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Sen. John McCain said Monday the tenor of the immigration debate has hurt the way Hispanic voters view the Republican Party. "I believe the majority of Hispanics share our view that the border must be secured, and the border must be secured first," McCain said in Phoenix, Arizona. "But they also want us to have an attitude which I think most Americans do, that these are God's children and they must be taken care of." The senator from Arizona used Cinco de Mayo as a launching pad for a new Spanish-language Web site on Monday, and he emphasized his stance...

The music events surrounding the Democratic National Convention in August are starting to be revealed, including a planned Melissa Etheridge show at the Fillmore Auditorium. Etheridge released her tour schedule Monday morning, including an Aug. 26 show billed as “Human Rights Campaign Event at the Fillmore.” The DNC will be in Denver Aug. 25-28 at the Pepsi Center. Etheridge has long been an activist in Democratic causes, including contributing the song I Need to Wake Up included in Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Excerpt - HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. -- Bill Clinton, who called himself the "comeback kid" during his first presidential run, is pulling out all the stops for Hillary Clinton's comeback. His relentless approach to battling Barack Obama -- on the trail and inside the campaign -- is becoming key to Sen. Clinton's newfound success, as she has won four of the last six primaries. She still faces long odds in her quest to overtake Sen. Obama on the road to the Democratic Party's nomination. Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief...

<p>PITTSBURGH — A federal judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in the fraud case against celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht, who was accused of using his staff at the county coroner's office to do work for his lucrative private practice.</p> <p>Federal prosecutors said they were ready to retry Wecht, who gained fame by inquiring into the deaths of well-known figures including Elvis Presley, JonBenet Ramsey and Vincent Foster. A new trial date was set for May 27.</p>

Thank you. It's good to be back in Meridian. As you might know, I was once a flight instructor here at the air field named for my grandfather during my long past and misspent youth. And it's always good to be in Mississippi, which you could call my ancestral home. Generations of McCains were born and raised in Carroll County, on land that had been in our family since 1848. The last McCain to live on the property, which the family called Teoc, was my grandfather's brother, Joe McCain. I spent a couple summers here as a young boy, and...

Newsweek Reconstructs Time When Obama Moved from Using 'Barry' to Formal Barack and Impact it Made on Him 'It was when I Made a Conscious Decision: I Want to Grow Up,' Obama Says NEW YORK, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- When Sen. Barack Obama moved from using the name Barry to Barack, his formal name, it was part of his almost lifelong quest for identity and belonging -- to figure out who he is, and how he fits into the larger American tapestry. Part black, part white, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, with family of different religious and spiritual backgrounds --...

Despite saying she wants to return to Stanford University, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has let it be known in Republican circles that she would consider running for vice president if asked. One source told Newsmax that she expressed interest in the possibility when Rudy Giuliani was running for president. Another source said she has more recently let her interest be known discreetly within top Republican circles, presumably including John McCain�s camp. Fueling speculation that she would consider being on the ticket, Rice appeared for the first time this week at the so-called Wednesday meeting run by Grover Norquist, president...

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RYAN FREDERICK is no hero, no matter what they're saying about him on the Internet. He's the 28-year-old Chesapeake man being held in the Jan. 17 shooting death of Detective Jarrod Shivers. Shivers, 34, was executing a drug search warrant at Frederick's residence the night he was killed. According to police, the eight-year police veteran was hit in the arm and chest by a shot fired from inside the house. In a jailhouse interview, Frederick said he was in bed when the police came to his door about 8:30 p.m. Awakened by his barking dogs, Frederick said, he thought his...

President George W. Bush should stop worrying about his legacy. It’s already established. By his deeds you shall know him; preemptive war, torture and wiretapping, for starters. Nothing said in history can wipe out those flaws in his administration. And no revisionist historian down the road can diminish the importance of those acts. He has governed with threats -- and by nourishing fear in the American people. The president seems to have a hard time abiding by the law. Referring to his struggles with Congress during his first year in office, Bush joked that ``a dictatorship would be heck of...

