Latest news with #TedKennedy
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Big fine might be in line after illegal grain trades
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Another business has been caught buying grain illegally in South Dakota. All Star Trading bought 11 loads for resale between July 8 and July 21 last year. The Illinois-based company didn't have a valid South Dakota grain buyer license when those purchases happened. CEO Ted Kennedy has agreed to pay a $11,000 fine. The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission will consider on Thursday whether to accept the agreement. The state commission oversees grain trading. Sioux Falls march attracts hundreds All Star Trading had been licensed since 2019 to buy grain in South Dakota. But the company let the license expire last summer. PUC staff last year sent four rounds of renewal reminders to license holders including All Star Trading ahead of the July 1 deadline. All Star Trading applied for renewal on July 8 but didn't send the required fee. The commission received the fee on July 22 and issued a license that day. On August 21, commission staff began a remote review of All Star Trading activities. The company submitted information on August 28. Commission staff made a second data request on September 9. The company didn't respond within five working days, as required. Commission staff sent follow-up emails on September 16 and September 23. The company responded on September 24. The records inspection found All Star Trading purchased 11 loads during July when the company was unlicensed. The purchases were made from three different entities over a period of five days. The company could face civil fines of up to $5,000 for each of the illegal purchases and up to $1,000 for each day the company didn't respond to the commission staff's requests for information. All Star Trading's Kennedy and commission staff have signed an agreement that the company would pay civil fines totaling $11,000 — $5,000 for the illegal purchases and $6,000 for the six days the company didn't respond. It's now up to the commission's three elected members — Gary Hanson, Chris Nelson and Kristie Fiegen — to decide whether to approve the settlement. The meeting starts at 1:30 p.m. CT in room 413 at the state Capitol. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Kennedy Institute lines up prominent Trump supporter for its board
Under board chair Bruce Percelay, a Boston-based developer, the EMK Institute is trying to go beyond accommodating tourists and school field trips at its signature Dorchester building, which features a full-sized replica of the US Senate chamber, to focus on a broader policy mission: encouraging bipartisan politics. It's a mission that the institute's namesake, Ted Kennedy, understood and practiced during his several decades representing Massachusetts in the Senate. Toward that end, the EMK Institute has held televised debates between prominent Democrats and Republicans, and encouraged leaders from both parties to attend confabs at the institute's homestead in Hyannis. The EMK board already includes several Republicans, including former US senators Saxby Chambless of Florida, John Sununu of New Hampshire, and Mel Martinez of Florida. But it was important to Percelay to bring someone on board with ties to Donald Trump, particularly now that Trump is back in the White House. 'There was nobody better at reaching across the aisle than Ted Kennedy,' Percelay said. 'This, to me, is emblematic of how Ted Kennedy would have functioned. You can't make progress or make change by talking in an echo chamber.' Advertisement Enter David Urban, a lawyer, lobbyist, and CNN commentator. He was once chief of staff for then-senator Arlen Specter, working on Capitol Hill for five years during Ted Kennedy's tenure. Urban helped Trump win over Pennsylvania voters in 2016. More recently, he got to know Joe Kennedy III during the former Massachusetts congressman's Senate campaign, and the two hit it off. (Joe Kennedy, grandnephew of Ted, is on the EMK Institute board, as is former Rhode Island congressman Pat Kennedy, a son of Ted's.) Urban owns a house on Nantucket, which is how he came to know Percelay, who publishes N Magazine on the island. Percelay, Urban recalled, invited him to Hyannisport to learn more about the institute. Advertisement The institute's mission dovetailed with Urban's political beliefs. With 60 votes needed to pass most major bills, bipartisanship is crucial to getting things done in the Senate, Urban said. 'The Institute really serves an important role in maintaining that bipartisan flame of the Senate,' Urban said. 'I'm happy to put my shoulder to the wheel and get some more folks up here who are Republicans, and help expand the mission.' This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston's business scene. Jon Chesto can be reached at
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Teddy's Tomb: The Kennedys Have Fallen Apart
