The Benghazi “scandal” is back in the headlines, meaning everyone is angling for a scoop, the soundbite that will gain their network countless replays. Nowhere was that more evident than on the Sunday news shows this weekend, where many of the shows’ hosts and reporters opted to give credence to the fringe notion that President Obama should be impeached over his administration’s handling of the Benghazi terror attacks.

Last week, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) — himself an ardent proponent of several conspiracy theories — said that the investigation on what happened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya will lead to articles of impeachment being filed against Obama. Inhofe claimed that Benghazi would prove to be the “most egregious” cover-up in history — worse than the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and Iran-Contra.

There is to date zero evidence that President Obama committed any crimes regarding Benghazi. But rather than relegating Inhofe’s statement to the fringe where it belongs, the majority of Sunday shows’ anchors chose to ask their guests to comment on it:

CNN’s RELIABLE SOURCES

HOWARD KURTZ: Well, at the same time, Margaret Carlson, have some conservative outlets hiked this into crusade with talk of impeachment?

CNN’s STATE OF THE UNION

CANDY CROWLEY: That’s pretty big. Do you see something in Benghazi either in the handling before, during, or after with the talking points that were scrubbed that the i-word, the impeachment word should come up?

ABC’S THIS WEEK

MARTHA RADDITZ: Let’s look at what happened because of the e-mails. Tom Pickering said the idea of a cover-up is absurd. Stephen King, Republican from Iowa, said it was bigger than Watergate. And this is what James Inhofe said

Despite the anchors’ best efforts, the guests themselves pushed back, refusing to go along with attempts to goad them into joining Inhofe’s belief in a future impeachment. “You know, they’ve been looking for Watergate for so long that, you know, they went too far on Benghazi,” said Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson to Kurtz. Even ardent believer in a Benghazi cover-up Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) demurred when faced with Inhofe’s comments. “With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue. I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things,” McCain told Raddatz.

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Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Wednesday praised the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, calling it “the greatest resource” the United States has in combatting terrorism.

Gitmo has been back in the news in recent weeks as now more than half of the detainees there are on hunger strike and more than a dozen are being force-fed. And despite the wide-spread recognition — including from the likes of Gen. David Petraeus — that the prison there should be closed and its existence serves as an al-Qaeda recruitment tool, Inhofe told Frank Gaffney on his radio show this week that “it’s one of the few good deals we have”:

INHOFE: This administration, Frank, has done so many things just totally wrong, that you almost give up trying to change that. A good example is what they’re doing with Gitmo. How many people realize there hasn’t been anyone new going in to Gitmo when [it's] the greatest resource is that we have in this country to stop terrorism since this guy has been President.

There’s no place else in the world that we can do this [detain and interrogate] and I often say that it’s one of the few good deals that we have in America, Frank. We only pay $4,000 a year for it and half the time they don’t bill us and I have yet seen one person go down to Gitmo … who didn’t come back shaking his head saying, “Why aren’t we using this resource?” And so that’s, we’ll get back to it as soon as we get rid of this president.

Listen to the clip:

The United States pays Cuba $4,000 per year to lease the land for the entire Guantanamo Bay military base, but that’s far less than what it costs the U.S. taxpayer for the detention center housing the terror suspect detainees. In fact, the prison, which has been dubbed “the most expensive prison on earth,” costs the U.S. $150 million per year.

Meanwhile, the situation at Gitmo is becoming more dire by the day. On Tuesday, 84 detainees were reported to be on hunger strike — up from 30 just one month ago — and today that number has increased to 93. While controversy over guards’ alleged mistreatment of Qurans sparked the current hunger strike, many believe that desperation that the prison has not been closed is providing the fuel to carry it out.

“President Obama has publicly and privately abandoned his promise to close Guantánamo,” said Carlos Warner, a lawyer who represents one of 17 hunger strikers being kept alive by force-feeding through nasal tubes, told the New York Times. “His tragic political decision has caused the men to lose all hope. Thus, many innocent men have chosen death over a life of unjust indefinite detention.”

The final document isn’t even complete yet, but one Republican Senator is already attempting to slip language into vital legislation denouncing the United States’ accession to a new treaty regulating the sale of arms between countries.

Representatives from around the world are meeting in New York over the next two weeks to hammer out a final agreement on how to best regulate the $70 billion arms trade between countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is attempting finalize passage of a budget for Fiscal Year 2014. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a noted skeptic of international organizations and the United Nations in particular, filed an amendment Thursday afternoon that brings the two efforts together:

The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution for one or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, motions, or conference reports that relate to upholding Second Amendment rights, which shall include preventing the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT),by the amounts provided in such legislation for these purposes, provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit or revenues over either the period of the total of fiscal years 2013 through 2018 or the period of the total of fiscal years 2013 through 2023.

