Happy Saturday! Overtime is for everyone. If you’re a Bulwark+ member: thank you. If you’re not, there’s no better time to subscribe to Bulwark+ than today. If you like today’s issue, you can share this newsletter with someone you think would value it.
Elbridge Colby and the Art of Defending the Indefensible
IT’S ONE OF THE WORST JOBS IN WASHINGTON: Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, is tasked with explaining Donald Trump’s erratic foreign policy to the public. But you could just as easily say he volunteered to launder Trump’s bellicose, bizarre acts by finding an intellectual coherence that isn’t there.
The Comey Prosecution Is Dead
THE PROSECUTION OF JAMES COMEY is dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. It is as dead as a doornail. But it's no time to rejoice.
Trump Is Making Government Worse on Purpose
DONALD TRUMP HAS BEEN TRYING for months now to shrink the number of Americans who can vote. So far his efforts have been in vain, but this might be the week he succeeds.
The SAVE Act that Trump is pushing is not simply a voter ID bill. It’s part of his administration’s larger drive to make government interactions as frustrating, time-consuming, and clunky as possible—with the end goal of netting financial or political gain for Trump, his family, his friends, and his enablers.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
The Importance of Being There…
When I moved back to Ohio two years ago, I didn’t move back for work. And while I’m on the complete opposite end of the state from where I grew up, being here has had its advantages.
It’s not just the tri-state nature of Cincinnati, which puts me within easy reach of three states and three distinct political cultures. Some of it has simply been chance. Vivek Ramaswamy becoming the Republican nominee for governor? I saw that one coming a mile away and moved here in spite of it.
Take Springfield. I couldn’t have predicted that JD Vance and Donald Trump would take a heinous lie about hard working Haitian immigrants, refuse to ever walk it back or apologize, and essentially bully a town whose comeback owed so much to those very immigrants. That story found me.
Yesterday, my friend Asawin Suebsaeng of Zeteo, who also lives here in Cincinnati1 and has spent time in Springfield, shared a few observations that I couldn’t get out of my head:
Springfield right now—we can use Megyn Kelly as one of the most resplendently annoying examples—shows a stunning amount of contempt for small American cities like Springfield.
Are there people in the Springfield area who love Trump and want the Haitians cleansed and rounded up? Sure. But the idea that if you rip away all the Haitian immigrants (who have/had documents, by the way!), you’re going to make that city better for the everyday people who live and work there... I don’t know, man. Visit Springfield once and tell me that that is a common-sense conclusion to make.
I’m not saying you have to visit someplace to have a valid political opinion, but I’m not asking you to visit Kyiv. This is, like, right there for a lot of these Two Minutes Hate people.
Being here matters. Being able to see and talk to the people living through this matters a lot. It’s also something both readers and people there have told me: “Thanks for being there.” Or simply, “Thanks for coming.”
Remote punditry is easier than ever these days. Going to their grocery stores, their Walmart, the Eagles Club, walking Buck Creek as the community gathered for a concert, spending time in their thrift stores, pizza parlors2, and places of worship? It changes you.
If I had to write about TPS and what’s happening from Virginia, I could probably write similar stories. But meeting people like Viles Dorsainvil, Carl Ruby, our reader Rick, Marjory Wentworth, and others? It motivates me. It also makes me madder about what’s happening, and about chucklefucks like Megyn Kelly spouting truly awful things from the safety of her air-conditioned studio that SiriusXM helps fund for some reason. Infuriating.
If I thought she were a good-faith actor at this point, I’d encourage her to visit. But I don’t. The good people of that fine city deserve better visitors.
I’ve gotten emails and texts from readers asking how they can help. Unless you’re local and have the time and capacity to help, they need your money. Money is the only thing that will make a material difference right now for Haitians in Springfield.
The three charities Carl Ruby mentioned are the same ones I recommend: The Haitian Community Help & Support Center, St. Vincent de Paul, and Second Harvest Food Bank.
I know some of you have already donated. Thank you.
If you haven’t and can, please do. And if you can’t, I’m appreciative that your support of our publication allowed me to make this move and work on this important story. And a special thanks to our pal “Hawk” for doing a podcast episode, which I’d missed, on my reporting from Springfield.
A laid-off journalist started his own news site… Facebook AI decided he was fake. A must-read story by Cate Charron of the Indianapolis Star on the challenges some in independent media are facing.
‘A True Embarrassment for Jeanine Pirro’: CNN’s Elie Honig Shreds Prosecutor After She Drops Case Against Former Olympian (Mediaite). The vandalism lie was always a lie and they squandered time, money, and credibility on it.
This week’s comment prompt: What’s a meaningful thing you’d like to accomplish before the fall?
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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.
He also joined Will Sommer on the flagship pod this week, if you missed it!
Confession: It’s plural because there are a few locations, but it’s always Cassano’s.
This week’s comment prompt: What’s a meaningful thing you’d like to accomplish before the fall?
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Walk a few steps on my new artificial leg! which will be ready by September (or earlier). Oh man, I can't wait. It's almost certainly going to take adjustments -- I've had many appointments already with these wonderful people, tinkering with my stump of a thigh -- so I probably can't lug my artificial leg home till autumn, but the idea that I can walk a few steps: awesome!
Heartfelt thanks to Jim and entire Bulwark team!
Sharing your personal reasons for moving back to OH resonates on so many levels. It tracks with what I've been relentlessly pursuing as my goal before the fall:
Turning the remaining MAGA members of my family.
Dad in NH, Nana and Grandpa in FL, and Auntie in AZ - you will keep hearing from me.