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Jason Easley over at Politicususa pegged this one exactly right when it comes to what to expect next from Republicans, given what we heard from a number of them on the Sunday bobblehead shows this weekend complaining about how the FBI handled the investigation of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011.

As Easley noted, "If you thought the Republican behavior after Benghazi was bad, their desperate fishing expedition on Boston could be even worse." Sadly, we probably haven't seen the worst of Sen. Lindsey Graham getting a chronic case of the vapors during a Congressional hearing just yet.

Republicans Launch Their Campaign to Blame Obama for Boston By Attacking the FBI:

Republicans took to the Sunday morning shows to attack the FBI, and to lay the groundwork for blaming President Obama for the Boston bombings. [...]

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where Graham and King are going with this. Soon they will call for hearings on how the FBI handled the intelligence they had before the events in Boston. Their purpose is twofold. They are looking for something to use to revive the Bush era war on terror policies, and they are searching for some way to blame President Obama for the attacks.

There is a difference between saying that the FBI needs to review how they handled any information they may have had before the attacks, and using politically loaded language like "the FBI dropped the ball." King and Graham are trying to set up a narrative that will tie any “failures” that they find to President Obama. That is where this is heading.

I'm sure it won't take too long to find out if he's right or not, and in the meantime, I wouldn't bet against the prediction.

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Despite Sen. Lindsey Graham's optimism regarding a deal on immigration being passed by Congress, now that labor and the Chamber of Commerce have resolved a dispute over a low-skilled worker program, I'll believe they're going to get something done when I see the House actually vote for it.

Graham: Immigration reform deal could be ‘rolled out next week’:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C), one of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators working on an immigration-reform bill, said Sunday the group had agreed on a deal to be unveiled soon and that he was confident the bill would eventually be signed into law by President Obama.

“We’ve got a deal,” said Graham on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “2013 I hope will be the year we pass bipartisan immigration reform, signed into law.”

Graham said lawmakers still needed to finish writing the legislation.

“It has to be drafted, it will be rolled out next week,” he said.

The bipartisan group first unveiled their framework in January and has been negotiating over the details, including a path to citizenship and tougher border security measures.

There is growing momentum on Capitol Hill to pass immigration reform this year, with a bipartisan House group also working on unveiling their own proposal, which has already secured the general support of leaders from both parties. [...]

“I believe it will pass the House because it secures our borders and controls who gets a job,” Graham said Sunday of the forthcoming Senate plan. “I think it will pass both houses, we’re going to need the president’s support. I’m proud of the work product and look forward to rolling it out.” [...]

“Conceptually we have an agreement between business and labor and between ourselves,” Graham said. “As to the 11 million [existing illegal immigrants], they will have a pathway to citizenship but it will be earned, it will be long, it will be hard, but I think it is fair.”

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Heaven forbid we're ever going to see John McCain admit that there might just be a problem with the nativist base of his party -- that they've been whipping hatred in for years now over the immigration issue -- that McCain found himself confronted with at his recent series of town hall meetings.

McCain ‘Proud’ Of Debate At Town Hall Meeting:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Sunday defended a confrontation with an angry voter at a town hall meeting over immigration reform, saying, "that's what town halls are supposed to be about -- that's why they're always packed."

"We don't screen anyone who comes to our town hall meetings," McCain said on CNN's "State of the Union." "Now I didn't believe that person was correct with his facts so I fired back at him. And people said, 'Good, that's what we want to hear, this is a debate we want to hear.' So I'm proud of that, and if anybody doesn't like it, then you don't have to come to the town hall meeting."

The tensions in McCain's town hall meeting provoked speculation about whether opposition from the conservative base of the GOP would make it impossible for lawmakers to reach a deal on immigration reform. McCain denied Sunday that this was the case.

She didn't ask him if he was also proud of calling one of his constituents a jerk or not.

Sadly no amount of bad behavior with holding up cabinet appointments out of spite or their fake Benghazi outrage is going to keep Senator Hothead from being given another appearance on the Sunday shows.