GLENN: Now, I got into this story about San Francisco. San Francisco has, you know, has Alcatraz and some of the residents in San Francisco wanted to tear Alcatraz down because, you know, it was a prison. The last thing you'd like is a prison, you know. That's not nice. And they wanted to erect a global peace center. Now, I can't go on this story unless I know for sure that this is accurate. It says here 78% of the precincts reporting. About 72% of San Francisco voters opposed the tearing down of Alcatraz. STU: We do have an...

Lisa Mount right, and M.K. Wegmann second from right, wear costumes about Super Tuesday on Mardi Gras in the French Quarter of New Orleans Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008. Carnival revelers were greeted with warm weather for Fat Tuesday Straight from the Mardi Gras parade, 'Glo' Gloria Cunningham signs into the Democratic Caucus at the Town Hall in Crested Butte, Colo. with her costume on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008. Two revelers wear costumes like senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on Mardi Gras in the French Quarter of New Orleans Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008 R.M. Elfer left, and Judy Weaver wear...

BIRMINGHAM | More than 2,000 people gathered at Samford University's Jane Hollock Brock Hall on Saturday afternoon to hear the 44th governor of Arkansas, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, speak about why he should be the 44th president of the United States. (Video at bottom of story) 'I still believe that this is a country that's an amazing place to live, and I'll tell you why,' Huckabee said to a large crowd in Brock Hall's main auditorium while about another 1,000 people listened to his speech over a speaker system in an overflow room. 'We can still dream our dreams...

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has positioned himself as a pro-life, pro-family "social conservative," and has received the endorsement of some prominent social conservatives. But Massachusetts-area grassroots Catholics familiar with his record as governor are mystified by that support. Their view of Romney is that his "conversion" to social conservatism was pragmatic, a tactic to win the presidential nomination. The liberal policies that made Romney governor of Massachusetts -- including a pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage platform -- could not win him the Republican presidential nomination, so sweeping changes in his political philosophy were necessary. Romney, the presidential candidate, is a...

Originally, there were to be three acceptable choices the right-wing media elites would champion. All three had large corporate backing and each had their group of insiders on K street. Unfortunately, once the posturing was over and the voting began, the Republican primary attendees had the unmitigated gall to vote for someone who wasn’t one of “The Chosen.” Things were further complicated when one of the triumvirate decided he would rather play the part of a District Attorney on TV then a presidential candidate in real life. Another acceptable candidate took a cue from his fellow New Yorkers and retired...

Finally, there is a conservative answer to MoveOn.org: RoeGone.org ... What's even nicer is the ad they're launching to expose Mitt Romney's record. Be looking for secular conservative pundits and compromising pro-lifers to jump the Romney ship soon... Unlike the other ads that have been done on Romney that primarily focus on his flip-flops on abortion, marriage, gun control, immigration, taxes, pornography etc., RoeGone.org's ad clearly delineates Romney's record as governor – which is very appropriate since that's exactly what Gov. Romney said we should do... [Link to ad in post #2.] Meanwhile, the word is getting out that Gov....

McCain campaign Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker today issued the following statement on Governor Mitt Romney's attacks this morning on John McCain: "Mitt Romney has proven in this campaign that he will say anything to anyone at any time if he thinks it will help him politically. His stunning capacity to reverse his position on virtually every issue casts serious doubt on his ability to lead. Floridians need to ask themselves: If he changes his position today, what prevents him from reversing himself again tomorrow? "Just two years ago, Mitt Romney fully supported a 'cap and trade' system to deal with...

LADY LAKE, Fla. — Is John McCain, the maverick flyboy of the Republican Party, becoming the candidate of the Republican establishment? Mr. McCain, who has delighted in sticking his thumb in the eye of mainstream Republicans throughout his political career, is now accumulating a base of support among party regulars who see him as the strongest general election candidate in the remaining Republican field. The latest evidence came Saturday night with the endorsement of Florida’s popular Republican governor, Charlie Crist, which surprised even Mr. McCain. That state holds primary elections on Tuesday. In an interview Sunday, Mr. Crist said his...

