Re-upping for the evening crowd:

Thanks for all the replies so far to this query—please keep 'em coming!

Do you know what seedcorn is? It's the portion of corn, usually of good quality, set aside to use for seeds for the future rather than for food (or animal feed) now. Killing off the Washington Post's books and arts coverage to save money now is very much like eating the cultural seedcorn.

"How does one cheer Team USA’s premier athletes when America is in the grips of an authoritarian attempting to entrench himself in power? With the Winter Olympics in Italy upon us and the World Cup looming this summer, sports fans will soon face precisely this challenge."

"Surrounded by spiritual leaders, political sycophants, and the spiritual leaders who are his biggest political sycophants, Trump offered the clearest formulation yet of his own bespoke soteriology. Don’t worry, he reassured the audience—he’d been mostly kidding when he said he wasn’t heaven-bound."

Whew, this is one angry judge: "Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-inside...

NEW: How a YouTuber beat the first lady. www.thebulwark.com/p/how-youtub...

QUESTION: What books are you all reading? Fiction, nonfiction, whatever—what are the books you're reading and liking now, or that you've recently enjoyed? (Yes, audiobooks count!) (Asking for a ... me.)

Trump posted on Truth Social a video depicting the Obamas' heads atop ape bodies. Tim Scott says "it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House." I'd be curious to hear from Sen. Scott what are the second- and third-most racist things he's seen out of this White House.

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins's instrumental cover of "Sweet Dreams"—not the Eurythmics song but the Don Gibson song made famous by Patsy Cline. See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijm9...

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins's instrumental cover of "Sweet Dreams"—not the Eurythmics song but the Don Gibson song made famous by Patsy Cline. See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijm9...

My brilliant Bulwark colleague @chrisgherbert.bsky.social, who built the invaluable "Trump's Truth" tool for searching Trump's posts on Truth Social, recently added a stats page—so you can instantly see how many nutty late-night rants the president has been pumping out:

Amen:

"The average cost to mine one Bitcoin is currently...far higher than its current going rate, making it an extremely unprofitable proposition. It’s a massive wipeout as investors continue to sell off their reserves...." futurism.com/future-socie...

Trump and the Kennedy Center: Renaming, Rebuilding, Revolting. (You just *know* he's going to bedizen and bling out the Kennedy Center until it's transformed from its current classiness to a gaudy, golden, glittering eyesore like his tacky Oval Office.) www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-kenn...

LOLed at the subhead for this first section of the newsletter: "Comer's odyssey"

Exactly right: "What makes the current moment so jarring is not that talks are difficult—that is normal in war—but that negotiations are proceeding as if they exist in a separate universe from the war being fought on the ground." www.thebulwark.com/p/ukraine-wa...

"It is fair to describe James Comer’s Oversight tenure as lacking a larger strategy....Investigations were not exactly his strong suit"—and now "Comer may have just made another blunder, and unlike his past blunders as Oversight chair, this one might make it impossible for him to simply pivot away."

Do you know what seedcorn is? It's the portion of corn, usually of good quality, set aside to use for seeds for the future rather than for food (or animal feed) now. Killing off the Washington Post's books and arts coverage to save money now is very much like eating the cultural seedcorn.

"Bezos, in the early years of his ownership, expressed in childlike terms the moral obligations he felt as the steward of the Washington Post. He said he would never do anything at the Post that would make him feel 'icky' when he looked in the mirror in old age and reflected on his life." Alas...

"It’s proving tough to be a worker in the male-dominated sectors of the Trump economy." Some industries have been tariffed to death, and others are being slowed way down by tariff-related Trumpflation. Our @crampell.bsky.social explains: www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-tru...

NEW: "As we survey the wreckage of Trump’s second term, it is often said that 'half the country voted for this,' or worse, 'half the country is fine with this.'" The truth, though, is that Trump's MAGA base "is not the majority. Nor is it half of the country." www.thebulwark.com/p/how-big-is...

NEW: Make Black Lung Great Again! www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-tru...

The very antithesis of good leadership, from the Washington Post's deplorable publisher, Will Lewis.

