Jesse Drucker

He Helped Big Companies Dodge Taxes. Now He’s Writing the Rules.

My profile of Ken Kies, the lobbyist behind the biggest, most lucrative tax dodges of the past 30 years -- and is now the top tax policy official in Trump's Treasury Dept: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/b...

UnitedHealth’s Campaign to Quiet Critics

New: How UnitedHealth is trying to quiet its critics through legal threats against journalists, investors, doctors, filmmakers and others. The giant company is invoking the murder of its CEO to argue that intense criticism risks inciting future violence. 🎁🔗
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/12/b...

🚨New postdoc job alert 🚨

We are recruiting a two year postdoc here at @taxobservatory.bsky.social in Paris - to start this September

The successful candidate will join our program on Illicit Financial Flows and Real Estate

More info below 👇

www.taxobservatory.eu/postdoctoral...

RFK Jr. forces out Peter Marks, FDA’s top vaccine scientist Marks, an architect of Operation Warp Speed, warned that a recent measles outbreak shows how confidence in science and public health is being “undermined.”

Breaking: RFK Jr. has forced out PETER MARKS, the nation’s top vaccine regulator.

In his resignation letter, obtained by the Post, Marks said he was willing to work with RFK Jr on his vaccine concerns — but said Kennedy wishes “subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations The move — along with the CDC’s explanation — is a sign that the nation’s top public health agency may be falling in line under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines.

This week, as the number of confirmed measles cases rose to 483, the CDC buried a report that would’ve stressed the importance of getting vaccinated.

The move was “not normal at all,” one agency staff member said.

By @sheinvestigates.bsky.social

Pete Hegseth’s wife reportedly attended meetings with foreign defense officials Defense secretary, already under fire for chat group blunder, faces new scrutiny for having wife in high-level meetings

Why is Pete Hegseth bringing his wife to top security meetings and hiring his brother at the Pentagon? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"Our firm has a longstanding tradition of representing a wide range of clients, including in matters against administrations of both parties," the spokesperson said in a statement. "The Executive Order references Robert Mueller, who retired from our firm in 2021, and had a long, distinguished career in public service, from his time as a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam to his leadership of the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. "We remain committed to providing the expert representation that our clients are entitled to and rely upon," the spokesperson added. "We look forward to pursuing all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order.'

👊🇺🇸🔥 response by WilmerHale to Trump’s “unlawful” order against it
thehill.com/homenews/adm...

Hegseth, Waltz, Gabbard: Private Data and Passwords of Senior U.S. Security Officials Found Online Donald Trump's most important security advisers used Signal to discuss an imminent military strike. Now, reporting by DER SPIEGEL has found that the contact data of some of those officials, including ...

Der Spiegel found mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to Mike Waltz, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth on the internet. Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use. 😳

At Paul Weiss, Panic, Poachers and a Fight for the Bottom Line (Gift Article) Fears that competitors could take its top rainmaking talent added to the law firm’s worries about a Trump executive order that targeted it.

Hours after Trump’s executive order against Paul Weiss, the firm’s rivals were circling. Our latest. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/b...

Congrats to the hardest working man in book-writing:

Sarah Palin Is Eyeing More Than Just Money in Her ‘New York Times’ Defamation Suit In his new book, ‘Murder the Truth,’ David Enrich chronicles how the former Alaska governor ensnared the paper in a long and winding legal battle that could overturn decades of Supreme Court precedent...

In which Sarah Palin goes hunting for a defamation case that she can use to shoehorn herself back into the national conversation. MURDER THE TRUTH excerpt in @vanityfair.com www.vanityfair.com/news/story/s...

Opinion | Trump’s Tariff War Is Being Fought to Lower Taxes for the Wealthy President Trump is remaking the tax code to favor the well-off even more, and cloaking these changes in a veneer of nationalism.

My oped today. Trump's tariffs are about wrapping a harmful fiscal switch in a veneer of nationalism. Don't fall for it.

What This Tariff War Is Really About www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/o...

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

NEW: Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%.

https://propub.li/43487Tj

Prominent Cryptocurrency Investor Faces Senate Tax Inquiry (Gift Article) The Finance Committee’s top Democrat sent a letter last month to Dan Morehead, the founder of Pantera Capital, about the investigation.

Prominent Cryptocurrency Investor Faces Senate Tax Inquiry
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/t...

