Chris Cilizza, at the Washington Post, marvels at the devastation wrought on democrats in the last election. Nationalizing healthcare and endlessly expanding government at the cost of the economy has come at a price.

Everyone knows by now that 2010 and 2014 were very good to the Republican Party. What they don’t understand (or understand well enough) is just how good. Yes, Republicans now control the Senate and have their largest majority in the House since World War II. But it’s downballot (way downballot) where the depth of the Republican victories over the past three elections truly reveal themselves — and where the impact will be felt over the long term.

In the past three elections, Republicans have gained 913 state legislative seats, according to calculations made by Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia. Here are Sabato’s figures in chart form — and with historical comparisons — via GOP lobbyist Bruce Mehlman.
Now, there are more 7,000 state legislative seats in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which makes that 913 number slightly less eye-popping. Still, the Democratic losses between 2010 and 2014 amount to 12 percent of all state legislative seats nationwide.

As NCSL notes, Republicans now control more than 4,100 seats — their highest number since 1920. [Emphasis added] After taking over 11 legislative chambers from Democrats in 2014, Republicans now control 30 state legislatures completely — and have full control of state government (state legislature and governorship) in 23 states.

Warren Harding is smiling in Heaven.

KSL-TV (Salt Lake City) has an interesting lost-and-found story going back a long way and involving “the Gun that Won the West.”

Great Basin National Park employees are trying to solve the mystery of an 132-year-old Winchester rifle found in the park.

The rifle was found and recovered by park archaeologists in November, according to the Great Basin National Park Facebook page. The firearm was found leaning against a tree in a remote rocky outcrop. Park officials believe the rifle hadn’t been located sooner because the weathered, cracked wood stock and brown rusted barrel blended into the juniper tree.

The rifle was identified as a model 1873 Winchester repeating rifle because of the distinct engraving on the mechanism of “Model 1873,” according to the national park. The serial number on the firearm corresponds with manufacture and shipping records dating to 1882, held at the Center for the West Cody Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming. However, the records don’t indicate who purchased the rifle or where it was shipped to, the national park said.

Between 1873 and 1916, 720,610 model 1873 rifles were manufactured and in 1882 alone, more than 25,000 were made, according to the national park. The rifles sold for around $50 when they were first produced. …

Great Basin National Park officials are researching newspaper archives and family histories to learn more about the rifle they discovered. The rifle was transported to a conservatory so the wood can be stabilized and to prevent further deterioration. When it is returned to the park, it will be displayed as part of the Great Basin National Park 30th birthday celebration and the National Park Service centennial celebration.

1st Battalion, 4th Marines

Business Insider admires US Marine Corps unit mottoes.

Jim Geraghty (via email) this morning:

Here’s the good news, Republicans. Mitt Romney is running to save the party from nominating Jeb Bush, and Jeb Bush is running to save the party from nominating Mitt Romney. It’s as if O. Henry moved into political coverage.

Last August images of the above plaque on a bench in a deliberately unidentified London Park (Don’t want the authorities taking away the joke) went viral attracting millions of views.

In reality, the plaque was installed as a prank by Jamie Maslin, an Australian novelist who was in a mischievous mood after having received a book rejection.

Maslin later distributed this (Photoshopped) image of a historical marker commemorating the fictitious Roger Bucklesby (modified from the real George Orwell marker).

Hat tip to Bird Dog.

Victor Davis Hanson explores the contradictions of the multiculturalist ideology.

For the useful idiot, multiculturalism is supposedly aimed at ecumenicalism and hopes to diminish difference by inclusiveness and non-judgmentalism. But mostly it is a narcissistic fit, in which the multiculturalist offers a cheap rationalization of non-Western pathologies, and thereby anoints himself both the moral superior to his own less critical Western peers and, in condescending fashion, the self-appointed advocate of the mostly incapable non-Westerner. …

[M]ulticulturalism is the twin of appeasement. Once Americans and Europeans declare all cultures as equal, those hostile to the West should logically desist from their aggression, in gratitude to the good will and introspection of liberal Westerners. Apologizing for the Bush war on terror, promising to close down Guantanamo, deriding the war in Iraq, reminding the world of the president’s Islamic family roots — all that is supposed to persuade the Hasans, Tsarnaevs, and Kouachis in the West that we see no differences between their cultural pedigrees and the Western paradigm they have chosen to emigrate to and at least superficially embrace. Thus the violence should cease.

At its worst, multiculturalism becomes a cheap tool in careerist fashion to both bash the West and simultaneously offer oneself as a necessary intermediary to rectify Western sins, whether as a -studies professor in the university, an activist journalist or politician, or some sort of community or social organizer.

It is always helpful to turn to Al Sharpton for an illustration of the bastardized form of almost any contemporary fad, and thus here is what he once formulated as the multicultural critique of the West: “White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires. … We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what architecture was … we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” Note that Sharpton was not calling for new mathematics academies in the inner city to reclaim lost African arts of superior computation. Note also that Sharpton himself did not dream up these supposed non-Western superior African achievements.

Read the whole thing.

Business Insider had the details on tomorrow’s issue today.

The first cover of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after a terrorist shooting at its Paris headquarters has been revealed. As expected, the cover defiantly features the Prophet Muhammed, in response to the radical Muslim gunmen’s efforts to silence the often controversial magazine.

The cover features the Prophet Muhammed holding a sign that says “Je Suis Charlie,” the popular slogan being used by many in support of the magazine. Above Muhammed’s head are the words “All is forgiven.”

Released this Wednesday, the special issue will have a special printing of 1 million copies, with the ability to print as many as 3 million, according to Reuters.

“We have requests for 300,000 copies throughout the world — and demand keeps rising by the hour,” Michel Salion, a spokesman for Charlie Hebdo’s distributor MPL, told Reuters. “The million will go. As of Thursday, the decision will probably be taken to print extra copies … So we’ll have one million, plus two if necessary.”

It will be offered in 16 languages for readers around the world, according to AFP.

Charlie Hebdo’s lawyer, Richard Malka, told France Info radio that the issue will feature cartoons making fun of Muhammed and other figures.

The magazine usually prints about 60,000 copies a week, selling 30,000, according to the AFP.

Revenue from the issue will go toward ensuring the survival of the magazine, which has been near bankruptcy in recent years. …

With the magazine’s headquarters still an active crime scene, the editorial staff has worked out of the offices of Liberation newspaper to get the issue out.

Hat tip to Jose Guardia.

Federico Fellini had her portray an unattainable sex goddess in La Dolce Vita (1960).

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Ewart Park Phase, 700-800 B.C.

Via Art of Swords.

The New York Daily News and Gateway Pundit both comment upon just how conspicuous was the absence of major representatives of the Obama Administration at the Paris march against Islamic terrorism.

It was an international rally against terror.

Over 50 world leaders were in attendance.

But no Obama.

The Obama administration sent three representatives to Michael Brown’s funeral in Ferguson, Missouri.

But only the Ambassador to France made the historic anti-terror march in Paris today.

Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris but was not seen at the march.

But when you elect a president educated at a madrassa as a child, who thinks the ululations of the muezzin are a pretty sound, who has celebrated the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with an Iftar dinner each year he has been in the White House, who told the United Nations in 2012 that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” and who has worn since at least 1981 a ring with “There is no God but Allah” inscribed in Arabic, would you really expect him to fly to Paris to march in this parade?

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Twitter hashtag: ReasonsObamaMissedFranceRally