I entitle some new information as to the now-much-discussed launch of DAWSON, with the 1942 Cagney Brothers’ Canadian epic.

The aim of DAWSON was to migrate the United States Tax Court’s online operations from Tax Court’s own servers to The Cloud. But in trying to “slip the surly bonds of earth and join the tumbling mirth” of Cloud, DAWSON has, as has been noted by commentators other than me, resulted in a penguin march.

My sources inform me that the end-of-month revisions will unseal the case noted by Mr. Weston in his comment to my blogpost “Yes, We Have No Opinions,” 1/4/21. The Genius Baristas, with zeal for secrecy unmatched in The City Under Siege since the days of Deep Throat, decided that if any document in a case was sealed, the entire case file should be sealed, including without in any way limiting the generality of the foregoing, orders, opinions and decisions. Apparently, they never asked anybody about this brainstorm.

Orders and opinions will be unleashed at month’s end. What sort of judicial tsunami this will create is unknown. Remember that in pre-DAWSON days, the average daily release of orders amounted to some 150 to 200. A two-month backlog should result in some 6000 orders being released, whether in one gigantic deluge or over a few days. How anyone is supposed to scan and decide which of these is worthy of note is nowhere explained, as my sources confirm that the day of the designated hitter is gone forever.

My sources also tell me that orders will no longer be text-searchable. However, the Genius Baristas have devised a method whereby the inquirer can find out how many pages (or perhaps kilobytes) each order contains, from which one is expected to discern the importance of each.

It did not occur to these monuments of unageing intellect that, by this criterion, any of the novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (inspiration for the contest to write the worst opening sentence of a bad novel) would surpass The Sermon on the Mount, Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Gettysburg Address. Put together.

The concocters of this present (sorry, I am at a loss for a descriptor fit for family reading) are apparently a fresh set of Genius Baristas, successors to the crew which gave to a public, that never did them any harm but who paid for that (see previous parenthetical) with their taxes, the July debut of the new, improved, jazzy website. See my blogpost “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It,” 7/20/20.

I cannot ascertain how the Chosen Few, who it is said commented on the design and implementation of DAWSON, were selected.

The public deserves to know, in reasonable detail, how the project was conceived, designed, and implemented. And what did this cost the American taxpayer and the Tax Court litigants so far?

Most importantly, we need a system that is transparent, user-friendly, and accessible even by the technophobic Luddite.

Having requested comments from Public Affairs, I have received none at time of publication.

I welcome comments and corrections.

No, I am not expanding on my comments made yesterday; at least, not here. I have said a lot, and shall continue to say a lot, elsewhere. This blog remains non-political.

I note that US Tax Court has announced that it will be closed on January 20, 2021, Inauguration Day, although teletrials will proceed

I had promised a commentator on this my blog that I would have more to say about the troll-out of DAWSON “at no very distant date.” See my blogpost “Yes, We Have No Opinions,” 1/4/21.

I had prepared “more to say” in writing, and used as my template Rule 71. I was going to send this to the Court on January 6, 2021, but events that date overtook me. So I have set aside my document until calm is restored in Our Nation’s Capital.

But what is happening today is not a political matter. This is an attempted coup in the middle of an epidemic. Not since 1860 has this country been in such danger as it is today. Whatever the course of the epidemic, and whatever the outcome of this coup, there will never again be a “normal” such as we formerly knew.

Again, I quote Goethe: “Today a new world begins.”

I take my title from Sellar and Yeatman’s 1930 comic classic. I take the statute cited therein from Title 26 of the United States Code.

Again, the new, improved (are we having fun yet?), jim-dandy website has no opinions today. And again, I’ve left voicemails seeking enlightenment as to today’s unsearchable and inscrutable orders with Ch J Maurice B (“Mighty Mo”) Foley’s chambers, and the hardlaboring Clerk’s office. I’ll report any responses.

As I said in my blogpost “26 USC §7461,” 11/13/19, “… Tax Court orders are where it’s at. It took me some time, but when I stated early on in this bloging life I lead that I would ignore small claimers and orders, I was utterly wrong.

“If anyone wants to see the gears meshing (or grinding), the wheels turning (or screeching to a halt), and which way the smoke is blowing, the orders are essential. The Stealth Subpoena is just one example; all the discovery moves, all the variances between Tax Court Rules and FRCP, all the gambits, are in the orders.

“If you’re trying to figure out Tax Court law and practice by reading between the lines of published opinions and designated orders, all you will see is white paper. Many orders that should be designated aren’t. Most opinions feature tax law; Tax Court procedure is definitely a long way behind, if it gets there at all.

“Shut down the orders search function, and I might as well pick up this electronic soapbox and go home.

“So what price Section 7461?”

Section 7461 says all proceedings at the Glasshouse Submerged in Dawson’s Creek are, and of right ought to be, public. That means orders.

I did reach the Public Affairs Officer, who assures me that the daily orders link-up will occur by the end of the month.

If anyone thinks this exonerates the Genius Baristas from responsibility for the monumental stramash that is the troll-out of DAWSON, I most respectfully differ.

Tax Court remains coy, doubtless drying its metaphorical skirts after releasing the flood at Dawson’s Creek. So we have no opinions today.

