Cockburn

Cockburn

Mischief, mayhem and Washington gossip. Send tips and party invites to cockburn@thespectator.com.

Union guys want to bring Bud Light back

Is Bud Light alpha again? The roughnecks at the Teamsters Union announced a boycott of Molson Coors this week, in solidarity with striking workers of the Local 997. They issued a flyer urging people to not buy brews such as Coors Light, Miller Light and Yuengling, as well as Topo Chico Hard Seltzer. In organizing the boycott, the Teamsters point out that “there are alternative beers available from model employers, such as products brewed by Teamsters at Anheuser Busch” and lists them... including the recently troubled Bud Light.

Has CPAC’s Matt Schlapp beaten the ‘crotch-pummeling’ allegations?

The GOP world was stunned last year when a Herschel Walker campaign staffer accused American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp of “pummeling” his crotch. On Tuesday, the Washington Examiner published an article headlined, “CPAC’s Matt Schlapp cleared in assault case, accuser apologizes.” But that's not what happened: the article neglected to mention that a $480,000 settlement was paid to Carlton Huffman through an ACU insurance policy. The last time Cockburn checked, settling out of court is different to exoneration.  The original lawsuit filed by Huffman against Schlapp last year sought more than $9 million in damages. Schlapp attempted to settle for a low-six figure sum last year, but Huffman refused.

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Ronna McDaniel booted from NBC

Cancel culture is back, after all! Ronna McDaniel has today been dropped as a paid contributor by NBC News, according to Semafor's Maxwell Tani. Puck’s Dylan Byers reported earlier this afternoon that executives were considering canning the former RNC chairwoman after virtually every host at sister network MSNBC threw tantrums about her very recent appointment. "Execs are deliberating over details; announcement pending. Meanwhile, McDaniel is seeking legal representation," Byers tweeted. https://twitter.com/DylanByers/status/1772672463790547271 McDaniel's hiring was only announced by NBC on Friday, two weeks after she had stepped down as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. As the ax fell today, she has lasted under half a Scaramucci.

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The Baltimore bridge disaster puts the worst of the internet on show

A 948-foot cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland at 1:27 a.m. this morning, causing it to collapse. Within minutes, all of X/Twitter suddenly became experts on cargo and supply chains. As rescue workers plunged into the chilly waters in the early morning darkness, accounts were driving clicks from the comfort of their beds with rumors of engine failure, foreign intrigue and Pete Buttigieg’s incompetence.  Some on the far right have already determined the crash was a terrorist attack, beating both the Department of Transportation and local government to any official pronouncement. “This ship was cyber-attacked,” Andrew Tate posted on X from his Romanian exile, leading the charge. “Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports.

Candace Owens out at the Daily Wire

Candace Owens’s watch at the Daily Wire has ended. The news came in the form of an X post from Wire CEO and Lady Ballers star Jeremy Boreing this morning: “Daily Wire and Candace Owens have ended their relationship.”  “The rumors are true — I am finally free,” Owens tweeted shortly after, along with a plug for her Locals page, a link to a site where you can donate her money and a pledge of more to come.  The separation comes shortly after Owens said she’d “stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” making her exit a big win for trans rights. As they say en France, quand on vient pour la reine, il ne faut pas la manquer.

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How will Trump pay his bond?

The barbarians — along with a $464 million judgment against Donald Trump —are at at the gates of Mar-a-Lago. On Monday, Trump's attorneys in his civil fraud case said securing a large enough bond is a "practical impossibility."  Despite bragging about the depths of his pockets, Trump doesn’t have the money on hand to post bond, nor can he use his properties as collateral. According to his lawyers, nearly thirty insurance companies have already declined to underwrite a bond backed by real estate. Whatever stockpiled cash Trump does have on hand has already taken a hit. Last week he posted a $91 million bond in the second E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

Stormy depicts porn star heroism

Stormy Daniels isn’t just a porn star. At the time news broke of her affair with Donald Trump, she was a businesswoman, writer and a prolific director in the adult entertainment industry — talk about smashing the glass ceiling. According to Daniels, she was even complimented by Trump for her towering intellect the night they first met in his hotel room.  All of this feminist heroism — and more — was revealed in Daniels’s new documentary Stormy, which was released on Peacock Monday morning. The documentary chronicles Daniels’s affair with Trump, the hush money payments made during the 2016 election and life after becoming infamous.

