When people of conscience are removed from power, we all need to worry

“You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat.” 

~ Christy Mathewson

13

‘Can’t be trusted’: Reckless, improper conduct should rule former top official out for life

Confidential report found former home affairs boss Michael Pezzullo was ‘reckless’ in engagement with Liberal powerbroker

Previously unreleased report obtained via freedom of information battle says Pezzullo exceeded ‘boundaries of normal public service practice’

Rex Patrick - The mandarin who got caught. Mike Pezzullo inquiry details revealed

When people of conscience are removed from power, we all need to worry

As The Telegraph reported yesterday: Pete Hegseth fired the most senior US army officer one month into the war with Iran. The sacking is the latest
Read the full article…

30

Like it or not, the appeal of wealth taxes appears to be very strong

I am aware that we post a lot of polls on this blog these days, although I readily admit most are on our videos and
Read the full article…

ANAO report puts Australian Army Redback IFV procurement under the microscope

Repetti Presents “Private Equity, Health Calamity: How Our Tax Laws Aid Private Equity Investment in Hospitals and Nursing Homes” Today at Irvine

James R. Repetti (Boston College) presents Private Equity, Health Calamity: How Our Tax Laws Aid Private Equity Investment in Hospitals and Nursing Homes at Irvine, as part of its Graduate Tax Policy Colloquium:

The social welfare impact of investments by Private Equity funds (PEs) in various sectors of our economy is mixed due to the significant debt imposed on PE target companies and the short investment horizon of PE funds. With respect to PE investments in hospitals and nursing homes, however, most empirical studies suggest that PE investments significantly harm welfare. The large amounts of debt incurred by the targets of PE acquisitions increase the risk of default and contribute to excessive cost-cutting measures that harm patients. 

Our tax system contains two features that significantly promote PE acquisitions. First, our tax system exempts gain realized by charitable organizations from the sale of their hospitals and nursing homes to for-profit purchasers. Theory predicts, and empirical evidence suggests, that tax-exempt sellers are willing to sell hospitals for less than a taxable seller would be due to this tax exemption. Given that these assets will no longer be deployed in the charitable sector, our tax system should not subsidize transfers to for-profit purchasers that reduce social welfare by exempting the gain from taxation. Even if the tax-exempt seller is not sharing its exemption with the for-profit buyer, policy considerations suggest that gain from such a sale should not be exempt. Since the tax-exempt seller has chosen to stop participating in the health-related activity, this is an appropriate time to return the foregone tax revenue to the government for a determination of its future best use, rather than allowing the tax-exempt to unilaterally make that decision. 

NY Times: Justice Dept. Struggles to Respond to Trump’s Suit Against I.R.S.

In a previous post on TaxProf Blog, we had highlighted President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS. In an article in The New York Times, Andrew Duehren and Alan Feuer report:

The Justice Department is struggling to decide how to respond to President Trump’s lawsuit demanding at least $10 billion from the I.R.S., as the department’s lawyers try to resolve by a mid-April deadline the profound ethical questions the case raises, according to two people familiar with the dynamic. . . .

While former Justice Department officials see clear flaws in the president’s case, some Trump administration officials worry that assigning a lawyer to contest it would pose an unworkable conflict, given that such a person ultimately works for the president, according to the two people. Defending the case could also contradict a White House executive order that binds all government lawyers to the president’s interpretation of the law. . . .

In a normal proceeding, the Justice Department would likely start by trying to throw out the case because it came too late, former department attorneys said. In other cases stemming from the leaks, government lawyers have also said the I.R.S. could not be blamed for Mr. Littlejohn’s actions, since he was a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton and not an I.R.S. employee.

Mr. Trump’s demand for at least $10 billion in damages for the leak struck several former tax lawyers at the Justice Department as outlandish.

The article notes that a group of former government officials filed an amicus brief, arguing, among other things, that the lawsuit has significant defects in it. The brief can be read in its entirety here.

LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your ComputerBrowsergate

What’s Cheaper: Fueling Your Car With Gas or Electricity?

A comparison on EV charging expenses state by state in the US. Any similar data in other countries based on recent electricity costs?

Why AI lies, cheats and steals ComputerWorld

 

The genius of The Sopranos' most shocking episode

In 2006, The Sopranos' season six opener gave viewers two of the most startling scenes in television history. Twenty years on, here's why it's time to reconsider Members Only.

Trump isn’t immune from civil claims his Jan. 6 rally speech incited riot

AP:  President Donald Trump is not immune from civil claims that he incited a mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan, 6, 2021, a federal judge has ruled in one of the last unresolved legal cases stemming from the riot. 

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Tuesday that Trump’s remarks at his “Stop the Steal” rally, held on the Ellipse near the White House shortly before the siege began, “plausibly” were inciting words that are not protected by the First Amendment right to free speech. The Republican president is not shielded from liability for much of his Jan. 6 conduct, including that speech and many of his social media posts that day, according to the judge. 

But Mehta said Trump cannot be held liable for his official acts that day, including his Rose Garden remarks during the riot and his interactions with Justice Department officials. “President Trump has not shown that the Speech reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties,” Mehta wrote. “The content of the Ellipse Speech confirms that it is not covered by official-acts immunity.”

For context see this previous beSpacific post – A visual archive of Jan. 6, 2021 through the lenses of those who were there.

Hitler’s Edifice Complex

The Atlantic Gift Article: “He wanted it big. He wanted lots of gold, lots of marble. He wanted visitors awestruck by his architectural expansion of the country’s symbolic seat of power. “They should sense the strength and grandeur of the German Reich as they walk from the entrance to the reception hall,” Adolf Hitler told his chief architect, Albert Speer, outlining his plans for an extension to the old Reich chancellery, at Wilhelmstrasse 77 in Berlin. 

The new annex, connected to the chancellery by a marble corridor hung with crystal chandeliers, was part of Hitler’s ambitious plans to align the Berlin cityscape with his vision for the future of the country. Hitler wanted a Triumphbogen, a triumphal arch, twice the size of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He wanted an “Avenue of Splendor” for military parades. “The Champs-Élysées is a hundred meters wide,” Hitler told Speer. “We will make our avenue twenty meters wider.” 

A planned Volkshalle was to accommodate 180,000. The Eiffel Tower could fit beneath its cupola. This “Hall of the People” was to be topped by the largest swastika on Earth. Berlin itself was to be rechristened as Weltstadt Germania, “Capital of the World.” Speer embellished these extravagantly outsized “Hitler branded designs”—Entwürfe Hitlerscher Prägung—with fascistic flourishes: bundled reeds, or fasces; spread-winged eagles; and enormous twisted crosses. 

In 1938, when André François Poncet, the French ambassador to Berlin, visited Hitler at the Berghof, the Nazi leader’s Alpine retreat outside Berchtesgaden, he was led through a “gallery of Roman pillars” to an “immense glassed-in rotunda” with a dramatic view that gave one the impression of being suspended in the air. “Was this edifice the work of a normal mind,” François-Poncet wondered in his memoirs, “or of one tormented by megalomania and haunted by visions of domination?”…

