Free Republic

MEXICO CITY - MEXICO has awarded US Democratic Sen Edward Kennedy the country's highest honour for his work defending the rights of immigrants during his decades in Congress. The Mexican government said in its official gazette it presented the 'Aztec Eagle' honour to Mr Kennedy in Washington on Friday. 'He has denounced injustices suffered by immigrants,' and 'promoted initiatives to promote full political participation and increased access to health and education services for the Mexican-American community,' the official announcement said. The veteran Massachusetts senator fought for an immigration reform bill in the US Congress that failed to pass last year....

NOTWITHSTANDING a shift by big business to become more socially responsible, Big Oil prides itself in being an island of bullheadedness and smugness. In a capitalist system, rewards of success go to shareholders. But Big Oil has virtually ignored an equally important constituency - the citizens of the United States - who have granted Big Oil the right to extract the nation's most strategic natural resources. In return, they expect them to act as responsible fiduciaries. ... Read the rest of this drivel at the link...

I read and heard a lot in the news today about "Taliban regime resurgent"I wonder who would be trying to give aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war?

Mexico to honor Sen. Kennedy for work on immigration Friday, July 18, 2008 - Updated 7m ago MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government is honoring U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy for his defense of immigrant rights. Mexico announced today it will award Kennedy the Aguila Azteca, the highest honor the government can bestow on foreign dignitaries. An announcement on Mexico’s federal registry says Kennedy will be presented with a sash in the United States. Mexico says the Massachusetts Democrat has denounced injustices against migrants and "highlighted the importance of addressing illegal immigration by looking for an integral solution." Kennedy co-sponsored an...

Congressional Approval Hits Record-Low 14%** But his latest trip down Tin Pan Alley had an even more personal resonance: Hatch said he was asked by several colleagues to put down his feelings about a very close friend who is facing a serious illness. The friend is the legendary liberal Ted Kennedy, and the colleagues are Democrats who envision having the song played as a tribute to Kennedy at next month's Democratic convention - and as a living example of a brotherhood that transcends party lines. The result, "Headed Home," is a lilting ballad that even its author can't repeat without...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Both of the major candidates in this year’s U.S. Senate race in Louisiana report raising more than $1.5 million in the last three months, although the incumbent has a big advantage right now in cash on hand. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s campaign reports cash on hand of $5.5 million. State Treasurer John Kennedy, a Republican, has $2.7 million for his campaign to unseat Landrieu. The figures are from press releases distributed by the campaigns. The campaigns’ reports were due with the Federal Elections Commission Tuesday but had not been posted on the FEC Web site as...

WASHINGTON - Senator Orrin Hatch, the conservative Utah Republican, has written hundreds of songs on patriotic themes - with such titles as "Freedom's Light" and "I Love Old Glory" - as a way of paying tribute to his country. But his latest trip down Tin Pan Alley had an even more personal resonance: Hatch said he was asked by several colleagues to put down his feelings about a very close friend who is facing a serious illness. The friend is the legendary liberal Ted Kennedy, and the colleagues are Democrats who envision having the song played as a tribute to...

Washington, D.C. has changed Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu. After years in Washington, more often than not, it's smoke and mirrors from Mary. The latest example is Landrieu's contradictory responses to allegations of bribery. Until Mary Landrieu gives Louisianans an answer, the question remains -- Did Mary Landrieu push a $2 million federally-funded earmark for Washington, D.C. schools in exchange for $30,000 in campaign contributions?

The European leg of Barack Obama's overseas tour is a deliberate effort to wrap himelf in the mantle of John F.Kennedy, widely regarded as one of the most inspirational American presidents in history. The Democrat candidate has picked Germany, the country where the Iraq war most strained relations with America, for what is billed as a major address on transatlantic relations. That choice is also deliberately reminiscent of Kennedy's address in West Berlin during one of the bleakest periods of the Cold War in 1963, when he declared "Ich bin ein Berliner" - I am a Berliner. The Democratic nominee...

