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RUSH: In the first hour of the program -- and I want to go through some of this again, because it's crucially important. As you know, the North Carolina Republican Party has an ad. They are not going to pull the ad. It is an ad that is... Its intent is to cause doubt among North Carolina voters about the Democrat gubernatorial candidates. It uses sound bites from the Reverend Wright. Here is that ad. FEMALE ANNOUNCER: For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor. WRIGHT (screaming): And then wants us to sing God Bless...

RUSH: Here is the ad that will run -- by the way, Reuters had a story yesterday that the North Carolina Republican Party pulled this ad. They have not pulled the ad. I don't know who told Reuters this or if Reuters just made it up, but they have not pulled the ad. It is going to run Monday. We have seen to it, though, that even if they do pull it, it's going to air. They're not going to pull it, and McCain is fit to be tied. Here is the ad in question, the North Carolina Republican Party...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House. To pull that off, John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall. Partly thanks to an increasingly likable image, the Republican presidential candidate has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party's nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo news poll released Thursday. Just five months ago - before either party had winnowed its field - the survey showed people preferred sending an unnamed Democrat over a Republican to the White House...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain promised on Saturday to cooperate with his Democratic rivals if he is elected president, despite deep divisions between the two parties. "Despite the increasing harshness of our debates, and the lack of respect it often occasions for each side's good will, I still believe we can and must come together on issues that cannot be addressed without our cooperation," McCain said in a speech in Prescott, Arizona, the last stop on his biographical tour over the past week. "Let us argue with each other then. By all means, let us argue....

Now, for the past two days, I have been lamenting the fact that the Republican Party is officially -- well, not officially yet, but people behind the scenes at the RNC are leaking this without attribution, they're deeply strategerizing how to criticize Obama without running the risk of being accused of racism and bigotry and all of that, which is another reason why I want to extend Hillary's run here so that Obama gets bloodied up because it's apparent that the Republicans aren't going to bloody him up. In fact, yesterday in the opening monologue, I repeated, reprised the question...

You can't read a story about John McCain without seeing the word "maverick." But is it true? Now that John McCain is the all-but-certain Republican nominee for president, there is one thing we know for sure about how the general election will play out: The Democrat is going to be at a serious disadvantage in the media. This will be true even if that nominee is Barack Obama, who has gotten better coverage thus far than Hillary Clinton. Reporters find his candidacy a compelling story, but that attraction has its limitations. When it comes to John McCain, however, it's pure...

Less then a week after saying he has heard the American people regarding illegal immigration and their opposition to the McCain-Kennedy Pro-Amnesty bill, John McCain would still SIGN THE BILL into law if he was President and it came across his desk: (VIDEO) This explains his receiving the endorsement of fellow Pro-Amnestians, Senator Mel Martinez, (who almost single-handedly bankrupted the RNC with his support of the bill), the NY Times, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and of the Mexico-first pro-amnesty open borders advocate Dr. Juan Hernandez. “My friends", let me give you some “straight talk", a vote for John McCain is...

The New York Times has endorsed John McCain and Hillary Clinton for the GOP and Democratic presidential nominations, respectively.

Steve Scully: This is a political question in terms of how he gets the nomination, but just from what you have seen, how much support do you think he has among the base of the Republican Party? Roberta McCain: I don’t think he has any. I don’t know what the base of the Repub–maybe I don’t know enough about it, but I’ve not seen any help whatsoever. Scully: So can he then go on and become the nominee of this party? McCain: Yes, I think holding their nose they’re going to have to take him. Scully: Can you explain? McCain:...

“Front-runner.” “Winner.” “Inevitable.” Since Saturday’s South Carolina primary, this is how the mainstream media have been describing Sen. John McCain and his bid for the GOP nomination. And once again, the mainstream media is wrong. John McCain isn’t “inevitable.” He’s not even “likely” at this point in the race. To see why, just look at his vote totals from the primaries thus far. John McCain is the incredible shrinking candidate. In 2000, McCain was just another senator running as a maverick against the GOP establishment’s legacy candidate, George W. Bush. His huge 49 percent to 30 percent clobbering of Bush...

