Political Obituaries

[waltky]

House Means Committee Member Louise Slaughter passes...

Rep. Louise Slaughter dies at 88
03/16/18 - Rep. Louis Slaughter, an institution of New York politics and a groundbreaking Democrat on Capitol Hill, died early Friday morning after sustaining a head injury in a fall at her Washington residence last week.

The 88-year-old Slaughter made history in 2007, becoming the first woman to take the gavel of the powerful House Rules Committee, and was instrumental in securing some of the Democrats’ most significant legislative victories of the last decade, including ObamaCare and the law tackling lawmaker insider trading.
Slaughter's office announced her passing in a statement Friday morning. “To have met Louise Slaughter is to have known a force of nature. She was a relentless advocate for Western New York whose visionary leadership brought infrastructure upgrades, technology, and research investments, and two federal manufacturing institutes to Rochester that will transform the local economy for generations to come," Liam Fitzsimmons, Slaughter's chief of staff, said in a statement.

Rep. Loiuse Slaughter​

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hailed Slaughter as “a trailblazer” in the fight for universal health care and empowering women in politics. Congress, she said, “has lost a beloved leader and a cherished friend.” “In her lifetime of public service and unwavering commitment to working families, Congresswoman Slaughter embodied the very best of the American spirit and ideals,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Her strong example inspired countless young women to know their power, and seek their rightful place at the head of the decision-making table.”
Born in Kentucky and educated in microbiology, Slaughter moved to New York after graduate school, cutting her teeth in local and state politics before first arriving on Capitol Hill in 1987. She made an early mark as a champion of homeless children, women's reproductive rights, environmental protection of the Great Lakes region and the manufacturing sector surrounding her Rochester district. Following the Democratic wave of 2006, she seized the Rules gavel, becoming the first women in the nation’s history to chair the panel. Her New York colleague, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D), characterized her as “a giant.”

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[waltky]

Linda Brown, Kansas schoolgirl at the heart of landmark desegregation ruling, dead at 76...

Kansas schoolgirl, at the heart of landmark desegregation ruling, dead at 76
March 26, 2018 - The civil rights activist who as a Kansas schoolgirl was at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing racial segregation in American public schools, has died at age 76.

Linda Brown died on Sunday in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas, the administrator for the Peaceful Rest Funeral Chapel, Robin Bruce, told Reuters on Monday. Bruce said she was not at liberty to provide additional information on the circumstances of Brown’s death. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which brought the historic legal case challenging school segregation, hailed Brown and her family’s contribution to what it called “the most important, transformational Supreme Court decision of the 20th century.” “Linda Brown is one of that special band of heroic young people who, along with her family courageously fought to end the ultimate symbol of white supremacy - racial segregation in public schools,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-general of the organisation.

Brown’s father, Oliver Brown, who died in 1961, was the named plaintiff in the case filed on his daughter’s behalf and combined with several similar lawsuits contesting the “separate but equal” doctrine underpinning racial segregation. Linda Brown was a third-grader in an all-black elementary school more than 2 miles from her house when her father first tried in 1951 to enrol her in the all-white elementary school several blocks away and was rebuffed.

The ensuing court case was handled and argued by the NAACP’s lead attorney, Thurgood Marshall, who went on years later to be appointed the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court, in its unanimous May 14, 1954, decision in the case, ruled that racial segregation was a violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. A year later, the high court handed down a plan for how desegregation was to be carried out, ruling that it should proceed with “all deliberate speed.”

Kansas schoolgirl, at the heart of landmark desegregation ruling,...

 

[waltky]

Savior of Jewish children during Nazi regime passes away...

Johan van Hulst, the teacher who saved Jewish children
30 March 2018 - Some of the children Johan van Hulst helped rescue were so young that they no longer remember the daring acts that saved their lives.

Van Hulst, who died on 22 March aged 107, was a key part of the network that helped at least 600 Dutch babies and children escape the Nazis. Those children survived thanks to carefully orchestrated operations that smuggled them away right in front of the Nazis seeking to send them to concentration camps. In 1942, two years after the German invasion of the Netherlands, Johan van Hulst - the son of a furniture upholsterer - was working as a lecturer at a Calvinist teacher training college in Amsterdam. The school was in the predominantly Jewish neighbourhood of Plantage just east of the city centre.

