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From This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz get into one of those discussions over this week's breast screening recommendations in which the Republican simply constructs an alternate reality:

BLACKBURN: ... Debbie is right when she says they forgot about people. Indeed, they did. But we have to realize, this group that made this recommendation, this isn't some outside group. This is a part of HHS. And when you look at the...

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It's an independent group. That is not accurate.

BLACKBURN: ... 118 -- when you look at the...

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It is not a part of HHS.

BLACKBURN: No, it is a part of HHS.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, it is not.

BLACKBURN: And when you look at what is going to happen with these 118 new bureaucracies with 62 directives that are given by the health choices commissioner on what insurance can be offered in this country after 2013 and what is going to be paid, you know that this is the bureaucrat in the exam room. This is how it's going to happen.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Marsha...

BLACKBURN: And this is the first step.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Marsha, there's an insurance company bureaucrat in the -- in between the patient and her doctor right now.

BLACKBURN: This is breast cancer. Well, and people don't like that, and we need to get rid of...

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: And your bill -- your -- your alternative...

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKBURN: We need to get rid of all of those insurance bureaucrats.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... does nothing to...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to stop this right now.

Yes, George. Because your job is to provide a showcase. You're not supposed to confront the guests when they make things up.

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Good for Dr. Nancy for shooting down some of Blackburn's typical partisan hackery here.

From Think Progress:

On MSNBC this afternoon, Dr. Nancy Snyderman took Blackburn to task for getting the “public health message lost in the politics.” “Now, there’s nothing that came out of this panel recommending rationing,” said Snyderman. “Just a prudent use of screening tests.” When Blackburn tried to claim that the guidelines meant “bureaucrats deciding what they’re going to allow,” Snyderman pointed out that Blackburn was acting as a “bureaucrat” standing between patients and “the best possible evidence”. [...]

As the Washington Independent’s Mike Lillis notes, the concern of the congresswomen about rationed mammograms is especially ironic considering that they oppose legislation that “would require insurance companies that cover diagnostic mammograms also to cover routine, annual breast cancer screenings for all women 40 and older.”

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Washington Journal host Peter Slen asks Marsha Blackburn about an editorial in The New York Times The Republican Health Plan and reads this passage:

It has some good provisions, such as prohibiting insurers from imposing annual or lifetime caps on what they will pay and automatic enrollment of workers in employer-sponsored group coverage. But it would not prevent insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on pre-existing conditions.

Blackburn's response:

Blackburn: Well, one of the ways to address that is going another route and getting to that universal access component that so many people want to see but doing it through high risk pools and through re-insurance and this is a model that many of our businesses are accustomed to dealing with. You know, they have different high risk for things—worker’s comp and other issues—and there is a way to do that and to address that and bring people into that, into those high risk pools. Addressing pre-existing and chronic conditions absolutely and being certain that there is a pool for that, that is set up, and there again, people can go to gop.gov and look at that, look at the bill and see how that is specifically addressed.

So the GOP's plan according to Rep. Blackburn is if you have a pre-existing condition, you're going to be put into a high risk pool. I don't believe she explained how that would prevent people from paying higher premiums for pre-existing conditions or from being denied care—quite the opposite.

Under conservative plans for health care reform, many more Americans with pre-existing conditions would find it even more difficult to obtain reasonably priced care. This is because conservative plans often seek to substitute insurance coverage purchased in the individual market for group coverage, such as the insurance that many Americans have through their employers. These proposals also call for expanding existing high-risk pools, such as the Maryland program, to provide coverage for people with chronic illnesses and costly health histories. Today’s state-based high-risk pools provide an important coverage option for some individuals, but the coverage is expensive, and it’s only available to a small portion of those eligible.

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Marsha Blackburn who never had a problem with George Bush's wars and spending at the Tea Bag 9/12 protest in Washington D.C. saying the protesters want some fiscal responsibility. That's rich. And they want their "country back". From who exactly Marsha? Their elected representatives, or from the black man they think was born in Kenya?

Gotta' love Fox for staying classy with the "Don't Barney Frank Me" sign they were showing while they were interviewing her.

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Jebus. Marsha Blackburn won't pull back from the fear mongering on "death panels" and it's even too much for Joe Scarborough to take. Blackburn actually says " but to have that heavy, long arm of the Federal government reach into something that is a very, very personal, personal decision is distasteful to me, and I think it is distasteful to our nation's seniors".

I've got two words for you Marsha. Terri Schiavo.

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Marsha Blackburn takes Ed's Psycho talk prize for the day with her fear mongering over Medicare.

SCHULTZ: Oh, it's "Psycho Talk" time tonight.

It's kind of hard to be picking these psycho talkers these days because there's so much material out there. You know, these lies they've been spreading in the Republican Party about health care reform.

Today it's Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. She's a dandy. She takes the "Psycho Talk" prize with her fear mongering over Medicare.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKBURN: I think that people want to be certain that they don't end up with a bureaucrat in the exam room between them and their physician. Our seniors are saying, look, don't diminish Medicare. We have been paying into Medicare. That is prepaid for us. It's been coming out of our paycheck for 40 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: A bureaucrat in the exam room? Can we get some videotape of that? Oh, wouldn't that be something?

