The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. The Congressional Record is similar to the Hansards that report parliamentary debates in the Westminster system of government.

The Congressional Record consists of four sections: the House section, the Senate section, the Extensions of Remarks, and (since the 1940s) the Daily Digest. At the back of each daily issue is the Daily Digest, which summarizes the day's floor and committee activities and serves as a table of contents for each issue. The House and Senate sections contain proceedings for the separate chambers of Congress.

A section of the Congressional Record titled Extensions of Remarks contains speeches, tributes and other extraneous words that were not actually uttered during open proceedings of the full Senate or of the full House of Representatives. In years past, this particular section of the Congressional Record was called the "Appendix." While members of either body may insert material into Extensions of Remarks, Senators rarely do so. The overwhelming majority of what is found there is entered at the request of Members of the House of Representatives. From a legal standpoint, most materials in the Congressional Record are classified as secondary authority.

Dean Drummond (born 1949) is an American composer, conductor and musician. His music utilises microtonality, electronics, and a huge variety of percussion. He invented a 31-tone instrument called the zoomoozophone in 1978.

Born in Los Angeles, he studied trumpet and composition at the University of Southern California and California Institute of the Arts, going on to work for Harry Partch. In 1976, he moved to New York, where, in 1977, he was one of the founders of Newband. In 1990, he became director and curator of the Harry Partch Instrumentarium. He has performed on many of the Partch instruments (kithara, surrogate kithara, harmonic canons, adapted guitar) and his zoomoozophone, and given many educational workshops. He was a director of the New York Consortium for New Music for over ten years, and was involved in producing the annual Sonic Boom Festival. He is now Associate Professor and Director of the Harry Partch Institute at Montclair State University, New Jersey.

Most of his works are published by Hypersound.

William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers (November 4, 1879 - August 15, 1935) was an American cowboy, vaudeville performer, humorist, social commentator and motion picture actor. He was one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s.

Known as Oklahoma's favorite son, Rogers was born to a prominent Cherokee Nation family in Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma). He traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies (50 silent films and 21 "talkies"), wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, and became a world-famous figure. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was adored by the American people. He was the leading political wit of the Progressive Era, and was the top-paid Hollywood movie star at the time. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed in Alaska.

His vaudeville rope act led to success in the Ziegfeld Follies, which in turn led to the first of his many movie contracts. His 1920s syndicated newspaper column and his radio appearances increased his visibility and popularity. Rogers crusaded for aviation expansion, and provided Americans with first-hand accounts of his world travels. His earthy anecdotes and folksy style allowed him to poke fun at gangsters, prohibition, politicians, government programs, and a host of other controversial topics in a way that was readily appreciated by a national audience, with no one offended. His aphorisms, couched in humorous terms, were widely quoted: "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat."

Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( /koʊlˈbɛər/ or /ˈkoʊlbərt/; born May 13, 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.

Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the critically acclaimed sketch comedy series Exit 57.

Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. It was his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show, however, that first introduced him to a wide audience.

Rafael Edward Cruz, known as Ted Cruz (born December 22, 1970), is the former Solicitor General of the U.S. state of Texas, a position which he held from 2003 to May 2008. Cruz was appointed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He was the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas, the youngest Solicitor General in the United States, and had the longest tenure in the post thus far in Texas history. He is currently a partner at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he leads the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.

Cruz is a candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Cruz previously served as the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, and as Domestic Policy Advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. In addition, from 2004-2009 Cruz was an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation.