“Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.” 
― Edward R. Murrow

I have had a spectacularly unhealthy week. Between travel for work and events, I have been eating like crap and continuing my irregular sleep schedule. Not ideal!

We are still managing the hole-in-our-ceiling situation and sleeping in our living room, but I have a weekend of quality time with Jeff, long chats with friends, and hopefully some writing planned to make up for it. Tell me how you’re spending your weekend in the comments, and let’s review the week together in the links!

The facts around journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s now almost-certain assassination are grim, but it’s equally grim watching a president (seemingly at odds with many in his own administration) try to collaborate on an acceptable and blatant cover story. All of the positive photo ops with the Secretary of State, the President vouching for the Saudi’s ability to investigate themselves, and the reports in the public domain of regional and interested parties openly deliberating ways to apply financial pressure to members of the Trump administration make this so ridiculously suspect it feels like the plot of an extremely obvious and dated spy film. But it’s real life.

Mr. Khashoggi’s last, posthumous opinion piece in the Washington Post is worth a read, if for no other reason than to pay respect to a man who literally died for what he believed.

I feel like sooner or later I’m going to have to apply the same kind of “ethical” cost analysis to my food that I once did to my shopping…

Woof, I can’t look away from the Deciem story at this point. It’s bizarre.

Good idea, from a big picture perspective, but going to be extremely difficult to do.

Our society is screwed…

The final lines of this piece are extremely telling in understanding the state of our technological development and why we keep getting into trouble about it.

This whole series on The Cut is just perfection.

It is unfathomable to me how this man has been allowed to NOT recuse himself from overseeing an election in which he is running. And some of his actions aren’t even under the radar.

I don’t need green boots, but goodness Sezanne makes me want them…

Not in the least bit shocked.

Anne Thériault has another installment in Queens of Infamy! 

This judicial pipeline project has been known for years, but the more that is reported on it, the worse it looks.

This piece from the New York Review of Books sums up pretty much all of my political and social concerns rather well and grimly: “No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics. A highly politicized judiciary will remain, in which close Supreme Court decisions will be viewed by many as of dubious legitimacy, and future judicial appointments will be fiercely contested. The racial division, cultural conflict, and political polarization Trump has encouraged and intensified will be difficult to heal. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and uncontrolled campaign spending will continue to result in elections skewed in an unrepresentative and undemocratic direction. Growing income disparity will be extremely difficult to halt, much less reverse…Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism, but regardless of how the Trump presidency concludes, this is a story unlikely to have a happy ending.”

Relevant to my October interests!

Mazel tov, you crazy kids.

The Cut is doing god’s work. What a series!

This shameful, racist shit is ugly. And it’s working on enough people, I’m disheartened to say

No matter how you lean politically, Mitch McConnell has just encapsulated the big issues of the election for a lot of voters. The tax cuts did not pay for themselves, and he does want to slash benefit programs. You either like this future or hate it. Vote as you please, but please vote, kittens.

McKay Coppins at The Atlantic drops another incredible longform profile on Newt Gingrich, delving into the man who laid the groundwork for our current political culture and believes that this is emphatically for the good.

Thank god for this random, sweet story from the Royal Tour. What on earth do we have the royals for if not this sort of heartwarming thing in the face of grossness?