Cockburn

Cockburn

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

Who’s afraid of Tulsi Gabbard?

Fresh off her formal campaign announcement last weekend, Tulsi Gabbard took to the hallowed grounds of Morning Joe’s studio for a friendly sit-down interview. Surely the expectation was that Joe, Mika, and the rest of the gang would herald Tulsi’s history-making potential as the first female, minority, and non-Christian president. A trailblazer! An inspiration! Instead, the discussion immediately took on a dark, interrogatory tone, focused (as usual) on Tulsi’s alleged fondness for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Kasie Hunt, the most overtly dimwitted of the Morning Joe crew, asked whether she thinks Assad ‘is a good person.

tulsi gabbard
tomi lahren cardi b nicki minaj

Tomi Lahren offers a lot to the world of rap beefs

Back in the Nineties, rap beefs used to mean something. Fans of the genre watched in horror as its biggest stars traded insults and then bullets. Two of its most promising talents, 2Pac and the Notorious BIG, were wiped out within months of each other, all because of a coastal rivalry. Cockburn isn’t hoping for a return to bloodshed — needless to say, his streets have seen too much of that in their time — but he is concerned about the relative tameness of conflicts between rappers these days. When a multimillionaire like Kanye West rises to a supposed slight from multimillionaire Drake about whether he slept with his multimillionaire wife Kim Kardashian, it’s fair to ask whether the noble art of the rap beef has lost its edge. That’s why new contenders are always welcome.

After seeing Donald Trump fan art, your life will never be the same

How does Donald Trump make you feel? For the oft-maligned sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome, incandescent rage might be the first emotion that springs to mind. Incredulity is a fairly common one too. Indeed, the 45th President causes a veritable rainbow of sentiments around the world. Perhaps one of the rarer ones, though, is the urge to create. But for some in the online artistic community, Donald Trump has served as muse to truly inspired works. Cockburn is delighted to welcome you back once more for a viewing of his private gallery, where this week we will be showcasing the boldest, finest, strangest Donald Trump fan art that the dark recesses of the internet has to offer. The images of President Trump span a number of different artistic styles.

donald trump fan art

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

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

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

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

Why SNL’s Tucker Carlson skit was a misfire

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

The dark passion of Bryan Singer

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

Baffling times at The Baffler

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

Who is the real Nathan Phillips?

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

Can you trust Michael Cohen?

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

2009 vs 2019 challenge: Washington, DC 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

Inside the strange world of Fox News fan art

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

The amazing grace of golden Dawn Goldstein

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.

Ohio State lecturer bans students from saying ‘illegal immigrants’

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

Donald, you chose the wrong Wall…

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

What sells more books: Trump love or Trump hate?

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

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

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

The Kavanaugh hearings are the hottest ticket in Tinseltown

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

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

‘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