Obama v Obama Divorce 1964

August 28, 2009

Updated birth certificate posts

Hello rikie - yes the previous photocopies were bad. This Scrib copy is much better. Click top right for full screen and then + to enlarge. I forgot what else you wanted? Leave a comment here and it won’t get posted.

1964 Divorce Obama v Obama sr granted because of “grievous mental suffering”

• Feb 2, 1961 married in Waikulu, Maui (why not Honolulu?)
• Attorney was George L.T. Kerr of Henshaw, Conroy & Hamilton, 1410 First National Bank Building
• Judge, Samuel P King.
• Divorce No. 57972
• barry sr address: 170 Magazine street, Cambridge Mass.
• Jan 20, 1964 filed for divorce – exactly 45 years before barry was inaugurated
• Jan 23 divorce papers filed with court
• Jan 28 sent to barry sr by Gail A Watanabe
• Jan 30 barry sr received forms
• Feb 4 received mail from barry sr.
• March 5 divorce trial
• March 20, 1964 final
• Allegedly should be 14 pages – page 11 missing

View this document on Scribd

ArizonaBennie

Video of the day: Chinese tooth fairy

August 31, 2009

Semi-gross warning.

When he says he’s going to pull your tooth because it’s diseased…would you believe him?

Eight feet of 24,000 teeth = how many denture wearers?

DiagonalView

MTP: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Kearns-Goodwin, Shrum (video/text)

August 30, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Meet the Press: DAVID GREGORY with lawyer, ex-Lt Governor of Maryland, the oldest grandchild of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, and of course Ted Kennedy’s niece – KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, presidential historian DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN and Senator Kennedy’s longtime political adviser BOB SHRUM - who crafted the famous 1980 Convention speech. I always wondered who he was.

FYI: After Caroline, Patrick and Ted Kennedy endorsed barry – Hillary Clinton endorsees: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Kerry Kennedy wrote an op-ed (1-29-08). It was a remarkable gesture. I imagine barry’s cowardly refusal to shake then Sen Clinton’s hand might have had something to do with it.

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Here the panel discusses the importance of Ted Kennedy’s faith, the 1980 campaign, how Sen Kennedy kept fighting, his letter to the Pope, and his place in the history of senators.

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MR. GREGORY: Welcome to all of you.  And, Kathleen, our deepest sympathies.  And we’re very thankful that you’re here this morning to share your thoughts.

MS. KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND:  Well, thank you.  And I want to thank all the people across this country and really the world who have been so–shown an outpouring of love and affection and thanks to my uncle. And I want to also say Vicki has done an extraordinary job over the last few days helping out.

MR. GREGORY: You, you see that tape.  Just on this program, the legacy on this program, really something.

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, he–it is extraordinary.  Because all the time, as he said in it, despite the tragedies, despite his own mistakes, he says you can keep fighting.  And I think, you know, as a, as a niece and member of this family, it was important for all of us to see this–our uncle, in the toughest times, always keep fighting, never giving up and saying to each of us, “You can do it, too,” and inspiring us and helping us and building us.  And I’m telling you, you know, we were talking earlier in the green room about how it is tough not to have a father, and it’s–there’s a real loss in not having that.  And he came through and he really reached out and embraced my family and, and, you know, John and Caroline.

MR. GREGORY:  Doris, we, we talk about legacy.  And you’re, as an historian, you look backward.  But you look forward as well in this circumstance.  The president talked about Kennedy as the senator of our time.  Where does he rank?

MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, it’s always scary for an historian to look forward.  We, we are much more comfortable talking about Abraham Lincoln a hundred, 200 years ago.  But I think I might be able to say that not only is he the greatest legislator of our time, he may be the greatest all-around senator of our time. The interesting thing is when then Senator John Kennedy was in the Senate in the ’50s, he created a committee to look at who were the great senators.  And look at who they were, Teddy shared all their qualities.  Henry Clay, the great legislator.  Daniel Webster, the great orator. which is what President Obama said,

Teddy may not have had that stirring oratory, but he became a voice for the voiceless, right?

And then you’ve got Taft and you’ve got Norris and you’ve got the various progressives who all their lives fought for a cause.  He fought for that liberal cause.  He belongs there. Then you have Vandenberg, bipartisan leader.  He’s all of those things.  And then at the same time, he made the people in Massachusetts feel like he was one of them. I thought when we were sitting vigil, during the, the days be–the hours before he was actually taken to the memorial service, that you watched those people come through, ordinary people, every one of them knew him.  Governor Patrick said, “I knew him before I met him.”

MR. GREGORY:  Hm.

MS. GOODWIN: But people in Massachusetts met him.  So you see these people come by, they’re saluting him, their Red Sox hat comes off, they’re doing the sign of the cross.  And you talk to them–and as Kathleen knows–they all had a story.  “He helped my grandmother, he helped my son, he was there.”

MS. GOODWIN: You put all those things together, I think he may be the greatest all-around senator of all time.

MR. GREGORY: Bob Shrum, you were so close to him throughout his career.  But in that 1980 bid–and he addressed it when he was asked by Tim Russert about not achieving it.  I guess he would joke on the campaign trail later that “I didn’t–I don’t mind not being president, I just mind that somebody else is.”

MR. BOB SHRUM: He actually said that all through the, all through the ’70s, too.  But he certainly didn’t mind that Barack Obama became president, and I think he played an absolutely instrumental role in it.

[I wonder how he feels about it now? How much did he know about barry before he passed? At least barry has a huge assist up there now.]

MR. BOB SHRUM: I think that he would say that in–he did say that in 1980 he spent too much time thinking about whether to run for president and not enough time thinking about what he was going to say when he got out there.  The course of least resistance was, with the lead he had in the polls, to make sure that he didn’t offend anyone. And this led to, in the initial stages of the campaign, not saying much.

Well, Ted Kennedy happened to be the worst politician I ever met in my life at saying nothing.  He was maybe the best politician I ever saw at saying something.  And actually, I think the oratory motivated people, stirred people, gave them a sense of his purpose. And a lot of people give good speeches.  And I think he gave unbelievable speeches, but then he went and made those speeches become part of the life and fabric of the country, from the Americans with Disabilities Act to–there are six million kids in this country who are covered with health insurance today because of him. So he, he let into law the, the law to, to fight apartheid and set sanctions against South Africa.  And you could go down a list of about 50, 60 or 70 gigantically significant pieces of legislation, and if any senator could claim one or two of them…

MS. GOODWIN: That’s right.

MR. SHRUM:  …they would say, “I’ve had the most extraordinary career.” He could claim all of them.

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MR. GREGORY: Let me, let me ask about another aspect of his personal life, the personal struggles in his life.  There was a such a poignant letter that he wrote to the Pope that was read at the burial last night, and I want to put a portion of it up on the screen:

“Most Holy Father, I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you.  …  I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines.  I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and, although I continue treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me.

I am 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life.  I have been blessed to be a part of a wonderful family, and both of my parents, particularly my mother, kept our Catholic faith at the center of our lives.

That gift of faith has sustained, nurtured and provided solace to me in the darkest hours.  I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith, I have tried to right my path.”

Kathleen, the imperfect part of his being was something that was very public, from Chappaquiddick to the incident in Florida in 1991 to other struggles.

MS. TOWNSEND:  Right.

MR. GREGORY: How did he make–take stock of that in the end?

MS. TOWNSEND: Well, that’s what–I mean, I have to say, I think that’s one of the great, important parts of the Catholic faith.  We used to joke we were the church of sinners rather than the church of saints, and therefore you–we’re all sinners.  And you can pray to God and say, “I–are you going to believe that I can make, make something better of my life?” rather than if you sin, you can never come back.  And that is really what I think the Catholic faith is.

And you saw that yesterday when the, the Cardinals were there, the priests were there.  There–they were saying, “This man is going to heaven, because he was there for the least among us.”

I think one of the–I can’t remember who said this, but it was you can’t take your own faults and say, “Oh, I’m so bad.  I can’t do anything else.” And some of us feel that, “Oh, well, we’re not worthy.” And he wouldn’t let that sense of judging himself to stop him from doing something better. And that’s a great spiritual understanding that I think he shares [present tense]with and was an inspiration to people of many faiths.

MR. GREGORY:  Bob Shrum, you saw this up close, that as a public figure, as a politician, he had to come to the grips to the fact that the public treated those kinds of indiscretions differently in his era than they did in his brother’s era, and he had to adjust to that.

