NICK GILLESPIE: Obama’s War on Journalism: ‘An Unconstitutional Act.’ “The press-punishing, speech-chilling, and unabashedly overreaching actions by the Obama administration against the Associated Press and Fox News Channel’s James Rosen lay bare the essential dynamic between any president and a press that is always more prone to being lapdogs than watchdogs . . . . Because they tend to share his broad outlook on politics, too many journalists for too long have been in the tank for Obama, explaining away or minimizing his policy failures and reversals. Remember Obama’s heartfelt insistence that he would run the most transparent administration ever? Take a look at this document about warrantless searches of text messages that his administration finally coughed up to the ACLU and get back to me. It’s 15 pages of completely redacted prose. Such a document would be funny if it wasn’t coming from a secrecy-obsessed administration that has put the brakes on fulfilling FOIA requests and has charged a record number of people under The Espionage Act.”

Flashback: White House “War” On Fox in 2009. Hey, some of us were onto this phenomenon early.

SADLY, HORSEWHIPPING IS NOT INVOLVED: Marco Rubio files amendment to punish IRS agents who leak taxpayer docs.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Obama and Elizabeth Warren Feed the College Beast.

The proposals put forward by Obama, House Republicans, and Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) would tie student loans to the market rate (either the 10-year or the 91-day Treasury rate), though each with its own variation. The boldest plan, from new Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would reduce student loan rates to .75 percent (the rate at which banks borrow from the Federal Reserve) for one year.

These proposals would offer students some relief, but none of them address the core problem that rising college tuition rates are closely linked to the increased availability of government loans. Stafford loans have been around for just over forty years, and over the past thirty, college tuition and fees surged 1,120 percent—four times faster than the consumer price index, more than medical or food prices. And this isn’t all due to a rising cost of teaching: Colleges have used their newfound wealth to bloat their administrative ranks and spend lavishly on construction projects.

These new student loan proposals, particularly Warren’s, will only feed the higher education beast. Perhaps lawmakers should give more thought to policies that would increase price competition among universities and drive down costs.

I think making them bear some of the loss in defaulted student loans would help.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: 50 Percent Approve of President Obama, but 57 Percent Disapprove of Country’s Direction. “The latest Reason-Rupe poll finds President Obama enjoys a 50 percent approval rating, 7 points higher than his 43 percent disapproval. However, this isn’t much different from a similar time period in President George W. Bush’s presidency. In May 2005, the year after his re-election, Bush’s approval rating hovered around 48 percent. Also in May 2005, the NBC/WSJ poll found 52 percent of Americans said the country was headed in the wrong direction. Today, slightly more, 57 percent say America is headed in the wrong direction, 34 percent say the country is headed in the right direction. Slightly more Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy, 47 disapprove and 45 percent approve.”

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JOAN HEMINWAY: Desire, Conservatism, Underfunding, Congressional Meddling, and Study Fatigue: Ingredients for Ongoing Reform at the Securities and Exchange Commission?

HERE’S VIDEO FROM YESTERDAY’S KANSAS CITY TEA PARTY PROTEST, courtesy of David Vickers:

REMEMBER WHEN THEY WERE TELLING US IT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF TEENAGE ANGST? Breaking: FBI shoots, kills person of interest in Boston bombing after man attacks agent. This whole story seems kind of . . . off, though.

SAL RUSSO: IRS scandal symptom of intrusive government: Controversy indicative of a federal bureaucracy that has expanded beyond control. “When the IRS story broke, it seemed immediately plausible to us. As the Tea Party Express conducted its national bus tours, we heard local Tea Party groups from all over the country complaining about IRS delays with inappropriate and intrusive questions. This unfairness was so pronounced that it was obvious that there was a deliberate attempt to suppress these groups. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media ignored and dismissed these legitimate grievances as false conspiracy theories.”

UPDATE: Cincinnati Fox19: The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart.

The six Cincinnati workers we have identified, who sent scrutinizing letters to conservative groups with words including “patriot, liberty, tea party or 9-12” in their names are Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr, Stephen Seok, Liz Hofacre and a woman identified only as Ms. Richards.

But was all of this done at the hands of a small group of Cincinnati employees working together? During Friday’s congressional hearing, that appeared to be the theme. Now, that explanation just became less likely.

Thanks to two FOX19 sources connected to the IRS, we now understand the chain of command for these workers.

Mitchel Steele, Carly Young, Joseph Herr and Liz Hofacre are IRS agents. Stephen Seok is a supervisor IRS agent.

But according to the IRS employee directory that FOX19 has obtained exclusively, each of these agents has a different manager and then above them a different territory manager.

