Cockburn

Cockburn

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

Tuesday

Cockburn

Rich, scared celebs back pseudo-Republican Rick Caruso for LA mayor

From our US edition

Nothing brings people together quite like crazy, violent homeless people destroying your city. So it is that a hodgepodge of Hollywood types — Snoop Dogg, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry, Chris Pratt, Maria Shriver, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and billionaire Robert Kraft and his wife — are publicly supporting Rick Caruso, the former Police Commission president, Republican-turned-Democrat running for Los Angeles mayor against Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass. Caruso’s campaign message is one that resonates in a rundown city rife with crime.

rick caruso
Cockburn

WaPo calls out Biden’s lies with ‘Bottomless Pinnochio’ award

From our US edition

Cockburn’s monocle popped out of his head and plopped into his oatmeal yesterday morning as he perused the Washington Post. “A Bottomless Pinocchio for Biden — and other recent gaffes,” read the headline. Surely “gaffe” has come to mean “lovable quirk” when applied to Democrats? And “Pinocchio” must refer somehow to the way in which Italian puppets are marginalized? But no — the Post straight-up published “a roundup of some of the president’s recent errors of fact” and reiterated, a day before the midterm elections mind you, the “gaffe machine” nickname Joe Biden gave himself. First on the Post’s fact-check list is Biden’s repeated claim that he “spent a lot of time — more time with Xi Jinping than any other head of state.

Friday

Cockburn

Why Tiffany Cross got the ax

From our US edition

Weekend host Tiffany Cross has been cut from MSNBC. According to Variety, "MSNBC decided not to renew Cross’s contract after two years... and severed ties with her immediately." The trade paper is rather euphemistic in its description of why Cross was shown the door: Executives at the network [were] growing concerned about the anchor’s willingness to address statements made by cable-news hosts on other networks and indulging in commentary executives felt did not meet the standards of MSNBC or NBC News. Allow Cockburn to translate: Cross was becoming burdensome to the network for her regular rash remarks.

tiffany cross
trump 2024
Cockburn

Sources: Trump 2024 is staffing up — names revealed

From our US edition

Sources: Trump 2024 team forming After Axios’s report that Trump is set to announce a 2024 run on November 14 — and his own tease at yesterday’s rally — sources tell Cockburn that the campaign team is firming up. As Cockburn reported last week, Chris LaCivita is being strongly considered for campaign manager. Cockburn also hears that Michael Glassner, who was the COO of Trump 2020, will return, along with advisor Boris Epshteyn and Steve Bannon associate Alexandra Preate. Epshteyn is said to be particularly close to Trump and has advised him on major legal issues. Carl Higbie is also said to be under consideration for a high-level role. Trump is supposedly already making calls about jobs in his future administration. Time to update your résumés!

Thursday

Cockburn

Is Elon Musk’s Twitter conspiring against AOC?

From our US edition

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is blaming Elon Musk for gumming up the works of her Twitter account. The New York congresswoman thinks that her criticism of Musk has “gotten under a certain billionaire’s skin,” leading him to mess with her notifications and mentions. Cockburn wonders whether this might be wishful thinking on the congresswoman’s part, because it is unlikely that Musk cares enough about her criticism to waste his time trying to punish her. Ocasio-Cortez, ever the card-carrying democratic socialist, went on to say that “money will never by [sic] your way out of insecurity, folks.” Cockburn is pleased to learn that AOC can steward us down the true path out of insecurity.

aoc twitter
r-word
Cockburn

So is it OK when liberals use the R-word?

From our US edition

A liberal elite is slurring her words (and Cockburn doesn’t mean in the fun, tipsy way). Kasey Funderburg was a sideline reporter for the University of Tennessee. According to Outkick.com, she was fired last week after someone scrolled and scrolled (and scrolled and scrolled and scrolled…) and found some tweets Funderburg, now twenty-six, wrote in 2013 containing the N-word. The whole thing started when a Twitter user encouraged Tennessee fans to wear blackface to a game. Funderburg wrote, “THIS IS A FAKE ACCOUNT and it’s disgusting that this person thinks putting out a joke like this is okay. Please don’t believe everything you read on Twitter.

