Cockburn

COVID-19 is a riddle wrapped inside an enigma and hidden within a Chinese wet market, or possibly a CCP laboratory. World leaders are baffled by how to respond. The science keeps contradicting itself. The world’s greatest mathematicians can’t keep up with the ever-changing data sets. Who can the poor and frightened public turn to for help? Never fear, Greta’s here. That’s right. Little Miss Thunberg, a 17-year-old Swedish girl who dropped out of high school to sound the climate change alarm, is turning her mega-brain towards COVID-19, just when we need her most. On Thursday evening, CNN will host a live town hall called ‘Coronavirus: Facts and Fears’, featuring former acting CDC director Richard Besser, former HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Miss Thunberg.

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) was planning to run a panel tomorrow called ‘The Rise of Misinformation’ sponsored by Huawei — a Chinese consumer electronics firm with suspiciously close ties to the Chinese Communist party. Sadly, just over 24 hours before the start time, the NABJ suddenly canceled the event. What happened?A statement released by the NABJ said that the panel had ‘become a distraction from other priorities’, as it ‘had come under attack because controversial technology giant Huawei was planning to sponsor the webinar though it had no editorial control’.

Kayleigh McEnany, President Trump's new White House press secretary, has breathed new life into the briefing room and already proven herself to be a formidable opponent for the media. Unlike her predecessor, Stephanie Grisham, McEnany has been preparing for her moment at the podium for years. She rose to prominence in 2016 as a CNN contributor by duking it out on panels where she was routinely outnumbered as the lone pro-Trump voice. McEnany later joined the 2020 Trump re-election campaign  as its national press secretary. Her time in front of the camera debating Trump haters clearly paid off — she has been prepared twice already for 'gotchas' from members of the White House press corps, throwing their questions right back in their faces.

Everybody knows that the Communist party of China is sensitive to criticism. Internal critics have a tendency to disappear; external ones often find themselves silenced. Beijing pursues a policy of ‘elite capture’ — using powerful non-Chinese actors to pursue influence perceptions of China and advance its interests.Enter Steve Bannon, the former White House senior adviser, who likes the CCP even less than the elites. Bannon has been waging economic war on Beijing for years and is now using his new smash-hit radio show, War Room: Pandemic, to launch endless broadsides against the tyranny and malfeasance of China’s leadership. Bannon has been sharper than almost anyone in seizing the opportunities the pandemic has created to trash China’s global prestige.

With his usual haunts closed thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown, Cockburn has been clamoring for a new source of entertainment. Luckily, his nieces, who are always on the forefront of technology, have introduced him to a new app called 'TikTok.' The app, which allows users to create and upload short videos, has been gaining steam over the past year thanks to huge popularity among the Zoomer generation. As with most things that young people like, desperate politicians quickly pretended to understand or be interested in TikTok. In 2020, various Democratic candidates started to appear in videos themselves, mostly through the Washington Post's TikTok account. Things got very awkward, very quickly.

Disheartening news from the world of punditry this week, as it emerged that dynamic MAGA duo Diamond and Silk have been cut loose by Fox News. The pair rose to prominence in the lead-up to the 2016 election, with their snappy and boisterous Facebook videos in support of Candidate Trump. That spirit seems to have been their undoing: As CNN put it: 'Over the last few weeks, the duo has advanced all sorts of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. They've questioned the death toll. They've questioned whether the virus is being "deliberately spread." They've suggested the "Deep State" is working "behind the scenes" and that it is "engineered." On and on and on it goes. 'On Wednesday, "Diamond & Silk" posted a tweet.

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has perfected COVID-19 performance art. While other attention seekers declare proudly that they’re ‘pretty sure’ they ‘had the ’rona back in January’, Cuomo has outplayed them all by actually securing a positive test before becoming an insufferable twerp about it. Cuomo announced on March 31 that he tested positive for coronavirus and that he would be self-quarantining in his basement away from his wife and children. On April 7, Cuomo told viewers of his primetime show that he was shivering so much that he chipped a tooth. Sympathy poured in from across the internet, but just five days later, Cuomo threw away any goodwill he ought to receive for his illness.

Does President Trump have a new favorite magazine? At yesterday's Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Trump took a bit of time to educate the press corps on what they should be reading: National Review articles: https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1252354480298811392 'A story that just came out...“How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story”, I'm sure you love to see that. That's by Rich Lowry, respected journalist and person. “How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story”, which, unfortunately, you did. And here's another one that just came out. Kyle Smith, “The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn't”. “The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn't”...because we got it fixed...

