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Ambulances race to Byrd's home By: Manu Raju September 22, 2009 10:16 AM EST Ambulances and fire trucks were dispatched to the Northern Virginia home of Sen. Robert Byrd Tuesday morning. A neighbor of the 91-year-old West Virginia Democrat said several ambulances were outside his residence in McLean, Va., and a Byrd spokesman said the senator suffered a fall in his home. An officer at the McLean Fire Department said that a unit was dispatched at 9:10 to the address where Byrd lives, but he declined to comment on the substance of the response. Byrd – the longest-serving senator in...

"I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” — Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944 Within the democratic party sits a former high member of the actual KKK. That's not taking a shot at someone, that's fact. The Congressional BLACK Caucus is saying that not punishing Joe...

H.R. 3226, the Czar ACCOUNTABILITY and Reform Act of 2009, would bar the use of appropriated funds to pay either expenses or salaries of members of task forces, councils, or similar offices established by the president and headed by a person appointed inappropriately to such a post without Senate advice and consent.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the only senator to have served longer than the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), mourned his friend Wednesday, saying his "heart and soul weeps." Byrd said he hoped healthcare reform legislation in the Senate would be renamed in memoriam of Kennedy. "I had hoped and prayed that this day would never come," Byrd said in a statement. "My heart and soul weeps at the lost of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend, Ted Kennedy." Byrd's wistful statement focused on the work accomplished with Kennedy during decades together in the Senate, and called on...

The modern GOP was created in 1965 with a stroke of Lyndon Johnson's pen. If that is an exaggeration, it is not much of one. When Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, he made a prediction: In committing the unpardonable sin of guaranteeing the ballot to all citizens regardless of race, he said, he would cause his party to lose the South ``for a generation.'' And indeed Southern Democrats, who for a century had bombed schools, lynched innocents, perverted justice and terrorized millions in the name of intolerance, responded by leaving their ancestral party in droves. They formed the base...

Democrats in West Virginia are gravely concerned about the health of their senior U.S. senator, 91-year-old Robert Byrd, who has been hospitalized since May with a series of infections. "We are just praying for him to get back to the Senate real soon," said Nick Casey, West Virginia Democratic Party chairman. Byrd's absence has caused distress among supporters and speculation about who would fill his seat if he is unable to return to work. As the Senate president pro tempore, Byrd is third in the presidential succession line, behind Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He is...

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch. In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.” While it's...

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch. In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

Geithner still passes confirmation, sworn in Monday WASHINGTON -- West Virginia Senator Robert C Byrd (D-WV) voted against the confirmation of Timothy Geithner's Senate Confirmation for Secretary of Treasury citing the nominee's snafus with his own taxes. Despite the nay votes, Geithner confirmation passed the senate Monday night 60-34 with four not voting. Geithner came under fire earlier this month when it was revealed his 2002 to 2006 taxes were not properly filed. In all Geithner has paid already $25,000 in back taxes with more expected to be paid. Following the vote, Sen. Byrd issued his reason for voting against...

Hate groups and militias across the country, known to thrive on feelings of economic desperation and political impotence, are eyeing 2009 as a year of awakening. "Every time the television shows an image of Obama it will be a reminder that our people have lost power in this country," said a recent posting on an Arkansas-based Ku Klux Klan Web site. "The betrayal will stare them in the face each time they watch the news and see little black children playing in the rose garden." For all the racial optimism that comes with Barack Obama's presidency, there is concern in...

Ted Kennedy was taken out of the Statuary Hall luncheon after suffering an apparent seizure -- a few minutes after Sen. Robert Byrd was removed in his wheelchair under the supervision of medical personnel. Byrd was conscious and had been having trouble eating, according to a witness. Kennedy, who underwent brain cancer surgery last year, was taken to the Rayburn room. A police radio picked up a call for paramedics to help someone stricken with a seizure, according to Politico's Patrick Kennedy.