Wednesday

Cockburn

No justice for minks in Denmark

From our US edition

The architect of the Great Mink Cull of 2020, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, led her Social Democrats to victory in Tuesday’s elections. Cockburn is dismayed, for her government presided over the mass slaughter of over 15 million minks in Denmark, devastating an industry that brought in three-quarters of a billion dollars per year. The concern was that the poor creatures could spread a mutated form of Covid-19. After initially burying the dead animals, the government realized that that might not be such a good idea. The Covid-19 scare may be eliminated, but what about the pollution of drinking water? So the mink saga continued, and they were dug up to be incinerated. But wait, there is more!

minks
inflation
Cockburn

White House deletes tweet bragging of Biden’s role in inflation crisis

From our US edition

You know the Democrats are grasping at straws when you see the White House Twitter account praising President Biden for this year’s increased Social Security checks. Particularly, Cockburn is at pains to point out, as the increase in Social Security is indirectly indexed to inflation. "Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in ten years through President Biden's leadership," the White House bragged on Tuesday. Even Twitter's in-house moderators were taken aback, deigning to slap a "context" label on the post. After helpful users added the missing context on Wednesday, the White House's tweet mysteriously disappeared. How curious!

Tuesday

Cockburn

Tim Ryan has big ‘divorced guy’ energy

From our US edition

Has Tim Ryan thrown in the towel? The Democratic candidate for Senate in Ohio won’t know the final outcome in his bout with J.D. Vance for another week. So why, Cockburn asks, does he give off the downtrodden vibe of a man locked in a custody battle? “I’m at my wits’ end. I don’t know what else I can say,” the congressman tweeted yesterday evening, presumably with a shotgun to his chin. “If we don’t meet our final end-of-month fundraising deadline tonight, we risk losing this race — and Ohio could fall off the map.” Cockburn wonders how neighboring Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia would feel about Ohio falling off the map. Extending Lake Erie southward a few hundred miles could offer some lucrative real estate opportunities.

tim ryan
Cockburn

Is Elon Musk about to ax millions in severance for Twitter execs?

From our US edition

As if getting fired from your job isn’t distressing enough, it’s got to hurt a whole lot more when you miss out on $122 million in payouts. Reuters reported that Elon Musk recently fired Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. According to research firm Equilar, these folks were set to receive “golden parachute” payout packages worth up to $122 million in severance and unvested stock options. But according to the New York Times, “Mr. Musk… appears unlikely to pay the golden parachutes that the fired top executives of Twitter were set to receive. Under the merger agreement, those executives… had been set to receive compensation of $20 million to $60 million if they were fired. But Mr.

Monday

Cockburn

Why is Ron DeSantis ‘polarizing’ but Stacey Abrams isn’t?

From our US edition

Ron DeSantis and Stacey Abrams have at least a couple things in common: they’re both running for governor of their respective states, and they both recently appeared onstage at big-name concerts. It is there, however, that the similarities end. Country music star Luke Bryan is defending himself for bringing DeSantis on stage over the weekend to raise funds for Hurricane Ian victims. Bryan and DeSantis were raked over the coals on social media following the concert, with users labeling DeSantis an “anti-LGBTQ” and “anti-immigrant” governor and threatening to boycott Bryan. One user expressed fear of “my hard earned money going into the pockets of election deniers and democracy assassins.

Friday

Cockburn

Is the Trump 2024 team taking shape?

