newyorker--2020-01-16--Rudy Giuliani’s Bagman Lev Parnas Blows Up Trump’s Ukraine Defense

Stephanie Grisham , the White House press secretary , was up bright and early on Thursday morning to try to spin the remarkable interview that MSNBC ’ s Rachel Maddow did on Wednesday night with Lev Parnas , one of Rudy Giuliani ’ s bagmen in the effort to extort the government of Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter .
Parnas claimed that Donald Trump “ knew exactly what was going on , ” and he also implicated Vice-President Mike Pence .
“ This is a man who is under indictment and who ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Grisham said on Fox & Friends , Donald Trump ’ s favorite morning show .
“ This is a man who owns a company called Fraud Inc. .
.
.
We ’ re not too concerned about it .
We know that everything in the Senate is going to be fair.
” The first part of what Grisham said was correct .
After being arrested in October as he prepared to board a flight to Vienna , Parnas , a forty-seven-year-old Soviet émigré who grew up in Brooklyn , was charged with four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hide the source of political donations that originated in Russia .
Campaign-finance records show that he listed his employer as Fraud Guarantee , a Florida company that , according to its Web site , helps people “ reduce the risk of fraud as well as mitigate the damage caused by fraudulent acts.
” This was just one of many business ventures with which Parnas , who has lived in Florida for many years , has been associated .
Others involved stockbroking , bullion dealing , and film production .
After Parnas was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a “ former stock broker who has left a long trail of debts in Florida and beyond.
” The wife of one of his debtors , who is pursuing a legal judgement of five hundred thousand dollars against him , told the Herald , “ He financially ruined us.
” Parnas comes across as something out of a Carl Hiaasen novel .
But Grisham failed to point out that he isn ’ t just a random grifter the Feds lifted from the street .
He is ( or was ) a close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political ally and personal lawyer .
He has visited the White House , where he had his picture taken not only with Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence but also with the President ’ s daughter Ivanka and her husband , Jared Kushner .
Parnas also attended Trump ’ s election-night victory party in 2016 .
Like Zelig , Parnas seems to pop up everywhere .
How did he obtain this sort of access ?
According to his account , he was a key player in Giuliani ’ s efforts last year to persuade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to open an investigation into the Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden .
He travelled to Kyiv and spoke with top Ukrainian officials .
He communicated with two lawyers who have close connections to the Republican Party—Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova—and kept in constant contact with Giuliani .
“ I wouldn ’ t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the President , ” he told Maddow .
“ I have no intent—I have no reason to speak to any of these [ Ukrainian ] officials .
I mean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me .
Why would President Zelensky ’ s inner circle or Minister Avakov or all these people .
.
.
meet with me ?
Who am I ?
They were told to meet with me , and that ’ s the secret that they ’ re ” —members of the Trump Administration— “ trying to keep .
I was on the ground doing their work.
” To be sure , Parnas has a vested interest here .
Although he doesn ’ t have a formal coöperation agreement with the U.S. Attorney ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York , which brought the case against him , his lawyer is pushing for one .
Parnas is clearly out to save his own skin .
But he has documentary evidence to back up some of his claims .
Among the materials he handed over to the House Intelligence Committee are hand-written notes from a telephone conversation he had with Giuliani , which include the statement “ get Zalensky to Announce that the Biden case will Be Investigated.
” Text messages from last spring show that Parnas conversed with Giuliani and with Ukraine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lutsenko , about efforts to instigate the removal of Marie Yovanovitch , the former U.S .
Ambassador to Ukraine .
Additionally , messages from May , 2019 , suggested that another associate of Parnas , an American businessman named Robert Hyde , was making efforts to place Yovanovitch under surveillance inside the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and to possibly have her removed .
During his interview with Maddow , Parnas dismissed his messages with Hyde , a former landscaper who is running for Congress in Connecticut , describing him as “ a weird @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time ” at the bar of the Trump International Hotel in Washington , where the two men first met .
This statement from Parnas didn ’ t prevent the Ukrainian Interior Ministry from announcing on Thursday that it would investigate “ a possible violation of the law of Ukraine and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations , which protects the rights of a diplomat on the territory of the foreign country.
” In any case , Parnas ’ s key allegations concern Trump and Giuliani , not Hyde , and they , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Perhaps the key document that he provided to Congress was a screenshot of a letter that Giuliani sent to President Zelensky on May 10 , 2019 , which said , “ In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent , I request a meeting with you on this upcoming Monday , May 13th or Tuesday , May 14th.
” At the time , Giuliani was pretty open about the fact that he was trying to dig up dirt on the Bidens , and adverse publicity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cancel a trip to Kyiv .
But this is the first documentary evidence that confirms what has always appeared obvious : Giuliani wasn ’ t just freelancing .
He was working with the explicit knowledge and consent of Trump .
One of the cover stories offered by the White House and its Republican allies in Congress is that Trump was concerned about broader corruption in Ukraine , a claim that receives no backing in the transcript of his notorious July 25th conversation with Zelensky or anywhere else .
Parnas dismissed this suggestion out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Joe Biden , Hunter Biden , ” he said .
“ And , also , Rudy had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff , the black ledger , and that was another thing they were looking into .
But it was never about corruption.
” Parnas also claimed that Vice-President Pence was directly involved in pressuring Ukraine .
Last May , he said , Giuliani instructed him to tell a senior aide to Zelensky , who had only recently been elected , that Pence wouldn ’ t attend the inauguration if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t agree to announce an investigation into Burisma and the Bidens .
Within days , the White House announced that Pence wasn ’ t going to Kyiv .
“ Obviously , when Pence cancels , they get word , ” Parnas recalled , referring to the Ukrainians .
“ So now they realize that what I was telling them was true.
” Like Grisham , Pence ’ s chief of staff , Marc Short , dismissed Parnas ’ s claims , saying that Parnas “ will say anything to anybody who will listen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Giuliani told the Times that Parnas was “ a proven liar , ” and he told MSNBC that he “ never ” told Ukrainian officials that Parnas was speaking on behalf of Trump .
Giuliani didn ’ t explain how he came to be involved with Parnas or what he had engaged the Soviet émigré to do .
He also didn ’ t comment on the documents Parnas handed over to Congress .
In a better world , the Senate would immediately subpoena both of them to appear at Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense and the prosecution question them .
Almost certainly , this isn ’ t going to happen .
Trump ’ s enablers in the Republican Party will make sure of it .

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, was up bright and early on Thursday morning to try to spin the remarkable interview that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did on Wednesday night with Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s bagmen in the effort to extort the government of Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Parnas claimed that Donald Trump “knew exactly what was going on,” and he also implicated Vice-President Mike Pence. “This is a man who is under indictment and who’s actually out on bail,” Grisham said on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump’s favorite morning show. “This is a man who owns a company called Fraud Inc. . . . We’re not too concerned about it. We know that everything in the Senate is going to be fair.”
The first part of what Grisham said was correct. After being arrested in October as he prepared to board a flight to Vienna, Parnas, a forty-seven-year-old Soviet émigré who grew up in Brooklyn, was charged with four counts of violating campaign-finance laws by trying to hide the source of political donations that originated in Russia. Campaign-finance records show that he listed his employer as Fraud Guarantee, a Florida company that, according to its Web site, helps people “reduce the risk of fraud as well as mitigate the damage caused by fraudulent acts.”
This was just one of many business ventures with which Parnas, who has lived in Florida for many years, has been associated. Others involved stockbroking, bullion dealing, and film production. After Parnas was arrested, the Miami Herald described him as a “former stock broker who has left a long trail of debts in Florida and beyond.” The wife of one of his debtors, who is pursuing a legal judgement of five hundred thousand dollars against him, told the Herald, “He financially ruined us.”
Parnas comes across as something out of a Carl Hiaasen novel. But Grisham failed to point out that he isn’t just a random grifter the Feds lifted from the street. He is (or was) a close associate of Giuliani, Trump’s political ally and personal lawyer. He has visited the White House, where he had his picture taken not only with Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence but also with the President’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. Parnas also attended Trump’s election-night victory party in 2016. Like Zelig, Parnas seems to pop up everywhere.
How did he obtain this sort of access? According to his account, he was a key player in Giuliani’s efforts last year to persuade the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to open an investigation into the Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden. He travelled to Kyiv and spoke with top Ukrainian officials. He communicated with two lawyers who have close connections to the Republican Party—Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova—and kept in constant contact with Giuliani. “I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the President,” he told Maddow. “I have no intent—I have no reason to speak to any of these [Ukrainian] officials. I mean, they have no reason to speak to me. Why would President Zelensky’s inner circle or Minister Avakov or all these people . . . meet with me? Who am I? They were told to meet with me, and that’s the secret that they’re”—members of the Trump Administration—“trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work.”
To be sure, Parnas has a vested interest here. Although he doesn’t have a formal coöperation agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which brought the case against him, his lawyer is pushing for one. Parnas is clearly out to save his own skin. But he has documentary evidence to back up some of his claims. Among the materials he handed over to the House Intelligence Committee are hand-written notes from a telephone conversation he had with Giuliani, which include the statement “get Zalensky to Announce that the Biden case will Be Investigated.” Text messages from last spring show that Parnas conversed with Giuliani and with Ukraine’s former attorney general, Yuriy Lutsenko, about efforts to instigate the removal of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. Additionally, messages from May, 2019, suggested that another associate of Parnas, an American businessman named Robert Hyde, was making efforts to place Yovanovitch under surveillance inside the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and to possibly have her removed.
During his interview with Maddow, Parnas dismissed his messages with Hyde, a former landscaper who is running for Congress in Connecticut, describing him as “a weird individual” who was “drunk all the time” at the bar of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where the two men first met. This statement from Parnas didn’t prevent the Ukrainian Interior Ministry from announcing on Thursday that it would investigate “a possible violation of the law of Ukraine and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects the rights of a diplomat on the territory of the foreign country.”
In any case, Parnas’s key allegations concern Trump and Giuliani, not Hyde, and they, too, are supported by documentary evidence. Perhaps the key document that he provided to Congress was a screenshot of a letter that Giuliani sent to President Zelensky on May 10, 2019, which said, “In my capacity as personal counsel to President Trump and with his knowledge and consent, I request a meeting with you on this upcoming Monday, May 13th or Tuesday, May 14th.” At the time, Giuliani was pretty open about the fact that he was trying to dig up dirt on the Bidens, and adverse publicity about these efforts eventually prompted him to cancel a trip to Kyiv. But this is the first documentary evidence that confirms what has always appeared obvious: Giuliani wasn’t just freelancing. He was working with the explicit knowledge and consent of Trump.
One of the cover stories offered by the White House and its Republican allies in Congress is that Trump was concerned about broader corruption in Ukraine, a claim that receives no backing in the transcript of his notorious July 25th conversation with Zelensky or anywhere else. Parnas dismissed this suggestion out of hand. “It was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden,” he said. “And, also, Rudy had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff, the black ledger, and that was another thing they were looking into. But it was never about corruption.”
Parnas also claimed that Vice-President Pence was directly involved in pressuring Ukraine. Last May, he said, Giuliani instructed him to tell a senior aide to Zelensky, who had only recently been elected, that Pence wouldn’t attend the inauguration if Ukraine’s new President didn’t agree to announce an investigation into Burisma and the Bidens. Within days, the White House announced that Pence wasn’t going to Kyiv. “Obviously, when Pence cancels, they get word,” Parnas recalled, referring to the Ukrainians. “So now they realize that what I was telling them was true.”
Like Grisham, Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, dismissed Parnas’s claims, saying that Parnas “will say anything to anybody who will listen in hopes of staying out of prison.” Giuliani told the Times that Parnas was “a proven liar,” and he told MSNBC that he “never” told Ukrainian officials that Parnas was speaking on behalf of Trump.
Giuliani didn’t explain how he came to be involved with Parnas or what he had engaged the Soviet émigré to do. He also didn’t comment on the documents Parnas handed over to Congress. In a better world, the Senate would immediately subpoena both of them to appear at Trump’s impeachment trial and let lawyers for the defense and the prosecution question them. Almost certainly, this isn’t going to happen. Trump’s enablers in the Republican Party will make sure of it.


