CNN reporter expresses regret at helping to create a false equivalency between Hillary Clinton and Doanld Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

So long as President Trump continues disgracing the Oval Office, thoughtful people will probe their own role in helping him get there. 

Such appeared to be the motivation behind a mea culpa issued by CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on comedian Larry Wilmore’s “Black on the Air” podcast. In a discussion of presidential politics, Wilmore argued that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, was the victim of a “coordinated attack” coming from Republicans. “Benghazi was … the expression of that attack. In fact, what’s his name, was it [former Rep. Jason] Chaffetz who actually kind of agreed that that’s what they were doing, was weakening her as a candidate.” (Wilmore may have been referring to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who said in 2015, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”) 

No question about the attack on Clinton, responded Toobin, citing “all that bogus stuff about the Clinton Foundation” — perhaps a reference to the Uranium One story or even to the pre-election reporting of Bret Baier — later withdrawn — that there would be an indictment relating to the foundation.

“And I hold myself somewhat responsible for that,” continued Toobin, a steady presence on CNN since 2002. “I think there was a lot of false equivalence in the 2016 campaign. That every time we said something, pointed out something about Donald Trump — whether it was his business interests, or grab ’em by the p–––y, we felt like, ‘Oh, we gotta, like, talk about — we gotta say something bad about Hillary.’ And I think it led to a sense of false equivalence that was misleading, and I regret my role in doing that.”

I would suggest that not only did reporters often suggest that the phony Clinton "scandals" were similar to the raging dumpster fire that represented the Trump campaign, but that they actually suggested that Hillary's "crimes" were potentially more egregious.  

The coverage of Hillary's emails was insane.

So was the coverage of Benghazi, her fainting spell, and virtually everything she did which somebody could find reason to criticize.

In the meantime Trump was being accused of sexual assault, working with the Mafia, and colluding with the Russians to steal the election, and somehow those were seen as equivalent.

I hope that Jeffrey Toobin sets a precedent, and that soon we will hear apologies from a number of CNN, MSNBC, as well as network and print journalists for their part in attempting to even the playing field between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

There was nothing even about these two candidates, and the American people should have been informed of that fact.

John Aravosis of Americablog destroys the AP's story of Hillary Clinton's so-called "pay for play."

You probably heard about this AP story, or at least about the fallout from the story, that while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided access to big donors to the Clinton Foundation.

The Right Wing erupted in orgasmic delight after reading it and serious media outlets took it and ran with it.

Except, like most Clinton smoking guns, it is all smoke and no gun.

To make this point John Avarosis took to Twitter to point out the holes in the story.

1) Clinton campaign is rightfully slamming AP for refusing to correct an outright lie about the Clinton foundation. https://t.co/Iv665DU8Pz

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

2) AP claimed in blockbuster story that HALF of Hillary's meeting while secretary were w/ Clinton foundation donors. pic.twitter.com/s7zIwEzRR4

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

3) AP then gave numbers: 85 of 154 people who met or talked by phone with Hillary were donors. More than half! pic.twitter.com/zmYlQT3JT3

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

4) Then you think about it. In 4 years as Sec of State, Hillary only met or talked to 154 people? Really?

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

5) AP would like us to believe that Hillary has fewer than one meeting or phone call per week as Sec of State? Uh, no.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

6) In fact, Hillary met over 1,700 people as Secretary. And if only 85 were donors to foundation, that's pretty lousy rate of pay-for-play.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

7) Oh but it gets worse for AP. AP devoted 1/3 of the story to Muhammad Yunus. He's their big smoking gun.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

8) probably because the AP reporters had no idea who Yunus actually is. He's huge. Done more than anyone alive to alleviate poverty.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

9) Yunus won the Nobel peace prize for founding the Grameen bank and pioneering concept of microlending to women in LDCs.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

10) no shit the Secretary of State met with Yunus. He's global poverty's Mother Teresa. That's AP's big smoking gun.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 24, 2016

The tweets continue on until they reach 24.

