Because they tend to share his broad outlook on politics, too many journalists for too long have been in the tank for Obama, explaining away or minimizing his policy failures and reversals. Remember Obama’s heartfelt insistence that he would run the most transparent administration ever? Take a look at this document about warrantless searches of text messages that his administration finally coughed up to the ACLU and get back to me. It’s 15 pages of completely redacted prose. Such a document would be funny if it wasn’t coming from a secrecy-obsessed administration that has put the brakes on fulfilling FOIA requests and has charged a record number of people under the Espionage Act.

Then there’s Obama’s cherished belief in his inalienable right to scrag anyone he thinks was connected to the 9/11 attacks or al Qaeda or is otherwise a threat to the good old U.S. of A. Even George W. Bush never wandered into that constitutionally swampy territory—and he was worse than Hitler, Richard Nixon, and Larry the Cable Guy put together, right? Yet it took a 13-hour filibuster by the libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to get a simple—and still squirrely!—answer to whether the administration thinks it has the authority to dispatch death drones against citizens on U.S. soil.

And take a quick look at the differences between Senator Obama and President Obama when it comes to war-making power, a split that’s starker than any found in the old Highlights for Children feature Goofus and Gallant. “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” That was Senator Obama, of course. President Obama not only unilaterally dispatched forces to Libya (hello, Benghazi!), he didn’t even bother to follow up 90 days later with a request for authorization, as specified under the War Powers Act. Thanks to his imperial attitude toward the press, journalists are finally taking notice that Obama’s rhetoric is strikingly at odds with his actions. In his recent press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan—a pioneer in treating journalists like criminals—Obama commented on the AP probe, stressing his belief in “a free press, free expression, and the open flow of information [that] helps hold me accountable, helps hold our government accountable, and helps our democracy function.”

The testimony now proves that the administration knew in advance that this was not the case. Susan Rice made this statement on Sept 16, 2012.

When U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice later publicly attributed the attack to a demonstration-gone-bad, Hicks said, he was “stunned.”

“My jaw dropped, and I was embarrassed,” Hicks said, noting that, even as the top-ranked diplomat in charge once Stevens was killed, he never spoke to Rice about what had transpired before she initially attributed the attack to a demonstration in multiple television appearances.

“The You Tube video was a non-event in Libya,” Hicks said, denying there was ever a connection to unrest in Egypt. “Our assessment in the embassy was that video was not an instigator of anything.”

-Read More

I think it’s fair to say that conservatives still care more than liberals about maintaining the old standards. And that creates a real dilemma. In an era of moral lassitude, how much do you insist on moral propriety in politics? Since sin and temptation are bipartisan phenomena, should conservatives be at a constant disadvantage? I don’t think there are easy answers there, or at least I can’t think of what they might be. Asking Republicans to vote for Colbert Busch in order to punish Mark Sanford strikes me as a hard sell. Why support the party you disagree with politically just to punish a man you agree with politically? Colbert Busch — whose political hero, of course, was John F. Kennedy – wouldn’t even answer directly whether she would vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker. On matters of political integrity, it seems to me, Sanford was hardly the clear worse choice.

But one thing I really resent is the tendency of liberals to demand that conservatives stick to standards that liberals reject entirely. If you have no brief against the Clintons, the Weiners, the Spitzers, or the Kennedys please don’t pretend you’re offended by the Sanfords. Indeed, when Democratic politicians get caught in scandals, the response from liberals is invariably, Why can’t you conservatives lighten up? Who are you to judge? Etc. It is only when conservatives are caught in such messes, that liberals walk over to the conservative side, pick up our standards, and beat us up with them. Any talk of lightening up or forgiveness is immediately denounced.

It’s absolutely true that conservatives need to wrestle with the question of what we should expect from our politicians. But I’m not sure liberals have anything worth listening to on the subject.

The Democrat controlled Senate passed an online sales tax. Are you happy?

The US Senate passed an online sales tax in a vote this afternoon after a heated final round of debate. A small group of anti-tax Republicans, as well as Democratic Senators from states without sales tax like Montana and Oregon, argued vociferously against the bill—but to no avail.

The final vote was 69-27, not much different from the 74-20 procedural vote that took place two weeks ago. The proposal has hardly changed at all in two weeks. The Marketplace Fairness Act, S.743, would allow states and localities to make Internet retailers collect sales tax from their customers if they do more than $1 million per year in out-of-state online sales.

