The New York Times reported on Monday that Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Alter’s new book, “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies,” is expected to tell a story about how Fox News tried to use the Benghazi attacks to prevent Obama’s re-election.

“Roger Ailes covered the Benghazi story as if it were Watergate just before Nixon’s resignation, with almost wall-to-wall coverage,” Alter wrote, noting that Rivera was the only host “allowed to offer a dissenting view.”

But Rivera apparently went too far during his Nov. 2 appearance on Fox & Friends when he accused guest host Eric Bolling of telling a “lie” by suggesting that the president “went gambling in Las Vegas when he could have been saving our people in Benghazi.”

“After the argument continued for several minutes, Ailes called the control room and told the producers to cut Rivera’s mic,” Alter explained.

Alter, who is also an MSNBC contributor, also noted that the order from Ailes was unusual because Fox News employees “generally reflected Mr. Ailes’s views without his explicit instructions,” according to the Times.

Update (11:50 a.m. ET): An unidentified Fox News “spokesperson” told Mediaite’s Andrew Kirell that Ailes never ordered Rivera’s mic cut, but another Fox News exec made a call to “urge the show to move on because the segment had come to its conclusion.” In a tweet, Rivera also denied that anyone cut his mic.

During an interview with Current TV’s Cenk Uygur, Wilkerson explained that he had been told by his sources in the intelligence community that evidence that Syria had used chemical weapons was “really flaky” and that President Barack Obama should think twice before intervening.

“This could have been an Israeli false flag operation,” he said. “You’ve got basically a geo-strategically, geo-political — if you will — inept regime in Tel Aviv right now.”

Wilkerson pointed to the fact that Obama had to tell Netanyahu to “pick up the phone, you idiot,” and call Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to apologize for a Israeli raid that killed killed eight Turkish civilians aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010.

“Look at Israel’s situation right now, it’s as dangerous as it’s been since 1948,” Wilkerson remarked. “You’ve got Lebanon growing increasingly unstable with [Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan] Nasrallah and Hezbollah having more and more political power. You’ve got Syria involved in a brutal civil war. You’ve got Iraq in Iran’s back pocket with [Iraq Prime Minister] Nuri al-Maliki, the Sunnis realizing that and restating the civil war. You’ve got Saudi Arabia funding the Sunnis in Iraq. You’ve got Jordan, whose king has publicly said he wished he weren’t the king. You’ve got Egypt in an untenable position, no longer the security that Israel needed on that flank.”

“So Israel is in a very, very dangerous situation right now. The president has got to be very circumspect about what he does in exacerbating that situation. Netanyahu is clueless as to this. I hope that President Obama gave him a lecture into geo-strategic realities.”

Watch the video below from Current TV’s The Young Turks, broadcast May 3, 2013.

According to CNN, “bags of urine and flag poles” were thrown as skirmish broke out in Lafayette Park between the White Student Union protesters and demonstrators from the group May Day Workers. U.S. Park Police said at least one was arrested.

Video posted to YouTube shows the standoff between the two groups.

“What brought you fuckers out here today?” one May Day demonstrator can be heard asking a white supremacist.

“To oppose you in the name of Christ,” the white supremacist replies.

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, fascist scum has got to go!” the May Day demonstrators chant at protesters carrying Confederate flags and other symbols that many consider to be racist. “Bigots go home! Bigots go home!”

“Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Racist bigots go away!” the chants continue, until the shouting devolves into pushing and shoving.

“We were here to protest communism and to stand up for the blue collar working class. And then I got urine thrown on me,” White Student Union President Matthew Heimbach told CNN. “So it shows really how tolerant these people are.”

Watch this video from jum90, uploaded to YouTube on May 1, 2013.

Watch this video from The Associated Press, broadcast May 1, 2013.

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast May 1, 2013.

Speaking to MSNBC on the six-month anniversary of the super storm, Christie doubled down by insisting that the president had “kept every promise” that he had made to help the people of New Jersey.

“A lot of conservatives say they’re done with you, you’re finished in national politics because of what you did,” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough noted. “Six months later, do you have any regrets?”

“No,” Christie replied. “I say the same thing to all my critics no matter where they are on the spectrum, and that is that I’ve got a job to do. And the fact is that there was nothing else that ever crossed my mind in the days after.”

