Politics

What a pair are Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew — like peanut butter and petroleum jelly, like pepper and road salt. With Epstein conveniently self-strangulated, it's Andrew's turn to face the music now, as a US judge ruled on Wednesday that the civil case against him can proceed. Andrew stands accused of sexually assaulting a then-underaged American named Virginia Giuffre. He's alleged to have violated her multiple times, in New York, in London, and on Epstein's eponymous Pedo Island. So while the grand old duke of York might have 10,000 men, they're about to square off against one of the most hellish forces ever to prowl this earth: American lawyers. And cheers to the unwashed hordes in this case.

It's official — I am a Covid conspiracy theorist. Aren't we all, at this point? When I used to share my forbidden opinions about the virus and the vaccines, acquaintances called me crazy and friends thought I was joking. They'd cry that surely I don't really believe that the vaccines could affect my fertility, or that government officials wouldn't just allow us to return to normal if we all got the vaccine, or that Covid hospitalization and death numbers could be artificially inflated. But with every new admission from the CDC, every study and piece of reportage, we "conspiracy theorists" are vindicated. And everyone who mocked our distrust of public health officials is eating crow. I wasn't always so obstinate about the pandemic.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, like many a New York progressive, headed down to the Sunshine State recently. First she was photographed having a drink with her ginger boyfriend. The youngish lovebirds were having a grand old time, and to that, as a Miami native and a lover of all things 305, I say, good for them. That’s what Miami’s here for, even for the haters. AOC is a hater, no doubt, what with her DeSantis-bashing and insufferable histrionics, but a moron she is not. She may be a ditz, but like Trump, she has a preternatural understanding of the social media political ecosystem and how to manipulate it. That's why she decided to come to Miami and decided to be photographed, smiling and maskless. AOC was not caught.

For over a year, the national news media has held up the CDC and its director, Rochelle Walensky, as paragons of public health. It's no coincidence they've now suddenly had a moment of clarity as it pertains to the CDC adjusting its pandemic protocols. This epiphany is happening primarily at CNN, with ratio king Chris Cillizza coming around to reality on Twitter and declaring that blue staters, journalists, and Democratic politicians catching Covid isn’t a moral failing and shouldn’t be shamed (the Washington Post made a similar statement). This past Sunday, CNN hall monitors Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy actually went after the CDC, saying it appears the agency has become “a punchline.” That segment also featured Dr.

It’s often said that memory is a fickle thing. Today, that fickleness has become a danger to the republic. If you turned on any of the major news networks over the past week, with the possible exception of Fox News, you’d have seen wall-to-wall coverage of the anniversary of the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol building. What’s concerning about this is all the misplaced lamentations. The travesty of the day was not the riot itself, though the assault was obviously horrific and a symbol of America’s democratic backsliding into an illiberal abyss. But the rampage was never an actual existential threat to the United States government and calling the attack an “insurrection” isn't accurate.

At the stroke of midnight on January 1, Bill de Blasio — New York’s bumbling, mildly sinister but profoundly incompetent mayor — got laughed out of office as his second term came to an end. Don’t let the door hit ya, the city collectively sneered...despite voting for the man twice. The new administration couldn’t even wait until morning to flip the official @NYCMayor Twitter account. One minute after midnight, it changed all its pictures over to ones of Eric Adams, before the man had even been officially sworn in. An image of the smiling new mayor loomed over de Blasio’s final message: a photo of he and his wife walking in shadow down a long hallway with their backs turned on a city they abandoned long ago.

Biden issues a 2024 warning to Republicans Joe Biden rarely mentions Donald Trump by name. That was the case in his speech at the Capitol yesterday, even though the president pinned the blame squarely on his predecessor, who, he said, isn’t “just a former president, he’s a defeated former president.” Asked after the speech why he didn’t used the T-word, Biden said that “he did not want to turn it into a contemporary political battle between me and the president. It’s way beyond that. It’s way beyond that.” The irony of Biden’s “he who must not be named” policy is that the president is at his most animated and politically potent when he is talking about his predecessor.

Cockburn realized this January 6 commemoration stuff was serious when he saw that even Lin-Manuel Miranda found time in his schedule to put in an appearance at the Capitol today. Actually, who knows if he was free? Miranda, the creator of Hamilton and high priest of Obama-era cringe, delivered a pre-recorded message to the American people and performed, with other cast members from the show that made him famous, the song “Dear Theodosia.” You might be wondering whether this struck the right tone for what was Cockburn was told was going to be a somber commemoration of one of the darkest days in American history.