AT AMAZON, Digital Deals Galore.

WELCOME TO THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: FBI Chief: Surveillance Drones Used in U.S.

DAVID FRENCH: IRS Abuse — More Widespread than the Media Comprehend. Or are willing to admit, anyway.

FIRST WE LEARN THAT GOVERNMENT LAWYERS OVERWHELMINGLY VOTE DEMOCRAT. NOW THIS: Govt. Attorney Accused In DC Home Invasion Commits Suicide.

Mannina, 58, was arrested last week in connection with a violent home invasion at the residence of one of his coworkers.

He was “found unresponsive on the bunk in his cell by facility security staff” around 3:45 a.m. Tuesday, D.C. police said. Police said in an official release that the cause of death is under investigation.

Mannina had been in custody since Thursday following a June 5 incident at his coworker’s home on Chesapeake Street NW.

According to charging documents, the victim told detectives she was expecting Mannina to visit her that morning and she let him into her home.

She said he briefly walked back out to his car to get his camera to “take photographs of her cat,” but he returned with a red gym bag and used a stun gun on her while her back was turned.

He then allegedly struck her in the face several times, used pepper spray on her, ripped clothing off and handcuffed her hands behind her back. Police said he also attempted to sexually assault her.

The woman said he eventually let her go, and she led him out of the home and drove herself to a hospital. She had been beaten so badly that a plate had to be surgically implanted in her face, The Washington Post reported.

If he were a Tea Partier, the press would make him a symbol of the entire movement.

CHANGE: Some Berliners less enamored with Obama than in 2008. Some Americans, too.

CLIVE THOMPSON: We Need a Fixer (Not Just a Maker) Movement.

Madison Sheffield cracks open a toaster oven, jams her hand inside, then turns on the power. It looks like she’s about to electrocute herself, but she seems unfazed. “Thermostat or heating element?” Sheffield mutters, yanking on wires and poking around with a multimeter.

“Why isn’t this working?” She isn’t the only one in this crowded room trying to get busted hardware working. A few feet away, a trio of people are elbow-deep in a vintage VCR, and there’s another team performing surgery on a lava lamp. It’s a typical meeting of the Fixer’s Collective, an ad hoc group of tinkerers in Brooklyn. Once a month, in an art gallery, they offer to repair anything neighbors can carry. People troop in with PCs, lamps, appliances — piles of stuff we typically pitch in the garbage at the first hint of trouble. As I watch for three hours, the fixers get everything up and running (except the lava lamp).

The spectacle of dead goods coming back to life isn’t just useful — for the locals, it’s transformative. “I was a totally different person after they fixed my laptop,” says Nicole DeLuca, a filmmaker who had her MacBook repaired last year. “It made me realize I didn’t need to buy new every time something breaks.”

Interesting.

WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE ALWAYS GROSSLY OBESE, LIKE THOMAS NAST’S PLUTOCRATS? Chicago Teachers Union Boss Blames Racist “Rich White People” For Chicago’s School Woes…

ROGER SIMON: Living in Fear: Welcome to Fascist America. “Back in the ’80s when, on a couple of occasions, I visited the Soviet Union, I always wondered what was it really like to live in that godforsaken place. But it didn’t much matter. For all the creepy spying that was going on, I realized I’d be out of there in a week or two. Now I know what it was like. It’s come home.”

Do not take counsel of your fears.

STANDING UP TO THE GOVERNMENT now treated as “harassment.” This seems to be a trend.

BEING A FRIEND to a friend who is sick.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Guys worry about sex on the first date too.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Job market for Humanities majors is inhumane.

A DEGREE OF PERFECTION THAT GOES BEYOND WHAT ONE NORMALLY EXPECTS OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES: The F.B.I. Deemed Agents Faultless in 150 Shootings. “After contradictory stories emerged about an F.B.I. agent’s killing last month of a Chechen man in Orlando, Fla., who was being questioned over ties to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, the bureau reassured the public that it would clear up the murky episode. . . . But if such internal investigations are time-tested, their outcomes are also predictable: from 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 ‘subjects’ and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.”

Plus: “In most of the shootings, the F.B.I.’s internal investigation was the only official inquiry.”

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BALANCE OF TRADE: “The US is a world leader in sperm exports primarily because sperm banks in the U.S. are run on a for-profit basis. As a result, US sperm is reckoned to be of high quality particularly because the US version comes with a background on the vitals of the donor.”

