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By Angela Couloumbis INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU HARRISBURG - Nobody used to want a ticket from Col. Jeffrey B. Miller, the high-profile, 24-year veteran of the state police. Now, everyone is hounding him for tickets - to NFL ballgames.

When it comes to avoiding a ban for speeding, the courts hear every excuse in the book. But yesterday one motorist offered what must be a unique reason why he should keep his licence. Mohammed Anwar said a ban would make it difficult to commute between his two wives and fulfil his matrimonial duties. His lawyer told a Scottish court the Muslim restaurant owner has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow - he is allowed up to four under his religion - and sleeps with them on alternate nights. He also needed his driving licence to run his...

Santorum, known nationally for his social conservatism, says Giuliani does a good job of reminding people how he governed as a conservative on crime, welfare and taxes in New York City. Santorum also believes Giuliani has scored points on social issues with his comments about judges and Supreme Court justices. "Rudy understands that, on those issues, the courts are where conservatives have been losing the battle," he says. "If he is going to be appointing judges in the Scalia-Thomas (mold), then he is sending a very positive message to conservatives that he understands the importance of having the Constitution interpreted...

Sen. Arlen Specter, a 26-year Senate Republican, said he will visit Syria despite loud objections by the Bush administration, contending the situation in Iraq is so dire that it is time Congress step up to the plate and see what it can do. Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview late Friday that he is planning a trip to the Middle East that will include Israel and Syria. The senator said he and other Republicans are concerned that the administration's policies in the Middle East are not working and that other GOP members may follow in his footsteps. "I've talked to...

WASHINGTON - A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court. "We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor. Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to...

When Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter stepped into the shower yesterday, it was an elusive immigration overhaul, not a slippery bar of soap, that he most hoped to keep within his grasp. The Pennsylvania Republican wanted a way to counter the House GOP’s unusual post-passage hearings on the bill, which are sure to delay negotiations and give a platform to critics of the Senate’s “path to citizenship” for millions of illegal immigrants. “I plan to hold some hearings of our own,” he told surprised reporters in the Capitol later in the day. “I just developed the idea this morning in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will have to explain why it thinks it can ignore or overrule laws passed by Congress in a hearing next week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said on Wednesday. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he hoped to force the Bush administration to reduce its use of "signing statements" -- memos that reserve the right to ignore laws if the president thinks they impinge on his authority. "Our legislation doesn't amount to anything if the president can say, 'My constitutional authority supersedes the statute.' And I think we've got to lay down the gauntlet...

* On the seemingly uphill re-election campaign of his fellow Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Rick Santorum, whom Specter praised highly and called "indispensable to my re-election" two years ago: "His re-election is my number one priority.... We have a very close personal relationship as well as political and professional." "He will win unless there is an avalanche.... He's a very forceful senator." ... * On the Democrats' conduct during hearings for judicial nominees, Specter was close to scathing. "Schumer was absolutely rude to Alito." Filibusters "lost them Daschle and lost them a fair number of seats." * On various Democrats: Minority...

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman says he's prepared to force telephone company executives to testify about the White House's eavesdropping program if the Bush administration doesn't fully cooperate in drafting new rules on what's allowable. "If we don't get some results, I'm prepared to go back to demand hearings and issue subpoenas if necessary," Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." Specter said he was more hopeful, after talking Thursday with Vice President Dick Cheney, that committee hearings and subpoenas could be avoided. Specter had threatened to subpoena executives of major phone companies...

Vice President Dick Cheney Thursday defended himself against accusations by a leading Republican senator that he worked to thwart Senate plans to make telephone executives testify at a hearing about a U.S. domestic spying program. A day after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter rebuked Cheney for trying to head off subpoenas of the phone company executives, Cheney acknowledged that he had spoken to Senate leaders and members of Specter's committee. He said in a letter to Specter that he acted when the administration became concerned about a "compulsory process to force testimony" in a matter that could involve classified...

O.K. Freepers, here’s the list of Pubbies who voted with the Dems Thursday to give Social Security benefits to Illegal Aliens. Brownback (KS) Chafee (RI) DeWine (OH) Graham (SC) Hagel (NE) Lugar (IN) Martinez (FL) McCain (AZ) Specter (PA) Stevens (AK) Voinovich (OH) I must admit that I was shocked by Brownback’s and Lugar’s votes.