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Why is Nancy Mace’s email in the Ashley Madison leak?

In 2015, hackers accessed the user data of Ashley Madison, a website that helps facilitate clandestine romantic affairs. The logins of millions of users were leaked. Politicians, reality TV stars and ordinary people just trying to cheat on their spouses were exposed. To this day, the database remains searchable on a series of websites, such as Ashley.Cynic.Al and CheckAshleyMadison.com.  Many of the people whose emails were in the hack have since gone on to illustrious careers, happy to know that their 2015-era obscurity saved them from embarrassing revelations and awkward conversations. Cockburn confirmed this week that the old realtor email of Congresswoman Nancy Mace was found on one such database. Now, there could be an innocent explanation for this.

Elon Musk cans Don Lemon

Just when Cockburn feared Don Lemon might be able to salvage the remnants of his career, the former CNN host's shot of success slipped away. Lemon, who had cut a deal with X to host The Don Lemon Show, announced on Wednesday that Elon Musk had ended their partnership. The news came just hours after the two had sat down for an interview for the upcoming show.  “Elon Musk is mad at me,” Lemon said in a video while sipping his Starbucks latte. “Apparently, free speech absolutism doesn't apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me.” On Wednesday night, Lemon came crawling back to CNN to spill tea with Erin Burnett and share some tense moments from the interview. https://twitter.

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Candace Owens stakes her ‘reputation’ on claim that French first lady is a man

Cockburn has been too wrapped up in the Michelle “Michael” Obama saga for the last several years to hear there’s a similar conspiracy developing across the Atlantic against French first lady Brigitte Macron. Fortunately, the wild allegation has been covered in depth by Candace Owens and, on Tuesday, the Daily Wire host staked her career on its credibility.  “After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” Owens wrote on X. “Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The implications here are terrifying.

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The RNC becomes the Trump National Committee

Donald Trump has a plan to turn the Republic National Committee into a “seamless operation” — and it involves cleaning house. The RNC has historically been headed by presidential loyalists. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan's daughter, Maureen, even served as its chair. Still, recent shake-ups within the committee have Cockburn wondering if the RNC has become the TNC.  The overhauling of the RNC started earlier this week when sixty employees were told that they were no longer needed at the organization, including five senior staff, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The layoffs represent more than a quarter of the current 200-man staff.  The purge comes just days after Trump’s handpicked officers took over at the RNC.

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Biden uses human shields to avoid Pelosi

NBC anchors play with traffic Spotted: NBC News anchors Chuck Todd and Hallie Jackson furiously waving cars under a parking garage gate after the State of the Union address. Cars started to pile up at a broken pay station before an enthusiastic Jackson, who hosts Hallie Jackson NOW, yelled down the ramp for everyone to line up bumper-to-bumper so they could follow each other out before the gate closed in between cars.  “I feel bad,” Jackson lamented as one car missed the cutoff. Joe Biden uses human shields to avoid Pelosi: source Never fear, “Uncommitted” voters. It turns out Joe Biden may have more in common with Hamas than previously thought.

Air Force employee catfished into sharing military secrets

In what may be the most obvious catfishing scam of all time, a contractor for the Air Force was caught sharing military secrets with an individual posing as a Ukrainian woman on a foreign dating app.   David Franklin Slater, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was serving as a US Air Force civilian employee at the time of the catfishing, was arrested Saturday on three charges of conspiracy and disclosing national defense information.  Slater held a top-secret security clearance from August 2021 until April 2022 which gave him access to briefings about the Russo-Ukraine War.