Speaking Well of the Dead Crisis November 1997 Fr. George William Rutler 0n July 29, 1997, a representative philosophe of our abortion culture, retired Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, was lavishly eulogized in St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where the Requiem Mass for President Kennedy had been sung in 1963. Richard Cardinal Cushing was relatively constrained back then, because liturgical depredations had not yet switched into high gear. It was not thus when our president, who vetoed the ban on partial-birth abortions, was permitted to announce to all corners of the cathedral for consumption in all corners of the...

...The move to Invesco is nothing more than propaganda meant to bolster the perception that Obama’s support is overwhelming. It is an attempt to draw inaccurate comparisons to a great leader of the past while distracting from the lack of substance that exists within his rhetoric. More importantly, however, is the fact that the propaganda aspect of the Invesco move is merely a side-effect of the more narrow purpose for the move. The move to Invesco is ultimately an attempt to distract ...

Posted: 07/09/08 04:13 PM [ET] Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) returned to the Senate Wednesday to cast the decisive vote on stalled Medicare legislation, making his first appearance in the chamber since he was diagnosed two months ago with brain cancer. The 76-year-old senator entered the Senate through the first-floor entrance. The longtime chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee underwent successful brain surgery at Duke University Medical Center on June 2 and has been undergoing cancer treatments in Massachusetts for the tumor. Kennedy was greeted on the Senate floor by a long, sustained burst of applause from other...

Venezuelan President Hugo chavez (left) with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September 2006. The acronym shown on their helmets, PDSVA, stands for Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the parent company of CITGO. * * * * *We already knew that Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez provides safe haven to Islamist terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas in his country, but now we know he actually funds Iran-aligned Hezbollah too. (See my previous Boston Herald op-ed here.) From a Washington Times report today: The Bush administration is accusing the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of providing cash and refuge to the militant...

[Click through to article to view interview with author James Piereson.] The central thesis of James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution was that JFK's assassination was the key moment that caused a large portion of once sensible liberals to begin to tilt to the far, far left, and for lack of better word, become Unhinged. Like this calm, rational fan of the New Frontier! In the (admittedly totally tasteless) formulation of a friend of mine, the best thing that ever happened to civil rights in this country was the bullet through JFK's head. Along the way, as I wrote...

Melissa Wagoner, spokeswoman for Kennedy, added that "Making sure each American has access to quality, affordable healthcare is the cause of Senator Kennedy's life."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office has begun convening a series of meetings involving a wide array of healthcare specialists to begin laying the groundwork for a new attempt to provide universal healthcare, according to participants. The discussions signal that Kennedy, who instructed aides to begin holding the meetings while he is in Massachusetts undergoing treatment for brain cancer, intends to work vigorously to build bipartisan support for a major healthcare initiative when he returns to Washington in the fall. Those involved in the discussions said Kennedy believes it is extremely important to move as quickly as possible on overhauling the...

It was a Friday afternoon, and Dr. Allan Friedman was headed for a vacation in Canada when his cell phone rang. Sen. Ted Kennedy, newly diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, had searched the nation for the best neurosurgeon to remove the growth -- and he wanted Friedman. By the following Monday, a horde of reporters was camped outside Duke Medical Center, and Friedman was performing a tricky operation inside the brain of one of the country's most powerful politicians. It was at once an honor and a burden for a man who has spent 34 years building a reputation...

With all the attention given to the 40th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's assassination on June 5, let's remember one thing. It wasn't you and me that killed the Kennedys, or at least it wasn't me. A pair of leftists killed the Kennedys: Lee Harvey Oswald, a defector to the Soviet Union and a "Fair Play for Cuba" guy; and Sirhan Sirhan, a West Bank immigrant who wanted fair play for Palestinians. Go through The New York Times archives, even the archives of most Jewish newspapers, and you'll find more references to Yigal Amir being Orthodox than you will to Sirhan...

CALLER: I've been sitting here, I thought of another great story that you told about back in the old days when people could say stuff on the floor of the Senate that they don't say now. You were talking about some southern Democrat that was talking about Ted Kennedy doing offshore drilling. RUSH: Oh, yeah. Well, that was Howell Heflin. CALLER: Okay. But that story that you told, I'll tell you what, I couldn't stop laughing. RUSH: You want to hear the story again before Womb to the Tomb? CALLER: Oh, yes. RUSH: The thing is, this is a true...

