Free Republic

CHICAGO - A huge Shedd Aquarium grouper that became an instant celebrity — and inspiration to cancer patients — after becoming the first fish in history to receive chemotherapy and bounce back from cancer has died. Shedd officials estimate Bubba the Grouper was 24 when he died Tuesday. The 154-pound "super grouper" was abandoned at the Chicago aquarium in 1987, left at the reception desk in a bucket. Shedd officials nursed the fish — then a she — to health and put her in a tank. Bubba changed gender in the mid-1990s, which is not uncommon for certain kinds of...

Dennis Shedd has always been serious-minded, driven -the, well, sharpest tool in the shed. Back in 1972, when the skinny, small-town kid was interviewing for a scholarship at Wofford College in Spartanburg, he blew away the competition, said classmate Tommy Brittian. "He was just overwhelming,'' Brittian said. "My first impression was, if that's what I had to compete with, it's going to be a tough haul at Wofford.''

What is your reaction to the Senate's approval of Judge Dennis Shedd to the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals?

Judiciary Committee has now cleared 100 of 102 Bush nominees over 16 months. Of those, 80 have been approved by the full chamber. WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee, in its last meeting under Democratic control, raised its 98% approval rate for President Bush's judges by clearing two more on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Dennis Shedd of South Carolina, a protege of retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), won a narrow vote to serve on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Shedd's nomination was held up last month when civil rights groups, led by the National Assn. for the Advancement...

The majority 10 democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee on Thursday engaged in a voting maneuver so extraordinary that some of the senators themselves were unsure what happened. First, they allowed one of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees to be approved by a voice vote. Then, one by one, all the Democrats present asked that they be recorded as having voted against the nominee, District Court Judge Dennis Shedd. In effect the Democrats arranged it so they are now recorded as voting against Shedd after failing to make any effort to block his confirmation. Many Senate veteran staff aides and...

Republicans concede they are powerless to win the confirmation of Dennis Shedd. With the Senate preparing to adjourn for the election recess, the fight over the federal-appeals-court nomination of Dennis Shedd has ended for the year, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with something even less: the Republicans' quiet admission that they are powerless to end the Democratic block on Shedd's confirmation. It came Wednesday afternoon on the Senate floor. Angry that Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy had reneged on a promise to hold a vote on Shedd, Republicans had been weighing whether to attempt what is...

In what was probably his last speech on the Senate floor, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina last Wednesday brought an end to his storied 48-year Senate career by calling Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) a liar. Thurmond’s ire was sparked by Leahy’s broken promise to send the appeals court nomination of Federal District Judge Dennis Shedd to full the Senate for confirmation. Shedd served as the staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Thurmond was the committee’s chairman. "I was hurt and disappointed by this egregious act of destructive politics," said Thurmond. "Chairman Leahy assured me...

SKIRMISHING in the Senate over President Bush's judicial nominees reached a new low this week. It wasn't easy, not with the smear jobs performed on Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen earlier this year, denying them seats on federal appeals courts. Yet this week's maneuverings by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., tops them all. They involve South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, whose long and storied Senate career is in its final chapter. Thurmond, 99, is retiring at the end of the current congressional session. Leahy promised him the nomination of Dennis Shedd to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which...

The U.S. Senate reputedly is a highly collegial body. Historically its culture encourages cooperation and gentlemanly treatment of colleagues, even in the midst of disagreements over policy. But Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has departed from that tradition, obstructing forward movement on important legislation and Senate confirmations of presidential nominees often merely to score partisan points. Daschle's antics reached a new low this week when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy broke a commitment to South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond - at age 99 the nation's oldest senator ever and serving his final days in the Senate -abruptly cancelling a...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond continued his last fight in office Wednesday, taking the Senate floor to condemn the Judiciary Committee's inaction on Dennis Shedd's appeals court nomination. Then he carried the battle to the White House. Thurmond, who is retiring after nearly 48 years in office, stood feebly but spoke harshly in the Senate. "I rise to express my outrage at yesterday's proceedings in the Judiciary Committee," said Thurmond, who turns 100 in December. "I am hurt and disappointed by this egregious act of destructive politics." Thurmond is angry that the Judiciary Committee, of which he is a...