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(snip) McCain also spoke about the raft of national spending bills over the past year, including the $787 billion financial bailout of 2008, $700 billion for the stimulus plan and the $83 billion rescue of the auto industry. Taken with other measures, the spending would saddle the country with as much as $9 trillion of debt future generations would have to pay, the senator said. "What I'm wary about is that we're committing an act of generational theft," McCain said.(snip) He advocated for reforms of Medicare, saying the system likely would go broke within seven years if Congress and the...

Gov. Paterson's proposal to tax soda in New York fizzled, but President Obama believes it may be time to pop a similar sin tax on the nation. The President, in an interview with Men's Health magazine released yesterday, said he thought taxing soda and other sugary drinks is worth putting on the table as Congress debates health care reform. "It's an idea that we should be exploring," the president said. "There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda. And every study that's been done about obesity shows that there is as high a correlation between increased soda...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) late Tuesday told reporters on his first day back in the Senate that the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) last month will affect him and the Senate deeply. The 2008 GOP presidential hopeful, who attended Kennedy's funeral in Boston on his Aug. 29 birthday, "I miss him every day," McCain said."We had a very, very congenial and enjoyable relationship. He had a great sense of humor. Obviously there's no one else like him."

Rep. Barney Frank is interested in capping his political career as a member of the president’s Cabinet, according to a new biography of the Financial Services Committee chairman. Frank (D-Mass.) told author Stuart Weisberg that he would like to be Housing and Urban Development secretary. However, the 69-year-old lawmaker stresses that his departure from Congress is not imminent. He first wants to pass more legislation on affordable housing, saying, “I want at least two years with President Obama and a solidly Democratic Senate so that we can get the federal government back in the housing business.”

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's leadership is being tested as his poll numbers dip and his supporters question his commitment to fight for them, analysts say. Dozens of interviews this summer in six states conducted by The Washington Post and published Sunday revealed a growing sense of gloom and disappointment by the president's supporters over his administration's present course, especially coming after an August congressional recess dominated by angry attacks from opponents of his healthcare reform agenda.

I'm up with relatives in the Walla Walla, WA. area and ventured over to the Walla Walla Fair and Frontier Days Parade. I've been to it before and it seemed bigger than usual this year. As the entries went by one by one, it all lead up to the grand finale' which resulted in the ultimate in patriotism. First, a group of Tea Party Patriots marched by and they received a warm response from the spectators along the parade route. Following the Patriots was the first half of the motorcycle club called the Combat Veterans of America. They too received...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appears poised to wipe away limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions in time for next year's congressional elections in a case that began as a dispute over a movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton. The justices return to the bench Wednesday — nearly a month early — to consider whether to overrule two earlier decisions that restrict how and when corporations and unions can take part in federal campaigns. Laws that impose similar limits in 24 states also are threatened. The court first heard arguments in March in the case of whether...

(snip) There is some Republican support for reform. Obama, Napolitano and Sen. John McCain share virtually the same immigration views. The president and McCain reportedly have been speaking in private on the issue. The Arizona Republican has been a leader for comprehensive reform, and with the improvement in enforcement, he now has all the political cover he needs to return to the ramparts.(snip)

Sen. John McCain blasted Democrats' plans for a health-care overhaul Friday in Oro Valley at the annual conference of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. In a generally jovial mood at the Hilton El Conquistador Golf and Tennis Resort, before an adoring crowd that gave him two standing ovations, he joked: "Every place I go, everybody says, 'I voted for ya,' 'I voted for ya.' I'm about to demand a recount." . . . . . On whether he would vote for health-care reform if the public option were removed:"It would have to depend on the legislation. There are...

"I have not seen anything like this in the years I have been a member of Congress. It's a peaceful revolution but I think it is a revolution we're seeing," Arizona's senior Senator John McCain says after a series of health care town halls. McCain was in Oro Valley to deliver the final address to the annual conference of Arizona's League of Cities and Towns. When asked what was the one thing that surprised him most about the town halls he replied, "the anger." McCain believes that anger is being displayed not by professional protestors but by people who are...

It is a shame that the current health care debate hardly resembles a debate — rather, it has devolved into a screaming match among the fiercest partisans on both sides. For more than 60 years, presidents from both parties have tried to pass meaningful health care reform. There is no doubt that the sector needs reform now more than ever, but that does not mean we should be hastily or superficially negotiating a bill that carries a price tag of $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and that could fundamentally alter more than 15 percent of our entire national...

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker Believes There is Still Room for Compromise on Health Care. BY SHAILAGH MURRAY Republican Sen. Bob Corker stood before a packed high school auditorium this week for his 24th and final town hall meeting of the summer, sketching out his vision for the bipartisan health-care plan he says he is convinced Congress can pass.

The Senate Finance Committee's bipartisan negotiating team is expected to continue talks Friday on a health care reform plan that the vice president predicted would eventually pass the Congress. "As bleak as it looks, you know, always darkest before the dawn," Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Thursday, after a speech at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank. "The prospects of success are high. I think they are very high." The Finance Committee's "gang of six" -- three Republicans and three Democrats -- plans to hold its second teleconference call since the August break. The group was given...

Nearly a year after the presidential race came to an end, it's a subject Arizona Sen. John McCain still can't avoid: Sarah Palin. Appearing on the Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien Wednesday, the former presidential candidate was asked, as he has been several times before, whether he was shocked Palin chose to resign her post as governor of Alaska two months ago. "Yeah I was because she didn't call me ahead of time," McCain said to laughter in the audience. "We all have families, we all have challenges, we all have issues in our lives. She did have huge legal...

WASHINGTON -- It’s no surprise that former Vice President Dick Cheney is opposed to the Justice Department’s decision to investigate the torture of prisoners during the Bush-Cheney administration. After all, Cheney has acknowledged that he was "aware" of waterboarding (simulated drowning) of detainees to get them to talk. It’s fair speculation that the orders for this method of torture came from on high. And in the Bush-Cheney administration, no one was higher than the vice president. Cheney has blasted Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate abuse of prisoners. The duty fell to veteran Connecticut lawyer...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — An odd couple of Republican senators have hit the road, arguing for a go-slow approach to President Barack Obama's push to revamp health care. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and 2008 presidential nominee John McCain are headlining the GOP's answer to the raucous town hall meetings of August in which congressional Democrats had to shout over angry constituents about health care, growing deficits and the increasing role of the federal government. . . . . . Political recovery is an issue for McCain, too. . . . . . Health care also offers McCain a...

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CLEMSON — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has earned a reputation for reaching across the aisle with Democratic colleagues on various issues, said President Barack Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress should adhere to that same bipartisanship concerning health care. “There will be some in the Democratic Party that will want to do it alone and that would be a mistake,” Graham said during a speech at the Clemson Rotary Club’s weekly Monday meeting. “Health care is one-sixth of our economy, and this needs to be passed with support from both (Houses).” Graham said both parties should collaborate on...

Sen. Mel Martinez will hold a health care forum tomorrow in Hialeah with Sen. John McCain and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “This is going to be a frank discussion with health care providers, patients, and other stakeholders to air concerns about the current system and what steps Congress should take to address the problems," the retiring Martinez said in a statement.

CLEMSON — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that he would never support a government-run public health insurance option and hoped President Obama would seek a bipartisan plan that included tort reform and insurance reform. He said he supports an individual tax credit for health care. An employer option could remain, but he said he believes the individual credit would provide more cost savings. “The idea of a public (health care) option … will never get my vote,” Graham said. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, spoke to members and guests of the Rotary Club of Clemson at the Ramada...