HOMELAND SECURITY UPDATE: TSA officers charged with trashing South Beach hotel room, shooting gun. “Miami Beach police say two Transportation Security Administration officers partied a little too hard Tuesday night, trashed their South Beach hotel room and then picked up a semi-automatic handgun and shot six rounds out the window. One bullet pierced a $1,500 hurricane impact resistant window at a nearby Barneys New York, penetrated a wall and tore into some jeans in the closed store’s stockroom, according to store manager Adelchi Mancusi.”

The good news is, this is probably enough to get even unionized government employees fired. Probably.

RANDY BARNETT: Justice Kennedy, “Actuarial Risk,” and the Individual Mandate’s Unconstitutionality.

Related: Nearing the end of the search for the non-existent limiting principles.

CHANGE: Gas Prices In Washington, DC Surpass $4 a gallon.

Related: Gas pump Post-It revolt reignites.

And reader Tom Canaday writes:

Last August you posted on the appearance of currency signed by Sec. Geithner and stamped “Tax Cheat”.

Today I received such a note.

Now that Geithner-signed currency is more common, have your readers been reporting additional sightings?

Not that I’ve noticed. I got one a while back. If you encounter either gas-pump post-its or “tax cheat” bills, please let me know. Photos appreciated.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Burhans writes: “Just so you know, gas prices here in Salem, OR are running from $4.09 at discount stations to $4.30 at brand-name stations. It’ll be higher tomorrow: Change!” Hope, not so much.

THE ATLANTIC: Did Bloggers Kill The Healthcare Mandate?

Blogs — particularly a blog of big legal ideas called Volokh Conspiracy — have been central to shifting the conversation about the mandate challenges. At Volokh, Barnett and other libertarian academics have been debating and refining their arguments against the mandate since before the ACA was signed. At the beginning, law professor Jonathan Adler fleshed out the approach that came to typify the elite conservative response for the first months of the public debate: the Founders never intended for the Constitution to permit such broad federal power, but given New Deal-era precedent, the mandate, if it became law, would pass muster. Things changed on Volokh around the time that it became clear that an insurance mandate would be part of whichever health care reform package passed into law.

The blog that saved America? Hey, someone should write a book about this kind of thing.

Also, Ilya Somin weighs in. “Where we did have some influence is in debunking the myth that the constitutionality of the mandate was a no-brainer backed by an overwhelming consensus of expert opinion. But we could not have done that were we not 1) recognized academic experts on these issues ourselves, and 2) able to point to other well-known experts who also believed the mandate to be unconstitutional, many of them not VC-ers. The latter include such prominent constitutional law scholars as Richard Epstein, Steve Calabresi, Steve Presser, and Gary Lawson.”

UPDATE: Reader Michael Formica writes:

Is it really the case, as the Atlantic claims, that Volokh actually changed perceptions? Or is it simply a case of clueless myopic liberals (but I repeat myself) blathering on in their journolista echo chamber parroting whatever Ezra Klein/Andrew Sullivan and the Obama PR machine (but I repeat myself) told them to say in their fetish to support whatever it is Obama and the liberal left desire.

I mean seriously, the Atlantic cites some crackpot liberals blog post about the inevitability of Rule 11 sanctions for seeking to challenge federal legislation as an example of intelligent critical thinking on the lunacy of challenging Obamacare?? That ranks right up there with Pelosi’s thinking.

It opened up a preference cascade, overcoming the bullying tactics of ObamaCare supporters.

AT AMAZON, warehouse deals on toys. Including those radio-controlled helicopters everyone was loving last year.

#MEDIAMATTERSFAIL: WaPo: This Rush Limbaugh boycott has pretty much fizzled, huh?

Meanwhile, I suspect that those people who dropped HBO for a Roku Box over Bill Maher won’t be coming back, because the alternative is better.

UPDATE: Reader Kirby Angell writes: “I was at the cable store dropping all of the movie channels, but I told them I specifically wanted to drop HBO because of Bill Maher and objectionable content. Then I found out if I got a new cable modem I could get a faster internet connection. Yesterday the cable guy was out with the new modem and while testing it he said ‘lots’ of people were dropping cable service and going with streaming only. He said he would drop it at his house but there was one show he would miss and that’s the only reason he keeps it. I’ve never seen Game of Thrones which he would miss, but I love Walking Dead and would still wait until I can stream it at my convenience than pay for cable. Soon the cable companies’ only product may be the pipe.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Rising Gas Prices Take Toll On American Families. Ya think?

RECORDING THE POLICE: Cops in a jam after cell tape contradicts arrest report. “Felony charges have been dropped against a Florida woman after a cellphone tape of her arrest sharply contradicted two police officers’ version of events.”

