The Spectator

The next generation will never be allowed to buy cigarettes. So we asked some of our writers for their favourite moment with a fag. Rory Sutherland One of the last ever cigarettes I had on a plane, I think. Looking back, it was kind of insane that you could ever smoke on aircraft (I think this was on Emirates, around 1997 – at a time when smoking had been banned on western airlines for quite a few years; the middle-eastern airlines, like the Japanese, were slow to the ban). This was the first time I had ever experienced a working telephone on an aircraft, too. And it also coincided with Kathy Burke playing a role in a series of Harry Enfield sketches on TV as Waynetta Slob.

My Tuesday evening unexpectedly freed up when a much anticipated (just kidding!) joint Fox News interview with GOP presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie was scrapped. Why? The Republican National Committee threatened to exclude the pair from future RNC debates for violating an agreement they made not to appear in any unsanctioned debates. Although Fox News avoided the term “debate” when advertising the planned special segment, the RNC was not convinced. Christie and Ramaswamy both lashed out at the RNC in response, claiming it was proof of a “broken” primary process and harmful to the party's ability to have substantive “dialogue” about issues.

Naomi Biden, Hunter Biden’s eldest daughter, is now the latest Biden to come under scrutiny for doing business with foreign nations.According to an investigation by the New York Post’s Jon Levine, the president’s granddaughter lawyered on behalf of Peru’s government while living with her grandpa at the White House.The twenty-nine-year-old joined Arnold & Porter in January 2021, right around when Joe Biden was moving into the presidential residence. Eight months after joining, her name appeared in a filing that showed that she was representing the South American country’s government in a case regarding the operation of an oil refinery in the Peruvian Amazon, where the company demanded close to $600 million in damages.

She’s not even cold... Does anyone have Gavin Newsom’s number? The California governor’s phone must be blowing up today after the sad passing of his state’s senior senator Dianne Feinstein at the age of ninety. Feinstein was already set to retire this cycle, with three members of Congress in the running to replace her, who my comrade Cockburn characterizes as “fresh-faced seventy-seven-year-old Barbara Lee, boss-of-the-year Katie Porter and grown-up Caillou Adam Schiff.” Another option from the House comes in the form of Lee’s Senate campaign co-chair. Newsom had previously pledged to select a black woman to fill any future vacancies — which could indicate a preference for Lee.

Let me tell you a ghost story. We are, after all, only a month out from Hallowe’en. It’s about a titan of American politics, who reshaped the nation’s, and the West’s, history over the tail-end of the last century. His leadership helped thaw the Cold War and transform the country’s languishing economy. And now, four decades later, his specter still looms large over the party he recalibrated. Tonight, the GOP’s undercard contenders will clash at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. And you can be darn sure his name will come up a lot.In last month’s debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, America’s 40th president was the subject of one of many flashpoints between former VP Mike Pence and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Democratic Senator Robert “Bob” Menendez of New Jersey — and his wife — have been indicted by a Manhattan federal grand jury, according to court filings unsealed this Friday. Prosecutors allege that the couple, say, the Menendez Crime Family, accepted lavish bribes in exchange for special favors. Specifically, the family is accused of holding “a corrupt relationship with three New Jersey associates and businessmen.” The senator also allegedly accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in bribes, including bars of gold, mortgage payments, a luxury car and lots of cash.  The indictment alleges that the bribes were given in exchange for official acts that enriched businessmen in his state, as well as the Egyptian government.

The choose your own adventure surrounding House Republican leadership is leading to a predictable dead end. The approach House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has used to great effect to this point, achieving far more legislatively than he was expected to in a Speakership with a razor-thin majority, has been to let conservatives get a seat at the table to demand what they want, and work from there. The strength of that strategy was giving House conservatives buy-in on the negotiating process, thus using them as an ally, not an adversary. The weakness of that strategy? It doesn’t work when the conservatives can’t agree about what they want.

At midnight Friday, more than 12,000 workers walked out of factories owned by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, marking the first time in history that the United Auto Workers union has gone on strike against all of the Big Three auto manufacturers at once. The UAW started contract negotiations asking for a 40 percent pay increase over four years and a four-day work week. The Big Three have countered with an offer of an approximately 20 percent pay increase, which would make up for real wage decline due to inflation since 2008. Neither side has moved significantly since bargaining began two months ago.  The unprecedented strike is centered in the Midwest, but it no doubt has major political ramifications back in the nation’s capital.