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Postcards from Panama
By Michael King
NORIEGA: God's Favorite.
GOD'S FAVORITE.
At one time, the General Manuel Antonio Noriega Story had the makings of a potential camp masterpiece. With Al Pacino as megalomaniac dictator Noriega and Oliver Stone as megalomaniac director Oliver Stone, the film project showed promise of being an over-the-top polemical gargoyle in the garishly grand tradition of The Green Berets, Scarface, or even Mommy Dearest. But in 1994 Stone and Pacino, citing budget problems, abandoned the project, and screenwriter Lawrence Wright started drafting a novel – until Showtime called. Shrunk to tube-size (at one-tenth the cost), the film is now directed by journeyman Roger Spottiswoode and Noriega-ed by honorable but preposterously miscast Bob Hoskins. Noriega: God's Favorite still approaches middling-to-high camp territory, but alas, it is only the silliest cinemazation of history since, oh, the Rambo films. (Now there would have been inspired casting, Sly Stallone as Noriega: "Come and get me, gringos!" As much as poor Hoskins reaches heroically for dictatorial decadence, he looks throughout like a lost Cockney on holiday in Mallorca.)
Scheduled for broadcast this month (to coincide with the release of Wright's novel, titled simply God's Favorite – readers are presumably expected to need fewer hints), the film received its big-screen premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, where Wright lives. Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker; his non-fiction books include the admirable Saints and Sinners (1993) and Remembering Satan (1994), Twins (1997), and a memoir rooted in his Dallas youth, In the New World (1988). He collaborated on the screenplay for Edward Zwick's The Siege (1998). He is listed as "executive producer" of Noriega, and he takes a cameo as the Florida prosecutor who, from the courthouse steps, calls down President Bush's wrath on Panama. God's Favorite is his first novel.
Ostensibly a fictional version of events in Panama from September 1985 (when Noriega opponent Dr. Hugo Spadafora was assassinated) and 1989 (when the U.S. invaded Panama and captured Noriega), God's Favorite attempts to create a universe familiar to readers of Graham Greene: brutal corruption, dark plots, sinister betrayals, outraged innocence, international intrigue, imperial machinations. But Wright has no convincing characters on which to hang his perfervid atmospherics, and his pint-size centerpiece – the acne-scarred little General known to his enemies as "Pineapple Face" – is a grossly buffoonish cartoon. Citing the culturally Catholic Noriega's dabbling in Buddhism and Santería, Wright has described him as a "wicked man desperately looking for salvation." But despite all the novelist's straining for significance, his Noriega comes off as no more than what he was: a ruthless military thug and double-dealer with imperial sponsors, allowed to hold power as long as he remained useful, discarded when he became a political liability.
There is some of this potted history in God's Favorite – but all in the service of farce, little of that farce intended. Oliver North gets a walk-on, schmoozing about Nicaragua on the General's yacht (the topless stewardesses distract poor Ollie, but he does admit Noriega's offer to slaughter the Sandinista leadership is "a neat idea"). Fidel Castro makes an appearance in the Havana Copacabana, as a presumed informal mediator between the Colombian drug cartels and the hapless General: Castro not only makes a pass at Noriega's wife, he sticks him with the check. The U.S. generals in charge of Panama can't seem to keep the local players straight, and they miss a perfect chance at a bloodless coup because they're just not paying attention. One suspects, somewhere in the margins, an invocation of the ghost of Evelyn Waugh, but it all reads like downmarket Tom Clancy. Bad Tom Clancy.
There is even a baroque Vatican subplot, in the form of the Papal Nuncio at whose residence Noriega accepted sanctuary before his capture. The Nuncio is a cosmopolitan, skeptical sort, who keeps a jaundiced eye on things for Rome, debates theology with Noriega, and mentors Father Jorge, the barrio priest who acts as the book's bumbling moral conscience and who even hears Noriega's confession before he surrenders to the Americans. (In the film, Tony's confession is the movie – a hoary melodramatic device so unbelievable it should require supplementary absolution.) The Nuncio delivers a few poignant moments – his superiors in Rome just don't understand the complexity of Panamanian politics and they won't increase his overburdened budget even a teensy little bit – and a few bits of juicy dialogue. Asked by an out-of-favor Noriega henchman to take spiritual action against the General, the Nuncio replies thoughtfully, "It wouldn't be very diplomatic for the papal nuncio to exorcise the leader of the country to which he is assigned."
The real spiritual action is with Noriega's "witch doctor" Gilbert Blancarte, the "famous Argentine psychic" who provides Tony with voodoo dolls and potions and provides the movie with its most hysterical moments of pop-gothic trances, astral fits, and sinister chickenfeather rituals, held in sort of a black-light version of Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse. Fickle disciple that he is, Tony eventually turns on Gilbert ("You're nothing but a fag with a towel on his head!") when he doesn't get the prophetic reassurance he craves. In a scene Hoskins will no doubt replay in his nightmares, the distraught Tony counsels instead with the bottled head of Hugo Spadafora, unfortunately mislaid by its rightful owner in the first moments of the book (and film). Hugo's role in both fictions is, understandably, mostly offstage, but Wright does grant him a surrogate romance, in the form of hooker-cum-hairdresser-with-heart-of-gold Gloria Sánchez, whose delinquent son Teo may in fact be the rightful heir to the democratic throne of Panama. Father Jorge has his pastoral eye on Teo, but the priest's, er, affections keep drifting toward Gloria, as in a tender moment when she gives him a haircut (in Panama, everybody needs a trade to fall back on).
His nerves were so acute that he could feel her touch even before her fingers actually reached him. He could feel her hands moving in the air.
He could also feel the throbbing in his penis, which was like a gorilla pounding its chest. He closed his eyes and made a quick plea to God to put the beast to sleep.
In the Panamanian jungle, the gorilla sleeps tonight. Not so Tony Noriega, whose clownishly unconvincing persona in Wright's overheated prose is a sneering, pock-faced monster of pop depravity absurdly coupled with a profane New Age philosopher.
Rather than spend her time trying to sort out the fitful wheat from all this maladroit chaff, the inventive reader might better spend her time creating out of God's Favorite a game of Twenty Questions:
Q: While U.S. diplomats stood listening, what did Tony tell Leona Helmsley when he stayed in her New York hotel?
Tony's audience sat blankly as he murmured several indiscreet proposals. "You know, I love you very much," he finally said, grasping his balls emphatically. (Not content with such literary subtlety, Spottiswoode has Hoskins enthusiastically hump the empty air.)
Q: What does Tony do when his plane encounters turbulence? He prays, vomits (missing the barf bag), and then goes up front to visit the pilot:
His mood improved. He reached over and put his hand on César's thigh, feeling the alarmed muscular response to his touch.
"I love to fly," Tony said happily.
"General…!"
"Put it on auto, César," said Tony. It was an order.
Q: What does Tony see on the surveillance film sent to him by the Colombian drug lords?
Now there was a picture of a man watching television. Tony realized with appalled fascination that he was watching himself – here! In this very room! A clip of Tony masturbating to a Czechoslovakian porno flick!
Q: What philosophical subjects do Tony and Colombian drug boss Pablo Escobar discuss when they meet to negotiate Tony's payment for rudely closing down a cocaine factory?
"Every religion is full of cranks," said Escobar. "You can't put it all on one group. It's just as likely that the Jews and the Muslims will put an end to things as the Baptists. Hell, the Hindus."
"Yes [answered Tony], but the Baptists think the apocalypse is coming soon, and they will get to heaven before everybody else. People like this should not be in charge of the American nuclear arsenal."
Pablo: "I still like fucking. I'd fuck the dog, as a matter of fact."
Tony: "Of course you would – because you love life and you're afraid of death like everybody else. It's perfectly natural. When you're fucking, you're saying yes to life, and yet death is the whole point of sexuality. You merge with another person in order to escape the loneliness of existence and the fear of death, but with every sexual act you are reminded of your mortality and the prison of identity."
"Jeez, Tony, you're a morbid son of a bitch."
"There's only one escape from this existential dilemma. Love. If you really believe in love, you can never be entirely alone."
Q: What is the nature of the bedroom palaver between Tony and his mistress, Carmen?
Tony: "I saw the white asses in their fancy cars and gigantic homes, but I knew in my heart that little Tony in the streets was smarter, he had bigger balls! And all my life I planned how I would become more powerful than they. It was like a mission from God. So I don't care that they don't love Tony! Nobody loves Tony! Even you don't love me. I know this. But respect. And fear. This is my language. Without power, I don't exist. Even for you."
Carmen pulled her hand away. "Honestly, Tony, sometimes I think you're only fucking me out of revenge."
Q: Where was Tony when the Americans attacked?
This was the end! Impaled in a whorehouse! Explosions rang in his ears. Then the entire room bounced as if the house were going to leap into the sky. What was happening? A mirror blew off the wall and shattered in the air. Gloria [surely you remember Gloria?] screamed. Everything was exquisitely strange and painful.
And then suddenly the door opened and Nachman stood there, looking at Tony handcuffed to the bed with a broomstick up his ass. Nachman was dazed and covered with a dusting of ceiling plaster. "Shit, Tony – it's the Americans! They've invaded!"
