Free Republic

White, non-Hispanic kids will no longer make up the majority of America's youth in just five to six years, according to Census Bureau projections released Wednesday. Those projections, which include four different scenarios for population growth, estimate that today's minority ethnic groups will soon account for at least half of the under-18 population, either in 2018 or 2019. "This is going to start from the bottom of the age distribution and move its way up," said William Frey, demographer and senior fellow for the Brookings Institution. "All of these projections show we're moving to greater diversity in the United States."...

DARTMOUTH — A lawyer and former high-ranking Capitol Hill aide may face criminal charges after police say he left a state rep with a collapsed lung and possible broken ribs in a dust-up outside a youth basketball camp that apparently started over a state job. Dartmouth police say they’ve filed a criminal complaint in New Bedford District Court seeking a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon against David Oliveira, a former lobbyist and aide to the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and former U.S. Rep. John Olver. Oliveira, 44, pushed and “lunged” at state Rep. Christopher...

“This is Scott Brown’s full Palin.” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell used his “Rewrite” segment Monday night to pay tribute to Scott Brown‘s political career, which he deemed dead today after the former Massachusetts senator and one-time GOP presidential prospect announced that he would be taking a job with Boston law firm Nixon Peabody. O’Donnell reviewed Brown’s short span in the political spotlight, from his unexpected ascent to Ted Kennedy‘s old Senate seat to his recent loss to Sen. Elizabeth Warren after a hard-fought and very expensive campaign. Since the election, Brown has taken a job as a Fox News contributor and...

Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world on Monday morning by announcing he would resign at the end of February. For Catholics, there was sorrow and there was gratitude for a Holy Father who taught with such distinction and worked with such care to safeguard the church's theological traditions. But there are those people who hate the Catholic Church, and they are ecstatic. Take documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, a man who clearly thinks he is holier than the Pope. He told the Daily Beast that Benedict is a "criminal." This helps explain why he's made a documentary for HBO, the...

As we look forward to a debate this year about immigration reform, I want to share my thoughts and my past experiences on this issue. I particularly want to share my personal experience from the 1980s amnesty law and how we can learn from that debate. But, before I dive into this history, I want to commend the many senators that are working together to forge a consensus and produce a product on this terribly difficult issue. I commend them for sitting down and agreeing to a set of principles. As Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, I expect to...

Most of us would be honored to have our name become a verb. Especially those of us in public life. But that is not how Judge Robert H. Bork got into the dictionary. He was "borked" when President Reagan nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court. No sooner had the announcement been made by the White House on July 1, 1987, than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) raced to the Senate floor to denounce the distinguished judge and former Yale Law Professor. In Robert Bork's America, Kennedy roared, blacks would once again sit in the back of the bus, rogue...

Tucked inside the "fiscal cliff" deal is a provision repealing the CLASS Act, a giant unfunded mandate that was part of President Obama's health care law. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was a priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and was designed to create a program for long-term care for the functionally disabled. Mr. Obama halted the program, saying he couldn't find a way to make it cost-effective. But he had objected when Republicans tried to repeal it outright, saying he wanted to keep it on the books and try to amend it...

Judge Robert H. Bork, one of the the greatest jurists this country has ever produced, died early this morning from heart complications in a Virginia hospital near his home. He was 84. Bork was a national celebrity. Several years ago, my wife and I visited the Borks in Maine where they had taken a summer house off Somes Sound. I cannot count the times that total strangers would approach us at a lobster shack or park asking to shake the Judge’s hand and to assure him of their admiration and support. Bork’s celebrity was only partly conferred upon him by...

Law: A quarter of a century ago, a good and great man was slandered to maintain liberal judicial power. It was Vice President Joe Biden, who as a senator, led the injustices committed against Judge Robert Bork. The Wednesday morning death of Bork, Ronald Reagan´s failed 1987 Supreme Court nominee, should make us think how much freer and better this country would be if Bork´s intellectual power and constitutional integrity had been present within the justices´ deliberations over the past 25 years. Had Reagan nominated Bork to replace retiring Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1986, when Republicans

No worries. She’ll only be a placeholder until someone from the next generation of Kennedy sub-mediocrity is ready to serve. The President has not made a choice on his next nominee for Secretary of State yet, but Governor Deval Patrick is already making plans to fill presumptive SecState nominee John Kerry’s Senate seat. Knowledgeable sources tell me Governor Patrick has already had a discussion with one potential replacement for Senator Kerry: Vicki Kennedy. The sources say the governor talked to Kennedy, the widow of Senator Ted Kennedy, about the possibility of replacing Kerry in the Senate and that she did...

