Two quick points regarding Latvia’s personae non gratae addition. Firstly, media reporting and commentary is all currently assuming that it’s a direct response to his recent public comments. But that’s just an assumption based on the timing (and an acknowledgement of how despicable those comments were). It’s not necessarily the whole context. The Foreign Minister initiating these proceedings says that it begun with information yesterday from authorities. No one can precisely say why he is being PNGd until the official reason is given, even though we can certainly still criticise his public comments in the meantime. Secondly, there will be lots of good people who took that guy at his word, and are now pretty appalled and regret welcoming him. On that note, the team at @rebaltica have put out a statement saying they haven’t worked with him since 2019, will not do so in the future, and they consider many of his public statements to be unacceptable and condemnable. They are dedicated to good journalism and that can still be supported, even from those of us super critical of those who embraced him in the past. It’s at least true that he was much more subtle back then, but has since spiralled from more subtle chauvinism to blatant misinformation. This guy took advantage of a free country and trusting people. Part of the goal was polarisation. So this is a good time for good people on all sides to come together.