THE CONNECTION BETWEEN sex and creativity. Is it different for men and women?

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THE JOY OF QUILTING. I have a quilt that’s much older than I am; my grandmother made it out of scraps of my mom’s little-girl dresses.

THE INSTA-WIFE’S BOOK, MEN ON STRIKE, GETS MENTIONED IN THIS DAILY MAIL ARTICLE on women wondering why men are less interested in having kids these days.

In Asia there’s a new tendency for men to go their own way – with thousands shunning marriage and kids for a life of independence and control, which no family court can destroy. The same thing is happening across America and Canada.

In fact, author Helen Smith PHD recently published a book entitled Men on Strike, where she notes that: ‘America has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going on strike. They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates.’

Now, it’s happening here in Britain. This isn’t because men are ‘selfish’ or commitment-phobic pigs (as women frequently like to suggest). Rather, it’s because they’re tired of being ousted from families, of being shafted by sexist divorce rulings and being denied the most basic paternal rights.

These guys know that any child they have with a woman would be her baby, not their baby.

Lesson of the decade: People respond to incentives, even perverse incentives.

THOSE RIOTOUS “YOUTHS” AGAIN: Sixth Night of Violence in Sweden.

HOMELAND SECURITY: Even Politicians Tire of Failure-Prone, Freedom-Threatening Fusion Centers.

The Department of Homeland Security’s pet fusion centers, intended to “serve as focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between the federal government and state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT) and private sector partners,” have instead managed to enrage people across the political spectrum by finding bogeymen under every conceivable bed. They’ve targeted Occupy protesters and Ron Paul supporters as threats to the republic, and even listed the American Civil Liberties Union on a map detailing “terrorism events and other suspicious activity.” Just about the only people they haven’t targeted are actual terrorists — an omission that has drawn criticism for the Massachusetts franchise of the DHS network. No wonder politicians are starting to question whether the money dedicated to these factories of Fail are well-spent.

I was opposed to the creation of the Homeland Security department from the beginning. Nothing has happened since to suggest that I was wrong. And while we’re reliving the past, read this, and this. And this. Not much progress over the past decade. . . .

I JUST RAN ACROSS this Cathy Seipp piece from 2002. “Big-government fans like The American Prospect and The Nation seem to imagine that blogs, which are by definition creatures of the free market, ought to be pre-approved by some sort of official bureaucracy. The tongue-clucking reminds me of the teacher’s pet who was always raising her hand to protest, ‘Miss Jones! Miss Jones! Johnnie’s reading ahead again! Unsupervised!’”

I still miss her.

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Also, what everyone needs: Star Trek Into Darkness Starfleet Phaser Limited Edition Gift Set, $79.99. Plus the film in Blu-Ray.

THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER REPORTS that Hillary’s new book will be the occasion on which she comes out as a bisexual. Hillary hopes this will make her seem cooler; bisexuals everywhere fear it won’t do anything for their image. Plus, going after Valerie Jarrett?

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Pricey Beef Puts Heat on U.S. Grilling Season. “As Americans prepare for Memorial Day—the official kickoff to a summer grilling season of burgers and T-bones—rising beef prices have some consumers balking in the grocery aisles. Retail beef prices are widely expected to set new records in coming weeks after wholesale prices, or the amount meatpackers charge sellers for beef, hit an all-time peak this past week.”

You might want to consider strategic shopping. Related: Lessons From Extreme Cheapskates.

DEREK THOMPSON: The Falling-Bridge Lesson: The U.S. Infrastructure Failure Is Still Totally Inexcusable. Well, as I’ve noted before, the stimulus was supposed to go for fixing bridges, but feminists complained that it would produce too many jobs for burly men, and Obama wilted under their fierce glare.

KOREA: Plastic Surgery Capital Of The World?

PROGRESS IN IMMUNOLOGY: The Magic Molecule of Immunity? “It isn’t often that an entire field of medical science gets turned on its head. But it is becoming clear that immunology is undergoing a big rethink thanks to the discovery that antibodies, which combat viruses, work not just outside cells but inside them as well. The star of this new view is a protein molecule called TRIM21. . . . The significance of the group’s finding is just sinking in. It gives medicine a whole new angle on infection, and it just might crack the hitherto almost insuperable problem of how to cure viral infections, rather than just prevent them by vaccination.” Faster, please, as we like to say around here.