MR. SHRUM: You know, I think that whatever weaknesses, whatever happened, he had to live it out in public in a way that most people, most of us, live in private.  I think Kathleen’s right, he never let it interfere with him.  But there was always, for me, an incredible strength of character. I mean, this was someone who in 1980 everybody said he’s bound to win the nomination.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. SHRUM:  He’s on his way.  Nothing’s going to stop him.  And when things got tough, when he went into the dark valley, he just kept going.  And he inspired everybody in that campaign.  We all ended up not getting paid, I mean, because we had no money.

MS. TOWNSEND:  Right.

MR. SHRUM: He inspired everybody in that campaign to keep going.  He did little things that really mattered and showed incredible generosity of spirit. We were down there in the Christmas before when we thought we were going to debate President Carter, and then the debate got canceled because the president said he had to take care of the hostage crisis.  And he–my–he knew my parents lived not very far away, and he said, “Why don’t you have my parents come over and have dinner with my mother and me?” And my mother, her first reaction was, “I can’t possibly do that.  I haven’t had my hair fixed.” [ha-ha.] And my father said, “We’re going to go.”

MS. GOODWIN: “You’re coming.”

MR. SHRUM: And we went over there, and she’d broken her leg earlier, and he had two advance guys carry her into the house.  She sat with your grandmother and they talked about their devotion to the Blessed Mother…

MS. TOWNSEND:  Right.

MR. SHRUM:  …for about an hour, an hour and a half…

MS. TOWNSEND:  Exactly.

MR. SHRUM: …while he showed my, my father and my nephew around that house and told them everything that had happened in that house.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. SHRUM: And they could’ve been the leaders of another country, the way he was treating them.

[That's what it means to be Irish.]

MS. TOWNSEND: Yeah.

MR. SHRUM: And I think he did that with people.  And you know those crowds that people are talking about?  I wasn’t surprised to see, in the lead up to his death and afterward, what journalists said, what historians said, what others have said.  All those people standing out there somehow or other got it.  They got it…

MS. TOWNSEND: Yes.

MR. SHRUM:  …that he cared about them and that he had changed their lives. And it was such a privilege to be a small part of that.

MR. GREGORY: I want to end, I think in a…

MS. TOWNSEND: And that they kept saying thank you.

[I was struck by that too.]

MR. SHRUM: Yeah.

MS. TOWNSEND: I mean, I don’t know, were you in the parade, but you could–as you, as you drove by…

MR. GREGORY: Hm.

MS. TOWNSEND: …”Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  God bless you.“

MS. GOODWIN: And, you know, to go to your point.

MS. TOWNSEND: It was really stunning.

MS. GOODWIN: You know, Hemingway once said, “Everyone is broken by life, but afterward many are strong in the broken places.” And that’s all you can really ask of a person is that they absorb–and when you looked at the letter to the pope, it was much deeper felt than when he was on MEET THE PRESS.  That sounded more defensive in 1979.  He had absorbed, I think, those sadnesses, the pains, the imperfections, the things that he did.  And all you can do is to ask that person to become strong and make up for it by doing everything you can. And he said…

MR. SHRUM: You know the difference?  In 1979, we rehearsed that answer.

MS. GOODWIN:  Oh.  That’s very interesting.

MR. SHRUM: That letter, that letter…

MS. GOODWIN: That’s very interesting.

MR. SHRUM:  That letter came from his heart.

MS. GOODWIN: Wow.

MR. GREGORY: Can I end on something that I, I just–what I’ve taken from the last few days is the enduring lesson of perseverance.  And there’s a couple of things I want to show; the aftermath of that crash in 1964 that almost took his life, and you see the determination on his face, waving to the crowd after he’d been so severely injured, then the image of last year at the convention. Despite such personal pain, such physical pain, he made a point of being there.  But I think what was most poignant was the lesson that his son talked about at the funeral yesterday, that as a kid, losing his leg, and his dad wanted to take him out to go sledding, and he fell and he cried and he said, “I don’t think I can do this.” And this is what he said:

==video snip of eulogy [for full eulogy follow link at top]====

MR. TED KENNEDY JR.:  ...slipped and I fell on the ice, and I started to cry. And I said, “I can’t do this.” I said, “I’ll never be able to climb up that hill.” And he lifted me up in his strong, gentle arms and said something I will never forget.  He said, “I know you can do it.  There is nothing that you can’t do.  We’re going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day.”

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MR. GREGORY: Just 10 seconds left.  That’s a legacy.

MS. TOWNSEND: It is the legacy.  And I think it’s the legacy of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, who said to their children, “Persevere, get something done, make a difference.”

MR. GREGORY: Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on what has been, I know, an emotionally exhausting past several days.  Thank you all very much.

MS. TOWNSEND:  Thank you very much.

MTP: Maria Shriver re: Uncle Teddy (video/text)

August 29, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Maria Shriver talks with David Gregory from Meet the Press. She calls her mother, Eunice Shriver, “Mummy”.

Makes you realize how much Tim Russert has (and is) missed.

MR. GREGORY: With us to honor his remarkable life and career in public office:  his nieces Maria Shriver, the first lady of California and daughter of his sister Eunice Shriver who died just weeks ago. Friday evening, after the moving memorial service in Boston, I sat down at the Kennedy Library with his niece Maria Shriver.  I began by asking her what the tremendous public outpouring for Senator Kennedy meant to her and her family.

PART 1: Outpouring of public support – folks lining the streets, Teddy would have thrilled and humbled, his heart was extraordinary, his struggles public and he reached out to people because he understood with everything he went through.

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MS. MARIA SHRIVER:  I think driving from Hyannis Port to Boston, it was so moving to see people standing along the freeway, gathered on bridges; entire families, many in tears, boys with their hands over their hearts saluting.

It was a great piece of American history that you were able to drive by.  And this was a weekday, in the middle of the day, so people obviously had to leave work or leave their vacations, park their cars and wait to just watch a hearse go by.  And I thought it was so generous of the people, and so moving.

It’s something I think Teddy would have been so thrilled by and also humbled by.

MR. GREGORY:  It’s interesting, for the past several days you hear so much about the career, about the issues, about the passion.  And yet at this memorial service, you heard about the man.  And you understood that public service, for him, was about other people, about serving people.

MS. SHRIVER: Well, Teddy was, I think, known to the people who knew him, and his heart was extraordinary.  He was the most compassionate, empathetic man. And I think he was that way because he himself was wounded and he himself knew pain, he himself knew struggle, he knew abandonment. He knew all of the things that pain a human being.

And so when he saw other human beings in pain, or where their character was questioned or where they had loss, he was always the first person to reach out.

And nobody does that who hasn’t felt that way themselves.

And I think that that was something that people often overlooked about him, didn’t understand about him.  But this was a man, you know, who had fought a lot, who had struggled a lot, who had been through a lot, and he understood when other people also went through a lot.

And I think you have that outpouring because people–regular people understood that about him.  They saw through all of the labels, they saw through what people wrote, they saw that this was a man who understood family, who understood struggle, who understood triumph and who understood, you know, weaknesses.  And we all have that.

And rarely do you see it, I think, so openly in a public person as you saw it with Teddy.

MR. GREGORY:  What has it been like? You know, Americans watch all of this coverage, and they’re watching the family and wondering how everybody is.  As the president said, this wasn’t unexpected, but it was dreaded.  How’s everybody been doing?

MS. SHRIVER:  I think people, you know, people often say, “Well, it wasn’t a surprise.” Well, I think death is always a surprise. And I’ve just gone through two in two weeks.  And it’s always a surprise and it’s always final and it’s always difficult, and I think people grieve in their own way and in their own time.

So I think Teddy was one of those larger-than-life figures in our family, he was really the center of our family, and he was one of those people that you never expected to die.  You just expected him to beat the odds, you expected him to defy everybody’s expectations. And I think anybody who’s been through cancer knows how up and down it is, so you hear one day it’s bad, one day it’s good and you, I think, always hope that this person is going to beat the odds.

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PART 2: Losing her mother and Teddy so close together, how they lived extraordinary lives filled with purpose, they had great ideas they fought for decades to accomplish, best part of both of them – the duration of their fight – gives folks hope.

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MR. GREGORY: He’s been called the rock of the family, and yet you just referred to your mother, who you lost just in the past few week. Another rock of the family. It’s a lot of loss for this family in a short time.

MS. SHRIVER: It’s a, it’s a lot of loss.  It’s a lot of pain.  And–but both of them lived extraordinary lives and they lived lives that had purpose, that had meaning, that had a mission.

I remember my mother once said, “If you don’t have an idea, what do you have?  Where’s your idea?”

She would always say to me, “What are you doing?  What–where’s your idea?” And I think both of these people had great ideas, and they fought their whole lives to make them reality.