Author John Meacham wondered how the White House had performed since the election.

“The president has kept every promise that he made,” Christie insisted. “And that fact is, that’s what I was saying at the time. What I was saying at the time, I was asked about how was the president doing? And I said, he’s doing a good job, he’s kept his word.”

“And so, everybody knows I have about 95 percent level of disagreement with Barack Obama on issues of principle and philosophy, but the fact is we have a job to do. And what people expect from people they elect is to do their job.”

The governor added: “Since that time, I have to say, everything that they promised they would do, they’ve done. And so, I don’t have any complaints or arguments with them this morning on the issue of Sandy relief.”

Watch this video from MSNBC’s Morning Joe, broadcast April 29, 2013.

At a town hall meeting in Phoenix, a 25-year-old dreamer asked the former Republican presidential nominee to “please drop the i-word,” according to The Arizona Republic.

“Someone who crosses our borders illegally is here illegally,” McCain replied. “You can call it whatever you want to, but it’s illegal. I think there’s a big difference between someone who does something that’s illegal and someone who’s undocumented.”

“I’ll continue to call it illegal,” he insisted.

The senior Arizona senator is member of a Gang of Eight senators who are working on comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to “earned citizenship.”

“Now, I don’t know if we can achieve agreement or not,” McCain explained. “We’ve been working literally night and day. And we may not succeed. But the other members of this negotiating team, I believe, are negotiating in good faith. We’ve made progress in a number of areas that I am encouraged by, but there are still areas that we are not in agreement.”

The activist group Colorlines in 2011 began a campaign to “Drop the I-Word” because they said it “opens the door to racial profiling and violence and prevents truthful, respectful debate on immigration.”

Watch this video from KPNX, broadcast March 25, 2013.

“We cannot let President Obama keep advancing his agenda,” Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) said during an interview on Perkins’ Washington Watch radio show. “We have got to stop it at every turn.”

“You are the last bastion of freedom for this country, and we’re counting on you. So, use every tool in your toolbox,” he added.

But Perkins observed that “Republicans tend to be too concerned about keeping the majority than using it.”

“You know, if that’s where we’re at then you will lose it,” the Arizona Republican agreed.

Salmon compared Republicans who refused to use all the power of their office to oppose Obama to the parable of the the talents in the Bible, where a servant was rebuked and cast out for saving his master’s money instead investing it.

“The one that buried up his talents, was afraid that he would lose them, lost everything in the end,” the congressman warned.

Earlier this year, Salmon told CBS News that it was “about time” for another government shutdown.

“I think it drove Bill Clinton in a different direction, a very bipartisan direction,” he said of the 1995 federal governor shutdown. “In fact, we passed welfare reform for the first time ever, and we cut the welfare ranks in the last decade and a half by over 50 percent. These are good things.”

Listen to the audio below from the Family Research Council, broadcast March 19, 2013.

[Download audio]

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

At the National Press Club on Monday, Priebus said that he had initiated the “most comprehensive post-election review in the history of any national party” after getting a “wake-up call” in last November’s election.

The so-called autopsy report determined that there was no one reason that GOP candidates lost, but suggested that the party had a problem with messaging, an insufficient ground game and failed to include minority voters.

The “Growth & Opportunity Project” report recommended spending $10 million dollars Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and other minorities. The party, however, seemed most concerned about courting Hispanics. Priebus insisted that it would be a “tremendous benefit” to have a presidential candidate — like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — who speaks Spanish fluently.

The party also hoped to establish an “RNC Celebrity Task Force of personalities in the entertainment industry” and encourage candidates to speak to outlets like Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in an effort to reach younger voters.

“For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view,” the report said. “Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.”

The document suggested that the party would not budge on its opposition to same sex marriage and other LGBT rights, but “that does not mean we cannot come together on the rest of the issues where we do agree.”

On Sunday, Priebus told CBS News that he was focusing on cosmetic changes like having less debates, earlier conventions, “hackathons” and year round “marketing.”

“And so one of the things we’ve brought out of this is not just branding and marketing around election time, but year round,” he explained.

