Posts Tagged ‘Turkey’

LinkSwarm For November 3, 2023

Friday, November 3rd, 2023

Israel rolls on in Gaza, Democrats get indicted on election fraud, Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty, censorship schemes get busted, and George Soros’ evil fingers are everywhere. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!


  • Israel’s ground offensive has surrounded Gaza City, where it seems to think most of Hamas infrastructure is located.

    The blue circles indicate Israel military activity, which does rather suggest they’re pounding the snot out of Hamas.

  • “House Weaponization Panel Gets IRS To End ‘Abusive’ Surprise Visits.”

    House Republicans on the GOP’s “weaponization” subcommittee said in a Friday report that the IRS has agreed to end its “abusive” policy of surprise visits to taxpayers’ homes following pressure from the panel.

    The Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s oversight revealed, and led to the swift end of, the IRS’s weaponization of unannounced field visits to harass, intimidate, and target taxpayers,” reads the report. “Taxpayers can now rest assured the IRS will not come knocking without providing prior notice—something that should have been the IRS’s practice all along.”

    The IRS announced in July that it would end most unannounced agent visits to the homes of Americans, citing security concerns.

    But it also came after the agency engaged in what appeared to be witness intimidation, after visiting the New Jersey home of journalist Matt Taibbi on the same day he appeared before Congress to testify on government abuse.

    Following the incident, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded answers from the IRS, writing “In light of the hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists, and the IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse, the IRS’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress.”

    Taibbi thanked Jordan on Saturday, writing in response to the report:

    One of the cases outlined is my own. My home was visited by the IRS while I was testifying before Jordan’s Committee about the Twitter Files on March 9th. Sincere thanks are due to Chairman Jordan, whose staff not only demanded and got answers in my case, but achieved a concrete policy change, as IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel announced in July new procedures that would “end most” home visits.

    Anticipating criticism for expressing public thanks to a Republican congressman, I’d like to ask Democratic Party partisans: to which elected Democrat should I have appealed for help in this matter? The one who called me a “so-called journalist” on the House floor? The one who told me to take off my “tinfoil hat” and put greater trust in intelligence services? The ones in leadership who threatened me with jail time? I gave votes to the party for thirty years. Which elected Democrat would have performed basic constituent services in my case? Feel free to raise a hand.

    If silence is the answer, why should I ever vote for a Democrat again?

    Why indeed.

  • How George Soros destroyed law and order in the United States without changing a single law.

    In the conversation with [Joe] Rogan, Musk then explains George Soros’ massive bet (now overseen by his son, Alexander Soros) on funding city and state district attorney elections nationwide. He said, “The value for money in local races is much higher than in national races – the lowest value for money is a presidential race.”

    “Soros realized you don’t actually need to change the laws – you just need to change how they’re enforced – if nobody chooses to enforce the law – or the laws differentially enforced – it’s like changing the laws,” Musk said.

    This leaves with a new interview from one Maryland sheriff, just outside of crime-ridden Baltimore City, in Wicomico County, who drops a truth bomb about radical progressive lawmakers in the state, some of whom have likely been funded by Soros, who purposely fail to enforce law and order and only embolden criminal.

    “I’m in my 40th year of law enforcement, and I have never ever seen it this bad,” Sheriff Mike Lewis said.

    Lewis continued: “I’ve never seen a government so ingrained – and quite frankly complicit – in the criminal activity taking place in our nation.”

  • Speaking of Soros: “Soros has funneled over $15M to pro-Hamas organizations through Open Society Foundations.” Of course he has.
  • This week in Democratic Party corruption. “The FBI is investigating whether New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations.” New Yorkers could have had Curtis Sliwa, but noooooooo….
  • And speaking of campaign finance fraud: “FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty on All Counts.”

    A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts for his role in the crypto exchange’s downfall.

    Those counts include wire fraud on customers of FTX, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers of FTX, wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit securities fraud on investors in FTX, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud on customers of FTX, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

    He faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28 at 9:30 a.m.

    During a month-long trial in a Manhattan federal court, prosecutors claimed Bankman-Fried misled investors and mishandled billions in funds. He was accused of misusing customer funds deposited with FTX to boost his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.

    Nicolas Roos, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Bankman-Fried committed crimes of “epic proportions.” He alleged during closing arguments that Bankman-Fried built his company on a “foundation of lies and false promises.”

    Snip.

    Bankman-Fried was a Democrat megadonor, giving nearly $39 million to Democrat-aligned causes during the 2022 election cycle.

    Prosecutors said he “misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits, and used billions of dollars in stolen funds for a variety of purposes, including … to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation,” according to an August indictment.

    Both Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and the former head of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, testified against Bankman-Fried during the trial. Ellison and Wang both pleaded guilty in December to multiple charges.

  • More of that Democratic Party voter fraud the MSM swears doesn’t exist: “A Bridgeport, Connecticut judge ruled on Wednesday to overturn the city’s Democratic primary election after video emerged of a woman who appears to be the city’s vice chair of the Democratic Town Committee, Wanda Geter-Pataky, committing ballot fraud.”
  • “The Department of Health and Human Services has sent over $800,000 to a group in Texas where they distribute crack pipes, according to the Dallas Express…The funds were sent to the El Paso Alliance, a non-profit that helps people recover from alcoholism and drug addictions, according to its website.” Knowing what I know about leftwing activists, I’m guessing that $80,000 went to crack pipe distribution, and the rest disappeared into various leftwing pockets.
  • “Boston Children’s Hospital given $1.4 million in taxpayer money for child sex changes.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Mike Pence stops pretending he’s running for President.
  • Biden gets a primary challenger in the form of U.S. Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips. We’ll see if the DNS tries to screw him less than Bernie Sanders…
  • California is still having trouble managing this newfangled electricity thing. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • China’s least awful communist official, former Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, just died of a heart attack at age 68, and the CCP is banning memorial wishes for him.
  • Despite the Texas law against teaching Critical Race Theory, Katy ISD students are being told to reflect on their white privilege.
  • “America’s Top Law Firms Issue Warning to Colleges to Address Antisemitism.”

    More than two dozen top U.S. law firms have issued a stern warning that law schools move with “urgency” to address the rising antisemitism on campus, or else it could affect recruitment, National Review has learned.

    “Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel. Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms,” the statement published on Wednesday reads.

    “As educators at institutions of higher learning, it is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues, in a manner that affirms the values we all hold dear and rejects unreservedly that which is antithetical to those values,” the letter continued. “There is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.”

    Snip.

    Signatories included: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, Milbank LLP, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Paul Hastings LLP, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP, Ropes & Gray LLP, Shearman & Sterling, Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Watchtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

  • Darryl Schriver was fired from his position as CEO of Tri-County Electric Cooperative [north and west of Fort Worth] after his alleged use of company expenses to purchase Star Wars collector pens, Apple products, Oakley sunglasses, Texas Christian University (TCU) football tickets, airfare for his wife, and more.” A company credit card is just about the stupidest way in the world to attempt to embezzle funds. Also: “The filing then details Schriver’s rejection of a $50,000 bonus and subsequent demand for a bonus worth up to $75,000 so that the take-home amount after taxes was $50,000.” Smooth move, Ex-Lax…
  • Jewish homes in Paris marked with Stars of David. It’s good that sort of thing has never led to any negative outcomes in Europe…
  • Good: Disney is making it’s live-action Snow White remake a more traditional film, including actual dwarfs rather than random guys. Bad: The CGI dwarfs look absolutely horrible. It’s as though Disney wants to punish movie-goers for rejecting their woke vision…
  • Adam Ford leaves the Bee.
  • “Hamas Leader Appointed Senior Fellow At Harvard University.”
  • “‘I Wouldn’t Have Gone Along With The Nazis In 1939,’ Says College Student At ‘Kill The Jews‘ Rally.”
  • A young go-getter:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • LinkSwarm for October 6, 2023

    Friday, October 6th, 2023

    The job search continues, Buddy is healing nicely from his surgery, and we’ve finally gotten some decent cool weather. This week: More Biden border follies, social justice types getting stabbed by reality, and a double dose of doggy goodness. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • We touched on this earlier this week, but the Biden Administration has done a 180 and will allow Texas to construct a border wall.

    Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas waived 26 federal laws Wednesday, allowing border-wall construction in south Texas to resume under the Biden administration for the first time since former president Donald Trump left office.

    “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Mayorkas wrote in the notice.

    The new construction project will add an additional 20 miles to the border wall in Starr County, Texas, which has been reported as an area experiencing “high illegal entry.” Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, in which the county is located, has seen over 245,000 illegal migrants enter the U.S. through that area during fiscal year 2023.