Among those who will be cleared of past crimes under the Senate's proposed immigration-reform bill would be the businesses that have employed the estimated 10 million illegal aliens eligible for citizenship and that provided the very "magnet" that drew them here in the first place. Buried in the more than 600 pages of legislation is a section titled "Employer Protections," which states: "Employers of aliens applying for adjustment of status under this section shall not be subject to civil and criminal tax liability relating directly to the employment of such alien." Supporters of the legislation insist that such provisions do...

The nomination of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to take over the CIA would trigger a fresh battle over the secret warrantless surveillance program he oversaw on behalf of President Bush, a debate that could help shape the contours of the fall midterm congressional elections, officials in both parties said yesterday. Barring a change of heart, aides expect Bush to name Hayden tomorrow as his choice to succeed CIA director Porter J. Goss, who resigned under pressure Friday. Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency and now deputy director of national intelligence, has become the most forceful defender of...

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing the White House of a ''very blatant encroachment" on congressional authority, said yesterday he will hold an oversight hearing into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years. ''There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. ''What's the point of having a statute if . . . the president can cherry-pick what he likes and what he doesn't like?" Specter said he plans...

WASHINGTON - Key provisions of the Senate's main immigration bill would create a "gold card" program for illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004, and create a guest worker program to bring in more foreign laborers, according to Senate Judiciary Committee staff members. The committee is to begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by the committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the legislation is designed to strike a middle course between a bill passed by the House that calls...

THE ILLEGAL ALIEN GOLD CARD By Michelle Malkin   ·   March 07, 2006 10:38 AM Photoshop courtesy of the Stein Report I'm not making this up: Key provisions of the Senate's main immigration bill would create a "gold card" program for illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004, and create a guest worker program to bring in more foreign laborers, according to Senate Judiciary Committee staff members. The committee is to begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by the committee...

WASHINGTON - The Senate’s main immigration bill would enable most illegal immigrants now in the United States to remain indefinitely as long as they stay employed, but it wouldn’t put them on a glide path to U.S. citizenship. The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman, the legislation is designed to strike a middle course between a bill passed by the House of Representatives calling for tougher immigration enforcement and pro-immigration advocates...

Yesterday on the floor of the Senate, as some news outlets have reported, Sen. Arlen Specter said he is "now in the process of drafting legislation" that would "require the administration to take the program" of eavesdropping on our enemies when they communicate to and from the United States "to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." (See here for a PDF of the Congressional Record of Specter's remarks.) I have been a Specter-watcher for some years now, and I have long since come to the conclusion that he is not a clear thinker on matters constitutional. But this embryonic proposal of...

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program appears to be illegal. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Specter called the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic" and said the program appears to be "in flat violation" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Hearings into the surveillance program are scheduled to begin Monday on Capitol Hill. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, defended the surveillance on ABC's "This Week" and the Fox News Network, the International Herald Tribune reported. "It's about speed," General...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee promised a thorough investigation on Sunday into President George W. Bush's secret domestic eavesdropping program and said there would be no blank check for Bush. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said Bush in theory could face impeachment charges if found to have violated the law by authorizing the program, but he did not endorse that approach and had heard no serious talk of it. News of the covert domestic spying program last month sparked an outcry by both Democrats and some members of Bush's Republican party. Many lawmakers...

WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Wednesday he remains skeptical about a government surveillance program despite an explanation from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The two met for an hour Sunday to discuss the rationale for the warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency that President Bush approved without obtaining any court orders. "I would summarize it by saying I have grave doubts about his legal conclusion," Specter, R-Pa., said of a meeting with Gonzales, who was confirmed before Specter's committee early this year. "I'm skeptical, but I'm prepared to listen." Specter said he expects Gonzales to be the...

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., says he doesn't know how he will vote at the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to resolve his inner struggle arising from his deeply held political beliefs, his personal ties to Alito and his loyalty to the Republican Party, reports USA Today.

WASHINGTON -- A draft immigration bill from Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter calls for dramatic increases in legal immigration, far beyond any of the other major proposals now before Congress.

Specter: NFL may have violated anti-trust laws on T.O. By Amy Worden INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Sen. Arlen Specter today accused the NFL of potentially violating anti-trust laws in its treatment of Terrell Owens and said he is investigating the matter. Speaking at a news conference in Harrisburg, Specter said the NFL and the Eagles have effectively "blacklisted" Owens from football by forbidding him to play and prohibiting other teams from talking to him. "It's a restraint of trade for them to do that and the thought crosses my mind it might be a violation of anti-trust laws," Specter said. "The...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced their opposition Wednesday to a House GOP move to fast-track a break-up of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. House Republicans are including a split of the San Francisco-based court, which covers nine Western states, in a budget-reduction bill that could win House approval as soon as Thursday and would be immune from Senate filibuster. The 9th circuit measure was not in the Senate's version of the budget bill, and opposition from key senators could keep it out of the final version of...

