The end of a year is a good time to learn some new lessons, take some responsibility for one’s actions, and move forward in wisdom. We’ll see plenty of opportunities for that in today’s look at the top 50 most-read Hot Air posts in 2014, but probably precious little wisdom in 2015 as a result. We start off with Nancy Pelosi denying any responsibility for ObamaCare and Mitt Romney wondering whether voters have buyer’s remorse after a couple of years into the Barack Obama extension, and multiple reasons why voters should feel some responsibility for it:

• #20: Pelosi: ObamaCare incompetence “not my responsibility” – Even Jon Stewart got blindsided by this admission in January, in the middle of the ObamaCare rollout debacle. Stewart expected Nancy Pelosi to know by that time what had gone wrong and explain how Democrats planned to fix the problem. Instead, Pelosi said, “I don’t know,” and when Stewart’s jaw had hit the floor, she added, “It’s not my responsibility.” Seems like a good encapsulation of progressive policy and the people who push it, eh? (Ed)
• #19: Another eyewitness: Woman comes forward with footage taken immediately after the Michael Brown shooting – This witness and video emerged at the same time as the Brown family’s autopsy, which later turned out to have an uncredentialed pathologist at the helm. This version of events was later eclipsed by grand jury testimony and the actual autopsy. (Allahpundit)
• #18: Detroit police chief: Want crime to drop? Start carrying – Hardest hit: Michael Bloomberg. James Craig got cheered by 2nd Amendment advocates for telling a simple truth — those who want to limit their exposure as victims are those who are prepared to defend themselves from crime in the first place. The police can’t solely reduce crime on their own; all they can do is come in after the fact.  In this case, it really does take a village, as Craig learned when he served in the carry-friendly environs of Portland, Maine. (Ed)
• #17: Gruber: Obama personally asked me to help disguise unhelpful Obamacare facts – Not quite verbatim, but almost. “It’s just not going to happen politically,” Gruber said Obama told him. “The bill will not pass. How do we manage to get there through phase-ins and other things?” Small wonder HHS paid Gruber about the same money for a year’s work as Obama gets — looks like he earned it. (Guy)
• #16: By the way, the D.C. Circuit might nuke ObamaCare tomorrow – And they did … at least for a moment. The Halbig decision cut against the Obama administration, but the newly-packed DC Circuit decided to rehear the case en banc, preventing the Supreme Court from taking up the issue of federal subsidies outside of state ObamaCare exchanges. Or at least that’s what they thought, right up until the Supreme Court muscled aside the DC circuit and decided to take Halbig anyway. Stay tuned. (Allahpundit)
• #15: Single customer wins shootout with four armed robbers in Texas bar – Another feel-good story of self-defense by a law-abiding citizen, or at least presumed — the defender fled the scene before police arrived.  The owner of the bar described him as a “hero” after killing two armed robbers and sending two more fleeing into the night. (Jazz Shaw)
• #14: Reason Magazine actually asked climate protesters what they want to do, and it’s hilarious –  This is the first post to get more than 100,000 page views on our list, and it’s easy to see why. Reason’s Kmele Foster did a vox populi at the People’s Climate March in NYC this September and found two strains of protesters — outnumbered Luddites and pretty much every socialist in the Big Apple. “We need a revolution — nothing less!” one insisted. It’s not climate change that concerns them, in other words. (Noah)
• #13: Matt Lewis shames the press for laughing at Bristol Palin’s physical assault – And well he should, although not everyone took the lesson from it. CNN still employs Carol Costello, who still has not offered an on-air apology for her chortling glee over the audio of Bristol’s description of the assault, for instance. At least the crew of Morning Joe, who hosted Lewis for this scolding, showed some genuine regret on the same medium on which they’d earlier joked about it. (Noah)
• #12: Breaking: ISIS releases new video of beheading another American journalist – The second horrible moment of America’s awakening to the danger of ISIS. Far from being “jayvees,” as Obama described them in January, the marauding Islamist army swept across Syria and Iraq to erect a new caliphate. Steven Sotloff went to the region to report on atrocities in Syria, and ended being a victim of them. As Kenneth Roth said on Twitter: “Remember Steven Sotloff as hero for reporting #Syria atrocities. Latest is ISIS murdering him.” (Ed)
• #11: Romney: I hate to say I told you so, but … – This could be called The Year of Romney Told Us So, which became apparent even as early as March. Obama mocked Romney for his diagnosis of Russia as the primary geopolitical foe during the 2012 campaign, and his team said that the 80s were calling and wanted its foreign policy back. It turns out that the foreign policy of the 80s still beats the foreign policy of the Carter era, and that “reset buttons” and “smart power” are just covers for complete incompetence at the White House and State Department. (Ed)

Tomorrow we’ll celebrate New Years Eve with the top 10 most-read posts in 2014 here at Hot Air. It features a broad spectrum of topics, and a broad spectrum of writers — and the top post will, er, melt conservative hearts. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the finale, and meanwhile enjoy this list of the top three posts this month:

• #3: Max Blumenthal: ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle was just a popular mass murderer – Keepin’ it classy at AlterNet.
• #2: Michael Tomasky has a meltdown over South’s rejection of Democrats – Mary Landrieu went out of her way to insult Southern voters, especially in Louisiana, but not too many expected that to be an ongoing strategy for progressives.
• #1: Angelina Jolie’s daughter is “gender assigned” at 8 years old – Jolie and Pitt do plenty of good work, but this is a real headshaker.

Note: The #1 post missed the cutoff for 2014’s overall list, but don’t be surprised to see it on 2015’s.