THE RETURN OF the Commerce Clause.

DISABLED? Keep paying those student loans!

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A reader notes that the University of Cincinnati is dropping its Computer Science major and comments: “You would think that the last programs to get cut would be the degrees that are actually worth the investment.” Well, no you wouldn’t. I don’t know anything about the University of Cincinnati’s situation, but generally speaking programs are cut in accordance with their political clout within the institution, not their utility to the outside world.

PROFESSOR MAY LOSE TENURE FOR “A pattern of inappropriate speech and behavior.” Wait, I thought that was what tenure was supposed to protect. Of course, it’s at Widener. But with tenure already under attack from education reformers, an object case that it doesn’t actually protect controversial speech would seem to be either valuable, or a dreadful mistake, depending on your perspective.

NIALL FERGUSON: Obama’s Foreign-Policy Debacle.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: Stop the Blogosphere! I Actually Agree With Andrew Sullivan!

Meanwhile, I’m not sure if Andrew Sullivan thinks otherwise or not, but I’m quite explicitly on record as favoring across-the-board cuts that include entitlements and defense. And the GOP’s proposed defense cuts are getting criticized by Hillary Clinton, no less, which seems worthy of note. [Later: It would be worthy of note if it were true, but either I misread that story completely this morning or it’s changed a lot. Either is possible, as I was on my first cup of coffee, but I know the headline has changed.]

Still, there’s no “axe” being wielded at the moment. Maybe a grapefruit spoon, coupled with a promise to really start dieting tomorrow. . . .

MEGAN MCARDLE: “I don’t need to tell you what I think of the budget: it’s disastrous. . . . For all that I keep hearing about deficit reduction and PAYGO rules, somehow those ‘fiscally responsible’ Democrats have given us the largest peacetime deficit in history.” A lot of people who thought that Obama was going to bring competent Ivy League management to the White House are learning otherwise.

Related: The Punt Guide to the budget.

JAMES TARANTO: What if Justice Scalia sued the New York Times for libel?

REP. PAUL RYAN: Obama punted budget, it’s ‘Debt On Arrival’.

LAWLESSNESS: Can the Treasury Exempt Companies It Owns from Taxes? The $45 Billion General Motors Loss Carryforward Rule.

UPDATE: How could I have forgotten the Put Your Hands Up For Detroit reference?

POST-VALENTINE’S DAY THOUGHTS from AlfonZo Rachel.

IS FEDERAL SPENDING RESTRAINT POSSIBLE? Of course.

MILITARY VOTING ACCOUNTABILITY: “Today, there will be testimony before Congress about the Department of Justice’s failure to protect the rights of military voters in 2010. Expect to hear two wildly different accounts of the DOJ’s behavior.”

PROF. JACOBSON: Shirley Sherrod Catches Andrew Breitbart’s Car. “The cost of defending the lawsuit, at least in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars and probably covered by insurance. The chance to take the depositions of Obama administration and NAACP officials, to investigate Sherrod’s connections to left-wing advocacy groups, and to expose the Pigford case intrigues — priceless.”

WELCOME TO BIZARRO WORLD: Hillary Clinton criticizes proposed GOP defense cuts.

UPDATE: Hey, the headline on this has changed, and I think the story has, too.

MICHAEL YON: Snapshots From The Edge Of A War.

INFLATION: Companies Raise Prices as Commodity Costs Jump. “Copper recently hit its highest level in about 40 years, and iron ore, used for steel, is fetching extremely high prices. Prices for corn, sugar, wheat, beef, pork and coffee are soaring. Labor overseas is becoming more expensive, meanwhile, and so are the utility bills to keep a factory running.”

“THE PIRATES ARE WINNING:” As I’ve said before, an international “system” that can’t control piracy is one that’s hardly worthy of the name.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

The ed-blogosphere overflows with predictions of a “higher education bubble” inflated by worthless degrees, crushing student loans, dumbed-down majors, country club student life, bloated administrations, and throwdowns such as for-profits vs. non-profits, credentialing vs. educating, and tenured Brahmins afloat on the backs of disposable adjuncts. The bubble produces graduates who spend years “academically adrift” just to be pitched up on the rocky shore of reality waving a diploma which neither signifies anything (knowledge or skill) nor produces anything (higher earnings or happiness). A search of Instapundit, law professor Glenn Reynolds’s Libertarian poli/tech blog, turns up 24 “higher education bubble” stories in the last month alone. Google spits out 248,000 occurrences of the phrase. Still, I find no mention of one thing that epitomizes the whole sorry mess: the Ed.D.

Can the world ever have enough doctors of education?

OBAMA’S BUDGET calls for major investments in nuclear energy.

BLOGGING ABOUT LIVING WITH A PREEMIE, at Rambling Rhodes. Zoey, the girl, is doing pretty well for being born so early. Finn, the boy, didn’t make it. Drop by and share your condolences, good wishes, or whatever seems appropriate. Let ’em know they’re not alone.

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? White House Expects Deficit to Spike to $1.65 Trillion.

TOM SMITH: “And what if Sarah Palin had said the Muslim Brotherhood was secular?”

WAS THE FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION A GOOD THING? Brian Leiter isn’t so sure: “Finally, certain other world-historic crimes, such as the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq, are unlikely to have occurred if the Soviet Union had remained intact.”

You know, Leiter doesn’t particularly like me, and after reading this statement, I care even less than I did before. Which is something of an accomplishment. . . .

JOURNALISM LESSONS FROM DANA LOESCH ON FACEBOOK: “Lesson for college journalists: Don’t request an interview pretending to be objective when I can Google your social media activity and discover your remarks slamming my ideology. Your request will be declined.”