Brenda Fitzgerald already had prompted concern that her investments compromised her ability to discuss some issues handled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Fitzgerald’s resignation came less than a day after Politico reported she had bought shares in Japan Tobacco Inc. shortly after she became director of an agency whose leading priorities include preventing smoking and tobacco use. Dr. Fitzgerald had also owned stock in five other tobacco companies before she became CDC director, Politico said.
Banks Seek Government Help to Track Money Laundering
Industry, anticorruption groups support creating a Treasury-run database of corporations and their owners
Efforts to overhaul U.S. anti-money-laundering laws are gathering steam, as large banks, anticorruption groups and law-enforcement authorities coalesce around the idea of creating a national database of corporations and their true owners.
.. The financial industry’s support for the plan, which would require new and existing corporations to register with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, could be pivotal.
.. Treasury in 2016 issued a long-awaited rule mandating banks to identify the true owners of companies they take on as clients. It also urged Congress to create a national database of those owners, a step that proponents said would stymie the creation of shell companies by bad actors.
.. Instead of just applying to suspected money-laundering or terrorism-financing activity, the measure would include a long list of criminal activities, including food-stamp fraud, the smuggling of counterfeit goods and environmental crimes.
.. “What you don’t want is a situation where the [government] is able to get private and sensitive information without having to go through that normal process,” she added, citing requests for a warrant or court order.
Cruella de Trump
It is a more sensitive matter for women because for centuries, they relied on their looks for economic security, and they continue to be judged more on physical traits and clothing choices.
.. When Trump called the House health care bill mean, he knows whereof he speaks. He’s the King of Mean. Pathetically, Trump mistakes cruelty for strength.
.. The 71-year-old president’s pathological inability to let go of slights; his strongman reflex to be the aggressor and bite back like a cornered animal, without regard for societal norms; his lack of self-awareness about the power he commands and the proportionality of his responses; his grotesque hunger for flattery and taste for Tony Soprano tactics;
his Pravda partnership with David Pecker, the head honcho at The National Enquirer, which has been giving Trump the Il Duce treatment while sliming his political opponents, the “Morning Joe” anchors and Megyn Kelly — these are all matters that should alarm men and women equally.
.. Trump is isolated in the White House, out of his milieu, unable to shape the story, forced to interact with people he doesn’t own.
.. Before he got to D.C., Trump was used to media that could be bought, sold and bartered with. He is not built for this hostile environment and it shows in his deteriorating psychological state.
.. Trump has always been obsessed with looks — his own, men’s and women’s. One of his favorite phrases is “Here’s the beauty of me.”
.. back in the ’90s Donald would hand out tubes of Rogaine to male executives and say the worst thing in the world is for a male executive to go bald.”
.. I gave Trump the benefit of the doubt after his comment on Megyn Kelly about “blood coming out of her wherever” when he claimed he meant her nose. But later, a longtime Trump associate told me that Trump had practiced that line before he said it on CNN and that it was meant to evoke an image of Kelly as hormonal.
.. you can never be sure of anything that comes out of this White House.
Except the cruelty.
With a Tap of Taylor Swift’s Fingers, Apple Retreated
When Apple’s $10-a-month subscription plans kick in, the company has said it will pay at least 71.5 percent of the revenue in royalties.
Part of the reason Ms. Swift has been able to challenge the status quo is that she holds an unusual amount of control over her music: Big Machine is independent, and her family owns part of the company. It is a different situation for most artists signed to bigger labels, which often control distribution rights to their recordings, music executives said.