    Among the 26 laws that the DHS waived included the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and Endangered Species Act, all notable environmental laws that limited further construction of the wall. The project will be funded by a congressional appropriations package from fiscal year 2019, the notice stated.

    The announcement marks a noticeable flip from President Joe Biden’s original stance on the matter. “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution,” Biden said in January 2021, ending the national emergency over the border crisis when he first became president.

    While running against Trump in 2020, Biden emphatically stated, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”

    Of course the same overflowing conditions have been plaguing the border throughout the entirety of Biden’s term, but Democratic mayors we’re screaming for relief from their own “sanctuary city” policies until recently. Chalk up another win for Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s illegal alien busing policies.

  • Or maybe not? “Mayorkas Furiously Backpedals After Claiming ‘Acute & Immediate Need’ For Border Wall.”
  • The Biden border invasion, by the numbers.

    3 million people, more or less, were “encountered” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol, illegally entering the U.S. in fiscal year 2023 (which ended Sept. 30). On Mayorkas’ watch, we have set the record for the highest number of yearly illegal alien encounters in U.S. history. If those caught in 2023 formed a new city, it would the third biggest in America, behind only New York and Los Angeles.

    304,000 illegal aliens were encountered this August alone (the last month for which we have official government numbers). That’s the population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    75% of August’s inadmissible aliens were freely let in by President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas has told the press and Congress many times that the border is not open. But if a door admits three of every four people who attempt to go through it, can we consider it closed? A philosophical question, perhaps. Maybe we can settle on “mostly open,” like the “mostly dead” Wesley in the movie “The Princess Bride” or the “mostly peaceful” riots of 2020.

    Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Satanic Pedophile Extortion Cult Uncovered By FBI After NY Arrest.”

    A November 2021 arrest in Queens, New York led to the discovery of a satanic cult of pedophile extortionists known as 764, which has been linked to significant criminal activity around the globe. The organization, which goes byseveral aliases, was uncovered by the FBI while investigating alarming posts on social media made by 23-year-old Angel Almeida of Astoria, Queens, The Guardian reports.

    Almeida was flagged to the FBI by an anonymous tipster who was concerned over his social media accounts, which contained images of violence against children and animals. In one post, he expressed support for Charleston mass-murderer Dylann Roof. Another post showed him talking around with a shotgun while wearing a “a skull mask and crossed bandoliers of rifle ammunition across his chest with a flag in the background featuring an Order of Nine Angles symbol.”

    Almeida served 18 months in prison for third degree burglary in 2018, and was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was detained in Brooklyn’s metropolitan detention center. In February 2023, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment on child pornography and exploitation charges related to his involvement in the cult, as well as hundreds of thousands of digital files recovered from his residence.

    In new charges, Almeida is accused of coercing a teenage girl into having sex with an older man, and convincing another girl to cut herself on camera and send it to him.

    In one post, Almeida posts “For the 2k pedophile haters,” showing his finger over the trigger guard of a Taurus handgun.

  • FBI creates “MAGA Extremist” category to target Trump supporters.
  • I haven’t kept up with internal issues in Commie dystopian Venezuela, but evidently they’re having trouble with criminal gangs.

    Early in the morning of September 20, 11,000 members of the Venezuelan security forces deployed around the notorious prison of Tocorón in Aragua state, the home base of the country’s most powerful criminal structure, the Tren de Aragua.

    “The Bolivarian Government informs that the Cacique Guaicaipuro Liberation Operation has been underway since the early hours of the morning. Its objective is to dismantle and put an end to organized crime gangs and other criminal networks operating from the Tocorón Penitentiary, to the detriment of the tranquility of the Venezuelan people,” read an official communiqué.

    Residents living near the prison were awakened by the sounds of armored vehicles speeding towards the prison, in what is one of the largest deployments ever of the Venezuelan security forces.

    The simple fact that the operation, named after a legendary native chief of the 16th Century, needed 11,000 soldiers and officials speaks to the power of the Tren de Aragua and its leader Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero,” in Tocorón.

    The prison, which is in the central state of Aragua and home to some 7,000 inmates, is one of the biggest in the country.

    This operation, the first against the Tren de Aragua, and the largest of its kind to date, is a clear show of force by the Venezuelan government.

    Tocorón has long been home to the Tren de Aragua and Niño Guerrero, who ran the prison like his personal fiefdom with the blessing of the prison ministry (Ministerio de Poder Popular para el Servicio Penitenciario). Niño Guerrero, imprisoned for murder, was the “pran” of Tocorón prison, essentially the criminal warden in a system set up by the first Prison Minister Iris Varela, now Vice President of the National Assembly. The pran system saw inmates take control of several prisons across the country in exchange for maintaining order, reducing homicides, and ending jail uprisings.

    This operation might signal the end of the pran system, something suggested in the official communique of the operation, which stated that the operation was to “restore and dignify the penitentiary system.”

    The question now is whether this operation will disrupt the leadership and running of the Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal structure with thousands of affiliates with a presence not only across Venezuela, but in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. The Tren de Aragua has projected power abroad, riding off the backs of the more than seven million Venezuelans who have fled the economic collapse and authoritarian regime presided over by President Nicolás Maduro.

    What has prompted Maduro to act after years of tolerating the criminal fiefdom of Tocorón? The Venezuelan president has long tolerated criminal structures operating in the country, both Venezuelan and Colombian, because he needed access to criminal rents to maintain the loyalty of key generals and political figures, as the state teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

    However, since 2020, the Venezuelan security forces have moved against several defiant criminal groups, like the megabanda of Carlos Luis Revete, alias “El Koki,” and dissident elements of the rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), which set up drug trafficking infrastructure in the Venezuelan department of Apure. The operation against the ex-FARC saw the deployment of significant military forces, which ended up humiliated by the Colombian rebels, who captured eight soldiers and forced a military withdrawal. This might explain the apparent overkill with the Tocorón operation: Maduro clearly did not want any further defeats or humiliations.

  • “Philadelphia Journalist Who Mocked Concern Over Violent Crime In Democrat Cities Shot Dead In Home.”

    A left-wing Philadelphia journalist who mocked concern over rising crime in Democrat-run cities was shot to death in his home.

    Josh Kruger was shot seven times after someone entered his home, shot him at the base of his stairs, and then fled. Kruger ran outside seeking help from his neighbors and collapsed, where police found them after responding to call just before 1:30 a.m. on the 2300 block of Watkins Street.

    Kruger, 39, was rushed to the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died just before 2:15 a.m.

    No arrests have been made, and there was no sign of forced entry into the home, according to Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

    “Either the door was open, or the offender knew how to get the door open,” he said. “We just don’t know yet.”

    Detectives believe his death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said. -Inquirer

    Snip.

    Kruger frequently mocked conservatives on X, ironically calling Dilbert creator Scott Adams “Nostradamus” on Saturday for predicting that people would be dead “within the year” of Biden’s election.

    Kruger also mocked conservatives concerned over the city’s shootings, which he said were “dropping to levels not seen in years.”

  • Speaking of social justice supporters being shot: “Social justice activist fatally stabbed in front of girlfriend in Brooklyn. The search is on for the man who fatally stabbed Ryan Carson, who dedicated his life to fighting for social justice.” And that’s how social justice says “thank you.” (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Shellyne Rodriguez, the crazy social justice warrior Manhattan College professor who threatened a reporter with a machete is getting off with no jail time, because of course she is. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar was carjacked at gunpoint in Washington D.C. on Monday night.
  • Paxton Endorses Primary Opponents of Incumbent Republicans Who Backed Impeachment. Paxton endorsed David Covey in his race against Speaker Dade Phelan and Wes Virdell in his race against Rep. Andrew Murr.”
  • Ruble hits penny parity again.
  • Starbucks is closing seven San Francisco stores. Gee, I wonder why. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ)
  • Turkish drone gets too close to U.S. troops in Syria. Turkish drone goes boom.
  • Dwight has a pretty nice post on the fallen at the Battle of Mogadishu, AKA Black Hawk Down.
  • It’s a ski jump competition, except for different types of tires. Oh, Japan, don’t ever change.
  • “Senator Feinstein Death Not Expected To Affect Re-election Campaign.”
  • Yo, dawg, we heard you like dogs, so we put your dog on your dog so your dog’s dog can dog while you dog, dawg.
  • The cutest rooster:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Here’s the tip jar, if you’re so inclined:





    Turkey Flips, Boosts NATO Membership For Sweden…And Ukraine

    Tuesday, July 11th, 2023

    Remember how Turkey was blocking Sweden’s membership in NATO? Well, they’ve now flipped to backing Sweden’s membership.

    Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to support Sweden’s bid to join Nato, the military alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg says.

