PROF. JACOBSON: The Racial Slurs The Press Doesn’t Want To Cover. It’s all about the narrative.

Related thoughts from Investor’s Business Daily.

CHRIS CHRISTIE: I’m Not Too Fat To Be President. Hey, if Christie corners the obese-American vote, he’s got a landslide.

ROBERT SHIBLEY: Harvard, Legendary Home Of Harvard Lampoon, Strangles Campus Satire.

CHANGE: Venezuela Without Chavez: Chaos The Most Likely Successor.

INSTAVISION: Going Broke by Degree: The Politics and Economics of a Student Loan Bailout. I talk with Richard Vedder about what such a bailout might look at, and why it’s a bad idea.

JOURN-O-LISM IN NEW JERSEY: Day After Arrest of Menendez Illegal Alien Sex Offender Intern, Star Ledger Ignores Story.

GOOD QUESTION: Why Haven’t We Heard From The Benghazi Survivors?

KEITH HENNESSEY: What Kind of Negotiator Is President Obama? “Unlike his predecessors, President Obama has not achieved any positive-sum legislative compromises with the other party.”

UNPATRIOTIC BILLIONAIRES: The Day After Calling for Higher Estate Taxes on the Rich, Warren Buffett Helps Billionaire Save Millions in Taxes.

BENGHAZI: Congresswoman to Ask Sec. Clinton About Unarmed ‘Security’ at Benghazi Hearing.

THAT’S BECAUSE THE WHITE MAN IS STILL TRYING TO KEEP HER DOWN: Elizabeth Warren Will Not Serve On Committee On Indian Affairs.

MICKEY KAUS: Krugman: Election’s over! I can think now!

THE PROBLEM WITH LAW SCHOOL.

ONLY IF I CAN BELT ON A RAPIER: Leggings for men?

JAMES TARANTO: A Civil Rights Victory In Obama’s Home State.

Barack Obama’s Chicago has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. According to NeighborhoodScout.com, the Windy City has 55 violent crimes a year for every thousand residents, giving it just a 6 on a 100-point safety scale. One reason is that Illinois is the only state in America that has an absolute prohibition on carrying a concealed firearm for self-defense.

But that’s about to change, thanks to a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In Moore v. Madigan, the judges gave the Legislature in Springfield 180 days “to craft a new gun law that will impose reasonable limitations, consistent with the public safety and the Second Amendment . . ., on the carrying of guns in public.” . . .

Although this seems to be a no-brainer, it was only a 2-1 decision. Judge Ann Williams, a Clinton appointee, dissented. But then McDonald was a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court; and, as we noted in July, Obama nominee Sonia Sotomayor was among the dissenters, despite having declared during her confirmation hearings that “I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.” Obama’s other high court appointee, Justice Elena Kagan, hasn’t yet weighed in on the subject, but it will surprise nobody if she too turns out to be on the side of treating the Second Amendment as if it were a nullity.

The president has been careful to avoid direct attacks on gun rights. But if he gets to replace just one of the five justices who made up the Heller and McDonald majorities, Second Amendment jurisprudence is likely to be strangled in its crib.

Two of those justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, will be octogenarians by the time Obama’s second term ends. If they outlast him, our constitutional liberties will have dodged a bullet.

Indeed.

FISCAL CLIFF: Corker introduces bill trading nearly $1T in entitlement cuts for debt-ceiling hike. “Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill Wednesday to trade nearly $1 trillion in entitlement savings for an equal hike in the debt ceiling. Corker said the Dollar For Dollar Act would include $937 billion in savings from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, with an equivalent, dollar-for-dollar hike to the debt ceiling.”

I don’t think Obama’ll buy it. Obama seems to be one of those “I can’t be broke, I’ve still got some checks” kind of budgeters . . . .

HMM: Johnny Depp to Star as a Supercomputer in Christopher Nolan Film About the Singularity.

