California state pensions are financing Putin's Russia

Monica Showalter:

CalPERS, the $326-billion California state pension fund for some two million state cops, firefighters, and bureaucrats, has never been shy about its trumpeting its political correctness. It's positively famous for its pullouts of tobacco investments, Turkey investments, apartheid South

Africa investments, and coal investments, and so famous that you probably would never have heard of the fund were it not for its pullouts. It's not that they are that awful in themselves – they often try to push back on calls to divest. But they've always been seen by leftists as a tool to oppose President Trump. So in general, name the lefty cause, and out they pull.

Well, with one little exception: Putin's Russia. On that one, they've shelled out nearly half a billion dollars to the Russian government (not companies, but the government) through its bond buys. And hey, they're one of Russia's top foreign investors, top ten among foreigners.

Seth Hettena, in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, writes:

Since purchases of Russian government bonds are effectively loans to Vladimir Putin's government, this means CalPERS has extended nearly half a billion dollars to a regime that sought to hack our election system in 2016 and is still attempting to undermine American democracy and the U.S.-led Western alliance.

Oh, and Hettena notes that they are expanding such investments, by 8% last year, which was right about when the Russia-Russia-Russia claims went full bore on the Democrat side of the aisle back in Washington. It's not as though they had these things and just didn't get rid of them – they went out and actually bought some.
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This certainly raises questions about the motives of Democrats from California, such as Adam Schiff who have been pushing the Russia, Russia, Russia theme against President Trump.