Orders remain shrouded. My phonecalls to the Clerk and to Ch J Maurice B (“Mighty Mo”) Foley, seeking copies of any and all orders, remain unreturned. I should be sad to think that journalists are as disliked at the judicial branch as they have been at the executive branch. But Scarlett O’Hara is right; tomorrow is another day.

Some orders are accessible on Dawson, if one has patience and the docket number of the order sought. All the links I so carefully provided in my blogposts these last ten (count ’em, ten) years are inoperative now. So, like Ibsen’s picaresque hero, you will have to go round about.

I will spare my readers, if any remain, a diatribe, philippic, or polemic on the shambolic schemozzle that the lash-up launch of the present website has been.

The Ogden Sunseteers’ Annual Report to Congress is available. Note that the average wait from Form 211 to payout is 3,229 days; that’s eight years ten months (count ’em, eight years ten months) to pay. And the number of actual payouts amount to 5% of total 211s handled.

Of course Chief Whistler Lee D. Martin (a delightful luncheon companion) laments that “… as the Tax Court has noted, whistleblowers submit numerous claims based entirely on publicly available information—some whistleblowers have submitted hundreds of such claims. To date, the Whistleblower Office has sought to process and respond to all claims filed by whistleblowers. While it will continue to do so, the Whistleblower Office will also continue to look for ways to address duplicative or non-meritorious claims in a summary fashion, both to focus its administrative resources better and to guard against the unnecessary or inadvertent disclosure of confidential taxpayer return information.” Report, at pp. 12-13.

I can’t cite just now to the relevant cases, as DAWSON prevents that. But serial blowers do clog the road to riches.

And the Chief Whistler points with pride to the new hook-up with the Alcohol and Tobacco revenooers. Of course, the Sunseteers went teletubby on account of Corona (the virus, not the beer).

Check out the report before you break out the Champagne.

I cannot repeat the words of Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, who said he would rather be right than President, and who was neither.

The arrival of the new, improved (now put up the real website), jim-dandy DAWSON fully justifies my comment back on 10/12/20 (see my blogpost that date “Up Dawson’s Creek”), namely, viz., and to wit, “Given the schemozzle that occurred when the jazzy new homepage was unleashed in July, I can just see what December 28 will bring us, when the Genius Baristas push the ‘ENTER’ key. ‘Shambolic’ isn’t even close.”

I would a lot sooner be compelled to eat my words without Worcestershire sauce. A magnificent new, user-friendly, all-encompassing, accessible even to the ham-fisted touch of the most technophobic Luddite, lightning-fast, beyond-state-of-the-art site would have convulsed me with glee. I would have groveled before the Genius Baristas, proclaiming them the heirs of Prometheus, who “brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends.”

But what we got approaches the current political scene, where I will not tread.

Happy New Year.

I waited to make certain, but sure enough, the old United States Tax Court website, https://ustaxcourt.gov, has vanished from sight. As a much finer writer than I put it, “The rest is silence. Now cracks a noble heart.”

Still, let us raise a glass to the old hangout. And repeat the words of Scotland’s Greatest:

“And there’s a hand,
my trusty fiere!
and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.”

Ladies and gentlemen, charge your glasses! Here’s to the old website!

I had mentioned that I contacted DAWSON support at the same time I contacted Public Affairs, concerning the publication of daily Tax Court orders. Here is Support’s reply in its entirety.

“Hello,

“In fact that feature is coming soon to DAWSON. We don’t publicly comment on our roadmap of features, but we do hope to have this available in the very near future as others have similar requests a well. We are keeping this ticket open, and we will update you when this feature is available.”

I am delighted that mine is not the only voice crying in the wilderness. I should very much like to know who else raised a similar question. Perhaps we can gather for a combined assault on The Rock of Svithjod.

I forget who wrote it, or to whom s/he referred, but the gist was “she could have lived in quiet old age, rather than engaging herself in futile controversies.”

So could I. When I started blogging ten (count ’em, ten) years ago, I had already reached full retirement age. I was still able to enjoy practicing law, and had the long-desired luxury of being able to say “no” to a client or matter I didn’t want.

Not since my days as copy editor, and a sometime columnist and music reviewer, on the college newspaper had I given any thought to a journalistic sideline, much less a career. So when, at my daughter’s suggestion, I started blogging as an extension of my practice, I hardly intended it to become a second career.

Like Topsy, it “just growed.” Thus, the full realization that I had turned an unexpected corner wasn’t brought home to me until a fanatic’s attack in a foreign country shook me, and I wrote in my blogpost “Je Suis Charlie,” 1/9/15, “I am a journalist. The Cyber Age has made every blogger a journalist, quite as much as our colleagues of the hard copy and radio/television.”

So if my reaction to the Orders blackout on the new, improved (ya, you betcha), jim-dandy Tax Court website seems a bit much, it’s because we journos are getting hammered for telling the truth, especially to those who don’t want to hear it or read it or see it.

I need not find examples from Malta, the People’s Republic of China, or the Russian Federation. I need only look at my own country, my own city, to find plenty.

As I wrote in 2015, “This being a non-political blog, I did not want to jump into a fray that I can fight elsewhere. And that we all should fight, wherever and whenever.

“The matter here, however, transcends politics. I want to add my voice in this place to ‘Je Suis Charlie’.”

So, instead of living in quiet old age, I will now embitter my life with futile controversies. Because I never much cared for living in quiet old age.