Cockburn

Cockburn

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

Fact-checking the New Yorker fact-checkers

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?

new yorker
A naked protester sits in front of police

LA Times thirsts after ‘Naked Athena’

'She emerged as an apparition from clouds of tear gas', writes Richard Read; '[a] woman wearing nothing but a black face mask and a stocking cap'. No, you are not reading cyberpunk erotica. You are reading the Los Angeles Times. Read's article is ostensibly about protests in Portland, and the Trump administration’s attempts to suppress them through the use of federal agents. As he writes about the naked activist who so entranced social media this weekend, though, things get a bit uncomfortable. 'The woman making her statement Saturday was altogether uninhibited,' Read declares, getting right to the meat of his story, 'at one point standing on one leg and raising her arms in an arc-type motion.' Richard. How closely were you watching her?

Do Democrats want Trump to deny the election outcome?

In an appearance for MSNBC’s Morning Joe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised the specter that President Trump might lose in November, but then refuse to vacate the White House premises until forced out by noxious chemicals: https://twitter.com/politicususa/status/1285225043988029447 Of course, Pelosi does not remain leader of the ever-transmogrifying Democratic party by expressing original thoughts. She stays in the Speaker’s chair by dutifully amplifying the phobias and obsessions of the DNC rank and file. And this is no exception. By this point, the thought of President Trump refusing to leave power is a genuine mania of the left.The prompt this time was President Trump’s weekend interview with Mike Wallace’s son at Fox News.

election
diamond and silk

Finally: Diamond and Silk are releasing a book

Whenever Cockburn has watched Diamond and Silk, whether they’re getting a heroes’ welcome at CPAC or sassing a left-wing celebrity in one of their viral videos, the same thought has always crossed his mind: when will this dynamic duo claim their rightful mantle in the literary pantheon? When can he sit down and peruse 256 pages of their incisive political commentary, as they follow in the footsteps of William F. Buckley Jr. and Ayn Rand and advance American conservative thought? Mercifully, the wait is over. The African American Trump-loving duo, real names Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, who sailed to notoriety throughout the 2016 campaign, release their debut book Uprising: Who the Hell Said You Can't Ditch and Switch?

In Los Angeles, school’s out…forever?

Americans have mixed feelings about opening schools this fall. Some — like the Trump administration’s Department of Education — want schools to reopen, withholding federal dollars from those that remain closed. However, the majority of Americans see opening schools as a health risk to their children.After two-thirds of teachers opposed the reopening of schools, the Los Angeles School District will not be returning to in-person classes this fall. However, United Teachers Los Angeles, the main teachers' union in the city, seemingly wants to suspend the return of quality instruction indefinitely. UTLA — composed of 35,000 teachers — released a list of policy demands that must be met before schools reopen.

school

The AOC Cookbook: my adobo recipe

When Cockburn heard that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was calling for a boycott of Goya, he wondered what the dead Spanish painter had done wrong. Fortunately, a member of the Latinx community was on hand to explain in non-gendered grammar that it’s Goya foods that we must shun. Goya sells high-quality food at low prices. But Robert Unanue, its CEO, made the mistake of expressing approval of President Trump. America, Unanue said, is ‘blessed’ to have Trump in charge. ‘Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling how to make your own Adobo,’ Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. So the bean is banned. The salsa is censored. The flan is forbidden. The guac is gone.

goya

Sister act: did Kerri Greenidge sign the Harper’s letter or not?

Have you met the Greenidge sisters — Kirsten, Kerri, and Kaitlyn? They are quite the trio. Kirsten, the eldest, is a playwright who teaches at Boston University; Kerri, the middle one, is a historian and the director of American Studies at Tufts University; and youngest Kaitlyn is the author of the award-winning We Love You, Charlie Freeman who also writes for the New York Times. Fancy that? Kerri has found herself in hot water this week after she signed the now notorious Harper’s letter in defense of free thought and free expression. She appears to have been stunned by the hostile reaction the letter received. Within hours of its publication she tweeted: ‘I do not endorse this @harpers letter. I am in contact with Harper’s about a retraction.