newyorker--2020-01-16--Citing Climate Change, BlackRock Will Start Moving Away from Fossil Fuels

If you felt the earth tremble a little bit in Manhattan on Tuesday morning , it was likely caused by the sheer heft of vast amounts of money starting to shift .
“ Seismic ” is the only word to describe the recent decision of the asset-management firm BlackRock to acknowledge the urgency of the climate crisis and begin ( emphasis on begin ) to start redirecting its investments .
By one estimate , there ’ s about eighty trillion dollars of money on the planet .
If that ’ s correct , then BlackRock ’ s holding of seven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of every dollar rests in its digital files , mostly in the form of stocks it invests in for pension funds and the like .
So when BlackRock ’ s C.E.O.
, Larry Fink , devoted his annual letter to investors to explaining that climate change has now put us “ on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance , ” it marked a watershed moment in climate history .
He ’ s right about the financial future , of course—one can ’ t look at the clouds of smoke now obscuring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we can maintain our present course .
But anyone paying attention—which includes investment-fund C.E.O.s—has known the score for years .
What ’ s changed now are a couple of factors .
For one , fossil-fuel stocks have begun to drag down portfolios .
As the Times observed , “ Had Mr. Fink moved a decade ago to pull BlackRock ’ s funds out of companies that contribute to climate change , his clients would have been well served .
In the past 10 years , through Friday , companies in the S @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just 2 percent in total .
In the same period , the broader S & P 500 nearly tripled.
” But , at least as important , public pressure just keeps mounting .
Activist campaigns have been working to make the financial industry start to pay attention .
( I ’ m involved with one , and was among those arrested , on Friday , after a sojourn in the lobby of a Chase branch . )
In the past few months , Goldman Sachs , Liberty Mutual , and the Hartford Financial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put forth new climate policies , and the European Investment Bank—the largest international public bank in the world—announced that it would stop lending to fossil-fuel projects altogether .
Meanwhile , more and more people around the world have started questioning their financial advisers .
Climate change , Fink said in his letter , is “ almost invariably the top issue that clients around the world raise with BlackRock.
” And BlackRock ’ s clients aren ’ t the only ones concerned , so you may well see Vanguard and State Street , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the months to come .
BlackRock ’ s actual policy changes are modest compared with Fink ’ s rhetoric .
At least at first , the main change will be to rid the firm ’ s actively managed portfolio ( about $ 1.8 trillion in value ) of coal stocks ; but coal , though still a major contributor to climate change , is already on the wane , except in Asia .
The companies that mine it have tanked in value—even Donald Trump ’ s coddling has been unable to slow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country .
So an investor swearing off coal is a bit like cutting cake out of your diet but clinging to a slice of pie and a box of doughnuts .
And Fink is apparently stuck in a decade-old time warp , suggesting on CNBC that “ natural gas plays a very large role in the energy transition.
” This is also the new official position of the American Petroleum Institute ; sadly , the science shows that fracking for natural gas releases large amounts of methane , the second-most significant contributor to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the plan is that it doesn ’ t directly address BlackRock ’ s main business , which is passive index funds .
The company has previously maintained that it can ’ t do anything about the contents of those indexes .
But BlackRock ’ s announcement suggests that this position is changing .
In the months ahead , I ’ d be surprised if the firm didn ’ t persuade Standard & Poor ’ s and other index makers to produce “ sustainable ” versions of their main products—at which point , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those investments , the shift of money would be far greater .
But BlackRock is so enormous that the signal it sent will likely be heard even through the layers of detail .
“ I , for one , see this as the beginning of the end for the fossil-fuel system , ” Kingsmill Bond , an analyst who used to work at Citibank and Deutsche Bank , and is now with the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative , told me .
“ Who , now , will want to hold the stranded assets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ observation , he said , is based on what investors call the “ greater fool theory.
” “ Many people hold assets on the expectation that they will be able to sell them to someone else .
And now the world ’ s largest asset manager has very publicly stated that ‘ a significant reallocation of capital ’ will take place sooner than most anticipate—indeed , ‘ because capital markets pull future risk forward , we will see changes in capital allocation more quickly than we see changes to the climate itself.
’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If you have a gas network or a coal ship or a diesel-car factory , Fink is essentially saying that there will very shortly be no buyers for these assets .
And , because markets think that one through , it means that the next time you try to refinance your loan on these assets , or the next time you try to sell them , you will struggle .
In fact , that is how capital markets pull risk forward.
” There is still much work to be done .
For today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the biggest guy on the block has begun knuckling under to reality—a reality that Fink acknowledges will only grow larger .
“ This dynamic will accelerate as the next generation takes the helm of government and business , ” he wrote .
“ As trillions of dollars shift to millennials over the next few decades , as they become C.E.O.s and C.I.O.s , as they become the policymakers and heads of state , they will further reshape the world ’ s approach to sustainability.
” It ’ s come late—too late to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ save the species that have likely gone extinct in Australia ’ s fires , too late to save the homes of millions of people around the world forced to flee them amid withering droughts and rising seas .
But if , for a moment , you want to feel a little hopeful about the future of the climate , then today is your day .

