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Cockburn

Cockburn

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

Wednesday

Cockburn

Revealed: Steve Bannon’s ‘most influential Catholics’ listicle

From our US edition

Cockburn was flattered to read BuzzFeed News’s claim that what Steve Bannon wants to read is a ‘Catholic Spectator’, but puzzled. The Spectator is a broad church, broad enough to accommodate atheists, Bible-bashers, even that notorious sinner Taki. But on further inspection, Cockburn realized that Bannon is talking about British weekly The Catholic Herald, and its launch in America. What the Herald should do, Bannon says, is cultivate ‘Catholic influencers and millionaires’, and to follow the strategy which has worked so well for BuzzFeed, by running listicles like ‘The 25 most influential Catholics in the US.’ Catholic BuzzFeed, perhaps? The ways of the Lord are more mysterious than Donald Trump’s tax returns.

steve bannon ariana grande catholic

Tuesday

Monday

Cockburn

BuzzFeed aren’t paying out unused holiday to their fired staff and People Are Freaking Out

From our US edition

It’s a rough life, being a liberal media mogul. Balancing your aura of caring for your staff and their rights with the cut-throat demands of your investors is testing at the best of times...imagine how hard it gets when your business hits the skids. So pour one out for Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s CEO, for whom this week isn’t looking any easier than the last. After suffering the embarrassment of having BuzzFeed News’s major Russia scoop unraveled by Robert Mueller’s office, Peretti had the unenviable task of laying off hundreds of employees across the country. Their entire national desk was culled along with many other BuzzFeed News staffers, in cuts brutally staggered over several days.

buzzfeed

Sunday

Cockburn

Why SNL’s Tucker Carlson skit was a misfire

From our US edition

Cockburn never wants to criticize people for trying to be funny, even if they fail. He’s fallen flat on his own comedic face more than once so he knows the pain. But last night’s Saturday Night Live spoof on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson show missed the mark in several unfortunate and interesting ways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sld27PfAF3M&list=PLS_gQd8UB-hISSFxFTxdheRfIDH-XKBCi Let’s begin with what worked. Alex Moffat’s impersonation wasn’t too bad — his impression of Carlson’s ‘listening face’ was amusing, certainly. Moffat was also helped by Kate McKinnon, who did a brilliant and hilarious Wilbur Ross routine, and Cecily Strong did a pitch perfect Judge Jeanine. But the conceit was wrong.

alex moffat tucker carlson saturday night live

Thursday

Cockburn

The dark passion of Bryan Singer

From our US edition

Cockburn can’t possibly imagine what attracted alleged pedophile Bryan Singer to Stephen King’s ‘Apt Pupil’, a story from King’s 1982 collection Summer of Corruption, which Singer first read aged 19 in 1984. Nor can Cockburn imagine why Singer was so obsessed by adapting King’s story that he commissioned a script on spec, and then, after the success of The Usual Suspects, turned down offers to direct The Truman Show and The Devil’s Own.  In Apt Pupil, set in the Eighties, Todd Bowden, a 16-year old a Californian high school student, realizes that Arthur Denker, the old man who lives down the street, is really Kurt Dussander, a fugitive Nazi war criminal.

bryan singer

Wednesday

Cockburn

Baffling times at The Baffler

From our US edition

A curious incident last night as The Baffler, an esteemed (or once-esteemed) left-wing political and literary journal, suddenly retracted a highly-touted pro-Bernie tract by Amber A’Lee Frost. The piece, entitled ‘It’s Bernie, Bitch,’ made an acerbic and amusing case for why all socialists, leftists, and ‘progressives’ should suck it up, quit the belly-aching, and back Bernie Sanders in 2020 because he’s the only hope for achieving social democracy in the foreseeable future. Whatever you might think of Bernie’s potential candidacy, the piece was interestingly argued and well-written. Presumably why it has since emerged on Jacobin.

bernie baffler

Tuesday

Cockburn

Who is the real Nathan Phillips?

From our US edition

The Native American man with the drum who – now so infamously – approached a group of high schoolers from Covington, Ky., on Friday has been widely identified as a Vietnam veteran. But he isn’t one. The man is called Nathan Phillips, and he identifies with the American Indian Movement, an extremist separatist organization tied to at least one murder. He was singing their song when he approached the kids. He told the Washington Post that he was ‘blocked’ by the students, though later video evidence suggests that that was an exaggeration, to put it mildly. Phillips remains adamant that the boys should be punished for what they did to him, and has refused to meet with them.

nathan phillips

Friday

Cockburn

Can you trust Michael Cohen?

