BEWARE: Phishing scam that penetrated Wall Street just might work against you, too.

VIDEO: Watch a 100-Year-Old, 28.5-Liter Engine Scream to Life. “This thundering thing is the Beast of Turin. The Fiat S76 land speed record car. It’s a behemoth, nearly as tall as a man, with a four-cylinder engine displacing a staggering 28.5 liters. In 1911 that massive engine propelled the Fiat S76 to 135-mph, an extraordinary accomplishment at the time, and one that snatched the land speed record away from the Germans.”

Meanwhile, I drove 135 in a Mitsubishi Eclipse years ago, with air conditioning and an awesome stereo.

TEST DRIVE: 2016 Volkswagen Golf R Manual.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Ferguson And The Rule Of Law. To the activist crowd, undermining the rule of law isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

IN THE MAIL: From Sarah Hoyt, Witchfinder (Magical Empires Book 1), now only $3.99 on Kindle.

Plus, today only at Amazon: DEWALT 20V MAX 4-Tool Combo Kit, $249.99 (68% off).

And, also today only: Up to 65% Off “The Sopranos: The Complete Series.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 572.

MEGAN MCARDLE: UVA Should Help Police Catch Alleged Rapists — Now.

I wrote last week about the explosive rape allegations against a University of Virginia fraternity in Rolling Stone. This morning I see that Richard Bradley, a former editor at George who had the unhappy distinction of having been taken in by Stephen Glass, is raising questions about the story and the reporting by the author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

I read Bradley’s article and thought, “well, if there are problems with Erdely’s story, it will probably come out eventually, because there’s enough detail that can be checked.” But there’s a corollary to that: If the Rolling Stone article’s allegations are true, there’s also enough detail to put at least a couple of people in jail, and possibly the whole group, even if Jackie (the victim) is reluctant to assist the investigation.

For starters, there are two people whom the university can surely identify right now. First is “Drew,” the boy who worked as a lifeguard at the university pool with her, invited her to the party, and handed her over to his brothers to be raped. There are about 80 brothers in this fraternity; the odds that more than one of them was an upperclassman lifeguard in 2012 seem pretty small, unless this happens to be the swim team frat.

Second is the kid who raped her with a beer bottle when he found himself unable to maintain an erection; she says she recognized him as a classmate from a small anthropology discussion group. The story strongly implies that the rape was an initiation ritual for the fraternity, and since fraternity rush takes place in the second half of freshman year at UVA, this boy was almost certainly a sophomore, or maybe an upperclassman who transferred in. At any rate, it’s very unlikely that there is more than one young man who was a new member of Phi Kappa Psi in 2012, and also a member of lower-level anthropology class. The university ought to be able to identify these two young men in a matter of a few hours.

But the university may well be able to identify everyone, because the story strongly suggests that an entire new class of Phi Kappa Psi brothers participated in a gang rape, either of Jackie or of the two other girls who she learned were also gang raped at the fraternity around the same time that she had been. As far as I can tell, Virginia has no statute of limitations on rape, which means the police should be aggressively investigating these sickening allegations. The university has a duty to its own community, and to the community at large, to do its utmost to identify as many rapists as possible, and help the police to bring them to justice.

And yet, what it’s done instead is to visit watered-down collective punishment on the entire Greek system. What does that say?

IT’S KIND OF CHEESY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES TO RUN this Neil de Grasse Tyson rehab piece without mentioning that The Federalist busted him for his bogus quotes. Nor was Tyson very forthcoming about admitting his error.

OUR NEXT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Ashton Carter?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Law Schools Engage in ‘Hand-to-Hand Combat’ Over Declining Applicant Pool.

AT AMAZON, Up to 50% off on Gourmet Food & Gifts, including Chocolate Gifts, Coffee Gifts and Specialty Gifts.

Also, Cyber Monday Deals in Tools & Equipment.

And, today only: Klipsch Theater 3D Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer, $399.99 (50% off).

IT’S CUTE HOW THEY ACT LIKE THIS ONLY HAPPENS TO WOMEN: A Female Writer’s New Milestone: Her First Death Threat. When I get death threats, it’s not national news, because it can’t be coopted to support a narrative. Headline aside, though, the piece is actually fairly sensible.