I will not post all of them here, but I will include that 24th tweet.

24) it's only corruption when you're a Democrat. It's only corruption when you're a Clinton.

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 25, 2016

This is what I meant the other day when I said that Hillary Clinton is held to a higher, and I would argue unattainable, standard.

Small, almost insignificant issues like private e-mail servers, clumsy explanations about Benghazi, and even her personal health is put under a high powered microscope and examined for any hint of scandal that can be used against her politically.

Yes other politicians receive scrutiny from the press, but nothing compares to what Hillary Clinton has had to face. Or for that matter President Obama.

P.S. You can read the AmericaBlog post that goes along with these tweets right here.

Hillary Clinton laughs off Right Wing fantasy that she will be jailed over e-mail "scandal."

Here is how Hillary Clinton responded to a question about a possible indictment over her e-mail server courtesy of People:  

"Oh my goodness! Matt, I know that they live in that world of fantasy and hope because they've got a mess on their hands on the Republican side," Clinton replied.

"That is not going to happen," she added of the possibility that she might ultimately be forced to take what Lauer called "some kind of political perp walk." 

"There is not even the remotest chance that it's going to happen." Clinton dismissed the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server as a "security review" that had become politicized because of her involvement. 

This is actually believed, not only by the Right Wing, but even by some of those supporting Bernie Sanders.

We have even had a few of them here on IM.

Even my own daughter has parroted Right Wing talking points about Hillary's trustworthiness and possible criminal activity.

You know the Rude Pundit addressed this very thing quite eloquently yesterday:

"The only reason you think Clinton is shady is because 25 years of conservative media shoved it down your throat. She's been accused and accused and investigated and investigated and guess what? Not a goddamn thing has ever come of it. It's all shit made up to damage her. If you keep saying over and over that someone did something wrong, did something wrong, did something wrong, but you never prove it, then you're just an asshole."

Exactly!

The conservatives created a cottage industry of making scurrilous, inflammatory claims about  Hillary Clinton, starting from her days as First Lady and extending through her stint as a New York Senator, then potential presidential nominee for the Democratic party in 2008, to her time as Secretary of State, and now once again as the potential presidential nominee for the Democratic party in 2016.

Those were seeds planted in the fertile soil of the conservative brain, and now those roots have spread to infect the minds of those who have no reason to dislike or distrust Hillary Clinton but do so only because they have been conditioned to do so.

That is what her campaign faces going forward, not an actual indictment for wrong doing, but only the expectation that such an indictment is always just around the corner.

No actually there are only about 12 not "almost 150" FBI agents working on the Hillary Clinton e-mail "scandal."

Courtesy of NBC News:

Sources close to the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's email are knocking down suggestions that 147 federal agents are working on the case, a figure first reported — and now revised — by the Washington Post, citing a lawmaker. 

The Post updated the figure on Tuesday, stating that while the "FBI will not provide an exact figure," there are "fewer than 50" FBI personnel involved in the case. 

But a former federal law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the Clinton investigation tells MSNBC an estimate anywhere near 50 agents is also off base. 

"There are currently about 12 FBI agents working full-time on the case," says the source, who would only speak anonymously about an open investigation.

Of course a number of conservative news outlets celebrated the Washington Post article as proving that not only was the investigation coming to it conclusion, but that with so many agents assigned to the case it was clear they were finding things that would surely see Hillary sent to prison.

Remember this e-mail "scandal" is all they have to cling to right now since the Benghazi thing fizzled out.

And there are still literally thousands of Right Wing types, and Bernie supporters, who have convinced themselves that Clinton is headed to the poky and will not be on the Democratic ticket in 2016.

Upgrades by the State Department as to what is "confidential" or "secret" find that former Secretaries of State Condollezza Rice and Colin Powell may now be in violation of the guidelines as well. Oops.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Colin Powell and top staffers for Condoleezza Rice received classified information through personal email accounts, according to a new report from State Department investigators. 

Hillary Clinton has received severe criticism -- particularly from Republicans and computer security experts -- for using her personal email account while serving as the nation's top diplomat under President Barack Obama. 