From our US edition

The President’s father, Fred Trump, had a rule: for some business, you only ever want to meet one person at a time. Then it’s their word against yours. If you have a meeting of three people, then you have two people to give evidence against you. This is the story, anyway, from people who know the Trump family and the Trump family legend. Fred Trump supposedly had links with both the Democratic Party machine and the mob in the New York borough of Queens. If the story about his rule is true, it would have served him well as he built up his property empire – allegedly with methods that might not have borne scrutiny. Someone deep inside Trumpworld tells Cockburn Donald Trump adopted his father’s rule as his own. ‘He never writes anything down.

buzzfeed michael cohen

Monday

Cockburn

2009 vs 2019 challenge: Washington, DC edition

From our US edition

‘A week is a long time in politics,’ Harold Wilson supposedly once said. If the former British Prime Minister is correct, then 10 years is akin to several millennia. But just how much can a decade really change us? The latest social media trend, the 2009 vs 2019 challenge, is seeking to answer that very question. The premise is simple: find a photograph of yourself from 2009 and post it alongside one taken this year. For many younger folk, the comparison has a feel-good factor, as 10 years later they find themselves more stylish and attractive (they have undergone the ‘glow-up’, if you will.

2009 vs 2019 cover

Friday

Cockburn

Inside the strange world of Fox News fan art

From our US edition

Fox News viewers go to some length to show their dedication to their favorite cable personalities. They might have Twitter alerts set up for whenever their preferred pundit says something, or they might go in to bat in the comments of a Facebook post. But then, some people really like heads they see on Fox. It gets their creative juices flowing, and inspires them to put pencil to paper. Cockburn is pleased to welcome you to his private gallery, where he’s been collecting the finest Fox News fan art the internet has to offer. Naturally, the higher profile personalities are depicted in a number of ways.

fox news fan art
dawn goldstein
Cockburn

The amazing grace of golden Dawn Goldstein

From our US edition

Conservative American Catholics – especially those working in the media – are gulping nervously every time they check Twitter. The reason? A diminutive prayerful lady with a rosary in her handbag. She’s called Dawn Eden Goldstein, and she’s a Catholic convert who writes about ‘healing painful memories’ – but seems more interested in creating them on Twitter. Dawn’s particular bête noire is the Catholic Herald magazine, which made the mistake of inviting her to a lunch at the Metropolitan Club to celebrate the launch of its US edition. Here she picked up the information that a couple of the magazine’s directors had been invited to breakfast with Steve Bannon.

Wednesday

Cockburn

Ohio State lecturer bans students from saying ‘illegal immigrants’

From our US edition

A little row at Ohio State University, which Cockburn would like to document, if he may. Victor Espinosa, a lecturer in sociology at Ohio State University, has been telling students that they are forbidden from using the term ‘illegal immigrant’ to describe immigrants who did not enter the country through the legal method. Because – drum roll – it is offensive. Mr Espinosa has written to at least one student telling them they ‘will not be allowed to use the term illegal to refer to an unauthorized immigrant’ because it ‘dehumanizes, marginalizes and racializes the people it seeks to describe.

ohio state illegal immigrant

Thursday

Cockburn

Donald, you chose the wrong Wall…

From our US edition

It’s A Song of ICE and Fire! Presumably peeved by the notion that Nancy Pelosi’s return to the Speaker’s chair and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s high school musical were dominating the day’s headlines, Donald Trump blew off some steam by posting a load of memes on his social media. Topping the ‘Warren 1/2020th’ picture that he borrowed from the Daily Wire to mock the Massachusetts senator, the 45th President of the United States took to Instagram, to offer his followers this Game of Thrones-inspired image: https://www.instagram.com/p/BsMBeLbFLxd/ In George R. R. Martin’s books, The Wall is a 700-feet high divide that runs for one hundred leagues between the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and the wild lands beyond.

wall game of thrones

Friday

Cockburn

What sells more books: Trump love or Trump hate?

From our US edition

Are product plugs on social media really that influential? Opinions on the matter range between Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin, who got ‘pretty ticked off’ at how no one cared about his endorsement of a pro-climate change candidate, to The Good Place actress Jameela Jamil, who recently wished Cardi B would ‘shit her pants in public’ for promoting detox teas. It’s a debate that’s been reignited this week after President Trump offered his suggestions for which books could serve as stocking fillers for his supporters: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1068264306947411968 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1068266944715878402 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1068271965343862785 https://twitter.

james comey books

Sunday

Cockburn

All hail Dan Crenshaw on SNL: sharing jokes beats confected outrage!

