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After taking her viewers through the whole, long, ugly mess with ABC's big "scoop" on the Benghazi emails and the how the story pretty much fizzled out by the end of the week with the discovery that Republicans were responsible for doctoring the supposed quotes from the emails that they published, Rachel Maddow gave her two cents on ABC still protecting the sources who lied to them.

MADDOW: And now, part of the scandal here is a press scandal. You know what? When you get used like this and you end up publishing false information, false quotes, you have to correct it. But the bigger scandal here is not a process matter, not a press matter. There's a very stark fact that somebody in Congress right now, or somebody working for somebody in Congress right now, a staffer, concocted a big lie to try to make the White House look very desperately bad on this Benghazi scandal that they otherwise have not been able to get traction on.

Who told the lie? And a note to my journalist pals who got involved in this scandal. If your source lied to you, they are not actually a source. They are a con artist and you are their victim. It means you don't have to protect them any more. They're not a source.

When you get lied to, when you are a tool of somebody else's deception, when you get lied to, the person lying to you is no longer a source, they are news. Their lie to you is itself news and you can report that news. Republican Congressional offices shopped a false dossier as if it was a White House email. That is a story. The office and the staffers and the members of Congress maybe who did that... that is news. And if you know who it is, you can say so.

Boy do I wish they'd take her advice, but again, I'm not holding my breath.

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During what was otherwise a week of really good news when it comes to the LGBT community gaining acceptance and equal rights in states across the country, Rachel Maddow took another shot at PolitiFact during the final segment of her show this Tuesday evening -- for once again ruining the term "fact-checking."

Tennis star Martina Navratilova appeared on Face the Nation this Sunday and discussed the fact that twenty nine states still allow someone to be fired just for being gay, or if their employer believes they are gay, which is true, but PolitiFact decided to rate her claim as only half-true due to other protections or some "exceptions to the rule" as they called them.

As Rachel pointed out in her rant, that doesn't make what Navratilova said "half-true."

MADDOW: And this is why the very important concept of fact-checking has become pointless at a time in our country when we really need it to mean something. Because PolitiFact exists and has branded themselves the generic arbiter of facts and the paragon of fact-checking, and they are terrible at it.

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MSNBC analyst and former Obama advisor David Axelrod may not have been too happy with Rachel Maddow for her response to President Obama putting Social Security cuts on the table with his budget proposal, but she was exactly right here. The White House seems to want a fight with the left, because if what they were really worried was solvency of the system, they'd put raising the income cap on the table.

After Axelrod did a terrible job of attempting to explain why the administration actually believes this is somehow a good idea and claiming that what they're worried about is preserving the programs and economic growth, Maddow responded.

MADDOW: I believe you that he believes in his budget, but I think that if what he really believes in is Social Security benefit cuts, he's going to feel the ground beneath his feet give way. And I think this is the start that ends badly on the Democratic party (crosstalk).

After Axelrod tried to pretend that progressives “want to do nothing” and just leave the programs exactly as they are now, Maddow shot back.

MADDOW: Nobody's saying do nothing. That's not fair. Nobody's saying do... nobody's saying do nothing. First of all, Social Security isn't the problem with the deficit. Second of all, there is a way to fix it that has nothing to do with starving old people now or in the immediate future.

You have people pay more. And then your system is solved. If you wanted to approach it toward just solvency, that would be one of the things that's on the table. For the Democrats to not put that on the table and say it's all about solvency and not the politics, I just don't buy it.

He walked back some of his previous comments and brought up Medicare and Medicaid solvency, rather than just sticking to the issue of Social Security. He could have defended other portions of the budget such as spending on education and research and development. But after admitting that he's aware that the Republicans are already attacking the Social Security cuts, Axelrod said let's see what their position is in the coming weeks and months -- when they attempt to defend their “indefensible” budget.

Maddow was again correct in her response when she told him that their position in the upcoming weeks and months was going to be exactly where they are now. I'd say you can take that one to the bank. Good for her for calling the administration out for how cynical the politics of this move has been.