Thursday's revelation about the two secretaries of state under former President George W. Bush gave her supporters an opportunity to claim the Democratic presidential candidate was being singled out over the practice. 

The emails were discovered during a State Department review of the email practices of the past five secretaries of state. It found that Powell received two emails that were classified and that the "immediate staff" working for Rice received 10 emails that were classified. 

The information was deemed either "secret" or "confidential," according to the report.

So I assume that we can now look forward to Condi and Colin having to sit before some Congressional investigative committee as well now, right?

Oh no I'm sorry that only happens if your name is Clinton.

Colin Powell is not exactly happy that he has been dragged into this BS either:

"The State Department cannot now say they were classified then because they weren't," Powell said. "If the Department wishes to say a dozen years later they should have been classified that is an opinion of the Department that I do not share." 

"I have reviewed the messages and I do not see what makes them classified," Powell said.

Okay we need to move onto a new scandal, this one is boring.

I think the new shiny object is that Hillary is supposedly the mascot of Wall Street.

Well at least it's relatively new.

State Department clears Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing in her use of private e-mail while serving as Secretary of State.

"What's that you say? I was right all along?"

Courtesy of Daily News Bin: 

The State Department publicly confirmed today that Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email while serving as Secretary of State violated no laws or policies that were in place at the time, bringing an end to the substantive side of the “email scandal” if certainly not the political side. Clinton’s opponents in the 2016 election and their followers have been hoping the issue would force her out of the election, but now they’ll be reduced to simply trying to create a scandal where none exists, after the department’s official words today. 

State Department official spokesperson John Kirby appeared live on CNN today and flat out stated that “she was not violating policy.” Like many other high ranking officials who came before and during her tenure, Hillary Clinton opted to bypass the wonky email servers provided by the department due to the fact that they couldn’t, for instance, properly work with mobile email apps on smartphones. Previous Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have acknowledged having done the same. The news comes as a disappointment to those in politics who viewed the controversy as their best shot at catching up to Clinton, who has a massive lead in national polls both within her own party and across party lines.

This of course is what the Clinton campaign has been saying all along, but that has not stopped the Republicans from attacking her over her decision to use a private server rather than an e-mail address issued by the State Department. 

Which, let me remind everybody again, was forced to completely shut down their e-mail system due to being hacked.

Of course even this will not keep Hillary[s detractors from making this nothing burger into an entire seven course meal of imagined corruption and illegalities. 

(If you want to see the video of Kirby's appearance on CNN you can do so here.)

Republican led House investigative committee finds there is no Benghazi scandal. Gee, really?

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

 The House Select Intelligence Committee—controlled by Republicans—has been investigating the Benghazi attacks in minute detail for two years. Today, with the midterm elections safely past, they issued their findings. Their exoneration of the White House was sweeping and nearly absolute. So sweeping that I want to quote directly from the report's summary, rather than paraphrasing it. Here it is: 

The Committee first concludes that the CIA ensured sufficient security for CIA facilities in Benghazi....Appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night, and the Committee found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support.... 

Second, the Committee finds that there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks. In the months prior, the IC provided intelligence about previous attacks and the increased threat environment in Benghazi, but the IC did not have specific, tactical warning of the September 11 attacks. 

Third, the Committee finds that a mixed group of individuals, including those affiliated with Al Qa'ida, participated in the attacks.... 

Fourth, the Committee concludes that after the attacks, the early intelligence assessments and the Administration's initial public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attacks were not fully accurate....There was no protest. The CIA only changed its initial assessment about a protest on September 24, 2012, when closed caption television footage became available on September 18, 2012 (two days after Ambassador Susan Rice spoke).... 

Fifth, the Committee finds that the process used to generate the talking points HPSCI asked for—and which were used for Ambassador Rice's public appearances—was flawed.... 

Finally, the Committee found no evidence that any officer was intimidated, wrongly forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise kept from speaking to Congress, or polygraphed because of their presence in Benghazi. The Committee also found no evidence that the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that the IC shipped arms to Syria. 

