Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

For years, our "Gutting the IRS" series looked at the decades-long campaign to defund the IRS and leave it understaffed.

Our ongoing "Secret IRS Files" series then used actual tax information from America's wealthiest to show the various ways in which the ultrarich have avoided huge tax bills.

Now a newly funded IRS has released a 10-year plan that includes a renewed effort to pursue wealthy tax dodgers:

#IRS #Taxes #Wealth #Tax

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-strategic-plan-wealth-tax-dodgers?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

Peter Thiel, 2009: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Presumably he was referring to the freedom of oligarchs like himself to be unconstrained by taxes and regulations.

In this narrow sense, he’s correct: Oligarchy is incompatible with democracy.

I get the argument that this is politically disastrous for the Tennessee GOP: A pyrrhic victory at best, elevating Democratic politicians to national stardom. But I find little solace in that. This is so dangerous - the Republican Party fully in the hands of anti-democratic extremists.

Why did inequalities of income and wealth begin to widen so dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and continue widening since? We'll start to explore that very question in Class 1 of my Wealth and Poverty course, now available to the public. https://tinyurl.com/4kwcjfh4

Exxon in the classroom: how big oil money influences US universities https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/27/fossil-fuel-firms-us-universities-colonize-academia

Must watch 👇🏼 ✊🏼

Rep. Justin Jones' full speech:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5065426/user-clip-rep-justin-jones-speech

#Tennessee #GunProtest #politics #fascism #racism

On today's expulsion of the two Black representatives, but not the white rep, Elie Mystal summed it up pretty darn well: "Tennessee has now given the entire country an object lesson in critical race theory better than any AP history course ever could have. Everybody sees it now. Everybody knows it now. Everybody gets exactly what is going on."
#Racism #SystemicRacism #WhiteSupremacyInAction

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was directly involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Just thought I should remind everyone of that today.

Outrageous story about New York City dismantling low cost community broadband in order to bring in big cable companies. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/new-york-city-dismantling-low-cost-community-broadband-2

A new study has found that climate scientists, especially those that are women, are facing increasing death threats and attacks online.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5ybw3/climate-scientists-online-abuse
#News #worldnews #climatechange #scientists #SEXISM #Gender

I remember when Aaron Swartz was criminally prosecuted for downloading too many academic journal articles, but, sure, it's totally cool to scrape everyone's personal photographs as part of a commercial effort to market discriminatory surveillance tech to police departments.

https://www.businessinsider.com/clearview-scraped-30-billion-images-facebook-police-facial-recogntion-database-2023-4

⚠️ Via Sherrilyn Ifill:

This is a VERY SERIOUS situation unfolding in #Nashville. Reps who stood w/their constituents who came to state house to demand #guns safety are facing expulsion from the House. Their Member ID badges have already been turned off. This is how #democracy ends.

Olivia Julianna:

...The Tenn. legis is planning to expel lawmakers who stood w gun control advocates today.

They've been stripped from committee assignments & their member ID’s shut off

THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY.

Yes, I think this risk is all too real. From @DrOinFLA (ht @StillIRise1963):
https://lounge.town/@DrOinFLA/110131101490330820

But it may not be obvious, even •after• it’s happened. We’re not going to see an outright repeal of the 19th amendment. Instead, the GOP would keep women from voting the same way they keep Black people from voting: obliquely, indirectly, probabilistically, by nickels and dimes.
1/2

@inthehands @DrOinFLA @StillIRise1963

When you make it illegal for women to get health care but they know the technology exists, they're going to try to access health care, making us "criminals," making it easy to disenfranchise large numbers of us...

I've been saying this for months...

No one is above the law, even those who can't spell the word "indicted."

U.S. judge rules insurers don’t have to cover many free preventive health services https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/033023_insurers_preventive_care/us-judge-rules-insurers-dont-have-cover-many-free-preventive-health-services/
Health insurance companies may no longer need to cover a wide swath of preventive health care services that were required by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, under a federal judge’s ruling issued Thursday in Texas.
#Tucson #Arizona