Deciding who to save and who to leave was "the most difficult" thing Johan van Hulst ever had to do, he said​

In the summer of 1942, the school faced closure when the government withdrew funding. Van Hulst, unlike the school's management, insisted it could remain open without government subsidies, and knocked on the doors of students' parents to help fund it. It stayed open, and the remaining teachers and Van Hulst - now the principal, with two young children - kept it going by working twice their previous hours on a minimum wage. Across the road from Van Hulst's school was the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theatre seized by the Nazis in 1941 to be used as a deportation centre. While the records of those detained there are no longer available, historians believe about 46,000 people were deported from the old theatre over about 18 months up to the end of 1943. Most ended up at concentration camps in Westerbork in the Netherlands, or Auschwitz and Sobibor in occupied Poland.

The head of the crèche, Henriëtte Pimentel, convinced Van Hulst to join the rescue effort​

The deportation centre's administrator was a German-Jewish man named Walter Süskind, entrusted to run the centre by Nazis who disregarded his Jewish heritage because of his SS links. Soon after starting his work there however, he noticed that it was easy to help people escape. He falsified arrival numbers, claiming for example that 60 people instead of 75 had arrived on a particular day, and then letting 15 people escape. His task became easier when, in early 1943, the Nazis took over a crèche across the road from the theatre - and next door to Van Hulst's school - to place Jewish children before deporting them to concentration camps. Süskind joined forces with the head of the crèche, Henriëtte Pimentel, sneaking children to safety when a tram passed in front of the crèche. It was only when Pimentel persuaded Van Hulst to join them that their rescue efforts picked up speed.

Their buildings were separated at the back by a hedge. The crèche's nurses would pass children over the hedge to Van Hulst, who would in turn pass them on to Resistance groups who would help hide them. None of the escapees - whose departures were all agreed by their parents - had been registered as new arrivals, so their disappearances were not spotted. Only a handful were spirited away at a time - enough not to arouse suspicion. But helping some, while knowing others could not be spared, proved painful to the rescuers. "Everyone understood that if 30 children were brought, we could not save 30 children," Van Hulst told Dutch broadcaster NOS last year. "We had to make a choice, and one of the most horrible things was to make a choice."

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[waltky]

First Nelson, now Winnie...

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: Anti-apartheid campaigner dies at 81
2 Apr`18 - South African anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died aged 81, her personal assistant says.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was the former wife of South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela. The couple - famously pictured hand-in-hand as Mr Mandela walked free from prison after 27 years - were a symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle for nearly three decades. However, in later years her reputation became tainted legally and politically. Family spokesman Victor Dlamini said Mrs Mandela "succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones" following a long illness, which had seen her go in and out of hospital since the start of the year.

'Mother of the Nation'

Mrs Madikizela-Mandela was born in 1936 in the Eastern Cape - then known as Transkei. She was a trained social worker when she met her future husband in the 1950s. They went on to have two daughters together. They were married for a total of 38 years, although for almost three decades of that time they were separated due to Mr Mandela's imprisonment. It was Mrs Madikizela-Mandela who took his baton after he was jailed for life, becoming an international symbol of resistance to apartheid. She too was jailed for her role in the fight for justice and equality. To her supporters, she became known affectionately as "Mother of the Nation".

Who has paid tribute?

After news of her death broke, hundreds of her supporters gathered outside of her home in Soweto, Johannesburg to sing and dance in tribute. In a televised address President Cyril Ramaphosa - whom Mrs Madikizela-Mandela praised earlier this year - called her as a "voice of defiance" against white-minority rule. "In the face of exploitation, she was a champion of justice and equality," he said on Monday. "She as an abiding symbol of the desire of our people to be free". Retired archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said she was a "defining symbol of the struggle against apartheid". "Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists," he added.

Mrs Madikizela-Mandela (pictured in 1988) became a symbol for the anti-apartheid movement in her own right​

Energy Minister Jeff Radebe, reading out a statement on behalf of the family, paid tribute to "a colossus who strode the Southern African political landscape". "As the ANC we dip our revolutionary banner in salute of this great icon of our liberation struggle," he said. "The Mandela family are deeply grateful for the gift of her life and even as our hearts break at her passing we urge all those who loved her to celebrate this most remarkable South African woman." African National Congress (ANC) chairperson Gwede Mantashe said: "With the departure of Mama Winnie, [we have lost] one of the very few who are left of our stalwarts and icons. She was one of those who would tell us exactly what is wrong and right, and we are going to be missing that guidance."

South Africa's pride and joy - and my neighbour

 

[g5000]

I never liked Winnie.

 

[hjmick]

I never liked Winnie.

She had a vicious and violent streak...

 

[waltky]

First Native Hawaiian in U.S. Senate dies...

First Native Hawaiian in U.S. Senate, Daniel Akaka, dies at 93
April 6, 2018 -- Former Sen. Daniel Akaka, the first Native Hawaiian to serve in the chamber, died Friday, his family announced. He was 93.

