2017 Obituaries of Note

[nic34]

Alan Colmes Passes Away At Age 66......





Fox News broadcaster Alan Colmes passed away on Thursday at the age of 66. Colmes' death was announced on Fox.


Colmes, a Democrat, was the co-host of Hannity and Colmes from 1996 until 2009.



Our prayers are with Colmes' family at this time......snip~


https://townhall.com/tipsheet/christ...ge-66-n2289606


R.I.P. Alan Colmes.

On Twitter, pundits mourned Colmes' passing, remembering him as a "good guy."

He was a good guy. Ask slant head Hannity....

I'm sure Mr. Dofflerson his RWNJ friend of Bangor Maine sent his regards as well.

[waltky]

Author-columnist Jimmy Breslin passes on...

Jimmy Breslin, chronicler of wise guys and underdogs, dies
Mar. 19, 2017 — Author-columnist Jimmy Breslin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of wise guys and underdogs who became the brash embodiment of the old-time, street smart New Yorker, dies Sunday. He was 87. Breslin died at his Manhattan home of complications from pneumonia, his stepdaughter, Emily Eldridge, said.

Breslin was a fixture for decades in New York journalism, notably with the New York Daily News. It was Breslin, a rumpled bed of a reporter, who mounted a quixotic political campaign for citywide office in the '60s; who became the Son of Sam's regular correspondent in the '70s; who exposed the city's worst corruption scandal in decades in the '80s; who was pulled from a car and stripped to his underwear by Brooklyn rioters in the '90s. With his uncombed mop of hair and sneering Queens accent, Breslin was like a character right out of his own work, and didn't mind telling you. "I'm the best person ever to have a column in this business," he once boasted. "There's never been anybody in my league."

With typical disregard for authority, Breslin once took out a newspaper ad to "fire" the ABC television network when it aired his short-lived TV show in a lousy time slot. That same year, he captured the 1986 Pulitzer for commentary and the George Polk Award for metropolitan reporting. More than 20 years earlier, with Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, Breslin had helped create "New Journalism" — a more literary approach to news reporting. He was an acclaimed author, too, moving easily between genres. "The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight" was his comic chronicle of the Brooklyn mob, "Damon Runyon: A Life" was an account of his spiritual predecessor, "I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me" was a memoir.

Breslin was to Queens Boulevard what Runyon was to Broadway — columnist, confessor and town crier, from the Pastrami King to Red McGuire's saloon. He reveled in the borough, even as he moved far beyond it. "Breslin is an intellectual disguised as a barroom primitive," wrote Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett in their book "City for Sale." The eccentric, entertaining Breslin acknowledged he was prone to fits of pique and a bad temper. After spewing ethnic slurs at a Korean-American co-worker in 1990, Breslin apologized by writing, "I am no good and once again I can prove it."

But the Pulitzer committee, in citing Breslin's commentary, noted that his columns "consistently championed ordinary citizens." The winning pieces exposed police torture in a Queens precinct, and took a sympathetic look at the life of an AIDS patient. A few days after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, he wrote of the dwindling hopes for the families. "The streets have been covered with pictures and posters of missing people," he wrote. "The messages on the posters begging for help. Their wife could be in a coma in a hospital. The husband could be wandering the street. Please look. My sister could have stumbled out of the wreckage and taken to a hospital that doesn't know her. Help. Call if you see her. But now it is the ninth day and the beautiful sad hope of the families seems more like denial."

MORE

[waltky]

Babi Yar poet dies at age 83...

‘Babi Yar’ poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko dies at age 83
Mon, Apr 03, 2017 - Yevgeny Yevtushenko, an internationally acclaimed poet with the charisma of an actor and the instincts of a politician whose defiant verse inspired a generation of young Russians in their fight against Stalinism during the Cold War, died on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had been teaching for many years. He was 83.

His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by a close friend, Mikhail Morgulis, with the TASS news agency, Radio Free Europe reported. It said he had been admitted late on Friday in “serious condition.” His wife, Maria Novikova, and their two sons, Dmitry and Yevgeny, were with him when he died. Yevgeny said his father’s doctors said that he was suffering from stage 4 cancer.

Yevtushenko’s poems of protest, often declaimed with sweeping gestures to thousands of excited admirers in public squares, sports stadiums and lecture halls, captured the tangled emotions of Russia’s young — hope, fear, anger and euphoric anticipation — as the country struggled to free itself from repression during the tense, confused years after Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953. In 1961 alone, Yevtushenko gave 250 poetry readings.

