Politics

Someone needs to tell Joe Biden he is the President of the United States. Yesterday he made his first real appearance before the country at a CNN town hall in Wisconsin. Even with pitched softballs from the host Anderson Cooper and a friendly, carefully chosen audience, Biden looked unfocused, unsure of statements from his own administration and off-balance on the two most important issues facing the country: reopening schools and foreign relations with China.  Candidate Biden was presented to the country as the anti-Trump, the passive-voice grandfather who was going to give America a Werther’s Original and regale us with some great stories and make us all feel better.

‘I’m actually frightened,’ says Morton Klein. This is surprising: Morton Klein is supposed to be fearless. He’s the president of the Zionist Organization of America, the largest conservative Jewish lobby group in the country. He’s an outspoken defender of Israel and the Jews. He’s a scourge of his enemies — and sometimes his friends too. The Biden administration, Klein says, has made ‘the worst group of appointments to cabinet positions with respect to US-Israel relations ever’ and is ‘mainstreaming Jew-hatred’ at home. The goal, he contends, is to revive the Iran Deal despite the concerns of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and radicalize the Democratic party through ‘Corbynization’. So why aren’t the other major Jewish organizations also speaking out?

Cockburn has always been a big fan of CPAC. Last year, he strutted around National Harbor with the spirit and energy of a College Republican from a major state school. Things will be slightly different this year: the flagship conservative conference will be held in Orlando, FL due to the intense coronavirus restrictions in the DC area. The change in locale hasn't stopped CPAC from nabbing headline-making speakers. Cockburn has learned from a well-placed source that freshman Colorado representative Lauren Boebert, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Arizona representative and House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs and Louisiana representative Mike Johnson will all be speaking at this year's event.

If one state has everything left-liberals hate, it’s Florida. Floridians have no income tax, relaxed shutdown rules and, most egregiously of all, Florida men. I’m not talking about the colorful characters who inspired the ‘Florida man’ meme with their constant crimes and shenanigans. I’m referring to three different Florida men: the GOAT, the Governor and the Donald. Let’s start with the GOAT, Tom Brady. When the 43-year-old walked into Raymond James Stadium last weekend, he was wearing earbuds, shades and a Tom Ford jacket — but he was missing a mask. Uh oh. The Super Bowl had not even started and Tom had already sent the Twitter tattletales into a tailspin.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was outfoxed by the House impeachment managers on Saturday as they moved to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial for former president Donald Trump. Many Senate Democrats signaled this week that they did not think that witnesses were necessary to convict Trump. The introduction of witnesses would also extend the length of the trial, providing poor optics of Democratic priorities in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis. However, impeachment managers are seeking the testimony of those with potential insight into Trump’s mindset and conversations around the time of the Capitol riot, such as Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Sen. Tommy Tuberville.

When Rep. Liz Cheney recently said she would vote to impeach President Trump, most of the national GOP and Wyoming Republican party came down on her hard. She could be in real trouble in 2022. I loved every second. I celebrated on social media with other libertarians who also enjoyed her comeuppance. But some libertarians didn’t agree. They stood with Liz Cheney and even praised her stance and her as moral, good and righteous. That is something I can’t wrap my head around. This is Liz Cheney. You are a libertarian!

Tomorrow, attorneys Bruce Castor, David Schoen, Michael van der Veen and William Brennan plan to speak on behalf of Donald Trump to defend him from the charge of having spurred on Duck Dynasty to take over the nation’s Capitol. They are likely to point to Trump’s First Amendment rights and claim that he was merely an accidental tourist as the mob trashed the Capitol. But so desultory has the performance of Trump’s lawyers been that their efforts could turn out to be even more devastating for him than anything the Democratic House managers have presented to the Senate. How do you defend someone whose own conduct impeached him each day of his sordid presidency?

As Donald Trump goes on trial in the Senate, the Republican party faces the possibility of a crack-up. Trump will almost certainly be acquitted, but the vote will be the third time in two weeks that GOP disunity is in the spotlight. Last week the attempt to oust Liz Cheney from her leadership role in the House saw the pro-Trump wing of the party come up short. Then 11 Republicans voted with the Democrats to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga / Q-Anon) of her committee assignments. Now it’s the Senate GOP’s turn to showcase its divisions. ​Cheney’s survival showed that the Trump faction isn’t strong enough — in Congress anyway — to purge the anti-Trump faction. Trump’s acquittal will mean his enemies inside the party can’t get rid of him, either.

Royal summits are often lavish affairs shown to us lowly peasants through photo spreads in Us Weekly and People. Cockburn was surprised therefore to learn of a clandestine meeting between three members of the Californian aristocracy in the British tabloid the Sun. According to the newspaper, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had a video meeting with California governor Gavin Newsom two weeks before the 2020 election. The Sun points out that Newsom was ‘under pressure to replace California senator Kamala Harris…with another black woman.’ Perhaps the purpose of the Zoom chat was innocent enough — as podcasters, Harry and Meghan are essential workers in the Golden State and deserving of the governor’s thanks.

Both political parties have always had oddballs entering their ranks, elected officials who probably aren’t fit for the job. Sometimes these situations can end in disgrace — such was the case when Republican congressman Steve King lost his committee assignments over racist comments which led his own party to back his primary challenger. But it’s often easier for parties to protect their own. So it is with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly sworn-in firebrand conservative representing Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Greene checks some of the more traditional Tea Party/populist boxes, but she also brings some quirks all of her own. She’s a well-known adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

There’s something about Marjorie. That would be Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman Republican congresswoman from Georgia who has filled a void as big as Donald Trump’s hair in the media since the Orange Man left the White House to hit the links full-time. Greene is by all accounts bonkers, or at least appears to have driven herself mad in a way that is all too common in the Trump era. She also seems to be a real nasty piece of work, at least in terms of how she comports herself with ideological — if that is even the right word — foes. The last four years have created a phenomenon by which people work themselves into a lather about Trump and 'doom scroll' to confirm their wildest hopes and worst fears. Add in a year of social isolation and voila!

President Biden has stirred some controversy in recent days by his apparent preference for the word 'equity' over the word 'equality' in dealing with social issues. Most notably he issued an executive order on housing on January 26, framed as a step toward realizing his 'agenda for advancing racial equity’. The White House 'Fact Sheet' mentions 'equity' 11 times, and 'equality' not at all. In his 'Remarks by President Biden at Signing of an Executive Order on Racial Equity,' the President employed 'equity' 10 times, stumbling once where he began to say 'equal…' Elsewhere, Vice President Harris has helpfully explained, 'There’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, "Oh, everyone should get the same amount.