When the late Sen. Ted Kennedy hired a bus and took his three kids and 26 nieces and nephews on family-bonding raft trips, sailing adventures and pilgrimages to places like Valley Forge and Bunker Hill, he couldn't have envisioned the scenes of recent weeks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation as health secretary established him, the family gadfly, as the effective standard-bearer of the next generation. The most potent liberal dynasty of seven decades went MAGA. And it happened with a heavy dose of Trumpian fracturing and chaos and recriminations. Caroline Kennedy, the family's most poignant keeper of the flame, telling gruesome stories of her cousin Bobby gleefully placing live chickens and mice in a blender, while luring his younger siblings into drug use. Jack Schlossberg, the family's great hope, posting angry words like 'liar' and 'guru shaman figure' while his uncle testified before Congress. Five of Bobby's siblings decrying his conversion to Trumpism as 'a sad ending to a sad story.' In truth, the Camelot myth has been fraying for decades, like spidering cracks in the once-ubiquitous portraits of the martyred president on dining-room walls. Revelations of heavy drinking and 'womanizing' — not to mention Teddy's own lurid scandal at Chappaquiddick — undermined the once-robust sense of family values shared by this sprawling, touch-football-loving clan. Joe Kennedy III's defeat in Massachusetts' Senate primary in 2020 ended the perceived electoral inevitability. But now, with RFK Jr. taking his place alongside President Donald Trump, two more pillars of the Kennedy mystique have fallen: the sense of family loyalty and the integrity of the Kennedy political brand. Through tragedy and scandal, the Kennedys kept on nurturing a common political faith, expressed in a breezily distinctive style. Unlike other family dynasties, such as the Bushes, in which each generation morphed with the times, the Kennedys were a fixed point on the political map: They were wealthy and famous and handsome, but they saw the pain and vulnerability of others. Whether it was RFK Sr. knocking on doors of log cabins to draw attention to Appalachian poverty or marching with Chicano grape pickers in California; or Ted Kennedy walking through waist-deep water to fight famine in Bangladesh or demanding AIDS treatments when few would touch the issue; or Eunice Kennedy Shriver using her bustling energy to create opportunities for people with disabilities — the blending of serious, forward-thinking commitment and noblesse oblige was apparent in every gesture. Fate decreed that Ted — the last surviving brother — would be the custodian of the family brand. As everyone knew, he was an imperfect vessel, especially when compared to his sainted brothers. But his long career proved that he understood as well — or better — what it took to carry that brand into new generations. Even as his rivals portrayed him as louche and undeserving, Ted crafted landmark legislation in immigration, health care and civil rights, drawing on his family's political capital and adding to it at the same time. For five decades he drank from the Kennedy chalice: His hideaway office in the Capitol was a de facto museum of Camelot, and he watched visitors marvel at the special blessings and curses of being a Kennedy. His dual roles as patriarch of the Kennedy family and CEO of the Kennedy political operation reinforced each other. He knew that 13 of his nieces and nephews struggled without the guiding hands of their fathers. He tried to fill the void, never missing a graduation or failing to acknowledge a birthday. But when he pulled together the whole gang for trips he delighted in planning, his motive was both familial and political: He wanted the kids to be there for each other, but also to receive their mandate. They were Kennedys, and they stood for something. Fortunately for the kids, the Kennedy brand extended beyond electoral politics. So younger Kennedys who abhorred politics, or whose foibles made them unlikely to withstand the scrutiny of running for office, could nonetheless flourish in the family business. RFK Jr., with a history of drug addiction and arrests, was a prime beneficiary. His global environmental activism fit the family mold. Here was a Kennedy taking on a righteous cause that was too hot for mainstream politicians. But when he veered into anti-vaccine activism, and medical specialists expressed alarm at misinformation he was spreading, he began to tarnish the family brand. Here was a cause a little too hot, and too tainted, to fit neatly into the Kennedy paradigm. And his willingness to sail the family ship into uncharted waters revealed what many Kennedy observers had long been saying in private: since Ted's death in 2009, the Kennedy family had been pulling apart, with different members mapping different courses. Even in Ted's heyday, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis raised her two children, Caroline and John Jr., at a discreet distance from the RFK family. Whether this was an expression of the former first lady's skills at image building — preserving a special status for the two children of the late president — or simple vigilance