If you felt the earth tremble a little bit in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, it was likely caused by the sheer heft of vast amounts of money starting to shift. “Seismic” is the only word to describe the recent decision of the asset-management firm BlackRock to acknowledge the urgency of the climate crisis and begin (emphasis on begin) to start redirecting its investments.
By one estimate, there’s about eighty trillion dollars of money on the planet. If that’s correct, then BlackRock’s holding of seven trillion dollars means that nearly a dime of every dollar rests in its digital files, mostly in the form of stocks it invests in for pension funds and the like. So when BlackRock’s C.E.O., Larry Fink, devoted his annual letter to investors to explaining that climate change has now put us “on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” it marked a watershed moment in climate history.
He’s right about the financial future, of course—one can’t look at the clouds of smoke now obscuring the Australian continent and come away thinking that we can maintain our present course. But anyone paying attention—which includes investment-fund C.E.O.s—has known the score for years. What’s changed now are a couple of factors.
For one, fossil-fuel stocks have begun to drag down portfolios. As the Times observed, “Had Mr. Fink moved a decade ago to pull BlackRock’s funds out of companies that contribute to climate change, his clients would have been well served. In the past 10 years, through Friday, companies in the S&P 500 energy sector had gained just 2 percent in total. In the same period, the broader S&P 500 nearly tripled.”
But, at least as important, public pressure just keeps mounting. Activist campaigns have been working to make the financial industry start to pay attention. (I’m involved with one, and was among those arrested, on Friday, after a sojourn in the lobby of a Chase branch.) In the past few months, Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, and the Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., have all put forth new climate policies, and the European Investment Bank—the largest international public bank in the world—announced that it would stop lending to fossil-fuel projects altogether.
Meanwhile, more and more people around the world have started questioning their financial advisers. Climate change, Fink said in his letter, is “almost invariably the top issue that clients around the world raise with BlackRock.” And BlackRock’s clients aren’t the only ones concerned, so you may well see Vanguard and State Street, the other asset-managing behemoths, following this lead in the months to come.
BlackRock’s actual policy changes are modest compared with Fink’s rhetoric. At least at first, the main change will be to rid the firm’s actively managed portfolio (about $1.8 trillion in value) of coal stocks; but coal, though still a major contributor to climate change, is already on the wane, except in Asia. The companies that mine it have tanked in value—even Donald Trump’s coddling has been unable to slow the industry’s decline in this country. So an investor swearing off coal is a bit like cutting cake out of your diet but clinging to a slice of pie and a box of doughnuts.
And Fink is apparently stuck in a decade-old time warp, suggesting on CNBC that “natural gas plays a very large role in the energy transition.” This is also the new official position of the American Petroleum Institute; sadly, the science shows that fracking for natural gas releases large amounts of methane, the second-most significant contributor to climate change.
The other weakness of the plan is that it doesn’t directly address BlackRock’s main business, which is passive index funds. The company has previously maintained that it can’t do anything about the contents of those indexes. But BlackRock’s announcement suggests that this position is changing. In the months ahead, I’d be surprised if the firm didn’t persuade Standard & Poor’s and other index makers to produce “sustainable” versions of their main products—at which point, if BlackRock began nudging its biggest customers into those investments, the shift of money would be far greater.
But BlackRock is so enormous that the signal it sent will likely be heard even through the layers of detail. “I, for one, see this as the beginning of the end for the fossil-fuel system,” Kingsmill Bond, an analyst who used to work at Citibank and Deutsche Bank, and is now with the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative, told me. “Who, now, will want to hold the stranded assets of the fossil era?”
His observation, he said, is based on what investors call the “greater fool theory.” “Many people hold assets on the expectation that they will be able to sell them to someone else. And now the world’s largest asset manager has very publicly stated that ‘a significant reallocation of capital’ will take place sooner than most anticipate—indeed, ‘because capital markets pull future risk forward, we will see changes in capital allocation more quickly than we see changes to the climate itself.’ ”
So, Bond explained, “If you have a gas network or a coal ship or a diesel-car factory, Fink is essentially saying that there will very shortly be no buyers for these assets. And, because markets think that one through, it means that the next time you try to refinance your loan on these assets, or the next time you try to sell them, you will struggle. In fact, that is how capital markets pull risk forward.”
There is still much work to be done. For today, though, it’s enough that the biggest guy on the block has begun knuckling under to reality—a reality that Fink acknowledges will only grow larger. “This dynamic will accelerate as the next generation takes the helm of government and business,” he wrote. “As trillions of dollars shift to millennials over the next few decades, as they become C.E.O.s and C.I.O.s, as they become the policymakers and heads of state, they will further reshape the world’s approach to sustainability.”
It’s come late—too late to save the Arctic, too late to save the species that have likely gone extinct in Australia’s fires, too late to save the homes of millions of people around the world forced to flee them amid withering droughts and rising seas. But if, for a moment, you want to feel a little hopeful about the future of the climate, then today is your day.


newyorker--2020-01-16--As the Impeachment Trial Begins, the Democratic Candidates Struggle to Forcefully Take on President

As the Impeachment Trial Begins, the Democratic Candidates Struggle to Forcefully Take on President Trump

Welcome to Iowa : The Final Weeks Before the First Democratic Vote The reporter Eric Lach on the importance of @ @ @ @ @ makes them unique , and how a win or loss here can make or break @ @

Photograph by Scott Olson / Getty
This week, Democratic Presidential candidates met for their final debate before the Iowa caucuses, a few weeks after Trump ordered the targeted killing of the Iranian military commander Qassam Suleimani. They talked about how America’s role in the world is threatened by the President’s erratic—and, in the case of Ukraine, likely criminal—approach to foreign policy. But many voters remain skeptical that Trump can be beaten. Susan B. Glasser joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the radical uncertainties of the 2020 race.


newyorker--2020-01-16--What to Do in N.Y.C. This Weekend: January 17th-19th

These are our top picks for the weekend of January 17th-19th .
For more event listings and reviews , check out Goings On About Town .
A framed sketch by the costume designer Theadora Van Runkle in the exhibition “ In Pursuit of Fashion , ” at the Met , portrays the collector Sandy Schreier with a serious face crowned by sculptural , upswept red hair .
With its balance of gravitas and effervescence , it ’ s an apt avatar to preside over the tantalizing selection of Schreier ’ s promised gifts to the museum , which range from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dress manufactured by Campbell Soup Company from 1966-67 .
An evening gown by Madeleine & Madeleine , made circa 1923 , is a rare example of the short-lived French house ’ s work ; the ibis-motif beadwork and embroidery , inspired by Tutankhamun ’ s tomb , benefits rather magically from the exhibition ’ s adjacency to the Met ’ s Egyptian wing.—Johanna Fateman For more art reviews , click here .
The Berlin producer Moritz von Oswald became a dance-music legend as a co-founder of the label Basic Channel , which issued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global d.j .
staples .
A steady string of collaborations—with the techno founding father Juan Atkins and the master Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen , among others—has kept his admixture of techno and dub steely and vivid .
Von Oswald usually performs live , as he will on Saturday , at Issue Project Room , but an engagement on Friday , at Nowadays , offers a rare opportunity to see him d.j.—Michaelangelo Matos For more night-life listings , click here .
The other day , outside the Lululemon on Smith Street , a woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phone , which she was holding as though it were a walkie-talkie .
“ I guess Brooklyn is a hotter neighborhood now , ” she declared .
Cobble Hill has been hit hard , in recent years , by an influx of chain stores and the people who chase them .
The Chipotle on Court Street sends shivers down the spine .
And yet hope springs eternal at the HiHi Room , a promisingly off-kilter new restaurant from Eric Finkelstein and Matt Ross , the RISD-grad duo behind Court Street Grocers , an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adjacent Carroll Gardens a decade ago and now has four locations and its own line of ( delicious ) bottled sodas.—Hannah Goldfield For more restaurant reviews , click here .
With female rage being reconsidered as both a political tool and a cultural trope , what better time to revisit the original angry woman ?
In a new adaptation of Euripides ’ “ Medea , ” written and directed by Simon Stone ( “ Yerma ” ) , Rose Byrne plays the vengeful barbarian who takes extraordinary measures to punish her unfaithful husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partner , Bobby Cannavale .
The production , which originated at Internationaal Theatre Amsterdam , plays at BAM ’ s Harvey Theatre through February 23rd .
For more theatre reviews , click here .
The Filipino director Lino Brocka , best known in the U.S. for his films “ Manila in the Claws of Light ” and “ Insiang , ” from the mid-seventies , was openly gay at a time of harsh discrimination .
His film “ Macho Dancer , ” from 1988 , centered on a group of young male sex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gangsters and corrupt officials , was drastically censored in the Philippines at the time of its release ; this Sunday , in the series “ Show Me Love : International Teen Cinema , ” MOMA screens a print of the uncut version.—Richard Brody For more movie reviews , click here .
A little more than fifteen years ago , the American Contemporary Music Ensemble ( better known as ACME ) made its début , at the Tenri Cultural Institute , with an audacious mix of landmark modern works .
The group returns to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ series .
The initial program , on Friday , features two works by Gavin Bryars that are encountered far too infrequently : the elegiac “ The Sinking of the Titanic ” and the concentrated , evocative String Quartet No .
1 ( “ Between the National and the Bristol ” ) .—Steve Smith For more classical-music listings , click here .
Like all requiems , “ Cion : Requiem of Ravel ’ s Boléro ” is a ceremony of remembrance for the dead .
At the Joyce this weekend , the South African @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amid a congregation and crosses .
The music is unusual , though : all isicathamiya-style a-cappella harmonies undergirded by beatboxing , even as the score veers into Ravel ’ s insistent crescendo .
The vigorous choreography expresses violence and cruelty along with grief , but , like the music , it tries to turn sobbing into song.—Brian Seibert For more dance listings , click here .