    He said the Turkish leader would forward Sweden’s bid to parliament in Ankara and “ensure ratification”.

    Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said: “I am very happy, it is a good day for Sweden.”

    Turkey had previously spent months blocking Sweden’s application, accusing it of hosting Kurdish militants.

    As one of Nato’s 31 members, Turkey has a veto over any new country joining the group.

    Reacting to the news, US President Joe Biden said he welcomed the commitment by President Erdogan to proceed with “swift ratification”.

    “I stand ready to work with President Erdogan and Turkey on enhancing defence and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Kristersson and Sweden as our 32nd Nato ally,” a White House statement said.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted: “At 32, we’re all safer together.” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Sweden joining would “make us all safer”.

    Mr Stoltenberg announced the agreement late on Monday following talks between the Turkish and Swedish leaders in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

    The Nato chief described it as a “historic step”, but stressed that a “clear date” could not be given for when Sweden would join the military alliance – as this relied on the Turkish parliament.

    Sweden and its eastern neighbour Finland, both long considered as militarily neutral, announced their intention to join Nato in May last year, several months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland formally joined in April.

    Why the sudden turnaround on Sweden’s membership?

    For one thing, they’re getting F-16s out of the deal. For another, Erdogan is pushing for EU membership again, and needs all the friends he can get if he wants to stop Turkey’s disasterous economic slide. Turkey is hemorrhaging foreign currency reserves thanks to Erdogan’s SuperGenius economic move of lowering interest rates to flight inflation, so maybe a promise of closer ties to Europe might staunch the bleeding a little.

    It could also be Turkey’s age-old enmity with Russia coming to the fore. Or maybe Russia’s poor performance has finally led Erdogan to conclude that Russia is the “weak horse.”

    But it’s not just Sweden: Erdogan also indicated approval for Ukraine joining NATO as well. “‘There is no doubt that Ukraine deserves membership of NATO,’ Erdogan told a joint press conference with the Ukrainian president in Istanbul early on Saturday, adding that the two sides should go back to peace talks.”

    Moreover, NATO seems receptive to letting Ukraine join…just not right now.

    NATO leaders said on Tuesday that Ukraine should be able to join the military alliance at some point in the future but they stopped short of offering Kyiv an immediate invitation, angering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

    The leaders were meeting at a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as Ukrainian troops struggled to make significant gains in a counteroffensive against the Russian invasion forces occupying parts of the country.

    The leaders said in a declaration: “Ukraine’s future is in NATO”. But they offered no timeline for the process.

    “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met,” the declaration said, without specifying the conditions Ukraine needs to meet.

    I’m sure one of the conditions is “Not having Russia occupying large parts of your country.”

    Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression has made the alliance more united than any time since the end of the Cold War. Clearly it’s in every NATO member’s interest to let Russia dash 50 years worth of Russo-Soviet miltech against the rock of Ukraine, so expect members of the alliance to keep feeding Ukraine’s armed forces for the immediate future.

    But having a direct military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia isn’t on anyone member’s preference card, no matter how badly NATO armies would maul their Russian counterparts. So don’t expect NATO membership for Ukraine until the Russo-Ukrainian War concludes.

    The League of the Boned: Turkey

    Tuesday, May 30th, 2023

    I have an in-process post titled “League of the Boned” in embryonic form, which was going to be about how each country in the League has been screwed by deficit spending, high interest rates and endemic corruption. But there so much boning to write about, and so many members of the League, that I thought it best to split it up into individual posts.

    First up is Turkey, not because it’s the most boned, but the one whose immediate boning is made more acute by recent events, namely Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reelection.

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters are celebrating after Turkey’s long-time president won Sunday’s vote, securing another five years in power.

    “The entire nation of 85 million won,” he told cheering crowds outside his enormous palace on the edge of Ankara.

    But his call for unity sounded hollow as he ridiculed his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu – and took aim at a jailed Kurdish leader and the LGBT community.

    The opposition leader denounced “the most unfair election in recent years”.

    Mr Kilicdaroglu said the president’s political party had mobilised all the means of the state against him and he did not explicitly admit defeat.

    International observers said on Monday that, as with the first round on 14 May, media bias and limits to freedom of expression had “created an unlevel playing field, and contributed to an unjustified advantage” for Mr Erdogan.

    President Erdogan ended with just over 52% of the vote, based on near-complete unofficial results. Almost half the electorate in this deeply polarised country did not back his authoritarian vision of Turkey.

    Ultimately, Mr Kilicdaroglu was no match for the well-drilled Erdogan campaign, even if he took the president to a run-off second round for the first time since the post was made directly elected in 2014.

    But he barely dented his rival’s first-round lead, falling more than two million votes behind.

    Snip.

    The president admitted that tackling inflation was Turkey’s most urgent issue.

    The question is whether he is prepared to take the necessary measures to do so. At an annual rate of almost 44%, inflation seeps into everyone’s lives.

    The cost of food, rent and other everyday goods has soared, exacerbated by Mr Erdogan’s refusal to observe orthodox economic policy and raise interest rates.

    The Turkish lira has hit record lows against the dollar and the central bank has struggled to meet surging demand for foreign currency.

    “If they continue with low interest rates, as Erdogan has signalled, the only other option is stricter capital controls,” warns Selva Demiralp, professor of economics at Koc university in Istanbul.

    Tiny problem: Strict capital controls tend not to work. By the standards of the Middle East, Turkey is fairly open and fairly modern, and getting around currency controls is one of the use cases that cryptocurrencies are ideal for.

    Indeed, the currency problem is so severe that Turkey’s foreign currency reserves just turned negative.

    The Turkish central bank’s net forex reserves dropped into negative territory for the first time since 2002, standing at $-151.3 million on May 19, as the bank – following Erdogan’s strict orders – scrambled to counter demand for hard currencies (USD, gold, crypto) ahead of Sunday’s runoff vote.

    Forex demand in Turkey surged to record levels ahead of May 14 on companies’ and individuals’ expectations that the lira, which lost 44% in 2021 and 30% in 2022, will plunge after the vote (spoiler alert: those fears have been justified).

    As we discussed last week, the central bank’s forex reserves have sagged in recent years due to costly market interventions and other efforts to cool forex demand. The bank’s net reserves dropped by $2.48 billion in the week to May 19, to their lowest level since February 2002. They have dropped $27.7 billion since the end of 2022, and were at negative $3 billion as of May 19. The net forex reserves would be even more negative if outstanding swaps, courtesy of foreign central banks and which stood at $33.50 billion on Wednesday, are deducted (as they should be since the CBRT will have to repay these at some point).

    And while the endgame here is clear to all, few are willing to say it out loud for fear of retaliation by the Erdogan regime (no really, he has been known to throw people in jail for recommending a Turkish lira short); yet one bank which decided to double down on Goldman’s dire view of how it all plays out is Morgan Stanley, which in a note last week (available to pro subscribers in the usual place), wrote that the turkish lira plummeting to 28 by the end of the year, is likely in the cards (in our view, that’s a rather optimistic take since the lira is about to become the new Bolivar where soon new zeroes are added daily if not hourly).

    This is, I think, a bit of an exaggeration, since Turkey is a much bigger and more important country (and economy) than Venezuela, and while they’ve done several terribly stupid things with their economy, they haven’t gone full socialist starvation scenario on it.

    The biggest concern when Erdogan came to party was his Islamist roots, and how he dismantled Turkey’s own peculiar systems of checks and balances, namely that anytime the government would move too far in an Islamist direction, the military would step in, depose the current government, rule for a while, and then step down once things had calmed down again. That doesn’t look very much like classic western democracy, but it served well enough for Turkey, partially insulating it from the wild swings between different despots common in the rest of the Islamic world.

    The bad news is that Erdogan demolished those checks and balances in his drive to centralize power in his own hands, purging the military of anyone he thought might possibly oppose him. The good news is that, after all that, he turned out to mostly be a typical Middle Eastern strongman rather than a fervent jihadi. The bad news is that he’s also a complete economic ignoramus, and his stupidity is making Turkey’s economic problems much worse.

