AT AMAZON, markdowns and gift ideas for Father’s Day.

JUST A REMINDER THAT THE “IRS SCANDALS” AREN’T JUST ABOUT THE IRS:

In December 2010 the FBI came to ask about a person who’d attended a King Street Patriots function. In January 2011 the FBI had more questions. The same month the IRS audited her business tax returns. In May 2011 the FBI called again for a general inquiry about King Street Patriots. In June 2011 Engelbrecht’s personal tax returns were audited and the FBI called again. In October 2011 a round of questions on True the Vote. In November 2011 another call from the FBI. The next month, more questions from the FBI. In February 2012 a third round of IRS questions on True the Vote. In February 2012 a first round of questions on King Street Patriots. The same month the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did an unscheduled audit of her business. (It had a license to make firearms but didn’t make them.) In July 2012 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration did an unscheduled audit. In November 2012 more IRS questions on True the Vote. In March 2013, more questions. In April 2013 a second ATF audit.

All this because she requested tax-exempt status for a local conservative group and for one that registers voters and tries to get dead people off the rolls. Her attorney, Cleta Mitchell, who provided the timeline above, told me: “These people, they are just regular Americans. They try to get dead people off the voter rolls, you would think that they are serial killers.”

The rot is general. The cleanout should be, too.

OAK RIDGE: The Beginning Of The End At K-25.

SEVEN KNIVES EVERYONE SHOULD OWN.

FASTER, PLEASE: Material That Sorts Molecules by Shape Could Lower the Price of Gas. “Refiners typically use a material that can sort molecules by size during a key step in the refining process. To achieve a desired octane rating, this step has to be supplemented with energy-intensive distillation steps, or by the use of additives. The new material, which sorts molecules by shape rather than by size, can better differentiate between different types of hydrocarbon molecules, eliminating the distillation steps and the need for octane-enhancing additives.”

YES. NEXT QUESTION? The IRS Scandal Is a Test: Is It Too Hard to Fire Misbehaving Bureaucrats?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Tyranny Of College. “College isn’t for everyone, and there’s data to prove it. During the 2011-12 academic year, the number of students enrolled in American colleges and universities dropped by 1.6 percent, while the number of degrees awarded increased by 5.1 percent, according to a new study. As colleges attract fewer marginal students who wouldn’t have succeeded in attaining a degree, completion stats go up. This is largely good news. Students who fail to complete their degrees take on the costs of college with none of the benefits of a degree. This is an important lesson we’re just beginning to learn, as a four-year college degree is still a prerequesite for nearly all decent jobs. This is a colossal waste: that degree can be exorbitantly expensive, and it requires young adults to spend their prime working years confined to classrooms, often studying subjects that do little to prepare them for their future careers. For many of them, real-world work experience would be a better use of that time.”

ED MORRISSEY: Did Eric Holder lie in Congressional testimony last week?

POLITICO: The Sharyl Attkisson Approach. “For years, Attkisson has been one of the few mainstream reporters pursuing critical stories about the Obama administration.”

Related: The decline and fall of the Obama-media industrial complex.

CHANGE: The Rise And Fall Of Charm In American Men.

SHOCKER: Lois ‘I’ve Done Nothing Wrong’ Lerner Signed IRS Letters Harassing Tea Party Groups.

HARD-HITTING SCANDAL-ERA JOURNALISM FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: White House press secretary Jay Carney discusses favorite band, Guided by Voices.

INFRASTRUCTURE: Washington Bridge Collapse Caused By Truck Hitting Span. John Steakley emails:

So when Obama said “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Was this one of the bridges he meant? If so, I think American taxpayers deserve a refund.

Well, the stimulus money was supposed to go to bridges, until Obama wilted under feminist pressure.

MICHAEL S. GREVE: Conservatives, Condoms, and Compassion. “To put the point in a sentence: while one can perhaps imagine a government that would help ‘average’ people to realize their transcendent hopes and aspirations, our actual government is designed to wring any meaning out of life.”

WIRED: Obama Just Made Himself a Prisoner of His Own Gitmo Policy.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Black and Blue Over Closed Schools in Chicago.

Rather than focus on the school closures, angry residents should look at the blue policies that brought the city to this point. Years of broken and corrupt politics have left the city with a $1 billion budget deficit, a soaring crime rate, and constant tension between the government and unions. The pain has fallen worst on the poor and minority communities, and they are responding by getting out. Over the past decade, Chicago’s black population declined by 17 percent, as blacks fled the for the suburbs or the more promising economies of the South. The windy city is now at its lowest population since before 1920. No wonder the schools are closing.

Chicago’s problems are not unique. Approximately 1.3 million blacks left the North for southern cities between 2000 and 2010. Black populations in Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston have surged. Northern cities, once the promised land for the nation’s black population, have failed to create the kind of economic and social conditions necessary to build a stable black middle class.

We hear lots of talk about how brilliant liberal economic policies are, but we rarely see stories of millions of people emerging triumphantly out of poverty thanks to all the wonderful things expensive government programs are doing for the citizens of these places. Perhaps our President should spare a thought for what’s happening in the city he once called home.

Until the Combine suffers, nothing will happen.

PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: True The Vote Sues IRS Employees In Their Personal Capacity. “True the Vote is not only suing the IRS, but also taking action against the IRS employees who participated in the harassment of the voter education and election monitoring organization. Those employees could personally be held liable to pay damages that would be established in litigation.”

PROGRESSIVISM’S ENDPOINT: “The police won’t protect the people who work and have their money redistributed to people who don’t work and don’t even like Sweden. It’s the taxpayers who should be protesting, but they’re humbly cowering hoping for police protection, and they can’t even get that.”

UPDATE: From the comments: “The irony of Swedes paying danegeld, and finding it’s not enough…..” The worry, however, is that when the authorities of bourgeois democracy turn into weenies who fail to do their job, people often look for a Strong Leader who will. That seldom ends well, but the weenies don’t understand, or don’t care.

MILTON WOLF: Americans must repudiate the political class.

OH, WHAT A LUCKY MAN HE WAS: Tony’s ‘good fortune’: Behind Weiner’s consulting gigs. “Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, recently disclosed some $500,000 in joint income for 2012 — most of it, they said, accruing from Weiner’s ‘consulting’ activities. Nice work if you can get it — but, alas, so few can. It’s certainly an arrangement that needs a long second look, given subsequent disclosures that Abedin provided ‘consultant’ services to private-sector clients while a publicly paid top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Even in disgrace, the machine takes care of its own. Makes ’em less likely to talk.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Why “Star Trek Into Darkness” Is Smaller Than Life. “In Star Trek, the work is meaningful; the colleagues are smart, hard-working, competent and respectful; the leaders are capable and fair; and everyone has an important contribution to make. Star Trek features what law student Cindy McNew described as ‘a close-knit group of colleagues whose abilities complement one another and who don’t seem to take out their animosities or ambitions on each other.’ Deep friendships develop from teamwork and high-stakes problem-solving. It’s the workplace as we wish it were — and as it too rarely is.”

AT AMAZON, deals on unlocked cellphones.

Even unlocked iPhones.

Also, today only: The West Wing: The Complete Series Collection, $79.99 (73% off).

SO SEND ‘EM HOME: ‘They don’t want to integrate’: Fifth night of youth rioting rocks Stockholm. “In Sweden you’ve got welfare, access to the educational system – up to university level, you got access to public transport, libraries, healthcare – to everything. And still they feel that they [immigrants] need to riot through stones and Molotov cocktails. It’s ridiculous and a bad excuse.” As Jim Bennett says, democracy, open immigration, multiculturalism: Pick any two.