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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who calls himself a "proud wacko bird," told CBS News that President Barack Obama was plotting to make immigration reform fail so that Democrats could campaign on it in 2014 and 2016.

In an interview that aired on Wednesday, Cruz explained to CBS reporter Jan Crawford that Obama was playing a political game on Republicans by pushing a path to citizenship as a part of comprehensive immigration reform.

"President Obama does not want an immigration bill to pass," he stated confidently. "I think the president wants to campaign on immigration reform in 2014 and 2016. And I think the reason the White House is insisting on a path to citizenship for those who are here illegally is because the White House knows that insisting on that is very likely to scuttle the bill."

Crawford pressed Cruz one what he would do with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who were already living in the United States.

"I think there could probably could be a compromise on that if a path to citizenship was taken off the table," he insisted.

Earlier this year, fellow Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), one of eight senators helping to craft the immigration reform proposal, called Cruz a "wacko bird" for filibustering the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan over the administration's use of drones.

"If standing for liberty and standing for the Constitution makes you a wacko bird then I am a very, very proud wacko bird," Cruz quipped to Crawford.

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Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham -- who once accused opponents of the Iraq invasion of trying to "subvert America" -- is now blasting the The Wall Street Journal for beating the "war drums" because the editorial board expressed support for President Barack Obama's use of drones.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Ingraham what she thought of the split within the Republican Party after Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) criticized Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) filibuster of CIA Director John Brennan over speculation that President Barack Obama might target citizens inside U.S. borders with drone strikes.

"John McCain, Lindsey Graham and The Wall Street Journal editorial board, extremely dismissive of Rand Paul," Ingraham pointed out. "Wall Street Journal said, 'Calm down;' said, 'You don't have to do more than fire up impressionable libertarians in their college dorms.'"

"I thought to myself, when is the last time a Republican managed to capture the imagination of young people, some people on the left, Mitch McConnell, John Thune, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio?" she added. "There was a wide range of Republicans and people on the left who said, 'You know something? I think the attorney general should be able to answer a simple question [about the use of drones] with an unequivocal yes or no.' He couldn't do that, and Rand Paul served an enormously important function during that filibuster. He wasn't waving his hands and ranting and raving, contrary to what the Journal condescendingly said."

Liberal contributor Juan Williams argued that the targeted killing policy needed to have transparency and judicial review, but Paul was "grand standing" with his filibuster.

"But the fact is that no U.S. citizen has ever been targeted or killed by a drone on U.S. soil," Williams explained. "And secondly, the Constitution gives the president authority to go after a U.S. citizen if that U.S. citizen is somehow involved in colluding with an enemy of the United States."

"I just want to say that I love the fact that we have the hawk, Juan Williams, and the dove, Laura Ingraham," Wallace snarked.

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The charisma-hungry Republicans are fanboys at heart, desperate for new heroes. So it's not surprising that the chairman of the Republican Party on Thursday said that Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) filibuster of CIA Director John Brennan was "completely awesome."

Like, totally.

During a stop on his listening tour in Iowa, Priebus was asked if Paul's filibuster over President Barack Obama's use of drones had energized the party.

"Listen, I think it was completely awesome," the RNC chairman said. "I was excited about it myself. I couldn't go to bed. I'm still excited about it."

(Hey Reince, we'd really rather not hear you use the words "bed" and "excited" in the same sentence, mmkay? Some things are private.)

"You know what I'm excited about?" Priebus continued. "I think our party needs some unity sometimes and it's not easy not having the White House and sometimes you've got scrap and claw for issues that can unify a party. Now, that's not totally unity, but this was great issue in standing up against the president, asking some simple and important questions. And I was happy to see so many other Republican senators support Sen. Paul."

(No, it's not easy having all that money, ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Politico, The Daily Caller, the American Enterprise Institute, the National Rifle Association... why, the Republican party is just like a little lamb, lost in the woods.)

According to the Des Moines Register, conservative activists in Iowa told Priebus that they wanted to see more integration between former Rep. Ron Paul's "liberty movement" and the Republican Party.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell drew the ire of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart this Thursday evening after he decided to briefly join Sen. Rand Paul's thirteen hour filibuster of John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA. As Stewart rightfully pointed out, any of these members of Congress who sat silent during the Bush years pretty well forfeited their right to feign concern over the civil liberties of Americans now.

STEWART: Those other senators are recent additions to the Senate, so I don't mind them jumping into Paul's filibuster, but you don't get to jump in on the concern the executive branch might be trampling the Constitution train. If I remember correctly during the Bush torture, suspended habeas corpus, see if you can get the Attorney General to sign off wireless wiretapping while he's in a coma years, I believe your response to that was... yeah.

