Politics

Being something of a barfly, Cockburn is used to overhearing tall tales, braggadocious orations, and outlandish accusations, also known as “fightin’ words.” So imagine his astonishment in learning that what he heard over his breakfast stout this afternoon was not the consequence of some riled-up Hill staffer who’d had a few too many, but was really and truly uttered by the (presumably sober) president of the United States. “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history,” President Biden said. “Recent history,” he clarified. “Recent” is a relative term. Perhaps the explosive hate crimes of the Ku Klux Klan that reached their height in the 1920s are not “recent” enough for Biden.

Bruce Robinson’s 2011 film The Rum Diary, an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel, was a critical and financial flop. It’s doubtful anyone would remember it a decade later were it not for one salient feature: it introduced its star Johnny Depp to the actress Amber Heard, leading to what was initially one of the most glamorous romantic pairings in Hollywood. Yet after their separation and divorce, the fallout from their relationship has been immense, waged through a series of ugly and very public court battles that have laid waste to their reputations. After a court defeat in London, in which Depp sued The Sun for defamation after the newspaper called him a wife beater, Depp has now moved onto another expensive and humiliating legal case.

America's diplomatic corps is the latest victim of diversity uber alles. Choosing diplomats for the 21st century is now about the same process as choosing which gummy bear to eat next. But fear not, because the State Department assures us that America will have "an inclusive workforce that... represents America's rich diversity." At issue is the rigorous entrance exam, which once established a color-blind baseline of knowledge among all applicants and was originally instituted to create a merit-based entrance system. Until now, becoming an American diplomat started with passing this written test of geography, history, basic economics and political science, the idea being it was probably good for our diplomats to know something about all that.

Cockburn has the good fortune to be invited to all the right places. And one of the rightest of places on Palm Beach Island is the home of Beth Ailes, widow of the man that was the “I” in the masterclass book of persuasion, You Are the Message. On occasion, an invitation to a good liberal party comes Cockburn’s way. But they are getting few and further apart. He'll be going to the Coachella of mainstream moralism, the White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend. (A subject for another missive). But for now let’s get back to Palm Beach, Florida, where the girls are pretty and the streets not gritty. The occasion for the party was Andrew Giuliani — son of America’s Mayor, Rudy — who was in town doing the political rounds.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer knows how to fix inflation: higher taxes. “If you want to get rid of inflation, the only way to do it is to undo a lot of the Trump tax cuts and raise rates,” surmised the New York Democrat to reporters on Tuesday, after meeting with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin about the budget. “No Republican is ever going to do that. So the only way to get rid of inflation is through reconciliation.” Manchin saw it slightly differently, portraying tax increases as budget reduction tools. He believes debt reduction is “the only way” to fight an inflation problem that threatens to wash away Democratic majorities in Congress.

Beware of pundits bearing scare quotes Three days after the announcement of Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition, the great freak-out over the future of the platform rumbles on. Amid many hyperbolic warnings about what the maverick tech billionaire’s ownership means not just for the social media site but for democracy as we know it, one argument sticks out for its perniciousness. It’s not the idea that Musk, a professed free speech absolutist, will under-police the social network and let the trolls run wild. Even if I think Twitter has been far too censorious in recent years, there is a reasonable debate to be had about how social media companies should police speech on their networks.

Murders skyrocketed in the United States in both 2020 and 2021, increasing 5 percent over 2020 and 44 percent over 2019, according to an analysis of crime trends released earlier this year by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ). That increase was felt the most in major urban areas, and affected black Americans more than any other demographic. Just don’t tell that to the corporate media. They’re still obsessing over supposedly deadly and racist police. The Washington Post recently featured a front-page story on an African immigrant family whose son was killed by police in Michigan. The angle was obvious: yet another example of how police in America are disproportionately killing blacks. Nor is this piece an anomaly at the Post.

MTG’s day in court A strange spectacle has been playing out in a Georgia courtroom in recent days. A sitting member of Congress has had to testify in a lawsuit that seeks to remove her from the ballot. The lawmaker in question is outlandish Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, and she finds herself having to deny the accusation that she was involved in an insurrection to obstruct Congress. The lawsuit cites a post-Civil War provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution that bars from Congress representatives who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or who have “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Harvey Dent says to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight. His words prove prophetic. By the end of the film, the heroic district attorney Dent has become the vengeful Two-Face. President Biden has had a similar arc, although he was never much of a hero and was always two-faced. “[W]hen it comes to issues like abortion…I’m about as liberal as your grandmother,” Biden said in 1974. “I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.” Based. Unfortunately, this version of Biden wasn’t long for this world.

Recently, money was extracted from the taxpayers at gunpoint to create a PBS puff piece about Nancy Pelosi. Called "Pelosi's Power," the documentary is more or less what you'd expect: Pelosi comes off as a strong if sphinxlike figure surrounded by idiot men who can't seem to stop slipping on banana peels and starting riots. Her infamous 2009 lies about waterboarding, her bizarre slandering of her own hair stylist — all of it gets overlooked in favor of the usual "you go, girl!" narrative reductionism. Yet there is one thing about the piece that holds up well: its title. Whatever else can be said about Nancy Pelosi, she knows how to wield power. And little wonder, given that she grew up in Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood where her father was a political broker.

Libertarians and conservatives “share a detestation of collectivism,” wrote Russell Kirk in 1981. “They set their faces against the totalist state and the heavy hand of bureaucracy. That much is obvious enough.” But he asked “what else… conservatives and libertarians profess in common.” “The answer to that question is simple: nothing. Nor will they ever have. To talk of forming a league or coalition between these two is like advocating a union of ice and fire.” On a practical level, Kirk may have been overstating his case. At the time that he was writing, a strategic alliance between libertarians and conservatives made a good deal of sense. Communism abroad and progressive collectivism at home were the great challenges of the day.