again.

“Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America,” now-Mayor Eric Adams told a pair of Turks on camera after they asked him for political favors in a cameo he made in a Turkish romcom. Now, in real life, Adams is accused of doing just that, following a sweeping indictment unsealed by prosecutors in Manhattan who allege that he fraudulently obtained $10 million in public campaign funds and accepted over $100,000 in bribes in order to facilitate a new Turkish consulate.“In 2014, Eric Adams, the defendant, became Brooklyn borough president.

The predilections of Pastor Robinson 2024 is proving to be an election year where so much seems to happen and so little seems to change. This week, for example, you might have found yourself alarmed as Donald Trump met the Red Scare girls at a crypto bar in New York (Cockburn agrees that someone should get Barron to convince him to go on the podcast, for what it’s worth).Or you may have drawn a sharp intake of breath as New York magazine placed its Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi on leave after, per Nuzzi’s statement to Status, “the nature of some communication” between her and RFK Jr. — what can’t that man do? — “turned personal.

Project 2025 problems Despite Donald Trump’s best efforts, Project 2025 isn’t going anywhere. Its former director, Paul Dans, made the media rounds this week, where he attacked the leadership of the Trump campaign in a New York Times interview, while simultaneously telling CNN that “Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025.”Dans, who stepped down from Project 2025 over the summer, accused top Trump aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles of “malpractice” for scheduling a presidential debate so early that it allowed President Joe Biden enough time to drop out. He is, however, excited at the involvement of Corey Lewandowski, Ben Carson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Congratulations to Barron Trump, the Paul Atreides of Mar-a-Lago, on his enrollment at the private, excruciatingly progressive New York University this week. Barron has found his tribe immediately, joining all the college’s other Republicans at the Stern School of Business. If he’s not too busy chugging Miller Lites at Phebes after using Eric’s old ID to get in, the Trump scion could find himself taking some intriguing classes.  Were Barron to stick around to do an MBA after, he could study Professional Responsibility with Spectator favorite Jonathan Haidt.

Will Kamala actually appoint a Republican to her cabinet? A rare surprise in the otherwise routine Harris-Walz interview on CNN last night: when asked if she’d appoint a Republican to her cabinet, Kamala said, “Yes I would.” This is perhaps in response to two Democratic presidential candidates from the last decade — Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — endorsing Trump and joining his transition team. President Biden appointed a few Republicans to ambassadorial positions — notably Arizonans Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain — but Harris appears ready to go a step further. The likeliest option would be to appoint a serious-minded ex-military Beltway figure to a role like director of national intelligence or defense secretary: Mark Esper, for instance.

Chicago Big Little Lies season three is happening, says Young Sheldon Convention guests looking to play a game of IRL “Who? Weekly” were best off hanging out at the CNN-Politico Grill, which served free booze and local delicacies all week. Smoking was forbidden, sadly. On Thursday Cockburn caught up with Iain “Young Sheldon” Armitage — who confirmed that a third season of Big Little Lies is “happening” while he was mixing an ice cream float — and spoke to Dean Norris, AKA Hank from Breaking Bad. “I’m having a blast,” said Norris, “I’m having a brat summer.

In there like swimwear For any readers seeking evidence that, despite the election, we are in the heart of silly season, look no further than this week’s non-troversy concerning Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna and her swimwear.In midweek, TikTok users apparently discovered a 2016 video of APL wearing a “Make America Great Again” one-piece swimsuit. The chatter migrated to X, when a troll posted the clip with the caption, “Anna Paulina Luna should be working at my local Hooters, NOT in Congress!” https://twitter.com/thephillipholz/status/1823697402416476491 This prompted a defiant response from the Florida congresswoman. “I have a confession to make since the TikTok Democrats are onto me: I wear bikinis to the beach and mineral sunscreen...

