Cockburn was sad to scratch out the AZGOP Freedom Fest from his calendar, which was due to take place tonight and be headlined by former president Donald Trump. “Regrettably, the AZGOP Freedom Fest 2024 has been canceled as President @realDonaldTrump is required to attend to court obligations.”
He was hoping to see the nation’s most self-immolating state party up close, in a week where their top Senate candidate Kari Lake leaked a private recording she had made of a conversation with Arizona GOP chair Jeff DeWit. In the recording DeWit appears to be offering to pay Lake to drop out of the Senate race and run for governor again in two years instead.
After the Daily Mail’s story on Lake’s leak, DeWit resigned — though in his letter doing so, he said, “I question how effective a United States senator can be when they cannot be trusted to engage in private and confidential conversations.” DeWit must have forgotten Lake’s past as a journalist: clearly she’s always on the hunt for a Pulitzer!
The sorry episode is emblematic of how many obstacles Lake faces to become a US senator. In her failed run for governor, she told McCain Republicans to “get the hell out”: the late senator remains very popular in his home state — and Lake has yet to make serious in-roads in her attempts to win over his fans, who she would need to triumph in the general. Cockburn clocked Lake twice earlier this week at the Sheraton in Nashua, New Hampshire, for Trump’s primary victory party. She was dressed in white, “like the Miss Havisham of VP picks.” Will her political career have a similarly fiery ending?
Meta: don’t ban kids from our apps, let parents do that instead
The kids are not alright! The Florida House passed a bill this week which would “require many platforms to prohibit anyone younger than sixteen from creating an account and require them to use a third party for age verification services,” per Politico. “At the same time, it calls on social media companies to terminate accounts for users in the state under sixteen.” It’s now under consideration in the state Senate.
It is unclear at this point which apps the bill applies to — though TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are the likeliest candidates. The move follows a deluge of investigative reporting that reveals how addictive and harmful social media can be to teens — though let’s face it, it’s not all that great for adults either.
Meta has been running a campaign since November pushing Congress to take action federally: “Parents should approve their teen’s app downloads, and we support federal legislation that requires app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under sixteen download apps,” wrote Meta global head of safety Antigone Davis in a blog post. You may have seen TV ads from the same initiative on behalf of Instagram: Cockburn caught one last night. (Naturally, the tech giant chooses to identify as “Instagram” rather than the “too-corporate” Meta or the “election-ruining” Facebook.)
Of course, Meta’s solution to the problem involves Congress taking the burden of responsibility away from them — and unlike Florida’s, it still lets the kids download the apps. How convenient!
The honorable Zynator from Pennsylvania
End the Zynsanity! The Biden administration’s square-off with Texas and other Republican states over the border has heightened talk of “civil war” this week — but frankly New York senator and nanny-statist Chuck Schumer’s effort to force a government crackdown on Zyn seems a likelier catalyst.
“I’ll see you at the wall Chuck Schumer. This is our Alamo. And I won’t be alone,” wrote Texan Fox News host and Zynball wizard Will Cain for the site this week. “You just created millions of single-issue voters (maybe). Get ready to reap the whirlwind. Get ready for the Zynsurrection.”
There’s only one hope to stop nicotine-addled Zynsurgents, cheeks stuffed with 6s, from tearing America to shreds: a bipartisan rejection of Schumer’s thirst for government overreach. Step forward hulking Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman.
“I’m going to err on the side of more freedom and personal choices for those kinds of things,” Senator Fetterman told a huddle of reporters yesterday.
Fetterman has struck out against Democratic Party orthodoxy as he’s spent more time in Washington. Will more colleagues on his side of the aisle follow his example?
Marianne: I’m going nowhere
Reports of the death of the Marianne Williamson campaign are greatly exaggerated! A number of tweets last night claimed that the TV spiritualist, who came third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary with 4 percent, was suspending her 2024 bid for the White House. Not so fast, said Marianne.
“I have NOT said I am suspending the campaign,” she tweeted. “I was candid about discussing the challenges that a grass roots campaign faces at such a moment as this. Believe nothing until you’ve heard it from me.”
Marianne did manage to beat the “ceasefire” write-in campaign by 3,500 votes, which, she told The Spectator’s Matt McDonald Saturday, she thought was “self-indulgent” and “performative.” The show goes on!
More from Cockburn this week
MAGA ecstasy at the New Hampshire Trump victory party
Woody Allen pens new short story for the New Criterion
Trump bars Haley donors from the ‘MAGA camp’