AIKEN, S.C. - Bill Clinton was already working the crowd with a vociferous appeal to vote for his wife when the dozens of people jostling to get inside the auditorium provoked a campaign worker to cry out, "Adults should not be acting this way!" Coincidentally, Clinton's sharp- elbowed advocacy leading up to Saturday's South Carolina primary is prompting some pundits and fellow Democrats to voice a similar sentiment: Should a former president be acting this way? Several prominent Democrats say no. In recent days, they have publicly warned that he is hurting his party and his own status as elder...

During this week's Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said that putting together the right kind of stimulus package is "a part of economic justice." The remark reflected a major campaign theme for the New York senator, who has declared she would pursue "a new vision of economic fairness" as president. That slogan should set off alarm bells for anyone who recognizes that economic outcomes result from myriad individual choices. To impose her vision of economic fairness, Clinton would have to override those choices, compromising freedom in the name of equality. Clinton's aim is economic equality, not legal equality, and you...

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he could...

I was first elected to the Georgia House of Representatives 34 years ago. I have watched this party change for a long time. Some changes have been better than others. Two years after that first election, I went to work on the Reagan campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. I was one of the leaders of that campaign in Georgia, and my friend, Paul Coverdell, led the establishment's efforts to nominate President Ford. It was the typical establishment-versus-interloper campaign. Most of the friends I had made in the party were in the establishment. Most of them thought the nomination of...

The winter vomiting bug norovirus has struck 2.8million people, with health professionals braced for another rise as people return to schools and offices. The virus - which causes projectile vomiting, diarrhoea, mild fevers and headaches - is striking down more than 200,000 a week, according to official estimates. Three hospitals have been placed on red alert, while hundreds of wards up and down the country have been closed to new patients as the number of beds being taken up by bug victims reaches critical levels.

"During a press availability on the campaign trail in New Hampshire this weekend, MSNBC's Chris Matthews was pressing Sen. Hillary Clinton about how her plan to bring U.S troops home from Iraq differs from her competitors. Then it got weird(er): Matthews: "please come on the show." Clinton: "yeah, right." Matthews: "is that an answer?" Clinton: "you know, I don't know what to do with men who are obsessed with me. Honestly, I've never understood it." Later, Sen. Clinton walked over to Matthews. He pinched her cheek. She grazed his with her hand and said in a mother-to-child tone, "oh, Christopher....

The rest of the world gets uneasy every four years as Americans start to pick their next president. We don't have a vote. But we do have to live with the results. As the tenure of George W. Bush illustrates – this is not always pleasant. With the so-called Iowa caucuses out of the way, the murky U.S. political scene has become marginally clearer. Most Canadians would be hard-pressed to name all of the presidential candidates. We now know, thanks to an arcane and not particularly fair voting system in one of America's smallest states, which names we will never...

The historical analogies for the phenomenon that is Barack Obama have already stretched credibility. For a while pundits likened him to the effete loser Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic party’s 1950s version of Labour’s Hugh Gaitskell, the greatest prime minister we never had. But Obama doesn’t seem like such an airhead after his gritty, crushing defeat of Hillary Clinton in Iowa. I long thought he’d win ? but I never thought it would be by eight points, or that he’d push Clinton into third place. So now the favourite analogy is JFK: the young, hopeful rhetorician urging a New Frontier after...

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore drew cheers at 190-nation talks by saying the United States was the main block to launching negotiations in Bali on a new global climate treaty. Efforts to start two-year negotiations on a pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol flagged on Thursday, the ...udge the outcome. Gore stole the show in Bali after two days of lengthy ministerial speeches which had waxed on familiar themes about the urgency of action to slow global warming and the need for cooperation. ... "There's no precedent in history, culture for the radically new relationship between humanity and the...

World climate talks in Bali have gone into their scheduled last day amid fierce disagreement over targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. EU ministers have warned they will boycott a US-led climate summit next month unless the Bush administration backs firm targets for emissions cuts. The US favours allowing governments to set voluntary targets. Indonesia is trying to broker a compromise that would remove firm targets from the final text. Delegates spoke of some progress behind the scenes. My own country, the US, is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali Al Gore Q and A: Bali summit "We are...