I know that most of you fear that our nation is on the wrong course. But I pledge to you today that in my second term I'll stay the course and stick to the plan. There is no hope in change. During the 2008 election John McCain warned the nation (as many of us did) that a Barack Obama presidency would be the second term of Jimmy Carter; that it would be a rudderless administration unable to govern or lead misdirecting the country into economic distress, military and strategic decline and international turmoil. And so it has been. With 23...

With one Kennedy already on the ballot this fall, don’t be surprised to see another member of the political clan soon make a bid to join the family business. Edward M. Kennedy Jr., the eldest son of the late Massachusetts senator, is consulting with a veteran Washington political hand in a clear sign he’s seriously considering a run for office, the Herald has learned. The 50-year-old Kennedy brought in longtime Democratic strategist Steve McMahon to help him coordinate media interviews at the party convention in Charlotte, and several sources say McMahon also is helping Kennedy with political advice. Kennedy lives...

CHARLOTTE, NC - Day one of the Democratic National Convention was a tale of two events.  Throughout the early evening session -- prior to the major primetime hour -- the proceedings featured angry attacks on Mitt Romney and Republicans, an unshakeable fixation on trivial, minor issues (other than jobs and the economy), and a disquieting, heavy emphasis on abortion and divisive social issues.  Especially unpleasant were the patriotism-questioning shout-fest from former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland ("If Mitt Romney were Santa, he'd fire the Reindeer and outsource the elves!") and the pro-abortion screed from the president of NARAL, a hardcore pro-abortion...

p>I won't run through the usual litany of misdeeds. If you don't already know them by heart, you'll commit them to memory eventually when you finally tire of liberals screeching at you for "hating women" while holding this guy up as a secular saint. (Chappaquiddick material is abundant online, but this post will get you up to speed on another legendary incident.) I've got to say, in all sincerity: I appreciate their brazenness in building a convention around the theme of a "war on women" while not only inviting Bill Clinton to be a headline speaker but having a video...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Snerdley is yelling at me: "Are you gonna get rid of Akin now?" Before I give my two cents on all this, folks, let me first say I have two natural tendencies. One is to avoid the pack, to avoid the conventional wisdom. When everybody seems to be uttering, voicing, doing the same thing, that's when I put on the brakes and say, "Do I want to join this mob?" And I also have, as you well know, a tendency to want to support conservatives who come under fire. It doesn't happen enough. You know, the Democrats...

L.A mayor’s party will glam uptownBy Tim Funk Posted: Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012 An army of A-list celebs and politicos are expected to show up at the N.C. Music Factory on Sept. 5 for a Hollywood-themed gala hosted by L.A. Mayor – and Dem convention chairman – Antonio Villaraigosa. The Dish has learned that the Factory’s Fountain Plaza and Osso Restaurant will get a one-night make-over. Picture palm trees, classic L.A. architecture and lots of California wine. **SNIP** Grandson Joseph Kennedy III, a candidate for Congress, will introduce a video salute to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy on the convention’s...

“It really annoyed Caroline when comparisons were made by the media between Michelle and Jackie. Caroline had a word for such comparisons; she called them ‘odious.’ She really got annoyed. And when she began to fall out of love with the Obamas, love was replaced by outright scorn. Now she says things about Obama like, ‘I can’t stand to hear his voice any more. He’s a liar and worse’” Ethel Kennedy, “the matriarch of the family,” similarly felt scorned, according to Klein. He tells a story of her invitation — extended to the First Family — being ignored by the...

As Massachusetts Democrats meet at their nominating convention today, some members of the Cherokee Nation are stepping up a campaign to get answers about candidate Elizabeth Warren’s claims of tribal ancestry – a sideshow controversy that has nevertheless begun to wobble one of the most closely-watched Senate campaigns in the country. This week, Indian reporters say they were snubbed by Warren’s campaign as they sought clarification on why Ms. Warren was listed as a minority Native faculty by Harvard in the 1990s, even though she has no evidence to back that claim and apparently never sought out other Native Americans...