And I think one of the things that I think is so great about Mummy and Teddy is that–the duration of their fight.  I think we live in a society today that’s all about instant success, instant gratification; you know, you fight for something and you expect to get it in a week.  And both Mummy and Teddy fought their entire lives, their entire lives, 40 years–50 years, in Mummy’s case, to give people with intellectual disabilities the same rights as everybody else.  It took her lifetime to achieve that.

Teddy fought his entire life for health care and all of the legislation you heard talked about. And if he’d given up in a year or five years or 10 years, when many people wrote him off, none of the things that he accomplished would have been accomplished.

I think both of them are incredible testaments to how long it takes, how hard one has to work to accomplish something.  And I think we’ve lost sight of that in this country in all professions, whether it be journalism or politics.  People expect you to get elected president and solve all the problems immediately.  And I think if they look at people like Teddy or like Mummy, they see how long they had to stay in there and keep hammering away and hammering away.

And I think that that gives us hope, when people get disillusioned that they didn’t get something done right away, if you look at people like that and say, “Wow, they accomplished a lot, but it took a long time.“

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PART 3: HEALTHCARE

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MR. GREGORY: You, you talk about health care. I mean, as he got toward the end, as he watched what was happening in Washington, it’s still an unresolved story. Did he feel like he was really on the verge of, of seeing this dream realized?

MS. SHRIVER: Yes.  I think he, he thought, with the election of Barack Obama, this country was on the verge of seeing so many of his dreams realized. And I think, I think that will be realized.  I think a lot has been written about how much his voice has been missed, and I think it has.

But I think perhaps his passing will reinvigorate people to get it done.  And he gave his life to that.

But he gave his life to so many things, so he saw so much of what he fought for accomplished.

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PART 4: Crying during the Convention, a good ending, the last year was beautiful, his work was appreciated, knew his life had been of value, he accepted the love, he got to experience what his brothers didn’t, people rarely know how others feel about them, never seen such an extraordinary brother and uncle, how grateful she was for his taking care of her mother,  Teddy understood how precious time is.

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MR. GREGORY: There’s this image from the convention last year of you wiping tears away as, as your uncle spoke so movingly about what he cared about, health care, other issues and forcefully as an advocate for, for Barack Obama. And it was kind of a goodbye and a long goodbye, but he had that next year. What was that final year like for him?

MS. SHRIVER: Well, I think it was–for me, watching this final year was beautiful because I think, you know, there have been a lot of things written about Teddy over the years, and it hasn’t all been complimentary.  And I think for someone to have that kind of love come at you is a very powerful thing that very few people I think ever experience in their lifetime.  And I think it was a blessing for Teddy that he was able to see that his work was appreciated, that his life had been valued, that people understood why he had stayed in the fight.

And he accepted the love.  It’s so hard to accept, I think, love, and he let it come at him.  And I think that that was so beautiful that he got to live and see how people appreciated him, and that people came up to him and thanked him and he could feel that kind of gratitude and…

MR. GREGORY: He, he got to experience something his brothers didn’t…

MS. SHRIVER: Absolutely.

MR. GREGORY: …which is to experience how people felt about him.

MS. SHRIVER:  And I think very few people–I think that’s another lesson in all of this.  I’m a big believer that people rarely know how people feel about them in their life.  We run around in our lives all the time and we forget to stop and tell people how important they are and how loved they are and how grateful we are.  And I think Teddy got to see that.

And right after my mom died and he wasn’t able to come to the funeral, I went over to see him two weeks ago.  And I, I just said to him, “I want to thank you for being the most extraordinary brother to my mother.” Every health incident, he was there for my brothers and myself.  He was in every emergency room with me all across this country, every ICU room he came in, he cheered her up.  And I said, “I’ve never seen such an extraordinary brother,” and I said, “I‘ve never seen such an extraordinary uncle.  And I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, everything you did for my mother and my family, and I love you.”

I’m so grateful that I had that moment.  I learned that from him and from people leaving too soon, that there’s never a moment like the moment.

Teddy understood that, how precious time is.

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PART 5: Teddy walking Caroline down the aisle, what Jackie thought, his life wasn’t perfect but he inspired them, he was a patriot, wanted them to have fun bit also understand the importance of being Irish and of public service, always encouraging, wanted them to feel his presence in their lives, he accepted his life - one of purpose, passion and meaning, had a lot to live up to, how folks show up for people who try to make the world a better place – not because they are rich or famous.

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MR. GREGORY: There’s wonderful pictures that we’ve seen of him escorting Caroline down the aisle, and after the wedding Jackie wrote him this note that included,

“On you, the carefree youngest brother, fell a burden a hero would beg to be spared.  Sick parents, lost children, desolate wives.  You are a hero.  Everyone is going to make it, because you are always there with your love.”

MS. SHRIVER: And everybody did make it.  And we’ve all made it and we’ve all been inspired by his love, I think his example, his inspiration. I think if you really step back by his whole life, it wasn’t perfect but it was his life.

He was a great patriot, he was a great advocate of public service, he was a great family rock for many families.  He was sure that we would all feel–he was really adamant that we would all feel his presence in our lives, and we did.

I think that is a life well lived.  It’s a life of way beyond–there was a best-selling book about a life of purpose.  He lived one, a life of purpose, passion and meaning.

MR. GREGORY: He was able to take stock of his life in this, in this final year in the way that he wanted to do it.  What do you think that was like for him?

MS. SHRIVER: I think you never know.  I think he comes, and my mother, they come [present tense] from generations that didn’t talk much about feelings and–but I think he, he was an introspective man, and he–I think he looked at his life and I think he accepted his life as his own, he accepted his triumphs and his weaknesses.

I think that that’s a great sign of strength in any human being, that they can accept their whole life, the journey of their whole life.  He livedlived a life his parents would’ve been proud of.  I think he worked really hard to make his parents, particularly his mother, proud of him.  He worked very hard to make his sisters proud of him. his own life.  And he, he

This was a man who really took the concept of family to a whole other level.

And my children had relationships with him. I don’t know any other great uncle who operates like that.  In my lifetime, never seen that.

MR. GREGORY: You told one of his biographers that it was so important for them to know him, because it, it was about the family, it was about the history, it was about what it meant to be Irish.

MS. SHRIVER:  Oh, you know,  he really wanted all of us know about our Irish heritage.  He wanted all of us to know about our public service heritage.  But he also wanted us to have fun.  And he never beat down on you when you made a mistake. He was always encouraging.

And I think, once again, that’s because of the life he lived.  You know, I think he was the youngest of nine kids, he had formidable figures to live up to and he understood how that weighs on a human being. I think that’s what brought out his empathy and his compassion.

I think, you know, if you go through this city, I met a woman up there tonight who said that her child had been murdered and lost, and Teddy reached out to her and helped her with legislation and changed her life and gave her purpose.  And she–wearing a button of her daughter.

I meet people, you know, every day that come up to me about Teddy, Mummy, Bobby, Jack, my dad.  These are all people–I said to my kids, “Do you notice that people turn out not for people who had their goal for making money or who were in search of fame, but people turn out for people who want to make the world a better place.”

They never went out to make money.  They never went out to get on a reality show and become famous or get on TV.  They went out to change the world, and people get that.

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I thought I heard her say this but I can’t find the video.

End of an era?

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MR. GREGORY:  There’s so many Americans who have no connection to your family…

MS. SHRIVER:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  …and yet they feel something visceral and, with the loss of your mother…

MS. SHRIVER:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  …and now the loss of Teddy Kennedy, that it really is the end of such a distinct era…

MS. SHRIVER: Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  …for the Kennedys.

MS. SHRIVER:  Well, I think Vice President, Vice President Biden addressed that by saying, you know, “I don’t think this is the end of the Kennedys.” But I think that that will be written, that it’s the end of an era.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. SHRIVER: That the Kennedys are finished.  And I think, really, the goal for each human being, whether your name is Kennedy, Shriver, Lawford, Smith, Gregory or whatever, is to live your life, the life that you choose, that’s in your heart, that’s about something bigger than yourself. And so we’ll see.

MR. GREGORY: And there’s still a living legacy for the younger generation.

MS. SHRIVER:  And that’s a value.  That’s a value.  You know, ever since I grew up, ever since I was like four or five, it’s like, which one are you? What are you going to do?  Are you going to run for president?  What are you going to–you know, people should be–you know, Teddy lived his life.  Mummy lived her life.  Uncle Jack and Uncle Bobby and Honey Fitz and this whole library, it’s about people who lived their lives and changed the world.  So I think everybody should have that right.

Sen Kerry eulogy for Sen Kennedy (video/text)

Another MIA post. Thanks Cathy.