"The perception that Americans don’t care about democracy stubbornly persisted well into Trump’s second term...." Not so much nowadays, though. Here's the case that Democrats should—*must*—run on defending democracy: www.thebulwark.com/p/its-the-de...

Funny you should put it that way. I have a lot of thoughts on this. Cc @thebulwark.com @martynwendell.bsky.social @adamkeiper.com www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-secr...

"To put it in terms Bezos would use, he is no longer a swashbuckling badass. He should sell the Post to someone who is." 👇

This story is bizarre, and it gets truly disturbing at one point: when the central figure in the story gets taunted about whether he is smart enough to get away with murdering his spouse. From grossly hypocritical to monstrous. www.thebulwark.com/p/shocking-s...

NEW: Jeff Bezos must sell the Washington Post, argues the paper's former senior managing editor, Cameron Barr: www.thebulwark.com/p/jeff-bezos...

"It’s now impossible for Democrats to change the subject from the United States’ descent into authoritarianism, and they shouldn’t want to"—no matter how often they are advised to focus on the price of eggs or are cautioned against criticizing law enforcement. From @mattjj89.bsky.social

"This is, by any reasonable interpretation of international law and the law of armed conflict, a war against civilians. It is an additional war crime on top of the uncountable thousands the Russians have already committed." www.thebulwark.com/p/ukraine-wa...

NEW: Trump and the Kennedy Center: Renaming, Rebuilding, Revolting www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-kenn...

NEW: "The brewing scandal has provoked what can only be described as an outpouring of schadenfreude. Both Schaffer and Stock have made many enemies on the online right, in part because of their vigorous moral policing." www.thebulwark.com/p/shocking-s...

Re-upping for the morning crowd: my little rant thread about the killing off of the Washington Post's books and arts coverage

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: From the defunct indie band Freelance Whales (formed 2008, disbanded 2014) here's "Broken Horse." See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkOK...

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: From the defunct indie band Freelance Whales (formed 2008, disbanded 2014) here's "Broken Horse." See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkOK...

NEW: The unfathomable Minnesota transcript that must be read, as it tells the reality of America today. "I am not white, as you can see," Julie Le — a government lawyer — told a federal judge on Tuesday. "And my family's at risk as any other people that might get picked up too ..." Law Dork:

I've been sorting through my angry thoughts about the gutting of the Washington Post. And while the whole story is terrible—humanly for the talent that has been laid off, and politically for our democracy—I'm especially appalled by the philistinism of getting rid of books and arts coverage.

After weeks of negotiations, it looks like the efforts to somehow restore the Obamacare subsidies have failed. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

"Some of these are steps that the DNC and its allies took in prior election cycles. But...after the 2020 elections and January 6th, Democratic officials understand the stakes and are approaching voter protection and election interference with deep consternation." 👇

NEW: The warning signs are becoming clearer that Trump intends to meddle in the 2026 elections. Here's a look at what Democrats are doing about it: www.thebulwark.com/p/inside-dem...

By sheer coincidence, "we're sorry to see you go" was also my message to the Washington Post.

"Why would the director of national intelligence ignore the country of Georgia and instead investigate the state of Georgia? Because she’s not interested in foreign threats. She’s working with Trump to conquer the people he regards as his true enemy: blue America." www.thebulwark.com/p/why-is-tul...

in like a Loudermilk, out like a curdled whisper

"The Fulton raid should set alarm bells ringing about Trump’s willingness to abuse the power of his office to undermine free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028." www.thebulwark.com/p/warning-si...

It might be easier to believe the Trump administration's outrage about protesters having disrupted a church service if the administration itself hadn't spent months harassing and hunting churchgoers on church grounds. www.thebulwark.com/p/ice-was-te...

"This is a story about incompetent leadership that destroyed the paper’s economic viability. It’s a story of self-mutilation." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-washin...

The CIA World Factbook, a reliable source of information about the countries of the world, has been publicly available since 1997. It is now going away. Please consider supporting @wikipedia.org and @ourworldindata.org. The world desperately needs trustworthy data. www.cia.gov/stories/stor...

'It looks like you're polluting the atmosphere. Would you like help?' www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Just by way of background, D.C. already has a large statue of Christopher Columbus, right in front of Union Station. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...