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Clash of the ‘extremism reporters’

The biggest drama coming out of CPAC last week comes courtesy of a woman who wasn’t even admitted. Amanda Moore is a freelance reporter best known for going “undercover” with the MAGA movement. She found herself denied entry to the event, as one of the “propagandists” singled out by ACU chairman Matt Schlapp, along with reporters from HuffPost and Mother Jones. Instead Moore sat in the lobby of the hotel where the conference was hosted, writing about the experience for the Nation. Ben Goggin is the deputy tech editor at NBC News, whose specialties include extremism. Goggin wrote a piece about the “Nazis” who went to CPAC and “mingled openly.

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Oprah ditches WeightWatchers after shedding pounds with drugs

After twenty-five years battling her weight before a studio audience, Oprah has finally dropped those pesky forty pounds... with the help of weight-loss drugs. Now the media mogul has dropped WeightWatchers too.  Earlier this week, Oprah announced that she would be leaving the company after nearly a decade on its board of directors and starring in commercials.   “I look forward to continuing to advise and collaborate with WeightWatchers and CEO Sima Sistani in elevating the conversation around recognizing obesity as a chronic condition, working to reduce stigma and advocating for health equity,” said Oprah, who apparently no longer needs the weight-loss program.

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Is ‘Dear White Staffers’ losing favor with the left?

“Dear White Staffers”, an Instagram account that blew up just a couple of years ago for reporting alleged mistreatment of staff on Capitol Hill, is now under fire from some members of the progressive left for allegedly engaging in performative activism. The account joined Instagram in 2020 and quickly built a reputation for being a place where congressional staffers could anonymously share horror stories about their offices and dissuade others from joining toxic work environments. The account has more than 100,000 followers and is closely watched by members of Congress — and now the Biden administration, as White House employees have started making their own submissions to the “Dear White Staffers” DMs.

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aaron bushnell airman fire

Can the US airman who set himself on fire ‘Rest in Power?’

The war in Gaza has claimed another victim — this time on American soil. Airman Aaron Bushnell died on Sunday night after lighting himself on fire in protest of the war. Bushnell filmed his protest in front of the Israeli Embassy on Sunday and livestreamed it on Twitch, quickly becoming a martyr for the far left. Well, some of them. “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” Bushnell said in the video. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.” Bushnell then lit himself on fire while screaming, “Free Palestine,” until he fell to the ground. The video shows police officers working for more than a minute to put the fire out.

Inside Bannon and Burra’s post-CPAC blowout

National Harbor, Maryland “CPAC 2024 was a HUGE success!,” the conference’s account tweeted this morning. Cockburn isn’t sure how they’re measuring that: the gathering was decidedly muted when compared with previous Trump-era affairs. After the former president spoke on Saturday and Argentinian president Javier Milei offered attendees an economics lecture, Steve Bannon closed out proceedings. He led the CPAC crowd in chants of “Trump won, Trump won, Trump won” and branding Joe Biden “a usurper in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Bannon has never feared courting controversy.

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Trump defeats Haley in South Carolina primary

In an outcome that will surprise no one, Trump has secured a resounding victory in South Carolina over his last opponent standing in the race for the GOP nomination. As the votes are counted, it looks like Trump will end up with a twenty-point gap between him and his former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. Haley's loss in her home state makes her path to the nomination even less likely (not that Cockburn believes it ever was). Though the final gap will end up being large, Haley was able to close the gap considerably from where she was polling at just a few weeks ago, when many polls showed Trump with a forty-point lead. Super Tuesday now looks to be her final stand as she tries make her case.

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Where are all the big names at CPAC?

National Harbor, Maryland Hello from the press pen at CPAC — the only part of the convention center that’s as full as previous years. There have been ten empty rows in front of Cockburn in the auditorium for most of the conference. President Trump’s address tomorrow lunch time should change that — but which other speakers will? South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, apparently: people filed in to see her when she spoke this afternoon. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris... they suck,” she said, to applause. The media row outside is half as populated as previous years. The attendees are noticeably older: you’d be hard-pressed to find a college student here (Cockburn’s nieces skipped it).