Hillary clinto

Hunter’s grift was really the whole family’s business

The Biden administration has repeatedly told the public that Hunter’s lucrative consulting business doesn’t matter unless it is directly connected to his father. That’s true. Moreover, they add, that connection is not just unproven, it cannot be proved because it didn’t exist. That’s false, although the mainstream media has repeated it faithfully. But even the most feckless are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain this awkward lip-syncing with the White House press office. Actually, the Biden grifting operation extends well beyond Hunter to include multiple family members. It always centered on Joe’s public position and the political access it ensured, first as the sitting vice president and then as a prospective Democratic nominee after Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

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Why the media is pushing climate lockdown fantasies 

Back in February 2021, I wrote a piece here at The Spectator headlined “Are you ready for the climate lockdowns?” It concerned the predictability of where the climate alarmist movement was heading, and their eagerness to explore using the model for Covid lockdowns in Europe and the United States to address environmental issues. The movement has been inching its way toward the idea ever since. Now as heatwaves roll across the globe in the prime months of the summer season, news outlets aren’t being so subtle about the idea anymore — and neither is the Biden administration.

‘The seal is now broken’: Trump’s post-arraignment speech at Bedminster

Former president Donald Trump decried what he characterized as the “fake and fabricated charges” brought against him by the Department of Justice in a half-hour speech on the evening of his arraignment Addressing a crowd of around 900 loyalists at his Bedminster resort in New Jersey, Trump referred to Jack Smith’s indictment of him as “election interference” and “political persecution.” “This day will go down in infamy,” he told his adoring fans, claiming that Biden wanted to see him spend “400 years in prison” for “possessing my own presidential papers.

donald trump arraignment speech

The Durham report unmasks the Deep State

This week’s Durham report is as close as we’ll get in our lifetimes to proof that the Deep State, working in concert with the mainstream media, exists.  The final 306-page report was written by former US attorney John Durham, who was chosen in the aftermath of the Mueller report to examine the FBI probe known as “Operation Crossfire Hurricane.” Durham in this final report provides the only comprehensive review of what came to be called “Russiagate” and shows how close our democracy came to failing at the hands of the Deep State.  We now know the FBI took disinformation produced by the Russians and used that to justify spying on the Trump campaign.

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Gisele Fetterman’s humble-brag, ‘woe is me’ op-ed

Gisele Fetterman, wife of Pennsylvania’s US senator John, has written an op-ed for Elle magazine, of which Cockburn is naturally an avid reader. The essence of her piece is: “I am perfect the way I am — and how dare you criticize me. Also I’m a volunteer firefighter.” John Fetterman, readers will recall, suffered a stroke last year during the Democratic primary for Senate against Conor Lamb. He won regardless, lining up a head-to-head with Republican candidate Dr. Oz. His one performance on the debate stage raised alarms, even from the mainstream media, over claims he was perfectly fine following his serious health scare and was ready to serve.

The fake think tank that fueled the Russiagate narrative

As usual, Elon Musk cut to the chase with a tweet that's both funny and accurate: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1619770090530181120 Pretty good, isn’t it? And do note the little rainbow in the background for the the sexually exotic. Musk’s tweet was in response to the revelation last week (hat tip to the great Matt Taibbi for ferreting through the garbage to retrieve it) that a shadowy group called “Hamilton 68” had been doing exactly what the title of Musk’s imaginary Golden Book says: accusing anyone and anything they don't like of being, or being influenced by, a Russian bot.

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The double standard over Biden’s classified documents

President Biden said Tuesday he was “surprised” to learn that in November his lawyers had found classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank. No doubt he was equally shocked when more classified docs turned up in his Delaware home. Yet the tone of the mainstream media seems to be that boys will be boys. Since Biden is being so cooperative with authorities after being caught red-handed, maybe this has nothing in common with Donald Trump's cache of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Or Hillary's cache on her private e-mail server. Could there be a double-standard? Biden had some/several/a bunch of classified documents while Trump had hundreds so that's different.

