How 'Life of Julia' Prevailed

From William McGurn, at the Wall Street Journal, "How Obama's 'Life of Julia' Prevailed":

The name of the program now escapes me. Several months ago, while flipping channels with the remote, I stopped on an MTV show about a working mom whose whole life was upended when her partner announced that he was splitting. It caught my attention because this mother lived in a nice apartment that looked like one in my suburban New Jersey town, and she was applying for food stamps.

This wasn't your caricature "taker"—the woman had a real job. With her partner leaving, however, she could no longer afford the rent, and she would have trouble providing for her two young boys alone. As she walked up to an office to sign up for food stamps, she said something like, "I can't believe I am applying for public assistance."

Her situation provoked two questions. First, how could her boyfriend just abandon his sons without having to pay child support? Second, what is the conservative response to a woman who finds herself in this situation?

The show comes back to me in wake of the thumping Mitt Romney took in the presidential election among the demographic this mom represents: unmarried women. During the 2012 campaign, we conservatives had great sport at the expense of the Obama administration's "Life of Julia"—a cartoon explaining the cradle-to-grave government programs that provided for Julia's happy and successful life.

The president, alas, had the last laugh. For the voting blocs that went so disproportionately for the president's re-election—notably, Latinos and single women—the Julia view of government clearly resonates. To put it another way, maybe Americans who have reason to feel insecure about their futures don't find a government that promises to be there for them when they need it all that menacing.

The dominant media conclusion from this is that the Republican Party is cooked unless it surrenders its principles. I'm not so sure. To the contrary, it strikes me that now is a pretty good time to get back to principles—and to do more to show people who gave President Obama his victory why their dreams and families would be better served by a philosophy of free markets and limited government.

RTWT.

Well, I couldn't agree more, but it's going to be a long tutorial with the lunkhead progressives. These people are diehard Democrat dependency freaks. I think the trick is actually to get people before they start going Democrat, since weaning people from progressive entitlements will be even harder than encouraging a natural scavenger to hunt for itself.

PREVIOUSLY: "Meet Julia: The Big-Government Dependency Robot and Dream Woman of Leftist Ideology."

RELATED: Recall this piece, "Health-Care Law Spurs a Shift to Part-Time Workers"? (Excerpted here.) I mentioned it in one of my American government classes. Boy were there some glum faces when students realized that the negative externalities of the law might make their lives more difficult and less prosperous. So yes, explaining how ever-increasing government reduces opportunity and increases dependency can have an impact. The lessons may stick, even though the hurdles remain extremely high in the current environment.

"When people criticizing Republicans need to start their argument by announcing that they are 'reality-based,' you know an epistemic closure argument cannot be far behind...'

I'm going to start this by linking to William Jacobson's entry, "The Epistemic Closure of the Epistemic Closure Pundits." And here's the quote I've used for the title:

The dead give-away was the title of his article, “Revenge of the Reality-Based Community.” When people criticizing Republicans need to start their argument by announcing that they are “reality-based,” you know an epistemic closure argument cannot be far behind...

When I read Bartlett yesterday I was practically rolling on the floor. Anyone who has to publish virtually their entire professional resume going back to their college thesis must be really expecting some pushback. Yeah, Bartlett's got credentials. Unfortunately all the paperwork still doesn't inoculate the dude from making himself look like a damned laughingstock. You have to read it to believe it: "My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong."

What a poor, pathetic little man (with little signifying stature rather than physical heft, of which Bartlett is hardly "little"). Seriously. For a second I thought that was a unicorn at the accompanying graphic, the dweeb. #Fail.

Republicans and the Tax Pledge

At the Wall Street Journal, "Grover Norquist is not the problem in Washington":

One of the more amazing post-election spectacles is the media celebration of Republicans who say they're willing to repudiate their pledge against raising taxes. So the same folks who like to denounce politicians because they can't be trusted are now praising politicians who openly admit they can't be trusted.

The spectacle is part of what is becoming a tripartisan—Democrats, media, some Republicans—attempt to stigmatize Grover Norquist as the source of all Beltway fiscal woes and gridlock. Mr. Norquist, who runs an outfit called Americans for Tax Reform, is the fellow who came up with the no-new-taxes pledge some 20 years ago. He tries to get politicians to sign it, and hundreds of Republicans have done so. He does not hold a gun to their heads.