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson will go before the U.S. Senate in coming weeks as Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of Commerce. Will Democrats in that chamber remember his performance in 1999 and 2000 as Energy secretary, when secrets disappeared from nuclear laboratories, and one Democratic senator promised to oppose Richardson for any future nomination? In the January of 1999, the U.S. House Select Committee on Intelligence published ... the “Cox Report” -- which found that China had stolen and still was stealing nuclear weapons secrets from the U.S. The committee reported that “the primary focus of this long-term,...

Thursday November 20, 2008 It is time for Sen. Byrd to retire His 50 years are long enough HIS friends won't tell him this, so maybe the one guy in West Virginia who is not a fan of Robert C. Byrd should tell him: It is time to retire from the Senate. Fifty years is enough. His is a remarkable story. Byrd's rise from the hardscrabble of Sophia in Raleigh County to being a couple of heartbeats from the presidency is a story that should live on at least in West Virginia lore. After a nice run as Senate Democratic...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is quietly preparing to ease 90-year-old Sen. Robert C. Byrd from his perch as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Democratic insiders tell Politico. Reid has not yet discussed his plans with Byrd. But in a recent closed-door meeting with his advisers in Las Vegas and a private conversation with Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Reid has laid out a scenario that would have Inouye — the committee’s second-ranking Democrat — taking over Byrd’s chairmanship by the time the 111th Congress convenes in January. Byrd — the longest-serving senator in U.S. history — would become chairman...

(CNN) -- During the Democratic primaries, I wrote a column for CNN.com about how easy it is for any candidate to tar and feather another about their associations with less-than-acceptable figures. Sen. Hillary Clinton tried to blast Sen. Barack Obama for unsolicited comments made by Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, and folks like Fox News' Sean Hannity were happy to run with it, saying it was evidence that the junior senator from Illinois was unfit to be president. But critics like Hannity never bothered to raise the issue of former Republican vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp praising Farrakhan for...

Those AP guys are soooo clever. They get to highlight ongoing organized racism in the United States, which, of course serves as a proxy for the rest of racist America, and they get to guilt whites into voting for Obama solely because he's black.

May 19, 2008 Categories: Barack Obama Sen. Robert Byrd endorses Obama The Charleston Gazette reports an endorsement deep with symbolism: West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd is endorsing Barack Obama. "Barack Obama is a noble-hearted patriot and humble Christian, and he has my full faith and support," Byrd says. He said he has "no intention of involving myself in the Democratic campaign for President in the midst of West Virginia's primary election. But the stakes this November could not be higher." Byrd, 91, a master of Senate rules and Iraq war foe, has spent much of his political career repenting the...

"Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Robert Byrd., D-W.Va., talks with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 30, 2008, following Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's address to a joint meeting of Congress.""House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., hands Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Robert Byrd., D-W.Va., a gavel on Capitol Hill in Washington.""Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Robert Byrd., D-W.Va., talks with Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington."

Even though the topic on the agenda for Wednesday’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing was Iraq war funding, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) grasped from the moment he arrived that he was the day’s most important subject — and he was ready to make his case. He arrived on time, wore a crisp suit and entered the room smiling. When he left, after two hours, “Shut up” were the only words he had for his critics. He seemed to pass the test, convincing three Senate Democratic leaders that he’s fit to continue as chairman. Byrd knows that he is the most closely...

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) will return to Capitol Hill next week after being hospitalized because of severe back pains, his office announced Thursday. Byrd, 90, has been hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center since Tuesday after sustaining a back injury from a fall at his Virginia home on Monday night. X-rays showed that Byrd suffered no broken bones from his fall, according to the senator’s spokesman, Jesse Jacobs. Byrd will undergo physical therapy “to ensure he is steady on his feet when he returns to his Senate duties next week,” Jacobs said. Byrd is the longest-serving senator in U.S....

Doctors checking for broken bones after 90-year-old falls at homeWASHINGTON - Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was hospitalized Tuesday at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after complaining of back pain after a fall at his home, his spokesman said. Byrd, 90, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the nation’s longest-serving senator, was staying in the hospital overnight for observation, said spokesman Jesse Jacobs. It was not immediately clear whether he had suffered broken bones. Jacobs said Byrd fell at his Virginia home Monday night. He came to his office Tuesday and was on the Senate floor...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was hospitalized Tuesday after complaining of back pain following a fall at his home, his spokesman said. Byrd, 90, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the longest-serving senator in history, was staying overnight at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for observation, said spokesman Jesse Jacobs. It was not immediately clear whether he had suffered broken bones. Jacobs said Byrd fell at his Virginia home Monday night. He came to his office Tuesday and was on the Senate floor to vote for an Indian health bill. But after noticing he...

