Free Republic

I want to express my congratulations to Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WVa.), who recently became the longest-serving senator in American history. When asked what was the most important vote that he ever made, Byrd replied that it was his vote against the Iraq war. Byrd went on to explain that he has cast more than 17,000 votes during his distinguished career but he stated his most important vote was, without question, against a ''pre-emptive'' war against a country that never invaded the United States. I recall during the fall of 2002, Byrd admonished his fellow members of Congress, who were ''deadly...

WASHINGTON - Former Sen. George Smathers used to tell the story about how Robert C. Byrd had turned down a half-dozen invitations to join other senators in Florida for deep sea fishing or golf or gin rummy or tennis. "I have never in my life played a game of cards. I have never had a golf club in my hand. I have never in life hit a tennis ball," Byrd told the Florida Democrat, according to an interview Smathers gave to a Senate historian. "I don't do any of those things. I have only had to work all my life."...

Sen. Robert Byrd, the dean of the Senate and its resident constitutional expert, counts only a few regrets in his 48-year Senate career: filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act, voting to expand the Vietnam War, deregulating airlines. Add to the list a new one from this century: supporting the anti-terror USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The original Patriot Act is a case study in the perils of speed, herd instinct and lack of vigilance when it comes to legislating in times of crisis," the West Virginia Democrat said Monday on the eve of the Senate's final...

I would like to take this opportunity to offer a few observations on the manner in which the Senate has conducted its inquiry into the qualifications of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Regardless of any Senator’s particular view of Judge Alito, I think we can all agree that there is room for improvement in the way in which the Senate – and, indeed, the nation, have undertaken the examination of this nominee. And let me be clear, I mean no criticism of the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee or any particular...

A multimillionaire businessman entered the GOP race to challenge Sen. Robert C. Byrd on Wednesday, hoping to deny the 88-year-old incumbent Democrat a record ninth term. John Raese, 55, said he would campaign on a platform touting free enterprise ... a rebirth of capitalism... The National Republican Senatorial Committee heralded the filing by Raese, a former state GOP chairman who has sought office before. Though four other Republicans are running in the party primary, the GOP committee called Raese "the first financially credible opponent Byrd has faced since 1982." Raese's last major foray into election politics came nearly 18 years...

Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, said today that the deaths of 14 miners in three weeks in his state's coal mines "were preventable," and he had harsh words for federal mining safety officials for what he called a lack of leadership. He also asserted that federal budget cuts had led to inadequate mine safety equipment and rescue plans. "These deaths, I believe, were entirely preventable and we owe the families of these deceased and noble and great and brave men a hard look at what happened and why," Mr. Byrd said during a hearing of the Senate's...

Here is some more information on Congressman Bobby Rush, D-IL. From yesterday's Daily Southtown: After urging the slating committee to question Dart's record on supporting minority issues in Springfield, Rush (D-1st), of Chicago, told reporters he found Dart "repulsive." "Dart represents to me a kind of Klansman," Rush said. "One that don't wear a hood over the head but one that has a hood in the head." (Thomas Dart was slated by the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization for the office of Sheriff on Monday.) Klansman? Lovely analogy. Incidentally, I wonder what Bobby Rush thinks of his colleague on the...

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) plans to announce today that he will seek a ninth term, ending months of speculation the 87-year-old lawmaker was considering retiring next year to avoid a grueling re-election campaign.

Charleston, W.Va. (AP) -- Eighty-seven-year-old Democrat Robert C. Byrd announced Tuesday he will seek a record ninth term in the Senate. Using the Capitol Rotunda as a stage, Byrd told supporters he was "ready to go. Another round." "I have the best job in America because I represent you, the people of West Virginia. And I want to keep this job," he said. Byrd has 47 years in the Senate and will become the longest-serving member in its history in June. He previously served six years in the U.S. House, and before that terms in both chambers of the West...

