NEW: "Let me tell you a story to help you understand how our situation looks to outsiders"—the story of America's death squads. www.thebulwark.com/p/americas-d...

Several books about the Odyssey have been timed to come out along with Christopher Nolan's new movie. Here—in her Bulwark writing debut—is Alyssa Rosenberg with a review of two: one by anti-liberalism icon Patrick Deneen, the other by classicist Joel Christensen. www.thebulwark.com/p/are-we-rea...

NEW: The Odyssey is the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's 'death drive' trilogy, writes our @sonnybunch.bsky.social. www.thebulwark.com/p/the-odysse...

I still think about the WSJ scoop about the Epstein birthday book. The official Republican position, to this day and after unsuccessful Trump litigation, is that maybe someone faked his signature and put it in a book where everyone else's signature was real

Un-American.

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: "Well, that song will last forever," Tony Bennett said of Marian McPartland's "Twilight World." Here's McPartland herself playing it solo (that is, on piano with no singing) before a live audience in 1991. See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFpp...

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: "Well, that song will last forever," Tony Bennett said of Marian McPartland's "Twilight World." Here's McPartland herself playing it solo (that is, on piano with no singing) before a live audience in 1991. See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFpp...

Remember back in May, when Hungarian results were coming in, we were watching if the opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Orban would manage to win a supermajority? They did, & they just used it to pass a constitutional amendment to also remove the president from office. www.bbc.com/news/article...

"It will take quite a while to restore decency and responsibility to our public life. What we can do now is to check the injustice and limit the damage." www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-keep...

LOL, what this redditor found after he went to check his late mother's bank account. "I knew she at times bought a few crazy things online … it looks like she bought a country or …?" www.reddit.com/r/whatisit/c...

"The rest of the world understands that America is no longer a country to be taken seriously. We are a pariah state....The rest of the world sees that the United States is no longer a reliable counterparty. They are in the process of moving on from us." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-empero...

Re-upping for the evening crowd:

Yet another Trump personal attorney is being sworn in as a federal judge. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

"Cynthia Santiago-Borbon, a psychotherapist specializing in trauma recovery & systemic oppression, told me what this killing means for Hispanic Americans—what this inhumanity does to those who are coming to realize our government views them as disposable, inconvenient, & fundamentally un-American."👇

Bovino hasn’t learned a single lesson from his downfall. In fact, he seems psychologically incapable of acknowledging that the public has limits to what it can bear and unlike him, doesn’t want to see masked federal agents causing chaos in the streets and harassing immigrants. He’s the real Lockjaw.

NEW: "It’s narcissistic abuse at the scale of a state, and the deepest wound isn’t the violence. It’s being told the violence didn’t mean what you know it meant." www.thebulwark.com/p/unimaginab...

"The most powerful country in the world is governed by a madman." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-empero...

Trump claims that "60 monuments and fountains have been cleaned and fully renovated in D.C."—and there do seem to have been some real repairs and improvements. But how many of the renovations were—like the Reflecting Pool—done badly by non-experts? How many might have actually damaged things? E.g.:

Poof—and it's gone. The way Trump's undertakings just *disappear* is just as much a marker of the authoritarian nature of his regime as the way they first appear without warning. This is not democratic governance. It's a sinister, sneaking lawlessness. www.orlandosentinel.com/2026/07/14/a...

"The processes that corrupted Graham—desensitization, polarization, and loss of faith in alternatives—pervade the current GOP....What happened to Graham has happened to the whole party. And the damage to America keeps mounting."👇

Can't wait for this:

NEW: "Graham could have turned against Trump. He could have worked to keep Trump out of power....The worst that would have happened to Graham is that Trump would have orchestrated a primary to prevent his re-election....Instead, Graham worked to bring Trump back to power."

About damn time. www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/p...

DISTURBING report from Dan Haar of Hearst. ICE/DHS had videographers deceptively wear "MEDIA" markings at an arrest. It's "part of a long tradition of authoritarian governments...creating confusion with what is independent media and what is government propaganda." www.instagram.com/reels/Dav_je...

A White House report has defended the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, pushing back against its characterization by a Smithsonian Institution exhibit that the law was racially motivated. www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

NEW: "Eighty years of maritime law upended by an old man with two thumbs and an iPhone." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-empero...

Not this again...

