A summer announcement.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

Dear readers, 

As longtime Tangle subscribers know, one of my biggest fears about our company is that my employees or I will burn out. In the media industry, this is one of the most common ways journalists (and companies) fall apart. So I’ve taken a few precautionary steps to mitigate the risk.

One of those precautions is giving my team a few breaks each year, including a week in the summer. Every August, we plan our break to coincide with Congress’s annual recess to limit the amount of news we miss. That means we’re taking this year’s summer break now. We’ll be off from the daily newsletter, the daily podcast, Suspension of the Rules and the Sunday edition for the entirety of the week, and we’ll be delaying Press Pass until next week. Personally, I’m shipping off to the beach to disconnect from the news for a few days and connect with my wife and son. 

As always, I encourage our readers to take a break when we do. Today, news fatigue is the #1 reason people unsubscribe from or cancel their membership with Tangle. It’s hard to consume so much content, especially when many stories are so polarizing or distressing. So: I invite you to take a little news break and return with us in a week. We’ll catch you up on everything you missed when we’re back. 

In the meantime, I want to leave you all with something before we go. You might remember that a few months ago we were promoting an event in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. We ended up filling a theatre in one of America’s hidden-gem towns for a discussion on the future of artificial intelligence, how the technology is going to impact the country, and what the future might actually hold. I was on stage with Andy Mills, Kmele Foster and Kat Rosenfield, and we had a fascinating, funny, and — at times — scary conversation. We want to share that conversation with you now. I learned a lot, and I hope you will too.

Best,
Isaac & the Tangle team