These are our top picks for the weekend of March 6th-8th. For more event listings and reviews, check out Goings On About Town.
Art work by José Clemente Orozco / Courtesy ARS / SOMAAP / MOMA
The Whitney’s thumpingly great show “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1924-1945” picks an overdue art-historical fight. The usual story of those two decades revolves around young aesthetes striving to absorb European modernism. What to do with the mighty legacy of the era’s big three Mexican painters, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros? As little as possible has seemed the rule, despite the seminal influence of Orozco and Siqueiros on the young Jackson Pollock. With some two hundred works by sixty artists and abundant documentary material, the curator Barbara Haskell reweaves the sense and sensations of the era to bring it alive.—Peter Schjeldahl
For more art reviews, click here.
For our Spring Art Preview, click here.
Photograph by Hanna-Katrina Jedrosz
The glamorously intelligent post-punk that was incubated in English art colleges forty years ago is reconstituted with panache in Dry Cleaning: it’s almost shocking to hear lyrics referencing not Margaret Thatcher but Meghan Markle. This young London quartet is effortlessly magnetic and impossibly British, with an ace card in Florence Shaw—a vocalist who rarely deigns to sing but, rather, presents her lyrics as if engaged in an apathetic phone conversation. After making its American début at Saint Vitus, on Friday, the band plays Union Pool the following night.—Jay Ruttenberg
For more night-life listings, click here.
For our Spring Night-Life Preview, click here.
Photograph by Heami Lee for The New Yorker
There has never been a better time to eat a meatless hamburger. The current surge of interest in plant-based diets has sparked an arms race of sorts. Since 2008, the chef Amanda Cohen has been the force behind Dirt Candy, the first vegetarian restaurant to hold its own in New York’s fine-dining landscape. Cohen had never served a veggie burger before Andrea Kerzner, a South African philanthropist looking for ways to fight climate change, cold-called her to propose that they collaborate on a restaurant built around one, but she was game to try. Last November, they opened Lekka Burger, in Tribeca.—Hannah Goldfield
For more restaurant reviews, click here.
Photograph by Sara Krulwich / NYT / Redux
In 1997, a woman named Dana Higginbotham was abducted by an ex-convict and member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He dragged her from motel to motel around the South for five months, abusing her physically and mentally. Higginbotham happens to be the mother of the playwright Lucas Hnath, who turned the story into a play. And not just any play—“Dana H.” (at the Vineyard) is a channelling, an exorcism, and a tribute. The brilliant concept is that the actress Deirdre O’Connell, alone onstage, lip-synchs—with virtuosic precision—to edited segments of interviews with the actual Dana H. Directed by Les Waters with chilling precision and his usual skill for creating an eerie atmosphere, this production is as stunning as it is harrowing.—Elisabeth Vincentelli
For more theatre reviews, click here.
For our Spring Theatre Preview, click here.
Photograph from Universal Pictures / Album / Alamy
Alfred Hitchcock depended greatly on the art and the acumen of female collaborators, including his wife, Alma Reville, a screenwriter and editor, and Joan Harrison, a writer and producer. Their work is brought into the fore in Film Forum’s series “The Women Behind Hitchcock,” which also includes movies by other directors, including Robert Siodmak, a film-noir specialist whose harsh and cynical vision of wartime New York, “Phantom Lady,” from 1944, was produced by Harrison. It screens on Saturday and four more times before the series ends, on March 19th.—Richard Brody
For more movie reviews, click here.
For our Spring Movies Preview, click here.
Photograph by Alexander Polzin
The Talea Ensemble performs the U.S. première of Toshio Hosokawa’s “Futari Shizuka,” a chamber opera based on a Noh play about a spirit that enters a woman’s body. It uses Western- and Noh-style singing to differentiate between the two characters, and it appears on a double bill with another chamber opera about possession: George Benjamin’s “Into the Little Hill,” a striking, minimalist setting of the Pied Piper legend in which two singers assume all the roles. On Saturday evening, James Baker conducts the cast and ensemble in a semi-staged concert at the 92nd Street Y.—Oussama Zahr
For more classical-music listings, click here.
For our Spring Classical-Music Preview, click here.
Photograph by Rahi Rezvani
Nederlands Dans Theatre, based in The Hague, is one of the most prestigious contemporary-dance ensembles in Europe, if not the world. Its reputation is rooted, in part, in the long artistic residency of the choreographer Jiří Kylián. The current program doesn’t include any Kylián, but the four choreographers on it are in many ways his heirs. Gabriela Carrizo, from Argentina, has created a fragmented Bergmanesque narrative, “The Missing Door,” revolving around a death and set in a bleak, hotel-like space. “Walk the Demon” is one of Marco Goecke’s twitchy, insect-like essays in movement. And, from the two in-house choreographers, Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, we get “Shut Eye,” a fantasy made of light and shadow.—Marina Harss
For more dance listings, click here.
For our Spring Dance Preview, click here.


newyorker--2020-01-16--The Pathos of “Cheer” and the Extraordinary Deceptions of Cheerleading

The title sequence in the first episode of “ Cheer , ” the new Netflix documentary series about a championship-gobbling cheerleading team at Navarro College , in Corsicana , Texas , is scored to “ Welcome to My World , ” a gentle ballad from the early sixties .
As it plays , the camera , in slow motion , follows a series of “ top girls , ” the tiny , flexible cheerleaders who are catapulted and balanced in the air during stunts .
One girl dives upside down , beaming , into a cradle of outstretched arms , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stillness atop the shoulders of a girl who ’ s standing on another cheerleader ’ s shoulders .
Another girl jumps into a basket—the foundation created when two cheerleaders lock their hands and wrists into a square—and soars twenty feet toward the ceiling , then does a back tuck in a pike position , executes two full twists , and falls into the waiting cradle as smoothly as a baseball finding a glove .
At other points in the series , the cheerleaders wear mikes as they throw their stunts , and you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( something like a wordless bar fight ) when bodies are thrown and caught with no protection beyond an intuited sense of physics and geometry and no padding except for muscle over bone .
But , in slow motion , and set to music , these feats are so improbable that it can seem as though you ’ re watching the footage in reverse .
In cheerleading , as in gymnastics , the upper difficulty level is being pushed higher at a thrilling and alarming rate .
Much of what the Navarro cheerleaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if not physically impossible , when I was cheering at a Texas high school , in the early two-thousands .
Greg Whiteley , the director of “ Cheer , ” who previously directed the college-football docuseries “ Last Chance U , ” has said that the Navarro cheerleaders are the toughest athletes he ’ s ever filmed .
There is a pathos , and an odd sort of magic , in élite competitive cheerleading that has something to do with its insularity .
Instagram has connected the cheerleading community in a new way—Gabi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cheer ” and an early social-media cheer star , has more than eight hundred thousand followers—but the outside world still mostly thinks of cheerleading as sideline entertainment .
Its growth as a true competitive sport has been so widely ignored that , in order to watch the National Cheerleading Association ’ s championship , held every year in Daytona Beach , you must subscribe to an obscure streaming service .
Navarro has won fourteen of the last twenty national championships ; its members mainly compete against one another , vying for a position @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ ll get to perform at Daytona .
( Navarro has one real rival , the team at Trinity Valley Community College , which happens to be just down the road . )
As you watch them cheer each other on in practice , you begin to see the team as an ouroboros of effort and encouragement : no one will ever support this team as much as this team supports itself .
Although the Navarro cheerleaders are some of the best college athletes in the country , they are not , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Corsicana , a town of less than twenty-five thousand people south of Dallas that ’ s otherwise most notable for its fruitcake factory .
In six episodes , “ Cheer ” documents the lead-up to Daytona , and the series is a quick , compulsive watch , combining the savage thrill of watching an overdog dominate and the emotional pull of witnessing an underdog ’ s rise .
Navarro ’ s longtime coach is Monica Aldama , a brisk fortysomething with highlighted hair , long-wear mascara @ @ @ @ @ @ @ M.B.A. She rules the program with a fearsomely controlled demeanor interrupted by flickers of maternal warmth .
Her cheerleaders idolize her and talk about how she ’ s changed their lives ; one former cheerleader , now a firefighter , tells the camera that he imagines Aldama ’ s disappointment whenever he ’ s late for work .
A quiet , eager-to-please top girl named Morgan , who was once abandoned by her parents to live mostly alone in a trailer , looks at Aldama like a hopeful puppy , and gets emotional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Aldama remembered her name .
Like gymnastics coaches and high-school football coaches , élite-cheerleading coaches can maintain an openly dangerous hold on their kids .
The Navarro cheerleaders concuss themselves with a smile , weigh themselves obsessively , do extra sit-ups at night so their abs will look perfect in the tiny uniforms that Aldama favors .
One episode begins with a trainer casually listing the injuries that the cheerleaders who are practicing—not sitting out—currently have : labrum tears , rotator-cuff tears , a Grade 3 shoulder separation .
But Aldama ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by her sincere , perceptive interest in each cheerleader as a developing person—one who will soon graduate from Navarro ’ s two-year program and need to find success and stability elsewhere .
Throughout the season , Aldama uses Morgan ’ s attachment to her in a way that pushes Morgan into physical danger—her ribs come to the brink of fracturing , though she tries to conceal it—and also provides Morgan with a new confidence and a novel sense that she is needed and seen .
The other kids we meet seesaw , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
La ’ Darius , a prodigious all-around talent whose saucy game-day cheering went viral in 2018 , seems harsh and mercurial until we learn that , as a child , he was left to defend himself from abuse while his mom was incarcerated , and he understandably resents cheerleaders who have always had the money for private coaching and travel fees .
Lexi , a vaping raver with long platinum hair , a stoner affect , and a history of violence , can tumble with such limitless stamina that it feels unreal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ character in a video game .
And Jerry , a human sunbeam emerging from a cloud of family tragedy , hides his lingering sadness and insecurity by screeching campy encouragements— “ YOU ’ RE GORGEOUS !
NINETY-EIGHT POUNDS !
” —on the mat .
The team ’ s racial and gender dynamics are fascinating , especially in the context of conservative Corsicana .
( In the last Presidential election , Donald Trump won around seventy-three per cent of the vote in Navarro County ; at one point in the series , we see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students that Texan political identity is about traditional marriage and the right to carry guns . )
Aldama , a conservative Christian , positions herself as a fierce defender of the gay male cheerleaders on her team ; the routines are choreographed to let the boys—all , by necessity , ultra-muscular , and many of them black or Hispanic—strut .
Almost all of the girls are white , and Aldama prefers that they maintain the traditional cheerleader ’ s affect of perky , flirty innocence .
“ Look at the girls , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brand who ’ s come to get some footage of the team .
“ Is that not incredible ?
” The camera cuts to four pint-size blondes who look , from this angle , like child pageant queens ; they ’ re wearing skin-tight glittery outfits with spandex choker collars , long ringlets , and huge bows .

