Latest from Coffee House

Monday

27 Mar 2023

Why didn’t America’s Covid hypocrites pay a price?

Some choppy waters this week for former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who more than ever looks like a ghost haunting a library. Johnson was recently hauled before a committee of Parliament where he was grilled about allegations that he'd attended parties with other government employees during Covid lockdown. The spectacle was so brutal that at one point the usually unflappable Boris lost his temper: "This is complete nonsense!" he barked. The scandal, known as Partygate, arguably played a greater role in sinking Boris's premiership than anything else — and occasionally its complex layers of events and regulations have forced investigators to inquire into the absurd. Was Boris aware that staffers sitting directly in front of him during a speech were drinking alcohol?

Sunday

26 Mar 2023

Peter Wood

How real is America’s discontent?

Homer goes right at it: “Sing Goddess, the Rage of Achilles.” Adapted to our times: “Sing, Bragg, your rage against the Trumpies.” Alvin Bragg, who grew up in a section of Harlem aptly named Striver’s Row, is by most accounts one angry man. Since he was elected New York County’s district attorney in 2021, he has set himself to punishing the city for what he takes to be generations of wrongful prosecution of black offenders — and incidentally most other lawbreakers. His policy writ large has been to treat all felonies as misdemeanors, which are promptly dismissed. He occasionally compromises in favor of prosecution but only if the crime has aroused a special level of public outrage. Bragg’s tenderheartedness towards criminals, however, has limits.

William Nattrass

Can Hungary resist international pressure over its LGBT stance?

In an off-the-cuff monologue delivered during a press conference in Sarajevo, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó summed up his government’s growing fury over international efforts to influence Hungarian domestic affairs. Asked about the US State Department’s latest Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which includes extensive criticisms of Hungary, Szijjártó pulled no punches. “I am appalled, and I am appalled again and again every year, that the US State Department has the courage to make such excoriating statements about the internal issues and situations of other countries,” Szijjártó said.

Friday

24 Mar 2023

Oliver Wiseman

TikTok’s terrible, no good, very bad day

TikTok’s terrible, no good, very bad day TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew arrived for a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday with his company facing a forced sale or a ban in the US. In other words, it was an important day for Chew and his company: a chance to put the best case forward for TikTok’s continued existence in America. Chew assembled a formidable force for his Congressional D-Day. TikTok has paid for the best in the business if that business is getting Democratic administrations to do what you want: retaining SKDK, the lobbying firm founded by top Biden advisor Anita Dunn. They also have progressive lawmaker Jamaal Bowman on their side.

Cockburn

‘Not now, Hunter!’ begs White House

Hunter Biden's decision to fight fire with fire in his ongoing laptop scandal is apparently not sitting well with the administration officials who work for his father. The president's son has brought on several street fighters, including famed white-collar defense attorney Abbe Lowell and Media Matters founder David Brock, to defend him against House Republican investigations into the contents of his laptop hard-drive. House Oversight chair James Comer and Judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan are probing whether Hunter traded access to Joe for fat paychecks from foreign corporations. In response, Hunter's attack dogs are resurfacing claims that Comer abused his ex-girlfriend and that Jordan turned a blind eye to sexual abuse when he coached high-school wrestling.

Matthew Foldi

Congress flattens TikTok CEO. So why won’t Biden ban his app?

Thursday was a sickening day for TikTok. Its CEO Shou Zi Chew came to Congress flanked by low-energy and likely highly-compensated “influencers.” He left looking queasy, like he'd just been force-fed a dish of FDA-condemned “NyQuil Chicken” — the infamous recipe popularized by users of his platform. Time after time, Chew was thanked by both Republicans and Democrats for doing the impossible: making members of both parties on the Energy and Commerce Committee unite against his own company. While TikTok’s fate is still uncertain, the Biden White House’s distance from his fellow Democrats is curious.

John Pietro

Why Haiti’s problems are America’s problems

Haiti tends to not get much attention in the American press, but it should. The country has descended into a state of near-anarchy, with gangs ruling the streets and the government more or less nonfunctional. There has not been an election since 2016, and both the legislative and executive branches of government have no elected officials in office. The country has been ruled by an unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry, since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Elections are tentatively planned for this year, but the timeline is not yet set. The crisis in Haiti is a problem for the whole region, including the United States.

