TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 500. Hard drives keep crashing, but revelations keep coming, and John Koskinen keeps looking like a putz.

POINTS AND FIGURES: What’s Up With The Democrats In Illinois? “I hate to see the Democratic Party continually demonize Americans that are successful. What? Should we all be failures?”

Yes. They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please. . . .

MEGAN MCARDLE: How Many Rape Reports Are False?

The number of false accusations is what statisticians call a “dark number” — that is, there is a true number, but it is unknown, and perhaps unknowable. For a deep dive into the reasons it’s so hard to know, I commend you to Cathy Young’s new piece at Slate, in which she details all the problems that confound investigations into false rape accusations.

Here’s what we do know: The 2 percent number is very bad and should never be cited. It apparently traces its lineage back to Susan Brownmiller’s legendary “Against Our Will,” and her citation for this figure is a single speech by an appellate judge before a small group of lawyers. His source for this statistic was a single area of New York that started having policewomen conduct all rape interviews. This is not data. It is an anecdote about an anecdote.

The 41 percent number beloved of men’s-rights activists is better; it involves a peer-reviewed study by Eugene Kanin of a police department in some unknown small city. False reports could only be declared if the victim herself withdrew the charge. However. We’re talking about one city, in which 109 rapes were examined over a period of nine years. As feminists point out, victims might have withdrawn the charges simply because they found it too traumatic to engage with the police department, not because the accusation was false. And the study itself is now pretty elderly. A lot has changed in 20 years, including, possibly, the number of false rape accusations in this city and the rest of the nation. This number should be used only with grave caution.

But so should any other numbers, such as the 8 percent figure that is commonly attributed to the FBI. When you dig into the research itself, you find it is often heavily inflected with the authors’ prior beliefs about what constitutes the “real problem”: unreported cases of rape or false reports? So Kanin is frequently chided for accepting the results of a police department investigation that included offering the victims a polygraph, because this is intimidating for true victims as well as women making false reports, and it could raise the incidence of false negatives. On the other hand, if the rate of false rape reports is quite high — much higher than that of other crimes — then this might be a reasonable precaution. It’s possible that by encouraging police departments not to polygraph rape victims, we have fixed a cruel system in which innocent victims are bullied into recanting. It’s also possible that we’ve increased the number of false accusations that proceed to investigation and conviction.

Shorter: You cannot treat “percentage of reports that were found to be false by investigators” as “percentage of reports that were actually false.” Some women may simply have recanted to disengage from the system. Some police officers may decide a case was false when it wasn’t. On the other hand, we also know that false accusations can make their way through the system pretty far — witness the Duke lacrosse players and Brian Banks.

What we know is that we don’t know.

Thing is, all the rape-talk isn’t about getting justice for victims. It’s about stirring up female voters for Hillary, while demonizing, marginalizing, and silencing men, and about justifying policies that generate employment and self-esteem for “social justice warriors.” Given that these are generally execrable people, any policy that enlarges their power or perks should be viewed with deep suspicion.

LET’S HOPE THE STRATEGY IS BETTER THAN THE ONE FOR ISIS: U.S. Aims to Curb Peril of Antibiotic Resistance.

WHY MEN NEVER REMEMBER ANYTHING: This is crap. I remember my first birthday. At any rate, what this story actually says is that men remember different things than women do.

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HALFHEARTED, ON THE CHEAP, AND BY COMMITTEE: Our Strategy Against ISIS Seems To Be Bush’s Plan, But On The Cheap. Obama’s strategy isn’t to win. It’s to make it look like he’s doing something until after the November elections.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: SpaceX launches cargo ship with 3-D printer to International Space Station.

I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT THAT THEY DO: Will Tea Party, GOP establishment be ‘mending fences’ to win Senate in November? If Dems control the Senate, Obama will pack the Supreme Court, and you can bet Harry Reid will go nuclear on it.

SMART DIPLOMACY: State Department Unsure How Many Countries Are In The UN. But it’s worse than mere incompetence.

MALE PRIVILEGE: “According to the ILO’s 2012 estimates, 60 percent of the 14.2 million people in forced labour are male. Yet male victims of human trafficking are rarely discussed.”

ANOTHER REVIEW of Joel Kotkin’s new book, The New Class Conflict. “Libertarians should happily join Kotkin in his challenge to the tech oligarchs and the clerisy, even while pressing for solutions still more radical than his.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Nightmare Future For Higher Ed.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Female teacher sentenced for raping 17-year-old student. Would a male teacher have gotten off this light? “After pleading no contest, Antrich was sentenced to a 10-year suspended sentence and the rest of the charges were dismissed.”

RON RADOSH TO EZEKIEL EMANUEL ON THE UNDESIRABILITY OF LIVING PAST 75: No Thanks, Dr. ObamaCare, and I’m Not Taking Your Advice. But how long will it stay “advice?”

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Stop Foreign Governments From Buying U.S. Think Tanks.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: S&P Lowers Thomas Jefferson Law School’s Junk Bond Rating to CC (3 Notches Lower Than Venezuela’s); Default Is Expected.

WITH THINGS FALLING APART ALL AROUND THE WORLD, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Is Talking About the NFL.

UPDATE: From the comments: “And even there, he’s punching above his weight.”

THIS IS CUTE: LOOK: A&M cadet delivers key block to protect Reveille.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Proof That Sarah Palin Derangement Syndrome Is Real.

We all say, think or tweet stupid stuff. It’s best to just acknowledge that we can all be idiots at times, say we’re sorry, and move on. It may be a good idea for Goldberg to explain precisely what he was thinking, but apology accepted. I’m just using the whole incident as a means to discuss the broader oddity of American progressives’ Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Now, I’m no reflexive Palin-defender. See, for example, my “No, Sarah Palin, Baptism Isn’t A Good Punchline For A Terrorist Joke.”

But more than anything I might say in favor of or against her policies, I’m struck by how she causes people with progressive tendencies to lose their ever-living minds. What is that about? And I’m interested in that not just because she gets everyone to Peak Freud in under 10 seconds, but because she’s just a great example of how progressives treat all women who share some of her characteristics.

And that’s whether we embrace life in all its messiness — fertile wombs, grizzly bear mothering, shooting wolves out of helicopters, you know the usual — or simply reject the victimization status so graciously conferred upon us by feminism or, horror of horrors, we trust in God.

I’m honestly wondering why, though. Why are we such a threat? Is it the power of our non-barren wombs? Is it the power that comes with not accepting progressive politics of constant victimization? Are women only really acceptable to liberal elites if we’re constantly trying to be just like men? Is it our understanding of guns? (A friend noted in response to Goldberg’s odd comment that of course that picture isn’t reminiscent of Sarah Palin since “Palin knows the third rule of gun safety.”) Is it the confidence we exude as faithful women? . . .

I don’t know Goldberg. And I like his writing a lot. But if this kind of derangement can get even to someone like him, it’s disconcerting.

Just understand, it didn’t happen by accident, but by design.

SKINTIGHT SPACESUITS ARE AN OLD IDEA, BUT THIS IS STILL COOL: MIT’s New BioSuit Shrinkwraps Astronauts to Hold Them Together.

MALE PRIVILEGE: Lucky men, dodging bullets on D-Day while she’s stuck at home with the baby.

SEXISM: It’s 2014: Why Are Men Still Paying for First Dates? “Who pays for dates … is one arena where women may be resisting gender changes more than men.”

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