Section: Salon (USA)
This is much worse than the Panama Papers: How America became a world leader in tax avoidance
Often when I’m sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on one of L.A.’s many freeways, my mind drifts to wondering if there’s some special autobahn above the horizon line reserved only for elite celebrities, so they don’t have to bother with the day-to-day inconveniences of the masses. That feeling returned when I read about...
6 things you need to know about the bombshell Panama Papers leak
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners dropped the explosive “Panama Papers” leak on Sunday. The trove is described by ICIJ, a global network of investigative journalists, as “11.5 million leaked files to expose the offshore holdings of...
Inside the Panama Papers: Massive leak shows just how extensive corruption is worldwide, implicating politicians, human traffickers and drug dealers
“My life is in danger,” read an anonymous message. “No meeting, ever.” “Why are you doing this?” a German newspaper asked. “I want to make these crimes public,” the whistleblower wrote. An enormous cache of documents was just released, exposing how political and economic elites from around the...
This is why you crave beef: Inside secrets of Big Meat’s billion-dollar ad and lobbying campaigns
Sleek seems like a good word to describe the offices of the National Chicken Council (NCC) in Washington, D.C. The sleekness begins on the street. The building at 1152 Fifteenth Street, which houses the NCC, is ultramodern, enclosed in glass, with a lavish lobby that echoes my footsteps as I walk in. Up on the fourth floor, I’m greeted by...
What Donald Trump doesn’t know might save us: He’s unschooled, but at least he’s no American exceptionalist or neo-con ideologue
The Russians have long understood that words are actions. A linguist and literary critic prominent in the last century added to the thought by insisting that context is more important than text. The meaning of what one says, in other words, is relational: It can be understood only by way of when, how, to whom and even where one says it. There is...
It is urgent that she’s stopped: Hillary Clinton’s nightmare neoliberalism and American exceptionalism makes the world a dangerous place
Much mail arrived after the column published in this space last Sunday, wherein I examined the likely character of a Clinton II foreign policy—dangerous to Americans and all others—and the flaccid logic common among those planning to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton come November. All but one of the letters were from women. They all said, one way...
Mr. Spock at the “sh*t show”: Barack Obama, the rise of Trump and a world gone crazy
Barack Obama does not much appreciate being blamed for the rise of Donald Trump. But after reading Jeffrey Goldberg’s immense article on “The Obama Doctrine” in the Atlantic, which was based on several lengthy interviews with the president and his inner circle of advisors, I suspect Obama also knows that the charge contains a germ of truth,...
A truly bone-chilling GOP debate: Why the most sedate one yet was also the scariest
Last night, GOP held its 547th presidential primary debate, once again featuring the final four, Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich. It was a debate like no others we’ve seen, Shocking, in fact. Trump didn’t call anyone a nasty name. Nobody called anyone a liar. There were no fireworks at all. But that wasn’t what was shocking. It...
Stripping and Starbucks — when corporations take over desire
My regular is an elegantly dressed gentleman in his mid-50s, slightly overweight in a way that calls out for the word “portly.” He is soft-spoken and a little dull, but he pays me to listen—two or three nights a week, he comes to the club and buys me drinks and tells me his troubles, but never demands a dance. He likes me, he says, because I am...
The real story about Syria and Libya: Behind a new agreement with Moscow, and the insidious way the New York Times protects Hillary
Hardly does the Syria accord announced jointly in Washington and Moscow last week clarify the swamp of complications, divided loyalties and treachery that have defined the crisis for years. It does not. We do not know yet even if the “cessation of hostilities” will hold, to say nothing of whether it will open any door to political negotiation and...