SMALL WARS JOURNAL: A Junior Officer’s Perspective On Brain Drain.

LIVING LONGER THROUGH BLOODLETTING?

READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Reader Kevin Spier recommends Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification.

WELL, REMEMBER, THE DEMS CAN’T EVEN PASS A BUDGET ON TIME: Acing the SNAP Challenge: GOP communications director eats for $4.50 per day.

A Republican hill staffer participated in a publicity stunt designed to bring awareness to the plight of food stamp recipients by spending only as much money on food in a week as the federal food stamp program provides.

The SNAP Challenge, as it’s called, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, isn’t as difficult as many Democrats claim, he says.

“I wanted to personally experience the effects of the proposed cuts to food stamps,” said Donny Ferguson, communications director and agriculture policy adviser for Rep. Steve Stockman (R., Texas), in a news release.

“I didn’t plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself,” Ferguson said. “I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling.”

About thirty Democrats have said they will participate in the SNAP Challenge, which requires participants to eat on only $4.50 per day, or $31.50 per week. . . .

Ferguson says Democrats are playing up the difficulties of the challenge in order to boost the political case for increasing food stamp benefits.

“Not only did I buy a week’s worth of food on what Democrats claim is too little, I have money left over,” Ferguson said.

“I didn’t use coupons, I didn’t compare prices and was buying for one, instead of a family. I could have bought even more food per person if I were splitting $126 four ways, instead of budgeting $31.50 to eat for one.”

Or you could just raise your debt limit and buy whatever you want on credit. We’ll call that the OBAMA Challenge.

THE PJ TATLER IS reporting from the scene at the Audit The IRS Rally in DC.

THOMAS SOWELL: Government Surveillance And The Loss Of Trust. Moral capital is essential. It is being squandered.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: NYU’s ‘Toxic’ Expansion Prioritizes Marketing Over Debt-Saddled Students, Professors Say.

PBS EXPLAINS: How the Government Is Fooling Us About the Solvency of Social Security.

WEAPONS-GRADE STUPIDITY: Bloomberg’s Gun Control Rally Names Boston Bomber as Victim of Gun Violence.

THE WAR ON MEN: On Coffee and Markets, the Insta-Wife talks about her new book, Men On Strike. Did I mention that she has a book out?

AT THE AUDIT THE IRS RALLY IN DC: A picture tweeted by Judson Phillips:

One from backstage by Justin Binik-Thomas:

And fun with Kerry Picket, Dana Loesch, and Sonnie Johnson, tweeted by Jim Hoft:

UPDATE: Vine video of the crowd from Michelle Fields, who comments, “This Tea Party rally is massive. Especially considering it’s a Wednesday.”

HENRY MILLER: The Right Way To Fight Obesity: Nanny-state activism will not be as effective as market-based reforms.

VINCE FLYNN has died.

SO THE DOORBELL JUST RANG, and there was a guy with a copy of Rich Lowry’s new book, Lincoln Unbound: How An Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved The American Dream — And How We Can Do It Again. Better than “in the mail!”

IN THE MAIL: Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails.

BLOOMBERG NEWS, UNSURPRISINGLY, WANTS MORE “PUBLIC HEALTH” RESEARCH ON GUNS. They call the ban on funding such research “senseless.”

The problem is, that research has been politicized junk science if not actually fraudulent. Here’s a lengthy discussion by Don Kates, and here’s a shorter one from Reason.

Meanwhile, my suggestion to the “public health” community is to focus on actual diseases, rather than politically-disapproved behaviors.

THAT, BY THE WAY, IS A GRADE SEVERAL STEPS HIGHER THAN WEAPONS-GRADE: Sen. Cruz blasts Obama with one ‘blogger-grade sarcasm’ question.

IT’S KINDA LIKE SYRIA, I DON’T REALLY WANT EITHER TO WIN: Clash Of The Blue Titans In Detroit.

Unions seem determined to fight municipal bond market investors over who should shoulder the burden for Detroit’s debts, setting up a lose-lose situation for blue politics.

If the unions win, it could lead to an implosion in the municipal bond market across the country as lenders realize that money lent to struggling cities may never be paid back. As Walsh notes, this outcome would upend standards that “such bonds are among the safest investments and that for ‘general obligation’ bonds cities could even be compelled to raise taxes, if that’s what it took to make good.” This would be disastrous for other cities, which would find it much harder to borrow money, and would likely need to pay exorbitant interest rates to do so.