Grover's—everyone calls him Grover—apparent crime against Washington is that he now actually wants to hold politicians to what they willingly signed. If enough Republicans will disavow their tax pledge, then the capital crowd can go about agreeing to a grand fiscal bargain that raises taxes, pretends to cut spending and avoids the January 1 fiscal crack-up that the politicians have set us up for. Voters are supposed to believe that only Grover stands in the way of this happy ever-after.

Thus we have the sight of powerful Senators like Saxby Chambliss and Lindsey Graham and New York Congressman Peter King patting themselves on the back for having the courage to stand up to a guy who has never held public office. On Monday no less than billionaire Warren Buffett, who can get the President on the phone at will, attacked Mr. Norquist. Who knew one unelected fellow had so much power?

RTWT.

I've got more on Norquist scheduled for today, but don't miss R.S. McCain's essay on this, which I think is rock solid.

Texas vs. California

An excellent talking points memo, from O'Reilly, "We're living in a very strange time and socialism is close":

Lesbian Republicans

Hey, maybe it's a trend.

At the New York Times, "Republican and Lesbian, and Fighting for Acceptance of Both Identities."

Path Clearing for Susan Rice Nomination as Secretary of State

I do think a Rice nomination will prove how arrogant this president is, but some reports indicate the way is clearing for Rice's promotion to Foggy Bottom. At USA Today, "Prospects brighten for Rice to succeed Clinton":

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's top U.N. diplomat appears to have a clearer path to succeeding retiring Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton after two top Republican critics moderated their accusations that Ambassador Susan Rice was part of a government cover-up of what happened in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

Rice has emerged as a clear front-runner to replace Clinton during Obama's second four-year term. If she is nominated for the position, it may signal greater U.S. willingness to intervene in world crises during Obama's second term.

The political furor over the Benghazi assault that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans exploded before the Nov. 6 presidential election and continued for weeks afterward, with Rice becoming the focus of Republican attacks.

Now, while refusing to back away from charges of a cover-up, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have toned down their complaints, suggesting Republicans may not block Rice's appointment if Obama chooses to nominate her.

We'll see. I'm not pleased that McCain and Co. is caving to the administration's deceit, although we still have the prospect of prolonged investigations in the House. More at Memeorandum.

'Unrestricted drones for me but not for thee?'

Ed Morrissey offers his comments on President Obama's "expected" release of legal rules for U.S. drone warfare --- you know, since Americans wouldn't be able to trust a President Romney with such unprecedented authoritarian powers, or something.

At Hot Air:

One of the tertiary issues that never got much attention during the presidential campaign was the use of drones to conduct the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and other loci of Islamist terrorist networks. It didn’t get much attention because Mitt Romney’s position on the use of drones didn’t provide much contrast from Barack Obama, and it seemed clear that the US would have continuity in this one area of policy regardless of who won the election.

That frustrated human-rights activists on the Left, who want the US to seriously curtail these attacks or stop them altogether, but have gained no traction with the Obama administration during his first term in office. Obama has remained determined thus far to keep the drone attack as a tactic open to him as he sees fit, acting as Commander in Chief. That probably wouldn’t get a lot of opposition from Republicans and hawks in both parties.

However, it seems as though Obama does have an objection to anyone else but him having that discretion. The New York Times reported yesterday on a ghastly hypocrisy within the White House, which tried to impose limits on the use of drones, limits that would activate if Obama lost the election...

Yes, "ghastly hypocrisy" fits the bill perfectly, with both this clusterf-k administration and his morally bankrupt supporters in the scum-infested progressive fever swamps.

But continue reading Morrissey's post, which comes to an interesting conclusion toward an argument to restrict the deployment of unmanned aerial kill machines (something that King Barack is certainly not likely to do).

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Pushes to Codify Rules for Drone Warfare," and "FDL's Kevin Gosztola Wanted Bush-Cheney War Crimes Prosecutions But Gives Obama a Pass on Unprecedented Violations of International Law."

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula Has No Regrets

You might think what happened to this guy would only be possible in a fascist state.

Well think again. Times have changed. It can happen here.

At the New York Times, "From Man Who Insulted Muhammad, No Regret":

LOS ANGELES — Fuming for two months in a jail cell here, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has had plenty of time to reconsider the wisdom of making “Innocence of Muslims,” his crude YouTube movie trailer depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a bloodthirsty, philandering thug.

