I have a complicated relationship with Glenn Greenwald. I unabashedly admire those who challenge tyranny at great personal risk, and in that respect Greenwald is very much someone I admire. From his work on the Snowden leaks to the corruption and violence of the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil, he has often made himself a target in the name of exposing the truth.

But of course anyone familiar with Greenwald knows he is a pretty abrasive personality, particularly when he agrees with you, falling somewhere in the spectrum of that kid in high school who identified as the devil’s advocate and that kid in high school who treated South Park like it was scripture. While some people just dismiss this as Greenwald being, well, an asshole, it actually very much fits the political ethos that also seems to motivate the admirable actions I referenced above. In a world where liberals have all become neoliberals and libertarians have all admitted to actually being fascists, Greenwald is the rare example of a true classical liberal, a man who is so dedicated to civil liberties that he will defend the rights of Nazis and transphobic bigots to speak their hatreds. …

It is possible that we reached peak super hero saturation in 2019 with the release of the Avengers: End Game movie, the climatic finale of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that successfully secured Hollywood’s enormous investment in the franchise by breaking all sorts of box office records in addition to the near-infinite possibilities of spin-offs, toys, tie-ins, and really really bad t-shirts for dads.

There is probably no intra-Left discourse that people are more tired of than the question of identity politics. But exhaustion with the question should not be mistaken with resolution. We have explored the vampire castle: some of us have exited it and others have claimed it as a fortress. But the differences are deeper than that, they are etched with nuances due to differences of definition and vision. It is not uncommon to hear, as I just heard on a podcast, people discussing the subject give a disclaimer of “I’m not one of those anti-identity politics people.” Of course the old joke is that if you say something like “I’m not a racist but…,” you’re probably a racist, and similarly the people who tend to try to separate themselves from “anti-identity politics people” are themselves people critical of modern identity politics and simply embarrassed or even disgusted by the alternatives put forth by their fellow critics. And from urging people to not address race in politics after the murder of George Floyd to denying racial disparities in deaths and other harms of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is plenty to be embarrassed of. …

On November 24, 2020, a death warrant was signed by Purdue Pharma LP entering into a plea agreement to one charge of dual-object conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), and two charges of conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute. While not the end of one continuous investigation, various federal and state law enforcement have been investigating Purdue for essentially the same crimes since 2001, only five years after the release of OxyContin and back when the rates of overdose deaths were over three times lower than they are today. I call the plea a “death warrant” because it contains a complicated set of provisions interrelated with the company’s bankruptcy, one of which is the company’s dissolution. …

Friend and always thought-provoking writer Ryan Cooper has a piece up at The Week today giving a brief but comprehensive of the sheer amount of damage that the Trump administration has done and is continuing to do to the federal government’s administrative infrastructure, and proposes that President-elect Joe Biden goes about repairing it by eschewing the slow and wasteful procedures of the Obama administration and instead takes a lesson from the Trump administration by mirroring its “sheer shameless belligerence” with “a blizzard of executive orders and administrative rulings.” This would absolutely work, and those who doubt whether it could be wielded for progressive aims need only look at the historical examples of Presidents Lincoln and FDR. But as Cooper notes at the piece’s end: “It’s hard indeed to imagine Joe Biden doing any of this.” Biden is definitely not a Lincoln or FDR, let alone a Bernie Sanders, but that is not necessarily the whole answer. …

Dear Bob,

This is embarrassing to admit but when I was sent your quote in Politico’s story on NYC DSA I didn’t remember who you were. Normally I wouldn’t be embarrassed about forgetting who a politician was because most politicians are uninteresting and not worth the space in my brain that could be dedicated to anything else. I try to remember the names of the people I admire. But I also try to remember the names of people who inspire disgust in the people I admire. When the guy who I watched knock 300 doors in one day while supervising others complains about someone, I listen. …

The mood at the December 16, 1918 meeting of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco was tense. The main topic of discussion was reinstituting a mask ordinance in the city to prevent transmission of an outbreak of influenza. The plan being discussed had been written behind closed doors by the city’s business leaders who were concerned the outbreak would harm the tourism that was crucial to their businesses. Dr. William Hassler, the city’s Health Officer, was impatient and threatened to take drastic actions himself if the Board of Supervisors failed to reinstitute the ban. At this threat, a Mrs. C.E. Grosjean, a self-proclaimed representative of the “indignant citizens” of the city, proclaimed that the people were against the mask ordinance and moreover against the domination of Dr. Hassler over their lives. The next day, a bomb was left on Dr. …

One of my favorite jokes to make since socialism has made a comeback was this following parody of the political compass I would send to people when they asked me what my political orientation was or even more precisely where I was on the political compass:

The joke was focused a lot on the insecurity and self-consciousness US socialists have about being perceived as “authoritarian” due to the predominant libertarian political culture in the US and accompanying fear mongering of “authoritarian socialism” like the Soviet Union or the Bolivarian Republics. While I do think many liberal ideas should be criticized, I do not think the awesome power of the state should be used to send people to gulags for thought crimes. …