1. John Bolton and Tina Peters
I was up early this morning reporting on the FBI’s raid of John Bolton’s home. It’s a bad sign of where we stand as a country.
We do not know what the allegations against Bolton are. We do know that five years ago the Trump administration attempted to prevent him from publishing his book. It failed.
It then attempted to seize the proceeds of his book. It failed.
It then opened a criminal investigation against him. It, again, failed.
Is it possible that the FBI now has new information that credibly suggests criminal acts by Bolton? Anything is possible, I suppose.
But it strains credulity to believe that the FBI has information that would suggest the need for exigency in conducting a search of Bolton’s home. Meaning: If this were a normal criminal investigation concerning years-old classified documents, the government would have had a conversation with Bolton’s lawyer and arranged for a routine, consensual search. Because Bolton is not a drug dealer or an embezzler.
Instead, the FBI enlisted the local police and stormed Bolton’s house at dawn.
To send a message. Not to Bolton. But to the rest of us.
If you are not nice to President Trump, he will bring the full force of the state down upon your life.
But of course, that’s only half of the message. The other half was delivered by President Trump yesterday on Truth Social:
Who is Tina Peters, this brave patriot?
She is a woman who was arrested, tried, and convicted of election tampering. She was a county clerk in Colorado who used a stolen security card to give an unauthorized nut job access to Colorado voting data. This man took the data and smuggled it to Mike Lindell.
Tina Peters had her day in court. She was convicted by a jury of her peers. And now Trump uses the office of the presidency to threaten “harsh measures” against Colorado if Peters is not released.
If you are nice to President Trump, he will use the full force of the state to help you.
There is no “law.” Not even a pretense of objectivity. There are only friends and enemies. This is Putinism. It’s happening, right here. Today.
2. Friends
Bolton is not a sympathetic figure. He is haughty and self-important. He kicks down. He is barely half as clever as he thinks.
In 2017 he began campaigning for a post in the Trump administration by going on Fox and relentlessly insisting that what we all saw with our own eyes wasn’t true. He was so obsessed with access and power that he was disgustingly, preposterously, eager to bend the knee.
Some time later he blamed Democrats for not succeeding in removing Trump from office even though he refused to help them during the impeachment proceedings.
And all of that ignores the degree to which his views on foreign policy have been vitiated by events.
But he has two marks in his favor, and they’re big ones.
The first is that whatever you think of Bolton’s worldview, he has been consistent in it. He did not abandon the hawkishness that has been his life’s work just because Trump was president. In fact, Bolton’s falling out with Trump was largely driven by his unwillingness to sign off on Trump’s isolationism and corruption. So if Bolton has been wrong about foreign policy, at least he’s been honestly wrong.
The second is that, when the chips were finally down, he exhibited courage. He told the public what he saw.
Not on the timetable you or I might have preferred. Nor with the humility that should have accompanied it. But he revealed important facts that otherwise would have remained hidden and he did so at great personal risk.
Which is why everyone on the side of liberalism and the rule of law ought to take Bolton’s side today. Solidarity.
One more thing about courage.
I sat down for a chat with Pod Save’s Jon Lovett this week. He was great. An interesting thinker and a genuine guy.
But I want to push back against something he said. Late in our conversation Jon very nicely praised me for being courageous in leaving the Republican party and the conservative movement and standing up for principles.
That’s kind of him, but the truth is that I was never more than adjacent to movement conservatism and I was really never part of the Republican party.1 So walking away from Trumpism didn’t take any special courage on my part. I didn’t even have to muster the gumption to quit my job—someone else made that choice for me.
Which is why I have a special kind of respect for people like Bolton. Even if I don’t like them.
Unlike me, many of my colleagues at The Bulwark showed tremendous courage. The kind that leaves me in awe.
Bill Kristol, Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Mona Charen, and our old pal Charlie Sykes blew up their professional and personal lives in response to Trump.2 The stones on these people—I can’t begin to tell you. And on top of it, they are all fantastic human beings.
