#Senator Ted Kennedy

[kennedy-family-library]

A picture of a young handsome senator, Edward M. Kennedy.

[thenewdemocratus]

Helmer Reenberg: Video: Senator Edward Kennedy Interview From 1964

The New Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy talking about the optimism of his older brother President John Kennedy. President Kennedy’s ability to inspire people and make them believe they can do things that they didn’t think they could do before. Which to me at least is the definition of an inspirational leader. Generally someone doesn’t need to be inspired to do things that they believe they can do…

[maturemenoftvandfilms]

Ted Kennedy (1932-2009)   Former United States Senator

[amynessblog]

Ted Kennedy with his elder brother Bobby Kennedy

[nodynasty4us]

From the May 17, 2024 article:

The prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. qualifying for the Texas ballot is fueling speculation that he could hurt Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) reelection chances....  with some observers arguing that voters who turn out to support Kennedy will likely back the senator’s Democratic challenger, Rep. Colin Allred (Texas).

...

“RFK Jr. is likely to mobilize a group of voters to turn out and vote in the presidential race who, absent his presidency, would not have participated,” Jones said. “Once those voters are through casting a vote in the first race as president, they’re going to start to go down the ballot.”

“There’s a set of demographics that Kennedy is likely to bring out that are going to help Allred more than Cruz,” he added.

[tenth-sentence]

His career had been capped.

"Incarnations of Immortality: With a Tangled Skein" - Piers Anthony

[intermundia]

"Anyone sitting down to write a screenplay on November 1, 1994, as Lucas apparently did, would have been interrupted eight days into the writing process by one of the most seismic midterm in postwar American history. Republicans took the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years. A resurgent GOP under House Speaker Newt Gingrich started pushing its tax-cutting, regulation-slashing 'Contract with America.' Democrats, whose messaging had improved since Ted Kennedy's 'Star Wars' flub, started calling it a 'Contract On America.' It was perhaps no co-incidence, then, that Lucas started writing about a 'Trade Federation,' aided and emboldened by corrupt politicians, embroiled in some sort of dispute over the taxing of trade to the outlying star systems. We never learn what the dispute is about — whether the Trade Federation was pro- or anti-tax. But what we know is that the name of the leader of the Trade Federation — never actually spoken in the movie, but noted in the script from the start — was Nute Gunray. By 1997, when the GOP Senate leader was Trent Lott, Lucas named the Trade Federation's representative in the Galactic Senate: Lott Dodd. We're a long way from the subtlety of his [George Lucas's] [North] Vietnam metaphor here." Taylor, Chris. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchisen. Basic Books, 2014.

You know, I've read the names of the Trade Federation leaders Lott Dod and Nute Gunray a thousand times, and never really processed the fact that Lucas named them openly after conservative American politicians. Senator Trent Lott and Senator Christopher Dodd, and Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan.

[obsessedwithjohnjr]

Senator Bobby Kennedy holding his nephew John while talking with his brother Ted kennedy

March 1964

[thebreakfastgenie]

Kind of annoying that people made such a big deal about Biden's age but are quiet about all the ancient crones in the senate. It's not that I have no concerns whatsoever about an old president but if the president dies the vice president who is from the same party and probably shares most of the same policies assumes the office and has a further incentive to continue those policies because they want to maintain the late president's base of support. If a senator dies you're looking at an open seat or an interim appointment which isn't the end of the world if that state's governor is from the same party but isn't great if the governor is from the other party. Vermont has two octogenarian Democratic senators and a Republican governor. And then you have special elections in off years and we have seen that go badly before, like when Ted Kennedy died and Massachusetts elected a Republican to fill his seat. This is especially worrisome when you have a razor thin margin in the senate and I am frankly more concerned about this than the president's age!

[simply-ivanka]

Do not forget that the technology now taken for granted that allowed for the missile interceptions in Israel and supported by American ships in the area came from the Strategic Defense Initiative initiated by President Ronald Reagan who was widely criticized by Democrats who derisively referred to it as “starwars”. And two of the Democrat US Senators who were vocally opposed to SDI was Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden. Joe was ALWAYS off the mark when it came to foreign policy strategy. He was always perfectly incorrect as documented by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

[lancerslover]

a brief glimpse into senator kennedy’s office…

pairing: senator!john f. kennedy/reader

warnings: 18+, pretty much immediate smut, swearing

word count: 995

a/n: this is just a quick random drabble while i finish the bobby and jack fic. it literally came to me in a dream. i guess it’s kinda based on the stories about jfk’s two secretaries “fiddle” and “faddle.”

thank you to the anon who suggested i start doing drabbles!! i’m going to start doing these more often between my longer fics

When you walk into Senator Kennedy’s office, he’s on the sofa, his suit jacket strung over the back and his tie loose around his neck. Next to him is your coworker Jane, wearing nothing but her underwear, holding an unlit cigarette between her fingers and trying her best to grab a lighter back from the senator while he playfully holds it out of her reach.