JOURNALISM: Male Reporters Harden Stance In Defense of Weiner.

Also, Is Joan Walsh Racist?

DAVID MOSHMAN: Sexual Harassment And Academic Freedom. “The topic of sexuality, then, is subject to the same principles of academic freedom as any other topic. Sexual harassment is wrong because it is harassment, not because it is sexual.”

AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, thinking small.

EDUCATIONAL: Wait, Schools Require a Doctor’s Note for Sunscreen?

UPDATE: Reader George Milonas writes:

We pediatricians are being inundated with permission slips all day long. My paperwork has doubled over the last ten years in no small part because of idiotic school rules requiring parents and docs to sign off on virtually every common sense OTC item. They range from Tylenol and ibuprofen to hand lotion, sunscreen, and bug spray. Each requires its own special form. This is in addition to the actual prescription meds we prescribe like antibiotics and inhalers. It’s absolutely ridiculous when you consider these kids can literally sign for their own abortions without their parents’ permission.

Yes, it is.

IT’S NOT OFFICIALLY OUT UNTIL NEXT MONTH, but the Insta-Wife’s book, Men On Strike, has been shipping from Amazon and it’s already piling up positive reader reviews. Buy two: One for yourself, one for your local library!

HOPE THIS PANS OUT: Breakthrough on Huntington’s disease. “We are the first to show that it is possible to prevent the depression symptoms of Huntington’s disease by deactivating the diseased protein in nerve cell populations in the hypothalamus in the brain. This is hugely exciting and bears out our previous hypotheses.”

HERE’S A FULL-LENGTH REVIEW of Bill Ardolino’s Fallujah Awakens.

TAXPROF: Roundup: The IRS Scandal, Day 16.

IN THE MAIL: From Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939.

BUT THERE ARE WHOLE INDUSTRIES AND BUREAUCRACIES AIMED AT PREVENTING THAT: Joe Fitzgerald: Don’t Be Afraid To Call Evil By Its Name.

RYAN LIZZA IN THE NEW YORKER: How Prosecutors Fought to Keep James Rosen’s Warrant Secret.

The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.

The new details are revealed in a court filing detailing a back and forth between the Justice Department and the federal judges who oversaw the request to search a Gmail account belonging to Rosen, a reporter for Fox News. A 2009 article Rosen had written about North Korea sparked an investigation; Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former State Department adviser who allegedly leaked classified information to Rosen, insisted that the reporter should not be notified of the search and seizure of his e-mails, even after a lengthy delay. . . . The new details indicate that the government wanted the option to search Rosen’s e-mails repeatedly if the F.B.I. found further evidence implicating the reporter in what prosecutors argued was a conspiracy to commit espionage.

According to recently unsealed documents in the case, the Obama Justice Department sought an extensive amount of information from Rosen’s e-mail account. In addition to Rosen’s correspondence with Kim, the government wanted to know about Rosen’s contacts with other government officials, including “records or information relating to the Author’s communication with any other source or potential source of the information disclosed in the Article.”

The government, which accused Rosen of being an “aider, abettor, and/or co-conspirator” in the Kim case, cast a wide net in its search of Rosen’s e-mail.

Feeling the hope and change yet?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Judge Posner explains how Yale professors became Upper Class.

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ME ON BLOOMBERG LAW TV: America’s IP Laws Need to be “Pruned Back.”

WASHINGTON POST: The Press Must Have The Ability To Ask Questions. Want to preserve your ability to ask questions? Try asking questions. ProTip: Pretending that this is a Republican administration will help you overcome initial reluctance, shyness. Like imagining audience in their underwear. . . .

MENENDEZ: We Don’t Have Enough Votes To Pass Gang Of Eight Immigration Bill.

SHAKEDOWN: The H Street Project.