August 28, 2009

Sen Kennedy eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos

The now senior senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry speaks about his good friend and colleague, Ted Kennedy.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?p=172

PoliticsNewsPolitcs

[hand transcribed]

Greets family.

Thank you for the privilege of sharing some words here today about my friend and my colleague of a quarter of a century.

From the moment of fateful diagnosis fourteen months ago until he left us, we saw grace and courage, dignity and humility, joy and laughter, and so much love and gratitude lived out on a daily basis that our cup does run over.

How devastating the prognosis was as Ted left MGH with his family, waving to all, June, a year ago. And that he lived the next fourteen months in the way that he did: optimistic, full of hope, striving, and accomplishing still, that he did that is in part a miracle, yes, but it’s equally a triumph of the love and the care that Vicki, their children, and all who cherished him gave in such abundance.

In many ways, I think it’s fair to say, that this time  – these last months – were a gift to all of us. The last months of his life, were in many ways, the sweetest of seasons because he saw how much we love him, how much we respect him, and how unbelievably grateful we are for his stunning years of service and friendship.

And what a year he had, my friends.

He accomplished more in that span of time than many senators do in a lifetime: Mental Health Parity, the Tobacco Act, a healthcare bill out of his committee, he spoke at the Democratic Convention, he wrote his memoirs, and he was there for the signing of the Edward M Kennedy Service America Act and received the Medal of Freedom from the president and a knighthood from the Queen of England.

I think many of you who were there would agree with me that perhaps one of the most poignant moments of all was when he was awarded an honorary degree from Harvard. His staff through the years was gathered in the front, and friends and family and admirers were scattered throughout the audience and filled the room and Vice President-Elect Biden was there, and you had no idea how hard Ted practiced and worked to be able to do that and the convention and his appearance at the White House to make a speech that lived up to his high standards.

He took the stage at Harvard, and for a few moments we all worried that it would be difficult to pull off, and then before you know it, his voice began to soar and the pace picked up and he inspired again with a stunning re-statement of his purpose in public life.

When it was over, the applause never wanted to end. He stayed on the stage, reaching out to us, and we to him, and we wanted him to stay there forever.

PART 2

PoliticsNewsPolitcs

I first met Ted Kennedy when I was 18 years old, as a volunteer for his first Senate campaign in the summer before I went to college. Then I met him again when I returned from Vietnam and we veterans encamped on the mall in Washington. It was Ted Kennedy who had the courage to come down to the mall one night and in a tent, listen to us talk about Vietnam. We were controversial, but Ted broke the barriers, and other senators followed.

He worked his heart out for me in the presidential raec of 2004, and he made the difference in Iowa. When we were down in the polls and I was slugging it out there, Ted brought his humor, his energy and his eloquence to Davenport to help melt the snows of that state.

There we were just two weeks before the caucuses and his voice boomed out in this room: ‘You voted for my brother. You voted for my other brother. You didn’t vote for me!’

And as the crowd roared with laughter, Ted bellowed: ‘But we’re back here for John Kerry. And if you vote for John Kerry, I’ll forgive you! You can have three out of four’, he said, ‘and I’ll love you, and I’ll love Iowa’.

And let me tell you, Iowa loved him.

We had a lot of fun there. He would open an event and he’d come out and he’d say: ‘I want to talk to you about a bold, handsome, intelligent leader, a man who should not only be president, but who should end up on Mount Rushmore – but enough about me. Now I’ll talk about John Kerry.’

After that agonizing Tuesday night in November when we fell so short in one state, there were Ted and Vicki, on Wednesday morning, sitting with Teresa and me in the kitchen in Boston, as we prepared to concede.

He was always there when you needed him.

And so were Sunny and Splash, incidentally, when you didn’t.

Once when we were at a Senate retreat, Ted had just spoken and then Joe Biden got up to make a point and rejoinder.  And as Joe got more forceful in his argument, he started to gesture, and he took a step towards Ted. Boom! Sunny and Splash were up on their feet, barking wildly, defending Kennedy territory with a vengeance, and Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time in history, we witnessed a Biden rhetorical retreat.

One of my really favorite moments was Ted campaigning with my daughter Vanessa, who is here, campaigning in New Mexico. They were visiting an Indian Reservation and the Tribal Medicine Man wanted to bestow a blessing.  He took a feather and chanted as he asked Vanessa and Ted to stand side by side and extend their hands and bow their heads. With a sacred feather he touched their feet and their foreheads, touched their hands and their feet all the while chanting away. And when he finished, Ted leaned over to Vanessa and whispered: ‘I think we just got married.’

Well, you can imagine!

A couple of months later, she got a note from Teddy which said: ‘No matter what happens, we will always have New Mexico.’

One of the framed notes in Ted’s senate office was a thank you from a colleague for a gift – a special edition of “Profiles in Courage.”  This is what it said: ‘I brought it home and re-read it. What an inspiration! Thank you, my friend, for your many courtesies. If the world only knew.’ It was signed by Trent Lott, the Republican leader of the Senate.

Indeed, if everyone only knew…

When George Wallace was wounded in an assassination attempt, the first to visit him was Ted Kennedy.

When Joe Biden underwent brain surgery for an aneurysm, the first to board the train to Wilmington was Ted Kennedy.

When Jesse Helms announced he had to undergo heart valve surgery, Helms told his constituents back in North Carolina: ‘It’s no piece of cake, but it sure beats listening to Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor.’

So Ted wrote a note to Jesse, saying: ‘I’d be happy to send you tapes of my recent Senate speeches, if that will help you to a speedy recovery!’

And just two weeks ago, when I was in the hospital after hip surgery, just like Chris Dodd, there was Ted Kennedy on the phone asking how I was doing with all that he was dealing with.

In his life, as we all knew, Ted knew the dark night of loss, and I think that’s why his empathy was global and deeply personal. After my father died of cancer just days before the convention in 2000, there was a knock at the door, completely unexpected, and standing there on the front porch was Ted Kennedy, dropping by to hug and talk and just pass time with us.

For 25 years, I was privileged to work by his side, learning from the master. And over the years, I have received hundreds of handwritten notes from Ted – some funny, some touching, a few correcting me, all of them special treasures now.

He thanked me for my gift of a Catholic study Bible, commenting: ‘My mother would be very grateful to you for keeping me in line.’

He thanked me for a particularly challenging charter lift home after 9/11 when it was hard to get anything in the air. And he wrote: ‘Here’s a riddle for you: What do you get when you make 3 calls to the FAA, 2 calls to the Secretary of Transportation and 3 calls to Signature Flight support? You get a great trip to Boston!’ His way of saying thank you.

And he thanked Teresa and me for the gift of a vintage bottle, concluding: “I just hope that I’ve aged as well as this wine!’

PART 3

The personal touch Ted brought to life extended well beyond his senate colleagues. It reflected the kind of man he was and the kind of laws he wrote.

For 1,000 days in the White House, as Chris Dodd mentioned, John Kennedy inspired us.  For 80 days on the presidential campaign trail, Robert Kennedy gave us reason to believe and hope again.  And for more than 17,000 days as a United States senator, Ted Kennedy changed the course of history as few others have.

Without him, there might still be a military draft….the war in Vietnam might have lasted longer….there might have been delays in granting the Voting Rights Act or in passing Medicare or Medicaid….Soviet Jewish refuseniks might have been ignored…and who would have been there to help them as Ted did?

Without him we might not have stood up against the apartheid as forcefully as we did and the barriers to fair immigration might still be higher today.

If everyone only knew…

Without Ted, 18-year-olds might not be able to vote, there might not be a Martin Luther King day, Meals on Wheels, student loans, increases in the minimum wage, equal funding for women’s college sports, health insurance, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, workplace safety, Americorps, Children’s health insurance.

If everyone only knew…

He stood against judges who would turn back the clock on Constitutional rights.  He stood against the war in Iraq – his proudest vote. And for nearly four decades, and all through his final days, he labored with all his might to make health care a right for all Americans – and we will do that in his honor!

In these last months, every visit Ted made to the Senate elicited an unstoppable outpouring of affection.  Tears welled up in the eyes of Republican and Democrat. Everyone missed his skills, his booming call to arms, and conscience. On his last visit, Chris Dodd and I sat in the back row beside his desk and listened to Teddy regale us with an imitation of his efforts to practice throwing out a ball for the Red Sox opening game. (video) He laughed and poked fun at how reluctant his hand and muscles were to obey his commands.

I was in awe of this moment of humility and self-deprecating humor in the face of genuine frustration.  As he so often said over the years, we have to take issues seriously, but never take ourselves too seriously.

He was a master of that, too, and one of the great lessons he taught me.

