The son of the late US Senator Edward M. Kennedy has criticized Senator Scott Brown for accelerating his swearing-in, saying it showed Brown's candidacy was "a joke," a publication that covers Capitol Hill reports. Representative Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat from Rhode Island whose father held Brown's seat for 47 years until his death last year, said Thursday that "Brown's whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early in order to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama's appointment to the NLRB," according to The Hill's Blog Briefing Room. "Senator Brown is...