Does Mr. Nakoula now regret the footage? After all, it fueled deadly protests across the Islamic world and led the unlikely filmmaker to his own arrest for violating his supervised release on a fraud conviction.

Not at all. In his first public comments since his incarceration soon after the video gained international attention in September, Mr. Nakoula told The New York Times that he would go to great lengths to convey what he called “the actual truth” about Muhammad. “I thought, before I wrote this script,” he said, “that I should burn myself in a public square to let the American people and the people of the world know this message that I believe in.”

In explaining his reasons for the film, Mr. Nakoula, 55, a Coptic Christian born in Egypt, cited the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Tex., as a prime example of the violence committed “under the sign of Allah.” His anger seemed so intense over the years that even from a federal prison in 2010, he followed the protests against the building of an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero in New York as he continued to work on his movie script.

Until now, only the barest details were known about the making of the film that inspired international outrage. Initial reports made it seem as if the film had been thrown together in about a year.

But a longer, more intricate and somewhat surreal story emerges from interviews with Mr. Nakoula, church and law enforcement officials and more than a dozen people who worked on the movie — those who knew its real subject and those who were tricked into believing it was to be a sword-and-sandal epic called “Desert Warriors.” Together, they paint a picture of a financially desperate man with a penchant for fiction who was looking to give meaning and means to a life in shambles.

A troubled man. Now a prison scapegoat for this administration's national security clusterf-k.

Continue reading.

RELATED: At the Wall Street Journal, "First Amendment Affront":

In his address to the United Nations earlier this week, President Obama condemned "the crude and disgusting video [that] sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world." Some 48 hours later, police in California arrested the man behind the film "Innocence of Muslims," and a federal judge on Thursday night ordered Nakoula Basseley Nakoula held in jail without bond.

Mr. Nakoula allegedly used the alias Sam Bacile to produce and post an amateurish clip of the film, which may not exist in full, on YouTube. The government has charged him with eight counts of violating parole. In 2010, he was convicted of bank fraud and served a year of a 21-month sentence. His use of the Internet is restricted.

We're not privy to the specific parole terms to be able to pass judgment on the technical merits of the government's case. A judge will sort it out. But the decision to pursue him in the first place was a discretionary call by the government.

We doubt that every Web surfer on similar probation gets hauled back to prison. Or gets denied bail by a judge who called Mr. Nakoula "a flight risk," though it's hard to imagine he'd want to return to his native Egypt, the scene of the first violent protests on September 11, or go anywhere else. A minister in the Pakistani government has put a $100,000 bounty on his head....

In that same speech on Tuesday, President Obama rightly noted that, "Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views—even views that we disagree with."

The government's actions send a different message. The Obama Administration asked YouTube to yank the video off the site. (YouTube didn't.) And now the filmmaker sits behind bars—whether on legally justifiable grounds is besides the point. The First Amendment also protects speech that causes the White House headaches abroad.

Progressives value freedom of speech, but only speech that furthers their agenda of socialist statism and the destruction of Judeo-Christian cultural hegemony.

PREVIOUSLY: "The End of Freedom of Expression in the West."

East Germany's Living Hell

An outstanding photo-essay, at Reaganite Republican, "The LIVING Hell of Socialism":

East Germany (DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik)
blamed capitalists for everything,
nationalized industry,
suppressed dissent,
glorified a (paranoid) leader,
spied on their own citizens,
hated Israel, supported Palestinian radicals,
and did it all the name of the 'common man'
-sound familiar, Obammunist tools?

Don't miss it, at the link.

The Repeated Claim That Benghazi Was Spontaneous Was a Monstrous Lie, Vile and Done for the Basest of Reasons

An especially powerful commentary from Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "David Petraeus Testimony Pins Mistruths to White House":

Until Friday, there were two possible explanations for why the White House failed to immediately call the Benghazi attack an act of terrorism. One was incompetence, the other was worse.

Now there is only one, and it is the worse one. Based on the persuasive testimony of ex-CIA boss David Petraeus, it is clear the Obama administration made a deliberate decision to mislead Congress and the American people.

The repeated claim that the attack was spontaneous and grew out of a demonstration against an anti-Islam video — a claim made by the president and secretary of State as they stood next to the bodies of four dead Americans — was a monstrous lie. It was vile and done for the basest of reasons.

Because we now know the truth of what happened — CIA reports were edited to remove the names of al Qaeda groups involved in the attack, Petraeus said under oath — we also know the motive. It was political self-preservation, meaning the president and his team put politics first.

