Punter's Politics uses satire to re-engage 'ripped off' Australians with Parliament
How do we get competent politicians?
Anyone can become an MP. No training is required, and then they set the rules for everyone else. That’s absurd. All prospective parliamentarians and councillors should have to take an exam to prove their competence.
Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico amp up the risk of a broader trade war
Wall Street Journal editorial calls Trump tariffs ‘dumbest trade war in history’
Anyone can become an MP. No training is required, and then they set the rules for everyone else. That’s absurd. All prospective parliamentarians and councillors should have to take an exam to prove their competence.
Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico amp up the risk of a broader trade war
Wall Street Journal editorial calls Trump tariffs ‘dumbest trade war in history’
Schwarzbaum Redux – 11th Circuit Issues New Opinion to Correct Statement of FBAR Willfulness Civil Penalty Standard
In United States v. Schwarzbaum, ___ F.4th ___ (11th Cir. 1/23/25), CA11 here and GS here [to come], the 11th Circuit revisited the long-running Schwarzbaum FBAR civil penalty litigation. I discussed the immediately preceding visitation/opinion in 11th Circuit on Third Consideration Seals FBAR Willful Penalty Except for Relatively Small Amount Held Excessive Fine under 8th Amendment Federal Tax Crimes Blog here. In this new opinion, issued yesterday, the Court starts:
Appellee’s [United States’] petition for panel rehearing is GRANTED. We VACATE our prior opinion in this case and substitute the following in its place:
The Slip Opinion for the prior opinion was 53 pages; the Slip Opinion for this new opinion is 55 pages. For purposes of Federal Tax Crimes and Federal Tax Procedure Blogs, the material changes * only correct misstatements in the original opinion that the FBAR willfulness civil penalty standard is the same as the FBAR willfulness criminal penalty standard (the Cheek/Ratzlaf standard).
Use of AI, Including Large Language Models (LLMs), in Tax Court Brief Writing (And Really Other Legal Analysis)
I erroneously posted on the Federal Tax Crimes Blog a post that I should have posted on the Federal Tax Procedure Blog. I have deleted the content of the Federal Tax Crimes Blog post. To read the blog on the Federal Tax Procedure Blog, see Use of AI, Including Large Language Models (LLMs), in Tax Court Brief Writing (And Really Other Legal Analysis) (1/22/25), here.
A New Frontier: Organised Immigration Crime and UK Sanctions RUSI. The money quote is at the end: …”he history of sanctions is littered with cases of over-promising and under-delivering, where expectations and hopes for impact are misplaced.”
We are all Big Brother now Boston Globe. The deck: “The largest system of surveillance isn’t run by the government or corporations. It’s the grass-roots panopticon we’re using to judge one another.”
Mundine’s “uranium” company a failure after 20 years
Washington Post gift link: “The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems..
David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, is expected to leave the agency soon, the people said. President Donald Trumpnamed Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said.
The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said. Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration…
When Scott Bessent was confirmed as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be the acting agency head. Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.
BleepingComputer – Want to prevent people from harvesting your personal information? Keep reading to learn how to remove your data from people search sites. “Protecting your digital footprint is crucial if you want to prevent phishing, scams, and other unwanted side effects caused by online data harvesting.
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