So, do you remember this morning when the national service bill (formerly known as the GIVE Act) was at the top of the day's schedule, slated for consideration under suspension of the rules?

Well, you've surely noticed by now that they skipped right over it and went on to the rest of the agenda. I sure did.

Uh-oh.

Well, it seems that the bill that passed with 70 Republican votes on the 18th and 321 votes in total was in trouble under suspension after all, and the leadership had to pull it from the schedule. Predictable enough.

Equally predictable: That Hill Republicans would magically "echo" the wingnut panic (the origin of which probably goes back to a tip from DC, anyway) and start withdrawing support for the bill, probably citing an irrational and inexplicable fear of provisions they themselves inserted into the bill on a motion to recommit.

Interestingly, on the subject matter of that motion to recommit, Republican rhetoric has folded back on top of itself. Check out the talking points on it being circulated by the RNC Republican Study Committee:

RSC INFO ALERT: Problems with the GIVE Act

*The Senate Amendments to H.R. 1388 removed vital language included in the Motion to Recommit on the House side.  The co-location provision was removed which means that any organization that co-locates with ineligible organizations - including those who provide or promote abortions - may still receive assistance in this bill.  This means that Planned Parenthood is still eligible to receive grants and volunteers, as long as their volunteers or grants are not used to directly provide or promote abortion services.

The argument from the RNC RSC is that the language from the MTR is "vital," despite the argument in Wingnutistan that it's the very embodiment of creeping volunteerofascism. At least they're standing by their original position on the MTR, which got unanimous support from House Republicans. I'm sure that'll please the howlers among the base.

That's some play, though, eh? Insist on a motion to recommit with language codifying existing regulations on the national service programs, vote for the motion unanimously, then watch the wingnut base go apeshit when they just happen to find those provisions and mangle their interpretation so badly that the Republicans' own amendment is interpreted as some kind of Obama power grab. Then, once those same provisions are back out of the bill (thanks to the Senate's adoption of its own substitute), use their removal as an excuse to vote against the bill.

Ta-da! Neat trick!

And that ain't all. The rest of that point is pretty cockeyed, too. Planned Parenthood doesn't get any funding under current national service programs, and it gets none under this bill.

Hell, what else ya got in that memo?

*The provision prohibiting organizations indicted for voter fraud was removed, thus allowing groups like ACORN to receive assistance under this bill.

Ah, what would a Republican memo be without an invented attack on ACORN? But ACORN, too, receives no current funding and gets none under the bill.

So that's one invented attack against provisions that Republicans added on their own motion, then opposed over the weekend in Wingnut La-La Land, but now oppose the removal of, and two attacks against their stand-by boogiemen, Planned Parenthood and ACORN, which also don't actually have anything to do with the actual bill.

I wish I could say this was a brand new invention by a better, brighter and sneakier GOP, but it's not. This bill is a holdover from the last Congress, and at that point, Republicans also pulled some motion to recommit chicanery that ended up killing the bill. Using the then-still-existent motion to recommit with instructions to report back "promptly," (background here) Republicans moved to amend the bill to require criminal background checks for volunteers. No one's against that, of course. In fact, it was already required by federal regulations. But a "promptly" instruction, in one of the stranger traditions of the House, was something that sounded like it would fix a problem quickly, but actually killed any bill it was attached to.

The choice, then, was to appear to vote against background checks (even though they would be required anyway, no matter what the vote said) and thereby save the bill, at least for the time being, or to appear to vote for them, but thereby kill the bill. The House leadership ended up pulling the bill from consideration entirely.

Now here we are again, with much the same play developing, but with the added for-it-before-they-were-against-it twist. The "promptly" instruction no longer available to them, Republicans instead offer another motion to recommit seeking to codify existing regulations, then use those same common-sense regulations (for which they all voted) to panic their base. Seeing the pattern of using these motions, House leaders sought to protect the bill by considering it under suspension of the rules, where no motion to recommit is permitted. But over the weekend, the panic succeeded in "changing" enough "minds" that passage under suspension became impossible.

The bill comes back tomorrow under regular order. And yes, that'll subject it to still more shenanigans.

For a bunch of complainers who constantly say it's somehow un-American to vote on legislation that's sprung on the House on short notice and with little opportunity for debate, the Republicans sure do love the motion to recommit -- a procedure that allows amendments to be kept secret until the moment they're offered, and which are debatable for only 10 minutes.