07 October 19
Paul Krugman | Here Comes the Trump Slump
Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "When he isn't raving about how the deep state is conspiring against him, Donald Trump loves to boast about the economy, claiming to have achieved unprecedented things. As it happens, none of his claims are true."
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Rudy Giuliani. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "When he isn't raving about how the deep state is conspiring against him, Donald Trump loves to boast about the economy, claiming to have achieved unprecedented things. As it happens, none of his claims are true."
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Rudy Giuliani. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Desmond Butler, Michael Biesecker and Richard Lardner, Associated Press
Excerpt: "As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump's main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic."
Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.
Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.
But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine's new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry's past political donors.
It's unclear if Perry's attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies pushing for a similar outcome, and no one has alleged that there is criminal activity in any of these efforts. And it's unclear what role, if any, Giuliani had in helping his clients push to get gas sales agreements with the state-owned company.
But the affair shows how those with ties to Trump and his administration were pursuing business deals in Ukraine that went far beyond advancing the president's personal political interests. It also raises questions about whether Trump allies were mixing business and politics just as Republicans were calling for a probe of Biden and his son Hunter, who served five years on the board of another Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.
At the center of the Naftogaz plan, according to three individuals familiar with the details, were three such businessmen: two Soviet-born Florida real estate entrepreneurs, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and an oil magnate from Boca Raton, Florida, named Harry Sargeant III.
Parnas and Fruman have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations to Republicans, including $325,000 to a Trump-allied political action committee in 2018. This helped the relatively unknown entrepreneurs gain access to top levels of the Republican Party — including meetings with Trump at the White House and Mar-a-Lago.
The two have also faced lawsuits from disgruntled investors over unpaid debts. During the same period they were pursuing the Naftogaz deal, the two were coordinating with Giuliani to set up meetings with Ukrainian government officials and push for an investigation of the Bidens.
Sargeant, his wife and corporate entities tied to the family have donated at least $1.2 million to Republican campaigns and PACs over the last 20 years, including $100,000 in June to the Trump Victory Fund, according to federal and state campaign finance records. He has also served as finance chair of the Florida state GOP, and gave nearly $14,000 to Giuliani's failed 2008 presidential campaign.
An 'AW On Strike' sign is seen during a rally outside the shuttered General Motors Lordstown Assembly plant during the United Auto Workers national strike September 20, 2019. (photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters)
Union Official: Talks Between UAW and GM Take 'Turn for the Worse'
Ben Klayman, Reuters
Klayman writes: "Talks for a new four-year labor contract between General Motors and its striking workers took a 'turn for the worse' on Sunday after the United Auto Workers rejected the largest U.S. automaker's latest offer but the two sides were still talking."
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Ben Klayman, Reuters
Klayman writes: "Talks for a new four-year labor contract between General Motors and its striking workers took a 'turn for the worse' on Sunday after the United Auto Workers rejected the largest U.S. automaker's latest offer but the two sides were still talking."
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Ginger Baker, performing with Cream in 1966. (photo: David Redfern/Redferns)
Ginger Baker, Cream Drummer and Force of Nature, Dies At 80
Tom Moon, NPR
Moon writes: "There are lots of firsts and superlatives in the career of Ginger Baker, the drummer and bandleader who died Sunday morning at age 80. His death was announced by his family on social media; they had said on Sept. 25 that he was 'critically ill,' without giving details."
Tom Moon, NPR
Moon writes: "There are lots of firsts and superlatives in the career of Ginger Baker, the drummer and bandleader who died Sunday morning at age 80. His death was announced by his family on social media; they had said on Sept. 25 that he was 'critically ill,' without giving details."
Aimee Stephens poses at her home in Michigan on April 22. (photo: Charles William Kelly/AFP/Getty Images)
I'm a Transgender Attorney Fighting for My Community. Will That Make a Difference to the Supreme Court?
Chase Strangio, The Washington Post
Strangio writes: "The Supreme Court will hear arguments in three cases on Tuesday, each of which asks the court to decide whether it is legal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act's prohibition on discrimination because of sex to fire a worker because of the worker's transgender status or sexual orientation."
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Chase Strangio, The Washington Post
Strangio writes: "The Supreme Court will hear arguments in three cases on Tuesday, each of which asks the court to decide whether it is legal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act's prohibition on discrimination because of sex to fire a worker because of the worker's transgender status or sexual orientation."
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Adel Abdul Mahdi was vice president after the country's first multiparty elections in 2005. (photo: Getty Images)
'We Have Nothing to Lose': Iraqis Vow to Keep Up Protests
Farah Najjar, Al Jazeera
Najjar writes: "For five straight days, large crowds of mostly young Iraqis have poured onto the streets of Baghdad and other cities in an outburst of anger over chronic unemployment, corruption and poor public services, including access to water and electricity."
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Farah Najjar, Al Jazeera
Najjar writes: "For five straight days, large crowds of mostly young Iraqis have poured onto the streets of Baghdad and other cities in an outburst of anger over chronic unemployment, corruption and poor public services, including access to water and electricity."
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Giant sequoia trees in Sequoia national park, Sierra Nevada, California. (photo: Alamy)
Once They're Gone, They're Gone': The Fight to Save the Giant Sequoia
Maanvi Singh, Guardian UK
Singh writes: "A couple hundred years of human encroachment on to the sequoias' habitat, combined with the climate crisis, increasingly intense wildfires, and drought have threatened the species' future."
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Maanvi Singh, Guardian UK
Singh writes: "A couple hundred years of human encroachment on to the sequoias' habitat, combined with the climate crisis, increasingly intense wildfires, and drought have threatened the species' future."
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