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Stephen Colbert took on the Heritage Foundation and Jason Richwine, the author of their racist so-called "immigration study" -- which made the claim that "the average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations" -- as only he can on his show this Tuesday evening.

As Stephen noted, Heritage is attempting to put some distance between themselves and Richwine now that he's resigned. Case in point being their VP of communications, Mike Gonzales, who put up a blog post stating:

Dr. Richwine did not shape the methodology or the policy recommendations in the Heritage paper... The dissertation was written while Dr. Richwine was a student at Harvard, supervised and approved by a committee of respected scholars... Its findings do not reflect the positions of The Heritage Foundation or the conclusions of our study...

Colbert wrapped things up by explaining how they're attempting to have it both ways with that ridiculous statement:

COLBERT: Now, Heritage is saying they find no credence in Richwine's dissertation, which they are careful to point out was "supervised and approved by respected scholars" at Harvard. In other words, Richwine's paper, which says that today's Hispanic immigrants have low IQs and will for several generations, dooming them to failure is reprehensible.

And had no influence on this paper, co-written by the same guy, which says Hispanic immigrants are a burdensome underclass and will be for several generations, because they're doomed to failure.

Because this one is based on hard numbers, unlike this one, which is an offensive screed with no credibility, approved by Harvard, so it must be pretty good.

These two papers are totally different. It's like apple pickers and orange pickers... which by the way, we desperately need.

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Someone needs to tell Fox regular Charles Krauthammer that the picture he's demanding to see of President Obama on the night of the attack in Benghazi, Libya has been available on the White House Flickr page since at least January:

Via Media Matters: Krauthammer Still Hasn't Seen This Photo Of Obama From Night Of Benghazi Attack:

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer continued to hype the right-wing myth that President Obama was missing on the night of the September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

During a May 14 panel discussion on the Benghazi investigation during Fox News' Special Report, Krauthammer requested photographic evidence of President Obama's whereabouts on the night of the Benghazi attack:

KRAUTHAMMER: And where was the president on that night? We've all seen the video and the pictures--well the picture of the situation room--of Obama on the night of the Osama raid. And everybody looks at that, oh yeah he was really involved in that. Show me a picture of where he was on the night of the attack in Libya.

The claim that Obama was absent the night of the Benghazi attack has been repeatedly debunked, both by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey.

Some of Krauthammer's other tales he was telling in the segment have been debunked here and here as well.

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The man who was vice president during the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001 says that last year's attack in Benghazi was "one of the worst incidences, frankly, that I can recall in my career."

In an interview on Fox News on Monday, former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama and his administration of lying about the attack in Benghazi and then staging a cover up to hide the lies.

"They lied," Cheney said. "They claimed it was because of a demonstration video so that they wouldn’t have to admit it was really all about their incompetence."

"I think it’s one of the worst incidents, frankly, that I can recall in my career," he insisted. "If they told the truth about Benghazi, that it was a terrorist attack by an Al-Qaeda-led group, it would destroy the confidence that was the basis of his campaign for reelection."

"They were trying to perpetuate this fiction that there was no terrorist threat because they got bin Laden and that's a lie."

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As Esquire's Charlie Pierce relayed to Stephanie Miller this Tuesday morning, between Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI!, the IRS and now the Associated Press phone records, get ready for a really long summer of scandal mongering from Republicans the the beltway Villagers.

We're going to be in for one hearing after another and as Pierce wrote in his column, none of this is going away any time soon: Washington's Political Circus Is Not An Accident:

Want to know why the Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! mummery isn't going away, and why the marginally more serious accusations concerning the IRS aren't going away, either? Read what Howard Fineman, a very reasonable fellow, writes today about the singularly futile press conference the president held. [...]

We are now entering the we're-all-just-feathers-in-the-wind period of scandal coverage in Washington. The courtier press has decided that Washington "has turned into" a political circus, as if the process were a passing thunderstorm or an implacable seismic event. [...]

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Sen. Al Franken made a rare national media appearance on Lawrence O'Donnell's show on MSNBC this Monday evening to discuss his participation in the SEC's roundtable on credit rating industry reform this Tuesday.

Back in 2010, with bipartisan support, Franken managed to get his Restore Integrity to Credit Rating Amendment passed, which cleans up the credit rating system by making sure a bank or financial institution can't shop around for a credit rating agency that will game the system for them.

