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Rep. Eric I. Cantor's mention as a potential vice presidential running mate for John McCain has put Cantor on the Democratic National Committee's hit list. The DNC yesterday listed Cantor, R-7th and six other Republican vice presidential possibilities on a Web site it titled: "the Next Cheney." "Each has a record of strong support for the Bush-Cheney administration," Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the DNC, said in a conference call with reporters. "Each one of these individuals means simply more of the same." Through a spokeswoman, Cantor declined to comment. Democrats think that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney...

John McCain should “seriously consider” Rep. Eric I. Cantor as a vice presidential running mate, according to the number two Republican in the U.S. House. Rep. Roy Blunt, of Missouri, the House Republican Whip, was long on praise for Cantor during an interview Tuesday about the Virginia Republican he tapped to be his chief deputy whip six years ago. “I’m really pleased to see him listed” Blunt said, stopped short of endorsing his deputy to be McCain’s. “I spend more time with him (Cantor) every week than any other Member of Congress,” he said. “I like working with Eric Cantor...

The addition of Jewish Congressman Eric Cantor's name to the list of possible running mates for Republican presidential candidate John McCain is most certainly a source of pride for the American Jewish community. Even though most Jews traditionally vote for the Democrats, a McCain-Cantor ticket would mean that for just the second time a Jew would (almost) reach the finish line. Cantor shied away from any public displays of excitement in the wake of media reports the McCain campaign had started the process of vetting his background. During a conference call which he convened in Washington in response to Barack...

Sen. John McCain's decision to vet Rep. Eric Cantor, a little-known, 45-year-old Virginia congressman, as a potential running mate suggests he may be looking outside the traditional vice-presidential framework to find a new-generation leader to help revive the party. The Virginia lawmaker declined to comment when asked Monday about the news, reported Saturday by the Associated Press, during a McCain campaign conference call with reporters. A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to comment Monday, citing campaign policy not to discuss speculative running mates. For many voters, their first question may be: Who is Eric Cantor? While the Virginian is popular...

First John McCain enlisted the support of the country's only Jewish vice presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, who ran on the Democratic ticket in 2000. Now he might tap a Jewish vice presidential choice of his own: Eric Cantor. The 45-year-old fourth-term congressman from Virginia has emerged as a serious - if still long-shot - candidate for the VP job in recent days, though the McCain campaign wouldn't confirm reports that Cantor has made the short list. Cantor, the House of Representative's chief deputy minority whip, is known as a rising star in the Republican party with a talent for fund-raising....

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A Virginia congressman who is reported to be under consideration to be Sen. John McCain's, R-Ariz., running mate urged Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., on Monday to pressure the Democratic leadership of Congress to take action on off-shore drilling. "If Barack Obama is serious about trying to fix this problem," said Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., "the first thing he should do is pick up the phone and call Speaker Pelosi and tell her to bring Congress back so that we can begin a process of getting an off-shore drilling bill across the floor of the House." Cantor's effort to pressure Obama...

First came speculation that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was on Barack Obama's short list for the Democrats' vice presidential nod. Today, the Associated Press is reporting that John McCain's campaign has asked another son of the Old Dominion, Rep. Eric Cantor, for personal documents -- a pretty good indication that he is under scrutiny as a running mate for the presumptive Republican nominee. Cantor, 45, has racked up overwhelming victory margins from his Richmond district since he first ran for Congress in 2000. He serves on the powerful Ways & Means Committee and, as chief deputy minority whip, is a...

Eric Cantor, 45, would be a dramatic choice for Mr McCain, who is running almost level with Barack Obama in national polls but whose aides believe he needs to shake-up the White House race if he is to prevail in November's general election. Aides to Mr McCain revealed that Mr Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives, had been asked to submit documents as part of a rigorous vetting process to hunt out any closet skeletons. He joins a shortlist believed to include Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Mr McCain's bitter rival during the Republican primaries,...

The conventional political wisdom is Sen. John McCain needs a vice presidential running mate like Eric Cantor. Cantor is a young, conservative congressman and one of the leaders of House Republicans. He represents the 7th District, which stretches from Richmond northwest to Page and Rappahannock counties — a mixture of state capital and western Virginia conservatism that will, in all likelihood strongly support McCain in November. McCain’s age and some of his previous stands on issues such as immigration and campaign finance reform have angered the Republican party’s conservative base. Since vice presidential running mates are supposed to be everything...

