Donald trrump

Tucker Carlson grills Kanye West

Tucker Carlson has tackled a question that has long puzzled Cockburn: is Kanye West crazy? Ye has had his fair share of controversial moments: he appeared on a 2006 cover of Rolling Stone mimicking Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns. He infamously stormed the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards stage to tell Taylor Swift she didn’t deserve her award. For the past couple years, he's been battling ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her family, during which time he also became religious, started hosting Sunday Services and bought a ranch in Cody, Wyoming, which he tried to sell but then took off the market. Most recently, Ye incited establishment ire by wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt alongside conservative firebrand buddy Candace Owens at Paris Fashion Week.

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Manufacturing in the US shouldn’t be so hard

There’s an automotive parts manufacturer in my hometown. The company has grown over the course of its 19-year life, from around 20 employees two decades ago to 45 full-time employees today. Despite the dirty nature of much of the work, the facility is kept clean, open, airy, and bright. There are no shavings on the floor or fumes in the air. The men who weld, bend, blast, and powder coat the metal parts and send them to the warehouse for packaging and shipment do so energetically. “Honestly, [the work] is very satisfying,” the shop’s lead welder, Joe, told me during a recent tour of the facility. “I’ve always wanted to do things with my hands, and I’ve always enjoyed welding.

Liz Cheney’s GOP has gone extinct

You have to wonder what Liz Cheney feels her relationship to the Republican Party to be today. Having spent years denouncing Donald Trump as a faux Republican and a disgrace to the party, much of the past year implicitly accusing him of treason as vice-chair of the January 6 Committee and the two months since her defeat in the Wyoming primary characterizing half (at least) of the GOP as “very sick,” she is co-sponsoring a bill with Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, to reform the Electoral Count Act in order to “protect the rule of law and ensure that future efforts to attack the integrity of presidential elections can’t succeed.” Representative Lofgren was one of seven impeachment managers in President Trump’s trial for his first impeachment in 2020.

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What would securing the border actually look like?

It's always easier to break something than to build it. Joe Biden broke the immigration control system that he'd inherited from Donald Trump and that had been built up over several administrations of both parties. Rebuilding it after Biden's vandalism will take time. Even if Republicans win the majority in both houses of Congress in November, it will take a change in administration before any real reconstruction can begin. With more than 2 million "encounters" with illegal border-crossers over the past year, more than any year in history, restoring order may seem like an insuperable task. But as we saw right after Trump's election and during the first months of his presidency, a simple expression of will can have a huge influence on prospective illegal aliens and their smugglers.

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Tish James doesn’t care about violent crime anymore

New York attorney general Letitia “Tish” James has a lot on her plate just now. Sadly none of it has anything to do with fighting the surging crime throughout the state and the nation’s largest city. Instead James has her sights narrowly set on a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and his family. She even found the time last week to fire off a tweet angrily complaining that a Yankees game was not being broadcast live. Clearly keeping New Yorkers safe is not on James’s agenda. In fairness, James’s persecution of the Trump clan is a campaign promise kept. On the night she won the AG race in 2018 she told her adoring crowd that, “I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing, demanding truthfulness at every turn.

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Donald Trump is looking forward

Some people are expending a lot of emotional energy on the excerpt in the Atlantic from Maggie Haberman’s new book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. It’s anti-Trump, of course, so it feeds a certain well-formed habit. But it strikes me as pretty thin gruel. The essay is based on three interviews that Haberman, White House correspondent for the New York Times, conducted over the spring and summer of 2021, the first two at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach Residence, the third at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. A tag line for the Atlantic excerpt tells readers that the former president “tried to sell his preferred version of himself, but said much more than he intended.” Did he? A lot has been made of two statements.

Ken Burns’s angry new film

There is probably no American documentary filmmaker more respected than Ken Burns. From his landmark 1990 series about the Civil War to his most recent work that has explored everyone and everything from Ernest Hemingway to country music, Burns has established himself as a fearless chronicler of stories that illuminate the nation’s history, sometimes in ways that viewers might find uncomfortable. His 2005 documentary about the African-American boxing champion Jack Johnson, Unforgiveable Blackness, was a fine example of the filmmaker turning his gaze on a subject that many might have preferred be left obscure, and it won him an Emmy for Outstanding Directing as a result — one of fifteen that he and his films have won to date.

