DON’T DRINK THE POOL WATER: It contains a surprising amount of human waste. But really, people need this advice? “Don’t swim when you have diarrhea.”

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste emails: “If you believe the Hygiene hypothesis, then drinking it might well be good for you.”

THESE JUST MAKE ME SAD: Photos Of Mangled Cars Find Beauty In The Wreckage.

AT AMAZON, deals on shoes & sandals for men and women. Also women’s handbags.

And a reminder: InstaPundit is an Amazon affiliate. When you do your shopping through the Amazon links on this page, including the “Shop Amazon” tab at the top or the searchbox in the right sidebar, you support the blog at no cost to yourself. Just click on the Amazon link, then shop as usual. I thank you, and my family thanks you!

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Does Your Insect Repellent Repel Insects? When I was in Alaska there were mosquitoes of truly appalling size, but I just put a dab of 100% DEET on my neck and wrists and never got bitten.

I did wake up one night, though, and there were two mosquitoes at the foot of my bed.

One said: Should we take him home, or eat him here?

The other replied: We’d better eat him here. If we take him home, the big guys might get him away from us.

Thanks, I’ll be here all weekend. Try the veal!

SCAPEGOATED “LOWER LEVEL OFFICIALS” NOW LEAKING IN SELF-DEFENSE: Anonymous Cincinnati IRS official: “Everything comes from the top.”

BOB SCHIEFFER SEEMS TO HAVE HAD ENOUGH: Schieffer to Obama Advisor: ‘Why Are You Here? Why Isn’t the White House Chief of Staff Here?’

Plus: “I have to tell you that is exactly the approach that the Nixon administration took. They said, ‘These are all second-rate things. We don’t have time for this. We have to devote our time to the people’s business.’ You’re taking exactly the same line they did.”

A SKATEBOARD THAT WORKS ON BOTH WATER AND PAVEMENT.

IN RESPONSE TO YESTERDAY’S BLOOD-TRANSFUSION/ANTI-AGING POST, Sarah Hoyt emails:

Heinlein used the transfusion process for rejuv in Methuselah’s Children. Synthesizing the blood was the key to long-term rejuv for everyone, too. (Might as well put a link to it in, too. Wouldn’t hurt for people to read it again. There’s a great example of government persecuting a group they think is “hiding the stash.” Worse, they knew the group wasn’t, but needed to throw someone to the wolves to satisfy the populace.)

Luckily that could never happen here. And linked. Plus, it’s also on Kindle.

SEE, IF I GET KICKED OFF I WANT IT TO BE FOR SOMETHING BETTER THAN THAT: Bea Arthur’s Boobs Got Us Booted From Facebook.

VIDEO: World’s Tiniest Monkey Eats A Noodle.

OBAMA AIDE: Legality of IRS targeting conservative groups “irrelevant.”

Also “irrelevant” — where the President was during Benghazi attacks. Not a good day for the White House on the Sunday shows. . .

UPDATE: The relevance of “irrelevant.” Can I make an empty-chair joke now? “In talking about Benghazi, the interviewer, Chris Wallace, is trying to extract a specific fact about the events, a fact that has not yet come out and that Pfeiffer might know. Pfeiffer blows out a tirade of truly irrelevant verbiage to distract us from the question asked, including the notion that the fact isn’t important. Who cares where the physical body of Obama was as long as he was ‘in touch’? Well, some people would like to know, so tell us the fact and let us decide what use to make of it. To withhold the fact — on the ground that, in your opinion, we don’t need it — is to make us think it would be damaging. . . . It must be relevant, we think, at least for political purposes, or Pfeiffer wouldn’t strain so hard to suppress it.” What could that be? I can’t even imagine. An assignation at the Hay-Adams?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Lynda Bowen writes:

This is really strange. They absolutely don’t want to account for Obama’s exact whereabouts during the time in question. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were trying to cover up the fact that he was pulling a Clinton (that would be Bill … in the cloak room with Monica… not a Hillary).

