TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 674.

THE ALLURE OF A WEAKER CURRENCY:

That’s a trade-off people generally seem happy to make. When a falling currency gooses exports, this is generally thought of as a good thing, even though the necessary corollary is a reduction in domestic purchasing power.

Why is this the case? One possibility that you frequently hear is that people are fallaciously comparing nations to households. If you sell more labor or stuff to people outside the household than you consume, then you’re in good economic shape, so that must be true of your country, too, right?

Maybe so. But I think there’s another reason that we want to export more than we import, and that has to do with the importance of work.

As I’ve written before, work is central to our lives — so central that, in a modern industrialized democracy, being persistently unemployed is about the worst thing that can happen to you short of death or dismemberment. Government unemployment benefits can take care of the financial pressure, but people who have been out of work for a long time are still very unhappy even in countries with generous unemployment programs. Not having a job denies you a sense of purpose and structure to your life. It’s not surprising, then, that the public supports stronger employment, even at the cost of some purchasing power.

If so, that has lessons for other policy areas.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: A lesson in Ferguson: Big government is not a victimless crime. “This is a sad byproduct of the national trend toward excessive criminalization, egregious use of civil forfeiture and other practices that encourage police to harass citizens like Garner for trifling, victimless offenses. When a police force is used this way, it fosters distrust of law enforcement.”

ASHE SCHOW: Georgetown University lawyer details the burden placed on colleges by campus sexual assault policies.

At a panel Thursday discussing campus sexual assault and due process, the general counsel for Georgetown University lamented the constantly changing rules being forced on colleges and universities by Congress and the Obama administration. . . .

The onslaught of government regulations started in 2011 with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ “Dear Colleague” letter, which reinterpreted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to classify sexual misconduct as a form of discrimination.

In 2013, after a lengthy battle in Congress, President Obama signed a reauthorization of VAWA, which also added new rules for colleges and universities in regards to Title IX.

Then in April 2014, OCR issued a question-and-answer document regarding Title IX that further clarified the requirements schools must follow in adjudicating sexual assault. At the same time, the White House Task Force created a year earlier by Obama issued its first report with additional requirements.

“We are trying so hard to get it right for students and you have constantly these things coming in,” Brown said.

It’s understandable that colleges and universities would have trouble providing a fair process when these documents present a bias against the accused student and require additional resources be spent on training administrators and providing services for accusers.

It also is a reminder that the system set up to adjudicate sexual assault is grossly inadequate. Without a clear, single idea out of the federal government, schools are going to continue the current process of caring more about their reputation than their students.

If you care more about your reputation than your students, both will suffer.

SADLY, IT’S NOT JUST DEMOCRATS LIKE DAVID BOREN WHO ENGAGE IN CONSTUTITIONAL DUMBASSERY: Texas Bill Would Make Recording Police Illegal.

A bill introduced to the Texas House of Representatives would make it illegal for private citizens to record police within 25 feet.

House Bill 2918, introduced by Texas Rep. Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) on Tuesday, would make the offense a misdemeanor. Citizens who are armed would not be permitted to record police activity within 100 feet of an officer, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Only representatives of radio or TV organizations that hold an FCC license, newspapers and magazines would have the right to record police.

Not only is this a First Amendment violation, but there’s also a due process right to record the police.

SO LAST WEEK, MY USA TODAY COLUMN involved problems with the Kern County, CA prosecutor’s office. And now they’ve got more: Man gets new murder trial because of prosecutor conduct. Who’s in charge?

Meanwhile, I heard yesterday from a local TV station in Kern County that District Attorney Lisa Green claims that the offending assistant discussed in my column has been punished, because he’s been transferred to the crime lab. That’s not much of a “punishment” for misconduct that an appellate court called outrageous.

And has anyone asked California Attorney General Kamala Harris why her office chose to back up a prosecutor who committed such outrageous misconduct?

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “Trans Men” Hopping Mad That Feminists Are Focusing on Abortion Rights for “Women.”

People act like this is new, but it goes back a long way.

WELL, FOR ONE THING, THE PUBLIC TRUSTS EXPERTS LESS: Do experts and the public think differently about the apocalypse?

A HILLARY SPECIALTY: SENDING WOMEN TO ATTACK OTHER WOMEN. Confused Hillary advisor claims Carly Fiorina a front for Republicans who hate women.

