What is all this nonsense about "SOMEBODY'S SENATE SEAT"? The furniture as well as all other material items in the Senate, White House and House of Representatives, BELONGS TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. We, the taxpayers, have provided the funds to purchase all of it! Regardless of tenure in any of the various branches of the federal government, the SEATS are not personal property. Those elected to occupy the seats are federal employees of the people of this nation. The ONLY way to get rid of this nonsensical notion of seat ownership is to ALLOW THE VOTERS OF AMERICA TO SELECT NEW TENANTS FOR THOSE VACATED SEATS.
Why Caroline Backed Obama
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Two weeks after he was nominated for president in July 1960, then-Senator Kennedy received a visit at his vacation home in Hyannis Port, Mass., from a Kenyan educator, Tom Mboya, who told him that more than 200 African students had received scholarships to American universities through the African-American Students Foundation but did not have the $100,000 for air transport. Despite efforts by Vice President Nixon (whom JFK would face in the November election), the Eisenhower State Department would not pay for what was described as "the African airlift."
With only weeks to go before the school year began, Kennedy quietly tapped his family's Kennedy Foundation, which agreed to raise the necessary funds privately. Upon learning this Nixon, seeking black votes, quickly convinced the State Department to reverse itself and offer the money, then arranged for one of his best-known African-American supporters, retired Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie Robinson, to write a newspaper column praising him for coming to the aid of the African students.
But Nixon didn't stop there. Sen. Hugh Scott, who headed Nixon's campaign "truth squad," took to the Senate floor to denounce JFK for "plucking this project away from the U.S. government" in a "misuse of tax-exempt foundation money for blatant political purposes." Kennedy replied that this was "the most unfair, distorted and malignant attack I have heard in 14 years in politics."
When the truth finally emerged, Robinson wrote a column saying, "I don't mind admitting it—I was wrong." The airlift money came through from the Kennedy Foundation, and the students arrived. Barack Obama Sr. went to the University of Hawaii, where he met and married a young white woman from Kansas.
Their son, born the following year, arrived in the United States Senate in early 2005 and found that the antique desk he had been assigned on the Senate floor had once belonged to JFK, whose initials were carved inside. Obama learned only recently how his father's dream of studying in the United States had been fulfilled. A "young senator from Massachusetts" made an effort, Obama told the crowd at American University. "And because he did, I stand before you today."
The story captured why Caroline felt so satisfied by the symmetry of Monday's event. By Tuesday she was off to Colorado to begin campaigning with the man she believes is the true heir to her own father's legacy.
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