"The erasure of the deaths of Lt. Feehan, Pvt. Gonzales, Sgt. Rampersand, and Sgt. Swinton is only one of many, many instances of the dishonesty of the Trump administration..."
Why bother telling the truth when their voters can't tell the difference?
The only way this changes is when voters hold them accountable for lying. In the past, this would be a major scandal. The government de-legitimizing soldier deaths to make themselves look better?
Now we are too fragmented and consumed by petty issues to care about anything but gas prices it seems.
Is it AI or is it real? What's the point of it all anyway, nothing really matters. /s
I would hope that the parents of these Warfighters(tm) raise holy hell on the administration over this move. It will be a grind, but I just cannot imagine that there's any reward for DJT to piss all over these parents specifically, though he's certainly likely to do so.
They should also contact the VFW. They've stood in the door about Veterans' rights and benefits where the American Legion has dropped the ball or bent the knee.
I'm not from a military family (grandfather served in WWII, father in Vietnam, neither by choice, really), but I just cannot understand how so many in the military can stand behind (or under, given that it's literal sh*t being dumped on them) the administration's behavior/treatment of them. It's like watching people get sucker punched continuously. At some point you'd think they would realize that none of it is worth keeping that one trans kid two states over from playing T-ball.
My family has a history of service. Grandfather WWI, uncles WWII, an aunt WWII and Korea (US Army nurse), father post Korea/Early Cold war, myself Cold War, and my son, a Marine who was medically discharged due to service related causes (who's still fighting tooth and nail for basic medical assistance/benefits). I used to be proud of my family's military service. With this fascist regime? No more. They served to defend our country and constitution, not some fascist conman and his billionaire owners. Unless there's drastic changes, I would sell everything I own to finance my grandchildren to be able to leave this country before serving in its military (now about to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel and the IDF). Sorry about the long winded reply, I'm absolutely furious about what is happening to our military and especially our country as a whole.
If they push back, he'll just call them Left Wing Lunatics or Antifa or some other smear. Fox News will "investigate" them. MAGA loons will start harassing them.
Exactly, hence my statement that it would be a grind. Look what the Sandy Hook parents had to deal with in the aftermath of those murders. No doubt painful, but pushing back became an animating force for some of them, a way to show respect for their children.
The Sandy Hook parents should be an inspiration to everyone.
At the same time, Alex Jones is still out there making money and not paying them. They got a $1 billion judgement against that guy and he's still out there doing his thing. I love that The Onion has InfoWars now, but does it make any difference?
It was before my time, but when General Westmoreland was lying about how things were going in Vietnam, once people found out he was lying, I'm pretty sure the American people were irate about it. I'm sure there are folks here who know much more about that history than I. But we are seeing this administration lie every time it says anything about the war; their broad silence on the war is punctuated by occasional lies. They cannot say an honest thing in general, and that certainly goes for any time they speak about this conflict. But this shameless and copious dishonesty is met by the public with a shrug, and accountability is not only absent, but unimaginable.
We are a very different country than we were in the Vietnam era, and in many ways worse. At that time, we expected politicians to be honest, and when they weren't, there would be some consequences. There might even be condemnations from partisans on the same side. There were protests, major protests, over Vietnam and the lies we were fed. A president was impeached and resigned to avoid conviction, because Americans and politicians had some baseline expectation of acceptable behavior and this could even occasionally transcend partisan allegiances. The Republican Party and Donald Trump have ruined this country, to the point where corruption is not only tolerated but tenaciously defended, and accountability is inconceivable. This is a path to ruin, if we've not already reached that destination.
The biggest difference between then and now with respect to the shaping of public opinion in the wake of a scandal---and it's a big, BIG difference--is that back then, the journalism establishment was serious, professional, and civic-minded in a way that would be unimaginable to, say, a Jesse Watters or a Greg Gutfeld.
The three big networks, the major dailies (and practically every US city had several daily papers in those days)--they delivered the news to the best of their ability. They had reporters accredited to every major city in the world, to battle zones, to all the places where "the news" was happening.
And when they gathered the news, on the whole they didn't Murdoch it or Musk it on its way to the front page.
When the American public learned basic unsettling truths about Vietnam, support for the war, initially quite strong, crumbled; just as images of violent white racism in the South changed the public attitude from a slightly appalled, genteel hostility to the civil rights movement, to a measured support for the core concept of "civil rights."
