Cockburn, Author at The Spectator

Wednesday

September 7, 2022

Cockburn

Jennifer Lawrence’s Tucker Carlson nightmares

Quirky actress Jennifer Lawrence has come clean about her fears in a new interview with Vogue. Spiders, you ask? Heights? No. J-Law claimed that what keeps her up at night is… Tucker Carlson. Cockburn's thoughts drifted back to the height of Lawrence’s fame and realized that claims like this are nothing new for the sanctimonious Hollywood sweetheart. After all, here we have a woman that for years was synonymous with cringe. Striding up and down the red-carpet telling interviewers how hungry she was and demolishing pizza at the Academy Awards. Every OTT gesture screamed "relate to me, women of America!" It was inevitable that her obsession with coming across as ~subversive~ would drip downstream into politics.

Tuesday

September 6, 2022

Cockburn

Kim Kardashian realizes the American Dream

Kim Kardashian’s behind is on the front page once again. This time, it’s being accused of disrespecting the great people of America. The forty-one-year-old and her bare buttocks grace the cover of Interview magazine's September edition, the "American Dream" special. https://twitter.com/kimkardashian/status/1567135904183250944 Cockburn must admit that the bleached eyebrows are lost on him. But he wonders how warranted the other criticisms of Kardashian are. Some people online were eager to compare Kim’s look to that of male make-up artist Jeffree Star. Journalist Piers Morgan quoted her tweet of the cover, saying, "You think the American Dream is about baring your ass in front of the flag?" (Nice American English, Piers!).

Cockburn

Nancy Pelosi, stock trader extraordinaire

Cockburn doesn’t believe in coincidences. That’s why when he saw that Nancy Pelosi and her multimillionaire husband Paul saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling shares one month before their stock price plummeted, he thought that it was probably more than just an educated guess. According to a report from the Washington Free Beacon, model citizen Mr. Pelosi sold 25,000 shares of technology company Nvidia, at around $165.05 in July which resulted in a loss for him of $341,365, a set of disclosures showed. Luckily he dumped the stock in time, as one month later, Nvidia revealed that the government had imposed export restrictions on the company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 circuits.

Cockburn

Ted Cruz is right about ‘slacker baristas’ and their college debt

Senator Ted Cruz has come under fire for saying that most baristas are slackers who spend most of their days sucking bongs. Now, Cockburn wasn’t always Cockburn. Like today’s youngsters, he had to mooch around working two jobs at once to pay the rent (after his parents cut off his allowance). So, when Cockburn says what he’s about to say, he says it with authority: Ted Cruz is right. It may be a hard truth but Cockburn has been there, done it and got the Grateful Dead T-shirt to prove it. The Texas senator said: There is a real risk if you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans, and can’t get a job, Joe Biden just gave you twenty grand.

Friday

September 2, 2022

Cockburn

Wes Moore wants you to know he’s great

Wes Moore, the Democratic Party's candidate for Maryland governor, wants everyone to know how great he is — and humble, too. Moore is a bestselling author, a former television host, a US Army veteran and has founded or led multiple nonprofit organizations. Cockburn admits it's a stellar résumé for anyone seeking public office — and in heavily blue Maryland, Moore is outraising his Republican opponent Dan Cox ten to one. Unfortunately, it seems Moore's accolades might have gone to his head. In a Friday tweet, Moore bragged about being the first black Rhodes Scholar to graduate from Johns Hopkins University — but insisted he only brings it up because other people ask him about it.

Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and U.S. President Joe Biden (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Wednesday

August 31, 2022

Cockburn

Leonardo DiCaprio only dates women under twenty-five BECAUSE he’s an eco-warrior

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend being shoved overboard as soon as she reaches the ripe age of twenty-five. But while killjoys are moaning online about the actor’s disposition, Cockburn believes that DiCaprio is actually carrying out God’s work. Climate change, pollution, the energy crisis — the reason for these disasters is simple: there are just too many people on earth. How does this relate to a middle-aged actor dating young supermodels, you ask? Simple: Leo is stealing their best child-bearing years one at a time without impregnating them. Now, Cockburn is no scientist — but he bets that if Leo keeps this up for a few more decades, you will literally see the oceans get clearer. He’s done the math.

