Elisenne Stoller

Oct 7, 2024 | thespectator.com | Amber Duke |Ben Domenech |Olivia Cole |Elisenne Stoller

The official death toll from Hurricane Helene rose yesterday to 227 across six states, with about half of the victims being in North Carolina. But sources on the ground in North Carolina tell The Spectator that the true scope of the death and devastation wrought by the storm is not even close to being understood. In addition, the rescue and recovery efforts have been largely undertaken by private citizens, as the state and federal responses have been hamstrung by incompetent public officials.

Sep 12, 2024 | thespectator.com | Elisenne Stoller |Joan Collins |Roger Kimball |Deborah Ross

When hearing “Taiwan,” people who have some awareness of the world will think of its focal role in US-China relations or computer chips. And if they don’t have much awareness they’ll confuse it with Thailand — yes, this has happened to me multiple times. But most simply do not know much about the island that was once known as “Ilha Formosa” —beautiful island — by Portuguese settlers in the sixteenth century. The colonizers knew what they were talking about.

Aug 23, 2024 | thespectator.com | Freddy Gray |Olivia Potts |Ben Domenech |Elisenne Stoller

ChicagoPour one out for the Beyhive. For the bulk of the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the topic of conversation was: who is the mystery guest? The speculation ran rampant but was mostly focused on the myth of the goddess — Beyoncé herself was going to descend from the sky to affirm the ascendance of Kamala Harris. And then it turned out that the bright shiny mystery box contained… nothing at all. Too bad, so sad.

Aug 23, 2024 | thespectator.com | Freddy Gray |Ben Domenech |Amber Duke |Elisenne Stoller

Convention guests looking to play a game of IRL “Who? Weekly” were best off hanging out at the CNN-Politico Grill, which served free booze and local delicacies all week. Smoking was forbidden, sadly. On Thursday Cockburn caught up with Iain “Young Sheldon” Armitage — who confirmed that a third season of Big Little Lies is “happening” while he was mixing an ice cream float — and spoke to Dean Norris, AKA Hank from Breaking Bad.

Aug 23, 2024 | thespectator.com | Ben Domenech |Freddy Gray |Elisenne Stoller |Amber Duke

Welcome to Thunderdome. So after all that, the rumors of huge celebrity appearance or endorsements — Beyoncé! Taylor Swift!!! George W. Bush!? — what Democrats delivered in Chicago was a convention that just felt like a box-checking exercise. There were no huge surprises. There was no over-the-top Hollywoodland display. The biggest name to show up was Oprah. The parties were decidedly lackluster. The off-air logistics were a disaster.