Thursday

23 Mar 2023

Cockburn

Ski free, Gwyneth!

Justice for Gwyneth Paltrow! The former Avengers and Shakespeare in Love star is one nepo baby that Cockburn has no trouble defending. Paltrow has had a tough PR week. First, she was vilified for her rather meager diet. Paltrow said on a podcast that she skips breakfast, sips coffee and bone broth in the afternoon, and eats a paleo meal with "lots of vegetables" for dinner. Yes, our Goop queen is looking a bit frail these days, but can we blame a gal who rose to prominence during the Kate-Moss-heroin-chic era? Even Jessica Simpson is still recovering from being called "Jumbo Jessica" in 2009 when she appeared on stage with a slight muffin top. Paltrow also finds her skinny self in court this week over a near-decade old skiing accident at the Deer Valley resort in Utah.

US actress Gwyneth Paltrow looks on before leaving the courtroom in Park City, Utah (Photo by RICK BOWMER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Matthew Foldi

TikTok’s powerful friends in DC

TikTok’s CEO is gearing up for a grilling in Congress, but he’s got some new, powerful allies in his corner: a political consulting firm whose founder lavished praise on Mao Zedong and is now one of Biden’s top aides — and a socialist congressman who thinks banning the Chinese spyware is racist. Shou Zi Chew, the company’s CEO, is headed for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where Republicans are planning to press him on the national security concerns posed by the video app’s parent company ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Chew is an odd person to push back against claims by Republicans — and, increasingly, some Democrats — that TikTok is inextricably linked to the CCP.

Wednesday

22 Mar 2023

Roger Kimball

Has Alvin Bragg bungled his case against Trump?

Well, no indictment, but there were developments! Vocabulary word of the week: “exculpatory.” “Something that shows that someone is not guilty of wrongdoing.” Now, use it in a sentence: “Soros-funded Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg neglected to reveal hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence to the Grand Jury pondering whether to indict Donald Trump.” What does it mean? It means that the orange suit that Bragg was hoping to order up for Trump may have to be retailored in a larger size, one big enough to fit him. Some context: when a prosecutor conceals exculpatory evidence from a Grand Jury or defense attorneys he is guilty of prosecutorial abuse.

Oliver Wiseman

Why Trump’s looming indictment is no ‘moment of choosing’

Why Trump’s indictment is no ‘moment of choosing’ His former vice-president recently said that “history will hold him accountable.” This week, his biggest rival for the 2024 Republican nomination made a series of not-so-veiled digs at him, bringing up porn-star hush money and questioning his leadership and character. In other words, as Donald Trump braces for a possible indictment and arrest, it’d be hard to describe the Republican Party as one big happy family. 2024 contenders seem more and more comfortable criticizing the former president. Congressional Republicans, who are at a retreat in Orlando this week, hardly seem enthusiastic about the prospect of playing defense for Trump yet again.

Cockburn

Inside the Orlando House GOP conference

Too much Trump, or not enough Trump? That is the question that everyone from journalists to Republican elected officials had on their minds as the House GOP apparatus descended on the Marriott in Orlando for its annual retreat. Cockburn managed to sneak into a spare hotel room. During the Hotel California-esque conference, Republicans ate, drank and were merry. But Donald Trump was on everyone’s minds, both during the daytime sessions and at the happy hours that stretched into the wee hours of the morning. You'll be shocked to hear that no one expressed support for Alvin Bragg, the George Soros-funded district attorney who may or may not be arresting the former president. Many of those gathered compared the Manhattan DA's actions to those of a tinpot dictator.

Tuesday

21 Mar 2023

Teresa Mull

Alvin Bragg has been on Trump’s trail for a long time

For being what Politico describes as a “politics-averse prosecutor,” the Democratic Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, reportedly set to indict Donald Trump any moment now, has certainly spent a fair bit of time targeting the former president and pondering his indictment. Bragg is purportedly on the verge of ordering Trump’s arrest over so-called “hush money” that Trump allegedly had his former attorney Michael Cohen (who served time in prison) pay to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign to keep her quiet about an affair they are said to have had. If he does so, Bragg will become the first prosecutor to bring criminal charges against a former president.