There's more. Much, much more, but too much is quite enough. (For the record, Bob Hoskins is thankfully preserved from absolute humiliation, and disappointed Showtime watchers will see fugitive Tony only in his underwear.)
Although Lawrence Wright stands first in line, there is obviously plenty of blame to go around for this misbegotten, hyperbolically ridiculous novel, and this grandiose, embarrassingly amateurish movie, neither of which have anything of serious interest to say about Panama's lamentable recent history nor about Tony Noriega.
But God, it should be said, had nothing to do with it.
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The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Transcript 7/6/17 Profiting off the Presidency
Guests: Michael Moore, Randy Bryce, Dan Rather
July 7, 2017, 2:00 AM UTC
Show: THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL Date: July 6, 2017 Guest: Michael Moore, Randy Bryce, Dan Rather
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: List maintenance procedures in each state to make sure states are in compliance with the law that decides who should be kicked off the voter rolls.
Justice Department tells the states to explain how they`re going to kick people off the rolls in every state in the country. We talked to officials in Rhode Island and California, who told us that the Justice Department letter was a total surprise out of nowhere.
People who track this sort of thing say the letter is unprecedented, they`re calling it a directive from the federal government to start purging voters off the rolls.
It appears that the Justice Department is laying the ground work for a lawsuit if states refuse. This is one to keep an eye on. We have seen big purges of the voting rolls before, and we have seen it go very wrong.
Whether or not there is a national effort to push for that sort of thing, we do not know, but watch this space, the Department of Justice pushing for that.
Again, it`s unprecedented, and we don`t know how this is going to work out. Watch this space. That does it for us tonight, now it`s time for THE LAST WORD with Lawrence O`Donnell, good evening, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, HOST, THE LAST WORD: Good evening, Rachel, I watched the beginning of your show tonight after that cliff-hanger that you left last night.
And so there`s so much to talk about in it, but the basic lesson seems to be that the people who are telling us that it`s all fake news might want to actually produce, deliver some fake news that they can therefore point to as proof that it`s all fake news.
MADDOW: Yes, I mean, I don`t -- I don`t know who -- I mean, I don`t -- I don`t want to speak to the origin of this thing, this forgery that we were shopped.
I think the bottom line is we all need to do due diligence all the time. But it is worth being aware that somewhere, for some reason -- and we don`t know what that reason is, somebody is shopping pretty good forgeries of what appear to be NSA documents about Trump and Russia.
And so it`s just -- I felt like -- it`s kind of a weird thing to do a news story about, but I sort of feel like I need to send a flag up the flagpole to just let everybody else know what we have figured out because I can`t understand -- I can`t believe that it`s only going to happen to me.
I imagine this may be happening to other news folks as well.
O`DONNELL: Oh, no, it`s a very relevant report, especially with what we`ve seen happen at "Cnn" that -- look, this is what it`s like when you`re on the receiving end of this.
You ended up handling it differently and more carefully than possibly anyone else who would have received that.
MADDOW: Well, we had to get a lot of help with this. This was like an all hands on deck sort of thing. But you know, listen, people try to -- you know, there are -- in politics and in life, there are dirty tricks and pranks, and it`s just sort of a -- it`s a moment to really be on your toes about those things.
O`DONNELL: It was also a great detective story to listen to.
MADDOW: Thank you, my friend, all right --
O`DONNELL: Thanks, Rachel --
MADDOW: Thanks, Lawrence, cheers.
O`DONNELL: Well, at least, no one is saying Donald Trump became president today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want to see fair press. We don`t want fake news.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He doesn`t want a fair press, he wants a fawning press.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you once and for all, yes or no, definitively say that Russia interfered in the 2016 election?
TRUMP: Well, I think it was Russia, and I think it could have been other people in other countries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump is the only American who does not believe that the Russians interfered with our elections.
TRUMP: Obama, when he was president found out about this. He did nothing about it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To say he did nothing would not be accurate. For example, the sanctions that the Obama administration put on Putin --
WILLIE GEIST, MORNING JOE: The president of the United States ripping another president of the United States on foreign soil.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MORNING JOE: And the CIA --
GEIST: And the CIA and the press. That`s unseemly on its own.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s saying that Obama did nothing about it, which means -- which lends it legitimacy. So which is it?
TRUMP: Nobody really knows, nobody really knows for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody really knows, yes. Your intelligence community --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, actually do really know --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Says they absolutely do know.
MALCOLM NANCE, MEDIA COMMENTATOR ON COUNTERTERRORISM & INTELLIGENCE: Donald Trump has just undermined the strategic standing of the United States by essentially saying his own intelligence agencies are unreliable. Putin will love that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s ill-prepared. He`s inexperienced and he doesn`t have the temperament for this kind of thing.
And because he`s the president of the United States, that`s what`s going to get us into trouble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: The president of the United States flew to Poland to deliver this important message today to the Polish people and the world. Here is that message.
TRUMP: "Nbc" is equally as bad despite the fact that I made them a fortune with "The Apprentice", but they forgot that.
O`DONNELL: Now, I know it sounds like it, but that was not just another goofy Trump line. That was the president of the United States trying to communicate what he believes is an important American principle, a Trump rule, that if you make money for a corporation and if that corporation owns a news division, then everyone working in that news organization should be publicly nice to you all the time.
This will be one of his ignored points, of course, in a day of public comments that disgrace the American presidency and reduced it to something nasty and inane.
And we will consider and discuss much more of what the president had to say today. But for the moment, let`s just focus on this one Trumpian bit, this sentence that is so easy to ignore when so many of his other sentences seem so threatening to truth and a free press and other things.
Now, let`s not argue about how much of a fortune Donald Trump`s TV show made for Nbc. Suffice it to say that hundreds of Nbc shows have made much more money for the network than Donald Trump`s TV show.
The president clearly believes though that Nbc and Msnbc owe him friendly and positive news coverage because he once worked on an Nbc show, well, so did Bill Cosby.
A show that made thousands of times more money for Nbc than Donald Trump`s show ever did. Most of the world does not enjoy a free press that is as free as the American press.
Many well-meaning people around the world in those countries don`t believe that the press should have more freedom than it already has in those countries.
America and American presidents, when they go abroad have spent centuries now trying to convince the world of a value, that the first amendment style free press represents.
And now we have an American president who is telling the world that if money changes hands, that changes everything.
If money changes hands, that changes the rule. If money changes hands, then that should limit the freedom of the press.
Nbc News and Msnbc should remember that Donald Trump`s TV show sometimes turned a profit for Nbc. "I made them a fortune with "The Apprentice", but they forgot that."
They forgot, they forgot that they owe me. That`s going to make sense. It`s going to make sense to some people around the world in government and out of government who don`t yet have an American-style appreciation of a free press.
It certainly makes sense to Donald Trump and everyone in his family. This really is the way he thinks. Now, we know he`s lying about Nbc producing fake news.
He knows it`s real news. He`s just lying about that. We know he`s lying about that. But he is not lying about the idea that Nbc News and Msnbc should be nice to him because he used to work for Nbc.
And he is now in a position to spread that kind of poisonous transactional thinking around the world. He is in a position to encourage foreign leaders who want to restrict the news media in their countries.
If any other president of the United States had said something like that, something like that one sentence, it would be the wildest thing that that president said all year, and that president would have to retract it immediately and insist that he didn`t mean it.
But not Donald Trump. He says something like that, and it just gets lost in the avalanche of other comments that he made today, including his continued refusal to acknowledge the unanimous view of the American intelligence agencies that Russia did interfere in our election.
TRUMP: I said it very simply. I think it could very well have been Russia, but I think it could well have been other countries.
And I won`t be specific, but I think a lot of people interfere. I think it`s been happening for a long time, it`s been happening for many years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You again say you think it was Russia. Your intelligence agencies have been far more definitive. They say it was Russia. Why won`t you agree with them and say it was? --
TRUMP: Well, I`ll tell you. Let me just start off by saying, I heard it was 17 agencies. I said, boy, that`s a lot, do we even have that many intelligence agencies, right?
Let`s check it. And we did some very heavy research. It turned out to be three or four, it wasn`t 17. And many of your compatriots had to change their reporting and they had to apologize, and they had to correct.
Now, with that being said, mistakes have been made. I agree, I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and/or countries. And I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows.
O`DONNELL: President Trump had no harsh words for Vladimir Putin, who directed -- directed the Russian interference into our election.
And instead, he managed to blame President Obama for the Russian interference in our election.
TRUMP: The thing I have to mention is that Barack Obama, when he was president, found out about this in terms of if it were Russia, found out about it in August.
Now, the election was in November. That`s a lot of time, he did nothing about it. Why did he do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia by the CIA as I understand it.
It was well reported, and he did nothing about it. They say he choked. Well, I don`t think he choked. I think what happened is he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election, and he said, let`s not do anything about it.
O`DONNELL: It is, of course, not true that President Obama did nothing about it. He confronted Vladimir Putin directly about it and President Obama authorized the intelligence agencies to make Russia`s interference in the election public in October on the very same day that this became public.
