Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have been at the forefront in trying to scare the public into thinking the automatic military spending cuts set to take effect in January will decimate the military (they won’t).

But the two Republican senators took their hysteria to a whole new level in an interview published today on the Newsmax website. In the 12 minute-long segment full of hyperbole and alarmist distortions, McCain said the defense sequester would “literally” — literally — prevent the United States from defending itself.

But that wouldn’t necessarily mean the U.S. would really lose all its weapons, ammo, fighter jets, helicopters, missile defense, nuclear weapons, etc. — would it? Yep. That is if you believe Lindsey Graham. Not only that, Graham says the sequester “would be the most destructive thing in the world(!)”:

MCCAIN: Those cuts in the words of the Secretary of Defense and all our uniformed leaders have said would jeopardize our national security. … Lindsey Graham and I and Kelly Ayotte and others are trying to warn the country of the devastating effects of this quote sequestration and, literally, our inability to defend the nation. …

GRAHAM: It would be, in the words of Leon Panetta, a brigade without bullets, a Navy without ships, an Air Force without trained pilots. It would be like shooting yourself in the head. It would be the most destructive thing in the world.

Watch the interview:

Now to be fair to Sens. McCain and Graham, it seems they may have learned a lot of this baseless hyperventilating from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. But neither he, nor they, have ever offered any specifics as to why the automatic military spending cuts would be so terrible.

There’s no doubt that sequestration — which is an across the board $500 billion cut to military spending over the next decade — is the wrong way to reduce the Pentagon’s bloated budget.

But the reality is that if the sequester were to take effect, the U.S. would be spending more on the military in 2013 than it did in 2006. Graham and McCain probably weren’t concerned about whether the United States could defend itself back then.

CAP’s Lawrence Korb yesterday debunked much of the frenzy surrounding the defense sequester, including the spurious warnings about job losses. Korb notes that those seeking alternatives to the “meat ax approach” of sequestration can take a look at a plan “laid out by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, would achieve the same level of required savings under the Budget Control Act, but implement the cuts more gradually.”

But ultimately, Korb notes, after sequestration, “the United States will still account for 40% of the world’s military expenditures — 70% if you combine that with what our allies spend.” That’s probably more than enough to defend a nation with.

Even as the national unemployment rate ticked up ever so slightly in July, the unemployment rate for veterans fell to its lowest level in more than three years, dropping to 6.9 percent. That figure is the lowest monthly unemployment rate for all veterans since before President Obama took office.

The Obama administration has championed legislation aimed at reducing the unemployment for veterans, including the passage late last year of tax incentives to businesses that hire veterans and signing an executive order to help as many as 126,000 veterans receive certification and training necessary for various manufacturing jobs around the country. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, 25,000 of the new jobs added in July were in the manufacturing sector.

The unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars remained higher than the national unemployment rate, but it too appears to be trending in the right direction. The July unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was 8.9 percent in July, the lowest it’s been since February, and just the second time the figure has fallen below 9 percent since December 2009:

Mitt Romney refused to condemn Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other Republicans who have alleged that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is part of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to infiltrate the American government. During an event in Reno, Nevada Romney dodged a question about the allegations, saying simply, “I’m not going to tell other people what things to talk about. Those are not things that are part of my campaign.” A growing number of Republicans, including House Speaker John Beohner (R-OH) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have condemned Bachmann. Watch Romney’s remarks:

This isn’t the first time the former Massachusetts candidate has failed to speak out against extremists in his own party. Romney refused to directly repudiate Donald Trump’s claims that President Obama was born in Kenya just hours before he is scheduled to appear with the reality T.V. star for a fund raiser in Las Vegas, NV. He also wouldn’t decry Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” or speak out against social conservatives who opposed his decision to hire an openly-gay national security spokesperson.

Romney’s foreign policy adviser John Bolton, however, has defended Bachmann’s call for the government to investigate the alleged Muslim Brotherhood plot.

Women in Saudi Arabia still can’t drive, but today Wojdan Shaherkani became the first Saudi woman ever to compete in the Olympics. Saudi officials finally agreed last month to send two women along with the Muslim country’s Olympic squad to London, after initially claiming that no women had qualified. Shaherkani lost her judo match to Melissa Mojica of Puerto Rico in just 82 seconds, but the event was indeed historic, as the New York Times observed:

The 10:33 a.m. elimination match in women’s judo, 172-pound-plus category, was unremarkable, just another quick bout on the assembly line of judo matches that took place throughout Friday morning. That is, it was unremarkable, athletically speaking.

Historically, politically and socially speaking, it was another thing altogether.

“In white,” the announcer declared, as the two judokas walked into the arena, “the first woman ever from Saudi Arabia, Wojdan Shaherkani.”

And even though Shaherkani lost, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. “I’m proud, I’m happy and I want to continue in judo. I want to thank the fans for their support,” she said after the event, adding, “I was disturbed and afraid at the beginning, it was my first time in a big competition and there was a lot of pressure because of the hijab issue.”

Judo officials originally said Shaherkani would not be allowed to compete wearing a hijab, but a deal was struck to allow her to wear a black swimming cap instead.