TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1287.

HEALTH: Ebola Might Not Make Some People Sick.

But beware of Ebola Mary?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: At UVA, a Microcosm of Liberalism’s Woes.

After Donald Trump’s upset victory last Tuesday, University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan sent out a campus-wide email including a quote from the school’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, reminding the elite students of their special responsibility for the country’s future.

The response? A petition asking Sullivan to scrub Jefferson from future communications because of his views on race. . . .

This episode is a portrait in miniature for why Americans repudiated the Left so decisively on Tuesday. It’s not just the academic silliness—the way that American intellectual centers have spent the last few years agitating about statues and safe spaces and speech codes—or even the way these habits have trickled out into the media and broader elite. It’s the fact that, as the New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin notes today, the Democrats have made boutique cultural liberalism aimed at college educated voters the core of their agenda, while severing ties with their working class populist tradition. This shift has been consummated over the last year as local Democratic parties across the country have renamed their “Jefferson-Jackson” dinners, rebuffing two figures who were once seen as central to the party’s legacy.

For the Democrats to win back power, many things will need to happen. Changing the culture and priorities of the Left so that the president of the University of Virginia can quote Thomas Jefferson [without] causing an uproar would be a good start.

Well, yes.

YEAH, BUT FEELING SUPERIOR IS THEIR RELIGION: Liberals Have a Choice: Reach Out to Trump Voters, or Condemn Them: If progressives want to win back political influence in America, they may need the support of the people they see as racists.

I HAVEN’T REALLY FOLLOWED THIS CASE, but if Oberlin is really firing a professor for outside-of-campus speech then that seems wrong — maybe not a First Amendment violation, since Oberlin isn’t a state institution, but rather a violation of free speech in general, and academic freedom. Likewise, saying that she “attacked” (which seems to mean “criticized”) her colleagues on social media hardly seems ground for firing. Oberlin’s initial response — repudiating her views but not her right to hold them — seems better. Her views are both silly and abhorrent, but if that is grounds for firing a professor, well. . . .

UPDATE: Prof. Jacobson has more.

CHANGE? House Democrats Pressure Nancy Pelosi After Trump’s Win.

One week after Democrats picked up only a fraction of the 20 House seats that they had once expected to gain, dozens of rank-and-file lawmakers at a closed-door meeting called on Mrs. Pelosi to delay leadership elections scheduled for Thursday. By the end of the meeting, she had done so, giving a faction of unhappy Democrats until Nov. 30 to potentially build support for an opposition candidate.

The coming leadership fight, in tandem with a separate battle over who will lead the Democratic National Committee, will expose fault lines within the Democratic Party that have been buried for years, cutting along the lines of race, class, geography and gender.

Those divisions have been easily finessed while President Barack Obama has been in power and served as a unifying force. But some lawmakers say they have felt growing anxiety for years about the party’s loss of support among the white working class, including many men who flocked to President-elect Donald Trump on Election Day.

As Speaker, Pelosi’s major achievements included a toxic asset removal program which didn’t remove any toxic assets, a stimulus which didn’t stimulate, and the ongoing slow-motion train wreck known as ObamaCare. Her tenure with the Speaker’s gavel, which began after a huge protest vote against President George Bush’s initial inability to mend a deteriorating situation in Iraq, ended in a stunning reversal just four years later with a protest vote against ObamaCare.

As Minority Leader since 2011, the best that can be said about Pelosi’s tenure is that she hasn’t passed any more expensive and/or disastrous legislation. Or, depending on your point of view, perhaps the best that can be said is that her efforts to win back the House never amounted to much.

Pelosi has been as bad for House Democrats as Obama has been for elected Democrats across the nation, and maybe now we’ve reached the point where even the lemmings are tired of being marched off the cliff.

GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM: Trump gets to decide if his transition team will have a code of ethics.

Every transition team makes up its own rules as it goes along.