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest serving senator in American history, has been admitted overnight to Walter Reed hospital after sustaining an injury to his back this week. The 90-year-old Byrd’s injury is not life threatening, and he was admitted to the hospital for “observation,” according to his spokesman, Jesse Jacobs. The senator injured his back when he fell down Monday night in his Virginia home, but arrived in the Senate Tuesday and cast votes in the morning during debate over an Indian health measure. But he missed the chamber’s afternoon procedural vote to take up a bill aimed...

Democrat Senator Robert Byrd is President pro tempore of the U. S. Senate. As such he is 3d in line to be President of the United Sates in the event of the death, removal or incapacitation of the Prez, VP and Speaker of the House. He is 90 years old. This is incredible, rambling, off-topic video of him, a week ago, He seems drunk, stoned, crazy or senile, (or possibly a combination of all of the above) on the Senate floor, live on national (and international) TV! As a qualification for Democratic Senator from West Virginia, he is a fomer...

Have the Senate Democrats decided to dump their most egregious porker from his leadership position? The Politico reports this morning that Robert Byrd may get pressured to leave his position as chair of the Appropriations committee, a move that could call into question his ability to function at all in the Senate. Pork has nothing to do with this move: A group of Senate Democrats has begun quietly exploring ways to replace the venerable Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, believing he’s no longer physically up to the job, according to Democratic senators and...

Sen. Robert Byrd, the Senate's oldest member and longest-serving member, is celebrating his 90th birthday today. The senator had a party last week and plans to spend time with family and friends today.U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd plans to spend his 90th birthday quietly by reading the hundreds of birthday wishes that have flooded his offices. The legendary senator turned 90 today. Byrd spokesman Jesse Jacobs said birthday greetings have poured into the senator's West Virginia offices and have been forwarded to him in Washington, D.C., where he plans to spend most of his Thanksgiving break. Also on tap for Byrd's...

Over the last two days, the question of patriotism has been debated over the blogosphere. It started with Barack Obama's tortured explanation of why he stopped wearing a lapel pin representing the American flag. He told reporters that he took it off because unnamed others had used it to cover unpatriotic behavior and that the flag had become a "substitute for true patriotism," an explanation that annoyed many more people than did the absence of the lapel pin itself. Today on Heading Right Radio, we debated another dimension of the same question. One of our callers, clearly frustrated with some...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told Congress on Wednesday that he envisioned keeping five combat brigades in Iraq as a 'long-term presence.' Mr. Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee, "When I speak of a long-term presence, I'm thinking of a very modest U.S. presence with no permanent bases, where we can continue to go after Al Qaeda in Iraq and help the Iraqi forces." He added that “in my head� he envisioned a force as a quarter of the current combat brigades. There are now 20 combat brigades in the country, a number that is scheduled to drop to 15...

Byrd's angry theatrics made for a performance reminiscent of Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman." And Byrd did Pacino one better: He invited the audience in the room to join him in heckling the witnesses, creating a responsive Greek chorus. Emboldened, two dozen hecklers in the audience from the antiwar group Code Pink continued to shout at the witnesses and wave signs for the better part of an hour. Finally, after Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) challenged Pace on his view that homosexuality is immoral, the hearing collapsed as the hecklers shouted down the nation's top military officer.

This week, FBI and IRS agents searched the home of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, 83. Stevens is under suspicion for his connection to Bill Allen, an oil state-services contractor convicted of bribing Alaska state lawmakers. Stevens has served in the Senate for almost three decades. The Stevens investigation comes hot on the heels of the Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., scandal, in which Cunningham pleaded guilty to taking bribes from defense contractors; the Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., scandal, in which federal agents found $90,000 in cash stuffed in Jefferson's freezer; and the Jack Abramoff scandal, in which Abramoff was connected with...

