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A city councilwoman is asking homeowners in an Oklahoma college town to rename a street honoring a prominent former university professor and Ku Klux Klan member. Norman Councilwoman Breea Clark has posted an online petition asking residents to help change the name of DeBarr Avenue. If at least three-fourths of Norman homeowners agree, the city — home to the University of Oklahoma — would be among several cities nationwide renaming monuments and streets named after prominent KKK members. […] The block-long street honors Edwin DeBarr, one of the university’s first professors and founder of its chemistry department. DeBarr became a...

Father James E. Coyle, an extraordinary priest and Knight of Columbus in the early 20th century, courageously stood up against widely-held anti-Catholic views at the risk, and then cost, of his life.The Irish-born priest was scarcely in his 20s when, after his ordination in Rome, he was dispatched to Alabama to begin his priesthood. The Catholic population in Alabama had exploded with a promise of jobs, especially in and around Birmingham’s network of coal mines, steel mills and iron foundries. Father Coyle arrived in the city shortly before a wave of anti-Catholicism flooded the country, and the revived Ku...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie conflated statistics when he claimed Sen. Rand Paul’s “pork-barrel spending” is the reason Kentucky receives more federal funds than New Jersey for every tax dollar it sends to Washington. The figures cited by Christie are affected very little by pork-barrel spending.Moreover, Senate Republicans have imposed a voluntary ban on earmarks — otherwise known as pork-barrel spending — since the Kentucky senator took office in 2011. So Paul hasn’t brought any of the traditional pork-barrel spending to Kentucky.Paul also added some confusion to the issue when he seemed to suggest that Kentucky’s ratio was the...

On February 24, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), at a hearing held by the House Financial Services Committee, asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke whether he was aware of allegations that the Federal Reserve had been complicit in the Watergate cover-up and in the illegal funneling of billions of dollars in loans to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein: "It has been reported in the past that during the 1980s that the Fed actually facilitated a $5.5-billion loan to Saddam Hussein. And he then bought weapons from our military-industrial complex. And also that is when he invested in a nuclear reactor.... "Also there's been...

As if we needed anymore proof of Ron Paul’s anti-American treachery — and no, I am not speaking of his inclusion in the Democrats’ list of favorite Republicans (though it’s also quite telling), — he’s finally waded into the Ground Zero mosque controversy where — unsurprisingly — he’s chalked it all up to yet another conspiracy theory, fomented by those war-lovin’ neo-cons: “I think it’s a big distraction, a grand distraction from the real issues… To me it should have been a grand opportunity, and you really touched on the opportunity, because it’s really a property rights issue, and who...

Break with the Past: Changing a dorm name makes a good Step towards healing UT's troubled racial history After several months of discussion within the University of Texas community in Austin, UT President William Powers Jr. will ask the school's board of regents today to consider renaming a dorm that now honors a former law professor, William Stewart Simkins, along with a neighboring park dedicated to his brother Eldred, a judge and UT regent. The reason? Simkins was not only a legal educator at UT from 1899-1929. He and his brother were members of the Ku Klux Klan during a...

Bill Clinton on Robert Byrd's Association with the KKK: "What does that mean? It means he was a country boy from the hills and hallows of West Virginia, he was trying to get elected"...Oh ok, that explains it...(Video)

Sen. Robert Byrd may join Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy among historic figures who have lain in state in the Capitol Rotunda — an honor only bestowed upon 28 other Americans over the past 160 years. Senate leaders are likely to make a request for Byrd to lie in state, aides said Monday, but they are still awaiting approval from Byrd’s family to go ahead with a formal resolution that would allow Byrd’s casket to rest under the dome for a public viewing. With a career that spanned nearly 58 years and ranked him as the longest-serving member in congressional...

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 (Newsbusters)- When Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond died, the MSM was quick to stress his segregationist past. The New York Times ran the headline “Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100,” leaving...

In the early 1940s, a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the "Grand Dragon" for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter. As Byrd recalls now, the Klan official, Joel L. Baskin of Arlington, Va., was so impressed with the young Byrd's organizational skills that he urged him to go into politics. "The country...

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...

A "senior Klansman", who has been on the fugitive list in the USA, was arrested in Israel as an illegal entrant.

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.”

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.

(Denzel Washington)(Dustin Hoffman)(Aretha Franklin - at rehearsal)(Doprah)(Charlie Rangel)(Ted Kennedy)(Robert Byrd)

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...

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...