Free Republic

Howie Carr Show thread for the week, starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column, "Kennedys' profit near $1M at nonprofit"

The ownership of the fabled Kennedy home at the family’s Hyannis Port compound is being transferred to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, a move that brings to an end the family’s 84-year ownership of the 21-room house. The Institute announced this afternoon it had taken over the waterfront homestead and will use it as a study center. It said the transfer ‘’fulfills a promise made by Senator Kennedy to his mother Rose that the home be preserved for charitable use.’’ The $5.5 million property is the centerpiece of the compound, where some of the nation’s...

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel on Tuesday again insisted on his innocence in a 1975 killing, as he pleaded with a three-judge panel to reduce his prison sentence of 20 years to life. Skakel's lawyer, Hubert Santos, argued in Middletown Superior Court that the sentence Skakel received after his 2002 murder conviction in the beating death of Martha Moxley when the two were teen neighbors in wealthy Greenwich was excessive. Santos repeated his claim, which has been rejected by other state courts, that Skakel should have been tried in juvenile court, where the maximum sentence for a...

PARTY AFFILIATION: Both. Patriarch David King Udall, a Mormon polygamist, had 12 kids, six with each of his two wives. The descendants of his wife Eliza have been Democrats, and descendants of his wife Ida have been Republicans. FAMILY ROOTS: Udalls have been elected to public office in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon, and members of the extended family have also been elected in California and Utah. DYNASTY: Four generations of Udalls have been involved in Western politics, starting with David King Udall, a scion of the early Mormon church (and good buddy of Miles Romney, Mitt Romney's great-grandfather),...

Just when you thought the Kennedys were fading from Massachusetts politics, there’s new speculation brewing about a Camelot comeback. This one involves Joe Kennedy — maybe even two Joe Kennedys. The younger, Joe Kennedy III, 30-year-old son of the former congressman, is raising the most ruckus among Democrats with his pending move from the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office to a spot in the Middlesex prosecutor’s office, a launching pad for a number of Bay State politicians. “When a Kennedy moves to the most populous county in the state, close to the major media where there are more high-profile...

HYANNIS PORT, Mass. (AP) — For the Kennedys, the family compound has long been a place to relax, to celebrate and to grieve. Members of America's most glamorous political dynasty played touch football on the lawn, walked the beach and sailed the sound. The cluster of white-clapboard homes on Cape Cod served as the summer White House when Jack was president. It was there that the family retreated after his assassination. And it was there that Caroline held her wedding reception and Ted spent his final days. Now, as the Kennedys gather for another wedding there, the family is divided...

Negotiations are underway to transfer ownership of the main Kennedy home in coming months to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, a proposal that has raised concerns among family members who live on adjacent property, according to two associates close to the family who spoke on condition of anonymity. The senator, who died in August 2009, had stated in his will that he ultimately wanted the property to be turned over to the institute, which is now being built next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library at Columbia Point. He gave the rights to the...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy and his fiancee plan to be married this week at a private wedding ceremony at the Kennedy family’s Cape Cod compound. The 43-year-old Kennedy will wed New Jersey school teacher Amy Petitgout on Friday at what Kennedy’s spokeswoman says will be a small, intimate event. Kennedy is the son of the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy. He represented Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District as a Democrat for 16 years. Since leaving Congress in January Kennedy has been named a visiting fellow at Brown University and has campaigned to improve brain research....

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, have separated, with Shriver moving out of their Brentwood mansion while the two determine the next step in their 25-year marriage. Shriver has been residing apart from the actor-turned-politician for the last few weeks. The former first couple confirmed the separation in a joint statement released Monday after questions were raised by The Times. "This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us," the statement read. "After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion and prayer, we came to this decision together. At this time,...