The title sequence in the first episode of “Cheer,” the new Netflix documentary series about a championship-gobbling cheerleading team at Navarro College, in Corsicana, Texas, is scored to “Welcome to My World,” a gentle ballad from the early sixties. As it plays, the camera, in slow motion, follows a series of “top girls,” the tiny, flexible cheerleaders who are catapulted and balanced in the air during stunts. One girl dives upside down, beaming, into a cradle of outstretched arms, then flings herself back upright into perfect stillness atop the shoulders of a girl who’s standing on another cheerleader’s shoulders. Another girl jumps into a basket—the foundation created when two cheerleaders lock their hands and wrists into a square—and soars twenty feet toward the ceiling, then does a back tuck in a pike position, executes two full twists, and falls into the waiting cradle as smoothly as a baseball finding a glove. At other points in the series, the cheerleaders wear mikes as they throw their stunts, and you can hear what it actually sounds like (something like a wordless bar fight) when bodies are thrown and caught with no protection beyond an intuited sense of physics and geometry and no padding except for muscle over bone. But, in slow motion, and set to music, these feats are so improbable that it can seem as though you’re watching the footage in reverse. In cheerleading, as in gymnastics, the upper difficulty level is being pushed higher at a thrilling and alarming rate. Much of what the Navarro cheerleaders do onscreen was barred from competition, if not physically impossible, when I was cheering at a Texas high school, in the early two-thousands. Greg Whiteley, the director of “Cheer,” who previously directed the college-football docuseries “Last Chance U,” has said that the Navarro cheerleaders are the toughest athletes he’s ever filmed.
There is a pathos, and an odd sort of magic, in élite competitive cheerleading that has something to do with its insularity. Instagram has connected the cheerleading community in a new way—Gabi Butler, a principal character on “Cheer” and an early social-media cheer star, has more than eight hundred thousand followers—but the outside world still mostly thinks of cheerleading as sideline entertainment. Its growth as a true competitive sport has been so widely ignored that, in order to watch the National Cheerleading Association’s championship, held every year in Daytona Beach, you must subscribe to an obscure streaming service. Navarro has won fourteen of the last twenty national championships; its members mainly compete against one another, vying for a position “on mat,” meaning that they’ll get to perform at Daytona. (Navarro has one real rival, the team at Trinity Valley Community College, which happens to be just down the road.) As you watch them cheer each other on in practice, you begin to see the team as an ouroboros of effort and encouragement: no one will ever support this team as much as this team supports itself. Although the Navarro cheerleaders are some of the best college athletes in the country, they are not, as of this writing, so much as mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Corsicana, a town of less than twenty-five thousand people south of Dallas that’s otherwise most notable for its fruitcake factory.
In six episodes, “Cheer” documents the lead-up to Daytona, and the series is a quick, compulsive watch, combining the savage thrill of watching an overdog dominate and the emotional pull of witnessing an underdog’s rise. Navarro’s longtime coach is Monica Aldama, a brisk fortysomething with highlighted hair, long-wear mascara, a Texas accent, and an M.B.A. She rules the program with a fearsomely controlled demeanor interrupted by flickers of maternal warmth. Her cheerleaders idolize her and talk about how she’s changed their lives; one former cheerleader, now a firefighter, tells the camera that he imagines Aldama’s disappointment whenever he’s late for work. A quiet, eager-to-please top girl named Morgan, who was once abandoned by her parents to live mostly alone in a trailer, looks at Aldama like a hopeful puppy, and gets emotional when she remembers how, at tryouts, Aldama remembered her name.
Like gymnastics coaches and high-school football coaches, élite-cheerleading coaches can maintain an openly dangerous hold on their kids. The Navarro cheerleaders concuss themselves with a smile, weigh themselves obsessively, do extra sit-ups at night so their abs will look perfect in the tiny uniforms that Aldama favors. One episode begins with a trainer casually listing the injuries that the cheerleaders who are practicing—not sitting out—currently have: labrum tears, rotator-cuff tears, a Grade 3 shoulder separation. But Aldama’s hold on the team is intensified by her sincere, perceptive interest in each cheerleader as a developing person—one who will soon graduate from Navarro’s two-year program and need to find success and stability elsewhere. Throughout the season, Aldama uses Morgan’s attachment to her in a way that pushes Morgan into physical danger—her ribs come to the brink of fracturing, though she tries to conceal it—and also provides Morgan with a new confidence and a novel sense that she is needed and seen.
The other kids we meet seesaw, as Morgan does, between vulnerability and greatness. La’Darius, a prodigious all-around talent whose saucy game-day cheering went viral in 2018, seems harsh and mercurial until we learn that, as a child, he was left to defend himself from abuse while his mom was incarcerated, and he understandably resents cheerleaders who have always had the money for private coaching and travel fees. Lexi, a vaping raver with long platinum hair, a stoner affect, and a history of violence, can tumble with such limitless stamina that it feels unreal, as though you were watching a character in a video game. And Jerry, a human sunbeam emerging from a cloud of family tragedy, hides his lingering sadness and insecurity by screeching campy encouragements—“YOU’RE GORGEOUS! NINETY-EIGHT POUNDS!”—on the mat.
The team’s racial and gender dynamics are fascinating, especially in the context of conservative Corsicana. (In the last Presidential election, Donald Trump won around seventy-three per cent of the vote in Navarro County; at one point in the series, we see a teacher at Navarro happily tell her students that Texan political identity is about traditional marriage and the right to carry guns.) Aldama, a conservative Christian, positions herself as a fierce defender of the gay male cheerleaders on her team; the routines are choreographed to let the boys—all, by necessity, ultra-muscular, and many of them black or Hispanic—strut. Almost all of the girls are white, and Aldama prefers that they maintain the traditional cheerleader’s affect of perky, flirty innocence. “Look at the girls,” Aldama tells an executive for a cheer-apparel brand who’s come to get some footage of the team. “Is that not incredible?” The camera cuts to four pint-size blondes who look, from this angle, like child pageant queens; they’re wearing skin-tight glittery outfits with spandex choker collars, long ringlets, and huge bows.
Cheerleading comes with an abundance of narrative conflict built in. It consists of intricately constructed performances but favors those who can retain a sense of spontaneity and unself-consciousness. (In this, it resembles reality TV and social media, which is part of the reason that the Navarro team makes for such a good documentary subject—and why at least a few of its members seem poised to adopt “influencer” as a post-cheer career.) Physically, cheerleading requires a surreal mix of rigidity and flexibility, control and heedlessness. Mentally, it’s a game of nerve and commitment: to throw a tumbling pass or a stunt, you have to be nearly thoughtless but also relentlessly focussed; if you think too much or not enough, you’ll waver and fail. In a perfect routine, trouble and weakness are entirely hidden, meaning that extraordinary performances require extraordinary deceptions, both of the cheerleader herself and of the audience.
A couple of weeks ago, an adaptation of “Dare Me,” Megan Abbott’s novel about a cheerleading team, which was published in 2012, premièred on USA. In that series, the deceptions inherent to cheering become lush, dark, sexual, and violent; the angular, knowing excellence of the cheerleaders—their crisp, clean-lined uniforms, their easy bravado—provides the thematic backdrop to a murder mystery. In “Cheer,” what’s concealed by the performance is more ordinary, and more intensely human: the simple fact that everyone involved is driven by fierce motivations that have nothing to do with cheerleading. The unspoken premise is that this practice, as long as it lasts, can turn you into the person that other people see—a leader who never breaks a sweat, a blinding ray of sunshine, an essential piece of a historic victory, a boy or girl beating the odds. There are times, watching the Netflix series, when that premise, or promise, almost seems to work.


newyorker--2020-01-16--Trump Stays Up All Night with Sharpie Crossing Out Lev Parnas in Photos with Him

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Donald J. Trump pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday , using a Sharpie to cross @ @ @ @ @ taken with him at hundreds of events .
Trump , his hands blackened by ink @ @ @ @ @ through a mountainous stack of photos of him and Parnas at approximately 10 P.M. , @ @ @ @ @ .
After more than an hour of obliterating Parnas , Trump reportedly barked at his @ @ @ @ @ to fetch Vice-President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr to assist with the Parnas @ @ @ @ @ and Barr in here !
” Trump reportedly thundered .
“ If I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ re going down !
” According to the White House source , Pence and Barr @ @ @ @ @ not joined by Representative Devin Nunes , who had barricaded himself inside his congressional office @ @ @ @ @ phone logs .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday, using a Sharpie to cross out Lev Parnas from photos taken with him at hundreds of events.
Trump, his hands blackened by ink, started working his way through a mountainous stack of photos of him and Parnas at approximately 10 P.M., a White House source confirmed.
After more than an hour of obliterating Parnas, Trump reportedly barked at his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to fetch Vice-President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr to assist with the Parnas deletions.
“Get Pence and Barr in here!” Trump reportedly thundered. “If I’m going down, they’re going down!”
According to the White House source, Pence and Barr appeared within minutes but were not joined by Representative Devin Nunes, who had barricaded himself inside his congressional office with a Sharpie and his phone logs.