Former Republican Rep. Tom Davis told The Hill newspaper: “The middle is getting squeezed,” but his comment vastly understates the crisis in the capital. Activists in both parties have declared war on moderates. The ideological gap between the two parties is widening rapidly. Paralysis is pervasive. Political scientist Keith Poole of the University of Georgia, who studies voting patterns, told the National Journal: “We are clearly as conflicted as we’ve been since 1905. The parties are, I think, completely dysfunctional and incapable of acting on major policy.” The National Journal reports that as recently as 1999, more than half of...

A Roman Catholic college in Massachusetts has withdrawn an invitation to the widow of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy to speak at graduation after concerns about her views were raised by the Bishop of Worcester. Anna Maria College in Paxton announced Friday that ``concerns were expressed about the college being in conflict with the bishop.'' Victoria Reggie Kennedy was scheduled to speak at May's commencement. The college did not cite Bishop Robert McManus's specific concerns. A diocese spokesman says the bishop has followed directions that Catholic institutions should not honor Catholics who take positions contrary to church principles ``particularly on the...

When Gov. Mitt Romney signed legislation in April 2006 requiring most Massachusetts residents to have health coverage, Senator Edward M. Kennedy stood by his side, beaming like a proud father. They were onstage at historic Faneuil Hall in Boston, a setting that had a special resonance for the two. Twelve years earlier, they shared that stage as opponents in a bitter Senate race. Back then, Mr. Romney accused Mr. Kennedy of waging “untrue, unfair and sleazy” personal attacks. Now, the Republican governor was introducing the liberal Democratic senator as “my collaborator and friend.” Mr. Romney’s complicated relationship with Mr. Kennedy,...

At signing of RomneyCare Romney thanked Ted Kennedy for "collaboration" on health care reform [1:32 video]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Carrie Fisher, speaking of sexual harassment charges, or rather the lack of them in this case. There's an amusing anecdote out there, Carrie Fisher's latest autobiography. She's the daughter, by the way, of the movie star Debbie Reynolds. I met Debbie Reynolds once at a House Clinic event. She was the entertainer. She's hilarious. I had forgotten. She is a hilarious comedienne, Debbie Reynolds. That's Carrie Fisher's mom, and Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in the first Star Wars flick. That was before calling someone princess was sexist. Do you believe Cain had to apologize for calling...

Can you imagine the holy hell Ann Coulter would have unleashed if Ronald Reagan had been described in similarly scathing terms? But when the irrepressible Ann called Ted Kennedy "human pestilence," long-term Kennedy clan retainer Mike Barnicle barely blinked. It happened on Morning Joe today. Coulter, who has called on conservatives to rally around Mitt Romney, was defending Romney's adoption in the past of moderate positions. Ann argued he did so in hyper-liberal Massachusetts while running against Ted Kennedy and that Romney "came within five points of taking out that human pestilence." The best Barnicle could muster was a stumbling...

‘Star Wars’ actress: Date with Sen. Dodd brought wild questions from Sen. Kennedy Holy Obi-Wan Kenobi! “Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher claims the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked her some pretty frank questions while dining out with the star and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). According to published excerpts from Fisher’s new book, “Shockaholic,” the entertainer, best known for her role as Princess Leia, was fresh out of her first stint in rehab and on a date with a then single Dodd back in 1985. Kennedy joined the pair at dinner in D.C.. Fisher writes, “Suddenly, Senator Kennedy, seated...

Earth to liberal News Media!...It's still a no-brainer. Your attempts at sinking Cain only make everyone madder at your hypocricy! Bill Clinton wanders around the White House with his pants around his ankles for eight years and that's o.k. because he's your boy. Now you scrape the bottom of the barrel to find anything that might destroy each and every republican candidate. You scum bag socialists are going to hit the wall! Your're party days are over!

Despite copious evidence to back up the connection, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney has yet to admit the link between the Massachusetts health care overhaul he signed into law as governor and the federal overhaul President Obama passed last year. You can understand why he's declined: Given that Romney is running as an establishment conservative for the Republican nomination, the friendly connection to the rival party's leader and his most prominent policy achievement would be, well, kind of awkward. But when the Massachusetts law first took effect, Romney did praise a different prominent liberal collaborator as one of the law's "parents"...