When I was told I'd be on the Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" debating Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about the contentious issue of oil consumption and Barack Obama's refusal to consider offshore drilling or nuclear energy, I really looked forward to the exchange. After all, how many times does one have a chance to have a frank and open exchange with one of the true high priests of the shrill global warming crowd? Meeting him in the Fox News Channel's green room before the appearance, I began to have some concerns. I'm the kind of guy who likes to...

It seems that whoever becomes the 5th Justice whether it be O'Connor or Kennedy they sell out to the highest bidder and their vote for cash and prizes or are blackmailed by the left if they don't vote the ACLU way and help their career they would expose them about things they don't want in public. Since Kennedy became the 5th vote he has supported International Law supplanting the Constitution, Co2 is a pollutant, terrorist Habeas Corpus rights, and illegal alien rights, etc. You know the left will give him all kinds of awards from the left in the next...

SMITHFIELD, R.I. - Sen. Edward Kennedy enjoyed the Father's Day weekend surrounded by family at his home and preparing to "do battle," undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments for his brain cancer, said his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy. The Rhode Island congressman told The Associated Press his father had been comforted by the company of friends and family in recent days, but that his visitors were aware he needed moments of quiet and breaks from entertaining as he fights the cancerous brain tumor. "Everyone wants to be with him. But we also need to give him space and time to recover,...

Justice Antonin Scalia has been a controversial voice of fidelity to the text of the Constitution and a forceful advocate for conservatism throughout his 22 years on the Supreme Court. Yet Thursday, his dissent in a key ruling in the war on terrorism showed him at his worst. His ill-considered language makes it harder for national leaders to clean up one of the darkest blots on America's reputation in President Bush's post- 9/11 world -- the policy of detaining enemy combatants that is summed up in one word: Guantanamo. The court decided that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right (known...

In the latest effort to deconstruct and destroy the United States, the Supreme Court has decided that a foreign terrorist captured on foreign territory trying to kill Americans has just as many constitutional rights as a Wal-Mart shoplifter. The liberals think this is a good thing. That's because they're America-hating idiots. Sorry, Obama, but if the shoe fits, cram it up your backside. In the liberal world view, where the war against terror is no larger than Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the United States military is a collection of war criminals and puppy killers. Guantanamo Bay – where jihadist murderers...

As the world has just learned, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 yesterday that “for the first time in our Nation’s history, the Court confers a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war.” So summed up Justice Scalia in a stinging dissent in which he was joined by justices Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, made up the majority Breyer.

If you're going to promise "new politics," it would probably be wise to eschew the same old Beltway cronies and insiders who have served presidential nominees of yore. And if you're going to attack political opponents for playing "textbook Washington games," it would probably be best not to play them yourself. If you do, you'll end up tongue-tied in front of the cameras, hung by your own holier-than-thou rhetoric and faced once again with the decision to throw another bad choice under the bus. Yes, Barack Obama, we're talking about you. Again. It's getting mighty crowded under that bus, isn't...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama is considering former top military leaders among his possible running mates, according to a senator who met Tuesday with the Democratic presidential candidate's vice presidential vetting team. North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad told The Associated Press said the team asked him about potential candidates from three broad categories _ current top elected officials, former top elected officials and former top military leaders. Conrad would not disclose which names they discussed, and the Obama campaign has been keeping the process a closely guarded secret. "We talked about many names," Conrad said, including "some that are out...

Sen. Edward Kennedy, the patriarch of America's most famous political family, will return home to Massachusetts on Monday, a week after surgery for removal of a malignant brain tumor, his office said. "His doctors are pleased with his progress since surgery ... and he will continue to recuperate at home before starting the next phase of his treatment," his office said in a statement. It said Kennedy, 76, was returning to his home in Hyannis Port, after initial recuperation at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, where he underwent surgery last Monday.

....Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, brother of slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Attorney General, was the leading Democratic candidate for president when he was gunned down at a primary victory celebration in California on June 5, 1968. His Palestinian assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, said he killed Kennedy due to his vocal support for Israel. In April 1948, one month before Israel declared independence, Robert Kennedy, then 22, traveled to Palestine to report on the conflict for the Boston Post. His four dispatches from the scene were published in June 1948. The newspaper closed in 1956, and for decades...

