Free Republic

ABC News, in a rather surprising bit of actual investigative journalism, is covering some newly released documents from our intelligence agencies dating back to the 1960s. In response to an Associated Press FOIA request, the FBI has provided records of some very interesting and potentially highly embarrassing exchanges between a young Senator Robert Byrd, who sought secret documents regarding unnamed civil rights leaders of the time. His actions also managed to spark something of an internal war between two agencies over their inability to keep secret documents under control. U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd obtained secret FBI documents about the...

U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd obtained secret FBI documents about the civil rights movement that were leaked by the CIA and triggered an angry confrontation between the two agencies in the 1960s, according to newly released FBI records. Byrd, who died in June 2010 at age 92, had sought the FBI intelligence while suspecting that communists and subversives were guiding the civil rights cause, the records show.

TODAY is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution in 1787. Since 2005, by Congressional mandate, all educational institutions receiving federal funds — from preschools to universities, whether public or private — are required to provide relevant educational programming to observe the occasion. Boston College, where I teach, generally hosts a symposium; the local middle school offers skits about the First Amendment. The Constitution Day mandate was a brainchild of the late Senator Robert C. Byrd, who believed it was necessary to address the nation’s lack of appreciation for our founding document.

In episode 4 on how gun control and socialized medicine leads to genocide, we see in America how medical scince under the influence of liberals was used to promote racism slavery and apartheid here and in South Africa. One of universal healthcare's biggest supporters wasthe Ku Klux Klan which has always been Democratic and Socialistic. Among its more violent and fanatical supporters was former senator and grand cyclops the late Robert Byrd who worked tirelessly to advance universal healthcare in the united states, ushering in a new dark era of socialism.

HARRY REID: "I’m glad I had the opportunity to know Ted Kennedy. Whether you agreed with him or not, what a life he lead with his two brothers being assassinated, his other brother being killed in World War II. And Robert Byrd who just died. What a– he was in the Congress of the United States for more than 25 percent of the time that we have been a country. That’s fairly remarkable."

West Virginia Republican John Raese is gaining much more ground than expected in his US Senate race and has just come out with a hard hitting ad about his Democratic opponent's long record of supporting President Barack Obama's liberal agenda. But rather than try to defend himself on the issues, Governor Joe Manchin contacted the daughter of the late Senator Robert Byrd to tell her that a photo used in the ad was taken at her father's memorial service.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk show host who recently apologized for saying the N-word 11 times to a caller on the air, said Tuesday she plans to give up her radio show when her contract is up at the end of this year. The conservative advice maven made the announcement on CNN's "Larry King Live," saying she wants to "regain her First Amendment rights." Schlessinger said she's not retiring or quitting. Instead, she said, she feels stronger and freer to say what she believes needs to be said. "I want to be able to say what's on my mind and...

Appearing today on The View, President Obama referred to African-Americans as mongrels: “We are sort of a mongrel people.” Barack Obama, 2010 Not only was he using a term commonly used to describe dogs, Obama was agreed with the assessment of a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan (and fellow Democrat), Senator Robert Byrd: “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. Rather, I should die a thousand times, 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...

Mark Murray writes: The Charleston Daily Mail (WV) reports that GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won't run in the special election for Robert Byrd's Senate seat, side-stepping what would have been a competitive contest against Gov. Joe Manchin (D), who is running for the seat.

West Virginia's state legislature has approved a plan to hold a special election to fill the seat of the late US Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia). Governor Joe Manchin (D), who is likely to be one of the candidates in that special election, signed the measure after a compromise was worked out by state lawmakers. The primary election will be held on August 28 and the vote for Senator Byrd's successor will take place as part of the congressional mid-term elections on November 2.

Gov. Joe Manchin is tapping his former chief counsel and a member of a prominent West Virginia family, Carte Goodwin, to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democratic officials told The Associated Press on Friday. Three officials familiar with the governor's pick spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment ahead of an official announcement. ...The 36-year-old Goodwin, a Charleston lawyer, would hold the seat until November. That's when the governor wants general election voters to decide who will serve the final two years of Byrd's term. The Legislature has...