JAMES TARANTO: See You in the Funny Papers: A tribute to an anti-mentor. “That, it seems to us, is the central story of our time. The left-liberal elite that attained cultural dominance between the 1960s and the 1980s–and that since 2008 has seen itself as being on the cusp of political dominance as well–is undergoing a crisis of authority, and its defenses are increasingly ferocious and unprincipled. Journalists lie or ignore important but politically uncongenial stories. Scientists suppress alternative hypotheses. Political organizations bully apolitical charities. The Internal Revenue Service persecutes dissenters. And campus censorship goes on still.”

MARS: What We’ve Learned In Five Years.

PRIORITIES: Reason-Rupe Poll: Congress Should Cut Spending, Forget Gun Control. “Fifty-four percent of Americans say Congress should cut spending from current levels and 62 percent say Congress should forget about gun control and move on to other issues. Social Security is widely popular, with 65 percent having a favorable view of the retirement portions of the program. But it’s also widely misunderstood as an individual retirement account rather than a transfer payment financed by current tax dollars.”

ONE CHARISMATIC ORATOR TO ANOTHER: How JFK secretly ADMIRED Hitler: Explosive book reveals former President’s praise for the Nazis as he travelled through Germany before Second World War. A lot of influential Americans of the political class admired Hitler at some point.

Related: Cornelius Vanderbilt IV meets Hitler:

Vanderbilt toured Europe with two French cameramen, and managed to interview the day’s notorious newsmakers, including Benito Mussolini and Josef Stalin. But the plutocrat-cum-journalist set his sights on a man even more dangerous. When he had a chance to sit down with the former Crown Prince of Germany, in Berlin, he asked, “Strange, isn’t it, that you Hohenzollerns are so much easier to see than Hitler?”

On March 5, 1933, the day elections gave the Nazis a parliamentary plurality, a triumphant Adolf Hitler addressed a hysterical crowd at the Sports Palace in Berlin. From the wings of the stage, Vanderbilt managed a brief audience with the new Reich Chancellor. According to Vanderbilt’s account, he introduced himself, in German, and then Hitler, with a motion to the throngs that awaited, began speaking: “Tell the Americans that life moves forward, always forward, irrevocably forward. Tell them that Adolf Hitler is the man of the hour, not because he has been appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg but because no one else could have been appointed Chancellor instead. Tell them that he was sent by the Almighty to a nation that had been threatened with disintegration and loss of honor for fifteen long years.” Vanderbilt, an all-American blue blood, risked a final question. He shouted, “And what about the Jews, Your Excellency?” Hitler brushed it off—“My people are waiting for me!”—and pointed Vanderbilt toward Dr. Ernst Hanfstaengl, his Harvard-educated (and Anglo-acclimated) foreign press chief. “He will tell you about the Jews and all the other things that seem to bother America.” Hanfstaengl proved mostly interested in Vanderbilt’s money.

The old-money Vanderbilt seems to have been more discerning about Hitler than the new-money Kennedy. Tragedy that he didn’t shoot him.

UPDATE: Reader Matt Gilbert emails:

Hi Glenn – I laughed out loud at this: “pity he didn’t shoot him”.

My German-speaking grand-dad was the AP reporter based in London who was sent to cover Hitler’s election. He met him twice. I never knew this (neither did my mother – his own daughter) until I asked him what his biggest regret in life was. He told his story then reached out his hands and said, “my biggest regret was not strangling that man when I had the chance….” I’d never seen my no-drama Grand-dad so animated. He died two years later. His best friend was the AP photographer sent with him to the event. Afterwards they took 2 weeks and toured the continent. We found those sepia photographs in my Granddad’s things after he passed…pictures of pre-ww2 Europe, pre-destruction Germany and then right there: my granddad standing next to the most notorious man of the 20th century. It was bone chilling.

Some people just need killin’, as the Scots-Irish used to say. Okay, still do.

DO TELL: Petraeus Biographer Regrets Affair.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student Loan Problems: One Third Of Millennials Regret Going To College.

Here’s an indication of how burdensome student loans have become: About one-third of millennials say they would have been better off working, instead of going to college and paying tuition.

