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Multiple GOP-affiliated groups are calling for presidential candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson to be invited to an upcoming televised debate in New Hampshire. The debate’s hosts, CNN as well as the New Hampshire Union Leader and WMUR-TV, say they will not include Johnson because he has not received more than 2 percent support in any major national polls.

Since the Wall Street bailout was signed into law last October, critics of the strategy have often been met with a central reassurance from leaders of the

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer yesterday signed a bill that makes abortions “based on the sex or race of the fetus” a felony in the state of Arizona

Abu Aardvark frets that the attention paid to shoe-thrower Muntader al-Zaidi will distract from Human Rights Watch’s brand new report about the kangaroo state

NPR has a story today on the ties between Arizona’s immigration law, SB 1070, and private prisons that stand to benefit from more illegal immigrants being

Lambda Legal , a New York-based organization committed to winning gay civil rights through the courts, announced in a press release Tuesday that it would challenge New Jersey’s 2006 same sex civil unions law for failing to bring full equality to gay residents of the state. Lambda, which is teaming with New Jersey LGBT group Garden State Equality , will refer to government studies and press investigations that document the way employers have failed to recognize couples entered into a civil union and how civil unions have been ignored or misunderstood by authorities, often in instances involving critical medical decisions. Colorado nearly passed a civil unions bill this spring that its main sponsors, Sen Pat Steadman and Rep Mark Ferrandino, acknowledged fell short of full equality

For the past four years, every time Moqtada Sadr has made this-or-that tactical retrenchment -- standing down from the August 2004 Najaf battle; going to

No shocker here: People are mad at Washington. From The Washington Post: Two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied or downright angry about the way the

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was on Tuesday named chief of the Democratic National Committee . # Wasserman Schultz represents Florida’s 20th congressional district, which covers parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties and is member of the House Judiciary and Budget committees. # The Miami Herald reports : # An email from Vice President Joe Biden on Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s ascension to DNC chief: # “Debbie has served the people of Florida – first in the Florida State Legislature, and more recently in Congress – for nearly two decades.

A community protest against the planned Corrections Corporation of America immigrant detention center (Pic courtesy Gail Tyree) With more than 100 residents demanding a stop to the construction of an immigration detention center next to the city of Pembroke Pines, commissioners on Wednesday night approved a motion to renegotiate its contract with the town of Southwest Ranches to supply water and sewage to the detention center. Pembroke Pines signed an agreement in June to supply fire and rescue services to the federally funded but privately run immigration detention center, set to be built on land owned by the Corrections Corporation of America but surrounded by Pembroke Pines and unincorporated Broward County.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen warns that the unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan may result in a catastrophic radiation release that will reach American shores. Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with 39 years of experience and chief engineer with Fairewinds Associates , told the Global Post that he doesn’t have much faith in official pronouncements about the scale of the disaster. Here are some experts: GlobalPost: Officials have said the possibility of a large-scale radiation release is small.

As the Taliban’s fighting and governing prowess improves, Sean Kay puts together a Plan B for Afghanistan over at Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel. Rather than

A committee of the Ingham County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a plan to fund an attorney that will be dedicated to helping homeowners battle the growing number of foreclosures based on faulty documents. In a meeting Tuesday night, the General Services Committee of the Board approved a contract worth up to $60,000 for Legal Services of South Central Michigan.

On Friday, I noted how the Obama campaign was happily circulating an Associated Press article reporting that President George W. Bush, in a break with

Al Franken is certainly behaving as if it’s inevitable that he’ll eventually be seated as Minnesota’s junior senator. This morning the Democrat tapped

The rapper will.i.am was all over the Democratic National Convention last week. He was headlining a big concert in downtown Denver on the night of Obama’s

Via The Minnesota Independent, shortly after the Web-tracking site Technorati revamped its algorithm for ranking blogs and other Websites, The Washington

LANSING — The Senate Committee on Reforms, Restructuring and Reinventing approved a resolution Wednesday morning that starts the process to revoke partner benefits for unmarried state workers. The benefit plan was approved by the Michigan Civil Service Commission in January.

The only question after seeing this headline is not: Should there be impeachment hearings? It’s: When do we start them? The actual scoop here is

It appears the evolution of Gov. Rick Perry’s prayer event began even earlier than recently reported in Time, and is part of a wider strategy by influential

The new December numbers just out today showing a 16-year low in new home construction are the latest in a long string of truly terrible financial

Talk about fortuitous timing. When Fred Nathan and his colleagues at Think New Mexico decided six months ago to put together a report outlining the need for an overhaul of the state’s Public Regulatory Commission (PRC), they couldn’t have picked a riper release date: Last Friday, two days after embattled PRC member Jerome Block Jr. finally pled guilty to multiple felonies and agreed to resign his post and never again run for public office, Think issued “Rethinking the PRC.” Outlining the many problems, inconsistencies and scandals that have plagued the PRC since its inception in 1996, the report calls for a complete revamping if not outright gutting of the commission, and at the least it asks that its elected officials be required to have more education or more experience related to the job.