It's hard to exaggerate just how remarkable this document is. It's not that the committee found nothing to criticize. They did. The State Department facility in Benghazi had inadequate security. Some of the early intelligence after the attacks was inaccurate. The CIA should have given more weight to eyewitnesses on the ground. 

But those are routine after-action critiques, ones that were fully acknowledged by the very first investigations. Beyond that, every single conspiracy theory—without exception—was conclusively debunked. There was no stand down order. The tactical response was both reasonable and effective under the circumstances. The CIA was not shipping arms from Libya to Syria. Both CIA and State received all military support that was available. The talking points after the attack were fashioned by the intelligence community, not the White House. Susan Rice followed these talking points in her Sunday show appearances, and where she was wrong, it was only because the intelligence community had made incorrect assessments. Nobody was punitively reassigned or polygraphed or otherwise intimidated to prevent them from testifying to Congress.

Okay does anybody else feel that this should be national news on ALL cable and network news outlets? Including Fox?

And not only that I feel that the Republicans should also apologize to President Obama and Hillary Clinton for essentially accusing them of allowing Americans to die and treason.

Of course that would never happen. But it should.

So I guess the Republicans will now simply shift their focus to attacking Obamacare again and suing the President for doing his job.

Different shit, same bunch of assholes.

Benghazi explained for the politically naive.

This comic is perfect as is the description of the GOP's hopes for their Benghazi fishing expedition as explained by journalist David Horsey: 

The various partisan inquiries into the deadly 2012 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi have looked like fishing expeditions chasing minnows. Republicans seem to be hoping that, like special prosecutor Ken Starr in his exhaustive investigation of President Clinton in the 1990s, they will be lucky enough to turn up something -- anything! -- that implicates President Obama or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in nefarious deeds. 

Starr found nothing incriminating concerning Whitewater, Paula Jones or the firing of White House Travel agents. But he did find Monica Lewinsky. Once the president lied about getting oral sex from the young intern, it was off to the races. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached the president -- and promptly lost seats in the 1988 congressional elections, the first time since 1822 that the party out of the White House had seen its numbers in Congress go down in the middle of a president’s second term. 

Now, in 2014, facing another midterm election in a Democratic president’s final years in office, Republicans had hoped to bludgeon Democratic candidates with the failed and unpopular new healthcare law. Unfortunately for them, that law has not failed and is becoming more popular by the day. As a result, “Remember Benghazi,” not “Stop Obamacare,” has become the rallying cry they are employing to rev up their base.

I have been saying this for some time now, and it looks like most of the MSM are reaching similar conclusions.

I actually believe that the American people are pretty much on the same page as well. Unless of course they are receiving all of their information concerning Benghazi from Fox News.

Fortunately that demographic is shrinking day by day.

Benghazi committee chairman, Trey Gowdy, claims he has "no friends to reward and no foes to punish" with investigation. Republicans already being rewarded as they use Benghazi as fundraising tool.

Courtesy of Politico:

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the new chairman of the select committee assigned to investigate the 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya — vowed Sunday the process would be fair, factual and nonpartisan. 

“I have no friends to reward and no foes to punish,” the South Carolina Republican said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re going to go wherever the facts take us. Facts are neither Republican nor Democratic, they are facts.” 

“If we overplay our hand or we engage in a process that is not fair according to the American people, then we will be punished, as we should be,” Gowdy told Fox’s Chris Wallace. 

Gowdy pushed back on the notion that he was treating the chairmanship like a judicial prosecution — walking back a comment earlier last week where he said: “I can’t end a trial simply because the defense won’t cooperate.” 

“For 16 years, I spoke in trial metaphors and perhaps I need to get out of that habit,” the former prosecutor said Sunday.

Anybody who watched Gowdy embarrass South Carolina, and the rest of America during his previous Benghazi hearings, while he was questioning Kathleen Sebelius, and during the ridiculous IRS hearings, has no reason to believe that he will conduct himself in a reasonable and respectful manner during this latest witch hunt.