From our US edition

Give Congressman-elect Dan Crenshaw another medal! The Texan, an eye-patch wearing veteran who nearly lost his sight in Afghanistan, managed to stay dignified during last weekend's major outrage over Saturday Night Live, when Pete Davidson said looked like ‘a hitman from a porno movie.’ Crenshaw did not over-react. But he say, of ribbing people about their appearance, that: ‘it has to be original, it has to be witty, and it has to be actually funny, alright, and this wasn't funny.’ Last night, SNL gave Crenshaw his chance to take revenge on Davidson and, boy, did he take it well. ‘Here is Pete Davidson. He looks like, if the meth from Breaking Bad was a person!’ Excellent. That’s a better quality of gag that you often get on SNL.

dan crenshaw pete davidson saturday night live

Thursday

Cockburn

The Kavanaugh hearings are the hottest ticket in Tinseltown

From our US edition

September is one of the most packed months in the calendar for celebrities. You kick things off with New York Fashion Week, then jet over to London for its British cousin, and squeeze a scroll down the Emmys red carpet in between. But some designers are starting to go cold on attention-hungry celebrities. So what’s the best way to get some limelight? It shouldn’t take a heavy-handed Nike campaign to tell you the real currency in Hollywood is being performatively woke. That’s why Cockburn’s tip for getting seen this fall is a seat at the Kavanaugh hearings. Twitter activist and witch from Charmed Alyssa Milano was guest to Senator Dianne Feinstein at today’s grilling of Dr Christine Blasey Ford. https://twitter.

alyssa milano kavanaugh hearings

Tuesday

Cockburn

Grassley posts a picture of corn  —  but no-one will lend an ear

From our US edition

‘BURN IN HELL OLD CRIMINAL!’ responded gem.1120. ‘THE ONE U RUSSIAN SELL OUTS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RUN IS **THE DAY U MEET GOD**!’ What prompted such a tirade at Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Instagram account? The Senate Judiciary Committee chair, an Iowan, had posted lovely, innocent pictures of corn. ‘Wk 19 # cornwatch,’ his account posted. ‘Pic 1- ears of corn to feed the squarrels in the winter Pic 2- evidence of deer feasting.’ https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHuiX4lSOi/ Cockburn harvested the best responses. ‘Wow based on the comments of this photo people are really mad about corn!’ It seems the man charged with shepherding controversial Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination through committee can find no love on the net.

senator grassley

Thursday

Cockburn

Putin is at it again – this time with the midterms

From our US edition

Like a reckless gambler whose roulette system has worked in the past, Vladimir Putin can’t resist trying to hack US elections. He’s at it once again, in the midterms, one source close to the intelligence community tells Cockburn. ‘The GRU [Russian military intelligence] is up to its usual tricks in the midterms but the NSA [the National Security Agency, responsible for electronic spying] knows and is mitigating.’ Our source says it’s the ‘usual Russian Intelligence playbook’ familiar from the presidential election: propaganda on social media with ‘some GRU active SIGINT [signals intelligence] collection, also known as hacking, in the mix’.

putin russia gun

Sunday

Cockburn

The New York Times: all the news that’s fit to fake

From our US edition

Cockburn still takes the Sunday edition of the New York Times. He has two cats, and all those extra sections make excellent liners for the litter tray. Perhaps this is what people mean when they say that you have to hold your nose when you read the Times. The Times may have closed the curtains on the question of Nikki Haley’s window dressings, but its writers still cannot be trusted. Is it from malice or ignorance? Or a cocktail of the two, in which the presumption of virtue overrides the responsibility to check the facts?

boris johnson new york times

Tuesday

Cockburn

Fact check: Charlie Kirk’s beloved US-UK violent crime stat

From our US edition

The New York Times’s journalists, as we’ve said, have a rather strange anti-British fixation at the moment...but they aren’t the only ones. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has become a creature of habit when it comes to comparing the levels of violent crime between Western nations. On Tuesday morning, two days after a mass shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Flor., he bravely tweeted: ‘Facts: UK: 933 violent crimes per 100,000 people. US: 399 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Gun confiscation doesn’t work.’ https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1034432701376487425 This, Charlie thinks, is a Really Good Own. Which is why he repeats it so regularly.

charlie kirk