Seriously, something else was going on that they don’t want ANYONE to know about…

They don’t want to talk about it. But it wasn’t nookie at the Hay-Adams. (Everyone goes to the W for that now in DC anyway). It was a special meeting on the alien invasion.

IN THE MAIL: Story of My People.

AT TAXPROF, A ROUNDUP: IRS Scandals, Day 10.

DAVE KOPEL REPORTS: Colorado Sheriffs file Second Amendment lawsuit against anti-gun bills.

WHEN I WAS IN LAW PRACTICE, WE HAD A CASE INVOLVING THIS PROBLEM: Those Generic Drugs May Not Have Been What You Thought They Were: Years of abuses at Ranbaxy raise worries about the FDA’s oversight of the generics market.

This is the week for arguments I have previously dismissed coming back to bite me. I’ve already admitted that I dismissed tea party complaints about extra IRS scrutiny because really, who would do that? Now along comes another story that is causing me to reassess my priors: it turns out that Indian generic giant Ranbaxy has been selling generic “drugs” that didn’t actually work.

Complaining that generic drugs from abroad are nothing but cheap fakes has long been a staple of free-trade opponents, and of course, pharmaceutical manufacturers trying to protect their products from foreign competition. While it’s long been clear that there was some truth to the horror stories–don’t buy drugs on the internet, okay?–I’ve been pretty dismissive of complaints about Indian generics giants like Ranbaxy and Cipla. These guys are huge companies with brands to protect. Moreover, they’re inspected by the FDA. Why would they risk it all by adulterating their product?

Well, the fact is they did, and the answer is presumably “to save money.”. . . Yes, Ranbaxy eventually got caught. But for years, they sold drugs of uncertain quality. It’s hard to say how many people they killed, but it’s unlikely that the number is zero, or even near-zero.

See, that’s a problem.

READER KIM SOMMER WRITES: “With all the president’s scandals it looks like Bloomberg is getting a free ride with his spying scandal.” I dunno, I’ve heard from some clients who are rethinking their dependence on his service. I think the damage will be in the marketplace.

But here’s something I’d missed: Bloomberg Terminal Spying Targeted Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner: CNBC.

Also: JPMorgan demands Bloomberg staff logs. “Lawyers for JPMorgan Chase have demanded that Bloomberg hand over five years’ worth of employee logs, as the bank considers whether to take legal action against the news and data group.”

THE REALLY BAD NEWS FOR THEM ISN’T THAT PEOPLE ARE CALLING IT A CULTURE OF INTIMIDATION, IT’S THAT THEY AREN’T BEING INTIMIDATED ANY MORE: White House defends IRS handling, McConnell asserts ‘culture of intimidation.’

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Must the Sky Cult and Earth Cult Always Make War Against Each Other?

AT AMAZON, outlet deals in Camera, Photo & Video.

Also: Deal of the Day: Bioshock Infinite.

CHARLIE MARTIN: The Question For My Next 13 Weeks: Pivot or Persevere?

DEMOCRAT: Ex-IRS Chief Lied To Congress.

Following the House’s opening investigative hearing into the IRS’s revelation that it gave extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, Crowley was asked if he believed Douglas Shulman lied to Congress.

“I think Mr. Shulman did,” said Crowley in an interview with Fox News. “My understanding is that it was common knowledge if they were going after political groups back then.”

Crowley was referencing a 2012 House Ways and Means Committee hearing in which Shulman, in response to questions from Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), held that the IRS was not targeting specific groups applying for tax-exempt status.

“There’s absolutely no targeting,” said Shulman at the time.

The encounter raised suspicions for Boustany as well, who recounted the incident during the same interview with Crowley.

Some of us have been suspicious longer than that.

M.D. KITTLE: The IRS Abuse Scandal Keeps Growing: An audit of the agency’s behavior unearths disturbing new information.

MICKEY KAUS: When will Krugman endorse the Gang of 8 amnesty?