He gained international acclaim as a young revolutionary with Babi Yar, the unflinching 1961 poem that told of the slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews by the Nazis and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union. At the height of his fame, Yevtushenko read his works in packed soccer stadiums and arenas, including to a crowd of 200,000 in 1991 that came to listen during a failed coup attempt in Russia. He also attracted large audiences on tours of the West.

He was the best known of a small group of rebel poets and writers who brought hope to a young generation with poetry that took on totalitarian leaders, ideological zealots and timid bureaucrats. However, Yevtushenko did so working mostly within the system, taking care not to join the ranks of outright literary dissidents. By stopping short of the line between defiance and resistance, he enjoyed a measure of official approval that more daring dissidents came to resent.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worl.../03/2003668001

[waltky]

Don Rickles passes away...


Comic Don Rickles Dead at Age 90
April 06, 2017 — Don Rickles, the master insult comic who created laughs with ridicule and sarcasm in a decades-long career that earned him the facetious nickname "Mr. Warmth," died on Thursday at his Los Angeles home from kidney failure, his publicist said. He was 90.

Rickles, who said he developed his brand of mockery humor because he was no good at telling traditional jokes, had recently postponed some performances, including a show set for May in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was pushed back to November just this week. His death was confirmed by his spokesman, Paul Shefrin, who said Rickles is survived by his wife of 52 years, Barbara, as well as their daughter, Mindy Mann, and two grandchildren. He would have turned 91 on May 8. The New York-born Rickles had an intense, often-ad libbed, rapid-fire delivery and a wide, impish grin. He delighted nightclub audiences, Hollywood royalty and politicians by hurling invective at them, all in good fun.

Don Rickles appears onstage at The 2012 Comedy Awards in New York, April 28, 2012.

Encountering Frank Sinatra for the first time during a stand-up act in 1957, Rickles greeted the mercurial singer as Sinatra walked in with a retinue of tough guys by saying, "Make yourself at home, Frank - hit somebody." Luckily for Rickles, the line amused Sinatra, who became one of his biggest boosters and took to calling the short, bald Rickles "Bullethead." Performing decades later at the second inaugural gala of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1985, Rickles did not hesitate to zing the commander-in-chief, asking, "Is this too fast for you, Ronnie?"

Comedian Henny Youngman, second from right, clowns with celebrities, left to right, Don Rickles, Sugar Ray, Milton Berle and Jack Albertson in the Beverly Hills, California Hilton, Nov. 17, 1978.

But the most frequent targets of the "Merchant of Venom" were the fans who packed his performances for a chance to be belittled as a "dummy," a "hockey puck" or worse. Celebrities often showed up just for the honor of being mocked by Rickles, and no minority or ethnic group was immune to a Rickles tongue-lashing. "He was called 'The Merchant of Venom' but in truth, he was one of the kindest, caring and most sensitive human beings we have ever known," actor-comedian Bob Newhart and his wife, Ginnie, said in a statement. Comic actor Jim Carrey tweeted: "Don once begged me for a couple of bucks, then told me to twist myself into a pretzel. Ego slayer! Comic Everest!" Oscar winner Tom Hanks also tweeted a tribute to his "Toy Story" co-star, saying, "A God died today. Don Rickles, we did not want to ever lose you. Never."

Comedian Don Rickles (left) laughs with actor Kirk Douglas at Douglas' 100th birthday party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Dec. 9. 2016, in Beverly Hills, California.

Rickles also mocked himself and shied away from describing himself as an "insult comic," insisting that his humor was not intended to be mean-spirited but was built on making wild exaggerations for the sake of laughs. Much of Rickles' material played on racial and ethnic stereotypes that did not always keep up with cultural evolution. He came under fire in 2012 for a joke that characterized President Barack Obama as a janitor. His spokesman defended the line as just "a joke, as were the other comments Don made that night." "Anyone who knows him knows he's not a racist," the spokesman told Politico then.


Heckling the Hecklers

[Hal Jordan]

Like him or hate him, Rickles had a major impact on comedy. It's sad to see him go.

[waltky]

Jim Bunning, Hall of Fame pitcher and ex-US senator from Kentucky passes away...

