Teabagger calls into C-Span in tears, worried that his prayers for Sen. Byrd’s death may have ricocheted through the prayer chamber and hit Sen. Inhofe instead.

For those of you who had the political bug back in the 1990s, you’ll remember that long before Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, there was Larry Klayman, the conspiracy theory-generating lawyer and founder of Judicial Watch, who sued several million lawsuits against the Clinton administration with fever dreams of White House-backed assassinations and various skullduggery.

Klayman, you might say, was the veritable John the Baptist of the Crazy, the voice crying out in the wilderness heralding the arrival of these later worthies.

So I was surprised or maybe not surprised when I heard that Klayman was briefly detained and, in Klayman’s words “worked over” by the Secret Service last week when he showed up at the White House at 5 AM to serve legal papers on the president.

Folks at the Senate and White House have had the health care reform bill a done deal so many times only to see it blow up and fall apart again that they’ve all basically gone to ground wanting to avoid any comment, leak or maybe even thought that could bubble into a new controversy that could scuttle or upend even this latest deal.

So just, mum’s the word!

A lot of you have been watching the video of the Tea Partier who called in sobbing to C-Span mortified to think that his prayers for the death of Sen. Byrd (which would have deprived Senate Democrats of their 60 votes) might have gotten misrouted through the prayer exchange and taken out Sen. Jim Inhofe. But was it a spoof or the real thing?

Like most grand philosophical questions, there probably is not sufficient evidence to definitively answer the question one way or another. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be a fun day before Christmas Eve parlor game. So we want your opinion. Listen to the tape and let us know what you think. To get you started, here’s TPM Reader JW’s analysis of the evidence which tells him it was a hoax … Read More

As a journalist, one of the things I enjoy most about running TPM is our ability to draw on our readers to help us monitor events with national implications at the local and even hyper-local level. We first did this with the “DeLay Rule” in 2004 and Social Security in 2005 and then again as recently this summer the Tea Party/Townhall crazy of August. Sometimes it’s writes up in the local press, or mail from members of Congress or what goes down at a public event. And even though knowing these things is critical for understanding national politics, these are events and happenings that are hard for the conventional national press to follow. Now we want your help keeping us posted on what members of Congress — particularly Dems — are saying over the winter recess about how they’re going to vote on the Health Care Reform bill. Read More

Police tell local members of the media they’re on Sarah Palin’s “banned list” before booting them out of Palin’s book tour in Wasilla, Alaska.

Sen. Ensign (R-NV) on the floor talking about the importance of honoring solemn oaths.

Well, well, well … we have come across highly telling audiographic evidence that the Tea Party prayer call is a hoax. Yes, I’m not sure exactly what audiographic means either. But I’ll let you know about our evidence shortly.

The Dems are expected to hold the last of three filibuster-busting cloture votes in about 15 minutes. We’ll let you know when it’s official.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) just came out officially against the Health Care Reform bill having the House accept the Senate bill without major revisions. We believe she’s the first high-ranking member of the Dem caucus to do so.

Late Update: And here may be two more.