If the unions lose, however, it would deal a major blow to support from their own members. Detroit’s pensioners would begin to wonder why they pay dues to a union that can’t guarantee the pensions or benefits they were promised. A similar dynamic all but destroyed unions in the private sector as striking union members saw their jobs shipped away to China.

The stakes are high in Detroit’s looming legal battles, but the results will rock the blue model to its core no matter where the dominoes fall.

One hopes.

PUSHBACK: Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment. “Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests the court makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it is forced to give the government.”

HE’S ALREADY THE GREATEST GUN SALESMAN IN HISTORY. WILL HE ALSO BE THE GREATEST PROMOTER OF LIBERTARIANISM IN HISTORY? CNN poll shows Obama’s case for big government is losing the public. Well, we can hope.

PAPER TIGER: Organizing for Action gathers a whopping three people for gun-control rally in California.

HEH: Texas governor woos disgruntled Conn. gun makers. “Texas Gov. Rick Perry extolled the tax policies and regulatory climate of his state as he courted gun manufacturers that have threatened to leave Connecticut since the state passed new gun-control laws in response to the Newtown school massacre.”

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Berlin Speech: 200,000 for Obama in 2008; Only 6,000 Today. And a bulletproof plastic shield.

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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 41.

ED MORRISSEY: Did The IRS Target A DHS Whistleblower? “P. Jeffrey Black tried to fix problems in the federal air marshal service, but had IRS agents at his door the day he appeared in a documentary criticizing the Obama administration’s air security efforts.”

WHY YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT GOVERNMENT DATA GRABS: USA Today editorial: Surveillance history belies ‘trust us.’ “If history shows anything, it’s that once government has the power to sweep up data, the power is used, and often abused.”

INSIDER-TO-INSIDER: ‘Tell your boss I owe him another friggin’ beer:’ Hot mic catches NSA boss praising FBI chiefs for supportive testimony on surveillance programs.

JAMES ROSEN: Did Senior State Department Security Officials Commit Perjury? “Two top officials at the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DS) — the federal law enforcement agency that protects American diplomats and investigates allegations of criminal misconduct by State Department employees — gave sworn testimony earlier this year that appears to be evasive at best, and untrue at worst, according to evidence obtained by Fox News.”

Ask Jim Treacher about that organization’s tradition of veracity . . . .

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. KIND OF A LOT, APPARENTLY: Deputy AG admits spy program mistakenly targets innocent people.

I DUNNO, BUT AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED TEA PARTIERS SHOULD FEEL FREE TO MOB IRS OFFICIALS NOW: “Why isn’t there greater revulsion when political mobs assail the personal residences of officials they disagree with? And who will be next?”

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, WE’D SEE A FEDERAL SEX-TOY BAN. And they were right!

JAMES TARANTO: We Are All Dick Cheney Now.

Before we go any further, let’s correct the president on some factual matters. The court that administers the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is not transparent; its rulings, including the “secondary order” leaked by erstwhile NSA contractor Edward Snowden, are classified top secret. It’s accurate to say that the court provides scrutiny–”a system of checks and balances,” as the president put it–but not transparency.

The FISA court is not, as Obama implies, an innovation of his administration. It was set up in 1978, when Obama was still a member in good standing of the Choom Gang. As we noted June 6, the NSA effort was brought under the FISA court’s jurisdiction no later than Jan. 17, 2007, by which point Obama was a celebrity, but Dick Cheney was still vice president and would be for more than two more years.

The real problem here, though, is not the president’s casual attitude toward the facts but his relentless partisan hostility. What does he hope to accomplish by asserting that he’s no Dick Cheney? The obvious political answer is that it is an appeal to people for whom Cheney is a demon figure–that is, the Democratic base. Lots of “raving liberals” are feeling betrayed by Obama’s seeming failure to live up to his rhetoric about civil liberties and such. Perhaps there is a psychological aspect to Obama’s pronouncement–that is, maybe he’s trying to reassure himself that he’s better than the leaders he demonized.

But Obama does a serious disservice to the country by casting what is in fact a bipartisan antiterror program in such partisan terms. His message, as an irreverent National Journal headline puts it, is: “Trust Us, Because . . . Trust Us.” We’d change the emphasis a bit: Trust Us, Because . . . Trust Us.