Kerri Greenidge, Photo: Twitter
joe scarborough

Joe Scarborough: masks for thee, but not for me

Last night, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough implored his 2.6 million Twitter followers, 'where do critics of Florida’s governor go for their apologies, knowing in real time that he was acting reckless and dumb in the face of a raging pandemic?' The answer is Nantucket, Massachusetts.

When Ann Coulter met Jeffrey Epstein…

In an interview last week with Breitbart News Tonight, Ann Coulter revealed a curious episode from her past in which she met Jeffrey Epstein. Coulter recalled Epstein picking her up in a limousine and taking her to his Manhattan townhome. She was so creeped out by the encounter that she later asked to be dropped off two blocks from her own home. Cockburn has acquired the transcript of Coulter's story. ANN COULTER: I had my own encounter with Jeffrey Epstein, and before I give you this little vignette: very important that I tell you something. All of my friends know I have absolutely no radar on freaks, on weird people. I'm a terrible judge of character.

Ann Coulter
vox

Harper’s vs Vox — and the bonfire of the liberal values

Cockburn is long enough in the tooth to recall when it was uncontroversial to defend the 'free exchange of information and ideas.’ Not so many moons ago, it seemed obvious to the point of boring to say that 'the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.’ Not anymore. In 2020, that is edgy stuff, as the group of 150 writers who just wrote a joint letter to Harper’s have proved. Their letter, a defense of free expression, makes the perfectly clear and fair point that ‘as writers, we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences.

Tough news for Terry Crews

Actor and comedian Terry Crews is taking heat for criticizing the Black Lives Matter organization over its tendency to hone in on police brutality and ignore far larger issues in the black community. He recently tweeted that he wants to make sure 'black lives matter' doesn't turn into 'black lives matter more'. Predictably, he was met by reactionary shrieks of ‘Uncle Tom’ and ‘coon’.Crews appeared on CNN on Monday night to explain his objections to BLM, and instead received a lecture from Don Lemon about the grievous errors in his line of thinking.

Terry Crews appears on CNN's Tonight with Don Lemon

Biden’s half-baked celebrity world

Remember how all those celebrity endorsements worked out for Hillary Clinton in 2016? In the end, it seems, even a Beyoncé and Jay-Z concert wasn’t enough to warm voters to HRC. Or perhaps people just don’t actually much care what famous people say about politics. Team Biden is not about to run away from the avalanche of star support coming its way as we approach November. But Biden 2020 likes to think itself more socially media savvy than most commentators have realized. Fame has been democratized, after all, and we now live in an age of ‘influencers’. It’s not about A-listers anymore. It’s about followers and engagement. So brace yourselves for #TeamJoeTalks, a new effort to engage potential voters through their smartphones, which will launch today at 3:30 p.m.

Debra Messing biden

The worst of Instagram activism

What do veganism, fashion, and architecture all have in common? According to Gen Z, they’re all racist.America’s teens and twenty-somethings have taken up the mantle of civil rights by reposting informative guides to Critical Race Theory on their Instagram Stories. Cockburn’s nieces were kind enough to send him a few links.You might think that these posts inform the zoomers about topics like fatherlessness, abortion, the welfare state and other serious issues that disproportionately face the African American community. However, these guides are almost entirely composed of far-left talking points, creating a social media echo chamber of unabated cultural Marxism and cringe.

instagram

The Facebook ad boycott is a convenient virtue-signal

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, some industry pundits predicted that the ‘techlash’ — the souring of public opinion on huge technology companies like Facebook and Google — would cool off or even disappear entirely. After all, with everyone cooped up at home, surely we’d develop a newfound appreciation for the technologies that became the only way to connect with others?That was short-lived. Following extraordinary social pressure amid this summer’s heated civil unrest, an advertiser boycott of Facebook has taken hold. Under the moniker Stop Hate For Profit and backed by the Anti-Defamation League and NAACP, brands from Starbucks to Unilever to Coca-Cola have bravely pulled ads from Facebook for the month of July.

