The Fraudit Forever War
Glenn Youngkin can't stop, won't stop, courting the crazies.
🏒 FACEOFF 🏒
Let’s talk about Yemen…
Everyone’s favorite topic! But really, you should all read this item about the conflict there and a ship full of oil that is really essentially a ticking time bomb at The New Yorker.
Here’s a taste:
The Safer threatens not only the ecosystems of the Red Sea but also the lives of millions of people. A major spill would close a busy shipping lane. Not long ago, a British company, Riskaware, worked with two nonprofits, acaps and Satellite Applications Catapult, to generate projections for the U.K. government outlining possible outcomes of a disaster on the Safer, allowing for seasonal variations in Red Sea currents and wind patterns. In the worst forecasts, a large volume of oil would reach the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—the pinch point between Djibouti, on the African mainland, and Yemen. Every year, enough cargo passes through the strait to account for some ten per cent of the world’s trade. The insurer Allianz estimated that when the container ship Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week, this past March, the incident cost about a billion dollars a day. Ships rarely traverse oil-contaminated waters, especially when a cleanup is in progress, and their insurance can be imperiled if they do. A spill from the Safer could take months to clear, imposing a toll of tens of billions of dollars on the shipping business and the industries it services estimated that the cleanup alone could cost twenty billion dollars.
If you thought the stuck ship was bad, this could very well be worse. Like the Exxon Valdez, but four times (or worse) more.
Leading The Bulwark…
The Fraudit Forever War
JIM SWIFT: Glenn Youngkin continues to keep winking and nodding at the election truthers.
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Karen Tumulty on Facebook, the Debt Ceiling, and Sinema
The Washington Post's Karen Tumulty joins Charlie Sykes on today's podcast, and shares her predictions on the reconciliation bill and the debt ceiling."
ATMA: Does 'The Many Saints of Newark' Do 'The Sopranos' Right?
Plus: What is Ozy and how did it get away with its scams?
For Bulwark+ Members… 🔐
MORNING SHOTS: Want to Protect Democracy? This Is How To Do It. 🔓
CHARLIE SYKES: Imagine there's no Facebook.
THE TRIAD: He's Running. 🔐
JVL: No. The other guy.
ATMA BONUS: What Happened to Tony Soprano? 🔐
On this special members-only episode of Across the Movie Aisle, the gang asks the big question: what happened to Tony Soprano at the end of the series finale? Leave your theory in the comments!
From The Bulwark Aggregator…
Inside the Right’s Plan to Rebrand Sex Ed as ‘Child Porn’ - Will Sommer, The Daily Beast
Warren urges SEC to open insider trading probe into Fed Vice Chair Clarida, others - Thomas Franck, CNBC
‘Her calculation is off’: Sinema dares the left to take her out - David Siders, Politico
Virginia family is trying to process how their healthy 10-year-old daughter died from Covid in five days - Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
Biden Will Enact Student Loan Forgiveness, But Congress Hasn’t Passed Any Legislation - Zach Friedman, Forbes
Republicans gird for battle and businesses brace for details of Biden’s new vaccine rule - Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post
In Today’s Bulwark...
How Progressives (Inadvertently) Undermined a Bipartisan Civics Bill
ANSLEY SKIPPER: Can the Civics Secures Democracy Act get unstuck?
The Rise of the Moderate Marine
JIM SWIFT: A conversation with Rep. Conor Lamb—and why so many Trumpy Republican Marine politicians are crazy.
What Was the Debt-Ceiling Showdown Really All About?
R. MARSHALL BRANDT: The answer is: Democracy.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
OLD TOWN MANASSAS, VIRGINIA— I don’t get out much anymore, but I started typing today’s newsletter at a coffee shop here while Area Dog (Gus) got groomed. Given the staffing shortages, I end up driving the dog (or dogs) 30 minutes north to get them groomed. Why? My dogs don’t shed. They need a haircut.
And our local groomer is backed up for weeks at a time.
Rather than drive back home to work, and then back 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back, I pick a coffee shop or restaurant where I’ll work until the grooming is done. And today, I made some friends where we talked politics. I’d say more center-left types worried that the Democrats will suffer a similar fate to the GOP and caring more about personality than policy. Or, worse, strict adherence to personality-driven dogma than being genuine. (Read: Glenn Youngkin.)
And then, through it all, our family friend who watches our dogs when we travel spotted me, wondering what I was doing in Manassas. It was a good way to start the day, having civil conversations with good people. Which is more than can be said about the Internet a lot of the time. Area Dog’s new haircut suits him just fine.
The bummer of Ozy Media. Another much hyped enterprise fails, spectacularly, as Defector reports.
Wait, they still make cassette players?
Just remember… This guy was the National Security Advisor.
Gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there. My mom was a grade school librarian. I understand there are excesses with certain libraries sending debts to collection agencies, but at the end of the day, return the damn book. It’s selfish.
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
—30—
Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.