And as for the rest of the Republican party?

Courtesy of the Daily Kos.

Well they already got what they wanted from this debacle.

How to revive a Fox News viewer.

You know some comics are so accurate that they cannot even be see as humorous.

Well one thing for sure, Fox knows its demographic.

To them Benghazi is porn for repressed, liberal hating, conservatives.

Obamacare now working too well for Republicans to use against Democrats. You know what that means, Benghazi time!

Courtesy of The Week:  

After pounding Democrats on ObamaCare for the last several years, Republicans have a big problem. The law is working and their message is falling flat. 

This was confirmed again by testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday in which health-care-industry executives surprised Republican lawmakers. They said the law has not led to a government takeover of the industry, that most enrollees are paying their premiums as required, and that premiums are not certain to go up next year as Republicans claim. 

With more than 8 million people enrolled in health plans through the ObamaCare exchanges, many Republicans know it's much harder to repeal the law now than it might have been several years ago. And they tried more than 50 times already without success.

The Republicans of course were hoping to use Obamacare to defeat the Democrats in 2014.

So what do they do now?

Well it's back to the scandal trough for another bite at the IRS pseudo scandal which they are pursuing by voting to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt.

And of course by going full bore after the Benghazi issue, which has now moved to the forefront of their attention now that Obamacare has refused to cooperate by being the disaster that they desperately need this election cycle.

Secretary of State John Kerry will comply with House GOP subpoena to testify about Benghazi.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday indicated he would comply with a House GOP subpoena to testify about Benghazi and other questions from the new select committee appointed by House Speaker John Boehner. 

But in his first comments on the topic since renewed attention to it began in the last week, Kerry batted away the inquiry into the September 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi as a “partisan” effort that won’t bring forward anything that isn’t already known. 

“I think this sort of speaks for itself, frankly,” Kerry said at a press conference at the State Department he held with European Union High Representative Lady Catherine Ashton, following a day of meetings. “We have had more than 50 briefings, there have been in the double digits of hearings and we’ve released 25,000 documents.”

Such a monumental waste of time and tax payer dollars.

I hope Kerry embarrasses the crap out of the House Republicans over this on national television.

Personally I think that the country should demand that the Republicans in Congress pay the American people back for all of the money they have wasted investigating this non-scandal.

Benghazi hoax falls apart on Fox and Friends as Geraldo Rivera refuses to promote the conspiracy.

Courtesy of Media Matters:  

RIVERA: Admiral Mike Mullen, appointed by President Bush, says there was no military asset available. I have investigated this from the Air Force assets in Aviano to the special forces in Tripoli and in Italy and in other places. Whatever was available in our fleet resources, AFRICOM, there was no forces that could have intervened. There was no gunship available as the myth suggested. There was no 'stand down order' given by concentrating on the -- and the military is not the SWAT team. They're not the fire department. 

If the jets Aviano had scrambled, they would have had to jettison their tanks at night, going over to a situation that they could have easily been taken down by a handheld RPG. To what end? We didn't have a target. It could would have been mounted, that mission was a suicide mission, it could not have happened.

I am not typically a fan of Rivera's but I think it is admirable that he refuses to buy into this scandal when all of the evidence proves that there is no there there.

It's a Boisterous Benghazi Bukakke for the Republicans and their Right Wing propagandists.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) issued a subpoena Friday for Secretary of State John Kerry to testify before his panel on May 21 over Benghazi. 

Today I announced a subpoena requiring Secretary Kerry to testify at a public @GOPoversight hearing on May 21. #Benghazi
— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 2, 2014

Issa made no suggestion that Kerry -- who was a senator during the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi -- was guilty of wrongdoing. 

"State Dept's response to congressional investigation of #Benghazi has shown a disturbing disregard for its legal obligations to Congress," the GOP chairman wrote on Twitter. 

