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Showing posts from July, 2018

Russiagate: Pulling Apart the Threads Part 1

"The Democrats don't have control over Wikileaks, Putin, Donald Trump Jr.. They have control over their own party all the mistakes that they made. Why not focus on the things that actually have practical takeaways?" - Katie Halper interviewing Aaron Maté I want to start by stating very emphatically that I am a skeptic of Russiagate. I don't doubt that Trump has laundered money for Russian oligarchs, I mean the billionaire who's repeatedly gone bankrupt can't secure loans from domestic banks, the money to build has to come from somewhere. That's just putting aside the years of speculation on him laundering money for the mob. I don't doubt that the Russians infiltrated the DNC through phishing expeditions and are responsible for the document dump to Wikileaks. I also don't doubt that they have been testing the many well documented vulnerabilities of our infrastructure. When I say I don't doubt, that means I don't necessarily accept o

PlaceMarking

I'm giving myself something of a pass on this post. I'd started writing about my affair in Barcelona and my epiphany about privilege and then found myself interacting on social media around the Mueller indictments and wanted to unpack it. I essentially asked for challenges to my skepticism and it was helpful in better laying out the boundaries of my skepticism. I gathered a couple of articles to read and was prepared to write but found myself at the tail end of a couple Twitter exchanges that are relevant and kinda fun. So I'm giving myself two more days to lay out where skepticism is due. In the meantime, here's Duke Ellington playing Fleurette Africaine .

On Thinking It Over: Cider is Not Writing's Little Helper

I'm working a program this summer, the reasons for which are connected to a longer piece I'm planning to write. As a part of my desire to say "yes" more, when a co-worker asked at the end of the day if I wanted to hang out I replied in the affirmative. Halfway through my second Southern bomb (shot of bourbon dropped into a pint of hard cider) I remembered that I was supposed to post to my blog today. I have to admit that I'm sleepy AF right now and know I can give no true respect to any of the subjects I'm thinking about or even the act of writing itself. Let me instead share some of the things I'm thinking about: I started this blog because I didn't know what to do with the rage I felt from the Bush administration apathy to the effects of Katrina , even as lives were still immediately in danger, the Obama administration bears some responsibility in the fact that nothing has really changed . Have I ever told you about the end of my torrid affair