Hello!
I'm a congressional procedure nerd, serious card player, and hockey fan.
If you're not sure whether you should email me, you probably should.
Overview
To the degree I'm internet-known, it's mostly because I am knowledgeable about a number of usually mundane and esoteric things in Congress, like the appropriations process and Speaker elections. When they get hot, the phone starts ringing.
- My longer political and cardplaying writing is housed at Substack.
- This blog will be mostly short thoughts, often about wider subjects.
- And, of course, you can often find me wasting time on Twitter.
Politics
I write all sort of things about politics on my substack. Some of it is aimed at a very small audience for congressional procedure, but much of it is timely analysis of American politics that (I hope) is interesting to a wider audience.
One of my main gripes about politics is that all sorts of people have incentives to make it more complicated and mysterious than it actually is. I will go to my grave on the following three ideas:
- You know more than you think about politics.
- People don't hate Congress, they hate losing.
- Hyper-local politics is important.
Card Playing
I play competitive poker and bridge, in both home games and public tournaments. I also play a lot of the parlor-room tricks and trumps games, likes Spades and Bid Whist. My favorite, by far, is Oh Hell. I also adore the dumb games, especially Talking Rule Spoons.
- I like thinking about games and breaking down the incentives and the strategies.
- I'm a romantic about card games. And that once landed me in the Bahamas playing a $25k-entry poker tournament.
- I'm writing a book about Oh Hell, both strategy and memoir. Email me if you'd like to see the current beta draft.