George Packer's Blog, page 117

Steven Mnuchin and the Tax-Haven Divide

If confirmed, Steven Mnuchin, the nominee to be Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, will have a portfolio that touches on many critical issues, including tax policy, financial regulation, international trade, and the myriad conflicts posed by the next President’s opaque business dealings. Also on the list is the matter of whether extremely wealthy investors will have the ability to avail themselves of offshore tax shelters in the future. That last responsibility became a central line of questioning at Mnuchin’s confirmation hearing on Thursday after it was revealed, on the eve of his appearance, that Mnuchin, a hedge-fund manager, had failed to disclose to Congress his role as a director of an investment fund in an offshore tax haven. After a friendly introduction from Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, began to speak. He started by criticizing the “truly disgusting inequity and abuse of America’s tax laws” in general, before turning to Mnuchin’s situation in particular.

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How to Submit Sensitive Tips and Information to The New Yorker

When The New Yorker’s first issue was published, in 1925, the only way to contact the magazine’s editors was to post a letter to our office’s mailing address, which was printed on the inside cover. Ninety-two years later, there are many more ways to get in touch: we have separate e-mail addresses for submitting cartoons, fiction, and letters. You might log on to Submittable to send us a poem. And, if you wish to remain anonymous in order to send sensitive information to our editors, there is Strongbox.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Afternoon Cartoon: Monday, November 28th

Preserve, Protect, and Defend

On September 17, 1787, as Benjamin Franklin was leaving the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention, at Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, a woman called out to him, saying, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

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Jackie Evancho, Trump’s Inauguration, and the Politics of Childhood

Why Republicans Could Regret Overturning Roe v. Wade

Every year around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade—January 22, 1973—protesters from across the country gather in Washington, D.C., for the March for Life, an anti-abortion demonstration that begins at the National Mall and ends on the steps of the Supreme Court. Had Hillary Clinton been elected President, the mood at this year’s march, which will take place on January 27th, might have been glum. Instead, it is likely to be buoyant, infused by the glow of Donald Trump’s Inauguration, which has rekindled hopes that Roe may soon be gone.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Watching Andrew Jackson’s Inauguration

John Quincy Adams was at home, a mile and a half north of the White House, when he ceased to be the President of the United States. It was customary for a departing President to attend the Inauguration of his successor, but it was not unprecedented to miss it; Adams’s own father, John, had skipped the Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, after an acrimonious campaign. After consulting with his Cabinet, John Quincy did the same.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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George Washington, Trump, and the End of Humility

On April 16, 1789, George Washington stepped into a carriage at Mount Vernon, his Virginia estate, and rumbled off toward New York and the Presidency. Far from feeling flush with imminent power, he told his diary that he contemplated the task ahead “with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Palestine in the Age of Trump

With the advent in Washington of an Administration with radical new priorities regarding Israel, and a disdain for Palestinian rights, Palestine is facing a daunting reality. In recent years, ascendant political currents in America and Israel had already begun to merge. We have now reached the point where envoys from one country to the other could almost switch places: the Israeli Ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, who grew up in Florida, could just as easily be the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, while Donald Trump’s Ambassador-designate to Israel, David Friedman, who has intimate ties to the Israeli settler movement, would make a fine Ambassador in Washington for the pro-settler government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Earth to Pruitt: At a Confirmation Hearing, Denialism Stands While Temperatures Rise

Either it was a cleverly engineered plan or some kind of cosmic joke: just as the confirmation hearing for Scott Pruitt, the climate denier who is Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, was getting under way Wednesday, on Capitol Hill, two federal agencies—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—announced that 2016 was the warmest year since modern record-keeping began, in 1880. It was the third year in a row to smash previous records for warmth, a trend that prompted the Times to observe that “temperatures are heading toward levels that many experts believe will pose a profound threat.”

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Obama’s Not-So-Final Goodbye

Barack Obama’s final press conference as President, which took place on Wednesday afternoon in the White House briefing room, was a curious affair. On the face of things, it was a low-key event, in which Obama seemed to go out of his way to avoid criticizing Donald Trump or getting drawn into the many controversies that have recently enveloped his successor. But that wasn’t the full story. The press conference was also a not-too-subtle rebuke of Trump, a warning about the dangers that his Presidency presents, and a signal that we haven’t heard the last of Obama.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Trump’s Washington Wedding

An American Inauguration is like a wedding: the President is the groom, the people his bride. Donald Trump is about to pledge his troth. It didn’t always work this way, and, really, it shouldn’t. Washington isn’t Vegas.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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