The timing helps tell the tale. Just days removed from his Charlotte convention, where he danced on the grave of Osama bin Laden and boasted that al Qaeda was decimated, Obama couldn’t bear to admit that affiliated groups were thriving in North Africa. And he certainly couldn’t admit they had carried out a murderous attack on our consulate on the 11th anniversary of the most awful day in American history.

To do so would be to acknowledge the failure of his decision to ignore hard-line Islamists and that his team had erred egregiously in rejecting pleas for more security from Libya Ambassador Chris Stevens.

So the president lied, including in a speech to the United Nations, where he cited the video as the reason for the attack. He sent out reams of flunkies to do the same, including his snide press secretary, Jay Carney.

Most notably, UN Ambassador Susan Rice went on five Sunday television shows to spin the nonsense about the hijacking of a demonstration — a demonstration that never existed. Rice made a fool of herself, and now, she, too is damaged goods.

Oddly, Petraeus, brought down by the reckless affair with his biographer, nonetheless looks like the only honest man in the drama.

A briefing he gave soon after the attack is now more suspect because it adhered to the party line, despite his belief that it was always a terrorist attack.

But Friday in his testimony behind closed doors, Petraeus told the truth as he knew it, even though the administration announced the day before that it was investigating his conduct at the CIA.

If that was meant to pressure him to protect the president, it failed spectacularly. Whatever his personal failings, Petraeus reinforced his reputation for professional integrity.

The next move is up to Congress. While Democrats are predictably and shamefully trying to deny the significance of Petraeus’ revelation, Republicans say they are determined to get the full truth, wherever the hunt takes them.

Kirsten Powers: Obama Nominating Susan Rice Would Show His 'Arrogance'

A great video at RealClearPolitics:

Kirsten Powers on if President Obama named Susan Rice as his next Secretary of State: "I don't know. I think if he does though it could be, that kind of arrogance, which I think it would be, would be his undoing. Because if she is put under oath and is forced to go through and answer all of these questions about Benghazi, it's going to put the administration into a really bad position. And I don't think she was the frontrunner. I don't understand where this came out of... It's now become almost a sense of pride... His defense of her was fine but then it kind of went into an area that didn't make sense."

I hope he goes ahead with that nomination. This ought to be very interesting.

Ke$ha Gets Rockin' With 'Warrior'

At the New York Times, "Dancing Up a Storm but Dying to Rock: Kesha Tilts Closer to a Rock Sound With ‘Warrior’":

At the Third Encore rehearsal studio in North Hollywood there’s a wall decorated with photographs of clients who’ve prepared there for tours, legends like Robert Plant and Slash. In a room behind that wall, waiting while her band and dancers rehearse for a live appearance at the American Music Awards, sat Kesha, 25, a young woman who’d really like to join that swaggering pantheon. A hugely popular, if deeply polarizing, singer who ruled the radio in 2010 with No. 1 smashes like “Tik Tok“ and now returns with “Warrior” (RCA), the follow-up to the smash album “Animal” and its EP supplement, “Cannibal,” Kesha would be filed under dance pop by most people. So it’s surprising to discover just how much reverence she has for the rock 1970s, an era that ended seven years before she was born.

For instance Kesha’s look today was inspired by Marc Bolan of the glam-rock band T. Rex. “I was watching a documentary on Bolan, and he’s wearing all these funny suits, and I was like, ‘I want to wear a funny suit,’ “ she said. She was sporting a black wide-brimmed hat with a pink rose nestled in it, a black jacket with a garish floral pattern and a pimplike extravagance of rings. Strangely, though, there’s no glitter, one of Kesha’s trademarks and an affinity she shares with that long-dead rocker. And like Bolan, Kesha practices her own androgyny. The persona she developed on “Animal” parties hard, trash-talks and treats conquests like sex toys, just as male rock stars have done for decades. But precisely because Kesha challenged double standards by seizing male rock’s license to misbehave, she became a lightning rod for contempt.

“Oh God, I have so many people who hate me, it’s unbelievable,” Kesha said, her laughter tinged with discomfort. “It’s the main reason I don’t go online.” She added, “There’s people who want me to die.” The Web abuse includes hate blogs and a patronizing video skit made by a Princeton humor magazine in which the poet Paul Muldoon analyzes “Tik Tok.”

