We’ve been so consumed with the Death of America this past week that we haven’t much focused on… the Death of the Tea Party Convention! Everyone who signed up is pulling out — including, most recently, wacky old Michele Bachmann. Teabaggers have been furious that tickets are going for $549, the profits from which will go towards some white trash con-man’s bank account. So far, Sarah Palin is still set to speak for her $100,000 fee. Let’s pray for riots. Many… many… riots. [Star Tribune]

• Newt Gingrich predicts Michele Bachmann will soon chair the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Sure Newt, you cumsucker. We’re tired of your empty promises! [Think Progress]
• The ‘True’ Person of The Year 2009: obviously YOU, THE COURAGEOUS TEABAGGER! [RedState]
• The FAA is staffed by a bunch of disingenuous winos. [Hit & Run]
• China hacks the dickens out of Matt Yglesias in 3,2,1… [Matt Yglesias]
• The White House Christmas Sapling is basically covered from top to stump in “Mao balls” and “transvestites.” [Gateway Pundit]

Hey guys, nevermind, you don’t have to bother asking God to forgive our nation anymore while everyone else in the room moans, Michele Bachmann just took care of that. Oh and also, you don’t need to shout-pray in your raspiest whine for God to kill the Senate health care bill anymore either, some other crazy person already up and did it. [Rumproast]

• Who says a Christmas tree is incapable of being kosher? The Jerusalem Rabbinate, that’s who. [Matt Yglesias]
• Mike Enzi gives the Senate health care bill a big fat F because when he asks for 3,000 pages double-spaced in 12 point Times New Roman, he is not looking for 2,074 pages in Helvetica. That’s an incomplete assignment. [Think Progress]
• Save the SEALs from being bludgeoned to death by Robert Gates and other cruel poachers! Please sign the petition. [RedState]
• Sarah Palin deploys the Royal We in a super secret sexy nipple-hardening note to Michele Bachmann. [TPM]
• Andrew Sullivan’s swimsuit calendar/coffee table book has sold out! And the War on Christmas continues. [The Daily Dish]

• HILL OPERATIVES, WE NEED YOU: Much as we’d love to visit the Super Bowl of Retardation this afternoon, we are somewhat low on regular staff these days (have you noticed?) and someone must be “at the desk.” Operatives, this is your time to shine! Tips@wonkette.com! Send photos of Rand Paul breaking into your boss’s office! And if you send e-mails like, “I can see the west lawn of the Capitol from my window, and the entire lawn is full of tea partiers,” maybe attach a photograph.

• BACHMANN’S CHIEF OF STAFF QUITS: Michelle Marston, who has helped Michele Bachmann project her radioactive insanity to a larger audience since becoming chief of staff in early 2008, quit that job today — one day before Bachmann’s “Super Bowl of Freedom,” on Capitol Hill. Marston will not disclose her reasons, which is great, because now we all can just make shit up! THEY HAD A BIG FIGHT B/C THEY HATE EACH OTHER, a “well-sourced Washington lawyer” tells us. [Politico]

Person for whom there are no more nicknames Michele Bachmann is teaming up with the #1 asshole in Congress, Iowa’s Steve King, to throw “a big party” on the National Mall this Thursday against health care reform, the worst idea since 9/11 and, before that, the Holocaust. Also on the “worst guest list you can imagine” guest list are Betsy McCaughey, Jon Voight, and Mark Levin of National Review. As best we can interpret, the “idea” is for wingnuts nationwide to travel to Washington, get loaded on free kegs of cat piss, and then go yell at every member of Congress about freedom and liberty. What a steal! MORE »

THE WEEKEND’S MOST SHOCKING NEWS: From this George Will column in which he praises Michele Bachmann “George Will style” (huffs gently in approval): “When [Bachmann] was a teenager in Anoka, Minn., she was a nanny for a young girl named Gretchen Carlson. Today, Carlson, a Stanford honors graduate who studied at Oxford, is a host of ‘Fox & Friends,’ the morning show on — wouldn’t you know — Fox News Channel.” We knew the whole “Gretchen Carlson” character was just some over-educated alien’s performance art. Where did the Michele Bachmann touch you, Gretchen? [Washington Post]

It’s official: Poo poo platter BILL O’REILLY wants to finger-bang the snot out of Minnesota Medusa MICHELE BACHMANN. Say no, Michele! You have a husband, a family — What would your son GRENDEL think? Baby Jesus himself would probably have a hernia. But Bill has a certain charm to him and he’s so soft and warm, like a shard. Temptation! … MORE »

O’Reilly’s figured it out! MORE »

• Wolf Blitzer exposes SNL with his award-winning muckraking journalism. [Hot Air]
• Hundreds of fake doctors (including Jeff Gannon) were forced to wear lab coats and say flattering things about socialized medicine. [Michelle Malkin]
• Michele Bachmann does not know anything about MSNBC. She doesn’t know how to spell MSNBC and she doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t know what MSNBC stands for, or if it stands for anything at all. Maybe it’s Spanish. She just doesn’t know. [TPM]
• Guess who wants to stick his public option in your pooper? You know who. [RedState]
• Barack Obama is the the world’s most popular dictator. [Think Progress]

Harried Money Emperor Ben Bernanke testified in Congress again today about upcoming financial regulation measures and apparently pleased the Socialists by saying that increased transparency won’t do the trick — you have to straight-up ban certain financial instruments, starting with, say, the ones where lenders throw trillions of dollars of credit at random hobos without so much as even asking their names. Rep. Michele Bachmann was awarded some valuable questioning time during this taxpayer-funded government meeting, and got right to the heart of the matter: what are you going to do about ACORN, and is there going to be a New Global Currency that we’ll have to use by like tomorrow? Barney Frank and Ben Bernanke take these questions very seriously. [HuffPo, YouTube]

Here is overrated piece of performance art Michele Bachmann suggesting on the House floor last night that, you know actually, if you look at the first letter of the first word on each even-numbered page of the latest iteration of the Democrats’ health care bill, it spells out the following: “CHILDREN, TEENAGE CHILDREN, COULD BE HAVING SEX WITH DRUG PEOPLE AND GETTING ABORTIONS FIVE MINUTES LATER, AND REPEATING THESE UNCOUTH SEX TRICKS AD VITAM AETERNAM, AND YOU WOULD BE NONE THE WISER.” It’s true! MORE »

• Matt Yglesias wants to sex machen with German Mädchen, big time. [Matt Yglesias]
• Rush Limbaugh was curled up on his La-Z-boy. He had just finished reading Du Bois’ The Souls of White Folk and was feeling particularly vulnerable. Opiates helped relieve the pain, but it’s hard being white in a black man’s world. Rush cut up a few lines of Oxycontin with his Price Chopper Chopper Shopper Card. I will start the white civil rights movement he thought to himself. And then he celebrated with some Oxycontin up his nose. [Think Progress]
• For the man who has everything except a Michele Bachmann action figure. [TPM]
• The brave Americans who defended Alaska from the Japanese during the Battle of Midway will receive a pension of Zero Yen if Barack Obama has his way — and he always has his way! Meanwhile, Barack is busy eating ice cream cones. Despicable. [RedState]
• Onward, Christian soldiers! [True/Slant: Laurie Essig]