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Complete title: ‘On What?’--McCain Says He Didn’t Know Defense Bill He Approved Repealed Military Ban on Sodomy, Bestiality Video at link (CNSNews.com) - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that he did not know that the 926-page Defense Department authorization bill that came through his committee and was approved by the Senate last week on 93 to 7 vote included a provision that would repeal the military’s ban on sodomy and bestiality if the bill becomes law. CNSNews.com asked McCain: “Senator, did you read the Defense authorization bill that...

Sen. John McCain, one of the most ardent supporters in Washington of the Libyan resistance, released a statement on the reported death of Col. Moammar Kadafi, calling for the United States to “deepen” its support for the strife-torn nation. (snip) “The death of Moammar Kadafi marks an end to the first phase of the Libyan revolution,” McCain said Thursday. “While some final fighting continues, the Libyan people have liberated their country. Now the Libyan people can focus all of their immense talents on strengthening their national unity, rebuilding their country and economy, proceeding with their democratic transition, and safeguarding the...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Sunday called for President Barack Obama to "sit down" with Republicans to find solutions to the nation's struggling economy.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday the Republican presidential contenders should've stopped the crowd at a recent GOP debate from booing a gay soldier. McCain, certainly no stranger to presidential debates, added that in the heat of the moment, candidates often have a tough time reacting. "I do," McCain said on CBS's "Face the Nation," when asked if the candidates should've stopped the reaction. "But a lot of times, when you’re in a debate, you’re thinking about what you’re going to say, what the question is going to be. It’s hard to react sometimes. But I’m sure… I would bet...

Like a proud father looking to relinquish control of the family business, Sen. John McCain is pushing soft-spoken Sen. Rob Portman to take a more assertive leadership role on Capitol Hill. Long impressed with Portman’s policy expertise and agreeable demeanor — “It’s a trait I wish I had more of,” the often-prickly Arizona Republican said — McCain strongly urged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to appoint the Ohioan to the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction and continues to encourage his freshman GOP colleague, at times rather strongly, to be more aggressive. This isn’t the first time that McCain, his...

US Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain has lashed out at Russia, saying it could be the next country to experience a Libya-style uprising. ­But Senator McCain has a very far-fetched outlook, believes RT's Washington correspondent Gayane Chichikyan. McCain is sure that the Arab Spring will rage on and will make it to countries like China and Russia, which according to him “need democracy” just as Libya does. At some point he even said that Libya has already achieved democracy, which is far from reality according to the situation on the ground.

Sen. John McCain predicted that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi would quickly lose his grip on power amid reports rebel fighters had entered the capital Tripoli. Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, McCain said it was a ‘matter of hours not days’ until Gadhafi’s downfall. The conflict was “nearing the end,” he predicted. McCain praised NATO forces for their role saying that once they “became more heavily engaged” it was only a matter of time until the Gadhafi regime fell. “We’ll be rid of a guy who has the blood of Americans on his hands,” he said. Looking ahead to a...

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.

Link only, per FR posting rules

GILBERT - Arizona Sen. John McCain held a town hall in Gilbert this morning and the economy took center stage. The town hall was focused on the nations' economic troubles and McCain said the on-going financial problems would be much greater had Congress not passed a bill to keep the country from defaulting on its debt. McCain said he is very concerned with the recent S&P downgrade of the United States' credit rating and views it as a wake-up call to the nation. "It will cost more to borrow money and it is a very serious situation," McCain said. McCain...

John McCain is part of the problem (“Maverick McCain returns,” Aug. 4). McCain’s conservative credibility went out the window years ago...and he’s been warming up to spending liberals for decades.

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.

There is a dismaying symmetry about the debt-limit controversy. Today’s Left creates phony crises to rationalize action on its radically transformative program; today’s Right creates phony rationalizations to avoid addressing actual crises. Incrementally, yesterday’s radicalism becomes today’s norm. The Right talks a good game about small government, constitutional government. But that is all it is: talk. When it gets down to brass tacks, like now, with our nation sinking into a death spiral of unsustainable, incalculable debt, the Right's solution is to grow government while trusting that government will constrain government — at some future date, of course. And when...

Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are working together to expand the U.S.' role in the Arab Spring, according to The Washington Post. Kerry and McCain traveled to Egypt last weekend with eight Fortune 500 executives to explore how the U.S. can expand economic investment in that country after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. They envision similar plans across the Middle East in the aftermath of the Middle East revolts that would be similar to the U.S.' “Marshall Plan,” in which the U.S. invested billions of dollars in war-torn European nations after World War II.

Headline and link only (AP covering it's tracks)...

