OUT: RETURNING ISRAEL TO ITS PRE-1967 BORDERS. In: Returning Israel To Its Pre-1948 Borders.

MICHELLE OBAMA ENCOUNTERS THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY AT TARGET. Or maybe not: “A different explanation is that somebody mistook Michelle for someone who was tall, athletic, and happy to help. And hey, two out of three ain’t bad.”

What’s interesting to me about this obviously-contrived episode is how hard the Obamas are working to position themselves as Super-Sharptons for the post-presidency.

MORE SUPPORT FOR INTERVAL TRAINING: “According to a lovely new study, a single minute of intense exercise, embedded within an otherwise easy 10-minute workout, can improve fitness and health.”

IT’S NOT JUST A PINK GUN: Tamara Keel looks at a pistol offering for women.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: No Free Speech At Marquette.

Marquette University, the Jesuit school in Milwaukee, has shot itself in the foot again. Weeks ago in a “Theory of Ethics” class, philosophy instructor Cheryl Abbate listed several possible topics of discussion, but said one of them –gay marriage—could not be addressed because any opposition argument would offend homosexual students, and besides society has already agreed that gays can marry. This is a strong pattern for the campus left: topics they want to talk about (e.g., the Keystone pipeline, abolishing fraternities) are discussed endlessly, even in classes where the topics have little or no relevance. But topics they don’twant discussed are banned as “already settled” or as harassment.

Did Marquette overrule Abbate and say that gay marriage can certainly be discussed in class? Or that Catholic doctrine cannot be off limits at a Catholic university? Well, no. Like so many other universities, Marquette passed on the free speech issue and went after a lone professor—John McAdams–who had criticized Marquette’s woeful reaction to Abbate in his blog, “Marquette Warrior.” The next step was very predictable: Marquette suspended McAdams, said he is under investigation and banned him from the campus, without listing any charges against him. Presumably the unannouced charge is harassment, since the letter from Dean Richard Holz to McAdams ended with a sentence saying “I am enclosing with this letter Marquette’s harassment policy….:”

“Harassment” is not a synonym for “disagreement” or “criticism,” but many in the higher education community appear to be ignorant of this fact.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 587.

READY FOR HILLARY TO GO AWAY: People Magazine’s worst selling issue this year? The one with Hillary Clinton on the cover.

RUSSIA: Ruble Crisis Puts Putin’s Back Against the Wall.

It’s panic time in Moscow, as the deadly double whammy of collapsing oil prices and Western sanctions is knocking the Russian economy into recession. Nothing the government can do has been able to stem the accelerating selloff in Russian assets, and the meltdown has gone so far that average people increasingly understand that their economic futures are at risk. . . .

The Putin government has come to a fork in the road—and both of its choices look unpleasant. It can accept that the oil price collapse is forcing it to change paths in foreign policy and give up (at least for now) on its dreams of geopolitical revenge for the defeat in the Cold War—or it can double down on the fight against the West and the world system.

The first course is obviously the smartest from the standpoint of Russian national interest, but the second may make more sense in terms of the personal fortunes of one Vladimir Putin—and unless something changes in Russia, Putin is firmly in charge.

Putin has to be thinking in terms of using the crisis to enforce even tighter government control over Russia’s economy: cracking down on currency trading, increasing control over banks, possibly repudiating private as well as public debts to Western creditors. To make this work, he’d have to resort to claims that the West is in an all-out war to destroy Russia, and that national mobilization (under, of course, his inspired leadership) is the only way to save the country.

The long term prospects for such a course of doubling down on an aggressive foreign policy are not good.

Nope. Here’s a Russian joke I heard yesterday: You should have all your money in rubles — because no one will expect to find money in a sack of rubles.

JERRY POURNELLE HAD A MILD STROKE YESTERDAY. According to his son, Alex, “He’s doing well, recovering in the hospital, good prognosis, and talking up a storm.”

LEFTY POLITICS IS NEVER ABOUT WHAT IT’S OSTENSIBLY ABOUT: Green Groups Capitalize on Police Shooting Protests.

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ROGER SIMON: We need a wartime consigliere.

Actually, we need a wartime President. Obama has a wartime consigliere, it’s just not for the war Roger wants to focus on.

GOOD QUESTION: Why Does Uncle Sam Hate American Expats? I was talking the other day with a former student who practices law in Germany now, and she said her tax preparer quit because of the complexities of U.S. tax law for expats. It’s also hard for Americans to get bank accounts abroad, even when they’re permanent residents of foreign countries, because of the grabbiness of U.S. law. I suggested she file a human rights complaint, since no other country does this to its citizens, and I was only half joking. . . .

TRANSPARENCY: No Author, No Law.

The reason behind Dodd-Frank’s rendition of this common requirement is straightforward: If Wall Street conglomerates are able to use our bank deposits — which are meant to be kept safe — in addition to their own money to gamble on speculative derivative instruments, then (a) there will be much more gambling of precisely the kind that brought us the 2008 crash; and (b) we taxpayers, rather than Wall Street, will cover the losses that the next crash occasions. We will, in other words, be bailing out Wall Street all over again — socializing losses even as Wall Street continues to privatize gains for itself.