Jim Bunning, Hall of Fame pitcher and ex-US senator from Kentucky, dead
May 27, 2017 | Former U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, a major league pitching star who took his aggressive, no-nonsense brand of competitiveness into the game of politics as a congressman and senator from Kentucky, died at the age of 85.

The family of Bunning released a statement following his death, which was due to complications from a stroke he suffered last October. He died at 11:55 p.m. Friday, according to the statement. "The family is deeply grateful for the love and prayers of Jim’s friends and supporters," the statement read. "While he was a public servant with a Hall of Fame career, his legacy to us is that of a beloved husband, caring father and supportive grandfather." A strong right-hander with more than 100 wins and a no-hitter in each of the two major leagues, Bunning enjoyed national fame as an athlete before capturing Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District in 1986.

Former U.S. Senator and Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning.

The staunchly conservative Republican from Northern Kentucky’s Campbell County easily won five successive two-year terms before giving up his House seat to run for the U.S. Senate in 1998. He served in the Senate from 1999 to 2010. "He changed the face of politics in Northern Kentucky," state Sen. Damon Thayer said Saturday. "He took such an interest in supporting local candidates. "He worked very hard to reshape the political scene in Northern Kentucky and across the 4th Congressional District." At 6 foot-3, Bunning was physically imposing, and on both the baseball diamond and Capitol Hill he was known for a toughness that could be intimidating. “He was a hard man, but you’d want him on your side because you knew he would be ready to play and he would give you everything at his command,” a Detroit News sportswriter, Joe Falls, wrote years ago.

Jim Bunning greeted supporters in March 1997 before making his official announcement that he would seek the office of retiring Sen. Wendell Ford.

He was referring to Bunning the pitcher but he could just as well have been talking about the politician. In his 17-year career in the big leagues, Bunning developed a reputation for throwing the ball close to batters, trying to back them off the plate. “If he had to brush back his mother, I think he’d do it to win,” former Detroit Tigers second baseman Frank Bolling said of his one-time teammate. In his second career, instead of baseballs, Bunning went after opponents and issues with strong rhetoric and an intense certainty in the correctness of his own views.

Bunning with then Jefferson County Ky. Judge Mitch McConnell Apr. `83

That was especially true with abortion. A Roman Catholic with nine children, Bunning voted consistently to limit abortion as an option for women and had contempt for colleagues who softened their position on the highly emotional issue. “My training, from the very first day that I was trained as a kid, was that anything like that was wrong,” the Jesuit-schooled Bunning once said in a Courier-Journal interview. “Not only legally wrong, but morally wrong.” Principled — that’s how admirers described Bunning. To critics rigid was a more appropriate adjective. Unafraid of confrontation and unencumbered by an active sense of humor, Bunning could come across as pugnacious. “He’s as negative as any person I’ve ever met in my life,” state Sen. Michael Moloney, a Democrat, said of Bunning in 1983 when he made an unsuccessful run for governor.

MORE

See also:

FLASHBACK: Jim Bunning's Historic and Heroic Stand
May 27, 2017 | [Editor's Note: This column originally appeared on March 3, 2010, when Jim Bunning was serving in the U.S. Senate. Bunning, who was born on Oct. 23, 1931, died last night in Southgate, Kentucky, at the age of 85.]

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, a 78-year-old grandfather of 40 who is not running for re-election, has single-handedly fought a battle on Capitol Hill over the past week that ought to inspire all taxpayers to rally around his banner of commonsense. Bunning not only said "NO" to a Congress that week after week has been driving the nation deeper and deeper into debt, but decided to use what power he has under Senate rules to make sure his "NO" was heard.

Three weeks ago, President Obama signed a law allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion. That law included a provision Washington insiders call "Pay-Go," which supposedly obligates Congress to offset any new spending it approves with new revenues or cuts in spending elsewhere in the budget. But this "Pay-Go" is a fraud.

A week after Congress enacted it, the House approved a bill that, among other things, "extended" for 30 days the current payment schedule for doctors treating Medicare patients, certain highway programs, the period of time that people can claim unemployment benefits and a provision included in last year's $787-billion stimulus law that temporarily provided federal subsidies to help cover COBRA health insurance payments for unemployed people. Each of these provisions was set to expire on the last day in February. But the House bill to extend them did not abide by Pay-Go. It contemplated adding $10 billion to the national debt.

