The GOP is at it again.  That bastion of social welfare, the Heritage Foundation (they must be an organization devoted to doing work in the realms of Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals as they enjoy tax-exempt status under their 501(c)3 designation, right?)  wrote a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor urging them to stop doing the work they were sent to Washington to do in favor of ratcheting up “scandals” in the Obama administration.

As Joy Reid reported for The Grio,

The letter, which is addressed to House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, trumpets the negative media buzz surrounding the White House, saying that, “for the first time, the activities of the Obama administration are receiving a sustained public vetting.  Americans’ outrage over Benghazi is amplified by the Internal Revenue Service’s intimidation of conservative grassroots organizations and a cascade of negative headlines.  There is the real sense the Obama administration has been less than forthright with the American people, the press and lawmakers.”

Keep the focus off our differences

In light of the white hot media spotlight on the administration, and to deflect attention from the many policy areas where Republicans don’t quite get along, the letter urges: “it is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican Conference.”

“To that end, we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference.  Legislation such as the Internet sales tax or the FARRM Act which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another ‘circular firing squad’ article.”

The letter is signed by Heritage Action’s Chief Executive Officer, Michael A. Needham.

That is a scandal.  Another scandal is Guantanamo Bay.  Yes, I blame President Obama for the fact that it’s still open and that 80+ detainees long cleared for release are on a hunger strike, believing they’d be better off dead than imprisoned there any longer than the decade and then some they’ve already been there.  Jason Leopold has been doing some amazing reporting on Gitmo, and just returned from five days there.  He joined me this morning in advance of two articles to be published this week by Al Jazeera English.  Stay tuned…

And Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars showed us how the right is following their Heritage Foundation marching orders with their appearances on the Sunday talking head shows yesterday:

The Heritage Foundation has instructed the congressional Republicans that they do not govern but continue on their relentless pursuit to drag President Obama through scandal after scandal.   And they are nothing if not dutiful to their authoritarian overloads.  So this Sunday was all about their outrage over the scandals and non-troversies, irrespective of the facts.

Who better to ask about government accountability than unconvicted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld?

Ayn Rand’s toy poodle Rand Paul isn’t letting up on Benghazi, determined to go after the Democrat he’ll most likely face in the 2016 presidential election if he’s dumb enough to run: Hillary Clinton.

Our Lady of the Bourbon Peggy Noonan called these trumped up trifecta of scandals “worse than Watergate” which even David Gregory couldn’t swallow. When you’ve lost Dancin’ Dave, that’s saying something.

Paul Ryan –remind me again why he’s relevant—tells Chris Wallace that the IRS connection to Obamacare (because the IRS is going after tea parties, those big meanies) is ‘rotten to the core’.

And Karl Rove insists that his dark money-filled SuperPAC deserves its 501(c)4 status, because just like the NAACP, it’s for ‘social welfare’.

Finally, deputy WH Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer tells George Stephanopoulos that the GOP owes Ambassador Susan Rice an apology and Stephie plays dumb.  Frankly, after that stunt ABC News’ Jonathan Karl played this week, I say that ABC owes her an apology too.

And finally, with some help from Addicting Info, we played a game of  “Whose Headline Was It — Fox ‘News’ or The Onion?”