    Here Patrick Boyle explains just how stupid:

  • On Erdogan’s idea that low-interest rates can cure inflation: “The official annual inflation rate in Turkey was 43.7% as of April. This is actually down from the 80% inflation rate that Turkey saw the prior year. There is no guarantee that this slowdown will persist. There is in fact widespread suspicion that the official numbers understate an inflation rate that according to independent experts is actually closer to 100%.”
  • The February earthquakes didn’t help.
  • “Another term for President Erdoğan would likely imply a continuation of the current policies with a heightened risk of persistent very high inflation and severe currency pressures.”
  • “The high inflation, along with government largess and efforts to prop up the currency are threatening economic growth and could push the country into a deep recession.”
  • The Lira is trading near record lows against the dollar.
  • “Net foreign assets, a proxy for the size of Turkey’s foreign currency holdings, have declined to minus $13 billion dollars from $1.4 billion dollars a year ago, according to central bank data.”
  • “Those figures include billions of dollars in funds borrowed from the domestic banking system through swaps. Pressure on international reserves has been ‘significant in recent weeks’ as the government made efforts to prop up the economy ahead of Sunday’s elections.”
  • “Turkey’s foreign currency and gold reserves tumbled $17 billion dollars in the six weeks leading up to the first round of the election according to the FT, a decline of 15 percent.”
  • “Turkey had a painful experience of high and chronic inflation from 1975 through to 2004 caused by political instability, poor institutions, high public sector budget deficits and depreciation of the Turkish Lira which culminated in a severe financial crisis in 2000-2001.”
  • “The establishment of an independent central bank in 2001, which focused mainly on fighting inflation along with tight fiscal policies implemented at the same time brought inflation under control.”
  • “During his election campaign, Erdogan showed no intention of changing his policies, doubling down on his claims that low interest rates would help the economy grow by providing cheap credit to increase Turkish manufacturing and exports. ‘You will see as the interest rates go down, so will inflation’ he told supporters in Istanbul in April.”
  • With the cost-of-living crisis on many voters’ minds, Erdogan launched a range of expensive policies in the lead up to the election aimed at reducing the immediate impact of inflation on voters. He raised the minimum wage repeatedly, announced a free month of natural gas for consumers, reduced electricity prices increased civil servant salaries and changed government policies to allow millions of Turks to receive early government pensions. Just days before the first round of the election He gave a 45% pay rise to 700,000 Turkish public sector workers, saying he would “not let anyone be crushed by inflation”.

    So he combated inflation by guaranteeing there would be more inflation, just like Joe Biden.

  • Boyle thinks Turkeys problems can be solved by adopting sane economic policies. “For a country in crisis, Turkey’s problems are not that difficult to solve – it is not a total basket case economy like some other emerging markets. The country mostly just needs a sensible interest rate policy and an independent central bank. Turkey has a lot of positives, it has a diversified economy, growth is good, it has good demographics and an educated workforce.”
  • This is true, but it was also true before Erdogan got into power and screwed things up. Peter Zeihan thinks that Turkey has the right mix of geography and demographics to be a future regional power. But there’s an awful difficult present to get through before that happens…

    LinkSwarm for March 31, 2023

    Friday, March 31st, 2023

    One quarter of the year gone! Career criminals coddled by Soros Stooges, crazy woman who thinks she’s a man murders children, lots of Flu Manchu fraud, and Botox makes you crazy(er). It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Everyone and their dog is covering the ham sandwich Trump indictment, so I’ll leave that to others. I will note that Alan Dershowitz is not impressed. “Based on what we know about this case, it may be one of the weakest cases in my six years of experience.”
    

  • Voter Suppression Is Real And It’s Not What You Were Told.

    On the morning of Election Day last November, William French went to his local polling place in Freeland, Pennsylvania, to cast his vote. But the qualified and registered voter wasn’t allowed to. The disabled U.S. Army veteran was told that the precinct had run out of paper for ballots and he had to come back later in the afternoon.

    So that’s what he did, returning at 3:30 p.m. But the precinct still didn’t have ballots. Election workers told him to return yet again. But by nightfall, it was too difficult. French has endured 17 surgeries on his destroyed leg and uses a cane to walk. But the sidewalks are a mess, and he was worried about the risk of falling and further injury.

    That same morning, Melynda Reese and her husband went to their polling location in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. But only Reese’s husband was allowed to vote, and for the same reason: The precinct had run out of paper. They came back at 4:00 p.m. and were told there would be a lengthy wait.

    Reese is a corrections officer and her husband’s primary caregiver. He had recently suffered two cardiac arrests and a stroke. He required regular medication and attention and couldn’t be left alone. Long waits were also too much to bear. The couple returned at 6:30 p.m., and saw a line that stretched so long that they knew they couldn’t wait. Around 9:15 p.m., an election official called Reese and told her that ballots were finally available and she could vote. But her husband had just taken his sleeping pills and she couldn’t leave him unattended.

    French and Reese are just two of the thousands of voters affected by poor election administration in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The two just sued Luzerne County, its Board of Elections and Registration, and its Bureau of Elections in federal court for violations of their constitutional right to vote.

    “Voters in Luzerne County through no fault of their own, were disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote. William French and Melynda Reese are two of those voters. They bring suit to vindicate the denial of their sacred right to vote, to make sure voters are not disenfranchised in the future, and to bring integrity back to elections in Luzerne County,” said Wally Zimolong, lawyer for French and Reese.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Did the FBI have a “mole” that would tip Hunter Biden off about any China probes.

    The House Oversight Committee is investigating the explosive claims by Dr. Gal Luft, a former Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel with deep intelligence ties in Washington and Beijing, who says he was arrested to stop him from revealing what he knows about the Biden family and FBI corruption — details he told the Department of Justice in 2019, which he says it ignored.

    Luft, 56, first made the claims on Feb. 18 on Twitter, after being detained at a Cyprus airport as he prepared to board a plane to Israel.

    “I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the U.S. The U.S., claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer.

    “DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim, and Hunter Biden.

    “Shall I name names?”

    Luft remains in jail awaiting extradition to the US over what he says are trumped-up charges of arms trafficking to China and Libya, and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

    Luft claimed that he tried to reach out to the DOJ about the Chinese energy company CEFC paying Hunter $100,000 and James Biden, Joe’s brother, $65,000 “in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world.”

    Maybe. Could just be a grifter trying to skate.

  • “James O’Keefe Uncovers Possible Lucrative Money-Laundering Scheme for Dems.”

    James O’Keefe has not allowed his forced exit from Project Veritas to stop him. His new journalism outfit, O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), just released a video uncovering evidence of what O’Keefe calls a possible “money-laundering scheme” for the Democrats. Some individuals reportedly appear to have donated thousands of times over a relatively short period to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to ActBlue and Biden for President, based on Federal Election Commission records.

    “FEC data shows that some senior citizens across the U.S. have been donating thousands of times per year,” O’Keefe began. “Some of these individuals’ names and addresses are attached to over $200,000 in contributions. We went and knocked on a few of their doors to corroborate the data that we received from a group of citizen journalists called Election Watch in Maryland.” The video then showed O’Keefe visiting someone who is listed as donating over $217,000, through 12,000 separate contributions. This money was earmarked for various entities through leftist platform ActBlue over three years’ time. Some of the donations were made with variations of the person’s name and address, O’Keefe stated.

    The data he obtained was state and FEC data, O’Keefe said. “We’re wondering if these donors are victims of what appears to be a money-laundering scheme, or [if] these residents actually participated in the scheme. We’re making phone calls, we’re knocking on doors, these are things that you can do, we hope you do that.” There are “bizarre amounts of data” on homes and individuals making many thousands of dollars of donations, O’Keefe said, urging others to help him investigate.

    The first person shown opening the door to O’Keefe, a Marylander listed as donating $32,000 in 3,000 different contributions, said he was unaware of the donations but advised O’Keefe as a solution to hit Donald Trump “with a bat.” The man added, “I want to see a scar on his f**king head. Now stop f**king with me,” and slammed the door.

    Another donor, Cindy, according to O’Keefe, supposedly donated over $18,000 in 1,000+ donations to ActBlue in 2022, which would necessitate donating “three times a day, every day, for the whole year.” When asked if she’d donated over $18,000, Cindy responded with a quick laugh, “I doubt that. No, I don’t think so… I wish I could have donated $18,000 to Biden’s presidency.”

    Meanwhile Carolyn Lenz, in Tucson, Ariz., told OMG that she “absolutely [did] not” donate over 18,000 times for $170,000+ to ActBlue. She looked at the data showing “she” donated multiple times a day, often in $5 to $15 increments, and insisted that the donations were not hers. “They must be” fraudulent, Lenz said.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Judge stops California Soros prosecutor from slashing triple murderer’s sentence.”

    After rejecting her in 2018, the voters of Alameda County, California selected Pamela Price as their new District Attorney last year. Price had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from George Soros for her two campaigns. That probably tells you most of what you need to know, since Soros only funds candidates who are soft on crime and willing to empty the jails as much as possible. Price quickly proved herself no exception, seeking to cut a plea deal with a killer who had been arrested for one triple murder for hire, was accused in the murder of a court witness, and several other violent crimes. Rather than the 75 years to life sentence that Delonzo Logwood was eligible for, Price wanted to cut him loose after fifteen years. Thankfully, a County District Judge stepped in and rejected the deal out of hand. (Free Beacon)

    A California judge this week blocked a newly-elected progressive prosecutor’s effort to slash a triple murderer’s sentence.