So much hate is lavished on the American people. It seems like a waste of time to me. The people are what and who they always were.
The leaders, and the press, are not. It is the transformation of the elite class that has done us lethal damage and shredded our national conscience.
Journalism today is still serious, professional, and civic-minded, but a large portion of the voters are convinced by their preferred media outlet that this is not the case. Good information is easier to find than ever before, but people seem to lack discernment, and bad information is also easier to find than ever before. This is not changing; it's getting worse and will get much worse.
It's likely that Americans of the Johnson/Nixon era would have been duped like they have been today had the media environment then been like ours is today. Ultimately, though, the current media environment is not going back to what it was, and consumers just need to be better. Deceitful media wouldn't exist if there weren't a market for it, and no one is forced to stew in propaganda all day, people are just choosing it.
I have to disagree that good information is easier to find than ever. It very much is not. Bad, misleading, outright lies are a dime a dozen and are literally spoon fed to us by the algorithms but finding honest to god real verified factual information? You have to dig. And dig some more. And then crosscheck it with another trusted source. And then one morning that trusted source has shut down, or been bought by a PE firm or has "gone in a different direction." And AI has made this 100 times worse because too many people believe that because the AI "sounds" confident and it's coming from Google that it must be right.
If the truth were on its side, this administration would be seeking out every microphone and camera it could find, every day, as often as possible. Instead they avoid press conferences, spin and deflect away from legitimate questions, shoot the messengers who dare to question their authority and behavior, and show their overall ignorance and lack of preparedness as unserious people in very serious matters of global importance.
It's not hard to connect the dots on this issue. What's hard is to see the truth die a slow death among our elected leaders and so many people in our midst not care at all that our government at the highest levels has become one of the most deceptive and corrupt regimes on Earth. This is America here and now. We bought it, twice, so we own it. As the saying goes, we get what we settle for more than what we deserve, but in this case it has become both. No one will feel sorry for us once we finally wake up to reality.
I'd argue that Republicans just took advantage of the void in accountability, created by the disinterest and decadence of the American public.
It isn't as if we don't have the tools to demand accountability. We all still get a fair vote. Everyone could still think critically about their vote and decide not to vote for politicians who take them for fools, if they so chose. No matter the party, I'm not voting for someone who marks me as a fool.
If you continue to vote for people who take you as fools, then you're the fool.
Republicans run on the lie that you can't vote for a Democrat, because they look down on you. But no one has more contempt for Republican voters than Republican politicians. The politicians feel free to shout any lie, no matter how outrageous, and expect their voters to fall for it. And they often do. If that's not contempt, I don't know what is.
And why would a Republican politician feel bad about voting to reduce those voters healthcare or food assistance. If those voters fall for lies so easily it is easy to fuck them over.
It wasn't before my time. Lyndon Johnson tried his very best to send me to Vietnam to get my ass shot off, so I was paying attention. Lyndon Johnson lied about Vietnam, and so did everyone who worked for him, over and over again. Robert McNamara lied about Vietnam, and so did General Westmoreland. They all lied: every single day.
More than anything, this was why I was a Republican for 4 decades. And about the time I started thinking, "The Republicans are actually pretty awful," along came Bill Clinton. And what did he do? He didn't lie as often as Trump, but he was the most skilled liar in the history of American politics.
A lot of people knew Johnson was lying about Vietnam, but not everyone. The "Greatest Generation" was very patriotic, in the sense that they would reflexively back anything a president wanted to do. If they thought he was lying, they assumed it was in the national interest. They hated the lazy, long-haired hippies who protested and made trouble. When the National Guard killed students at Kent State, I heard my parent's friends say, "They had it coming."
I think Americans were as divided during the Vietnam era as they are now. For all the lying Johnson did about Vietnam, he did pass civil rights legislation, and half the country was livid about that. A decade ago, I believed that we had made a lot of progress during my life. Trump has revealed that I was mistaken.
I was in the same place you were a decade ago. How could we be a racist nation? We elected then reelected a black man president. Sure there were pockets, but could a racist nation have done that?
It's horrifying how much the backlash to the Obama presidency has set us back.
If I remember correctly, I do believe that Gen. Westmoreland did feel guilt over the war and worked to further veterans' causes after the war. I'm sure Gen. Hertling could could back up or correct my memory. I would definitely love to hear his views on that. He's become one of my favorite contributors.
