Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security released the following statement this evening after the Salahis announced they were declining to appear before his committee …

“Late this evening, I was informed by the Salahis’ counsel, that their clients, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, may not appear before the Committee tomorrow as requested. The Salahis’ testimony is important to explain how a couple circumvented layers of security at the White House on the evening of a State Dinner without causing alarm.

The Committee on Homeland Security must understand the full scope of what went so terribly wrong on Tuesday night to ensure that security gaps are sealed. This can only be achieved by hearing both sides of the matter.

If the Salahis are absent from tomorrow’s hearing, the Committee is prepared to move forward with subpoenas to compel their appearance.”

Perhaps not inviting them would be a better way to get them to show up?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for another term at the Fed. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

The White House responds to reports that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) will push to subpoena White House social secretary Desiree Rogers over the polo-playing party crashers.

President Obama may be struggling against an obstructionist minority and seeing the economy dragging down his poll numbers. But there’s another center-left leader facing a fractured and obstructionist right over climate change and other issues. And it seems to be going great for him. Meet Kevin Rudd, Australian Prime Minister.

Immigrant-bashing group Americans for Legal Immigration is dumping Lou Dobbs for not being anti-immigrant enough.

Former Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao (who happens to be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife) tells Fox News that the current high unemployment is all Obama’s fault, especially if you skip over the last year of the Bush Presidency and compare it to the jobless numbers in 2007.

If the Secret Service doesn’t have enough to deal with. Now they have to worry about reporters inadvertently bringing guns with them when they show up to cover presidential events.

There’s a new iPhone app to help you worship Ronald Reagan. And it’s free.

This is Wild Wadi Water Park, one of the many projects — along with the full-indoor ski resort — that got built during the construction boom that just burst in Dubai.

Click the picture to see more.

As conservatives grapple with how to deal with being called “teabaggers,” a National Review senior editor mulls whether to embrace the term like blacks using the “N-word” amongst themselves: “[T]his brings up the question of whether ‘teabagger’ could be kind of a conservative N-word: to be used in the family, but radioactive outside the family.”