BIG BROTHER ONLY WANTS WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU: Feds rooting out ‘unwelcome speech’ on campus: But what is that?

IAN JACK: On masculinity: My father’s generation were better at being men. For me, I’d say it’s more like my grandfather’s generation. . . .

MICHAEL BARONE: Question: What do female medical students think of abortion? “They’re about half the student body in medical schools these days. Most are single college graduates–a hugely liberal segment of the population. Do they favor abortion rights? Do they believe late-term abortions should be allowed? Do they study how to perform abortions? Do they intend to perform abortions when they go into practice?”

MARK HEMINGWAY: Ideological Revenue Service.

Some 471 conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status were harassed by the IRS over a period of years, and our self-styled watchdog media played no role in bringing this injustice to light. It only became a scandal after the IRS publicly admitted its wrongdoing.

Attorney Cleta Mitchell represents a number of Tea Party and conservative groups—including many that sought and still haven’t been granted tax exempt status. Mitchell notes that overwhelming evidence of the IRS’s political targeting had long been public. The IRS was so brazen that last year “80 or 90 groups all got letters that are virtually identical, that are oppressive, with 30, 40, 50, 70 questions with parts and subparts and sub-subparts,” Mitchell told The Weekly Standard. “The Ways and Means [subcommittee] on IRS oversight held a hearing, and they asked about all this. Did the press do anything about it? No.”

They’ve been a bunch of Nina Burleighs.

STUART ROTHENBERG: Will Obama Administration Controversies Affect Democratic Recruitment? “There is no doubt that the three major controversies on which President Barack Obama finds his administration on the defensive — Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives and the subpoenaing of AP phone records — have changed the political narrative of the day. Instead of mobilizing all of his resources to promote his agenda, the president and administration officials are having to spend time and energy answering and rebutting Republican charges. . . . So far, Democratic strategists say that they have not heard from potential candidates who are worried about a deteriorating political environment or showing greater hesitancy about taking the electoral plunge this cycle. But at least it is worth watching over the next couple of months to see if often-mentioned potential candidates start jumping into races or removing themselves from consideration. Candidate recruitment, after all, can determine which states and districts are in play in November 2014 and which races have simply vanished from everyone’s scorecard.”

THE HILL: Complaints of IRS targeting by religious groups on the rise.

The number of religious groups reporting they were improperly targeted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is increasing.

At least a half-dozen conservative groups say they received an unusual degree of scrutiny from the IRS, according to the Religion News Service, a non-profit news service operated out of the University of Missouri’s journalism school.

Earlier this week Rev. Billy Graham’s son made headlines with a letter to President Obama accusing the administration of targeting the Samaritan’s Purse charity and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in an attempt to intimidate the group.

Since then, the Catholics United Education Fund and the Christian Voices for Life have reported significant delays in their applications for tax-exempt status from the IRS.

The Coalition for Life of Iowa also said that it took unusually long to receive their tax exempt status, according to the Thomas More Society, a non-profit group focused on supporting pro-life causes.

At a House hearing investigating the IRS abuses on Friday, Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) called attention to The Coalition for Life of Iowa’s complaint, citing one particular question that the group was asked by the agency.

“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers. Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant? The content of one’s prayers?” asked Schock of the IRS’s former acting commissioner, Steven Miller.

Render unto Caesar . . . . But what if what Caesar needs is a swift kick in the ass?

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Pentagon’s Special Operations Chief Sees 10 To 20 More Years Of War Against al-Qaida.

BAN ASSAULT CARS: Up to 60 injured after car drives into Va. parade.

AT AMAZON, 500 Kindle books at up to 85% off.

LEFTY OUTFITS SEEM BIG ON OTHER PEOPLE PAYING TAXES, BUT . . . Google insider exposes ‘immoral’ tax scam.

