Trump Team Plans IRS Overhaul - The Surveillance Empire That Tracked World Leaders, a Vatican Enemy, and Maybe You

Trump Team Plans IRS Overhaul to Enable Pursuit of Left-Leaning Groups

The effort would install a Trump ally at the agency’s criminal unit who has drawn up a list of investigative targets

Physician heal thyself: Royal College power-struggle spills into Court

Another board spill is afoot at the Royal Australian College of Physicians as accusations of bullying and a cover-up spill into Court. Stephanie Tran reports.

On Tuesday, the Fair Work Commission began hearing a stop-bullying application filed by the president-elect of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), Dr Sharmila Chandran, against the college’s current president, Professor Jennifer Martin.

A united media stands up against the Pentagon’s press restrictions

Unconstitutional “evil”. Albo’s plan for more government secrecy

The Surveillance Empire That Tracked World Leaders, a Vatican Enemy, and Maybe You

Inside the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.

 It was early June and Guenther Rudolph was in an expansive mood. Sharp-suited, relaxed, and charming, he was standing in a booth in Prague’s Clarion Congress Hotel. Every year the Clarion hosts an exclusive gathering: the premier get-together of the surveillance industry, called ISS World Training, where law enforcement and intelligence officials from across the globe mingle with representatives of leading spy companies. People outside the business—including journalists—are barred from entry.

On the hotel’s first floor, vendors lined up to sell their wares, and digital displays pulsed with inspiring slogans: “eliminate the unknown,” “saving lives.” Products ranged from hidden cameras to drones to “open source intelligence” and “AI-powered analytics.” But the largest, glitziest, and busiest booths advertised access to people’s phones.

Police probe suspected international crime boss’ links to Sydney day care kill plot 

Riley Walter October 15, 2025 

 An international crime syndicate allegedly helmed by a man formerly of Sydney is suspected of being linked to a recent surge of gang-related violence, including a foiled alleged murder plot outside a day care centre. 

Daniel Rodney Badger, 40, has emerged as a key suspect in Sydney’s underworld and its ongoing conflicts after detectives seized $260 million worth of drugs allegedly belonging to his syndicate.

On Wednesday, the Herald revealed Badger’s syndicate was believed to have ordered the murder of Sydney woman Thi Kim Tran after her husband was accused of stealing 80 kilograms of methamphetamine from the group.

 

SpongeBob SquarePants Cooking Meth and Fake JFK Speeches: How the Sora 2 Launch Went Sideways Rolling Stone 

Remedies for Ridiculous House Prices Steve Keen

Crisis: One in four Scots directly affected by homelessness Scottish Housing News

Will the SNP Reform or Rebrand? BarrheadBoy

Glencore disclosures raise questions over mining giant’s tax bill 

Luke Kinsella Oct 8, 2025

 Glencore, the Swiss commodities giant in line to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government handouts for its struggling Mount Isa copper smelter, paid below Australia’s corporate tax rate last year. 

Filings with the Australian Taxation Office showed the mining giant’s main holding company, Glencore Investments, paid an effective 24 per cent tax on its $7.9 billion in taxable income in the 12 months to the end of June 2024. Its parent company, Glencore Holdings, reported a taxable income of $5.9 billion but paid no tax at all, according to the new filings.

Political witch hunts and blacklists: Donald Trump and the new era of McCarthyism

 “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable …I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now. And I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: what would I do if I was there?…I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”

–Jared Kushner, March 2024

The Limits of Data Issues in Science and Technology 

 DNA search engine

ETH Zurich – Computer scientists at ETH Zurich have developed a digital tool capable of searching through millions of published DNA records in a matter of seconds. This can significantly accelerate research into antibiotic resistance and unknown pathogens: “Rare hereditary diseases can be identified in patients and specific mutations in tumour cells detected – DNA sequencing revolutionised biomedical research decades ago. In recent years, new sequencing methods (next-generation sequencing) in particular have resulted in numerous scientific breakthroughs. In 2020/2021, for example, they enabled the rapid decoding and global monitoring of the SARS-CoV-2 genome.