In July 2000, Hillary Clinton stood on a stage at the University of Arkansas and struggled to keep her composure. Her voice was unusually soft that day, her words seemingly unfiltered. “Diane, you were the awesomest,” Mrs. Clinton said, referring to Diane Blair, a political science professor whose eulogy she was giving. “You were the best person that one could have as a friend.” Mrs. Blair, who died at 61, was described as the sister Mrs. Clinton had always wanted. She practically moved into the White House in 1993 to ease Mrs. Clinton’s transition to Washington, and returned at the...

Friday afternoon began with possible tragedy: a hostage crisis at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, N.H. As the incident unfolded, Clinton’s campaign closed its doors and canceled her public appearances. But nightfall brought a happy ending: the campaign workers safe, the man in police custody — and the New York senator flying to the scene to express thanks. The hostage-taking itself offered a rare, if small, genuine drama in a campaign season governed by strict schedules and scripted stump speeches. And as soon as it ended, Clinton took full advantage of the opportunity she had unexpectedly been handed....

"It’s been slightly more than 24 hours since the two-hour CNN/You Tube GOP debate finally sputtered and wheezed to its conclusion (appropriately, with a silly question to Rudy Giuliani about why, as a fanatic Yankee fan, he rooted for the Red Sox in the World Series). Conventional wisdom suggests that this flashy show with its quirky, often frivolous questions will have scant influence on the electoral outcomes in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and other early, crucial states in the nomination process. For two reasons, I suspect the conventional wisdom is wrong, and televised extravaganza could profoundly and immediately...

Written in an age in which minutemen rose to dress and fight at a moment’s notice, the Second Amendment was no doubt motivated by a young nation’s concern for its own safety and stability. But now, when the United States is protected by the most powerful security forces on the globe, the Second Amendment is neither relevant nor useful. Rather, it has become an impediment to vital public policy, and it should be repealed and replaced with nuanced federal legislation. Despite the controversy surrounding the Second Amendment, arguments about its relevancy have not surfaced in the Supreme Court since 1939,...

Britain has more living geniuses per head of population than anywhere else in the world, according to a new survey which reveals the country's influence on science, technology, business and the arts. The top 100 living geniuses Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web Almost a quarter of those featured in the list of 100 living geniuses are Britons, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, in joint first place, and physicist Stephen Hawking at seven in the list. British artists and musicians feature heavily, including Brit Art leader Damien Hirst at number 15, poet Seamus...

NEW YORK: Lou Dobbs, an anchorman for CNN, is furious, and he has his reasons. He's not only upset that the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, is being "absolutely irresponsible" in a decision about giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He also finds it an offense against nature and common sense that Spitzer has so far declined to appear on Dobbs's evening news program. "The man hasn't shown the gumption to come on the air and debate the issue with me," The New York Times quotes Dobbs as saying. Amazing - the temerity of "the man" not to come...

WHEN Title IX was passed 35 years ago, high school athletics were an overwhelmingly male pastime. The boys played sports and the girls cheered them on from the sidelines. In the years since, Title IX has radically changed the local high school sports landscape. Once the law banned schools from engaging in gender discrimination in sports, girls flocked by the millions to the fields, courts and swimming pools to join their school teams. Today, a high school without opportunities for girls to play sports is almost unimaginable. Yet as much as things have changed, much has remained the same. Though...

The presidential candidates are offering prescriptions for everything from Iraq to healthcare, but listen closely. Their fixes are situational and incremental. Meanwhile, the underlying structural problems in American politics and government are systemic and prevent us from solving our most intractable challenges. If we really want to make progress and achieve greater fairness as a society, it is time for elemental change. And we should start by looking at the Constitution, with the goal of holding a new Constitutional Convention. Sound radical? If so, then the founders were radicals. They would be amazed and disappointed that after 220 years, the...

Don Schwartz, who describes himself as "a super-Deaniac progressive type," decided to back Hillary Clinton - whose centrist views, he concedes, do not necessarily match his own - for a simple reason. He wanted, finally, to be with a winner. "I was actually surprised how many people said they were for Hillary," Schwartz said. "Now, they're getting to know her, and they're starting to like her. She is a nice person!" That reaction to the kind feelings the New York senator is able to generate has been a common one in New Hampshire, where a range of Democrats said last...

