NYC’s Triborough Bridge renamed for Robert F. Kennedy

Several generations of Robert F. Kennedy’s family gathered today for a ceremony renaming one of the city’s major bridges in honor of the slain senator and U.S. attorney general.
Kennedy’s wife, Ethel, sons Joseph and Robert Jr., and daughter Kerry were joined today by dignitaries including former President Bill Clinton in a park at the foot of the Triborough Bridge. They were joined by his niece, Caroline Kennedy.
"I love that the city he knew and cared about returned his devotion," Ethel Kennedy said in prepared remarks.
Kennedy, who would have turned 83 on Thursday, was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The senator "was about wanting to make life better for others," said Gov. David Paterson, who handed Ethel Kennedy a framed copy of the bill he signed renaming the bridge.
Kennedy "operated on a grand scale," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "He united us as New Yorkers and as Americans. America would not be the country it is without Robert F. Kennedy and all the Kennedys."
The bridge, which opened in 1936, is the first major public work dedicated to Kennedy in the state he represented from 1965 to 1968. It is a complex of three spans that connect Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens.

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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view.bg?articleid=1133449
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Caroline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., younger Kennedy generation, eyed for key positions

While Camelot could be returning to the White House, not everyone is enamored of the possibility that two members of the fabled Kennedy clan might score prized posts in Barack Obama’s cabinet.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and activist, is reportedly being considered for the position of administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency while cousin Caroline Kennedy is a possibility for ambassador to the United Nations.
Marc Landy, a Boston College political science professor who wrote a book on the EPA, said Robert Kennedy would be an “innappropriate” pick for the EPA post, which he described as “one of the hardest” public management jobs in government.
“It’s not a good place to make a kind of symbolic appointment,” Landy said yesterday. “You need a pro.”
The professor said Kennedy was an “estimable environmentalist” and consciousness raiser about the issue but he’s not a public manager. “It’s innappropriate. It’s wrong,” Landy said. “Government is not all about symbol and impulse, it’s an awful lot of grinding, managerial work.”
Kennedy told the Huffington Post that he would serve in the Obama administration if they asked. “You know what, I would be of service in any way that the administration asked me to be,” Kennedy said. Kennedy’s assistant did not return a call to the Herald.
As for Caroline Kennedy, Landy said the United Nations ambassador is a symbolic figure who does a lot of speechifying and attends many receptions.
“One could imagine Caroline Kennedy, given the resonance of her name, her poise and her fine public presence, being really quite an estimable U.N. ambassador because of the nature of the post,” Landy said.

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http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/general/view.bg?articleid=1130595

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. champions new national energy policy during Fremont speech

Energy policy is by far the most important issue in this year's presidential election, one that transcends partisan politics and dwarfs the nation's current economic crisis, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
AP file photoRobert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy, an environmental activist and attorney, addressed a crowd of nearly 700 people Tuesday at Grant High School. His visit was part of the Fremont Area Community Foundation's Speaker Series.
In a nearly two-hour speech, the son of the late Bobby Kennedy opined on everything from pollution and politics to religion, world history and how he believes media monopolies are hurting the nation's democracy.
But his central theme was that America must transition from a carbon-based economy, which relies on petroleum products, to one powered by clean energy harvested from the wind, sun and the Earth's heat.
"The way we deploy energy in this country is really the key economic and national security issue in this election," Kennedy said. "Carbon is the principal drag on American capitalism.
"We're borrowing a billion dollars a day to buy oil from countries that don't like us very much," he said. "What we're spending to bail out Wall Street ($700 billion) is chump change compared to what we spend every year on foreign oil."
Massive wind farms in the Great Plains and solar power fields in the Nevada desert could provide all the electricity needed for every building and vehicle in the U.S. That would end America's need for foreign oil, generate billions in new investments and create millions of jobs, Kennedy said
The nation's current energy policy relies largely on foreign oil and coal-fired power plants, which contribute to global warming and a host of other environmental and public health problems.
Kennedy said the U.S. should follow the lead of countries like Sweden and Iceland, which use alternative energy sources -- wind, solar and geothermal -- to generate nearly all of the electricity needed to power their economies, homes and vehicles.
Building the energy grid needed to capture and distribute energy from clean sources could cost more than $500 billion. But a modern power grid capable of handling wind and solar power could do for the nation's electric economy what the Internet did for the personal computer industry, Kennedy said.
"The electrons are hitting the Earth every day, free of charge -- all we have to do is harvest them and get them to the consumer," Kennedy said. "All it takes is a little leadership."
He praised presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama for pledging support for alternative energy and reducing America's dependence on foreign oil. Kennedy said either candidate would be an improvement over President Bush, who he called the most environmentally destructive president in the nation's history.
"He's lead a stealth attack ... that has eviscerated 30 years of environmental regulations," Kennedy said.