In the ‘60’s, we took the body counts as given by our government and the Viet Cong and divided by half to get what we figured was probably a more accurate number. As then, now neither side are trustworthy actors. And the people who started the war didn’t think it was going to last that long, either.
I think the folks who are left in the administration are too dumb to lie effectively. Some parts of the public may find high death tolls incentives to fight harder unless they are full American first, in which case they don’t want to be there at all. Cognitive dissonance all around for everyone.
Bill: "But it is also, of course, part of a broader phenomenon. As retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges told the Times, “The administration seems to have a real hard time being honest about what is going on—not just about casualties, but about the whole war in general.” And about much else besides."
Translation: The president and his administration are lying liars who lie.
I just had a thought while watching Sam Stein on the opening block of Morning Joe today:
Since the only "journalists" allowed to report from the Pentagon are the propaganda machines, should the institutional journalists turn their investigative eyes on them? If these propaganda machines are spewing out false information (number of service member deaths, dollars spent, injuries, etc.}, perhaps some reporting on this situation would be in order.
IMHO: dominant black background = ¡MUY bueno! It's how I've always read Bulwark until today. I guess until today I've been getting everything from Substack via email. At least, all the Bulwark stuff I read has been "Substack formatted" until today.
I'm glad they got some positive feedback. It's good to hear multiple perspectives. It's worth mentioning that I rarely go to the website, and watch everything on substack and YouTube, and don't look at the emails.
Is there a switch somewhere? I’ve only seen black text on white background. I don’t see a “dark mode” switch right off, but that’s not a gold dress/white dress thing, if you’re seeing white-on-black you’re seeing a different site than I am and I wonder why.
The top part is white on black, which is incredibly annoying and stark. The comments and articles are a harsh bold black sans serif font that literally hurts my eyes.
"You may have noticed that Morning Shots looks a little different today. This is part of a wider refresh for The Bulwark that we’re excited to share with you today. We hope you like what you see..."
A LITTLE different? It's a complete overhaul - and everything about it is AWFUL.
I definitely don't get it. I tried reading yesterday's MS and Triad, and had borderline headache / nausea by the time I finished. If they keep this format I'm going to have to stop reading the articles and just watch the videos - which would be awful for me as this is my #1 source of info.
I don't mind it once I am inside the article and overall there is a crisper feel to everything but dammit where the hell do I find replies to my comments?? It used to be easy to click on an icon at the top right of my page
Bulwark-Please look into this and keep it in the spotlight:
Something that needs to be addressed and kept an eye on by the press regarding current service members (and future vets) benefits. Veterans' benefits are not all encompassing for each service member. Many can depend on where you served (e.g., in theater vs not), when you served (e.g., during a campaign {war vs 'skirmish'} vs not) and how the member was injured or killed (e.g., combat vs not). The Trump administration playing with these classifications is not only sickening to observe, but it could also have SERIOUS ramifications on survivor's benefits (family of the fallen) and the quality of care and life for the veterans wounded in this fiasco for the rest of their lives. Vets are already screwed on a regular basis, please do not let this one go unnoticed until its already too late. Thanks.
Very important point to bring up! The trump administration is scummy enough to screw over active duty and veterans while they're alive and screw over their families after they pass or make the ultimate sacrifice in war.
Also, I think the number of hours since a story or video were posted is important. There have been times when the ridiculous trump regime reverses itself so quickly that it’s necessary to recognize whether a given Bulwark story came out before or after the reversal.
Yes, I think that every article, video, post or comment should carry a date & time stamp. Something like "July 24, 2026, 10:48AM". Any reasonable format would be fine of course.
I'm guessing Herrera's heart was broken at some point in his past, and instead of working past it, he turned bitter. Perhaps he also doesn't realize that he, too, is a "cum trophy".
The site update was a bit startling yesterday. I started the morning with the old format. I was reading an article, then, after finishing, returned to the home page and it was transformed! It's fine, I suppose...change for change's sake. Whatever, kids...have your way.
The one change I've seen that I don't like is that I no longer see notification about comment activity on the home page. Besides tracking my JVL likes, those notifications are what helps fuel my interactions in the comment threads. My work around is to have a separate substack window open to see what comments are seeing action.
