Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran summons Italian ambassador over arrest of Iranian wanted by US

2025-01-04

[IsraelTimes] Iran’s foreign ministry summons the Italian ambassador over the detention of an Iranian national wanted by the United States for his alleged role in a deadly dronezap against US forces, Iranian state media reports.

The summons comes a day after a similar move by Italia over Iran’s arrest of Italian news hound Cecilia Sala, who was seized in Tehran on December 19 while working under a journalist visa.

An Iranian foreign ministry official "urged Italia to reject America’s hostage policy — which is contrary to international law, particularly human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
— and provide for Mr. [Mohammad] Abedini’s release as soon as possible and prevent damage to bilateral ties," state media reports.

On Thursday, the Iranian embassy in Rome said Sala was being given all the humanitarian care necessary, and for the first time, linked her case to that of Abedini.
Which was so obvious, even Stevie Wonder saw it
Iran’s said on Monday that Sala had been arrested for "violating the laws of the Islamic Theocratic Republic." It gave no further information.

Sala was detained three days after Abedini, an Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a US warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2023 attack that killed three US service members in Jordan.

Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
has denied involvement in the attack.

Abedini is currently being held in prison and a court is due to decide this month whether to grant him house arrest while judges consider the US extradition request.

In recent years, Iran’s security forces have arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals, mostly on charges related to espionage and security. Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests. Iran denies this.

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-Obits-

Peter Gotti, former Gambino crime boss, dead at 81

2021-02-26

[NYP] Mobster Peter Gotti, the one-time Gambino crime boss and successor to brother John "Dapper Don" Gotti, died in North Carolina where he was serving time in federal prison. He was 81.

Gotti, who had been sentenced to 25 years in jail after being convicted in 2003 on racketeering and other charges, died of natural causes at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, the Associated Press reported.

The Bronx native served more than 17 years behind bars and had been recently seeking an early release because of his poor health.

He had been suffering from thyroid problems and was blind in one eye, Lewis Kasman, a former mobster and John Gotti confidant, told the AP.

Peter Gotti’s lawyers for years had sought to get him sprung from prison early on compassionate release.

"We are truly afraid he is dying now, he feels he is," attorney James Craven wrote in court papers in December 2019. "As his lawyer, I am afraid this will all become moot soon if nothing is done."

In another bid to have Gotti released, Craven remarked that even "Stevie Wonder could see" the former crime boss was not dangerous.

Kasman recalled Gotti, a former sanitation worker, as a "regular knockaround guy who didn’t let his title go to his head."

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Good morning

2020-11-02

Stevie Wonder Demands Reparations During
Biden Rally in Detroit: 'I Know Joe Biden Will Do It'

Monday November 2nd, 2020

US moves 150 PMCs from Libya to Europe..

JeanneCrainB07

Turkish-backed forces lose important base after clashes with jihadist ally in western Aleppo		Over 230 Syrian mercenaries killed in Karabakh since September 27
Antifa Protester Screams at Police, 'I Hope All of Your Children Get Raped and Killed'		Major battle approaches as Azerbaijani forces attempt to reach key city in Karabakh
Powerful fires engulf Karabakh forest after white phosphorus use		Armenia requests consultations with Russia over assistance in Karabakh

Man charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree
murder after Halloween sword attack in Quebec City

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Home Front: Politix

Stevie Wonder Demands Reparations During Biden Rally in Detroit: 'I Know Joe Biden Will Do It'

2020-11-02

[BREITBART] Because Stevie Wonder really, really needs a check to get by...

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Home Front: Politix

Stars at Obama's White House Farewell Bash Party Until 4 A.M.

2017-01-08

Obama to sleep for next three days.
[Breitbart] A litany of A-list celebrities braved below-freezing temperatures to attend President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama’s final party at the White House on Friday.

The star-studded crowd at the Obama’s farewell bash included George and Amal Clooney, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, Stevie Wonder, David Letterman, George Lucas, Paul McCartney, and many more.

Cell phones were reportedly confiscated, forcing stars to snap and post photos and videos to their social media accounts from outside the White House.

"Stumbling out of the White House at 4am after an incredible night celebrating 8 incredible years," wrote actress Olivia Wilde in a Twitter post in which she was posing next to her partner, actor Jason Sudeikis.

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-Short Attention Span Theater-

Prince puts on private show at White House

2015-06-16

[PageSix] Prince played two shows in Washington, DC, on Sunday, but he also gave a private VIP performance at the White House on Saturday night to celebrate African-American Music Appreciation Month.

Spies exclusively told Page Six that the "Raspberry Beret" singer brought Stevie Wonder up onstage for a surprise duet at the show for President Barack and Michelle Obama and 500 lucky guests.
It's good to be the king.

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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Message to Stevie Wonder: Your Home State of California has Stand-Your-Ground Law

2013-07-30

Hard cases make bad law and even worse fodder for the chattering classes. Most of the so-called lessons of George Zimmerman's acquittal on charges of murdering Trayvon Martin amount to educational malpractice.

