Thursday roundup

You've surely heard about the nuclear black market that has had Moldova as its hub, probably even checked out some analysis and commentary.  Here is the original AP story about it. It ought to make your hair stand on end:

[There have been] at least four attempts in five years in which criminal networks with suspected Russian ties sought to sell radioactive material to extremists through Moldova, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. One investigation uncovered an attempt to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real buyer from the Middle East, the first known case of its kind.

In that operation, wiretaps and interviews with investigators show, a middleman for the gang repeatedly ranted with hatred for America as he focused on smuggling the essential material for an atomic bomb and blueprints for a dirty bomb to a Middle Eastern buyer.

In wiretaps, videotaped arrests, photographs of bomb-grade material, documents and interviews, AP found that smugglers are explicitly targeting buyers who are enemies of the West. The developments represent the fulfillment of a long-feared scenario in which organized crime gangs are trying to link up with groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida — both of which have made clear their ambition to use weapons of mass destruction.

The sting operations involved a partnership between the FBI and a small group of Moldovan investigators, who over five years went from near total ignorance of the black market to wrapping up four sting operations. Informants and police posing as connected gangsters penetrated the smuggling networks, using old-fashioned undercover tactics as well as high-tech gear from radiation detectors to clothing threaded with recording devices.

But their successes were undercut by striking shortcomings: Kingpins got away, and those arrested evaded long prison sentences, sometimes quickly returning to nuclear smuggling, AP found.

For strategic reasons, in most of the operations arrests were made after samples of nuclear material had been obtained rather than the larger quantities. That means that if smugglers did have access to the bulk of material they offered, it remains in criminal hands.

The repeated attempts to peddle radioactive materials signal that a thriving nuclear black market has emerged in an impoverished corner of Eastern Europe on the fringes of the former Soviet Union. Moldova, which borders Romania, is a former Soviet republic.

Heather Wilhelm on why she doesn't give a flying flip whether there is ever a woman president.

Kevin Williamson on why inequality is a feature of life in any society where humans are relatively free and therefore nothing to be concerned about.

House Freedom Caucus endorses Dan Webster for Speaker. He'd be dandy, as would Jason Chaffetz. McCarthy, not so much.

Ted Cruz eats Sierra Club head Aaron Mair for lunch. Mair is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee and tries to pull that 97-percent-consensus-on-"climate-change" crud on the debate champion.

Russia is now launching cruise missiles at targets in Syria from ships1,000 miles away in the Caspian Sea - and not just a few of 'em.

If for some reason you still needed more convincing that the Pacific Educational Group was one of the most poisonous forces in post-America, this ought to do it:

A major national conference for teachers and school administrators starting on Saturday, October 10, in Baltimore will focus exclusively on race and racism, featuring workshops on “interrupting whiteness” in American schools, the “dominance of White supremacy” in society, “White privilege” enjoyed by Caucasian students, “white domination of thought,” and how to “decenter whiteness.”

The conference, officially titled The National Summit for Courageous Conversation 2015, is organized by the Pacific Educational Group (PEG), a large and influential consulting firm hired by hundreds of school districts nationwide — often under pressure from the federal government — to address “racial gaps” in scholastic performance and behavior problems in the classroom.

Taking place in Baltimore, natch. And we all know what the term "conversation" means to the jackboots: We do the haranguing, you do the listening.