I don’t.

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): “In two contexts the Obama administration has revealed its complete confusion about high-stakes negotiations and the interrelation of soft and hard power.”

RAND PAUL: “The director of national intelligence, in March, did directly lie to Congress, which is against the law.”

I THINK KEMAL ATATURK WOULD WANT THEM TO BE MORE ACTIVE: In Turkey, protesters try a new approach: Standing still. “Protesters opposed to the 10-year rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that he may have driven them from central Istanbul’s Gezi Park, which they had occupied for more than two weeks, but that he could not arrest them for standing still. More than a thousand people trickled into Taksim Square throughout the day, staring silently at a massive portrait of the country’s founding father that security forces hung last week on a building. The new style of protest — inspired by a single performance artist who on late Monday appeared to be the first to do it in Taksim Square — came on a day of continued crackdown by Erdogan’s government.”

Plus, from Erdogan: “Shooting tear gas at people is the most natural right of police.”

THE HILL: Anti-war Democrats’ lack of unity gives Obama cover on Syria policy.

ANN ALTHOUSE PROPOSES a new abortion regulation.

DAVID FREDDOSO: Government is just another name for things we all do together…like intimidate whistleblowers and their children.

IN THE ATLANTIC: Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School: Instead, help them channel their energy into productive tasks.

SORRY, PRO-LIFERS, BUT THE ABORTION BILL THE HOUSE PASSED YESTERDAY is unconstitutional. As Dave Kopel and I wrote some years ago, abortion falls outside Congress’s commerce power. The Sebelius opinion made that clear. Now I suppose you could tax abortion under that opinion. . . .

MORE RUBES SELF-IDENTIFY:

Pew survey, June 13, 2012: 89% of Germans would like to see Obama re-elected.

Spiegel, June 17, 2013: “If Barack Obama is our friend, then we really don’t need to be terribly worried about our enemies.”

Thanks to reader Roger Heinig for the links.

ED DRISCOLL: Nanny Bloomberg, Food Composting, and the Complexity Creeps.

WHEN P.C. FILTERS BREAK DOWN: Boston Bombing victim calls suspects’ mom ‘vile.’

Michelle L’Heureux, a 38-year-old John Hancock consultant, told the Herald yesterday it’s time to stop being “politically correct” and speak out — making her one of the first victims to stand up to the terror-talking Chechen family.

“I feel a little bit of hatred towards her. I think she is a vile person,” L’Heureux said of the mom. “If you don’t like our country, get out. It’s as simple as that.”

But where else can you get such generous welfare benefits? Plus:

L’Heureux, who can only walk a few steps each day, hopes the bombings lead to more open lines of communication.

“A Muslim terrorist bombed us, and people need to start talking about that more, instead of being so politically correct,” L’Heureux said. “The more politically correct we are, and the more ‘Oh, let’s not hurt their feelings,’ the more they’re going to be able to do these type of things.

“If I ever have children, I don’t want to be afraid that something like this is going to happen to them in our country,” she said. “We’re a civil society. We shouldn’t have to worry about walking your children down Boylston Street, and being blown up by a bomb.”

Well, Obama says Al Qaeda isn’t a threat any more. So we’ve got that going for us, anyway.

THE HILL: Schiff: Phone providers should retain metadata on phone calls, not NSA.

THE STRUGGLE FOR ISTANBUL: “University professors are expected to ‘raise’ students, the end product being young adults loyal to the nation. Journalists have a similar patriotic duty to fulfill, and vaguely worded terror-laws or publishers’ fears of government intervention, or lost contracts in other sectors of the economy, often leave those who cross the government out of work or worse.”

Good thing nothing like that could happen here.

NICK GILLESPIE: Is Sarah Palin A Libertarian?

No, but she’s closer than anyone we’re likely to elect. But she’s not cool enough for a lot of libertarians. Though you’d think after the disastrous “Obamatarian” fad, they’d have learned about cool.

UPDATE: Reader Alysia Lucas writes:

Sarah Palin *is* the closest thing to a libertarian. Alaska is one of the more libertarian states in the US due to the kinds of folks who settled the state. She was a very popular politician there before the national media tore her to pieces.