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george santos

George Santos makes politics worth paying attention to

As the Republicans' on-again-off-again, will-they-won’t-they romance with Kevin McCarthy drags on, Cockburn has found refuge in a genuinely entertaining drama. Each day offers another layer to the George Santos tall-tale trifle — and as the mainstream media purports to be shocked that a politician would lie about something (gasp!), Cockburn is gobbling it up. Just yesterday, for instance, Cockburn learned the Republican congressman from New York lied about being a “‘star player’ on the volleyball team for a college [CUNY Baruch] that he did not attend” (per Business Insider). Cockburn also enjoyed hearing how Santos was involved in a Ponzi scheme fewer than two years ago.

The conservative case against impeaching Joe Biden

“President Biden should be impeached by the incoming House Republican majority over his ongoing destruction of the southern border,” proclaimed National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy on New Year’s Eve. Once the preserve of the GOP’s right wing, which introduced nine failed impeachment resolutions against Biden prior to the midterm elections, the idea of impeaching Joe Biden is gathering ground. Even staid moderates are beginning to realize that six million illegals pouring across the Rio Grande might not be such a blessing of liberty. Rank-and-file Republicans are hungering for revenge against Democrats for twice impeaching former president Donald Trump.

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What you need to know about Biden’s documents caper

We are still in the early stages of discovering what the documents discovered in Joe Biden's office at the University of Pennsylvania contain and how highly they were classified, so we don’t yet know how dangerous the violation was. But there are things to keep in mind as the story unfolds. 1. Biden’s lawyers did him a huge favor by instructing him not to ask about the documents It’s the last stand of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Still, as one tabloid used to proclaim,“Inquiring minds want to know.” In particular, we want to know how sensitive the material really was (overclassification is a problem in Washington) and where the documents were held between the time Biden left the vice presidency and the time the Penn Biden Center opened. 2.

Why are we ignoring the GOP’s popular vote win?

The midterm bloodbath conservatives were salivating for devolved into, at best, a red tide. The Democrats held the Senate and have only a seven-seat deficit in the House. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now hoping to grant citizenship to every warm body in the country and perhaps even others on their way here, while Senator Elizabeth Warren is more determined than ever to cancel the student debts of millions of bankrupt liberal arts majors. And an emboldened President Biden is threatening to run for re-election, whether anyone wants him to or not. But amidst all the liberal revelry lies an uncomfortable, little-reported fact: Democrats lost the House popular vote by three points. Remember the popular vote? The popular vote!

Democrats made Kari Lake a star

In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, the national media and the Hillary Clinton campaign devised a plan to elevate Donald Trump and so-called “lunacy” over a field of up-and-coming Republican politicians. According to New York Times journalist Amy Chozick, who was embedded with Hillary Clinton’s campaign from inception to death, campaign manager Robby Mook called a meeting with an agenda of specifically asking “How do we maximize Donald Trump?” Chozick also noted how Mook “salivated when a debate came on, and Trump would start to speak. ‘Shhhhh,’ Robby said, practically pressing his nose up to the TV. ‘I’ve gahtz to get me some Trump.’” We all know how that worked out.

kari lake

Hillary is the queen of election denial

Hillary Clinton has an ominous warning ahead of the 2024 election: right-wing extremists, she said this week, are already planning to steal it. If they were, she would certainly know something about it. Hillary has been shrieking about “vast right-wing conspiracies” since the 1990s when she and her husband were mapping out their political futures of “Eight for Bill, Eight for Hill.” The poor woman just can’t catch a break. You'd have to hood Hillary like a falcon to stop her from talking about how elections have been stolen from her. She claimed that about the 2016 election, in which she seemingly forgot the state of Wisconsin existed for 104 days.

Tulsi Gabbard’s road not taken

Tulsi Gabbard has been a de facto outsider within the Democratic Party for a long time. Now, she's finally made it official, leaving the party she served first in the Hawaii State House and then in Congress for eight years. Tulsi also announced a new Substack and a podcast as her next moves. Gabbard's path to this moment was marked by fascinating developments within the culture wars that came to characterize the Obama-Biden era of the Democratic Party. Once viewed as a rising star within the ranks — she was the first Hindu woman and the first female combat veteran in Congress — she was unanimously elected as vice chair of the party in 2013.

