Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Why Trump betrayed his base on Jeffrey Epstein

Since last Monday, when the Justice Department announced it would not be releasing documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein and his 2019 death in a New York prison, the MAGA movement has been up in arms.  Prominent voices like Megyn Kelly are calling on President Donald Trump to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi. FBI Deputy Director […]

The lie at the heart of Trump’s entire economic agenda

With his tax agenda finally passed, President Donald Trump has turned back to his true passion: making America poorer and more geopolitically isolated for no good reason. Last week, he threatened 25 of America’s trading partners with punishing tariffs, unless they present him with an agreeable trade deal by August 1. These represent a modified […]

Trump just handed China a major advantage on AI

Late on Monday night, July 14, 2025, the ninth richest man in the world broke some momentous news: The US government would allow him, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, to sell H20 processors to Chinese customers again. To people following the Trump administration and its seemingly unending announcements and reversals of trade restrictions, this might not […]

The 9 best books of the year so far

A truism about stories (courtesy, more or less, of the novelist John Gardner) is that there are only two plots: A person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. The joke is that they’re the same story, from two different perspectives. In the first half of 2025, I’ve found that my favorite […]

Why it’s taking LA so long to rebuild

In the wake of the record-breaking wildfires in Los Angeles in January — some of the most expensive and destructive blazes in history — one of the first things California Gov. Gavin Newsom did was to sign an executive order suspending environmental rules around rebuilding.  The idea was that by waiving permitting regulations and reviews […]