If you have to guess my opinion on the latest round of the progressive circular firing squad—the DNC vote against setting up a single-issue presidential debate on climate—you haven’t been paying attention. To be honest, I know that you haven’t, and I am very distraught that none of my friends called this right away.

I have many problems with the civil war Justice Democrats are waging against the Democratic Party: results; motives; manipulative rhetorics (double standards, impossible standards and victim blaming); strategy; priorities.

Identity politics works differently in Eastern Europe than it does in United States, but it is definitely present, and is tightly woven into the political discourse. Instead of race, identity politics in Eastern Europe is centered on language and culture.

I’ve been trying very hard to keep my mouth shut about Sanders since Sunday, but his statements about Venezuela are the last straw. I must rip that band-aid off.

Any seasoned professional worth their salt is going to recognize Clapper as a peer, sharing organizational wisdom of five decades of service. The book starts a bit slow, but by the time it gets to 1991 it becomes a proper nailbiter, especially when you understand the stakes in the events it describes.

The political spectrum has never been about left, right, center, progressive, conservative, liberal, socialist, or fascist. Fundamentally, it is always about justice and courage: How much injustice are you willing to ignore? How much change are you willing to risk to address it?

Choice of words matters. If you cut away euphemisms and hedging, here is how it is. Russia is waging war on America and has launched a series of attacks that are still ongoing (e.g. recent “walkaway” tag amplification by Russian bots). Russian organized crime controls the Russian government since 1990-s, and is now taking over control of the US government. White supremacism, white nationalism, nativism, alt-right extremism are euphemisms for fascism and have directly caused a sharp increase of terrorist attacks within US.

I can’t decide whether Chris Hedges is a fool or a tool, but I know that his articles have done a great deal of harm to the progressive cause in America, and his latest piece, “The Coming Collapse”, aims to do harm once again, at a very fragile moment in American history. I never had much patience for fools, and this one is prominent enough to benefit from a thorough putdown. Enjoy.

R: “Lets extend surveilance of US citizens without warrants for another 6 years.” D: “Isn’t that unconstitutional?” R: “Don’t care. There’s bad dudes!” (a week later) R: “A US citizen got surveiled!” D: “Didn’t you want to stop bad dudes?” R: “Not if they work for the White House!” D: “How did you find out?” R: “We had FBI surveiled.” D: “Isn’t that illegal?” R: “Don’t care. There’s deep state!”

Stuck in an airplane, I was finally able to catch up to my reading list. There’s some good long reads worth sharing, and one I’m rather conflicted about.