John Pietro

Putin and Xi: authoritarian bros

Relationships between dictators are bound to be a bit strange, but Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s stands out for its theatrical quality. Meetings are carefully choreographed for maximum propaganda effect. Lavish gifts and gilded state rooms are the norm. Fluent in the language of autocratic flattery, the two always have gushing praise for each other. In 2019, before traveling to Russia, Xi said that Putin was his “best and bosom friend,” while just a year earlier Putin praised Xi as being a “remarkable thinker” and “a good friend I can count on.” Leading up to this week’s visit, Putin referred to Xi as his “good old friend,” and recalling Confucius, wrote, “Isn’t it a joy when a friend comes from afar!

Cockburn

Rupert Murdoch to marry his fifth wife

King Rupert has met his Catherine Howard. That's right: at the tender age of ninety-two, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is set to marry for the fifth time. The announcement came in the Murdoch-owned New York Post, where Rupert claimed that he “was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love, but I knew this would be my last. I am happy.” On Saint Patrick’s Day, and less than one year after his divorce to Jerry Hall, he proposed to his sixty-six-year-old partner Ann Lesley Smith, an American journalist who is getting married for the third time. “We both look forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” Murdoch said. Cockburn loves the optimism. Smith said, “It’s a gift from God for both of us. We met last September.

Matthew Foldi

The Biden admin’s favorite electric battery company is in crisis

A politically-connected electric battery company with deep ties to the Biden administration is in trouble. Proterra could be staring down financial ruin, even though everyone from the president to his cabinet have worked overtime to boost the bus company. The Biden administration was supposed to be a ticket to ride for California-based Proterra. In 2021, it told shareholders that it was ready to “ride the wave” of taxpayer-funded incentives for vehicle electrification. It had all the right friends in all the right places. It hired a lobbying firm with extensive ties to Democratic politics weeks before Biden toured its facility.

Kara Kennedy

Why the French are right to riot

Being twenty-something in the twenties is realizing that however much the world has progressed, it is overwhelmingly likely that in my life I will get less than what my parents got. I will work for a longer portion of my life and I will work more hours per week for less money. On the subject of houses, I will never be able to buy one. This isn’t me wallowing in self-pity; it's just the reality. House prices in Britain have more than doubled (53 percent) in the last decade, and the average deposit needed for first-time buyers in London currently stands at $140,000. If you can scrape that together, you’ll have to be quick before the Russians or Qataris buy up the whole development anyway.

Grace Curley

Is Hallie the most underrated member of the Biden family?

Move over Dr. B! There’s a new lady from the House of Biden who is stealing the spotlight. Hallie Biden, widow of Beau Biden and ex-lover of her brother-in-law Hunter Biden, has earned the scrutiny of the House GOP. After two months of stalling, this week the Treasury Department finally handed over suspicious activity reports relating to Hunter Biden’s finances to House Republicans. Shortly thereafter, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer revealed that a “new” Biden family member was involved in the divvying up of a windfall of Chinese cash.

Matt Purple

The Donald Trump Show’s arrest plot twist just isn’t convincing

When last we checked in on The Donald Trump Show, the absurdist political thriller that’s been airing nonstop on CNN for the past seven years, the program seemed to have gotten its groove back. A new character had been introduced, Cassidy Hutchinson, a Trump aide who told the January 6 committee that the former president had lashed out violently, including allegedly trying to commandeer the presidential SUV. Here was everything that had made The Donald Trump Show so great in the first place: the over-the-top drama, the scandal, the unpredictability of its main character. Alas, one of the gripes that critics have most often leveled at the show is that it introduces new plotlines and then doesn’t do anything with them.

Amber Duke

Exclusive: Politico progressives double down on list of banned words

A recently updated version of Politico’s style guide reveals that the outlet is doubling down on forcing reporters to use so-called "inclusive" language — such as "pregnant people" instead of women — and will require all articles on transgender issues to be specially reviewed by multiple editors. I first reported on Politico’s woke style guide in my book The Snowflakes’ Revolt, which also uncovers how reporters were required to attend a struggle session led by transgender activists. As I lay out in an excerpt published in The Spectator, that version of the guide, which was created in January 2022, warned reporters to avoid gendered language like "manmade," "manhunt," "waiter or waitress," "biological sex" and more.

