TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1053.

BLUE MODEL CAN’T SAVE ITSELF FROM ITSELF: Illinois Supremes Scuttle Pension Reform.

The Supremes have spoken: The Illinois state constitution is a suicide pact. Less than two years after invalidating an adjustment to state workers’ budget-busting healthcare benefits, the highest court in Illinois has ruled unconstitutional the City of Chicago’s last-ditch efforts to stabilize its woefully underfunded pension system. . . .

Both this ruling and the one that preceded it were unanimous, with the court’s three Republican justices joining its Democrats in ruling that the constitution’s “shall not be diminished or impaired” clause protects all current public employee benefits from any adjustments, even if the government is approaching insolvency. The ruling is a reminder of how deeply entrenched the blue model is in state and local government structures; even when reform-minded Democrats push through modest changes in deep blue jurisdictions, they stand to be derailed by longstanding constitutional provisions and a judiciary bound to uphold them. Amending the Illinois constitution is a daunting task, requiring a supermajority vote in both houses and supermajority approval in a statewide referendum.

The Windy City now needs to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to rectify its crumbling fiscal situation. Given that benefits for the unionized public sector are largely off limits, City Hall will likely need to raise taxes (thereby becoming even less attractive to business investment) or else scale back services like criminal justice, education and welfare (further eroding confidence in the government, especially among minority communities) or—perhaps most likely—continue more-or-less on its current course in the hopes that a federal bailout might be forthcoming.

The GOP Congress should pass a “bailout” law that mostly just lets states get out from under pension obligations, setting off more blue-on-blue action. And if Obama vetoes it, that’s okay too. “We tried!”

THIS MAKES ME SUSPICIOUS: The NYT begins to treat Donald Trump with some respect.

Here’s one of the most up-voted comments over there: “We can quibble about details, but this approach is long overdue. Why even have a country if its citizens are not the primary concern of those in power?” And: “Have to agree that it’s time to play hardball with Saudi Arabia.”

On the other hand, since he’s basically running a 1970s Rust Belt Democrat campaign, maybe it’s not surprising that he plays well with the NYT commenters. Then there’s this:

Well, the NYT article serves to remind every Republican and Independent that Obama is a shitty negotiator. I mean, he is really, really, bad. He doesn’t even negotiate with the GOP, he just runs over them, with the help of a compliant press, or he issues ‘executive orders’ to get around congress. Bush and Clinton could find common ground with a hostile congress. Obama can’t.

Obama picked two really lousy negotiators to run the State Department as well. Hillary’s list of accomplishments as SoS looks like what a first lady’s should be.

Ouch.

EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. Exploring The Oceans Of The Outer Solar System.

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NO WONDER “SANDERS SHAMING” IS THE NEW TACTIC BY HILLARY FANS: Sanders Romps In Washington, Alaska, Hawaii.

BILL WHITTLE’S LATEST FIREWALL VIDEO: AMERICAN FASCISTS.

DISNEY WENT FULL-ON WHITE SUPREMACIST SO GRADUALLY I BARELY NOTICED: Daily Iowan: Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ is a call to arms for white people.

Zootopia is a film about a young rabbit, Judy Hopps, and her dream to join the police force in the world populated by anthropomorphic mammals. Judy is denied a high position in the police force and is assigned meter-maid duty. All animals are bipedal regardless of their species. The animals that are usually prey in the animal kingdom are the dominant force and look down upon the predators. Throughout the whole world of Zootopia, the predators are bullied by the prey, and this is an amazing shift from reality. There is a strange occurrence happening in the film that involves many predators disappearing and going “savage.” Going savage includes going back to their natural state, which means going back on all fours and attacking prey.

I believe the message present in the film is an allegory to the current status of the white population in contemporary society. The majority of the people who were involved in the writing of this film were white. This aligns with my idea of the allegory present in the movie. The prey are akin to minorities of the world, in the way that they get preyed on by the predators, which are white people.

Stupid Disney. I haven’t trusted them since Pocahontas, which suggested that the Wonder Bra was invented by 17th Century American Indians.

BUT CALIFORNIA IS CERTAINLY WILLING TO GIVE IT THE OLD COLLEGE TRY: Sorry: We Can’t Ban Everything That Offends You.

PAUL RAHE: Congress Shall Make No Law.

THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HAS NEVER BEEN EXACTLY PRO-LIBERTY: Black caucus treads carefully into Apple-FBI fight.

The Congressional Black Caucus is taking a cautious stance in the fight between Apple and the FBI over a locked iPhone even as prominent civil rights groups rush to back the tech giant.

“We have not taken a position on it,” Caucus Chairman G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) told The Hill this week.

The case has raised significant civil rights concerns, and other prominent African-American leaders and Black Lives Matter supporters are lining up behind Apple in its defiance of an FBI court order directing it to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

Those activists say an FBI win would set off a slippery slope of intrusive government data requests that would most directly affect minorities and political activists.

But the CBC says it has no plans to issue a letter or statement similarly siding with Apple.

Indeed, it has pretty consistently sided with increased government power.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: Michigan Satanists Defend Planned Parenthood on Good Friday.

The “Unlikely Pairings” slug above the Daily Beast article is a nice touch.

IT’S MSNBC: MSNBC: Brussels was bombed, but let’s talk about Belgium’s ‘access to guns.’

BRUSSELS’ ‘MARCH AGAINST FEAR’ CANCELED DUE TO SECURITY FEARS.

(Headline via Bobo from Texas.)

SURE — WHAT COULD GO WRONG THERE? GOP Congressman: Many Border Communities ‘Incredibly Safe.’

A NEW FRONTIER IN LEFTIST POLITICS: Sanders-shaming. “So I hate to break it to you my fellow Millennials, but a vote for Bernie Sanders is a selfish act: an indulgence of a fantasy, an impractical, high-minded quixotic vision for an America that can never exist. . . . Bernie supporters need to recognise this, leave the bandwagon, unite behind Hillary.”

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: CIA-armed militias are shooting at Pentagon-armed ones in Syria. “Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter 5-year-old civil war.”

Good thing we have Really Smart People in charge now, instead of that dumb cowboy Bush.

IT’S ALMOST AS IF THERE WAS NEVER ACTUALLY A RECOVERY AT ALL: The Top 1% haven’t recovered yet, either.

DOUBLE DOWN: Obama Reiterates Promise To Admit More Refugees. “Admitting entry to Syrian and Iraqi refugees has become a divisive issue in the U.S. as well as Europe, but Obama made clear he has no plan to back off his promise to admit 100,000 to the U.S. this year.”

Preferably in time to have them registered to vote Democrat by November.

SHOT: ObamaCare Was Going To Lower Health Costs: Here’s What Actually Happened. “In year six, even with lower than anticipated enrollment in the health insurance exchanges and the refusal of 21 states to participate in the law’s Medicaid expansion, the health care cost curve is still on an upwardly mobile trajectory. It is fueled by sharp increases in both public and private health care spending.”

Chaser: “This could have been prevented if someone besides racists and haters could have seen it coming.”

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MORE FODDER FOR A POPULIST REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE: Make elites compete: Why the 1% earn so much and what to do about it.

BAD SCIENTISTS CAN’T HANDLE CRITICISM: Nina Teicholz disinvited from food policy panel.

In a sign that the nutrition space is as defensive as ever, Nina Teicholz, an author who has publicly criticized the science behind the government’s low-fat dietary advice, was recently bumped from a nutrition science panel after being confirmed by the National Food Policy Conference. The panel instead will include Maureen Storey, president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research and Education. The event is set to take place in Washington next month.

Teicholz said she was disinvited after other panelists said they wouldn’t participate with her.

What do they think this is, Emory University?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: $176M In Wages Garnished For Unpaid Federal Student Loans In Just Three Months.

EVEN THE ATLANTIC HAS NOTED: How Emory’s Student Activists Are Fueling Trumpism: The billionaire candidate couldn’t have created more perfect foils for a candidacy built on resentment. Well, people tend to resent entitled idiots.

Had Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for the White House somehow infiltrated the ranks of Emory’s student activists and blackmailed the university’s President James W. Wagner, it could scarcely have orchestrated a spectacle more helpful to Trump’s prospects, or damaging to the values that protect vulnerable groups, than what they accomplished on their own this week. After someone wrote “Trump 2016” in colored chalk around campus, several dozen student demonstrators objected that the banal campaign message scared, upset, or offended them, and administrators responded by going Orwellian.

You know, maybe it’s a campaign built on justified resentment. . . . And hurray for the Emory students on Yik Yak. No wonder campuses want to shut it down.