UPDATE: Hey, if I were female, this comment from commenter KillYourselfGlenn would be a “death threat.” But note that according to this Pew study, men are harassed online more often than women.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Only 19 Paterson Students Ready For College. “In Paterson, New Jersey only 19 kids who took the SAT’s are considered college ready. This means that they scored at least a 1500 out of 2400 on the standardized test, and this number is truly shocking considering how large the school district is.”

Plus, this predictable kicker: “However, the Paterson school district said that they no longer use SAT scores to gauge students’ success.” Of course not.

Told ya so.

CHARLES C.W. COOKE: In Defense of ‘Antigovernment Militias.’

In the United States, police forces exist as a public service, not as a replacement for civil society. As the Supreme Court has made clear, police are under no obligation to help or to protect you. They can choose to, certainly. But they do not have to. And, even if they did have to, it would still be the case that they could not possibly be everywhere at once.

Nor are they intended to be. For much of American history, there was no serious distinction drawn between the citizenry, the militia, the military, and the police. Instead, there were a few elected or appointed roles — watchmen, constables, sheriffs, etc. — and then there was the people at large. Those people were expected to bandy together and to help one another, to be responsible for their own protection, and to help to keep the peace — both under the control of authorities and of their own volition. When standing police forces came into being, Americans did not give up this system; they added to it.

Which is to say that there is no reason whatsoever for us to abandon either our penchant for self-reliance or our preference for volunteerism simply because we have a series of professional police forces running in parallel to civil society. Nor, for that matter, should our out-of-control licensing systems and incomplete self-defense protections be permitted to become an impediment to our security. I’m no great fan of Oathkeepers as an outfit. But if they wish to help out during a protest, so be it. If a collection of black Ferguson residents wishes to protect a white-owned gas station from looters, so be it. If the Huey P. Newton Gun Club wants to march around Dallas protecting black citizens, so be it. If a spontaneous, unlicensed group of Korean Los Angelenos wishes to take up arms and protect their property from rioters, so be it. The United States represents a collection of free people who elect to have police forces — not the other way around. So some of our actors don’t much like the government. Who cares?

What has the government done to make itself likable, lately?

Plus, more from Jesse Walker:

A member told The New York Times that there were “more than five, less than 500.” He also said that he had been vetting prospective volunteers to weed out any racists, and that about 10 percent of the group’s guards were black. I’ve seen some worries in the press that the Oath Keepers’ presence “could inflame tensions further,” but I have not seen any reports of violence either by or against the group’s St. Louis patrols. The locals quoted in the Times and Post-Dispatch pieces seem to think their presence served as a deterrant. . . . (The Oath Keepers’ basic position on the situation is that the government has trampled the rights of peaceful protesters while neglecting their duty to protect lives and property.)

Better your home or business should burn than that the police should face competition. How about a federal civil rights law protecting citizens forced to resort to self-help from interference by local authorities?

THE BELMONT CLUB: Left Out Of The Narrative. “The media’s ability to define the narrative is so enormously powerful it almost distorts reality. . . . Just as things can be made to disappear, certain persons or objects can be made larger than they are by frequent repetition.”

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

THAT’S GOOD: Obama to provide funding for 50,000 police body cameras. Though, sadly, as someone on Twitter said, the first thing that occurs is that an Obama donor is in the body-camera business.

TO KEEP HIM FROM TALKING. Eli Lake & Josh Rogin: Why Is The FBI Still Targeting Petraeus?

ASHE SCHOW: Amid outrage, questions emerge about U.Va. gang-rape allegation.

When I first wrote about this story, I found it baffling that the woman in charge of U.Va.’s Sexual Misconduct Board was so apathetic toward an allegation of a brutal gang rape. That question still stands.

I had some lingering questions about the account, namely some clarifying details about how Jackie was able to recognize someone in a supposedly “pitch black” room and whether Jackie would cooperate with police now that the story has become so public. Erdley did not respond to a Washington Examiner request for information and U.Va. never returned a request seeking to confirm that a student even came to the administration with a story about gang rape.

But as Richard Bradley pointed out, questions do not equal untruth. The only people who know for sure what happened in that fraternity room two years ago are Jackie and Drew, and the seven men who allegedly raped her and the other man who was egging them on and possibly her friends at the time. But none of them are talking.

Well, luckily we’ve got the solid-gold imprimatur of Rolling Stone on this story.