More support for my forthcoming piece (in the Washington University Law Review) on a due-process right to record the police.

UPDATE: Reader John Lunde writes: “In addition to a ‘due process’ right to record the police, isn’t the ‘right to petition government for a redress of grievances’ also involved? I can’t think of a more convincing way to petition government for the redress of police misconduct than a recording of the actual activity, or even another way as likely to work.” Good point!

PROF. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: On Bra-Burning, Erica Jong Is Wrong.

I GUESS IT’S A SHORT STEP FROM TOUCHING PEOPLE INAPPROPRIATELY TO GETTING PAID FOR TOUCHING PEOPLE INAPPROPRIATELY: TSA Manager Arrested for Running Prostitution Ring. Doesn’t say much for the background-check process.

DISTRACTIONS INSUFFICIENT: Henry Blodget: Americans Angry With Obama As Gas Nears $4 A Gallon.

NEW CIVILITY: ‘Kill Zimmerman’ Twitter Account Launched. “Barack Obama has remained silent as the usual suspects have been busy stirring up hate aimed at George Zimmerman, the Florida Hispanic involved in the shooting death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. Now the anger has taken a new twist, breaking out on Twitter with an account named ‘Kill Zimmerman.’ It features an image of Zimmerman in crosshairs.”

JACOB SULLUM: More on the Irrelevance of ‘Stand Your Ground’ to the Trayvon Martin Case.

Pretty much everything under discussion is irrelevant here, right down to the political framing: A Hispanic Democrat shoots a black guy and somehow it’s the fault of white Republicans. Because, I guess, everything is.

PRODUCT LIABILITY: Should Law School Come With A Warning Label?

I JUST HOPE IT’S NOT THE DEEP SEVENS COMING TO THE SURFACE: Bigger Booms Heard In Clintonville.

SMART LEGISLATION: Obama budget defeated 414-0.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

Just saw a bit of Cornel West on C-SPAN, part of a panel on the African American community and 9/11. He was sitting in a chair, wearing the usual three-piece suit, waving around an absurd walking stick while shouting about the lack of intellectually honest leaders in the black community who cared about ordinary people.

He was absolutely right.

Still is.

LAWSUIT? Couple who fled home after Spike Lee tweet hires law firm.

MORE BREITBART T-SHIRTS.

PROF. DAVID BERNSTEIN CHIDES THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR QUOTING THE PREAMBLE IN SUPPORT OF OBAMACARE: I agree that the quotation was unpersuasive, except maybe to Dahlia Lithwick, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with quoting the Preamble in general. Here’s what Joseph Story wrote on the Preamble in his 1833 Commentaries On The Constitution:

The importance of examining the preamble, for the purpose of expounding the language of a statute, has long been felt, and universally conceded in all juridical discussions. It is an admitted maxim in the ordinary course of the administration of justice, that the preamble of a statute is a key to open the mind of the makers, as to the mischiefs, which are to be remedied, and the objects, which are to be accomplished by the provisions of the statute…. There does not seem any reason, why, in a fundamental law or constitution of government, an equal attention should not be given to the intention of the framers, as stated in the preamble. And accordingly we find, that it has been constantly referred to by statesmen and jurists to aid them in the exposition of its provisions.

So there. Meanwhile, in this piece I looked at the Preamble as doing rather the opposite of what Verrilli suggests.

UPDATE: Exclusive InstaPundit video of Verrilli’s practice arguments at the Department of Justice:

REASON TV: Obamacare #FAIL: Day 3 at the Supreme Court. “Root thinks the Obama administration has reason to be concerned not only because their Solicitor General’s performance rated poorly, but because ‘their arguments were nowhere near as strong as they thought they were going to be.'”

UPDATE: “On the bright side for Obama, it is taking people’s minds off $4 gasoline.”

RAND SIMBERG: The White House / Media Cocoon On ObamaCare.

This week’s events at the Supreme Court should be a torpedo below the waterline to the credibility of those who have been telling us about the Constitution, and those who determine the constitutionality of the swill that is generated in Congress. A media organization that wanted to survive the coming tsunami of fact-checking from those in the know, who with social media are increasingly becoming more known, might want to hire a “red team” to give them the bitter truths they need to survive.

But because both they, and the administration that they protect, remain cocooned, it may take another few hits.

Faster, please.

THE MOST POPULAR LAW SCHOOLS based on acceptance yield.

THE FALL OF SEALAND and how hard it is to get out from under government’s thumb.

That’s something I wrote about in the Stanford Law & Policy Review in connection with Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu’s book on Internet governance.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Sports Outlet Sale.