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It seems Republicans are ready to die on their sword of protecting tax cuts for the rich and are going to do their best to blame President Obama for their unwillingness to negotiate on anything in good faith. They've been wanting to take a pound of flesh from the working class by slashing our social safety nets and it looks like they might use this sequester to finally get their way: GOP Eager For The Sequester To Go Into Effect So They Can Blame Obama For Its Devastating Consequences:

With the sequester deadline looming just two weeks away, Republicans have adopted the public posture of cheerleading for the anticipated spending reductions to social programs, while preparing to blame President Obama for their devastating impact on middle class Americans and national security.

Republicans have yet to offer a proposal that would offset the cuts in the 113th Congress and have categorically rejected the Senate’s balanced approach of higher revenues and spending cuts. Instead they’re sitting on their hands until the March 1 deadline, informing Obama that they will not act to head off the automatic reductions. [...]

Pressed by Crowley on the consequences of the across-the-board cuts, Barrasso initially dismissed their impact before blaming Obama for any deleterious effects. “I believe the president has a lot of authority that he can decide how this works, and, yeah, he can make it very uncomfortable, which i think would be a mistake on the part of the president, but when you take a look at the total dollars there are better ways to do this, but the cuts are going to occur,” he said.

Here's more from them on the damage the cuts would do: How The Sequester’s Budget Cuts Will Devastate Already-Battered Programs:

Federal spending is scheduled to reach historic lows thanks to the Budget Control Act, which placed caps on spending as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011. Non-defense spending is already 14 percent lower than it has been at any time in the last half-century, and it could go even lower if the so-called “sequester,” a series of automatic budget cuts that will begin to take effect at the beginning of March, is allowed to occur.

The drop in domestic spending has already devastated many programs on which Americans depend. But on March 1, those cuts will get even deeper when the first $85 billion of sequester cuts take effect.

That will have a substantial impact on food safety, education, law enforcement, and safety net programs, according to estimates from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. And if the sequester is left in place for the full year, it will cut $1.5 trillion and those effects will only get worse: Read on...

Here's a reminder from Greg Sargent on the right's decision to use the sequester as "leverage" against President Obama: We all agree that spending cuts hurt the economy. Right? Right.:

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If anyone needs a break from the typical fare we're treated to on the bobblehead shows on Sundays, check out some of Chris Hayes' show from this Saturday. It's rare that this kind of in depth and comprehensive discussion happens, even rarer where the discussion is so good, it's worth highlighting multiple segments. But that's exactly the case with this discussion of President Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage made during his state of the union address, that is already being clouded by the fog of talking points in DC:

Then we’ll dive deep on the president’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 $9 an hour, and to index the minimum wage according to inflation, so that it keeps pace with the cost of living. Republicans and business groups have lined up in opposition to a minimum wage increase, and in doing so, they’ve repeated a talking point that has been common in Washington for decades: that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to reductions in employment. As it turns out, there’s a growing body of empirical evidence that indicates that minimum wage increases, within a certain range, have no negative impact on employment, and may actually boost worker productivity and consumer demand, providing a much-needed stimulus to the economy.

For the most part, Hayes' guests were outstanding and really informative to listen to, with the exception of the Hispanic Leadership Network's Jennifer Sevilla Korn. She may be the kinder, gentler face of the Republican Party with toned down rhetoric with respect to the immigration issue, but on Hayes' show, she was nothing but a right wing talking points regurgitation machine with little to no facts to back up her assertions.

If you listen to her carefully during her time on the show, she was challenged by Hayes quite a few times to give specifics for her claims about minimum wage supposedly causing businesses not to hire or that it might cause inflation. How often does that happen? And just like a typical conservative, she never answers him. The same can't be said for the others on the panel who were more than willing to talk about specifics and shoot holes straight through her talking points.

In the segment above, Lew Prince, owner of Vintage Vinyl, Inc. a small business in St. Louis, Missouri, talked about his invitation to come to the White House with a number of other small business owners and they were asked by President Obama "What can I do for you?" Prince recounted that the first thing they all said in unison was to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour, because "putting three hundred bucks a month in the hands of the customers is the best economic stimulus the country can have and that money tends to get spent in the businesses more than any other."

