Ted Kennedy RIP

[Lefty]

(ramboz @ Aug. 28 2009,21:56) You tellem' Smuttley !!!

Danno

I love you Uncle Danno,



Best wishes and hope to see you soon!!

Nephew Lefty

[Lefty]

(kathylc @ Aug. 29 2009,01:01) Bush elected to join the ANG on his own..why not, thousands of others did it and he rose above the rank of Private unlike Teddy Fat man Kennedy. All the Kennedys think they are above reproach and uses their influence and political power and money to get they what they want or need. Its no wonder it only took a short period of time to get fat Ted ready for his funeral, as he was 9/10's of the way embalmed with booze since he was weaned off his mother.......He has got to be one of the worlds biggest drunks and hipocrites. He only did what benefited him in some shape form or fashion, and to gain one more vote for the next go around.

The Scrub got into the Texas ANG the very day he applied, the day after his college deferment ended, while others had been on a waiting list for months. We all know how that worked and you should too if you pulled your head out.

The FUCKING BUSHES THINK THEY ARE ABOVE REPROACH TOO YOU DUMB FLOOZY. YOU JUST LIKE TO PICK AND CHOOSE WHO YOU HURL YOUR HATE FILLED EPITHETS AT.
DO YOU THINK ANY INSULT YOUR HURLED AT TEDDY, DOES NOT EQUALLY APPLY, AT THE VERY LEAST, TO THE BUSHES? IF YOU DON'T THEN YOU'RE DUMBER THAN I THOUGHT.

[Lefty]

(ladyboyluva @ Aug. 30 2009,12:38)

(alan1chef @ Aug. 30 2009,09:17) Lincoln, a warmonger??? I think you better get your history straight. Lincoln is easily the greatest President this country ever had. Maybe you've heard of it.....The Emancipation Proclamation...ring any bells?

Lincoln locked up newspaper editors and he wanted to ship the negros back to Africa. He also rigged voting and abducted people to fight in the war.

Try reading Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln".

The emancipation proclamation was a strategy to try to cause havoc in the enemy states, he didn't try to enforce it in the states fighting on the northern side. He didn't mind slavery in his own states.

There is almost no bigger lie in American history than the Lincoln myth. He ought to be put in the camp with Hitler, Mao and Polpot. The Southern Invasion (it was not a civil war) was not about freeing slaves. It was about getting taxes from the southern states that were sick of a growing greedy federal government. Basically it was a war to steal from the south. That it led to emacipation was only an uninteded consequence to the PR campaigh to draw support for the war. It was a cost Lincoln was prepared to make, he is known to have said many times than he didn't think whites should mix with blacks and he planned to ship them all back to Africa. They didn't teach that at school funnily enough.

The reason Lincoln is adored by statists and statist historians was because he was the most prominant government builder in US history. He threw the constitution out the door. That means jobs and power for statists and serfdom for the sheeples.

It is hard to get people to accept things when it is different than what they were taught growing up. You will meet with much resistance when you to try to educate people on the real "Honest Abe".

He was actually the first president to extremely violate and circumvent the constitution.
Before that they pretty much took their oath seriously, to protect and uphold the constitution. James Buchanan was criticized for allowing South Carolina to secede from the union. But he said there was nothing in the constitution to give him the power to prevent it.

Back in 2003, a former member of this esteemed forum, gave me a ride to the airport before coming here to Thailand. I was flying from Sea-Tac rather than PDX, so we had a long time in which to talk. He is one of most well read and intelligent people I've ever known and he basically told me all the same things about Lincoln back then. One of the biggest racists to ever be president.

Good post.  

[Torurot]

August 29, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol....888.ece
Barack Obama pays tribute to mentor Edward Kennedy

President Barack Obama paid tribute to his friend and mentor Edward Kennedy at a funeral mass for the senator today.

Obama's eulogy to Edward €˜Ted€™ Kennedy hailed him as the €˜greatest legislator of our time€™ who became a hero to America's underclasses despite his privileged background.

Speaking before 1,500 mourners at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston, Obama said: €œWe do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office.

€œWe 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 he loved.€
Related Links

* Barack Obama€™s eulogy at Kennedy funeral mass

* American statesmen at private Kennedy wake

Drawing parallels with his own struggles the president said Kennedy represented a different time in history, when political adversaries could have differences without their patriotism being called into question.

Obama said Kennedy had €˜surpassed the expectations€™ placed on him as part of America€™s foremost political dynasty and he praised him for raising the children of his brothers President John F Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, who were both assassinated.

Kennedy€™s flag-draped casket was carried through the rain to the Basilica at around 10.40am local time.