That is important because while it may sound reasonable to the average person that these workers began targeting groups on their own, the IRS structure is designed to prevent that.

Read the whole thing. And watch out guys — you keep committing acts of journalism, you may get your phones tapped.

COLUMBUS DISPATCH: Wake Up, Watchdog: White House probes of reporters should shake complacency. “After treating President Barack Obama with uncommon deference throughout his first term, many members of the press finally may be realizing that this is a one-way street.”

ACCOUNTABILITY: Politico: Heads Won’t Roll At IRS. Slash their travel & entertainment budget. . . .

FORWARD! Poll: Voters Say Government Out Of Control.

AL HUNT’S DEFENSE OF OBAMA IN THE ONGOING SCANDALS: It raises questions about the “competency of the attorney general to hold office.” Is Eric Holder too big to fit under that bus? We’ll find out.

WHILE BLOOMBERG’S BEEN FOCUSING ON GUNS AND BIG GULPS: New York City seeing spike in anti-gay crime, officials say.

PHILIP KLEIN: Five reasons why focus on scandals is unlikely to backfire on GOP as in 1998.

Just a couple of days ago the Journolist crowd was trying to maintain that there was no there there in the IRS scandal. That whole taking-the-Fifth thing kind of undercut that line. I wonder what they’ll come up with next?

ROLL CALL ON LOIS LERNER’S DECISION TO TAKE THE FIFTH: “The IRS official in charge of the division accused of improperly targeting conservative groups will invoke her Fifth Amendment rights against compelled self-incrimination at a committee hearing Wednesday, a sign of concern that the political controversy is heading into the criminal arena. . . . The announcement signaled a potentially dramatic turn in a controversy that has embroiled Capitol Hill and the IRS since the release last week of an inspector general’s reporting describing actions by IRS workers over several years to single out conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status and subject them to intrusive questioning.”

BILL KELLER: Bring Back Ken Starr To Investigate IRS.

TAXPROF: Roundup: The IRS Scandal, Day 13.

Related: Roger Kimball: It’s Bigger Than You Think.

WOW: Oklahoma Tornado Upgraded To Rare EF-5.

THE COMMON THREAD in the Obama Administration scandals.

JAMES TARANTO: The Dog Whistler: An Obama supporter’s Pavlovian reaction to one of her own pet phrases. “Noonan’s use of ‘dog whistle’ is especially neuralgic for Walsh because it is a pet phrase of many on the left, including Walsh herself.” Plus, what Nate Silver got wrong.

PAULA BOLYARD: 5 Signs That We Haven’t Lost America Yet.

PUSHBACK: Top Republican: IRS shouldn’t implement Obamacare until scandal is resolved.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., asked two members of President Obama’s cabinet to suspend IRS implementation of Obamacare, citing the fact that the head of the health reform section of the agency used to lead the IRS section that improperly targeted conservatives.

Thune wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew about Sarah Hall Ingram, who led the office that subjected Tea Party groups to inappropriate audits.

I think we’ll see more of this.

SHOCKER: Liberal Nonprofit Groups Actually Love Corporate Cash, Wall Street Simoleons. “During the 2012 election, the Democratic PAC American Bridge attacked Mitt Romney and other prominent Republicans every time one of them attended a ‘high-dollar fundraiser’ or revealed close ties to Wall Street. Yet there was one group that American Bridge never attacked: Bain Capital. Why? Because, as Ben Smith and Evan McMorris-Santoro revealed today, Bain Capital executives were bankrolling American Bridge.”

THE HILL: Senate Judiciary Committee advances immigration reform bill. “The Senate Judiciary Committee voted with a strong bipartisan majority Tuesday evening to advance comprehensive immigration legislation that would put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. The legislation also lifts caps on high-skilled workers and creates a new visa program for low-skilled workers.”

Related: Leahy withdraws LGBT measure from Senate immigration bill. Sorry, gays. Obama prefers Latinos to you. But thanks for all the contributions!

Also: Unions rip Schumer’s deal on H-1B visas. “The deal was a coup for the tech industry, which had been lobbying aggressively behind the scenes to build support for Hatch’s proposals on H-1B visas. It was also a step forward for members of the Gang of Eight, who see Hatch’s support as key to securing votes from other on-the-fence Republican senators. . . . But the effort has angered the nation’s largest labor federation, which was deeply involved in the negotiations over the original bill and is a key supporter. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued a blistering statement on Hatch’s amendments Tuesday afternoon, calling them ‘unambiguous attacks on American workers,’ as the federation vowed to fight them on the Senate floor.”