In the end, his abiding gift was his incomparable love of life, and his commitment to make better the life of the world. In between his time changing the world, he found time to capture it in marvelous paintings.  He was a talented, gifted artist and, as we know, an incurable romantic.

Who else would have thought to hide their engagement ring on a coral reef in Saint Croix so as they were swimming and diving, so Vicki could find it?

It never occurred to him that the waters might have swept the ring away.

But one thing is certain: their love endured from then until now, and it will endure forever.

Massachusetts has always had its own glorious love affair with the sea. Like his brothers before him, salt water was in his veins. Teddy lived by the sea, and he lived joyously on it. The evening he passed away, I looked out at the ocean, where gray sky met gray water, no horizon, the sky almost seemed to be in mourning. It was not a time for sailing.

But the next afternoon as I sat at his home, I looked out at a perfect Nantucket Sound and thought to myself with certainty: He’s on a schooner now. He’s sailing — Jack, Joe, Bobby on the foredeck, Rosemary, Eunice, Kathleen, Pat – trading stories with their parents and Teddy at the helm, steering his steady course. Sail on my friend.  Sail on.

James Taylor’s tribute to Sen Kennedy

August 27, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Before the close of his concert at Tanglewood, James Taylor took a moment to honor Sen Ted Kennedy. Didn’t know Taylor harkened from Massachusetts as well. He mentioned how Kennedy was a patron of the Arts. He then sang and at least in my universe it didn’t sound that good so I thought “You’ve Got A Friend” was an appropriate choice. It’s from 1971 – when Taylor had shoulder length hair!

Video BSO

———

You’ve Got A Friend

BBC 1971 accompanied by Carole King

fecala1

POTUS greeting Clintons, Bushes at church

August 29, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

UPDATES: I found a different video which includes the entry entrance of the Clintons. Secretary Clinton works the room better than Mr Bill or barry and blows the doors off FLOTUS. The Clintons sat in the second row behind the Obamas and Bidens. To Secy Clinton ‘s left was President Bush the younger and Laura Bush. They showed President and Mrs Carter looking uncomfortable  and out of place – somewhere not close to the other group. It’s hard to belive he was a president.

PoliticsNewsPolitics

Sen McCain remembers Sen Kennedy (video)

August 28, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Sen McCain looked really broken up. Even more at the funeral. They spent a lot of time together. Worth watching. Couldn’t find text.

Caroline Kennedy honors Uncle Teddy (video)

August 28, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Caroline Kennedy was the last to speak. She did very well considering she doesn’t like to speak in public. – smiling and laughing. It’s clear she had a special relationship with him – he walked her down the aisle. I waited hoping the text of her comments wold be made available. I couldn’t find them. She recounts a funny story of them camping worth listening to.

Couldn’t find the entire text – selected quotes.

Now Teddy has become a part of history and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country.

She speaks of the trips she went on with Uncle Teddy – historical places – Civil War battle places – he was a Civil War buff. And how he always recited ‘The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”

He made it something special.

How lucky I am to travel some of that journey with him.

Now Teddy has become a part of history and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country.

How he made sure they believed in themselves and how he always was encouraging.

He believed in us – so we should believe in ourselves.

VP Joe Biden speaks fondly of Sen Kennedy

August 28, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

VP Joe Biden came in second to Sen Dodd’s remembrance of Sen Kennedy. I expected him to be more emotional but he was earlier. He talked about how Sen Kennedy was there for him after the car accident that killed his wife and seriously injured his sons. Kennedy also arranged for specialists at the hospital. He talked directly to Kennedy’s children saying “your dad…”

Worth watching. Couldn’t find the text.

Updated list: Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

August 30, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Sen Kennedy seat = former assistant Paul Kirk

Sen Ted Kennedy’s letter to POTUS

Sen Kennedy’s letter to Pope Benedict XVI

==========

POTUS greeting the Clintons and Pres Bush at church (video)
James Taylor’s tribute to Sen Kennedy (video)

======================
Kennedy Family Statement
Senator Kennedy’s arrangements
POTUS initial statement
POTUS from Martha’s Vineyard (video/text)
POTUS to deliver Sen Kennedy’s eulogy

=====================
Eulogies

President of the United States (video/text)
Ted Kennedy, Jr (video/text)
Rep Patrick Kennedy (video/text)

VP Joe Biden (video)
Sen Chris Dodd (video)
Sen John McCain (video)
Sen Kerry (video/text)
Caroline Kennedy (video)

Meet The Press: Maria Shriver (video/text)
MTP: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Doris Kearns-Goodwin, Bob Shrum (video/text)

====================
Music from Funeral Mass

Susan Graham: “Ave Maria” accompanied by James David Christie (video)
Placido Domingo: “Panis Angelicus” accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma & James David Christie (video)
Yo-Yo Ma:  J.S. BACH Sarabande from Cello Suite No. 6 (video)

======================
Ted Kennedy speeches

1968 Eulogy for RFK (audio/text) couldn’t find video
1980 Convention Speech (audio/text) Link to C-Span full video
2008 Convention and end of 1980 speech (video/text)

==========================
Sen Kennedy knighted by the Queen
Sen Ted Kennedy tossed first pitch Red Sox opener (video)
==============

Kennedy funeral: Yo-Yo Ma (Cello Suite No 6)

August 29, 2009

Updated list of Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma performs J.S. BACH Sarabande from Cello Suite No. 6

ABC 5

Susan Graham “Ave Maria” accompanied by James David Christie
Placido Domingo: “Panis Angelicus” accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma & James David Christie

Kennedy funeral: Placido Domingo “Panis Angelicus”

August 29, 2009

Updated list of Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Spanish Tenor Placido Domingo sings “Panis Angelicus” accompanied by Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma and American organist James David Christie.

WCBVTV

Susan Graham “Ave Maria” accompanied by James David Christie
Yo-Yo Ma:  J.S. BACH Sarabande from Cello Suite No. 6

Kennedy funeral: Susan Graham “Ave Maria”

August 29, 2009

Updated list of Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos

Moving Schubert version of “Ave Maria“  performed by American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, accompanied by American organist James David Christie.

WCBVTV

If you prefer tenors (I do) - here’s Andrea Bocelli & Luciano Pavarotti (both in one post – each with their own video) singing Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. And here’s Josh Groban and Bocelli at the Grammys signing “The Prayer” as a tribute to Pavarotti.

Placido Domingo: “Panis Angelicus” accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma & James David Christie

Yo-Yo Ma:  J.S. BACH Sarabande from Cello Suite No. 6

Sen Ted Kennedy’s Eulogy for RFK (text/audio)

August 27, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Cyclopssi  — Not sure why your link isn’t working. Here is the audio/text.

Sen Ted Kennedy’s Eulogy for Robert F Kennedy
Delivered June 8, 1968
St Patrick’s Cathedral. NYC

Audio mp3 of Address

(Audio video with pix)

mugadonna

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President:

On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert Kennedy, I want to express what we feel to those who mourn with us today in this Cathedral and around the world.

We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters — Joe and Kathleen and Jack — he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side.

Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely.

A few years back, Robert Kennedy wrote some words about his own father which expresses [sic] the way we in his family felt about him. He said of what his father meant to him, and I quote: “What it really all adds up to is love — not love as it is described with such facility in popular magazines, but the kind of love that is affection and respect, order and encouragement, and support. Our awareness of this was an incalculable source of strength, and because real love is something unselfish and involves sacrifice and giving, we could not help but profit from it.” And he continued, “Beneath it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and needed help. And we have a responsibility to them and to this country. Through no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We, therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off.”

That is what Robert Kennedy was given. What he leaves to us is what he said, what he did, and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 sums it up the best, and I would like to read it now:

“There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember — even if only for a time — that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek — as we do — nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. The answer is to rely on youth — not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress.

It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation; a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth; a young woman reclaimed the territory of France; and it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the 32 year-old Thomas Jefferson who [pro]claimed that “all men are created equal.”

These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. *It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.* Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.

For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged, and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that event.

*The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.* Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.”

That is the way he lived. That is what he leaves us.

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

“Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.”

Rep Patrick Kennedy Eulogy for dad (video/text)

August 29, 2009

Updated list of Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

Following Teddy Jr was Patrick Kennedy to speak of his dad followed by POTUS.

President and Mrs. Obama, distinguished guests, friend of my father, all of you. While a nation has lost a great senator, my brothers and sisters and I have lost a loving father. When I was a kid, I couldn’t breathe. Growing up, I suffered from chronic and crippling asthma attacks, and the medications I had to give to me were very difficult, and gave me a throbbing headache, every night that I had to use my bronchosol nebulizer.