IRONICALLY enough, the dangers of the liberal health-care agenda are being made clear by the care that a liberal icon, Sen. Ted Kennedy, has received since his brain seizure last month. One day after an MRI detected a tumor, Kennedy was quickly diagnosed with a malignant glioma - a rare and often-fatal form of brain cancer. Less than two weeks later, his tumor was being removed by one of the world's experts in brain cancer at Duke University Medical Center. He'll follow up with chemo and radiation therapy tailored to the genetic makeup of his cancer to keep the cancer...

BOSTON—State Sen. James Marzilli has been arrested on multiple charges in Lowell, including lewd and lascivious behavior and resisting arrest. Lowell Police said the Arlington Democrat was arrested at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday on Middle Street in the city's downtown area and was also charged with disorderly conduct, attempting to commit a crime and obstruction of justice. He was being booked by police and was scheduled to be arraigned in Lowell District Court on Wednesday. A spokesman for Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said there was a female alleged victim, but offered few details. A call to Marzilli's home was not...

WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy will undergo surgery Monday at Duke University Medical Center for his cancerous brain tumor, his office said. The 76-year-old senator was diagnosed last month with a malignant glioma, an especially lethal type of brain tumor. A statement from the Massachusetts Democrat's office said he will be operated on Monday morning in Durham, North Carolina, by Dr. Allan Friedman. After the surgery, he will undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

It’s been 40 years since his passing, but Robert Kennedy is again in the news. One reason is Hillary Clinton’s imprudent mention of his assassination. Barack Obama and media accomplices managed to turn that molehill into a mountain in near-record time. Another reason is that Obama has invoked Bobby’s memory throughout his campaign. People who weren’t around 40 years ago have been instilled with the fable of Kennedy’s pristine greatness and Barack hopes to benefit by the association. I wonder how many of Obama’s young, college-educated liberals know much about the real Bobby Kennedy. Would their admiration be diluted if...

WASHINGTON (May 30) - Republicans have raised many millions of dollars over the past three decades just invoking the name of Ted Kennedy. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was their poster child for liberals, the quintessential Washington tax-and-spender, a left-wing caricature to his conservative detractors. But branding someone a "Ted Kennedy liberal" is slowly fading from the political lexicon. Even before the diagnosis last week that Kennedy, 76, had a malignant brain tumor, conservatives' darts were being redirected at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the two Democrats vying for the Democratic nomination, Sens....

As a lifelong New Yorker and a contemporary of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, I am amazed that Rudy is still fooling so many people in the rest of the country. Rudy is NOT an acceptable presidential candidate for conservatives. Rudy may have been the best conservatives could hope for as a Mayor of liberal New York City, but he's not a true conservative, a moral exemplar or even faithful to his faith. Rudy's hero was Bobby Kennedy. Rudy once said, "Most of [Bill] Clinton's policies are similar to most of mine." When running for mayor, Mr. Giuliani pledged to "rekindle...

Obama Speaks At Wesleyan In Kennedy's PlaceBy MARK PAZNIOKAS And CHARLES PROCTOR | Courant Staff Writers May 26, 2008 SEN. BARACK OBAMA addresses the Class of 2008 at the Wesleyan commencement on Sunday morning. University President Michael Roth is seated at left. Obama stood in as a favor to Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was to be the speaker until diagnosed last week with a brain tumor. (MICHAEL KODAS / May 25, 2008) MIDDLETOWN — - Barack Obama stepped in Sunday for the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy with a call to service at Wesleyan University that was a tribute to a...

"This past Friday, during a meeting with a newspaper editorial board, I was asked about whether I was going to continue in the presidential race. I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June. Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different - and completely unthinkable. I want to set the record straight: I was making the...

BRANDON, S.D. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defended staying in the Democratic nominating contest on Friday by pointing out that her husband had not wrapped up the nomination until June 1992, adding, “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.” Her remarks were met with quick criticism from the campaign of Senator Barack Obama, and within hours of making them Mrs. Clinton expressed regret, saying, “The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy,” referring to the recent diagnosis of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s brain tumor. She added, “And I regret...