The recent announcement by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter that confirmation hearings on Judge Samuel Alito have been postponed until January was only the latest in a series of painful examples of what happens when Senate Republicans wimp out.Senator Specter did not wimp out. The Senate Republican "leadership" wimped out when they made him chairman of the Judiciary Committee after he had fired a shot across the bow of his own President, right after the election, publicly warning President Bush not to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who would stir up controversy in the Senate.That was the time...

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had wasted no time in grilling Roberts on one of the big issues of the day _ abortion _ and Roberts wasted no time in displaying his skills at the artful dodge. "Would you think that Roe might be a super-duper precedent?" Specter probed, pointing to times it has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Pressure To Pick Minority JusticeWASHINGTON -- President Bush faces renewed pressure to name a woman or non-white to the new Supreme Court vacancy - a choice that could ease a difficult confirmation process. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that two women on the court "are a minimum," adding, "My preference would be to see that kind of diversity maintained."

Honorable Robert Mueller Director Federal Bureau of Investigation 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D. C. 20535-0001 Dear Director Mueller, It has been reported in the news media and directly to my staff that Army Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer was the operations officer for a secret military program referred to as Able Danger. The mission of Able Danger was to use a sophisticated data mining program in conjunction with more traditional military intelligence methods to identify and track al Qaida terrorists oversees. In connection with this mission, Shaffer reports that he and his associates discovered the names and U.S. locations of...

Senator wants improved Venezuela relations By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer (Published August 19‚ 2005) WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican senator asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday to lower his rhetoric against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to help win Venezuela's support for combating illegal narcotics. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. who met this week with Chavez, reminded Rumsfeld in a letter that the United States needs Venezuela's help for effective action against drug trafficking in South America. "In this context," the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman wrote, "it may well be helpful to, at least, have a moratorium on...

In a letter yesterday to Judge John G. Roberts Jr., Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he plans to probe the Supreme Court nominee's interpretation of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, which has underpinned many civil rights, worker protection and environmental laws. The high court in recent years has scaled back that power by narrow conservative majorities. The Pennsylvania Republican said in the letter that he sees "a great deal of popular and congressional dissatisfaction with the judicial activism" that trimmed congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. Specter characterized lawmakers as "irate about the court's denigrating and, really,...

Word among some attendees at this past weekend's American Constitution Society for Law and Policy meeting in Washington, D.C. was that Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had done the leftist organization and its many lawyers and wanna-be legal scholars a huge favor. "First, Specter refused to give [Supreme Court nominee Judge John] Roberts a full endorsement," says a member of the ACS, which was started several years ago as a liberal competitor to the more well-known and established Federalist Society. "Then he presses the Administration for documents on Roberts for us. He's been a more than...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said yesterday that he was considering pushing for the creation of a commission to investigate the administration's incarceration policies at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. "I'm giving serious thought to [a commission]. ... It's a strong measure," the Pennsylvania Republican said. "But the 9/11 commission found out a lot of things that the congressional committees couldn't find out."

On Tuesday evening, however, Specter said Roberts had "extraordinary professional qualifications. "I would say professionally, it would be hard to find someone with better credentials than Judge Roberts, but you ask a question whether it's a safe nomination. I don't know that anything in Washington is safe if it's a nomination," Specter said.

The chairman of the Senate panel that will oversee hearings on President Bush's Supreme Court nominee said yesterday that he would like to see someone in the tradition of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and perhaps someone with experience in politics. Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said he didn't want to recommend a specific candidate because of his role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he said he would like to see a nominee who has experience outside the judiciary, which would rule out many of the candidates that Mr. Bush is said to be considering. The candidates...

...HUME:Question to you, sir: Should this next nominee be required to answer questions in the areas where Ruth Bader Ginsburg (search) did not? SPECTER: Without getting into the details as to what Justice Ginsburg answered, I think it inappropriate for a nominee to give an answer specifically as to how he or she would decide a specific case. When someone uses a word like "insist," that's a pretty strong word, and no senator has the power to insist that anything happen. A senator can ask any question that the senator wants to ask, but then it's up to the nominee...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cmp/20050715/tc_cmp/165702500 UN Panel: No Single Nation Should Control Internet Addresses Aoife White Thu Jul 14, 9:38 PM ET BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP)--A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate. The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops. In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information...