Ba'alei Teshuva --- sometimes translated to mean "penitents," but, more commonly used to refer to Jews from secular backgrounds who have become religiously observant, often hareidi or ultra-Orthodox --- have been held in high regard by Jewish tradition. [Snip] Try telling that to Avigal Meizlik who recently wrote a controversial article in Mishpascha, a highly regarded English haredi magazine about "issues" BTs face when they try to affilliate with various hareidi communities in Israel. According to Ms. Meizlik, when it comes to register their children in mainstream hareidi schools, BT's are rejected, finding, to their dismay, that they were never...

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I have hang over of Biblical proportions. As in my head is splitting like the Red Sea. Fire and brimstone are flying from me like the wrath of an Angy God. I believe the Germans caused this by immigrating to Texas and brewing a concoction known as "Shiner Bock." Anyone have any suggestions?

Immediately after the massacre of eight students in a yeshiva library in Jerusalem last week, speculation began within the Israeli security establishment and the media about who had dispatched the lone murderer. Was it Hamas? Hezbollah? Perhaps a new, unknown organization claiming to act on behalf of the "liberation" of the Galilee? In fact, the speculation was pointless. Regardless of the affiliation of the actual perpetrator, the ultimate responsibility for this attack, as for almost all the terror attacks on Israel in recent years, lies with Iran. The Palestinian struggle is no longer about creating an independent state. It is...

I feel like an absolute sheepdog, and not one of those Westminster Kennel Club sheepdogs, mind you, but one that's been herding farm animals all day and smells of mouse shit from sleeping in the barn. It's the incongruity that's making me feel a little self-conscious. I've just walked into this beautiful, expansive house and except for my friend, I'm the only one who's not wearing a suit; I'm the only one whose hair isn't Marine issue. No, I'm wearing ripped jeans, a T-shirt, and my comparatively long hair is lying on top of my head in its normal Dutch...

Virginia National Committeeman Supporting Thompson MCLEAN, Virginia, Dec. 11 /Standard Newswire/ -- Today the Fred Thompson campaign announced that conservative leader and Virginia Republican National Committeeman Morton Blackwell is endorsing Senator Thompson for President of the United States. "Of all the candidates who have a chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination, Fred Thompson is my choice," said Morton Blackwell. "Senator Thompson has the most conservative instincts on the public policy issues that are important to America." Morton Blackwell is well known in conservative circles as the Founder and President of the Leadership Institute, an educational foundation, which trains young...

South Carolina, where the high school dropout rate is regularly among the highest in the nation, shouldn't look to Washington to solve its problem, Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said Tuesday. Rather, people should look in the opposite direction. "The federal government does not have a solution to children dropping out of school, to local schools choosing not to educate their children," Thompson said in a crowded gun shop in Greer.

Sen. Fred Thompson released the following statement today in response to a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit - Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Prison Fellowship - regarding an important First Amendment ruling on religious programming in prisons. "The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion appears to allow Prison Fellowship's privately funded voluntary prisoner rehabilitation programs in Iowa's prisons to continue. Prison inmates face daunting odds: statistically, two-thirds of them will be rearrested within three years of their release. As a society, we must do something to reduce this number and...

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Tuesday he's skeptical of a new report that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago and questioned the United States' ability to gather intelligence. "I hope that they are accurate with this assessment, but right now, I don't have the confidence in our own intelligence capabilities to make that assessment," the former Tennessee senator said after speaking to dozens of supporters at a gun shop in this early voting state

---------------------- Lighting the Darkness ---------------------- Some 2,200 years ago, the Land of Israel came under the rule of the Syrian-Greek emperor Antiochus, who issued a series of decrees designed to force his Hellenistic ideology and rituals upon the Jewish people. He outlawed the study of Torah and the observance of its commands, and defiled the Holy Temple in Jerusalem with Greek idols. A small, vastly outnumbered band of Jews waged battle against the mighty Greek armies, and drove them out of the land. When they reclaimed the Holy Temple, on the 25th of Kislev, they wished to light the Temple's...