Adam Shatz · Wash out your ears: Messiaen’s Ecstasies While few would question Messiaen’s importance in 20th-century music, his religious modernism has always been met with...

‘Surrounded by his students as he sat at the piano, Messiaen would speak as much about “the dances of planets and atoms”, and the poetry of Breton and Éluard, as he did about music.’

Adam Shatz on Messiaen’s mystical, deeply Catholic compositions:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Billionaires represent about 0.00024% of the U.S. population and about 10% of Trump's political appointments

Tax avoidance among large, complex partnerships in the United States The rise of large, complex partnerships in the real estate and finance industries has meant an explosion in tax avoidance strategies.

New report from @equitablegrowth.bsky.social today on tax avoidance among large, complex partnerships! equitablegrowth.org/research-pap... (as featured in @politico.com's Morning Tax!)

While not the biggest (or most troubling) news of the day, I say this deserves a thread!

About HIV General overview of HIV, including transmission, prevention, and testing.

They've taken down CDC HIV Awareness Day pages, the HIV Testing page. It appears they've taken down all the HIV pages except for this About HIV page. www.cdc.gov/hiv/about/in...

60 years ago today, John Coltrane released “A Love Supreme” (Impulse!). Spiritualized. Read the Feelies and John Davis (Superdrag, Lees Of Memory) in MAGNET on one of the greatest albums ever made:

magnetmagazine.com/2017/03/28/f...

magnetmagazine.com/2009/02/03/j...

Opinion | The Reason Big Tech Is Cozying Up to Trump (Gift Article) Big Tech is looking to President Trump for a bailout.

The tech bros want us to think they are all powerful. But cozying up to Trump reveals their weakness.

They are facing massive regulatory fines across the globe and the astronomical costs of the race for AI dominance. My latest for NYT Opinion (gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/o...

Strengthening America Through Service: Announcing the Public Service Alliance (PSA) - Public Service Alliance Today, we’re announcing the Public Service Alliance (PSA), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to strengthening America by supporting the people who serve it.  PSA is founded on a simple yet profound...

If you are a public servant, or know one, this may be useful. A new organization, the Public Service Alliance, is offering advice on privacy and cybersecurity, physical safety, access to legal counsel and more.
thepublicservicealliance.com/introducing-...

Ernest Drucker, Public-Health Advocate for the Scorned, Dies at 84 He marshaled epidemiological research to press for changes in drug policy, alternatives to prison and needle-exchange programs to slow the spread of AIDS.

Ernie Drucker was public health Renaissance man, driven by deep commitment to fairness & justice.

I owe him a great deal. My first boss, he introduced me to worker safety and collaborated on HIV/AIDS & prison health in the Bronx.

He was a public health giant. His memory is truly a blessing.

Ernest Drucker, Public-Health Advocate for the Scorned, Dies at 84 He marshaled epidemiological research to press for changes in drug policy, alternatives to prison and needle-exchange programs to slow the spread of AIDS.

Rest in power, Dr. Ernie Drucker.

I was fortunate to Ernie as a teacher during my Primary Care/Social Medicine residency at Montefiore/Einstein. Ernie was a leader & pioneer in harm reduction and helped raise the alarm that HIV was not just impacting gay white men.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/h...

Ernest Drucker, Public-Health Advocate for the Scorned, Dies at 84 He marshaled epidemiological research to press for changes in drug policy, alternatives to prison and needle-exchange programs to slow the spread of AIDS.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/h...

Longer-term perspective on the rise of US oligarchy

My friend & first "boss" Dr. Ernie Drucker just passed on. He was a towering public health figure--harm reduction, HIV/AIDS care, mass incarceration. And he would give you the shirt off his back.
#PublicHealth #Einstein
kboo.fm/media/125338...

Remembering Ernie Drucker, a beloved former faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore. A distinguished epidemiologist, public health advocate, and scholar whose groundbreaking work in drug policy and human rights made a lasting impact. 🕯️🏥 #InMemoriam
thenewpress.com/authors/erne...

Outpouring of love, warmth, affection and admiration for Ernie Drucker from all corners of globe. Many memories of quiet acts of quiet generosity. This was a man who profoundly affected many by his humanity and decency

Ernie Drucker 1940-2025, a giant of drug harm reduction & public health, died a few hours ago in NYC where he was born. RIP Ernie. Warm, generous, fountain of ideas, leaving us when his own country is abandoning decency, humanity, social justice, human rights, evidence, equality, collective