Politics

The American Conservation Coalition last week held its first official summit, hosting a vibrant crowd of over 250 people. The organization boasted speakers such as Michigan congressman Peter Meijer, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu and conservative radio host Jason Rantz. Cockburn was lucky to attend — and even luckier to partake in the open bar. The many speakers held talks and panels on topics such as China as a player in the clean energy arms race, nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, and the deregulation of free market economies. While it is still far from the mainstream attitude in conservative thought, the ACC represents a growing minority of people who recognize climate change as a threat, only without the left's “doom and gloom.

The Democrats' democracy hypocrisy The Democrats, you may have heard, are the responsible party. Joe Biden wants you to know that this is a dangerous moment for American democracy. The Republic’s future is in doubt — and only he and his Democratic colleagues can be trusted to save it. With the January 6 hearings in full-swing, the midterms approaching and Biden keen to talk about anything other than the increasingly gloomy economic picture, don’t expect the death-of-democracy language to temper any time soon. The problem is that, time and again, the party’s actions don’t match the rhetoric. Josh Kraushaar reports on a particularly pernicious example of that gap in his National Journal column this morning.

Imagine a BLM member's trial in which the prosecution simply played violent videos over and over, which weren't even related to the defendant in question. Sound fair? No? Well, welcome to the Third Trump Impeachment, aka the January 6 televised hearings. Having watched a lot of PBS back in the day, I kept waiting for chairman Bennie Thompson to promise a Democratic Party tote bag if I phoned in my pledge of $50 or more. That was the tone from, as they say, gavel to gavel. But there are so many important things being left out in the Dems' desire to showcase violence. Here are just five of the issues that the hearings have left unquestioned. *** Dems and groupie Liz Cheney constantly use words like coup, insurrection, incitement, sedition, and treason.

Joe Biden would never be in a hair band; a hair plugs band, maybe. Yet the president does seem to be following a maxim known well to every aging rocker: when nothing else is working, you hit the road. So it was that yesterday Biden left Washington on a tour that sent him to Los Angeles with stops afterward in Santa Fe and Philadelphia. And while his handlers seem to have talked him out of doing the whole thing via Amtrak, there are other reasons to think this is not a typical presidential jaunt. From out of the White House has come news that the president is frustrated with his dismal poll numbers. He's also reportedly tired of being over-handled by his staff — and fair enough.

Cockburn can’t help but tune into the late-night shows. On Wednesday night, he was spoiled rotten: President Joe Biden showed up on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, kicking off a West Coast tour to revive his declining popularity. While the audience applause lasted more than a minute upon his arrival, Cockburn wasn't quite impressed with the interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEtPV-qvLe8&ab_channel=JimmyKimmelLive From the start, it was clear Kimmel would carry the show like a pack mule, clarifying Biden’s points and continually asking questions that led the president towards easy answers, along with the occasional jab at Trump and Fox News. Kimmel kicked off proceedings by asking: “Do you mind if I ask you some serious questions?

Our worrying acceptance of political violence  There are plenty of good reasons to be cynical about the House January 6 Committee’s hearings scheduled for prime time this evening. The lawmakers have hired an experienced documentary maker and TV news executive to turn the committee’s work into a slick audience-friendly production. According to Axios, former ABC News president is producing the event “as if it were a blockbuster investigative special.” Meanwhile, even outlets sympathetic to the committee’s work acknowledge the electoral calculation behind the whole production. A New York Times story this week described the hearings as a chance for Democrats to “recast their midterm message.

Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen predicted Tuesday during a CNN interview that the upcoming midterm elections could be rife with violence, implying that Trump supporters were gearing up for a January 6 redux. Barely a day later, it was someone on his own side who attempted to exert political influence with deadly force. Nicholas John Roske, a 26-year-old man from California, was arrested and charged with attempted murder Wednesday after he showed up to Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home dressed in black and armed with a Glock 17 handgun, ammunition, a knife, zip ties, pepper spray, and duct tape. Roske, who was upset that the Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade, found Kavanaugh's address online and arrived at his home in a taxi shortly after 1 a.m.

Matthew McConaughey came to Cockburn’s hometown of Washington, DC on Tuesday. It was not to say hi, of course, but to advocate for “commonsense gun control” at the White House. McConaughey is a Uvalde native and wanted to speak about the victims, as well as how the government might better regulate firearms. McConaughey spoke about going back to Uvalde and talking to the families of the victims. He said, “We need background checks, we need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21, we need a waiting period for those rifles, we need red flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them.” He went on Bret Baier’s Fox News show that night to continue opining.

Eric Adams comes crashing down to earth When Eric Adams was elected mayor of New York, he was a breath of fresh air. The zany former Republican ex-cop said all the right things about the urgent need to bring rising violent crime under control, reopen after the pandemic and get the Big Apple back on track. There followed a honeymoon period in which Adams was burning the candle at both ends, facing off against progressive prosecutors by day, doing his bit to keep New York’s clubs and restaurants solvent by night. “If you’re going to hang out with the boys at night, you have to get up with the men in the morning,” he was fond of saying.