For an administration that insists on calling the DOD the DEPARTMENT OF WAR, they seem to have a hard time calling any military action by that name. I wish I could believe that definitions of war or when they start and stop was the only reason for ignoring those four soldier's sacrifice. But then I look at the faces and the genders and I can't not see what I see.
Not sure what you all have done, but Morning Shots was unreadable in my email this morning (on my phone). Link to comment was gone as well. So, uh, not a fan of the redesign.
My email was fine, and link to the comment button in the red title square at the top of the message also worked. I have Gmail and read my messages in Outlook.
A quick thought or critique. I was filled with curiosity today and clicked on the "Read To Me" button. Fun! The voice is clearly an artificial one, unless I'm wildly mistaken. That's fine by me I have no problem with it, and I think it's a good use of technology that predated LLMs but has been recently much expanded to enhance accessibility for everyone. Honestly it's a fairly pleasant voice. However:
1) I do think it might be good given people's big feelings about AI and how much more sophisticated generated voices sound now to have it clearly stated that it is artificial, as I've seen on some other sites such as The Atlantic. I think it's important to know what was made and done directly by humans and what was mediated through AI at this point in time in our history and culture.
2) It would be better if the transcript/voice read alt text for images if possible, at least in some instances. I literally laughed out loud when it ended abruptly, and chipperly by saying "Cheap Shots!"
I suspected that might have been the case, I just never clicked before. I guess the site changes made it more prominent to me or just made me more curious!
Yeah I agree, but I don't think that's realistic for a small organization that is focused on other things. I don't think it's good for all of society that everyone wants video podcasts as their prime way of being informed about the world but I can't evangelize to the whole internet about the glory of text haha
The unrealisticness is why I'm not at all bothered by the artificial voice in this case. This is nothing new, just a new form creating something or creating a way of being able to consume something that otherwise wouldn't exists. We're just giving the screen reading technology visually impaired people have used for years now to everyone more or less. We aren't putting voice actors out of work.
That said... do I salivate over the hilarious idea of hearing Bill Kristol do his best Trump impersonation when he does those periodic "Trump's Brain" pieces? Hell yes.
As for your last paragraph, it would be great to hear Bill do that and to hear the snark/irony/sarcasm in the creators' voices when they want to make a point! LOL!
There must be some mistake because I really do not understand the following if this is indeed the DoD position: four soldiers were killed by incoming Iranian fire but are not KIA . . . "because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.” So , setting aside the President's declarations made ever since of his intention to destroy Iran, because he proclaimed peace then they didn't die in combat. That's a big problem.
I’m wondering what the families of these soldiers are losing out on by their no longer being considered KIA…are there certain death benefits they would lose, or certain medals of recognition for their loss? This decision could have effects further reaching than just numbers released to the public
Oh, I didn't even realize that was a possibility. We need Gen. Hertling to explain whether this attempt at deceiving the public has a material impact on the benefits their families receive.
There are ramifications of this cruel decision. People need to contact their reps and senators. Maybe even contact the VFW to demand that they do something too.
>>> " a new coalition of young men that are disproportionately nihilistic, terminally online edgelords."
This is the culmination of Steve Banon's gamer gate pivot into politics. The 4chan, nazi-sympathizing kids were always around but politically inactive before gamergate, and Banon's contribution to the current crisis in the Republican party was turning all the chuds onto MAGA.
Before Banon took on his final form, he was running World of Warcraft gold farms. He's like a bizarro world anti-Lincoln, envisioning a government of and for the trolls, failsons, and manchildren.
"The erasure of the deaths of Lt. Feehan, Pvt. Gonzales, Sgt. Rampersand, and Sgt. Swinton is only one of many, many instances of the dishonesty of the Trump administration..."
Why bother telling the truth when their voters can't tell the difference?
The only way this changes is when voters hold them accountable for lying. In the past, this would be a major scandal. The government de-legitimizing soldier deaths to make themselves look better?
Now we are too fragmented and consumed by petty issues to care about anything but gas prices it seems.
Or their voters like it when they lie.
Is it AI or is it real? What's the point of it all anyway, nothing really matters. /s
I would hope that the parents of these Warfighters(tm) raise holy hell on the administration over this move. It will be a grind, but I just cannot imagine that there's any reward for DJT to piss all over these parents specifically, though he's certainly likely to do so.
They should also contact the VFW. They've stood in the door about Veterans' rights and benefits where the American Legion has dropped the ball or bent the knee.
