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While others in the media are finally acknowledging that the Benghazi "scandal" which Fox has been pushing for months on end is nothing but a witch hunt and that ABC's big "scoop" on White House emails just left egg on their face and was nothing but lies being fed to them by Republicans, what are they doing over at Fox?

You guessed it... still scandal-mongering over Benghazi. And of course there was no acknowledgement by anyone on the panel of Fox News Watch this Saturday that the Republicans were caught feeding lies to ABC News. In Fox-land, the talking points by Susan Rice are still supposedly a scandal. They're carping that the White House doesn't treat the press nicely enough to suit them and that they don't know how to handle their messaging properly -- because we all know if they were better at messaging and nicer to the press, Fox would then give them a fair shake, right? They haven't managed to make this fake scandal of theirs stick, but they're still grasping at straws to be outraged about.

I thought that maybe they would just move on, since they've got themselves a couple of new drummed up "scandals" to chase after as well, but apparently they're not ready to let this witch hunt go any time soon.

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Here we go again with more fearmongering from Fox and crazy-eyes, lying wingnut Rep. Michele Bachmann. The scandal-mongering continues with more attacks on the IRS. Now, not only is the department evil incarnate for going after those poor, poor tea partiers who are upset about delays in getting their tax exempt status -- that none of them deserved in the first place -- now the IRS is literally going to kill people as the "enforcer of Obamacare."

The death panels are back again and Bachmann has suddenly developed a concern about what Americans with pre-existing conditions are going to do to get insurance coverage. It's funny that they only care about that issue now that it involves repealing President Obama's health care law. I would love for someone to explain to me just what the Republicans and the likes of Bachmann have ever done or plan to do to help those who have been denied health insurance. Repealing the health care law with nothing to replace it will only make the matter worse, not better. That doesn't seem to matter much in wingnut world though.

It obviously didn't matter to Bachmann, who bragged to Cashin' In guest host Eric Bolling that they again wasted the taxpayers' time and money with yet another repeal vote this week, and who has convinced herself that after the mid-term elections, President Obama is going to be forced into having to sign a repeal of the law himself after the Senate follows the House's lead and passes it, I guess after half of the country dies from the IRS denying them health care... or something in the fantasy that is going on in Bachmann's mind.

Oh... and expect more hearings. I'm sure America can hardly wait for the clown show we already saw in Issa's committee last week to continue for months or years on end.

As Media Matters recently reported, this is typical of what the viewers over at Fox have been being treated to for some time now: Grasping For New Scandals, Fox Fearmongers That Obamacare Will Allow IRS To Deny Medical Treatment.

Go read the whole post for some debunking of Bachmann and Bolling's fearmongering here.

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Bill Maher had some advice for Obama haters who have been going crazy over what Susan Rice said on the Sunday shows and who are claiming that the drummed up Benghazi B.S. by Republicans is somehow the "worst scandal in American history" during his New Rules segment this Friday night.

As he noted after running through the list of scandals that are actually worse which we went through during Republican administrations, if anyone actually believes that nonsense about Benghazi "then your hard-on for Obama has lasted for more than four hours, and you need to call a doctor."

That about sums up what's been wrong with Republicans ever since the black guy got elected president, but I don't think they're going to find a cure for their hatred any time soon.

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From this Friday's Real Time, Bill Maher told his audience that he and his staff think they've found the "smoking gun" that proves the IRS had unfairly targeted the tea partiers who are upset about having to wait to get their 501(c)(4) status approved.

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After taking her viewers through the whole, long, ugly mess with ABC's big "scoop" on the Benghazi emails and the how the story pretty much fizzled out by the end of the week with the discovery that Republicans were responsible for doctoring the supposed quotes from the emails that they published, Rachel Maddow gave her two cents on ABC still protecting the sources who lied to them.

MADDOW: And now, part of the scandal here is a press scandal. You know what? When you get used like this and you end up publishing false information, false quotes, you have to correct it. But the bigger scandal here is not a process matter, not a press matter. There's a very stark fact that somebody in Congress right now, or somebody working for somebody in Congress right now, a staffer, concocted a big lie to try to make the White House look very desperately bad on this Benghazi scandal that they otherwise have not been able to get traction on.

Who told the lie? And a note to my journalist pals who got involved in this scandal. If your source lied to you, they are not actually a source. They are a con artist and you are their victim. It means you don't have to protect them any more. They're not a source.

When you get lied to, when you are a tool of somebody else's deception, when you get lied to, the person lying to you is no longer a source, they are news. Their lie to you is itself news and you can report that news. Republican Congressional offices shopped a false dossier as if it was a White House email. That is a story. The office and the staffers and the members of Congress maybe who did that... that is news. And if you know who it is, you can say so.

Boy do I wish they'd take her advice, but again, I'm not holding my breath.

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Here's something you don't see every day -- someone in our corporate media actually calling out Republicans for feeding them lies. Good for CBS and Major Garrett.

