Over the weekend the New York Times came out with an exhaustive investigation of Benghazi. The basic take-aways are:

First, there is no evidence al Qaeda or any other international terrorist group was involved. The perps were local militants.

Second, anger fueled by an American-made anti-Islam video really was part of the motivation for the attack.

Do I think the New York Times is infallible? Of course not. But they’ve done the legwork and make a persuasive case through, you know, evidence.

Righties have gone into full temper-tantrum mode, screaming about “revisionist history.” They do not want to hear that al Qaeda was not behind Benghazi. Because.

One of the better retorts comes from Thomas Joscelyn at The Weekly Standard. I say “better” because he at least makes an effort to blow enough smoke to bring the Times’s investigation into doubt, instead of just whining and stamping his feet like most of his fellow travelers.

However, Joscelyn’s retort relies rather heavily on dishonesty. For example:

Left out of the Times’s account are the many leads tying the attackers to al Qaeda’s international network.

For instance, there is no mention of Muhammad Jamal al Kashef, an Egyptian, in Kirkpatrick’s retelling. This is odd, for many reasons.

On October 29, 2012 three other New York Times journalists reported that Jamal’s network, in addition to a known al Qaeda branch (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), was directly involved in the assault. The Times reported (emphasis added): “Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.”

Wow. Except from what I can gather from the earlier story, the “officials” were mostly Republican senators and congress critters. Here’s the earlier story in the Times:

But the question on the minds of some lawmakers is why the declining security situation did not prompt a fundamental rethinking of the security needs by the State Department and the White House. Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.

“Given the large number of attacks that had occurred in Benghazi that were aimed at Western targets, it is inexplicable to me that security wasn’t increased,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, one of the panels holding inquiries.

In other words, the New York Times was not reporting on what happened in Benghazi, but on what mostly unnamed people were speculating about what happened in Benghazi. It was merely reporting on suspicions being voiced by “officials,” and that the matter was under investigation. The New York Times is not contradicting its own reporting, as half the rightie blogosphere is claiming right now.

The Right has been implicating Muhammad Jamal and tying him to al Qaeda — and he may well be tied to al Qaeda, for all I know — but if they have any concrete evidence connecting him to Benbhazi, they’re keeping it hidden. Mostly they just quote each other’s implications as “evidence.” Everybody’s saying it, so it must be true.

Something we do know, and that the Times left out, is that The Benghazi Hoax was Spun up by the GOP to Protect Mitt Romney.

See also what Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said about Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).

This week 1.3 million people will be losing unemployment benefits, which will be a disaster for them (just as food stamps are going away, too) and a drag on the economy overall.

WaPo has a map showing where the people losing benefits live. Wow, New Jersey is about to get slammed. What’s up with that, Gov. Christie? Hasn’t yelling at schoolteachers created more jobs?

One person happy about the loss of benefits is Paul Ryan, who seems to sincerely believe that cutting people off of benefits will inspire them to get jobs that aren’t actually there.

Ryan has always defended his stinginess on safety net issues as tough love for the poor, giving them “incentives” to take a job, any job, to support their families.

“We have an incentive-based system where people want to get up and make the most of their lives, for themselves and their kids,” he says. “We don’t want to turn this safety net into a hammock that ends up lulling people in their lives into dependency and complacency. That’s the big debate we’re having right now.”

Now, where have we heard this before? Timothy Egan remembers.

When a million Irish died during the Great Famine of the 1850s, many in the English aristocracy said the peasants deserved to starve because their families were too big and indolent. The British baronet overseeing food relief felt that the famine was God’s judgment, and an excellent way to get rid of surplus population. His argument on relief was the same one used by Rand Paul.

“The only way to prevent the people from becoming habitually dependent on government is to bring the operation to a close,” Sir Charles Trevelyan said about the relief plan at a time when thousands of Irish a day were dropping dead from hunger.

(I understand the one million figure is a conservative estimate. And the Irish were growing plenty of food in Ireland. They just weren’t allowed to eat it.)

Ryan always strikes me as being possibly less bright than a bag of hammers. But, still, there’s something particularly galling to me when someone with an Irish surname takes up this “tough love for the indolent poor” crusade.

What strikes you about this paragraph?

The congressman is among a growing number of conservatives who have vowed to resist “the war on Christmas” that they say threatens to turn the holiday into a secular celebration. Many of them have charged, for example, that it’s become less politically correct to use a Christmas greeting exclusively.

Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, announced early this month that lawmakers are now allowed — for the first time in 40 years — to send holiday cards to constituents that say “Merry Christmas.”

OK, I boldfaced the part that struck me. This has been going on for 40 years? And it’s just now bothers you?

I’m assuming that when Miller says “not allowed” she means “not allowed to use their free franking privilege for religious purposes.” So who decided my tax dollars can underwrite somebody else’s religion? Don’t these people ever red the flipping Constitution?

Part of the problem here is that the Christianist tribe has expanded the idea of a “religious” holiday to include elements like shopping mall decorations and Santa Clause (but only if white) as “Christmas,” and therefore “religious,” and then they complain that “liberals” are trying to turn Christmas into a “secular” holiday as opposed to a religious one.

We don’t have to try, dears. You did that yourselves, a long time ago.

Now, I realize that the legend of Santa Claus evolved from stories about Saint Nicholas (270-343), but at this point the Jolly Old Elf resembles the Saint about as much as My Pretty Pony resembles Secretariat. (Among other legends, Nicholas is said to have punched out another bishop at the Council of Nicaea.)

Yes, Nicholas was said to have given secret gifts — to the poor — which has little to do with rioting WalMart shoppers trying to snag the last marked down iPad. And the practice of leaving presents under a decorated evergreen tree is relatively recent; the German tradition of decorated Christmas trees didn’t spread elsewhere until the 19th century.

Next they’ll be telling us there’s a “war on Easter” (a holiday possibly named after Ä’ostre, an Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess — bunnies? eggs? hello?) and a liberal disrespect for Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross because somebody doesn’t like pastel-colored marshmallow baby chicks.

This year some dippy woman defended Christ by assaulting a Salvation Army bell-ringer for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” This has got to be a peak example of missing the point.

I would be absolutely thrilled if Christians did re-claim Christmas as a religious holiday, emphasizing prayer, church attendance, and charity, and let the rest of us tone it down to a nice family get-together with less hype and expense.

However, there is evidence we are winning. First, the Pope is on mostly our side now. And then there’s this:

A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Group points to a shifting toward such pluralism, with close to half of Americans (49%) surveyed agreeing that stores and businesses should greet their customers with “happy holidays” or “season’s greetings” instead of “merry Christmas”, out of respect for people of different faiths. This number is up from 44% when they conducted this survey in 2010.

That said, I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays as best you can.

See also “A Merrier Christmas for Liberal Christians.”

The composer is Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557 – 1612).

Today’s outrage on the Right is that a grocery chain in Britain allows its Muslim employees to refuse to ring up sales of pork or liquor. Instead, they may politely direct the customer to another cashier.

The reaction on the American Right has been swift and derisive. If you want a representative sampling, you may proceed to the comments at Weasel zippers. Be warned; it’s ugly stuff.

At least the customers can purchase liquor and pork, even if they have to wait in another line. But what about pharmacists who refuse to either fill birth control prescriptions or direct customers to another pharmacy? Or even transfer a prescription?

What about Catholic hospitals who refuse to perform abortions even when the pregnancy is doomed and the woman must unnecessarily endure a painful miscarriage?

For a time we were seeing ambulance drivers refusing to transfer women from hospitals that didn’t do abortions to abortion clinics that did. And these were situations in which the woman was in crisis and it was the judgment of doctors to terminate the pregnancy.

In those cases, the consequences were much more extreme than just having to go wait in another line.

And haven’t we just been told it is wrong for an employers to punish employees for their religious beliefs? Steve M:

But wait: it’s utterly wrong for people who are offended by this policy to retaliate in a way that threatens Marks & Spencer’s livelihood, isn’t it? Haven’t we just spent the last few days being told by conservatives that that sort of retaliation is fascism, because people have absolute freedom to offend you, while you have no right to respond?

Weren’t we told that suspending a millionaire TV actor who said insulting things about gay, black, and Japanese people is “totalitarian” and comparable to the worst Soviet abuses? Haven’t we been informed that going on social media to mock a racist tweet about AIDS from Justine Sacco, a high-level public relations executive (who’s since been fired), amounts to an “online assassination”?