I'm not from a military family (grandfather served in WWII, father in Vietnam, neither by choice, really), but I just cannot understand how so many in the military can stand behind (or under, given that it's literal sh*t being dumped on them) the administration's behavior/treatment of them. It's like watching people get sucker punched continuously. At some point you'd think they would realize that none of it is worth keeping that one trans kid two states over from playing T-ball.
My family has a history of service. Grandfather WWI, uncles WWII, an aunt WWII and Korea (US Army nurse), father post Korea/Early Cold war, myself Cold War, and my son, a Marine who was medically discharged due to service related causes (who's still fighting tooth and nail for basic medical assistance/benefits). I used to be proud of my family's military service. With this fascist regime? No more. They served to defend our country and constitution, not some fascist conman and his billionaire owners. Unless there's drastic changes, I would sell everything I own to finance my grandchildren to be able to leave this country before serving in its military (now about to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel and the IDF). Sorry about the long winded reply, I'm absolutely furious about what is happening to our military and especially our country as a whole.
If they push back, he'll just call them Left Wing Lunatics or Antifa or some other smear. Fox News will "investigate" them. MAGA loons will start harassing them.
It's too much to ask grieving parents to bear.
Exactly, hence my statement that it would be a grind. Look what the Sandy Hook parents had to deal with in the aftermath of those murders. No doubt painful, but pushing back became an animating force for some of them, a way to show respect for their children.
The Sandy Hook parents should be an inspiration to everyone.
At the same time, Alex Jones is still out there making money and not paying them. They got a $1 billion judgement against that guy and he's still out there doing his thing. I love that The Onion has InfoWars now, but does it make any difference?
I suppose they are less dead.
Their deaths cannot be acknowledged because they occurred after Trump "ended" the war.
It was before my time, but when General Westmoreland was lying about how things were going in Vietnam, once people found out he was lying, I'm pretty sure the American people were irate about it. I'm sure there are folks here who know much more about that history than I. But we are seeing this administration lie every time it says anything about the war; their broad silence on the war is punctuated by occasional lies. They cannot say an honest thing in general, and that certainly goes for any time they speak about this conflict. But this shameless and copious dishonesty is met by the public with a shrug, and accountability is not only absent, but unimaginable.
We are a very different country than we were in the Vietnam era, and in many ways worse. At that time, we expected politicians to be honest, and when they weren't, there would be some consequences. There might even be condemnations from partisans on the same side. There were protests, major protests, over Vietnam and the lies we were fed. A president was impeached and resigned to avoid conviction, because Americans and politicians had some baseline expectation of acceptable behavior and this could even occasionally transcend partisan allegiances. The Republican Party and Donald Trump have ruined this country, to the point where corruption is not only tolerated but tenaciously defended, and accountability is inconceivable. This is a path to ruin, if we've not already reached that destination.
The biggest difference between then and now with respect to the shaping of public opinion in the wake of a scandal---and it's a big, BIG difference--is that back then, the journalism establishment was serious, professional, and civic-minded in a way that would be unimaginable to, say, a Jesse Watters or a Greg Gutfeld.
The three big networks, the major dailies (and practically every US city had several daily papers in those days)--they delivered the news to the best of their ability. They had reporters accredited to every major city in the world, to battle zones, to all the places where "the news" was happening.
And when they gathered the news, on the whole they didn't Murdoch it or Musk it on its way to the front page.
When the American public learned basic unsettling truths about Vietnam, support for the war, initially quite strong, crumbled; just as images of violent white racism in the South changed the public attitude from a slightly appalled, genteel hostility to the civil rights movement, to a measured support for the core concept of "civil rights."
So much hate is lavished on the American people. It seems like a waste of time to me. The people are what and who they always were.
The leaders, and the press, are not. It is the transformation of the elite class that has done us lethal damage and shredded our national conscience.
Journalism today is still serious, professional, and civic-minded, but a large portion of the voters are convinced by their preferred media outlet that this is not the case. Good information is easier to find than ever before, but people seem to lack discernment, and bad information is also easier to find than ever before. This is not changing; it's getting worse and will get much worse.
It's likely that Americans of the Johnson/Nixon era would have been duped like they have been today had the media environment then been like ours is today. Ultimately, though, the current media environment is not going back to what it was, and consumers just need to be better. Deceitful media wouldn't exist if there weren't a market for it, and no one is forced to stew in propaganda all day, people are just choosing it.