REPORT: Authorities: Hofstra student was killed by police. Some people are giving this an anti-cop spin, but I don’t see it. It’s a tough situation: “A Hofstra University student being held at gunpoint by an intruder was accidently shot and killed by a police officer who had responded to the home invasion at an off-campus home, police said Saturday. Junior public relations major Andrea Rebello was shot once in the head early Friday morning by an officer who opened fire after the masked intruder pointed a gun at the officer while holding the 21-year-old in a headlock, Nassau County homicide squad Lt. John Azzata said.”

UPDATE: More:

Police fired eight shots at the intruder, who authorities say was holding a gun to the head of 21-year-old Andrea Rebello during a home invasion robbery Friday at an off-campus house in Uniondale.

One of the shots hit Rebello in the head, killing her, police spokeswoman Maureen Roach said.

Also killed was the intruder, who authorities identified as Dalton Smith, 30, of Hempstead. He was struck seven times.

Authorities say Smith, who was wearing a mask, invaded the home Rebello shared with her twin sister and two others during the pre-dawn hours on Friday.

At some point, a female roommate of the twins was able to leave the home and call police, a police spokesman told CNN on Friday.

When a police officer arrived, Smith was holding a gun to Rebello’s head, Roach said.

He told the officer he was going to kill Rebello, and then turned the handgun toward the officer, she said.

The officer, fearing for his life, drew his gun and fired, Roach said.

Based on these facts, it doesn’t sound like the officer did anything wrong.

UPDATE: Prof. Joseph Olson writes:

Civilian “combat shooters” who participate in IPSC or IDPA competitions practice, practice, practice, head shots to the bad guy while missing the hostage. Sometimes they do it after 10 push-ups or a 50 yard run (designed to induce physical stress). 99% of the time they miss the hostage and get the bad guy.

Regular street cops are allowed to carry guns but don’t get this level of training.

The student was killed because the city is too cheap to provide adequate realistic training.

Well, possibly. And reader William Gasper writes: “I think this is simply a case of the police not getting enough tactical simulation practice. Likely due to the Obama administration trying to limit ammunition available to citizens. Obama has a lot of blood on his hands.”

Well, it’s no worse than blaming Bush for Benghazi.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stephen Hamori writes:

Plus; after all the recent gun owner bashing, a lot of us are holding law enforcement up to the standards we think we are held to by the usual suspects / MSM. If someone took a hostage in a public place and a civilian fired at them… because the other guy started aiming at a crowd… you can image the press. Untrained gun nut kills hostage by ‘mistake’. Changed with manslaughter by DA. Add in that few law enforcement people are speaking out against taking gun rights away from the general public…

I see the point, but I still don’t think the cop here deserves the blame.

GOOD: Mia Love Announces 2014 Candidacy.

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Tools & Home Improvement.

THIS WILL CONFUSE FUTURE MUSIC HISTORIANS: Smack My Bitch Up, performed by The Beatles.

SHOCKER: “Yet, as it turns out, the claim reveals less about men and misogyny than it does about gender studies and academic feminism.” “No scholarly text is ever error-free. But in the case of Kimmel’s book, there is a consistent pattern of using selective evidence and even pseudo-facts to stress women’s victimization and paint males (particularly American males) in the worst light. The fictitious claim that most boys would choose death over girlhood–which will undoubtedly live on the Internet after it’s gone from future editions of the book–fits seamlessly into the big picture. Internet myths aside, The Gender Society is widely used in college courses. And if it is indeed the most balanced gender studies textbook available–which may well be true–that says a lot about the rest.”

CELLPHONES AS A DIRTY BOMB DETECTOR NETWORK.

REMEMBERING WORLD WAR TWO’S DAMBUSTERS.

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

NEW BLOOD: Transfusions Reverse Aging Effects On Hearts In Mice. “‘When the protein … was injected into old mice, which develop thickened heart walls in a manner similar to aging humans, the hearts were reduced in size and thickness, resembling the healthy hearts of younger mice.’ Through a type of transfusion called parabiotic or ‘shared circulation’ in mice — one old and sick, the other young and well — they managed to reverse this age-associated heart disease. From there, they isolated an active agent, GDF-11, present in the younger mouse but absent in the older, which reverses the condition when administered directly. They are also using the agent to restore other aged/diseased tissues and organs. Human applications are expected within six years.” Faster, please.