That’s a according to a new Wells Fargo WFC +0.57% study which surveyed 1,414 millennials between the ages of 22 and 32. More than half of them financed their education through student loans, and many say the if they had $10,000 the “first thing” they’d do is pay down their student loan or credit card debt.

That’s no surprise when you consider student borrowing topped the $100 billion threshold for the first time in 2010, and total outstanding loans exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in 2011. Student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt in the U.S. which stands at about $798 billion.

Delinquencies are also on the rise. The number of borrowers who are at least 90 days late on student loan payments has jumped from 8.5% in 2011 to 11.7% today, according to a study by the New York Federal Reserve.

The problem sometimes is that not all college educations are worth their cost since they can’t guarantee a high-paying job to help pay off that student debt.

Do tell.

EMASCULATED, AS A MATTER OF POLICY: Britain: “We are admiring these women, but implicit in our admiration is the question — let’s speak it out loud — Where are the men?”

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Mark Steyn.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? The Government Wants A Backdoor Into Your Communications. “According to the New York Times, President Obama is ‘on the verge of backing’ a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA forces telephone companies to provide backdoors to the government so that it can spy on users after obtaining court approval, and was expanded in 2006 to reach Internet technologies like VoIP. The new proposal reportedly allows the FBI to listen in on any conversation online, regardless of the technology used, by mandating engineers build “backdoors” into communications software.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Americans Spent Less Per Student on Public Schools. “The amount of money spent per public school student fell in 2011 for the first time since the Census Bureau began keeping records more than three decades earlier, as economic woes finally caught up with educational realities. . . . ‘There (have) actually been declines in education employment, which is really different than in prior recessions, where state and local government has actually protected employment more.’”

All is proceeding as I have foreseen.

MICKEY KAUS: Does welfare cause terrorism, Part XVIII.

How long before we find out that “alleged” Woolwich murderer Michael Adebolajo was on some kind of welfare? Or else his household was on welfare. The Tsarnaevs received various kinds of welfare too, of course, as have numerous other terrorists. This is not a coincidence:

“In fact, there’s a good argument that “welfare benefits + ethnic antagonism” is the universal recipe for an underclass with an angry, oppositional culture. The social logic is simple: Ethnic differences make it easy for those outside of, for example, French Arab neighborhoods to discriminate against those inside, and easy for those inside to resent the mainstream culture around them. [Update: See also, Sweden.] Meanwhile, relatively generous welfare benefits enable those in the ethnic ghetto to stay there, stay unemployed, and seethe. Without government subsidies, they would have to overcome the prejudice against them and integrate into the mainstream working culture. Work, in this sense, is anti-terrorist medicine. (And if you work all day, there’s less time to dream up ways and reasons to kill infidels.)”

If Adebolajo turns out to have earned his own living, I’ll be surprised and chastened. Will post update in this space.

You’re betting with the odds, Mickey.

JOHN HINDERAKER: The Inevitable Decline Of Great Britain (cont’d). “The average American household is better armed than a London policeman, and as a result, it was left to a few women from the crowd of bystanders to try to deal with cleaver-wielding murderers. But that doesn’t mean the British are entirely lax with respect to law enforcement. No, not at all: it just depends which laws you are talking about. If you mean laws against carving up innocent people on the street with knives, well, the Brits have a problem. But if you complain about such an outrage on Facebook or Twitter, you’re going to be crushed by the full majesty of the law.”

A BAD REVIEW FOR OBAMA’S SPEECH: “He’s actually getting worse. This president will not admit that we are in a war.”

UGH: “The child died because he was not fed. Period.”

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST ABOUT TRUE THE VOTE SUING THE IRS AGENTS WHO HARASSED IT, READER BLAINE MILLER WRITES:

I believe you have a bit of hypocrisy here. Your comment on the thuggish campaign of Barack Obama in 08 and then you highlight a story of True Vote going to sue the IRS employees. Granted the IRS scandal is outrageous but suing the IRS employees is intimidation, pure and simple.

There’s no equivalence here. Punishing someone for wrongdoing — which is what True The Vote is doing — is not the same as punishing someone for political opposition, which is what the IRS was doing.

