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Four days have passed since the Nord Stream pipelines mysteriously ruptured in the Baltic Sea, just outside of NATO territory. Sabotage is suspected. Many in the West blame Vladimir Putin; others, such as Tucker Carlson, Radek Sikorski and, er, Vladimir Putin, blame America.
But to truly solve this mystery, Cockburn thinks circumstances require us to cast the net a little wider. Here are some potential saboteurs deserving of further scrutiny.
Greta Thunberg
How dare we! The gray Swedish doom-gremlin has dedicated much of the last years to warning us of the looming Armageddon, traipsing from the UN to Davos to COP26. Is it farfetched to suggest that Thunberg might take dramatic steps to ensure her cause is the only option on the table? She would be but the latest environmental warrior to descend into eco-terrorism. The activist was recently spotted in Stockholm and is an experienced seafarer, thanks to the Prince of Monaco’s yacht. Also, the nineteen-year-old was born on the same day as Kyle Rittenhouse — perhaps she, too, considered pipeline sabotage an act of self-defense. We did ruin her childhood, after all.
Hunter Biden
Did someone say “pipe?!” Maybe the “smartest guy” Joe Biden ever knew has been one step ahead of us this whole time. Hunter knows the energy industry intimately — how else could he have secured a board-level position at the Ukrainian natural gas giant Burisma? A lack of natural gas from Russia might mean an increase in demand for natural gas from Ukraine… Cockburn wonders if Hunter’s still holding 10 percent of his profits for “the Big Guy?” It’s also not inconceivable that Hunter, one of the twenty-first century’s most exciting artists, wants us to view the explosions and ensuing bleak winter as an extended performance piece. Maybe he’s hoping to win a Bucksbaum Award for the blasts?
Liz Truss
Truss’s nascent premiership of the United Kingdom is going just swell — provided you don’t pay any attention to her government’s actions and the consequences. The British PM thrived during her first two weeks in power, thanks largely to the fact that the media only really cared about the Queen’s death and the royal funeral for that period. Now the time of mourning is over — and people in Britain are starting to pose tough questions such as, “has your chancellor just crashed the world economy?” and “what are we doing for dinner this winter?” When Truss’s predecessor Boris Johnson was in trouble domestically (mostly over poor party planning), he’d try to change the conversation by pivoting to foreign affairs: usually heading on a jaunt to Ukraine to see his much more popular pal Volodomyr Zelensky. Perhaps a bit of light pipeline sabotage would give Liz the cover she needs to make it to Christmas.
Lizzo
Ms. Lizzo, where were you on the morning of Monday September 26 at “bad bitch o’clock?” The hip-hop singer raised eyebrows this week when she was invited to play James Madison’s crystal flute at the Capitol One Arena on Tuesday, jiggling her buttocks while doing so. Doug Mastriano advisor Jenna Ellis described her performance as a “desecration, purposefully, of America’s history.” But what if this was but Lizzo’s second transgression of the week? The singer has previously proudly bragged that “the juice ain’t worth the squeeze/ If the juice don’t look like this.” Was this a veiled reference to the coming energy crisis? Further investigation is required.
Sanna Marin’s Finnish Instagram influencer friends
Fresh from causing one scandal on the Baltic, could the “Cool Girl” Finnish PM’s celebrity entourage be behind another? Marin has only just recovered from August’s “dance like no one’s watching” debacle. (People were watching.) Perhaps there’s a more sinister reason that her friend Sabina Särkkä was pictured topless kissing another woman in the prime minister’s residence. Could she have been preparing to try on a scuba suit? We can rule nothing out.
Meghan Markle
The only case for this: she can’t stand being out of the news for a week. Don’t look at me!… wait, come back…
Gavin Newsom
The California governor and 2024 hopeful is no stranger to grandstanding political gestures far outside his jurisdiction, as his Fourth of July ad campaign in Florida showed. Since then, the Golden State’s fortunes have dwindled somewhat, with a set of energy shortage-induced rolling blackouts accentuating Cali’s high taxes and grotesque homelessness problems and vindicating the many residents who have chosen to flee in the last few years. One way to make your state look more livable? Make everywhere else less livable. Cracking Nord Stream will silence those “things are so much better in Europe” haters. Plus, judging by Newsom’s choice in hair product, he’s always preferred oil deep down.