U.S. Sen. John McCain said Wednesday that he’s “seen this movie before” when it comes to federal claims of a secure border between the U.S. and Mexico. In a Senate hearing, McCain criticized the Department of Homeland Security for not keeping up with escalating drug and smuggling cartel violence that has resulted in mass graves and executions of Mexican officials. McCain, R-AZ, told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano he remembered the U.S. giving amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in 1986, “when we said we’d secure the borders.” Today, millions of illegal immigrants enter the U.S. at Tucson. McCain said:...

What does he want? Revenge. For what? Being born. This is the way famous gunslinger Doc Holliday answers equally famous lawman and good friend Wyatt Earp’s inquiry - in their depiction in the movie Tombstone - into why their sworn enemy, Johnny Ringo, is such a misanthrope. Sadly, this description would be equally accurate in explaining the actions of another Arizona transplant filled with endless rage: Senator John McCain. I first encountered the seething side of McCain when I was writing my 2008 book, The Real McCain, which was critical of him while pointing out a then-controversial fact, one no...

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has been known to change his views every now and then. Environmentalists hope this is one of those times. Now that McCain has dispatched a conservative primary challenger and Arizona appears set to send him back to the Senate, climate advocates are optimistic they will soon regain one of their biggest champions. ... Multiple sources said McCain reassured them in private that he still believed in the climate issue... ...

Arizona Senator John McCain was in New Mexico Wednesday night as the guest speaker at the border sheriff’s conference held in Sandoval County. The Southwestern Border Sheriffs’ Coalition annual conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort. The alliance includes law enforcement from 26 counties along the U.S.-Mexican border, from Texas to California, whose goal is to help combat violence along the border. McCain’s frustration was obvious as he addressed the law enforcement officials, saying the president isn’t making border security a high enough priority. “It’s not appropriate, in my view, for the president to tie securing the border...

(snip) WALLACE: Let's talk about a few specifics that have come out from some member of the House Republican Caucus, like Paul Ryan with his roadmap and some of the Tea Partiers. Do you support the idea of allowing those under 55 -- not talking about people near retirement now -- allowing people under 55 to put up to a third of their payroll taxes in private accounts? McCAIN: Frankly, I haven't seen that particular issue and in that detail, but everybody knows, all Americans know that we're going to have to fix Social Security and Medicare. And I notice...

PHOENIX—An ebullient John McCain celebrated his resounding GOP Senate primary win with Gov. Jan Brewer, Sen. Jon Kyl and the state’s Republican congressional delegation at a unity fundraiser Friday night. Conspicuously absent: former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, whom McCain soundly defeated Tuesday following a bitter and acrimonious campaign. Organizers said he received an invitation to the event, just as others losing candidates did, but Hayworth claims the opposite. “I never received an invitation – nothing ever crossed my desk,” the former six-term congressman told POLITICO Saturday.

One of the most disliked, liberal Republicans in the Senate used money from conservatives who can't stand him to win reelection against the far more conservative candidate. John McCain easily beat JD Hayworth in the Republican primary for Senate this year, but the reason why is disturbing. The vast majority of the money he spent, $18 million out of a total of almost $24 million, came from contributions to his prior presidential campaign, not this Senate campaign. Many people who contributed to his presidential campaign – including myself – contributed because of Sarah Palin, not McCain. To have our money...

(snip) Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise. Sen. Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in...

<p>Sen. John McCain acknowledged his primary rivals during his victory speech after winning Tuesday's Arizona Republican primary, but not warmly.</p> <p>It took until the sixth paragraph of his acceptance speech, and his remarks notably mentioned his closest rival, J.D. Hayworth, last.</p>

Two days after being trounced in the Arizona GOP Senate primary, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth still hasn’t called Sen. John McCain to congratulate him. And it’s not as if Tuesday night’s outcome was in doubt for very long. McCain eviscerated Hayworth by 24 percentage points and The Associated Press called the race not even a full two hours after the polls closed. The four-term senator quickly took the stage at the downtown Phoenix Convention Center to declare victory and make it an early night. But the McCain campaign is still a bit surprised it never heard from Hayworth, a former...

Results TBD 08/24/2010 Late PM PDT/MST.

A Senator’s journey from bipartisan maverick to right-wing ideologue—one flip-flop at a time. In theory, John McCain's right-wing madness could come to an end on Tuesday, when he is expected to prevail over former Rep. JD Hayworth in Arizona’s Senate primary. Faced with a stiff conservative challenge, McCain has spent this election cycle defying many of his long-held moderate positions. In fact, his transformation from aisle-crossing, party-bucking maverick (see this 1998 Mother Jones interview) to cookie-cutter conservative has been years in the making. During his 2008 presidential bid, he began to lurch rightward on a litany of issues in his...