Here is the list so far for sponcers to this hate America fest: ANSWER Code Pink UFPJ NION Al Awda World Workers Party Ruckas Revolutionary Communist party Moveon.org ACORN Campus Antiwar Network International Socialist Org Greens Party Muslim Student Association CPUSA

Hypocrisy is nothing new in political circles, but Sen. Arlen Specter's tartuffery this week was outrageous even by his standards. In a diatribe against Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the senior senator from Pennsylvania complained at a congressional hearing that the corporation wasted $15,000 in taxpayers' money when Mr. Tomlinson hired two lobbyists to look into a bill that would have required more representation for public radio and TV stations on the corporation's board of directors. But Sen. Specter is a spendthrift of the highest magnitude. In 2004, he was named Porker of...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter floats a rather bizarre selection to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist if, as expected, he retires this week: Outgoing Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Specter Suggests a Chief Justice: O'Connor (NYT | RSS) Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested on Sunday that President Bush could name Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, to the position of chief justice if it opens up. "I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Arlen Specter, suffering from cancer, said Monday he plans to take public his anger over the government's restrictions on funding for studies on human embryonic stem cells. "I think it's time that a little hell was raised about this subject," Specter, R-Pa., said in a telephone interview. That time will arrive Tuesday, Specter said, when he gavels open the Senate's first hearing on his bill to lift President Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It carries the greatest promise among such studies searching for cures to Alzheimer's disease and other ailments. Set...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) complicated the already dizzying calculus about the future of the Supreme Court by speculating at length yesterday about the possibility that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would stay if President Bush elevated her to chief justice. Most Republican officials interviewed this weekend said they expect Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to announce his resignation soon, although they said they had no hard evidence of that. Specter said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that his "own analysis is that the chief does not intend to step down as long as his health holds up." But...

Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested on Sunday that President Bush could name Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, to the position of chief justice if it opens up. "I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program "Face the Nation." "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she...

As lawmakers of both parties continue to question whether the government should close the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center after reports of prisoner mistreatment, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has called hearings today to clarify the legal rights of those prisoners. Legal scholars have argued for months over whether detainees at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba should receive the protections afforded to prisoners of war or be classified as "enemy combatants," as the Bush administration has argued, which drastically limits their rights. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay prisoners can challenge their detainment...

Specter's hearing will focus on the detention of enemy combatants at both Guantanamo and in the United States, and whether trying them before military tribunals provides them adequate due process, the senator's aide said.

WASHINGTON The Associated Press has learned that a top senate Republican plans to hold hearings this month on how foreign terrorism suspects are treated at U-S prisons.Senator Arlen Specter heads the Senate Judiciary Committee. An aide says he's in the preliminary stages of drafting legislation to set up procedures for detentions. Officials from the Justice department and Pentagon are likely to be called. Amnesty international, which has denounced the main detainee camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a gulag, says it welcomes any kind of sunshine A U-S spokesman for Amnesty says the group is concerned about any legislation that...

Dear Friend, What a week! The fight to give the President's judicial nominations an up-or-down vote is heating up. You received all sorts of exciting alerts from my staff last week and I want to thank you for taking action. Here's the summary of where we stand and here's what I need to ask you to do now. You played a tremendous role in urging the Senate to finally do its job! Thousands of more calls flooded your Senator's offices demanding their participation in securing those long awaited up-or-down votes on our judicial nominees. Your participation in the "Blue Finger...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Senate Republicans are expressing concerns that Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter will defy party leaders and oppose the so-called "nuclear option" to end Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees. The Pennsylvania Republican -- who was nearly passed over for the committee chairmanship because of his independent ways -- says publicly that he is undecided about whether he'll vote with Majority Leader Bill Frist and Republicans to limit filibusters of judicial nominations. Click to learn more... But a Senate speech last week in which Mr. Specter advised senators to ignore "party loyalty" has some Republicans convinced that...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Thursday dismissed growing criticism about the Supreme Court's use of international law in its opinions, saying it makes sense for justices to look at foreign sources when a point of law is unclear. O'Connor, a Reagan appointee, participated in a lively one-hour discussion at the National Archives with Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen G. Breyer. She said if there is no controlling U.S. precedent or the viewpoint of states is unsettled, "of course we look at foreign law." "This is much ado about nothing," she said in response to a question by...