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Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who has been put on the “fast track” to sainthood, was so tormented by doubts about her faith that she felt “a hypocrite,” it has emerged from a book of her letters to friends and confessors. Shortly after beginning her work in the slums of Calcutta, she wrote: “Where is my faith? Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God — please forgive me.” In letters eight years later she was still expressing “such deep longing for God,” adding that she felt “repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no...

Saturday, September 15March on WashingtonEND THE WAR NOW!Check out Sept15.org A message from Ramsey Clark The People of Baghdad Have No Water Join MAS Freedom Sept. 15 for D.C. Rally and Iftar Join Iraq war veterans, active duty servicemembers and their families on September 15 Monday, September 17 Peoples March Inside Congress -- organizing group is CODEPINK. Come to Washington DC on September 15 for a large antiwar protest timed to coincide with the report by General Petraeus on the "Surge" in Iraq. Click here for more information and to get involved.Initial sponsors of the march include:The ANSWER Coalition; Ramsey Clark; Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation;...

"?DEAR MARGO: I am a 38-year-old successful female who is emotionally and financially secure. I have been told that I am very attractive and intimidate men. I would like to get married but am thought to be too independent"

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...

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...

Senators voted Thursday to reject a Republican effort to abolish taxes on inherited estates during an election year with control of Congress at stake. GOP leaders had pushed senators to permanently eliminate the estate tax, which disappears in 2010 under President Bush's first tax cut, but rears up again a year later. A 57-41 vote fell three votes short of advancing the bill. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate will vote again this year on a tax that opponents call the "death tax." "Getting rid of the death tax is just too important an issue to give...

BORDERS LANGUAGE CULTURE ONLY A SAVAGE NATION CAN SURVIVE

Sen. John McCain called on Orange County Latino leaders Wednesday to support his immigration bill, saying it was time for them to "speak for people who cannot speak for themselves." "You are the role models," McCain said to a mostly Latino audience of 340 gathered at the Hyatt Regency Irvine. McCain (R-Ariz.) came to Orange County — a hotbed of opposition to illegal immigration — to garner support from the Hispanic 100, a 3-year-old organization that has organized events with President Bush, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and gubernatorial candidates. ... In Orange County, McCain said Latino leaders must press Congress to...

Fed up with the Mexican illegals and their supporters, many of whom are Mexicans also (those who didn't support the illegals were rather quiet)? Boycott Cinco de Mayo. Stay away from everything Mexican on May 5th. Don't buy Mexican beers.

Danforth: Ban on Gay Marriage a Silly Idea WASHINGTON — Former Sen. John Danforth says a conservative push to ban gay marriage through a constitutional amendment is silly, calling it the latest example of how the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the GOP. Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, made the comments in a speech Saturday night to the Log Cabin Republicans, which support gay rights. He said history has shown that attempts to regulate human behavior with constitutional amendments are misguided. "Once before, the Constitution was amended to try to deal with matters of human...

The government should consider a tax on oil companies if they make excessive profits amid rising gasoline prices, a leading Republican senator said Sunday. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a windfall profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers hurting at the gas pump. "I believe that we have allowed too many companies to get together to reduce competition," Specter said. "They get together, reduce the supply of oil, and that drives up prices," he said. "In the short...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Japanese adults can't get enough satisfaction, but Austria's mojo is working. Sex is more satisfying in countries where women and men are considered equal, according to an international study of people between the ages of 40 and 80 by researchers at the University of Chicago.Austria topped the list of 29 nations studied with 71 percent of those surveyed reported being satisfied with their sex lives. Spain, Canada, Belgium and the United States also reported high rates of satisfaction. The lowest satisfaction rate - 25.7 percent - was reported in Japan. The study was led by sociologist Edward...

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...

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...

