“That clear abuse of power for Trump’s own political gain led the Democratic-majority House to impeach the president. Afterward, the Republican-held Senate chose not to investigate further by declining to call any witnesses in its trial of the president and is expected to acquit him.
This means that, ultimately, the impeachment system designed to keep the top levels of the US government from descending into lawlessness has failed.
That, as former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and others say, will make it harder for the US to tell other nations to follow America’s lead.”
…
“In an ideal America, Trump would receive a severe reprimand for abusing his power and his corrupt practices, like using the presidency to enrich himself and his family. Even if short of impeachment, Republicans could’ve placed severe political pressure on Trump by showing him their support has limits.
That’s not what happened. Instead, Trump’s party will be responsible for letting him get away with the Ukraine scandal basically unpunished.
He has been formally impeached, and that in itself is significant regardless of whether or not he’s removed from office, but given that no House Republicans voted for impeachment, Trump and his allies can argue (and have) that it was merely a partisan political ploy and not the serious rebuke for his behavior it is supposed to be.
It’s worse when considering one of the arguments Trump’s legal team has made: that a president can basically do whatever he wants in order to get reelected if he believes his reelection is good for the country.”
“The biggest single provider of anonymous shell corporations in the world isn’t Panama or the Cayman Islands. It’s not the financial secrecy stalwart Switzerland, or a traditional offshore haven like the Bahamas.
It’s Delaware. And the main reason is federalism.
Thanks to the US’s federal structure, company formation remains overseen at the state level, rather than in Washington.
So if you’re a budding autocrat interested in a bit of easy money laundering, you don’t turn to federal officials in Washington. Instead, you look to state officials in Dover, Cheyenne, or Reno to help construct anonymous shell companies to funnel and clean your illegitimate money.”
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“Since there are no regulations in the US requiring that shell companies identify their true owners — known as “beneficial owners” – American states have been under no compunction to try to peel back who may be behind the anonymous shell companies mushrooming across the country.
These states and their constituents are raking in fees”
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“Nevada, which actively marketed itself as the “Delaware of the West” in the early 1990s, directly linked company formation fees to funding teachers’ salaries. And Wyoming, which invented the limited liability company (LLC) in 1977, has been only too happy to capitalize on allowing shell companies to flourish in the state, generating millions of dollars for its general budget — yet another small state all too willing to participate in this “race to the bottom.””
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“The criminal and corrupt of the world have taken notice. “Merchant of Death” Viktor Bout, the most prolific illicit arms dealer of the past few decades, used anonymous American shell companies to smuggle missiles and rocket launchers to rebels in Colombia.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who once joined Indonesian dictator Suharto and Serbian genocidaire Slobodan Milošević among the ranks of the world’s most corrupt leaders, relied on a network of anonymous shell companies in Wyoming to plunder Ukraine.
Even the ongoing impeachment saga in the US hinges in large part on anonymous Delaware shell companies, which Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian-born bag-men used to funnel foreign funds into American elections.
For the world’s warlords, criminals, and autocrats, there’s no gift finer than an anonymous American shell company.”
“During the 1980s, most 18-year-old girls went from school to two-year “junior colleges” (with a heavy emphasis on home economics), rather than to the four-year university courses favoured by their male contemporaries. So among the generation now at the sort of age—typically 50-55—from which companies and other organisations pick their leaders, there are few women to choose from.”
…
“this changed during the 1990s, as families and the girls themselves decided that they too deserved a full four-year university education. Moreover, fewer professional women now decide, or are forced, to leave their jobs when they get married or have children (and the marriage rate itself has declined), so the drop-out rate has fallen. The pipeline of potential female leaders is increasing every year.
Will they be chosen? Certainly, too few companies, especially the big and famous ones, have altered their promotion and staff-deployment practices sufficiently to become family-friendly. The gender gap in admission to the best public universities, including Tokyo and Kyoto, from which top organisations recruit, remains wide. Nevertheless, many organisations have changed their ways, out of sheer necessity: with Japan’s population ageing and declining every year, there are not enough trained and experienced men to hog all the managerial jobs any longer.
“Diversity” has become a buzzword. Spending on child-care facilities, to make it easier to retain mid-career female staff, has climbed. Soon a critical mass of female managers will be in place, sufficient to change corporate procedures and cultures for their successors, as has happened in Europe and America.”
“For weeks, Syrian troops, backed by Russian air force, have been advancing in rebel territory as the cease-fire deal reached in 2018 unraveled. The offensive has displaced over half a million people, many of them arriving in open air and temporary shelters, often near the borders with Turkey. Idlib and nearby rural Aleppo are the last rebel-held areas in Syria and are home to more than 3 million people, most of them already displaced by previous rounds of violence.”
“we don’t need a new agency that will disrupt and distract a system that has many of the pieces it needs to succeed already in place. What we do need is better coordination, accountability and leadership to make sure that the federal government’s existing cyber expertise, assets and partners are engaged at maximum capacity to address the many varied and variable threats that will continue to emerge from cyber space.”