“Today the senate is voting to take a few more inches off the little guy,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has fought the bill hard. “You saw ads taken out by some of the biggest businesses in the country. It’s easy to see why, Mr. President. With this vote, what you have is big businesses being given the ability to force new regulations onto the start-ups, onto the small businesses.”

The law is nothing short of taxation without representation in that it dictates a state can reach beyond its borders into a different state and compel a business in that other state to collect and remit taxes. This vote overturns a founding American principal. Are you surprised that the opposition was made up of Conservative Republicans while only Liberal Republicans supported it and only 5 Democrats in swing states voted against it?

Thank goodness there is at least a Conservative Republican controlled House to make a final effort:

With today’s vote, the bill will move on to the House of Representatives, where it’s expected to face more opposition from conservative Republicans. House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) told the AP the bill “still has a long way to go,” but has said he’ll give it a hearing.

“This is really states’ rights legislation,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). “It allows state legislatures to require out-of-state sellers to do what they already require of in-state sellers.”

The bill was supported by the National Retail Federation, which includes Wal-Mart and other large brick-and-mortar retailers. Amazon switched sides on the issue after losing political and legal battles over taxation in key states like California and New York.  eBay is leading the opposition among online retailers. “The contentious debate in the Senate shows that a lot more work needs to be done to get the Internet sales tax issue right,” said eBay in a statement released after the vote.

Still, today’s vote was strong enough and bipartisan enough that it’s easy to believe the long tax holiday of Internet shopping is coming to a close.

Five US states currently have no sales tax: Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, Oregon, and Alaska. Of those states, all but the two senators from Delaware opposed the bill.

Here is the vote tally:

Filling in the gap…

“I say good,” Carolla declared. “That’s all we have. That’s all we have ever had, is as a society. I mean, there are not enough counselors or dietitians or cops. We have to shame. I would like to expand the shaming to welfare moms and deadbeat dads and people who think it’s a good idea to fly in flip flops. I want shaming. It keeps society in order.”

Host Bill O’Reilly asked Carolla if there should be exceptions for health problems that lead to obesity, but the “Not Taco Bell Material” author said any exceptions would ultimately be pointless.

“Well, listen, I think they are going to get beat up by society no matter what,” Carolla replied. “I mean, prom season is not great when you’re fat. And dating is tough. And even job interviews. I mean, society gets its pound of flesh out of these people. … But, eventually when there is more of them than there are of us, they will literally crush us. This way, if you think about it … they’re going to take over the world with their enormity.”

There is a current Leftist trend pretending to be against “shaming” but of course, it’s a sham. Leftists love using shaming as a technique…

Far from opposing stigmas, liberals are the main propagators of them — against cigarettes, guns, plastic bags, obesity, not recycling, Fox News, racist “code words,” not liking “Lincoln” and junk food.

The stigma against smoking has gone so swimmingly that you can’t enjoy a little tobacco pleasure 50 yards from another human being without some bossy woman marching over and accusing you of poisoning her.

California is currently running a series of “Reefer Madness”-style anti-smoking ads, including one that shows cigarette smoke going from a woman outside on her porch, up a story, through the door of another apartment, across the living room, down the hallway and into a room where a baby is sleeping. That would be the equivalent of the Bloomberg ads claiming teen pregnancy causes genocide.

And what exactly was the purpose of the Journal-News publishing the names and addresses of every legal gun owner in various counties in New York state a few months ago? To congratulate them? To start a hunting club?

No, I believe it was to stigmatize legal gun owners. The fact that we didn’t already know who they were proved that the problem isn’t legal gun ownership. All those legal guns — and no rash of drive-by shootings!

Los Angeles has banned plastic bags at supermarkets, even though reusable canvas bags are portable bacterial colonies. But a little ad campaign describing the downsides of teenage pregnancy — which is still subsidized — and liberals howl in protest.

One begins to suspect that liberals aren’t as interested in stopping teenagers from having illegitimate kids as they claim. Do they believe a teenager who gets pregnant out of wedlock is harming herself and her child as much a teenager who smokes? How about an unwed teen who smokes at a landfill?

It’s only a “shame-and-blame game” when liberals secretly approve of the behavior they pretend to oppose.

When asked about Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) tax proposals, Dr. Ben Carson said, “We have to be cognizant of whether we in fact want to be a nation where we rule our own lives, or whether we have the government invading every aspect of our life. This is a very, very serious issue and I think a lot of people are asleep at the wheel and we have to keep sounding the alarm until people recognize that we’re giving away the freedoms of our nation.”