Via TPM: Wow, This is Pretty Epic:

Generally, once partisan, tendentious sources leak information that turns out to be wrong, nothing’s ever done about it. That’s for many reasons, some good or somewhat understandable, mostly bad. But on CBS Evening News tonight, Major Garrett did something I don’t feel like I’ve seen in a really long time or maybe ever on a network news cast. He basically said straight out: Republicans told us these were the quotes, that wasn’t true. Quick transcript after the jump …

SCOTT PELLEY: Also at his news conference today the president called for tighter security for U.S. diplomatic facilities to prevent an attack like the one in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

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After House Speaker John Boehner's ridiculous statement that he wants to know "who is going to jail" over the recent scandal at the IRS -- and Nancy Pelosi's statement that we need a "clear definition of what a 501(c)(4) is -- MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell did his best to attempt to remind these politicians that there is no need to change existing law to fix this problem.

Ahead of this Friday's hearing, O'Donnell hopes that at least one of the members of Congress attending will ask the IRS why they decided to change the way they enforced the statute.

O’Donnell reminds politicians of the real IRS scandal:

As O’Donnell has been saying since Monday, the so-called IRS scandal is only the consequence of an older and more basic problem with the organization’s reading of the tax code–specifically, with its reading of Section 501(c)(4), which exempts social welfare groups from paying taxes.

The law defines such groups as “civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” Since 1959, the IRS has been reading “exclusively” as “primarily.”

“By doing that they made IRS agents judges of political activity, investigators of political activity,” O’Donnell explained in the Rewrite Thursday. “IRS agents were then forced to evaluate just how political a given 501(c)(4) organization might be. And it is very clear that if the words “Tea Party” or the name of any political party at all appears in the title of your 501(c)(4) you absolutely do not qualify for 501(c)(4) status under the law.”

Some politicians, however, still don’t seem to understand the interplay between this law and how it’s enforced.

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Jon Stewart finally took a bit of a break from what he's been doing for the better part of the week -- which is feeding the trolls on this so-called "scandal trifecta" -- and called out Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney for acting like they should be allowed to pile on as well.

Jon Stewart calls out Rumsfeld and Cheney: Obama’s transgressions don’t wipe away yours:

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart ripped into Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney on Wednesday for their sanctimonious criticism of the current administration, saying President Barack Obama’s transgressions didn’t resolve them of their own.

Stewart lamented that conservatives now had government scandals to be justifiably outraged about. Many right-wing commentators were downright orgiastic at all the bad news pummeling the President and his administration.

“This week I can’t nitpick,” Stewart said. “The floodgates are open. Every critic suddenly has credibility. Every single one. Who wouldn’t have the standing to legitimately criticize this president? I can’t imagine.”

But one such figure did emerge: Donald Rumsfeld. The former defense secretary, who was key to the start of the Iraq war, remarked that the Obama administration falsely believed narratives that fit their hopes.

“You believe the Obama administration is promoting a narrative? Not because it is real but because fits their hopes and what they want to be the case? You?” Stewart said. “So, no. You alone don’t get to come to the victory parade for the Republicans. You’re the only one who doesn’t get to weigh in.”

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Our corporate media has been trotting these Bushies back out for years on end now, so it's no surprise that we'd eventually see Alberto Gonzales take his turn. I guess the producers of Morning Joe thought there was no one better for their audience to hear from when it comes to Department of Justice scandals than Gonzo.

It does seem his memory has improved slightly since 2007, when he couldn't recall much of anything when testifying before Congress.

Steve Benen summed up his appearance this Wednesday quite nicely. After first explaining why it's likely Gonzales has kept such a low profile since leaving office and the fact that he went through quite a bit of trouble finding a job, he reminded us why he has absolutely no credibility to be commenting on the DOJ and journalists: Alberto Gonzales returns from obscurity:

The former A.G. nevertheless appeared on MSNBC this morning, apparently ready to address some of ongoing controversies. He seemed inclined to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt when it came to subpoenaing Associated Press phone logs, but this nevertheless stood out for me.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recalled on Wednesday a time when he was confronted with a "very serious leak investigation" similar to the one that has embroiled the Obama administration this week. But, he said, he went a very different route and decided against subpoenaing a reporter's notes.

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From this Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Darrell Issa wasn't the only one who had a contentious back and forth with Attorney General Eric Holder: Holder smacks down Gohmert over Boston bombings–’You cannot know what I know’:

An already-ugly House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday turned even nastier when Texas Republican Louie Gohmert took the wheel on questions related to last month’s Boston Marathon bombing–specifically, about what the FBI did and did not do after receiving information from Russian intelligence that suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been radicalized.

Attorney General Eric Holder had already faced a heavy grilling on both the AP and IRS scandals plaguing the Obama administration this week when Gohmert began pelting him with accusations that the FBI shirked a thorough examination of Tsarnaev because of “political correctness.”

“On the one hand, we go after Christian groups like Billy Graham’s group, we go after Franklin Graham’s group, but then we’re hands off when it comes to possibly offending someone who has been radicalized as a terrorist,” said Gohmert.

The Texas lawmaker added that though he “appreciated” the concern of racial profiling, he believes “there were a lot more people in America concerned about being blown up by terrorists.”

Holder fired back that Gohmert was speaking “as a matter of fact” about information not fully available to him.

“Unless somebody’s done something inappropriate, you don’t have access to the FBI files,” said Holder. “You don’t know what the FBI did. You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that…I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know.”

Yeah, old "terror babies" Gohmert is back at it again, fearmongering as usual.