Monday

20 Mar 2023

Amber Duke

The White House press corps’ cynical cries for ‘decorum’

The White House Correspondents Association sent an email to its members Monday begging them to practice "decorum" during White House press briefings. The email was sent in response to an incident earlier in the day when Simon Ateba, a correspondent for Today News Africa, accused White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre of "making a mockery" of the First Amendment by refusing to call on him at briefings for seven months. In a bizarre clip, Jean-Pierre stands at the podium dismissing Ateba, while the White House press corps hiss "decorum!" at him. KJP is flanked by the cast of Ted Lasso, who were at the briefing to talk about mental health. https://twitter.

Oliver Wiseman

Powell pays for past mistakes

Powell pays for past mistakes In the summer of 2020, Fed chair Jerome Powell could not have been clearer. “We’re not thinking about raising rates,” said Powell, before doubling down: “We’re not even thinking about thinking about raising rates.” Things, as we now know, turned out a little differently. The months marched on, and with the Biden administration determined to spend, spend, spend, inflation went from “high class problem” to “transitory” to the biggest problem facing the US economy. Powell and his Fed colleagues went from not thinking about thinking about raising rates to, well, raising rates. From virtually zero around this time last year to 4.75 percent as of January.

Ben Domenech

When will Ron DeSantis call Trump a loser?

To this point in the early days of the Republican primary, all the major potshots have been coming from just one candidate, directed at just one other: Donald Trump taking aim repeatedly at Ron DeSantis. Much of the media conversation about this has focused on DeSantis's unwillingness to respond to any of these attacks: a deliberate choice that hasn't lowered the temperature or frequency of Trump's barbs, which now include comparing the Florida conservative to, gasp, Mitt Romney. But consider the possibility that at this moment, both men are making a political mistake. For DeSantis, the risks of non-response are that Trump defines him before he defines himself. Republican primary voters generally know who Ron DeSantis is and have an overwhelmingly positive view of him.

Cockburn

The French protests are as French as they possibly could be

Sacre bleu: the French are at it again. This time they’re taking to the streets over pensions after President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to raise France's retirement age from sixty-two to sixty-four. If there’s one thing Cockburn respects the French for, it’s starting a damn good riot. And these protests are wonderfully, aesthetically French. Let Cockburn set the scene. Thousands have gathered at places such as Place d'Italie, while setting trash cans on fire and burning an effigy of Macron while chanting things like "Macron, resign!” and “The streets are ours!” All this is happening amid the putrid stench of decomposing food after sanitation workers went on strike at the start of the year. https://twitter.

James W. Carden

If only there was a GOP ‘civil war’ over foreign policy

Last week, the Biden administration’s mouthpieces kicked into gear with two nearly identical stories touting the threat that a few high-profile Republican heretics pose to the American proxy war in Ukraine. On March 15, the Washington Post reported on “A Republican ‘civil war’ on Ukraine,” while the following day Politico published a story headlined, “Wanted: A GOP presidential contender who supports Ukraine.” These stories come in the wake of — and no doubt as a response to — a recent Tucker Carlson segment that asked a dozen or so possible Republican presidential candidates several questions about American involvement in Ukraine.

Sunday

19 Mar 2023

Peter Van Buren

Six things to know about the possible arrest of Donald Trump

Here are six things to think about ahead of any indictment and arrest of Donald Trump: 1. What is Trump going to be indicted for? Trump may soon be indicted on a campaign finance law violation. This means Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has convinced a grand jury there is enough evidence to charge Trump with the crime (federal prosecutors seem to have long abandoned the cheesy political revenge fantasy). 2. But I thought this was all about Trump having an affair with some porn star? Stormy Daniels allegedly had sex with Trump in 2006, which he denies, and which she and Michael Cohen also once denied. She then took money in 2016 to sign a nondisclosure agreement, or NDA, to keep silent.

Teresa Mull

J.D. Vance makes a big, bipartisan first impression

J.D. Vance gained prominence in 2016 for appealing to two camps. His critique of the roots of rural poverty, relayed in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was generally well received on both sides of the aisle. After crediting the American Conservative magazine for putting Elegy on the map, the New York Times’s Jennifer Senior wrote in a review of the book that Vance used “a vocabulary intelligible to both Democrats and Republicans.” Fast-forward seven years, and a lot has changed for Vance. He has evolved from Never Trump conservative to enthusiastic MAGA disciple. And he has also gone from bestselling author to United States senator.