Last week, the Senate approved a new $15 billion "jobs" bill pushed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. It also did not abide by Pay-Go. It contemplated adding $12 billion to the national debt. In the wake of this, Reid went to the Senate floor on Wednesday night to ask for the unanimous consent of his colleagues to bring up his version of the House "extension" bill. Like the House bill, it would add $10 billion to the national debt. If Reid had his way, the Senate would add $22 billion in new debt in two bills passed two weeks after enacting Pay-Go.

MORE

[waltky]

Helmut Kohl of Germany passes on...

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl dead at 87
16 June 2017 • Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the architect of Germany's 1990 reunification and mentor to Angela Merkel, has died at age 87, his Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) said on Friday.

The mass-selling newspaper Bild reported that Kohl died on Friday morning in his home in Ludwigshafen, in western Germany. "We mourn," the CDU tweeted with a picture of the former chancellor. Germany's longest serving post-war chancellor from 1982 to 1998, Kohl was a driving force behind the introduction of the euro currency, convincing sceptical Germans to give up their cherished deutschemark. An imposing figure who formed a close relationship with French President Francois Mitterrand in pushing for closer European integration, Kohl had been frail and wheelchair-bound since suffering a bad fall in 2008. Tributes quickly flowed in from around the world.

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush said he and his wife Barbara "mourn the loss of a true friend of freedom, and the man I consider one of the greatest leaders in post-war Europe." "Working closely with my very good friend to help achieve a peaceful end to the Cold War and the unification of Germany within NATO will remain one of the great joys of my life," he added in a statement. "Helmut was a rock." Gerhard Schroeder, Kohl's successor as chancellor, called him a "great patriot and European...The unification of our country and our continent will be linked to his name for all time." In Brussels, European flags were lowered to half mast in tribute.

Kohl with former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who served as Luxembourg's prime minister while Kohl was in office, tweeted: "Helmut's death hurts me deeply. My mentor, my friend, the very essence of Europe, he will be greatly, greatly missed." At home, Kohl is celebrated above all as the father of German reunification, which he achieved after the November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall despite resistance from partners such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He won voters in bleak communist East Germany by promising them "flourishing landscapes".

Shortly after leaving office, Kohl's reputation was tarnished by a financing scandal in his centre-right CDU, now led by Chancellor Merkel. Kohl mentored Merkel early in her career, appointing her to her first ministerial post. Until his death, Kohl refused to identify the donors, saying he had given them his word. European leaders said the EU must build on his legacy. Italian EU affairs minister Sandro Gozi tweeted: "We have lost a great leader, above all a European with vision and courage. We missed him and we will miss him. We must follow his example to relaunch the EU."

Source

[Venus]

Gregg Allman

gregg-allman-passes-away-ftr.jpg

[donttread]

The Gubmint.

Arnonld Palmer

[waltky]

Former New Mexico GOP senator, Pete Domenici, dead at 85...

Pete Domenici, former New Mexico GOP senator, dead at 85
Pete Domenici, the longest-serving senator from New Mexico, died on Wednesday, Fox News confirmed. He was 85 years old.

The former longtime Republican senator recently underwent abdominal surgery and was placed in intensive care after a recovery setback, the Albuquerque Journal reported. “He is out of pain and we all feel good about that,” the Domenici family told the newspaper. “We are grateful for all of the people who helped here at the hospital and elsewhere.”

Domenici was former chairman of the budget committee and served six terms as senator from 1973 to 2009. He declined to seek a seventh term in 2008 after revealing he had been diagnosed with an incurable brain disorder. The Albuquerque-born son of Italian immigrants carried a consistent message of fiscal restraint from his first term in 1972 until leaving office in early 2009.

He even refused once to buckle to President Reagan, who wanted him to delay the budget process. In a 1996 interview, Domenici said: "I am not just a Republican senator, it is not a Republican role...The facts are, when I got elected, I got elected by a lot of Democrats.” Former President George H.W. Bush had also considered him for vice president.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed his condolences on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. "The Senate is saddened today w the news of the passing of our friend Senator Pete Domenici. We offer our deepest condolences to his family," McConnell tweeted.

Leader McConnell
✔
@SenateMajLdr

The Senate is saddened today w the news of the passing of our friend Senator Pete Domenici. We offer our deepest condolences to his family.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...litics+-+Text)