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House Republicans are pushing to amend the "fiscal cliff" deal that just passed in the Senate, but as Rep. Barney Frank told TPM, "if House Republicans amend the Senate bill to include spending cuts, they'll effectively kill the deal.":

"If they do, that'll kill the package," he said after a Democratic caucus meeting.

"I would not predict what these people will try to do because they are in thrall to extremists," Frank said. "But if they amend this I don't know how they think they -- an amendment basically says, our ideology is too rigid and we're not really trying to really [reach a deal]."

Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) office said his members have expressed "universal concern" with the agreement's lack of spending cuts. Rumors on Capitol Hill are that the House GOP is considering amending the legislation and sending it back to the Senate.

House Democratic leaders demanded an up-or-down vote on the Senate deal on Tuesday afternoon.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) declined to discuss whether a GOP amendment to include spending cuts would threaten the bill.

"Look, the country deserves an up or down vote on the compromise bipartisan bill that passed the Senate," he told TPM. "What we're calling for is an up or down vote. Let democracy work its will. ... Let's just take this step by step."

Here's more from The Hill: Senate-passed 'fiscal cliff' agreement in trouble in House:

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Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) says that the Republicans who hyped a conspiracy theory that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faked her concussion to avoid testifying about September attacks in Benghazi were the "same people who said that the moon landing was staged in a Hollywood set."

MSNBC host Richard Lui on Monday asked Israel if he had heard anything new about Clinton's health after it was reported that she was hospitalized because a blood clot was discovered during an exam to follow up on her recent concussion.

"I've not heard anything new about her health," Israel replied, adding that Clinton was "as tough as nails... she is strong, she is resilient."

Lui pointed out that Republicans like Rep. Allen West (FL) and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton -- as well as numerous Fox News personalities -- had repeatedly mocked Clinton by suggesting that her illness was a manufactured "diplomatic illness" or "Benghazi allergy" to avoid testifying before lawmakers.

"That's what's wrong with Washington, the people who invent conspiracies behind every cloud," Israel explained. "These are the same people who said that the moon landing was staged in a Hollywood set."

"Let this woman rest, let her get well and give her some space," he suggested. "Stop creating a conspiracy behind every cloud."

(h/t: Mediaite)

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I assume MSNBC's Martin Bashir is on vacation this week since he hasn't been hosting his show, and I'm fairly sure that if he was there, guest and "Republican strategist" Juleanna Glover would not have been allowed to get away with this nonsense unchallenged.

LUI: But Juleanna, does Obama believe only that government builds things?

GLOVER: Look, I think that the problem with that speech was not just that phrase, that specific phrase that was referenced by the Romney campaign. It was the overall philosophy. I mean, for many people in this country the belief that, you know, it takes a village to do anything and that individual accomplishment shouldn't be lauded, it rings a little bit, a little bit like, sort of the Communist mantra of the 1950's and '60's.

And guest host Richard Lui and her other panel member, Julian Epstein, just let her get away with the red-baiting without a word of protest. Unbelievable.

Here's the way she was treated the last time I caught her on this show and Martin Bashir was there and she tried filibustering Bashir instead of answering his question.

And here's some background on this fearmonger for anyone not familiar with her. From her bio at The Ashcroft Group:

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For anyone not already familiar with Frank Schaeffer, I posted this interview back in 2009 just after Schaeffer came out with his book, Crazy for God -- Frank Schaeffer, Author of "Crazy for God" on What's Left of the GOP: Today the Republican Party is rooting for doom. Schaeffer has a new book out, this time focusing on his mother rather than his father as the previous book did and MSNBC's Richard Lui brought him on to discuss the current crop of GOP presidential candidates and whether Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry should he get in, would actually have a chance at winning the nomination.

Schaeffer didn't pull any punches when explaining that Michele Bachmann's radical right-wing religious beliefs are too far to the right even for most evangelical Christians and that the more voters get to know about her, the less likely the chances of her winning the nomination. I'd say I agree with him, but of course that relies on our corporate media doing their jobs, which we know they won't unless we see a whole lot more interviews like this one. Schaeffer also did a great job of explaining how none of them actually care about the social issues other than to use them to dupe religious voters into supporting them so they can go serve their real masters after they get in office.

Rough transcript below the fold.

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This is almost as pitiful as the ambulance chasing we're seeing continue today on the Anthony Weiner story now that he's going to resign. NBC News Deputy Political Director Mark Murray and MSNBC host Richard Lui both acknowledge the criticism their network and others have received for giving non-stop coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal while mainly ignoring David Vitter and John Ensign's scandals. Rather than admit that it's because of our corporate media's golden rule, IOKIYAR, they blame it on the Democrats.

Their new excuse -- they had to cover it because the Republicans were pushing the story. And why did they ignore the Republican scandals? The Democrats didn't push those when they were going on. I'm sorry, but since when is that some kind of guideline for what your networks should consider "news" in the first place? Reince Priebus says that Weiner should resign, and that means your network has to cover it non-stop for weeks? And it's not true that the Democrats did not say anything about those other scandals. Your network, with the exception of Rachel Maddow, chose to primarily ignore them.

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Media Matters detailed very well why this latest talking point by our mainstream media that Mitt Romney was somehow a "job creator" either as Governor of Massachusetts of as an investor is sheer nonsense, but that didn't stop MSNBC's Richard Lui from pushing that talking point regardless of both Maria Cardona and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz laying out facts to the contrary. Of course contributor to Tucker Carlson's rag, The Daily Caller Matt Lewis was happy to help do his part to deceive the audience at MSNBC as well.

Here's more from Media Matters Political Correction -- Mitt Romney's 'Jobs Record' Is A Sham:

Mitt Romney is attempting to establish himself as the Republican presidential candidate with the most credibility on job creation, but the former Massachusetts governor may have trouble defending his record. During Romney's tenure as governor, Massachusetts' job growth was bested by every state in the nation except three, including Hurricane Katrina-devastated Louisiana. As CEO of Bain Capital, Romney profited as five of the companies under his firm's direction went bankrupt, and thousands of workers lost their jobs. One particularly brutal round of firings came back to haunt Romney during his failed 1994 Senate campaign, when laid-off workers protested his candidacy.

Lots more there so go read the rest and maybe someone could send this along to MSNBC's Richard Lui as well before he comes back on the air and pretends like Romney cared about or knows anything about creating jobs in the United States.

Anyone that tries to maintain that MSNBC is somehow a "liberal" network because of some of their prime time programing probably doesn't watch much of their daytime lineup which features hackery like this on a regular basis. They're not quite as bad as Fox, but that's not saying much.