So a boycott of Marks & Spencer would be just as horrible … wouldn’t it, right-wingers?

For the grocery store chain, seems to me it could keep everybody happy by designating some cash registers as “pork and liquor can be paid for here” registers staffed by non-Muslim staff. That way customers are not inconvenienced. But if your “moral refusal” puts someone else’s life in danger, you shouldn’t be in that job.

(And don’t get me started on employers whose moral refusal doesn’t allow birth control to be covered on employees’ insurance policies.)

The righties are pointing to a wedding photographer in New Mexico who was fined for refusing to document a same-sex wedding, on religious grounds. In this case the couple hired another photographer but then sued the first one. The first photographer was in violation of state law, but one might argue nobody ever died from having to hire another wedding photographer. But if we allowed one business to discriminate, how far would that go? Could restaurants refuse to serve gay couples (how would they know?) Now we’re wading into some really ugly territory.

It occurs to me that a lot of Christians also might feel morally compromised by having to serve or sell liquor. In the U.S., in many states groceries or stores other than liquor stores don’t sell liquor. Here in NY you can buy beer and really awful watered-down wine in groceries, but you have to go to a liquor store for other stuff. But what if a state suddenly allowed liquor sales in groceries, and Baptist clerks refused to ring it up? I don’t know that it’s ever happened, but it’s not impossible.

(For the record, some schools of Buddhism forbid followers from selling alcohol, poisons, or weapons, and I think meat also. I’d have to look it up. In some cases selling alcohol is discouraged but not necessarily drinking it, just not to excess.)

Oh, well. Another day, another hypocrisy.

By now you’ve heard about the fellow from the television, um, series, Duck Dynasty, who said some hateful things about homosexuality, likening same-sex sex with bestiality and terrorism. He also suggested that all non-Christians are terrorists and murderers and that African-Americans were happier under Jim Crow laws.

Dean Obeidallah explains what happened next:

Robertson’s comments led A&E, the network that airs his megahit show, to suspend him indefinitely. They didn’t fire him. Nor did A&E pull Duck Dynasty off the air. They didn’t even say they weren’t going to pay Robertson. Bottom line: A&E acted swiftly to save the brand of Duck Dynasty, a show that generates millions in ad revenue for the network. A&E made the right call.

However, this measured response outraged many on the right. Some took to Twitter to scream that “freedom of speech” is being destroyed. GOP USA has blasted A&E.

Obeidallah and Steve M both point out that when somebody associated with the Left says some hateful, jerky thing on television, usually they lose their jobs. Martin Bashir and Alec Baldwin come to mind. Yet not a peep out of the Right about “free speech” in those cases.

And for the record, when an employer sees an employee doing something that will likely hurt the company brand and cost the company money, the employee is lucky to keep his job at all. I don’t see this as a free speech issue.

The richest response must be Erick Erickson’s. Just a taste:

A & E has now joined much of mass market culture in the Western World in picking sides in a fight — tolerance for gay rights, but not for Christians expressing honest answers to questions asked of their faith. The only surprise is that the Christians of Duck Dynasty could last there as long as they did. A&E has as much right to do this as you have to turn the channel. But they have clearly aligned themselves against us in the culture wars.

The world is at war with Christ and those who put their faith in Christ. The silver lining of this act is that many Christians who decided they could sit on the sidelines and not have to care will have a wake up call — particularly millennial Christians.

Don’t miss Alex Pareene’s hilarious spoof of Erickson (written before the Duck Dynasty flap), which ends:

Now I’ve just said a lot of vitriolic, mean-spirited things about Erickson, and obviously he deserves every one of them, but now is the part where I adopt a pious tone and talk about Christ and scripture for a paragraph. Christ teaches us to forgive our enemies, after you “joke” about the ones who were murdered by death squads.

It must be noted also that on the same day the Right rose up in solidarity in defense of the Duck Dynasty star, they are also engaged in a hate frenzy over “pajama boy,” a young man who posed in an Obamacare ad from Organizing for Action while wearing pajamas. They are so outraged by the photograph that they’ve identified the young man and are attacking him personally. Because they don’t like the way he looks.

Um, have they focused their eyes on Erick Erickson lately?