This Thing of Ours

A note of gratitude, to all of you.

The best people. (Photo Hannah Yoest)

I’m not sure how many of you are JVL completists, but I’ve been filling in for Jim on Overtime and yesterday’s edition might be my magnum opus. Don’t miss it. The final item is about my Truth Social stock and it’s $$$.

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1. Thank You

In August of last year I wrote about my friend

Will Selber

, who had spent big chunks of the last two decades serving in Afghanistan. Following the American withdrawal, Will was trying to get one of his former interpreters out before the Taliban murdered him. A project like this costs a lot of money. I asked you to help Will if you could and within a couple of hours—hours—he had enough money to exfiltrate his comrade.

This weekend, Will’s interpreter, Ahmadullah, arrived in America with his family. It was this community—you guys, right here—who made this miracle possible.

Here’s an update from Will:

On 12 April at 3:30 pm in Logan Airport, a miracle occurred. After nearly a decade of honorably serving the United States, my former interpreter, Ahmadullah, and his lovely family arrived on our shores.

It was a long journey from Pakistan, where he’d been in a safe house for over six months. While most Afghans have to hide from Pakistani authorities, who are trying to deport them back to Afghanistan, Ahmadullah and his family were in a protected location with all their needs delivered by trusted people. That wouldn’t have been possible without the money The Bulwark community raised on his behalf. 

After Ahmadullah received his SIV last week, we immediately purchased his plane tickets to the United States. Most SIVs have to wait until the government purchases their tickets, which can take months—and that waiting game can prove deadly. Fortunately for Ahmadullah, he had The Bulwark community by his side. With your support, we were able to act immediately, ensuring he landed safely in Massachusetts. 

Ahmadullah and his family are incredibly fortunate. They had a great team of experts to guide them through deadly bureaucratic hurdles. He also had a great team of volunteers in Vermont, helping his family make the difficult transition to life in America. More importantly, he had his Bulwark family by his side to uphold our country’s promise to him. 

As his family navigates the challenges ahead, the money The Bulwark raised will provide him with a safety net that few refugees have. This support is not just for today, but for the future, as Ahmadullah is now not only part of our Bulwark family, but also on his way to becoming an American citizen. He will undoubtedly face more challenges, but I’m confident his story will be one of triumph over impossible odds, thanks to The Bulwark community's enduring support. 

On behalf of my team (Kate, Hope, Seth, and others in the shadows), I thank The Bulwark family for your generosity. 

It is an honor to serve alongside you. 

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Guys, I have been in this business for a long time and I’ve never seen a community like this. The Bulwark is technically a media company, but I’ve always believed it was a mission. As Will says, it turns out to be even bigger than that. It’s a family.

What we have here is precious. Thank you for building it alongside us and for nurturing and growing it every day.

To Will and all of you: The honor is mine.

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2. Credit

I’m not entirely sure I believe that the House is going to pass the giant Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan-TikTok aid package.

If it does, then Speaker Mike Johnson deserves a great deal of credit for putting his country ahead of his party and his career.

I’m as surprised as anyone, tbh. But that’s why it’s important to give credit where it’s due. If we want to live in a world where we’re not surprised that political leaders do the right thing, then we start by giving respect to the ones who do it even—especially—when they are people with whom we usually disagree.

While we’re here, there are three other parties who deserve credit.

(1) The Republican House members who will vote for the aid package, holding to their foreign policy principles and not to MAGA expediency.

(2) Joe Biden for patiently giving Johnson space to work and not scoring points while making it harder for Johnson to get to yes. Once again: This president is good at governing.

(3) House Democrats who have behaved responsibly throughout the process. Hakeem Jeffries has so far demonstrated good organizational and leadership skills. (Though it helps that his caucus is not made up of space-laser crazy people.)

Moments like this make it possible to imagine (if you squint hard) a post-Trump future in which we return to having two semi-functional governing parties.

Which means I’ve probably just doomed the package. 🤷‍♂️

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ICYMI: If you need even more Ross Douthat post-game action, A.B, Tim and I talked about it on The Next Level yesterday. The show is here.

This is a good reminder that when you are a Bulwark+ member, you’ll get The Next Level and the rest of our Bulwark shows ad-free. You access these premium editions here through the site, on the free Substack mobile app, or you can add the shows to your podcast player of choice (now including Spotify) using the set up buttons here. Have a question about any of this, simply reply to this newsletter and we’ll get you sorted out.

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3. Only the Best People

It’s always the ones you most expect, isn’t it?

"I never falsely suggested anything," Simeon Boikov tells me.

Under the alter ego "Aussie Cossack", he posted untrue speculation that a 20-year-old Jewish university student was the attacker who had stabbed and killed five women and one man at a Westfield shopping centre in Sydney.

He said on X: "Unconfirmed reports identify the Bondi attacker as Benjamin Cohen. Cohen? Really? And to think so many commentators tried to initially blame Muslims."

The actual attacker, shot dead by police, was later identified as Joel Cauchi, 40. The authorities say his actions were most probably related to his mental health.

Within hours of Mr Boikov's post on X, the false claims he amplified had reached hundreds of thousands of people on X and Telegram, and had even been repeated by a national news outlet.

I tracked him down because I want to understand how his posts triggered an online frenzy that reached the mainstream media—with serious consequences for Mr Cohen, who's described his distress at being accused of an attack he had nothing to do with.

Now, maybe you think you know where this story is going but boy, howdy, does it take a turn:

Mr Boikov is speaking to me from the Russian consulate in Sydney, to where he fled more than a year ago after a warrant was issued over his arrest for alleged assault. The pro-Kremlin social media personality was granted Russian citizenship by Russian President Vladimir Putin last year—and has requested political asylum in Russia.

Read the whole thing.