Now, obviously, I wish that I did not have to suffer those attacks and endure those headaches. Nor did I like having to grow up having a special non-allergenic, non-smoking room reserved for me whenever we went on family vacation.

But as I now realize years later, while asthma may have posed a challenge to my physical health, it propped up by emotional and mental health, because it kept my father by my bedside. My dad was always sure to be within reach of me. And the side effects of the medication meant that he was always holding a cold wet towel on my forehead, until I fell asleep again from my headache.

As far as the special effort that was made to ensure that I had a proper room to sleep in while we were on vacations as a family, this usually meant that I got the nicest room, and it also ensured that dad was my roommate.

I couldn’t have seen it at the time, but having asthma was like hitting the jackpot for a child who craved his father’s love and attention. When his light shined on me alone, there was no better feeling in all of the world.

When dad was away, I often didn’t know when he would return. And as a young boy, I didn’t know why he wasn’t around at Christmas time, when Santa came to the house. And I really wondered why Santa had the same two moles on his face that my dad had, and in the same place as my dad.

Even after I figured out that that was my dad and the costume finally came off, he still remained to me a magical figure.

As a little kid, I didn’t look like much of a sailor, but my dad thought otherwise. You see, in sailing, there are rules as well, much like government, tireless, mundane rules, that will surely make you sea sick.

The rule was four people on a boat to race, just four. But my dad, of course, dug around until he found a rule around the rule. Sound familiar to you, those who serve in the Senate? Kids under 12 he found out, especially scrawny little redheads like me, could tag along.

My dad found that rule that meshed with his mission. He refused to leave me behind. He did that for all of those around the world who needed a special voice as well. When we raced in foul weather, there was lots of salt water and lots of salty language. Those experiences not only broadened my vocabulary, sure, but they also built my self- confidence.

I saw a lot of his political philosophy in those sail boat races. One thing I noticed was that on the boat, as in this country, there was a role for everybody, a place for everybody to contribute.

Second, in the race, as in life, it didn’t matter how strong the forces against you were, so long as you kept driving forward. There was nothing to lose. Maybe you would even come out a winner.

My dad was never bowed. He never gave up and there was no quit in dad. And looking out in this audience and looking out at the tremendous number of people who align themselves along the roadways, coming up from the Cape throughout Boston when we went around, who waited in line for hours to see his casket as they came through the JFK Library, there’s no doubt in my mind that my dad came out a winner.

I want to thank all of you for the amazing tribute that you’ve given my father in the last several days. And I want to say just as proud as I was to be a crew on his sailboat, I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have worked with him in the United States Congress as his colleague.

I admit I used to hang onto his T-shirt and his coat sleeve on the Capitol when I was just a little boy. So, when I got a chance to serve with him on Capitol Hill, all I needed to do was set my compass to the principles of his life.

My father and I were the primary sponsors of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act which was signed into law last year. This bill represented not only a legal victory for 54 million Americans with mental illness who are being denied equal health insurance, but as one of those 54 million Americans [he has bipolar disorder], I felt he was also fighting for me to help ease the burden of stigma and shame that accompanies treatment.

I will really miss working with dad. I will miss my dad’s wonderful sense of self-deprecating humor. When the far right made dad their poster child for their attack ads, he used to say, we Kennedys sure bring out the best in people. And when he first got elected and my cousin Joe was a member of Congress and I came to Congress, dad finally celebrated saying, finally after all these years when someone says who does that damn Kennedy think he is, there’s only a one in three chance they’re talking about me.

Most Americans will remember dad as a good and decent hard- charging senator. But to Teddy, Curran, Caroline, Kara and I, we will always remember him as a loving and devoted father. And in the 1980 campaign, my dad often quoted Robert Frost at the conclusion of every stump speech to indicate that he had to go onto another political event. He would paraphrase the line from the “Road Less Traveled”:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Well, dad, you’ve kept that promise both literally and figuratively to be your brother’s keeper. Now, it’s time for you to rest in peace. May your spirit live forever in our hearts, and as you challenged us so many times before, may your dream for a better, more just America never die. I love you, dad, and you will always live in my heart forever.

eBay Kenyan birth certificate owner vs WND (Pt 2 & 3)

Sen Dodd remembers friend “Teddy” (video)

August 29, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

I think this was the most moving speech of the night. Worth watching. I’ll see if I can find the text.

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Ted Kennedy, Jr Eulogy for dad (video/text)

August 29, 2009

Updated list of Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

TED KENNEDY JR EULOGY for his father,

My name is Ted Kennedy Jr., a name I share with my son, a name I share with my father. Although it hasn’t been easy at times to live with this name, I’ve never been more proud of it than I am today.

Your eminence, thank you for being here. You grace us with your presence.

To all the musicians who’ve come here, my father loved the arts and he would be so pleased for your performances today.

My heart is filled — and I first want to say thank you — my heart is filled with appreciation and gratitude. To the people of Massachusetts, my father’s loyal staff — in many ways, my dad’s loss is just as great for them as it is for those of us in our family.

And to all of my father’s family and friends who have come to pay their respects, listening to people speak about how my father impacted their lives and the deep personal connection that people felt with my dad has been an overwhelming emotional experience.

My dad had the greatest friends in the world. All of you here are also my friends, and his greatest gift to me. I love you just as much as he did.

Sara Brown, the Taoiseach, President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, President Bush, President Carter, you honor my family with your presence here today.

I remember how my dad would tell audiences years ago, “I don’t mind not being President, I just mind that someone else is.”

There is much to say, and much will be said, about Ted Kennedy the statesman, the master of the legislative process and bipartisan compromise, workhorse of the Senate, beacon of social justice and protector of the people.

There is also much to say and much will be said about my father the man. The storyteller, the lover of costume parties, a practical joker, the accomplished painter. He was a lover of everything French: cheese, wine, and women. He was a mountain climber, navigator, skipper, tactician, airplane pilot, rodeo rider, ski jumper, dog lover, and all around adventurer. Our family vacations left us all injured and exhausted.

He was a dinner table debater and devil’s advocate. He was an Irishman and a proud member of the Democratic Party.

Here’s one you may not know: Out of Harvard he was a Green Bay Packers recruit but decided to go to law school instead.

He was a devout Catholic whose faith helped him survive unbearable losses and whose teachings taught him that he had a moral obligation to help others in need.

He was not perfect, far from it. But my father believed in redemption and he never surrendered. Never stopped trying to right wrongs, be they the results of his own failings or of ours.

But today I’m simply compelled to remember Ted Kennedy as my father and my best friend. When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with bone cancer and a few months after I lost my leg, there was a heavy snowfall over my childhood home outside of Washington D.C. My father went to the garage to get the old Flexible Flyer and asked me if I wanted to go sledding down the steep driveway. And I was trying to get used to my new artificial leg and the hill was covered with ice and snow and it wasn’t easy for me to walk. And the hill was very slick and as I struggled to walk, I slipped and I fell on the ice and I started to cry and I said “I can’t do this.” I said, “I’ll never be able to climb that hill.” And he lifted me in his strong, gentle arms and said something I’ll never forget. He said “I know you’ll do it, there is nothing you can’t do. We’re going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day.”

Sure enough, he held me around my waist and we slowly made it to the top, and, you know, at age 12 losing a leg pretty much seems like the end of the world, but as I climbed onto his back and we flew down the hill that day I knew he was right. I knew I was going to be OK. You see, my father taught me that even our most profound losses are survivable and it is what we do with that loss, our ability to transform it into a positive event, that is one of my father’s greatest lessons. He taught me that nothing is impossible.

During the summer months when I was growing up, my father would arrive late in the afternoon from Washington on Fridays and as soon as he got to Cape Cod, he would want to go straight out and practice sailing maneuvers . . . in anticipation of that weekend’s races.

And we’d be out late, and the sun would be setting, and family dinner would be getting cold, and we’d still be out there practicing our jibes and spinnaker sets long after everyone else had gone ashore. Well one night, not another boat in sight on the summer sea, I asked him, “Why are we always the last ones on the water?” Teddy, he said, “Well, you see, most of the other sailors we race against are smarter and more talented than we are. But the reason why we are going to win is that we are going to work harder than them and we will be better prepared.”

And he just wasn’t talking about boating. My father admired perseverance. My father believed that to do a job effectively required a tremendous amount of time and effort.

Dad instilled in me also the importance of history and biography. He loved Boston and the amazing writers, and philosophers, and politicians from Massachusetts. He took me and my cousins to the Old North Church, and to Walden Pond, and to the homes of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Berkshires. He thought that Massachusetts was the greatest place on earth. And he had letters from many of its former senators like Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams hanging on his walls, inspired by things heroic.