UPDATE: Reader Douglas Hufnagel writes: “Isn’t intimidating government thugs exactly what we want? Shouldn’t we use any methods possible to absolutely crush those who would attack us with such blatantly illegal methods?” I wouldn’t go so far as an “any means necessary’ approach. But accountability does matter.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rod Sanders emails:

To the idea that suing the individual IRS employees is intimidation:

Maybe it is. But it is, nonetheless, the correct reaction.

There seems to be the idea among many government employees that invoking the ‘I was only following orders’ argument somehow magically insulates them from their bad behavior.

If the people on the ground are held much more accountable for their actions, it may become harder for those calling the shots to use them as foot soldiers in their political games.

A moral individual would refuse to follow an order that is illegal or unethical. Most, if not all, of the front line employees involved here did not refuse. In fact, they likely agreed with the goal.

They shouldn’t get off just because someone like Lerner called the shots.

Indeed.

MORE: Reader Andy Freeman writes: “If the IRS employees were ‘just following orders’ then they’ll be willing to document said orders and testify in court as to who gave them.” You’d think.

Plus, a longtime reader emails:

Since I am a federal employee please don’t use my name if you quote me.

In my branch of federal government I am reminded via mandatory annual training that I can be held individually accountable both criminally and civilly for violations of the law. So I reject that these lawsuits are intimidation. They are the proper response and a reminder of the law.

It is not bullying to hold people accountable.

No, it’s not.

BOB OWENS: Forget 3D Printing, Here’s The Real Threat To Gun Control.

BUY A GUN: 911 Dispatcher Tells Woman About To Be Sexually Assaulted There Are No Cops To Help Her Due To Budget Cuts. “You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away?”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How I Got A Date Worth Keeping (And Marrying).

BRITAIN: Two men arrested over ‘offensive Twitter comments about British soldier’s death.’ “Police say people should be careful about what they write on twitter as the ‘consequences could be serious’.” It’s not like they were just sawing off heads or something. These were offensive tweets. Probably racist or anti-Islamic or something. That’s serious.

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KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: Conservatives Became Targets In 2008: The Obama campaign played a big role in a liberal onslaught that far pre-dated Citizens United.

The White House insists President Obama is “outraged” by the “inappropriate” targeting and harassment of conservative groups. If true, it’s a remarkable turnaround for a man who helped pioneer those tactics.

On Aug. 21, 2008, the conservative American Issues Project ran an ad highlighting ties between candidate Obama and Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign and supporters were furious, and they pressured TV stations to pull the ad—a common-enough tactic in such ad spats.

What came next was not common. Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign (and later general counsel for the White House), on the same day wrote to the criminal division of the Justice Department, demanding an investigation into AIP, “its officers and directors,” and its “anonymous donors.” Mr. Bauer claimed that the nonprofit, as a 501(c)(4), was committing a “knowing and willful violation” of election law, and wanted “action to enforce against criminal violations.” . . .

Also on Sept. 8, Mr. Bauer complained to the Federal Election Commission about AIP and Mr. Simmons. He demanded that AIP turn over certain tax documents to his campaign (his right under IRS law), then sent a letter to AIP further hounding it for confidential information (to which he had no legal right).

The Bauer onslaught was a big part of a new liberal strategy to thwart the rise of conservative groups. In early August 2008, the New York Times trumpeted the creation of a left-wing group (a 501(c)4) called Accountable America. Founded by Obama supporter and liberal activist Tom Mattzie, the group—as the story explained—would start by sending “warning” letters to 10,000 GOP donors, “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” The letters would alert “right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.” As Mr. Mattzie told Mother Jones: “We’re going to put them at risk.”

A thuggish campaign, foreshadowing a thuggish presidency.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

It’s Friday night and I’ve had a few drinks but…

I’m starting to think maybe these fuckers killed Breitbart, KGB style with a poisoned umbrella or something.

I don’t think so — I talked to Andrew a couple of months before he died and he was wearing a heart monitor — but I can see why you’d think that. And, of course, the kind of erosion of trust that goes with thug-government is highly destructive on its own.

