Leading The Bulwark…
The Biggest Bully Is a Half Decade Late
TIM MILLER: Chris Christie is finally ready to stand up to Trump. Sort of.
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Can We Still Govern?
Members of Congress are being threatened over infrastructure, the banning of books is back with a vengeance, and Americans are still paying the price for Trump's loyal lieutenants. Georgetown's Donald Moynihan joins Charlie Sykes on today's podcast.
BGTH: Hollywood Versus the Axis
On this week's episode, Sonny is joined by Christian Baluvelt, author of Hollywood Victory: The Movies, Stars, and Stories of World War II.
For Bulwark+ Members… 🔐
MORNING SHOTS: The Tragic Danger of Kyle Rittenhouse
CHARLIE SYKES has some thoughts on "Bothsidesism."
THE TRIAD: Is Dennis Prager Stupid or Evil?
JVL on rewriting history.
From The Bulwark Aggregator…
Maybe We Should Have Listened to Larry Summers’s Warnings About Inflation - Jonathan Chait, Intelligencer
GOP Ignores Its Gosar Problem and Plots to Punish Moderates - Sam Brodey and Matthew Fuller, The Daily Beast
The One Thanksgiving Necessity America Forgot to Stock - Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic
Ex-MMA Fighter Gets Over 3 Years in Stiffest Capitol Riot Sentence Yet - David Yaffe-Bellany, Bloomberg Businessweek
Virginia emerging as ground zero in battle for House majority - Julia Manchester, The Hill
Would You Manage 70 Children And A 15-Ton Vehicle For $18 An Hour? - Maggie Koerth, FiveThirtyEight
NRCC’s deceptively edited attack ad offers a glimpse of 2022 spin - Adriana Usero, The Washington Post
In Today’s Bulwark...
Not My Party: Are Sports Way Too Political Now?
TIM MILLER:Right-wing blowhards used to complain about politics in sports. Now they like having outrage mobs of their own.
J.D. Vance Is Imploding
JIM SWIFT: His campaign can’t find its footing.
Lukashenko’s Offensive Agenda
DALIBOR ROHAC: Short of an actual shooting war, it is hard to imagine a more clear-cut case of using hard power against other countries.
Jim Cummings and His Anti-Protagonists
SONNY BUNCH: The writer-director-star who creates people we hate ourselves for loving.
Prepare for the Shock Troops
RYAN BUSSE: What happens when gun culture merges with a nationalist personality cult?
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Happy Thursday! I want to tell you a story about Kal Penn.
Shortly after Barack Obama took office in 2009, Kal Penn took a break from acting and joined the White House staff in the office of public liaison.
I was impressed that an actor would give up time to be a lowly staffer, and so I emailed Penn at his White House email address, as a fan of his work. I joked that if there White Castle in the D.C. area (there is not) I’d gladly get him a sack of slyders.
Penn wrote back, thanking me for the offer, and noted he was a vegetarian and that in the movie they had to make fake hamburgers for him. (White Castle eventually added them to the menu.) He went on Jimmy Kimmel’s show and talked about how he got the job, because change.gov and USAJOBS are, well, antiquated and purposely built to be a little obtuse.
The people who get the jobs are those who leverage their connections. In some ways, that’s a bad thing, in the federal government, it’s also sort of just the way the sausage gets made.
As much as Hollywood types like to opine on politics, host fundraisers and whatnot, rare are the Kal Penns who put their money where their mouth is and serve America.
While I voted for John McCain, that Obama could inspire a Hollywood star to take a break and do a government job? More power to them both.
The king of subtlety…
Ask your veterinarian if Ivermectin is right for you…
That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you tonight for TNB. 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.