Donald Trump announced this week he intends to halt funding for the World Health Organization over the group's suspicious relationship with China. Doubtless you'll be shocked to hear that the establishment media quickly fell in line to defend one of its favorite globalist institutions, regardless of its actual effectiveness. The New York Times, fresh off picking apart the woman who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, scraped together an article defending the WHO's response to the coronavirus outbreak in a stunning display of  revisionist history. 'The World Health Organization, always cautious, acted more forcefully and faster than many national governments', declared the Times's standfirst, which prompted Cockburn to spit out his double-roast espresso.

News outlets across the globe are grappling with how to expand or adapt their operations to adequately provide readers with the latest news about the novel coronavirus. In the US, for example, various digital publications have reduced their paywalled content so that more people have access to their reporting. Cockburn’s masters at The Spectator are even giving away three months’ free digital access. Away from home though, Cockburn has particularly enjoyed Politico’s nightly newsletter dedicated COVID-19 news, aptly named, ‘POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition.’ However, while settling into his fourth scotch one evening, Cockburn noticed something in his Politico email that greatly disturbed him: the newsletter is sponsored by PhRMA.

Cockburn doesn't pay all much attention to football, but he was surprised to read on Wednesday that former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said he was 'tired' of people criticizing Donald Trump. 'The guy is doing his best to help the country. I'd like to see his critics try to do better in his position,' Brady supposedly said, according to reports in the New York Post and Washington Examiner. Cockburn saw several MAGA people sharing the quote victoriously on Twitter, but is at pains to inform them that it is a spoof. Brady, who is headed to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the upcoming NFL season (whenever that is), did give a candid interview about Trump to Howard Stern this morning.

‘Stay Alive Joe Biden’, implored contributing writer Alex Wagner in the Atlantic yesterday, setting perhaps the lowest ever bar for a presidential candidate. She posits that Biden ‘exists primarily as an idea, rather than an actual candidate’ and describes how coming off the campaign trail to pitch his premiership from quarantine has been a boon to the former VP: 'His appearances these days have an almost parallel-universe quality to them: Biden’s audience-less remarks from his home in Delaware have the suggestion of an Oval Office address, and their content seems intended to offer a glimpse into the twilight zone where someone else, someone more empathetic and capable, is president.

Video conferences are like all business meetings — 95 percent pointless and usually arranged and dominated by some self-important twerp. Still, humans attach strange importance to management habits and, now that we are living in the age of the coronavirus, many of us will have to do a lot more video conferences for work. Ever the public servant, Cockburn has compiled the following guide to video conference etiquette. 1) Dress Cockburn prefers formal attire, yet in times of isolation, the rules can be relaxed. Nudity is too much, no matter how matter impressive one's physique. Pajamas are a no-no, too. Sporting a kaftan on the call may make you feel like a charismatic tech billionaire dialing in from Mustique. But everybody knows you aren’t — so put a shirt on.

If there's one good thing about the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent collective social distancing in the US, it's that families are getting to spend more time together. That is, unless you're one of the brothers Cuomo. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and his CNN anchor brother Chris reignited their intense sibling rivalry on live television Monday night, arguing over which of them is their mom's favorite. Andrew kicked off the nostalgic debate by comparing the coronavirus lockdown to a curfew implemented by his father, Mario, when he was a kid: 'I don't like the word "curfew." Dad tried to have a curfew for me, I never got past the resentment. But I do believe you'll see more heightening if the numbers don't slow.

Welcome to the age of coronavirus, where lines snake around the aisles of supermarkets, millennials beg their boomer parents to stop going outside and the best sporting event on television is 10-pin bowling. America almost feels like a different country. Cockburn has seen a heartening amount of concern for loved ones over the last few days, especially among fellow journalists. To put minds at rest, therefore, he's been asking around to see what measures right-leaning outlets are taking to protect their employees from the virus. Across Rupert Murdoch's titles, the response has been robust. Workers at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post had the option to work from home last week, with a lot of editorial staff deciding to do so.

Cockburn was sad to learn that W. James Antle III, the highly esteemed editor of the American Conservative (TAC), has parted ways with the magazine after little more than a year at the helm. Antle is a terrifically gifted journalist and a dexterous thinker who has contributed many fine pieces to The Spectator in his time.TAC is one of the best magazines in the world — Cockburn does not make such compliments lightly — and Antle has steered the publication to new heights. It has in recent years flourished into a hugely influential voice on the American right: its influence on Trumpism is unmistakable.Cockburn, busybody that he is, has asked around to find out what caused Antle’s sudden departure, but TAC staff are being impressively tight-lipped.