The Wrap reports that in the film, titled Transcendence and based on a story by Jack Paglen, Johnny Depp “will play a scientist whose brain is uploaded into a supercomputer” while trying to create the first ever sentient computer. Nanotechnology and the Singularity are also said to play pivotal roles in the film, which explains the nerd boner you are currently sporting.

Johnny Depp may seem like a strange casting choice, but given his penchant for bizarre roles, we imagine he’ll play a mad scientist quite convincingly. He’ll be playing the main character, Will, who is assassinated by terrorists who are against technology. When his wife uploads his brain, Will begins to respond to her queries through the computer. By hooking his brain-cum-computer up to the Internet, he can continue his scientific research.

If anyone can pull that role off, it’s Depp.

ED MORRISSEY: Time to Stop Social Safety Net Child Abuse.

JONAH GOLDBERG: So, To Sum Up Our Day:

A Democratic senator hired an unpaid intern who was an undocumented immigrant but a documented sex offender. Apparently Senator Menendez needed an immigrant to do sex offending that Americans won’t do.

Meanwhile, Representative Jim Moran is “embarrassed” by the revelation that his voter-fraud-orchestrating son smashed his girlfriend’s face into a garbage can and pleaded guilty to assault. The girlfriend appears to be doing what she can to make the story go away. But don’t worry, the phrase “war on women” may still only be used to describe people who don’t want to pay for someone else’s birth control. No word if anyone on the left will be expressing their gratitude for the Violence Against Women Act for this.

Over in Michigan, defenders of the union protestors who tore down an Americans for Prosperity tent are heading toward trutherism, suggesting that it was all a set up, the canvas-and-rope equivalent of the Reichstag fire. No word yet if anyone is claiming the Jews inside the tent got advance notice.

Oh, and after months — nay years — of rhetoric from the president and his proxies about how taxes are simply a sign of neighborliness and the dues we pay to live in this great country, we learn that Obama’s staff owe nearly a million dollars in back taxes.

And the Republicans are losing to these guys.

Hey, they don’t call ’em the Stupid Party for nothing. . . .

HOPEY-CHANGEY: U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens. If we had a Republican in the White House, this would be a national scandal.

OBVIOUSLY, THE SOLUTION IS FOR GOOGLE CARS TO HAVE SEX, thus introducing sufficient variety that malicious intermeddlers can’t exploit a monoculture. Related thoughts here.

YES. NEXT QUESTION? WaPo: Michigan protests: Are the media ignoring thuggery? But note Erik Wemple’s theory that Crowder retroactively deserves to have been punched by going on Hannity. Hey, maybe if other media had been willing to cover this. . . .

UPDATE: Reader DRJ emails:

Wemple says “No” because Crowder isn’t a real journalist and “journalists don’t go to events to ‘prove’ anything.”

Remember CNN’s Susan Roesgen at the Chicago Tea Party?

CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen could barely get through her live shot at the Chicago tea party this afternoon. Over shouts of, “You’re not a reporter,” Roesgen quickly wrapped up an interview with an attendee, then said, “I think you get the general tenor of this. It’s anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox.”

Link.

Good observation. So if someone had punched Roesgen, no biggie. Noted.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Taxes Are Much Higher Than You Think. “Taking into account all taxes on earnings and consumer spending—including federal, state and local income taxes, Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, excise taxes, and state and local sales taxes—Edward Prescott has shown (especially in the Quarterly Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2004) that the U.S. average marginal effective tax rate is around 40%. This means that if the average worker earns $100 from additional output, he will be able to consume only an additional $60.”

Note that this is the average worker, not the 1%.

AT AMAZON, up to 40% or more off on Musical Instruments & Gear.

Also, 60% off on Sweaters & Fleece. Winter is coming. Actually, where I am, it’s unfortunately already here . . . .

And: Kindles galore, starting at $69.

JIM TREACHER ON THE MORAN DOMESTIC BATTERY: “Yeah, it must be pretty embarrassing when your boyfriend smashes your face into a trash can.”