Oligarchs hide billions in shell companies. Here's how we stop them | Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer Two years ago we published the Panama Papers after an anonymous source provided 2.6 terabytes of internal data from the dubious Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca. We shared the data with 400 journalists worldwide and together revealed how the wealthy and powerful use shell companies to hide their assets. Such companies are exploited by dictators, drug cartels, mafia clans, fraudsters, weapons dealers and regimes like North Korea and Iran to hide their shady business transactions. As a consequence, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the prime minister of Iceland, resigned. After publishing the Panama Papers, we have heard a lot of promises from politicians around the world. But why bother? A database of actual owners would enable companies to check with whom they are actually doing business with. Searchable by company and by individual names, it would enable investigators to see if Dictator X or Autocrat Y owns companies in Country Z. Corruption is a scourge.
Costly medicines and pus in milk: a Brexit trade deal that’ll make you sick | Nick Dearden The British public is already scared about a trade deal with the US. They don’t care for chickens washed in chlorine, nor for cows stuffed with hormones. But this week, an epic US document setting out the barriers to foreign trade it would like to remove shows that these concerns are just the tip of the iceberg. Not only do the 400-plus pages detail a stomach-churning list of foods the US would like to import into Britain – more pus in your milk and more pesticides on your vegetables – but they also uncover the US government’s distaste for the way the EU regulates big pharmaceutical corporations generally. So a US trade deal could be both bad for our health, and bad for helping us get better again. The list goes on, with the US unhappy about the EU’s “cautious” approach to approving genetically modified goods, chemical flavourings in food and the amount of pesticide residue allowed in fruits and nuts. The US argues that this is a matter of customer choice.
It Didn’t Just Start Now: John Kelly Has Always Been a Hard-Right Bully White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s gruesome defense Thursday of President Donald Trump’s call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson was shocking. But it should not have been a surprise. The chief of staff in an administration headed by any halfway-normal human being would have said: “The president is deeply concerned by news reports that he miscommunicated his condolences when speaking with Sgt. Instead, Kelly did not express any concern for the well-being of Johnson’s widow and family. Wilson immediately responded that Kelly “is willing to say anything” because he’s “trying to keep his job.” This can be seen most clearly in a celebrated speech Kelly delivered on Veterans Day in 2010 while still a Marine Corps general. So here’s Kelly’s worldview, as expressed in 2010: 1. Kelly’s words would be an excellent way to teach ninth graders what the phrase “begging the question” means. Furthermore, Trump himself famously questioned the Iraq war. 2. This is a preposterous lie. 3.
Keystone pipeline leak in South Dakota about double previous estimate: paper Republicans rigged our democracy. Here's how Democrats can fight back | David Faris Donald Trump wasn’t elected because Democrats lost a policy fight in 2016. What Democrats did was lose a procedural fight that has been going on since the early 1990s, when Republicans began waging a relentless, brutal, and completely one-sided war, systematically using their lawmaking power to disadvantage their adversaries in elections and political mobilization. Gerrymandering, the Citizens United atrocity that declared money is speech, blocking US supreme court nominations and obstructing legislation are some of the Republican party’s tactics. Standing in the way of reforms to our nonsensical, undemocratic Electoral College system for electing the president helps the Republicans too, as does ensuring the United States remains the only country in the entire world that holds its critical national elections on a regular working Tuesday as if we literally couldn’t care less who is able take off work to cast a ballot. But the biggest problem is that it is underspecified.
How rich are the rich? If only you knew “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.” Actor and comedian Chris Rock made this astute statement during a 2014 interview with New York magazine, referring to the yawning gap between rich and poor. In so doing, he stumbled upon a key challenge in the study of inequality. What’s the best way to measure it? Most inequality studies have focused on income – measures of which are widely available. However, being rich is not about a single year of earnings but rather about the accumulation of wealth over time. The wealthy would probably prefer we stay in the dark about how rich they are, presumably to avoid the aforementioned riots. The most revealing way to do this, in my view, is by looking at wealth inequality. Measuring the rich-poor gap There are several ways to measure inequality. One of the most popular is by income. How much wealth someone has is also a better measure of their quality of life and opportunities. American ‘exceptionalism’
Study finds religious beliefs have an enduring influence on senators' legislative behavior New research provides evidence that the personal religious beliefs of United States Senators influence their legislative behavior. The study was published in The Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion. “I became interested in the topic of the influence of religion on politics after moving to the US from Israel. What I found particularly interesting is how the US had seemed like a country in which there is a clear separation of church and state, and yet religious discourse still dominates many aspects of its politics,” said study author Daniel Arnon of Emory University “I became curious whether the avenue through which religion entered politics was primarily from the bottom-up — through constituents’ demands and political representation of religious constituents — or whether the mechanism was more top-down — through the religious preferences of the legislators.” “As other research has shown, the religious landscape in the US has been changing in the last few decades.