Ranked by the editors of Human Events1. Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.)Once approached by Democratic Leader Harry Reid to switch parties, Chafee has long supported liberal polices. He backs legal abortion, gay rights, federal-funded health care, strict environmental protections and a higher minimum wage. Opposes ANWR drilling. Also was the only Republican in Congress not to endorse the President's reelection and one of three who tried to gut Bush's tax cuts.

Stevens Holds Senate in Session Fight for Oil Drilling Keeps Colleagues From Holiday Break By Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 20, 2005; A13 It's an audacious power play, even for Sen. Ted Stevens. The wily and cantankerous Alaska Republican is trying to secure the mother of all pet projects for his state: oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Stevens has attached the provision to a popular defense spending bill and has put holiday plans of his Senate colleagues on hold as he dares Democratic and moderate Republican opponents to vote against it. The former Appropriations...

GRASSROOTSPA EXCLUSIVE: BOMBSHELL: SPECTER SLAMS CONSERVATIVES IN CAMPAIGN LETTER, ATTACKS PRO-LIFERS, CHRISTIANS Read The Letter HereSome choice quotes: -"I will not give up our Party to radical extremists without a fight." -Calls Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and Pat Buchanan "extremists". -"I resent people like Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and Pat Buchanan trying to give litmus tests to determine who can be a Republican candidate." -"I want to strip the strident anti-choice language" from the GOP party plank. -"Will you stand up to the far-right fringe that demands that legal abortion be banned?" -"We must demonstrate that the Republican Party is...

The Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Sign the call now!Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights. Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it. Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night. Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its...

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives has approved a bill that includes a hate crimes amendment. That could make preaching or teaching against homosexuality a federal crime. It has gotten almost no news coverage, but critics say it poses a major threat to religious liberties. The Hate Crimes Amendment, by Michigan Democrat John Conyers, was attached to the Children's Safety Act last week. It would federalize local crimes if the suspected motive is animosity toward homosexuals or "transgender" persons. The amendment, which passed with the help of 30 Republicans, seems to have taken conservatives by surprise.Republican leaders explained that party...

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."

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...

Political moderates predominate in the U.S. electorate, but the two parties are increasingly captives of their extremes. Will the moderates ever rise up and assert themselves? In the Republican Party, they ought to do so by defending Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) against right-wing attacks for bucking President Bush (and Christian conservatives) over embryonic stem-cell research. Republican moderates also ought to start speaking up for "emergency contraception" before the right makes banning it a litmus test of party loyalty. Someone in the GOP ought to tell Bush that "intelligent design" is not a true scientific theory on a par...

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."

Illegal-alien amnesties blocked ... 1. VICTORY ... No amnesties passed The best news is that none of the amendments passed that would have provided amnesty to illegal aliens! In fact, none of those were even allowed to come up for a vote among the scores of amendments that did. That was our top hope. Our NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team had felt that if Senate offices heard enough of an outcry from their constituents this week Senate leaders would conclude that big amnesty bills were far too controversial to try to bring up on this bill. Our sources indicated that Senate...

WASHINGTON - Four female senators called Thursday for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to stay on the court and try for chief justice if the ailing William Rehnquist steps down. In a letter to O'Connor, Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Barbara Boxer of California asked the nation's first female justice to consider staying on the high court if Chief Justice Rehnquist relinquishes the top spot. Rehnquist was discharged Thursday after two nights in the hospital for treatment of a fever. O'Connor announced her retirement on July 1, but...

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...

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...

DAYTON | The most vocal Republican opponent to John Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations said there is a "55/45" chance the Bush administration will name Bolton to the job while Congress is in recess. But Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, also said, "I have a gut feeling that logic will prevail" against appointing Bolton. "It's like the children's story, the Emperor's Clothes: Everybody knows he's in his underwear and nobody will say it," Voinovich said Friday in an interview with the Dayton Daily News editorial board. Voinovich's outspoken opposition to Bolton's appointment has attracted national attention. He allowed...

