NEXT, THOSE IRS EMAILS: Gov’t must give up 5 secret surveillance docs for court to review, judge orders.

UNIVERSITIES: HOTBEDS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. Provost Charged With Touching Male Employees, Inappropriately, Retaliating After Complaint.

SPACE: Cosmic Concept: Exploring Titan’s Great Lakes in a Submarine. I’d prefer fewer clever robotic plans, and more extant human exploration/settlement.

DEMOCRATIC SENATORS LASHED OUT AT GEORGE WILL FOR SPOILING THEIR CAMPUS SEXUAL-ASSAULT NARRATIVE: He dissects them mercilessly. “I think your complaint is with the conclusion that arithmetic dictates.”

It was their understanding that there would be no math.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 401.

ROGER KIMBALL: 18 1/2 minutes vs. 2 years: which is worse?

This will amaze you, I know, but it is true: The New York Times today devotes zero words to the story. Take a look at the front page here: Nothing. Couple article about Iraq’s descent into chaos—Iraq, the country that Joe Biden, in 2010, called one of the “greatest achievements” of the Obama administration. “I’ve been there 17 times now,” the Vice President told Larry King. “I know every one of the major players in all of the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.” But I digress . . .

What else do we have on the front page? Warnings about a connection between obesity and liver disease. Something about the tea party in the aftermath of David Brat’s upset victory in Virginia and a story about restauranteurs upset by apps bypassing maitre d’s in securing good tables at posh eateries. The public has a right to know these things. There is also advance word about a coming article about the entertainer “Beyoncé the Boundless” (they teahc alliteration in J school), the soccer games in Brazil, and sundry other topics.

What about the missing emails? Nary a word on the front page. Or the next page. Or the next or the next. . . .

But here we have a former senior official from the IRS who deliberately harassed hundreds of conservatives groups. She has taken the 5th Amendment—why? What sort of self-incrimination is she worried about? A look through her emails would have the answer. But those emails are, according to the IRS, unavailable because of a hard disk failure. Do you believe that? Do you believe that that the agency charged with tax gathering for the United States does not have multiple back ups of its business correspondence? Do you? Imagine what the IRS would have to say to a (conservative) business it decided to audit if a response for electronic records was met with, “Gosh darn, we had a hard disk failure, and they’re just plum gone.” Imagine. And why have there not been instant calls for the data recovery folks to get involved? Why? The public, I’d wager, would find all this keenly interesting—if only the people charged with reporting the news would tell them about it.

They’re still covering for him. And they’ll still be covering for him on January 21, 2017.

MAYBE IT’S A PRODUCT-QUALITY ISSUE: Online Journalism Is Suffering Print’s Fate:

If you want the pithiest summation of the problem facing modern journalism, here it is: dollars in print, dimes on the Web, pennies on mobile.

That’s advertising revenue we’re talking about. Journalism is what economists call a “two-sided market”: Media companies sell news and entertainment to you, and they sell you to advertisers. Outside of some specialty trade publications, subscriptions have never covered the cost of producing newspapers and magazines. In fact, they rarely exceed the cost of printing and mailing the things. The actual work of reporting has always been paid for by the advertisers.

The Web has slashed the costs of distributing our product, but it hasn’t done that much to change the cost of gathering the news. Oh, sure, there was fat in the industry, accumulated during flush times; journalists still get kind of misty when they hear the words “Time magazine drinks cart.” But researching, reporting and writing stories consume a surprising amount of time and money. Readers are always shocked when I tell them how much effort goes into producing a single 2,500-word feature.

The problem is, advertising dollars are shrinking. We just can’t charge as much for Web advertising as we used to for print advertising. A decade ago, when I entered professional journalism and began earnestly discussing its financial future, there was a reasonable case that, eventually, digital advertising would be worth more than print advertising — you could precisely target it, after all, and measure its effects. As soon as we got better at building digital ad products and educated advertisers, in theory we’d be in better shape than ever.

That theory has, alas, been pretty well destroyed by the last 10 years.

True.

BUT IT’S CONSISTENT WITH THE GOVERNING PHILOSOPHY: Holding Back High-Speed Internet for the Poor’s Sake Just Hurts Everyone.

AT AMAZON: Big markdowns on select camping gear from Coleman. Good for disaster prep, too.

