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Two top senators on Tuesday introduced a resolution giving President Obama explicit authorization to continue aiding the NATO mission in Libya, seeking to strengthen the White House’s hand at a key moment in the brewing constitutional tug of war with Congress. Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, who is Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, who is the ranking GOP member on the Senate Armed Services Committee — and, coincidentally, the last two losing presidential nominees — are co-sponsoring the resolution, which would grant Mr. Obama “limited” authorization to continue using force. “This is not...

Lindsey Graham was sitting in a sedan early one morning and contentedly discussing the various fellow S.C. conservatives who dislike him — Tea Partiers, Constitutionalists, immigration hardliners — when Van Cato, his Upstate regional director, lifted a hand from the steering wheel and said: “That’s the leader of them right there. There’s his sign. He’s running for Greenville County Council.” “Harry Kibler,” Graham, South Carolina’s senior U.S. senator, murmured as he read the campaign poster. “He’s the one that has that prop of your legs sticking out of a toilet in the back of his truck,” Cato added helpfully. Graham...

(snip) Since Democrats have enough votes to shove almost anything they want through the Senate, why suddenly all this talk about seeking "bipartisan reform"? Because Democrats can't tell the truth. They know socialized medicine will cost enough billions to lower the standard of living for millions of Americans, but they have to pretend they believe otherwise, that it will somehow "save money." They can't run for re-election in 2010 -- any more than they could run in 2008 -- on an honest platform of, "We'll raise your taxes to the sky and borrow the nation into bankruptcy to get to...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain said Thursday the United States must recover from the "moral failures" of human rights abuses and called for Americans to stand on the "right side" of history as a leader of the free world. "I believe American leadership in opposition to human rights abuses, not silence, is the truest expression of our national character," McCain said in a speech to the Junior State of America, a civics education organization for high school students. "The United States since its founding has embraced a set of moral duties, among which I believe is the obligation to...

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that Republicans would work with President Obama on a second stimulus bill, as long as it's like the tax cut-heavy package the GOP proposed earlier. Cantor told reporters Monday that Obama made a mistake by pushing through a $787 billion stimulus bill in February that had too much government spending. With the economy still scuffling and unemployment approaching 10 percent, Cantor said that Republicans could back new stimulus legislation that focuses on help for small businesses. "We stand ready and willing to work with the president to produce a bill that will actually...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Colin Powell worries that President Barack Obama is trying to tackle too many big issues at one time. In an interview to be aired Sunday on CNN, the former secretary of state says he's worried about the huge national debt that's piling-up. Powell says that while the needs of the people must be met, the size of the government, and the tax burden, need to be kept as small as possible. He says the president has to start taking a "very, very hard look" at the cost of all he wants to do and at whether the...

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On the eve of the White House immigration summit a few days ago, NumbersUSA - a group determined to shut the borders to illegal immigrants -- tried to drum up donations by bashing Sen. John Cornyn and his "frightening pro-amnesty" stance. Immigrant advocates don't exactly view Cornyn as a top ally, so a fierce attack from the right is a bit surprising. He adamantly opposes anything the pro-immigrant side considers amnesty -- which would involve providing a path to citizenship for those 12 million already here. But he does favor a new guest/temporary worker program of some sort, to ease...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday joined his former rival President Barack Obama in calling for a nuclear-free world, a goal previously formulated by former president Ronald Reagan. During a lengthy speech on the Senate floor marking the unveiling of a statue of Reagan in the Capitol, the veteran Arizona lawmaker recalled how his "personal hero" had dreamed of a world free of nuclear weapons. "That is my dream too," McCain said. "This is a distant and difficult goal. And we must proceed toward it prudently and pragmatically, and with a focused concern for our security and...

Charlie Crist is a popular candidate best positioned to keep a Senate seat in Republican hands. But he has also broken with party orthodoxy on environmental and voting rights issues. BY PETER WALLSTEN Washington. With the Republican Party diminished in power and embroiled in debate over whether to broaden its ideology or adhere to core ideals, top GOP officials today took the unusual step of inserting themselves into a party primary, picking a moderate U.S. Senate candidate over a conservative in Florida. In endorsing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas,...

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) will be announcing Tuesday that he will be running for the Senate, according to a source close to the governor, giving Republicans their most high-profile recruit of the 2010 election cycle. Crist's decision puts Republicans in strong position to hold onto the seat held by retiring Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) Crist holds high approval ratings among both Republicans and Democrats, according to statewide polling, and has forged a moderate governing style that has won him widespread support. His decision to run came as little surprise to political observers, with the governor and his allies hinting...

I have bad news for you. I have it on good authority that the congressional Republican leadership, if that is not an oxymoron, plans to give Barack Obama a pass on all of his major appointments. They'll give them a bye. They'll close their eyes, cover their ears and speak no evil against some of the most dangerous nominees for high posts in an administration in American history. I'm talking about kooks and crazies like Cass Sunstein, the so-called "regulatory czar," who once proposed what can only be characterized as a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet including a notion for...

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(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

The fate of the stimulus money in South Carolina is beginning to remind me a bit of the fictional story of Alice in Wonderland, which would be comical if it weren’t so vitally serious. Imagine the potential federal investment as Alice, falling into a strange world, not welcome by several of the main characters. We have the Mad Hatter — a governor whose tea party features generous helpings of debt reduction, unemployment, crumbling schools and a small array of ideologues who agree with his every nonsensical utterance. We have the Cheshire Cat — a U.S. senator who fades in and...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney praised President Obama at a GOP fundraising dinner Wednesday in front of a crowd that might have been expecting a heavy dose of rally-the-troops conservatism. "I also think it's important for us to nod to the president when he's right," Romney said, after chiding the president's budget. "He will not always be wrong, and he's done some things I agree with." Romney, who spoke at a dinner for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he's pleased with the president's plans to "finish the job" in Iraq and Afghanistan -- lines that drew...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said Wednesday that Republicans shouldn’t oppose President Obama as a reflex and should praise him when he succeeds. Speaking at the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) spring dinner, Romney was thick on criticism of Obama, but also said Republicans shouldn’t root against the man Romney might well face in the 2012 presidential election. After offering a few choice words for Obama’s early conduct in office, Romney suggested it’s OK to hope things go well under the new president. “I also think its important for us to nod to the president when he’s right,” Romney...

Somewhat supportive of Obama and looking forward to bankruptcy.

President Obama lent his voice last night to the push for a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions, using his first speech to a joint session of Congress to lobby for controversial legislation sure to spark a heated debate during tight economic times. Obama campaigned for president last year with climate change and energy issues atop his agenda. And he returned to those themes yesterday, saying that a cap-and-trade bill would help spark economic recovery by giving U.S. companies greater incentive to start producing more wind turbines, solar panels, biofuels and battery-powered automobiles. "To truly transform our economy, to protect...