Who wants to cruise in Joe Biden’s Cadillac?

Interested in swapping seats with President Joe Biden? The Oval Office desk chair isn’t up for grabs — at least, not yet — but you are welcome to bid on a Cadillac once leased by Amtrak Joe.

Since the DMV presumably took the keys away from the well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory, Biden will no longer need those hot wheels with the custom Kona Brown interior. If you’re lucky, the sedan may even come with a few boxes of classified documents in the trunk, assuming the DoJ didn’t find them all during its last sweep.

The car, which Delaware Cadillac is selling, has fewer than 16,000 miles on it, perhaps another testament to Biden’s purported love of public transportation. The highest bid right now is only sitting at $37,750, less than one of those fancy schmancy electric cars the Biden cabinet keeps telling us to buy. 

“Can you clarify if there are any additional fees for the winning bidder?” one commenter asks. “Specifically does 10% for ‘the big guy’ come out of the winning bid or is it in addition to?” This, and many other comments joking about the car’s previous owner, have been hidden from public view after being “flagged as inappropriate” by “the community.”

What are comms directors meant to do, again?

A congressman’s communications director plays a crucial role that involves ensuring his message gets across to constituents and the media — and generally guaranteeing that he retains as positive a public image as possible. It’s unusual, therefore, that a comms director nearly ignited a sex scandal after blabbing to a number of people on the Hill that she was engaged in a sexual relationship with her ambitious married boss, according to Cockburn’s sources. “She’d tell anyone who’d listen,” one said. 

Cockburn is also aware that at least three major media publications have spent the last couple of weeks chasing down the story. Maybe it’s true that all publicity is good publicity?

No, Ian Miles Cheong is not dead

Reports of the death of Ian Miles Cheong have been greatly exaggerated!

You may well be familiar with Cheong, aka @stillgray, from his engagement-baiting Twitter/X account. In the Elon Musk era, his tweeting of viral clips with trite captions and interactions with the app’s CEO have seen the one-time Milo Yiannopoulos ghostwriter grow to a whopping social following of nearly a million — making a tidy profit from Twitter Ads while doing it, of course. 

Critics here often focus on the fact that Cheong is Malaysian and lives in his southeast Asian homeland, while posting ad infinitum about American matters. A week ago, that prompted some headlines in Malaysia. “Malaysian netizens have called for communications minister Fahmi Fadzil to take action against Cheong for his actions, particularly on his commentary on Palestinian-Israeli issues,” read a story in the New Straits Times, a Kuala Lumpur newspaper. “Malaysians can be charged for sedition under the Seditions Act, for expressing views that could potentially sow discord among communities in the country.” 

Cheong gave a statement to the New Straits Times the next day, in an effort to quell any storm, saying that he is “very proud of being Malaysian” and describing his Israel-Palestine opinions as “very nuanced.” Yet all week, online pranksters have been tweeting jokes about Cheong’s fate, exaggerating the predicament in which he finds himself. 

“when ian miles cheong offered me drugs and said he was plotting with israel to kill the king, I said ‘ian those are three of the crimes listed in the first paragraph of the wikipedia page “capital punishment in malaysia,” are you sure that’s a good idea?’. RIP buddy,” wrote one. 

“🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨 Ian Miles Cheong is set to be publicly executed February 15,” tweeted another. “In a stunning turn of events, the Malaysian government has voted unanimously to use the Brazen Bull as the method of execution.” 

“Ok I made the mistake of having videos on here set to autoplay and just saw the Ian Miles Cheong video that’s circulating,” wrote a third. 

Another user posted a screenshot of a fake tweet from Cheong’s account with the caption, “This does not look good.” The screenshot reads: “This is Ian’s family. We have important news to share about Ian soon. Please respect our privacy until then as we communicate with the Malaysian authorities. In the meantime, Ian’s brother Brian will be posting from this account to provide Ian’s amazing followers with the biting and thoughtful political commentary they have come to expect. Thank you.” 

Ian remains alive, well and a free man in Malaysia, Cockburn can confirm. You can tell: he’s still relentlessly tweeting videos.

Backlash to Tennessee’s un-American cold beer ban proposal

Disheartening news from Bachelorette Party central: Nashville, Tennessee, where a pair of Republicans are trying to crack down on how many alcoholic beverages bars and restaurants can serve if patrons don’t prove they have a designated driver on the premises — and to ban retail outlets from selling refrigerated beer.

Representative Paul Gant, one of the leaders, spent weeks in the ICU after a 2022 collision with a drunk driver in West Tennessee. His suggested solution, however, seems likely to prove worse than the problem. 

“What this legislation does, is if you cannot prove that you have a designated driver then this legislation would put a cap on the number of drinks that you can be served,” Gant said. This new puritanism doesn’t make sense on face value: has Gant never heard of a thing called Uber?

The bill has drawn a lot of national attention — and seems very unlikely to progress. This is good news: the prospect of Tennesseans forcing themselves through room-temperature ales as if they were po-faced northern Europeans is too much to bear. Cockburn hopes legislators there find a less un-American way to crack down on drink-driving.