I’ve long thought that people confuse her actions as a mayor and governor (more libertarian-leaning) with her expressed personal beliefs and how she lives her own life (as a committed Christian). I’ve read both her books and she comes across as an intelligent, practical person who understands the fallibility of man. I think she subscribes to the doctrine of setting up laws such that even the wrong people are forced to do the right thing. I think both she and Rick Perry would favor a more minimalist government than the current administration.

I think she’s a victim of oikophobia, a prejudice to which all too many libertarians are prone, alas.

CHINA AND NYU: Undue Influence?

ENOUGH WITH THESE HUGE “GANG” BILLS THAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS: Sessions: Even the Gang of Eight Don’t Really Understand Their ‘Disastrous’ Immigration Bill.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why I got my CCW Permit and Why You Should Too.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: N.Y.U. Gives Its Stars Loans for Summer Homes.

Its most interesting feature, however, is not architectural, but financial. The house, which is owned by John Sexton, the president of New York University, was bought with a $600,000 loan from an N.Y.U. foundation that eventually grew to be $1 million, according to Suffolk County land records. It is one of a number of loans that N.Y.U. has made to executives and star professors for expensive vacation homes in areas like East Hampton, Fire Island and Litchfield County, Conn., in what educational experts call a bold new frontier for lavish university compensation.

If nonprofits were regulated like for-profits, this might get more scrutiny.

SEXISM, OF COURSE: Why Does No One Care That A Young Don Draper Was Raped?

TECHNOLOGY: Future looks bright for carbon nanotube solar cells.

CAN OF WORMS: NSA’s Role in Two Terror Cases Was Concealed From Defense Lawyers. “When a senior FBI official told Congress the role the NSA’s secret surveillance apparatus played in a San Diego terror financing case today, nobody was more surprised to hear it than the defense attorney who fought a long and futile court battle to get exactly the same information while defending the case in court.”

REPORTER MICHAEL HASTINGS has died.

CREATIVITY: 6 Futuristic Musical Instruments Built In 72 Hours.

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#WARONWOMEN: An Air Force commander exercised her discretion in a sexual-assault case. Now her career is being blocked by Sen. Claire McCaskill. Why?

RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Christendom’s Greatest Cathedral To Become A Mosque. Now if you converted a mosque to a cathedral, someone would probably blow it up.

BARACK WHO? Obama’s Disappearing Act. “Obama practically disappeared from the scene (no calls to Cabinet officials, no convening in the Situation Room) on the night of the Benghazi, Libya, attack. He seems more concerned on the NSA flap with distancing himself from conservatives whom he loathes (‘I am not Dick Cheney’) and in Syria on protecting his self-image (he ends wars, doesn’t start them) than in taking the heat from Democrats. When coverage is not glowing, he becomes cranky with the media (as does his spokesman). He is most at ease campaigning before a crowd (whether it is an election or not) when he can accuse opponents of ill-will and flail away at straw men with no interruption.”

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: The Ethical Flap Over Birdsong Apps. “The ethics of using recordings to attract birds has been controversial since the days of clunky cassette machines. Now, anybody with a smartphone and a few dollars has instant access to the songs and calls of every species in the United States, and in quite a few foreign countries, too.”

EMPLOYMENT AND WAR: Adapting To Automation.

RAND SIMBERG WONDERS what the scandal endgame will look like.

IMMIGRATION: Senate kills amendments to toughen border security and visa oversight in immigration reform bill.

THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Woman Charged In Second Buttocks-Enhancement Death.

AT THE COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM IN CALIFORNIA THIS WEEKEND: Script Reading: A Computer Simulation of God.

AT AMAZON, Bestsellers In Military History.

#1 on the list is Jack Levin’s George Washington: The Crossing.

THE INSTA-WIFE ON WSJ TV: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage. Talking about her new book, Men On Strike. If you haven’t bought it yet, why not?

HMM: Was Justice Roberts Intimidated Into Voting for ‘ObamaCare’? Senator Mike Lee Presents the Evidence.

NSA UPDATE: 3 Former NSA Employees Praise Edward Snowden, Corroborate Key Claims.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: University programs that train U.S. teachers get mediocre marks in first-ever ratings. “The vast majority of the 1,430 education programs that prepare the nation’s K-12 teachers are mediocre, according to a first-ever ranking that immediately touched off a firestorm.” This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.

WHO KNEW THAT IN THE 21ST CENTURY, people would be excited over ethanol-free gas?

