Cockburn

President Trump spoke mildly in defense of Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse on Tuesday, saying that the 17-year-old seemed to be defending himself when he shot three people, killing two of them. NPR, fresh off of interviewing In Defense of Looting author Vicky Osterweil, had something stern to say about that, tweeting 'President Trump declined to condemn the actions of the suspected 17-year-old shooter of three protesters against police brutality in Kenosha — claiming, without evidence, that it appeared the gunman was acting in self-defense.’ https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1300614359236964358 Without evidence!

Let nobody say the outgoing president of Liberty University is not an intellectual.Cockburn will not belabor you with the full tragedy of Jerry Falwell Jr. Who is he kidding, you already have read (though not seen, mercifully) all the details.Falwell’s rapid downfall is a testament to the dangers of hubris. At the tender age of 44, Falwell was handed the presidency of a university his father had already built. He was paid roughly $1 million a year for this privilege. To keep the job indefinitely, Falwell didn’t need to do much. Even taking photos of himself half-undressed with a woman half his age at a yacht party, and entering into a ménage à trois with a pool boy, would have been completely fine.

On Thursday afternoon, prior to the final night of the Democratic convention, four New York Times opinion columnists gathered to discuss the political landscape. Of course, millions of people do that every single day. The special conceit of the Times opinion staff is that it believes its discussions are worth broadcasting to the world. The special curse for the rest of us is that many find them worth listening to. The theme of Thursday’s discussion was the awful, terrifying, unspeakable, unthinkable idea that a major presidential candidate might delegitimize an election outcome.

Is there nothing Karlie Kloss can't do? The Midwest-born supermodel and minor member of the Trump Expanded Cinematic Universe has proven herself to be something of a polymath since hanging up her Victoria's Secret Angel wings in 2015. The 29-year-old heads up a coding program to get more young women involved in STEM, hosts the Bravo show Project Runway and, as The Spectator revealed earlier this year, helps craft government healthcare policy through her father Kurt and brother-in-law Jared Kushner. But besides fashion, Kloss's true passion is investing. It's something she must have picked up from her husband, Josh Kushner. Clearly Kloss has an eye for a canny deal, as she's set to splash the cash in the famously lucrative world of legacy print media.

Two months ago, opinion editor James Bennet left the New York Times after, among other things, publishing a senator’s claim that antifa had infiltrated Black Lives Matter protests.Now, two months later, the press doesn’t just admit antifa’s existence. It’s giving them glamorous photo spreads.The Washington Post on Saturday released an essay profiling Portland antifa. The piece never uses the word 'riot'; 'violence' is only mentioned in reference to clashes with the right, not police or besieged courthouse personnel. But the heart of the article isn’t its text. It’s the Post’s determined effort to show that while far-left rioters may claim to be anti-fascism, they are definitely not anti-fashion.

Cockburn was recently made aware of a new production at the New York Times, bearing the ominous-in-2020 title Nice White Parents. The podcast, launched on Thursday, is the work of the same people who created Serial, the preposterously popular true crime podcast. This time, Team Serial digs into New York City’s public school system, and specifically, the group they say is the root of all pedagogical evils. 'We’ve tried standardized tests, and charter schools,’ narrator Chana Joffe-Walt solemnly intones in the first episode. 'We’ve tried smaller classes, longer school days, stricter discipline, looser discipline, tracking, differentiation. We’ve decided the problem is teachers, the problem is parents.

One of your irritating cousins on Facebook may have already shared the news about 'Umbrella Man'. The man appeared in a May 27 viral video out of Minneapolis, smashing windows and spraying graffiti at an AutoZone, before quickly departing. Shortly after, the AutoZone was plundered and set ablaze by the mob. Soon, hundreds of businesses across Minneapolis were smashed, looted or destroyed. Rioters exposed the impotence of Minneapolis police by seizing a precinct building and setting it on fire. Within days, riots and looting had scarred not just major cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, but once-sleepy locales like Fort Wayne, Green Bay or Olympia.

Kimberly Guilfoyle has a surprising message for Catholics come November: vote for Donald J. Trump. The former Fox News host, now senior adviser to the President’s reelection campaign and girlfriend of Don Jr, spoke Monday about the role her Catholic faith plays in supporting Trump.While Guilfoyle makes some convincing arguments, Cockburn has a feeling her checkered past may scare some Catholics away.West Coasters certainly remember Guilfoyle for when she was married to then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who of course is now the governor of the Golden State. At the time, Guilfoyle was known to be a charming figure, with her media nickname being ‘the babe of the San Francisco bar’. She was quite open about her sex life too.

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy has released his hotly anticipated interview with President Trump. Normally, in media, an interview with the president of the United States is considered a major score. But in 2020, in some circles, a non-hostile conversation with the Commander-in-Chief is a controversial act. https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/1286726116594647049?s=20 https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/1286729956500922373?s=20 https://twitter.com/stoolpresidente/status/1286733637698768896?s=20 In a way, it is shame. Barstool’s appeal has long been apolitical. The company’s edgy, comedic style resonates with college-aged Americans of all persuasions.

The most recent issue of the New Yorker includes a 5,000-word feature on the police (summary: they are racist). In it, staff writer Jill Lepore drops this frightful fact to illustrate the barbarism of America’s uniformed enforcers:'One study suggests that two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 who were treated in emergency rooms suffered from injuries inflicted by police and security guards, about as many people as the number of pedestrians injured by motor vehicles.'Cockburn started writing precisely to avoid ever doing math again, but even to him, this claim sounded like a howler. Two-thirds of all emergency room visits by American young adults were for police injuries?