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The day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was rebuked while making a speech critical of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Democrats, saying their party is the one rooted in racism. “The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan,” Cruz (R-Tex.) said in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday. “You look at the most racist — you look at the Dixiecrats, they were Democrats who imposed segregation, imposed Jim Crow laws, who founded the Klan. The Klan was founded by a great many Democrats.”

Dennis Byrd, a former New York Jets defensive end whose career was cut short in 1992 because of a broken neck, was killed in a head-on vehicle collision Saturday near his home in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol confirmed to ESPN. Byrd, 50, was pronounced dead at the scene due to massive injuries.

Hillary Clinton refers to Ku Klux Klan leader as “my friend and mentor” In 2005, the Washington Post reported:… 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.In 2010, Clinton referred to Byrd as“my friend and mentor”You can hear her saying it at the beginning of...

Hillary Clinton did something today that is worse than anything Donald Trump has ever said or done. It was pandering. It was gross. And she should be embarrassed. She ran an ad that basically said the KKK will be in charge if Trump wins. Politics doesn’t get any lower than this. There are a few problems with the ad other than how childish it is. Not only has the KKK endorsed Hillary, but Hillary used to be good friends with someone who was actually a member. Flashback time. From Breitbart: In 2010, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fondly eulogized Sen....

Claim: A photograph shows Hillary Clinton with former Ku Klux Klan member Robert Byrd. ✔ True

In 2010, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fondly eulogized Sen. Robert Byrd, a former member and recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. Clinton called Byrd “my friend and mentor” in a video message to commemorate his passing. As a young man in West Virginia, Byrd was involved in the KKK and reportedly recruited 150 members to the group. While serving in Congress, Byrd set the record for longest filibuster on the floor of the U.S. Senate with a 14-hour filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In a 2005 article titled “A Senator’s Shame,” the Washington Post’s Eric Pianin pilloried...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tim Kaine released the following statement today on the passing of former U.S. Senator Harry Byrd Jr.:“Anne and I join all Virginians in mourning the passing of Harry Byrd Jr. Few families have dedicated as much to our Commonwealth as the Byrds. Harry carried on that tradition as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II and an elected representative in both the Virginia legislature and the U.S. Senate. One of the highlights of my time as governor was hosting Harry and his adult grandchildren at the mansion where he told stories...

Just had FoxNews on for the second showing of Kelly's show. She is actually defending Byrd's involvement in the KKK by saying 'well, he was young'.

Verda Byrd spent the past seven decades of her life as a black woman, but at age 70, she discovered a shocking family secret her parents took to their grave that she's recently made peace with -- she was born white. Byrd, now 72, was adopted as a baby in 1943 by her black parents, who never told her that her biological parents were actually white, she said, explaining that she only uncovered the truth in 2013 about her birth after she went on a search for her biological parents' history.

Robert "Sheets" Byrd, the senator in perpetuity from WV, an icon of Democrats, and the self-styled "conscience" of the Senate and, oh yeah..... a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, sat down with the late Tony Snow in 2001, and opined on the state of race relations in America..

Barbara Byrd-Bennett has resigned as chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools amid a federal investigation into a $20.5 million no-bid contract. In a letter dated last week, Byrd-Bennett said she planned to step down Monday. She did not give any reasons for her decision. Byrd-Bennett has been on paid leave since mid-April, when school officials released wide-ranging subpoenas from the federal investigation. Her paid leave was scheduled to end next week and she had not been expected to return to her post. The investigation centers on a $20.5 million no-bid contract at CPS related to an elite nonprofit education...

Today our country has lost a true American original, my friend and mentor Robert C. Byrd.Senator Byrd was a man of surpassing eloquence and nobility. And I will remember him for many things, but most of all for a heartfelt comment he made to me in the dark days following the attack on our country on 9/11. My state of New York was reeling and we were scrambling to provide support and relief. “Think of me as the third senator from New York,” he said. And he meant it. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Byrd, who chaired the Appropriations...

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday he’s keeping “all options open” on whether to seek the governor’s office in 2016 or remain in the Senate, where he has expressed frustration with partisanship and gridlock. Manchin, a Democrat, said his time as governor was the most productive period in his life but he hasn’t felt the same way since his election to the Senate in 2010 to finish the term of the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd. Manchin, who served as West Virginia governor for six years, was elected to a full term in 2012.

Harry F. Byrd Jr., who made history with his Independent run to the U.S. Senate in 1970, died this morning at his home in Winchester. He was 98. His name may have preceded him into the Senate, but it was his declaration of independence and two successful elections as an Independent candidate that made his own name in that chamber. Harry Byrd Jr. is the only Independent to win election to the U.S. Senate with a majority of the vote despite facing a challenge from both major parties.

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.

As a conservative Democrat with a segregationist background, US Senator Robert Byrd had spent half a century in Congress and was its oldest member when, on 12 February 2003, he was hailed as the nation's lonely voice of conscience after a historic speech. On the senate floor, Byrd, who has died aged 92, lambasted his "paralysed" colleagues for their craven submission to preparations for what he branded an illegal war in Iraq. They listened silently as he told them: "As this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war....

But Darryl Paulson, a USF professor, who is an expert in the Klan, points to a case in which two Klansman with the United Klans of America were convicted of attacking 19-year-old Michael Donald in 1981 in Mobile, Alabama. Donald was beaten up and his throat was cut.

"Since he is filling Byrds seat, he will vote with the Pubbies at least until 2012, when he will have to run again"

In the midst of a tight race to retain his seat, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) said he takes his example of what a senator can be “from two of the greatest men to ever have served in the US Senate.” “Both these men overcame adversity and held their seats for decades,” Reid recalled. “Senator Byrd (D-W. Va) rose from scandalous beginnings as an Exalted Cyclops for the Ku Klux Klan to serve in the senate for more than 50 years. Senator Kennedy (D-Mass) killed a young woman in a drunk driving accident but was still reelected seven more times and...