FRED LAPIDES rounds up the good stuff. Along with rather a lot of weird stuff.

SLOWER, PLEASE: How A Tech Giant Proposes To Charge You For Having Friends.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Lessons of Operation Swill: Six Ways to Tell Your Bar Is Passing Off Cheap Liquor as the Good Stuff.

AT AMAZON, markdowns and gift ideas for Father’s Day.

JUST A REMINDER THAT THE “IRS SCANDALS” AREN’T JUST ABOUT THE IRS:

In December 2010 the FBI came to ask about a person who’d attended a King Street Patriots function. In January 2011 the FBI had more questions. The same month the IRS audited her business tax returns. In May 2011 the FBI called again for a general inquiry about King Street Patriots. In June 2011 Engelbrecht’s personal tax returns were audited and the FBI called again. In October 2011 a round of questions on True the Vote. In November 2011 another call from the FBI. The next month, more questions from the FBI. In February 2012 a third round of IRS questions on True the Vote. In February 2012 a first round of questions on King Street Patriots. The same month the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did an unscheduled audit of her business. (It had a license to make firearms but didn’t make them.) In July 2012 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration did an unscheduled audit. In November 2012 more IRS questions on True the Vote. In March 2013, more questions. In April 2013 a second ATF audit.

All this because she requested tax-exempt status for a local conservative group and for one that registers voters and tries to get dead people off the rolls. Her attorney, Cleta Mitchell, who provided the timeline above, told me: “These people, they are just regular Americans. They try to get dead people off the voter rolls, you would think that they are serial killers.”

The rot is general. The cleanout should be, too.

OAK RIDGE: The Beginning Of The End At K-25.

SEVEN KNIVES EVERYONE SHOULD OWN.

FASTER, PLEASE: Material That Sorts Molecules by Shape Could Lower the Price of Gas. “Refiners typically use a material that can sort molecules by size during a key step in the refining process. To achieve a desired octane rating, this step has to be supplemented with energy-intensive distillation steps, or by the use of additives. The new material, which sorts molecules by shape rather than by size, can better differentiate between different types of hydrocarbon molecules, eliminating the distillation steps and the need for octane-enhancing additives.”

YES. NEXT QUESTION? The IRS Scandal Is a Test: Is It Too Hard to Fire Misbehaving Bureaucrats?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Tyranny Of College. “College isn’t for everyone, and there’s data to prove it. During the 2011-12 academic year, the number of students enrolled in American colleges and universities dropped by 1.6 percent, while the number of degrees awarded increased by 5.1 percent, according to a new study. As colleges attract fewer marginal students who wouldn’t have succeeded in attaining a degree, completion stats go up. This is largely good news. Students who fail to complete their degrees take on the costs of college with none of the benefits of a degree. This is an important lesson we’re just beginning to learn, as a four-year college degree is still a prerequesite for nearly all decent jobs. This is a colossal waste: that degree can be exorbitantly expensive, and it requires young adults to spend their prime working years confined to classrooms, often studying subjects that do little to prepare them for their future careers. For many of them, real-world work experience would be a better use of that time.”

ED MORRISSEY: Did Eric Holder lie in Congressional testimony last week?

POLITICO: The Sharyl Attkisson Approach. “For years, Attkisson has been one of the few mainstream reporters pursuing critical stories about the Obama administration.”

Related: The decline and fall of the Obama-media industrial complex.

CHANGE: The Rise And Fall Of Charm In American Men.

SHOCKER: Lois ‘I’ve Done Nothing Wrong’ Lerner Signed IRS Letters Harassing Tea Party Groups.

HARD-HITTING SCANDAL-ERA JOURNALISM FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: White House press secretary Jay Carney discusses favorite band, Guided by Voices.

INFRASTRUCTURE: Washington Bridge Collapse Caused By Truck Hitting Span. John Steakley emails:

So when Obama said “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Was this one of the bridges he meant? If so, I think American taxpayers deserve a refund.

Well, the stimulus money was supposed to go to bridges, until Obama wilted under feminist pressure.

