Free Republic

Forty years after being elected President of the United States, John F. Kennedy seems both the most invulnerable, but also the most mysterious icon of the Twentieth Century. Everything seems to have been said about the Kennedys, yet significant gray areas still continue to obscure their three-year reign today. A million pages are still sealed, kept secret in the heart of the J.F. Kennedy Library in Boston, the temple erected by the family to the glory of the President. There we find the President's personal archives on international politics and on Cuba, the nerve center of all his policies; the...

Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours. On the evening of July 18, 1969, while most Americans were home watching television reports on the progress of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan were hosting a cookout and party at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick Island, an affluent island near Martha’s...

The View's Joy Behar on Tuesday insisted that, regardless of whether Bill Clinton raped a woman or Ted Kennedy drowned someone, she would vote for these liberal politicians. Behar and her fellow co-hosts were discussing how Clinton's past would impact his wife. She justified, "Republicans have voted against the Violence Against Women Act. Now, that to me, is more important than anything that Bill Clinton did or didn't do because it's what [Hillary's] going to vote for." This came after co-host Paula Faris reminded, "Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey. They say that he [Clinton] either exposed himself to them, raped them...

Just bizarre! Nearly 64 years to the day (July 19, 1969) since Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, just off Martha’s Vineyard, another bizarre drowning has taken place connected to a high-profile Democrat. The personal chef of Barack and Michelle Obama has drowned mysteriously in a pond on the property of their $12 million Martha’s Vineyard estate. He reportedly drowned after being out on the pond in a paddle-boat with another person in a paddle boat. Details are sparse. The Obama’s issued a statement saying they are “heartbroken.” The Obamas’ Martha’s Vineyard mansion...

Elites have always gotten away with things you and I never could have. Two-tier systems of justice are the norm, not the exception in all societies. But some societies are much worse than others, and one of the reasons the West has been so successful compared to most places is that our system of justice has been on the whole reasonably fair, at least until recently. Hardly perfect, but overall most people most of the time have enough faith in the system that they retain trust. ... Teddy Kennedy’s manslaughter of Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign volunteer and target for...

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Boston Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, in a Dec. 17 interview with a newspaper from Argentina, spoke about how some church factions in the U.S. drive views opposing Pope Francis via polarizing media messages. The cardinal, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, also spoke of how the sex abuse crisis has impacted evangelization. In the interview with La Nación on the occasion of Pope Francis’ 85th birthday, Cardinal O’Malley said polarization and opposition to Pope Francis includes some conservative prelates in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, but he did not name anyone. “Yes,...

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley had strong words for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) this weekend for its criticisms of Pope Francis. Asked by Argentinean journalist Elisabetta Pique about conservative/liberal polarization among the U.S. bishops, Cardinal O’Malley said that "the episcopal conference is polarized, but it is difficult to put a percentage on the opposing sides. There are also some bishops who are tied to a more conservative policy and the Holy Father himself has commented on the situation of EWTN, where many times the commentators are very critical of the Holy Father, at least of his ideas."

11 AM 'Scandalous: Chappaquiddick,' Episode 1 In July 1969, Sen. Ted Kennedy throws a party on the island of Chappaquiddick. The next morning, Kennedy's car and 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne's body are discov 12 PM 'Scandalous: Chappaquiddick,' Episode 2 Suspicions regarding Sen. Ted Kennedy's actions on July 18, 1969 begin to build as the senator's explanation to the American people generates more questions abou 1 PM 'Scandalous: Chappaquiddick,' Episode 3 With the inquest behind him, Senator Kennedy tries to push past the controversy and run for president. 2 PM 'Scandalous: Chappaquiddick,' Episode 4 In the decades since the Ted Kennedy...

A young woman has died after paramedics responded to a call about a possible overdose at a home on the Kennedy Compound on Cape Cod. The call came in at about 2.32pm Thursday. Emergency crews arrived on the scene and found the patient was in cardiac arrest. The woman was transported to Cape Cod Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Barnstable police are now investigating and have declined to provide details. Hyannis News reported that the incident took place at 28 Marchant Avenue, a home belonging to Ethel Kennedy, the 91-year-old widow of late US Senator Robert F Kennedy. The...

Three significant anniversaries passed this week. Only two have truly been noted. First, of course, is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing on Saturday, July 20. The second was the 20th anniversary of the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette in a small plane Kennedy was flying to Martha’s Vineyard. Only one of those deserves the hagiographic treatment both have been given, but I’ll get to that later. The third was also a 50th anniversary, one that passed just two days after JFK Jr.’s and was, in many ways, related....

