How normal will Jim Jordan's new district be?
We'll see.
Leading The Bulwark…
Lame Duck: The End of the Most Gerrymandered District in Ohio
KEITH OSMUN: Ohio is losing a seat in Congress, but will it keep Jim Jordan?
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Will Saletan on the Culture Wars Turned Upside Down
On today’s Bulwark podcast, Will Saletan joins Charlie Sykes to discuss America’s nation of victims, and how the two parties have switched culture war strategy, seemingly turning it upside down.
Bulwark+ Content… 🔐 & 🔓
MORNING SHOTS: Scenes From The Culture War 🔓
CHARLIE SYKES: Yoga, the 1619 project, and Critical Race Theory
THE TRIAD: The Dictators Are Winning 🔐
JVL on why the democracies don't seem to care.
Welcome to the Newsletter of Newsletters! (Seriously.) 📨 🔓
JVL on Life and death and the grift.
Bulwark Readers Have Some Thoughts 🔓
CHARLIE SYKES reads your emails on Cheney, Kinzinger, the Arizona Fraudit, and third parties....
WEEKEND TRIAD: Neoliberalism’s Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated 🔓
TIM MILLER on why the triumph of the normcore is the real story.
From The Bulwark Aggregator…
Faced with anti-vaccination parents, teens are helping one another get Covid shot – Ali Gostanian and Corky Siemaszko, NBC News
Trump’s GOP is a Party of Snowflakes and Beta Males – Matt Lewis, The Daily Beast
Shenzhen’s Shaky Tower Is a Cautionary Tale – Adam Minter, Bloomberg
A Euclid Cop Killed a Man Who Had Been Sleeping in His Car. The Cop Can’t Be Sued. The City Can’t Be, Eithe – Billy Binion, Reason
U.S. condemns Belarus for forcing down passenger plane to arrest foe – David Cohen, Politico
Arizona fails to pass ban on ‘vaccine passports’ – Jordan Williams, The Hill
In Today’s Bulwark...
Is Biden Going Soft on Putin?
DAVID J. KRAMER: The administration is signaling it wants to reach an understanding with Moscow. Its predecessors made the same mistake.
The Curious Case of a Toys ‘R’ Us Killer
ADDISON DEL MASTRO: Vornado’s twisting corporate history tracks long-term trends in retailing and manufacturing.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
It’s Monday… And I hope you had a great weekend. My family was in town for my niece’s third birthday, and it was great to see all of them (at least briefly.) And I took the fam down to southern Maryland for a day to visit a buddy from high school and college who lives on the water. My twins got to ride tractors, Power Wheels cars, and see how crabs are caught. And enjoy a local delicacy called Ledo Pizza, a family favorite we don’t have anymore where we live. All in all, a good weekend.
I also made some of my favorite Can Cooker ribs this weekend, and if it stops raining, will grill a chimichurri flank steak and make some potatoes.
As you can see from the above, I was largely offline this weekend, and it was pretty awesome.
Now that things are sort of getting back to normal… I did get a kick out of this D.C. traffic guide from local FM radio station WTOP. Since my family moved before the pandemic, I haven’t driven to work in quite some time. But those who have lived here (or visited) know what I’m talking about.
Thinking about life without parole. I’m a victim of violent crime from back in my high school days, and I try to think about criminal justice through my experience as a victim and trying to put that aside. Here’s a deeply honest take from Susan Lawrence on her experience as an opponent of life without parole.
There are things I read there and thought: Gee, I wouldn’t have written that. And things I did agree with, and things I learned. I hope you’ll read it and consider her experience, regardless of your views on life without parole in prison. (I’m generally for it, but open to determining how and when it is employed.)
Don’t worry, the bad takes are still coming from the election truther right…
As you’ll recall, the host, David Clements, was part of Michelle Bachmann’s bizarro townhall.
Cicadas are here. Up in Burke, VA, I heard the cicadas playing the song of their people this weekend, but where I live to the south? I can’t hear any cicadas. Some people are taking apart the shells and making horrifying creatures with them, apparently. Don’t click unless you want to be grossed out. I warned you.
Hollywood actors save a soccer team. I am a sucker for cities that lose their franchise, because I grew up in one. So did my wife. So when Wrexham’s football team (soccer to us Americans) was at risk, two Hollywood actors bought it and are going to make a real life Ted Lasso show about it. I care minimally about soccer (outside my SLU Billikens, D.C. United, and Tottenham), but I am going to watch the heck out of this series on FX.
Deep Fakes are about to get way more real. We’ve done a couple deep dives on Deep Fake technology here, and I’ve written a lot about it in my newsletter. Basically, if you’re on television a lot (or radio or podcasts), and you put all of that data into a super computer, you can fake people saying things.
Last night, I discovered, due to a realistic looking and quasi-realistic sounding video on Twitter about a right-leaning personality I do not respect, that there are now audio versions you can make, and with some clever editing. Hoo boy, you can make them very realistic sounding.
Here are some of the selections not related to politics.
There are some funny possibilities here, and some neat opportunities. (i.e. rather than buy a Captain Zoom record, like my parents did, Winnie the Pooh could talk to your kids.) But there are some also very real, very scary, and quite dangerous possibilities as this technology gets better. And we need a solution.
This is very bad. Read the whole thread.
Sohrab Ahmari, salesman.
But I wouldn’t take this deal from Ahmari, given the frequent nature of his conversions to radically different worldviews.
Nobody tell Donald Trump.
That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you back here 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.