TRUMP: I just start kissing them. It`s like a magnet, just kiss I know either way. And when you`re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything.
O`DONNELL: Needless to say, the Obama administration`s public warning about Russian interference in the election was largely drowned out by Donald Trump`s bragging about sexual assault.
If the world was looking for clarity or confidence in how President Trump will deal with North Korea, this was what we got instead.
TRUMP: As far as North Korea is concerned, I don`t know, we`ll see what happens. I don`t like to talk about what I have planned, but I have some pretty severe things that we`re thinking about.
That doesn`t mean we`re going to do them. I don`t draw red lines. President Obama drew a red line and I was the one that made it look a little bit better than it was, but that could have been done a lot sooner.
And you wouldn`t have had the same situation that you have right now in Syria. That was a big mistake. But I think we`ll just take a look at what happens over the coming weeks and months with respect to North Korea.
It`s a shame that they`re behaving this way, but they are behaving in a very dangerous manner, and something will have to be done about it.
O`DONNELL: Joining us now, David Rothkopf; columnist for "The Washington Post" and a visiting professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
Also with us, Max Boot; senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former defense policy adviser for Romney 2012.
David, where to begin. And in fact, please begin wherever you want on the president`s public comments today working from what we just heard about North Korea on back to what -- everything we heard today.
DAVID ROTHKOPF, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: Well, you`re absolutely right. We heard a lot of outrageous things.
We heard another bumbling, inarticulate performance that was unleaderly, attacked our press, attacked our intelligence community.
But I think something bigger is happening here in this 24-hour period we should look at because the president is systematically dismantling the American leadership role in the world.
He stood next to a Polish leader who is restricting freedom of the press, which is something we`ve fought for for decades.
And he lined up with him and attacked the press. So he undermined our ability to lead towards a free press. He had his Secretary of State today, Rex Tillerson, talk about becoming allied with Russia and Iran and Syria in Syria, going away from the values that we fight for.
Today, because he`s taken steps back on trade, the Europeans and the Japanese announced one of the biggest trade deals in modern history that doesn`t have the United States involved in it.
Tomorrow, when he meets with Vladimir Putin, as it happens, he`s going to be doing it at exactly the same time the G20 is meeting to discuss energy and climate, a meeting he doesn`t want to be in.
At the same time, of course, he is cozying up to a man who undermined American democracy, the principle thing we fought for over the course of the period of the past century.
And he is not going to bring up the issue. He is going to effectively reward Putin with the meeting. And today he took not the intelligence community line on that interference in the election.
He took the Putin line of that interference. So energy policy, trade policy, democracy policy, the values we stand for on the battlefield, these are the things America has been known for for 75 years.
And one by one, in one day, they`re being obliterated by this man who is systematically destroying America`s standing in the world.
O`DONNELL: And Max Boot, I agree with what David had to say, and I also have the impression that Donald Trump doesn`t have the vaguest idea that he`s doing any of that.
MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW FOR NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES AT THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: He`s just being Donald Trump, but it`s especially jarring, Lawrence.
I think, when you see Donald Trump taking the Donald Trump show on the road, I mean this kind of stuff is bad enough at home.
But it`s especially jarring where it`s before a foreign audience where he`s not just speaking for his base. He`s supposed to be speaking for the entire country, and he doesn`t seem to understand that.
I mean, remember just a few days ago when he said that what he does is, quote "modern-day presidential." Well, I`m kind of an old-fashioned guy, and I prefer old-fashioned presidential.
And I`m thinking back to one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan. I mean, can you imagine Ronald Reagan going abroad in 1981 and saying, oh, there`s no evidence that there`s any Soviet expansion. That`s just our intelligence community saying that.
They often lie. But if there is any Soviet expansion, it`s not my fault. Blame Jimmy Carter, it`s all Jimmy Carter`s fault.
It`s shocking what he -- that guy was a loser. I mean, you could not imagine Ronald Reagan or any previous presidents saying anything remotely like that.
But as David suggests, we`re used to this kind of stuff coming out of Donald Trump`s mouth. I mean, it almost seems normal right now, but it shouldn`t be normal.
We should be outraged that he is not representing America in the way that America should be represented.
O`DONNELL: The point about it not being normal and outrageous is exactly why I isolated just that one little sentence about his history with Nbc and what -- because that in itself is so wild and crazy, and yet it`s tucked in to this giant sandwich of crazy stuff that makes --
ROTHKOPF: Lawrence, look what happened today --
BOOT: And it`s today --
O`DONNELL: Go ahead, Max, quickly --
ROTHKOPF: OK --
BOOT: Well, I was just going to say, I mean, it`s incredibly destabilizing to America`s leadership role because, you know, for decades we`ve been telling other countries that they need to promote freedom of speech, freedom of the press, all the liberties that we take for granted.
And now any two-bit dictator in the world who wants to repress the media can say, it`s just fake news, I`m opposed to it just like Donald Trump.
I mean, he is basically giving a license to every strong man around the world to act on his worst instincts.
O`DONNELL: David, can you explain to Donald Trump why it is in our interest for Poland to have a free press?
ROTHKOPF: I don`t know if anybody can explain anything to Donald Trump. He doesn`t want to be briefed. He uses these tweet-length briefings.
You would think that it was evident on its face that a free press benefits any society, but Trump is allergic to this idea.
He`s been fighting the idea of a free press from the very beginning. But I just want to bring up one other thing. We are now 20 minutes into your show.
Today, the head of the Office of Government Ethics quit the United States government because he feels the president of the United States is profiting from the presidency and that the atmosphere for protecting ethics in the United States government is so odious, he couldn`t do business anymore.
Now, you know, you made a comment earlier about that one line would have stood out for a year in a presidency. The head of the Office --
O`DONNELL: Yes --
ROTHKOPF: Of Government Ethics quitting because he thinks the president is corrupt and it`s like, you know, the third item, the fourth item in the news for the day is a sign that we have crossed away.
And the one thing we have to remind ourselves, and Max does a good job of it, you do a good job of it every day is this is not normal.
We are not in normal times. This man is undermining the United States, and as I said in a column that I wrote for "The Post" earlier in the week, the single biggest national security threat that we face as a country today is the president of the United States.
O`DONNELL: Max, the thing that Donald Trump doesn`t seem to know is that historically in the countries that do not have anything like a free press, and the less free press they have, one of the most lied about entities in their news media historically has been the United States of America.
BOOT: Of course, I mean, he shows very little awareness of what this country has stood for for more than 200 years. And it`s especially jarring when you think about the timing of this.
The fact that it was just two days ago that we were celebrating the 4th of July, the issuance of the declaration of independence, which said that all men have these rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Donald Trump seems utterly unaware of that, and I was struck, Lawrence, reading his speech in Warsaw, the fact that he didn`t talk about freedom. He didn`t talk about democracy.
What did he talk about? he talked about the shadowy forces that are threatening to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are; culture, faith and tradition.
This is the way that blood and soil, European populists have talked for decades. This is the way that Steven Bannon talks.
But this is not the way American leaders have talked since 1776 because we believe that there is a heck of a lot more uniting us than bonds of culture, faith, and tradition.
We believe there are shared ideals, our shared commitment to the principles embodied in the declaration of independence that we celebrated two years ago, and Donald Trump seems either oblivious to those principles or hostile to them. That`s unprecedented.
O`DONNELL: Max Boot, David Rothkopf, thank you both for joining us tonight, I really appreciate it.
BOOT: Pleasure.
O`DONNELL: Coming up, we are now 11 hours away from President Trump`s meeting with Vladimir Putin. What will they talk about? What won`t they talk about? And will we ever know the truth of what they talk about?
And what is Mitch McConnell really trying to do with that health care bill? Is he really trying to pass that bill?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER U.S. DIPLOMAT: What I expect is that President Trump will meet Putin. He`s going to like Putin.
Putin is a straight shooter, straight talker. He`s going to -- they`re going to bond over things like, you know, their common dislike of fake news and the deep state.
And Putin is going to try to play to Trump`s ego, to say you and I need to work together against these enemies, especially those in your country so that we can do big things together. That`s the thing I fear.
O`DONNELL: The one thing that seems predictable about the Trump presidency is how Donald Trump will behave with Vladimir Putin.
The president`s meeting with Vladimir Putin is scheduled for tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Attending the meeting will be President Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and translators.
Last week, national security adviser H.R. McMaster told "The New York Times" there`s no specific agenda, it`s really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about.
That, of course, means that Donald Trump will begin with the size of his electoral college victory and the size of his inauguration crowds.
But Vladimir Putin has something more serious in mind. According to "The Daily Beast", his foreign ministry has said the agenda will concern everything from Syria to Ukraine to returning two intelligence complexes on U.S. soil, even to gay rights in Chechnya.
Joining us now, Evelyn Farkas; former deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia.
She`s also an Msnbc national security analyst. And also with us, Adrian Karatnyoky; a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council and an expert on Russia.
And Adrian, this is the buffoon meets the spy master. Is it -- can it be anything else?
ADRIAN KARATNYOKY, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Well, if you think about it, there will be two people on each side in the room who have some role to play in the discussion.
