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Vatican heavyweight Cardinal Reinhard Marx said there may be tensions within the Roman Catholic Church but stressed Pope Francis has the full support of his senior cardinals. The German cardinal and archbishop of Munich and Freising was asked at a news conference on Wednesday (Feb. 15) why nine cardinals who advise Francis on the Vatican’s economic and structural reforms felt the need to defend the pope in a statement issued on Monday. “We didn’t want to make a great drama but it was time to repeat that we support the pope and we are together with him,” said Marx, who...

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution With Washington swamped by the crisis on Wall Street, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and his Democratic partner have pulled the plug on their bipartisan “Gang of Ten” energy bill until after the November elections. Chambliss phoned this evening with the news. But before the Senate adjourns next week, the Georgia senator said a revised version of the bill will be unveiled — one that will feature expanded territory for offshore oil drilling. Chambliss, a Republican up for re-election, had formed an alliance with Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) this summer. Support had grown from the original 10 senators...

I'm hearing disconcerting rumors that McCain is planning to endorse the so-called Gang of 10 16 20 energy legislation. That would be a huge mistake. In terms of its effect on the conservative base, supporting the Gang of 20's energy bill would be like McCain pouring a big bucket of cold water on the fire he started with the Palin pick. Here's what the editors had to say about the gang last week: The bill would open up a tiny little smidgen of space on the Outer Continental Shelf for oil and gas exploration — just enough that Democrats who...

I'm hearing disconcerting rumors that McCain is planning to endorse the so-called Gang of 10 16 20 energy legislation. That would be a huge mistake. In terms of its effect on the conservative base, supporting the Gang of 20's energy bill would be like McCain pouring a big bucket of cold water on the fire he started with the Palin pick.

The recent conflict between Georgia and Russia has once again highlighted the profound danger that oil dependence poses to free nations, including the United States. Our nation's deep reliance on oil, largely imported from unstable and, in some cases, hostile regimes is corrosive to the integrity and effectiveness of American security policy.The vast oil and natural gas reserves of Russia, combined with vulnerable energy infrastructure located in Georgia and neighboring countries, effectively eliminated the possibility of a principled and robust U.S. and European response to military aggression against a valued ally. Another crisis in which U.S. oil dependence handcuffs foreign...

Never underestimate a politician's ability to wriggle out of a clear choice. So it is with the so-called "Gang of 10" energy plan that is becoming the political escape hatch for Members of Congress, especially those "green Democrats" who suddenly want to appear to favor more oil and gas drilling. The Gang of 10 compromise was released before the August recess by five Senate Republicans and five Democrats. The plan would at least allow drilling offshore of four states -- Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas -- and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. It would also allow modern seismic surveillance,...

High energy prices have become a bitterly contested political issue. Republicans are bashing Democrats for standing in the way of drilling for more oil and gas at home, while Democrats retort that their rivals are misleading the American public by saying that such drilling would significantly lower prices. Yet amid the partisan bomb-throwing over America's future energy policy, Washington is actually making a rare effort to forge a compromise. Over the summer a group of five GOP and five Democratic senators, dubbed the Gang of 10, hammered out a comprehensive energy proposal. And now, after taking withering heat from both...

This is an E-mail I received from our dear Senator in response to my including my name on the Energy petitions. I thought it might be of interest.

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) – Not every Republican House member is ready to join House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.) in advising President Bush to veto any bill that extends the federal moratorium on new off-shore oil drilling leases past Sept. 30, when the current moratorium expires under law. Blunt told CNSNews.com last week that he would advise President Bush to veto any bill that extended the oil drilling moratorium and to have the Interior Department begin making preparations now so it would be able to issue leases in October when the moratorium will no longer exist. When asked about a...

Does anyone have a line on "Pelosi's ethics rules" and their prohibition regarding discussing the election? A Graham DC staffer claimed he could be fired for such discussion. Does anyone know where these 'rules' can be found for review?

Joining five Democrats to make up the Gang of Ten, five Republican senators tossed Sen. John McCain under his Straight Talk Express Energy bus. The five Republican senators (Graham, Thune, Chambliss, Corker, and Isakson) should be renamed the Gang of Sellouts. The Gang of Ten is a bipartisan group of senators who recently offered an energy policy -- intentionally or stupidly otherwise -- that can only benefit Senator Obama, whose energy policy up until this point was to tell us to keep our tires just as liberals prefer Fedzilla: properly inflated.

In the Senate, it nowadays apparently takes a self-appointed, biparitsan "gang" of senators to get past the partisan gridlock. For instance, there was the Gang of 14 group of senators who helped the Senate get beyond an impasse on judicial appointments a few years ago. Today, a new group of senators calling itself the Gang of Ten, announced that it had arrived at a compromise energy proposal meant to break the partisan logjam that exists on the issue. The group's members are: Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), John Thune (R-S.D.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mary Landrieu...