REMINDER: Ed Markey cheered gov’t witch hunt against Gibson Guitar.

THE OBSOLESCENCE OF FEMA: Oklahoma Tornado: Glenn Beck and Twitter to the Rescue. “Shortly after the destructive twister tore through the town of Moore outside Oklahoma City , conservative radio personality and talking head Glenn Beck used Twitter to organize a ‘convoy of hope’ to travel to Oklahoma to provide early disaster relief. Within hours, Beck’s team had used Twitter to locate trucks and supplies, and they were on their way, arriving in the Moore area bearing food, water, and diapers.” Way ahead of FEMA.

IOWAHAWK TO JOSH MARSHALL: “You’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks.”

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING AMERICA: How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press.

MARK LEVIN: McConnell ‘Orchestrating’ Immigration Bill ‘from the Shadows.’

REMEMBERING THE WARSAW GHETTO REVOLT:

“We didn’t have enough weapons, we didn’t have enough bullets,” Mr. Spiegel once told an interviewer. “It was like fighting a well-equipped army with firecrackers.”

Shoulda loaded up on guns and ammo sooner.

HOW THE NEW YORK TIMES rewrote an IRS story to change the political impact. “Thankfully, as the following screenshots will show, you can learn for yourself how a breaking news story containing REAL new information gets ‘massaged’ by a media professional to ensure that readers come away with the ‘correct’ impression.”

UPDATE: “No wonder they’re scared.”

PROF. JACOBSON: Looking more and more like a DOJ war on Fox News, not just James Rosen.

TWEET OF THE DAY: What’s crazier? Alex Jones saying government can control tornadoes with satellites or Democrats saying they can control them with tax hikes?

BLOG REPORT: Tea Party rally Norfolk, VA in front of the IRS. More pictures here.

Also, ‘Stop #IRS Abuse of Power’: Tea Party Swarms Santa Ana on National Day of Protest.

And via reader Susan Dixon, a picture from the rally in Downer’s Grove, Illinois. It looks like half the town turned out.

For many, many more pics, scroll down or go here and here.

PHILIP KLEIN: How Much News Has The Obama Administration Successfully Suppressed?

On the heels of news that the Obama administration Department of Justice was spying on reporters at the Associated Press, Monday brought the startling disclosure by the Washington Post that the DOJ had also targeted Fox reporter James Rosen for surveillance in an effort to plug up leaks.

Additionally, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza obtained the full application for a search warrant of Rosen’s personal email account, in which the DOJ accused him of being “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator.” As Lizza put it, “Rosen was not charged with any crime, but it is unprecedented for the government, in an official court document, to accuse a reporter of breaking the law for conducting the routine business of reporting on government secrets.”

These investigations are shocking when taken alone, but as as Reason’s J.D. Tuccille notes, it’s important to consider these events in their broader context of the Obama administration’s long-running war against the free press. Last year, Bloomberg reported that Attorney General Eric Holder “has prosecuted more government officials for alleged leaks under the World War I-era Espionage Act than all his predecessors combined, including law-and-order Republicans John Mitchell, Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft.” The administration has also received a failing grade for its ignoring of Freedom of Information Act requests.

Taken together, all such actions have a toll. They mean that federal officials are less likely to blow the whistle on government wrongdoing and that journalists are less likely to obtain damning information that they can pass along to the public. The suggestion by the DOJ that Rosen broke the law, if followed to its logical conclusion, would mean the end of investigative journalism in America.

Obama seems more afraid of investigative journalism than any previous president. That suggests to me that his administration has more to hide. . . .

JOURNALISM: Oops! CNN’s Cuomo Scolds ‘Congressman’ Over D.C. Disaster Politics, Finds Out He’s Not Congressman. There’s no IQ test for those jobs.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Benghazi Suspects ID’d, But Administration Won’t Nab Them Because It Doesn’t Want to Send Them to Gitmo.

JONATHAN TOBIN: A New Front In The War On Journalists?

VIDEO: TEA PARTY PATRIOTS PROTEST OUTSIDE IRS.

A NEW SCREENWRITING GIG for PJ’s Roger L. Simon.

AP: Protesters Rally Over IRS’ Tea Party Scrutiny.

Tea party activists waving flags and signs, singing patriotic songs and chanting anti-IRS slogans held rallies outside federal buildings across the country Tuesday to protest the agency’s extra scrutiny of conservative groups.

A crowd packed the sidewalks in front of and across the street from a Cincinnati federal building housing the Internal Revenue Service offices that handled tax-exempt status applications.

“It’s going to be up to the grass-roots movement to do something,” said Paul Wheeler, dressed in Colonial-era attire with tri-cornered hat and holding a sign saying: “Internal ‘Revenge’ Service Stop.” He said he came from Indianapolis, some 100 miles way, because Cincinnati is “the epicenter of some of the complaints.”

IRS officials have acknowledged that some conservative groups received inappropriate attention.

There were also rallies outside IRS offices in Atlanta; Louisville; Chicago; Cherry Hill, N.J.; Denver; Kansas City, Mo.; Helena, Mont.; Philadelphia; Phoenix, and Providence, R.I., among others.

Related: Tea Party Protests IRS Harassment.

Also: NBC News: Ex-Cincy IRS official doubts agency’s explanation for Tea Party scandal.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling point-and-shoot digital cameras. You may want one for this summer’s Tea Party protests.

REASON TV: 3 MORE REASONS TO FEAR THE IRS.

NEWS FROM THE PROFESSIONAL CAREER CIVIL SERVICE: IRS Worker Used Federal Plastic For Amazon Buys: Government credit card paid for years-long shopping spree. “Entrusted with a government credit card, an Internal Revenue Service worker allegedly used the plastic for a years-long Amazon.com shopping spree that netted her hundreds of items, including a chocolate fondue fountain; Bollywood movies; Pampers; Harlequin romance novels; Omaha Steaks; Apple Bottoms skinny jeans; mango body wash; and a Ginsu knife set. Yetunde Oseni, 37, was named this month in a U.S. District Court felony complaint charging her with embezzling government funds. Oseni has worked since 2000 as a secretary in an IRS office in Lanham, Maryland.”

DAVID BERNSTEIN: The New Deal Goes South: FDR vs. Civil Rights.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How Should A Man Handle A “Silencing Tool?”

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION FINALLY FINDS A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT IT CAN GET BEHIND: Top IRS official will invoke 5th Amendment. “A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups. Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening — or why she didn’t disclose it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.” She’s lawyered-up, and not just with any lawyer, either.

UPDATE: “Look forward to reading tomorrow’s pieces explaining how GOP is overplaying hand by pointing out that Lerner is pleading 5th.” No scandal here — she just doesn’t want to talk because telling the truth might incriminate her!

JOURN-O-LIST CAVALRY TO THE RESCUE! Spotted: @joshtpm @CapehartJ @ezraklein & other lefty columnists headed into the West Wing as a group. POTUS coffee? Carney meeting? Anyone?

Watch for even-more-unified weaponized Administration-excusing talking points, coming soon to a publication near you!

ISN’T THIS KINDA SEXIST? Women should be among lead lawyers in IUD case, federal judge says.