“Hi,” you say, placing a pile of letters on the senator’s desk. Handling, sorting, and delivering the letters from his constituents takes up most of your time since he receives around 800 letters every day, almost twice as much as any other senator in the building. A large portion of these letters are from women, a fact Mr. Kennedy sometimes likes to jokingly boast about to his senator buddies, especially when the content of said letters involves a woman gushing over how “fantastic” he is or asking him to come over while her husband’s at work the next time he’s in Boston.

“Hey, hun,” Jane says back.

You two don’t have time to say anything more because the senator is grabbing your wrist and pulling you toward him, looking up at you with that lazy, toothy grin. The grin of someone who’s used to getting whatever he wants without even having to ask.

In a flash, you’re in his lap. He’s talking against your cheek: “God, sweetheart, what took you so long, huh? I missed you when I got in today. I’ll tell Ted to stop sending you out on those assignments. You’re much more useful here with me.” You know he’s just telling you what he thinks you want to hear, but still, your heart is singing.

He tears the straps of your dress down around your shoulders and tosses your bra aside while you fit yourself onto his cock. You wince. You’re still a little sore from yesterday.

But you forget about that the moment he starts thrusting up into you. You’re consumed by the way he fills up your stomach and how your clit rubs against the fabric of his shirt, and the way his panting breaths, wet on your ear, mix with your choking gasps. You don’t even care that Jane is just a few feet away, puffing on her cigarette as she nonchalantly twists her stockings back on. As the two youngest, prettiest girls on the senator’s staff, you’ve both become used to these kinds of situations. He’s always had a habit of beckoning either one of you into his office a few times a week, but ever since he started on these new libido-increasing painkillers, he’s been calling you both in every single day, usually one immediately after the other. Probably because once he gets himself all riled up with one girl, he simply cannot resist the temptation to have another, almost like someone with a sweet tooth being unable to say no to a second helping of dessert.

Sometimes, when he’s in one of his ornery, let’s see how far I can push people moods, he’ll call you both in at once and ask you to make out with each other or something. You’re glad he isn’t in one of those moods today. You don’t necessarily mind kissing Jane—all you really want is to make the senator happy—but, for obvious reasons, you much prefer to do stuff with him.

His big, rough hands are needy and eager—squeezing your throat, then rubbing your breasts, then holding your thighs, then cupping around your butt. Teasingly, he curls his fingers into the crack between your buttcheeks and pulls them apart, which makes you pucker and squeal, which makes him chuckle.

He usually makes these guttural grunting sounds every time he heaves himself inside you, but sometimes a little whimper will escape him. When this happens, it worries you because you think he might be hurting himself. You know he takes those painkillers because of his bad back, and you don’t want him to over-exert himself on your behalf. But there’s something primal and matter-of-fact about him during sex, like a dog marking its territory before going about its business, that makes him not have time to think about his physical limits.

You don’t dare mention your concerns to him, though. You once saw him lash out viciously at an aide who’d simply tried to help him with his crutches. Everyone around him cowered. He’s quite frightening, and you told him so a few weeks ago while you and a few other secretaries were walking with him down to the capitol building. You thought hearing that would stroke his ego. And you’re pretty sure it did, even though all he did was throw his head back and laugh and say, “You silly girls are frightened of everything.”

Now, you’re saying, “Please, just like that. Oh, Mr. Kennedy, god, yes” because you know he likes that. Right on cue, you feel his skin getting hotter against your lips. He picks up his pace. You feel like you’re going to melt and drip all over him.

“Ugh, fuck,” he says then, a little too loudly. Then he glances at the door and grits his teeth, annoyed at himself. “God fucking dammit,” he says, much softer. You see him make sheepish eye contact with Jane, who’s now sitting at his desk. She chuckles before going back to flipping through a draft of his upcoming DNC speech.

The senator turns away from her. After a few moments of watching his cock pump in and out from between your legs, his brow furrowed in concentration, he looks back up at you with heavy-lidded, lust-drugged eyes. He licks a bead of sweat off your breast, and that’s enough to finally push you over the edge. You bite down on his shoulder as you cum.

