HUGH HEWITT: Common Core is the dynamite that could blow up Jeb Bush’s presidential ambitions.

“BIG TENT:” On notice: Mitch McConnell is ready to “crush” the Tea Party.

LESSONS IN SELF-PUBLISHING.

JOHN KERRY JOKES ABOUT CHARLIE CRIST’S FAKE TAN, but he had his own Florida fake-tan moment, which is seared, seared in my memory.

SARAH HOYT: 20 Things You Might Not Know About Robert A. Heinlein, Part 3: His Eccentric Education.

DEAL KILLER: Here’s why Dana Loesch can’t support a Ben Carson campaign. Me neither. An anti-gun GOP candidate for President?

STEALING A MARCH ON REPUBLICANS, lefties go after the Higher Education Bubble.

Marco Rubio and Mike Lee have been on this, but overall the GOP hasn’t picked up on an issue — involving elitism, the failure of the Blue Model, and direct pain to young voters — that should naturally be theirs.

I HAVE TO SAY, I kind of want this sandwich.

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Plus, take 30% off on Fine Jewelry.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: If a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, are we insecure? Or unfree?

THE DETROIT NEWS on Obama’s endless ObamaCare delays:

The serial delays of Obamacare are coming so rapidly and for such obviously political reasons that the White House is barely even trying to mask its real mission of protecting vulnerable Democrats in the mid-term elections.

In announcing the latest postponement this week — this one allowing individuals to keep their existing health insurance policies through 2016 — the Obama administration carefully credited Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Udall of Colorado, Ron Barber of Arizona and 10 other vulnerable Democratic lawmakers.

All face tough reelection fights in the fall in races in which Obamacare is a key issue.

While it may be politically expedient, rewriting a law passed by Congress simply to avoid ballot box consequences is an outrageous abuse of executive power.

Yes, and it’s illegal and unconstitutional. So where are the lawsuits?

AN ILLEGAL ARREST FOR RECORDING A COP IN MASSACHUSETTS:

George Thompson says last January he was just sitting on his front porch, watching a Fall River police officer working a paid detail. Thompson says the officer was on his phone and was swearing very loud.

That’s when Thompson pulled out his phone. Thompson says Officer Tom Barboza then rushed him and arrested him, charging him with unlawful wiretapping.

But in Massachusetts it’s perfectly legal to record video and audio of a public official, including police, as long as they are performing their duties and the recording isn’t hidden. Barboza’s own police report shows that Thompson acknowledged he was recording the officer.

“I think we all have our basic rights and I think people should not record others secretly or surreptitiously,” Fall River Police Chief Daniel Racine told WPRI.

Yes, well, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, citizens have the right to record the police, and that right is so clear that qualified immunity doesn’t attach to officers who violate it. I hope he sues them for a lot. And the folks of Fall River may want to ask why they have a Police Chief who doesn’t know the law.

FEW ARE IMPROVED BY THE CHANGE: Iconic Celebrities With Photoshopped Tattoos. Though I kind of like tattooed Spock.

A LOOK AT HOW the East German Stasi used friendship-network tracking.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Military Science Fiction.

Also, 50% or more off on Handbags.

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE: NASA can now forecast sinkholes: But probably couldn’t have saved the Corvettes in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

WHY HIGH-IMPACT EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOUR BONES. So are squats, but the effects are different. This is why I run stairs for interval training.

VIRTUAL REALITY IS the Next Big Thing again.

SPACE: Joe Pappalardo: Can Cape Canaveral Rise Again?

JOURNALISM: It’s “A Rand Paul rout in CPAC straw poll” says Politico, but the only report in the NYT is a Ross Douthat column titled “Four Factions, No Favorite.” “Douthat’s column, dated yesterday, may very well have gone up before the poll, but still, if a rout was in the works, why is Douthat in the dark, and why is there no NYT article about Rand’s rout?” Wouldn’t fit the Narrative.

ED MORRISSEY: Ukraine: Another 3 AM wake-up call going unheeded. “Suddenly we’re discovering the consequences of the return to moral relativism in US foreign policy. It’s eerily similar to the Carter years, where an American President scolded his countrymen over their ‘inordinate fear of communism’ in an attempt to ‘reset’ the Cold War.”

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 304.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Tea Party Less Dead Than Advertised at CPAC.

Among presidential hopefuls and prospects, the straw poll delivered wins for Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who took first place with 31 percent, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who placed with 11 percent; and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a long shot with no political experience who showed with 9 percent. . . .

After reports that this conference would show a Republican Party establishment back in control amid a general fading of Tea Party energy, the conference followed a pattern that has characterized GOP events since at least 2008: When the small-government zealots are not around, you can hear a pin drop. When a member of the Paul family shows up, there’s so much energy in the place it almost seems like Republicans can win an election.

Nowhere was this more evident than in a highly combative panel on privacy Friday, during which former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore was repeatedly booed and catcalled for being the least anti-National Security Agency voice in the discussion. The mid-sized audience was fired up against even a Republican-approved version of the security state.

This libertarian wave continued throughout the conference, and the smartest presenters tried to ride it. The CPAC audience responded enthusiastically to all mentions of drug legalization. And pollster Pat Caddell broke the applause meter Saturday with a presentation that laid into the party establishment with a vengeance, reiterating his charge that the GOP establishment actually supports the Obama Internal Revenue Service’s persecution of Tea Party non-profit groups. Caddell’s fellow panelists questioned that assertion, but the dynamic was clear: The more Caddell ripped into the RINOs, the more the crowd loved him.

These data points could merely indicate the meaningless of CPAC and other GOP events. Rand Paul’s father used to be the only act that got crowds on their feet at Republican events too, but in two straight presidential elections he failed to turn that energy and fundraising advantage into primary wins.

But whatever peace the GOP establishment seemed to have imposed on the Tea Party hasn’t sunk in among the faithful. The Tea Party has been pronounced dead every year since 2009 (though oddly it also gets blamed for an ever-growing list of troubles). But for the Republican insurgency, it’s a dead man’s party.

Well, some people want it to be dead.

THE DEMISE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, in 2 charts.