    Alameda County district judge Mark McCannon rejected District Attorney Pamela Price’s plea deal for a 31-year-old man jailed for a 2008 triple murder-for-hire, among other crimes. Price, who took office in November and has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the progressive billionaire George Soros, attempted to sentence Delonzo Logwood to just 15 years in prison, though he was eligible for a sentence of 75 years to life.

  • 10 Arrests, 33 Charges, 31 Days — One Man!

    You can’t keep a bad man down. Keith Chastain, 38, is a one-thug crime spree.

    Chastain racked up an impressive array of arrests in Fresno County, California, (of course). Between Feb. 19 and March 21, he was arrested 10 times for a menagerie of crimes encompassing 15 misdemeanors and 18 felonies, including:

    • six stolen cars
    • fraud
    • DUI (duh)
    • drugs (duh)
    • vandalism

    Chastain was hit with three additional charges — DUI, trespassing, and auto theft — but those were dropped when cops failed to file the charges in time.

    Snip.

    “Unfortunately, this is not as unique of a situation as it seems,” Tony Botti, spokesman for the Fresno County Sherriff’s office, stated. “California has watered down the laws so much over the years for property criminals and repeat offenders that they are not held accountable like they should be. Sadly, it is our community members who suffer due to these soft-on-crime policies.”

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Aggravated robbery defendant violates bond conditions more than 1,000 times, gets rewarded by two judges.”

    According to court documents, Edwin Maldonado spent many months thumbing his nose at what he was ordered by the court to do.

    His punishment for that is more like a prize.

    “You’ve got someone who was rewarded for being a failure, and this guy was a failure over 1,000 and some odd times,” said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers.

    First, Maldonado gets a felony charge for drug possession. A few weeks later, he’s charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. He makes his $30,000 bond and walks out of jail.

    “I’ve certainly had clients hauled back into court on violations, maybe two or three times that have been alleged,” said criminal defense attorney Emily Detoto.

    Associate Judge Tiffany Hill presided over a bond revocation hearing for Maldonado.

    “For obvious reasons, you are not abiding by your rules and conditions period, and God knows what he was doing when he wasn’t where he was supposed to be,” Kahan said.

    According to court documents, Maldonado failed to comply with any of his bond conditions for eight months.

    According to his GPS monitor, he left his curfew zone 847 times, was called 453 times about his whereabouts, and had more than 1,000 GPS monitor violations.

  • “Suspect Charged in Robbery that Paralyzed Victim Was Out on $100 Bond for Weapons Charge.”

    A suspect arrested and charged in a recent brutal “jugging” robbery in Houston that left a woman paralyzed was out on a $100 bond for a weapons-related charge.

    On the morning of February 13, Nung Truong, 44, withdrew money from a bank ATM but was followed for approximately 24 miles by two suspects. Surveillance video released by the Houston Police Department shows a black male bumping into Truong and causing her to drop her belongings. The suspect initially fled with an envelope but returned seconds later to body-slam Truong to the ground before taking $4,300 in cash.

    A mother to three children aged 13, 15, and 20, Truong is now paralyzed and unable to walk or care for herself.

    Last Friday, Houston Police arrested Joseph Harrell, 17, and Zy’Nika Ayesha Woods, 19, for the attack and charged both suspects with Aggravated Robbery with Serious Bodily Injury.

    According to court records, on January 26, 2023, Harrell had been granted a General Order bond of $100 for Unlawful Possession of a Weapon. He also faces charges of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon related to an incident in February in which he threatened another victim with a gun. Harrell is currently being held in the Harris County jail on bonds totaling $240,000.

    Snip.

    Although Harrell’s Unlawful Possession of a Weapon charge was assigned to Harris County Court 2 under Judge Paula Goodhart, his bond was signed by Judge David Singer.

    Elected to Harris County Criminal Court 14 in 2018, Singer lost in the March 2022 Democratic primary election and his term ended December 31, 2022. As a one-term judge, Singer is not eligible under state code to serve as a visiting judge.

    The 11th Administrative Judicial Region confirmed to The Texan that Singer is not listed as a visiting judge.

    The Harris County Office of Court Management emailed the following statements to The Texan:

    “David Singer was appointed as associate judge pursuant to Section 54A.002 of the Texas Government Code and the Local Rules for Harris County Criminal Courts at Law. His start date was Jan. 1, 2023.”

  • Finland gets the green light to join NATO, with Turkey and Hungary approving their membership. Sweden’s application is still under negotiation. As I noted previously, tangling with the Finns has not been a source of happiness for Russia.
  • Poor priorities. “European Ammo Maker’s Growth Stymied By TikTok Data Center Sucking Up Electricity.”
  • “Several homeless encampments have popped up behind shops at South Town Square in South Austin, driving business and customers away.”
  • “Florida Governor DeSantis Signs Universal School Choice Bill.”
  • LA City Council member Mark Ridley-Thomas convicted of taking bribes. “He was convicted of one count of bribery, one of conspiracy, one count of honest services mail fraud, and four counts of honest services wire fraud. The jury acquitted him on 12 other counts.”
  • “Protesting WA’s capital gains tax, Fisher Investments says HQ moving to Texas.” This is in response to a Washington state supreme court ruling allowing a state capital gains tax.
  • Crazy woman who thinks she’s a man murdered children in a Christian school this week.
  • “As Veterans Learned the DCCC Had Leaked Their Data, the VA’s Tech Chief Was Meeting With His Wife. She Runs the DCCC.”

    Veterans Affairs assistant secretary Kurt DelBene is married to Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.), chairwoman of the DCCC. It’s a big club, and you’re not in it. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Covid crook convicted.

    Federal prosecutors announced a 58-year-old Plainview man is facing 102 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $4 million in federal relief funds passed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    On Friday, Andrew Johnson pleaded guilty in the Northern District of Texas to three counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and one count of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity, according to a news release published by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

    Johnson swindled millions from the Paycheck Protection Program passed in the early weeks of the pandemic to help stave off the economic effects of business closures, government restrictions, and shelter-in-place mandates. As part of the fraud, Johnson applied for and received forgiveness for 27 bogus loans.

    He spent more than $3.5 million of the stolen funds on “home renovations, vacations, clothing, cosmetic surgery, college tuition, cars, wedding expenses, and equipment for an unrelated business venture,” according to the DOJ.

  • Speaking of fraud: “Nonprofit vendor defrauded Austin Public Health of $417K.”

    After an investigation that took longer than a year, the Office of the City Auditor in Austin said it found Central Texas Allied Health Institute (CTAHI), a nonprofit City of Austin contractor, committed fraud against Austin Public Health and falsified health records.

    According to the investigative report, CTAHI misrepresented over $1.1 million in financial transactions across three contracts with Austin Public Health and was incorrectly paid roughly $417,000 between December 2020 and September 2021 because of fraudulent contract claims. The report also claimed CTAHI falsified its COVID-19 vaccine contract performance by overstating vaccination totals and fabricating patient data.

    “This is up there with some of the biggest cases we’ve investigated on my team,” said Brian Molloy, chief of investigations at the Chief of the City Auditor.

    CTAHI, President Todd Hamilton, and Dr. Jereka Thomas-Hockaday — both of whom were named in the report — denied the claims made in the report in a statement Thursday.

    Snip.

    CTAHI’s three contracts with Austin Public Health were for COVID-19 testing, workforce development, and COVID-19 vaccines, according to the city. Between December 2020 and September 2021, the city said CTAHI submitted 23 claims for reimbursement to APH under the workforce development and COVID-19 vaccine contracts.

    Flu Manchu is the fraud fount that just keeps giving… (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • NHL might stop pushing gay pride after backlash from players and fans. “Philadelphia Flyer’s player Ivan Provorov didn’t want to participate in a ‘Pride’ event during warmups…Soon, other players also refused to participate after Povorov showed it could be done, and some entire team organizations dropped their planned LGBT pride events. And thanks to this one man’s stand, the NHL is considering dropping the whole ‘Pride’ push.”
  • Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel and coiner of Moore’s Law, is dead at age 94. Semiconductors have radically changed just about every facet of the world.
  • Italy refuses to eat the bugs.
  • Botox alters brain activity connected to emotions.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Samsung phones fake moon photos.
  • An aperiodic monotile exists!
  • “This woman was visiting Asia and noticed that all the plus-sized clothing stores have very direct names.”
  • “Progressives Across Nation Locked Out Of Accounts After CAPTCHA Asks ‘Select All Squares That Contain A Woman.'”
  • “Media Calls For Moment Of Silence For Shooter Who Was Misgendered.”
  • LinkSwarm for February 17, 2023

    Friday, February 17th, 2023

    Bit of a mini-LinkSwarm this time around, as this was a week that I almost caught up on stuff delayed by the ice storm.
    