In a rather soft boiled story on West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd's dotage and his uselessness as an able bodied member of the Senate, at 89 he's currently the longest serving Senator in American history, the AP did the right thing in reminding the readers that Byrd was once a member of the Klan. Yet, they had to go and ruin the truth by claiming that Klan members are "certainly conservative." In fact, this AP story amazingly tries to make it seem as if Byrd had only late in life become that member of Congress that has been "endeared" to...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Age is finally catching up with West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd in the winter of his 54-year career in Congress. At 89, the longest-serving senator in history and third person in the line of presidential succession has ceded major duties -- such as handling appropriations bills on the Senate floor -- to younger colleagues and aides. Byrd continues to steer pork projects to his home state, rail against President Bush and the Iraq war and quote Cicero and the King James Bible now and then on the Senate floor. But as he walks haltingly with two...

Since September 11, 2001, the speaker of the House has been required for security purposes to take government planes for official business. The White House rightly called "silly" recent criticism of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desire to have a plane that could fly to her San Francisco district nonstop, which would be larger than the plane her predecessor used. But this flap raises a more serious issue--that of presidential succession. Pelosi takes a military plane because the speaker of the House is second in line to succeed the president, behind only the vice president. That's what drove the Department of...

Throughout the Iraq war, one of President Bush's loudest Democratic critics has been the longest-serving member of the Senate: Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. *** Yet the octogenarian lawmaker's voice was quavering as he spoke, his regal bearing a bit unsteady. It was another indication that all is not well with Byrd, an institution within an institution, who turned 89 in November after winning a ninth Senate term. The war debate now unfolding in Congress is tailor made for Byrd, fusing his three celebrated Senate roles: Appropriations chairman (the legislation on the table is a spending bill); resident constitutional...

WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said in the Senate Thursday she and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., will introduce legislation to end authority for the war in Iraq. The bill will propose Oct. 11, 2007, as the expiration date for the congressional resolution that authorized President George W. Bush to use force in Iraq. That resolution was approved Oct. 11, 2002. "The American people have called for change, the facts on the ground demand change, the Congress has passed legislation to require change," said Clinton, a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. "If the...

The Democrats have done their worst, and now George W. Bush must do his best. The Senate's 51-47 vote to require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within a year, effectively telling al Qaeda and its terrorist allies that if they can tone down the noise for a year the Shi'ites and Sunnis can get on with killing each other in the name of Osama, Mohammed, Allah or any Muslim notability of their choosing. The moderate Muslims everyone here says he wants to help can drop dead (and many of them will). "Nothing good can come from this bill,"...

West Virginia Mountaineer players pose after winning the championship round of the National Invitation Tournament.

The E-mail records prove that MoveOn.org has, for the past two years, knowingly and willfully allowed its Action Forum to be used as a gathering place for vicious anti-Semites and other bigots.

Posted by Tim Graham on October 2, 2006 - 11:34. Late on Friday night's edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," former Bush administration aide Ron Christie, author of "Black in the White House," pressed host Chris Matthews on the suggestion that if Republican Sen. George Allen's alleged racial slurs in the 1970s are a character flaw, what about the Democrats re-electing Senator Robert Byrd, a former Klansman, this fall? Matthews protested in a lecturing tone that "everyone knows about it....It's been raised a thousand times on his record." After claiming he was not defending Byrd, he told Christie: "The guy's 90 years old. Give...

West Virginia GOP senatorial candidate John Raese slapped back at Senator Robert Byrd’s reference to Raese’s deceased father in a West Virginia public television profile which aired Thursday night. In a transcript of the program obtained by the Raese campaign Thursday afternoon, Byrd says, “(Raese’s) father was my friend. I think his father would have been … somewhat ashamed. His father would be supporting me today I feel if he were alive.” Raese fired back, saying, “It is Senator Byrd who should be ashamed for smearing my father – and my family by extension – when he knows my father...