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...

Governor Joe Manchin oozes charm and a touchy-feely warmth with constituents. Many eat this up, especially after living through the more distant occupants of the Governor's Mansion in recent years. Plus, the Governor and his attractive wife, Gayle, must appeal to many middle-aged West Virginians, who find in the First Couple fit representatives of their generation.   But as the Governor prepares to abandon ship and cut his second term as the state's Chief Executive short for a run for U.S. Senate, a retrospective look at his tenure in office is on order. For starters, after his impressive bipartisan effort...

'His heart belonged to you," President Obama told the hundreds of West Virginians who attended Robert Byrd's funeral last week. "Making life better here was his only agenda." Maybe so. But despite the $4 billion in pork that Byrd served his constituents over the past 19 years alone—not to mention the untold billions before observers started keeping tabs—West Virginia remains the third poorest state in the country. Government spending does not prosperity make. When Byrd became senator in 1959, West Virginia ranked No. 39 in median family income, and No. 42 in per capita income. Today, it's No. 48 in...

Remembering Byrd's Racism June 29th, 2010 by Alex Knepper Yesterday, the media was pushing hagiographic narratives about the redemptive story of Robert Byrd’s past on race relations. The moral of the story is that you can always make up for being a racist son-of-a-bitch. But the real subtext of the story is: being a Democrat means that you can promote segregation, join the KKK, vote against both black Supreme Court nominees, and use the word “nigger” on national television — and still be remembered as a promoter of black interests. Robert Byrd’s KKK membership is dismissed by his worshipers as...

West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D) is calling on Gov. Joe Manchin (D) and the state Legislature to decide in a special session whether West Virginia law allows for the special election to succeed the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D) to take place earlier than November 2012. Tennant announced in a video message that while she personally supports holding a special election earlier than 2012, no election can take place before then unless the state Legislature or the Supreme Court acts. "I personally would support any attempt by the Legislature to change the current law," Tennant said. "If...

From the steps of the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, Bill Clinton downplayed the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s days in the KKK, chalking it up as a misguided mistake that was not representative of him as a person. “There are a lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd in the newspapers saying, and I’ve read a bunch of them, they mention he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan and what does that mean? ” I’ll tell you what that means. That means he was a country boy from the hills and hollow...

He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected," former President Bill Clinton said of Sen. Robert Byrd. "And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done come and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians," he added.

As politicians and columnists across the country debate the life and legacy of the late Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginian’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan has been a sticking point for many. Today’s KKK, though, says Byrd did nothing to warrant such ire. “He wasn’t a Klansman long enough to get his sheet broke in,” said Travis Pierce, national membership director for the Ku Klux Klan, LLC, one of several groups that uses the KKK name. “It’s much ado about nothing.” It’s unknown how long Byrd held membership in the Klan. According to the Washington Post, the future...

Because the media will be so kind to him...Click on them to see a larger version. The Looking Spoon is a conservative humor/satire/art/commentary blog, visit www.thelookingspoon.com to see more posts and art

R.I.P.: The passing of the longest-serving senator gives mainstream media another chance to rewrite history. Will he be touted as a constitutional scholar or a free-spending former Klansman who fought civil rights? That Robert Byrd left his mark would be an understatement. Our prayers are with his family and the people of West Virginia. He was both the dean of the Senate and the prince of pork. He knew the history of his chamber better than anybody, having authored a four-volume history of the upper chamber, and the Constitution better than most. He also, quite shamelessly, brought home so much...

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...

With the death early Monday of Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D), West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III (D) must select an interim replacement for a legend who many in the state and elsewhere consider one of a kind. A quirk in West Virginia's laws appears to state that the replacement will likely hold the seat for the remainder of the late senator's record ninth term, through 2012; therefore, Byrd's death would not impact the partisan makeup of the chamber, nor would it directly impact the pending 2010 elections. However, there is some ambiguity in the law that has left some...

