TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 789.

WELL, IT’S ALL JUST ABOUT HILLARY BATTLESPACE PREP ANYWAY: ‘Affirmative Consent’ Will Make Rape Laws Worse.

The “tough on crime” posture is going out of style, even on the right, except when the crime in question is rape. Advocates complain that it is too hard to lock up predators. And so, according to Judith Shulevitz, the American Law Institute, an influential, invitation-only body that publishes model codes and other suggestions for legal reforms, has been considering how we could make the law harsher.

Here is a hypothetical that some concerned members of the group have raised:

Person A and Person B are on a date and walking down the street. Person A, feeling romantically and sexually attracted, timidly reaches out to hold B’s hand and feels a thrill as their hands touch. Person B does nothing, but six months later files a criminal complaint. Person A is guilty of ‘Criminal Sexual Contact’ under proposed Section 213.6(3)(a).

Okay, we can all agree that this is nutty. But as Shulevitz goes on to point out, this is what happens when you combine two principles designed to make it easier to prosecute sexual assault: affirmative consent and “enlarged definition of criminal sexual contact that would include the touching of any body part, clothed or unclothed, with sexual gratification in mind.” The result is that “if Person B neither invites nor rebukes a sexual advance, then anything that happens afterward is illegal.”

Defenders of the thinking behind this proposal might say no prosecutor is going to bring such a silly case, but that’s the opposite of comforting. Who would pass a law intended to be unenforced in almost every case? It’s eerily totalitarian: a sort of blanket mandate convenient for targeting undesirables and threatening suspects.

And that’s the other thing. It’s about empowering the administrative class at the expense of everyone else. Tar and feathers is an appropriate remedy for this kind of “empowerment.”

THOSE RACIST MINNESOTANS:  Professor says Minnesota’s flag is racist, too.

As the campaign to tear down the Confederate flag from statehouses, shops, and memorials continues to be waged across the country, one professor has chosen to weigh in on a flag she says is similarly offensive: Specifically, the state flag of Minnesota.

At a glance, Minnesota’s flag seems pretty bland. Like many states, it simply has its state seal on a blue field. Said seal shows a pioneer working his fields, while a Native American rides southward in the background. But Judith Harrington, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, published an argument shortly before the July 4th holiday complaining that the flag creates a racist contrast between peaceful whites and supposedly violent American Indians.

Professor Harrington says the flag must go. Of course she does. Because, you know, academics.

While we’re on the subject, I think all good thinking liberals/progressives should call for Massachusetts to immediately take down all state flags, which portray an Algonquian Native American with bow and arrow.

It’s all very Washington Redskins-y, and I’m sure must equally deeply offend Native Americans, including Elizabeth Warren and UC-Riverside “Indian” scholar, Professor Andrea Smith.

HEARTWARMING: Widower Finds Wife’s Lost Dollar Bill Years Later: ‘I Never Thought I’d Get That Dollar Back.’

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IT’S THE 1970S AGAIN, WITH A TRANSGENDER BONUS: Muggers are prowling Central Park once more while public nuisances shake down New York’s motorists and crime soars. Welcome to the increasingly bruised Big Apple of Mayor Bill de Blasio, his progressive agenda — and the inevitable results. Go ahead, bite the Big Apple. Don’t mind the maggots. . . .

LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Obama Administration Refuses To Follow Law Banning Government Contracts To Companies Who Engaged In Tax Inversions. And notice how quick President Goldman Sachs is to protect the fatcats’ interests when it matters.

I’M GOING LONG ON AMMO AND CANNED GOODS: Chinese chaos worse than Greece. “While the world worries about Greece, there’s an even bigger problem closer to home: China. A stock market crash there has seen $3.2 trillion wiped from the value of Chinese shares in just three weeks, triggering an emergency response from the government and warnings of ‘monstrous’ public disorder. . . . In an extraordinary move, the People’s Bank of China has begun lending money to investors to buy shares in the flailing market.”

FREEDOM TO WORK: Texas Supreme Court Strikes Blow Against Licensing.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court ruled against the cosmetology license requirement for eyebrow threaders on the grounds that it “is not just unreasonable or harsh, but it is so oppressive that it violates” the Texas State Constitution.

Volokh explains that courts have generally given legislatures and administrative agencies very broad leeway to enact economic regulations like this one. However, the court found that the Texas Constitution protects a basic right to economic liberty and decided to apply a higher level of scrutiny. . . .

Too often, licensing rules are nothing more than a mechanism for the dominant players in an industry to shield themselves from competition—suppressing jobs (especially for the poor or undercapitalized), raising prices, and stifling creativity along the way.

Well, now that the Supreme Court is endorsing “dignity” as a right, maybe economic freedom should follow.

SO, DO YOU WANNA GO TO THE GAP? That awkward moment when this CNN graphic inadvertently spills truth about Democrat ‘diversity.’

LAMAR ALEXANDER PUSHING BILL TO end Common Core requirement.

THE HILL: Team Clinton ‘worried’ about Bernie Sanders campaign.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is “worried” about Bernie Sanders, whom a top Clinton aide described as a “serious force” in the 2016 battle.

“We are worried about him, sure. He will be a serious force for the campaign, and I don’t think that will diminish,” Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri said Monday in an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“It’s to be expected that Sanders would do well in a Democratic primary, and he’s going to do well in Iowa in the Democratic caucus.”

Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, has emerged as Clinton’s main foil in the Democratic primary.

While he’s still more than 40 percentage points behind Clinton in virtually all national polls, he’s greatly improved his stock in the early primary states.

