Civic Self Respect/Weaponizing the IRS

Ralph talks about his new book, “Civic Self Respect” which reminds us that our civic lives have different primary roles—not only voter, but also worker, taxpayer, consumer, sometimes soldier and sometimes parent—and how each one offers special opportunities for people to organize to make change. Plus, we welcome back former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen, who tells us exactly how the Trump/Musk cabal is both gutting and weaponizing the IRS.

John Koskinen served as the IRS Commissioner from 2013 to 2017.

This is not a how-to book. It starts at a much more elementary level and therefore should interest a much greater number of people. Because, as I say, if you can expand your civic dimension as a part of your daily role without disrupting the rhythms of your daily life (in fact, actually making them more gratifying and more interesting, less boring), you're on your way.

Ralph Nader author of Civic Self-Respect

The people who really fight for justice in this country have to fight for recognition, they have to fight for media, they have to fight an onslaught. And the people who lie and cheat and say the most terrible things and do the most terrible things are really the best-known people in the country. I mean, if you say who are the best-known people in Congress? They're the blowhards, the cruel and vicious people who've said things that are illegal, outrageous against innocent groups here and abroad.

Ralph Nader

I used to say to the Congress (trying to get appropriations) that the IRS is the only agency where if you give it money, it gives you more money back. Because the more you can actually audit people who aren't paying the proper amount or aren't filing at all, the better off you are. So no one has ever disagreed with that.

John Koskinen

Going back a thousand years, tax collectors have never been particularly popular. And so when you talk about the IRS, people say, "Oh, the poor old IRS." In some ways, they don't understand just the points you're making about the impact on them, on the country, of an ineffective IRS going forward. And that's why my thought is this move toward using the IRS to attack people ought to be a way for everyone to say, "You know, I may not love paying taxes, but I certainly don't want the government and the president or the treasury secretary or somebody else ordering an audit of my taxes just because they don't like my political position or what I'm teaching in my course.”

John Koskinen

Ralph Nader’s new book Civic Self-respect is available now from Seven Stories Press.

News 4/16/25

1. On Thursday April 17th, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland departed for El Salvador in an effort to personally track down Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was arrested and deported to CECOT, the notorious Salvadoran prison camp, WUSA9 reports. Garcia was legally protected against deportation by a 2019 court order and a Trump administration official admitted in court that he “should never have been on that plane.” Last week, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered that he be returned to the U.S. Van Hollen is quoted saying “You go out, you get disappeared, they say they did it in error, but they're not helping bring you back…it's a very short road to tyranny.” Gracia has not been heard from since he was deported, raising concerns about his health and wellbeing. This comes after ICE Director Todd Lyons said he wanted to see a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings,” per the Guardian. This episode is among the most chilling in American history and we are less than four months into a four-year term.

2. Another gut-wrenching immigration story concerns Palestinian Columbia University student, Mohsen Mahdawi who was tricked, trapped, and abducted by ICE. The Intercept reports “Even before his friend and fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by immigration authorities, Mahdawi asked university administrators to help him find a safe place to live so he would not be taken by ICE agents…The school did nothing.” Then, “After ICE abducted Khalil last month, Mahdawi sheltered in place for more than three weeks for fear of being picked up himself.” So, the immigration authorities apparently devised a scheme. “Instead of taking him off the street…immigration authorities scheduled the citizenship test at the Colchester USCIS office and took Mahdawi into custody when he arrived.” This action is clearly intended not only to capture Mahdawi but to frighten immigrants and discourage them from seeking citizenship through the legal immigration channels for fear of being deported. Not only that, Mahdawi will be sent back to Palestine, which continues to be the target of relentless Israeli bombing. Mahdawi is quoted saying, “It’s kind of a death sentence…my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way.”

3. In more international news, CNN reports China has “halted” its deliveries of Boeing planes. According to President Trump, will “‘not take possession’ of fully committed to aircraft.” According to CNN, Boeing is particularly vulnerable in a trade war scenario because “Boeing builds all of its planes at US factories before sending nearly two-thirds of its commercial planes to customers outside the United States.” Boeing anticipated China purchasing 8,830 new planes over the next 20 years. The aircraft manufacturer’s stock value fell in the wake of this announcement and is unlikely to fully recover unless some accommodation is reached with China.