Now, this is the same mad Marsha who said last month, we're not going to try emergency every time we have a Katrina or every time we have a tsunami. And she wants us to believe that she's campaigning against health care reform because she cares about people? She cares about keeping her top campaign contributor happy, that's what she cares about. That's the health care industry, of course.

Republicans campaigned against Medicare, did they not, for years? They called it socialized medicine. They tried to kill it at every opportunity they had. And now they're pretending that, oh, we're on the side of the seniors.

They're against reform that will cut costs for everyone. They're against reform that will close the doughnut hole on prescription drug coverage for seniors.

And oh, Congresswoman Blackburn from Tennessee, for lying about Medicare and playing the fear card, you're guilty of pandering misinformed, cowardly "Psycho Talk."

Marsha Blackburn (Oblivious-TN) probably could have chosen a better example:

BLACKBURN: Let’s agree that we’re going to have PAYGO enforcement. That we’re not going to cry ‘emergency’ every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a Tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending, that we don’t go call for a special appropriation that allows us to circumvent the PAYGO rules.

Well, I'm sure Blackburn will hold herself to that. I'm sure that any time a disaster threatens her state of Tennessee, she won't cry emergency and bother to get federal funding to help people in need. I'm sure that-

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Tennessee and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding on April 10, 2009.

Federal funding is available to State and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding in Benton, McMinn, Rutherford, and Sequatchie Counties.

Well, OK, fine, but that's the President, I'm sure Marsha Blackburn HERSELF never requested emergency funding for her state of Tennessee--

Members of Tennessee Delegation Urge Disaster Declaration for Five Counties Affected by Flooding

WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and U.S. Representatives Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn. 4), Bart Gordon (D-Tenn. 6), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn. 7) have joined Governor Phil Bredesen in requesting that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issue a federal disaster declaration for five counties in Tennessee "to help farmers who have suffered crop losses and damage to farm equipment and structures as a result of excessive rain and extensive flooding that occurred in May." The five counties are Bedford, Hickman, Lewis, Moore and Perry.

According to their letter to Secretary Vilsack, a declaration would allow qualifying farmers "to apply for a variety of federal farm disaster programs - including supplemental farm revenue payments, livestock assistance and low-interest emergency loans - through their local U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency office."

OK, one time, fine, but there's no history of this---

Title: Letter to The Honorable Mike Johanns, Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Date: 07/12/2007

Alexander, Corker Join Tenn. Delegation In Requesting Disaster Declaration For Drought
from the Office of Senator Bob Corker

U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker joined other members of the Tennessee Congressional Delegation Tuesday in asking U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to issue an agricultural disaster declaration for all 95 Tennessee counties due to the results of the ongoing drought.

Marsha Blackburn
Member of congress

What's your point? That Marsha Blackburn is a rank hypocrite whose statements don't match her actions?

Oh, that is your point?

Well, OK, I agree with you, then.

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Former Vice President Gore and Senator Warner testified on the American Clean Energy Security Act of 2009 this morning before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) lived up to her reputation as an ultra partisan hack by attacking Al Gore's motives on climate control. Not a wise move, as she elicited snickers with her transparent attempt.

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Rick Sanchez mildly rebukes Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) for her continued wingnuttery. As the republicans get all self-righteous about a stimulus bill which is supposed to aid an economy decimated by eight years of foolishness by the Bush administration, House Republicans practice revisionist history to minimize their own collosal failure. These proud "fiscal conservatives" [sic] let the Bush mis-administration run wild for eight years, with ne'er a mention of deficits, debt, and not once mentioning something as arcane as balancing the budget. As Dick Cheney said "Deficits don't matter."

Let's go back a bit and examine what Bill Clinton left for the incoming Bush administration:

--A $230 billion surplus, with a projected elimination of the national debt by 2012. [Bush's tax cuts nixed that idea rather quickly.]

--A total national debt of $5.6 trillion.

Barack Obama inherits a deficit projected to be well over $1 trillion and growing for 2009. The national debt now stands at $10.7 trillion, or nearly double what is was in 2000. That is $37,703 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.

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Barney Frank and Marsha Blackburn square off on Larry King Live over the stimulus bill. A few things that struck me about this interview. One, look at the body language with these two...lol. They both look like they don't want to even be on the same planet with each other, much less forced to sit next to each other at the same desk. Given how obvious that makes it that both of them really can't stand each other it's amazing they managed to keep it this civil.

But that leads into my next point. After watching, unfortunately, Marsha Blackburn in action way too often to be good for my blood pressure, she looked a bit reserved and actually a bit timid about showing her normal, acrid personality with Frank sitting right next to her. I can only imagine what this interview would have looked like had it been someone else on the set with her.

And last, John King did his best to shut Barney Frank up when he made a great point about how the Republican Congress actually behaved in contrast to Marsha Blackburn's fantasy about how they would have liked to have behaved and pretending there was someone there who cared about stopping George Bush when they were instead rubber-stamping Bush and his agenda and allowing him to move it along unchecked. Kudos to Frank for not allowing it. Every Democrat who makes an appearance on any of these talking head shows could learn a lesson from Barney Frank on how to not allow a pundit to steamroll you and let a GOP talking point go unanswered.