MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: “Nobody ever got shot or knocked up in an online school.”

DUCKING ACCOUNTABILITY: Hillary’s Benghazi Role. According to a State Department spokesperson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was unable to respond due to “female problems you really don’t want to hear about.”

BULLSHIT! Penn & Teller On Gun Control.

EDUCATION: The Global One-Room Schoolhouse.

AT AMAZON, up to 75% off on clothing and accessories. For men, women, children, and babies.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Reflections on Newtown: A week after an American tragedy, what have we learned? Excerpt:

Is Hate A Liberal Value? A 20-year-old lunatic stole some guns and killed people. Who’s to blame? According to a lot of our supposedly rational and tolerant opinion leaders, it’s . . . the NRA, a civil-rights organization whose only crime was to oppose laws banning guns. (Ironically, it wasn’t even successful in Connecticut, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.)

The hatred was intense. One Rhode Island professor issued a call — later deleted — for NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick.” People like author Joyce Carol Oates and actress Marg Helgenberger wished for NRA members to be shot. So did Texas Democratic Party official John Cobarruvias, who also called the NRA a “terrorist organization,” and Texas Republican congressman Louis Gohmert a “terror baby.”

Nor were reporters, who are supposed to be neutral, much better. As The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg commented, “Reporters on my Twitter feed seem to hate the NRA more than anything else, ever. ”

Calling people murderers and wishing them to be shot sits oddly with claims to be against violence. The NRA — like the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers or Planned Parenthood — exists to advocate policies its members want. It’s free speech. The group-hate directed at the NRA is ugly and says ugly things about those consumed by it.

Read the whole thing.

REVISITING THE BENGHAZI FIASCO: “The Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for the actions of her agency. Instead, what we have are four officials disciplined: two of them resigned the rest placed on administrative leave. That does not answer the questions of why we gave no help to our beleaguered embassy people. Why was their no beefed up security with 9/11 approaching even though it was requested? And why wasn’t military assistance rendered during seven horror filled hours?”

According to a State Department spokesperson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was unable to comment because of “a really painful hemorrhoid attack.”

PROF. JACOBSON: The importance of prosecuting David Gregory if he violated D.C.’s gun law.

Certainly, if LaPierre had shown up with that magazine, there would be howls of gotcha, and widespread media demands for prosecution. Why should NBC News and its star be above the law?

There’s another lesson here.

Gregory’s possible violation of the law was exposed by the conservative blogosphere, which also pointed out that Gregory sends his kids to a school with armed security at the same time he was mocking the NRA suggestion of armed security in schools.

We have to do more of this, investigating the investigators and inquiring of the inquisitors. It’s one of the legal insurrections for 2013.

Make them live up to their own book of rules.

RAND SIMBERG: Time For Some Common-Sense Publishing Controls.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Poll: Public sours on what 2013 will bring. “A bare 53 percent majority of all Americans are ‘hopeful’ about their lives in 2013; some 44 percent say they are instead more ‘fearful.’ The assessment about what’s in store for the world is even more grim: a record low 40 percent report being hopeful about the next year, with 56 percent saying they are more fearful. . . . Those personally hopeful numbers are down sharply from four years ago when 63 percent said as much in the wake of President Obama’s historic first election. The trend is even more striking compared to expectations for 2007.”

Related: Simon Johnson: Will 2013 Mark The Beginning Of American Decline? For at least the next four years, probably.

THE HILL: Movie studios under spotlight in wake of Newtown school shooting. From the comments: “You won’t hear Obama say squat because Hollywood gave over 9 million to his campaign.”

Seems like a good time to repeal the Hollywood tax cuts!

AT HAMILTON COLLEGE, driving Western Civilization off campus.

SHOCKER: Study Says Community Reinvestment Act Induced Banks To Take Bad Risks.

Specifically, the Community Reinvestment Act and related policy pressures are pointed to as culprits, part of a government effort to extend home-ownership in lower-income neighborhoods. Now comes a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that says, quite bluntly. that the CRA played a major role.

In the academic world, mealy-mouthed delivery of even powerful conclusions is the norm, so it’s refreshing to see authors Sumit Agarwal, Efraim Benmelech, Nittai Bergman, Amit Seru answer the title’s question, “Did the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Lead to Risky Lending?,” with the clear, “Yes, it did. … We find that adherence to the act led to riskier lending by banks.”

It’s not nice to violate Reynolds’ Law.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: US Holiday Retail Sales Growth Weakest Since 2008.

FLASHBACK: Piers Morgan on fake Iraq War photos that got him fired: ‘It was a moral duty.’

THOMAS SOWELL: “The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit — replacing what works with what sounds good.” I would be harsher still, and say that they replace it with what they regard as serving their class interests. The “sounds good” part is just the marketing.

JACOB SULLUM: The Rioter’s Veto: Can violence in the Middle East justify censorship in the United States?

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ: Look At All These Guns People Got For Christmas.

POLITICO: Police probe NBC’s David Gregory on gun clip. “There are D.C. code violations, D.C. code restrictions on guns, ammunition. We are investigating this matter. Beyond the scope of that, I can’t comment any further.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Beatles.

THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW: “I’m sure Attorney General Eric Holder will make this investigation a top priority for the Justice Department.”

IF YOU DIDN’T GET A WHITE CHRISTMAS, here are some cool snow photos.

BING CROSBY: White Christmas.

Related: Rich Lowry: The Genius of “White Christmas.” “America’s classic Christmas song was written by a Jewish immigrant.”

POSTMORTEMS ALREADY? Why The Hagel Trial Balloon Popped.