    

  • Bidenomics: “Core CPI Rises 32nd Straight Month, Headline Inflation Hotter Than Expected.”
  • “Biden’s job growth is mostly immigrants working for low wages.” Also this: “The Department of Homeland Security has been issuing an unknown number of two-year work permits to illegal immigrants, which will keep them in the workforce suppressing wages and fanning the flames of discontent amongst Americans unable to find jobs until the next presidential election.” What the hell?
  • Auto repos hit new records.
  • California’s income tax revenues decline by 50%. Tax it, and they will leave. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media.”

    The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.

    The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.

    “Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”

    GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.

    The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.

    GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.

  • Huge earthquake rocks Syria and Turkey. That was less than a week ago and already it’s pretty much out of the news…
  • Another huge story that the news media has done it’s best to ignore: a toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The blew it up to prevent a BLEVE and ended up releasing Phosgene gas. That’s carrying your World War I reenactment too far.
  • 90-year California Democratic Senator old Dianne Feinstein to retire after 2024. But…
  • A few hour later she was evidently unaware she had retired. Increasingly, “crazy” or “senile” seem to be the two most common flavors of the Democratic Party…
  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott announces legislative priorities for the current session.
    1. Cutting Property Taxes
    2. End COVID Restrictions
    3. Education Freedom (School Choice)
    4. School Safety
    5. Ending Revolving-door Bail
    6. Doing More to Secure the Border
    7. Addressing the Fentanyl Crisis

    We’ll see if he follows through.

  • Followup: Transient encampment moved away from Headpsace Salon so they can go destroy someone else’s quality of life instead. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Dumbass reaches for off-duty cop’s gun, with the expected results. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Inside China’s livestreamer girl factories.
  • Updated contact information for the Austin City Council.
  • Not a Babylon Bee headline: “Catalytic converter stolen from Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in Las Vegas.”
  • I chuckled.
  • Biden Taken To Coroner For Annual Physical.
  • Turkey Bitchslaps Russia

    Saturday, November 5th, 2022

    Commenter Greg The Class Traitor asked about this on another thread, so I thought I would throw this Anders Puck Nielsen video up with a bit of context.

    Basically Ukraine managed to hit (but not sink) some Russian warships in Sevastopol harbor with some waterborne drones, and Putin threw a hissy fit, declaring the Ukrainian grain export deal was off. Turkey promptly went “No it isn’t” and said exports would continue with Turkish flags on the grain ships in question, causing Russia to back down and rejoin the deal pretty much immediately.

    Historically, there’s no love lost between Turkey and Russia. (Honestly, you could swap out any other of either of those two country’s neighbors in that sentence, and it would still be true.) The fact that there were ten different Russo-Turkish wars (plus the Crimean War and World War I) should give you an inkling of how deep and bitter that enmity extends. That’s one of the factors that made NATO such a useful ally against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Even today, Russia and Turkey are fighting a quasi-proxy war between Russian-backed Armenia and Turkish-backed Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and Russia is on the losing end there as well.

    Let’s look at Russia’s backdown over the grain deal.

    Takeaways:

  • “It looks like a diplomatic defeat in a stand-off with Turkey, and it shows that Russia is essentially unable to control the maritime domain in the Black Sea.”
  • “Russia was clearly very upset about the attack. It was a big deal in the Russian media, and they put a lot of effort into portraying it as a terrorist attack. And just to be clear, when there is a war going on, it is not terrorism to attack the opponent’s military.” This is clearly a “Duh!” point, but one worth spelling out given the vast swarms of pro-Russian bots who argue otherwise.
  • “The deal was made such that it had a duration of 120 days, so it was up for renewal in November…For quite a while is has seemed that Russia has been unhappy about the grain deal. I don’t think they had expected that it would be such a big success.”
  • “As I am recording this we are up to 477 shipments and more than 10 million tons of cargo. That’s a lot. I don’t think the Russians had expected Ukraine to be able to make a safe corridor that quickly.”
  • “If we remember how the war was going back in July, then Russia was still on the offensive. People were still talking about Russia closing the land corridor to Transnistria and maybe taking Odessa. So from a Russian perspective the idea might well have been that the deal would never work. Because it was going to take months for Ukraine to make a safe corridor, and before that time, Ukraine would have lost the access to the ports.”
  • “But what happened was that the grain deal did become a success. Ukraine has made a lot of money from exporting its agricultural products, and it has reduced the prices of food on the global markets.”
  • “What this grain does is that it reduces the prices on the global market, so that people in the third world can also afford to buy food. And then it helps the economy because it reduces inflation. But for Russia right now it is a point to have a big economic crisis in the West, and the Ukrainian economy is supposed to be terrible.”
  • “Turkey was not going to accept that the deal would fall on the ground. So they made it clear that the grain shipments were going to continue, and that they were going to provide the ships to do it, if necessary. And that gave Russia the challenge that if they withdrew from the deal, but it didn’t have any consequences, then it would be embarrassing. Because it would demonstrate that Russia is unable to control the events.”
  • “The Russian navy can’t actually operate with surface warships close to the Ukrainian coastline, because Ukraine has land based anti-ship missiles, so it would be really hard to interdict the grain traffic. And using long-distance air strikes or submarine attacks on UN cargo ships that are transporting grain to the world to avoid a food crisis…it would turn everybody against Russia. It’s just impossible to explain.”
  • “Maybe it could even lead to a military confrontation with Turkish warships that were protecting the shipments. So in other words, Erdogan called Putin’s bluff.”
  • “What this shows is basically two things. It shows that the relationship between Turkey and Russia, it now that Turkey that has the stronger position. It is now Erdogan that tells Putin how things will be. And then it shows that the Russian Black Sea Fleet can’t enforce a blockade on Ukrainian harbors. And if they can’t do that, then I will say that it is getting more and more difficult to see what the role of the Russian navy actually is in this war.”
  • Plus, if Russia had actually attacked Turkish ships, that would probably lead directly to a military conflict with NATO. And while I’m sure that before Russo-Ukrainian War, there were many Russian ultranationalists who loudly declared that Russia could win a war against NATO, Russian military performance has been so lousy that only the most hopelessly self-deluded could believe that now.

    (By the way, my Internet was restored Friday. It turns out three people on my block were affected, so it was a narrowspread outage, evidently because the “traps” were too old to handle a recent network upgrade. I’ll try to do the LinkSwarm on Sunday, if I have time.)

    LinkSwarm for September 9, 2022

    Friday, September 9th, 2022

    Ukraine is carving out big gains in Kharkiv, Texas is in the money, Biden taps Clinton’s bagman to divy up the graft manage climate change funds, more groomers unmasked, and some big changes in the UK. Plus a bit about tanks. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kharkiv has been extremely successful.
    • Ukrainian successes on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line are creating fissures within the Russian information space and eroding confidence in Russian command to a degree not seen since a failed Russian river crossing in mid-May.
    • Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv Oblast counteroffensives advanced to within 20 kilometers of Russia’s key logistical node in Kupyansk on September 8.
    • Ukrainian forces will likely capture Kupyansk in the next 72 hours, severely degrading but not completely severing Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum.
    • Ukrainian forces are continuing to target Russian GLOCs, command-and-control points, and ammunition depots in Kherson Oblast.

    

  • Texas Tax Haul Soars By Record 26% in 2022 Fiscal Year.”

    On Thursday, the state comptroller reported that the Lone Star State’s tax revenue rocketed by 25.6% to a total of $75.21 billion.

    It’s only the fifth time since 1988 that revenue grew by a double-digit percentage — and it’s double the next largest increase over that 34-year span.

    “Revenues continue to outpace even our most recent forecast as All Funds tax collections closed the fiscal year $841 million above the projection in our Certification Revenue Estimate,” said state Comptroller Glenn Hegar in an official release.

    That’s a stark contrast to California, which saw July revenue come in 12% below forecast.

    Texas has been a major beneficiary of migration from California: Over the last census cycle, 34% of new Texans arrived from California alone. Meanwhile, New York saw personal income tax collection fall 3.2% from April 1 through July.

  • Biden Brings in Professional Bagman John Podesta to Divvy Up the $316 Billion in Climate Change Money to DNC Donors Ahead of Midterm Election.”

    Joe Biden has hired John Podesta to be the new Clean Energy Czar, citing his experience in progressive causes….

