Walt Minnick’s got a challenging balance to manage being a Democratic congressman from Idaho these days. He’s already the only incumbent Democrat with Tea Party support. And now he’s flirting — whether in earnest of for the benefit of right-leaning independents — with not voting for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year.

Thanks to TPM Reader AH for flagging the piece for us.

In response to our initial inquiries this morning about the scam infomercial J.D. Hayworth was pitchman for, his Senate campaign completely defended his involvement. But you see a shift of emphasis now, with the campaign telling us and other outlets that Hayworth didn’t really know anything about the company he was pitching for. Which is some defense.

Also, interestingly, the campaign keeps pawning the whole gig off on former Rep. J.C. Watts, who was apparently also a pitchman for the “Free Money” guys. More on that later …

Get ready for former Rep. JD Hayworth’s greatest informercial pitchman moments: free government money, you never have to pay it back! It’s real!

Greatest moments video after the jump … Read More

In an interview with TPM, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA), who represents coastal Louisiana and is challenging Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), grades President Obama’s response to the BP blowout as only a C.

You’ll remember that at the beginning of this year we told you about a controversy about the Florida Tea Party, an actual registered political party in Florida which Tea Party activists claimed was trying to control the use of the phrase and thus the movement itself in the state of Florida. Now the party has fielded a bunch of fairly inexperienced and seemingly apolitical candidates in a bunch of races and state Republicans claim its actually a Democratic plot to confuse voters and pull votes away from Republican candidates.

Our Christina Bellantoni breaks it down.

This weekend was the annual Mermaid Parade out at Coney Island. And the mermaids were very upset at BP.

Alas, no.

Our Megan Carpentier went in with high hopes, but it turns out the story just doesn’t hold up.

Former Rep. JD Hayworth is making a pretty strong run against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as a True Conservative, Tea Partying stop-all-the-government-spending insurgent. But it turns out that right after he got bounced from Congress back in 2006 he signed on as a celebrity endorser for one of those late-night You Too Can Get Free Money from the Government informercials.

Must see. Take a look.

Blackwater, now rebranded as Xe, just got a $120 million contract to protect US consulates in Afghanistan.

A number of you have written in about that article in the UK Telegraph saying Rahm will resign some time later this year. First, I have no idea if or when Rahm is going to resign. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if he did. But. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, if I had a nickel for every big scoop on American politics published by one of the big UK dailies that turned out to be nonsense and based on nothing, well … I’d be a rich man. And that takes a lot of nickels.

The record is so bad as to almost suggest this might be evidence that Rahm has pledged to stay until Obama leaves office.