K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: ‘We’re just average folks’: The family sending all ten of their home-schooled children to college by the age of 12.

MATT WELCH NOT IMPRESSED WITH LEE SIEGEL’S CALL FOR NORTH TO SECEDE. “Because being anti-redneck means never having to explain, let alone begin to understand, basic economics.”

THE FINAL VERSION OF MY OBAMACARE PIECE WITH BRANNON DENNING, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius: Five Takes, is now out in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. You can read it at the link. Spoiler: We don’t think that the Chief Justice demonstrated Marbury-like brilliance.

J.D. JOHANNES RECOMMENDS USA Today reporter Carmen Gentile’s new book, Kissed By The Taliban. The “kiss” was being shot in the head with an RPG. $2.99 on Kindle.

SPACE: First Powered Flight for Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo. “Richard Branson’s spaceship has gone supersonic. The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo broke the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert in California this morning, an achievement that paves the way for the vehicle’s first suborbital flight tests that are scheduled for later this year.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 27 Unexpected Ways Coffee Can Improve Your Life.

JOAN HEMINWAY: To Be or Not to Be (a Security): Funding For-Profit Social Enterprises.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Civil Liberties After Boston.

GUN VIOLENCE: Mostly a problem among Obama voters? Two interesting charts.

SHOCKER: Book: Obama surrounds self with ‘idolizers,’ plots legacy with scholars.

A revealing new book from one of the media’s longest serving White House correspondents reports that President Obama surrounds himself only with “idolizers,” and top aides make sure that those whose view might “shake him up too much” are shoved aside.

In “Prisoners of the White House, the Isolation of America’s Presidents and the Crisis of Leadership,” U.S. News correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh also discloses the extent to which Obama relies on polling for his political decisions including a never-before revealed reelection project to investigate the thoughts and feelings of “up for grabs” voters and another dedicated to helping him build a lasting legacy.

Walsh, who has covered the White House for 25 years and written several books on the presidency, credits Obama for trying to get out of the so-called “bubble,” but found that instead the president often relies on a tiny cadre of Chicago aides, thus living in “a bubble within the bubble.”

This is consistent with what I hear through the grapevine.

ED DRISCOLL: Barry Munchkin Syndrome.

ME, IN THE BOSTON HERALD: “Menino and Bloomberg should be ashamed.”

TIM CARNEY: A question for the NYTimes: If I don’t get in fights with my neighbors, am I a ‘loner’?

SO HOUSE DEMS SAY THAT GLOBAL WARMING COULD LEAD TO PROSTITUTION: Dem resolution warns climate change could push women to ‘transactional sex.’

Meanwhile, Russian scientists say that we’re heading into a period of Global Cooling. So does this mean fewer hookers?

AT AMAZON, it’s the Cinco De Mayo sale.

Also, today only: Rug Doctor Mighty Pro with Bottle of Oxy-Steam, $299.99 (25% off).

MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TODAY: Why The Democrats Lost The Sequester. And why across-the-board budget cuts seem to work. Plus, privatizing air traffic control.

UH OH: Benghazi survivor: Help was close enough but never sent. “The better question in this case isn’t the status of response forces in Europe. It’s why the State Department ignored multiple security warnings from the late Ambassador, why the Obama administration couldn’t figure out that the anniversary of 9/11 would be a critical day to prepare against attacks, and why the US ignored the warning signs that had led all other Western nations to leave Benghazi before our consulate got sacked.”

ADVICE: 6 Simple Rules For A Confused President Obama.

SO WHAT COUNTRIES DID IT STIMULATE, THEN? Millions in stimulus spending violated Buy America Act, inspector general says.

THEY TOLD ME THIS WOULD HAPPEN IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY: Mom forced 14-year-old daughter to bear children.

UNDERFUNDED/OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSION UPDATE: Cities ask workers to pay their own pension costs. “Pension costs have caused several recent high-profile municipal bankruptcies recently, so other cities are trying to avoid suffering similar disasters by asking employees to begin paying part of their pension costs. In Sacramento, Calif., City Manager John Shirey said today he will hire 58 new police officers only if current officers agree to pay the employee share of their pension payments. The police union is one of few groups of employees in the city who don’t pay any of their own pension costs, according to the Sacramento Bee. Most public pension plans are set up with a set contribution for employers and employees, but employee unions often negotiate for employers to pay both the employer share and some or all of the employee share, which makes pension payments a large chunk of many cities’ budgets. Bankrupt Stockton, Calif., for instance, owes the California Public Employees Retirement System $900 million.”

JAMES TARANTO: Why “community organizer” tactics don’t work for the president.

REMEMBER, ONLY POLICE CAN BE TRUSTED WITH GUNS: Beaver County sheriff held on accusations of threats against blogger, campaign volunteer.

Both alleged victims testified at length today. Mr. Fleischman, a county jail guard, said that when he went to shake the sheriff’s hand at a campaign event, the sheriff called him a profane name and threatened to cut off his hands and eat them. He said he didn’t report the incident to anyone because he feared for his job and the sheriff is president of the county prison board.

Mr. Vranesevich, who operates the website The Beaver Countian, testified through tears that the sheriff pulled his gun and waved it around during a meeting he had with the sheriff in the presence of two deputies, Thomas Ochs and Michael Tibolet.

Mr. Vranesevich was researching a story for his blog about a uniform contract for the sheriff’s department. He said Sheriff David, upset at the reporting on his office by J.D. Prose of the Beaver County Times, drew the gun in anger and warned that Mr. Vranesevich had better not report negatively on his office as he said Mr. Prose had. At one point, he said, the sheriff threatened to kill Mr. Prose.

“If you start reporting [expletive] like this, I’m going to to blow your [expletive] brains out, too,” Mr. Vranesevich said the sheriff screamed.

Mr. Vranesevich said the majority of the two hours he was in Sheriff David’s office were spent listening in shock as the sheriff alternately ranted against his various enemies and then calmed down again.

“I was witness to the ravings of a madman,” he said. “He was not in control of himself.”

Because they’re responsible, not like ordinary gunowners.

TIM CARNEY: Obama should blame Tea Party, not NRA, for gun control defeat.