• The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health, Part 3 – This is a follow up to two recent articles by Sabrina I. Pacifici on the Trump administration’s relentless attacks against science, medicine and public health, government sponsored data collection and reporting, climate science, free speech, and the censorship of federally funded academic research and scholarship. The rapid fire assault against the heart of our democracy stunningly continues to escalate, per the Project 2025 roadmap operationalized under the direction of Russell Vought and Stephen Miller, fracturing our public policy, governance, the economy, muzzling the education system, and eradicating our foreign policy and diplomacy. Pacifici’s article focuses on the administration’s new actions in September 2025, documenting censorship in all sectors, across agencies, universities, corporate activities and the economy.
• Dear ChatGPT: Words Matter – Stephen Embry writes about how much we might be losing when we let AI sanitize our word choices: the difference between good and memorable often comes down to a single word. For lawyers especially, professionals whose job is communication and persuasion, completely ceding editorial judgment to algorithms that prioritize blandness over impact is a mistake. Embry states – Words matter. Don’t let robots choose yours.
• With ChatGPT, law-school instructor Sean Harrington is rebuilding student assessment for the AI era – Sean Harrington, who teaches students AI and law at the University of Oklahoma and holds both a JD and an MS in Data Analytics, saw a core problem the moment generative AI went mainstream: traditional take-home exams no longer reveal what students really know.
• The divergence of law firms from lawyers – Jordan Furlong contends right now it’s possible for an ordinary person to obtain from an LLM like ChatGPT-5 the performance of a legal task — the provision of legal analysis, the production of a legal instrument, the delivery of legal advice — that previously could only be acquired from a human lawyer. He further states he’s not saying a person should do that. The LLM’s output might be effective and reliable, or it might prove disastrously off-base. But many people are already using LLMs in this way, and in the absence of other accessible options for legal assistance, they will continue to do so.
• Political witch hunts and blacklists: Donald Trump and the new era of McCarthyism – Shannon Brincat, Frank Mols and Gail Crimmins report that a modern-day political inquisition is unfolding in “digital town squares” across the United States. The slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk has become a focal point for a coordinated campaign of silencing critics that chillingly echoes one of the darkest chapters in American history. They state t”his is far-right “cancel culture”, the likes of which the US hasn’t seen since the McCarthy era in the 1950s.”
• The Operational Protocol Method: Systematic LLM Specialization Through Collaborative Persona Engineering and Agent Coordination– This paper by Dennis Kennedyintroduces a systematic methodology for transforming generic Large Language Models into specialized, persistent AI advisors and helpers through structured protocol frameworks and collaborative development processes, enabling reliable human-AI collaboration for complex decision-making across professional and personal domains.
• Google wasn’t against this privacy bill, officially. Behind the scenes, it orchestrated opposition – Reporters Khari Johnson and Yue Stella Yu investigate how Google organized business owners against California legislation to force its Chrome web browser to safeguard personal data.
• Another Brilliant Idea! the Hidden Dangers of Sycophantic AI – Jordan Furlong’s article expands analysis on the already noted risks arising from lawyers using AI. Generative AI can be incredibly, and dangerously, sycophantic. This is particularly worrisome for lawyers, because if they lose intellectual skills, what will they left to offer people? Furlong notes that the similarities between lawyer thinking and AI “thinking” should be a cause for alarm within the legal profession.
• AI In Finance and Banking, September 30, 2025 – by Sabrina I. Pacifici. Five highlights from this post: A Research Agenda for the Economics of Transformative AI; Import AI 429: Eval the world economy; Do Markets Believe in Transformative AI?; AI and Task Efficiency; and Harnessing artificial intelligence for monitoring financial markets..
• AI In Finance and Banking, September 15, 2025 – by Sabrina I. Pacifici. Five highlights from this post: Goldman Sachs bankers explore limits of AI: ‘The risk is over-reliance’.; AI Agents for Economic Research; The State of AI in Financial Services in 2025 — views from our front row seats; Managing explanations: how regulators can address AI explainability; and Artificial Writing and Automated Detection.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 27, 2025 – by Pete Weiss. Four highlights from this week: 48% of Cybersecurity Bosses Failed to Report a Breach This Year; LinkedIn will use your data to train their AI starting Nov 3; Reuters Asked AI Bots to Scam the Elderly. They Obliged; and This is the fastest way to tell if a photo is AI-generated.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 20, 2025 – by Pete Weiss. Five highlights from this week: NIST says that there are three main ways to sanitize data; Google misled users about their privacy and now owes them $425m, says court; USAi tool lets agencies test for AI biases, GSA official says; FBI warns of cybercriminals using fake FBI crime reporting portals; and Morgan Stanley fined $35m after hard drives sold with customer info still on them.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 13, 2025 – by Pete Weiss. Five highlights from this week: How much is the Facebook settlement payout per person?; New Study: How Often Do AI Assistants Hallucinate Links? (16 Million URLs Studied); It Is Happening – Don’t cross a U.S. border without a “perfect burner phone”; When typing becomes tracking; and Study reveals widespread silent keystroke interception.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 6, 2025 – by Pete Weiss. Five highlights from this week: Ice obtains access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted apps; Amazon to Enter the AI Agent Race in a Big Way, Internal Documents; Selling Surveillance as Convenience; Wired, Business Insider Editors Duped By Completely Bogus ‘AI’ Using ‘Journalist’ Who Made Up Towns, People That Don’t Exist; and Verizon Finally Restores Service in Most Areas After Day-Long Outage.

