This morning, our blog hit 31,000,000 views. We have had an increase in visitors and our new voices are heartily welcomed to our little band of commentators.  We try to offer a place for civil but passionate discourse on legal and policy issues  of our time (and perhaps a few wacky stories).  We continue to rank in the top legal blogs in the world and we are continuing to see a growing international readership. We often use these milestones to look at the current profile of the blog and its supporters around the world.

As always, I want to offer special thanks for our weekend contributors: Mike Appleton, Larry Rafferty, Darren Smith, Kimberly Dienes, and Cara Gallagher. I particularly want to thank Darren who has continued to help manage the blog and help out folks who encounter posting problems.

I also want to thank our regular commentators and readers.  We try to keep this blog as an open forum with as little interference or monitoring of the comments as possible.  Given our free speech orientation, we try not to delete comments and, for that reason, we are deeply appreciative of how most people avoid personal or offensive comments in debating these issues.  The success of this blog is due to the fact that we offer something more than the all-too-common troll-driven, angry, and insulting commentary of the Internet.  Thank you for voluntarily assuming restraint over the tenor and content of your comments.

So here is our current profile:

In the last full month, our ten biggest international sources for readers (after the United States) have been:

Canada
United Kingdom
Australia
Germany

India
France
Mexico
Belgium
The Netherlands
Phillipines

Welcome to all of our new readers from those countries. I have always found our foreign commentators particularly valuable in giving us an insight from beyond our borders — and domestic media coverage.

The top ten posted in terms of readership in the last 30 days:

1.Five Ninth Circuit Judges Issue Rare Rebuke the Panel In Immigration Ruling

2. The “King of Instagram” Trigger Outrage With Pictures Of Friend Riding 100-Year-Old Tortoise

3. Trump Accused Obama Administration of Using FISA To Wiretap Trump Tower

4. Middlebury Professor and Speaker Assaulted By Protesters In Latest Attack On Free Speech On U.S. Campuses

5. Government “Cyanide Bomb” in Idaho Injures 14-Year-Old Boy and Kills His Dog

6. Fire Me: U.S. Attorney In Manhattan Reportedly Refuses To Resign [UPDATED]

7. Saudi Cleric Condemns Plans To Allow Movies or Public Concerts In The Kingdom

8. Law Professors File Ethics Complaint Against Kellyanne Conway

9. Bad Return: MSNBC Publication Triggers A Wave Of Responses From Mockery To Criminal Allegations

10. The Revenants’ Return: Former Obama Officials Shed Earlier Controversies To Denounce Trump Administration

The most frequent commentators in the last 1000 comments were:

Paul Schulte

Desperatelyseekingsusan

Bob

Anon

Desperatelyseekingsusan

websterisback

Olly

Thank you to all of our regular commentators. We remain an extraordinarily broad and diverse body of commenters from different parts of the world and different political and social backgrounds. Thanks again.

We are currently around 22,000 followers on Twitter. It actually puts us at near the top of legal commentator twitter accounts.

Thanks again to those who try to keep our discussions passionate but civil. We obviously have relapses into personal attacks, particularly during these heated political times. However, I am impressed how most people are able to transcend disagreements to avoid making our differences personal or offensive.  There remains a core of people in this country that want to speak objectively about the problems in our country — both legal and political. Some have found their way to this blog and I hope more will join them. We hope that this forum can remain a pluralistic and open forum for mature people to engage in mature discussions. Such discussions have never been more important.

Thanks again everyone and congratulations on the latest milestone.