MICHAEL S. GREVE: Conservatives, Condoms, and Compassion. “To put the point in a sentence: while one can perhaps imagine a government that would help ‘average’ people to realize their transcendent hopes and aspirations, our actual government is designed to wring any meaning out of life.”

IN THE MAIL: From Curtis Edmonds, Rain on Your Wedding Day.

WIRED: Obama Just Made Himself a Prisoner of His Own Gitmo Policy.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Black and Blue Over Closed Schools in Chicago.

Rather than focus on the school closures, angry residents should look at the blue policies that brought the city to this point. Years of broken and corrupt politics have left the city with a $1 billion budget deficit, a soaring crime rate, and constant tension between the government and unions. The pain has fallen worst on the poor and minority communities, and they are responding by getting out. Over the past decade, Chicago’s black population declined by 17 percent, as blacks fled the for the suburbs or the more promising economies of the South. The windy city is now at its lowest population since before 1920. No wonder the schools are closing.

Chicago’s problems are not unique. Approximately 1.3 million blacks left the North for southern cities between 2000 and 2010. Black populations in Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston have surged. Northern cities, once the promised land for the nation’s black population, have failed to create the kind of economic and social conditions necessary to build a stable black middle class.

We hear lots of talk about how brilliant liberal economic policies are, but we rarely see stories of millions of people emerging triumphantly out of poverty thanks to all the wonderful things expensive government programs are doing for the citizens of these places. Perhaps our President should spare a thought for what’s happening in the city he once called home.

Until the Combine suffers, nothing will happen.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: True The Vote Sues IRS Employees In Their Personal Capacity. “True the Vote is not only suing the IRS, but also taking action against the IRS employees who participated in the harassment of the voter education and election monitoring organization. Those employees could personally be held liable to pay damages that would be established in litigation.”

PROGRESSIVISM’S ENDPOINT: “The police won’t protect the people who work and have their money redistributed to people who don’t work and don’t even like Sweden. It’s the taxpayers who should be protesting, but they’re humbly cowering hoping for police protection, and they can’t even get that.”

UPDATE: From the comments: “The irony of Swedes paying danegeld, and finding it’s not enough…..” The worry, however, is that when the authorities of bourgeois democracy turn into weenies who fail to do their job, people often look for a Strong Leader who will. That seldom ends well, but the weenies don’t understand, or don’t care.

MILTON WOLF: Americans must repudiate the political class.

Knoxville, Tennessee. Boyd’s Jig and Reel in the old city — location is in the old Manhattan’s, for the Knoxville expats out there. Nice place, Belhaven on draft. This pic is with the iPhone 5, which I upgraded to awhile back. Not as good a camera as the Lumix, but pretty darn good for a phone. Click on the picture to see it full-sized, and note that you can read the labels on the bottles.

OH, WHAT A LUCKY MAN HE WAS: Tony’s ‘good fortune’: Behind Weiner’s consulting gigs. “Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, recently disclosed some $500,000 in joint income for 2012 — most of it, they said, accruing from Weiner’s ‘consulting’ activities. Nice work if you can get it — but, alas, so few can. It’s certainly an arrangement that needs a long second look, given subsequent disclosures that Abedin provided ‘consultant’ services to private-sector clients while a publicly paid top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Even in disgrace, the machine takes care of its own. Makes ‘em less likely to talk.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Why “Star Trek Into Darkness” Is Smaller Than Life. “In Star Trek, the work is meaningful; the colleagues are smart, hard-working, competent and respectful; the leaders are capable and fair; and everyone has an important contribution to make. Star Trek features what law student Cindy McNew described as ‘a close-knit group of colleagues whose abilities complement one another and who don’t seem to take out their animosities or ambitions on each other.’ Deep friendships develop from teamwork and high-stakes problem-solving. It’s the workplace as we wish it were — and as it too rarely is.”

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Also, today only: The West Wing: The Complete Series Collection, $79.99 (73% off).

SO SEND ‘EM HOME: ‘They don’t want to integrate’: Fifth night of youth rioting rocks Stockholm. “In Sweden you’ve got welfare, access to the educational system – up to university level, you got access to public transport, libraries, healthcare – to everything. And still they feel that they [immigrants] need to riot through stones and Molotov cocktails. It’s ridiculous and a bad excuse.” As Jim Bennett says, democracy, open immigration, multiculturalism: Pick any two.