If you’ll recall, the Obama Administration-elect was so concerned with the Clintons’ aptitude for ethics trouble, that it required Bill to agree to limit his activities and fundraising efforts for the family’s Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, for the length of Hillary’s tenure at State. The agreement proved worthless of course, and the White House’s willful blindness to the Clintons’ activities likely cost Hillary the election.

In any case, Trump has “cut all lobbyists” from his transition team, which seems like an improvement.

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WHAT ABOUT THE STUDENTS WHO SUPPORTED TRUMP? Ed Secretary: Colleges Must Protect All Students. “Education Secretary John B. King Jr. urged university leaders Tuesday to be sure that students do not feel harassed or intimidated in the wake of a divisive election that has left ‘many of our students feeling vulnerable.’ He spoke in Austin Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.”

I don’t really think this “all students should be comfortable on campus” stuff really means that they think all students should be comfortable. Certainly I can’t imagine King making a similar statement if Hillary had won.

UPDATE: From the comments:

Note that the government has now decided to come to the aid of certain people, even if nothing at all has happened to them. Now, the only requirement is that the protected class “feel” something. This feeling may even be entirely without cause. The important thing is that certain protected people must not be made to “feel” bad, no matter how irrational such a feeling is.

Of course, this protection does not extend to unprotected classes, such as Trump voters, who were too scared to tell people they were voting for Trump. No, they are an unprotected class.

And don’t think that’s by accident.

NOW REMEMBER TWO WEEKS AGO THE SMART GUYS WERE TALKING ABOUT HOW PRESIDENT HILLARY COULD PARDON HERSELF: I linked to this Fox News report yesterday but it’s worth a bump. The Democrat propagandists are pleading for comity and healing, which translates as let her get away with it. Sorry. Hillary and her gang committed felonies. This NRO article from July by Andrew McCarthy discusses non-Hillary prosecutions. McCarthy focuses on military personnel confronting allegations similar to those leveled against Hillary. Her crimes, his words. They were the choice in the election. And elections have consequences.

TOLERANCE: Black-Owned Restaurant Facing Boycott After Catering a Trump Event.

JOURNALISM: Trump leaves press behind to have dinner with family. Press goes crazy about “transparency.” This is, however, more evidence in support of my thesis that Trump will get far more scrutiny than Obama ever got, or than Hillary would have gotten.

UPDATE: Heh.

TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION COULD, BUT OBAMA’S ADMINISTRATION ALREADY DID: Trump’s administration could upend the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt . . . .

UPDATE: From the comments: “If you upend something that’s already been upended, is it right side up again?”

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: DONALD TRUMP HAS NO PLAN FOR DEALING WITH THE DEBT. Well, Trump really can’t run up the debt the way Obama did. At least, I hope he can’t. He certainly ran his campaign much more cheaply than anyone thought possible.

BRADLEY SMITH: Trump’s campaign kills the ‘money buys elections’ cliche.

President-elect Trump broke a lot of barriers this election. He overcame controversy, a so-called “unprofessional” campaign operation and the opposition of both major party establishments.

His election should also allow political observers to retire an old cliche: The idea that “money buys elections.” How can anyone say otherwise at this point?

Of course, the battlefield was already littered with candidates from both parties that outspent their opponents, only to lose. Meg Whitman, John Corzine, Linda McMahon and a host of other famous and unfamous names outspent their opponents on the way to defeat in previous years. But Trump may put all of those elections to shame when it comes to disparity of resources.

Consider that Hillary Clinton’s campaign outspent Trump by more than two-to-one. Pro-Clinton ads outnumbered pro-Trump ads by three-to-one. Independent groups (the “super PACs”) supporting Clinton outspent independent groups supporting Trump by three-to-one. The average contribution to Trump was smaller than the average contribution to Clinton. And on and on it goes.

We’re told by campaign finance “reformers” that we must restrict spending in politics so that “people” can have their voices heard. But voters in 2016 ultimately chose the candidate without even a “real” super PAC to speak of.