Attributing her use of rapping and AutoTune to an inability to sing, detractors assumed that Kesha was a manufactured puppet. Actually she jointly writes her songs, supplying the lyrics and most of the vocal melodies. The rap element, influenced by the Beastie Boys, and the gimmicky use of AutoTune effects, inspired by Daft Punk, were deliberate choices. As with other female stars with over-the-top cartoon images, like Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj, the persona is her own creation. “Kesha” is an amped-up caricature of Kesha Sebert’s real self and the feral lifestyle she was leading here at the time “Animal” was recorded. And whether you find her trashy antics annoying or refreshing in a pop era of anodyne glamour, there’s no denying that Kesha’s music caught the mood of embattled hedonism in post-crash America. Her live-for-now stance, in songs like the current hit single “Die Young,” made her pop’s YOLO queen two years before that acronym, which stands for “You only live once,” became a rallying cry for let’s-get-wrecked recklessness.

Discussing her potty-mouthed, Jack Daniels-swigging image, she said: “You must realize by this point that I’m in on the joke. I know I sound like a jackass half the time. I do it on purpose.” Actually Kesha seemed not very jackasslike that evening, but reflective and earnest. Flashes of the flirty playfulness of her videos were offset by hints of vulnerability.

Robin James, a professsor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who writes about female personas in 21st century pop culture, argued that messy hedonism is treated differently when the perpetrator is female. “If you look at, say, Judd Apatow movies, the women have to be responsible and stable and pursue careers, while the men get to behave badly,” she said. “But when women are irresponsible, they get punished for it.”

Continue reading.

Ohio Republicans Seek to Revive Heartbeat Bill

And boy does Ohio Democrat State Senator Nina Turner get all batshit crazy about it, Via Jill Stanek.

I swear, this lady sounds like a freakin' gang-banger:

Scientists Show That Unborn Babies Yawn Repeatedly in the Womb

At LifeNews, "Amazing 4-D Ultrasound Captures Baby Yawning in the Womb."

'This notion that the Senate is dysfunctional is not because of the rules. It's because of behavior...'

That's Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell shooting down the Democrats' bullshit meme that the parliamentary rules have gridlocked the Senate. At the New York Times, "The New Senate's First Task Will Likely Be Trying to Fix Itself" (at Memeorandum).

Professor John Pitney has some great perspective on this, "Switching Sides on the Filibuster." And one with a much, much lesser intellect says dammit, stand aside and let the Democrats have their way!

The End of Freedom of Expression in the West

"Silent Conquest," via Blazing Cat Fur:

Cyber Monday Sales

If you're doing any shopping online you can help this blog with no extra cost to yourself.

The Amazon widgets are here at the post and at the sidebar. I'll be updating periodically with reminders throughout the season. Thanks for your readership and support!

Freedom to Blog Update November 25, 2012

I haven't abandoned my "Freedom to Blog" series. We've had a political campaign and so forth, although there remains considerable activity growing out of the left's summer assault on conservatives online.

For now folks should read Robert Stacy McCain, "The Dishonesty of Bill Schmalfeldt," and "Pray for Ten Thousand Angels."

And here's one more, "@Karoli: Weiner Truther? And Other Questions of Remaining Interest."

Never cave to these fuckers, because it empowers them.

RELATED: "The Lies of Scott Eric Kaufman — Leftist Hate-Blogger Sought to Silence Criticism With Libelous Campaign of Workplace Harassment," and "Progressives Are the Biggest Threat to Freedom of Speech in America."

Iran Shipping Rockets to Gaza

At the Times of Israel, "Fresh shipment of Iranian-made rockets reportedly already en route to Gaza":

Less than a week after the conclusion of Operation Pillar of Defense, and with Hamas boasting of an imminent increase in military aid from Iran, Israeli satellites have spotted a ship at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas being loaded with rockets and other military supplies ostensibly bound for Gaza, the British Sunday Times reported.

The report cites Israeli intelligence sources who surmised that the cargo, loaded a week ago, would be shipped to Sudan and from there smuggled over land to Gaza.

According to the report, the cargo may include Fajr-5 rockets of the likes already fired by Hamas during the recent conflict, and whose stocks were reportedly depleted by Israeli bombings. Also possibly included: components of Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which could be stationed in Sudan and used as a direct threat to Israel.

“With a lot of effort, Iran has skillfully built a strategic arm pointing at Israel from the south,” an Israeli source was quoted as saying.

