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In the aftermath of this Wednesday's hearings on Benghazi, which the right has been hyping for weeks, as Chris Hayes and his guests, Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Media Matters' Eric Boehlert discussed, they turned out to be nothing more than a bust.

Surprise, surprise, right?

As Media Matters has documented, it was hard to keep track of all of the lies and myths being pushed by the right and by Fox News ahead of today's hearings, and but once they actually got started, there was very little to no new information, but plenty of attempts to lay the whole mess at Hillary Clinton's feet.

Maloney reiterated what she said during the hearing today about the Republicans and their motives:

“I find it truly disturbing and very unfortunate that when Americans come under attack the first thing some did in this country was attack Americans, attack the military, attack the president, attack the State Department, attack the former senator from the great state of New York and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton,” Maloney said, before going on to question the witnesses on the fact that the secretary of state’s signature is included on all sorts of documents he or she never actually sees.

Fox's coverage of the hearing was hardly what you'd call "fair and balanced" with them cutting away from the Democrats constantly during the hearing, including Rep. Maloney, which Hayes showed her a portion of during their discussion here.

As Maloney told Hayes during the segment as well, Republicans are entitled to their own opinions about the attacks and what went wrong, but they're not entitled to their own facts and even after being debunked, Chairman Issa is still refusing to take down their lies about Hillary Clinton on their web site.

As Hayes and Boehlert discussed, compared to other administrations, attacks on U.S. diplomatic targets are actually way down under the Obama administration. We all know that doesn't matter in Republican-land though, where their alternative reality refuses to acknowledge anything that happened prior to President Obama being elected.

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Fox News host Megyn Kelly admitted on Wednesday that the conservative network's coverage of that day's Benghazi hearings had been a "little lopsided" after Democratic lawmakers were repeatedly cut off for commercial breaks.

Following opening statements, Fox News aired all of the questions House Oversight Committee Chair Darrel Issa (R-CA) had for the witnesses he had called, but the network cut to former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton for reaction when Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MA) began presenting his questions.

Users on Twitter complained as they noticed a pattern each time Fox News cut away from the hearings.

"HILARIOUS Fox News taking a commerical break during Democrats #Benghazi questions...," Unitedliberals tweeted. "Fox News instead of airing Carolyn Maloney's questions during #Benghazi hearing they are RE-airing clips from 20 minutes ago #LOL."

"Fox News coverage @ Benghazi hearing/ no interruption of Republican spkrs, commercials and commentary ovr Democrats. Fair and balanced? BS!" Kevin Larkin wrote.

After over three hours of hearings, Fox News Megyn Kelly acknowledged that the coverage had not been fair and balanced.

"We're trying to get in our commercial breaks here and now we're getting a little lopsided in terms of the Democrats versus the Republicans, so we're going to try to rectify that for you after the break," she promised.

In fact, Fox News only provided another 10 minutes of live video from the hearings during the next hour. Instead, the network asked Bolton and Fox News host Oliver North to comment.

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h/t Paddy

I don't think I ever want to cross Anthony Weiner after watching this. He lets the Republicans have it on the House Floor and rightfully so. I feel the same way about the Republicans doing this.

House GOP leaders: 9/11 first responders aid bill 'a massive new entitlement program':

House Republican leadership is advising its members to vote against a bipartisan bill that would, among other things, bolster medical support to Sept. 11 victims.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), would provide medical monitoring to those exposed to toxins at ground zero, bolster treatment at specialized centers for those afflicted by toxins on Sept. 11 and reopen a compensation fund to provide for the economic loss of victims.

And it’s all paid for by closing a tax loophole on foreign companies with U.S. subsidiaries, Democrats said.

But according to Republicans, it’s a job-killing growth of government that would create a new entitlement and waste taxpayer dollars.

The bill, if passed, would reopen the Victims Compensation Fund until 2031 — instead of litigation, victims could try to get money from the fund. Republicans are calling the extension “well beyond what is needed to take care of latent claims,” according to a policy statement from the GOP.

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As I already noted, Rep. Carolyn Maloney who was the original sponsor of the "Prevent Deceptive Census Look Alike Mailings Act" talked to Rachel Maddow about the RNC potentially breaking that law just after it passed. Wolf Blitzer asked Micheal Steele about that on The Situation Room and here is his response.

BLITZER: A quick question on this Republican Party 2010 Congressional District census that was sent out with your name --

STEELE: Yes.

BLITZER: -- right on page one. You're getting a lot of criticism that this was a fund-raising device, but it looks like a real census. And people are saying this was inappropriate, this was misleading.

I want you to respond to the criticism and you've seen plenty of it.

STEELE: Well, yes, I met with Congressman Issa on this and I've talked to other leaders in the party. We've talked to our lawyers that this was within the law as written. And we were not outside of those bounds. And, you know, I can't help that the Democrats wrote a bad bill. The reality of it is we complied to what the law required. And the mailer went out.

Apparently this doesn't mean much to Michael Steele -- In Rebuke To GOP, House Votes 416-0 To Ban Misleading 'Census' Mailers:

The House has voted 416-0 to ban misleading mailers designed to look like official communications from the Census Bureau of the kind that two national Republican groups recently sent out.

Under the bill, co-sponsored by two House Republicans as well as several Democrats, mailers marked "census" will have to state the name and address of the sender, along with an unambiguous disclaimer that it's not affiliated with the federal government. It will be taken up by the Senate soon.

The Republican National Committee and the National Republican Campaign Committee have both sent out mailers recently that were designed to look like they came from the Census Bureau.

...Doug Heye, an RNC spokesman said: "Just as it has done in the past, the committee will continue to comply with the law."

The measure was co-sponsored by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT). Recently, both men slammed the mailers. "Nothing could be more wrong," said Issa.

So what was the loophole that the RNC exploited?

Continue reading »

Rachel Maddow talks to Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the original sponsor of the "Prevent Deceptive Census Look Alike Mailings Act" about the RNC continuing to send out a fundraising mailer that looks like an official census mailer even after Congress passed a law banning it. TPM has more:

Even After Law Aimed At Banning It, RNC Still Sending Misleading 'Census' Mailer:

An RNC mailer obtained by TPMmuckraker bears the words "Census Document" and, in all caps, "DO NOT DESTROY/OFFICIAL DOCUMENT," on the outside of the envelope. In smaller letters, it says: "This is not a U.S. government document." The new law requires, among other things, that such mailers state the name and address of the sender on the outside of the envelope -- something the RNC's missive doesn't appear to do. Inside, a letter from RNC chair Michael Steele, dated April 12, asks recipients to fill out a questionnaire about their political views, and solicits donations of as much as $500 or more. (See the mailer here.)

Last month, in response to virtually identical RNC mailers, members of both parties cried foul, raising the concern that the mailers could reduce the response rate for the actual Census -- which was mailed to Americans last month -- by confusing some voters. "Nothing could be more wrong," declared Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) -- not a lawmaker known for a commitment to bipartisanship. Congress quickly passed a law -- the House vote was 416-0 -- requiring that mailers marked "census" state the name and address of the sender on the outside of the envelope, and contain an unambiguous disclaimer making clear that the mailer is not affiliated with the government.

Based on a PDF image, the mailer obtained by TPMmuckraker does not appear to state the sender's name and address on the outside. And the words "DO NOT DESTROY/OFFICIAL DOCUMENT" would appear to make the disclaimer that it's not a government document less than unambiguous.

...The chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party has filed a complaint with the U.S. Postal Service against what appears to be the same mailer, charging that it violates the new law.

Read on...