Is the Democratic Party trying to be more masculine? An eagle-eyed political observer pointed out recently that the DNC’s official logo has mysteriously changed color without any public fanfare. The logo, which features a “D” inside of a circle, used to be a sky blue. At some point in 2022, the “D” went quite a few shades darker to a royal blue. You can spot the difference in this side-by-side:
A graphic design expert tells Cockburn that the change might have been an attempt to make the party’s colors better match its newfound lip service to the working class under Biden. Alternatively, they may be trying to cash in on those “dark Brandon” memes!
A tale of two Naomis
There are few things more annoying than being mistaken for someone else. But imagine being so irked by it that you write a whole book on the subject. That’s what Canadian feminist author Naomi Klein has done with Doppelgänger: A Trip into the Mirror World, so aggrieved is she by being confused for American feminist author Naomi Wolf. Both are Jewish, both wrote extensively about Occupy Wall Street… but in the years since, the two Naomis have diverged somewhat, with Wolf gaining a following as a notorious antivaxxer, climate denier and conspiracy theorist: a horrifying prospect for a proud liberal professor such as Klein.
“Confrontations with our doppelgängers raise existentially destabilizing questions,” Klein writes. “Am I who I think I am, or am I who others perceive me to be? And if enough others start seeing someone else as me, who am I, then?”
How frightful. It got Cockburn thinking though: did Wolf have any advice for Klein on how to cope with the daily pressures of being Naomi Wolf? He emailed the vaccine skeptic to ask. Watch this space…
Hawaii officials flame out
Most of the time, Hawaii is a beach paradise — until this week’s devastating wildfires.
As the ashes settle, we’re learning that the state’s official in charge of disaster response was a patronage hire whose main qualifications might as well have been watching disasters unfold in movies. Herman Andaya, who defended his refusal to sound the alarm, just resigned due to health concerns.
Andaya, though, is far from the state’s only incompetent. Kaleo Manuel, an official in charge of Hawaii’s water reserves, allegedly withheld releasing water reserves at crucial times during the fires that destroyed Hawaii’s historic Lahaina district.
On a national level meanwhile, President Joe Biden finally decided to go to Hawaii after previously prioritizing Delaware’s beaches…
Kabul and Chick-fil-A
Cockburn sauntered through the halls of the Conservative Policy Institute in Capitol Hill Tuesday for a party marking the release of Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson’s new book Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End. Guests were treated to a Chick-fil-A banquet and a smorgasbord of beers and wines. Spotted mingling and carousing: the Daily Mail’s Rob Crilly, Curtis Houck of Newsbusters, Athos PR’s Jonathan Bronitsky and Brian Finnegan, Tim and Tiana Lowe Doescher (who were plotting a honeymoon in India), Townhall’s John Hasson, Kevin McMahon and Julio Rosas, and Cockburn’s Spectator confrères Amber Athey and Matthew Foldi.
The guest of honor, though, was Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law of Sergeant Nicole Gee, one of the thirteen US service members killed in the suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport during the evacuation of Afghanistan two years ago this month. Dunleavy read aloud Gee’s name, along with those of her fallen comrades, in an appropriately solemn address to the room. If you missed the excerpts The Spectator ran this week, you can check them out here and here.
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