PETER SUDERMAN: Hillary Clinton’s Excuses For Her Use of a Personal Email Account While At State Are Falling Apart. Rule of thumb: If the coverup is this embarrassing, what’s being covered up must be much worse.

HAPPY PI DAY: 3.141592653 at 9:26:53!

OH, GOODY: Study: India’s swine flu virus may have mutated into more dangerous strain.

NEW YORK POST: Paging Eric Holder:

Remember how Eric Holder had threatened to disband the Ferguson, Mo., police department on the grounds it was racist?

And before that, how he was asking Judge Shira Scheindlin to grant his Justice Department oversight of the NYPD if the judge ruled against stop-and-frisk?

Well, maybe the Justice Department should look closer to home.

The Washington Post reports that two senior Secret Service agents — one a member of President Obama’s protective detail — last week drove right through a White House barricade into an ongoing investigation, right next to a suspected bomb.

Overruling agents at the scene, a supervisor ordered the two men sent home without even a sobriety test; they were later given lenient temporary assignments.

This comes on top of other scandals at the agency, including agents’ use of prostitutes on overseas trips and a recent breach that saw a knife-wielding man get inside the White House.

The Secret Service, of course, is not the only federal police agency that’s had its share of problems since Obama took office.

Thanks to administration stonewalling that saw Attorney General Eric Holder cited for contempt of Congress, we still don’t know the full story behind the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Operation Fast and Furious” — in which licensed firearms wound up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

So we’re with Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds on this one: Team Obama probably should spend more time fixing the law-enforcement agencies that are its responsibility rather than sliming ones that aren’t.

Insufficient opportunity for graft, I guess.

WELL, OBAMA SENT HIS CHICAGO CREW TO BEAT HIM, AND THEY HAVE THOUSANDS OF YEARS’ WORTH OF DEAD PEOPLE TO VOTE OVER THERE: Bibi in Serious Trouble with Only Days to Go Until Election: Making sense of why Netanyahu is performing so badly in the polls.

ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS: Vatican Calls for Use of Force Against ISIS. “The Vatican is clearly calling for some sort of UN-authorized force here. Tomasi further said that whatever force is formed, it must not be just a ‘Western approach.’ Regardless, this statement could fuel the burgeoning movement of Westerners traveling to the Middle East to fight ISIS.”

ED DRISCOLL: Why is America Ignoring the Centennial of First World War? “It’s that last item that’s key — Wilson’s hardline stance against free speech was so virulent, it caused his fellow ‘Progressives’ to quickly rebrand themselves, even before he had left office, as ‘liberals.’ He’s the direct predecessor to much of Mr. Obama’s anti-free speech, anti-journalistic, anti-American, pro-racialist worldview. No wonder Wilson been airbrushed out of the left’s collective memories — with much American domestic history during World War I along with it.”

REVIEW: Netgear’s Arlo Security Camera System Is A Winner. “The system is relatively inexpensive and much easier to set up than most rivals.”

Well, it’s relatively inexpensive.

WELL, YES: Hillary’s Email Scandal Is About Privilege. Rules are for the little people!

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RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Men Who Would Be Kings. “Rumors that Vladimir Putin is sick or has been deposed, fueled by his recent absence from public events are a reminder of the very real defects of autocracy. The problem, as Shakespeare noted, is that kings however well guarded, pampered and doctored eventually die. Age, disease and mischance take their toll and often leave a country, so recently dominated by a single godlike figure, without any process of orderly succession. . . . In functioning democratic societies by contrast, the president or prime minister is merely an agent of “we the people”. If a stroke should take him, as it did Franklin Roosevelt, he would be instantly and seamlessly replaced by a designated successor, who might even be a mere former haberdasher and high school graduate. One moment nobody knew who Harry Truman was and the next he had the authority to drop the Atomic Bomb. A democratic leader does not derive power from himself; rather it derives entirely from strong institutions based on popularly mandated policies. The advantages of a democracy are so great that Ross Douthat is not a little outraged and greatly mortified by the unabashed admiration of the Obama administration staffers for ‘Caesarism.'”

The advantages of democracy for a society are only salient to the extent that you care about the welfare of that society.

THAT’S A CRYPTIC TITLE: “Power of 15″: Higher Education Bubble sign or Reynolds’ Law?

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 673.

BUT ARE ITS SCIENTISTS WEARING THE RIGHT SHIRTS? The Philae Comet Lander Might Have Enough Power to Wake Up.

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