Democrat raises prospect of special prosecutor for IRS By Tom Howell Jr. - The Washington TimesA Democrat on the House’s investigative committee raised the specter of a special prosecutor on Wednesday to investigate political targeting of conservative groups at the IRS from 2010 to 2012.

Official at Heart of IRS Tea Party Scandal Spiked Audits of Big Dark-Money Donors Andy Kroll  In 2011, the IRS killed audits of five big-time donors. Inside the IRS mess you haven't heard about. In 2011, under pressure from House and Senate Republicans, Miller, then the IRS' deputy commissioner, spiked audits investigating whether five big donors to 501(c)(4) groups—the type of nonprofit that can get involved in campaigns and elections but can't make politics its "primary activity"—avoided paying taxes on their donations. Miller's decision erased any worry that wealthy donors might have had about giving millions to nonprofits during the 2012 campaign season.

Questioning Obama on Press Freedom by John CassidyThe President still has a lot to explain regarding his Administration’s views on the First Amendment in leaks cases…The issue of just how far the Obama Administration is willing to go to pursue leakers gets murkier and murkier. 

Obama's Escape Plan By Margaret Hartmann Obama will renew his effort to close Gitmo by restarting the transfer of detainees. The prison still holds 166 detainees, and 86 have been cleared for transfer. That includes 56 from Yemen, but the administration suspended transfers to the country in 2010 after it was revealed that the attempted underwear bomber was trained there by Al Qaeda. Since the election of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi last year, Yemen has increased cooperation with the U.S. on counterterrorism. The Journal reports that officials from the two countries have been negotiating in recent weeks about restarting the transfers, and the Yemeni government says it will monitor detainees released from Guantánamo and provide programs to help them reintegrate into society.

The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss Liza Mundy Research finds that same-sex unions are happier than heterosexual marriages. What can gay and lesbian couples teach straight ones about living in harmony? Princeton professor Robert P. George and his co-authors write in the new book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. Marriage, seen this way, is a rigid institution that exists primarily for the rearing of children and that powerfully constrains the behavior of adults (one is tempted to call this the “long slog ’til death” view of marriage), rather than an emotional union entered into for pleasure and companionship between adults. These critics of gay marriage are, quite validly, worried that too many American children are being raised in unstable homes, either by struggling single parents or by a transient succession of live-in adults. They fear that the spread of gay marriage could help finally sever the increasingly tenuous link between children and marriage, confirming that it’s okay for dads, or moms, to be deleted from family life as hedonic fulfillment dictates.

Legal battle over contraceptive mandate grows Robert Barnes Religiously devout business owners are waging a broad rebellion against providing their employees with contraceptive coverage, bringing dozens of lawsuits that seem certain to land the issue before the Supreme Court.

The Woman Who Stood Up to the Woolwich Butchers by Christopher Dickey One woman faced down the two alleged killers who used cleavers and carving knives to hack a soldier to death in London. Christopher Dickey on the Cub Scout leader who stood up to terror. “I thought, ‘These people usually have a message.’ So I said, ‘What do you want?'”

The Unaccountable Executive If the President doesn't run the government, then who does?If the scandal is showing anything, it is that the White House has a bizarre notion of accountability in the federal government. President Obama's former senior adviser, David Axelrod, told MSNBC recently that his guy was off the hook on the IRS scandal because "part of being President is there's so much beneath you that you can't know because the government is so vast." 

Obama’s lawlessness George F. Will His unconstitutional approach to the National Labor Relations Board.

Lois Lerner didn’t say anything today. Why that’s a bad thing for Obama. Chris Cillizza IRS official refuses to answer questions during her appearance before House panel.