I’d like to see the press ask him about his socialism, and how it differs from what’s been practiced in Greece.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Marc Thiessen: There’s No Race War In America. No thanks to our feckless political class.

OUR COMING NO DEAL DEAL WITH IRAN: “I don’t want to be the sole bearer of bad news for Ben Rhodes and his fellow gurus, but here it is:  the Iranians at Vienna won’t sign anything, per their instructions from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” Michael Ledeen writes. “Full credit for this diplomatic accomplishment goes to President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, Guru Rhodes and the rest of the administration strategists.  Their constant offer of more–more money, more gold, more limits on annoying inspections, more cooperation in the air and on the ground with Iranian forces, etcetera etcetera — solidified Khamenei’s conviction that there is no reason for him to approve a hated deal with the devil.  It’s much better to keep talking until all the sanctions are gone, and Iran’s ‘right’ to pursue its nuclear projects is fully recognized.”

Plus some advice for the next president on how to handle Iran.

DAVID GELERNTER: “Once upon a time we thought of appeasement as a particular approach to Hitler. We have long since come to see that it is a Weltanschauung, an entire philosophical worldview that teaches the blood-guilt of Western man, the moral bankruptcy of the West, and the outrageousness of Western civilization’s attempting to impose its values on anyone else. World War II and its aftermath clouded the issue, but self-hatred has long since reestablished itself as a dominant force in Europe and (less often and not yet decisively) the United States.”

Our ruling class is self-loathing, which makes sense because it is loathsome. Alas, it transfers that feeling to the countries it rules. Few countries thrive when ruled by those who despise them.

PARTY OF SCIENCE: Bernie Sanders Once Blamed Cervical Cancer on a Lack of Orgasms.

On Facebook, Stefan Sharkansky snarks: “He and Todd Akin should go up against each other in a gynecology quiz match.”

THE ROMNEY HALF-CENTURY:

The quiet authority of Romney rises today above the others and it is authentic, but it is new. It may be instructive that the first thing to rise from the benighted sea of unconsciousness that is the blogosphere when FIFA was seen to be rife with corruption was that that could be a job for Romney. It is what he does, no? Fix things that are broken. The question could not be far away: Then maybe he could fix us, no?

We have come to appreciate Romney and grant him this moral authority because of how we have come to know him. As we see him, it would not occur to him or his wife and family to advance with treachery, duplicity or deception. Because they are inherently honest. Because they are inscrutably moral and have a distinct, historical, American work ethic.

The Romneys are all the things today so many of us used to be so long ago and it all seems to come so naturally to them; as if they were a holdout from our past — or a vision of our future. And that is why we think of them in an emergency like FIFA; to fix the things that are broken — that we broke — in a world that is always breaking. Almost as a child would call on a parent.

It’s fine to revolt against Daddy until you wreck your car and lose your job. But Romney isn’t the Daddy of an America that chose Obama instead. It chose poorly.

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BERNIE SANDERS: REAL UNEMPLOYMENT IN DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT OBAMA’S AMERICA IS 10.5 PERCENT:

Naturally, the above soundbite will gain zero traction on the evening news:
https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/618240275496964097
https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/618239692115419136
The soundbite is all cued up right here on YouTube, videomakers — get to work.

THE TERRORISM/WELFARE CONNECTION: Cleric said to be behind Tunisian beach massacre is living on benefits in Britain; Hani-al-Sibai, described as a ‘key influencer’ of Tunisian terror group, lives in a £1 million house on a leafy street in fashionable west London.

Egyptian-born al-Sibai, 54, reportedly lives on £50,000 a year in handouts, disability living allowance, with his wife and five children.

Asked how he could justify taking so much in benefits, al-Sibai, who is under investigation suspected of benefit fraud, told the Daily Mail: “Ask David Cameron, don’t ask me.”

Holding down a job is de-radicalizing. It should be required, especially of immigrants. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

UPDATE: I should add that Mickey Kaus has been making this point since 2001, but nobody’s listening.

COMMUNISTS DON’T LIKE HIM? NY TIMES GIVES RUBIO CANDIDACY MORE HELP: “By publishing a piece that focused on the reactions to Rubio’s candidacy in Cuba from the communist government’s functionaries or ordinary people whose only knowledge of the senator is from Castro regime propaganda, the Times has once again given him an unwitting boost.”

RELATED:

Communist dictatorship hates US Presidential candidate. NY Times thinks this makes him look bad pic.twitter.com/Dud0l9lppc

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) July 5, 2015

UPDATE:

NYT: "In Kremlin, Solzhenitsyn Very Unpopular"

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) July 6, 2015

Heh.™

A QUESTION FOR EVA LONGORIA: If Words “Create Emotional Poison,” Then Why is Male-Bashing Ok? Because it’s male-bashing. Duh.

IN MORE THAN ONE SENSE: Putin Era’s Hallmark: The Return of Soviet-Era Cheese.

Related: Is it 1937 yet? “Are things so bad that it’s time to drop everything and flee the country? Certainly, if that had been an option in 1937, emigration would have been a wise choice for many people. These days many prominent Russians are leaving — most recently, Ilya V. Ponomarev, the lone member of the Russian Parliament to have voted against the annexation of Crimea, has said that threats drove him to move to the United States months ago. Less-famous Russians are asking if they should also be worried.”

HEY, BUB, SHE SELF-IDENTIFIES THAT WAY AND THAT’S ENOUGH FOR ME: Top American Indian Scholar Outed As Fake Indian. And she looks more Indian than Elizabeth Warren.

USA TODAY EDITORIALIZES IN SUPPORT OF FRACKING: Boom has helped make America the world’s No. 1 producer of oil and gas.