PHOTOS: The Italian Hotel built inside Abandoned Medieval Grottos.

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

NATURALLY, I WANT ONE: $17,000 Linux-powered rifle brings “auto-aim” to the real world.

Only can I get it retrofitted to the Tactilite .50 BMG?

REASON TV: Future of Spaceflight: XCOR’s Doug Jones Talks with Reason’s Brian Doherty.
.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Want To Be Happy? Get To Work. “Work is an essential aspect of human life, one of the things that fulfill us as human beings. There is a basic human desire to contribute to society, so we grow depressed and feel listless when we’re not doing that. While we don’t want to read policy directives right out of this research, the general principle, that work is important for people of all ages, should always be in the background of our thinking about retirement and employment more broadly.”

There’s work, and there’s work, of course.

QUESTIONS: “Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers.”

In the Obama era, the question isn’t whether you’re paranoid. It’s whether you’re paranoid enough.

I MENTIONED LAST NIGHT THAT WE GOT COPIES OF the Insta-Wife’s new book, Men On Strike. It comes out one month from today. I also got a copy of Jim Bennett & Michael Lotus’s America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity In The 21st Century. I wrote the foreword to the latter. And I encourage you to pre-order both, of course!

JONATHAN TOBIN: Denial Flows Like A River At The IRS.

Related: Questioner initially denied IRS Q&A was set up.

NOT A CARRINGTON EVENT, HAPPILY: Giant Solar Flare Sideswipes Earth. Of course, if it had been, you wouldn’t be reading this now. “The solar flare associated with Tuesday night’s CME registered as an X-class flare, the most powerful type. It was the fourth X flare unleashed by a sunspot known as AR1748 since Sunday night (May 12). While incredibly powerful, Tuesday’s flare actually was the weakest of the four rapid-fire X flares, clocking in at X1.2. The previous three registered as X1.7, X2.8 and X3.2 flares, respectively. Those three all occurred while AR1748 was facing away from Earth, however, so they did not affect our planet.” And a good thing, too.

OOPS: Home invaders lock homeowner in gun closet with predictably hilarious results.

IN THE MAIL: Rory Miller’s Logic of Violence and Kris Wilder and Lawrence Kane’s Dirty Ground: The Tricky Space Between Sport and Combat.

NOW AVAILABLE ON SSRN, MY LATEST SECOND AMENDMENT PIECE, coauthored with Brannon Denning: How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Second Amendment: a Reply to Professor Magarian. It was just published by the Texas Law Review.

Download it early and often! (Bumped).

NEW YORK TIMES DECIDES ON SPIN, changes headline.

Related: TaxProf: IRS Scandal Roundup, Day 9. These roundups just keep getting bigger each day . . . .

IT’S POTEMKIN VILLAGES ALL THE WAY DOWN: IRS Official Lois Lerner Called Lawyer To Plant Targeting Question.

THIS SEEMS RIGHT TO ME: First Circuit Rules That Police Need a Warrant to Search A Cell Phone Incident to Arrest.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Cloudy with a 100% chance of scandals: Obama ducks and weaves.

NATIONAL JOURNAL: How the Scandals Turned Obama Into a Dour Scold.

Even from 2,300 miles away and across the ideological gap that separates him from President Obama, Republican Ken Khachigian can recognize the signs and even feel a little empathy for the Democratic incumbent at perhaps the lowest point of his presidency. Khachigian was there at the White House from 1970 to 1974 to watch another president cope with scandal.

“You feel besieged. You feel defensive, especially when things are coming in from all directions,” he told National Journal from his Southern California home, recalling his days watching President Nixon deal with Watergate. “You do feel embattled. And it can distort, to some extent, your perception and your ability to get things done.” . . .