From Sen. Franken's press release when the amendment first passed back in 2010: Credit Rating Agency Reform:

The inherent conflicts of interest in Wall Street's current pay-to-play credit rating system were one of the greatest contributing factors to the economy's collapse. Right now, banks choose which credit rating agencies will rate the quality of their stocks, bonds, and other financial products, resulting in the agencies giving away undeserved top ratings to countless sub-par financial products in order to attract business.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations recently revealed examples of Wall Street financial institutions negotiating higher ratings from credit rating agencies for its sub-par products. Of the AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006 alone, 93% have been downgraded to junk status.

Sen. Franken's Restore Integrity to Credit Rating Amendment cleans up the credit rating system by making sure a bank or financial institution can't shop around among credit rating agencies to get a product's initial rating. The bipartisan proposal creates a board, overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will assign credit rating agencies to provide initial ratings in order to eliminate inherent conflicts of interest. Senator Franken's proposal passed the Senate by a 64 to 35 vote, and the final bill passed into law requires that the SEC study the problem. If the SEC does not develop an alternative mechanism to address the conflicts of interest problem, Senator Franken's proposal will go into effect.

Here's more on the SEC meeting this week: Sen. Franken to Speak at SEC’s Roundtable on Credit Rating Industry Reform:

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On the same day that a poll found that many Republicans did not know where Benghazi was even though they considered last year's terrorist attack there to be the biggest scandal in American history, tea party leader Dick Armey confused the city with the country of Bangladesh.

Fox News on Monday invited Armey, who was ousted as chairman of FreedomWorks last year, to weigh in on the news that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had improperly scrutinized tea party groups to determine if they had abused their tax-exempt status.

"You have to understand that this is a politically-mandated suppression of the expression of resistance to big government," Armey explained. "I'm amazed that anybody would be surprised that this was happening."

"It's a debilitating stupidity on their part. When the real professional really undercovers [SIC] a serious transgression against the law by somebody they won't now be able to prosecute it in an orderly fashion because they biased the case against themselves."

Fox News host Gregg Jarrett pointed out to Armey that the White House had insisted that it was surprised by news that the IRS was targeting tea party groups.

"I imagine that they probably don't know any more about that than they do about Bangladesh or any number of other things," the former House majority leader quipped.

"You mean, Benghazi," Jarrett observed.

"The White House is a beautiful example of being capable of hiding your hands," Armey continued. "First they throw the ball through your window, then they hide their hands and pretend they know nothing about it. Of course, the White House knows about it. They are the most ruthless politicians I've ever seen in America."

A survey released by Public Policy Polling on Monday found that 41 percent of Republicans believed that the alleged Benghazi cover up was the biggest scandal in American history. The poll also found that 39 percent of those people did not know that Benghazi was located in Libya.

Bangladesh is located in South Asia, about 6,000 miles from Benghazi.

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Sen. Marco Rubio sent out a letter this Monday, calling for the IRS commissioner to resign in the wake of the latest dust up over the agency's admission that there were some conservative groups targeted by the branch in Cincinnati. The problem with his request -- the IRS commissioner when these scandals occurred was a Bush appointee who no longer heads the department:

Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President Bush in 2008 and held by President Obama, left the agency in Nov. 9, 2012. Any pre-election misconduct would have had to occur on his watch. The current acting commissioner is Steven T. Miller -- a permanent replacement has not been nominated.

When TPM originally posted their report on this, they had not heard back from Rubio's office. As they noted in their update, here's their response:

In response to TPM's query, Rubio's spokesman Alex Conant noted that Miller was deputy commissioner when the targeting took place. He did not suggest the IRS acted inappropriately under Miller's watch as acting commissioner.

"He was Deputy IRS Commissioner when all this occurred," Conant said in an email.

So after someone pointed out to them that it was a Bushie that was in charge when these supposed abuses took place, now he wants the acting-director fired, even though the practice was not continued under their watch. Chris Jansing couldn't be bothered to point that out in the clip above, where she basically just read Rubio's letter with no context.

Some saner coverage of the topic aired a little later on the network, with both Joy Reid and Katrina vanden Heuvel doing a fine job of trying to put this story into its proper perspective and with Reid making sure the audience knew just who Rubio was initially calling to have fired -- someone who no longer works for the agency. Vanden Heuvel made some very good points about the fact that all of these groups ought to be getting a lot more scrutiny after the flood of them that came in after the Citizens United ruling.

