In the Biden administration's uncanny ability to put the wrong people in the wrong jobs, naming John Podesta to be the new "climate czar" might be its masterstroke.

With so much money at stake, you might have expected the administration to choose someone with a strong background in energy technologies or perhaps someone possessing deep experience in the energy business who can spot the good (and bad) uses for all that money.

Although Podesta is listed on the corporate records, he failed to disclose his membership on the board of Stichting Joule Global Foundation (the holding company) in his federal financial disclosure forms when he officially joined the Obama White House as a senior advisor in 2013.

What is concerning here is the pattern Podesta has established of being involved on both sides of the table, and transiting Washington's revolving door. When the Biden administration chooses a "power broker" to be its decider over $370 billion worth of federal "investment" money that is intended to make green energy affordable, cost-effective or competitive with fossil fuels, we should not be surprised if large portions of that money will eventually be traced back to connections those companies have with that aforementioned power broker.

This is why you do not want the federal government to have individuals who are not experts -- who are operators and lobbyists -- making important decisions like that. They will pass out cash to people who have made them money in the past, and who will make them money in the future, or who have employed their family members. It is corrupt and it is cronyism. When you give people the opportunity to hand out other people's money, they are going to give it to families and friends. With Podesta, there is certainly a history of doing just that.

"We have only one sentence for Greece: Do not forget Izmir [the city of Smyrna]. Your occupying the [Aegean] islands will not stop us; we will do what is necessary when the time comes. You know what we say: 'Unexpectedly one night we shall come to [conquer] you." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sondakika.com, September 4, 2022.

"The final years of the Ottoman Empire were catastrophic for its non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities. From 1913 to 1923, its rulers deported, killed, or otherwise persecuted staggering numbers of men, women and children in an attempt to preserve 'Turkey for the Turks,' setting a modern precedent for how a regime can commit genocide against its own citizens in pursuit of political ends, while largely escaping accountability." — George N. Shirinian, Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923.

The Turkish attacks against the Greeks and Armenians of Smyrna began [in 1922] with looting, rapes and massacres, and ended with a fire that destroyed the Christian districts of the city.

"In September 1922, the richest city of the Mediterranean was burned, and countless numbers of Christian refugees killed. The city was Smyrna, and the event was the final episode of the 20th Century's first genocide — the slaughter of three million Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire. The slaughter at Smyrna occurred as warships of the great powers stood by — the United States, Great Britain, France and Italy." — Lou Ureneck, Smyrna, September 1922.

The Republic of Turkey actually boasts of its genocide.

Since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, no factual information has been taught to Turkish schoolchildren about the extreme brutality, massacres, rapes, pillaging and other atrocities that indigenous Greeks and Armenians of Smyrna were subjected to at the hands of the Turks. The truth about the identity of the arsonists is categorically denied. For the past 100 years, Turkey has blamed the victims of the genocide for their own extermination.

September 2022 marks the 100^th anniversary of the genocide in Smyrna. Although the Turkish government still takes pride in its slaughter, everyone else would do well to remember and honor the memories of the victims and prevent further Turkish aggression. One way for Western governments to do this is officially to recognize the 1913-23 genocide, but above all, stop Erdogan's continued threats against Greece.