TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 51.

NICK GILLESPIE: Alec Baldwin’s Real Twitter Problem Isn’t Homophobic Ranting – It’s the End of the Red Carpet.

T.A. FRANK IN THE NEW REPUBLIC: Why Liberals Should Oppose the Immigration Bill: It’s about low-wage American workers.

Worrying about illegal immigration today is a lot like worrying about communists in government in 1950. It’s not that the problem isn’t legitimate or serious (there actually were, we now know, a lot of Moscow loyalists working for the U.S. government). It’s that expressing your concurrence links you to a lot of demagogues and bad actors.

Most of America’s college-educated elites are little affected by illegal immigration. In fact, it’s often a benefit to us in terms of childcare, household help, dinners out, and other staples of upper-middle-class life. Many therefore view the problem as akin, in severity, to marijuana use—common but benign, helpful to the immigrants and minimal in its effects on Americans or anyone else. I know, because it used to be my own view. . . .

All in all, I became convinced that high levels of low-skill immigration are good for wealthy Americans and bad for poor Americans. Far more important, high levels of illegal immigration—when you start to get into the millions, as we have—undermines unions and labor standards, lowers wages, heightens social tensions, strains state budgets, widens income inequality, subverts the rule of law, and exacerbates class divides. The effects go far beyond wages, because few undocumented workers earn enough to cover anything close to the cost of government services (such as education for their children) they require, and those services are most important to low-income Americans. In short, it’s an immense blow to America’s working class and poor.

Worrying about insufficient “diversity” links you to a lot of demagogues and bad actors, too, but that seems to be okay.

RISE OF THE MACHINES: Job-Stealing Robots Go Global.

Asian workers have scored some victories in rising wages, but many are learning something the West has known for some time: Employers will seek out the cheapest labor on offer, and machines are even cheaper than an underpaid human. In the late 20th century, manufacturing jobs shifted from America to China, then from China to Southeast Asia, and now even those are being automated.

For America, at least, this trend shouldn’t be so disconcerting. After all, it’s developed economies like ours that are designing the robots Nike is now using. Low-wage manufacturing jobs are drying up, but they’re being replaced by jobs in building, operating, and repairing the tech in question. Increasingly, companies will be likely to “onshore” these jobs to America, when shipping and distribution becomes much easier and cheaper. Manufacturing, it seems, will come full circle.

Indeed. I, for one, welcome our new robot employees.

FAIL: NFL Rejects Obama Admin: We Won’t Promote Obamacare.

ROGER KIMBALL: Government intervention & student debt.

IT’S REALLY BEGINNING TO LOOK AS IF CHARGES NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT HERE: Neighbor, cop back George Zimmerman’s account of fight with Trayvon Martin.

TO THE POLITICAL CLASS, THAT’S NOT A BUG, IT’S A FEATURE. Reason TV: Anti-Bullying Bill Could Jail People Who Criticize Politicians.

TMZ: Alec Baldwin: Still a Homophobe, Now a Liar, Too!

RENEWABLE ENERGY — TOOL OF SATAN? Rare bird last seen in Britain 22 years ago reappears – only to be killed by wind turbine in front of a horrified crowd of birdwatchers.

I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD LET THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAVE ANY MORE GUNS UNTIL IT CAN TAKE CARE OF THE ONES IT HAS: U.S. Park Police Lose Track of Guns. Lots and Lots of Guns.

Government officials are awfully concerned about how we mere private citizens manage our firearms. Connecticut recently tightened already stringent rules about gun storage, and politicians are full of ideas about trigger locks, documentation, and who can touch your guns and for how long without committing a felony. But when it comes to keeping track of their own things-that-go-bang, jut how do government officials stack up? Pretty goddamned piss poor, it turns out.

It’s always like that. Plus: “How bad was the mess with the park cops? Among other things, the OIG found records-keeping so bad, it was impossible to figure out how many guns were missing, even as they discovered hundreds of firearms that had no official existence. All of this on a force that has 640 sworn officers.”

SECRETS: Why a Government That Collects Everyone’s Private Data Won’t Let Its Employees Access Public Information.

