John Mccain

John McCain, a senior member of the Senate committee that oversees the telecom industry, now has cellphone coverage at the family's ranch near Sedona, after a request from his wife, Cindy, early in 2007, the Washington Post reported. Verizon Wireless and AT&T provide the coverage at the ranch, which is in a remote canyon where reception is difficult. McCain is a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein made headlines recently by demanding a forceful U.S. response to Syria's use of chemical weapons against its population. Less noticed was that the California Democrat wasn't urging deeper military involvement or other dramatic steps, but only a new push for action by the United Nations Security Council, which has already rejected Western-backed resolutions on Syria three times. In this cautious approach, Feinstein, who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not alone.

Daniel Congiolosi is sure it won't be long before energy is so expensive he won't be able to pay the bills. When that happens, he will be ready. This spring, he tripled the size of his garden. He's rushing to install a hand pump on the well, build a concrete-lined root cellar and get an ice house ready before next summer. Thanks to soaring oil prices, he'll be able to pay for it all. Americans have been hit hard by months of $120- and $130-a-barrel oil, but in Alaska, they've hit the jackpot.

Re "Both sides of debate at NRA convention," May 4 When the National Rifle Assn. backed improved background checks on gun buyers in the 1990s, the organization truly was nonpartisan. Time and money have changed that. Witness the lineup of speakers at the NRA's annual convention over the weekend. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and others represent only the most conservative factions of the Republican Party. Whatever semblance of balance that existed at the NRA has been replaced by hyperpartisanship.

I didn't know David Foster Wallace all that well. We met a couple of times, and once, I interviewed him onstage at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. I asked him on a few occasions if he'd review for the paper, but he said he'd had a bad experience and had sworn off reviewing for good. We shared a literary agent. In the lead-up to the 2004 presidential election, we spent an hour or so on the phone one afternoon discussing politics, which he followed with the rabid fascination of someone who, despite all better judgment, believed the process mattered, that somehow, somewhere, there was a candidate who might see us through.

David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead Friday night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46. Jackie Morales, a records clerk at the department, said Wallace's wife called police at 9:30 p.m. Friday saying she had returned home to find that her husband had hanged himself. Wallace, who had taught creative writing at Pomona College since 2002, was on leave this semester.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein made headlines recently by demanding a forceful U.S. response to Syria's use of chemical weapons against its population. Less noticed was that the California Democrat wasn't urging deeper military involvement or other dramatic steps, but only a new push for action by the United Nations Security Council, which has already rejected Western-backed resolutions on Syria three times. In this cautious approach, Feinstein, who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not alone.

The fall of the Kadafi regime is a victory for Libya, the Middle East and the world, said U.S. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who had been strong advocates for U.S. military intervention in the months-long conflict. "Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Kadafi," the senators said in a statement released late Sunday night.  "But we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.

Sen. John McCain, who visited Libya with other Republican senators last week, said as the military mission there winds down the U.S. should consider helping the North African country cope with its “horrendous” casualties. The Arizona senator proposed sending some of the injured to the U.S. Army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, or sending a U.S. hospital ship either to Libya, or, if that was too dangerous, to Malta, a European island nation south of Sicily. He said the revolution that toppled Moammar Kadafi had left 25,000 people dead, 3,000 maimed and 60,000 wounded.

John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 and a two-time winner of the New Hampshire primary, plans to endorse Mitt Romney on Wednesday in the nation's first primary state, sources close to the Arizona senator confirm. The expected backing of the Arizona senator would lend more establishment support to Romney's campaign and potentially add to the sense of momentum following his ultra-narrow, eight-vote victory in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday. McCain had said last year that he would follow in the tradition of past Republican nominees and not back one of the candidates in the contested primary fight.

Re "Obama's Gitmo woes," Opinion, May 5 As a fan of Doyle McManus, I was disappointed to read his claim that most of the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay were anti-American extremists when they were apprehended. Our own government has acknowledged that many of these men were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border when the war started in 2001. They are guilty of nothing. I also note with dismay the remarks of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

Arnold Schwarzenegger uses his own improbable rise from bodybuilder to action hero to California governor as an argument for immigration reform. As a teenager in his native Austria, Schwarzenegger saw the United States as the only place he could achieve his outsized dreams. The 11 million immigrants now in the country illegally are not so different from his younger self, he told an audience Tuesday at the USC think tank that bears his name. "These are all very hardworking people.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen suspected of planting bombs at the Boston Marathon, was charged Monday with using a "weapon of mass destruction" against people and property, and he faces an aggressive prosecution and the possibility of the death penalty. But that's not good enough for Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). Because Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, "were not common criminals … but terrorists trying to injure, maim and kill innocent Americans," the two senators would rather see Tsarnaev plucked from the judicial system, classified as an enemy combatant, deprived of a lawyer and placed in military detention.

WASHINGTON -- Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Saturday in a joint statement that alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be denied a defense attorney and declared an “enemy combatant.” They added in a statement on Graham's Facebook page, "It is clear the events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city.” ...

WASHINGTON - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has become the focus of a heated debate over whether he should receive the Miranda warning or be treated as an enemy combatant. U.S. Atty. Carmen Ortiz indicated in a news conference Friday night that investigators planned to question Tsarnaev without the standard reminder of his rights to remain silent and to request a lawyer. That could make him the first test of a two-year-old Justice Department policy expanding emergency exemptions when questioning terrorism suspects.

- Moments before a group of eight senators unveiled a sweeping bipartisan immigration overhaul Thursday, a smaller group launched the GOP opposition. Led by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Republican push-back emerged as a muted affair. With just one other senator joining the afternoon event, the opponents created something of a lonely gang of two. That is a stark contrast to the heated Republican rhetoric in 2007 that greeted the last attempt to reach a deal on comprehensive immigration reform, before the party's leaders made a strategic decision after the November election to embrace an issue that is a priority among the growing Latino electorate.

It was a bittersweet homecoming of sorts when John McCain returned to this picturesque town on Wednesday. Peterborough was the site of one of his very first presidential campaign rallies in his unsuccessful 2000 bid to be the GOP presidential nominee, and the site of one of the last before he lost the 2008 general election to President Obama. McCain returned to endorse and campaign with Mitt Romney, with whom he fought a fierce primary battle four years ago, and who is a front-runner to win this year's Republican nomination.

Mitt Romney and John McCain have a history of tense relations dating back to their vicious battle for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, but any hard feelings appear to have been put aside as McCain endorsed Romney on Wednesday to be the party's nominee to take on President Obama. “It's with some nostalgia that I return to this place that I love so well,” said McCain, a popular figure in New Hampshire who twice won GOP presidential primaries here. “I'm really here for one reason and one reason only and that is to make sure we make Mitt Romney the next president of the United States of America.

Re "GOP aims to alter tone, not positions," April 13 I consider myself a moderate Republican, but after holding my nose and voting twice for George W. Bush and then for John McCain, I voted last November for Barack Obama. As summarized by the Bobby Jindal soundbite, I was tired of casting my lot with "the stupid party. " My vote for McCain, which could have made Sarah Palin vice president, was especially regrettable. The oft-repeated mantra by Republicans after their defeat last November is that there's a perception that the party is out of touch.

As a bipartisan group of leaders in Washington prepare to unveil a landmark immigration bill, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is planning to host a forum at USC focused on the matter that features significant players in the debate. Among the speakers scheduled to participate in the April 30 summit are former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). [For the record, 8:45 a.m., April 16: A previous version of this post misspelled Mexican President Vicente Fox's last name as Vincente.