There is no war on black men, at least not by white men. Last year, the Scripps-Howard News Service studied half a million homicide reports and found that killings of black victims by white attackers have actually dropped over the past 30 years, from 4,745 during the 1980s to 4,380 during the first decade of the 2000s. There were nearly twice as many white victims killed by black assailants: 8,503 in the 1980s, and 8,530 in the 2000s.
Let me get this straight, there are 5 times as many whites as blacks but twice as many blacks kill whites as whites kill blacks. I'm confused about this "Open Season" thingy.

Why isn't Stevie Wonder boycotting California? Wonder says he won't play in Florida until it "abolishes" its stand-your-ground law. But California, the state where he lives, also allows a stand-your-ground defense in murder trials.

When defendants claim to have killed someone in self-defense, California juries are instructed that "a defendant is not required to retreat. He or she is entitled to stand his or her ground and defend himself or herself and, if reasonably necessary, to pursue an assailant until the danger of [death or serious injury] has passed. This is so even if safety could have been achieved by retreating."

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Pink Floyd's Waters urged Wonder to skip pro-Israel event

2013-03-25

Pink Floyds Roger Waters took partial credit for Stevie Wonders decision to not perform at a Friends of the Israel Defense Forces event.

In an interview with pro-Palestinian media outlet Electronic Intifada, Waters said he was one of several celebrities who wrote to Wonder in an effort to dissuade him from playing at the Los Angeles gala in December.

Waters said, I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. It wouldnt be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a UN ambassador for peace.

He said South African leader Bishop Desmund Tutu also sent Wonder a similar message.

Waters compared Israels treatment of Palestinians with apartheid and argued sanctions against Israel were the most effective way to go. Waters supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state.

He said, I think that the kind of boycott that was implemented against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the day is probably the most effective way to go because the situation is that the Israeli government runs an apartheid regime in Israel, the occupied territories and everywhere else it decides. Let us not forget that they laid waste most of Lebanon around the time I started getting involved in this issue. They destroyed airports, hospitals, any public buildings they could.

Waters, one of the creative forces behind the rock band Pink Floyd, complained that the US media had intentionally ignored covering his protests against Israel in recent years, speculating it was under instructions from somewhere not to report these things to the American public, on what grounds I cannot guess.

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Home Front: Politix

Obama Hails 'Moral Imagination' of King at Dedication

2011-10-17

[An Nahar] U.S. President Barack B.O. Obama drew inspiration Sunday from the civil rights struggles of Martin Luther King in facing down today's political gridlock in Washington.

"When met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the 'is-ness' of today. He kept pushing towards the ought-ness of tomorrow,'" Obama told a crowd of thousands.

When "rebuilding an economy that can compete on a global stage, fixing our schools so that every child, not just some, but every child gets a world-class education, making sure that our health care system is affordable and accessible to all.... let us not be trapped by what is," Obama told the crowd gathered to dedicate a monument to the civil rights legend.

The U.S. president made his remarks with the country mired in squabbles with Congress over budget reform, reviving the stalled US economy, and a host of other issues.

His address was delivered after touring the towering monument with First Lady Michelle Obama and his daughters Sasha and Malia, strolling leisurely around the statue of King.

A massive, 28-foot (nearly nine-meter) "Stone of Hope" statue in the likeness of King, carved out of white granite, shows him gazing sternly out onto the horizon, arms folded.

In his address, Obama paid tribute to "Dr King's moral imagination," thanks to which he said "barricades began to fall and bigotry began to fade."

But he said seeing such visions through requires tenacity.

"We can't be discouraged by what is. We've got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago," he said.

"If we maintain our faith in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount," said Obama, America's first black president, as he paid tribute to the King, a crusader for African-American rights.

The president noted that when faced with setbacks, King "didn't say this was a failure, this is too hard, let's settle for what we got and let's go home."

"Instead, he said let's take those victories and broaden our mission to achieve not just civil and political equality but also economic justice. Let's fight for a living wage and beer schools and jobs for all who are willing to work."

The ceremony was attended by celebrities including soul legend Aretha Franklin, who stirred the crowd with a rendition of the gospel anthem "Precious Lord," one of her signature songs.

Soul singer Stevie Wonder concluded the ceremony, offering a version of his tribute song to Luther King, "Happy Birthday," written as part of a success campaign decades ago to stir up public support for a national holiday in the slain civil rights icon's honor.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Death of the Cool

2011-09-19

Back when I was a kid, I desperately wanted to be cool. I endlessly played my Miles Davis Birth of the Cool LP and devoured Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti not to mention Kerouac whom I saw when I was fifteen reading from The Subterraneans at Hunter College auditorium while swigging from a bottle of Scotch he had brought with him. (I thought that was cool.)