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http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2008/10/robert_f_kennedy_jr_champions.html

Governor Palin's Reading List

Robert F. Kennedy Jr:

"Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."
It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list."

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/governor-palins-reading-l_b_126478.html

Family Honors Robert F. Kennedy At Brown Palace

The Democrats are celebrating their historic nomination this week as Barack Obama becomes the first African American candidate from a major party to run for president.

But the party is also celebrating its heritage and the Kennedy family has been the focus of several events.Many of the Kennedys joined other dignitaries to honor the legacy of another member of the family, Robert F. Kennedy, on Wednesday.

There were Kennedys everywhere: Ethel, Patrick, Robert Jr., Kathleen and Max were all at the event.

(...) "The life he lived was based on hope and bringing the people together," Max said. "If you look just at that one photograph of my dad with Cesar Chavez breaking bread together … I think that encapsulates the idea of the United States coming together for the first time."

"He was also one that stepped outside the establishment," Rev. Al Sharpton said. "To oppose the war in Vietnam he showed courage, he showed vision and ultimately it cost him his life."

The event was held by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, an organization that focuses on human rights and social justice.

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http://cbs4denver.com/entertainment/robert.f.kennedy.2.805849.html

Convention Confidential: Kennedy Bob-ing out of the way

Bobby Kennedy Jr. politely dodged questions about his political future now that Hillary Clinton won't be vacating her U.S. Senate seat. But he gave such a rousing speech at a Denver benefit for the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial on Wednesday that admirers urged him to run for something soon.
Building on the emotional appearance of Uncle Ted at the Democratic convention two days earlier, Kennedy departed from his usual environmental concerns to connect his father's mission with the state of America today.
"When I was 13, I went on a trip to Europe with my father and mother," he recalled. "We went to Czechoslovakia and Poland and Germany. We were greeted by hundreds of thousands of people, who came to hear an American politician. It wasn't because [President Kennedy] had been martyred three years before. Even when Eisenhower went to Kabul and Teheran, he was met by thousands of Muslims who carried American flags.
"It took 230 years of discipline and restrained leadership by Republican and Democratic Presidents to build up a reservoir of love for the U.S. In the last seven years, through incompetence, we have drained those reservoirs dry."
Kennedy went on to indict the Bush administration for "torture, suspending habeas corpus and eavesdropping on hundreds of thousands of people."
Though Ted Kennedy was back in Massachusetts continuing his cancer treatment, 80-year-old Ethel Kennedy came with a flock of children and grandchildren.

Her daughter Kerry, who's been at the front of the RFK Memorial's human rights crusade, told us she's thought about running, "but I'm divorced with three kids. Right now, I want to be a mother."
What about rumors that her increasingly visible cousin, Caroline Kennedy, might run for office?
"I don't know," said Kerry, "but she'd be so great. She really has the capacity to bring people together." Bobby agreed: "We'd all be delighted to see her [run]."
Meanwhile, Gov. Patterson confirmed that the Triborough Bridge would be officially renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge on Nov. 19.
(...)

Go to:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/08/29/2008-08-29_convention_confidential_kennedy_bobing_o.html

RFK JR AT THE DNC

Beneath the blazing August sun, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the stage in front of Coors Field's outfield bleachers and said that importing energy "is the principal drag on American capitalism and American prosperity."
The solution to the problem was literally beating down on him. At least that's the message at solar energy's keystone event at the Democratic National Convention. Kennedy, environmental lawyer and son of Robert F. Kennedy Sr., was the keynote speaker at the Solar Energy Industries Association's SunFest 2008.
SEIA's Wednesday afternoon event epitomized just how far and how fast the industry has come. In addition to Kennedy, several congressmen, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., spoke at the event.
(...) In the meantime, the industry is desperate for Congress to extend an investment tax credit that has spurred demand and growth in the industry. (See: "Dying For a Tax Break.") So far this year, lawmakers have failed to pass the extension eight times. But Kennedy says he is optimistic that Democrats will win both houses of Congress in this fall's election, making approval of the tax extension more likely.
(...)

To read the full article go to:

http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/08/28/dnc-solar-power-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0828solar.html