He continued, deploying the hashtag #Benghazi in a series of follow-up tweets: "Compliance with a subpoena for documents is not a game. The State Dept has failed to meet its legal obligations. ... Secretary Kerry must answer questions about the State Dept's response to the congressional investigation. Yesterday, BGen Lovell testified that the State Dept never asked military forces to go save Americans in #Benghazi during the attack."

Here is the letter that Issa sent to Kerry here. In it Issa suggests that he is thinking of charging the State Department with a criminal offense.

No, seriously.

Of course as most of know John Kerry was not the Secretary of State during the Benghazi attack, and it is abundantly clear that the real focus of this inquiry is the previous SOS, and future presidential candidate.

Issa is not alone in launching this assault.

Courtesy of TPM: 

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) intends to form a select committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi attacks, he announced Friday. 

"[T]he House will vote to establish a new select committee to investigate the attack, provide the necessary accountability, and ensure justice is finally served," the Speaker said in a statement.

It is beyond clear that his new memo has reinvigorated the Republican scandal manufacturing faction, and even though it had virtually nothing to do with Benghazi it was the lifeline that the Right Wing had been praying for.

In fact so focused are the conservatives on Benghazi that Fox News is uninterested in covering much of anything else:  

Fox News stopped airing President Barack Obama's joint press conference Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel because, the network said, reporters weren't asking him about Benghazi. 

The topic has animated the conservative news network, and especially so Friday because Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had just announced the House will vote to establish a select committee to investigate the Obama administration's response to the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate that left four Americans dead. 

When cutting away from the news conference, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner was quite blunt about the fact that Benghazi was all Fox wanted to discuss at that moment. 

"If in fact somebody throws him a question on this topic, we'll go back to that joint news conference with Angela Merkel and you could hear the translation points. We're going to move on here with what is breaking," Faulkner said. 

The president wasn't asked about Benghazi, and the network didn't return to the joint press conference with the two U.S. and German leaders.

This memo is really nothing. But then the Republicans don't have anything else.

With the health care numbers going through the roof, and the economy on the mend, what other basket does the Right Wing really have to put all of their eggs into?

So I have a feeling that from now until November it will be "Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!"

Newly released documents prove that Darrell Issa's witch hunt against the IRS is a complete waste of taxpayers money.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

A series of IRS documents, provided to ThinkProgress under the Freedom of Information Act, appears to contradict the claims by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that only Tea Party organizations applying for tax-exempt status “received systematic scrutiny because of their political beliefs.” The 22 “Be On the Look Out” keywords lists, distributed to staff reviewing applications between August 12, 2010 and April 19, 2013, included more explicit references to progressive groups, ACORN successors, and medical marijuana organizations than to Tea Party entities. 

The IRS provided the heavily-redacted lists to ThinkProgress, after nearly a year-long search. From the earliest lists through 2012, the “historical” section of the lists encouraged reviewers to watch out for “progressive” groups with names like “blue,” as their requests for 501(c)(3) charitable status might be inappropriate. Their inclusion in this section suggests that the concern predates the initial 2010 list. 

Explicit references to “Tea Party,” included in the “emerging issues” section of the lists, also began in August 2010 — but stopped appearing after the May 10, 2011 list. From that point on, the lists instructed agents to flag all political advocacy groups of any stripe. The documents instructed the agents to forward any “organization involved with political, lobbying, or advocacy” applying for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status be forwarded to “group 7822″ for additional review. Groups under both categories are limited in the amount of of lobbying and political activity each can undertake. 

Other types of groups received explicit scrutiny for longer than “progressive” or “Tea Party” organizations. These included applicants involved with “medical marijuana” but not “exclusively education” (19 appearances in the “watch list” section of the lists), which were to be forwarded to a “group 7888″ and groups believed to be possible successor-groups to ACORN, the now-shuttered Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (12 appearances on the “watch list” section). Those applications were also to be elevated to managers for further review. All 22 documents also flagged applicants with Puerto Rico addresses and certain types of “Testamentary Trusts.”