In 2004, one of John McCain's closest associates, John Weaver, spoke to John Kerry about the possibility of McCain running as Kerry's vice presidential running mate. In "No Excuses," Bob Shrum's memoir of his role in numerous presidential campaigns, including Kerry's, Shrum writes that Weaver assured Kerry that "McCain was serious about the possibility of teaming up with him," and Kerry approached McCain. He, however, was more serious about seeking the 2008 Republican nomination. But was it unreasonable for Kerry to think McCain might be comfortable on a Democratic ticket? Not really. In ABC's New Hampshire debate, McCain said: "Why...

Since his win in New Hampshire, many have come to view John McCain as the Republican frontrunner. He has a lead in the RCP national average, and he is the favorite at InTrade's future's market. I think this talk is a bit hasty. Most obviously, McCain and Romney are tied in Michigan - and the polls over the last three weeks have been largely conditioned by who has won. So, who knows how the Michigan results will influence South Carolina and the rest of the nation. There is another reason I am hesitant about this bandwagon. I think that the...

Saenz expands administration to reflect changing role of agency AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Texas Department of Transportation today announced selections for the final three members of Executive Director Amadeo Saenz's leadership team. The new Assistant Executive Director for Engineering Operations is John Barton of Beaumont. The newly-formed office of Assistant Executive Director for District Operations will be lead by David Casteel of San Antonio. The newly-formed office of Assistant Executive Director for Innovative Project Development will be lead by Phil Russell of Austin. "John, David and Phil are all outstanding professionals," said Saenz. "All of them understand...

At the front of a quiet, dimly-lit auditorium inside Weatherford High School Thursday, Gov. Rick Perry and other friends eulogized the late Ric Williamson. Perry borrowed a quote from author Jonathan Swift to describe Williamson, who, as chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, was often at the center of controversy. “When a genius comes into the word, you will know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him,� Perry recited. “Jonathan Swift didn’t know Ric Williamson, but he pegged him.� Williamson, 55, was pronounced dead on Sunday after suffering an apparent heart attack while at...

Push for higher gas tax could follow chief's death The death of Ric Williamson, the fiery, whip-smart chairman of the state transportation commission, could upend the still-roiling debate over toll roads in Texas in the new year. Mr. Williamson died Saturday of a heart attack at age 55, sending shock waves through the nearly 15,000-employee department he led as well as the political and policy circles where his combative style and pro-toll-road agenda had engendered enormous change – and criticism. Always careful to credit Gov. Rick Perry, a close friend and former roommate, Mr. Williamson emerged as a lightning rod...

As chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Ric Williamson made major and often controversial decisions about the future of state roads. He died Sunday of a heart attack, at age 55, in his hometown of Weatherford, leaving a legacy as the hard-charging official that steered Gov. Rick Perry's divisive vision of toll roads across Texas into state policy. It was stressful work, and Mr. Williamson suffered two heart attacks while serving. He had known his health was fragile. "I'm trying to avoid the third one, which the doctors tell me will be fatal," he told Texas Monthly in a June...

How did Sen. John McCain, the onetime front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, come to this? New polls this week showed support for him plummeting in two key early-voting states. Tied for fifth place in Iowa, with 6 percent. Falling to fourth place in South Carolina, with 7 percent. Mason-Dixon Polling & Research conducted both polls of likely Republican voters, which had error margins of plus or minus 5 percentage points. This after an ongoing Senate debate on immigration that highlights McCain's opposition to his party's base on a hot-button issue, and the informal entry into the race of former...

Map reveals secret of awesome Mavericks waves 17:27 19 April 2007 NewScientist.com news service Phil McKenna Seafloor map showing a long narrow ramp leading up to the Mavericks break (in black box) off Half Moon Bay in Central California. Blue = deep water, Red = shallow water, White = break zone (Image: Seafloor Mapping Lab, California State University, Monterey Bay)Rikk Kvitek, director of the Seafloor Mapping Lab at California State University-Monterey Bay Center for Habitat Studies at Moss Landing Marine Labs California Coast State Waters Mapping Project Images of the seafloor at Mavericks The magnificent waves in Half Moon Bay...

WASHINGTON - When it comes to the presidency, the Republican Party has a long tradition of nominating the next guy in line. That's John McCain - and the failed GOP presidential aspirant of 2000 is positioning himself as the anointed 2008 nominee. Yet, a full year before the first primary contests, the Republican race is anything but wrapped up. The Arizona senator who once reveled in his reputation for bucking the party line is now running as the establishment candidate, but he faces serious challenges from Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "Right now,...

Opinion special: Lone voices in science 09 December 2006 In this special series of premium articles, we look at these lone voices and what they have brought to our understanding of the world. Harry Collins (see How we know what we know) and Bob Park (see Watch out for the UFOs) start by offering their ideas on how to distinguish true genius from the ravings of a crank. We then speak to five people who represent very different kinds of outsider: a star who led the pack (David Deutsch, free feature: At play in the multiverse); a non-scientist making bigger...

The Maverick!

A key Senate Republican is calling on the Bush administration to work for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Israeli forces and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militants. Senator Chuck Hagel Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on President Bush to appoint a special envoy to the Middle East. He suggested former secretaries of state Colin Powell and James Baker would be good candidates for the post. In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Hagel urged the Bush administration to do something it has so far refused: engage Syria and...

A blog is media. Its a platform to communicate that can reach anyone within reach of an internet connection. Ive been writing this blog for more than 2 years and that time has allowed me to recognize the difference between a blog and traditional media and why the two will never successfully meet. In traditional media, you are first defined by your medium. There is some constraint to the physical or digital definition of the medium the content is delivered on or by, that for the most part determines how you are perceived. There is a cost vs time vs...

The surest sign that Stanley Hiller Jr. was just a kid when he designed the first helicopter to fly successfully in the Western United States was the field on which he chose to test it in 1944: the football stadium of UC Berkeley. A novice helicopter pilot, he learned to fly the bright-yellow contraption dubbed the Hiller-copter while it was anchored to several cars. He wore what might pass for safety gear among 19-year-olds: a T-shirt and slacks.

ST. PAUL - A Republican state representative who worked for Tim Pawlenty's 2002 gubernatorial campaign has purchased the online domain name "mccain-pawlenty.com," with his eyes trained not on Pawlenty's re-election bid this year but on 2008. Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, said he plunked down the $12 on his own, to foil Internet "squatters" who buy up domain names that may be valuable in the future. "I wasn't asked to do it, I wasn't told to do it," he said Friday. But it comes in a week where Pawlenty and Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who's a leading 2008 presidential...

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - Herbert L. Strock, a television producer and director who directed such B-movies as "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," "How to Make a Monster" and "The Crawling Hand," has died. He was 87. Strock died Wednesday of heart failure at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley following a car accident, according to his daughter, Leslie Mitchner. In a television career that began in the 1940s, Strock worked on series including "Highway Patrol," "Sky King," "Sea Hunt," "Maverick" and "77 Sunset Strip." His creature features included "Blood of Dracula" and "Gog," shot in 3-D. "He was...

Sadly, Coburn's Pork-Busting Is Rebuked Oklahoman Editorial SEN. Tom Coburn recently sent out a "Dear Colleague" letter to fellow senators, questioning the basis for pork barrel spending when there are more pressing priorities. Last week he got his answer: Shut up. By wide margins, the Oklahoma Republican's attempts to trim millions of dollars from the aptly named "THUD" appropriation -- for the Treasury, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development departments -- were slam-dunked by senators more concerned with bringing home the bacon than looking out for the taxpayers. Coburn's chief target was a good chunk of the $223 million earmarked...

As the Supreme Court embraced moderation, the conservative agenda stalled. Solicitor General Paul Clement says he's noticed a new trend in the wardrobe of Supreme Court advocates. More and more men who argue before the Court are wearing bow ties, a tribute to the trademark neckwear of Justice John Paul Stevens -- and to his power. Midway through the ninth decade of his life, Stevens reached the peak of his career in the Supreme Court term that ended Monday. With a strong assist from Justice Anthony Kennedy, Stevens, 85, was able to assemble majorities and write opinions that read like...

As a game of political chicken shapes up between freshman U.S. Sen. John Thune and the White House, the biggest casualty could be President Bush’s agenda. With strong backing from the national GOP and the president, Thune defeated Tom Daschle, the Democrat’s number-one man in the Senate, in a race that saw South Dakota become one of the nation’s most contentious political battlegrounds. Thune and his supporters were able to out Daschle as the liberal obstructionist he really was — as opposed to the moderate he played on the county-fair circuit. Daschle’s charade didn’t always work, but he could at...

John McCain: Senator from Arizona, war hero, moderate, Republican, statesman, maverick, savior of America from right-wing, radical, activist, extremist judges. On the Ides of May, Maverick McCain leaned in closer to the ear of the Majority Leader and whispered ever so statesmanlike, "Fourteen people -- and I was not the leader, all of us were together -- fourteen people sat down. We wanted to preserve the institution; we wanted to move forward; the Democrats had threatened to slow down or stop the Senate; we're tired of this fighting. I think we've got a good agreement -- it's based on trust...

Thatcher got it right on EU, says maverick urging Dutch to vote No By Toby Harnden in Hilversum (Filed: 29/05/2005) If Geert Wilders was a rock star, his arrival would seem slightly over the top. As he steps into the square from his coach, fitted with darkened, bullet-proof windows and with VIP emblazoned on the side, he acknowledges the cheers. "You're the best," shouts Monique Feenstra, the owner of a Hilversum coffee shop. Her hero, dressed all in white except for a lime green tie, uses one hand to sweep back his bottle-blond hair, and the other to sign an...

Maverick GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel said Sunday that U.S. power and influence in the world is in decline, then added, "That's good news, I think." Discussing whether the Iraq war had left the American military stretched too thin, Hagel told ABC's "This Week": "The world is now so vastly different in its distribution of not only economic power ... but also in military and diplomatic power." The Nebraska Republican then explained: "The great challenge of our time for America is our competitive position in the world and understanding this great diffusion of new power. The United States is no longer...

WASHINGTON -- When a United States senator publicly declaims, as Ohio's Senator George V. Voinovich did this week, that he is suffering pangs of conscience, my question to him is, have you considered that it might be acid reflex? Consult your physician, Senator Voinovich. If your problem really is a problem of conscience, consult your psychiatrist. Conscience among the senator's colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appears these days to be an abnormality. The committee is holding confirmation hearings over the President's nominee to head our mission to the United Nations, John R. Bolton. Bolton has already passed through...

Everyone in Washington is swooning over Illinois's new Democratic senator, Barack Obama. He hadn't even been sworn in when he made the cover of Newsweek. Mr. Obama may indeed be destined for political stardom, but before Obama fever fully takes hold it's worth noting how little national attention has been given to the senator he's replacing: Peter Fitzgerald. The 44-year-old maverick Republican is choosing to retire after one term in part because his brave crusade against political cronyism had so alienated key figures in his own party that the GOP state committee actually declined to endorse him for re-election. The...

Pop superstar Madonna's Re-Invention tour has been slammed by American critics - for overloading the show with "naive" political statements. The "American Life" singer, 45, kicked off the US leg of her tour in California on Monday but failed to impress critics with her attempts to "wipe the slate clean" by ditching her trademark raunchy routines. The Los Angeles Times sniped, "This promised to be Madonna's tour de force, a reappraisal that put her work in new and revealing contexts. But time and again she fell short of the challenge." Many critics were unimpressed by the images of the Iraq...

Return of the Maverick 2004-06-02 By Robert Novak WASHINGTON -- Dr. Tom Coburn, the plainspoken obstetrician from Muskogee, was back in Washington briefly last month. Republican senators greeted him with mixed emotions. He is their best hope for keeping an Oklahoma seat Republican in the closely divided Senate. The bad news is, he would be as prickly in the Senate as he was during his six years in the House (1995-2000). Coburn's problem is that he takes seriously the professed Republican agenda: limited government, entitlement reform and anti-abortion advocacy. He was a rare sincere GOP supporter of term limits, leaving...

The country may be going broke, but in just nine months President Bush has amassed more than $175 million to spend on his re-election, the most any candidate has collected in a presidential election. The reason Bush has been so successful is that he has a good gimmick. He has assembled 151 individuals he calls "Rangers," who have raised more than $200,000 each, and 241 he calls "Pioneers," who have raised at least $100,000 each. Now, he's added a third group of fund-raisers -- individuals under 40 who have raised at least $50,000. There are 52 people in that category,...

<p>SAN JOSE - He is the ultimate self-made man, an immigrant who came to America with a few bucks and a dream, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took time from his overheated schedule Wednesday night to accept a local film festival's "Maverick Spirit Award."</p>

When Ford Motor Co.s much-anticipated rival to Ferrari goes on sale next summer, it will debut with a 139,995 US dollar price tag. Ford officials announced pricing for its 2005 Ford GT supercar Monday at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, nearly two years after the vehicle debuted as a concept in Detroit at the 2002 North American International Auto Show. The company will begin building the GT in Wixom, Michigan, early next summer in volumes limited to about 1,750 units annually over a two-year production run. "The Ford GT is a showcase of Ford Motor Companys heritage," says Marty...

Plan to arrest maverick Iraqi cleric for murder Michael Howard in Baghdad Wednesday October 22, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Coalition and Iraqi officials are preparing an arrest warrant for the firebrand Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr over his alleged involvement with the brutal murder of a rival cleric last spring, sources close to the Iraqi governing council told the Guardian yesterday. The warrant, which has yet to be finalised, cites Mr Sadr for instigating a deadly attack on Abdel Majid al-Khoei, who was stabbed to death by a mob in the Shia holy city of Najaf on April 10. It is...

SACRAMENTO -- What are we going to do about Dean Florez? That's the question fellow legislators in both parties are asking as they shake their heads over the latest set of unorthodox tactics the maverick state senator used to blast away a political roadblock threatening to stymie one of his bills. Florez, D-Shafter, inveigled Democratic members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee to vote for his big anti-smog bill even though he infuriated them in the process by publicly attacking a charming young Latina assemblywoman who also represents Kern County. It wasn't the first time Florez has gotten things done by...

A RAF Harrier GR7 ground-attack aircraft conducted the UK's first operational firing of an AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile on 21-22 March, when the aircraft attacked a mobile 'Scud' surface-to-surface missile launch site in Iraq. The strike took place at an undisclosed location some 320km inside Iraq, according to a Ministry of Defence statement issued on 22 March. This reported that the Maverick had "successfully engaged and destroyed the target." The UK awarded Raytheon of the US a £42 million ($65.6 million) contract for the AGM-65G2 variant of the Maverick missile in the wake of targeting difficulties experienced during Operation 'Allied...

NONFICTION: Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. By Robert Coram. Little, Brown & Co. $27.95. 484 pages. The verdict: Due credit for "one of the most important unknown men of his time." John Boyd was the smartest man I ever knew; he was also an exemplary leader. If he had asked me to take an 80 percent pay cut to work on a project he could not discuss, I would have committed without question. His brilliance was exceeded only by his intellectual selflessness. Over the 18 years that he included me in his telephonic ashram, there...

<p>To Gov. Gray Davis' long list of troubles -- electrical blackouts, the budget mess, the Oracle contract -- now comes Peter Miguel Camejo, a rumpled investor with a stinging wit whose bare bones campaign operates from a battered Honda emblazoned with Ralph Nader stickers.</p>