I DON’T SEE WHY THIS SHOULD GET HIM OFF THE HOOK FOR HIS HOMOPHOBIC TWITTER RANT THOUGH: Daily Mail apologizes to Alec Baldwin for bogus Twitter story. I mean, he still said what he said. Unless your defense is that it’s okay to be homophobic when you’re really angry.

THE DANGER OF TAKING SIDES: The Hill: GOP senators warn NFL, NBA against promoting ObamaCare.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned six professional sports leagues on Friday not to promote ObamaCare or partner with the Obama administration on efforts concerning the law.

In letters to the leagues released Friday, McConnell and Cornyn cited an announcement by federal Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that she is in talks with the NFL, the NBA and others about campaigns to educate the public about healthcare reform.

McConnell and Cornyn warned NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and his peers that launching such campaigns would damage their leagues’ reputations.

“It is difficult for us to remember another occasion when [a] major sports league took public sides in such a highly polarized public debate,” the lawmakers wrote.

I think it’s time for some House hearings on player injuries.

THE HILL: Chris Christie Slams Obama, Says He “Can’t Figure Out How To Lead.” I guess the Sandy check cleared.

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Issa Looks To Call Lerner Back To Capitol Hill.

Commitee chairman Darrell Issa suggested he is poised to call Lois Lerner back to Capitol Hill in the wake of a House Oversight Commitee vote on Friday that found she waived her Fifth Amendment right not to testify about the IRS’s targeting of tea-party groups. “The Committee remains focused on hearing Ms. Lerner’s full and truthful testimony,” the Republican congressman said in a statement.

Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations division, professed innocence before the committee in May before pleading the Fifth, setting off a debate about whether she had waived her rights.

This will be interesting.

WEIRD WEATHER: Nenana Ice Classic: “The Tanana River ice officially broke up on May 20th at 2:41 pm Alaska Standard Time. The latest time on record the ice has ever gone out.”

THOUGHTS ON SEX AND ARCHITECTURE.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Vermont Law School Eliminates 25% of its Full-Time Faculty Positions.

THE INSIDE STORY of Russia’s Fight To Keep The U.N. Corrupt. Not exactly an uphill battle. . . .

When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Sochi, Russia, they were supposed to discuss the civil war in Syria. But the Russian leader — joined by his top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, and defense secretary, Sergei Shoigu — suddenly changed the subject to more mundane matters. A series of U.N. reforms aimed at streamlining billions of dollars of spending on U.N. peacekeeping was posing a threat to Russia’s commercial interests. Putin and his national security team politely but firmly pressed the U.N. leader to back off, according to several senior U.N.-based sources briefed on the meeting.

The high-level intervention on U.N. spending marked only the latest example of Russia flexing its diplomatic muscle to protect its commercial position at the United Nations. For much of the past decade, Russia has been engaged in a systematic effort to stymie attempts to root out corruption in U.N. spending. The Russians have pushed out U.N. reformers. They’ve defanged watchdogs. And they’ve blocked internal budget reforms aimed at saving costs.

Read the whole thing.

NEW YORK POST: The “Progressive” IRS.

From the start, it’s been pretty clear that Tea Party, pro-life and pro-Israel groups were targeted for special treatment. Yet even as one IRS official invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid self-incrimination, the public has been asked to believe the most ridiculous explanations: that it was a rogue operation of a few underlings; that it was all done out of Cincinnati; that even though the groups most affected were all conservative, no politics was involved; and that what took the head of the IRS to the White House was just an Easter Egg roll or two.

We’re glad to hear from Inspector General George. But the American people deserve to learn who at the IRS signed off on this targeting and hear them explain why — under oath.

Indeed.

ED DRISCOLL: ‘The Tyranny of Choice’; the Boredom of Academia’s Summer Reruns.

EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Who Helped Snowden Steal State Secrets?

GEORGE LEEF: Say No To Class-Based Affirmative Action. “‘Progressives’ take pleasure in thinking they can redesign society and improve upon laissez-faire. They’re almost always mistaken, and certainly so when it comes to shuffling students around to different colleges.”