The Democrats' direction setterLast updated Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 3:06 a.m. **SNIP** But they have to reckon with the possible alterations in politics and government if Kennedy is sidelined for any period of time. Kennedy has been the most respected Democratic senator for so long that no one comes close to his influence. He has also been one of the most energetic, always prodding and pushing his colleagues, undiverted by any other political ambitions or concerns since his one presidential campaign ended in 1980. On issue after issue, but particularly on civil rights, health care, labor law, Vietnam and...

Regardless of how one might feel about Savage, that's a terrific talk radio topic: should a career politician's past sins be cleansed because of a cancer diagnosis? Kennedy killed a young woman with his car. Has that now been erased from history? Certainly, tactful boundaries ought to exist when it comes to discussion of a US Senator with cancer. Between the mainstream media lionization of Kennedy and talk radio's new fear of even mentioning his name, however, Savage's points deserve urgent public attention.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Sen. Hillary Clinton referred Friday to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 Democratic campaign as a reason she should continue to campaign despite increasingly long odds. Clinton was responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board about calls for her to drop out of the race. "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing the idea of dropping...

Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family - with his wife, Vicki. Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long been his choice to continue carrying the family flame in the Senate. Kennedy won the seat in 1962; his brother John held it from 1953 to 1960. “There’s no question that he’d like Vicki to continue in his seat,” said one Massachusetts Democrat with ties to the Camelot clan who spoke to Kennedy...

BOSTON (AP) — Sen. Edward Kennedy is pulling out of the commencement address at Wesleyan University after being diagnosed with brain cancer, and Barack Obama will stand in for him. A spokeswoman for Kennedy said he had planned to speak at the Sunday ceremony in Middletown, Conn., where his stepdaughter will be among the graduates. The commencement exercises also coincide with 25th reunion festivities for his son Edward Kennedy Jr. Kennedy was diagnosed this week with a malignant brain tumor, which was discovered after he had a seizure last Saturday. He was released Wednesday from Massachusetts General Hospital and has...

Teddy Kennedy had a carotid endarterectomy in November '08. The workup for that surgery in the community includes a diagnostic MRI with gadolineum contrast as well as an MRA. It may also include a CTA(cat scan angiogram). At the MGH, one can be sure that a US Senator got all the "bells and whistles" including a 3 Tesla MRI. What I find inconceivable is that they would have missed his glioblastoma at that time. It is then very likely that he knew that he had a tumour and he and his physicians were keeping it quiet.

Ted Kennedy has made clear to confidants that when his time is up, he wants his Senate seat to stay in the family - with his wife, Vicki. Multiple sources in Massachusetts with close ties to the liberal lion say his wife of 16 years has long been his choice to continue carrying the family flame in the Senate. Kennedy won the seat in 1962; his brother John held it from 1953 to 1960. "There's no question that he'd like Vicki to continue in his seat," said one Massachusetts Democrat with ties to the Camelot clan who spoke to Kennedy...

WASHINGTON - People in Massachusetts suddenly are thinking the unthinkable: Who possibly could succeed Sen. Edward Kennedy, patriarch of the famed political family that has dominated the state for more than four decades? The news about Kennedy's cancerous brain tumor has led to quiet speculation about whether he may try to handpick a successor, possibly paving the way for a relative to take over his seat.

IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural. They have also been a distinctive note in Senator Obama’s campaign, and were made even more prominent last week when President Bush, in a speech to Israel’s Parliament, disparaged a willingness to...

If the prognosis is confirmed for Senator Kenney, the question that will be asked is will he step down from his senate seat?

It’s not clear how long Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be away from the Senate, but his absence is already having an impact on pending legislation. First elected to the Senate in 1962, Kennedy is an indispensable deal maker and one of the chamber’s most skilled legislators. He is also the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where legislation will inevitably languish without a Senate giant on hand to negotiate deals. With the 76-year-old Massachusetts senator in the hospital since Saturday, a major labor union bill for public safety workers is on the back burner, a...