Their courage is the heart of what we do at The Bulwark. It’s something I think about, every day; always beating in the background, a telltale heart.
Truth. Courage. Grace. Those are the lodestars here. Thank you to all of you who are walking that road with me.
And to anyone who wants to run with this crew, I hope you’ll join us. Right now.
3. Pitchers
This is a longform New York Times piece about what has happened to kids who pitch in baseball and let me tell you: I have lived every single line of this thing.
From highlight reels of big league at-bats to clips of 12-year-olds throwing 82 m.p.h. at the Little League World Series, velocity turns talent into an objective, rankable metric. Tips on how to throw harder, faster, in more eye-catching ways, are everywhere online, unvetted by safety experts and aimed at ambitious young players.
The incentives are the same across all levels of baseball: throw harder to be noticed. For kids, though, the pursuit of eye-popping velocity is risky if not undertaken carefully. And often even if it is. . . .
Maximizing velocity means throwing a ball really hard — unnaturally hard. So hard, sometimes, that the ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow cannot withstand the repeated abuse. That can lead to U.C.L. reconstruction in a procedure named after the first Major League pitcher to receive it: Tommy John surgery. More and more pitchers are going under the knife to pay the price that comes from chasing triple-digit speed.
But the chase, beginning at younger and younger ages, continues. . . .
If your child has a particular passion, and shows promise, should you put them in a position to become as good as he or she possibly can? Should you spend as much money as you possibly can? What if there are inherent risks?
It can be easy to criticize parents who participate — or even just let their children participate — in the increasing professionalization and optimization of youth pitching. But the incentive would exist even if any one individual chose not to engage. In some ways, the most dangerous part about programs designed to help youth pitchers throw harder is that they work. . . .
Jered Goodwin, the vice president of scouting operations at Perfect Game, said that at a 2018 national showcase for rising seniors, 14 pitchers threw at least 94 m.p.h. In 2024, at that same event, 49 pitchers hit 94 m.p.h.
Some experts say the prominence of Perfect Game, which charges fees for participating in tournaments and showcases, is part of the problem when it comes to keeping young players safe.
Read the whole thing. My oldest son, Flash, is one of these stories. He has been throwing hard since he was 6. I was so focused on healthy development that I kept him out of organized baseball until he was 10 and didn’t let him join a travel program until he was 12. He was throwing 83 mph as a high school freshman.
And he was a high school freshman when he tore his UCL. Pitching at a Perfect Game event.
We have turned pretty much all of youth sports into what gymnastics used to be. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing.
I am not a joiner.
Same with George Conway, who is a mensch and a basically a Bulwark in-law.
What happened this morning was absolutely meant to chill all of us into silence, and I would argue it SHOULD have the opposite effect. We SHOULD all be in the streets right now. We are just ignoring every single off ramp and careening towards the cliff willingly it feels like these days.
What you said on the Bulwark live this morning was spot on. Trump picked Bolton because he is an easy mark. Liberals and MAGA alike can be like shrug, Bolton is gross so who cares. NO.
We have to care because he was the easy mark. We have to call out this gangster style government even when we don’t personally love the people they target.
Incredibly grateful for everyone at the Bulwark who left the Republican Party and put America first (the right way). I wish we had more people who put country over party. But I’m going to keep being inspired by the ones who do.
“Bolton is not a sympathetic figure. He is haughty and self-important. He kicks down. He is barely half as clever as he thinks.”
Thank you for this, JVL! Bolton is a “Jack-ass,” and this is me being diplomatic. That said, what’s happening is an abuse of power (also being diplomatic).
Bottom line: we don’t have to agree in order to protect the rantings of deranged people from either side; however, we have an obligation to protect and support everyone, whether we agree or not, when an injustice is being inflicted by a bunch of looney-tunes; charlatans and grifters, who happen to be the in charge of our current government. IMHO…:)