    Bottom line, John Podesta is being now being hired to divvy up the $316 billion in Green New Deal money recently authorized by congress. That is what Podesta specializes in, the distribution of taxpayer money to DNC allied groups and networks in advance of the 2022 midterms. Podesta, Hillary’s fixer, is a bagman, nothing more.

  • Worse, one of the many bag clients he’s adept at channeling money into Democratic pockets for is China.

    President Joe Biden on Friday tapped John Podesta to oversee $370 billion in climate spending, a move that has China hawks on Capitol Hill concerned over Podesta’s encouragement of Chinese investment in American infrastructure and praise for the top U.S. adversary on climate change.

    Podesta has called for Chinese investment in American infrastructure, arguing in 2013 that there are “great opportunities for Chinese firms to directly invest in this nation, to build American infrastructure, to create American jobs, and generate steady and handsome returns.” He added, “There’s also the ability for Chinese firms to invest here and learn best practices, and take those home to the tremendous and growing middle class market in China.”

    Instead, in the intervening decade, the Chinese government has committed widespread economic espionage—one 2017 estimate found that China steals up to $600 billion in trade secrets a year. Engineers in China, meanwhile, use popular social media platform TikTok to access nonpublic data from U.S. users.

    Podesta has also praised China’s efforts to combat climate change, arguing in 2015 that the Chinese “are beginning to do a fair amount.” China, which is the world’s top carbon emitter, went on to dramatically accelerate its coal consumption, which reached a record high in 2020.

    That record has China hawks on the Hill concerned that America’s top adversary has a new—and powerful—ally in the White House. Podesta’s role will see the liberal consultant implement $370 billion in spending toward alternative energy, a sector that China dominates when it comes to raw materials. As such, alternative energy companies receiving the Podesta-steered funding could turn to China to secure supplies. The new Biden aide will likely take no issue with that dynamic, given that he has argued the United States and China should “align” on a green economy. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Ted Cruz (R., Texas) argued that the move reflects the White House’s soft-on-China stance.

    (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)

  • Russia halts natural gas to EU, saying it won’t resume until sanctions are lifted.
  • Related: “European energy trading risks collapse over $1.5 trillion in margin calls.” Seems like there’s a lot of news about margin calls this week…
  • More European fun: Greece and Turkey are slouching toward war with each other.
  • “Teachers’ Union Boss Admits Teachers Have Become ‘Social Justice Warriors.'” Randi Weingarten is the gift that keeps giving. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • California Gov. Newsom Reaped $10.6 Million In Campaign Cash From 979 State Vendors Who Pocketed $6.2 Billion.”
  • Democratic County Administrator Robert Telles charged in the death of journalist Jeff German, “an investigative reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal who had spent the last few months exposing misdeeds and turmoil in the official’s office.” For all Sundown Joe’s dark mutterings about “UltraMAGA,” it seems like Democrats are the ones doing all the killing…
  • “Special Master Order Reveals Biden’s Direct Involvement In Trump Raid.”
  • “More North Texas Teachers Charged with Sexual Assault of Students.”

    A now-former elementary school teacher previously charged with sexual abuse of a 7-year-old student was arrested again and charged with sexually assaulting a second victim.

    Victor Moreno, 28, was charged in July with continuous sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, and an improper relationship between a student and educator, a second-degree felony.

    The accused pedophile’s victim was a second-grade girl in Irving Independent School District, where Moreno was a teacher at the time of the alleged assaults during the 2020-2021 school year.

    Snip.

    Meanwhile, a teacher’s aide in Mesquite Independent School District was arrested Tuesday after being accused of engaging in inappropriate relationships with students.

    Bryan Garcia, 22, was charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

  • “American Library Association Removes Webpage Promoting ‘Secret’ LGBT Messaging In Libraries.”
  • Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says he might call it quits.
  • Chilean voters reject Social Justice constitution. Good.
  • “Germany: Green Politician Resigns After Inventing Nazi Death-Threats Against Himself.”
  • Queen Elizabeth II dead at age 96. As an American, I hold no truck with royalty, but she always struck me as a classy broad. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Stacey Abrams Announces That With A Heavy Heart She Will Succeed Elizabeth II As Queen.”
  • Clinton nonprofit funneled $75,000 to ‘defund the police’ group.” This is my shocked face. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Higher Ed’s New Woke Loyalty Oaths: A ballooning number of hiring and tenure decisions require candidates to express written fealty to political doctrines.” And you can bet those doctrines have nothing to do with constitutionally limited government based on universal rights…
  • Russia seems a lot more interested in selling T-14 Armata tanks abroad than in sending them to Ukraine.

  • Indeed, they’re talking about restarting old production lines to start manufacturing older BMP-2s. “The costs and challenges of bringing more modern designs into production are now surely aggravated by Western sanctions cutting access to many basic electrical components, requiring pricey and time-consuming workarounds.”
  • This is like a scene from a porn movie, only a lot creepier. “Las Vegas landlord requires tenant to sign sex contract in order to lease home.”
  • “Libs of TikTok returns to Twitter, threatens lawsuit if removed permanently.
  • The Supreme Court is going to bitchslap Eric Adams halfway to Albany: “Mayor Adams vows door-to-door checks on gun permits.”
  • Fat Leonard is on the lam.
  • “Employees Shocked as Lesbian Vegan Doughnut Shop Goes Out of Business.” The landlord hadn’t been paid for months, and the owners bounced paychecks to employees.
  • Take this, low prices! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “No turkey, however bloated and stupid, could ever be big enough to convey the mesmerising awfulness of Amazon’s billion dollar Tolkien epic.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Amazon is so confident that actual viewers will hate it that they put a three day waiting period on reviews. In any case, here the one-star reviews they allowed to slip through. Makes you wonder what other reviews they’re manipulating… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.
  • Kim Kardashian Is Starting Her Own Private Equity Company.” Why not? But I’m betting being a genius at self-promotion doesn’t equate to being a genius at investing, especially since she’s starting in the middle of a fierce, widespread downturn…
  • Easiest way to win Dad of the Year? Pick your son up from school in a tank. Looks like a Scorpion light tank, most likely the FV107 Scimitar reconnaissance variant.
  • “FBI Drops Investigation After Discovering Trump’s Top Secret Nuclear Documents Were Just Print-Outs Of Hillary Clinton Emails.”
  • LinkSwarm for August 19, 2022

    Friday, August 19th, 2022

    Greetings, and welcome to a Friday LinkSwarm…on Friday! What are the odds?

  • More dispatches from the Biden Recession: “Homebuyers are GONE.” Home sales are cratering nationally, companies that bought up lots of properties are slashing prices, and the number of homes being built is also cratering.
  • From the same guy: The 10 locations housing prices will crash the most. #5? Austin. “This is a market in absolute free-fall.” I know prices in my neighborhood have probably lopped off a good $100,000 or so, forcing me to rely on my vast book holdings to remain a millionaire…
  • Are we witnessing an end to the tranny pander panic?

    The other day, I saw on Twitter someone saying that they are a good liberal and all that, but they are really worried about what they’re seeing regarding the emerging culture of the medical and teaching professions encouraging children to transition to the opposite sex. “But,” said this person, “I don’t want to surrender to a moral panic.”

    I submit to you that a moral panic is precisely the correct response to this egregious phenomenon. That is, what is happening is so hideous, and so widespread, and the reaction by most people to this point has been so muted to non-existent, that if you are not panicking, you are not paying attention.

    Most people are not on Twitter, and if you’re one of these people, you may not be aware of the extent of the insanity. The media are not covering it, of course. It falls to badasses like Matt Walsh, Chaya Raichik (who runs the Libs Of Tik Tok account), Christina Buttons, and Chris Elston, the guy who runs the Billboard Chris website and Twitter account, to sound the alarm.

    The things they document are not nut-picking (the practice of finding extreme weirdos, and falsely using them as an example of the whole). They are completely mainstream. These are things that, if we had a functional media instead of a Narrative-massaging industry, would be widely reported, and discussed intensely.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Libs of TikTok on how the radical social justice groomer left wants to sever the connection between parents and children.

    The Left’s agenda to groom your children has taken another turn. Various states across America have begun implementing laws and policies to allow children to make healthcare decisions without a parent or guardian’s consent — and the medical industry is promoting it. Many of these states are using these new laws to allow for drastic medical decisions to be made without parental consent including hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery, and medicated mental health treatment.

    In Washington, children as young as 13 are now allowed to undergo gender reassignment surgery and other questionable medical treatments without parental consent.

    One Washington dad alleged in a viral TikTok video that a school gave his 15-year-old child antidepressants without informing him. Sounds completely insane and illegal, right? Well . . . it sounds that way, but it isn’t. Under Washington law, this is 100% legal and is allegedly being carried out by schools.