‘Overwhelmed, disappointed’: Tax Ombudsman slams ATO tax agent service

 

Review: ATO’s registered agent phone line and service offer to agents

We conducted a review into the ATO’s registered agent phone line in response to increasing complaints of poor service. 

Registered tax agents play a vital role in the Australian tax system, representing 62% of individual taxpayers and 96% of other taxpayers.

         ‘Overwhelmed, disappointed’: Tax Ombudsman slams ATO tax agent service

Tax agents are increasingly dissatisfied with the ATO, its poor service and “strained relationships”, the Tax Ombudsman has revealed.

By Imogen Wilson • 16 October 2025 

In a recent review into the Tax Office’s service to agents, a significant amount of dissatisfaction has been uncovered with the Tax Ombudsman “overwhelmed” by the negative feedback.

Ruth Owen, Tax Ombudsman, said it was crucial for tax agents to feel supported by the ATO as they played a vital role in the Australian tax system and represented 62 per cent of individual taxpayers and 96 per cent of other taxpayers.

Owen said she could not believe the experiences tax agents were having with the ATO daily and that change was desperately needed.

“I have been overwhelmed by the strong feedback from tax agents in this review. Agents are reporting an increasingly poor experience with the ATO’s agent phone line over the last two years, citing inconsistent advice and a lack of suitably skilled staff. This is contributing to a general feeling of not being valued by the ATO,” she said.

“It’s time for the ATO to recognise that, publicly. Evidence from prior reviews suggests that agents’ engagement with their clients drives up tax compliance and contributes to the ATO’s goals of increasing voluntary compliance and closing the tax gap.”

According to the review, a mismatch of expectations between what agents expected of the ATO’s phone line and the service the ATO was offering had led to increased frustration for both parties.

A point of contention highlighted by Owen was the fact that there was no dedicated team in charge of servicing the registered agent phone line when agents assumed they were speaking with a specialist team.

Owen said it was often that most agents’ calls were directed to contracted call centre officers, with half of them having less than 12 months' experience with the ATO and having very little technical tax training – meaning they shouldn’t be expected to answer complex or overly technical calls.

It was added that the ATO provided a faster service to agents, but they expected a more specialised, tailored service designed to meet their needs.

“The call centre service works for general calls from taxpayers, but agents are more likely to have more technical or complex questions to resolve,” Owen said.

Though the phone line was outlined to be a significant problem, Owen said this was only part of the picture when it came to ATO support for the agent community.

“The agent phone line cannot be looked at in isolation. Agents usually call the ATO because they cannot do what they need to do online. As most agents said to me, ‘I don’t want to spend my time calling the ATO. If I could do it online, I would’,” she said.

It was noted by Owen that of the 14 recommendations proposed to the ATO, all but one were agreed to.

The one recommendation rejected by the ATO was the idea of routing agents’ calls to more experienced or skilled staff and formally responded with:

“...we consider that within our operating environment, rather than creating a dedicated team to support agent calls, our focus should remain on investment in our digital channels for registered agents, training and escalation pathways, and creating more dedicated and skilled teams for those more complex areas – such as our current work underway on taxpayer relief, including interest remissions.”

Off the back of this response from the ATO, Owen said she was “disappointed” the ATO had not accepted that the service it provided to tax agents by phone was not meeting agents’ needs and needed to change.

“However, I am pleased to see the ATO’s commitment to improving its digital services for agents, to working more collaboratively with agents and to measuring agent satisfaction,” she said.

“Maybe by understanding agents’ needs better, the ATO may identify how its service can improve and implement further solutions.”

“And we will continue to work alongside the ATO to look at further opportunities for improvement, including undertaking a more in-depth review of the ATO’s online service for agents in the new year.”

Despite the review now having been completed, the Ombudsman said it was important to note that the issues were not new ones as the Australian National Audit Office had highlighted the same in 2022.

The Australian Public Service Commission Capability Review of the ATO in 2025 also highlighted the same issues, as it noted the ATO’s relationship with tax intermediaries had eroded.

Owen said it was time for the ATO to listen to the tax community and work with them.

“This isn’t about asking for better services for agents – it’s about recognising that tax professionals require a different kind of service, one that’s tailored to meet their distinct needs, and recognising the important role they play in serving taxpayers and the whole community.”

