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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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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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I'm not sure what else Rep. Adam Smith expected to hear from host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday this weekend, since his network has been in full fake Benghazi outrage mode ever since the attacks in Libya, and taking the insanity to new heights ever since ABC helped legitimize the witch hunt last week -- but I was glad to see Wallace get some push back for continually parroting the GOP's talking points.

Wallace's response to some of Smith's criticisms was to say "I'm not a potted plant." That's always the case when he has a Democrat on the air. Every once in a while he decides to stop acting like one when a Republican is on.

Congressman Tears Into Fox News Host For Obsessing Over Benghazi Talking Points:

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) tore into Fox News’ Chris Wallace and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) for obsessing over the talking points U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used when talking to the media in the days following the attack in Benghazi, Libya rather than focusing on identifying the perpetrators of the killings. “I think the desire of the Republicans to create a scandal here has really undermined any ability to have a credible look at what actually happened,” Smith said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday alongside Rogers.

While acknowledging that the administration’s initial assessment of Bengazi did not reflect what officials later learned about the incident, Smith criticized Fox for suggesting that that Rice’s remarks on five Sunday news shows presented a definitive picture of the events of Sep. 11, 2012.

“[The administration] didn’t reach conclusions the way you just presented that was that by the Sunday afterwards that the administration said here is what happened, here is our conclusion,” Smith explained. “But the president never said, no terrorism, no Al Qaeda. There was a dispute about how soon to lead to specific conclusions that now is being made into Watergate and Iran-Contra.” Read on...

As they went onto explain, President Obama and Hillary Clinton did describe the attacks as terrorism. For anyone having trouble keeping track of the latest round of lies, Media Matters has updates here: The Truth About The Right's Latest Benghazi Attacks .

As Smith rightfully noted during his interview, it would be a lot more productive if they focused on what actually happened and finding those that perpetrated the attacks, rather than debating how a memo was put together. Instead, now it's not just Fox, but all of our corporate media has decided to turn this into the next big "scandal." It's disgusting to watch to put it mildly.

Transcript via Fox below the fold.

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Yeah, he went there if you can believe it. Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace actually asked disgraced former South Carolina governor and now newly elected Congressman Mark Sanford if he plans on running for president, Does anyone think he'd ever ask, say Anthony Weiner, if he throws his hat into the ring for the New York mayoral race, that same question? I didn't think so.

WALLACE: Back in 2009, before all this personal stuff, you were exploring a possibility of running for president in 2012, even exploring the idea of setting up a nationwide organization. So the question is, does your political comeback now end as a Congressman from the 1st congressional district of South Carolina, or is there the possibility of higher office?

SANFORD: What I say is, one, people will begin to look at that fully. There's a big gulf between them looking at it fully and saying you ought to do this, that you ought to look at this, and me doing it. So I haven't pulled any tripwire on that front, but you're exactly right, a number of people were suggesting those kind of things. My focus... my focus is to be the absolutely best congressman that I can be for the 1st congressional district of South Carolina.

Wallace followed up by asking him what the Republican party needs to do to start winning national elections again, as though this wingnut is going to have anything to recommend other than his party moving even further to the right where he and his ilk have taken them. If Republicans are going to get any help with their so-called "rebranding effort" it's not going to come from the likes of Mark Sanford.

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As our friends over at Media Matters took note of this Thursday, the Republican propaganda channel has decided to yet again make another political attack ad for the Republicans. The Five's Eric Bolling offered up the clip shown above for Republicans (or Joe Biden) should they wish to use it against a Hillary Clinton presidential bid for 2016.

As one of the commenters pointed out in their post, this ad offered up by Bolling looks almost identical to one that the RNC had planned to run during the last presidential campaign and decided not to due to a request by Mitt Romney: Exclusive: The RNC Benghazi Attack Ad that Never Ran:

It was the Benghazi attack ad the Republican National Committee created but never aired.

ABC News has obtained an ad the RNC made last fall and approved to air in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. The ad begins with a replay of Hillary Clinton’s famous “3 a.m. phone call” commercial from the 2008 campaign and then cuts to video of the burning U.S. consulate in Benghazi Libya. [...]

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Jon Stewart ripped into Fox "News" and their continued hyping of the trumped up Benghazi "scandal" which they've been promising over and over is about to "have the lid blown off a giant coverup" at any moment now since the attacks first happened.

Stewart took his viewers back through some of Fox's coverage for the last few months now, whether it was the Greta hyping the Petraeus testimony, or Hannity ranting about the Clinton testimony, to Lindsey Graham promising that the hearing this week was "going to make you mad" and if not, well, they'll just keep having more of them until you are.

Stewart reminded his viewers that this Congress has had nine full hearings on Benghazi, but during the Bush administration there were fifty four attacks on diplomatic targets that killed thirteen Americans, but Congress only held three hearings total on embassy security back then with zero of the outrage we're seeing from Republicans now.

After asking what made things different this time around, Stewart went through the recent list of items that the wingnuts on the right believe are "worse than Watergate" and crazy GOP Rep. Steve King's remarks that Benghazi is "Watergate and Iran Contra together" and "multiplied by ten." Stewart put into perspective just what King was comparing the so-called Benghazi "coverup" to and asked, just what did President Obama do that Republicans believe is worse than some of Nixon and Reagan's worst scandals combined.

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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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Rep. Jason Chaffetz was more than happy to help continue the Republican witch hunt on Benghazi this Sunday, but as Josh Israel over at Think Progress took note of, when pressed by Chris Wallace about his claims that there are witnesses from the State Department who are being threatened by their bosses, he couldn't name any examples.

Asked about a claim by a witness’s lawyer that whistle-blowers had been blocked from testifying (a claim rejected by the Department of State), Chaffetz said that “more than one” witness has indeed been “suppressed” by the Obama administration. [...]

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) quickly debunked his colleague: “There’ve been two attorneys involved here, the only reason they haven’t received information is that they haven’t asked for it yet… there has not been a request for documents from these attorneys to the State Department.”

The only “retaliation,” Lynch noted, was that one of the witnesses wants a reassignment and a promotion and feels he’s being retaliated against because has not yet gotten the promotion.

As they reminded their readers and we have here as well, there are plenty of reasons why anything Victoria Toensing, who is representing some of these potential witnesses, attaches her name to, and who has been peddling conspiracy theories for months now, ought to be looked at with more than just a healthy dose of skepticism.

Full transcript below the fold.

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On this Saturday's Fox News Watch, the fake outrage that's been going on for months on end on the network over the embassy bombings in Libya continued, with the talking heads on the panel of course doing their best to hype Darrell Issa's upcoming hearings this week. When host Jon Scott asked his guests why the other networks weren't giving this story the same type of media of coverage as Fox, hilarity ensued.

The National Review's Rich Lowry claimed there's some conspiracy with the rest of the media to do the administration's bidding and help stonewall the issue and then later call it old news and say “let's move on.” Regular and Fox token “liberal” Ellen Ratner claimed that the other networks were just “jealous” after quoting someone saying anything that comes from Fox “ought to be taken with a grain of salt.”

Scooter Libby stenographer Judith Miller called the administration refusing to answer all of her network's questions “chutzpah” and Fox's Jim Pinkerton criticized the Washington Post for running a story about protests at a nuclear facility and how dare they write that story while ignoring Fox and their fake Benghazi outrage.

Judith Miller wrapped things up by having the “chutzpah” to actually claim it's “lamentable” that this story has become “politicized.” Well, there's one thing I agree with that was said here, but it's been the Republicans and her network that are responsible for it.