Two of them have 20 weeks each of foreign policy experience. The other guys have 20 years each. So even from the point of view of a more normal presidency, this is unprecedented that a president would step in when President Obama went in as a relative novice.
He brought people like Mike McFaul and people who had spent years studying Russia, years understanding their adversary.
We have a guy who is involved in business transactions -- we have two guys involved in business transactions who are trying to get action going on Russian soil.
O`DONNELL: Evelyn Farkas, Adrian reminds us that the president -- the least experienced president in history, who is an obvious ignoramus about all things will be sitting there with the least experienced Secretary of State in history.
EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE & EURASIA: Right, and I`m also worried. I assume they`ll have an interpreter there.
I don`t know whether Putin will want to speak in English. But I`m more worried that there won`t be perhaps a note taker there unless of course Secretary Tillerson is going to take notes, which I would hope that he would do, but I`m guessing that he might not do because Secretary Lavrov won`t take notes.
I`m sure they`ll figure out a way to get a note taker in. So I`m worried about the record as well because, you know, that`s how we hold officials accountable if we lack trust.
And not only are they inexperienced, but there are some question marks hanging over the president and even to some extent, Secretary Tillerson with regard to how strongly and firmly he will deal with Russia and whether he understands the real objectives of this Kremlin.
So I`m worried because it`s going to be a very chummy atmosphere. Obviously, we know that President Trump is exceedingly comfortable with Lavrov just based on what happened in the Oval Office right the day after he fired former director of the FBI Comey because we got those pictures.
It will be just as chummy, and that`s actually the moment when he`s supposed to be firm and say stop meddling in our domestic politics and stop invading your neighbors.
And if you can do those two things and maybe we can talk about cooperating on Syria and a whole host of other things.
O`DONNELL: But Adrian, H.R. McMaster has said there is no Trump agenda in this meeting, none.
KARATNYOKY: I think there`s a clear Russian agenda. The Russian agenda is the old policy of linkage. They`d like to link cooperation on the Middle East and fighting terrorism with a carte blanche to menace their east European neighbors.
Now, I have to say that when Trump was on script, and I assume this was prepared by the national security team, some of the messages he had were right.
He even talked about cyber terrorism, he talked about Russian destabilization in Ukraine and Russian alliances with unworthy regimes like Syria and Iran.
But off script, he is completely unpredictable and the weakest link in the current entourage of his is Mr. Tillerson, the tough-minded people; General Mattis and McMaster are not in the room nor is any strong hand who understands Russia and understands how to deal with Russia.
O`DONNELL: Evelyn, are we going to know what -- are we going to have any accurate sense of what was said in that room?
FARKAS: I`m afraid that we won`t. I mean, that`s exactly the point that I was trying to make earlier. And I would agree with Adrian that some of the things that came out of the speech, some of the things that were said in the speech in Poland today were good.
They were healthy. They were useful for our alliances, building -- you know, showing strong support for NATO and for our allies who are members of the alliance.
But at the same time, it became very clear to me that in the language that President Trump used, he still thinks that the number one threat to the United States is terrorism.
And I respectfully disagree while I will not downgrade terrorism, I mean, it`s clearly an ongoing threat to the United States.
Russia is the immediate existential threat to us. They are the country, they are the entity that tried to take down our democracy if you will.
They attacked our election and they also have nuclear weapons, and they also have a military modernization program and a doctrine that is very dangerous.
It employs surprise, which again is dangerous when you`re dealing with nuclear weapons but also even with cyber weapons of the type that they have and the way they might use them, again, according to their doctrine.
So, I think we`re in a very dangerous space with Russia right now. The last thing you do with a bully like Putin and someone like Putin who has over time taken more and more -- he`s invaded one country in 2008, he invaded another one in 2015.
Then he went into Syria hard core and really challenged us. And then of course the meddling in our elections.
If we don`t stand up to Putin, he will keep on pushing, and that is not in America`s interest, and it`s not in the interest of our very alarmed allies, including not just the Europeans but the Japanese.
Earlier in the segment, you mentioned the trade agreements. Our allies are going to forge along without us and that will not be to the benefit of the United States of America and its citizens.
O`DONNELL: Well, Vladimir Putin is on the verge of meeting the proven weakest negotiator in the history of the American presidency. It`s going to be quite a meeting.
Adrian Karatnyoky and Evelyn Farkas, thank you both for joining us tonight, really appreciate it.
FARKAS: Thanks, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Coming up, former Republican Congressman who was part of the leadership of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the House of Representatives says that the charges that could be brought against Donald Trump are far more serious.
He will join us.
WALTER SHAUB, DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS: America should have the right to know what the motivations of its leaders are, and they need to know that financial interests, personal financial interests, aren`t among them.
O`DONNELL: That was Walter Schaub`s exit interview today with CBS news. Walter Schaub is the Director of the Office of Government Ethics for another week or so. He is resigning that position six months before the end of his term.
Walter Schaub did not publicly frame his resignation as a specific protest against the ethical lapses of the Trump Administration. But when asked by CBS news if he thought the President and his family are using the Office of the Presidency to enrich themselves, he said this.
SHAUB: I can`t know with what their intention is. I know that the effect is that there`s an appearance that the businesses are profiting from his occupying the presidency. and appearance matters as much as reality.
O`DONNELL: Joining us now, Kathleen Clark, Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. She is one of the country a leading experts on ethical stands for government officials also joining us by phone, David From, Senior Editor for the Atlantic. Kathleen, your reaction to Walter Schaub a resignation?
It`s a five-year appointment by the president and it`s meant to extend beyond one term of the presidency. so he was going to be leaving in six months. What does it mean to you that he`s leaving six months earlier?
KATHLEEN CLARK, PROFESSOR, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Well, it`s a shame that he decided he could serve the public better by leaving the government. So it`s a great loss for the public. But Walter Schaub has done a terrific job as the Director of the Office of Government Ethics and has really shown extraordinary leadership in the last year or so.
O`DONNELL: And David Frum, historically, the office of government ethics power comes not so much from its ability on the enforcement side, which it wasn`t really designed to do, but it`s supposed to be one of those agencies where everyone wants the stamp of approval of the office of government ethics, and they will do anything to get it. Not so with the Trump Administration.
DAVID FRUM, SENIOR EDITOR, ATLANTIC: This resignation puts a spotlight where a spotlight is need. we`re talking today about a challenge that is brought by some public interest groups about disclosures of assets that Jared Kushner failed to make. But we should all be even more concerned, if possible, by the omissions of debts in the disclosures from both President Trump and Jared Kushner.
President Trump probably owes at least double what it is that he has disclosed on his forms. That raises the question to whom is he beholden? What does the President owe, and to whom does him owe it is going to be one of the most important questions of this Presidency.
O`DONNELL: Kathleen Clark, now president trump gets to appoint the person who will be examining the ethics issues for the president and for the trump family.
CLARK: That`s correct. And what we hope will happen is he will actually appoint someone who will show the kind of independence and leadership that Walter Schaub has done. Our fear is that he will appoint someone like his own white house counsel, who seems intent on protecting Donald Trump as an individual rather than protecting the people by representing the office, acting on behalf of the public.
O`DONNELL: David Frum, this is an appointment that`s subject to Senate Confirmation. So what can we expect from the Republican Majority in the Senate when they examine Donald Trump a choice to head the Office of Government Ethics?
FRUM: I don`t think that question is going to come up because if you ask me what my expectation is, I expect he`ll leave the office vacant for months and months and months.
O`DONNELL: Kathleen Clark and David Frum, thank you for joining us tonight, really appreciate it.
CLARK: Thank you.
FRUM: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Walter Schaub will join Chris Hayes tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. right here on MSNBC. Coming up, what would Paul Ryan have done if President Hillary Clinton`s fired the FBI director who was investigating her? A former Republican Congressman who was part of the impeachment team on the Bill Clinton case says that the Republicans would already be pursuing impeachment if Hillary Clinton had done what Donald Trump has done.
O`DONNELL: The charges facing President Trump now are more serious than the charges that got president Bill Clinton impeached by the House of Representatives says Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis. In 1998, Congressman Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican helped the House Judiciary Committee draft the impeachment articles against President Clinton.
BOB INGLIS, FMR. REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN: Obstruction of Justice is what he`s accused of. Now, if the man had discretion, he would resign. If he had a shred of dignity or honor, he would resign today. But since he doesn`t, we move on to a separate thing, and that is proof. We must now see if there is proof that he has committed these crimes.
O`DONNELL: Now, a former Republican Congressman, defeated in his last re- election campaign largely because of his support for Al Gore`s position on climate change. Bob Inglis says that a public censure or reprimand may have been a better idea in the Clinton impeachment case. Bob Inglis also says that if a Democrat in the Whitehouse had fired an FBI Director who was investigating her, Paul Ryan`s House of Representatives would be pursuing impeachment charges right now.
Joining us now, former South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis. Congressman, you`re seeing just pure partisan hypocrisy hire. If this was a Democrat firing the FBI Director, and the FBI Director testifying about certain kinds of intimidation tactics used in conversations with the FBI Director, you would expect this republican House of Representatives to be moving toward impeachment already.