The ‘jail Trump’ mania reaches its sad end

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children, and other senior members of the Trump Organization on Wednesday. Her suit alleges business and insurance fraud as well as conspiracy for the same, and marks the end of a three-year investigation into Trump and his business. The civil suit is basically a civil version of the criminal indictments the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the Manhattan and New York State attorneys general have failed to generate at the federal and state levels.

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Why was Biden stuck in the nosebleeds at the Queen’s funeral?

Cockburn was glued to the television during the memorial and funeral services for Queen Elizabeth II — naturally. There were many highlights, but Donald Trump made sure to spotlight on one of the more unfortunate lowlights of the week’s events, surrounding our very own President Joe Biden. During the funeral service at Westminster Abbey, you see, Biden and First Lady Jill were seated “in the 14th row… only seven rows from the very back,” reports Business Insider. This led Trump to roast the Bidens on Truth Social, declaring that the less-than-stellar seating situation would have been different if he were still commander-in-chief: Indeed, Cockburn had trouble picking out the Bidens, who blended into a blur of the more than 500 other dignitaries in attendance.

Will Ron DeSantis miss his political moment?

The biggest question for the future of the Republican Party is not whether Donald Trump runs for president in 2024 — he will. It is whether Ron DeSantis chooses to challenge him, or jumps the shark instead. Henry Olsen, the esteemed election analyst and Washington Post columnist, has a new column arguing that the overall lesson from the midterm primaries that have played out over the last several months is that the appetite for Trumpian populist candidates exists almost everywhere. The GOP electorate doesn't just want the policy priorities of populists — they want the style and attitude Trump brought to bear against the media and the Republican establishment.

The president who cried ‘extremist’

In a primetime television address on September 1, President Joe Biden declared that a large share of the nation’s voters threatened the “very soul of America.” This creepy, unprecedented presidential alert opened the midterm elections, which are now going into their mail-in phase. Waving his arms, the presidential simulacrum barked imprecations at teleprompters. His spooky, dark, red-and-blue tableau with stiff Marines in parade dress was ominous and intentionally staged. To hear a president talk and act this way was one of the political shocks of a lifetime. Make America Great Again Republicans, it was indicated, constituted an enemy within, Merrick Garland’s domestic terrorists writ large. Be very afraid.

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Virginia election official indicted over ‘discrepancies’ in 2020 race

A former county election official in Virginia was indicted Wednesday on corruption charges after her successor found "discrepancies" related to the 2020 election. Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares brought the charges against Michele White, who served as the Prince William County registrar of voters until she resigned last year. White is facing felony counts of corrupt conduct as an election official and making a false statement as an election official and her misconduct is reported to have occurred between August and December of 2020. Eric Olsen, who is replacing White, said that he discovered "discrepancies" while going through election-related documents in the registrar's office.

Canada’s new Conservative leader is no Donald Trump

Contrary to media messaging, Pierre Poilievre, the new leader of Canada's Conservative Party, is no Donald Trump. But he does represent a challenge to the left, so the brush must be dipped in the most lurid colors available. On September 10, Poilievre won the Conservative leadership contest in a landslide, giving the party its first credible leader since Stephen Harper. Andrew Scheer, a former leader who squared off against Justin Trudeau, was likable but failed to project confidence, notably when the left held his feet to the fire over his Catholic pro-life views. Far less convincing was Scheer's successor, Erin O’Toole, who wasn’t even likable. When it came to policy, O’Toole acted like a Liberal who’d somehow wandered into the Conservative caucus.

Why is a ‘special master’ reviewing Trump’s documents?

The appointment of a special master is usually a case of much ado about nothing. Except with Donald Trump and his war with the Department of Justice, there is never "nothing." A special master is an independent party appointed by the court, in this instance to “review the seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege.” In other words, the master will look at the pile of documents and other items seized from Mar-a-Lago by the DOJ under its search warrant and decide which ones they can keep to review and use in their prosecution and which ones are not allowed based on the limits of the warrants and privilege.