    New York has hopped on the bandwagon of removing parents from the treatment room as well. New York-Presbyterian recently sent out emails to their patients explaining that accounts for 12-17-year-olds must be updated to reflect the adolescent’s personal email address as the primary contact as New York State law allows children “to keep their sensitive medical information private and to consent to some of their own medical treatment.”

    Twelve-year-old children will now have the ability to be the primary decision-maker for many of their medical treatments and procedures. Children will also have the ability to completely revoke medical record access for their parents or guardians. 12-year-old children who can barely do their own laundry now have authority over their healthcare.

    Snip.

    One concerned parent in Kennebunk, Maine shared photos with us of a medical questionnaire for patients 12 years of age and older which read “To be filled out by patient only.” The questionnaire included questions about sexuality, asking children what gender they’re attracted to, and if the child has ever been in a romantic relationship or had sex. Separate questions ask the children if they’ve ever had questions about their gender identity and what their preferred pronouns are.

    The parent spoke to me regarding the questionnaire and stated her child was given the forms right after he turned 13. Naturally, her son was uncomfortable and confused by the questions and asked his mom for help. However, the mom claims the doctor made her leave the room and refused to allow her to be present while her son was answering the questionnaire.

    Why would a doctor need to secretly know the sexual preference and gender identity that a 13-year-old child claims without his mom present? Why would any child be required to share answers to all these invasive questions and bar any parental involvement?

    It’s not just Maine, Arizona, New York, and Washington — the removal of parents from important decisions in their children’s lives is becoming a nationwide policy trend aggressively pushed by the Left.

  • Given how much Libs of TikTok has uncovered of the groomer agenda, it’s no wonder that Facebook has banned her:

  • Austin Fire Department Chaplain Fired over Blog Post Objecting to Males in Women’s Sports.” No surprise to followers of Austin politics, given the way their union has been taken over by the radical left.
  • Related: “Twitter Is Objectively Pro-Groomer.”
  • “Sanctuary cities not enjoying actually being used as sanctuaries.”

    To the great consternation of liberal Democratic mayors in the northeast, the governors of Texas and Arizona continue to send busloads of illegal migrants to New York and Washington to lessen the burdens on their states and draw more attention to the Biden border crisis. This has put the municipal governments of these self-defined sanctuary cities in a bit of a tough position politically. They are supposed to represent bastions of hope for the migrants and freedom from the “oppression” of ICE and the Border Patrol. But now that the migrants are arriving in larger numbers and doing so in a very public way, it’s becoming clear that this is a problem that the mayors were not prepared to handle. As Charles Lipson explains in Newsweek today, these so-called sanctuary city claims were clearly more of a case of virtue signaling than anything else, but when the cost of invoking such policies began to rise, the backlash came quickly.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • New Minnesota union contract requires laying off teachers based on race rather than ability or seniority. Can you say illegal? (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Longtime CNN anchor, leftwing tool and known potato Brian Stelters had his show cancelled and was laid off. There’s not a violin small enough.

  • How the left abandoned Salman Rushdie.

    I still don’t understand Obama’s deep infatuation with Iran’s mullahs, or why he sent them pallets-full of currency, or why he desperately wanted to get nuclear technology to Iran. But I suspect his enthusiasm for providing nuclear technology to Iran was in equal proportion to his enmity toward Israel.

    So how was the American left supposed to keep championing Mr. Rushdie when Barack Obama, their Lightbringer, was such a fan of the mullahs who wanted Rushdie dead? Barack Obama had taken American tax dollars and sent it to the mullahs so that they could then turn around and use that money to pay the bounty to whomever successfully pulled off the fatwa against Rushdie. To stay true to Obama, America’s liberal elites had to now ally themselves with the men trying to murder Rushdie.

    Conservatives, of course, always supported Rushdie’s right to free speech and always decried the fatwa on him. But for those who matter most in elite society, the fatwa now reflected poorly on Rushdie, not those who imposed the fatwa.

    Rushdie was abandoned by the left, because they were now aligned with the mullahs who wanted him dead.

  • Over in London, unions are working on their Winter of Discontent cosplay by launching a Tube strike.
  • Families are getting the hell out of north Portland due to the huge increase in drug-addicted transients ts infecting their neighborhood. This is your city on social justice.
  • Turkey’s wild and crazy president Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues his innovative “lower interest rates during hyperinflation” gambit. Result? The Lira has crashed to an all time low.
  • Remember San Angelo police chief Tim Vasquez, who accepted bribes via gigs for his Earth, Wind & Fire cover band Funky Munky? Well he just got sentenced to 15 years in the slammer. I guess he’s no longer a shining star…
  • Also on the crime beat: Charges filed in Whitey Bulger whacking. “Fotios Geas, Paul J. DeCologero and Sean McKinnon have been charged with crimes related to the murder of Whitey Bulger.”
  • New York Times decides it can’t run an editorial by a black Republican senator unless it gets the permission of the white Democratic majority leader first.
  • More New York Times editorial judgment on display: “NYT Cuts Ties With Reporter Who Called For ‘Killing,’ ‘Burning’ Jews ‘Like What Hitler Did.’” The surprise is that they actually fired her. How do you think that conversation went? “Sure, lots of us have called for death to the Jews, but the ‘burning’ part just crosses the line…”
  • Boom:

  • “20-Year-Old Student Acquires 6% Of Bed Bath & Beyond, Makes $110 Million In 3 Weeks.”
  • Annnnnd….then he dumped it all.
  • “You’ll never catch me alive, coppers!”

  • Russia Defaults; Finland, Sweden Get Greenlight To Join NATO

    Saturday, July 2nd, 2022

    Here’s some news from the periphery of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

    First up: Russia is in default over debts because it’s been cut out of SWIFT.

    Russia on Sunday defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since 1918 after the grace period on its $100 million payment expired, according to reports.

    The $100 million interest payment deadline due to be met by the Kremlin had initially been set to May 27 but a 30-day grace period was triggered after investors failed to receive coupon payments due on both dollar and euro-denominated bonds.

    Russia said that it had sent the money to Euroclear Bank SA, a bank that would then distribute the payment to investors.

    But that payments allegedly got stuck there amid increased sanctions from the West on Moscow, according to Bloomberg, meaning creditors did not receive it.

    Euroclear told the BBC that it adheres to all sanctions.

    The last time Russia defaulted on its foreign debt was in 1918 when the new communist leader Vladimir Lenin refused to pay the outstanding debts of the Russian Empire during the Bolshevik Revolution.

    Peter Zeihan explains what this means for the international financial order:

    Is there any sign of Russia’s economy cratering from the sanctions? Not yet:

    But one big downside of Vlad’s Big Ukraine Adventure became concrete this week: Finland and Sweden got the greenlight to join NATO:

    NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance Wednesday at a summit in Madrid, Spain, in the midst of security concerns due to the Russia-Ukraine war.

    The announcement comes after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan lifted his veto after a weeks-long stalemate over the negotiations. The decision will now rely on final ratification from all 30 member states.

    “The accession of Finland and Sweden will make them safer, NATO stronger, and the Euro-Atlantic area more secure. The security of Finland and Sweden is of direct importance to the Alliance, including during the accession process,” NATO said in a statement.

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the decision “historic,” and thanked the leaders for their agreement.

    Turkey signed a memorandum with Finland and Sweden on Tuesday confirming Erdogan would support the nomination of the two Nordic countries into the alliance.

    Remember that tangling with the Finns has not been a source of happiness for Russia. The Soviet Union may have gained some territory in the Winter War and the Continuation War, but the Finns tore them a new asshole in the process. For the entirety of post-World War II, the Soviet Union and Russia have relied on a neutral Finland (“Finlandization”) to secure their northernmost flank. With Finland joining NATO, they no longer have that luxury.

    The Finns have a fair amount of German equipment (including Leopard 2 tanks) and American aircraft (including having F-35s on order). I imagine integrating their forces into the NATO command structure should be quite feasible.

    Speaking of countries that Russia has not had much joy tangling with, Sweden has invaded Russia more than once.

    Though Swedish armed forces are relatively small, they have, if anything, even more German tech, and their native-built Stridsvagn 122 tank is based on the Leopard 2. Their Archer mobile artillery system is arguably the best in the world.

    Oh, and both Sweden and Finland have several nuclear power plants each. Both could develop nuclear weapons in fairly short order if they had to. And any Russian moves against the Baltic states would probably be enough to push them into doing it, Nonproliferation Treaty be damned.

    Getting Finland and Sweden to join up with NATO is has a high probability of being a historical blunder that outweighs any Ukrainian territorial gains Russia might end up with.