We Should Be Worried About Inflation

(Except for blimps.)

Leading The Bulwark…

It’s Time to Be Worried About Inflation

DESMOND LACHMAN: Biden’s budget plan is almost guaranteed to overheat the economy.

🎧 On the Pods… 🎧

Peter Wehner on the Road to Political Violence

On today’s Bulwark podcast, Peter Wehner joins Charlie Sykes to discuss the GOP’s current politics and the the road to political violence. Plus, a discussion on America’s growing racial divide, and the catastrophizing mindset.

ATMA: 'Army of the Dead' Review

Plus, what does a potential MGM/Amazon deal mean for the world of movies?

For Bulwark+ Members… 🔐

MORNING SHOTS: The United States of Distrust 🔐

CHARLIE SYKES on Dumbing down the debate over race.

THE TRIAD: Decline Is a Choice 🔐

JVL on Vaccine lotteries and dictators.

BONUS ATMA: Which Indie Director Would You Want to Helm a Big Budget Franchise Flick? 🔐

This week we have a slightly different bonus episode for you: Sonny, Peter, and Alyssa used the occasion of the first trailer for Eternals, from Oscar-winning indie director Chloe Zhao, to ask which indie director we’d like to see make a big budget franchise movie.

From The Bulwark Aggregator…

• The Extremely Welcome, Slightly Jarring Return of Sports Crowds – Will Leitch, Intelligencer

• QAnon Crowd Convinced UFOs Are a Diversion From Voter Fraud – Will Sommer, The Daily Beast

• Other Regimes Will Hijack Planes Too – Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic

• Section 230 Haters Aren’t Going Away – Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason

• Weightlifting, Gatorade, birthday calls: Inside Biden’s day – Ashley Parker, The Washington Post

• Florida’s New Social Media Law Will Be Laughed Out of Court – Giliad Edelman, Wired

• The Anti-Asian Hate Crime Capital of North America is Vancouver – Natalie Obiko Pearson, Bloomberg Businessweek

In Today’s Bulwark...

Inconvenient Anti-Semitism Is Still Anti-Semitism

BLAKE FLAYTON: Liberals must oppose leftwing anti-Semitism as stridently as rightwing anti-Semitism.

Deadly Texas Freeze Cools Interest in Deregulating Energy

PAUL ALEXANDER: Other states were considering copying Texas’s laissez-faire attitude on electricity—but it hasn’t really saved money and now has cost lives.

🚨OVERTIME 🚨

Well, the chimichurri flank steak did not come to pass. Yesterday’s weather was awful, and lo and behold, after an HOA meeting, I had to go get a chainsaw and cut down a fallen tree. But it’s cooking right now and it smells amazing.

Speaking of food… Next time you’re in Ohio, drop by the West Side Market for their famous Pizza Bagels. A kid at my high school’s family ran the stand back then, and now, the new owner is expanding to online sales and Ohio schools and grocery stores. Hopefully they’ll come to Virginia soon. But in the mean time, I might have to order some.

How can you not love this?

Every time you think this story couldn’t get worse, it does.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @ENBrown

Every bit of the claims in this suit are shocking & maddening, from the arrest of a suspected child sex trafficking victim to allegedly ordering one deputy to be raped as part of an undercover operation...

reason.comTexas Deputies Say They Were ‘Molested and Traumatized’ by Colleagues During Federally Funded Prostitution StingsPlus: Georgia loses suit over anti-boycotting law, conservatives rally against Biden’s IRS plan, and more...

The Strange Anti-Semitism of the Pro-Jewish Right… Jonathan Chait at New York has a must-read:

A good sample of this political style is supplied by Lee Smith, a close ally of Devin Nunes, the passionate Trump defender and vocal Israel hawk. Writing in Tablet (a conservative Jewish magazine), Smith posits that the anti-Semitic violence that has appeared in a handful of American cities is actually a false-flag operation, orchestrated by the the “oligarchs” who run the Democratic Party to terrorize their own voters under the pretext of anti-Semitism.

I strongly encourage you to read this deranged column to see that I am not making it up. Smith’s argument is quite clear. He begins by noting the apparent anti-Semitic violence in a few places is actually not anti-Israel animus running out of control, as one might expect an Israel hawk to say.

Lee Smith is somebody I used to work with. He was a very nice colleague, fun and generous. We sat mere feet away from each other back in the day. But this Trumpian Lee Smith does not remind me of the same guy I worked with. Just like Trumpian Josh Mandel is seemingly a different person than I knew back in my youth.

There’s more:

On the one hand, Smith is not anti-Semitic in the traditional meaning of the term. He surely sees himself as a staunch defender of the Jews, and his staunchness has turned into outright fanaticism. Smith’s pro-Jewish zeal has brought him around to the belief that apparent anti-Semitic attacks are actually being staged by paid thugs working secretly on behalf of a clique of oligarchs committed to an agenda of deliberate national destruction. Call it The Protocols of the Elders of Something.

What restaurant workers think about the labor shortage. For all the articles on business owners complaining that Biden Bucks disincentivized works (when Trump Bucks apparently did not), The Washington Post actually talked to some of these workers to hear their side.

Speaking of labor disruptions due to the pandemic… Here’s how COVID-19 impacted the Uber and Lyft markets in Boston.

So easy, even Kevin McCarthy could do it?

POLITICO @politico

Rep. Adam Kinzinger called for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to be booted from the House Republican conference over her comparing mask requirements to the Holocaust

politico.comKinzinger calls for Marjorie Taylor Greene to be kicked out of GOP conference over Holocaust remark“What we can do as a party is take a stand and say you don’t belong in our conference,” the Illinois lawmaker said.

Apparently not!

That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you back tomorrow! Tech support questions? Email support@substack.com. Questions for me? Drop me a line: swift@thebulwark.com

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.