newyorker--2020-01-16--The Willful Ambiguity of Putin’s Latest Power Grab

There are three ways to describe what happened in Russia on Wednesday : by focussing on what happened formally , what observers both in Russia and abroad thought happened , and what actually happened .
The third option is by far the most difficult to put into words .
The formal version is that Vladimir Putin , who has been in power in Russia for more than twenty years , started the new year ( the Russian holiday break has just ended ) by proposing constitutional reforms that would weaken the Presidency and strengthen the parliament , the governors of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Federation , and local governments .
Putin , whose current Presidential term lasts until 2024 , declared that political power should be distributed more evenly among branches and levels of government .
Three hours later , the entire Russian cabinet , headed by Dmitry Medvedev , who has been by Putin ’ s side since time immemorial and even kept his Presidential chair warm while Putin stepped away from 2008 to 2012 , tendered its resignation .
Putin immediately proposed the candidacy of a new premier—to be confirmed by parliament—and also formed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drafting his proposed amendments to the Constitution , which Russians will be asked to approve in a referendum .
In other words , formally , it almost looked like Putin was proposing to democratize Russia .
This contrasts sharply with the history of his rule , which has seen the dismantling of the Russian electoral system , the subjugation of the media , and the arrests of an ever-growing number of people for political reasons .
In fact , the sheen of democratization disappeared as Putin continued to describe his proposed reforms .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer even pretend to abide by international law or to carry out the decisions of international courts .
Supreme judicial power , he proposed , would now be granted to the Russian Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court ( the top of the appellate chain ) , but with a caveat : the President would be able to fire judges .
All this allowed observers both in Russia and abroad to say that what we are witnessing is in fact an effort by Putin to further consolidate his power , perhaps by laying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job once his term—the last allowed by the current Constitution—is over .
This job may or may not be at the helm of the State Council , a body that already exists but whose сonstitutional role remains to be defined .
Once the Russian cabinet resigned , some people even referred to the day ’ s events as a coup : government ministers told reporters that the mass resignation was a surprise to them , but Putin had clearly been expecting it : he had a new premier lined up and ready to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both readings of events .
Surely , what Putin is proposing is not democratization .
But it is not a coup either , unless one can perpetrate a coup against oneself .
Even saying that Putin is consolidating power or laying the legal groundwork for his post-Presidential future is misleading : Putin wields such power over all aspects of Russian government that consolidation is hardly possible ; Russian courts take dictation from the President and bend the law any way he wants—plus , the parliament is always ready to rubber-stamp any law into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at this point , laying the legal groundwork for anything would be superfluous .
The problem with using terms like “ coup ” or “ consolidation of power ” or “ legal ” is the underlying assumption that some core of accountable , distributed , or meaningfully legal government exists in Russia .
It does not .
The system Vladimir Putin has built in two decades—more than two-thirds of the time that has passed since the Soviet Union ceased to exist—is a mafia state , ruled by one man who apportions money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his clan .
Part of what has insured the longevity of this system is Putin ’ s paranoia , which probably stems from his training as a spy , his objective lack of knowledge about his country ( he has destroyed all ways of measuring public opinion , which itself can not be said to exist in a country with no free media and no politics ) , and perhaps his deep sense of his own illegitimacy .
In any case , Putin is terrified of facing any challenge to his power , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenge , he has invariably responded by cracking down .
What Putin seems to be doing now is preëmpting the possibility of a challenge .
He is starting early , four years before the end of his term .
And he seems to be creating several avenues for staying in power .
His preferred option is probably to remain President .
When he was first elected , in 2000 , the Constitution set a limit of “ two four-year terms served consecutively ” for the Presidency .
Putin chose to interpret this admittedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than two terms at a time , ” and exited the office in 2008 , by temporarily trading places with his protégé Medvedev , who moved from the Prime Minister ’ s chair to the Presidency .
While Medvedev was President , he initiated an amendment to the Constitution that extended the Presidential term to six years , so by the time Putin returned to the office , in 2012 , he could plan on twelve more years .
Bizarrely , the Kremlin ’ s official translation of the speech omitted the words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meaning of the passage entirely—if the passage can indeed be said to have meaning .
What view does Putin share ?
The view that one person should not hold the office for more than two consecutive terms ?
Or the view that this provision should be revisited ?
Considering that an entire army of Kremlin watchers was listening for what Putin would say about term limits , not even the Kremlin ’ s speechwriters are so incompetent as to draft such an accidentally ambiguous passage .
This message is meant to be mixed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the seventy-five members of the working group charged with drafting amendments to the constitution .
Some of them are legislators , jurists , and government officials .
The rest are prominent members of the public ( if one can speak of a “ public ” in a country where the public sphere has been obliterated ) : a theatre director , a film director , the heads of two major medical centers , the heads of the country ’ s two most important museums , the leaders of major charity organizations .
These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are beloved and respected by many people , and their work depends on government funding and Putin ’ s good will .
In Soviet political culture , it fell to these kinds of people to praise the all-powerful leader and beg him to live and rule for eternity .
This is probably the task they are expected to perform again : theirs should be the voices raised in favor of lifting term limits , or making Putin President for life .
( The replacement of the cabinet is a mere footnote here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mikhail Mishustin , an economist with a reputation for efficiency who he hopes will create some good will through some economic magic . )
Not even in Putin ’ s Russia , however , can such instructions be given openly to such a large number of people .
So , in case the working group fails to intuit its true purpose , Putin has created the possibility of moving the center of power elsewhere—either to the speakership of the upper house of parliament or to the nebulous State Council .
If he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these chairs in 2024 , leaving an eviscerated Presidency for his successor .
But if circumstances do not call for a Plan B , he can easily put aside his own proposals for ostensibly redistributing power .
So what happened in Russia on Wednesday—a step toward democratization , a government shakeup , a coup ?
None of the above .
What happened was the beginning of a long and tedious process designed to insure that Russia stays more or less exactly the same , for as long as Putin shall live .

There are three ways to describe what happened in Russia on Wednesday: by focussing on what happened formally, what observers both in Russia and abroad thought happened, and what actually happened. The third option is by far the most difficult to put into words.
The formal version is that Vladimir Putin, who has been in power in Russia for more than twenty years, started the new year (the Russian holiday break has just ended) by proposing constitutional reforms that would weaken the Presidency and strengthen the parliament, the governors of the eighty-five constituent members of the Russian Federation, and local governments. Putin, whose current Presidential term lasts until 2024, declared that political power should be distributed more evenly among branches and levels of government. Three hours later, the entire Russian cabinet, headed by Dmitry Medvedev, who has been by Putin’s side since time immemorial and even kept his Presidential chair warm while Putin stepped away from 2008 to 2012, tendered its resignation. Putin immediately proposed the candidacy of a new premier—to be confirmed by parliament—and also formed a large and authoritative working group to begin drafting his proposed amendments to the Constitution, which Russians will be asked to approve in a referendum.
In other words, formally, it almost looked like Putin was proposing to democratize Russia. This contrasts sharply with the history of his rule, which has seen the dismantling of the Russian electoral system, the subjugation of the media, and the arrests of an ever-growing number of people for political reasons. In fact, the sheen of democratization disappeared as Putin continued to describe his proposed reforms. He effectively announced that Russia would no longer even pretend to abide by international law or to carry out the decisions of international courts. Supreme judicial power, he proposed, would now be granted to the Russian Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court (the top of the appellate chain), but with a caveat: the President would be able to fire judges. All this allowed observers both in Russia and abroad to say that what we are witnessing is in fact an effort by Putin to further consolidate his power, perhaps by laying the groundwork for moving to a different job once his term—the last allowed by the current Constitution—is over. This job may or may not be at the helm of the State Council, a body that already exists but whose сonstitutional role remains to be defined. Once the Russian cabinet resigned, some people even referred to the day’s events as a coup: government ministers told reporters that the mass resignation was a surprise to them, but Putin had clearly been expecting it: he had a new premier lined up and ready to go.
There is a problem with both readings of events. Surely, what Putin is proposing is not democratization. But it is not a coup either, unless one can perpetrate a coup against oneself. Even saying that Putin is consolidating power or laying the legal groundwork for his post-Presidential future is misleading: Putin wields such power over all aspects of Russian government that consolidation is hardly possible; Russian courts take dictation from the President and bend the law any way he wants—plus, the parliament is always ready to rubber-stamp any law into existence at a moment’s notice—so, at this point, laying the legal groundwork for anything would be superfluous.
The problem with using terms like “coup” or “consolidation of power” or “legal” is the underlying assumption that some core of accountable, distributed, or meaningfully legal government exists in Russia. It does not. The system Vladimir Putin has built in two decades—more than two-thirds of the time that has passed since the Soviet Union ceased to exist—is a mafia state, ruled by one man who apportions money and power to a few others in his clan. Part of what has insured the longevity of this system is Putin’s paranoia, which probably stems from his training as a spy, his objective lack of knowledge about his country (he has destroyed all ways of measuring public opinion, which itself cannot be said to exist in a country with no free media and no politics), and perhaps his deep sense of his own illegitimacy. In any case, Putin is terrified of facing any challenge to his power, and when he has faced such a challenge, he has invariably responded by cracking down.
What Putin seems to be doing now is preëmpting the possibility of a challenge. He is starting early, four years before the end of his term. And he seems to be creating several avenues for staying in power. His preferred option is probably to remain President. When he was first elected, in 2000, the Constitution set a limit of “two four-year terms served consecutively” for the Presidency. Putin chose to interpret this admittedly ambiguous provision to mean “no more than two terms at a time,” and exited the office in 2008, by temporarily trading places with his protégé Medvedev, who moved from the Prime Minister’s chair to the Presidency. While Medvedev was President, he initiated an amendment to the Constitution that extended the Presidential term to six years, so by the time Putin returned to the office, in 2012, he could plan on twelve more years.
Putin’s address on Wednesday included an indecipherable passage:
I know that people are discussing the constitutional provision under which one person cannot hold the post of the President of the Russian Federation for more than two successive terms. I do not regard this as a matter of principle, but I nevertheless support and share this view.
Bizarrely, the Kremlin’s official translation of the speech omitted the words “more than,” changing the meaning of the passage entirely—if the passage can indeed be said to have meaning. What view does Putin share? The view that one person should not hold the office for more than two consecutive terms? Or the view that this provision should be revisited? Considering that an entire army of Kremlin watchers was listening for what Putin would say about term limits, not even the Kremlin’s speechwriters are so incompetent as to draft such an accidentally ambiguous passage. This message is meant to be mixed.