He was a civil war buff. When we were growing up he would pack us all into his car or rented camper and we would travel around to all the great battlefields. I remember he would frequently meet with his friend Shelby Foot at a particular site on the anniversary of a historic battle, just so he could appreciate better what the soldiers must have experienced on that day.

He believed that in order to know what to do in the future, you had to understand the past. My father loved other old things. He loved his classic wooden schooner, the Mya, He loved lighthouses and his 1973 Pontiac convertible.

My father taught me to treat everyone I meet, no matter what station in life, with the same dignity and respect. He could be discussing arm control with the president at 3 p.m. and meeting with a union carpenter on fair wage legislation or a New Bedford fisherman on fisheries policy at 4:30.

I once told him that he accidentally left some money, I remember this when I was a little kid, on the sink in our hotel room. And he replied “Teddy, let me tell you something. Making beds all day is back breaking work. The woman who has to clean up after us today has a family to feed.”

And that’s just the kind of guy he was.

He answered Uncle Joe’s call to patriotism, Uncle Jack’s call to public service, and Bobby’s determination to seek a newer world. Unlike them, he lived to be a grandfather, and knowing what my cousins have been through I feel grateful that I have had my father as long as I did.

He even taught me some of life’s harder lessons, such as how to like Republicans. He once told me, he said, “Teddy, Republicans love this country just as much as I do.” I think that he felt like he had something in common with his Republican counterparts: the vagaries of public opinion, the constant scrutiny of the press, the endless campaigning for the next election, but most of all, the incredible shared sacrifice that being in public life demands. He understood the hardship that politics has on a family and the hard work and commitment that it requires.

He often brought his republican colleagues home for dinner and he believed in developing personal relationships and honoring differences. And one of the wonderful experiences that I will remember today is how many of his republican colleges are sitting here, right before him. That’s a true testament to the man. And he always told me that, “Always be ready to compromise but never compromise on your principles.” He was an idealist and a pragmatist. He was restless but patient.

When he learned that a survey of Republican senators named him the Democratic legislator that they most wanted to work with and that John McCain called him the single most effective member of the U.S. Senate, he was so proud because he considered the combination of accolades from your supporters and respect from your sometime political adversaries as one of the ultimate goals of a successful political life.

At the end of his life, my dad returned home. He died at the place he loved more than any other, Cape Cod. The last months of my dad’s life were not sad or terrifying, but filled with profound experiences, a series of moments more precious than I could have imagined. He taught me more about humility, vulnerability, and courage than he had taught me in my whole life.

Although he lived a full and complete life by any measure, the fact was he wasn’t done. He still had work to do. He was so proud of where we had recently come as a nation, and although I do grieve for might have been, for what he might have helped us accomplish, I pray today that we can set aside this sadness and instead celebrate all that he was, and did, and stood for. I will try to live up to the high standard that my father set for all of us when he said “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

I love you dad and I always will. I miss you already.

POTUS Eulogy for Sen Ted Kennedy (video/text)

August 29, 2009

Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)

THE PRESIDENT:  Your Eminence, Vicki, Kara, Edward, Patrick, Curran, Caroline, members of the Kennedy family, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy.  The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the United States Senate — a man who graces nearly 1,000 laws, and who penned more than 300 laws himself.

But those of us who loved him, and ache with his passing, know Ted Kennedy by the other titles he held:  Father.  Brother.  Husband.  Grandfather.  Uncle Teddy, or as he was often known to his younger nieces and nephews, “The Grand Fromage,” or “The Big Cheese.”  I, like so many others in the city where he worked for nearly half a century, knew him as a colleague, a mentor, and above all, as a friend.

Ted Kennedy was the baby of the family who became its patriarch; the restless dreamer who became its rock.  He was the sunny, joyful child who bore the brunt of his brothers’ teasing, but learned quickly how to brush it off.  When they tossed him off a boat because he didn’t know what a jib was, six-year-old Teddy got back in and learned to sail.  When a photographer asked the newly elected Bobby to step back at a press conference because he was casting a shadow on his younger brother, Teddy quipped, “It’ll be the same in Washington.”

That spirit of resilience and good humor would see Teddy through more pain and tragedy than most of us will ever know.  He lost two siblings by the age of 16.  He saw two more taken violently from a country that loved them.  He said goodbye to his beloved sister, Eunice, in the final days of his life.  He narrowly survived a plane crash, watched two children struggle with cancer, buried three nephews, and experienced personal failings and setbacks in the most public way possible.

It’s a string of events that would have broken a lesser man.  And it would have been easy for Ted to let himself become bitter and hardened; to surrender to self-pity and regret; to retreat from public life and live out his years in peaceful quiet.  No one would have blamed him for that.

But that was not Ted Kennedy.  As he told us, “…[I]ndividual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in — and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.”  Indeed, Ted was the “Happy Warrior” that the poet Wordsworth spoke of when he wrote:

As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress,
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

Through his own suffering, Ted Kennedy became more alive to the plight and the suffering of others — the sick child who could not see a doctor; the young soldier denied her rights because of what she looks like or who she loves or where she comes from.  The landmark laws that he championed — the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, immigration reform, children’s health insurance, the Family and Medical Leave Act — all have a running thread.  Ted Kennedy’s life work was not to champion the causes of those with wealth or power or special connections.  It was to give a voice to those who were not heard; to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity; to make real the dream of our founding.  He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not, and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow.

We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature, in support of health care or workers’ rights or civil rights.  And yet, as has been noted, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did.  While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that’s not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw Ted Kennedy.  He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and platform and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect — a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots.

And that’s how Ted Kennedy became the greatest legislator of our time.  He did it by hewing to principle, yes, but also by seeking compromise and common cause — not through deal-making and horse-trading alone, but through friendship, and kindness, and humor.  There was the time he courted Orrin Hatch for support of the Children’s Health Insurance Program by having his chief of staff serenade the senator with a song Orrin had written himself; the time he delivered shamrock cookies on a china plate to sweeten up a crusty Republican colleague; the famous story of how he won the support of a Texas committee chairman on an immigration bill.  Teddy walked into a meeting with a plain manila envelope, and showed only the chairman that it was filled with the Texan’s favorite cigars.  When the negotiations were going well, he would inch the envelope closer to the chairman.  When they weren’t, he’d pull it back. Before long, the deal was done.

It was only a few years ago, on St. Patrick’s Day, when Teddy buttonholed me on the floor of the Senate for my support of a certain piece of legislation that was coming up for vote.  I gave my pledge, but I expressed skepticism that it would pass.  But when the roll call was over, the bill garnered the votes that it needed, and then some.  I looked at Teddy with astonishment and asked how had he done it.  He just patted me on the back and said, “Luck of the Irish.”

Of course, luck had little to do with Ted Kennedy’s legislative success; he knew that.  A few years ago, his father-in-law told him that he and Daniel Webster just might be the two greatest senators of all time.  Without missing a beat, Teddy replied, “What did Webster do?”

But though it is Teddy’s historic body of achievements that we will remember, it is his giving heart that we will miss.  It was the friend and the colleague who was always the first to pick up the phone and say, “I’m sorry for your loss,” or “I hope you feel better,” or “What can I do to help?”  It was the boss so adored by his staff that over 500, spanning five decades, showed up for his 75th birthday party.  It was the man who sent birthday wishes and thank-you notes and even his own paintings to so many who never imagined that a U.S. senator of such stature would take the time to think about somebody like them.  I have one of those paintings in my private study off the Oval Office — a Cape Cod seascape that was a gift to a freshman legislator who had just arrived in Washington and happened to admire it when Ted Kennedy welcomed him into his office.  That, by the way, is my second gift from Teddy and Vicki after our dog Bo.  And it seems like everyone has one of those stories — the ones that often start with “You wouldn’t believe who called me today.”

Ted Kennedy was the father who looked not only after his own three children, but John’s and Bobby’s as well.  He took them camping and taught them to sail.  He laughed and danced with them at birthdays and weddings; cried and mourned with them through hardship and tragedy; and passed on that same sense of service and selflessness that his parents had instilled in him.  Shortly after Ted walked Caroline down the aisle and gave her away at the altar, he received a note from Jackie that read, “On you the carefree youngest brother fell a burden a hero would have begged to been spared.  We are all going to make it because you were always there with your love.”

Not only did the Kennedy family make it because of Ted’s love — he made it because of theirs, especially because the love and the life he found in Vicki.  After so much loss and so much sorrow, it could not have been easy for Ted to risk his heart again.  And that he did is a testament to how deeply he loved this remarkable woman from Louisiana.  And she didn’t just love him back.  As Ted would often acknowledge, Vicki saved him.  She gave him strength and purpose; joy and friendship; and stood by him always, especially in those last, hardest days.