We're in BIG trouble. Listening to Sean Hannity interview Orrin Hatch yesterday I fell off my chair. Hatch said that Clintoon asked him if he would support ( I forgot the guys name) someone for SCOTUS. Hatch said he responded by suggestting that Ginsburg and Breyer would be great nominations.I could not believe this. The GOP gives away the store to the Dems, supports radical Left Wing Judges (even suggests them) and then when it comes time for the GOP President to make a recommendation people like Hatch warn him not to nominate a "extreme" conservative. My Lord, if Hatch...

In a impassioned speech before hundreds of influential Hispanic civil rights leaders from across the nation, Gov. Mike told a captive audience Wednesday that America is great because it has always opened it doors up to people seekign a better way of life.

WASHINGTON - Two of the Senate's senior statesmen, Republican John Warner and Democrat Robert Byrd, are stepping to the forefront of efforts to avert a showdown over whether an out-of-power party can use Senate filibusters to effectively thwart a president from reshaping the nation's courts to his liking. But time was running out on Byrd and Warner's attempt to bridge warring senatorial factions, with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., starting a countdown Friday on how long senators would debate Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. If senators are forced to...

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...

AUGUSTA - With hearings scheduled to begin next week on President Bush's proposed overhaul of Social Security, opponents fired a shot across the bow Thursday at Sen. Olympia J. Snowe's re-election campaign. A poll released by the Washington, D.C-based Americans United to Protect Social Security indicated 73 percent of Mainers participating in a recent poll were opposed to the president's plans for privatizing aspects of Social Security. A follow-up question indicated 74 percent of the respondents would be less likely to vote for their Maine senator in the next election if she were to support the president's proposal.The poll was...

Washington - Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich says he is surprised by the fuss he stirred with his unexpected announcement Tuesday that he wasn't prepared to vote to confirm John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. But if Voinovich has any regrets for single-handedly forcing a delay in Bolton's confirmation, he's not showing it. "I feel real good," he said Thursday. "My conscience told me this is what I think I should do." Voinovich, answering questions briefly from reporters Thursday, said he planned to vote for Bolton before Tuesday's meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because he...

WASHINGTON Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy are putting together an immigration bill that would subject illegal immigrants to fines, but allow them to stay in the country and earn a chance to apply for permanent residency.

Just heard on Hugh Hewitt radio show that the maverick senator from arizona is planning to vote with the democrates on the fillibuster.

Click here to read complete transcript: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_041205/content/rush_on_a_roll.member.html Begin Transcript [excerpted]: RUSH: ".... and I'm just about ready to chuck all this and head to some island, get everybody's hands out of my back pocket as soon as I frigging can because I have had it. I've had it with the state of New York. I've had it with the federal government. I've had it with everybody with their hands in my back pocket wanting this and wanting that. Nothing is ever enough for anybody and it's not worth it. At some point you just decide it isn't worth it and...

Senate Shamefully Votes to Overturn President Reagan's "Mexico City" ProLife Policy In one of the first votes on abortion in the United States Senate this year, 8 Republican Senators shamefully joined ALL 44 Democrats and the liberal Independent voting for an amendment introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer,(D-CA), to overturn President Ronald Reagan's "Mexico City ProLife Policy" upheld by President George W. Bush which is to deny U.S. funds to foreign organizations that perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning. Each of these 52 Senators will receive a negative score in the 2005 Congressional Scorecard. The House will...

c By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | April 6, 2005 WASHINGTON -- Senator Lincoln Chafee's office said yesterday that his constituency is ''overwhelmingly" opposed to the nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations, signaling that Chafee is leaning against supporting Bolton in a move that could derail the nomination. If Chafee, a moderate Republican from Rhode Island who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joins with Democrats who are expected to unanimously oppose the nomination, Republicans will not have enough votes to send the confirmation to the Senate floor. Bolton, one of President Bush's most...