They're soft, strong, and very, very long. Large, transparent sheets of carbon nanotubes can now be produced at lightning speed. The new technique should allow the nanotubes to be used in commercial devices from heated car windows to flexible television screens. "Rarely is a processing advance so elegantly simple that rapid commercialization seems possible," says Ray Baughman, a chemist from the University of Texas at Dallas, whose team unveils the ribbon in this week's Science1. Nanotubes are tiny cylinders of carbon atoms measuring just billionths of a metre across. They are light, strong, and conductive. But for years their promise...

His early ads betray a sense of vulnerabilityIt is barely August and already the ad war for the U.S. Senate campaign has begun. The election isn't until November. Wait. I just checked my calendar. That's November 2006. Holy cow. A full 15 months before the election, the eight-term senator feels compelled to run ads to offset last week's ads by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The eyes of television sales managers across the state just lit up. Anyone want to help me open a Maserati dealership? Not since Jay Rockefeller spent $12 million to get to the Senate 21 years...

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, one of President Bush's harshest critics, has become an unlikely ally on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. "I said to him, 'I am shouting your name from the steeple tops for reaching out, reaching across the aisle,' " the West Virginia Democrat reported after taking a phone call from Mr. Bush to discuss a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.VA.)in recent weeks has met with Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), fuelling further speculation that the Republican Congesswoman will challenge Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) next year.

"The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth in West Virginia... It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibility of rebuilding the Klan realm of W. Va?" Byrd' letter to the Klan's Imperial Wizard, 1946.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The Ku Klux Klan is the central paradox of Robert C. Byrd's life — "an extraordinarily foolish mistake" that has haunted him for 40 years but the very thing that launched one of the longest careers in the U.S. Senate. "It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me, and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career and reputation," the West Virginia Democrat says in an autobiography being released Monday. "I displayed very bad judgment, due to immaturity and a lack of seasoned reasoning."...

Flash back to 2001 article : The ex-Klansman later filibustered the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act -- supported by a majority of those "mean-spirited" Republicans -- for more than 14 hours. He also opposed the nominations of the Supreme Court's two black justices, liberal Thurgood Marshall and conservative Clarence Thomas. In fact, the ex-Klansman had the gall to accuse Justice Thomas of "injecting racism" into the Senate hearings. Meanwhile, author Graham Smith recently discovered another letter Sen. Byrd wrote after he quit the KKK, this time attacking desegregation of the armed forces.

Voters have been forgiving Klan ties since 1952 election Readers know where I stand on Bob Byrd. I greeted with glee the independent poll that showed his vulnerability. But vulnerable ain't dead. The same poll that showed Shelley Moore Capito within three points of beating him also showed that 62 percent of voters view Byrd favorably. Byrd has been elected to federal office 11 out of 11 times. In May, he showed he could do it again. He began the month as the champion of the filibuster. By month's end, he was Monte Hall of "Let's Make A Deal" fame....

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- A Ku Klux Klansman helped build seven pipe bombs that a federal informant told him would be rigged to vehicles used by Haitians and Hispanics, a federal agent testified Friday at a detention hearing. Videotapes of meetings between the informant and Daniel Schertz, 27, showed them making the bombs and discussing how they would be used, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Lorin Coppock testified.

Here's good news to the cause of good government. West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, styled by partisan Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate" and by those who are less biased as the last troglodyte in the body, could be defeated in his bid for his umpteenth term in the Senate. He's up for election in 2006, and the latest polling in West Virginia indicates that an attack of sanity and judgment may, at last, be hitting an electorate that has routinely elected the 87-year-old Byrd to the Senate eight times with never less than 59 percent of the vote....

With all due respect to the political insight of Dick Morris (and he deserves much), he is quite wrong about his belief that Cong. Shelley Moore Capito--D-WV has a chance to defeat Sen. Robert Byrd--D-WV. It is unlikely that he will come down to defeat when otherwise Republican business owners won't cough up the money to make the Republican machine work. The WV GOP was severly choked in 2004 because these businesses were unwilling to buck Democrats who held and wielded a serious threat of reprisal. In the aftermath, the GOP there is in shambles. More of that later. Morris...