• Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) calls in at 7:05am Pacific to talk about health care reform and Afghanistan.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform and his town hall meetings.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins Steph in studio in NYC at 8:05am Pacific for more discussions of everything politics and pop culture.

• President Obama took his health care message to talk radio yesterday, telling listeners of a Philadelphia host that he wants to overhaul the nation’s health care system out of necessity rather than politics.

• Senate health care negotiators agreed late last night to ignore the increasingly strident rhetoric from GOP and Dem leaders and to keep working toward a bill that can win broad support from the rank-and-file in both parties, according to sources familiar with the talks.

• Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge says he successfully countered an effort by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to raise the nation’s terror alert level in the days before the 2004 presidential vote.

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will all be calling in TOMORROW to talk about health care reform.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins us in studio at 11:05am TOMORROW to hang and talk about all things politics and pop culture.

• Under the menacing threat of violence from the Taliban, Afghans headed to the polls today in the war-ravaged nation’s second-ever national election. Thousands of NATO and Afghan soldiers provided security at the polls and more than 30 observer groups were on hand to monitor the voting.

• President Obama appealed yesterday to faith-based groups to help garner support for his plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Obama urged the listeners to reject information about his plans, noting, “There are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness.”

• A cancer-stricken Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has written a poignant letter to Massachusetts leaders asking that they change state law to allow a speedy replacement of him in Congress, instead of the special election now required. Kennedy wrote, “It is vital for this commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate.”

• Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care and his possible run for Senate.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins us in studio at 8:05am Pacific to talk about all things politics and pop culture.

• Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said yesterday that the chamber won’t vote on a health care reform bill until after the August recess. Reid said the leading Dems and GOPers of the Senate Finance Committee, who are negotiating a compromise plan, have asked for more time to complete their work.

• President Obama took his health care offensive on the road to Cleveland, Ohio yesterday, accusing top Republicans of playing politics with his top domestic legislative priority. He also said, “We have never been closer to achieving quality, affordable health care for all Americans.”

• The commissioner of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police department said yesterday he “deeply regrets” the arrest of prominent black Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., but stands by the procedures followed by his department.

• President Obama is leaning hard on the nation’s schools, using the promise of more than $4 billion in federal aid – and the threat of withholding it – to strong-arm the education establishment to accept more charter schools and performance pay for teachers.