TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 465.

IT’S COME TO THIS: David Axelrod: ‘Perry Indictment Looks Pretty Sketchy.’

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING WOMEN NOT TO RAPE:

When Lara Stemple, a researcher at UCLA looked at the latest National Crime Victimization Survey, she was shocked to see that men experienced rape and sexual assault almost as frequently as women, and that women were often the perpetrators. Once the definition of rape was expanded to include more than just penetration, it became clear that men and women were equally likely to be raped, and more importantly, equally likely to be rapists. Researchers from the University of Missouri got the same results, finding that “43% of high school boys and young college men reported they had an unwanted sexual experience and of those, 95% said a female acquaintance was the aggressor.”

Sexual assault on college campuses and how that is handled has been all over the news lately, with even the President taking time to address the issue. But almost without exception, all the cases given as examples involve women as victims and men as perpetrators. Yet the survey and the confirmation from independent researchers indicates that men are often the victims and women the perpetrators.

So yes, let’s teach men what sexual consent means and how to obtain it. But let’s teach women that, too, because there are apparently a lot of women who do not understand the concept very well. Let’s teach men that women can be assailants and that they are under no obligation to accept or remain silent about unwanted sexual aggression from women. If consent is indeed “sexy”, then it needs to be applied equally. Current campaigns to encourage enthusiastic consent almost always target men, which is why I find them so irritating. It’s not the consent part that annoys me, it’s the fact that the campaigns imply that only men need to be certain they have on-going, enthusiastic agreement to sexual activity. This plays into the stereotype that men are little more than animals, willing to have sex at all times, with any willing or unwilling partner. . . .

Given that men have no reproductive rights, and given that men will be arrested if they physically resist unwanted sexual aggression from women, it is even more vital that we begin educating men about consent and victimization. But there is no point educating men if we are not going to educate women at the same time. A popular poster campaign suggests that we need to teach men not to rape. Well, okay. As long as we teach women not to rape, too. All rape is bad. No matter who the victim is, no matter who the assailant is. It’s not okay.

Saying that makes you a misogynist, I’m pretty sure. But then again, a lot of women need to be taught not to rape, apparently.

I DUNNO, THERE’S A LOT OF COMPETITION FOR THAT SLOT: Rich Baehr: Will Foreign Policy Be the Biggest Drag for Democrats This Year?

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SURE, YOUR INDUSTRY WAS HIS SINGLE BIGGEST SOURCE OF DONATIONS AND SUPPORT, BUT HE’S NOT RUNNING ANYMORE: Obama: Colleges must do their part to bring down costs, too.

JONATHAN ADLER: The Perry indictment and the criminalization of politics. Those involved in this need to be made examples of.

A GOOD WAY TO WRECK A LOCAL ECONOMY: Build Casinos. A colleague and I were talking about this the other day. A casino is basically a sign that the local political class has wrecked things already enough that they need a new approach to squeeze sufficient graft out of the wreckage. That’s especially true now that casinos are common enough that they mostly draw from the (already economically suffering) local region.

YEAH, ANDREW HASN’T BEEN INTO THAT FOR OVER A DECADE: Ctrl-F-Genocide: Sam Harris reminds Andrew Sullivan to choose his words wisely on Gaza.

It’s amusing that Sullivan needed Harris to tell him how to search for a word on a webpage.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “I find that I don’t really need to spend much time with the liberal students, because they already have it right. I spend most of my time arguing with the conservative students. That’s how I spend my time in class.”

UNFORGETTABLE PROSE, FROM TAM:

In my book, these little pocket .380s like the BG380, P3AT, and LCP are largely disposable anyway, so complaints about their soulless qualities are pointless. Their primary virtues are light weight, compactness, and a price low enough “that every man (and woman) be armed.” This is as volkspistole as it gets right now; in a perfect world, these things are sold in blister packs next to the disposable vacation cameras.

Heh.

“MALE PRIVILEGE,” DEFINED: Men may vote if, and only if, they agree they will face death if required. Women have no such obligation, but they do get to vote for the governments that can potentially send men to meet death.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Overqualified and Underemployed: The Job Market Waiting for Graduates.