WASHINGTON -- A group of moderate Republicans -- and some old GOP bulls who've labored under Democratic as well as Republican control -- hold the fate of President Bush's judicial nominees in their hands. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is irked that Democrats have used filibusters to block 10 of Bush's choices for federal appeals courts. He's vowed not to let it happen this year, particularly with the possibility that there could soon be a Supreme Court nominee to consider. But to carry out that promise might require changing Senate rules that now allow just 41 members to block any...

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist does not have firm support among his caucus to employ the so-called "nuclear option" for dislodging the Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees. Of the 55 Republicans in the chamber, at least six are undecided or adamantly opposed to the plan of using the rare parliamentary procedure to end the filibusters with a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes normally required. "I am very concerned about the overuse of the filibuster," said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who said she remains undecided. "But I am also concerned that a rule change...

The Republican Party is being "dictated to by a coalition of ideological extremists," a former Bush administration Cabinet official says in a new book that blames President Bush and his top political strategist for failing to bring more "blue states" into the Republican column in November.     Christie Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who resigned her post as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in May 2003, says Mr. Bush and adviser Karl Rove were wrong in their strategy of boosting turnout among the party's voting base of political "extremists" on the right, including evangelical Christians. In...

OTTAWA -- A coalition of anti-war protesters, left-wing lawyers and anti-capitalists refused repeatedly yesterday to condemn those who might resort to violence during the "loud" demonstrations planned for the visit next week of U.S. President George W. Bush. "A number of protesters are coming together to protest the real violence going on around the world right now," said Joe Cressy of the No To Bush campaign, which is organizing two large demonstrations for Nov. 30, the day Mr. Bush will be in Ottawa. "People are angry at Bush. People are going to express themselves through art, through direct action, through...

Five outspoken Sept. 11 widows on Tuesday will publicly endorse John Kerry

TERRORISM HEADLINES OF THE WEEK SITE Institute SITE Institute,7/18/2003 - Muslim Missionary Group Draws New Scrutiny in U.S. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, Tablighi Jamaat, a group of traveling Muslim preachers, has come under considerable scrutiny from United States government investigators. Iyman Faris, the Ohio truck driver who was arrested last month as a result of the interrogation of al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, used the cover of Tablighi Jamaat to have old plane tickets reissued in new names in 2001. Tablighi Jamaat has not been accused of any crimes and one of the group’s North American leaders, Abdul...

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY TV: MOHAMMED ORDERED MUSLIMS TO KILL JEWSPalestinian Media Watch reports on yet another PLO TV broadcast presenting the murder of Jews as a religious obligation.  Dr. Hassan Khader, founder of the Al Quds Encyclopedia, appeared on PA television on Sunday with the following quote from Mohammed: "The Hour [Day of Resurrection] will not arrive until you fight the Jews, [until a Jew will hide behind a rock or tree] and the rock and the tree will say: Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!"  Although the basis for the current...

TERRORISM HEADLINES OF THE WEEK SITE Institute SITE Institute,7/11/2003 - A Militant Who Defies Cease-Fire From Lebanon, Mounir Moqdah, a veteran of the Israel-Palestine conflict, is recruiting rogue members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a splinter group of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Moqdah, a disciple of Arafat, and his accomplices do not accept the current cease-fire between the Israelis and the Palestinians and have been responsible for many of the shootings that have taken place since its inception. Israel asserts that Iran funds the rogue group, but Moqdah insists that the group utilizes the internet for much of its fundraising and...

WHIOTV.com Saudi Official Admits Security Gaps Before Bombings U.S. Ambassador Says Request For More Security Went Unheeded POSTED: 10:24 a.m. EDT May 14, 2003 UPDATED: 12:34 p.m. EDT May 14, 2003 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Wednesday there were gaps in Saudi security before the suicide attacks that killed at least 25 people and the nine suicide bombers. ATTACKS IN SAUDI ARABIA Can Al-Qaida Be Stopped? Bush Pledges To 'Find Killers' Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said the fact that the attacks happened reflects "shortcomings," adding that Saudi officials have to learn from their mistakes....