How liars and bullies can win elections I’ve met them; you’ve met them. You can find them in the corporate world, in academia, in the public service, in publishing, the media, the church … and, of course, in politics

Blank & Glogower: The Tax Information Gap At The Top

How skyrocketing demand for government services accelerated digital transformation

Taxes not collected

Evidence is scant that Australians have derived much benefit at all from this phenomenal boom in export volumes and values.

Exhibit B will be data from the ABS and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) showing the trajectories of company taxes collected by the Coalition. See pink chart, below.

The royal commission that could recoup billions of rorted Aussie dollars

Report On Tax Implications Of Cryptocurrency And Other Fungible Digital Assets

Ukraine is rated Partly Free in Freedom in the World 2022, Freedom House’s annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide. Below are the Ukraine country reports from the past two years of Freedom in the World:

• 2022 Ukraine Country Report
• 2021 Ukraine Country Report

The Eastern Donbas and Crimea regions each have their own unique Freedom in the World reports. Both are rated Not Free:

• 2022 Eastern Donbas report
• 2022 Crimea report

How Do You Follow Up A Smash Hit First Novel?

You throw your second one in the (metaphorical) trash can, of course. - The Guardian (UK)

Abe Rosenthal, the totemic New York Times editor who published the Pentagon Papers, used to say that there was one path to the executive editor’s office — over the dead, burned, and maimed bodies of the ten other people who wanted the job. So I turned to Joseph Kahn, the new top dog at the Times, and asked whom he incinerated to get here.

Joe: “I didn’t kill anybody”

Regret Can Be A Positive Feeling

 Of course, "there’s a reason we put so much effort into denying regret: The feeling can be corrosive." But instead of regretting lost symphonies, paintings, hikes, books, the question remains: "How can you improve yourself in the days to come?” - The New York Tim

How liars and bullies can win elections

I’ve met them; you’ve met them. You can find them in the corporate world, in academia, in the public service, in publishing, the media, the church … and, of course, in politics. The bullies who get away with it because of their capacity to turn on the charm when required. The barefaced liars who mask

ProPublica: Building the Big Lie: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth – Internal emails and interviews with key participants reveal for the first time the extent to which leading advocates of the rigged election theory touted evidence they knew to be disproven, disputed or dismissed as dubious. “…

ProPublica has obtained a trove of internal emails and other documentation that, taken together, tell the inside story of a group of people who propagated a number of the most pervasive theories about how the election was stolen, especially that voting machines were to blame, and helped move them from the far-right fringe to the center of the Republican Party. Those records, as well as interviews with key participants, show for the first time the extent to which leading advocates of the stolen-election theory touted evidence that they knew to be disproven or that had been credibly disputed or dismissed as dubious by operatives within their own camp. 

Some members of the coalition presented this mix of unreliable witnesses, unconfirmed rumor and suspect analyses as fact in published reports, talking points and court documents. In several cases, their assertions became the basis for Trump’s claims that the election had been rigged. 

Our examination of their actions from the 2020 election to the present day reveals a pattern. Many members of the coalition would advance a theory based on evidence that was never vetted or that they’d been told was flawed; then, when the theory was debunked, they’d move on to the next alternative and then the next. The coalition includes several figures who have attracted national attention. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who served briefly as national security adviser to Trump before pleading guilty to lying to law enforcement about his contacts with Russian officials, is the most well known. Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com who left his position after his romantic relationship with the convicted Russian agent Maria Butina became public, is the coalition’s chief financier and a frequent intermediary with the press. Powell, who represented Flynn in his attempt to reverse his guilty plea, spearheaded efforts in the courts…”

Boeing delays 777X another year and writes off $1.2B as future costs pile up Seattle Times

Boeing says it lost $660M in Air Force One deal with Trump The Hill. “[P]roduction of the soon-to-be presidential aircraft has been mired in several scandals, including two empty mini tequila bottles that were found on one of the planes set to be used by the White House. A probe separately found that two workers had either failed a drug test or were not credentialed properly to work on the planes.”