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Current TV's John Fugelsang and progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann discussed Rand Paul and his 13-hour-long filibuster this week, demanding an answer on whether the Obama administration believes that they can authorize drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil. As Hartmann rightfully noted, though, that filibuster probably had a whole lot more to do with Paul and his political future than any actual concern over our use of drones:

HARTMANN: It was a discussion we have been needing to have ever since the Patriot Act was pushed through in 2002... so to the extent that we have been needing to have that discussion, I'm really pleased. On the other hand, this was Rand Paul kicking off his 2016 presidential bid.

Paul received his answer on the drone strikes and as many have noted, he actually had his answer well before he started his filibuster, but as Hartmann noted here, the question that he should have been asking and to which he did not get an answer is, "What does 'engaged in combat' mean?" when we haven't had a declaration of war since 1941. With the rules in the Patriot Act set so loosely, the executive branch has the freedom to define those terms, as Hartmann put it, pretty well any damn way they want to. With the exception of the neocons, most Americans would not believe that the Constitution grants these rights to the executive branch.

Of course, speaking of neocons, as they also discussed, that's why we saw the likes of Lindsey Graham out there berating Paul and any Republicans who did not mind that the Bush administration was using drones but are now upset that the Obama administration is using those same powers that the Congress ceded to them after 9-11.

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Who would ever think we'd see this scenario happen again -- Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham appearing on a Sunday show talking about their fake Benghazi scandal. What are the odds? I was waiting for Bob Schieffer to give both of them a big wet kiss, he was so thrilled at the very beginning of this interview to have both of them on there together with him.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to have concerns over the appointment of John Brennan to CIA, the torture issue which was mentioned in passing here being one of them, but their fake Benghazi outrage and Susan Rice's press releases are not among them.

Demanding Benghazi documents, McCain, Graham will delay Brennan nomination:

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. will not move forward President Obama's nominee to head the CIA until they receive additional documents detailing the White House's handling of the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the pair said today on "Face the Nation."

"John and I are hell-bent on making sure the American people understand this debacle called Benghazi," Graham said, vowing to "stop" John Brennan's confirmation until further information is released about the attack that left four Americans dead. A Tuesday vote is currently scheduled in the Senate Intelligence Committee. [...]

"Her story has completely collapsed under scrutiny," Graham said. "I said this to the president: I want FBI interviews of the survivors. They were turned over to the intelligence committee and everything was blacked out. ...The e-mail about who changed the talking points - there's a big gap. I want to know who the survivors are so we can interview them.

"The transmissions from Benghazi to Washington, in real time, on the night of the attack," he continued. "What were people asking for? What were they saying?"

Using a Cabinet nomination as leverage is a classic "give-and-take," a "time-honored tradition" among lawmakers, Graham said. "And I'm going to insist on that," he continued. "I'm not going to vote on a new CIA director until I find out what the CIA did in Benghazi."

McCain said he hates to say he's threatening to hold Brennan's nomination because "the story tomorrow will be, 'McCain and Graham threaten to...'

Sorry Johnny, but if the shoe fits....

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart gave former Vice President and chickenhawk Dick Cheney some of the lack of respect that he deserves after he was out there going after President Obama for his national security nominees at a speech he gave in Wyoming over the weekend and his subsequent interview with the entirely useless Charlie Rose on CBS this Tuesday.

Here's more on that from our friends at Raw Story:

“You know,” said Stewart, “Cheney’s really confident in his opinions and analysis, probably forgetting that he sucked at this.”

He added, “Like, he was a shitty vice [president], but even if Obama wanted to take our standing in the world down a peg he couldn’t ’cause the Bush-Cheney Administration left him with no peg room. I guess Obama could’ve created lower peg space, maybe invest in deep sea peg-hole drilling technology, but unfortunately he can’t afford to because the previous administration left us in a bit of a cash crunch.”

“And by ‘previous Administration, I mean these motherf**kers,” Stewart added. “Where does he get the balls?” Steward wondered, admonishing his audience, “Please don’t say ‘cadavers.’”

“This guy was wrong every time,” Stewart continued, after showing clips of a few of Cheney’s less-than-accurate statements about Iraq that led the country into war. “Every time he analyzed it, he was wrong. You try that at work, see if you get to keep your job and be wrong every f**king time.”