It is in that regard that Obama has faltered in the days since the story of the misdeeds at the IRS broke, cranking up the political and media intensity. One can argue whether the White House was too slow to respond and stanch the bleeding. In some ways, that is a question for lawyers, who can debate how cautious a president must be in responding to such allegations. But it is hard to disagree that this president has lost his footing in the way he presents himself.

Optimism is a vastly underrated component of a successful presidency. Voters tend to reject presidents who are dour or who talk of malaise. They reward those like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, who offer hope and grand promises. Obama must know this. It was in many ways the basis of his improbable campaign success in 2008. And even today, beset by controversies and investigations, he pays it rhetorical service. But the message is decidedly mixed.

In truth, Obama’s never been that much of an optimist. He’s been more about demonization and payback. It just shows more now.

UPDATE: Bob Woodward Compares Benghazi To Watergate.

HEH: “We’ve had bras hanging here for 45 years. It’s been a charm of the place. So here comes this gal…”

SURE, AMMUNITION’S HARD TO FIND, but you can always restock your kitchen arsenal.

Also at Amazon, Up to 60% Off Select Kensington Laptop and Tablet Accessories. Cases, iPad keyboards, and more.

AT PJTV, Michelle Fields interviews Elon Musk about SpaceX and the future of humanity. “A future where we’re a spacefaring civilization is a far more exciting future than one where we’re not.” Plus, they’re hiring interns!

ON THE TONIGHT SHOW LAST NIGHT, Mitt Romney.

BETTER TEN YEARS LATE THAN NEVER. MARC LAMONT HILL NOTICES SOMETHING: “We have a permanent warfare state and liberals say nothing. Sometimes, it feels like the Left wasn’t anti-war. It was just anti-Bush.” Ya think?

DEMOCRATIC SEN. MAX BAUCUS PREDICTS THE IRS SCANDAL WILL GROW: “I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly. It’s broader than the current focus.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Benghazi and IRS Targeting: Politics by Other Means. “What do the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal have in common? They were both about winning elections, under false pretenses.”

GOT THE ADVANCE COPIES OF THE INSTA-WIFE’S NEW BOOK, Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood and the American Dream — and Why It Matters. She’s pleased as punch. (Bumped).

I FIND THAT LAWYERS ARE OFTEN INSUFFICIENTLY CAREFUL WITH THESE THINGS: When A Demand Letter Crosses The Line Into Extortion. In addition, sending letters that misrepresent the law may constitute fraud, or a breach of attorney ethics.

JAMES TARANTO: President Asterisk: Why the Obama IRS scandal may be worse than “a cancer on the presidency.” “No one can deny that Lance Armstrong and Mark McGwire were highly skilled athletes. But their accomplishments are forever tainted by their use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. The use of the Internal Revenue Service’s coercive power to suppress dissent against Obama is the political equivalent of steroids. The history books should record Obama’s re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means. . . . One thing we have learned from the IRS scandal is that sports journalists are morally superior to political journalists. Whereas the former understand that cheating is an assault on the basic integrity of the sport, the latter all too often treat it as if it were just part of the game.”

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: NASA Announces Brightest Lunar Explosion Ever Recorded. “A boulder-sized meteor slammed into the moon in March, igniting an explosion so bright that anyone looking up at the right moment might have spotted it, NASA announced Friday. NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office is reporting the discovery of the brightest impact seen on the moon in the eight year history of the monitoring program. Some 300 lunar impact events have been logged over the years but this latest impact, from March 17, is considered many orders of magnitude brighter than anything else observed.”

Related: Dark, massive asteroid to fly by Earth on May 31. “It’s 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby.”

RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Weiner’s Wife Didn’t Disclose Consulting Work She Did While Serving in State Dept. “The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. . . . Ms. Abedin declined a request for an interview, but the picture that emerges from interviews and records suggests a situation where the lines were blurred between Ms. Abedin’s work in the high echelons of one of the government’s most sensitive executive departments and her role as a Clinton family insider.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Lying King. “Lying isn’t free. One of the reasons that the United States has remained the last refuge for money fleeing instability abroad is that those investors trust its institutions. They believed — reasonably until now — that in America the rule of law reigned supreme. They thought — until the administration cast the question into serious doubt — that America was not the banana republic that the possessors of those fortunes sought to flee. That’s why the money comes to America and not, let us say, to the Congo.”