Unlike Korn, Prince's point is backed up by research.

A 2011 study by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank finds that minimum wage increases raise incomes and increase consumer spending, especially triggering car purchases. The authors examine 23 years of household spending data and find that for every dollar increase for a minimum wage worker results in $2,800 in new consumer spending by his or her household over the following year.

A 2009 study by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that Obama’s campaign pledge to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011 would inject $60 billion in additional spending into the economy.

The National Employment Law Project's Tsedeye Gebreselassie followed up by discussing the fact that 74 percent of the public supports raising the minimum wage. Unlike the conservatives speaking out against it, they understand that that one cannot live on the current wage and that the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation. They know the opposition is with the lawmakers supporting the top wage earners only.

Korn cites some unspecified economist-- who of course isn't a partisan--telling her that raising minimum wage is going to cause inflation. While that might be true if it is raised too high or if the economy was in a period of stagflation, that's not the political environment we have now and Prince countered her argument quite nicely.

PRINCE: You won't get a business owner that says that and I'll tell you what, the portion of wages, that is in my cost, is actually relatively small and even in the manufacturing and a whole lot of areas. It is relatively small. My overhead is complicated and large, and the minimum wage and the wage, is actually a small part of it. And prices in America, this is, you know, the great secret – prices in America are not set by the cost of making something or doing something. Prices are set by what market research tells most companies you are willing to pay. You know, the reason a beer is ten bucks at Yankee stadium isn't because...

HAYES: Of course not.

PRINCE: … you can get it there to the bar across the street where it is two bucks.

In the next segment the panel discussed the two different arguments we're seeing from Republicans on why they're against raising the minimum wage. One being the that it will cause a negative effect on employment and the other being that it will cause price spikes that the system cannot absorb.

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As Think Progress noted, Republicans immediately shot down President Obama's proposal to increase the minimum wage to $9 per hour during his State of the Union address, claiming that it would harm job growth and make it harder for small businesses to hire. None of that is true of course, but that's not going to stop them from looking out for campaign donors like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association -- both of whom are against the proposal. Guess they want to keep that cheap labor coming!

Wingnut Rep. Marsha Blackburn however, had a different take on why it's acceptable to pay Americans starvation wages, and accidentally shot a big hole in her own talking point. Don't expect her to retract what she said if she's asked about it:

OOPS: GOP Rep. Inadvertently Makes The Case For Nearly Doubling The Minimum Wage:

Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) chose a different reason to oppose the proposal today. A stronger minimum wage, Blackburn said, would negatively affect the ability of young workers to enter the workforce as teenagers, and would prevent them from learning responsibility like she did when she was a teenage retail employee making a seemingly-measly $2.15 an hour in Mississippi:

BLACKBURN: What we’re hearing from moms and from school teachers is that there needs to be a lower entry level, so that you can get 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds into the process. Chuck, I remember my first job, when I was working in a retail store, down there, growing up in Laurel, Mississippi. I was making like $2.15 an hour. And I was taught how to responsibly handle those customer interactions. And I appreciated that opportunity.

Making $2.15 an hour certainly lower than today’s minimum wage, which federal law mandates must be at least $7.25 an hour. But what Blackburn didn’t realize is that she accidentally undermined her own argument, since the value of the dollar has changed immensely since her teenage years. Blackburn was born in 1952, so she likely took that retail job at some point between 1968 and 1970. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, the $2.15 an hour Blackburn made then is worth somewhere between $12.72 and $14.18 an hour in today’s dollars, depending on which year she started.

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If anyone thought that Jon Stewart's take down of Sen. Marco Rubio's response to President Obama's state of the union address was brutal, you ain't seen nothing yet if you missed Stephen Colbert that same evening. Colbert took a whack at those who put the pressure on Rubio in the first place, like Karl Rove and Sean Hannity, who might have been responsible for his nervousness because of the fact that they were calling him their new "rising star."