AP Images ✔ @AP_Images 50 years ago today, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne, 28; some time later, Kennedy's car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned. Let’s start this in reverse, as it’s the best way to put this in perspective. It’s not true that Kopechne “drowned.” The coroner never autopsied the body, itself a curious omission when dealing with an unattended death of a healthy young woman. Eyewitness testimony by the person who recovered her body at the scene,...

Ted Kennedy might have become president - Richard Nixon certainly thought the runt of the litter was going to be the Democrat nominee against him in 1972. But the Kennedys' dreams of a restoration of "Camelot" were shattered 50 years ago this week, as Teddy's mother's 1967 Delmont 88 Oldsmobile plunged off a small bridge on Chappaquiddick Island into a tidal pond, drowning Mary Jo Kopechne. Teddy killed the 28-year-old "girl," as he called her, and he was allowed to plead guilty to ... leaving the scene of an accident. Not vehicular homicide, or drunk driving, or reckless driving, or...

Thursday marks 50 years since Ted Kennedy, the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island and left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in the back seat. For decades, journalists and the TV networks downplayed the incident and portrayed the senator as the victim. Despite the circumstances, New York Times correspondent James Reston’s initial coverage in 1969 framed the story as a "Kennedy family" tragedy, rather than as a tragedy for the Kopechne family. As the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell and Tim Graham explained in a 2015 column: Reston’s first draft on Chappaquiddick began “Tragedy has...

In the summer of 1969, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy found himself in the worst scandal of his scandal-scarred life. He had plunged his mother’s 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 into the black waters off Chappaquiddick Island and then swam to safety, leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to suffocate in the submerged vehicle. In this special podcast, written by New York Times best-selling author Howie Carr, you’ll learn how Ted Kennedy clamored to absolve himself of nearly all responsibility for the death of a young woman before a national television audience, and managed to face few legal repercussions in the wake of Mary...

Did anybody see the most recent episode of the ‘documentary’ series 1969, on ABC? I started watching it and this one is labelled ‘The Girl in the Car’.

The following dialog took place on The View: JOY BEHAR: Hillary is in a quandary in my opinion, because she’s talking about violence against women and sexual harassment and all that stuff and her husband has a checkered past to put it mildly, so she is in a bind….. PAULA FARIS: There are accusations but there are three women that claim that he did things to them that they didn’t want. One of them is Paula Jones…. Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey. They say that he either exposed himself to them, raped them or groped them. These are three accusations…. BEHAR:...

the lib spin is now that Graham had an “unhinged meltdown” because of course it is. There was nothing unhinged about the words coming out of Lindsey Graham’s mouth yesterday. He had more sense in his pinky finger than the entire Democratic party combined. Whatever. The libs are going with crap like this: "Oh my god. This is every woman’s nightmare. This is a terrifying image." https://t.co/mIgEN2ALhj — Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) September 27, 2018 um… "Just asked my wife. She said being left to drown in a car like your uncle did to Mary Jo Kopechne is a bigger nightmare...

It is the 49th anniversary of the scumbag leaving a girl for dead in an air pocket. Had he sought help, she could have been saved. Here is my updated version: TED KENNEDY - CHAPPAQUIDDICK LIFEGUARD

Well, so much for that “agonizing reappraisal” (allowing truth) by the media/Hollywood complex on the Kennedys. Naturally we were asking too much. Apparently the movie Chappaquiddick, which forthrightly—and thus astoundingly! -- showcases a Kennedy’s perfidy, was a flash in the pan.Recently here at Townhall your humble servant speculated the movie might open a tiny crack for historic truth about Kennedy treachery to seep through. So I quickly slipped in the truth on the Kennedy treachery at the Bay of Pigs.Alas! Now we’re back in traditional media/Hollywood Kennedy hagiography mode. I refer to this week’s Netflix’s release of “Bobby Kennedy for...

As I wrote a few days ago, I had minimal expectations of Chappaquiddick The Movie, which opened last week despite the best efforts of the Kennedy family and their various retainers and enablers. I have always been revolted by the fact that Ted, after killing Mary Jo Kopechne, did not have the decency to do a John Profumo and retire from public life for the rest of his days - and I was even more revolted by the way Massachusetts voters did not have the decency to impose that choice upon him. But utter contempt for your protagonist doesn't make...