Новости за 19.02.2020

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the anti-pipeline protests that have largely shut down rail travel across Canada. The blockades, which have also temporarily closed off certain United States border crossings, are part of a growing resistance movement against a natural gas pipeline that Coastal GasLink has planned for unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. Speaking before the House of Commons, Trudeau ran through the usual lines about “listening to one another” and being “in this together.”... Читать дальше...

In 1999, the German colossus Deutsche Bank was poised to acquire Bankers Trust. This purchase would give Deutsche a foothold in the United States and dramatically expand its investment banking business. The price was $10 billion, the largest foreign takeover of a U.S. bank in history. It would make Deutsche one of the largest financial institutions in the world. But there was a problem.

Not long after he began contemplating running for an unconstitutional third term as mayor of New York City in 2008, Michael Bloomberg made a strategic decision: He wouldn’t move forward without first wooing the owners of New York City’s biggest newspapers. Those very papers had helped block Rudy Giuliani’s quest for a three-month extension of his second term back in 2001. America’s Mayor felt that he needed to stick around to shepherd a city still reeling from the September 11 attacks. The editorial... Читать дальше...

In 2016, Americans who hoped to make sense of Donald Trump’s election could have done worse than turn to a book released earlier that year: Dark Money by Jane Mayer. In this extraordinary—and extraordinarily disturbing—work of nonfiction, Mayer, a veteran investigative journalist, laid bare the tremendous political influence of a handful of far-right billionaires: banking and oil heir Richard Mellon Scaife, chemical industry magnate John M. Olin, electronics barons Harry and Lynde Bradley, and... Читать дальше...

In his State of the Union Address this year, Donald Trump boasted that the United States “has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far,” giving credit to his administration’s “bold regulatory reduction campaign.” Whether an increase in oil exports deserves praise or censure depends on your view. Either way, Barack Obama’s White House is probably the one responsible for the trend, as Obama himself boasted to an oil industry-sponsored gala after leaving office.

Throughout the Ukraine scandal, President Donald Trump’s defenders argued that his freeze on military aid sprang from a “legitimate interest” in anti-corruption efforts in that country. It was a disingenuous claim on its face all along, not only because Trump’s stated goal was to undermine a political rival’s candidacy, but also because no president in American history has ever been less interested in fighting corruption.

“But... it came to be said of him that he had been more sinned against than sinning; and that, but for the jealousy of the old stagers in the mercantile world, he would have done very wonderful things.”