Tuesday

August 30, 2022

Cockburn

Straight answers on student loans are for suckers

Kamala Harris fulfilled her duty as vice president by answering questions about Biden’s decision to cancel student loan debts on Monday. Ha. Just kidding. Did Cockburn get you? Once again, it seems that any meaningful words have escaped her. While Kamala and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff (still the funniest title ever) made an appearance for the Artemis 1 launch in Florida on Monday — which, in true Democratic Party fashion, was later aborted — a Fox News reporter rightly asked her why the Biden administration hasn’t bothered to tell Americans where the money will come from for the loan cancellations.

Cockburn

Lorde takes a dip in the Potomac River

Cockburn understands there's no accounting for choice of swimming hole, but he also knows there are limits. For Kiwi singer-songwriter Lorde, her announcement during a performance in Washington, DC that she had spent the day soaking in the Potomac River was met with a murmurs of disgust and horror from concertgoers in fear for her health. https://twitter.com/whyets/status/1564445416657141760?t=tpOXYvpbM6G_6AWIVqDgIA&s=19 https://twitter.com/_NatalieEscobar/status/1564425696637747201?t=eNV9VSGCGbF85pUT5Msong&s=19 The Potomac is a fitting body of water for the capital city, slick with grime and corruption, rivaling the best that Congress has to offer.

Monday

August 29, 2022

Cockburn

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.

Cockburn

Shock: Sydney Sweeney might have conservative family members

The social media puritans are at it again. This time, they’re after Sydney Sweeney, the talented young Euphoria actress. Her crime? Attending her mom’s sixtieth birthday party. That’s right. While other twenty-something actresses are in the news for DUIs or rehab-stints, Sydney is trending on Twitter for uploading photos of her mom’s party on Instagram. The mob took issue with a T-shirt worn by one of the party guests, featuring a symbol associated with “Blue Lives Matter.” Instead of simply disagreeing with the sentiment and scrolling past, it seems that these sleuths instead cyber-stalked Sweeney’s family and — God forbid — found some of them wearing parody MAGA hats emblazoned with the message "MAKE SIXTY GREAT AGAIN." https://twitter.

Friday

August 26, 2022

Cockburn

Could DeSantis actually ‘chuck’ ‘little elf’ Fauci across the Potomac?

Dr. “Saint” Anthony Fauci — credited with bringing about the “Fauci ouchie” (a vaccine that was such a “miraculous” cure that we needed several of them) and masks that made Granny look like a member of the Insane Clown Posse — is retiring. Fauci’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic was confusing at best and contradictory at worst. Cockburn will not miss him, but there is perhaps none so eager to see Fauci depart as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. These two have gone at each other like Marvel comic book characters — DeSantis as a self-fashioned Captain America and Fauci as his archnemesis, perhaps the “wayward psychiatrist Dr. Faustus.

Wednesday

August 24, 2022

Cockburn

Florida is the gift that keeps on giving

Cockburn is no stranger to chaos, in fact, his career depends on it. But even he wasn't prepared for the clusterfuck that ensued during Florida’s primary elections this week. The last few years have been a testament to the fact that anything can happen in US politics, but Cockburn was shocked to hear that Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist who claimed that mass shootings in Parkland and Santa Fe were staged, lost to Dan Webster by a mere six points. Running in the Republican primary for Florida’s 11th congressional district, it seems that Loomer gained traction with the gerontocracy. But does the retirement community and Republican stronghold really know who they endorsed? I mean, Loomer makes Alex Jones look sane.

Cockburn

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.

Thursday

August 18, 2022

Cockburn

In defense of Sanna Marin, Finland’s partying PM

Party politics is done somewhat differently in Finland. While Boris Johnson was hounded out in Britain for some miserable looking cake and wine, over in Helsinki, his counterpart finds herself in hot water for simply having too much (seemingly legal) fun. Sanna Marin, the country's thirty-six-year-old prime minister, is now facing criticism after a video of her partying with friends was leaked online. It features the Social Democrat leader throwing shapes to music with various Finnish artists, TV presenters and Instagram influencers — and all seems a fairly innocuous affair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvP84_orIXc&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=OldQueenTV Not so for her critics.