INGLIS: Well, yes. Let`s say that Hillary Clinton had won and let`s say that James Comey, Director of the FBI, had reopened the investigation into her use of the private e-mail server. Let`s say that she didn`t like that and that she fired him. Republicans would be howling, and rightly so because it would look very suspicious. But Donald Trump has basically done those things, and Republicans are whimpering.
That`s a real problem. We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to restore confidence in our government, in our electoral system. So it`s incumbent, I believe, upon my party to really get to the bottom of this and to pursue this vision of Russia connections with real vigor.
O`DONNELL: In a piece that you wrote about this, you say that the difference between Republicans now and Republicans during the Nixon Presidency who helped, in effect, drive Richard Nixon out of office onset they discovered the crimes he was involved in, you say the big difference now is the presence of sick oh frantic media. What do you mean by that?
INGLIS: Well, if you watch Fox & Friends, what you`ll sigh is a steady diet of basically fawning over the President and the Vice President. Anything they say must be true. I remember when Donald Trump made the unsubstantiated allegation that Barack Obama had wiretapped him in the Trump Tower, that morning on Fox & Friends, they were basically repeating that allegation as though it had been proven fact, completely dispensing with what journalists should do, which is say, well, this is something they said. But now let`s get to the bottom of this. Anyway, based on that kind of thing, what you end up with is a media that supports that 38 percent that is Donald Trump`s support and gives them the steady diet of explaining, rationalizing, normalizing his behavior.
And the result is that we don`t have what we had back in the Nixon days, which was very credible republicans facing three 30-minute nightly news broadcasts knowing that they had to be straight with those folks that were asking them questions on those three 30-minute broadcasts.
O`DONNELL: A lot of us have been looking at the Republican Party in the house and in the senate and wondering when someone will step forward and react to President Trump the way he or she would react to a democrat doing the same thing. Do you have any candidates who you expect at some point to step up to this challenge?
INGLIS: Yes. I think there are some people that really are being pretty clear. Senator Ben Sasse, for example, has been very clear. Lindsey Graham, from my state, has been clear, especially about the tweets and the demeaning of the office of the presidency and the demeaning of the country by those tweets. And so I would expect people like that to show a little bit of independent nerve and some real respect for the office and respect for the process to step forward.
O`DONNELL: Quickly before we go. What kind of reaction have you gotten from your former colleagues for taking this position?
INGLIS: Well, I think that some of them are very grateful. In other words, that somebody is out there saying something that doesn`t face the 38 percent. I mean I got to admit, you know, it`s easy for me to say these things because I`ve been shot through by the 38 percent. So having been killed by them, you know, it doesn`t hurt anymore, they can go ahead and shoot away.
And so there`s some real liberty in that, but I hope that those that are in elected office will eventually show that kind of courage.
O`DONNELL: Former Congressman Bob Inglis, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
INGLIS: Great to be with you.
O`DONNELL: Coming up, why today was a very bad day for republican senators who want to repeal Obamacare and a very good day for 23 million people who would lose their health care coverage if those senators succeed.
O`DONNELL: If you`re one of the 23 million people worried about losing your health care coverage when the president signs the republican health care bill into law today was a good day for you. And it was a very bad day for republican senators who are hoping to pass that bill. The republican leader of the senate Mitch McConnell might actually be one of the many republicans who really doesn`t want to pass that bill, even though he wrote it.
Maybe that`s why Mitch McConnell has never said anything that a majority leader usually says when he is really trying to pass a bill. Not one word about how confident he is that the bill is going to pass. He has refused invitations from reporters to express any confidence at all. And every time he refuses that invitation he makes it easier for republicans who are opposing the bill.
Passing bills in the senate is far more complicated than the house with the Senates more complicated rules. The majority leader needs everything to line up just right. He needs to use party pressure which Mitch McConnell has clearly chosen not to do. He needs to express confidence which Mitch McConnell never has. And he needs momentum.
He needs to move as fast as possible, which Mitch McConnell has deliberately not done. Today Mitch McConnell admitted publicly in his home state of Kentucky that the republicans might never be able to agree on a bill.
MITCH MCCONNELL, UNITED STATES SENATOR: If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action on -- with regard to the private health insurance market must occur.
O`DONNELL: Majority leaders on their way to passing bills don`t ever talk about what will happen if they don`t pass the bill. Because the majority leader has to convince his own party to hold hands and vote for a bill that is going to pass. Remember when the rumor spread the week before the fourth of July that Mitch McConnell was going to find way suddenly to revive his health care bill and have a vote on it on that Friday before the fourth of July recess.
It sounded impossible at the time and of course it didn`t happen. And now republicans in the congress and in the White House are letting it be known that the senate will not vote on the health care bill next week when they are back in session. And they might -- might get to it a week after that. Momentum isn`t everything in legislation. But it is important. And Mitch McConnell has completely lost the momentum. Today he sounded like a defeated legislator.
MCCONNELL: So where we end up if republicans are not able to agree among themselves is the crisis will still be there. And we`ll have to see what the way forward is at that point.
O`DONNELL: Up next, what was that we just saw? What is Mitch McConnell really up to? Does he really want to pass a bill that he knows is politically toxic to Republican Senators re-election campaigns?
MCCONNELL: I`m in the position of the guy with a rubiks cube trying to twist the dial in such a way to get to at least 50 members of my conference who can agree to a version of repealing and replacing.
O`DONNELL: Joining us now Igor Volsky the vice president of the Center for American Progress. Igor I have never seen a majority leader less enthusiastic about passing his own bill. And I have long doubted that Mitch McConnell really wants to pass this thing.
IGOR VOLSKY, VICE PRESIDENT AT THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: Yes, he is not terribly excited. But I think you know the significance of what he also did today was really put a lie to this claim we`ve heard coming out of the Trump administration, from republicans, that Obamacare is beyond repair. There is nothing you could do. It`s going to die.
If Mitch McConnell is saying hey if this things fails we`ll find a way to fix it in a bipartisan way. What that means is if you stabilize the markets they`ll continue to function for years to come.
O`DONNELL: Yes. And Chuck Schumer jumped out immediately with a very approving comment about what Mitch McConnell said today expressing eagerness to work with McConnell if he fails with the republicans. And what Schumer means is work to shore up and improve the current version of Obamacare.
VOLSKY: Yes. Make sure premiums are affordable, that the out of pocket payments are affordable, that people have options. insurers need some certainty but it`s all doable. And I think -- look, if the fear that McConnell is putting in his conference is get in line with this bill and if you don`t you have to work with democrats, and that is like some -- some big obstacle they have to overcome if that`s what it takes, great.
O`DONNELL: But he isn`t even presenting it as some scary alternative. He presents it as the perfectly logical next step. I got to say, I`ve looked McConnell through this whole exercise and thought he knows this hurts republicans if he passes it and becomes law. Why would he want to do that? I think he was hoping that it died in the house and never got to him. But here we are.
VOLSKY: Yes, that`s possible but also the bill is exactly what McConnell wants, which is take services away from lower and middle income Americans and give a huge tax cut to the rich. I mean that`s what McConnell has been fighting for his entire career. So I don`t know that he doesn`t want it, maybe not in this way but he certainly wants kind of the guts of it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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In this section we examine how the various "tools" of a C&E program can be deployed to mitigate COIs, as well as other matters regarding the interaction of COIs and C&E programs. Please see the various sub-categories for information about each of these tools.
Does ethics training actually affect business conduct?
In "Can Ethics be Taught? Evidence from Securities Exams and Investment Adviser Misconduct," forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, Zachary T Kowaleski of University of Notre Dame, Andrew Sutherland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Felix Vetter of the London School of Economics "study the consequences of a 2010 change in the investment adviser qualification exam that reallocated coverage from the rules and ethics section to the technical material section. Comparing advisers with the same employer in the same location and year, we find those passing the exam with more rules and ethics coverage are one-fourth less likely to commit misconduct. The exam change appears to affect advisers' perception of acceptable conduct, and not just their awareness of specific rules or selection into the qualification. Those passing the rules and ethics-focused exam are more likely to depart employers experiencing scandals. Such departures also predict future scandals. Our paper offers the first archival evidence on how rules and ethics training affects conduct and labor market activity in the financial sector."
This seems like a very important study and there are far too many aspects of it to provide a comprehensive summary here. But I was particularly struck by the following:
"[W]e find the misconduct differences across passers of the old and new exam persist for at least three years, which we would not expect if advisers merely memorize rules rather than draw more fundamental lessons about acceptable conduct from the ethics portion of the exam. In sum, this evidence suggests that our main results cannot be explained by compliance alone, and that the exam change altered advisers' perceptions of acceptable conduct."
"[T]he behavior of the least experienced advisers is most sensitive to the extent of rules and ethics testing. These results are consistent with the exam playing a 'priming' role, where early exposure to rules and ethics material prepares the individual to behave appropriately later."
"[W]e find the exam's coverage to be less pertinent to those advisers working at firms where misconduct is prevalent. Thus, the contagion of misconduct behavior appears to limit the effectiveness of training in preventing transgressions."