At present, it is unclear how many amendments the Senate will get to during its debate over the budget, nor precisely how much support the Inhofe amendment is set to receive. What’s clear though is that the amendment is representative of Republicans’ deep concerns over the supposed threat the Arms Trade Treaty would pose to American’s Second Amendment rights. Those concerns have been debunked by American Bar Association, making the continued attempts by Congressional Republicans to preemptively block the treaty utterly baseless.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is currently chair of the Senate Budget Committee and is unlikely to utilize the authority Inhofe’s amendment would grant. Since the language would only apply to this year’s budget, the Oklahoman’s action can be seen as more symbolic than a real threat to the U.S. The threat posed by the Senate itself, however, is very real. Even the most benign of treaties has had a tough time reaching the two-thirds approval required for ratification, thanks to Republican fear-mongering and obsequiousness.

The fight over the ATT will likely grow in volume once the conference debating it approves a final text. Already there is legislation filed in the House and Senate to condemn the treaty. Approval of a final treaty is by no means certain though, thanks to groups like the National Rifle Association, which is already working to render the ATT dead on arrival.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in the waning minutes of the fight to confirm Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense attempted to tie Hagel to Iran’s past denial of the Holocaust.

Speaking from the floor of the Senate, Inhofe, the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, began by noting that he’d just watched the 1993 film Schindler’s List for the first time three days ago. The Oscar-winning film depicts a story in the midst of the Holocaust, in which over six million Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and others were systematically killed, an event that Iranian government officials have denied actually happened.

Inhofe expressed his amazement that any state could deny such an event, then brought the whole thing back around to surreptitiously question Chuck Hagel’s support for Israel:

INHOFE: But I think the mere fact that they would say — Iran would say that the Holocaust didn’t exist. Keep in mind, I know the response to this. They say, we don’t have any control over who supports this. Isn’t it interesting, though, that Iran supports Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense? I mean, they — arguably, they could be considered to be the most — the greatest foe that’s out there for the United States, recognizing the capability that they’re going to have and statements they have a made about the United States of America. That is a frightening thing.

Watch his comments here:

The Iranians responded to the Hagel nomination by taking a backhanded swipe at the United States for its policies. The neocons picked up the comment, claiming that Iran supports Hagel, but as one expert observed, “The Iranian regime is hardly cheering Hagel on.”

Inhofe in particular has been attacking Hagel for this for weeks, including during Hagel’s confirmation hearing. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) took to task Inhofe’s pushing the Iranian “endorsement” line during the last meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, questioning whether he and his colleagues would appreciate it if “the worst group you could imagine” endorsed them.

The Senate Armed Services Committee today voted to move Chuck Hagel’s nomination to become Secretary of Defense to the full Senate on Tuesday afternoon with a vote of 14 to 11, with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) yet to vote, split down party lines.

“Senator Hagel has received broad support from an array of senior statesmen and foreign policy dignitaries,” Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said before the vote. Levin continued to list the impressive array of endorsements that Hagel has received, noting the long-list of positions Hagel holds that stand firmly in the mainstream.

A vote on the floor of the Senate could come as soon as tomorrow, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Reid today announced that he would not honor holds — informal filibuster threats placed by individual Senators — from the GOP, forcing them to actually filibuster the nomination to prevent it from coming to a vote.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has already pledged to lead the charge in a filibuster, the first against a Defense Secretary nominee, once the nomination hits the Senate floor. Inhofe, during the discussion before the vote, cited how pleased he was that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) displayed his misleading evidence during Hagel’s testimony. Cruz and Inhofe also implied during the hearing that Hagel has taken money from Saudi and possibly other foreign governments, an argument without proof that found itself harshly challenged.

Inhofe’s plan is unlikely to succeed, though. Several GOP members have already pledged to either vote for Hagel — such as Sen. Thad Chochran (R-MS) — or oppose a filibuster — like Hagel opponent Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — making the odds of Republicans mustering the 41 votes necessary to prevent cloture on the debate unlikely. While a movement is growing to have a sixty vote threshold for Hagel that is somehow not a filibuster, Hagel has more than enough votes on his side to easily clear the majority required for final confirmation.

Neocons and their allies have been attacking Hagel since weeks before its official announcement. In their desperation in recent weeks, Republicans are throwing everything they can at the nominee, in hopes of derailing him. Instead, their efforts are proving ineffective at best, damaging to their own party at worst.