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WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) - It's rare when a conservative Republican in Congress heaps praise on President Barack Obama, especially in regards to fighting global warming, but Senator Lindsey Graham did just that on Wednesday. The South Carolina lawmaker has, despite opposition from many in his party, worked with Obama and Democrats on a comprehensive energy and environmental bill, winning their support of more government aid for nuclear power and expanded oil and gas drilling. Nuclear power and domestic oil production are at the core of Republican platforms. "The president has been great to work with on energy and climate,"...

I cannot tell how much of this outrage about Sarah Palin's endorsement of McCain is feigned by those who do not wish her well. It is not principally to those folks that this post is directed. To those conservatives who are genuinely disappointed by Sarah Palin's decision to support McCain, let me say that I think Rush and Mark Levin understand it and have said that it is a question of loyalty and that loyalty is a virtue. That makes sense to me and, personally, I would be a little put off if she did otherwise, since it would look...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is warning the tea party activists to not run third party candidates that would “divide” Republican voters and waste opportunities for the GOP. Romney said in an interview with Newsmax posted on the conservative outlet’s website Monday night that he was pleased the conservative grassroots movement is “silent no longer.” The likely 2012 GOP presidential candidate cautioned though that while he supports the idea of conservative challenges in GOP primaries, third party tea party-backed candidates in the general election could be disastrous. “Divide and fail is the result,” Romney said of third party challenges. “That...

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past....

Until last night, when I watched the Republican debate, I had no idea how much John McCain dislikes me and just about everybody else but Rudy Giuliani, who if you believe The New York Times is a pretty good hater himself. As I watched McCain and Governor Romney go at it during the debate at the Reagan Library I was struck by the huge gap that separates McCain -- whose contempt for his fellow humans is patently obvious -- and my dad, Ronald Reagan, who had nothing but the deepest affection and respect for the American people. The feeling is...

Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already. Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections. In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have...

It is early evening on Capitol Hill, and I am sitting with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, who, along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, is trying to craft a new energy bill — one that could actually win 60 votes. What is interesting about Graham is that he has been willing — courageously in my view — to depart from the prevailing G.O.P. consensus that the only energy policy we need is “drill, baby, drill.” What brought you around, I ask? Graham’s short answer: politics, jobs and legacy. We start with politics. The Republican Party today has...

Report: 3 key senators propose jettisoning 'cap-and-trade'; favor reducing carbon pollution. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three key senators are writing a new climate bill without a broad "cap-and-trade" approach to reducing carbon pollution, leaving behind what has been the central feature in the debate over climate legislation for years, The Washington Post reported Friday night. Cap and trade, in which overall pollution reduction targets are met by allowing facilities to buy and sell pollution credits, has become so politically unpopular that its Senate passage is viewed as unlikely. So Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn,., are...

Washington (CNN) – President Obama tersely reminded Sen. John McCain Thursday during the White House health care summit that, "We're not campaigning anymore. The election is over." The president was referring to the 2008 presidential race, but McCain still has a Senate campaign to deal with back in Arizona. And on Friday, his re-election campaign released yet another radio spot, this time enlisting his fellow Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl to promote McCain's "conservative principles." Kyl narrates the 30-second ad and tell listeners: "Arizona could have no stronger advocate than John. He's with me every step of the way in fighting...

In critiquing Glenn Beck’s CPAC speech taking the Republican Party to task for failing to own up to its Big Government lapses, Bill Bennett cites various Republicans who have admitted the party’s culpability. But see if you can spot the glaring problem with his defense of the GOP: From Jim DeMint to Tom Coburn to Mike Pence to Paul Ryan, any number of Republicans have admitted the excesses of the party and done constructive and serious work to correct them and find and promote solutions. Even John McCain has said again and again that “the Republican party lost its way.”...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the members of the Senate Republican delegation to Thursday's White House health-care summit, and the list includes Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The Arizona Republican is not known as a health-care expert. But as the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, McCain offered a sweeping reform plan with some elements that overlap with the Obama proposal, and others that would have represented a radical departure from the current system.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed Monday he is working with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to break the logjam on closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bringing the prisoners to trial. The South Carolina senator said that in a series of meetings and phone calls over the last “several weeks,” he has pressed to establish a new national security court that would keep most Guantanamo detainees out of the federal courthouse. He expressed confidence that he could strike a deal to extend some measure of habeas corpus rights to prisoners detained on terrorism charges and...

Link only, per FR posting rules

The conversation ranged widely. Topics included job creation, helping Main Street and not Wall Street, overcoming congressional gridlock and reminding residents that he's still the same maverick politician he has been for nearly 24 years. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was in Flagstaff Tuesday on the heels of former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth's announcement to run against McCain in the Republican primary in August. He sat down with the Arizona Daily Sun editorial board before giving remarks at the Coconino County Lincoln Day Dinner at the Radisson Woodlands Hotel. During the 75-minute question-and-answer session, he reiterated that his positions haven't...

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham hit the campaign trail Tuesday to lend his national security credentials to Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina's campaign against Sen. Barbara Boxer. Graham, who has emerged as his party's leading voice on issues related to the treatment and prosecution of terrorism suspects, planned to join Fiorina at the San Francisco International Airport to promote legislation he has authored that would bar suspected Sept. 11 plotters from civilian courts.

Senate Republicans will lay out a 10-point election year agenda later this spring, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suggested Tuesday. McCain said that the GOP would craft a list of 10 legislative pledges which they would seek to enact within the first 60 days of taking back control of Congress, if they were to do so in this fall's elections. "We Republicans have to provide -- and we will later this spring -- a positive vision with what we want to do for the country," McCain said during an interview on KFYI radio in Arizona.

During her speech to the first ever National Tea Party Convention in Nashville on Saturday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin discouraged the very idea of a national organization, urging the movement to stay leaderless and decentralized. This was the most important and valuable part of Palin’s speech. As for the rest of it–Sarah sounded pretty much like the same old Republican Party. Despite the many independents that make up the movement, the tea parties in large part represent a long overdue reexamination of conservative principles. A big-spending Democratic president seems to have awakened grassroots conservatives enough to finally lament the...

Given the jockeying that goes on to get mentioned in a State of the Union speech, it is not surprising that insiders pushing the immigration reform agenda celebrated success. Their issue made it into the speech, reaffirming that the president’s commitment remains alive and well. Outsiders, however, were disappointed and displeased because the call “to continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system” fell far short of the rallying cry they wanted to hear. The blogosphere kicked into high gear, mostly pronouncing immigration legislation dead for 2010. That a single sentence at a precarious political moment could be seen...

After a College Republican group withdrew its support for a Meghan McCain speech because she believes in marriage equality, she took the GOP’s “purity test.” And passed. This week I made a little news by not being “pure enough,” if you will, by College Republican standards. I was invited to speak at George Washington University on February 9 by numerous campus groups, including the George Washington College Republicans and Allied in Pride, an LGBT organization. I take great pride in being one of the few people who brings together the gay community and Republican groups. But somewhere between my accepting...

Kerry, bipartisan bloc discuss compromise. BY MICHAEL KRANISH WASHINGTON — Seeking to resuscitate stalled global warming legislation in Washington’s suddenly changed political climate, a bipartisan group of senators including John Kerry of Massachusetts has been conducting private talks this week with the White House and a key business group over an array of concessions sought by Republicans. The election of Scott Brown as Kerry’s colleague has added urgency to the negotiations for a compromise, which would include the Democrats’ goal of limiting carbon emissions while encouraging development of nuclear power, subsidizing coal mining, and drilling for off-shore oil. Trying to...