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    • Are members of Congress dumbing down their discourse?

      The Sunlight Foundation determined that Congress is talking at nearly a full grade level below the level at which members spoke seven years ago, according to its study of the Congressional Record—the official record of members' proceedings and speech. The foundation applied the Flesch-Kincaid grade level test to congressional conversations and found that today's Congress speaks "at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005," senior fellow Lee Drutman wrote in his analysis. Sunlight also found that the newest as well as the most conservative members of Congress on average speak at the lowest grade level.

      The following is a Sunlight Foundation graphic charting the grade levels of members' speeches:

      (Sunlight Foundation)

      Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina scored lowest with a 7.9 grade level average for his speech. But he told Yahoo News Monday that although he doesn't believe anyone equates "sentence length" and the "polysyllabic nature of words" with intelligence, his ranking is something to be proud of.

      "I see it as an affirmation that we're doing something right," Mulvaney said of his fellow bottom-tier representatives. "You've got to speak clearly and concisely," Mulvaney said, if you want people to know what you believe.

      He noted that he and some of his fellow bottom-rankers, including Republican Reps. Rob Woodall of Georgia and Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, speak extemporaneously and don't use prepared notes. "This is a group of people who are trying to sound like ordinary people and not like politicians," Mulvaney said.

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    • Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio delivered a red meat speech to the South Carolina Republican Party in Columbia on Saturday, calling President Barack Obama the most "divisive figure in modern American history." In response, Florida Democrats wrote a song mocking him for his connections with Sen. Jim DeMint, who was in attendance at the dinner.

      The Democratic Party's version of Little Peggy March's "I Will Follow Him,"  tweaks the lyrics to, "I will follow Jim." The song accuses Rubio of pandering to DeMint and tea party Republicans. Rubio is rumored to be a possible running mate for presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

      Fair warning, the video is very silly:

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    • Ron Paul (Kerry Maloney/AP)When Ron Paul's campaign stated last week that Mitt Romney's delegate lead was insurmountable, Paul's staff insisted they would continue competing for delegates and cited Minnesota as their next target.

      This past weekend, Paul accomplished that goal, winning 12 of 13 delegates at the state GOP convention.

      "Victories in Minnesota and other states demonstrate that Ron Paul supporters possess the adaptability, organizational muscle, and unmatched enthusiasm required to continue winning delegates in upcoming contests," Paul campaign manager John Tate said in a statement.

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    • President Barack Obama is hooded as he receives an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame, May 17, 2009. …

      On Monday, the University of Notre Dame filed suit against the Obama administration over its rule that all employers must offer contraception in their insurance plans. Notre Dame is now the seventh religious college to sue over the mandate; it's also the largest school to do so.

      President Barack Obama gave the commencement address at the prominent Catholic university in 2009.

      In its suit, the school says that health care reform's contraception mandate violates its religious freedom and would require it to go against Catholic principles by offering contraception and sterilization to students and faculty in its insurance plan. The university serves 11,500 students of different religious faiths, and is traditionally led by a Catholic priest as president.

      A few dozen Catholic dioceses and other religious organizations also filed suit today.

      The Obama administration announced in February that religious organizations such as schools and hospitals would not directly have to offer birth control to their employees. Instead, the insurance company would contact women covered by its plan and offer the contraception. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious organizations objected to this, saying that the organizations' premiums would still be helping to pay for the contraception in that scenario. In its suit, the University of Notre Dame says it is self-insured, which means this accommodation would not work for it.

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    • As estimates of the total student loan debt exceed $800 billion and default rates approach 9 percent, some commentators are beginning to wonder whether an expensive education is really worth it, at least from a financial perspective. The combination of skyrocketing tuition and a dismal job market creates an environment where many are struggling to pay off hefty loans.

      But this is more true of some professions than others. Biomedical engineers can make $81,540 a year with a bachelor's degree, while a law clerk needs a law degree and still might make less than $40,000. The following interactive lets you search nearly 750 occupations in the Bureau of Labor Statistics database and see the required education for that profession, how much it will cost, what you'll potentially earn and the government's estimates for whether such jobs will increase or decrease over the next decade.

      Just type a few letters of the kind of job that interests you in the box beneath "Occupation" to see a list of

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