The Damage Done by Trump’s Department of the Interior On his first day as Secretary of the Interior, last March, Ryan Zinke rode through downtown Washington, D.C., on a roan named Tonto. When the Secretary is working at the department’s main office, on C Street, a staff member climbs up to the roof of the building and hoists a special flag, which comes down when Zinke goes home for the day. To provide entertainment for his employees, the Secretary had an arcade game called Big Buck Hunter installed in the cafeteria. The game comes with plastic rifles, which players aim at animated deer. The point of the installation, Zinke has said, is to highlight sportsmen’s contribution to conservation. “Get excited for #hunting season!” Nowadays, it is, in a manner of speaking, always hunting season at the Department of the Interior. One of Zinke’s first acts, after dismounting from Tonto, was to overturn a moratorium on new leases for coal mines on public land. Last week, Zinke backtracked. Zinke is, in many ways, a typical Trump appointee.
Media Giant Sinclair Hired Reporter From Russian Propaganda Outlet RT Who Produced ‘Must-Run’ ‘Deep State’ Segment The United States' largest owner of television stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, mandated that its outlets run a segment on the so-called deep state that was produced by a former reporter for the Russian propaganda outlet RT, according to a new report. The "must-run" piece aired on March 21 and featured Sebastian Gorka, the former adviser to President Donald Trump, lamenting the existence of a deep state—a popular conspiracy theory in some circles that longtime career public servants in the government are working to subvert the U.S. government. Trump has repeatedly complained about such a mysterious rogue network. Sinclair national correspondent Kristine Frazao produced the segment. The deep state segment reported that 74 percent of respondents to a March 19 Monmouth University Poll said they believed the secret bloc exists—but only after the term was defined "as a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy."
MI: Energy department adviser assures US coal industry he's 'here to help' A top assistant to U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry reassured the West Virginia coal industry the department has efforts underway to aid the sector, including a follow-up to a failed effort to provide greater financial support to coal-fired and nuclear power plants. President Donald Trump's administration wants to continue a broad rollback of regulations, special adviser Doug Matheney said. The former Count on Coal advocate, now in the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, said that as a former coal miner and county commissioner, he has seen first-hand what happens to a community when a coal mine closes. "The good news is I'm with the federal government and I'm here to help," he said Jan. 31 at the West Virginia Mining Symposium in Charleston, W.Va. "I went to Washington, D.C., for one purpose and that was to help create coal jobs in the United States. The comments echo similar remarks made by U.S.
The Danger of President Pence | The New Yorker On September 14th, the right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, who last year published a book titled “In Trump We Trust,” expressed what a growing number of Americans, including conservatives, have been feeling since the 2016 election. The previous day, President Trump had dined with Democratic leaders at the White House, and had impetuously agreed to a major policy reversal, granting provisional residency to undocumented immigrants who came to America as children. Republican legislators were blindsided. Within hours, Trump disavowed the deal, then reaffirmed it. Coulter tweeted, “At this point, who doesn’t want Trump impeached?” She soon added, “If we’re not getting a wall, I’d prefer President Pence.” Trump’s swerve did the unthinkable—uniting Coulter and liberal commentators. Pence, who has dutifully stood by the President, mustering a devotional gaze rarely seen since the days of Nancy Reagan, serves as a daily reminder that the Constitution offers an alternative to Trump. “Ready for what?”
Trump administration plan would widely expand drilling in U.S. continental waters A boat with the nonprofit Clean Seas deploys a boom to contain an oil spill in 2015 north of Goleta, Calif. About 21,000 gallons spilled from an abandoned pipeline. (David McNew/Getty Images) The Trump administration unveiled a controversial proposal Thursday to permit drilling in most U.S. continental-shelf waters, including protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic, where oil and gas exploration is opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, nearly a dozen attorneys general, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers and the Defense Department. Under the proposal, only one of 26 planning areas in the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean would be off limits to oil and gas exploration, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The Draft Five Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program was embraced by oil and gas industry groups but is expected to face withering opposition from a wide range of state officials and conservationists. business false true
‘He saw our children as possessions': my husband killed our sons | Life and style Like many parents, Claire Throssell carries her sons’ sports gear in the back of her car. Paul’s running trainers and Jack’s PE kit sit in the boot – but they have been there for a long time. For three and a half years, in fact: ever since the two boys were murdered by their father. “It took just 15 minutes for my life to end and my existence to begin,” she says as she recalls the events of 22 October 2014. On that day, Darren Sykes, to whom she was married for 16 years, committed the most atrocious of crimes. “That in itself makes me feel sick,” Claire says, rubbing the ring on her wedding finger, created from her son’s combined ashes. But Sykes, along with Jack and Paul, only came out of the house in the arms of firefighters – who themselves were left severely traumatised by the scene they faced. Sykes had used five canisters of petrol, bought two days earlier, to turn the three-bedroom house into a blazing inferno. She was first wooed by Sykes, a carpet fitter, in 1995.
On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming | Environment It was a typical November day in New York City. The year: 1959. Robert Dunlop, 50 years old and photographed later as clean-shaven, hair carefully parted, his earnest face donning horn-rimmed glasses, passed under the Ionian columns of Columbia University’s iconic Low Library. Over 300 government officials, economists, historians, scientists, and industry executives were present for the Energy and Man symposium – organized by the American Petroleum Institute and the Columbia Graduate School of Business – and Dunlop was to address the entire congregation on the “prime mover” of the last century – energy – and its major source: oil. Four others joined Dunlop at the podium that day, one of whom had made the journey from California – and Hungary before that. Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. How, precisely, Mr. At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. Talk about a buzzkill.