I have to disagree that good information is easier to find than ever. It very much is not. Bad, misleading, outright lies are a dime a dozen and are literally spoon fed to us by the algorithms but finding honest to god real verified factual information? You have to dig. And dig some more. And then crosscheck it with another trusted source. And then one morning that trusted source has shut down, or been bought by a PE firm or has "gone in a different direction." And AI has made this 100 times worse because too many people believe that because the AI "sounds" confident and it's coming from Google that it must be right.
It is MADDENING.
If the truth were on its side, this administration would be seeking out every microphone and camera it could find, every day, as often as possible. Instead they avoid press conferences, spin and deflect away from legitimate questions, shoot the messengers who dare to question their authority and behavior, and show their overall ignorance and lack of preparedness as unserious people in very serious matters of global importance.
It's not hard to connect the dots on this issue. What's hard is to see the truth die a slow death among our elected leaders and so many people in our midst not care at all that our government at the highest levels has become one of the most deceptive and corrupt regimes on Earth. This is America here and now. We bought it, twice, so we own it. As the saying goes, we get what we settle for more than what we deserve, but in this case it has become both. No one will feel sorry for us once we finally wake up to reality.
I'd argue that Republicans just took advantage of the void in accountability, created by the disinterest and decadence of the American public.
It isn't as if we don't have the tools to demand accountability. We all still get a fair vote. Everyone could still think critically about their vote and decide not to vote for politicians who take them for fools, if they so chose. No matter the party, I'm not voting for someone who marks me as a fool.
If you continue to vote for people who take you as fools, then you're the fool.
Republicans run on the lie that you can't vote for a Democrat, because they look down on you. But no one has more contempt for Republican voters than Republican politicians. The politicians feel free to shout any lie, no matter how outrageous, and expect their voters to fall for it. And they often do. If that's not contempt, I don't know what is.
And why would a Republican politician feel bad about voting to reduce those voters healthcare or food assistance. If those voters fall for lies so easily it is easy to fuck them over.
Accountability is inconceivable.... You put this perfectly.
This is the entire administration. It makes me so angry.
I'm sorry but I couldn't help myself. When I read your comment I instantly thought of "The Princess Bride".
It wasn't before my time. Lyndon Johnson tried his very best to send me to Vietnam to get my ass shot off, so I was paying attention. Lyndon Johnson lied about Vietnam, and so did everyone who worked for him, over and over again. Robert McNamara lied about Vietnam, and so did General Westmoreland. They all lied: every single day.
More than anything, this was why I was a Republican for 4 decades. And about the time I started thinking, "The Republicans are actually pretty awful," along came Bill Clinton. And what did he do? He didn't lie as often as Trump, but he was the most skilled liar in the history of American politics.
A lot of people knew Johnson was lying about Vietnam, but not everyone. The "Greatest Generation" was very patriotic, in the sense that they would reflexively back anything a president wanted to do. If they thought he was lying, they assumed it was in the national interest. They hated the lazy, long-haired hippies who protested and made trouble. When the National Guard killed students at Kent State, I heard my parent's friends say, "They had it coming."
I think Americans were as divided during the Vietnam era as they are now. For all the lying Johnson did about Vietnam, he did pass civil rights legislation, and half the country was livid about that. A decade ago, I believed that we had made a lot of progress during my life. Trump has revealed that I was mistaken.
I was in the same place you were a decade ago. How could we be a racist nation? We elected then reelected a black man president. Sure there were pockets, but could a racist nation have done that?
It's horrifying how much the backlash to the Obama presidency has set us back.
If I remember correctly, I do believe that Gen. Westmoreland did feel guilt over the war and worked to further veterans' causes after the war. I'm sure Gen. Hertling could could back up or correct my memory. I would definitely love to hear his views on that. He's become one of my favorite contributors.
In the ‘60’s, we took the body counts as given by our government and the Viet Cong and divided by half to get what we figured was probably a more accurate number. As then, now neither side are trustworthy actors. And the people who started the war didn’t think it was going to last that long, either.
I think the folks who are left in the administration are too dumb to lie effectively. Some parts of the public may find high death tolls incentives to fight harder unless they are full American first, in which case they don’t want to be there at all. Cognitive dissonance all around for everyone.