Yes, I said something similar back in 2009, but apparently it didn’t take hold with our political class. But, then, the political class will do whatever it can get away with. These days, it’s been able to get away with more.

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Durbin Asked IRS’ Shulman to Probe ‘Several’ Conservative 501(c)(4) Groups in 2010. “Democrats’ background on the issue underscores their interest in turning the current scandal into a campaign finance narrative.”

HEY, GUYS: COME TO TENNESSEE! Beretta Announces Plans to Move After Maryland Gov. Signs Bill.

BRET EASTON ELLIS is not into the PC.

DEAR CLASS OF ’13: You’ve Been Scammed.

AT AMAZON, 75% off on Men’s Clothing.

EVEN A FLATWORM IS SMART ENOUGH TO TURN AWAY FROM PAIN: Piers Morgan: Say, I guess government can become tyrannical after all. But the Obama-pain is just beginning.

CHANGE: Women in NYC now free to go topless in public.

STUPID JOHN-BIRCH-SOCIETY WINGNUTS: Portland Continues To Fight Fluoridated Water.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 6 Ways Sex Makes You More Attractive.

VIA DAVE KOPEL: Video: Press Conference: 54 Colorado Sheriffs File Suit Against Anti-Gun Bills.

ART: David Emery’s best photograph: an Andalucian brothel. “I drove around every road in Andalucia, asking passers-by: ‘Are there any brothels near here?’”

MORE FROM THE NO-GOOD-DEED-GOES-UNPUNISHED DEPARTMENT: ‘Robin Hoods’ who feed parking meters are hit with lawsuit in New Hampshire.

RAND SIMBERG: A CULTURE OF INTIMIDATION. “If Barack Obama didn’t directly order the harassment of his political enemies, he certainly encouraged it.” Punch back twice as hard.

AUSTIN BAY: Benghazi Revisited: The Dead Get Pinocchios.

In a column published on Sept. 18, 2012, I argued that verified tactical military details of the engagement, the iconic date itself, and subsequent, very explicit statements by Libyan government authorities, left no doubt that on 9-11-2012 the U.S. consulate in Benghazi suffered a planned attack by an organized anti-American militant Islamist militia. A terrorist force had hit us with another 9-11 terror attack, and Americans had died, among them our ambassador to Libya.

Given the facts, the Obama administration’s bizarre claim that a sacrilegious Internet video had inflamed peaceful Libyan demonstrators — and in an outburst spurred by overwhelming theological pain, this moody crowd murdered our unfortunate ambassador — just didn’t wash. . . . As for passing major media smell tests before the 2012 presidential election? Of course the blarney passed ‘em! But eight months after the attack and six months after the election, even President Barack Obama’s chief media enablers have begun to acknowledge the video-did-it propaganda tizzy the administration orchestrated was stench itself.

And orchestrated propaganda it was, with the video-did-it narrative hedged by presidential statements calculated to slyly finesse terrorist complicity in the attack.

Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post’s fact-checker column, now informs his readers that the president’s claim he called the Benghazi attack an “attack of terrorism” rates four Pinocchios. That’s Kessler’s cute way of calling our president a complete and thorough liar. . . .

The video whopper and the slippery presidential phraseology were coordinated spin — the video to fool the rubes pre-election, the slick rhetoric to fool them now.

Read the whole thing. And note: “On Sept. 16, Libya’s interim president, Mohammed el-Megari, announced that he had no doubts the militia’s leaders had predetermined the date of the attack. That same day U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five television shows and repeatedly blamed the video.” Scapegoated filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.