• Archinect – See also Update March 31st, 2026: In the hours after this article was published, a federal judge blocked the Trump Administration from moving ahead with any further work on the ballroom. “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Judge Richard Leon noted, adding “(U)nless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” Update April 1st, 2026: The National Capital Planning Commission has released slightly revised plans ahead of the April 2 meeting in response to the design criticism published by the NYT. The addendum focuses on reconfiguring the portico stair. President Trump’s controversial plans for a new ballroom on the site of the former East Wing of the White House have faced further criticism from architects and designers. Ahead of an expected National Capital Planning Commission vote to progress the scheme this week, on April 2, The New York Times has published a deep dive into the design criticisms expressed about the scheme. The analysis, whose authors include architect Junho Lee, identifies several apparent design flaws in the scheme, notably a dominant south portico with a grand staircase that nonetheless has no entrance to the ballroom, with a dense cluster of columns that may block light into the interior space. The move will also lead to the alteration of a symmetrical driveway by Frederick Law Olmsted. The piece notes that the ballroom itself is far larger than typical for a 1,000-capacity space, justified by the design team as a move to accommodate TV cameras, journalists, security, and ceremonial processions. An event with fewer than 1,000 attendees could feel “empty,” the piece notes. Overall, the proposed East Wing is 60% larger than the White House residence by floor area, and three times larger by cubic volume. “Viewed from the south, the ballroom’s size will make it the dominant building of the White House complex, with a portico bigger than that of the residence and a lopsided appearance disrupting any symmetry with the West Wing,” the piece argues…”
• And of course – Trump’s ballroom gets the green light from loyalist-stacked commission

Civilisation End / AI Just Hacked One Of The World’s Most Secure Operating Systems

Trump says ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’ if Iran does not make a deal – Middle East crisis live

23 people could stop this genocidal war criminal. That’s it. 23. 20 Republican senators and 3 republican reps in the house and he’d be out of politics forever. But they won’t. They’re addicted to power. A drug so strong they’d rather see a civilization die than give it up.

“ICE Tours VT provides guided bus tours to many of these facilities, where you will learn about the scope, scale, and history of DHS in Vermont. Think Hollywood star tours, but instead of celebrity mansions you get federal surveillance infrastructure.”

Gamage Presents “Confronting The Tax-And-Oligarchy Catch-22” Today At Toronto

David Gamage (Missouri) presents Confronting The Tax-And-Oligarchy Catch-22 at Toronto, as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Ben Alarie:

Why have taxes on concentrated wealth weakened across decades, even though polling typically shows strong majority support? This Article argues that the answer lies in a structural dynamic we call the tax-and-oligarchy catch-22. Taxing extreme wealth is among democracy’s most direct tools for constraining oligarchic power, yet extreme wealth reliably finances the political work of blocking, diluting, or unwinding such taxes. The catch-22 operates through political optionality. When the wealthiest households can defer tax indefinitely, they preserve capacity for campaigns, litigation, lobbying, and producing expert doubt about reforms that might reach them. Every dollar of deferred tax is a dollar available to lobby against its own eventual collection. Progressive Era reforms were designed to interrupt this dynamic. For decades they partially succeeded. But the constraints have eroded, and today’s largest fortunes face minimal effective taxation.

This Article responds with a democratic tax firewall, an approach that treats durability as a first-order design constraint rather than an afterthought. Drawing on political science, history, and recent state-level campaigns, we identify design choices that can help reforms resist quiet erosion and show how sustained technical preparation can position reformers to act when political windows open.

AI Just Hacked One Of The World’s Most Secure Operating Systems Forbes

What’s The Importance Of The Newly Revived Russian-US Interparliamentary Dialogue?Andrew Korybko

Musk invokes “rape of Europe” in anti-immigrant rant Musk 

Anyone Who Tells You That We Can’t Put Criminals in Jail Until We Win an Election Is Complicit in the Murder of Our DemocracyChris Armitage

Data centers are so hot their ‘heat island’ effect is raising temperatures up to 6 miles away and impacting 343 million people worldwide, study finds

Data centers are so hot their ‘heat island’ effect is raising temperatures up to 6 miles away and impacting 343 million people worldwide, study finds

Scientists have genetically engineered tobacco plants to produce five psychedelic compounds, including psilocybin, DMT, and psychedelic compounds secreted by the Sonoran Desert toad

 Creatine Isn’t Just for Lifting Anymore—It’s Longevity’s Supplement du Jour

Breakthrough Alzheimer’s Drug Rewires the Brain Instead of Just Clearing Plaques

Bilby boom

THIS HAPPENS A LOT. FEWER CARBS AND MORE CHOLINE CAN HELP:  I don’t drink and still got fatty liver disease. A GLP-1 changed everything.