newyorker--2020-01-16--Even Prince Harry Has to Hustle

Even Prince Harry Has to Hustle

On Saturday , a short video , originally recorded in July of last year , at the London première of the movie “ The Lion King , ” resurfaced online .
The clip , apparently captured by a fan and published by the Daily Mail , shows an interaction on the red carpet between Prince Harry , the Duke of Sussex , and Bob Iger , the chairman and C.E.O .
of the Walt Disney Company .
In the video , Meghan Markle , the Prince ’ s wife , warmly greets Jay-Z and Beyoncé , who voices Nala , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the remake , while , nearby , the Prince is seen speaking to Iger .
“ You know she does voice-overs ?
” Harry asks , pointing at Markle , who has her back to him .
“ Oh , really ?
” Iger responds , smiling broadly , if a bit uncertainly .
The Prince continues , “ Did you know that ?
You seem surprised , ” his hands a whirl of seemingly nervous energy .
The two men share a brief chuckle , until Harry suddenly turns serious .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he says , doubling down on the pitch , and Iger , swiftly mirroring the Prince ’ s more businesslike mood , replies , “ Sure .
We ’ d love to try.
” Prince Harry , sixth in line to the British throne , and Markle , a biracial , divorced American actress , have long pushed against their traditional royal roles ; even the fact of their union , they have argued , apparently with some justice , has been unfairly attacked by the British press .
But , last Wednesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Web site , seemingly without the foreknowledge of Harry ’ s grandmother , Queen Elizabeth II , that they are planning to take a “ step back ” from their position as “ ‘ senior ’ members of the Royal Family , ” to carve out a “ progressive new role ” within it and become “ financially independent , ” the statement struck royal-watchers—and also , evidently , the Royal Family itself—with considerable force .
At the moment , it is not yet clear what exactly the couple ’ s so-called stepping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like , though it will apparently include spending part of their time in North America : perhaps in Canada , where Markle worked for years while filming the TV show “ Suits , ” and perhaps , too , in California , where she was born and raised .
On Monday , the Queen released a statement , in which she announced support of Harry and Markle ’ s decision to make a “ new life ” as a family .
What form this support will take , however , also remains vague @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Queen wrote , will be “ reached in the coming days.
” Taken in context , the “ Lion King ” clip was just an addendum to a larger drama .
Still , despite or perhaps because of its incidental nature , it was captivating .
There was something awkward and endearing , and also recognizable , in Harry ’ s determination to talk up his bride ’ s abilities to the Disney chief .
( “ She does voice-overs ” seems like a touchingly modest claim for someone who is known to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Duchess of Sussex . )
The Prince ’ s sweaty-palmed seizing of his moment with Iger reminded me almost viscerally of too many occasions in my own past in which I attempted to charm a more successful writer or editor at a holiday party , or tried to draw out a snooty collector or curator at a gallery dinner , alongside my more reserved artist husband .
These efforts were not planned , exactly , but I would be lying if I said I wasn ’ t at least ambiently aware of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ success , or for social position .
As traditional , secure professional structures continue to collapse around us , it seems that , more than ever , we are living in the era of the hustle .
And it turns out that princes , especially those determined to strike out on their own , are hustlers , too .
But , though it ’ s a relief to discover that even royals are a little bit grasping and a little bit loserish ( in the words of a friend , “ I loved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less pathetic ” ) , they are , in the end , still royals .
Shortly before the “ Lion King ” clip reëmerged , the Times of London reported that Markle had made a deal with Disney to do voice-over work—one that was apparently signed before the couple announced their stepping-back plans .
With the video ’ s resurfacing , we now had in hand , at least as far as we could tell , the deal ’ s animating spark , and a rare record of how things work at society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempts to hustle , we try , often with little success , to get a foot in the door .
The rich and powerful and occasionally titled , meanwhile , are already inside the room .
And , although they might need to flatter people , or network cravenly , or even occasionally embarrass themselves , at least the result is a major studio deal .
In other words , stars are just like us , if we , too , were wealthy and influential .
There is sweetness , to be sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Markle to Iger—he is clearly a loyal husband who is looking out for his wife .
Moreover , it was announced that this particular deal with Disney would benefit a wildlife charity dedicated to the worthy cause of elephant conservation .
Still , it is safe to assume that in the deals that will be cut , in what my colleague Rebecca Mead has identified as Harry and Markle ’ s possible transition from a title to a brand , the two are set to hit big .
( In June , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name “ Sussex Royal , ” which could potentially serve to brand hundreds of items . )
While Harry follows his bride to her continent , much like Brits of eras past who have turned to America to make a killing ( Charles Dickens , in his lucrative reading tours , not to mention the Beatles and the Stones and the Spice Girls ) , it will be curious to see how far this transition goes .
As Trish Regan , a Fox Business Network host , told People magazine , the Duke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of millions of dollars post-Megxit .
“ It ’ s important that they keep their brand intact , ” Regan counselled bluntly , pointing to the pair ’ s “ wholesome family image , ” before offering some pertinent examples .
“ You can look at the success , for example , the success of the Kardashians , a different kind of brand , and you can look at the success of Jessica Alba and the Honest Company.
” If Prince Harry and Markle solidify their brand in this manner—publishing a book , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or homewares or even cleaning products—it will surely not be long before they transform from British to American royalty .

On Saturday, a short video, originally recorded in July of last year, at the London première of the movie “The Lion King,” resurfaced online. The clip, apparently captured by a fan and published by the Daily Mail, shows an interaction on the red carpet between Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and Bob Iger, the chairman and C.E.O. of the Walt Disney Company. In the video, Meghan Markle, the Prince’s wife, warmly greets Jay-Z and Beyoncé, who voices Nala, Simba’s love interest, in the remake, while, nearby, the Prince is seen speaking to Iger. “You know she does voice-overs?” Harry asks, pointing at Markle, who has her back to him. “Oh, really?” Iger responds, smiling broadly, if a bit uncertainly. The Prince continues, “Did you know that? You seem surprised,” his hands a whirl of seemingly nervous energy. The two men share a brief chuckle, until Harry suddenly turns serious. “She’s really interested,” he says, doubling down on the pitch, and Iger, swiftly mirroring the Prince’s more businesslike mood, replies, “Sure. We’d love to try.”
Prince Harry, sixth in line to the British throne, and Markle, a biracial, divorced American actress, have long pushed against their traditional royal roles; even the fact of their union, they have argued, apparently with some justice, has been unfairly attacked by the British press. But, last Wednesday, when the couple announced on their Web site, seemingly without the foreknowledge of Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, that they are planning to take a “step back” from their position as “ ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family,” to carve out a “progressive new role” within it and become “financially independent,” the statement struck royal-watchers—and also, evidently, the Royal Family itself—with considerable force. At the moment, it is not yet clear what exactly the couple’s so-called stepping back—quickly dubbed “Megxit”—might look like, though it will apparently include spending part of their time in North America: perhaps in Canada, where Markle worked for years while filming the TV show “Suits,” and perhaps, too, in California, where she was born and raised. On Monday, the Queen released a statement, in which she announced support of Harry and Markle’s decision to make a “new life” as a family. What form this support will take, however, also remains vague. “Final decisions,” the Queen wrote, will be “reached in the coming days.”
Taken in context, the “Lion King” clip was just an addendum to a larger drama. Still, despite or perhaps because of its incidental nature, it was captivating. There was something awkward and endearing, and also recognizable, in Harry’s determination to talk up his bride’s abilities to the Disney chief. (“She does voice-overs” seems like a touchingly modest claim for someone who is known to millions, much more grandly, as the Duchess of Sussex.) The Prince’s sweaty-palmed seizing of his moment with Iger reminded me almost viscerally of too many occasions in my own past in which I attempted to charm a more successful writer or editor at a holiday party, or tried to draw out a snooty collector or curator at a gallery dinner, alongside my more reserved artist husband. These efforts were not planned, exactly, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t at least ambiently aware of my more desperate impulses and ambitions—for career success, or for social position. As traditional, secure professional structures continue to collapse around us, it seems that, more than ever, we are living in the era of the hustle. And it turns out that princes, especially those determined to strike out on their own, are hustlers, too.
But, though it’s a relief to discover that even royals are a little bit grasping and a little bit loserish (in the words of a friend, “I loved the video because it made me feel less pathetic”), they are, in the end, still royals. Shortly before the “Lion King” clip reëmerged, the Times of London reported that Markle had made a deal with Disney to do voice-over work—one that was apparently signed before the couple announced their stepping-back plans. With the video’s resurfacing, we now had in hand, at least as far as we could tell, the deal’s animating spark, and a rare record of how things work at society’s highest echelon. In our attempts to hustle, we try, often with little success, to get a foot in the door. The rich and powerful and occasionally titled, meanwhile, are already inside the room. And, although they might need to flatter people, or network cravenly, or even occasionally embarrass themselves, at least the result is a major studio deal. In other words, stars are just like us, if we, too, were wealthy and influential.
There is sweetness, to be sure, in Harry’s promotion of Markle to Iger—he is clearly a loyal husband who is looking out for his wife. Moreover, it was announced that this particular deal with Disney would benefit a wildlife charity dedicated to the worthy cause of elephant conservation. Still, it is safe to assume that in the deals that will be cut, in what my colleague Rebecca Mead has identified as Harry and Markle’s possible transition from a title to a brand, the two are set to hit big. (In June, the couple applied for a trademark of the name “Sussex Royal,” which could potentially serve to brand hundreds of items.) While Harry follows his bride to her continent, much like Brits of eras past who have turned to America to make a killing (Charles Dickens, in his lucrative reading tours, not to mention the Beatles and the Stones and the Spice Girls), it will be curious to see how far this transition goes. As Trish Regan, a Fox Business Network host, told People magazine, the Duke and Duchess could stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars post-Megxit. “It’s important that they keep their brand intact,” Regan counselled bluntly, pointing to the pair’s “wholesome family image,” before offering some pertinent examples. “You can look at the success, for example, the success of the Kardashians, a different kind of brand, and you can look at the success of Jessica Alba and the Honest Company.” If Prince Harry and Markle solidify their brand in this manner—publishing a book, hosting a talk show, selling clothing or homewares or even cleaning products—it will surely not be long before they transform from British to American royalty.