We cannot know for certain how long we have here.  We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way.  We cannot know what God’s plan is for us.

What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and with love, and with joy.  We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves.  We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures.  And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of others.

This is how Ted Kennedy lived.  This is his legacy.  He once said, as has already been mentioned, of his brother Bobby that he need not be idealized or enlarged in death because what he was in life — and I imagine he would say the same about himself.  The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy’s shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became.  We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office.  We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy — not for the sake of ambition or vanity; not for wealth or power; but only for the people and the country that he loved.

In the days after September 11th, Teddy made it a point to personally call each one of the 177 families of this state who lost a loved one in the attack.  But he didn’t stop there.  He kept calling and checking up on them.  He fought through red tape to get them assistance and grief counseling.  He invited them sailing, played with their children, and would write each family a letter whenever the anniversary of that terrible day came along.  To one widow, he wrote the following:

“As you know so well, the passage of time never really heals the tragic memory of such a great loss, but we carry on, because we have to, because our loved ones would want us to, and because there is still light to guide us in the world from the love they gave us.”

We carry on.

Ted Kennedy has gone home now, guided by his faith and by the light of those that he has loved and lost.  At last he is with them once more, leaving those of us who grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good that he did, the dream he kept alive, and a single, enduring image — the image of a man on a boat, white mane tousled, smiling broadly as he sails into the wind, ready for whatever storms may come, carrying on toward some new and wondrous place just beyond the horizon.  May God bless Ted Kennedy, and may he rest in eternal peace.

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New COLB discovered!

August 29, 2009

eBay Kenyan birth certificate owner vs WND (Pt 1)

August 29, 2009

eBay Kenyan Birth Certificate video

About.com: Queen’s Hospital

August 28, 2009

Is this birther cartoon racist?

August 28, 2009\

Rude Cenk Uygur vs Orly Taitz (video)

August 25, 2009

Updated birth certificate posts #2

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks talks with interrupts Orly Taitz on the phone. The on screen graphic is “Orly Taitz Leader of the Birther Movement”.

Right off you get a clue he has no idea what he’s talking about. I’m just going to list his words – not Taitz’s. He thinks the entire press has seen a copy of the BIRTH CERTIFICATE, that FACTCHECK has seen a copy of the BIRTH CERTIFICATE, that there  are “dozens” of officials in Hawaii saying barry’s birth certificate is legit and that there is a hospital (which he cannot name – nor anyone else) that has a birth certificate for barry. Even Dr Fukino — the one and only of those dozens of officials – has changed her words from “original birth certificate” to “original vital records”.

He is extremely rude, consistently cuts her off and talks over her, doesn’t know what state she is from, ridicules her dental and “on line” law practices, says she’s doing it because she hates obama and that there must be someone behind her aka she’s a dumb blonde.

The Young Turks

CENK UYGUR: I don’t know what he would have to do – would he have to show it to you personally?

How about showing his COLB to a third party?

BECAUSE HE’S SHOWN THE PRESS THE ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

He’s not even embarrassed in his ignorance.

They’ve all said yes it is.

How many press outlets actually saw it?

Lester Kingsolving certainly did not. Bill O’Reilly sure did not.

Factcheck.org said it’s 100% the case.

He’s got the two newspapers that said back at the time that he was born that they checked the hospital records that he was born.

There are no hospital records that have surfaced. No hospital worker who has surfaced. No Hawaii bewspaper has definitely said the name of the hospital.

Who would you believe?

You don’t believe factcheck.org. And you don’t believe those who have seen the ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

Nobody has seen the original birth certificate – if it exists – other than Dr Fukino and Alvin Onaka. Period.

Every single official that we’ve asked in Hawaii have said yes.

“We”? And there is only one official authorized to say anything – Dr Fukino.

The press has seen it. Factcheck.org has seen it.

NO ONE HAS SEEN IT. His ignorance is second only to his complete lack of manners.

Who would you trust?

Because you filed a lawsuit, that’s why. He didn’t have a choice.

He absolutely had a choice. All he had to do is produce the birth certificate. Why doesn’t he know this?

What was he going to do – concede to you?

You filed a lawsuit, of course they’re going to fight.

They cannot explain why he won’t just show it.

What motivated you?

First of all, where are you from?

Imagine if upon hearing his name she said that to him just as rudely.

Why is this issue for you?

So, you’re not a natural born citizen of the United States.

Like that has anything to do with anything. She’s not running for president. He’s just being dismissive.

He has a guest and knows nothing about the issue or the guest and prefers to ridicule. They seem not to have any idea how foolish they look.

But you think, ohmigod, I gotta figure out if Obama is a citizen?

Why stop your life for what some would call, including me, a conspiracy theory.

He pretends he has no idea what she does for a living. He knows nothing about anything and yet he is sure it is a conspiracy. It is not a conspiracy until barry’s actual physical birth place is known. It isn’t.

He actually believes that people have held barry’s original birth certificate in their hands.

What do you normally do? You’re a dentist or something? Have you stopped being a dentist to do this? You drill on people’s teeth…and people trust you? You’re still doing your dental work and on the side you’re suing the president?

So how do you finance this? Mostly? Who else is financing?

Orly you’re not making money off this, right?

How did you become the leader of the birther’s movement. You got your law degree online. Where did you get it?

So how did you become the leader – that’s what I don’t understand?

Who picked you?

Because, I gotta be honest with you, Orly. Look, I don’t believe you were just sitting at home and decided, you know, even though I’m a part-time dentist, part-time online lawyer, I’m gonna go ahead and go after the president myself and start this huge long thing. I think that someone helped you along the process – wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

He just called her a dumb blonde. And he just admitted that he thinks it’s a conspiracy.

Does he think it’s Netanyahu like the other “conspiracists”?

Okay, so you say you’re getting people excited to do this on your own.

You showed a Kenyan birth certificate for Obama that everyone has proven to be a forgery. We did a whole segment, Orly, it’s comical. You have a laundry detergent as a witness.

Did his segment include that the Bomford was a forgery in itself?

So you believe someone got you a Kenyan birth certificate that has all these problems – you believe that 100%?

But the BIRTH CERTIFICATE shown by Obama – you don’t believe at all.

So you are saying you don’t trust all the governemnt officials in Hawaii. You don’t trust Hawaii – but you trust somebody who gave you a birth certificate from Kenya?

ORLY: No hospital official stated there is a hospital birth record for Obama.

That’s not true – there are DOZENS OF THEM.

Dozens = ONE. Again a glimpse of how little he knows.

That is not true – it comes from the hospital. It’s simply not true.

It comes from the hospital. We’ve already shown you a hundred times.

Needless to say no hospital – themselves – have said barry was born there.

And here comes then inevitable:

You don’t like Obama. You think Obama is a dictator.

ORLY: Not one hospital

That’s not true.

You think Obama is a dictator, so you think, it doesn’t matter – ‘I’m gonna get something from Kenya and say I’m gonna believe that person, but I’m not gonna believe Hawaii‘.

You keep handing out these lies and of course the crazy people in this country are gonna believe, because they wanna believe the madness.

The interviewers interrupters don’t seem to realize that the way they (mis)treat her reflects a great deal on who they are. Especially when they have as little grasp on the actual facts as he.

Patrick Kane = disorderly conduct

August 27, 2009

Yep that’s it.

No felony, no misdemeanor.

Just a non-criminal violation, court supervision for a year, and a letter of apology to Cabbie Jan Radecki.

His cousin – same deal.

Initial charges: Class C felony = second-degree robbery and two Class A misdemeanors: = fourth-degree criminal mischief and theft of services.

Grand Jury Charges: Misdemeanors: 3rd degree assault and theft of services and a violation – harassment.

Final charges: Disorderly Conduct – a non-criminal violation

Financial reparations to Cabbie Jan Radecki: Undisclosed

Lesson learned: Priceless

PATRICK KANE:

It’s behind me. It’s time to move on.  I look forward to being a part of the Blackhawks and hopefully representing my country in the Olympics and just moving forward in my life.

================

(8-9) Patrick Kane arrested
(8-16) Patrick Kane 2 – mugshot/cabbie
(8-17) Patrick Kane prepared statement (video/text)
(8-17) Patrick Kane talks with reporters (audio)
(8-19) Grand Jury indicts Patrick Kane on misdemeanor charges

(8-20) Patrick Kane pled not guilty to misdemeanor charges

Factcheck.org = completely worthless

August 25, 2009

birthers were born because barry refused to provide proof of his own

August 24, 2009

barry “loves the controversy” about his birth certificate

August 25, 2009