From our US edition

James Corden’s bad attitude So apparently before the past few days, no one in the US knew that James Corden was a total douchebag. Cockburn has lost track of whether the comedian is currently banned or unbanned from Balthazar restaurant in NYC for being rude to staff, but it’s not the first time he’s had to grovel for forgiveness. When filming for the Christmas special of Gavin and Stacey — the British sitcom about two families written by Corden and Ruth Jones that launched him to stardom — Corden apparently acted so appallingly to the cast that Jones made him drive to her house to apologize to her and the cast for his “awful twattish behavior,” a source tells Cockburn. *** Is a Trump 2024 campaign team forming?

trump 2024
Cockburn

Tom Brady is the GOAT of his divorce

From our US edition

After weeks of media speculation, Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen have announced that their divorce is finalized. Cockburn is not one to celebrate the demise of anyone’s marriage, especially when children are involved. He thinks very highly (theoretically, at least) of commitment, fidelity, happily ever after, and all that. But morality aside, Cockburn can’t help but be convinced that Tom Brady is getting the better end of this divorce deal — by far. Here’s the thing: Gisele had the dream life. She was wife to a hot, filthy-rich husband whose job it is to play a game for 18 weeks out of the year. She also got to be a mother without ever having to worry about many of the things that stress out most mothers: cooking, cleaning, paying the bills.

Cockburn

The most hysterical Twitter overreactions to Elon Musk’s first day

From our US edition

Elon Musk has been at Twitter's helm for barely twelve hours and he is already causing havoc. Musk took over the site on Thursday night — and by the looks of it, he wasted no time. The new boss immediately fired several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde. Then he posted, "the bird is freed." A source told Fox Business that the billionaire accused Agrawal, Segal and Gadde of misleading him over the number of bots on the site. Cockburn had a scan over the platform to see what people were saying about the takeover, and all is… not well. Some posters are reacting to what, in the soberest terms, is a change in leadership at a website as if it were The End of the Free World As We Know It.

elon musk twitter
Cockburn

Elon Musk is now Donald Trump’s business rival

From our US edition

Cockburn has always had some formidable business rivals to contend with. It's not easy competing with the likes of other thinly sourced gossip rags like Page Six and the Washington Post (even if Cockburn is confident he could drink the staff at all those publications under the table). Yet so far as competition goes, it's Elon Musk who has it the worst this week. Last night, Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, a calm and rational discussion site where people like to post helpful gardening tips and delicious recipes. "The bird is freed," Musk tweeted, though there are at least a few people (outside the expected left-wing freak-out) who won't be quite so pleased.

Thursday

Cockburn

Publishing staff demand axing of Amy Coney Barrett book

From our US edition

Cockburn would like to issue a preemptive apology to those who thought being extraordinarily accomplished was enough to justify a lucrative book deal. Apparently an author's manuscript should be sent to the shredder if he or she holds an unorthodox opinion on hot-button political issues. That's the case made by the coffee-fetchers and typo-catchers in the publishing industry who signed an open letter denouncing Supreme Court Justice Amy Barrett's upcoming book with Penguin Random House. The group of "concerned publishing professionals" claim that paying Coney Barrett a $2 million advance to outline her judicial philosophy constitutes an international human rights violation. No, seriously.

amy coney barrett
Cockburn

New York Post hacked: ‘We must assassinate AOC for America’

From our US edition

Cockburn has always been fond of a New York Post headline. Snappy, funny, eye-catching: that's why he reads the New York tabloid every morning. But today, even for Cockburn, some were too far. In what appears to be a hacking, a scroll down the Post's Twitter feed at around 9 a.m. revealed the following headlines: “Devine: We must murder Joe and Hunter Biden” “We must assassinate AOC for America” “Frank: I will beat up sorry ass Bergen bitches like Gottheimer and his family” “Zeldin: I will rape and batter Hochul’s sorry ass pussy” “Gov. Abbott: I will order border patrol to start slaughtering illegals” "Rufo: We must destory [sic] and imprison Union teachers" "Zeldin: Eric Adams is NYC’s fried chicken eating monkey” https://twitter.

new york post
Cockburn

Prince on pre-order: Harry’s memoir release date announced

From our US edition

Cockburn has a few vacations coming up in 2023, so is on the hunt for some new light reading material. Thank God that Prince Harry has announced that his long-awaited memoir, Spare, will hit shelves globally on January 10. The cover features a close-up of the man fifth in line to the British throne, staring down the barrel of the camera, blue eyes glinting, beard tidily trimmed. His expression says, "this is my story." Publisher Penguin Random House said in a press release: “Spare takes readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow — and horror.

prince harry memoir spare