4. On the other side of the trade war, the Trump administration is preparing to roll out steep sectoral tariffs in addition to the country-specific tariffs already announced, per the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein. Stein reports these will target imports of various "critical" products, including autos, steel and aluminum, copper, lumber and semiconductors. Yet, likely no sectoral tariff will bite American consumers more than the proposed tariff on pharmaceutical drugs. On April 8th, POLITICO reported that Trump told the RNC he is planning to impose “major” tariffs on pharmaceuticals. FIERCE, a healthcare news service, reports these could be as high as 25%. Coalition for a Prosperous America, an advocacy group opposed to free trade with China, reports that “Over 90% of all Generic Drugs [are] Dependent on Imports.”

5. Turning to domestic matters, the Federal Trade Commission is proceeding with their anti-trust case against Facebook. According to the FTC, “The…Commission has sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.” Further, “The complaint alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy—including its 2012 acquisition of…Instagram, its 2014 acquisition…WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers—to eliminate threats to its monopoly.” According to Ars Technica, “Daniel Matheson, the FTC's lead litigator, [started the trial with a bang] flagg[ing] a "smoking gun"—a 2012 email where Mark Zuckerberg suggested that Facebook could buy Instagram to ‘neutralize a potential competitor.’” It is hard to see how the company could argue this was not anticompetitive corporate misbehavior.

6. A dubious tech industry scheme is also underway at the highest levels of the federal government. WIRED reports that the Social Security Administration is shifting their communications exclusively to Elon Musk’s X app, formerly known as Twitter. Wired quotes SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis, who said in a meeting with managers earlier this week, “We are no longer planning to issue press releases or…dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes…Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public … this will become our communication mechanism.” WIRED further reports that, “The regional [SSA] office workforce will soon be cut by roughly 87 percent,” going from an estimated 547 employees to 70. Musk has called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” per the AP.

7. Over at the National Labor Relations Board, a whistleblower claims Elon Musk and his cronies at DOGE may have extracted data including “sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets,” per NPR. If that wasn’t shady enough, “members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks…turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access.” This whistleblower took his concerns to Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel – whistleblower activities that are protected by law – but faced retaliation in the form of someone, “’physically taping a threatening note’ to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone,” clear attempts to intimidate and silence this employee. The Trump administrations have been rife with leaks at every level and instead of responding by addressing the issues raised, the administration has launched a permanent inquisition to plug the leaks by any means.

8. In better news, the Independent reports that DOGE itself is finally being subjected to an audit. The audit is being undertaken by the Government Accountability Office at the urging of Congressional leaders after “’alarming’ media reports of DOGE infiltrating federal systems,” according to a congressional aide. One DOGE worker has reportedly been identified by as “a 19-year-old high school graduate who was booted from an internship after leaking company information to a rival firm,” raising ever-deeper concerns about the purpose of the “fishing expeditions” DOGE is undergoing at every level of the federal government.

9. Another uplifting story comes to us from New York City. In the latest round of public matching fund awards, Zohran Mamdani – the Democratic Socialist candidate surging from obscurity into second place in the polls – was granted nearly $4 million in public matching funds, “the largest single payment to any candidate in the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary race to date,” according to Gothamist. Meanwhile, former Governor Andrew Cuomo was awarded exactly $0. As Jeff Coltin of POLITICO New York explains, “Cuomo’s campaign [was] scrambling to get the necessary info from donors to get matched…sending…dire warning to [his] entire email list, rather than…targeted outreach to donors.” If he had collected the necessary information, Cuomo would have been awarded $2.5 million in matching funds, Coltin reports. Cuomo still leads in the polls; as it becomes increasingly clear that Zohran is the only viable alternative, there will be increased pressure on other candidates to throw their support behind him.

10. Finally, let’s take a peek into the political climate’s effect on Hollywood. New York Magazine, in an extensive profile of Warner Brothers-Discovery mogul David Zaslav, includes a piece about Zaslav seeking to ingratiate himself with Trump. According to this report, “a company representative recently reached out to the Trump0 orbit seeking advice about how the company might advantageously interact with the Whitte House.” Their answer: “look at the example of…Jeff Bezos paying Melania Trump $40 million to participate in a documentary about herself. Don Jr. might like a hunting and fishing show on the Discovery Channel, they were told.” Just like the Ivy League universities and the big law firms, if given an inch Trump will take a mile and use it for nothing short of extortion. Hollywood would be wise to steer clear. But wisdom has never been their strength.

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.

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