Choline is in eggs, organ meats, all the stuff they told people to avoid for decades.

Chocolate Spiked with Potentially ‘Life-Threatening’ Amounts of Viagra Ingredients Recalled People

Federal Harms Tracker – The Federal Harms Tracker is a new data and storytelling project developed by the Partnership for Public Service to demonstrate what is at stake when the federal government is weakened from within.

Want to know which sites are selling your data?

‘Can’t be trusted’: Reckless, improper conduct should rule former top official out for life

Confidential report found former home affairs boss Michael Pezzullo was ‘reckless’ in engagement with Liberal powerbroker

Previously unreleased report obtained via freedom of information battle says Pezzullo exceeded ‘boundaries of normal public service practice’

Rex Patrick - The mandarin who got caught. Mike Pezzullo inquiry details revealed

‘You’ll hear from my lawyer, bro’: Rich-lister’s company a suspected front for bikies

A business owned by an Australian rich-lister with a personal fortune well above $50 million is suspected of laundering money for the Comanchero bikie gang, according to a NSW Police intelligence report.

Police relied on the intelligence after the founder sued to recover a wad of cash and his mobile phone, which he said was worth $500,000 a month to the business.

Police suspected the company was a front for the Comanchero bikie gang. MATTHEW ABSALOM-WONG

Officers seized the goods after pulling over the founder, whose car they found at a standstill in a confusing intersection near Double Bay in Sydney’s east, about 1.30am on October 2.

In a backpack, they discovered a bundle of $50 notes held together by a rubber band, totalling $8450, which an officer said raised suspicion of a drug offence.

“I pay $6 million in taxes,” the founder, who cannot be identified legally, replied. “Me sell drugs is absurd. It’s absolutely absurd.” The company’s general manager, who was a passenger in the car, described the money as petty cash used to pay actors for a social media photoshoot.

The business is the biggest brand of its kind in Australia, the NSW Supreme Court heard. The founder has featured on a reputable newspaper’s “Rich List” and bought a home for well over $10 million. Searching the car was authorised because of a Firearm Prohibition Order issued to the founder in 2020, the court heard.

“You are associated with Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs,” stated the order, which referenced a drug possession offence and a past apprehended violence order. A constable on the scene also used a police database to access a recent intelligence report about the founder’s company.

“It’s highly likely that [Company X] is involved in [organised crime network] money laundering,” it said. Police had information suggesting the business was “used by the Comancheros as a front”.

The intelligence report said that after 13 “persons of interest” visited the company’s business address in September, a staff member was admitted to hospital with an injury he blamed on a fight club. The founder had declined to assist with police inquiries.

The police who pulled his car over kept his phone, which he had given them to show his digital driver’s licence. “You’ll hear from my lawyer, bro,” he said.

His lawyers asked police not to extract any data from the device and applied to the court for its urgent return, arguing that the phone was vital to the business as it was used as a two-factor authenticator to process transactions.

Justice Sarah McNaughton found on October 22 that the firearm search powers did not allow police to seize other items found incidentally. The judge found there was insufficient evidence to ground a reasonable belief that a serious offence had been committed.

McNaughton also rejected a police claim that having to seek a crime scene warrant in similar circumstances would “lead to the complete paralysis of operational policing”. NSW Police was ordered to hand back the phone and cash, which the judge accepted was to pay for photoshoot expenses.

After 16 years in power, could Viktor Orban finally be unseated?

This week, Politico has an exclusive interview with Frank Bisignano, who serves as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and as the “newly invented” Chief Executive Officer of the IRS. Politico’s report also includes comments from six IRS employees on Bisignano’s tenure.

Next up: Bisignano’s scheduled appearance at a Tax Day Senate hearing. Links and more, below the fold.

IRS CEO defiant as Washington asks who’s running things

In an interview with POLITICO, Frank Bisignano says he’s focused on improving the tax agency’s tech capabilities and not on questions about his role at the IRS.