UPDATE: New Republic: That Rolling Stone Rape Story May Not Be Entirely Accurate.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Guardian: 109 women prosecuted for false rape claims in five years, say campaigners.

Of course, the gist of the story is activists’ claim that punishing women for lying about rape is unfair to women!!! “But Prof Claire Ferguson, a forensic criminologist from the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia, said it was not the norm to prosecute women for false allegations and that only those in the most egregious cases were charged, often where the accused man had spent time in custody.” So how many more false claims were there?

AT AMAZON, it’s the Holiday Gift Guide in Electronics.

Also, shop the Golf Gift Guide.

MORE ON THE WAR BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATS’ GENTRY-LIBERAL AND URBAN-BLACK FACTIONS: Obama Shafts Hillary With Amnesty and Ferguson.

Obama can remain a player with a 35% constituency, but Hillary needs 50% + 1 to win. The Obama coalition/Democrat base has the Chablis-swilling limo libs from Marin County, the AFSCME-dues paying DMV diversity consultants, and the big screen-watching EBT cardholder vote nailed down. Everyone else, not so much anymore. And Obama is clearly fine with that.

Hillary was supposed to do what Bill did and bring back those blue collar Dems – the people who make things with their hands, the people who didn’t go to Wellesley, and the government employees like Officer Darren Wilson who actual perform a useful service. But Obama doesn’t need or even want them, and he’s happily driving them away to strengthen his own coalition. He’s refused to stand up against the race hustlers and rioters. And he’s hung the executive amnesty around Hillary’s neck, ensuring that she’ll spend the next two years promising not to undo it – in contrast the GOP nominee who will be talking about little else.

Hillary faces two problems that have potentially mutually exclusive solutions. One is keeping the Obama coalition behind her, and it’s already making noises about fleeing to Big Chief Warren. The other is expanding the coalition to once again include normal people. An executive amnesty she could undo with a pen stroke is not going to be any help with that. Nor are media images of businesses burning because some hardworking cop refused to allow himself to be murdered to please the likes of Al Sharpton.

With another Democrat in the White House, Obama’s a has-been. With a Republican and an angry 35% constituency, he’ll matter — basically, Al Sharpton writ large.

THAT’S RATHER A LOT, REALLY: CDC: More Than 1,400 People in U.S. Being Actively Monitored for Ebola. But I guess the new Ebola Czar is doing his job, because it’s out of the news.

“GOVERNMENT” IS JUST A WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: FDA Recruits Minors For Online Cigarettes Purchases. “The FDA did not respond to an email inquiry why this particular investigation requires the involvement of actual minors.”

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO IGNORE: Also no coverage at the New York Times of the arrest of Obama bundler Terry Bean for child rape. It’s like they have an agenda to distort the news for partisan reasons or something.

MEN DON’T LIE ABOUT RAPE: Shia LaBeouf’s Collaborators Confirm Rape Allegations.

Early Sunday morning, two of Shia LaBeouf’s creative collaborators, Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner, tweeted some clarifications about the actor’s claim that he was raped during his #IAMSORRY project. (LaBeouf told Dazed that a female audience member “whipped my legs for ten minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me” during an early February performance.) Rönkkö wrote that as “soon as we were aware of the incident, we put a stop to it and ensured the woman left.”

All you people who doubted him — I’m looking at you, Piers Morgan — you’re sexist rape-enablers.

CHRIS ROCK: I stopped playing colleges because they’re too intolerant.

PUSHING BACK AGAINST THE NARRATIVE: Charles Barkley Calls Ferguson Rioters ‘Scumbags’; Supports Grand Jury Decision.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Do Mobile Phones Make Clingy Lovers?

AT THE NEW YORK TIMES, zero results in a search for Zemir Begic, the man beaten to death with hammers by “youths” in St. Louis.

UPDATE: Now they have a one-paragraph wire report that omits the race of the attackers.

THANKS TO ROSS PEROT, WHO AFTER ALL DOES OWE A LOT TO COMPUTERS: How the World’s First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap.

AT AMAZON, Cyber Monday Deals in Camera, Photo & Video.

Also, 30% off today on Clothing, Shoes, Watches & More.

INFERTILITY and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

SPACE: Firefly Space Systems charges full-speed toward low Earth orbit. I do like the name.