“[The debates] hurt because there was no way to control it,” Priebus added. “We were debating and bailing the Republican National Committee out of debt. That tells you a lot of the story.”

“So if it gets to technology and all of the work that we need to do there and opening our technology efforts up to an open source, setting up an office in the Silicon Valley, doing hackathons across the country. This is going to be huge.”

On Monday, the current chairman was asked if former Chairman Michael Steele had ruined the party by leaving it in debt.

“I’m not going to go there, but the numbers speak for themselves,” he quipped.

Watch this video from C_SPAN, broadcast March 18, 2013.

NBC News on Tuesday reported that the White House had canceled tours to “reduce overtime costs and prevent furloughs that Secret Service employees potentially face” after Congress failed to stop automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester.

On Wednesday, NBC reporter Luke Russert argued that President Barack Obama was trying to “stick it to rank-and-file congressmen” because they had the ability to promise tours to their constituents.

During the Thursday’s broadcast of Fox News’ The Five, host Eric Bolling offered the president “a deal.”

“Let these families take their White House tour next week and I’ll cover the added expenses,” he explained. “Word is it will cost around $74,000. If I can get the White House doors open, I’ll pick up the tab… You know this is an offer you can’t refuse. Give me a call.”

“I think we just realized that The Five isn’t your primary source of income,” co-host Greg Gutfeld quipped.

Later in the hour, Fox News host Sean Hannity joined in Bolling’s offer, tweeting, “[G]reat idea! Count me in, I will pay for a week also!”

But in all the fuss over whether or not lawmakers can give out White House tours as gifts, MSNBC host Martin Bashir pointed out that everyone was missing a very serious point that “it’s the public who are being injured by the sequester.”

For the money that Bolling and Hannity have agreed to spend so that lawmakers can give constituents access to a short walk through the White House, the Fox News hosts could also provide one year of nutritional and preschool programs to 15 of the 75 children that could be cut from the Head Start program because of sequestration.

Or according to the Nation, they could fund over 90,000 meals to hungry families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps program, which is also expected to face cuts.

Watch this video from Fox News’ The Five, broadcast March 7, 2013.

State Rep. Rick Jasperse (R) told The Associated Press that his bill — titled the “Safe Carry Protection Act” — would allow people who have voluntarily sought out treatment for mental illness and substance abuse to get a firearm license.

The measure would also do away with fingerprinting requirements for license renewals and permit guns in bars, churches and college campuses.

“Simply being hospitalized doesn’t make a person a criminal or a threat,” Jasperse explained.

Under the proposed bill, a probate judge would be required to accept written statements from permit applicants claiming that they had not been involuntarily hospitalized, unless the state could prove otherwise within 30 days.

The move to loosen gun restrictions goes against a national trend of increasing gun control after the December mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Georgia Democrats vowed to oppose the bill, but admitted that they did not have the votes to block it.

“More than anything in the wake of not just one, not just two, but a series of tragedies, for our reaction to be an expansion of the places where people can feel unsafe, to increase the efficiency of evil, I find that be just a flabbergasting decision to make as a Legislature,” Democratic minority leader Stacey Abrams said.

The Second Amendment advocacy group GeogriaCarry.org claimed that the bill was “designed to enhance the safety of all Georgians through the safe carrying of firearms by responsible citizens. ”

[Photo: Facebook]

In an excerpt from the new book published online by Vanity Fair on Tuesday, Roger Ailes: Off Camera, author Zev Chafets writes that he personally met with Ailes over a period of months.

During the 2012 presidential primary, the Fox News chief’s spokesperson had sought guidance in dealing with Gingrich after the then-GOP hopeful had accused the network of being in the tank for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R).

“Brush him back,” Ailes instructed. “He’s a sore loser and if he had won he would have been a sore winner.”

He later added, “Newt’s a prick.”

After Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen suggested that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life,” Ailes immediately countered that it was Obama who was the “lazy” one.

“Obama’s the one who never worked a day in his life,” he quipped. “He never earned a penny that wasn’t public money. How many fund-raisers does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time. He’s lazy, but the media won’t report that.”

But when it came to Biden, Ailes said he had a “soft spot” for the vice president.

“I like him. But he’s dumb as an ashtray.”

(h/t: Yahoo News)