Cockburn

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.

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.

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.

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.

Is this the best video to grace the internet today? Cockburn thinks yes. Check out Abel and Ola Osundairo, the Nigerian brothers who allegedly perpetrated a fake hate crime against Empire actor Jussie "Juicy" Smollett, re-enacting how they carried out the staged attack: https://twitter.com/foxnation/status/1635332394159939593 The clip is from Fox Nation's new documentary on the Jussie Smollett hate hoax crime, Anatomy of a Hoax — and is pure comedy. The Osundairo brothers previously testified that Jussie paid them to stage an anti-black, anti-gay attack against him so that he could gain sympathy and clout on social media. Jussie told police that he was physically attacked by two white men wearing "Make America Great Again" hats who recognized him from the show Empire.

Cockburn was pleased to see Joe Biden, the noted civil rights activist and former eighteen-wheeler driver who made it from the barrios of Wilmington to the White House, has finally opened up about his "epiphany" on same-sex marriage. It is a brave thing to do in 2023, but political consequences be damned! Biden was going to set the record straight, and explain to the American people that he has long been a fervent believer in the advancing the cause of gay rights. In an interview on The Daily Show with former Obama staffer and Harold and Kumar star Kal Penn, Biden explained that he could "remember exactly where [his] epiphany was" on the question of marriage equality. He was a high-school senior, he explained.

Bill Kristol suggested that to get rid of Trump Republicans, it might be necessary for anti-Trumpers to be “with the Democrats for a while.” In a chat with Politico this weekend, the Weekly Standard founder proposed a Gretchen Whitmer-Abigail Spanberger ticket, in what would be a perfect combination of TikTok mom-schmaltz and Beltway hackery. Luckily, though, Kristol’s prediction record is — to put it nicely — lacking. Let’s start in 2008. Kristol was a huge proponent of then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin for John McCain’s vice presidential pick, saying, “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin.” McCain and Palin lost by 10 million votes and received only 173 electoral votes to Obama and Biden’s 365. It’s not like Kristol was just a decade too early, either.

Oxon Hill played host to the muted sounds of MAGA last week. The Conservative Political Action Conference returned from Florida to the Washington, DC exurbs — but the conference was a shadow of its former self. While CPAC has been MAGA territory since 2017, some of Donald Trump’s intra-party foes sensed blood in the water. Perhaps none more so than Perry Johnson. Johnson, a Michigan businessman who was booted from the ballot during his failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign, has announced a long-shot presidential bid that has so far consisted of a cringe ad in the Super Bowl, and a third-place finish in CPAC’s vaunted “straw poll” for president. A number of “Perry Who?” Johnson shirts could be seen around the conference.