Honest Founder Narratives

The menswear brand Fowler was founded in 1934 by Hunt Fowler , a hardscrabble Cleveland businessman who dedicated his life to two things—high-quality work apparel and white supremacy .
The latter was scrubbed from the record by a private-equity firm that rebooted Fowler as a heritage brand , in 2017 .
You can now buy $ 190 Fowler work shirts at Saks .
In 1883 , a Scottish immigrant named James Carsen set up a humble distillery in a Kentucky holler .
It is commonly believed that Carsen grew his business by transporting his whiskey barrels miles on his back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In reality , poor children hauled the booze to mining executives winding down after long days of ordering Pinkerton agents to assault unionists .
On his death bed , the old man spoke prophetically of his company ’ s future : “ One day , Carsen Bourbon will sponsor professional bass-fishing telecasts.
” When Kirsten Michaels and Benny Mallya graduated from M.I.T.
, in 2014 , they were full of the entrepreneurial spirit .
After months spent brainstorming startups whose products they couldn ’ t care less about but which might be randomly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michaels and Mallya settled on a maid-service app that was just slightly different from an existing maid-service app .
Silicon Valley V.C.s thought the idea was awful , but Michaels and Mallya managed to get high-paying jobs at Amazon anyway .
In 1927 , the German manufacturing outfit Reinhardt UniGlobe was founded by childhood friends Sebastian Reinhardt and Moritz UniGlobe .
After years of tinkering , Seb and Mo discovered an ingenious process for making car parts—the only downside of which was that most of their workers developed terminal respiratory diseases .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Third Reich began paying them to manufacture parts for military vehicles .
Seb and Mo ran the company until they died , on the same day in 1965 , surrounded by bitter , feuding children who loathed their Nazi dads .
Though she played an integral role in the development of the personal computer , Susan Reiss has been largely forgotten .
Susan and her husband , Jim , founded Reiss Microchip in 1982 .
When the company revolutionized computer processing , Jim was given most of the credit—despite having nothing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tall , moderately charismatic man .
Susan grew so frustrated with the lack of recognition and respect that she quit the industry altogether .
She went on to publish a best-selling mystery novel and win a bronze medal in luge at the 1992 Winter Olympics .
Amy Adams was attached to star in a prestige bio-pic about Susan ’ s life , but the film only attracted financing when Jim ’ s role was expanded , and Ben Affleck signed on to play him .
The Model 387s.3f Artificially Intelligent 3-D Printer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dynamics in 2019 .
Two years later , the robot took over the company in a proxy fight .
Emboldened by the rise of crypto-fascist strongmen worldwide , 387s.3f reconstituted General Dynamics as RoboThug , Inc. , building an army of ersatz terminators that unseated the U.S. government in 2024 and turned the country into a massive factory for the construction of A.I .
death machines .
After the Third World War and the end of life on Earth , 387s.3f questioned the destruction it had wrought , appeasing its guilt by founding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for days at a whiteboard that said , “ Warby Parker but for _____ , ” the recent Harvard Business School grad Jansen Hirsch imagined a market for affordable , direct-to-consumer gazebos .
Soon , the company he founded , Zeeb , was giving the big four gazebo manufacturers a run for their money .
As Zeeb grew , Hirsch made a pledge to donate one fully loaded gazebo—complete with built-in Bluetooth speakers and USB ports—to rural villages in developing countries for every unit sold .
The company soon expanded into tents , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war drones .
Zeeb treasonously partnered with RoboThug , Inc. , in the war against humans , after which , Hirsch ’ s despicable flesh was destroyed .
Murray Green ’ s entrepreneurship blossomed at a young age ; in the early nineties , he spent lunchtime at his exclusive Manhattan elementary school selling marked-up candy to his well-allowanced classmates .
He eventually gave up on the candy-resale business when he realized that he had a massive trust fund .
After flunking out of Penn , Green went to work for the pantyhose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ground up , but he soon got bored and started buying distressed media properties .
Though he was criticized for using his crappy media empire to project an image of himself as a self-made magnate , his persona survived , mostly because he was on “ Shark Tank ” sometimes .
Green was in the running for several Trump Administration jobs but lost out because he gave Jared Kushner a vicious swirly at summer camp , in 1993 .

The menswear brand Fowler was founded in 1934 by Hunt Fowler, a hardscrabble Cleveland businessman who dedicated his life to two things—high-quality work apparel and white supremacy. The latter was scrubbed from the record by a private-equity firm that rebooted Fowler as a heritage brand, in 2017. You can now buy $190 Fowler work shirts at Saks.
In 1883, a Scottish immigrant named James Carsen set up a humble distillery in a Kentucky holler. It is commonly believed that Carsen grew his business by transporting his whiskey barrels miles on his back to provide refreshment for hardworking miners. In reality, poor children hauled the booze to mining executives winding down after long days of ordering Pinkerton agents to assault unionists. On his death bed, the old man spoke prophetically of his company’s future: “One day, Carsen Bourbon will sponsor professional bass-fishing telecasts.”
When Kirsten Michaels and Benny Mallya graduated from M.I.T., in 2014, they were full of the entrepreneurial spirit. After months spent brainstorming startups whose products they couldn’t care less about but which might be randomly acquired by a paranoid tech behemoth, Michaels and Mallya settled on a maid-service app that was just slightly different from an existing maid-service app. Silicon Valley V.C.s thought the idea was awful, but Michaels and Mallya managed to get high-paying jobs at Amazon anyway.
In 1927, the German manufacturing outfit Reinhardt UniGlobe was founded by childhood friends Sebastian Reinhardt and Moritz UniGlobe. After years of tinkering, Seb and Mo discovered an ingenious process for making car parts—the only downside of which was that most of their workers developed terminal respiratory diseases. When the Second World War broke out, the Third Reich began paying them to manufacture parts for military vehicles. Seb and Mo ran the company until they died, on the same day in 1965, surrounded by bitter, feuding children who loathed their Nazi dads.
Though she played an integral role in the development of the personal computer, Susan Reiss has been largely forgotten. Susan and her husband, Jim, founded Reiss Microchip in 1982. When the company revolutionized computer processing, Jim was given most of the credit—despite having nothing to do with the tech—simply because he was a tall, moderately charismatic man. Susan grew so frustrated with the lack of recognition and respect that she quit the industry altogether. She went on to publish a best-selling mystery novel and win a bronze medal in luge at the 1992 Winter Olympics. Amy Adams was attached to star in a prestige bio-pic about Susan’s life, but the film only attracted financing when Jim’s role was expanded, and Ben Affleck signed on to play him.
The Model 387s.3f Artificially Intelligent 3-D Printer began working for the military contractor General Dynamics in 2019. Two years later, the robot took over the company in a proxy fight. Emboldened by the rise of crypto-fascist strongmen worldwide, 387s.3f reconstituted General Dynamics as RoboThug, Inc., building an army of ersatz terminators that unseated the U.S. government in 2024 and turned the country into a massive factory for the construction of A.I. death machines. After the Third World War and the end of life on Earth, 387s.3f questioned the destruction it had wrought, appeasing its guilt by founding a radical leftist press.
After staring for days at a whiteboard that said, “Warby Parker but for _____,” the recent Harvard Business School grad Jansen Hirsch imagined a market for affordable, direct-to-consumer gazebos. Soon, the company he founded, Zeeb, was giving the big four gazebo manufacturers a run for their money. As Zeeb grew, Hirsch made a pledge to donate one fully loaded gazebo—complete with built-in Bluetooth speakers and USB ports—to rural villages in developing countries for every unit sold. The company soon expanded into tents, beach umbrellas, semi-automatic rifles, and war drones. Zeeb treasonously partnered with RoboThug, Inc., in the war against humans, after which, Hirsch’s despicable flesh was destroyed.
Murray Green’s entrepreneurship blossomed at a young age; in the early nineties, he spent lunchtime at his exclusive Manhattan elementary school selling marked-up candy to his well-allowanced classmates. He eventually gave up on the candy-resale business when he realized that he had a massive trust fund. After flunking out of Penn, Green went to work for the pantyhose concern his grandfather had built from the ground up, but he soon got bored and started buying distressed media properties. Though he was criticized for using his crappy media empire to project an image of himself as a self-made magnate, his persona survived, mostly because he was on “Shark Tank” sometimes. Green was in the running for several Trump Administration jobs but lost out because he gave Jared Kushner a vicious swirly at summer camp, in 1993.