"We study turnover among all Wells Fargo advisers, and find those passing the old exam are most likely to leave after the scandal broke."
There is much more to the study than this and I encourage you to read the original.
Conflicts of interest and nonprofit organizations
The settlement by President Trump of a lawsuit brought by the NY Attorney General claiming that the Trump Foundation misused funds to benefit his 2016 campaign was attention getting not only because of who was involved in the case but also because he was compelled to pay $2 million to have the matter resolved. But while unique in some ways, the matter is a good reminder of the need for effective COI compliance in the nonprofit world generally.
Writing in a recent issue of Nonprofit Quarterly Vernetta Walker notes: "Just in the past few months, Baltimore's mayor Catherine Pugh resigned following a scandal that revealed she had profited in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling her self-published children's book to the University of Maryland Medical System, where she served as a board member; the Washington Post exposed eighteen board members of the National Rifle Association who were paid commissions and fees ranging from thousands to over $3 million; and ProPublica's searing investigation into Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center revealed a nest of self-serving behavior, including top executives who received personal annual compensation in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and in one instance over a million dollars in equity stakes and stock options from the drug and healthcare companies. Meanwhile, dozens of stories have appeared that raise questions in the minds of the public about pharmaceuticals' funding of patients' rights groups. These are just the tip of the iceberg of recent examples eroding the public trust." She also writes that a "closer look at real-life examples reveals three separate but related issues that surface repeatedly: (1) failure to navigate the gray areas of conflicts of interest, including group dynamics within the boardroom; (2) failure to navigate the gray areas of recusal and disclosure; and (3) failure to fully appreciate unintentional reputational damage because, technically, the transaction being considered is not illegal."
Walker further asks: "So, how should nonprofits navigate the gray areas where relationships are involved, the actions are not illegal, and the organization has complied with the conflict policy (i.e., disclosure and recusal)? Some organizations decide, as a matter of policy, never to enter into paid contractual relationships with any board member, so as to avoid speculation about abuse of position and influence for personal gain. Such organizations, of course, steer well clear of inviting vendors or potential vendors onto their boards. They also tend to be very careful about contracting with other organizations where staff members have an interest in the vendor or hire family members or personal friends, because they are consciously holding an ethical standard that argues against it. Where using a board member as a vendor is concerned, there may be some cases in which such situations emerge and the connection is limited enough, or thought to benefit the organization enough, that it may decide to leave some room in its policy while recognizing the risks it incurs in doing so. In all such cases, the board should make comparisons of alternative options; and it should take a vote on whether the proposal is fair and reasonable and in the financial best interest of the organization, but only if no other acceptable option is available."
There is much more to Walker's piece and I encourage those involved in compliance work for non-profits to read all of it.
And, you might find of interest this earlier post on nonprofit COI policies.
What is in a name?
A recent letter to the editor of Nature argues:
Transparency about competing interests is essential when reporting scientific data. However, use of the term 'conflict of interests' for such declarations can be misleading in some biomedical papers. A genuine example of a conflict of interest is when academic researchers are financially rewarded for their work by commercial partners. The situation can be more nuanced for reports of biomedical discoveries that could be applied in clinical situations. After all, developing such treatments for patients is a moral obligation for academic researchers, both to their funders and to society — even though it can mean working with biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies. Disclosing a financial arrangement as a 'conflict of interest' under such circumstances implies that engagement with for-profit companies is a nefarious activity, potentially at odds with what society expects from biomedical scientists. In that context, a 'declaration of interest' would be a more accurate term for a mandatory and transparent disclosure of financial relationships. A 'conflict of interest' should instead be reserved for authors who cannot document efforts to translate their discoveries to the clinic. (The author of the letter is René Bernards of the Netherlands Cancer Institute.)
I do not know enough about biomedical research conflicts of interest to gauge the merits of this suggestion, but I would be surprised if some scientists couldn't still have a conflict of interest even if they translated their discoveries to the clinic. However, the larger point about a COI disclosure seeming to unfairly suggest nefarious conduct basically seems sound.
More generally, I believe that in organizations of all kind, policies, training and disclosure documents should communicate that not all ostensibly conflicting interests are wrongful. (This point is sometimes made, but in my view not often enough.) The alternative may be to discourage desirable conduct and to drive other conduct underground.
The toll at the top
As recently reported by NPR: For decades, the main reason chief executives were ousted from their jobs was the firm's financial performance. In 2018, that all changed. Misconduct and ethical lapses occurring in the #MeToo era are now the biggest driver behind a chief executive falling from the top. That's according to a new study from the consulting division of PwC, one the nation's largest auditing firms. It is the first time since the group began tracking executive turnover 19 years ago that scandals over bad behavior rather than poor financial performance was the leading cause of leadership dismissals among the world's 2,500 largest public companies… Thirty-nine percent of the 89 CEOs who departed in 2018 left for reasons related to unethical behavior stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct or ethical lapses connected to things like fraud, bribery and insider trading, the study found…"Employees are starting to say, 'how can you enforce a policy on us without holding CEOs accountable?' " said Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former chief executive of Medtronic, who has served on the boards of Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil. "The CEO's behavior has to be beyond reproach. Boards are aware of this and are really feeling pressure around that now."
But what exactly should boards do to respond to this pressure? As noted in an earlier post in the COI Blog:
In recent months, the unprecedented sexual misconduct allegations against (among others) high ranking officials in prominent businesses has brought unprecedented attention to the need to prevent and detect such wrongdoing using high-level solutions. For instance, writing recently in the Harvard Law School corporate governance blog, Subodh Mishra, Executive Director at Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc., identifies the following five components of an effective sexual misconduct risk management policy:
– Sexual misconduct risk is specifically enumerated and oversight assigned to a board committee.
– The board has expertise in workplace and employee issues.
– Material penalties are in place for perpetrators and abettors.
– Executive compensation structures—at a minimum—contain incentives for creating a safe and equitable workplace.
– The company models the behavior it seeks to promote.
These seem like generally sound observations, but the point of my post is not to add to the conversation on this particular area of risk but rather to suggest that ideas of this sort can and should be applied to compliance risks more broadly.
Certainly, assigning a board-level committee compliance responsibility with an emphasis on risks (such as corruption or antitrust ones) at the top, would be a sound measure generally for companies to take. And the board having expertise regarding compliance issues is compelling for the same reason that having such expertise in workplace/employment issues is – though for both areas expertise can (in my view) sometimes be provided by access to an outsider adviser rather than appointment to a seat on the board.
Moreover, I certainly think that the emphasis on penalties for those engaged in misconduct is important to preventing wrongdoing of various kinds at the top, particularly the suggestion that "These policies may also be extended to any individuals that willfully concealed violations or engaged in retaliation against whistleblowers." And, on the other side of the coin, reflecting compliance success generally in executive compensation structure makes sense just as it does for promoting diversity (part of Mishra's recommendations), although doing so with the former may be more methodologically challenging than it is with the latter. Still, it can be done.
Finally, the point about modeling behavior is every bit as important to promoting compliance generally as it is to preventing harassment and discrimination in particular. For a board committee overseeing compliance at the top, this aspect of effective risk management has implications for a wide range of conduct – both substantive (e.g., how conflicts of interest are dealt with by senior managers) and procedural (such as ensuring that managers take the required training).
CEOs' ethical standards and the limits of compliance
Catching up on CEOs' COIs.
CEOs' ethics: what's new
Behavioral ethics training for managers
In "Companies Need to Pay More Attention to Everyday Unethical Behavior" – published last month in the Harvard Business Review – Yuval Feldman, Professor of Legal Research at Bar Ilan University, argues:
Many large scandals have sounded the alarm on the need to monitor corporate corruption. The typical response from policy makers is to propose a patchwork of reforms to address various corporate transgressions. But by and large, these reforms focus on preventing gross and blatant violations of the law – and they ignore the more banal, ordinary acts of unethicality that are far more common in organizations. Numerous studies have documented the prevalence of practices such as stealing office supplies, inflating business expenditures reports, and engaging in behaviors that raise conflicts of interest. While these may sound negligible, these violations reduce trust over time and alter prevailing business and legal norms. Their aggregated effect can be quite harmful. Behavioral ethics research suggests that this type of misconduct occurs not because people are unethical or deliberately choose to act unethically, but because they fail to understand that their behavior is indeed unethical and can have harmful consequences. Thus, sanctioning rule breaking and looking for "smoking guns" will not prevent most employees from acting unethically. If organizations want to do a better job at preventing misconduct, they need to adopt a two-stage approach. The first stage focuses on increasing people's awareness of the illegality and unethicality of their behavior. The second stage is about ensuring that employees clearly recognize that misconduct will be penalized.
Achieving what is contemplated by both of these stages could sound daunting – particularly the first. However, for companies that already have compliance and ethics ("C&E") training for managers and supervisors there may be an opportunity to use that training to increase employees' awareness of the sort of risks described by Professor Feldman.
That is, such training can be expanded to include:
– A brief explanation of the findings of the above-referenced behavioral ethics research.