There’s a word for someone who has a job that does not require the degree they hold: “underemployed.” In 2008, over 35% of college graduates were underemployed; by June of last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that a whopping 44% of graduates were underemployed. And it’s not just because of the recession: the number’s been rising since 2001.

The more education a person has, the worse the numbers get. In 2008 22% of people with PhDs or professional degrees and jobs were underemployed. That number rises all the way to 59% for people with master’s degrees.

When you think about the financial situation most students are in, it’s not hard to see why this happens. Higher levels of education do not merely add to your job prospects—it forces you to shift them upward. This means some higher-paid positions become feasible, but some lower-paid ones suddenly aren’t, either because the graduate refuses to take a job below their education level, or (more commonly) because the extra student loans make it financially difficult to do so. And over qualification (and with it, turnover) is a real concern for employers filling low-level jobs. . . .

Degrees, of course, are not worthless. Part of the argument in their favor is that even the underemployed are getting better jobs than those without degrees. But the advantage is smaller than graduates expect, and shrinking, to boot. The average college student overestimates how much they’ll earn after they graduate by a massive 45%. And from 2000 to 2007—which is measuring a period of significant economic growth before the recession, mind you—the earnings for college graduates between the ages of 25 and 54 dropped 8.5%. And these were jobs that weren’t especially high-paying to begin with.

The most sobering numbers, however, aren’t about salaries, but about how debt can put people’s lives on hold. Almost 45% of recent college graduates put off buying a house because of their debt, and 55% delayed saving for retirement because of it. 14% of recent graduates put off marriage on account of their debt, and 28% put off having children.

The effects of a graduate’s debt ripple throughout every aspect of their lives, both personal and professional.

Indeed they do.

SHORT ANSWER: THERE’S NOTHING HE WANTS FROM YOU RIGHT NOW. House Democrats can’t figure out why Obama won’t talk to them.

ROGER SIMON: The Star Chamber Comes To Texas.

UGH: With Aid Doctors Gone, Ebola Fight Grows Harder.

21ST CENTURY PARENTING: Reality TV Mom Gets 10 Years in Prison. “Any psychologist would say that this kind of depraved behavior between a 34-year-old mother and her daughter’s 13-year-old friend is symptomatic of an extremely selfish, narcissistic and irresponsible personality. Leaving aside any question of why a grown woman would be sexually attracted to pubescent boys, we must ask why Clevenger would act on that deviant urge, heedless of the potential consequences for the boy, for herself, and especially for her own daughter.”

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WELL, THAT SEEMS FAIR: The Presidency is Breaking Obama Even As Obama Has Broken the Nation.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Mia Farrow: Rick Perry indictment ‘doesn’t identify a law he violated. Looks like politics not felony.’

Related: Dershowitz ‘Outraged’ by Perry Indictment.

Plus, an extensive analysis from prosecutor Patrick Frey. “Words truly fail to describe what an outrageous and unsupportable abuse of prosecutorial power this is. The special prosecutor, Michael McCrum, has no business being given prosecutorial authority — and the fact that Obama considered him for a U.S. Attorney position should deeply frighten anyone who cares about the integrity of the criminal justice system.”

JAZZ SHAW: The “militarization” of police was not only inevitable, but necessary. See, I disagree. If you need to escalate to military-style enforcement, it’s better that it be done by another entity — the National Guard, say — that doesn’t have to stick around afterward and take the blame.

SO THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL TWEETED THAT THIS STORY FROM 2013 was trending on their site today, but didn’t say why.

FOREIGN POLICY: The Pinprick President: Barack Obama needs to go to war with the Islamic State, or it will go to war with America. I generally favor a nip-it-in-the-bud strategy — just think how much better off we’d be if Bill Clinton had seized any of his several opportunities to kill or seize Osama bin Laden — but I have to say my confidence in Obama’s ability to carry out anything much bigger than pinpricks is severely limited.

LYING, CHEATING, AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Ken Masugi: Injustice by the Numbers.

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