remapping with robot_state_publisher

edit

I am using the arm_navigation stack and can't seem to remap a published sensor_msgs/JointState topic through the robot_state_publisher generic launch file. The remapping and tf file is:

<launch>
    <node pkg="robot_state_publisher" type="state_publisher" name="rob_st_pub" >
      <remap from="joint_states_tf" to="joint_states" />
    </node>
</launch>

The topic is published correctly (verified with rostopic echo) under "/joint_states_tf" through this node

#include <ros/ros.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <sensor_msgs/JointState.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv){
    ros::init(argc,argv,"state_publisher");
    ros::NodeHandle nh;
    ros::Publisher pub = nh.advertise<sensor_msgs::JointState>("joint_states_tf",1000);
    ros::Rate lr(10);

    sensor_msgs::JointState msg;
    msg.name.push_back("tip_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("wrist_roll_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("wrist_flex_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("wrist_roll_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("elbow_flex_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("shoulder_lift_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("shoulder_roll_joint");
    msg.name.push_back("base_joint");


    for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++){
        msg.position.push_back(0.0);
        msg.velocity.push_back(0.0);
        msg.effort.push_back(0.0);
    }

    while(ros::ok()){
        msg.header.stamp = ros::Time::now();
        pub.publish(msg);
        ros::spinOnce();
    }
}

yet the output when using

rostopic echo /joint_states

is null and but the /tf topic is published correctly.