His daughter, Millannie Akaka, said her father died at 5 a.m. at The Villas at St. Francis hospice, where he had been since November. He died of organ failure. "We are so fortunate to have him as long as we did. We were very lucky," a family statement said. Hawaiians elected Akaka to the House of Representatives in 1976, an office he held until 1990, when he was elected to the Senate. He retired in 2013 after serving more than three decades in Congress.

Former Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, died Friday at the age of 93.​

The Democrat was known for his modest political style and a champion of Native Hawaiian rights. He said he regretted never being able to get the Akaka bill passed in Congress, which would have established a Native Hawaiian governing body. "It is long past time for the Native Hawaiian people to have the same rights, the same privileges, and the same opportunities as every other federally-recognized native people," he told Hawaii News Now upon his retirement. He was, though, able to convince President Bill Clinton to apologize for the United States' role in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 on the 100th anniversary. Akaka is survived by his wife, Mary Akaka, five children, 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

First Native Hawaiian in U.S. Senate, Daniel Akaka, dies at 93

 

[waltky]

Kinda looked like Morgan Freeman...

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Dies at Age 80
18 Aug 2018 -- One of the world's most celebrated diplomats, he became the first black African secretary-general of the United Nations.

Kofi Annan, one of the world's most celebrated diplomats and a charismatic symbol of the United Nations who rose through its ranks to become the first black African secretary-general, has died. He was 80. His foundation announced his death in Switzerland on Saturday in a tweet, saying he died after a short unspecified illness. "Wherever there was suffering or need, he reached out and touched many people with his deep compassion and empathy," the foundation said. Annan spent virtually his entire career as an administrator in the United Nations. His aristocratic style, cool-tempered elegance and political savvy helped guide his ascent to become its seventh secretary-general, and the first hired from within. He served two terms from Jan. 1, 1997, to Dec. 31, 2006, capped nearly mid-way when he and the U.N. were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

During his tenure, Annan presided over some of the worst failures and scandals at the world body, one of its most turbulent periods since its founding in 1945. Challenges from the outset forced him to spend much of his time struggling to restore its tarnished reputation. His enduring moral prestige remained largely undented, however, both through charisma and by virtue of having negotiated with most of the powers in the world. When he departed from the United Nations, he left behind a global organization far more aggressively engaged in peacekeeping and fighting poverty, setting the framework for the U.N.'s 21st-century response to mass atrocities and its emphasis on human rights and development. "Kofi Annan was a guiding force for good," current U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. "It is with profound sadness that I learned of his passing. In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations. He rose through the ranks to lead the organization into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination."

In this Oct. 14, 2010, file photo, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan speaks at the World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa. Annan, one of the world's most celebrated diplomats and a charismatic symbol of the United Nations who rose through its ranks to become the first black African secretary-general, has died. He was 80.​

Even out of office, Annan never completely left the U.N. orbit. He returned in special roles, including as the U.N.-Arab League's special envoy to Syria in 2012. He remained a powerful advocate for global causes through his eponymous foundation. Annan took on the top U.N. post six years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and presided during a decade when the world united against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks -- then divided deeply over the U.S.-led war against Iraq. The U.S. relationship tested him as a world diplomatic leader. "I think that my darkest moment was the Iraq war, and the fact that we could not stop it," Annan said in a February 2013 interview with TIME magazine to mark the publication of his memoir, "Interventions: A Life in War and Peace." "I worked very hard -- I was working the phone, talking to leaders around the world. The U.S. did not have the support in the Security Council," Annan recalled in the videotaped interview posted on The Kofi Annan Foundation's website. "So they decided to go without the council. But I think the council was right in not sanctioning the war," he said. "Could you imagine if the U.N. had endorsed the war in Iraq, what our reputation would be like? Although at that point, President (George W.) Bush said the U.N. was headed toward irrelevance, because we had not supported the war. But now we know better."

Despite his well-honed diplomatic skills, Annan was never afraid to speak candidly. That didn't always win him fans, particularly in the case of Bush's administration, with whom Annan's camp spent much time bickering. Much of his second term was spent at odds with the United States, the U.N.'s biggest contributor, as he tried to lean on the nation to pay almost $2 billion in arrears. Kofi Atta Annan was born April 8, 1938, into an elite family in Kumasi, Ghana, the son of a provincial governor and grandson of two tribal chiefs. He shared his middle name Atta -- "twin" in Ghana's Akan language -- with a twin sister, Efua. He became fluent in English, French and several African languages, attending an elite boarding school and the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. He finished his undergraduate work in economics at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1961. From there he went to Geneva, where he began his graduate studies in international affairs and launched his U.N. career.

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[whitehall]

I believe there is a special place in hell for politicians who spent their careers catering to the abortion industry.