Nam Presents “Justice in Tax Enforcement” Today At Duke

Jeesoo Nam (USC) presents Justice in Tax Enforcement at Duke today, as part of its Tax Policy Seminar hosted by Larry Zelenak:

The IRS has limited resources with which to pursue enforcement actions against people who have underpaid on their taxes. Given such limitations, the agency can only pursue a small subset of underpayers. How should the agency decide who to pursue?

This Article argues that the answer to this question depends on a fundamental issue of justice. Is the decrease in well-being that underpayers experience when tax laws are enforced against them good or bad from the standpoint of justice? When taxpayers underpay, they are illegally keeping money that they should have paid to the government to instead spend on themselves. When the government enforces the law, it deprives such underpayers of the use of their illegally gotten gains. Surprisingly, theories split on whether this deprivation is intrinsically good or bad. On a desert-based theory of justice, when people underpay on their taxes, they take for themselves more than they deserve. Thus, depriving underpayers of illegally appropriated cash is good from the standpoint of justice. It brings those underpayers back to the level of well-being they deserve. On a welfarist theory of justice, such deprivation is bad because all deprivation is bad, even deprivation of illegally gotten gains. This Article teases out the implications of these competing perspectives for the question of how the IRS should choose who it targets in its enforcement actions.

 

Taxing times for Albanese and Taylor as parties seek to match voter expectations

What I learned from my first few weeks as a Green MP? Most politicians have no clue how tough things are out there

Hannah Spencer

Want to know which sites are selling your data?

ZDNET – “This free privacy tool gave me answers. Data is gold, and some companies go to great lengths to collect it, store it, and sell it. But you can put an end to it.

 [Note – sort of] There’s a service called Global Privacy Controlthat offers extensions and/or links to browsers and apps that support the cause. This service began in 2020 and was inspired by the California Consumer Privacy Act, which gives California residents the right to opt out of any business that would sell their data. Currently, GPC is available for:

• Brave Privacy Browser
• Disconnect
• DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser
• Mozilla’s Firefox (currently, this only applies to the Nightly release)
• Privacy Badger
• Global Privacy Control (GPC) Inspector(Chrome extension)

Prominent Convicted Tax Shelter Lawyer Fails on Appeal in CDP Case Involving Restitution Based Assessments 

I start with a caveat: although this posting is on April 1, sometimes called April Fools Day, this is intended as a serious discussion.

“If Artemis II is successful, the astronauts will be the first humans to reach the moon’s orbit in more than 50 years, and their path around its far side will take them farther into the universe than any human being has previously traveled.”

Gamage Presents “Confronting The Tax-And-Oligarchy Catch-22” Today At Toronto

David Gamage (Missouri) presents Confronting The Tax-And-Oligarchy Catch-22 at Toronto, as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Ben Alarie:

Why have taxes on concentrated wealth weakened across decades, even though polling typically shows strong majority support? This Article argues that the answer lies in a structural dynamic we call the tax-and-oligarchy catch-22. Taxing extreme wealth is among democracy’s most direct tools for constraining oligarchic power, yet extreme wealth reliably finances the political work of blocking, diluting, or unwinding such taxes. The catch-22 operates through political optionality. When the wealthiest households can defer tax indefinitely, they preserve capacity for campaigns, litigation, lobbying, and producing expert doubt about reforms that might reach them. Every dollar of deferred tax is a dollar available to lobby against its own eventual collection. Progressive Era reforms were designed to interrupt this dynamic. For decades they partially succeeded. But the constraints have eroded, and today’s largest fortunes face minimal effective taxation.

This Article responds with a democratic tax firewall, an approach that treats durability as a first-order design constraint rather than an afterthought. Drawing on political science, history, and recent state-level campaigns, we identify design choices that can help reforms resist quiet erosion and show how sustained technical preparation can position reformers to act when political windows open.