ON SALE: Sarah Hoyt’s Witchfinder, $3.99 on Kindle.

BENJAMIN WEINGARTEN: 10 major takeaways from the House Benghazi report that the media is completely ignoring.

IS DR. VENKMAN INVOLVED? Are Telepathy Experiments Stunts or Science? Actually, I’m going with science, here.

I THINK WE NEED JETSONS-STYLE ANTIGRAVITY FOR THAT: Could Drones Solve London’s Congestion Problem?

ROGER SIMON: 2016. “Obama was the last gasp of a dying ideology. All they have left is some pathetic and teetering identity politics.”

BECAUSE THEY’RE PROTECTORS OF THE POWERFUL, THE CAPITOL POLICE AND SECRET SERVICE GOT LESS BLOWBACK FOR THIS SHOOTING OF AN UNARMED BLACK WOMAN: How Miriam Carey’s U-turn at a White House checkpoint led to her death.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Not working for the working class: The key to Obama’s struggle with white working class voters is not ‘white,’ but ‘working.’

IN THE MAIL: From John C. Wright, The Book of Feasts & Seasons.

Plus, today only at Amazon: Up to 50% Off Select Hasbro Toys.

And, also today only: Over 45% Off the Canon PowerShot S110 Digital Camera.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 571. It’s a big one today.

JOHN FUND ON THE NEW CBO HEAD: The Voters Spoke: Now Listen. “Right now, there is a fierce behind-the-scenes battle over who will head the Congressional Budget Office, an influential agency of 200 analysts that provides estimates on the cost and societal impact of legislation. . . . Since January 2009, the CBO has been headed by Doug Elmendorf, who served on President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and in Clinton’s Treasury Department. He was appointed by Democrats at a time when they controlled both houses of Congress and is generally well respected by his fellow academic economists.”

CBO did a terrible job with ObamaCare. Someone should pay a price for that.

REASON: Is The UVA Rape Story A Gigantic Hoax? If so, who will be held accountable?

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: How Silicon Valley Created America’s Largest Homeless Camp.

Feid, an unemployed union carpenter, lives in a fortress of netting and plastic tarp with a cat named Baby. He’s one of the 278 people who’ve claimed a spot in the thicket of cottonwood trees along Coyote Creek. He first moved here four years ago when he ran out of work. . . .

The 53-year-old carpenter made good money at the height of the Silicon Valley construction boom in the 1980s and ’90s. He built movie theaters and installed ceilings in the new offices of high-tech companies that put San Jose and the rest of Santa Clara County on the map.

“All the buildings around here, you know, I probably worked on them,” said Feid, who was making up to $35 an hour in those days. Then came the dot-com crash in 2000, bankrupting dozens of Internet companies and drying up construction work. Feid lost his apartment and bounced around for years, living in people’s garages as he remodeled their homes. In 2009, a friend kicked him out and Feid found himself on the streets. All he had was his motorcycle and a few tarps.

“You build everything up … then you lose your job and then everything falls apart again,” Feid said. “At least here in the creek you know what your status is.”

The number of people living in the camp has tripled since Feid first moved in. The Jungle now has a Spanish-speaking section, and up the creek is the Vietnamese enclave known as Little Saigon. The explosive growth has led to more violence and filth. Dogs rummage through heaps of garbage and human waste. . . .

The current tech boom has made Silicon Valley one of the wealthiest and fastest-growing regions of the country. That has created one of the country’s most expensive rental markets, pushing low-wage workers out of Santa Clara County or onto the streets.

“You need to work five minimum-wage jobs to afford to live here,” said Jennifer Loving, executive director of Destination: Home, the public-private partnership to end homelessness in Santa Clara County. “No one can do that. That right there creates a huge income disparity.”

This year, San Jose and the surrounding county surpassed Los Angeles as having the country’s highest rate of homeless people living on the streets, according to the annual homelessness assessment report from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department. Three-quarters of the area’s 7,567 homeless residents are from Santa Clara County. Most of them live in one of San Jose’s 247 tent cities, just miles from the sprawling headquarters of Google and Apple.

Silicon Valley: America’s future?

REMINDER: In 2009, Barack Obama “Joked” About Auditing His Enemies.

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Also, Cyber Monday Deals in Computers.