This is, of course, perfectly disgusting. But what is yet worse is that no one will “own” it — presumably because it is so disgusting. We still do not know who inserted the provision, nor do we know why. All that we know is that whoever did it did it both (a) surreptitiously, apparently in hopes no one would notice, and (b) at the last minute, in connection with a continuing resolution cum omnibus spending bill, apparently in hopes of holding continued government operation itself hostage to the provision’s getting through.

Perhaps I am overreacting, but it seems to me that the way in which this provision has found its way into the cromnibus legislation is deeply subversive of our democracy. The aim, after all, is apparently both (a) to circumvent what would otherwise be a necessary agreement secured both transparently and free of budgetary time pressure, and (b) to render the party or parties whose consent is thus circumvented unaware of the guilt or identity of the guilty party.

Every provision of every bill should be directly traceable to individual members of Congress.

That said, so long as we’re in the current boat, could some InstaPundit reader who works on Capitol Hill insert language in the next debacle of a bill that retroactively frees me of income tax back to 2010, and gives me the right to commandeer federal jets for my personal travel? I’d kind of fancy taking Air Force One on one of my dive trips. Also, I’ll bet that would encourage better oversight in the future. . . .

FASTER, PLEASE: The Bipartisan Plan To End IRS Stealing.

For years, the Internal Revenue Service has been stealing taxpayer assets from small businesses — not for breaking tax law, but for making legitimate bank deposits under $10,000. It’s one form of the increasingly well-known practice called “civil asset forfeiture.”

The IRS has the power to seize small cash deposits under $10,000. These deposits seem suspicious because cash deposits over $10,000 trigger a bank report to authorities. Terrorists, drug dealers, and money launderers all make cash deposits under $10,000 to avoid triggering the bank report. The illicit practice is called “structuring.”

The problem is that many small businesses accept cash payments and make large deposits that happen to fall under $10,000.

Sadly, this attempt to crack down on terrorist funding is used by the IRS to abuse small businesses. In October, the New York Times reported on the story of Carole Hinders, a small business owner who had over $30,000 seized by the IRS. The IRS does not even need to charge someone with a crime to seize assets under an alleged structuring scheme.

Thankfully, a bipartisan bill has been introduced in Congress that would end the practice.

On December 10, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Sander Levin, D-Mich., introduced the Taxpayer Protections Against Abusive Seizures Act.

Well, it’s worth trying before going all the way to tar and feathers.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: Blacks Falling Behind Under ObamaCare.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: 1L Enrollment Shrank 4.5% in 2014, to the Lowest Level Since 1974 (When There Were 53 Fewer Law Schools). “The 204 ABA-accredited law schools enrolled 37,924 full- and part-time first-year students in the fall of 2014, a drop of 4.4 percent from 2013 and a drop of 27.7 percent from the historic high of 52,488 in 2010, according to an ABA press release.” There’s no particular reason to think we’ve hit bottom yet.

ASHE SCHOW: Atticus Finch: American literature’s most celebrated rape apologist. “If ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ were taught in women’s studies classes today, Finch would have to be labeled the villain of the book for not accepting at face value an accuser’s tale of rape and for posing difficult, painful questions to her on the witness stand.”

HANUKKAH: A Dangerous Holiday.

THE UNRAVELING HOAX: University Of Virginia Student’s Catfishing Scheme Revealed. “A University of Virginia student named Jackie appears to have used internet phone services to fabricate the identity of a man she says she was going on a date with on the night she claims she was gang-raped by seven fraternity members.”

Related: Life In Post-Truth America.

KNIFE RIGHTS UPDATE: Connecticut Supreme Court: Second Amendment protects dirk knives and police batons.

This bit is interesting, as it seems to suggest that the more equipment police have, the more likely it is to be protected for civilians: “This widespread acceptance of batons within the law enforcement community also supports the conclusion that they are not so dangerous or unusual as to fall outside the purview of the second amendment. To this end, the fact that police batons are inherently less lethal, and therefore less dangerous and less intrinsically harmful, than handguns, which clearly constitute “arms” within the meaning of the second amendment, provides further reason to conclude that they are entitled to constitutional protection.”

Plus, an observation that could have come right out of my Second Amendment Penumbras piece: “Post-Heller case law supports the commonsense conclusion that the core right to possess a protected weapon in the home for self-defense necessarily entails the right, subject to reasonable regulation, to engage in activities necessary to enable possession in the home. Thus, the safe transportation of weapons protected by the second amendment is an essential corollary of the right to possess them in the home for self-defense when such transportation is necessary to effectuate that right.”

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HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard Law student’s disastrous argument for delayed exams due to emotional trauma blows up. What would Professor Kingsfield say? My guess: “You come here with skulls full of mush. And these days, you leave here the same way.”

UPDATE: “God. At the age of this Harvard Law Review editor, my grandfather was a Marine, storming Saipan.”

MULTICULTURALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS: In Germany, anti-Islam voices grow louder, worrying leaders. “In Dresden, more than 10,000 people marched against the ‘Islamization’ of Germany, the largest yet in a series of protests against the country’s policy of welcoming immigrants.”