Six years after she was deemed cancer-free, Kara Kennedy accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her father, just days before Sen. Edward Kennedy died while battling a brain tumor. However, her own lung cancer treatment -- surgery and grueling chemotherapy and radiation -- left her physically weakened, her brother Patrick Kennedy said. She died Friday at age 51 after her daily workout at a Washington-area health club. "Her heart gave out," said Patrick Kennedy, a former congressman from Rhode Island. "She's with dad." Kennedy was a member of the Sport & Health fitness center, though spokeswoman Nancy...

The tea party's terrorist tactics By: William Yeomans July 29, 2011 08:22 AM EDT It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists. They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals. A strong America has always stood firm in the face of terrorism. That tradition is in jeopardy, as Congress and President Barack careen toward an uncertain outcome in the tea party- manufactured debt crisis. As we stumble closer to...

The Kennedys fought with the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Hoffa, and Robert Bork over the duration of thirteen presidential administrations. Now that no Kennedy holds political office in Washington, they're fighting each other. The family feud involves two iconic landmarks: the Kennedy Cape Cod compound and the John F. Kennedy Library overlooking Dorchester Bay. In Hyannis Port, Ted Kennedy's heirs prepare to transform the waterfront mansion the family has owned for 85 years into a retreat for thinkers and politicians contemplating public policy. The compound where early movie-mogul Joe Kennedy screened films for starlet Gloria Swanson, where the brood...

History: President Salvador Allende of Chile really did commit suicide in 1973, an inquest concluded on Tuesday. Now will the Left stop saying the U.S. and Chile's army did him in? Except perhaps for Che Guevara, no one has quite been the heroic totem to the global left than the late Marxist president of Chile, whose death in 1973 made him a martyr to socialism. Allende seemingly legitimized socialism as a democratically elected leader, the first Marxist who in 1970 didn't shoot his way to power.That gave the left hope for more. Elected with just 36% of the vote in...

DEVELOPING: NEW CASTLE, Del. -- Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner. Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl's home around 4:30 p.m. and asked to speak with the girl's mother about the daughter's contact with Weiner. Another officer appeared at the home a short time later. A FoxNews.com reporter was at the home when the police arrived. The girl, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor, told FoxNews.com, "I'm...

Sen. Chuck Schumer refused to answer questions Monday evening about the Twitter scandal that has ensnared Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), his one-time congressional aide. But in a statement, the powerful Democratic senator said he was "deeply pained and saddened" about the married congressman's admission at a New York news conference Monday that he carried on lewd online conversations with at least half a dozen women. "By fully explaining himself, apologizing to all he hurt and taking full responsibility for his wrongful actions, Anthony did the right thing," Schumer said. "He remains a talented and committed public servant, and I pray...

Candidates lob shots during convention Open season on Scott Brown officially kicked off yesterday with five of the six Democratic candidates seeking to reclaim the “people’s seat” training their sights and barbs squarely on the freshman U.S. senator during speeches at their party’s state convention in Lowell. “When Ted Kennedy went behind closed doors with lawmakers and lobbyists, he always fought for us,” Bob Massie, the nonprofit executive who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1994, told some 3,000 Democratic delegates gathered on the floor of Tsongas Center. “When Scott Brown goes behind closed door with lawmakers and lobbyists and...

"I swear that I am not making this up." Dave Barry

A groundbreaking ceremony has been slated for early next month for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Dorchester. The ceremony is to be held at the future site of the institute, next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, a statement from the institute said.

Another round of declassified FBI files on Senator Ted Kennedy has been released (click here and here). Fittingly, in Kennedy’s case, they once again raise all sorts of questions, from the moral to the political to issues of national security.

Another round of declassified FBI files on Senator Ted Kennedy has been released. Fittingly, in Kennedy’s case, they once again raise all sorts of questions, from the moral to the political to issues of national security.

A federal judge in Houston has thrown out the 20-year-old arms smuggling conviction of a former CIA agent, outlining in scathing terms how federal officials knowingly used a false affidavit at his trial and concealed the act through years of appeals. Edwin Wilson was convicted in Houston in 1983 of smuggling arms to Libya at a time when the threat of Libyan terrorism was major news. Congress was mounting investigations into controversial CIA activities around the globe, and CIA administrators were actively trying to deflect criticism. Wilson, now 75, has been in prison ever since, serving a 52-year sentence. His...