Being cool was everything to me then. And to most of my friends. We started as boy beatniks and morphed into hippies (of sorts) as the times rolled and then turned into yuppies, going upscale, but the values were the same. Many of us pretended to be Marxists, but at heart we knew we were liberals, just like mom and dad. Or most of our moms and dads.

But whatever our politics, play or otherwise, we were big time cultural rebels. Thought we were anyway. Sex, drugs and rock and roll.

All of that is so over. Just as it reached its apogee, with Stevie Wonder boogieing in the White House and the values of the Sixties spread through the upper echelons of our government, filled with more czars than the Hermitage ever dreamed of with a president who palled around with Bill Ayers, for crissakes, cool is now dead.

Maybe not officially dead (how could that be?) but dead enough. In fact, not only is it dead, its decomposed.

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Home Front: Politix

Obama's 50th Birthday bash

2011-08-05

WASHINGTON--President Obama celebrated his 50th birthday Thursday night with a celebrity-filled bash, as entertainer Chris Rock reported on his Twitter feed: "Just left the Presidents birthday party at the White House. Herbie Hancock played, Stevie Wonder sang and yes they did the electric slide. A great night."

Daughter Malia, 13 just arrived home from summer camp in time for the Rose Garden party as she was joined by her sister, Sasha, 10, First Lady Michelle, grandmother Marian Robinson and their godmother, Eleanor "Mama Kaye, Wilson," who flew to Washington from Chicago on Air Force One with Obama when he returned from his Thursday fund-raiser back home.

Obama's party--paid for, the White House said, by the First Couple--was closed press and not on his official schedule. Obama's team was not eager for pictures of the bash, coming as the stock market was plunging and a new jobless report comes out Friday morning.
As beltway insiders would say, "that's not good optics."
Eddie Gehman Kohan, who presides over Obama Foodorama, the website of record about entertaining in the Obama White House, put together a detailed report about the five-hour barbeque, based on interviews of people who were there. Read her entire article here.

UPDATE
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former Chief of Staff, was also at the party. END UPDATE

From Kohan's article: "Stevie Wonder gave a "surprise" performance during the celebration; his hit "You and I" was the President and First Lady Obama's wedding song. Revelers included Jay Z; Tom Hanks; Chris Rock; hoops legends Charles Barkley and Grant Hill; Whoopi Goldberg; Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith; and actor Hill Harper. He's one of the President's closest chums from Harvard law school, and star of CSI: NY. Jazz great Herbie Hancock and his ensemble played; R & B singer Ledisi dazzled the crowd.

"The night was balmy, and when dinner was done, a DJ spun dance tunes--"like at a Bar Mitzvah," said one guest. The twenty tables for ten in the Rose Garden were pushed aside so guests could dance, led by the President and Mrs. Obama.

"...Also on hand to mark the Presidential milestone were former governors Bill Richardson and Tim Kaine, and Mr. Obama's staunchest allies in the debt battle--Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Senior White House staff also celebrated: Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Cecelia Munoz, John Brennan, and Valerie Jarrett. Mrs. Obama's former Chief of Staff, Susan Sher, flew in from Chicago, as did two of the President's closest pals: Dr. Eric Whitaker, University of Chicago Hospital Vice-President, and The Parking Spot President and CEO Marty Nesbitt. Campaign fundraiser Andy Spahn was spotted, too."

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-Obits-

World bids farewell to icon Michael Jackson

2009-07-08

The world bid farewell to Music legend Michael Jackson on Tuesday with tears, laughter and performances at his public memorial service, which was dedicated to celebrating the life of the world's only King of Pop.
We have an offensive going on in Afghanistan, a counter-offensive by the Taliban in the same place, the ayatollahs in Iran at each other's throats, AQI trying for a comeback in Iraq, Somalia about to fall to Islamists again, North Korea's trying to chew through the national straps, and Venezuela about to invade Honuras. Michael Jackson was pretty much everything on the news.
Thousands gathered outside the Los Angeles Staples Center and an estimated billion people tuned in on television and online as the memorial kicked off with messages of condolences from South Africa's anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela, and singer Diana Ross, who were absent from the star-studded event along with Jackson's close friend Elizabeth Taylor.

"Michael was a giant and a legend in the music industry. And we mourn with the millions of fans worldwide," said Mandela's message, read out by singer Smokey Robinson as millions tuned in around the world to watch the tribute.

Music superstar Mariah Carey opened the night of performances with her cover of the Jackson Five's song "I'll Be There," which she sang standing in front of Jackson's gold-plated casket -- placed at the front of the stage.

Top singers Usher, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson and John Mayor also performed in between speeches from the likes of actress Queen Latifa, who read out a poem by famous author Maya Angelou, followed by a speech by a tearful Brooke Shields.

Basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson, Martin Luther King III were also in attendance.

One of the biggest ovations came after remarks made by Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown records who launched Jackson's career. "The more I think and talk about Michael Jackson, I feel the King of Pop is not big enough for him. I think he is simply the greatest entertainer that ever lived," said Gordy to sustained cheers.

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