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Here's hoping Stephen Colbert's sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, turns Tim Scott's district in South Carolina blue. Despite former Gov. Mark "Appalachian Trails" Sanford's prior problems, he managed to win the GOP's nomination for South Carolina's 1st District House seat. (This is the district from which Jim DeMint resigned.)

Mark Sanford Wins GOP Nomination For South Carolina's 1st District House Seat :

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday cleared another hurdle in his bid for political redemption, defeating a former Charleston County council member to win the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat he held for three terms. [...]

With all of the precincts reporting, Sanford had about 57 percent of the vote in the 1st District to 43 percent for Curtis Bostic, the former county council member. The candidates were vying in the GOP runoff after they finished as the top two vote-getters in a 16-way GOP primary last month.

Sanford will face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, and Green Party candidate Eugene Platt in a May special election.

Colbert Busch released a statement late Tuesday saying "I look forward to a vigorous campaign that focuses on creating jobs, balancing our country's budget and choosing an independent-minded leader who shares the values of the great people of South Carolina."

Sanford, a former three-term congressman and two-term governor, said earlier Tuesday that the runoff would give a good indication whether voters have moved past his personal indiscretions.

"I'm both humbled and grateful for the response of the voters here tonight," he said later. Read on...

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This is really pitiful by even Fox's standards. As Rachel Maddow noted in the clip below where she responded to this segment that aired on Megyn Kelly's America Live this Thursday, it seems Fox is hoping to fool their blind viewers, because anyone who actually watched the recent ad being run by Mayors Against Illegal Guns would be able to tell that the man in the ad was not aiming his gun at the children in the background.

Here's more via Media Matters: Fox Analyst's Attack On Gun Safety Ad Requires Lack Of Depth Perception:

Fox News is continuing their effort to rebut a TV ad calling for stronger gun laws by falsely claiming it shows a man pointing a gun at children.

Fox News digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt criticized a recent ad produced by Mayors Against Illegal Guns that features a man with a shotgun calling for expanding the background check system, claiming that the man had the gun "sort of pointing back at the kids" who are playing behind him. Laughing, Stirewalt claimed that this allegedly unsafe behavior was "too hilarious" given that the ad's title is "Responsibility," adding, "I don't think too many Arkansans will be convinced that these people know what they are talking about."

In fact, as video from the ad Fox aired during the segment makes clear, the man in the ad is not pointing his shotgun in the direction of the children.

Stirewalt also joined several other conservative media figures in falsely claiming that the man in the ad had "his finger on the trigger" in an unsafe manner. But as Media Matters has documented, this is a false claim that critics are making based on a misunderstanding of where the trigger is on the firearm.

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After the attacks we saw from the right on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the way that their treatment of Latinos really damaged Republicans in the last election, Rachel Maddow wondered if Reince Priebus and the RNC's new minority outreach program was going to work to convince Latinos to vote for them.

As she noted, if what we saw in reaction to the nomination of Thomas Perez for Labor Secretary from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin or Rand Paul and his incorrect assumptions about Latino voters are any indication, it's probably not going to go very well for them.

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On Thursday night's The Daily Show, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow had this to say about going to the Supreme Court in person to see how it functions. Maddow heaped scorn on the justice after he characterized part of the "Voting Rights Act" as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement".

Transcript via Fox News

JON STEWART, HOST: Does he, you know, I only read some of the transcripts of what he was saying. And he was saying certain thing like, “We've got to get rid of this because it's one of the last vestiges of racial preferences,” the Voting Rights Act I guess.

MADDOW: He said that, he said when Congress re-upped the Voting Rights Act, they looked into whether or not it was still necessary. Ten months of debate, 21 hearings, 15,000 pages of evidence, and in the Senate they voted 98-0 yeah we still need that. But he said, “That vote really, what does that vote mean?”

STEWART: Didn’t he say something like, “We told them to fix this in 2006 but clearly they won’t or can't, so we have to do it for them?”

MADDOW: Because it’s not, it’s not a real vote. It’s a racial entitlement now. Voting is a racial entitlement, something that you are entitled to on the basis of your race.

Wait a second. Do you know how that sounds?