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...

Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) died early this morning at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. Upon arriving in Hell, he was immediately appointed KKK Grand Dragon. Byrd was greeted at the gates of Hell by long-time friend Ted Kennedy, who made an unsuccessful bid for president of Hell last year shortly after his own arrival.

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 readers to imagine the South Carolinian had remained an advocate of segregation. The very first line of USA Today's story described Thurmond as "the nation's most prominent segregationist." Strange how the MSM can suddenly become reticent about mentioning someone's segregationist past when the late politician in question is a Democrat. On Morning Joe today, Mark Halperin and Mike Barnicle used elliptical language worthy of a State Department dispatch to...

MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS: COCKFIGHTING AND SAME-SEX PROMSMay 26, 2010 Watching TV this week, at first I thought Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul had flown a commercial jet into the World Trade Center. But then it turned out that he had only said there ought to be discussion about whether federal civil rights laws should be applied to private businesses. This allowed the mainstream media to accuse Paul of being a racist. Twisting a conservative's words in order to accuse him of racism was evidently more urgent news than the fact that the attorney general of the United States admitted last...

“I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” -- William F. Buckley At this point, I would go Buckley one better: I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 254 people we could pull out of a minimum security prison rather than the Democrats who are currently in Congress. In all fairness to the Democrats we have in charge now, that change probably wouldn't make Congress any less corrupt (not much more corrupt either), but at least...

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) is the Liberal Lion of the US Senate. The longest serving member of that institution, he has been a champion of big government and spending programs for years. He is also a philosophical ally of President Obama, an ally who has been at odds with that President.

This year, 2010, is the fortieth anniversary of the premier of John Denver's musical tribute to West Virginia as "almost heaven." When I think of Denver's classic song, "Take Me Home, Country Roads",

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...

On December 20, 2009 Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said before Congress: "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight. That's what they ought to pray. So that we can ... get the middle of America and the middle of the Senate a bill that can run through this country and actually do what we say we all want to do." Although no particular individual was named, it was an attempt to express disapproval for the overwhelmingly Democrat-supported H.R. 3590 Health Care Bill our Government wants to push through Congress before Christmas....

An extraordinary recent statement by Sen. Robert Byrd has stunned his coal-dependent home state and left West Virginia politicians and business leaders scrambling to understand the timing and motivation behind his unexpected discourse on the future of the coal industry. In an early December op-ed piece released by his office — also recorded on audio by the frail 92-year-old senator — Byrd argued that resistance to constraints on mountaintop-removal coal mining and a failure to acknowledge that “the truth is that some form of climate legislation will likely become public policy” represent the real threat to the future of coal....

While on the board of a Chicago-based charity, Barack Obama helped fund a carbon trading exchange that will likely play a critical role in the cap-and-trade carbon reduction program he is now trying to push through Congress as president. In 2000 and 2001, while Barack Obama served as a board member for a Chicago-based charitable foundation, he helped to fund a pioneering carbon trading exchange that is likely to fill a critical role in the controversial cap-and-trade carbon reduction scheme that President Obama is now trying to push rapidly through Congress. During those two years, the Joyce Foundation gave nearly...

Here is a video report on West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd becoming the longest serving member of Congress in American History. Byrd was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1953, and was then elected to the Senate in 1958. He is now serving his ninth term in the Senate. The report says Byrd has a 98% attendance record over these nearly 59 years in Congress, and he has cast more than 18,000 votes. Byrd will turn 92 years old this coming Friday. . . . (VIDEO)

When the clock strikes midnight tonight, Sen. Robert Byrd will become the longest-serving member of Congress ever — a capstone on a remarkable career in which the adopted son of a coal miner propelled himself from poverty to the pinnacle of legislative power, where he could, did and still does send billions of federal dollars back across the Blue Ridge to help build his home state of West Virginia. Byrd’s stat sheet speaks for itself: • Served 20,774 days — or 56 years and 10½ months — in Congress • Attended 18,582 Senate roll call votes • Elected to Senate...

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.”

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...