Saturday

18 Mar 2023

Jacob Heilbrunn

There is no upside for Trump if he’s arrested

It’s getting Stormy for Donald Trump. In a lengthy message on his TruthSocial site on Saturday morning, Trump announced that he expects that the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, will indict and arrest him on Tuesday for his hush money payment scheme to his former, if brief, inamorata Stormy Daniels. “Protest, take our nation back,” he urged. But Trump’s urges may not be widely shared. It's hard to avoid the feeling that Trump misses the shock and awe of January 6, when his loyal followers stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the election of Joe Biden. That rebellion turned Trump into the ultimate Washington outsider, a revolt against the very government he was supposed to lead.

Friday

17 Mar 2023

Oliver Wiseman

Would you like CHIPS with that?

Would you like CHIPS with that? When Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law last August, the White House heralded legislation that “will poise US workers, communities, and businesses to win the race for the twenty-first century” and help Americans “compete in and win the future.” Cut through this hype and the real point of this bipartisan, $52-billion legislation was no less significant: to reinvigorate a semiconductor industry that was born in America but moved overseas in recent years and, in doing so, to strike a major technological and economic blow in the new cold war with China. However admirable the goals, there were always reasons to worry that the CHIPS Act may not live up to the hype.

John Pietro

Xi Jinping heads to Moscow

Chinese president Xi Jinping is headed to Moscow next week to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Xi last visited Russia in 2019, though the two leaders have met in person multiple times since then, including in Beijing just weeks before the invasion and in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last September. Virtual meetings are a fairly regular affair for the two. This summit, however, is qualitatively different from the rest: it will take place in the heart of Russia while Moscow is waging war on Ukraine. To give Putin such a significant endorsement on the world stage underscores just how close the two powers are, even if Russia is, by almost any metric, the underdog in the partnership.

Dave Seminara

Trump’s ultra-MAGA crew needs a reality check

In 2020, Democrats made a pragmatic if uninspiring choice in nominating Joe Biden. If this month’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is indicative of the Republican base’s mood, the ultra-MAGA crowd is still in middle-finger mode. Bernie Sanders wasn’t prepared to burn down the Democratic Party and trash all the other candidates to get the nomination in 2020, but Trump has always loved scorched earth. His followers need to get real before it’s too late. Trump’s ardent fans lapped up his hour-and-forty-five-minute CPAC address, in which he portrayed himself as the only person capable of saving the country and averting World War III.

Thursday

16 Mar 2023

Cockburn

Trump PAC tells on DeSantis

The game's afoot: MAGA Inc., a Donald Trump-associated super PAC, has lodged a formal complaint to the Florida Commission on Ethics against Ron DeSantis. The complaint alleges that the Florida governor is in breach of ethics laws by running for president without officially declaring. Cockburn detects a whiff of hypocrisy here: for a man who is always claiming to be the victim of legal warfare, Trump seems to be as willing as anyone to wield the sword of the law. The complaint argues that DeSantis is “leveraging his elected office and breaching his associated duties in a coordinated effort to develop his national profile, enrich himself and his political allies and influence the national electorate.

John Pietro

China’s big win in the Middle East

China had a diplomatic triumph last week that was a disaster for the US. In a vacuum, Saudi Arabia and Iran re-establishing relations would be a good thing, reducing the risk of conflict between two Middle East powers that have been engaged in proxy wars for years. But nothing happens in a vacuum, and this deal was brokered by China. Before Friday, Iran was in an accelerating downward economic spiral, with its currency at a record low. The country was increasingly viewed as the pariah that it is, alienated from much of the world as it pushed ahead with its nuclear program, supplied Russia with arms, and brutally suppressed its own citizens. Normalization does not fundamentally change that, but it does give Tehran breathing room at a time when the pressure should be increasing.

Daniel DePetris

Contra the hawks, Biden’s defense budget keeps ballooning

This week we heard a lot about AUKUS, a trilateral initiative between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia that will revamp the Australian naval fleet with nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades. President Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a show of it in sunny San Diego on March 13, where they officially inaugurated the defense agreement and gave speeches about defending sea lanes and the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific. But there was another story here: the Pentagon released a torrent of charts and bureaucratic documents on what it would like to see in the coming year’s defense budget.