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TRIPOLI (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain said on Thursday the fall of Muammar Gaddafi was inspiring people all over world, including citizens of Syria, Iran, China and Russia, but he twinned his praise with caution about Libya's many revolutionary armed groups, saying they had to be brought under control. Leading the first visit to Tripoli by members of the U.S. Congress since Gaddafi's fall last month, McCain added at a media conference that U.S. investors were eager to do business in the oil-exporting country but this would be difficult as long as fighting continued. Many residents of the capital...

WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday wouldn't rule out U.S. military action if Pakistan's intelligence agencies continue supporting terrorists who are attacking American forces. Outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen last week accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of backing the Haqqani network, a terror group active in Afghanistan but based out of Pakistan who attacked the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan and detonated a truck bomb that wounded scores of American soldiers. Arguing that Pakistan has made a "tremendous miscalculation" in allowing the Haqqanis to operate without consequence, Graham said the U.S. won't make the same mistake...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said misspent and wasted U.S. funds to both Iraq and Afghanistan, where some taxpayer dollars have gone to the Taliban, are "disturbing." "What is disturbing was the recent inspector general's report that some 20 to 30 billion dollars both in Iraq and Afghanistan have been wasted and misspent, and in the case of Afghanistan in some cases the money has actually gone to the Taliban. Now that is not an acceptable use of the taxpayer's dollar," said McCain on Fox News's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" Thursday. McCain clarified that he was unsure of...

Sen. John McCain, a critic of President George W. Bush's use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war on terror, reflected on the “issue of torture” a decade after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. “Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners hurt us a great deal and did provide a propaganda tool for our enemies including Al Qaeda,” the Arizona Republican said on "Fox News Sunday." Noting that on the 10th anniversary of those attacks he did not want to dwell on his differences with the current and previous administration, McCain applauded both Bush and President Barack Obama for...

Sen. John McCain on Monday strongly disputed a U.S. diplomatic cable that said he pushed to help Muammar Qadhafi’s regime obtain military hardware two years ago, calling the notion “outrageous.” The 2009 cable, released by the open information group WikiLeaks and written by staff at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, said in particular that McCain, at a meeting with Qadhafi and one of his sons, promised to help Libya obtain C-130 Hercules military cargo aircraft. (snip) On Monday, McCain told Foreign Policy magazine that the diplomatic cable was incorrect, and that he had never pledged any help to Libya in...

Sen. John McCain said that as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi faces an "inevitable" end, the U.S. should concern itself with helping contain weapons from Qaddafi's arsenal. "We've got to secure these weapons depots," the Arizona Republican said on CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday. "that have huge, huge numbers of weapons, and apparently mustard gas and other weapons of mass destruction."

Arizona Sen. John McCain said the United States must lead the world in providing support to Libya as they begin their post-Gadhafi era. "I think we would be well-served if we make sure that there is not an extremist takeover or hijacking of this revolution," McCain said. McCain appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room", where he said an earlier and stronger showing of power by the U.S. in the air could have shortened the conflict significantly. "The only thing that was holding [Gadhafi] in power was money and fear," McCain said. "Once those are dissipated by military strength, it is...

Sen. John McCain was put on the defensive Sunday for comparing some of his GOP colleagues to hobbits during the debt ceiling debate. The Arizona Republican had taken to the Senate floor in July to admonish conservatives for “unrealistic” expectations and quoted a Wall Street Journal editorial that compared them to the characters from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” “What I was talking about, quoting from a Wall Street Journal editorial, was that there was a segment of the Republicans in the Senate — Republican Senators — that said we cannot raise the debt limit until we pass...

August 21, 2011 12:11 PM McCain: Palin would be "formidable" in 2012 By Lucy Madison Sen. John McCain says Sarah Palin has not solicited his advice on running for president - but he says she would make a "very formidable" challenger if she did jump into the race. McCain, speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," declined to say whether or not he thought Palin, his running mate in the 2008 election, should run. "That's a decision that is so personal," he noted. But, he said, "I think she would be very formidable." The former presidential candidate pointed out that...

Sen. John McCain to hold town hall Tuesday in Goodyear Tuesday, August 23, 2011 3 pm Goodyear Justice Center 185 North 145th Avenue, Goodyear, Ariz. McCain town hall here Monday Monday, August 22, 2011 Noon First Congregational Church 216 East Gurley Street, Prescott, Ariz.

In the wake of the recent and raucous debt ceiling debate, The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart noted two important developments: The good news is that the Tea Party, more than Barack Obama, has now ended the neoconservative dream of an ever-expanding American empire. The bad news is that it has also ended whatever hopes liberals once entertained that roughly 100 years after Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, roughly 75 years after the New Deal and roughly 50 years after the Great Society, we were living in another great age of progressive reform. Beinart’s observations are generally-and hopefully-correct. They’re also even...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators and former presidential candidates say Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating speaks to the need for more bipartisan compromise — but they also say the blame lay with the other party.

(snip) MCCAIN: ... just wants to spend money. Hello? He just wants to spend more money. You and I are -- remember when Ronald Reagan said the worst deal he ever made was when he sat down with the Democrats and said they would cut spending $3 and raise taxes for every $1. Guess what? They raised taxes and they didn’t cut spending. That’s why the Tea Partiers and others would – I’m not a Tea Partier -- but the fact is, we need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We couldn’t get it through the Senate as the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. John McCain says he'll vote for compromise legislation averting a government default, although "I will probably have to swallow hard."

Former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, who this week referred to Tea Party lawmakers as "hobbits," publicly criticized Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey Sunday during an unusual unscripted debate on the Senate floor. McCain, who appeared to be having a great 'ol time during a back and forth with Democrat Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin, referred to Toomey and those who share his views as "terrible." (snip) "...the terrible obstructionists on this side of the aisle, the terrible people, their flawed philosophical views about the future of America..."

So the debt limit debate has come to this: John McCain, who you may recall was the GOP’s 2008 standard bearer, is now openly accusing conservatives of actively misleading America with their completely unrealistic demands, which he labeled “deceiving” and “bizarro.” In a seminal moment in this debate, here’s some video of McCain on the Senate floor today, unleashing an angry tirade at conservatives who are still holding out for a balanced budget amendment as part of any compromise on the debt ceiling. McCain accused them of “deceiving” America into believing such a thing can pass the Senate:

Veteran Sen. John McCain has had enough with tea-party-aligned lawmakers who have vowed not to vote to raise the debt ceiling before passage of a constitutional balanced budget amendment. The Arizona Republican, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee, described their position as “foolish,” “deceiving, even bizarro,” given Americans’ anxiety about the sliding stock market, a halt on hiring and the possibility of higher interest rates related to the looming default.

Too short to excerpt.

The US should keep as many as 13,000 troops in Iraq beyond the end-of-year deadline for ending its eight-year combat mission there to help keep the peace around hot spots, according to John McCain, the influential Republican senator. (snip) “I understand the war weariness of the American people ... but I also believe that our interests are our values, for one thing,” he told the FT, adding that he was “puzzled” when people say the US should not act when Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has been promising to go house to house and kill Libyans who oppose him. “We...

The American people won’t accept tax increases as part of a debt ceiling increase compromise, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday.

 In an interview on CNN's “State of the Union” with Candy Crowley McCain said even proposed increases on specific taxes was not something Republicans could agree to. "Well, I think that if we did those small things you're talking about it would have a very small impact but the principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November and the results of the election was that the American people don't want their taxes raised and...