John McCain holds a comfortable lead in the contentious Arizona Republican Senate primary, according to the most recent public polling, making him the strong favorite against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth on Tuesday. But it’s been a costly road to a fifth term for the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, and the experience is likely to leave a lasting and unsightly stain on his legacy. It’s not just the $20 million he’s spent already this election or the scorched earth campaign that he’s run. Rather, it’s the choices he’s made and the positions he’s embraced — and what it reveals about him...

(CNN) - At a Tea Party rally Sunday on the U.S.-Mexico border in support of tough immigration laws, Arizona Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth slammed his opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, and turned McCain's words back on the veteran senator. On a ranch in Hereford, Arizona, and with the border fence visible several hundred yards behind him, Hayworth also praised Arizona's new immigration law that was signed by the state's governor, who has spent the last two days campaigning with McCain. Pulling a word from a McCain letter on immigration which first surfaced in April, Hayworth said it was time to...

In a rapid turnaround trying to capitalize on a J.D Hayworth comment at a tea party rally earlier this week, U.S. Sen. John McCain released a new web video drumming Hayworth for reportedly preferring President Obama to the Republican incumbent senator. The video begins with a picture of President Obama and lists a litany of criticisms, from the 9.5 percent unemployment rate, to the $13 trillion national debt and the lawsuit against Arizona’s immigration law. The text interrupts with, “but J.D. says he’d rather have Barack Obama as president.”

Video at link.

The slayings of 10 aid workers in Afghanistan by the Taliban are a stark reminder of what could happen without American involvement there, U.S. Sen. John McCain said. McCain stumped Sunday at Mesa State College for Grand Junction native Jane Norton, urging about 150 people to get out the vote in the Republican primary election. Norton faces Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, and the winner will face the victor in the Democratic Party primary pitting Sen. Michael Bennet against former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. (snip) McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential...

Timely use of campaign funds to buy advertising could be the key to overcoming incumbent John McCain's 20-point lead in the race for the Republican nomination, rival Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth said Tuesday in Ahwatukee Foothills. "Our ads are going up as his are coming down," Hayworth said following an appearance at an Ahwatukee Republican Women's club meeting at the Grace Inn, just south of Elliot Road on 51st Street. A Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday indicated McCain was leading Hayworth by a margin of 54-34. Hayworth attracted a crowd of about 80 people to the Tuesday evening event. Hayworth...

Video at YouTube link.

PHOENIX (AP) — Sen. John McCain's Republican primary challenger has released a new ad using McCain's own voice admitting to lying in the past. Former congressman J.D. Hayworth's campaign released the commercial Thursday. It uses McCain's voice from the recording of his 2002 book, in which McCain recalls publicly supporting South Carolina's right to fly the Confederate flag, even though he personally opposed it. McCain says on the recording: " ... it could come down to lying or losing. I chose lying." The ad suggests McCain is again lying about his record on illegal immigration.

U.S. Sen. John McCain has spent an unprecedented $16 million to date fending off a challenge from former U.S. Congressman J.D. Hayworth. Hayworth, so far, has spent $1.5 million, according to campaign finance reports filed July 15. Hayworth’s spokesman, Mark Sanders, said the expenditure proves Hayworth is such a strong candidate that McCain pulled out all the stops with phone banking, mailers, radio and TV. “I think that the senator was really fearful of losing this race and he decided to just dump as much as he could into it to buy it,” he said. While candidates are allowed to...

With one word, "yes," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, solidified his maverick status and no doubt fanned the flames of conservative resentment already running high against him, as he voted Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee to support the nomination of Elena Kagan for a seat on the Supreme Court, the lone Republican to do so. "I'm going to vote for her because I believe this last election has consequences," Graham said of Kagan, adding that her positions are "in the mainstream" and saying it was "not a difficult decision." As if to underline his conservative status, Graham reminded, "No one...

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Senator John McCain's camp is apologizing to Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada for an ad running featuring Estrada's name. Sheriff Estrada has come out saying he does not support the senator. McCain's ad features several Arizona sheriff's taking his side. Towards the middle of the ad you see Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada's name scroll along the bottom. "I thought it was a mistake. They shouldn't have had that name in there and I did talk to some of the aids for senator McCain and I set the record straight on that I am not...

