It’s been described as a ring-kissing ceremony, the opening scene from King Lear and the type of standard fare from dictators like Kim Jong Un. Glen Thrush described it as “one of the most exquisitely awkward public events I’ve ever seen.” This may all be quite true and amusing, but I think there’s a better explanation for …
Trump’s trip left a big impression on our European allies. So much, that German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned around and announced at a campaign rally that “the times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over.” (read the article in The Huffington Post) …
"The shit show that is the Trump presidency came to a head on Monday with the Washington Post revelation that his couldn’t keep his mouth shut in front of two top Russian officials. He actually bragged to these guys, telling them “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day.” (read the article in …
"A friend I tend to agree with shared an article on Facebook from the (conservative) National Review, commenting that the magazine’s readers didn’t appreciate it. I had been mulling over the left wing freak out over the New York Times’ new columnist Bret Stephens’ first piece and relished finding a similar example on the right. So, …
Read The Article from How To Burst Your Own Private Media Bubble
"For Republicans, it does matter how much money you make. It’s not surprising that Jimmy Kimmel’s touching monologue about his son’s congenital heart disease went viral on the social networks. It was heartfelt and touched upon a touchy and timely subject, healthcare. He also included a noble call for left-right unity and understanding, but he …
"She might be worshiped by Chinese women for her beauty and style but the European women who attended the W20 Summit on Tuesday were having none of it and promptly booed Ivanka Trump when she had the audacity to say that her father is a champion of women." (read the article in The Huffington Post) …
Read The Article from Ivanka Trump is an anti-feminist in feminist clothing
"I picked a fight with some male co-workers a couple weeks ago. They had put together a day of conferences about the international relations of the Trump presidency and out of 10 panelists, only 3 were women, including me and the first panel had no women at all. This happens all the time in Spain, …
Read The Article from Mike Pence, Sex and How Both Ghettoize Women
"There I was, an American, Skyped in to the very British Sky News to talk about the showdown between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar. Gibraltar, you ask, as in ‘the rock’? Yes, the very one! I decided in advance that it was my job to smack everyone upside the head so I prepped some …
Read The Article from Did the UK Threaten to Go to War with Spain?
"Trump’s abominable behavior during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to the White House caused outrage on my Facebook feed. But Merkel doesn’t need your outrage. She’s taken on plenty of outsized egos with her signature steely patience, from Nicolas Sarkozy to Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Vladimir Putin. What she needs you to to do is …
Read The Article from Angela Merkel Doesn’t Need Your Outrage Over Trump’s Rudeness
"Well, I’m here to tell you that if you think you can ride off into the sunset and just give the next four years of Trump a miss, you are sorely mistaken. Not only is living abroad a lot harder than you might imagine, even if you get there, there’s no escaping Trump. No matter …
Read The Article from No, You Can’t Escape Trump By Moving Abroad
"And so starts my day, with an inpouring of wishes for a Happy International Women’s Day! Since I’m an American living in Madrid, Spain, the wishes come in both English, mostly from female friends and oddly, the ones in Spanish tend to come from male friends, who send “felicitaciones.” It’s hard work trying not to …
Read The Article from Don’t Wish Me A Happy International Women’s Day
"In his farewell speech, President Obama reminded us that “democracy needs you.” This is not hyperbole, at its best, democracy is about the people. Democracy’s roots are in highly participatory forms of government and the representative systems of today’s nation states distance us from our governments, so we depend on the press to keep us …
Read The Article from Democracy Needs You: How To Avoid Fake News
Whichever definition you prefer for democracy, at the base of it are the people and the vote. In his 1956 book A Preface to The Democratic Theory, political scientist Robert Dahl provided a handy and widely cited 8-point list of conditions to measure majority rule, which, unlike pregnancy or your love or hatred for cilantro, has …
Read The Article from The So-called Post-truth World Is Nothing New
This intellectual journey and revolution that I had at UCLA is what we expect of any engaged university student and is certainly not restricted to any one ideological destination. To question everything, think independently of the influence of one's parents and be open to changing our minds is the idealized university experience. But this attitude …
Tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets of Madrid on Saturday to defend this right and show their opposition to the recent anti-choice bill introduced by Spain's right-of-center ruling Popular Party. The "purple tide" of protesters was in high spirits shouting "¡Sí se puede!" (Yes we can!) and "¡Vamos, escucha, esto es nuestra lucha! …
Read The Article from Tens of Thousands Protest the Erosion of Abortion Rights in Spain
It's always scary to find a lump. I found one about the width and length of my thumb on my abdomen on a Friday morning in late June and booked an appointment with my general practitioner for the following Tuesday. She thought it might be a hernia (which I found incredible given that I'm a …
Read The Article from In The Huffington Post: Equality, Justice and Universal Healthcare
Their story is so strange it dominated Spanish headlines for several news cycles while it destroyed their reputations as well as the credibility of the young think tank they defrauded. They can't show their faces in Spain, yet she runs her production company out of New York and he's in…(read) …
From the outside, politics and corruption seem to go hand in hand but when you work on the inside, the day to day is much more mundane. You hardly expect to find yourself unwittingly entangled in the type of sordid affair that makes big headlines. But I did. (read) …
Read The Article from In the Huffington Post: My big fat Spanish corruption story