The list of amendments for Rules Committee consideration is now published. Of 90 proposed amendments, one belongs to Democrats. The rest are nothing more than Republican stupid stalls.

The one Democratic amendment is Alan Grayson's proposal to allow Medicare buy-in for any age. I give it about a 5% chance of success. It's more likely that it was included here to meet his request for an up or down vote on the measure itself and foreclose the accusation that Stupak was getting more attention than positive suggestions.

Other amendments on the list are pure right wing hackery, designed to stall the process and allow them to spew more crap into the TV machine. Shining examples of Republican nasty:

• Joe Barton/Sam Johnson(R-TX) - Would require that all individuals under Medicaid have to demonstrate their identity and citizenship. (Me: Because all those poor folks are really just illegals slidin' over the border to suck up our medical resources. Yeah, right.)
• Joe Barton (R-TX) - Would repeal a provision providing Medicare coverage to certain individuals exposed to environmental health hazards. (Me: I believe this was intended to extend to Ground Zero first responders, which would be a truly nasty gesture on the part of these yahoos)
• Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has a series of 4 'self-destruct' amendments calling for the entire bill to turn to dust under certain circumstances. Hey Marsha, is there one of those for obnoxious Congresscritters too?
• Marsha Blackburn, redux: Would prohibit the Federal government from passing any law that would give it authority to ration health care for the American people. (Me: Don't insurance companies ration health care now? Why yes, they do.)
• Crazy Virginia Foxx (R-NC) has one in there to strike the student loan bill from the reconciliation act. I guess she hates education.
• One of the more bizarre amendments comes from Christopher Lee (R-NY) - Would create a 3 year / 5 state medical tribunal pilot program to be administered by the Secretary of HHS. Me: A tribunal? Wow, visions of white-cloaked men on a high dais come to mind.

None of these amendments are expected to pass, which will give Republicans the excuse to go running into the street, grab the nearest microphone and whine about how their ideas are never, ever used in Democrat bills. Let them whine. They had a chance to be serious and actually do something good for this country. Now they're just in the way of progress and need to step aside for our own good.

Well, all but Grayson. I harbor a secret utopian hope that they'll slip this little extra goodie into the reconciliation bill. It's actually quite well-crafted. But alas, I'm not sure it's Senate-proof. Yet.

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Sarah Palin confirmed on Greta Van Susteren's show last night that she's very much planning to show up and speak at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, despite the distinct odor of Scam the whole affair is giving off.

Palin: Oh, you betcha I'm going to be there. I'm going to speak there because there are people traveling from many miles away to hear what that Tea Party movement is all about and what that message is that should be received by our politicians in Washington. I'm honored to get to be there.

This, even as some of her fellow wingnuts are catching the same whiff -- namely, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn, who have pulled out of the event:

In separate statements, released by their congressional offices, the lawmakers said that appearing at the convention might conflict with House ethics rules. But they also said they are concerned about how money raised from the event will be spent.

Palin last night had no such concerns -- and said no one should be concerned about that big wad of cash the convention organizers are paying her:

Palin: The speaker's fee will go right back into the cause. I'll be able to donate it to people and those events, those things that I believe in, that will help perpetuate the message, the message being: Government, you have constitutional limits. You better start abiding by them.

Hmmmmm. It sounds like we're going to have to rely on Sarah's say-so when it comes to how she actually spends the money. Smells even more like Scam, doesn't it?

Of course, the whole scenario, as David Corn explored with Keith Olbermann last night, is developing into quite a fiasco -- mainly because Tea Partier and Birther J.D. Hayworth has decided to challenge Palin's former running mate, John McCain, in the Arizona Senate primary.

Palin is staying loyal to McCain. This has outraged the Tea Partiers, as Alan Colmes points out:

She has now chose to align herself with several bad actors. What should this be called, the Rinoization of Sarah Palin. [...]

She is certainly entitled to write a book and make money for her and her family, but other than what has she has done to support Republican and patriotic candidates. … Perhaps, Sarah was too busy talking to her agent about her Fox deal. Where the hell was Sarah?

This is what you get when you build a movement around paranoid right-wingers. There is probably no faction more historically famous for viciously turning on each other in struggles over money and power than right-wing populists.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

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h/t David

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.

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.

Shuster asked the right question of Rep. Blackburn and predictably the attacks followed. (Newsbusters) Whenever someone leaks info to right wing blogs---red flags should go up. Via Blue Texan:

Shuster's apology [re: Marsha Blackburn] may have been premature. The tiny hamlet of Bon Aqua, Tenn., is where Bohannon lived in the months immediately prior to entering the Army. The Census Bureau places his home in Blackburn's 7th Congressional District.

Media Bistro asks a good question:

Why did MSNBC rush Shuster to apologize? And, more importantly, who made him do so? Or did Shuster and MSNBC just not have the info (or didn't do the research) that Scripps dug up?

We know that Scooter Libby isn't around anymore to call NBC and complain to the Russert's of the world---so who is the new contact from the WH that's putting the heat on?

UPDATE: Oye:

FishbowlDC hears that MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams asked David Shuster to apologize for Wednesday's Rep. Marsha Blackburn incident and even wrote the bulk of Shuster's on-air apology...read on

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President Obama walked into the lion's den -- aka the House Republican caucus -- today for a blunt conversation about how to proceed with bipartisanship. Responding to a question from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., he lashed into them for the nutty and outrageous rhetoric so many of them have indulged in the past year:

Obama: Let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the health care package that we've presented ... But at its core, if you look at the basic proposal that we put forward, that has an exchange so that businesses and the self-employed can buy into a pool, and can get bargaining power the same way that big companies do, the insurance reforms that I've already discussed, making sure that there's choice in competition for those that don't have health insurance -- the component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year. Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch.

But if you were to listen to the debate -- and frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot! No, I mean, that's how you guys, that's how you guys presented it. And so I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist' -- no, look, I'm just sayin', I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans -- it's similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.

So all I'm saying is, we've got to close the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. I'm not suggesting that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy or what have you. But if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your home base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion, because what you've been telling your constituents is. 'This guy's doin' all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America!'

No doubt he was thinking of, among others, Blackburn herself. Her question to Obama was fairly straightforward and non-nutty, but when she's been out in the public, this is a woman who has defended the notion that the health-care bill contained "death panels," claimed the bill was "sacrificing our children's future," and joined the Tea Partiers in demanding "we want our country back."

But it's not just House Republicans who need to hear this. Some media folks need to be getting this message too.