There should be a political “glass house alert” because partisan stone-throwing on race has become a shattering game of catch. Democrats are dancing euphorically as they watch Republican Virginia Sen. George Allen’s downward spiral since referring to one of his rival’s campaign supporters as “macaca,” — an apparent European racial slur likening to monkeys those from South Africa. The focus on this has been staggering with Allen’s once robust lead now reduced to five points in front of Democratic challenger and former Reagan Navy Secretary James Webb.

Klan holds rally at GettysburgGETTYSBURG, Pa. - About 30 Ku Klux Klan members proclaimed hatred for blacks, Jews, gays and Latinos as they stood behind barricades at the Civil War battlefield where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Gordon Young of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan also called Saturday for the U.S. to pull its troops out of Iraq and use them to patrol the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration. The World Knights obtained a permit in July for the two-hour demonstration. The National Park Service granted it under the group's First Amendment rights to free...

IN the last few years, it has seemed that perhaps America's long-buried history of blackface is being allowed to peek out of the closet. Bob Dylan named his most recent studio album "Love and Theft," after Eric Lott's landmark 1993 study of the form; and in his curious 2003 film, "Masked and Anonymous," Dylan even got Ed Harris to "black up" for a scene. Spike Lee also explored the subject in "Bamboozled," and competing biographies of Stepin Fetchit joined "Where Dead Voices Gather," Nick Tosches' meditation on the minstrel superstar Emmett Miller, on bookshelves. "Old Dan Tucker," the opening track...

Robert Byrd intends to mark the day he becomes the longest-serving U.S. senator next week much as he has the others in the last half century -- by working. "Records are fine," said Byrd, a Democrat who has held a number of Senate leadership posts. "But what's important is what I do for the people of West Virginia. They are the ones who sent me here 48 years ago." At 88, Byrd looks frail and walks with two canes. Yet he remains one of the most respected voices in Congress and a passionate defender of the U.S. Constitution. He evolved...

Per WVAH Fox11 news, Senator Byrd's wife Erma passed away this morning after a long illness.

One of the biggest issues incoming San Antonio police chief William McManus will have to face is the number of recent officer-involved shootings here in San Antonio. Now a controversial picture in response to those shootings has San Antonio police fuming. On the cover of the San Antonio Observer is an image of a San Antonio police officer wearing a computer-generated Ku Klux Klan-style hood. The image of the officer is paired with images of hate - the hood and a handgun. The San Antonio Observer is a paper that describes itself as a voice of the minority community. The...

95-year-old former newspaperman joins political fray to oust Texas congressman ASSOCIATED PRESS AUSTIN (AP) - At his age, Sid Smith's campaign slogan seems obvious: "At 95, who needs term limits?" That's right. The 95-year-old former newspaperman, real estate agent and current artist, who scoots around his hillside home with the help of a cane, is running for Congress in Tuesday's Democratic primary. "I'm the oldest guy in this race," said Smith, cracking that his Dec. 24 birthday makes him "one day older than Jesus." His main goal? Boot Republican freshman Michael McCaul, who won the District 10 seat two years...

The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted to end a filibuster and moved closer to renewal of the USA Patriot Act. Senators voted 96-3 Thursday to stop debate regarding a compromise on the Patriot Act. All three of the senators who voted to keep debate going were Democrats ... Some aspects of the act were to expire at the end of 2005 but the White House sought to make the bill permanent. Congress gave the act short extensions, the most recent of which will end March 10.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond probably spoke for most blacks and liberals last week when he said the Republican Party is equivalent to the Nazi Party. "The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side," he told an audience at Fayetteville State University. Also last week, a new "scientific study" was released showing Republicans are racist by nature. "The study found supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did," The Washington Post reported.

Hearts of darkness By: RICK REISS - For The Californian Avid readers of the classics know the works of Joseph Conrad. In 1898 Conrad penned the novella "Heart of Darkness" and coined the phrase "going native." This phrase has not lost any of its relevance in the 21st century. The disgraced and convicted former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham now stands as a modern-day icon of the dark-hearted politician who betrays his people. As a former constituent of Cunningham's, I feel betrayed by a man who swore to represent me but chose instead to serve himself. As a Navy veteran I...