Last week at American Thinker (click here), I wrote on the latest declassified FBI files on Ted Kennedy. I looked at several intriguing claims, mainly based on Kennedy's July-August 1961 "familiarization tour" of Latin America. According to the file, Kennedy familiarized himself not only with the political/social life of the region -- reportedly attempting to "rent" an entire brothel -- but also with one of the most suspicious, notorious Cold War figures, Lauchlin Currie, FDR adviser and alleged Soviet agent. One item I didn't note, but want to deal with here, is an eye-opening March 2, 1967 memo. Written by...

An FBI file contends that a young Edward M. Kennedy arranged to rent a brothel for a night while visiting Chile in 1961, a year before he was elected to the Senate. The previously redacted State Department memo, dated Dec. 28, 1961, was released by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based organization that said it obtained it through a Freedom of Information lawsuit....

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy arranged to "rent" a brothel for a night while on a visit to Chile and other Latin American countries decades ago, according to a 1961 State Department memo obtained and published by the watchdog group Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch released several documents said to be from Kennedy's FBI file. The group said it obtained a cleaner copy of the State Department memo after a mostly redacted version was made public earlier. The Dec. 28, 1961, memo described a tour of several Latin American countries Kennedy made while he was an assistant prosecutor with Suffolk County,...

After repeated attempts, Judicial Watch has managed to pry loose certain documents relating to Teddy Kennedy from the FBI. The FBI's original redactions plainly had nothing to do with national security, so the agency apparently was trying to protect Kennedy's reputation. The most entertaining documents relate to a trip Kennedy took to Latin America in 1961. He visited a number of countries, accompanied by his "political counselor." In each country, Kennedy met with prominent Communists or other left-wing leaders. The U.S. Ambassador to Mexico was outraged that Kennedy wanted to bring such people to the embassy--this was the heart of...

Late U.S. senator Ted Kennedy has been accused of renting an entire Chilean brothel and seeking meetings with communists who had left-wing views. The information came to light after a Freedom of Information request by Judicial Watch - the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption - who put pressure on the FBI to release the material. Their file on the late senator, who died from brain cancer in August 2009, was released but contained a large amount of blacked out information - until now. The statements previously withheld include accusations that during a tour of several Latin...

An explosive FBI file on the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy now reportedly reveals he “made arrangements to rent a brothel” in Chile in 1961 while on a swing through South America, according to newly released documents obtained by Judicial Watch. The documents in question, part of an expansive FBI file on the late Bay State senator, were originally redacted when released last year until Judicial Watch objected under the Freedom of Information Act, the organization stated in a press release. The new passages allege Kennedy was on a tour of Chile, Mexico and other surrounding countries while serving...

Judicial Watch has obtained some new documents from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's massive, heavily-redacted FBI file. One interesting bit: During a trip to South America in 1961, then-Assistant District Attorney Kennedy had a party at a brothel: "while Kennedy was in Santiago made arrangements to 'rent' a brothel for an entire night. Kennedy allegedly invited one of the Embassy chauffeurs to participate in the night's activities." Kennedy was in South America to meet various "left-wingers," and Communists, according to the memo. (To what end? The memo doesn't say.) Diplomacy was different back in the 60s, one hopes. Keep...

Judicial Watch continued to argue that the blackouts were baseless and, after six more months, the FBI relented. Among the statements previously withheld but now made available to Judicial Watch: •“While Kennedy was in Santiago he made arrangements to ‘rent’ a brothel for an entire night. Kennedy allegedly invited one of the Embassy chauffeurs to participate in the night’s activities.” •“[I]n each country Kennedy insisted on interviewing ‘the angry young men’ of the country. He wanted to meet with communists and others who had left-wing views. …Ambassador Freeman, Bogota, said the first person whom Kennedy wanted to meet was Lauchlin...

WASHINGTON — Whites continued to decline as a share of the American population in 2009, and they now represent less than half of all 3-year-olds, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of census data released Monday. The country’s young population is more diverse than ever, with whites now in the minority in nursery schools, preschools and kindergartens in eight states — Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas — and the District of Columbia, according to William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings. That was up from six states in 2000. “We are on our way to...

The late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s son, Ted Jr., is among the names being floated as potential candidates for Connecticut U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s seat in 2012. Kennedy, the middle child of the late senator and his former wife, Joan, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Lieberman’s seat, which the 23-year senator is giving up when his term ends next year. One Kennedy family friend called the 49-year-old attorney, who lives in Connecticut, a “great candidate.” “No one knew Lieberman would be getting out. I think Teddy would be the odds-on favorite were he to enter the...