It is worth noting that Issa subpoenaed the IRS records last year, and has certainly seen these same documents. As has ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings which helps to explain why he blew up at Issa back in March.

Much like Fast and Furious and Benghazi, this whole thing has been bullshit from day one.

And it is taxpayer money that is being spent while the Republicans desperately beat the bushes hoping to uncover, or create out of whole cloth, some scandal that will stick against the Obama administration.

Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! Right Wing group launches campaign to fire House Speaker John Boehner because he will not appoint a special committee to investigate the BENGHAZI!

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A conservative group has launched an ad campaign to "fire" House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over his response to the fatal attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi a year ago. 

Revive America USA, a conservative political action committee (PAC) that's fought to impeach President Obama, is urging targeted viewers to sign a petition to oust Boehner for his refusal to appoint a special committee to investigate the Benghazi tragedy. 

"We need urgent action today by thousands of Americans to fire John Boehner," the ad's narrator says. "Speaker Boehner is personally blocking a special committee to expose the truth about the 911 Benghazi terror attack. It's just enough to make you sick." 

The groups says it's "tested" its ad this week on Fox News, Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" program and Mark Levin’s radio show. 

"Until Boehner is removed, the Benghazi committee will not be formed," Bob Adams, the head of the PAC, said Friday night in a statement. 

Damn, doesn't even a starving dog eventually stop chewing on a bone once there is no more flavor?

All I can think is that this is a sign of an almost preternatural desperation on the part of the Right Wing.

At every turn this President outmaneuvers them and forces them back to the only issues they feel that might still have some traction. However they ONLY have traction with those who fill their days with conservative talk radio and Fox News.

There is simply NO interest from the average American concerning this so-called "scandal" and the more they push this the more insane they start to appear.

And if they kick out John Boehner and put in one of the lunatic fringe like Louie Gohmert or Steve King, then progress in Washington will grind to an absolute standstill. You know, more of a "standy" standstill then it has already been.

If that's even possible.

Fox and Friends invite authors of book about Benghazi onto the show, assuming they will help support their conspiracy theories. Yeah, not so much.

Courtesy of Media Matters:  

This morning, Fox & Friends hosted the authors of Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi, former diplomatic security agent Fred Burton and journalist Samuel M. Katz. 

Co-host Brian Kilmeade hoped to continue to perpetuate the myth that no help was sent to those in Benghazi: 

KILMEADE: When we saw Gregory Hicks last, he said that he did believe that they could have been saved, at least help could have been sent on the way sometime in the hours of the attack that went on. What did your research reveal? 

Katz's reply was clear: "Help did go to Benghazi, and I think one of the untold stories of the attack in Benghazi a year ago today, was the fact that when word hit the embassy in Tripoli, the CIA staffers, the contractors, as well as two JSOC operators didn't hesitate for a moment." 

Katz continued, "They made it there under Libyan circumstances, as quickly as humanly possible. ... The embassy relentlessly tried to figure out transportation. They used a Libyan air force C-130, and at Benghazi airport, controlled by one of the militias, they were held up in Benghazi for four hours." 

The entire conservative line of attack fell apart in a single sentence: "Help did go to Benghazi." Kilmeade attempted to dig deeper only to be rebuffed again: 

KILMEADE: They just couldn't get anywhere? They were held up by government officials? 

KATZ: It wasn't government. It was militia. Everything was divided among the local gangs and warlords and everybody had to be paid his due, everybody had to be served in the very Byzantine fashion that became post-Gadhafi Libya.

 "Help did go to Benghazi." Wait, what? Somebody actually using facts on Fox and Friends?

I am surprised Kilmeade's head did not pop right off his body in response. 

There is a reason that the President calls this a "phony scandal" and why hardly ANYBODY shows up to Benghazi scandal rally, on the one year anniversary of the tragedy. Simply put, there is NO scandal, and there is NO White House culpability.

But hey, maybe the folks at Fox can find some way to resurrect the Fast and Furious "scandal" again.

No?

How about the IRS "scandal?"

Yeah let's admit it, they got nothing!