Courtesy of Jawa, and including interactive maps and spreadsheets. Which, true, aren’t as persuasive as a Joy Behar rant or pictures of children’s caskets. But they do have the benefit of being factual. (h/t palaeomerus). Also of note — and as reported here in the comments today — Utah and Vermont?  Among the lowest crime rates in the nation. Despite lots of guns. How is that even possible? (h/t di

Live, here. update:  Boehner wins re-election as Speaker.  With Michele Bachmann’s voting for him, much to my dismay and sadness. Unless this vote was a face-saving deal — and Boehner declines or resigns — today, the Republican Party officially died.   Or rather, killed themselves out of cowardice.  And no, I don’t care how many concessions Boehner supposedly made to conservatives in private. It’s about the optics.  And the GOP once

Glenn Beck tried to buy Al Gore’s floundering CurrentTV and was rebuffed. Instead, Gore sold it to Al Jazeera: The Blaze, approached Current Media about a sale last year, but was told in the words of one source that “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.” The Blaze “reached out to them

Walter E. Williams breaks with Louis Michael Seidman, who believes we need to scrap the Constitution (or rather, those parts of the Constitution that don’t comport with the sensibilities of Louis Michael Seidman, in this, the United States of Louis Michael Seidman), and instead goes a different direction:  he summons up some historical context for the second amendment, presented through the words of those old dead white propertied patriarchal slave-owning

“Armed Guards for Returning Sandy Hook Students”: When children from Sandy Hook Elementary school return to class in neighboring Monroe, Conn. today, they’ll be entering “the safest school in America,” according to the Associated Press. “Law enforcement officers have been guarding the new school, and by the reckoning of police, it is ‘the safest school in America,’” the AP reported Thursday. “I think right now it has to be the

That NY newspaper that published the names and addresses of CCW holders — and in return had the names and addresses of its editors and writers released by annoyed pro-gun bloggers?  Is now being protected by armed guards: The guards have been posted at its White Plains headquarters and in a satellite office in West Nyack since last week, publisher Janet Hasson said. “The safety of my staff is my

Far be it for me to correct the estimable Jim Pethokoukis.  But doesn’t he mean the “bi-partisan, fiscal-cliff avoiding, what’s best and most prudent given the circumstances, and god bless us all for being so prudent and avoiding the hectoring of naive, un-nuanced fringe teabagging extremists” tax hikes? Small correction, but an important one.  Please, Jim.  Proceed: How much more “balance” does Obama want? 1. Well, the fiscal cliff deal

This is the august, deliberative chamber, recall.  Not like that unruly People’s House, with all its 2-year temporary riff-raff and populist TEA Party dregs. CNS: The U.S. Senate voted 89-8 to approve legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff despite having only 3 minutes to read the 154-page bill and budget score. Multiple Senate sources have confirmed to CNSNews.com that senators received the bill at approximately 1:36 AM on Jan. 1,

So, you know, deal with it.  Besides, other “pragmatic” Republicans agree.  It really was the best we could do: There’s a lot of anger, frustration, and disgust building in the righty grassroots in the past few weeks. Over the past week I saw a lot of comments on Twitter in the vein of “we have a spending problem! Why won’t Republicans insist we deal with that first!” Fume at Speaker

Rather than beat myself up trying to come up with new ways to express my disgust for the GOP this morning, allow me to just repeat a few things I wrote to Twitter last evening once the House passed the Senate “fiscal cliff” bill — itself a nightmare — without any changes, and then add a few more observations that I’ve since decided to share. 1. We have a one