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Republicans blow their chance to win in Massachusetts

It was a surprise to no one that Geoff Diehl won Tuesday's Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial primary. It was expected, but it puts an end to any chance of having a Republican in the governor’s seat come 2023. Diehl’s opponent, Chris Doughty, ran on a moderate platform modeled after incumbent Republican governor Charlie Baker. Baker is one of the most popular governors in the nation, with an approval rating of 74 percent — in a state that voted for Joe Biden by a margin of 33.5 points — so he is doing something right. There is no getting around the fact that he is not particularly conservative, especially on social issues, but he is a tempering force on the progressives that dominate Beacon Hill. Indeed, Baker is the only elected statewide Republican.

Are the civil war LARPers having a moment?

It was Saturday morning and MSNBC's Tiffany Cross had a bee in her bonnet. With Senator Lindsey Graham predicting riots in the streets, with Donald Trump reacting to the FBI raid on his home like the Archduke Ferdinand had just been offed, Cross told her audience, "These days, it feels like we are not just at the brink of a civil war, but that one has already begun." Six months ago, here's how I would have responded to Cross: of course this is what a hyper-partisan MSNBC host would say. Civil war fears are really just LARPing by Twitter elites who thrive on hatred of the other side and so assume everyone else must too. "WE'RE GOING IN!" screams Elie Mystal as he screeches up in a Power Wheels Jeep while waving around a purple and orange Nerf Kalashnikov.

Biden declares war on half the country

Joe Biden’s speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Thursday was one of the most remarkable in living memory. By “remarkable,” I hasten to add that I do not mean “good.” On the contrary, it was a breathtaking act of what the psychoanalysts call “projection,” blaming others for the bad things you do yourself. The speech itself was a malignant act of demagoguery that will have colonels and generalissimos everywhere catching their breath with envy. The neo-totalitarian stage set, replete with red lighting effects and military personal flanking the shouting, gesticulating Biden, was right out of central casting. Next time, perhaps Biden will wear epaulettes along with his signature aviators. The speech was billed as a reflection on the “soul of the nation.

Democrats abandon middle-of-the-road voters

Besides the 13 mentions of “MAGA” and how it represents a threat to our democracy, I’d say President Biden’s speech on Thursday night was a real kumbaya moment for the country. With the hellish red lights drenching the stage, two Marines positioned behind him and his old man face taut with rage, Biden railed against his political opponents in a taxpayer-funded tirade. While this was undoubtedly the strongest example yet of Joe’s divisiveness, it was only the cherry on top of months of disgraceful statements made by the Unifier-in Chief. Fueled by desperation and a myriad of disasters, Biden is ramping up his attacks on anyone who might question the left’s progressive plans to radically transform America.

Biden’s American carnage

At first, I thought Joe Biden's address to the nation on Thursday was going to be one of those Star Wars crawl-type soliloquies that liberals love to deliver. You know the kind: "It is a period of great strife. RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS, pouncing from their TRUTH Social accounts, have struck at the very heart of OUR DEMOCRACY..." The difference, though, is that in those addresses, the speaker at least tries to sound objective, to remain above the hurly-burly he's criticizing. This was not the approach taken by Joe Biden. Joining us from what looked like a cross between Philly's red-light district and some marble Pentagon imperium, Biden jumped straight into the ring with what he called the "MAGA Republicans.

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Sarah Palin isn’t done yet

Sarah Palin was defeated by Democrat Mary Peltola on Wednesday in a special election to fill the late Don Young’s seat in the House. She lost by a margin of 3 percent amid Alaska’s first ranked-choice voting election. Ranked-choice voting is when voters get to select their second, third, and so on choices of candidates in a field, rather than choosing just one candidate. Though left-leaning publications like the New York Times have wasted no time in declaring “defeat for MAGA Republicans,” such a conclusion is premature. Palin’s failure to win four short months in Congress does not necessarily mean conservatism has been repudiated. It mostly reflects the warped mechanics and unintuitive strategies of ranked-choice voting.