TOM BLUMER: Harassment and Intimidation: The Goals of Obama’s Information Dragnet. “It may be working.” Well, he managed to cripple the Tea Party for 2012.

THE HILL: Obama doubles down on NSA defense as poll numbers slip. “The president went on to defend the NSA spying as ‘transparent,’ while defensively acknowledging that many on the left and right had compared his anti-terror policies to those of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush.”

Oh, he’s transparent all right. More and more people are seeing through him.

INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE: Suspension won’t be removed for five-year-old grilled over cap gun who then peed his pants. “School officials in Calvert County, Maryland have denied a request to expunge the suspension of the kindergartener who brought a plastic cap gun on a school bus last month and then wet his pants during a subsequent interrogation.”

Tar. Feathers.

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Left Loses Big in Citizenship Verification Supreme Court Case. “In the last year, I’ve litigated five NVRA cases and worked on the preemption issues for years, and there is more to cheer in today’s opinion than bemoan. Those complaining about the opinion don’t understand what the Left’s goals were in this case: total federal preemption, and on that score, Justice Scalia foiled them. On that score, the decision today was a huge war won, even if the small Arizona battle was lost.”

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NIXON: I AM NOT A CROOK! Obama: I’m not Dick Cheney.

SUGGESTION TO MICHAEL GERSON: “Tone down the rhetoric a bit.”

IRS UPDATE: Oh, good: IRS supervisor in DC “personally involved” in scrutinizing conservative groups’ early cases.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Working Way Past 65. “At the height of the financial crisis, it was unclear how diminished 401(k)s and general economic uncertainty would impact retirement trends for baby boomer professors. But new data suggest that professors are either significantly – or indefinitely – putting off retirement, and not just for financial reasons. Experts say the trend is forcing institutions to rethink traditional faculty models. . . . And there’s the rub, said experts in higher education faculty retirement trends. With no maximum retirement age for college and university professors, thanks to the 1994 end of the exemption of higher education from mandatory retirement laws (previously, colleges could require retirement at 70) and tenure, a happy professor could ostensibly keep working forever.”

CHANGE: Protests build in Brazil as discontent spreads. “Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities on Monday in a growing protest that is tapping into widespread anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption.” So, basically, a Brazil version of the Tea Party.

ARAB SPRING UPDATE: Tunisia Faces Political Struggle Over Islam.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Dr. Ben Carson, In Retrospect.

FOREIGN POLICY: Exclusive: Whistleblower Says State Department Trying To Bully Her Into Silence.

The State Department investigator who accused colleagues last week of using drugs, soliciting prostitutes, and having sex with minors says that Foggy Bottom is now engaged in an “intimidation” campaign to stop her.

Last week’s leaks by Aurelia Fedenisn, a former State Department inspector general investigator, shined a light on alleged wrongdoing by U.S. officials around the globe. But her attorney Cary Schulman tells The Cable that Fedenisn has paid a steep price: “They had law enforcement officers camp out in front of her house, harass her children and attempt to incriminate herself.”

Fedenisn life changed dramatically last Monday after she handed over documents and statements to CBS News alleging that senior State Department officials “influenced, manipulated, or simply called off” several investigations into misconduct. The suppression of investigations was noted in an early draft of an Inspector General report, but softened in the final version.

Erich Hart, general counsel to the Inspector General, did not reply to a request for comment.

The State Department hasn’t exactly been covering itself with glory.

MORAL CAPITAL DEPLETION: My USA Today column for tomorrow: Government compromises our trust.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Graduates from low-performing D.C. schools face tough college road. “Past valedictorians of low-performing District high schools say their own transitions to college were eye-opening and at times ego-shattering, filled with revelations that — despite taking their public schools’ most difficult classes and acing them — they were not equipped to excel at the nation’s top colleges.” And yet DC’s per-pupil spending is enormously high.

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF A MASS SHOOTING EPIDEMIC.

It may seem self-evident that the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary ought to be classified as a shooting event, or as a school shooting or a mass shooting. Of course we classify events into categories that make sense to us, and it is easy to take familiar categories for granted. We learn of terrible crimes and we are accustomed to commentators talking about incidents as instances. But the ways we make sense of the world—the terms we use to describe that world—are created by people, and they are continually evolving, so that specific categories come into and fall out of favor. In fact, in recent decades, Americans have understood events like the Newtown killings in a variety of ways.

Read the whole thing.

THE HARD-HEADED UTILITARIANISM of Jonathan Kent.

NOT SO HOT: The State Of Male Birth Control.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 3 Beer-Based Recipes for a Home-Brewed BBQ.

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I DUNNO. IS IT TIME FOR MEN TO RECLAIM THE WORD “CREEP?” Is It Time For Women To Reclaim The Word ‘Slut’?

TENNESSEE WAS ONE OF THE LAST STATES TO PUT PHOTOS ON DRIVER’S LICENSES, and people who objected were called paranoid. But now: State photo-ID databases become troves for police. “The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations. The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches are conducted for ‘law enforcement purposes.'”

WOMAN ASKS: Do My Rape Fantasies Make Me A Weirdo?

WHEN I SEE STUFF LIKE THIS, I’M REMINDED of James Scott’s Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes To Improve The Human Condition Have Failed. And if the Chinese planners had read it, they’d see certain hazards that they’ve probably missed.
“China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years…”

UPLOAD YOUR MIND: Russian tycoon wants to move mind to machine. Of course, then the NSA could read your thoughts.