as a mother — keeping her kids away from the drugs being used by RFK Jr. and his brothers — is a matter of perception. Whatever the motive, her exertions did indeed establish Caroline Kennedy as her father's sole heir, a role she assumed after her brother's tragic death in 1999 in a plane crash. Still, Caroline never criticized another family member — until this year. Five of RFK Jr.'s eight surviving siblings — all four of his sisters and his brother Chris — had jointly condemned his support for Trump in strong terms, but with more sorrow than anger. Other family members supported them. But Caroline's letter to senators was more personally revealing than almost anything she has said in public in her 67 years. There was real pain behind her words, and she chose to read the letter aloud — solemnly, but with an edge of anger — to establish just how manifestly unfit she believed her cousin to be. 'I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together,' she said. 'It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator.' Caroline's son, Jack Schlossberg, reinforced his mother's views on social media: 'LIFE AND DEATH DECISIONS by someone who cannot tell the truth,' he asserted on X while Bobby Jr. was testifying. Schlossberg, 32, seems intent on following his grandfather into politics, but those footprints have faded. Caroline's attack on RFK Jr. was shocking to Kennedy watchers, and painful to those who remember Ted's sincere efforts to hold his relatives together, but it followed her tenure as Joe Biden's ambassador to Australia. She was speaking not only as a cousin but a member of a rival team. And these days, any expectation of family loyalty in politics is a quaint notion. RFK Jr. wasn't alone among Trump Cabinet nominees in confronting revelations by close family members; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's mother criticized his treatment of women in a 2018 email. Trump's own niece and nephew have published deeply personal attacks on his character. It's impossible to know how Ted Kennedy, if he had lived to see it, would have responded to his nephew's shape-shifting political project. But there is no such singularly powerful voice to guide Schlossberg as he attempts to build on his grandfather's legacy of service. The young Kennedy is nothing if not forewarned, however. The mystique is over. Dignity is lost. Family ties have unraveled. And once again, the Kennedys' plight is our own.
Politico
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Teddy's Tomb: The Kennedys Have Fallen Apart
When the late Sen. Ted Kennedy hired a bus and took his three kids and 26 nieces and nephews on family-bonding raft trips, sailing adventures and pilgrimages to places like Valley Forge and Bunker Hill, he couldn't have envisioned the scenes of recent weeks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation as health secretary established him, the family gadfly, as the effective standard-bearer of the next generation. The most potent liberal dynasty of seven decades went MAGA. And it happened with a heavy dose of Trumpian fracturing and chaos and recriminations. Caroline Kennedy, the family's most poignant keeper of the flame, telling gruesome stories of her cousin Bobby gleefully placing live chickens and mice in a blender, while luring his younger siblings into drug use. Jack Schlossberg, the family's great hope, posting angry words like 'liar' and 'guru shaman figure' while his uncle testified before Congress. Five of Bobby's siblings decrying his conversion to Trumpism as 'a sad ending to a sad story.' In truth, the Camelot myth has been fraying for decades, like spidering cracks in the once-ubiquitous portraits of the martyred president on dining-room walls. Revelations of heavy drinking and 'womanizing' — not to mention Teddy's own lurid scandal at Chappaquiddick — undermined the once-robust sense of family values shared by this sprawling, touch-football-loving clan. Joe Kennedy III's defeat in Massachusetts' Senate primary in 2020 ended the perceived electoral inevitability. But now, with RFK Jr. taking his place alongside President Donald Trump, two more pillars of the Kennedy mystique have fallen: the sense of family loyalty and the integrity of the Kennedy political brand. Through tragedy and scandal, the Kennedys kept on nurturing a common political faith, expressed in a breezily distinctive style. Unlike other family dynasties, such as the Bushes, in which each generation morphed with the times, the Kennedys were a fixed point on the political map: They were wealthy and famous and handsome, but they saw the pain and vulnerability of others. Whether it was RFK Sr. knocking on doors of log cabins to draw attention to Appalachian poverty or marching with Chicano grape pickers in California; or Ted Kennedy walking through waist-deep water to fight famine in Bangladesh or demanding AIDS treatments when few would touch the issue; or Eunice Kennedy Shriver using her bustling energy to create opportunities for people with disabilities — the blending of serious, forward-thinking commitment and noblesse oblige