This season should be Saturday Night Live’s last

The 48th season of Saturday Night Live premieres tomorrow, and this one should be its last. The show has never felt more out of touch — a stale, punch-pulling iteration marked by a dim vision of what comedy can achieve in a politically and socially divisive moment. This is a target-rich environment, but SNL seems firmly of the opinion that taking shots against our current feckless leadership class is verboten. At a time when online comedy is exploding and hilarious sketches and specials abound on YouTube, SNL operates as if they have no competition. This offseason saw the show's biggest staff turnover in almost thirty years. This might have been an opportunity: if Saturday Night Live wanted to be relevant, the talent is obviously out there.

Hillary is right: abortions should be as hard to obtain as AR-15s

Hillary Clinton recently took a timeout from being a tote bag salesperson (which I guess is a close second to losing the presidency to Donald Trump) to make a comment about abortion and guns. In a tweet earlier this week, she declared, “I’ll say it again: It shouldn't be harder to obtain an abortion than an AR-15.” She then returned to selling merchandise, which, I’ll say again, is a close second to losing to Donald Trump. I’m here to tell Mrs. Clinton that these terms are acceptable. Abortions nationwide should be as easy as obtaining an AR-15. The pro-life movement should begin working on implementation immediately. Because here's what Hillary Clinton is really demanding from anyone who wants to have an abortion: first, a full legal federal criminal background check.

How Ken Starr served America

I first met Ken Starr in 1989. I was a Wall Street Journal editorial writer who was invited to speak at a conference held by the Federalist Society’s chapter at Cornell University. I met two very impressive people that day. One was Leonard Leo, the head of the Cornell Federalist Society. Only twenty-four, it was clear he had a natural genius for organizing, planning and networking. As the later head of the Federalist Society, he turned it into the premier farm team for conservative lawyers who wanted to become judges. In 2020, then-CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told a group of lawyers that Leo had played a major role in the selection of a majority of the Supreme Court.

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Merrick Garland is between a rock and a hard place

What would you do if you were Merrick Garland? Would you prosecute Trump? Or would you walk away, concerned you were playing politics? Step one appears easy: put off any decision until after the midterms. Trump is not a candidate, key issues driving the midterms (inflation, Roe) are not his issues, and while Trump is actively stumping for many candidates, initiating any prosecution before the midterms is just too obvious. Nothing else about Mar-a-Lago has had an urgency to it (months passed from the initial voluntary turnover of documents and the forced search) and announcing an indictment now would be a terrible opening move. So if you're Garland, you have some time.

Hillary hijacks the Sanna Marin dancing scandal

It’s been less than a week since the trailer for Gutsy, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s new Apple TV+ docu-series, was released — and now the former FLOTUS is seeking other means of stealing the limelight. On Sunday, she told Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin to “keep dancing,” in what seemed to be a selfless act of support for a fellow #girlboss. Forgive Cockburn for his cynicism but he can’t help but wonder if Hillary wants to make this all about her, seeing as the leaked video of the Finnish PM drunkenly dancing with friends was published online, er, twelve days ago. In a Twitter post, the ex-presidential candidate wrote: As Ann Richards said, "Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.

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The Hillary and Chelsea Clinton docu-series of your wildest dreams

Cockburn has endured his fair share of listening to insufferable rich women banging on about "female empowerment" lately, so when he was sent the trailer for Gutsy, a new Apple TV+ series starring Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, it almost proved to be the final straw. https://twitter.com/ChelseaClinton/status/1562172557369004032 The two-minute trailer begins with Hillary, fresh from sidestepping the Department of Justice, and Chelsea, fresh from ruining the end of Derry Girls, jumping into a car and setting off on their super-fun-girls’-trip. Hillary tells us: “We’re hitting the road to shine a light on women that inspire us to be bolder and braver.

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