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ANNANDALE, Va. (AP) -- President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job. The president hugged her -- she's a volunteer for his political operation -- and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans. Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic...

SENATOR CLAIMS: BOXER/CLINTON WANT 'LEGISLATIVE FIX' FOR TALKRADIO All I can access at this point.

Flag amendment apparently stalls in Senate By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration went to a vote in the Senate Tuesday, apparently heading for an outcome just short of the two-thirds needed to send it on to the states for ratification. Republicans scheduled the vote exactly one week before Independence Day and a little more than four months before voters go to the polls to elect a new Congress. Democrats put forth an alternate that also was getting a vote. Sponsored by their party's assistant leader in the Senate, Dick Durbin...

RICHMOND, Va. -- Republican Sen. George Allen attacked Democrat James Webb for opposing a constitutional flag-burning ban and Webb fired back Tuesday, calling Allen a coward who sat out the Vietnam War "playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada." In a searing press statement, a senior adviser to Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran, went to extraordinary lengths to question Allen's fortitude, even repeatedly using the middle name the senator detests and never uses, Felix. "While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George...

The Senate is getting set to debate the flag-burning amendment this week. I'm of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I can see where we cannot let the First Amendment stand only until it includes something we are not comfortable with. On the other hand, I believe it can be seen as an act of treason; of uttermost disrespect, of rejection of everything that this country is and stands for, to desecrate the flag that was hard-won and stained red by the blood of America's sons and daughters. Then again, if we let the NYTimes get away...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate began debate Monday on a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit the desecration of the American flag, the latest in a series of election-year votes pushed by the chamber's Republican leaders. Observers give the flag amendment a better chance of passing than the one to ban same-sex marriages that was defeated earlier this month. That was another vote aimed at mobilizing the GOP's conservative base before November's midterm elections. A vote is expected this week, before the Fourth of July congressional recess. Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, compared the measure to...

It comes at little surprise that the House, again, passed the amendment to outlaw the burning of the American flag. But yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, among other Senate colleagues, announced their support for the June 26th Senate vote on the Flag Desecration Amendment. The announcement came on non-other than Flag Day. How quaint. But don't be too alarmed, it seems a 2/3 majority is still lacking in the Senate. The House has passed a similar amendment half a dozen times in the past few years. While it has never gained enough votes in the Senate, it gets closer...

Governor Mitt Romney has sent this letter to every member of the Senate encouraging them to Vote "Yes" on this landmark peice of legislation--the Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA). A few excerpts are below: "Americans are tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement, and we all wish to avoid hurtful disregard of the feelings of others. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage. Attaching the word marriage to the association of same-sex individuals mistakenly presumes that marriage is principally a...

by Mark Finkelstein June 6, 2006 While considerable attention focuses on Ann Coulter's more superficial charms, from a conservative perspective Ann's real beauty is her absolute refusal to buy into liberal logic, no matter how pervasive. That independence of mind was on display this morning during her interview with Matt Lauer. Ann was on to tout her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, released today on . . . 6/6/6 - sign of the devil and all that. The first example came in the the context of President Bush's current push for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay...

In a year it is wrestling with an out-of-control budget, a war going badly, and one impasse on immigration and another on its own ethics, the Senate is taking time out to debate altering the U.S. Constitution by adding the Marriage Protection Amendment. The amendment is widely predicted to fall short of the needed votes to amend the Constitution for only the 23rd time in its 217-year history _ 13th if you omit the original 10, the Bill of Rights _ and well it should. At its gravest level, the amendment would make a significant incursion into federalism and state's...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue - all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives. "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all." The president was to make...

With just five months to go before the midterm elections, President Bush, whose once-faithful base has abandoned him in droves, is turning to the same conservative hot-button issues that won him re-election in 2004 -- homosexual "marriage" and judicial nominees. The president, now fully aware that his plummeting approval ratings could cost the Republicans control of one or both congressional chambers in November, will use his radio address today and a speech Monday to push a constitutional amendment banning same-sex "marriage," just as the Senate prepares to vote on the issue. The crux of his argument is simple: A majority...

WASHINGTON — The constitutional showdown that followed the FBI's search of a congressman's office came down to this: The House threatened budgetary retaliation against the Justice Department. Justice officials raised the prospect of resigning. That scenario, as described Saturday by a senior administration official, set the stage for President Bush's intervention into the fight over the FBI's search of the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., an eight-term lawmaker being investigated on bribery allegations. During contentious conversations between the Department of Justice and the House, top law enforcement officials indicated that they'd rather quit than return documents FBI agents, armed...

WASHINGTON - President Bush is to order as many as 6,000 National Guard troops to increase enforcement at the Mexican border, part of a $1.9 billion drive to tighten security and win conservative backing in Congress for a broad election-year overhaul of the nation's tattered immigration laws. "We do not yet have full control of the border and I am determined to change that," Bush is expected to say in remarks prepared for a prime-time speech from the Oval Office. The speech will come as the Senate begins work on legislation to strengthen border security, authorize new guest worker programs...

Best of the Tube This Weekend We'll be appearing this weekend on Fox News Channel's "The Journal Editorial Report." Topics are the Saddam documents and South Dakota's new abortion law. Paul Gigot interviews The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who broke the Saddam story. Tune in tomorrow night at 11 EST or Sunday at 6 a.m. (For a complete list of airtimes in the contiguous U.S., click the link atop this item.) If you live in the Washington area and think we have a face for radio, you can hear us on "The Julian Tepper Show" Saturday at 8:30 p.m. on...

Link to C-SPAN http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp I'm sure all the networks will be showing this.

The uproar over 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick's very simple and very blatant conflict of interest appears, predictably, to be quelling. The New York Times, quoting an anonymous commission member, reliably concluded not that her 1995 memorandum was a smoking gun of intelligence lapse, but rather that John Ashcroft had "politicized" the proceedings by bringing it up. This after commission Republicans curiously leapt to Gorelick's defense, first warning us to stay out of their business (Chairman Kean), and then slandering as "baloney" (John Lehman) and "garbage" (Slade Gorton) good-faith criticism of a delegitimizing process in which a key witness is also...

PAKISTAN'S army has announced a large-scale operation against al-Qaeda and other militants in a rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan, but had no word on any arrests and did not say whether any senior figures were being targeted. Troops moved into Waziristan late yesterday after receiving word that al-Qaeda operatives had sneaked into the area from Afghanistan, General Shaukat Sultan, an army spokesman, said. "The operation is part of Pakistan's effort at combating terrorism," Gen Sultan said, adding that authorities moved after learning that "some al-Qaeda people are hiding there". It was not clear how many troops were involved, but the...

King highlights human tragedy in Palestine   AMMAN (Agencies) — His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday called on Muslims and Christians to work together for peace and urged the US National Council of Churches to draw the world's attention to the humanitarian tragedy in the Palestinian territories. Addressing a delegation representing the council at the Royal Court, King Abdullah said Jerusalem should remain a symbol of peace and a sanctuary for the followers of the three monotheistic religions, drawing them closer together. Such work is urgently needed under the present and difficult circumstances affecting the region, the King said. Jordan,...