Amid all the sound and fury and the "high noon" drama surrounding the debt-limit deadline and the passing of a deficit reduction measure this week, one discomforting fact emerged: Federal spending will continue to increase and the national debt, now approaching $15 trillion, will grow, not shrink, over the next 10 years.

Mexican trucks may begin hauling freight throughout the United States by the end of this month or early September under a bilateral trade agreement that resolves a long-standing trade dispute, but not the controversy over driving goods across the U.S.-Mexican border.   

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been butting heads with Senate Democrats and President Obama in recent weeks in budget and debt ceiling negotiations, but the Kentucky Republican has also been getting flak from members and supporters of his own party. The conservative organization FreedomWorks, which played a prominent role in organizing the Tea Party movement of 2009 and 2010, put out a message on Twitter this week urging its followers to call McConnell and "Help him find his spine." The Tweet was in response to a backup plan McConnell has offered to break the deadlock in negotiations over raising the debt limit before the current borrowing authorization expires on August 2.

It seems strange sometimes, the things that trouble Senator John McCain. Take the NATO war on Libya, for example, in which the United States is a participant, if not the outright leader.

Just one day after officially beginning her campaign for President in neighboring Iowa, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann went to the East Coast and campaigned Tuesday in both northern New England and the deep South, speaking at rallies in the early voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina and finding receptive crowds in both states.

America could see the kind of violent uprisings that have cost countless lives and convulsed societies in the Middle East if the nation does not stop rolling up massive deficits and devaluing its currency, Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate warned in a front-page interview published in the New Hampshire Sunday News.

As former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, there are the "known knowns" and the "known unknowns" and the "unknown unknowns" and, well ... "Stuff happens."

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Friday he did not know when he would decide whether he would launch another campaign for President. But where he said it might give some indication of what that decision might be. Giuliani was in New Hampshire, recalling the events of 9/11. And he answered questions about his own possible presidential plans in "an exclusive sit-down" interview with the Boston Herald, during which he also knocked potential rival Mitt Romney over the former Bay State governor's health insurance program, commonly called "RomneyCare."

The doctor is in.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a 12-term Texas Congressman and retired obstetrician, "officially" announced his candidacy for President on ABC's Good Morning America Friday morning and a few hours later told about  300 supporters at a Town Hall rally in Exeter, New Hampshire, that he would carry the battle for personal freedom and constitutional government into the 2012 campaign.

Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman and retired obstetrician best known for his uncompromising libertarian convictions and his opposition to the Federal Reserve,  is expected to announce his candidacy for President of the United States Friday on ABC-TV’s Good Morning, America during the 7 o’clock hour, a source in the Paul camp told the online news journal Politico.