MICKEY KAUS: Rubio Doubles Down Into Disaster. “Shorter Rubio aide: There’s a reason unemployed Americans are unemployed. They aren’t star performers. Screw ‘em. We’re bringing in workers from abroad! This is what opponents of the Gang of 8 have been arguing is the philosophy behind its proposed giant increase in the immigrant work force. Good to have confirmation.”

Related: HuffPo contributor confuses Matt Lewis with Mickey Kaus.

MYTHBUSTING: Diana Furchtgott-Roth: Women, and the Unequal Pay Myth.

SPOOKS: Google Reveals Massive Iranian Phishing Scheme.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Going Wireless and Restoring Memories: The Incredible Future of Brain Implants.

CATHY YOUNG: No Simple Answers on Security and Freedom.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: In Defense Of The NSA.

IN THE MAIL: From P.C. Hodgell, Honor’s Paradox.

IS THAT MS. MAGAZINE My Month With A Gun column a hoax? I don’t know, but I got an email from reader David McKissack, “I followed your link and commented that I couldn’t find a state which had the concealed carry regs and fee she mentions. I asked which state it was and thanked her in advance. My comment went into ‘moderation’ and this morning it’s gone, unanswered.” I wrote the Ms. people to ask about it, then followed up twice, but so far no answer. Anybody out there know more? Is there a state that matches her description?

UPDATE: Bryan Preston: Ms. Magazine’s ‘My Month with a Gun’ Story Shooting Blanks? “According to this bio, Yewman lives in Washington State. But Ms. Yewman’s experience obtaining a concealed carry permit do not exactly match the regulations in Washington State. The concealed carry fee in Washington State is $52.50, not the $56.50 that Yewman states. In Washington State, applicants must undergo a background check separate from the background check they undergo when they purchase a firearm, which by regulation can take up to 30 days, not the seconds it takes to undergo a NICS check at the point of sale. Yewman mentions the second background check but states that she got the permit quickly, with no mention of any wait at all. That’s possible, but the fee doesn’t match. Also, wait times have been skyrocketing in Washington State this year. . . . There is a state that charges $56.50 for concealed carry permits. That state is Iowa. But Iowa requires more than just the fee. Concealed carry applicants have to provide proof of familiarity with firearms, in the form of a certificate from a hunter safety course or NRA safety course. Heidi Yewman doesn’t live in Iowa and says that her state required nothing in the way of proof of familiarity with firearms.” This doesn’t prove that the story is a fraud, but you’d think her editors would be asking her questions.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh.

I.R.S. SCANDAL UPDATE: What Did Holly Paz Tell Congressional Investigators?

Related: If the FBI is investigating IRS misconduct, why hasn’t it talked to any Tea Partiers?

SADLY, ALL IS PROCEEDING AS I HAVE FORESEEN: Egypt Shoots Tourism Industry in the Foot.

Handing over control of a tourist hotspot to a party that loathes tourists is asking for trouble, but that’s exactly what Egypt has just done. On Sunday, President Morsi appointed Adel al-Khayat of the Gamaa al-Islamiyya party as Governor of Luxor, a region home to the ruins of two temples and several monuments, widely known as the “open air museum.” The party, Gamaa al-Islamiyya, not only holds conservative views against sunbathing, women wearing shorts, and alcohol, but is also responsible for the 1997 attack in Luxor that killed 60 tourists. . . . This is a boneheaded move for a country that relies so heavily upon tourism for its economic well-being.

When you import half your calories, and tourism is your main source of foreign exchange to buy food, you want to make the tourists happy. I doubt this will do that.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: How Poor Students Subsidize Unworthy College Sports.

In the 2010-11 academic year, the 227 public institutions in Division 1 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association collected more than $2 billion in athletic fees from their students — or an average of more than $500 per enrollee — according to research by Jeff Smith at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

These fees, which can exceed $1,000 a year, are often itemized as a “student activity” or “general” expense. That may explain why separate research, by David Ridpath of Ohio University, found that students were only dimly aware of the extent of the fees, and weren’t pleased once they found out how much they were paying.

Worse yet, institutions with high proportions of poorer students carrying substantial education debt appeared to be charging the highest fees.

Ouch.

UGLY MOCKERY IS AT THE CORE OF MOST LEFTY ARGUMENTS: “This is getting a fair amount of attention from pro-abortion rights bloggers, and I’d just like to say — and note that I support abortion rights — that this mockery is very ugly.”

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