– An explanation that managers' C&E duties include identifying seemingly negligible risks in their respective parts of the organization that could over time adversely affect trust there.
– An expectation that these risks will be addressed by managers when speaking to the workforce (e.g., in townhalls, staff meetings, etc.) and through written communications.
Note that I am proposing a more or less "local" approach to this issue, as opposed to a top-down one, as I believe that having managers of various ranks involved in the process is necessary to make the effort risk based. Also, hopefully being given this role will lead managers to reflect on their own ethical performance.
Note that there is much more that can be done in communications and training to use behavioral ethics information and ideas to prevent and detect wrongdoing. See prior posts collected in this index.
There is also more to be said about slippery slopes, some of which can be found in this prior post.
Finally, here is an article on drafting managers' C&E duties.
Essential ingredients of an effective conflict of interest policy
In today's edition of the FCPA Blog.
I hope you find it useful.
"Just-in-time" risk assessment
In 1994 I spoke at a meeting of a company's executives that took place shortly before the end of the company's financial quarter, and in the same session the CEO made the point that the executives needed to be vigilant against any mischief designed to dress up the quarter. This was my first exposure to "just-in-time" training/communication. And although more companies time their compliance measures in this sort of way now than did then (mostly because there are more measures to time), it is an area where many organizations can and should up their respective games.
The basic idea of just-in-time communications (also sometimes called "point of risk" communications) – as described in this post – is that compliance communications are most likely to have the desired impact if delivered shortly before exposure to the risk in question. As noted in that post, this mechanism could be used to address a wide range of risks: "anti-corruption – before interactions with government officials and third-party intermediaries; competition law – before meetings with competitors (e.g., at trade association events); insider trading/Reg FD – during key transactions, before preparing earnings reports; protection of confidential information – when receiving such information from third parties pursuant to an NDA; … accuracy of sales/marketing – in connection with developing advertising, making pitches; and employment law – while conducting performance reviews…"
To his discussion I would like to add the notion of a just-in-time risk assessment. Specifically, when conducting risk (or program) assessment interviews or surveys, compliance personnel should inquire a) for any given area or risk, whether there is a need for just-in-time training/communications; and b) if so, what the specifics of such training/communications should be.
Finally, the need to look for opportunities of this sort can be added to lists of managers' C&E duties (e.g., those set forth in the code of conduct, training for new managers, and perhaps personnel evaluations). This will not only help companies develop more "just-in-time" communications but will raise the level of managers' C&E knowledge and commitment generally.
Conflict-of-interest policies and procedures
My latest column in C&E Professional (3rd page of PDF).


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Lessons from the Nigerian Music Industry
Victor Anazonwu
The way Nigerian songs have taken over the airwaves around the world, you would be right to say that Nigeria is now a musical superpower. Talents abound: Wizkid, Davido, Flavor, Patoranking, Burna Boy, 2Face, PSquare, Falz, Teni, Yemi Alade, Tiwa Savage among others. These are just a pinch of the new Nigerian musical legion currently sweeping the planet. They are producing in quick succession on a scale unimaginable just a few years ago. Superstars from other climates are now lining up for photo ops, autographs and collaborations with their Nigerian counterparts. Nigerians are doing with Afro Pop today what Jamaica did with reggae in the 1970s and 1980s. Neither the United States, Europe nor Asia currently has the level of genius, production, impact or follow-up of the Nigerian Musical Armada.
Everywhere you go in the world, you hear their songs screaming in taxis, High Street shops and nightclubs. You would see people of every human classifications imaginable (race, age, gender, social status, etc.) stomping their feet, shaking their heads, singing or dancing to Naija's new rave beats. It doesn't matter if they know what the lyrics really mean. It doesn't matter if they subscribe to the message of each song. Music is a universal language with an open code. The sheer beauty of the craft, its melody and energy is enough to suck you in and make you proud – if you are a Nigerian.
All of this was achieved despite the overwhelming economic conditions as well as the hostile socio-political climate in Nigeria today. All of this has been accomplished without a shred of support or incentive from the Nigerian state.
This begs the question: What are the secrets of Nigeria's booming music industry? What good are our musicians doing that other industries and sectors, especially the political establishment, can learn to improve their playing? Here are three indisputable lessons:
# 1 Talent and commitment are everything
The expression of musical talent does not conform to geopolitical boundaries. There is no north and south, no east and west, no religious division and no "us" against "them" among the Nigerian crooners. No one knows or cares where you're from, as long as you can satisfy their musical thirst.
It doesn't matter if you sing in Yoruba, Igbo, Ishan, Hausa, Birom, English, Pidgin, or a combination of languages. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman; PDP, APC, APGA or YPP. Everyone is welcome. Each bird is free to sing. The only disparity is the power of their music and how it resonates with a very demanding audience.
It is this free reign of talent and enterprise that has produced such a rich harvest that we all now enjoy and that the world seeks to identify with. This has made Nigeria not only self-sufficient, but also a net exporter of musical compositions and stars. Nigerians, like all humans, love good quality and would go anywhere they can find it.
# 2. Every corner of Nigeria is blessed with a bouquet of talent
Although I don't really care where they are from, I heard that 2Face is from Benue State, Don Jazzy from Delta State, Davido from Osun State, Timaya from l He Rivers State, Flavor from Anambra State, Phyno from Enugu State and Tiwa Savage is from Lagos State. Prior to this generation of artists, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was from Ogun State, Osita Osadebey from Anambra State, Dan Maraya from Plateau State, Mamam Shatta from Katsina State, Oriental Brothers (Imo State) and Victor Uwaifo from Edo State.
If that proves anything, it is that the Almighty spreads His gifts widely to mankind like a farmer scatters his seeds on his farmland. In due course, the seeds germinate and sprout from all corners, each to its full potential. Nigeria is one of the agricultural lands chosen by God. The Creator did not throw all of his seeds in a corner. The flowering of our musical talents from all corners helps to prove this point.
In truth, it's not just our music industry that holds the light for our country. Before music, sports and movies had also demonstrated Nigeria's capacity as a world power. Once upon a time, the Super Eagles scared other footballing nations. To date, Nollywood is one of the three most prolific film industries on the planet. The football and film industries, incidentally, run on the same fuel as the burgeoning music industry – uncensored craftsmanship unpolluted by prejudice and the enclave mentality.
Clearly, we don't need a pernicious quota machine to strike a balance between skills and contributions. Nature has already taken care of it. By imposing quotas and other artificial arrangements like rotation, based on ethnic, regional and religious differences, we are in fact reversing the natural creative process, poisoning our society and damaging the results. In the end, everyone suffers. Conversely, by trusting and working with Divine Providence, each one reaches their full potential with their unique gifts and talents. Each feeds the other with his harvest. Society is doing better for it.
# 3. If we strip our politics of primitive tendencies, Nigeria will be a world power.
Imagine what it would be like if the smartest politicians and technocrats with the best backgrounds of service in various sectors and the best ideas on how to move Nigeria forward as Presidents, Governors, Ministers and Lawmakers emerged.
Nigeria will radically transform in a few years. We will deliver a strong and thriving economy with a unique DNA that will provide solutions to human challenges based on our unique experience. We won't need to shop abroad for most of the things we need. The world will notice it and come knocking on our doors. We will export our surpluses and unique brands on favorable trade terms. Our economy will experience unimaginable growth. Africa and the black world will be proud again. Our people in the Diaspora will hurry home. China, the US and the EU will have real competition on the world stage. Humanity will be better off for it. Just as he is blessed by our music.
But what do we have instead? Scammers with scary credentials and expired men with fake age certificates. Gangsters and bigots claiming to represent ethnic, regional and religious interests. "Area boys" and warlords who manage to intimidate opponents and rig the elections.
We don't need to look elsewhere or look any further for a model to mend our broken politics and leadership recruitment system. We have a model that has proven itself globally in our music industry. We only need to be humble, to appreciate what we have, to learn from the classic case study now staring us in the face, and to apply the same principles to our most needy area – politics and the governance.
Anazonwu is a Lagos-based historian, journalist and author.
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Tournaments that have been exported from a database can be imported to another database. To import the tournaments select the folder which contains the data files and click on OK. The tournaments will then be loaded.
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I always treat myself to an assortment of fall-flavored coffees for my Keurig. It's so fun to enjoy all the tastes of the season and they smell divine! It's also a great way to sample lots of flavors and find some new favorites.
I've mentioned these before, but I seriously wear one of these every day in the cooler months. Here in Colorado, the mornings and evenings are cool even on warmer days, so these lovely cardigans keep me happy!
You know I love a fun tea towel and this one is just perfect to cozy up your kitchen.
Note: We have an advertising relationship with some of the stores we link to in this post. We only work with brands we love and trust.
This time of year we watch all the Charlie Brown cartoons. They are sweet, safe and short. (Can I get an amen that sometimes you want the kid movie to be short?) Plus there's one for every holiday... like Thanksgiving!
I found these darling turkey napkins at Swoozies, put them on my mustard yellow plates and called it a day. They are super cute! The foil just makes it.
Don't be jealous of my amazing chalk art skills. Ha. I love my pumpkin-shaped chalk board from Chalk Ink. I have a Texas one too!