facebook

In North Carolina, Chad beats Karen

‘Chad’ and ‘Karen’ did battle on Tuesday in an important North Carolina GOP primary race.Our Chad is Madison Cawthorn, a 24-year-old with a six-pack and diamond-sharp jawline. He clobbered our Karen, Lynda Bennett, a middle-aged white woman with a bob haircut, in the contest for Rep. Mark Meadows’s former seat in the House of Representatives.The race wasn’t even close: Mr Cawthorn emerged with 65.8 percent of the vote, compared to 34.2 percent earned by Mrs Bennett. Cockburn was surprised to learn that Karen did not keel over with a fake injury, call the cops, or provoke an online mob into canceling Cawthorn.Even more impressive is that Bennett, a former businesswoman, lost in spite of endorsements from President Trump and Meadows.

madison cawthorn

The Pride of Joy Reid

Why isn't MSNBC proud? The progressive cable network have been scratching their heads over who should fill the 7 p.m. slot formerly occupied by Chris Matthews. Matthews exited acrimoniously following claims he was out of touch with their viewership and made several off-color remarks to female guests and staff. You might think, therefore, that MSNBC would be opting for an uncontroversial successor. But if the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, you would be wrong: apparently the network is lining up Joy Reid. According to the Journal, 'Talks over Ms Reid’s appointment are still ongoing and an agreement isn’t a certainty, one person close to the situation said.

joy reid homophobia

Nikole Hannah-Jones and 1619, Inc.

The New York Times’s 1619 Project is meant to be all about details that, it alleges, were ‘conveniently left out’ of America’s ‘founding mythology’. But should its Pulitzer-winning curator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, worry more about the details she’s been slipping in? And what’s the relationship between the Times’s 1619 Project and 1619 Enterprises, a company for whom Hannah-Jones’s techie partner, Faraji has supposedly worked? When she's not explaining how destroying property isn't violence on national television or circulating conspiracy theories about fireworks, Hannah-Jones is giving puff interviews, like this one to Glamour in May, in which she endorsed some of her favorite products.

nikole hannah-jones

Walter Block on the chopping block?

Students at Loyola University New Orleans are seeking to oust Walter Block, a libertarian business school professor, through a Change.org petition. In response, a rival petition is asking Loyola’s administration to offer Block a raise.A student called M.C. Calzalas began the petition calling for Block’s termination. According to the petition, Block ‘has publicly stated that he believes slavery to be wrong because it goes against Libertarianism, not because it is morally wrong. He has justified women being paid less than men’.Worst of all, ‘He is allegedly an ableist, too.

walter block

Who doesn’t fund the Federalist?

One of the internet's most elusive questions — who funds the Federalist? — has finally been answered. Well, sort of. NBC announced Tuesday that Google would be banning the Federalist from its ad platform, meaning the conservative website will no longer be able to earn money from running Google ads. The Federalist was targeted alongside ZeroHedge, a right-wing financial blog. Or so NBC claimed. 'We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing,' a Google spokesperson said of the decision. 'When a page or site violates our policies, we take action.

Google logo

It’s OK everyone, actors are ‘taking responsibility’

Are you, like many others, alarmed that America is sliding into chaos and civil unrest? That society is being torn apart? Are you disturbed because you had never really thought that America is the most evil, racist place on earth, but now everyone is telling you that it is? Well, hang your head in shame, obviously. But also don’t worry. It’s all going to be OK, because actors are taking responsibility. Thank goodness. There's been no shortage of epically cringe-inducing noble and viral celebrity statements made in support of Black Lives Matter in recent days. But Julianne Moore and co have surely won the shared Oscar for most hellacious virtue-signaling stunt bravest stand of 2020 so far. See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

i take responsibility