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Members of the media refer to him as a “stunt candidate.” He didn’t appear on stage in South Carolina last week for the Republican presidential debate because he failed to hit the required support threshold– 1 percent in five national polls. He won’t pull down financial backing from the conservative oil billionaire Koch brothers, nor win over the far-right readers at the RedState blog. Yet, set against the uninspiring candidacies likely to be waged by the men so far lined up to challenge Barack Obama for the White House, Fred Karger’s candidacy could be the most influential, if he stays with it.

The opposition to the $2 billion extension of the cash for clunkers program that passed the House today is lining up in the Senate, which is expected to take up

Lou Hillman reports on the hundreds of people who protested President Obama’s trip to Wisconsin with signs like NO UNIVERSAL WELFARE and NOT ONLY NO BUT

Things are bad enough in one small-town Ohio fire department, even without Senate Bill 5, the state’s anti-collective-bargaining law that will go in front of

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer arrests a suspect in Virginia (Pic via ice.gov) Pembroke Pines residents who have actively opposed the construction of a privately run immigration detention center in their community now argue they have been kept out of specific agreements between Southwest Ranches officials and their city. Ryann Greenberg, a resident of Pembroke Pines and a member of Residents Against Ranches Detention Center , tells The Florida Independent that at least 100 people online and 300-plus people off-line are organized to block the detention center.

A screenshot of the Ignite brochure (Pic via flfamily.org (.pdf)) The leader of an influential anti-gay, anti-abortion Florida group has issued a new fundraising pitch to help gin up support for the work of its “Ignite an Enduring Cultural Transformation” campaign during the state’s upcoming legislative session.

At the end of a thoughtful post about National Intelligence Council Chairman Chas Freeman, Ezra Klein observes: But for Freeman’s detractors, a loss might

At Talking Points Memo, Brian Beutler reports that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is not interested in raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year or

Speaking of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he just published a blog post reiterating and expanding upon his commitment to repeal the ban on open

Last week the Michigan Supreme Court held hearings on the constitutionality of two budget proposals that amount to tax increases, one on high-earning state residents and the other on the pensions of former public employees. The new taxes were part of the budget for FY 2012

By now, most people have heard about The Associated Press report that Sen. Barack Obama has a distant aunt –- his deceased father’s half-sister -– living

Live Action, Lila Rose’s anti-abortion rights group , recently released a video that features “undercover phone calls” aimed at displaying how Indiana’s law defunding Planned Parenthood has no effect on Medicaid beneficiaries. The group is claiming that the Obama administration is exercising an “abuse of power” by threatening to withhold federal Medicaid funds from the state.

In a long-telegraphed speech billed as giving the west a bloody nose, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday claimed to have enriched some of Iran’s

The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted to send Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate. The margin was 13-6, with Sen. Lindsey Graham

The National Organization for Marriage continues to make independent expenditures on behalf of Republican Cindy Golding in a special election race for the Iowa Senate. The group spent $9,757 on Nov.

Building off his Sunday retaliation at Republican critics over the Mirandization and (successful!) interrogation of would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk

Among the objections from Congressional Republicans to transferring Guantanamo detainees from Cuba to Illinois is the fear that the prisoners will suddenly have

All the bad news for American workers, all in one place.

New Mexico’s oil and gas utilities have filed petitions with the state’s Environmental Impact Board, seeking to overturn rules establishing a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The utilities argue that the new rules are prohibitively expensive, the costs will be passed onto consumers, and New Mexico’s emissions barely factor into climate change worldwide

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday approved an energy bill designed to straddle the partisan chasm between Democrats intent on tackling

Just two days ago, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly cautioned reporters not to jump to any conclusions about who won the Afghan presidential election just

El Paso County Democrats joined members of the Colorado Springs LGBT community for a news conference on the steps of Colorado Springs City Hall Monday afternoon to condemn recent hate crimes in the city. According to police reports, on July 3, two male and one female dancer at a local gay night club, along with one male and one female security guard were at a fast-food restaurant at 3 a.m.