In the meantime, all this is going to be is an excuse for more Obama derangement syndrome out of Republicans -- which is in full force already -- and more partisan witch hunts in the form of more hearings from Darrell Issa.

Video and Rubio's letter below the fold.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday tied a scandal where the Internal Revenue Service targeted tea party groups to President Barack Obama's health care reform law and last September's attacks in Benghazi.

In an interview on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough asked the former House Speaker what the president needed to do after The Associated Press revealed that the IRS has improperly scrutinized tea party organizations to determine if they had abused their tax-exempt status.

"This is a huge problem because Obamacare relies very heavily on the IRS," Gingrich opined. "I think the president has to say he's going to open up totally, he's going to demand everybody meet with Congress, go to the hearings, he's going to fire everybody he can legally fire who's been involved in this."

"And they've got to look at changes," he continued. "How can you put Obamacare under an Internal Revenue Service -- remember this is an administration which will not profile terrorists, but profile patriots, profile constitutional groups. I mean, this is almost madness."

But Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein said that Gingrich was making a mistake by tying the IRS scandal to Obamacare.

"There ought to be an investigation, there ought to be a criminal investigation if it's warranted," Bernstein explained. "And that's it. But to start making these global pronouncements about where it goes and it affects Obamacare seems to me is part of the problem."

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This is way cool.

Via The Telegraph

Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut who has spent the last five months aboard the International Space Station, had said goodbye to life in zero-gravity with a moving version of David Bowie's Space Oddity.
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As he sings "Here I am sitting in a tin can far above the world," the Earth can be seen glowing outside the space station's windows.

At one point he sings "And I'm floating in a most peculiar way" while actually floating in mid-air.

It is believed to be the first music video filmed in space.

"With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here is Space Oddity, recorded on Station," he tweeted. "A last glimpse of the World."

David Bowie replied with the tweet "Hallo spaceboy".

The video was mixed with the help of the Canadian Space Agency and features midified lyrics that refer to the Soyuz capsule that will bring him back to Earth.

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Oh look! It's John McCain on a Sunday show pushing for the United States to start dropping more bombs on people's heads. What a rare treat it is that our corporate media allows McCain on for more warmongering. That never happens, does it?

Here he is with guest host Martha Raddatz on This Week, where he actually got a little bit of push back about the dangers of the United States escalating our involvement in Syria, but McCain just brushed it off.

So we might get the Russians involved if we go in there... or be arming terrorists. So what? What could possibly go wrong?

I guess you've got to give McCain credit for one thing. He is at least consistent in never being able to find a military conflict somewhere that he doesn't want to help escalate. Consistently wrong... but consistent. No amount of bad behavior ever goes unrewarded by our media if you're a Republican. I was shocked to see this is only his tenth appearance on a Sunday show this year. I guess it just feels like more since he's got his mug on Fox and CNN so often throughout the week as well.

RADDATZ: I -- I want to move on to Syria. It's been more than a week since Israeli jets hit targets in Syria. More than two weeks since the U.S. said that there was evidence of the use of chemical weapons. What should be happening now concerning, especially these chemical weapons, and the red line that the president talked about?

MCCAIN: Well, the president said he wants a U.N. investigation. The only problem with that is the U.N. can't get into -- into Syria.

RADDATZ: And we read this morning that Assad's forces are making incredible gains. You...

MCCAIN: Incredible gains?

RADDATZ: ...you talked about...

MCCAIN: Which...

RADDATZ: ...a no-fly zone, striking targets. What good does that do?

MCCAIN: Well first of all, engage their air assets. In that kind of terrain, and that kind of weather, air is a -- is a decisive factor in this kind of conflict, and...

RADDATZ: A -- a decisive factor in doing what? What's -- what's...

MCCAIN: Well, we take out the air. We establish a no-fly -- no boots on the ground, no American boots on the ground...

RADDATZ: That's still a lot of risk taking out that air. In fact -- in fact the Russians have said they would move in...

MCCAIN: Well, if they move in...

RADDATZ: ...anti-aircraft, very...

MCCAIN: ...if they move in...

RADDATZ: ...sophisticated.

MCCAIN: ...if they move that in, it's going to make it more complicated, and certainly maybe gives us a little bit of skepticism about a conference. But, we can provide them with a safe zone. We can provide them a place to organize inside Syria. We can give them the heavy weapons that they need...

RADDATZ: Who's -- who's them? Who's them?

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