Ten Reasons Why Trump Should Never Be Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

 

Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.

~ Naomi Shulman

Someone Tipped Me Off About a Crypto Story. What I Found Was Crazy

In his own words: Ron Hoenig’s two versions of events, six weeks apart By Max Maddison 

October 15, 2025

Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig’s justification for allegedly pressuring his most senior public servant to accelerate a tribunal matter involving a Labor mayor is at odds with evidence he provided to a parliamentary committee just six weeks earlier.

Hoenig on Tuesday appeared to confirm allegations first revealed in the Herald that he pressured Brett Whitworth, the Office of Local Government deputy secretary, on five separate occasions to accelerate a submission to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) concerning former Bayside mayor Bill Saravinovski.

In confidential evidence to a parliamentary committee, Whitworth said Hoenig approached him after meetings, pushing him to accelerate the submission to NCAT. On the first two occasions, according to his evidence, the deputy secretary told him his involvement in the matter was improper, but the minister persisted.

Ten Reasons Why Trump Should Never Be Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

Sadly, due to Trump’s relentless and bogus self-promotion as a peacemaker deserving of the Nobel Prize, debunking is in 

Spotify is Joining Forces with ChatGPT to Generate Recommendations Because We Live in an A.I. Generated Hellscape Metal Sucks

McKinsey wonders how to sell AI apps with no measurable benefits The Register

AI models can acquire backdoors from surprisingly few malicious documents Ars technica

Amid the high drama, Senate estimates brings (semi) transparency It took Senate estimates to pry it out, but we finally saw a glimpse of how department secretaries are really chosen

Trump’s war on the left: Inside the plan to investigate liberal groups Reuters

New York AG Letitia James indicted for alleged bank fraud Axios

TRUMP SACRIFICES ALASKA WILDERNESS TO HELP AI COMPANIES The Intercept

Sean Duffy Says He Wants to Fire ‘Problem Children’ Air Traffic Controllers NOTUS

Judge temporarily blocks Trump National Guard deployment to Chicago area The Hill

Reverse Marbury Balkinization

AI Is the Market, and the Market Is the Government Kyla Scanlon

For older Americans, the cost of poverty is 9 years of life, study finds CBS News

 

This Ain’t Your Grandad’s Rural America Hickman’s Hinterlands

Library of Congress – Parliamentary poem

 

Library of Congress – parliamentary  poem

Library of Congress, The New Yorker [no paywall] By Arthur Size, Published October 13, 2025 – Arthur Sze was appointed the twenty-fifth U.S. Poet Laureate in 2025. 

His books include “Into the Hush” and “The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems

“You peer down a lit corridor
on the fifth tier of stacks
where a million books breathe
on shelves; here’s a book
on neutrinos captured in Antarctica,
here’s another on solar flares.
A curator displays a book
in Vai script and points to a triangle
with two dots; you wonder
if you are looking at a pregnant
woman, an enslaved man,
or a human ear; you pull a book
off a shelf and, opening it,
hear Del aire al aire, como

then snap it shut: the air hums
with honeybees. A second curator
points at glittering gold script;
though you can’t divine a word,
you guess Farsi and dive
into the marlin-blue depth of the page.
A third curator shows you 心遠
woodblock printed on mulberry paper,
and as you read a distant mind
leaves the earth around it,
you smell daylilies in a courtyard
and know you may caravan
to Timbuktu, but there’s no
pear-blossom end to what’s within reach.”

How Journalists Grease the Skids for Worthless Corporate Handouts

 How Journalists Grease the Skids for Worthless Corporate Handouts Boondoggle

Nobody hates trees more than coastally adjacent narcissists. Here’s how we should deal with them

Billionaire populist Andrej Babis’ party wins Czech parliamentary election BBC. “Babis also laughed off claims Western allies were worried the Czech Republic would no longer be a reliable partner in the EU and NATO under his administration…”I spoke with Trump five times! I was in the Pentagon. I was in the FBI. I talked to the head of the CIA,” Babis said.”

45 Elon Musk DOGE staff still on White House payroll and exempt from shutdown Cryptopolitan

Tesla and xAI Staff Are Fleeing as Musk Becomes Increasingly Erratic Futurism

Elon Musk Plans Optimus Robots for Mars by 2026, Experts Warn of Challenges WebPro News

Man buys used Tesla only to discover it’s banned from Supercharger network CBS

Millions of Australians at risk of quitting their job in 2026

By Adam Vidler 

Millions of Australians are considering leaving their jobs in the coming year, as workplace burnout continues to wreak havoc around the country.