was apparent in every gesture. Fate decreed that Ted — the last surviving brother — would be the custodian of the family brand. As everyone knew, he was an imperfect vessel, especially when compared to his sainted brothers. But his long career proved that he understood as well — or better — what it took to carry that brand into new generations. Even as his rivals portrayed him as louche and undeserving, Ted crafted landmark legislation in immigration, health care and civil rights, drawing on his family's political capital and adding to it at the same time. For five decades he drank from the Kennedy chalice: His hideaway office in the Capitol was a de facto museum of Camelot, and he watched visitors marvel at the special blessings and curses of being a Kennedy. His dual roles as patriarch of the Kennedy family and CEO of the Kennedy political operation reinforced each other. He knew that 13 of his nieces and nephews struggled without the guiding hands of their fathers. He tried to fill the void, never missing a graduation or failing to acknowledge a birthday. But when he pulled together the whole gang for trips he delighted in planning, his motive was both familial and political: He wanted the kids to be there for each other, but also to receive their mandate. They were Kennedys, and they stood for something. Fortunately for the kids, the Kennedy brand extended beyond electoral politics. So younger Kennedys who abhorred politics, or whose foibles made them unlikely to withstand the scrutiny of running for office, could nonetheless flourish in the family business. RFK Jr., with a history of drug addiction and arrests, was a prime beneficiary. His global environmental activism fit the family mold. Here was a Kennedy taking on a righteous cause that was too hot for mainstream politicians. But when he veered into anti-vaccine activism, and medical specialists expressed alarm at misinformation he was spreading, he began to tarnish the family brand. Here was a cause a little too hot, and too tainted, to fit neatly into the Kennedy paradigm. And his willingness to sail the family ship into uncharted waters revealed what many Kennedy observers had long been saying in private: since Ted's death in 2009, the Kennedy family had been pulling apart, with different members mapping different courses. Even in Ted's heyday, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis raised her two children, Caroline and John Jr., at a discreet distance from the RFK family. Whether this was an expression of the former first lady's skills at image building — preserving a special status for the two children of the late president — or simple vigilance as a mother — keeping her kids away from the drugs being used by RFK Jr. and his brothers — is a matter of perception. Whatever the motive, her exertions did indeed establish Caroline Kennedy as her father's sole heir, a role she assumed after her brother's tragic death in 1999 in a plane crash. Still, Caroline never criticized another family member — until this year. Five of RFK Jr.'s eight surviving siblings — all four of his sisters and his brother Chris — had jointly condemned his support for Trump in strong terms, but with more sorrow than anger. Other family members supported them. But Caroline's letter to senators was more personally revealing than almost anything she has said in public in her 67 years. There was real pain behind her words, and she chose to read the letter aloud — solemnly, but with an edge of anger — to establish just how manifestly unfit she believed her cousin to be. 'I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together,' she said. 'It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator.' Caroline's son, Jack Schlossberg, reinforced his mother's views on social media: 'LIFE AND DEATH DECISIONS by someone who cannot tell the truth,' he asserted on X while Bobby Jr. was testifying. Schlossberg, 32, seems intent on following his grandfather into politics, but those footprints have faded. Caroline's attack on RFK Jr. was shocking to Kennedy watchers, and painful to those who remember Ted's sincere efforts to hold his relatives together, but it followed her tenure as Joe Biden's ambassador to Australia. She was speaking not only as a cousin but a member of a rival team. And these days, any expectation of family loyalty in politics is a quaint notion. RFK Jr. wasn't alone among Trump Cabinet nominees in confronting revelations by close family members; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's mother criticized his treatment of women in a 2018 email. Trump's own niece and nephew have published deeply personal attacks on his character. It's impossible to know how Ted Kennedy, if he had lived to see it, would have responded to his nephew's shape-shifting political project. But there is no such singularly powerful voice to guide Schlossberg as he attempts to build on his grandfather's legacy of service. The young Kennedy is nothing if not forewarned, however. The mystique is over. Dignity is lost. Family ties have unraveled. And once again, the Kennedys' plight is our own.
