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New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman is questioning Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn’s claim that Obamacare caused him to lose his cancer specialist. “It’s a garbage story, it really is,” said Krugman in a back-and-forth with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on CNN after the State of the Union on Tuesday. Coburn, who announced earlier this month that he’ll resign from office at the end of the year as he battles his fourth bout with cancer, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that his oncologist was no longer covered under his health care plan.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma Democratic Party chairman Wallace Collins says former U.S. Rep. Dan Boren is considering running for Tom Coburn's U.S. Senate seat. Boren served four terms as a U.S. Congressman then went on to work for the Chickasaw Nation as president of their corporate development department. Boren was the state's only Democratic member of Congress, serving the 2nd District.

Just days after Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) announcement that he’ll retire at the end of the year, the race to replace him began to settle with Rep. James Lankford (R) expected to announce his decision to run at a Monday-afternoon press conference, sources tell The Hill. Rep. Tom Cole (R) announced in a Sunday-night press release that he will not run, citing his seniority in the House. The state’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt (R), also announced in a Sunday Facebook post he won’t run. The decisions of Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R) and Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon still remain unclear....

To answer the question that keeps invading my vacation in the form of tweets, Facebook messages, texts, and emails — Congressman Jim Bridenstine. Jim is the guy I would support in an instant to replace Senator Coburn in Okalahoma. I don’t know whether he is running or not, but conservatives would be insane to not draft him into the race. In fact, I think conservatives should draft him, rally around him, and let the establishment be the side divided behind multiple candidates. When Coburn ran for the Senate in 2004, the establishment rallied behind his opponent in the primary. Coburn...

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn will finish out the current congressional session and then resign from his seat nearly two years before his term is scheduled to end, he said in a statement released late Thursday. […] Coburn, a physician from Muskogee, recently was diagnosed with a recurrence of prostate cancer, but said his decision was not about his health. …

Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee have decided to push ahead with confirmation of President Obama’s nominee for the No. 2 job at the Department of Homeland Security amid objections from Republicans. GOP members on the panel see the move as an effort by Democrats to rush the approval of a controversial nominee by taking advantage of new Senate rules. Last month, the Senate adopted procedures that allow confirmation of presidential nominees by a majority vote instead of the 60 votes required in the past... Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, called the...

Coburn Releases Annual Wastebook Highlighting Most Egregious Spending of 2013

Coburn says he has a rare type of prostate cancer and that he has given a lot of thought to whether he wants to stay in the Senate for the next three years. Q: The safety net would be for people with pre-existing conditions ... A: Or people who are very, very poor. And so you create a safety net. That's a function of government that it can do, but it can't be managed from Washington. You know Oklahoma could run Medicaid a whole lot better than they're running it now if we get the (federal) government out of it....

The Obama administration was accused Wednesday of providing cribbed answers to 23 questions in the form the Senate received for the hearing of its nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security -- as the nominee also ran into criticism from one senator who said he won't vote for him unless he makes a major border security pledge. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., got into a heated exchange with nominee Jeh Johnson, pressing him to commit to boost border security to 90 percent effectiveness. Johnson did not make the pledge. McCain said he, then, could not support his nomination. That was...

WASHINGTON – Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has been diagnosed with a recurrence of prostate cancer and is seeking treatment. A spokesman says Coburn, a survivor of a 2011 bout with the disease, is "undergoing further evaluation and treatment." Coburn has battled colon cancer and melanoma in the past.

Taxpayers shell out $52,000 a year to maintain the home of Black History Month founder Carter Woodson. Yet the tiny, dilapidated row house in northwest Washington D.C., with a "No Trespassing" sign and iron bars blocking the front door and windows hasn’t seen a visitor in the seven years since the National Park Service bought it for $2.1 million and designated it a National Historic Site. Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla.,points to the house as one tiny symbol in a sea of dysfunction in the National Park Service. The Service, with its comparatively small budget, is, he says, a microcosm for...

The Talk Shows October 20th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Cruz; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Alternate headline: “RINO surprised to discover he’s a RINO.” No, no, kidding. It’s a testament to how much goodwill Coburn has earned with grassroots righties that he remains a minor player in the RINO/true conservative squabble over defunding despite having been one of the first big-name Republicans to publicly criticize Cruz’s tactics. Or maybe I’m wrong and he’s simply being ignored because a more attractive target for right-wing wrath has inserted himself into this. Coburn gets a pass vis-a-vis McCain, I think, not just because of differences in their record but because Coburn takes no obvious personal pleasure in rebuking...

On Morning Joe Thursday morning, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) tepidly praised Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his symbolic filibuster, before severely criticizing his “intellectually dishonest” tactics to defund ObamaCare that Coburn said were misleading Republican voters. “I’m finishing up nine years in the Senate,” Coburn said. “Nobody has a higher conservative rating than I do. I’m now no longer a conservative according to the standards that have been set by the expectation of this process.” “I’m getting all sorts of e-mails from people that supported me, because they have been misled about what’s possible.” Coburn said. “Do people not think...

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn criticized Texas’ Sen. Ted Cruz for misleading the American people over Obamacare. “To create the impression that we can actually defund Obamacare, when the only thing we control, and barely, is the House of Representatives, is not intellectually honest,” Coburn said on Thursday’s Morning Joe.

The Talk Shows September 15==22nd, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.THIS WEEK (ABC): Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Tom Graves, R-Ga.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

August 22, 2013 SENATOR: OBAMA 'PERILOUSLY CLOSE' TO IMPEACHMENT Garth Kane WASHINGTON – The momentum to remove the president is growing rapidly, as almost every day another lawmaker raises the possibility of impeaching President Obama. Now, it’s Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, who said Wednesday the president is getting “perilously close” to qualifying for impeachment. (Video at link below)

A pair of tea party groups is teaming up to pressure key Republicans to support an effort to defund Obamacare. Tea Party Patriots and the grassroots group For America are launching online ads against a dozen GOP senators who either oppose the effort or haven’t announced a position. Along with the ads, leaders of the groups will embark on a six-state, five-day “Exempt America” tour (the idea being that the American people should be exempt from Obamacare) that will bring them to the home states of several of these senators. Update 12:01 p.m.: The conservative group Heritage Action is also...

Shutting down the federal government would not stop the Obama administration from implementing its signature healthcare law, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Tuesday. Coburn has been sharply critical of the effort to force a government shutdown over ObamaCare funding. He released a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report Tuesday that said such a move would not actually stop the administration from implementing the healthcare law."The memo reveals that if government were shut down, funding for Obamacare would still continue," Coburn's office said in a summary. "In other words, shutting down the federal government does not shut down Obamacare." The CRS report...

The Talk Shows June 23th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah; Gabriel Gomez, Republican nominee for Senate in Massachusetts.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Reps. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., and Mike Rogers, R-Mich.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.THIS WEEK (ABC): Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency; Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas; Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; and Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,...