But I think he does know how that sounds, and that's the neat thing about being there in person because you can see oh, actually, he's a troll. He’s saying this for effect.

Naturally, this affront forced Fox News host Megyn Kelly to breathlessly rush to Scalia's defense, saying she personally objects to "that kind of language against the Supreme Court justice."

"I don't think it does anybody any good," Kelly said. "I think they vote their consciences up there whether they're left or right." (via TPM). Tellingly, she wouldn't mention Rachel Maddow by name, referring to her only as "a liberal commentator". (And no she didn't use the word "biotch", though you know she was thinking it.)

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Full transcript of Maddow below, along with a recording of Justice Scalia's remarks in court to the Solicitor General.

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As Rachel Maddow noted in her segment above, it looks like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence may be set to follow in Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's shoes and take over the title of Governor Ultrasound if he ends up supporting this bill that just passed his state's Senate.

Indiana Bill Would Force Women To Undergo Two Transvaginal Probes To Take A Pill (UPDATED):

A medication abortion pill, officially known as RU-486, is the earliest available abortion option for a woman. A patient could be as little as one week pregnant and take the pill to terminate. But despite the incredibly early stage at which the pill is administered, a new bill proposed in the Indiana State Senate would require women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before they are permitted to simply swallow the medication.

Indiana’s effort follows a sweeping national trend to mandate the medically unnecessary and invasive procedure as a way to create barriers to abortion access. And theirs goes a step further, by also forcing clinics that administer the pill to meet all of the same requirements as a surgical abortion clinic: [...]

UPDATE: Indiana’s bill is actually twice as invasive as most forced ultrasound bills, the Huffington Post reports. The version that advanced out of a Senate committee today would require women to undergo two transvaginal probes — before and after taking the abortion pill. There’s no medically necessary reason to require an ultrasound after an abortion procedure, since women can simply take a blood test to see whether their hormone levels have returned to normal to verify that they are no longer pregnant.

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After Sen. John McCain gave his most recent excuse for opposing the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, which is that Hagel was "disagreeable" to George Bush and was mean to him after we found ourselves lied into invading Iraq, Rachel Maddow took on McCain for his history revisionism and for wanting to re-litigate the fact that everything we were told about why it was necessary to go in there and how things were going once we did was wrong.

Maddow has a new documentary which will be airing this Monday titled: Hubris: Selling the Iraq War and it seems John McCain inadvertently has done his best to do a promotion for the special with his behavior this week, because as Maddow pointed out in this segment, if we allow the likes of McCain to pretend that going into Iraq wasn't a disaster and one of or biggest foreign policy disasters since Vietnam, we're going to see it happen again.

Here's more on Rachel's special next week: Rachel Maddow To Probe Lies That Led to Iraq War in TV Special 'Hubris':

Perhaps you think you’ve read or heard it all. Hell, I even wrote my own book about it, So Wrong for So Long,. But now Rachel Maddow is promising surprising revelations in her MSNBC special Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, next Monday night in her regular time slot.

It will be President’s Day, but it looks like she sure won’t be celebrating George W. Bush. Or the mainstream media.

The special marks the opening of what will surely be a slew of tenth-anniversary programs and other media revisits. If you want to go back yourself now: Ten years ago today Hans Blix made another fateful presentation to the United Nations on his team’s search for WMD in Iraq. It was said to bolster both opponents and proponents of a US invasion, since he still found no evidence of such weapons but Saddam was still not cooperating fully with inspections.

Why does this all matter? Well, consider this major Washington Post piece last night on Iran allegedly boosting nuclear program by pursuing certain…magnets. It never ends. [...]

It will be interesting to see if she covers her colleagues, such as Chris Matthews, backing the war, and her network’s move to oust Phil Donahue partly for opposing it.

Given the deference we generally see her give David Gregory, I doubt it. Go read the rest and Greg's got some excerpt clips embedded along with links to a few others. I read Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book, which her documentary is based on, shortly after it came out, but I haven't picked it back up since. Apparently there are going to be some new revelations that weren't in the book as well. It sounds like it will be well worth tuning in.

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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.