WHEN FOOD IS LOVE: Sexcereal Boasts Spoonfuls Of Libido Boosts. “Billing itself as ‘the world’s first all-natural, GMO-free, gender-based breakfast cereal,’ Sexcereal comes in two packages: ‘The Male cereal supports testosterone and energy levels,’ according to the website, ‘while the Female cereal was created with hormonal balance and desire in mind.’”

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE: Bill Gates Is The Richest Man In The World Again.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Electronics.

“THEY KNEW.”

From the comments: “Yes, the Obama IRS delayed Tea Party group applications to limit their political activities and covered it up to win an election. That is obvious, inarguable, and criminal.”

WHY WOMEN LIVE LONGER. “Women live longer than men partly because their immune systems age more slowly, a study suggests. As the body’s defences weaken over time, men’s increased susceptibility to disease shortens their lifespans, say Japanese scientists. Tests of immune function could give an indication of true biological age, they report in Immunity & Ageing journal.”

PROF. JACOBSON: IRS planted question at ABA mtg disclosing targeting of conservatives. “At the hearings this morning, Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller admitted Lerner knew about the question in advance, and that it was planned by the IRS.”

TWEET OF THE DAY: “These scandals are so bad that for the first time Obama wants to talk about the economy.”

IF ONLY HE’D BEEN A TEA PARTIER, WITH A COPY OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OR SOMETHING: Howie Carr: Note praising Allah 
didn’t float PC boat.

Finally, we get the note in the boat — a month late.

Do you how much media 
effort has been devoted to 
unearthing what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apparently thought was his last will and testament? But somehow, the cops held it tight until yesterday. . . . No big surprises in the note in the boat. The Joker said his brother Speedbump was a “martyr in paradise,” and that the victims in Boston were “collateral damage” for Muslim civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. He praised Allah and said, “When you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.” Tell that to the Syrians, EBT boy.

The big question is, Why the monthlong blackout on the note in the boat? Why didn’t the feds release it immediately?

And the answer is obvious. It didn’t fit the Politically Correct narrative, that the reasons for this shocking atrocity remained a mystery, a riddle, an enigma, wink wink nudge nudge.

It’s all about the narrative. It’s okay to demonize Tea Partiers, but not jihadists. That would be racist or something.

EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH: Is Sex Still Sexy?

BARACK OBAMA AND THE CASE AGAINST EMPATHY. “Empathy has some unfortunate features—it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We’re often at our best when we’re smart enough not to rely on it.”

Psychopaths are surprisingly high in empathy. They understand other people’s feelings very well. They just don’t care, except to the extent that they can use them for their own benefit.

HOW TO PLAN YOUR LIFE, when you can’t plan your life.

SCIENCE: Cheap Magnetic Helmet Detects Some Kinds of Brain Damage. “A helmet that sends a magnetic field through the wearer’s head might someday offer a quick way to reveal whether the brain is swelling or bleeding as the result of an injury. In a prototype of the helmet, a small halo-like coil generates a magnetic field above a person’s head; another coil, just above the ears, detects the magnetic field induced in the volunteer’s brain. Because liquid such as blood affects the magnetic field’s phase, the team behind the device was able to distinguish eight brain-injured patients from 46 healthy volunteers in a pilot study, they report in the journal PLOS One.”

SCIENCE: Erotic Kama Sutra App Details Sex in 3D. “The latest version of the Kama Sutra — the ancient Sanskrit manual on human sexuality — comes with a free, augmented-reality app that turns the book’s illustrations into pop-up holograms for smartphones or tablets. Each image can be rotated 360 degrees so viewers can get more detailed perspective of each sexual position.”

PERHAPS SOME WEIGHT-LIFTING — BUT, NO, GRAVITY’S MUCH LOWER DOWN THERE: The Earth’s Core Is Weaker Than We Thought.

COVERUP: Report: IRS Deliberately Chose Not to Fess Up to Scandal Before Election. “[I]f this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different.”

SPEEDING UP MENTAL MATH BY ZAPPING THE BRAIN WITH ELECTRICITY.