Tuesday

August 16, 2022

Cockburn

Unpicking the armed IRS agent hysteria

For a profession more hated than telemarketers and meter maids, last week the Internal Revenue Service put up a job ad that sounded so cool it even made Cockburn consider it. The IRS is in the market for a Special Agent, specifically one that can fire a gun and is “willing to use deadly force if necessary,” for its law enforcement division, Criminal Investigation (CI). The agency is set to double in size and is recruiting more staff following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a Democratic spending bill which President Biden is set to sign today.

Wednesday

August 10, 2022

Cockburn

Keeping up with the Pelosis

As Cockburn scrolled through the gossip about Kim Kardashian's latest breakup (this time with Pete Davidson), he couldn't help but think of her show, a sloppy soap opera/reality TV series where drama runs with tear-stained makeup. Sound familiar? Cockburn couldn't help but think of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. After all, lately there's been enough drama in her family to fill at least three seasons of runtime (at a conservative estimate, of course). Pelosi, having successfully returned home from her long-awaited trip to Taiwan, is now engaging in another slap-fight with Xi Jinping. In an interview on NBC’s Today, she said of the trip, “Yes, it was worth it,” and “[Xi] is in a fragile place...he’s acting like a scared bully.

Cockburn

A tale of two Andrews

In a surprise twist that even Cockburn never saw coming, Andrew Yang and Andrew Cuomo, Democrats both, have denounced the recent raid on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. The Thousand-Dollar-Yang tweeted out a long piece that declared that, while Yang didn’t want Trump as president, he did have serious concerns about what happened at Mar-a-Lago: A fundamental part of his [Trump’s] appeal has been that it’s him against a corrupt government establishment. This raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as unjust persecution. It seems like this was authorized by a local judge and a particular FBI office without buy-in or notification of higher levels of government. But literally no one will believe that or make a distinction.

Cockburn

Conspiracy theory: did Alex Jones’s lawyers leak his messages on purpose?

Alex Jones’s defamation trial exploded in spectacular fashion a week ago today, following the revelation that the Infowars founder’s lawyer had sent the full contents of Jones’s phone to the attorney representing the Sandy Hook parents suing him. Footage of Jones learning this while on the witness stand sallied forth across Twitter in a flurry of blue-check hysteria. NBC disinformation reporter Ben Collins tweeted: “Wow. Sandy Hook parents' lawyer is revealing that Alex Jones' lawyers sent him the contents of Jones' phone BY MISTAKE. “'12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me a digital copy of every text’ Jones has sent for years. “’You know what perjury is?’ the lawyer asks.” https://twitter.

Tuesday

August 9, 2022

Cockburn

Is Papa John’s no longer God’s pizza?

Cockburn saw Papa John last week at CPAC — and he had some strong words about his old stomping grounds. John Schnatter, founder of Papa John’s Pizza, was ousted from his company in 2018 after saying the N-word on a conference call. Cockburn thinks he had it coming. Schnatter, who ate 800 pizzas from the chain over the last eighteen months, claims the company is now “down with Little Caesar’s,” among the gravest insults you can level in the pizza business. The Pizza Papa made it clear that he knows why the company is losing its way: "We built the whole company on conservative values. Conservative ideology has two of the most critical attributes: truth and God." Without truth and God, he said, the pizza had gotten worse.

Cockburn

Liz Cheney is no Obi-Wan Kenobi

Cockburn was finishing a bottle of brandy the other day when he nearly spat out his drink. A columnist from the Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart, compared Liz Cheney to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Capehart said on PBS: I keep thinking about the scene in Star Wars: Episode IV, when...Obi-Wan says to Darth Vader, "If you strike me down, I will come back more powerful than you can imagine." And to me, Liz Cheney is Obi-Wan Kenobi. If she loses...she could very well come back more powerful than Donald Trump has imagined. After laughing hysterically for the better part of four hours, Cockburn decided to weigh Capehart's point. Unfortunately he was forced to conclude that Liz Cheney is nothing like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Here's why.