New research from Allianz Australia found that almost 80 per cent of employee responders, and almost 66 per cent of surveyed managers, don't believe their organisation enforces good workplace habits and boundaries.

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

The Constitution Doesn’t Belong to Trump or the Supreme Court

ATO to crack down on professionals splitting income in family trusts

The Australian media is more concentrated than ever. Here are the three moments that got us here

Interesting that AI firms are looking to set up captive insurance arms. Also used by big oil & gas firms, they are typically located in offshore jurisdictions & allow companies to boost profits, reduce tax liabilities & mask how financial liabilities are managed.

Insurers balk at multibillion-dollar claims faced by OpenAI and Anthropic Companies struggle to assess scale of financial risks emerging from artificial intelligence A montage of the OpenAI logo over a yellow $100 bill on a purple background

Why You Don’t Feel Rich A Wealth of Common Sense: “One gal of distilled water went from 1.23 to 1.37 at walmeurto in 2 week period.”

Lessons in Power Working Class Storytelling

Cops: Accused Vandal Confessed To ChatGPT The Smoking Gun 

SLED investigating fire at Edisto Beach home associated with SC circuit court judge; 3 injuredWSAV

The Trumpian Fantasy of WhiteHouse.gov

The Atlantic [no paywall]: “Last week, Donald Trump’s White House anticipated the impending government shutdown like an album release, placing a massive countdown clock at the top of WhiteHouse.gov. “Democrat Shutdown Is Imminent,” read the online home of the People’s House, on a black background. Now that the shutdown has happened, a clock is counting upward: “Democrats Have Shut Down the Government,” it says, with numbers climbing to mark the seconds, minutes, hours, and days that have elapsed. 

Data Hoarder Uses AI to Create Searchable Database of Epstein Files

404 Media: “A data hoarder on Reddit used AI to create a searchable database of more than 8,100 files about Jeffrey Epstein released by the House Oversight Committee, making it one of the easiest ways to search through a very messy batch of files. The project, called Epstein Archive and released on Github, allows people to search the database to find files that mention specific people, organizations, locations, and dates. Thousands of people are named in the more than 33,295 pages worth of files released by the House Oversight Committee last month as part of its investigation into Epstein

A.I. Video Generators Are Now So Good You Can No Longer Trust Your Eyes

The New York Times Gift Article: “This month, OpenAI, the maker of the popular ChatGPT chatbot, graced the internet with a technology that most of us probably weren’t ready for. The company released an app called Sora, which lets users instantly generate realistic-looking videos with artificial intelligence by typing a simple description, such as “police bodycam footage of a dog being arrested for stealing rib-eye at Costco.” Sora, a free app on iPhones, has been as entertaining as it is has been disturbing. 

Comedians have tried to satirise Trump for years. Nothing comes close to this

Microplastics are everywhere. You can do one simple thing to avoid them.

Even Palantir Says It Wants Nothing to Do With UK’s Proposed Digital Identity System

When Silicon Valley’s darkest company is warning about the dangers of the UK’s proposed digital identity system, something may be amiss.

RondoDox botnet fires ‘exploit shotgun’ at nearly every router and internet-connected home deviceThe Register

Comedians have tried to satirise Trump for years. Nothing comes close to this 

By Simon Taylor October 7, 2025 

There’s been nothing more comforting in the past month than curling up on the couch with my wife and watching the President of the United States have a “butt baby” with Satan. The latest season of South Park – now into its 28th year – has become must-watch television for this political moment, drawing near-record audiences and getting direct pushback from POTUS himself.

What is fascism?

Fascism is not just about Mussolini or Hitler. It is an ideology that divides humanity into “superior” and “inferior” groups — with catastrophic consequences. In this video, I explain what fascism really means, why its essence is exclusion, and why true democracy depends on equality and respect for

AI Models Need to be Disinfected — Or George Orwell’s “1984” Will Come True

NewsGuard By Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard Co-CEO: “Recent forecasts say the AI companies could soon spend trillions of dollars to expand their AI offerings. In addition to paying for expensive chips and giant server farms, the AI companies should make their AI output trustworthy. 

They have allowed their models to be infected with malign falsehoods so deeply that they deliver on George Orwell’s prediction in “1984” that falsehoods would become perceived as truth. That is the lesson from a sobering analysis published last week in an academic journal of how Vladimir Putin’s government has undermined the AI models by getting them to spew the Kremlin’s favorite false claims. Huw Dylan and Elena Grossfeld of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London entitled their paper, “Revisionist future: Russia’s assault on large language models, the distortion of collective memory, and the politics of eternity,” published by the journal Dialogues on Digital Society.