Ilya Lozovsky

Liberalism and the search for meaning The worst option except for all the others

There is a subset of people who will be extremely triggered by this specific combination of words, but @mattyglesias.bsky.social has written one of the best essays on the value of liberalism I've ever read.

www.slowboring.com/p/liberalism...

I've increasingly come to view cynicism as the seedbed of totalitarianism, both because it can paralyze the opposition and because it implicitly validates the might-makes-right ethic of the authoritarian.

Throatbane

QERMİT (🇹🇷🐸)

and the sequel trilogy is blorp

That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.

the good news is, who cares about any of this

The fact that the world's cruelest and most savage people, and the worst political actors, are often also credulous simpletons is an under-appreciated lens.

Gripping story by the incredibly brave Elizabeth Tsurkov.

At @occrp.org our years of reporting on Venezuela make clear that the patronage, corruption, and abuses don't end with Maduro and his inner circle.

They extend even to sports leagues. This is El Helicoide, a notorious political prison in Caracas that also hosts pro basketball games.👇

Here's our Venezuela topic page with more investigations.

And we'll have more on this in 2026 for sure.
www.occrp.org/en/regions/l...

At the top is defense minister Vladimir Padrino López. Reporters have linked him to properties and companies worth millions.

And a select group of 35 generals hold positions in companies authorized to receive lucrative state contracts.
www.occrp.org/en/project/r...

Revolution to Riches Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Armed Forces have been described as “impenetrable,” with very little about the country's military publicly known — other than that it clearly plays a large role in the ...

And here's Revolution to Riches, a series of investigations based on internal army documents. They show how generals key to the regime's survival have enriched themselves.

Socialism is all well and good, but 1/3 of the top brass are in private business. www.occrp.org/en/project/r...

Cheers Above, Torture Below: The Dark Revival of Venezuelan Basketball In Venezuela, a new basketball league is playing games in a stadium that sits directly atop an infamous political prison — a grim juxtaposition that critics say reflects a broader effort to “sportswas...

“On the upper floors they’re playing basketball, and in the basement people are being tortured," says a local journalist.

Teams in the Professional Basketball Super League are controlled by security officials accused of abuses. Here's our story on that. www.occrp.org/en/feature/c...

At @occrp.org our years of reporting on Venezuela make clear that the patronage, corruption, and abuses don't end with Maduro and his inner circle.

They extend even to sports leagues. This is El Helicoide, a notorious political prison in Caracas that also hosts pro basketball games.👇

wow

this was fun!

it's certainly not "being a dick to strangers on the internet"

my calling it lawlessness is not a condemnation?

(perhaps naively) rueing the impotence of international law is the correct position, actually

not defending the odious Maduro regime, not celebrating Trump’s lawlessness, but a secret third thing

I didn't say "medical bankruptcies are not a problem in the Unites States." I said, correctly, that the post is misleading and using a fake number. It's doesn't help anything to try to convince people that things are much worse than they really are.

I don't know! It wasn't the zeroes I was disputing.

facts matter, right?

Analysis | Sanders’s flawed statistic: 500,000 medical bankruptcies a year Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is goosing the numbers as he campaigns for universal health care.

That U.S. number was rated “mostly false” by Washington Post fact checkers.

It’s from a single study that counts a bankruptcy as “medical” if a person even “somewhat agrees” that medical bills or illness contributed to their bankruptcy. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/201...

From my personal photos, a little homage to Amsterdam's Vondelkerk, which burned down last night.

FIFA orders European clubs to ignore sanctions on Russia European football clubs must pay outstanding transfer fees to Russian teams despite sanctions, says the sport's governing body FIFA. If the likes of West Ham United, FC Basel and Atalanta do not compl...

Closing out my open tabs as I close out the year (tab-zero 2026 baby) and came across this great and surprisingly deep football story from Follow the Money NL. www.ftm.eu/articles/fif...

FIFA's corruption and authoritarian entanglements are enough to fill entire books, so it's not like this is surprising. But I thought this was a neat demonstration how the plumbing that enables global dark money flows is maintained: When powerful institutions treat its usage as normal business.

I also noticed that FIFA made no substantive response to journalists, except for one: "It is up to the clubs to ensure compliance with any international sanctions restrictions ... regardless of any decision made by a FIFA body."

Wouldn't want anyone to think they were suggesting anything illegal!

And that's what struck me. Forget the moral question. This entire argument rests on the existence and routine availability of an entire infrastructure dedicated to finding sanctions workarounds. It implies an obligation to use it, even!

Very tellingly, I thought, the Russian clubs who were owed the money made the same argument, pointing to the existence "alternate routes," like using third parties, and pointing out that "previous payments have been successful."