Also, Summer Savings on the Sport-Brella. What’s a Sport-Brella? You’ll just have to follow the link.

STEPHEN L. CARTER: What Obama Didn’t Say About Iraq. “In particular, the president never said anything approaching this: ‘We will under no circumstances permit the terrorists to take control of Iraq.’ Barack Obama is a man who knows how to use words. It’s possible, then, that this omission was intended to prepare us for the worst.”

JAMES TARANTO: Obama Keeps a Promise: What he said in 2007 about withdrawing from Iraq.

As this columnist noted in a 2007 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, then-Sens. Obama and Kerry were so eager for America to pull out of Iraq that they dismissed the possibility of catastrophic results.

Obama was asked by an AP reporter if preventing genocide was a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces in Iraq. As he often does, he took refuge in a false dilemma: “Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now–where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife–which we haven’t done. We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea.”

True, it is impractical to intervene everywhere. It does not follow that it is wrong to intervene anywhere, much less that it is right to end heedlessly an intervention already undertaken.

Today the president acknowledged that the Islamic State’s advance “poses a danger to Iraq and its people, and given the nature of these terrorists, it could pose a threat eventually to American interests as well.” In 2007 he promised to withdraw regardless of the danger to Iraq and its people. He kept that promise.

As for Kerry, he invoked Vietnam, as he often does.

For some people, “another Vietnam” is a favored outcome.

AH, BUT THEY’VE SERVED HIM WELL IN OTHER WAYS: President Obama Requests 10.5% Budget Increase for IRS, Despite IRS’s Failure to Perform Basic Budget Planning.

WELL, THEY’VE BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS WITH THEIR OBAMA COVERAGE: Look How Far The NYT Has Gone In Merging Editorial With Advertising Comment. Of course, women’s magazines have been doing that for years, and the NYT is becoming more and more like a women’s magazine.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Daughter of first American killed in Afghanistan learns freed Taliban leader was behind it.

STANDING UP FOR EQUALITY: The Feminist Leader Who Became a Men’s-Rights Activist. “Karen DeCrow, the feminist attorney and author who served as president of the National Organization for Women from 1974 to 1977, died of melanoma last Friday at 76. Although her passing was widely noted in the media, most the obituaries and tributes overlooked the more unorthodox aspects of her work. A lifelong champion of women’s rights, DeCrow was nonetheless skeptical about many key aspects of latter-day feminism, including its focus on sexual violence and male abuse of women. She was also, for much of her career, a men’s-rights activist.”

“SO THIS IS WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE:” A Brief Look Back at Team Obama’s “Mission: Accomplished” Moments.

UPDATE: Obama assures nation his political commitment to inaction trumps international security.

CRONY CORRUPTION IN OUR TIMES: It Looks Like Chelsea Clinton Made $26,724 For Each Minute She Appeared On NBC.

As pay for a correspondent, it’s absurd. As a bribe for a possible future President, it’s cheap.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Blame Obama First: The Problem Isn’t The President’s National Security Team. It’s Him.

I THINK TEA PARTY GROUPS SHOULD APPEAR AT THE DOOR OF EVERY IRS OFFICE ON MONDAY: Roger Kimball: A dog ate 2 years of Lois Lerner’s emails. Now what?

ALAN BOYLE: Polywell Fusion Comes In From The Cold.

A hush-hush nuclear fusion project that’s received $12 million from the U.S. Navy is now sharing what it calls encouraging results — and looking for private investment.

For years, EMC2 Fusion Development Corp. has had to conduct its research into what’s known as Polywell fusion outside public view because the Navy wanted it that way. Now the Navy is phasing out its funding, and EMC2 Fusion is planning a three-year, $30 million commercial research program to see if its unorthodox approach can provide a fast track to cheap nuclear fusion power.

Well, between that and fracking, it would make the middle east a lot less important. Which seems increasingly a good thing.

BRING BACK DDT: More States Report Cases Of Mosquito-Borne Chikunguya Virus.

EMILY SMITH: Masters Of Love: Science says lasting relationships come down to—you guessed it—kindness and generosity.

AT AMAZON, trade in your used electronics, DVDs, games, and more.

Also, it’s not too late to send Gift Cards for Father’s Day.

MAD MAGAZINE PARODIES HILLARY.