McCain calls Hayworth a "pig." He desperately defends his flip-flops and record of voting for the billion dollar pork TARP bailouts which included $150 billion in earmarks, co-sponsoring amnesty with Ted Kennedy and cap and trade legislation with Joe Lieberman, and voting against tax cuts twice. Hayworth easily proves that he is much more conservative than McCain on the very things McCain has been attacking him on – pork and earmarks. In their second, and likely final, Senate primary debate, JD Hayworth again easily defeated John McCain. McCain avoided discussing real issues, where he has a record of flip-flopping in...

It was apparent last night why McCain has only agreed to participate in two Senate debates with JD Hayworth, because of the awkwardness attempting to explain his flip-flopping back to the right now that it is an election year. Both debates between the two candidates are taking place well into the primary, after McCain has had months to spend $6 million in smear attack ads against JD. $5 million of that was leftover from prior campaigning, including $1.1 million from convicted Ponzi scheme criminal Scott Rothstein - the top contributor to two of his 2008 presidential campaign funds. Unlike other...

PHOENIX - In the race for U.S. Senate, J.D. Hayworth is accusing John McCain of flip-flopping on the issue of illegal immigration. Does McCain want border security or a path to citizenship for illegals -- or both? McCain once championed comprehensive immigration reform that would allow people here illegally a path to citizenship. "The present situation with broken borders and 11 million people that are in America without citizenship is unacceptable," he said on the campaign trail. Now McCain says border security must come first before tackling what to do with the 12 million illegals already living in the u.s.....

As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics. In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.

Arizona Sen. John McCain’s re-election campaign has gained an important endorsement from an influential conservative publication, National Review. “This magazine has not always agreed with Sen. John McCain’s judgments,” the endorsement on National Review’s website notes. “But there are three considerations that militate against dumping McCain for his primary challenger, former congressman J.D. Hayworth.” The first is that McCain has consistently voted on the conservative side on important issues — he has never supported a broad-based tax hike, voted for every conservative Supreme Court nominee, and has a long pro-life record. Second, McCain has unmatched credibility on national security and...

WASHINGTON — Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013. When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them. “There is a lot of inertia”...

PHOENIX -- Senator John McCain, former U.S. Congressman J.D. Hayworth, and conservative hopeful Jim Deakin will face off in the first of two debates on July 16 in Phoenix. The three candidates are vying for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by McCain. The debate will take place at KTVK-3TV Studios in Phoenix on Friday, July 16 at 7:00 p.m and will be simulcast on KTTU in Tucson and azfamily.com. A second debate to be held in Tucson is planned for the following night at KUAT PBS-6.

(CNN) – Parts of a 2007 infomercial that features Arizona Senate hopeful J.D. Hayworth are hitting Arizona airwaves today – but this time as part of a McCain campaign ad that slams Hayworth over his involvement with a company called National Grants Conferences. Hayworth, a radio host and former congressman, recorded the infomercial in 2007. The ad promised free information about "hundreds of billions of dollars in government funding" to individuals who attend a conference on the topic.

In his August Senate primary against John McCain, former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth touts himself as "Mr. Conservative." But in 2007, after losing his House seat the previous year, the former talk show host rented himself out as a pitchman in a TV infomercial recruiting viewers to spend at least $1,000 for "seminars" on how to apply for federal grants they wouldn't have to pay back.

It appears the Senate campaign of J. D. Hayworth has hit a bump in the road. A big one: Republican Senate challenger J. D. Hayworth appeared in a 2007 television infomercial in which he helped convince viewers that they could rake in big bucks by attending seminars that would teach them how to apply for federal grants that they wouldn’t have to pay back. National Grants Conferences, the Florida-based company that hosted the classes and produced the informercial, has faced criticism from multiple state attorneys general and Better Business Bureaus. Hayworth, a former Arizona congressman who is running against incumbent...

Alternate headline: “McCain rival maybe a little too maverick-y.” John McCormack’s touting this as a potential campaign-ender, but is it really? It’s FUBAR, sure, but hasn’t JD already been thoroughly kookified by McCain’s attack ads, including one describing him as among the very dumbest members of Congress? Crankishness was priced into the value of his political stock long ago. Besides, most of the people who are still with him at this point are surely diehard McCain-haters, prone to shiver at the mere mention of the word “Maverick.” Hayworth could don a Lesko jacket and jaunty Willy Wonka top hat and...

LAS — More of everything. That’s what Arizona Republican U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl said is needed to secure the U.S.-Mexican border. They spoke after touring parts of the border near Douglas with area law enforcement leaders on Saturday. “A tremendous amount of progress has been made, but as we also heard when we said, ‘What do you need?’ the answer was essentially more of everything,” Kyl said. When the senators visited the same stretch several years ago, none of the fencing had been constructed and many of the cameras and lights were not in place. Kyl pointed...