FDL's Kevin Gosztola Wanted Bush-Cheney War Crimes Prosecutions But Gives Obama a Pass on Unprecedented Violations of International Law

Following up on my earlier commentary on Obama's push to codify his illegal killing regime, it turns out Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake used that New York Times report to attack Mitt Romney as some kind of a neocon warmonger-in-waiting. See, "Obama Administration Was Not Willing to Trust Romney With a Secret Kill List."

Having posted on the topic, I called out Gosztola on Twitter. Typical leftist hypocrite couldn't defend his own writing and instead resorted to childishly calling me a "whackjob."

Whackjob RT @ampowerblog Why give Obama a pass? is.gd/KNTBE6 Beef of that story is buried in your piece and you know it
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) November 25, 2012

I also pointed out that progressives called for Bush-Cheney war crimes prosecutions under the incoming Obama administration:

@kgosztola Remember how Bush/Cheney were war criminals and all that? If you believe, Obama's 100 times worse. is.gd/KNTBE6 #Drones
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 25, 2012

And no surprise, but it was Gosztola himself who was leading the charge to put Dick Cheney on trial. See this one of many entries at Firedoglake, "Torture Decriminalized: How the State Department Provides Space for the Culpables’ Book Tours":

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who should be investigated and tried for war crimes that include but are not limited to torture and abuse of detainees, has mounted a tour to publicize his memoir In My Time. Waterboarding has historically been considered torture and a war crime yet he is able to go on Dateline on NBC News and tell Jamie Gangel that he would strongly support using it again. He is also able to go on and express support for wiretapping and secret prisons, which seem to be mechanisms an authoritarian and not a democratic society would use.

That post then goes on to attack the Obama administration for not mounting prosecutions against the Bush-Cheney cabal. This was a common refrain on the radical left at the time of election in 2008, that a new administration should not close the book on the past. Leftists argued that the Bush administration should be brought before the bar of history, with progressives attacking President-elect Obama's pledge "to look forward as opposed to looking backwards." Here's more from Gosztola's post:

In July 2008, the New York Times published an editorial on the “disturbing victory” the Bush administration had won when a federal appeals court ruled the administration could “continue to detain Ali Al-Marri,” who had “been held for more than five years as an enemy combatant.” They noted the “sweeping power” could deprive citizens as well as noncitizens of freedom. Al-Marri, a Qatar citizen, was legally residing in the US. He was arrested in Peoria, Illinois, on “ordinary criminal charges” and seized and imprisoned by the military. The evidence in support of his secret detention was based on “thin hearsay evidence” and also based on the fact that he had been in an army and carried arms on a battlefield, which makes it even more difficult to celebrate al-Marri as a case that is an example of the Obama administration’s efforts to renew respect for the rule of law.

What the letter plainly shows is the contempt the State Department and Obama administration has for addressing the lawlessness of the Bush administration. With Cheney’s book tour to defend torture underway, the letter takes on even more significance. He is someone, who is culpable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet, it is next to impossible to mount a prosecution when the Obama administration has decriminalized the Bush administration torture regime by arguing steps have been taken to leave behind that unsavory past.

It's hypocrisy all the way down with these idiots.

As I pointed out earlier, the fact is, from the left's human rights perspective, the Obama administration's national security policies are exponentially more grievous than any U.S. administration in history. But all the anti-Bush agitation was never about human rights or humanitarian international law. It was about raw power and revenge against political enemies. If progressives truly cared about human rights abuses we should be seeing antiwar protests across the globe, on the scale of the protests on the eve of the Iraq war in 2003. President Obama himself campaigned in 2008 as the most far-left candidate since George McGovern, but since taking office has eliminated virtually nothing from the Bush administration's national security program. Indeed, Fox News confirmed that the CIA was holding prisoners at the Obama administration's black site in Benghazi. What's worse is that Obama's secret prisons are in violation of his own administration's executive order abolishing extraordinary rendition and secret overseas prisons.

People like Kevin Gosztola know all of this, but in the service of progressive power are not only giving the president a pass on the massive illegality of the kill list regime, but have in fact aided and abetted a cover-up of the Benghazi murders to perpetuate Democrat power in Washington. That's the real crime here. The historical fucking moral bankruptcy of the left, people who will stop and nothing to keep political power, and thus expand the vicious leftist power grab in government even if innocent people are killed.