COLBERT: No pressure Marco. You're just the egg from which the new Republican party will be born, so we should put all of our egg into one basket, then count our chicken before it hatches. And while we're at it, why don't we make it a hand basket and make sure it's headed some place really warm.

Colbert proceeded to show his viewers a mash up of Rubio's flop sweat wiping, lip smacking and then reaching for his bottle of water and tried to give Rubio some comfort after what happened.

COLBERT: Don't worry Sen. Rubio, nobody noticed... that you gave a speech.

Colbert continued showing the talking heads on Fox making excuses for Rubio and with trying to show some empathy for what he was going through. I'll just let everyone watch the clip instead of spoiling it, but it was laugh out loud funny.

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I guess we all knew this was coming. During what he called his "one day old, expanded coverage" of the state of the union address, Jon Stewart had a field day with Marco Rubio and his nervous, flop sweat, dehydrated response to President Obama's speech with a series of sight gags throughout the segment. He also got some knocks in on President Obama for not making a higher priority of our crumbling infrastructure and for pretending that there's been transparency over the drone program.

Stewart saved his more substantive criticism of Rubio for his following segment, where he went after him for doing what we've seen far too often from Republicans, which is attacking the fictional image of Obama that only exists in their own minds.

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I have to say, I completely agree with Chris Matthews here after watching Sen. Marco Rubio's rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight. During MSNBC's coverage immediately following his speech, with Rachel Maddow giving a brief overview of some of what was said and her calling it a “claws out, kind of aggressive speech,” her colleague Chris Matthews was not so kind.

MATTHEWS: I thought it was tinker toys. I thought it was primitive, that it was something you'd hear on a high school debating team. First of all, he went after government as some kind of evil, then he admitted that he had gone to school on student loans. Well, I went to school on student loans, my dad went to school on the G.I. Bill. Most of us have benefited from good government. Government's worked for us. I got in the Peace Corps, changed my life. You know, I am very pro-government and he admitted he was, too.

He says "I love Medicare because of how it takes care of my mother. I took care of my father with dignity. He said I went the student loan route, I benefited from it. I got my education." Where was the consistency here? I didn't get it. He was saying he was a product of solid government and positive programs, and then he just trashed the whole thing. And then he played this victim game that everybody seems to play today.

What's the Republicans' victims. They're paying one in six dollars now, we've got six percent of GDP going to revenues. We're spending twenty five percent. Who's being over-taxed? I mean, what are they talking about?

It was almost like a YAFer speech, Young Americans for Freedom speech in the 1950's. There was no originality to it. It was basic. Again, it was tinker toys. It was a kid's presentation of a philosophy reduced to maybe the ninth grade level. I'm sorry, but that's what it was.

My thoughts were that it sounded like more Ayn Rand worship type of claptrap which is, "I've got mine and the hell with everyone else. I got my help with student loans, but the hell with the rest of you. My parents are benefiting from Medicare and we're not going to harm them, but if you're in your forties, look out because you're going to have to suck it up and have your benefits cut." As Matthews rightfully noted, there was just a ton of inconsistency and hypocrisy laced through the entire speech.

We can have a bit of fun with the water bottle moment, but ultimately I think the criticism as we saw here and the hypocrisy we've seen constantly from the Republicans with their policies and how this speech was just another example of that is what is going to matter more in the long run.

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Lindsey Graham refused to say whether he'd filibuster the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of State, but he did guarantee we'd see plenty of kicking and screaming out of the neocons who think that anyone who didn't agree with them on our invasion of Iraq is "out of the mainstream."

Graham: Hagel Pick An ‘In Your Face’ Nomination:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday that former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Obama's likely pick for secretary of defense, would be a problematic choice, particularly regarding to his positions on Israel and Iran.

"He has long severed his ties with the Republican Party," Graham said during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union." "This is an 'in your face' nomination by the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel.'

"It looks like the second term of Barack Obama is going to be an 'in your face' term," Graham added.

"Quite frankly, Chuck Hagel is out of the mainstream of thinking I believe on most issues regarding foreign policy," he said.