He finishes inside of you only a few seconds later. He doubles over, groaning into a clenched jaw, holding you to him with a hand on the small of your back.

thank you for reading!!

fic taglist:

@evie-gets-bitches

@kennediva

@secretwonderlandcheesecake

@melancholicstation

@southernpopprincess

@maudesgf

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@h-l-vlovesvintage

@fortheloveofjos

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@raspberryknees

[thenewdemocratus]

Roger Sharp Archive: President Jimmy Carter on 1980 Campaign (3/21/1980)

Source:The New Democrat  As much trouble as President Jimmy Carter was in politically in 1979-80, having an approval rating somewhere in the thirties and looking very vulnerable to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election with all the economic problems and the Iranian Hostage Crisis, President Carter whipped Senator Ted Kennedy in most of the Democratic presidential primaries. Senator…

[voguefashion]

The Kennedys' on LIFE magazine (Part 2/3)

"Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline And John Jr. Wait To Join Procession To Capital" (Jackie, Caroline & John F. Kennedy Jr.), December 6, 1963.

"Who Will Button Up The Bottom Half Of The Ticket?" (Robert F. Kennedy), May 8, 1964.

"Jacqueline Kennedy: She Writes About Her Husbands Mementos - The Ones He Liked Most" (Jackie Kennedy), May 29, 1964.

"Bob Kennedy's Week Of Trial And Of Decision (A Happy Moment At Home With His And His Brother Jack's Children: Courtney, Caroline, Kerry, John Jr. Michael and David Kennedy), July 5, 1964.

"The Warren Report" (John F. Kennedy Assassination), October 2, 1964.

"As Congress Opens: Ted Kennedy's Recovery" (Edward M. Kennedy), January 15, 1965.

"By Robert Kennedy: Our Climb Up Mt. Kennedy" (Robert F. Kennedy), April 9, 1965.

"By Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.: First Portrait Of Kennedy By A Member Of His Team - A Thousand Days" (John F. Kennedy), July 16, 1965.

"By Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.: The Historian Resumes His Kennedy Narrative - A Thousand Days" (John F. Kennedy), November 5, 1965.

"Jackie In Spain" (Jackie Kennedy), May 6, 1966.

"Robert Kennedy: His Control Over The 'Legend' - His Truce With L.B.J - Will He Dare To Run In '68? - How Would He Handle Power?" (Robert F. Kennedy), November 18, 1966.

"A Matter Of Reasonable Doubt" (John F. Kennedy Assassination), November 25, 1966.

"Jackie In Cambodia" (Jackie Kennedy), November 17, 1967.

"A Contribution To History: Governor Connally Sets The Record Straight On The Fateful Visit" (John F. Kennedy & Jackie Kennedy), November 24, 1967.

"Senator Robert F. Kennedy", June 14, 1968.

"Jackie's Wedding" (Jackie Kennedy Onassis), November 1, 1968.

"The Kennedys" - Special Edition, 1968.

"The Fateful Turn For Ted Kennedy" (Edward M. Kennedy), August 1, 1969.

"The 60s: Decade Of Tumult And Change" (John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy & Robert F. Kennedy), December 29, 1969.

"An Intimate Visit: Rose Kennedy At 80" (Rose, Ted & Joan Kennedy), July 17, 1970.

[amynessblog]

Teddy and Bobby Kennedy 🫶

Bobby Kennedy died 55 years ago today (June 6, 1968).

[mydaddywiki]

Ted Kennedy

Physique: Husky Build Height: 6′ 2″ (1.88 m)

Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. He was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and was the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history, having served there for almost 47 years. The most prominent living member of the Kennedy family for many years, he was the last surviving son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy; the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

Handsome, hairy chest, thick ass and drunk half the time, Kennedy was known for his charisma and oratorical skills, becoming recognized as “The Lion of the Senate” through his long tenure and influence. More than 300 bills that Kennedy and his staff wrote were enacted into law. Unabashedly liberal, Kennedy championed an interventionist government emphasizing economic and social justice.

The Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 resulted in the death of his automobile passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, hindered his chances of ever becoming president. Back in the 90s I had a seroius Ted Kennedy thing going after the William Kennedy Smith rape trial and later the Clarence Thomas appointment hearings. I was just realizing my attraction to older men at the time and he was the kind of man I liked. Stocky to down right fat, thick white hair and horny as hell. Thoughts of him running around my mind with no pants on was hot. Even when I see him on TV making a speech, all I could think of was him standing behind the podium with no pants on.

Twice married with three children with his first wife, Joan Bennett Kennedy. After accusations of philandering and alcohol abuse surfaced, they divorced in 1982. 10 more years of whoring and drinking. In 1992 he remarried second wife, Victoria Kennedy and credits his recovery to his new relationship. Together the couple had two more children. On August 25, 2009, Kennedy died of a malignant brain tumor (glioblastoma) at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, at the age of 77.

[qqueenofhades]

Do you think Barack Obama was a good president?