And, today only: 25% off Dragon Age: Inquisition.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS UP: Not working for the working class: The key to Obama’s struggle with white working class voters is not ‘white,’ but ‘working.’

PERHAPS CYBER MONDAY WILL DO BETTER: Black Friday Lays An Egg.

MY DON’T FEAR THE LEAKER PAPER has made the SSRN Top Ten List for new downloads. Thanks to everyone who downloaded it!

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Swarthmore Backs Down.

Swarthmore College has vacated the findings of a campus judicial process that led to a lawsuit that charged the college with gender-based discrimination against male students accused of sexual misconduct.

The federal judge in the case then agreed to a joint motion from the college and the student (identified only as John Doe) to dismiss the lawsuit, one of several filed by men under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The suits charge that colleges — facing intense pressure from female students and the U.S. Education Department to crack down on sexual assault — are violating the rights of male students accused of misconduct.

The dismissal of the case does not address the Title IX complaint, but it does represent a dramatic shift for Swarthmore, which has been fighting off the lawsuit and defending the conduct of its investigation and findings in the case.

One of my former law students who practices law in Nashville tried to run one of the HAVE YOU BEEN FALSELY ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT? ads I’ve mentioned in the Vanderbilt student paper. They refused to run the ad, apparently because they didn’t want to encourage people to sue Vanderbilt. Without opining on whether that constitutes illegal sex discrimination, I suggested that he try a couple of bus-shelter ads around the campus. These campus policies are pure gold for trial lawyers. . .

GIVE SARAH PALIN A CALL — SHE CAN EXPLAIN IT FOR YOU. Katie Couric Doesn’t Know What “Eschatology” Means.

POLITICO SAYS THAT GOP CANDIDATES DON’T GET IT when trying to get tech money.

Actually, I’d say that if they’re trying to get tech money, they really don’t get it. First, these companies are Dem allies and that isn’t likely to change. Second, there are more votes to be had running a populist campaign against the New Oligarchs of Silicon Valley than any donations could possibly buy. A winning GOP campaign would attack the plutocratic oligarchs of the super-rich and the welfare-chiselers of the non-working poor, on behalf of the 75% of the country in between.

Related: “The typical American family makes less than the typical family did 15 years ago, a statement that hadn’t previously been true since the Great Depression.”

Also: Middle Class Americans Hardest Hit By ObamaCare: “The hardest-hit: the middle-class. Americans with an annual household income of between $30,000 and $75,000 began delaying medical care over costs more in 2014, up to 38 percent in 2014 from 33 percent last year; among households that earn above $75,000, 28 percent delayed care this year, compared to just 17 percent last year. The lowest-income section, some of whom can take part in Medicaid and who are more likely to qualify for significant premium and cost-sharing subsidies on an Obamacare exchange, are less likely to delay care this year.”

There’s your electoral gold. Don’t be distracted by the fool’s gold of tech money.

COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Moneyball For Government.

RAPE AND OTHER SEX CRIMES down by half since 1990s.

ED DRISCOLL: Back To Blood.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Gallup: Under ObamaCare, Record Numbers Of Americans Foregoing Medical Care Because Of Cost. “One in three Americans has put off seeking medical treatment in 2014 due to high costs, according to Gallup — the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 2001. Thirty-three percent of Americans have delayed medical treatment for themselves or their families because of the costs they’d have to pay, according to the survey. Obamacare, of course, had promised that it would help make health care more affordable for everyone, but the number of people who can’t afford a trip to the doctor has actually risen three points since 2013, before most Obamacare provisions took effect.”

OBAMA’S LEGACY AS NIXON’S LEGACY: Obama Builds Environmental Legacy With 1970 Law.

FROM THE NEW YORK POST, more on how Ivy League “diversity” quotas target Asians.

It helps to remember that when affirmative-action programs were advanced, the nation and the wrongs being addressed were very different.

Much of the civil-rights focus of the 1950s and 1960s was to open up institutions that had been arbitrarily and unfairly closed to African-Americans. And the categories involved were basically black and white.

Today we live in a much different America. Jim Crow has long been outlawed, and even the definition of diversity has changed with the growth of, for example, America’s Latino and Asian communities.

The old racial categories will be even more difficult to defend as intermarriage further erodes what were once clear divisions.

The progressives haven’t progressed past 1968.