Hitting The Road...

I’m taking to the road but before I do, a few quick odds and ends.

Regarding the Milo texts I’m working with a reporter on all the material. Stay tuned. I didn’t disappoint with the Vance texts so I think you’ll have to trust me.

You should expect a big piece for me in the not too distant future about the Mercers, Milo and Tucker Carlson and why they all seem to be activated right now.

Hint: they’re very worried about President Kamala’s DOJ…

Some good news: My company Traitwell.com is putting together a term sheet and we’re building a genomics lab in the Minneapolis-area. (Sorry Virginia but you just weren’t that into me and I’ve had to break up with you. More on that later.)

I’ve been half joking that the Tim Walz’s vice presidential pick and his use of the phrase “food security” with Ezra Klein lured me to Minnesota but truthfully I had been thinking about Minnesota and “L'Étoile du Nord” for quite awhile. (If you can believe it my parents even had a business in the Mall of America several lifetimes ago.)

As you know neither Tim Walz nor I are CIA.

Governor Tim Walz is Totally Not CIA... And So About Those George Floyd Riots...

I went to Minnesota for a genomics conference in 2019 and it had a stirring effect on me, especially as some of the places I had visited burned down a short while later in 2020. I returned in early December of last year and despite the press found myself pretty excited and hopeful. I like to spread hope.

Visiting where George Floyd died in December 2023

There’s a lot of interesting things happening in our country and I very much like being a part of them. This country has been pretty good to me and I want to do more to help kick off a great American renewal. If this sort of thing interests you too let’s talk about it in depth privately.

I’m going up there to visit our lab director there and to meet with a few business friends. I’ll have some of my reports on my travels in the Blue Belt. Brookings has a great report about what’s going on in that part of the country. Hint: it’s got a lot of freshwater and that’s going to be important with climate change and all that.

Some day I’d like to write a book not unlike Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, which I understand was highly fictionalized. To be fair a lot of autobiography or memoir seems pretty fictionalized and none of that has bothered me in the past. You think Hillbilly Elegy or Dreams From My Father was written under oath?

And of course I'm going to be driving to the Minnesota State Fair. If you should find yourself along my route please let's have lunch or dinner or a coffee.

If you'd like to go with me for any stretch of the journey I have an extra seat in my convertible. Recommendations on what to see are also appreciated.

Along the way I’ll spend a night in Cleveland (tonight), maybe two nights in Chicago, and then expect to be in Minneapolis by Thursday or thereabouts.

I don’t really have anywhere I have to be in Boston August 30th or so — I’m visiting some Armenian friends to talk about anti-drone technology thereabouts — so I’m taking my time.

On the business side I’ve also been making some investments in Censys Tech, a drone company based down in Florida. It’s America’s answer to DJI and I have a lot of respect for its founder, Trevor Perrott who I traveled to France with earlier this summer. I’ll have more on that in the near future too.

My visit to the State Department awhile back has yielded some results. My colleagues and I are also spending a lot of time and effort on the Lobito Corridor and all the copper that’s going to come out of there. My general read is that it’s wiser to bet on Zambia than the Democratic Republic. We’re looking closely at participating in KoBold Metals — the company combing AI and mineral detection.

You could imagine a world in which satellites and drones like Censys were used to map out all the earth’s resources. For what it’s worth I don’t really buy a lot of the stories about shortages of resources. I think, speaking plainly, that we will always find more resources but the question is always at what price and can the U.S. pressure other countries to sell off their stockpiles.

I do think, though, that there’s a shortage of patriotic miners. I had a lot of hope that Robert Friedland would get the memo about crewing up with Uncle Sam but I think he’s a little too old to get it. Friedland’s an interesting guy but he made a huge error when he stood me up in Toulouse. People were watching and he was found lacking. Which is a real shame because I like Robert.

For what it’s worth my sense is that Friedland’s likely a little too Russian and China for the current moment. Those strange Facebook investor (and Kremlin ally) Alisher Usmanov ties of buying and selling yachts are kind of a tell.

My sense that Friedland’s $96m acquisition of Ellen DeGeneres’s properties in Carpinteria are another sort of clue though of what I’m not really sure. Maybe I’ll do something bigger on DeGeneres’s Louisiana and Christian Scientist ties in another space. One always wonders how these people manage to acquire giant properties anyway.

Anyway there’s a lot of that going on these days. The old hustles don’t work like they used to. Alas. It must be difficult to be old and have the world change on you.

God only knows what George W. Bush who is not totally gay people and Ellen DeGeneres discussed.

Some bad news: I broke up with my girlfriend. I love her very much but her family wasn’t terribly supportive of our relationship and they kept interfering in all kinds of ways. I couldn’t really handle that. I’m getting older and I need a serious partner. I wish her no ill will but when it came time for her to do the right thing by me every time she chose a different path. Apparently Virginia’s not for lovers after all. Who knew?

Some exciting news: I’m planning a return, likely permanently, to California sometime in 2025.

My time in the Imperial City is drawing to a close. I’d like to say that I enjoyed it but I wouldn’t want to lie to you. Still it had its moments.