World News Korner

It's a Boisterous Benghazi Bukakke for the Republicans and their Right Wing propagandists.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) issued a subpoena Friday for Secretary of State John Kerry to testify before his panel on May 21 over Benghazi.

Today I announced a subpoena requiring Secretary Kerry to testify at a public @GOPoversight hearing on May 21. #Benghazi
— Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 2, 2014

Issa made no suggestion that Kerry -- who was a senator during the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi -- was guilty of wrongdoing.

"State Dept's response to congressional investigation of #Benghazi has shown a disturbing disregard for its legal obligations to Congress," the GOP chairman wrote on Twitter.

He continued, deploying the hashtag #Benghazi in a series of follow-up tweets: "Compliance with a subpoena for documents is not a game. The State Dept has failed to meet its legal obligations. ... Secretary Kerry must answer questions about the State Dept's response to the congressional investigation. Yesterday, BGen Lovell testified that the State Dept never asked military forces to go save Americans in #Benghazi during the attack."

Here is the letter that Issa sent to Kerry here. In it Issa suggests that he is thinking of charging the State Department with a criminal offense.

No, seriously.

Of course as most of know John Kerry was not the Secretary of State during the Benghazi attack, and it is abundantly clear that the real focus of this inquiry is the previous SOS, and future presidential candidate.

Issa is not alone in launching this assault.

Courtesy of TPM:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) intends to form a select committee to investigate the 2012 Benghazi attacks, he announced Friday.

"[T]he House will vote to establish a new select committee to investigate the attack, provide the necessary accountability, and ensure justice is finally served," the Speaker said in a statement.

It is beyond clear that his new memo has reinvigorated the Republican scandal manufacturing faction, and even though it had virtually nothing to do with Benghazi it was the lifeline that the Right Wing had been praying for.

In fact so focused are the conservatives on Benghazi that Fox News is uninterested in covering much of anything else:

Fox News stopped airing President Barack Obama's joint press conference Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel because, the network said, reporters weren't asking him about Benghazi.

The topic has animated the conservative news network, and especially so Friday because Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had just announced the House will vote to establish a select committee to investigate the Obama administration's response to the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate that left four Americans dead.


When cutting away from the news conference, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner was quite blunt about the fact that Benghazi was all Fox wanted to discuss at that moment.

"If in fact somebody throws him a question on this topic, we'll go back to that joint news conference with Angela Merkel and you could hear the translation points. We're going to move on here with what is breaking," Faulkner said.

The president wasn't asked about Benghazi, and the network didn't return to the joint press conference with the two U.S. and German leaders.

This memo is really nothing. But then the Republicans don't have anything else.

With the health care numbers going through the roof, and the economy on the mend, what other basket does the Right Wing really have to put all of their eggs into?

So I have a feeling that from now until November it will be "Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!"

Source