3Ls and Recent Law Grads: Do you like state constitutional law? Appellate advocacy? Impact litigation? Apply for a sponsorship opportunity to work with the ACLU's State Supreme Court Initiative as a Legal Fellow! www.aclu.org/careers/appl...

at the federal eeoc level i don't expect this to matter much but - again - states can step it up www.ft.com/content/5c44...

So, @edzitron.com ate his Wheatties this morning

Happy Trilobite Tuesday! This diminutive Eoharpes was uncovered from the Czech Republic’s Sarka Formation. Its bright colors are mostly due to the presence of specific minerals, which can replace the animal’s calcite shell over the course of millions of years.

OPINION: "Voting rights advocates should be aware of the temptation legislators may have to let race affect their political gerrymanders," Claire B. Wofford and Jordan Ragusa write. www.mississippifreepress.org/opinion-raci...

Berkeley law prof Chris Hoofnagle: "And if that lawyer cannot use their own analytical judgment to assess an AI output, that lawyer has very little value. And so, this is what our policy is about."

Love it: the night after he was kicked off of CBS for good, Stephen Colbert hosted a public access show in southeast Michigan.

Colbert on Only in Monroe A must see👀 youtube.com/watch?v=jJTX...

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/u...

European defense and security officials increasingly view Ukrainian capabilities as fundamental for the continent’s own future security. www.wsj.com/world/ukrain... via @WSJ

A few years ago, I discovered that during Donald Trump's first presidential term he peppered the IRS with #FOIA requests in an attempt to delay the agency from turning over his tax filings to a congressional committee. I FOIA'd Trump's FOIAs to the IRS www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I am not money smart, but I found this interesting (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/o...

Me @nytopinion.nytimes.com today on the boring but effective way to tax the rich: Raise the rates. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/o...

We have *never* before seen consumer sentiment this low.

We found that Jeff Bezos paid zero taxes in 2007 and 2011. In fact, he reported making so little in 2011 that he even claimed and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children. Revisit our 2021 story:

UC Berkeley Law creates new AI policy that bans AI for "conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit" or exams because "thinking remains the sine qua non of good lawyering (and of a quality legal education)." That's what I'm talking about.

Today in dinosaur news...

ProPublica used leaked tax returns to calculate that through complex tax avoidance schemes, Jeff Bezos pays a tax rate of 0.98% www.propublica.org/article/the-... So if we doubled the taxes he pays, that would mean he'd still be paying less than 2%.

again, i need comey, powell, letitia james - and as someone earlier recommended, every immigrant with a green card/us citizen who was detained to apply, along with the families of pretti and good

Holy shit. Insane levels of corruption.

If you don’t subscribe to the print edition of The Onion you are missing some great fake ads

The shocking news that Trump's "settlement" with IRS will give him and his family/businesses immunity from tax investigations raises the stakes on getting testimony from the Treasury Department official who just resigned, as Ron Wyden told me he and Dems will pursue: newrepublic.com/article/2106...

Prediction: it's going to take some time but Blanche is going to be disbarred.

I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president & VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.

NYT just confirmed: In the one-page document signed by Todd Blanche and quietly posted on DOJ's website, officials vowed not to pursue any matters — including those involving Trump's tax returns — that are currently pending. tinyurl.com/ycy9xpfz

Every Mississippian needs to check their voter registration now and keep doing it. www.sos.ms.gov/elections-vo...

Unusual order in the Trump v. IRS case by Judge Williams. While dismissing the case (she has no choice), she explicitly notes: 1. The is still a question whether controversy existed. 2. There is no settlement of record. 3. The lawyers for the government still have ethical obligations in the case.

Mamdani: I cannot help but think of the words of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan. He famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the govt & I'm here to help'" I think nine more terrifying words are actually, "I worked all day and can't feed my family"

You can see why oligarchs fear this guy.

It should be said loud and clear that this isn’t just illegal in all the usual ways. It is “illegal and void” by Section 4 of the 14th Amendment. We’re going to take the money back. And any financial institution that touches it should be on notice that will be treated as conscious money laundering.

The book is still very much a work in progress. It is based on publicly available information as well as interviews with folks at the IRS. If you are/were an IRS official/employee who witnessed these thing first hand, and willing to talk (even on background), please DM me. 14/14

The bottom line is that the IRS is not the agency you have known a mere year ago. It is a a personal instrument of the current administration first, and a tax enforcement agency only second. This "settlement" would not have been possible otherwise. /13

But with much appearance of conflict of interest. /12

There are also examples of tax cases against Trump allies simply being dropped with no apparent reason. /11 www.propublica.org/article/bitc...

The Admin shut down completely the IRS modernization office and direct file (because why assist everyday taxpayers with improved services?). It also severely downsized IRS criminal investigation and Tax Exempt divisions. Criminal tax investigations dropped 63%. Tax Exempt audits dropped 35%. /10

The same destruction was brought upon the IRS professional workforce. about 25% of all IRS employees were fired or left within a year. This destruction was not even across the board, but specifically targeted at IRS divisions that might have impeded the administration and its allies. /9

What about professional IRS leadership? Of the 29 professional, non-politically-appointed senior leadership positions in the IRS, 7 were simply eliminated. Of the remaining 22, 2 remain vacant. of the remaining 20, 16 (!) have been replaced within a year! /8

other full times positions. I'm sure it is good and easy for anyone who hold two full time senate-confirmed government positions at the same time. Currently there are not even announced candidates for the Commissioner and Chief Counsel Roles. Advise and Consent?Who cares? /7

and eventually settled on Kenneth Kies, in an acting capacity. Kies also a known Trump loyalist, also doubles as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy. In other words, the two IRS senate confirmed position are now held by folks who also hold... /6

literally made up a new non-Senate-confimred role of "IRS CEO", which s currently held by the person who is also the head of the Social Security Admin (and a known Trump loyalist). The Admin also replaced 5 different Chief Counsels... /5

We don't have any, at least not substantively. Since inauguration, the admin appointed and replaced 7(!) Commissioners, appointing increasingly more loyal minions, and disposing of them when they were not loyal "enough." Last June they simply dropped the pretense and... /4

It is difficult to overstate the level of institutional destruction at the IRS during the first year of the Trump admin. The IRS has been decimated. Let's begin with the IRS Senate-confirmed positions. There are only two at the IRS: The Commissioner and the Chief Counsel. /3

None of this would be possible without turning the IRS and the DOJ into personalist agencies. This is authoritarianism 101. Take over an agency, and then use it to attack rivals and enrich self. Mainstream media covers the DOJ pretty well. Less so re the IRS. /2

Ok, let's live-skeet my research on the DOJ Judgment Fund. Here's the authorizing statute, 31 USC 1304: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...

You should all read Brian's excellent analysis re the dubious legality of this "settlement." Since we're apparently scholarly live-skeeting this disaster, here are my two cents from my research for a book I'm working on, about how we got here. 🧵/1

Make no mistake: Donald Trump is using the DOJ to funnel $1.776 billion of your taxpayer money to J6 insurrectionists and political allies. This is blatant corruption and attempted theft. What else should we expect from a con man?

A timely study of opportunistic fascism: "Low performers could transfer into the secret police... [for] longer careers, higher salaries and better pensions... The worse an officer’s academic record had been at the military academy, the more likely he was to join Battalion 601." 🎁 link:

Just 5 months ago Trump sued the IRS for $10B for the leak of tax returns. As of last March defendants still were being served. Now there is talk of a settlement without Trump ever being deposed or otherwise justifying his obviously absurd claim of harm. This is so obviously corrupt . . .