As Stewart correctly pointed out here, there is no penalty in our corporate media for always being wrong. They should be ashamed of themselves for giving the likes of Cheney air time in the first place, but I've given up on the notion a long time ago that we're ever going to see that come to a stop any time soon. Once again, we're left with the fake "news" show making a mockery of one that actually considers themselves a news outlet --and rightfully so.

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Ed Schultz took a whack at chickenhawk Dick Cheney for having the nerve to be out there whining about President Obama's national security cabinet nominations over the weekend: Dick Cheney Criticizes Obama National Security Appointees In Speech :

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Barack Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.

"The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal," Cheney said in comments to about 300 members of the Wyoming Republican Party.

Cheney, a Wyoming native, said it was vital to the nation's national security that "good folks" hold the positions of secretary of state, CIA director and secretary of defense.

"Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people," he said.

John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has been confirmed as secretary of state. CIA designate John Brennan and defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel are still awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation.

As Schultz noted, coming from the man who got five draft deferments, and that worked in an administration that lied us into invading Iraq and hired the likes of Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld, that's pretty rich. And as Ed reminded us, it's just in time for the seventh anniversary of Cheney shooting his friend, Harry Whittington in the face, which is as Ed noted, probably as close to combat as Cheney will ever come.

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When your petulance, mugging for the cameras and obstruction get so bad that it's even too much for bully Joe Scarborough, you've got problems. Morning Joe Crew Rips Republicans For Hagel Obstruction: ‘It’s A Colossal Mistake’:

Republican Joe Scarborough is tired of his party’s mistreatment of Defense Secretary-nominee Chuck Hagel and its continuing, all-consuming focus on Benghazi.

The focus of Scarborough’s ire this morning on his MSNBC show Morning Joe was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s announcement on Sunday that he will place a hold not only on Hagel, but also on CIA Director-nominee John Brennan -- until he gets further action from the White House on Benghazi.

Scarborough lashed out at Graham and his neoconservative cohorts, unable to believe how misguided their attacks on the Obama administration have been:

SCARBOROUGH: If you’ve got a working class guy who has voted Republican every four years and he turns on the Sunday shows and he’s flipping around the channels and he sees Republicans in February still talking about Benghazi, saying they’re going to hold up the picks for secretary of defense and CIA director for something that happened back in the fall, and they are continuing on this…to hold up this and talk about it on Sunday morning, it’s a colossal mistake.

[...] Graham has been seeking out “the truth” on the attack in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead for months now, despite an ample amount of facts already having been uncovered. A Cabinet nominee has never been filibustered by the Senate, leaving Graham’s threat in a position to make history.

Regular Mike Barnicle wasn't much kinder. After Scarborough said the other members of the Senate basically need to tell Graham to get off of the television, he followed with this:

BARNICLE: Reading the transcripts is pretty disturbing, what Sen. Graham had to say yesterday. He basically said --and I'm paraphrasing here --if the President of the United States had picked up the phone and called someone in Libya, he could have saved the lives of the Americans.

Clearly, evidence means nothing to him. Clearly the timeline of events means nothing to him and someone should give Sen. Graham a Snickers bar and tell him to go sit in the corner until he's happy about something. It's disturbing.

I said before Graham's not going to stop as long as there's no punishment in the media for his behavior. Perhaps this is a start on seeing that happen, but until media outlets quit putting this arrogant, irrational twit on the air, he's going to keep it up.

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As Dave already noted, Sen. Lindsey Graham was back on the air this Sunday, still flogging their latest Benghazi "scandal" that somehow President Obama was disengaged during the embassy attacks on the anniversary of 9/11. I'm not sure just how much more hateful and nasty this man can manage to be before he starts getting called out for his behavior by members of the media, but Face the Nation's Bob Schieffer seemed pretty shocked and exhausted by the time Graham finished his rant here.

Sadly, however, he did not ask Graham what the hell was wrong with him or why the public should care about this drummed up non-scandal that he refuses to let die.

Lindsey Graham To Place Hold On National Security Nominees Over Benghazi Attacks:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is threatening to place a hold on key administration national security nominations unless President Obama explains how the White House reacted to the Benghazi attacks and who “changed” the talking points used by U.N. ambassador Susan Rice during back-to-back appearances on the Sunday political talk shows in September. Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation, Graham insisted that Republicans shouldn’t “allow Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed to Secretary of Defense, until the White House gives us an accounting.” “Did the president ever pick up the pohne and call anyone in the Libyan government to help these folks,” Graham asked. “What did the president do?”

Since Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey testified before Congress last week, conservatives have seized on a portion of the testimony to argue that President Obama went “AWOL” the night of the Benghazi attack.

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