".S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., gives her husband, former President Bill Clinton, a hug as Little Rock Nine member Minnijean Brown Trickey, left, applauds after the former president spoke to the crowd at the 50th anniversary observances of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark."

Smashing capitalism by Barbara Ehrenreich Somewhere in the Hamptons a high-roller is cursing his cleaning lady and shaking his fists at the lawn guys. The American poor, who are usually tactful enough to remain invisible to the multi-millionaire class, suddenly leaped onto the scene and started smashing the global financial system. Incredibly enough, this may be the first case in history in which the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution. First they stopped paying their mortgages, a move in which they were joined by many financially stretched middle class...

The Senate approved, by a 72 to 25 vote, a symbolic, Republican-initiated resolution condemning the recent MoveOn.org ad that called Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. "Betray Us," with 22 Democrats voting with the Republicans. The resolution, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) as an amendment to a defense authorization bill, had this statement of purpose: "To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of...

(SF mayor Gavin Newsome)

Given the responses I got the last time I focused on this issue, I almost hate to bring it up…but here goes. I think Tony Snow is exactly right when he says here: “I deeply admire what [Mr. Bush] did on immigration and I think he’s right,” Mr. Snow said. “I think the policies the president outlined generally are the ones that eventually this country is going to adopt.” Let us hope so, because the alternative “solutions” out there - “let everyone in and register them all Democrat” on the left and “ship them all back to Mexico no matter...

he more easygoing second half of the Toronto Film Festival began with a technical glitch that threw a bit of a wrench into many festival-fatigued journalists' Tuesday. The morning press screening of Cassandra's Dream — Woody Allen's new film, starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, and Tom Wilkinson — was delayed a full hour due to an undisclosed mishap with the projector. That delay pushed back the rather anticipated showing of writer-director Todd Haynes' fractured cinema study of Bob Dylan, I'm Not There, which in turn threw off many carefully planned schedules. But really, such is life at a major international...

"The Hillary Clinton for President Campaign celebrated the opening of its new San Francisco headquarters with a launch party that coincided with the Democratic presidential debate on July 23, 2007. The radical activist groups Breasts Not Bombs and Code Pink heard about the event and decided it would be a good opportunity to stage a surprise topless protest to publicize their anti-war message." "I heard about the planned party-crashing and made sure I was on hand to record what happened." WARNING: link to website contains topless photos ( Mother-Of-All-Barf-Alerts)"Everyone crowded around several large TVs to watch the Democratic candidates. The...

Those deep thinkers known as the neoconservatives like to make comparisons between the so-called "war on terror" and World War II. Very well then, here's a comparison. Six years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler had already been dead and gone for 2 1/2 years. By that time, the United States had raised and trained a military of 16 million. By Dec. 7, 1947, much of that force had been disbanded because the enemy had been so thoroughly defeated. But today, six years after the in cident that began the war on terror, Osama bin Laden is alive...

Sep 10 02:11 PM US/Eastern By RON FOURNIER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - As a prosecutor at Nuremberg, Thomas Dodd charged the Nazis with "the apprehension of victims and their confinement without trial, often without charges, generally with no indication of their detention." His son, Sen. Chris Dodd, wonders today whether he did enough to stop the United States from violating that same rule of law in the war on terror. "For six decades, we learned the lessons of the Nuremberg men and women well," the Democratic presidential candidate writes in his book, "Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative...

A native Californian's recent visit to Egypt becomes one of religious discovery and cultural disillusionment. ___ Friday morning came, and the broad-shouldered young African American made his way to the sedated city's ancient quarters. He walked the streets with the determined gait of a football receiver to Al Azhar Mosque, arriving just as the muezzin's call to prayer summoned the faithful. Suddenly, the outgoing Californian ceased his banter and gaped, awestruck, at the intricately carved minarets reaching for the heavens, the browns, reds, greens and blues interwoven into masterful calligraphy. Salahudin Ali was a long way from the drab office...