And I think that goes a long way toward explaining why so many “political professionals” hated him.

CHANGE: All lobbyists have been cut from Trump’s transition team:

Vice President-elect Mike Pence reportedly ordered the removal of all lobbyists from president-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, The Wall Street Journal wrote on Tuesday night.

The decision was one of Pence’s first since formally taking over the team’s lead role. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was abruptly dismissed from the post last week.

Seems like a good start.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: California College Funds Student Anti-Trump Rally with Tuition Dollars, Now the IRS Might Come Calling.

Pomona College in Claremont, California, sponsored up to 70 students to attend an anti-Trump rally over the weekend.

The rally, called “United Against Hate,” was one of hundreds of marches that took place around the country after Donald Trump’s election. Now there’s word that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) might have reason to look into the school’s involvement.

On November 14th, news broke that Pomona College’s Draper Center for Community Partnerships paid for its students’ transportation to and expenses accrued during a “United Against Hate” rally in Los Angeles.

Applicants were directed to sign up using an online form, and the center promoted the event through Facebook.

However, the school organization may have violated Pomona College’s 501 (c)(3) non-profit status by funding it with tuition dollars.

In an opinion piece for The Claremont Independent, a student newspaper affiliated with the Leadership Institute, Pomona College students Matthew Reade and Ross Steinberg, spell out the case that Pomona may not be able to get away with this form of political engagement. The center is 98% funded by Pomona College student fees.

Their excuse: But the whole point of the “Center for Community Partnerships” is to give money to leftist causes!

ROGER SIMON: Who Pays for the Anti-Trump Demonstrations/Riots?

The sacking of Portland is, so far, only the worst of what is happening across the country. There’s plenty more, accompanied by chants of “Love Trumps Hate” alternating with”Kill the Police.” Not very gentle stuff for supposed peacemakers. But perhaps they were only imitating their leader. Further, supposed neo-Nazi graffiti linked with Trump’s name are being reported by the MSM, which, not surprisingly, makes no serious attempt to determine if they are real or the work of provocateurs. (In most cases, I’m betting on the latter.)

The operative question, however, is just who pays for this mayhem and what do they want. Asra Nomani posted a list of 100 supporters of the Trump Protests on Twitter. You will recognize many names. 33 out of the 100 received money from one man, referred to at the link in proper Twitter syntax as @georgesoros.

Related: Legal Foundation Calls on DOJ Civil Rights Div. to Prosecute Mob Attack on Chicago Trump Voter.

A public interest law firm is calling on the Obama Justice Department to prosecute the brutal mob attack against a voter in Chicago, Illinois, on November 8, as a voting rights violation.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group dedicated to election integrity, sent letters to two sections in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division calling for an investigation into the attack as a violation of Section 11 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As reported here at PJ Media, disturbing video footage emerged online last week that shows 49-year-old David Wilcox being beaten and kicked by black thugs as a mob cheered them on. Onlookers cried “he voted for Trump!” “beat his ass!” and “don’t vote Trump!” while Wilcox was getting pummeled and as one of the individuals rooted around the driver’s side of his car.

The response will be interesting.

PURGE: Twitter suspends alt-right accounts.

SHIV, INSERTED: Obama Critiques Clinton’s Campaign Strategy.

His message was somewhat veiled, but crystal clear: Democrats at every level should study the Clinton 2016 playbook and learn from its mistakes — then immediately destroy it.

Obama was asked what advice he would give Democrats after a stunning Donald Trump-led Republican wave that gave the GOP the White House, helped it keep more House seats that expected, and keep control of the Senate. His response began like that of a party elder, preaching patience and a search of lessons.

I don’t think Obama’s all that unhappy. If Hillary had won, he’d be a has-been. Now he’s an elder opposition statesman like Bill, but without Bill’s rapey baggage.