Bill: "But it is also, of course, part of a broader phenomenon. As retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges told the Times, “The administration seems to have a real hard time being honest about what is going on—not just about casualties, but about the whole war in general.” And about much else besides."
Translation: The president and his administration are lying liars who lie.
I just had a thought while watching Sam Stein on the opening block of Morning Joe today:
Since the only "journalists" allowed to report from the Pentagon are the propaganda machines, should the institutional journalists turn their investigative eyes on them? If these propaganda machines are spewing out false information (number of service member deaths, dollars spent, injuries, etc.}, perhaps some reporting on this situation would be in order.
Don't like the website refresh. Black background with white or red letters is hard on the eyes.
Everything about it is now hard on the eyes.
Dominant black background = No Bueno!
IMHO: dominant black background = ¡MUY bueno! It's how I've always read Bulwark until today. I guess until today I've been getting everything from Substack via email. At least, all the Bulwark stuff I read has been "Substack formatted" until today.
I'm glad they got some positive feedback. It's good to hear multiple perspectives. It's worth mentioning that I rarely go to the website, and watch everything on substack and YouTube, and don't look at the emails.
The email is the same. It's the website that hurts my eyes!
Is there a switch somewhere? I’ve only seen black text on white background. I don’t see a “dark mode” switch right off, but that’s not a gold dress/white dress thing, if you’re seeing white-on-black you’re seeing a different site than I am and I wonder why.
The top part is white on black, which is incredibly annoying and stark. The comments and articles are a harsh bold black sans serif font that literally hurts my eyes.
"You may have noticed that Morning Shots looks a little different today. This is part of a wider refresh for The Bulwark that we’re excited to share with you today. We hope you like what you see..."
A LITTLE different? It's a complete overhaul - and everything about it is AWFUL.
I mean they did this to themselves?
I definitely don't get it. I tried reading yesterday's MS and Triad, and had borderline headache / nausea by the time I finished. If they keep this format I'm going to have to stop reading the articles and just watch the videos - which would be awful for me as this is my #1 source of info.
Agree!!!!!!!!!!! And I don't do videos! I READ!!!!
Ugh. I definitely can't read on here now.
I haven't seen any positive comments about the new look, so hopefully they won't keep it!
I don't mind it once I am inside the article and overall there is a crisper feel to everything but dammit where the hell do I find replies to my comments?? It used to be easy to click on an icon at the top right of my page
Of course it's not a war. It's a Special Military Operation.
Bulwark-Please look into this and keep it in the spotlight:
Something that needs to be addressed and kept an eye on by the press regarding current service members (and future vets) benefits. Veterans' benefits are not all encompassing for each service member. Many can depend on where you served (e.g., in theater vs not), when you served (e.g., during a campaign {war vs 'skirmish'} vs not) and how the member was injured or killed (e.g., combat vs not). The Trump administration playing with these classifications is not only sickening to observe, but it could also have SERIOUS ramifications on survivor's benefits (family of the fallen) and the quality of care and life for the veterans wounded in this fiasco for the rest of their lives. Vets are already screwed on a regular basis, please do not let this one go unnoticed until its already too late. Thanks.
Very important point to bring up! The trump administration is scummy enough to screw over active duty and veterans while they're alive and screw over their families after they pass or make the ultimate sacrifice in war.
Suckers and losers
I wish the new site had a date and when it was posted. Harder for me to find what I am looking for.
Also, I think the number of hours since a story or video were posted is important. There have been times when the ridiculous trump regime reverses itself so quickly that it’s necessary to recognize whether a given Bulwark story came out before or after the reversal.
Yes, I think that every article, video, post or comment should carry a date & time stamp. Something like "July 24, 2026, 10:48AM". Any reasonable format would be fine of course.
Agreed!
Yes!
The GOP: Home of trad wives and their cum trophies.
This is big tent politics, I guess?
Huge tent. Once, we were all just little cum trophies, baking in the oven.
I'm guessing Herrera's heart was broken at some point in his past, and instead of working past it, he turned bitter. Perhaps he also doesn't realize that he, too, is a "cum trophy".
That's big tent *pole* politics amirite? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) 😁
The site update was a bit startling yesterday. I started the morning with the old format. I was reading an article, then, after finishing, returned to the home page and it was transformed! It's fine, I suppose...change for change's sake. Whatever, kids...have your way.