Axed-ios Axios announced in an email to staff this week that they are laying off 10 percent of their workforce — and to add insult to injury, the announcement was stylized like one of their editorial products.“Why it matters: We’re eliminating about 50 positions to get ahead of tectonic shifts in the media, technology, and reader needs/habits,” the email read. The canned staffers were also informed via email rather than in an in-person meeting, which Axios claimed was for logistical reasons.It gets worse. A spy tells Cockburn that the laid-off workers were summarily frog-marched out of the media company’s northern Virginia building Thursday by security.

Oppo veepstakes: which of Kamala’s VP picks has the dirtiest laundry? Have you canceled plans this weekend? Are you a white dude for Kamala? You just might be in contention to be the Democratic pick for vice president this year! The nation’s hacks are doggedly monitoring the movements of electable white dads from convenient states as the campaign formerly known as Biden 2024 prepares itself for weekend auditions ahead of an announcement next week. Similarly, America’s grubbiest political operatives have been working overtime to farm out opposition research on the men in question.

Sofa, so good? What does “fake news” mean in the post-truth era? Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and rebranding of it to X, was supposed to augur a new age of unfiltered information, to combat the censorship of Silicon Valley apparatchiks. For a lot of this week, that meant you’d see Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk sincerely assuring you that Joe Biden was dead or about to die (he addressed the nation, weakly, on Wednesday, an impressive feat for any corpse). How is the discerning reader supposed to separate fact from falsehood in this climate? That’s the question facing tech-savvy Senator J.D.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin In the bars of Mitchell International Airport, the Bloody Marys are freely flowing. Cockburn can’t blame the departing attendees of the 2024 Republican National Convention: anyone who was in the Fiserv Forum for Hulk Hogan’s high-T address yesterday will have felt the need to sink a few cold ones after. Carrying on his form from earlier in the week, Cockburn did precisely that, heading to the irritatingly named Drink Wisconsibly opposite the arena after the conclusion of Trump’s remarks. On the way in he exchanged a respectful nod with former congressman Madison Cawthorn, who was wearing a bottle blonde as a seatbelt across the lap of his wheelchair (Ubers are hard to come by in the Cream City).

Writer: kicking Biden off the ticket comparable to ‘rape culture’ At the latest count, seventeen House Democrats and one senator have made the egregious yet ruthlessly pragmatic decision to call for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee and allow a mentally fitter candidate to run in his place. A deluge of further letters was anticipated after the end of the NATO seventy-fifth anniversary summit last night. Biden is thought to have staved off the reaper for a while with a not-entirely-awful press conference performance yesterday evening. And some online pundits have been eager to point out that Democratic primary voters should not be robbed of their agency.

Sleepy Joe: ‘I’m tired’ Joe Biden has come out swinging against the “Sleepy Joe” allegations... by telling Democratic governors that he is not getting enough sleep. According to the New York Times, Biden said he “needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m.” The CNN debate on June 27, in which Biden performed disastrously, began at 9 p.m. ET. The State of the Union address in March also began at 9 p.m. ET.

Pole position Where did you take in last night’s car crash of a presidential debate? Cockburn was holed up in his DC townhouse, washing away the night’s many embarrassments with a glass of Macallan 15. If only he’d known he could have enhanced the viewing experience by watching at a New York gentlemen’s club — as @botticellibimbo, who writes the Strippernomics newsletter on Substack, revealed. “the worst thing about them playing the debate at the strip club rn is that neither sound nor subtitles are on so its just the vibe of the debate,” she tweeted. “the never ending loop of mindless edm playing over this... i imagine it’s what’s going inside their minds.” “ok update at our back bar they do have the sound on!

A touching tale The anti-porn crusade is claiming more territory. Kentucky lost access to Pornhub earlier this month, with Indiana, Idaho and Kansas to join them a week from today and Nebraska to miss out from July 17.Those states join seven others — Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia — where residents can’t access the world’s thirteenth most visited website, as they have passed or are passing laws that mandate age verification through uploading a government ID. Pornhub pulls access to locations that pass these laws in protest, as the company feels that on-device age verification is “the only effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike,” whereas uploading a government ID opens up users to the risk of data breaches.