The church was crowded with the most powerful figures in US politics, including former presidents George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter along with members of the influential Kennedy dynasty.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is married to Kennedy's niece Maria Shriver, actor Jack Nicholson and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson also attended.

Relatives, including Kennedy€™s young grandchildren led the prayers, quoting from the Democrat senator€™s speeches on healthcare, equality and immigration.

His widow Victoria sat in the front row and choked back tears throughout the Roman Catholic Service.

Ted Kennedy Junior paid an emotional tribute to his father€™s perseverance in the face of adversity and personal tragedy.

He said: €œHe was not perfect but he believed in redemption. He never surrendered and never stopped trying to right wrongs.

€œMy father taught me than even the most profound losses are survivable.€

Jokingly he then added: €œHe even taught me some of life€™s harder lessons such as how to like Republicans.€

World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed two pieces during the service, being joined by the tenor Placido Domingo for the second one.

Kennedy€™s coffin will now be flown to Washington DC, where he will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery next to the graves of his older brothers.

Last night an Irish style wake was held for the friends and family of Kennedy, who died on Tuesday aged 77, following a battle with brain cancer.

The memorial at the John F Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, was attended by statesmen from both American parties, including vice-president Joe Biden, Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who married into the Kennedy family, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Earlier more than 50,000 people attended a funeral procession in the city as his flag-draped coffin was led through the streets.

Edward 'Teddy' Kennedy died on Tuesday evening at his home at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Once tipped as a future president like his brother, Kennedy's political hopes were dashed in 1969 when he left the scene of a car accident on Chappaquiddick Island in which Mary Jo Kopechne, a young political activist, drowned.

He went on to become the third longest serving senator in America's history, the elder statesman of the Democratic Party and a liberal with an unparalleled influence on social legislation.

[Torurot]

RAW DATA: President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy for Sen. Edward Kennedy on Saturday at Boston's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic....kennedy

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Below is the transcript from President Barack Obama's Eulogy for Sen. Edward Kennedy.

"Mrs. Kennedy, 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 U.S. Senate -- a man whose name graces nearly one thousand laws, and who penned more than three hundred 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. 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, 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."

"This spirit of resilience and good humor would see Ted Kennedy through more pain and tragedy than most of us will ever know. He lost two siblings by the age of sixteen. He saw two more taken violently from the country that loved them. He said goodbye to his beloved sister, Eunice, in the final days of his own 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 is a string of events that would have broken a lesser man. And it would have been easy for Teddy 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, "ÃÆ€™Ãƒ€šÃ‚¢ÃƒÆ’¢Ã¢Ã¢€š¬Ã…¡Ãƒ€šÃ‚¬ÃƒÆ’€š ÀšÃ‚¦[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 William 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 suffering of others -- the sick child who could not see a doctor; the citizen 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 care, the Family and Medical Leave Act -all have a running thread.

"Ted Kennedy's life's work was not to champion 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, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that is not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him. He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party 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, 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's support for 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; and 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 would 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 on a certain piece of legislation that was coming up for vote. I gave him my pledge, but expressed my skepticism that it would pass. But when the roll call was over, the bill garnered the votes it needed, and then some. I looked at Teddy with astonishment and asked how he had pulled it off. 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, and 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 Ted Kennedy's historic body of achievements we will remember, it is his giving heart that we will miss. It was the friend and 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 who was so adored by his staff that over five hundred 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 would take the time to think about someone like them.

"I have one of those paintings in my private study -- a Cape Cod seascape that was a gift to a freshman legislator who happened to admire it when Ted Kennedy welcomed him into his office the first week he arrived in Washington; by the way, that's my second favorite 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 after not only 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 be 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; and especially because of 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 Kennedy to risk his heart again. 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 God's plan for us.

"What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and 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 can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings.

"This is how Ted Kennedy lived. This is his legacy. He once said of his brother Bobby that he need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond 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 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 one 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 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 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 what 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."

[PigDogg]

(Lefty @ Aug. 30 2009,00:38) You will meet with much resistance when you to try to educate people on the real "Honest Abe".

Some believe that Lincoln was gay.

Google Abe Lincoln gay

[smuttleydfs]

(ramboz @ Aug. 29 2009,13:45) Smuttley - - -  You're a LEGEND in your own mind !!!

DANNO

Better to be a "legend in my own mind" then a punchline in print

I beg to differ....history will not glorify Ted....Ted is to Democrats what Jesse Helms is to Republicans

Wannabechief of all your ignorant statements you have made this one most definitely is the most priceless........