For the most part, yes. The fact that he got elected in the first place (and in a landslide) was nothing short of miraculous, but those of you on the younger side don't remember just how FUCKING FED UP the entire country was with Dubya and his bullshit. It didn't really matter if you were Democrat or Republican. Everyone hated him, especially when he went out in 2008 by causing a generational economy-crashing cataclysm. For him to go from a 91%+ approval rating just after 9/11, to the low 20s by the time he left office, shows just how sick and tired everyone was with him, and how we fondly (ha) imagined that he would be the worst American president in our lifetime. How very innocent we were.

The fact that Obama, a black guy with the middle name Hussein, who had not even a full term as a US senator as his only real meaningful political experience, could come in there and win is a feeling that honestly is nothing like anything anyone had experienced in politics before. I remember staying up with my family (I was studying abroad in the UK) over phone/Skype until the race was called for Obama around 3am, and one of my classmates ran outside the flat in delirium yelling "OBAMA WON!!!" The pictures of elderly African-Americans just crying their eyes out on that night, and the way they still look at Barack and Michelle now, is special. Yes, of course the reality didn't totally live up to the promise of that moment, but man, for a little while there, it really felt like we had changed the entire paradigms on which this stupid flawed country had been built from the beginning. I can't imagine we'll feel like that again for a long, long time.

Obama managing to save the economy (as noted before, it's a theme that Democratic presidents have to come in and clean up the ungodly mess left by Republicans) and pass the Affordable Care Act, even as watered-down as it was from what he wanted, were two very significant accomplishments. Where he fell short, however, was in his dealings with said Republicans, and obviously not all of this was his fault. Obama was intensely conscious of his position as a political newcomer AND that he was a black guy. The level of racism, vitriol, and sheer ugliness that he (and his family) faced from all quarters was (and is) yeah. We got the Tea Party, the "birthers," and the rest of the radical-right lunatics out in full force, and Obama was aware that he was going to get blamed for everything and then some. He also wanted to think that the Republicans would throw a hissy fit and then get over it and work with him. They didn't. Not for one single day. Not on anything. Just because he was a Democratic black guy. That was all it took, and they stuck to it even as Obama kept reaching for the football and thinking that THIS time, surely they would be reasonable. They weren't. On anything. Ever.

Likewise, the Democrats were caught unprepared by the special election for Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts senate seat, which they lost (taking them from a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority to 59, after which the Republicans accordingly filibustered everything and the Democrats didn't push hard enough to stop them/change the rules). They also seemed to just assume that hey, the country voted for Obama in 2008, they'd clearly do it again in 2010, and they didn't really hype up the ACA or campaign for it or anything like that. So they got shellacked to the tune of 60+ House seats lost in 2010, and then lost the Senate in 2014, allowing Mitch McConnell to flat-out blockade Merrick Garland's SCOTUS nomination (who Obama picked to fill Antonin Scalia's seat) and get away with it. Obama was also not nearly as assertive about nominating judges as Biden has been, though it's also the case that Trump hadn't yet packed the benches with an endless conveyor belt of unqualified uber-conservative hacks. Once again, I think this is a reflection of Obama's overall political inexperience and the fact that he felt he had to "play nice" or get pigeonholed as the "angry black guy," which he then did anyway. So it really was a catch-22.

Online Leftists always like to yelp about "Obama ordering a lot of drone strikes!!!", as if they a) know anything else about American foreign policy, b) are at all interested in criticizing Trump for using EVEN MORE (by like... a lot, and nearly starting WWIII when he killed the Iranian general with one), or c) ever consider the overall ungodly fucking mess that Obama was ALSO left with in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm not about to defend or agree with that either, but it's disingenuous (as per usual with them) to suggest that that was the only thing Obama did during his presidency and/or that he should be judged on that alone. They also like to pretend that he faced no racism at all, that he could have just "codified Roe vs. Wade and didn't!", that there were no double standards in how he was treated by the press, the political establishment, and the American people, and so on.

So: overall, yes, I think Obama had good intentions and tried to do the right thing. He failed at certain major parts of that, both because of the Republicans and because he didn't have the experience to challenge them or know how to work around them, and because he was in an utterly impossible position. The intense white backlash that gave rise to Trump showed that contrary to what anyone liked to think about Obama's election heralding a "post-racial" era, it was back and more ugly and public than it had been in a long time. It was also surprising that our first black president was a Democrat, and not a Republican shill like Tim Scott and/or Clarence Thomas, who has been allowed to rise in the party only because he faithfully repeats all the maxims of the (white) GOP ruling class. So the sheer strength of Obama Derangement Syndrome, which persists today, has to figure into any appraisals of either what he did or what he could have reasonably been expected to accomplish, and I don't think people get that.