JOHN PHILLIPS: Ominous Warning: Hear What CNN’s Jake Tapper Told Obama Supporters.

GREG POLLOWITZ: The problem with Noonan isn’t what she writes today — it’s if Palin had said it in ’08, Noonan would have ridiculed it. Here’s the column.

TAXPROF: Roundup: IRS Scandal, Day 15.

Also, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on the IRS Scandals.

MAYBE THEY’RE JUST GOING FOR SCANDAL-SATURATION: Sebelius Defends another Administration Misstep.

BYRON YORK: House-Senate showdown coming over border security.

IT’S FUN TO PLAY THE RACE CARD ON JOAN WALSH, and God knows she’s earned it. But I need, once again, to correct an improper use of the “some of my best friends” bit. As I’ve noted before:

The classic example was the white bigot who said he couldn’t be a racist because some of his best friends were black — only to have it turn out that those “friends” were his caddy and his shoeshine guy.

When some of your best friends really are black or Jewish, the import is different. People tend to lose this distinction, but I think that’s a combination of laziness and attempt to take unfair rhetorical advantage. As I said earlier, “it’s been morphed into an all-purpose way to ensure that white guys can’t bring up counterexamples when charged with racism.” That’s not fair.

Not even when it’s done to Joan Walsh.

BARACK OBAMA: World’s Greatest Gun Salesman! A lot of the guns sold during Obama’s presidency will still be around 50 or 100 years from now.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Intimidation: Now The Gibson Guitar Raids Make Sense.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Hill: Poll: Two-thirds say economy in bad shape.

WELCOME TO THE MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY: Commerce Nominee Sails Through Confirmation Hearing Despite Not Reporting $80 Million Income, Offshore Tax Shelters. That stuff’s only bad during an election cycle, and then only when it’s done by Republicans.

THE HILL: IRS Targeting Scandal: Latest News.

IT’S THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM AGAIN: Did Financial Services Reform Inadvertently Put a Kink In Obamacare? “The unbanked may have a hard time buying insurance on the exchanges. Too bad we just created more of them.”

JAMES TARANTO: Obama is not a Nixon, says a Crook.

BENJAMIN WITTES: “Obama’s comments about Guantanamo were pretty lame.”

THE HILL: Judiciary Leaders Take On Patent Abuse.

ED DRISCOLL: The Return of the Primitive.

A GLIMMER OF HOPE FOR THE ILLINOIS GOP?

CHANGE: Homeland Security bulletin warns 3D-printed guns may be ‘impossible’ to stop.

IN LIGHT OF OBAMA’S “BULWORTH MOMENT” TALK, somebody on Twitter — I think it was Matt Welch — was referencing this 1998 essay from Suck. “A powerful man casts off his whiteness, and becomes authentic and direct. Take a moment with that one.”

Given Obama’s actual upbringing, he — and his relationship to black America — may be more Bulworth-like than not.

BOB KRUMM: Peggy Noonan Gets It Almost Right.

JIM TREACHER: GOOGLE ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING PATRIOTIC. “This has to be some sort of mistake.”

ZIMMERMAN TRIAL UPDATE: Gun, drug texts feature in new Trayvon Martin shooting evidence. “The evidence, George Zimmerman’s attorneys say, paints a different picture of the 17-year-old than the one portrayed by his family and supporters. Lead defense attorney Mark O’Mara says he will try to use the evidence if prosecutors attempt to attack Zimmerman’s character during his trial on second-degree murder charges, set to begin next month. Also Thursday, O’Mara filed motions in court. One asks for sanctions against the state for withholding evidence and for saying it didn’t have more evidence when asked. The second requests that his client’s trial be delayed. Much of the new evidence disclosed Thursday in filings by Zimmerman’s attorneys comes from Martin’s cell phone, including photos showing a semiautomatic pistol and ammunition and small marijuana plants growing in pots. In other pictures, Martin is pictured making obscene gestures in an apparent self-portrait.”