For dinner, I wanted something easy at the end of a long week. I mentioned picking up Honeybaked Ham and my husband and son got super excited. So there ya go. I picked up some ham and two of their super-easy heat-and-serve sides. Done. It's a treat for us, but so hassle-free at the same time. Plus, it's the kind of meal you tend to enjoy during the holidays.
I hope your Thanksgiving week is also hassle-free, full of good food and lots of time with people you love. I'm thankful for each of you who read here!


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designer-outlet » Folk & Country » Various - The Rough Guide To The Music Of Eastern Europe
Various - The Rough Guide To The Music Of Eastern Europe Album
L'Orient Imaginaire - Labyrinth
Pachelbel, J. S. Bach, Telemann, Márta Fábián, Ágnes Szakály, Imre Kovács Jr., Béla Sztankovits - Baroque Music for Cimbalom
Nikola Badev - Od Koga Braća Mili Makedonci
Georgi Minchev, Ivan Drenikov, Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vassil Stefanov - Concert Music For Orchestra / Concerto For Piano And Orchestra
Deep Forest - Boheme
The Mystery Of The Bulgarian Voices Featuring Lisa Gerrard - Pora Sotunda
Various World Music Network Folk Népzene 1998
Genre: Folk & Country
Title: The Rough Guide To The Music Of Eastern Europe
Style: Folk, Népzene
Label: World Music Network
Catalog Number: RGNET 1024 CD
1 –Zsarátnok The Mountain Pacular 7:40
2 –Apparatschik Kürbis 3:52
3 –Mark Pashku Valle E Lezhes 2:34
4 –Ferus Mustafov Staro Cunovo Oro / Velesko Oro 4:39
5 –Ivo Papasov & His Bulgarian Wedding Band Mamo Marie Mamo 4:23
6 –The Mystery Of Bulgarian Voices Choir Beautiful Milka 4:24
7 –The Trebunia Family Band 2 Wierchowe, Ozwodna, 2 Krzesane, 2 Drobne 6:00
8 –Horo Orchestra Danubian Daichovo Horo 3:35
9 –Nikola Parov Anonym 7:44
10 –Koçani Orkestar Featuring King Naat Veliov L'Orient Est Rouge 6:05
11 –Taraf de Haïdouks Spune, Spune, Mos Batrin... 5:28
12 –The Trio Bulgarka Zapakala E Gorata 3:55
13 –Vízöntő Ezüstmuzsika 3:40
14 –Márta Sebestyén Devoiko Mome 4:50
15 –Kálmán Balogh And The Gypsy Cimbalom Band Calusul 4:33
The Rough Guide to the Music of Eastern Europe is a world music compilation album originally released in 1998. Part of the World Music Network Rough Guides series, the album gives broad coverage to the music of Central Europe and the music of Eastern Europe, focusing on traditional styles. Five of the fifteen tracks hail from Bulgaria, four are from Hungary, two are Macedonian, and Romania, Russia, Poland, and Albania contribute one track each. The compilation was produced by Phil Stanton, co-founder. This compilation actually avoids the contemporary fusion element until the very last cut, Anonym by Nikola Parov, and even there the traditional elements are strong though not quite in the sense of, say, Macedonian dance music, which will keep you very alert all those odd little rhythm shifts. While this is quite a good album, it's curiously unsatisfying, perhaps because there is so much more waiting to be explored on a country by country basis. Consider it, then, a nice introduction. Rough Guide to the Music of Eastern Europe. Please retry. As with most of the Rough Guide music releases, this one casts a wide net, hauling in innovative folk groups like Musikas and Taraf de Haiduks, edgier jazz from Ferus Mustafov and Ivo Papasov, and new musical excursions by bands like Zsarotnok. The set also includes well-known vocal groups like the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices ensemble and Trio Bulgarka. Discs I recommend to get you started are The Bartok Album, by Muzsikas The Incredible Music of the Gypsies, a compilation by Manteca and Songs and Dances from Croatia, a compilation from Dinaton. Read more. Tracks In This Album. Devoiko Mome - Márta Sebestyén. Spune, Spune, Mos Batrin. Kürbis - Apparatschik. L'Orient Est Rouge - Koçani Orkestar, Naat Veliov. Zapakala E Gorata - The Trio Bulgarka. Staro Cunovo Oro, Velesko Oro - Ferus Mustafov. Calusul - The Gypsy Cimbalom Band, Kálmán Balogh. 2 Wierchowe, Ozwodna, 2 Krzesane, 2 Drobne - The Trebunia Family Band. Ezüstmuzsika - Vízöntő. Beautiful Milka - Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares. Danubian Daichovo Horo - Оркестър Хоро Русе. Mamo Marie Mamo - Ivo Papasov & His Wedding Band. The Mountain Pacular - Zsarátnok. Valle E Lezhes - Mark Pashku. Unfortunately, the station stopped broadcasting. Perhaps, this is a temporary station problem. Most often on , compilation album tracks appear under the name of Various Artists erroneously because the individual artist is not listed in the album's ID3 information. Warning Deleting this artist may remove other artists and scrobbles from your library - please handle with caution . Black Panther: The Album. NOW Thats What I Call Music, Vol. 環境音楽 Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 19801990. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Soundtrack From & Inspired by the Motion Picture. Pornhub Valentine's Day Album. La La Land Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Various artists. Rough Guide To Psychedelic Brazil. Rough Guide To Latin Psychedelia. Rough Guide To Celtic Lullabies. Rough Guide To John Lee Hooker. Rough Guide To Bessie Smith. Rough Guide To Klezmer. Rough Guide To Leadbelly. The Rough Guide to Scottish Music is a world music compilation album originally released in 1996. The third release of the World Music Network Rough Guides series, it cuts through a broad swathe of Scottish music, focusing largely on roots revival. The compilation was produced by Phil Stanton, co-founder of the World Music Network. The Rough Guide to the Music of the Andes is a world music compilation album originally released in 1996. Part of the World Music Network Rough Guides series, the album features the music of the Andes Mountains of South America, focusing especially on the music of B


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Extra Police at Hartford Schools After Threat
Published Mar 4, 2016 at 7:52 AM | Updated at 10:25 AM EST on Mar 4, 2016
NBC Connecticut
Police increased patrols at Hartford schools on Friday after the Board of Education received a threat Thursday night.
There will be increased police patrols and beefed up security at Hartford schools on Friday after a threat was made against the Board of Education.
Members of the Board received the emailed threats late last night, according to Hartford police.
Investigators determined the threats are not credible and are consistent with other threats meant to disrupt schools that have been sent in the past, police said.
Hartford schools are operating on a normal schedule Friday, school officials said.


FINANCE Minister Patrick Chinamasa has revealed how he and Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya were recently booted out of a South African hotel at the instigation of unnamed Zimbabweans he accused of an attempt to sabotage the embattled Zanu PF led government.
Chinamasa said the siege on government affairs by enemies who included former ministers in the now defunct inclusive government has been so intense that he and Mangudya now keep their foreign trips a closely guarded secret.
He was, however, quick to boast that the Zanu PF led government has succeeded in defusing the impact of western imposed sanctions on the country.
"The existence of sanctions sends signals to the world that we are not a country to do business with. Some of our colleagues do not quite understand it," Chinamasa said last week.
"There are very respectable people who wear very expensive suits whom we have given platforms but have been going to undermine the way forward.
"We have gotten to a point where Dr Mangudya and I no longer tell anybody where we are going. I mean it. Our activities are off the record.
"Where ever we went, there would be someone doing an email threatening including former ministers of this inclusive government who should know better," said the minister.
Chinamasa was addressing diplomats, business and civil society leaders at a discussion forum called by a local think-tank Sapes Trust in collaboration with Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, National Endowment for Democracy and Catham House.
His comments follow government's refusal last year to reveal where it was printing bond notes, and earlier refusal too, to divulge where and how it was trading the country's diamonds.
In his address, Chinamasa narrated his nightmares at a South African hotel.
"Last week, we had a conference with the Diasporans in Johannesburg," he said.
"The hotel where we were originally to hold this was booked three months before. On the afternoon just before the day of the conference, they (hotel staff) said they had been threatened by five people, through emails and so on and had to cancel the booking.
"We only had about two to three hours to look for alternative accommodation.
"This is by Zimbabweans, not by South Africans! Why would you want to stop a dialogue between government and Zimbabweans who are in the Diaspora!
Chinamasa said it was "not good to rubbish our own country".
But the minister had something to cheer, saying sanctions which the current government has blamed on the country's economic slide, have lost "tempo".
"The spirit or the tempo is reducing. It's still there but it's reducing," Chinamasa said in unsolicited comments.
"Clearly, we are not where we were say three, four years ago. There is greater spirit to cooperate, to collaborate and basically to take Zimbabwe back into the mainstream of the world economy.
His comments come after the MDC-T and ex-Finance Minister Tendai Biti's party have taken turns to slam the British government and the IMF for warming up to President Robert Mugabe's overtures before the Zimbabwean administration could meet their earlier demands for a set of both economic and political reforms.