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Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer is looking to Fox News and Google for answers as to why he is being excluded in the Thursday night debate the organizations are sponsoring. “After proudly gaining my 1 percent in the latest Fox News poll, having started with zero name recognition, I must again ask — why am I being excluded from tomorrow’s debate?” Roemer queried in a circulated statement.

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that Congress will likely stick around Washington well into December in order to wrap up

According to the offices of the Senate majority leader and majority whip, Cass Sunstein will get a final confirmation vote sometime shortly after 3:45 p.m.

Via Michael Goldfarb, the respected former South African judge who investigated war crimes in Gaza has sent a letter to Congress highlighting factual errors in

The number of new reported cases of HIV in the U.S. from 2006 through 2009 remained stable, says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report issued Wednesday. But the data also shows an “alarming increase among young, black gay and bisexual men” that requires “urgent action.” # According to the CDC , evidence from its national HIV incidence surveillance shows that the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States has been relatively stable, with approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009. The national HIV incidence surveillance is based on data from 16 states, including Florida

As the issue of oil subsidies sows discord within the Republican Party — with most GOP members sticking to the party line by defending subsidies, a growing

State Rep. Larry Ahern, R-St. Petersburg (Pic by Meredith Geddings, via myfloridahouse.gov) State legislators have introduced a new bill that has been popular among anti-abortion advocates for years.

Less than two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder testified that the long-awaited report on the ethics of Bush-era Justice Department lawyers who sanctioned

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons ) Republican presidential favorite Newt Gingrich has pledged his support for the controversial anti-abortion movement known as “fetal personhood,” by signing a pledge that has yet to be signed by opponent Mitt Romney. Personhood USA, the group behind “fetal personhood” petitions that have appeared in states across the country, announced yesterday that Gingrich had signed its pledge . In doing so, he opposes ”assisted suicide, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and procedures that intentionally destroy developing human beings” and agrees to “work to advance state and federal laws and amendments that recognize the unalienable right to life of all human beings as persons at every stage of development.” “To the best of my knowledge, I will only appoint federal judges and relevant officials who will uphold and enforce state and federal laws recognizing that all human beings at every stage of development are persons with the unalienable right to life,” Gingrich pledged

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared on controversial preacher Bradlee Dean’s radio show Saturday, stating his support for so-called “sodomy laws” and criticizing supporters of same-sex marriage rights. “This is not about gay marriage, it is about changing what is right and wrong and fundamentally changing what people of faith can say and do in society,” Santorum said on Dean’s radio show

A survey by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) found that there are at least 5,100 new credit union accounts in New Mexico because of Bank Transfer Day . The New Mexico Business Weekly reports: The number of new accounts in the state could be higher because CUNA didn’t survey every credit union, said Credit Union Association of New Mexico spokeswoman Mary Beth King. The amount of deposit transfers to credit unions was not immediately available, King said.

The Congressional recess grinds along -- somehow it doesn’t make Mike Lillis any less busy -- and yet Hill people are starting to get frustrated at the absence

Pic by Oslo in the Summertime, via Flickr On Monday, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski announced changes that would modernize the agency’s Lifeline program to give greater broadband Internet access to low-income Americans. Lifeline has traditionally provided “discounts on one basic monthly telephone service (wireline or wireless) for qualified subscribers.” While announcing a series of Lifeline reforms , Genachowski said, “Which brings us to the final but perhaps most important reform: beginning the process of modernizing Lifeline from telephone service to broadband. Broadband has gone from being a luxury to a necessity in the 21st century.” He added that “broadband Internet — wired and wireless — is the most transformative new technology since electricity

Protesters demonstrate against Arizona S.B. 1070 (Pic by ProgressOhio, via Flickr ) Former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce — one of the most recognized architects of that state’s immigration enforcement law S.B

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says almost half of the jobs created in Texas since the start of the economic downturn have gone to unauthorized

Justin Elliot catches Andrew Breitbart giving a factual-but-tortured explanation of how Big Government was not responsible for James O’Keefe’s bungled phone

In his more than 20-year political career, Colorado 6th District Republican Congressman Mike Cofffman has never lost an election. Before heading to Capitol Hill, he was a state representative and senator, then state treasurer and then briefly secretary of state. Among insiders, it has been accepted as a given that Coffman is planning to take a run in 2014 at Democratic U.S.

Protecting public lands can be a boon for the private sector, attracting companies and workers to the communities that border them, more than 100 economists wrote in letter to President Obama this week. Thompson Divide The letter (pdf) urges the president to invest in the nation’s public lands infrastructure and establish new wilderness, parks and monuments that can create jobs and jump-start the businesses around them.

Senate Democrats, back to business this week, are blasting out some snazzy graphics regarding the Bush tax cuts. Here’s one from today: The grist for the

Unlike the Republicans, who adopted the strong conservative position of resisting almost every Democratic reform proposal from the start, Democratic leaders ruled out the liberal single-payer proposal early in the debate.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) just announced that she will block the nomination of Jack Lew to be the Obama Administration’s new Office of Management and Budget

Today, the Rockefeller Foundation and Jacob Hacker, a Yale professor, launched the Economic Security Index -- a measure of not just unemployment or income, but

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards briefly joined a debate on WAMU’s Diane Rehm Show Wednesday, where she refuted the notion

Let’s unpack a claim about the Guantanamo detainees, as summarized by Marc Ambinder: It had been the hope of administration legal advisers that a majority of