The one change I've seen that I don't like is that I no longer see notification about comment activity on the home page. Besides tracking my JVL likes, those notifications are what helps fuel my interactions in the comment threads. My work around is to have a separate substack window open to see what comments are seeing action.
Don't like that feature either.
For an administration that insists on calling the DOD the DEPARTMENT OF WAR, they seem to have a hard time calling any military action by that name. I wish I could believe that definitions of war or when they start and stop was the only reason for ignoring those four soldier's sacrifice. But then I look at the faces and the genders and I can't not see what I see.
Well, “Department of Excursions” doesn’t sound very macho.
Sounds like a travel agency. And I wouldn't trust Hegseth to book a flight for me . . .
Very Low-T.
Department of Skirmishes had two many syllables.
Not sure what you all have done, but Morning Shots was unreadable in my email this morning (on my phone). Link to comment was gone as well. So, uh, not a fan of the redesign.
i also could not get on through the email like I usually can.
My email was fine, and link to the comment button in the red title square at the top of the message also worked. I have Gmail and read my messages in Outlook.
A quick thought or critique. I was filled with curiosity today and clicked on the "Read To Me" button. Fun! The voice is clearly an artificial one, unless I'm wildly mistaken. That's fine by me I have no problem with it, and I think it's a good use of technology that predated LLMs but has been recently much expanded to enhance accessibility for everyone. Honestly it's a fairly pleasant voice. However:
1) I do think it might be good given people's big feelings about AI and how much more sophisticated generated voices sound now to have it clearly stated that it is artificial, as I've seen on some other sites such as The Atlantic. I think it's important to know what was made and done directly by humans and what was mediated through AI at this point in time in our history and culture.
2) It would be better if the transcript/voice read alt text for images if possible, at least in some instances. I literally laughed out loud when it ended abruptly, and chipperly by saying "Cheap Shots!"
Great feedback. Thank you. This voice has been with us for a while actually—in the Substack and Bulwark apps.
I suspected that might have been the case, I just never clicked before. I guess the site changes made it more prominent to me or just made me more curious!
I actually like being able to listen to real voices that I can attach to real people
It would probably add to their already large workload but it would be cool to hear the actual authors read their pieces.
Yeah I agree, but I don't think that's realistic for a small organization that is focused on other things. I don't think it's good for all of society that everyone wants video podcasts as their prime way of being informed about the world but I can't evangelize to the whole internet about the glory of text haha
The unrealisticness is why I'm not at all bothered by the artificial voice in this case. This is nothing new, just a new form creating something or creating a way of being able to consume something that otherwise wouldn't exists. We're just giving the screen reading technology visually impaired people have used for years now to everyone more or less. We aren't putting voice actors out of work.
That said... do I salivate over the hilarious idea of hearing Bill Kristol do his best Trump impersonation when he does those periodic "Trump's Brain" pieces? Hell yes.
As for your last paragraph, it would be great to hear Bill do that and to hear the snark/irony/sarcasm in the creators' voices when they want to make a point! LOL!
There must be some mistake because I really do not understand the following if this is indeed the DoD position: four soldiers were killed by incoming Iranian fire but are not KIA . . . "because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.” So , setting aside the President's declarations made ever since of his intention to destroy Iran, because he proclaimed peace then they didn't die in combat. That's a big problem.
I’m wondering what the families of these soldiers are losing out on by their no longer being considered KIA…are there certain death benefits they would lose, or certain medals of recognition for their loss? This decision could have effects further reaching than just numbers released to the public
Oh, I didn't even realize that was a possibility. We need Gen. Hertling to explain whether this attempt at deceiving the public has a material impact on the benefits their families receive.
I had the exact same thought.
There are ramifications of this cruel decision. People need to contact their reps and senators. Maybe even contact the VFW to demand that they do something too.
It “keeps his numbers down”. Similar to how you stop COVID by not counting cases of it.
>>> " a new coalition of young men that are disproportionately nihilistic, terminally online edgelords."
This is the culmination of Steve Banon's gamer gate pivot into politics. The 4chan, nazi-sympathizing kids were always around but politically inactive before gamergate, and Banon's contribution to the current crisis in the Republican party was turning all the chuds onto MAGA.
Before Banon took on his final form, he was running World of Warcraft gold farms. He's like a bizarro world anti-Lincoln, envisioning a government of and for the trolls, failsons, and manchildren.
Don't forget the incels. I feel like "cum trophy" was tailored especially for them.