Jack Kennedy was shot on my twentieth birthday. I was a Dartmouth student, getting ready to drive down to Skidmore to celebrate with my girlfriend, when the news ricocheted around the dormitory. I went down to Skidmore anyway, spending the weekend in a Saratoga Springs motel room, watching the TV coverage, including that astonishing moment when Ruby shot Oswald in front of our eyes in living black and white.Does this mean I have more insight than others into the Kennedy assassination? No. But that coincidence did give me an extra frisson when the date “November 22, 1963” was superimposed at...

Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency—America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, suggests: “In an age when Americans periodically swoon for imperial presidents, a little sacred cow-tipping would be a public service.” The made-for-television mini-series, The Kennedys, recently airing on ReelzChannel is a case in point. Unceremoniously cancelled earlier this year by The History Channel as not a good “fit” for “the History brand,” the project was controversial almost from its inception. This had to do completely with the hypersensitivity of a vast array of myth-guardians who stand perpetual watch over the Kennedy family, as well as the...

Short version: ”Yeah, the miniseries is fair and so we now know for a fact that Joel Surnow’s $30 million project was discriminated against because of his personal politics.” Switch out the word “conservative” with Islam, gay, Black, female, Leftist or whatever and tell me how la-dee-da everyone would be about it. Because everyone already knows how things operate for conservatives in Hollywood and either agree with the discrimination or are used to it, no one cares. There’s also a bigger play at work here, the same play we saw in the fury ginned up by the Left prior to...

I watched the Kennedys' miniseries first installment last night with the girlfriend last night. Not too bad. GF is clueless about how the Kennedys have operated all these years. She knows a little about the obvious ones(Ted the Swimmer, Willie Smith). I threw a nugget about how Ted put Rose as a FLA resident at her death even though she hadn't been there in 15 years to avoid MA death taxes. How about everyone post some of the shenanigans so I don't have to look up all of them. I thank everyone in advance. Recommendations for books on the subject...

....The only reason to watch “The Kennedys’’? To find out how to flatten a few of the 20th century’s most dramatic historical moments and best-known figures into a slow week of “One Life to Live.’’ The extraordinary qualities that made JFK, RFK, and Jackie into international political and cultural lightning rods have been completely stripped from the Kennedy mythology. These characters are just melodramatic ciphers in period costumes and, in the case of Jackie, a bad wig.

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...

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...

Ethel Kennedy claims that a renegade turkey that’s been menacing mail trucks down on Cape Cod is her runaway Thanksgiving fowl, but wildlife officials say the Kennedy matriarch’s theory is for the birds. “It was my turkey!” the 82-year-old widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy told the Cape Cod Times yesterday, insisting that the macho bird that has been chasing mail trucks in Centerville escaped from the Kennedy Compound on Thanksgiving day.

"The Kennedy's" mini series has been purchased by Reelz Channel, and will air on Reelz Channel beginning April 3rd. The 8 part Movie Event was originally commissioned by The History Channel, and due to pressure from surviving members of the Kennedy Family, History passed on airing the series.

As he left office this week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger confessed that he had become “addicted” to power. Now it’s time for my confession, about the Terminator’s in-laws, the Kennedy family: I have been “addicted” to them for years. Whenever I needed a quick column, or an incoherent sound bite, I knew where to turn. Weather’s turning cold? Head south, to cover a Kennedy rape trial in Palm Beach. Want a free summer vacation on the Vineyard? Rent the “party cottage” on Chappaquiddick and broadcast from the scene of the crime. So I’m begging you, Ted Kennedy Jr., please, for...

‘It’s the Truth’: Producer Defends Pulled Kennedy Mini-Series Posted on January 13, 2011 at 12:03am by Meredith Jessup After the History Channel pulled his mini-series, “The Kennedys,” executive producer Michael Prupas insisted Wednesday that the eight-hour series was “meticulously researched” and is historically accurate. John and Jackie Kennedy are portrayed by Hollywood actor Greg Kinnear and actress Katie Holmes “It’s the truth,” he said. “The goal of the script from the very beginning was to tell the family story of the Kennedys.” The History Channel announced its decision after a leaked script was denounced by former Kennedy aide Theodore Sorensen...