NEW: Pete Buttigieg on The Bulwark Podcast today calls for expanding SCOTUS (and the House of Representatives), statehood for D.C., and eliminating the Electoral College. www.thebulwark.com/p/pete-butti...

“Opposing Flock at Ohio State University is complicated by a provision in state law that forbids the public from requesting Flock data or auditing Flock data requests; as a result, most of what is happening involving the data remains out of public view…”

Great comment from a reader: Graham "could have also supported Ukraine by helping to remove Trump from office when he was impeached, or supporting Kamala Harris for President. Then he wouldn't have had to be the lone supporter of Ukraine within the evil Trump empire."👇

NEW: A look at how the Ukrainians are remembering Lindsey Graham—as their "Trump whisperer" (even though he did call on Zelensky to resign at one point, following the despicable Trump/Vance Oval Office mtg w/ Zelensky). www.thebulwark.com/p/ukraine-mo...

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: From French singers Ben Mazué and Louane back in 2019, here's a song that begins with the peaceful loving start of a relationship but anticipates all that could go wrong until eventually the waves sweep everything away. See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8nC...

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: From French singers Ben Mazué and Louane back in 2019, here's a song that begins with the peaceful loving start of a relationship but anticipates all that could go wrong until eventually the waves sweep everything away. See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8nC...

We’ve opened the strait that was never closed, ceasing a ceasefire for a war that was never a war, stopping Iran from charging tolls because tolls are illegal, all so Trump can charge his *own* tolls because *his* tolls are legal. This will hurt affordability which is a hoax anyway

NEW: What to know about the Cyclospora outbreak and food safety. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEIN...

Sam Neill, R.I.P. He "had a face made for horror movies, one that looked preternaturally weary yet could twist into these enormous, rictus grins at a moment’s notice." www.thebulwark.com/p/sam-neill-...

heh www.reddit.com/r/washington...

I dunno man. If I were a law student of Prof. Wurman's at UMinn Law... I'd be asking for my money back. What happened wasn't "sue and settle." It was "sue an agency you control & have them provide you a massive economic win as a 'settlement.'" If I can figure that out, so can Wurman

NEW: Will Sommer—our MAGA watcher extraordinaire—takes a look at the conspiracy theories surrounding Lindsey Graham's death. He thinks they won't stick. www.thebulwark.com/p/the-lindse...

Google Glass redux. Amazing headline.

Epstein survivors will likely be present when Blanche testifies. "Will Blanche, who has refused to meet w/ them, acknowledge them? Will he apologize for the botched redaction process over which he presided that exposed them to further pain & harassment? Will he repudiate Trump’s dismissal of them?"

A conversation nobody needed or wanted. Not sure why they're all seated so uncomfortably, and in a room that appears to have a lingering haze, but I really would rather not speculate.

NEW: "Sam Neill had a sort of receding everyman quality that allowed him to play both the hunter and the hunted. It’s this very quality—the ability to veer from tracking to panicked flight—that helped him explode into superstardom," especially via Jurassic Park. www.thebulwark.com/p/sam-neill-...

Guys, I cannot recommend this newsletter today highly enough. This is @jvl.bsky.social in top form—deeply humane, clear-eyed, giving the big picture, very wise about human beings and about politics. Plus, he brings in Hannah Arendt and Dorothy Thompson. JVL is just the best.

NEW: It's clear that Lindsey Graham saw himself as a statesman and a moral leader. It's equally clear that he was not. www.thebulwark.com/p/lindsey-gr...

WSJ: DHS inspector general has "evidence that Corey Lewandowski may have been involved in improperly awarding govt contracts." Once Noem and Lewandowski were out, the IG "started probing a network of [their] aides" as well as contracts from their $38 billion program turning warehouses into prisons.

Hard to put into words how big of an own-goal it is for the United States to normalize shipping tolls at all, much less tolls at 20%. It's the kind of thing that appeals to someone who has only ever known how to run short-term scams.

This is the definitive story on how Lindsey Graham degenerated from Trump's strongest critic to Trump's accomplice. Here's the text version, published in 7 chapters by @thebulwark.com. It also has links to a book-length version and an audio version, which you can listen to as a series of podcasts.

Sam Neill, R.I.P. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/o...

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: Here's a track that went viral on TikTok for the Nashville-based band WILLIS: "I Think I Like When It Rains." (This song has one little lick that reminds me of the Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down," a very different song.) See you around. www.youtube.com/watch?v=38IC...