From Wire Reports

The death of Denise ‘Vanity’ Matthews must have hit Prince pretty hard. Currently on tour in Australia, Prince dedicated his Melbourne show to Matthews, who had been battling illness for some time. The Herald Sun in Australia reports that Prince’s intimate show was reworked to pay homage to Matthews, Monday after battling a long-term battle with kidney issues.

The Herald Sun reports: 

His first Melbourne show at the State Theatre was particularly emotionally charged — Prince admitting he’d just found out about the death of Denise Matthews, aka Vanity, his ex-girlfriend from the early ‘80s and protoge when she fronted the band Vanity 6.

“Someone dear to us has passed away, I’m gonna dedicate this song to her,” Prince said before playing a touching version of “Little Red Corvette” with a touch of “Dirty Mind” — songs from the era when they were together.

Prince reworked his classic “The Ladder” to replace the name ‘Electra’ with ‘Vanity’ — so the lyrics ran “This Prince, he had a subject named Vanity who loved him with a passion, uncontested.”

After an encore Prince returned to the stage noting “I am new to this playing alone. I thank you all for being so patient. I’m trying to stay focused, it’s a little heavy for me tonight. Just keep jamming … She knows about this one.” That introduced a truly incredible version of “The Beautiful Ones,” another song from the Vanity era (she was the original choice for lead in the Purple Rain movie), the song ending with Prince changing “my knees” for “Denise … Denise”.

Unusually chatty and candid, he continued going off script. “Can I tell you a story about Vanity? Or should I tell you a story about Denise? Her and I used to love each other deeply. She loved me for the artist I was, I loved her for the artist she was trying to be. She and I would fight. She was very headstrong because she knew she was the finest woman in the world. She never missed an opportunity to tell you that.”

Prince then opened up about a fight where he threatened to throw Vanity in the pool. She said “You can’t throw me in the pool, you’re too little”. He then asked his six foot bodyguard Chick to do the dirty work for him.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling this story,“ he said, “but she’d want us to celebrate her life and not mourn her.”

From Wire Reports

Change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored — cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging, and it sought to drastically transform the system.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change. Directed, produced and written by Stanley Nelson, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” premiered on “Independent Lens” Tuesday, Feb. 16 on PBS.

“The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” is the first feature-length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails. Master documentarian Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it.

The documentary begins in a riotous flutter of revolutionary flash, set to a pulsating soul power soundtrack circa 1966. An infuriated knot of activists in Oakland who initially called themselves The Vanguard, sick and tired of being treated as punching bags and shooting targets by the local cops, organized their own watchdog units to follow the police and keep them from mistreating anybody. Realizing that California state law allowed them to carry guns in public, they did just that, and set off a firestorm. They could protest all they wanted that they were simply following their constitutional rights, but all the police and politicians saw was the threat of open revolt.

The film goes on to track the group’s brilliant political theater, designed to highlight the absurdity of laws against open carry suddenly being passed once black people had the temerity to follow it. The media images of these seemingly staunch militants refusing to be cowed by the establishment, and being very clear about being “ready to throw down” if the cops got out line, shocked a white establishment already nervous about the speed with which the civil rights movement had notched up victories.

Featuring Kathleen Cleaver, Jamal Joseph and dozens of others, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” is a vibrant chronicle of this pivotal movement that gave rise to a new revolutionary culture in America.

“Stanley Nelson is one of our greatest chroniclers of American movements for justice and social change,” said Lois Vossen, “Independent Lens” executive producer. “From the ill-fated People’s Temple to the idealistic young volunteers of Freedom Summer, from the Native American uprising at Wounded Knee to the Black Panther movement, he brings these incendiary, game-changing movements to vivid life in a way that combines clear-eyed analysis with riveting, edge-of-your-seat storytelling.”

Visit the Black Panthers page on “Independent Lens,” which features more information about the film. “The Black Panthers: Vanguards of the Revolution” will be available on DVD and Blu-ray from PBS Distribution on Feb. 16. The DVD and Blu-ray can be purchased by going to ShopPBS.org or calling 800-PLAY-PBS.

The Amsterdam News contributed to this report.

By Kathleen Hennessey & Donna Cassata

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama last week said that he would seek to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, charging into a heated and likely prolonged election-year fight with Republicans.

Obama said a nomination was “bigger than any one party.” Several minorities have been mentioned as possible replacements including  either Attorney General Loretta Lynch or California Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Howard University graduate.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, among others, has also been mentioned as a possibility as well as Paul J. Watford, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Watford, an African-American, who served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from 1995 to 1996. 

However, one leading candidate appeared to be Sri Srinivasan, a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, a popular stepping stone to the Supreme Court. The son of immigrants from India, he clerked for conservative appeals court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson and Sandra Day O’Connor, a frequent swing voter on the Supreme Court.    

Srinivasa, 48, former chief deputy to the U.S. solicitor general, was confirmed for his present position by the Senate by a vote of 97-0 in 2013, a fact Obama hopes will make his nomination more difficult to oppose.

With a half-dozen or more major cases and the ideological tilt of the court in the balance, Obama said he pIanned “to fulfill my constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor in due time.”

The president said the decision was about democracy and “the institution to which Justice Scalia dedicated his professional life, and making sure it continues to function as the beacon of justice that our founders envisioned.”

Obama’s remarks answered Republicans who wasted little time Saturday night, as news of Scalia’s unexpected death spread, arguing that Obama should leave the lifetime appointment to his successor.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

His position was echoed by several Republicans seeking the GOP presidential nomination. Sen. Ted Cruz said conservatives could not risk losing influence on the court “for a generation.” Donald Trump urged Senate Republicans to “delay, delay, delay.”

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton told a Democratic dinner in Denver that Obama “is president of the United States until Jan 20, 2017. That is a fact my friends, whether the Republicans like it or not.”

“Let’s get on with it,” said Democrat Bernie Sanders, arguing that the Senate should vote on whoever Obama nominates. The court has already heard — but not decided — big cases involving immigration, abortion, affirmative action and public employee unions.

With many cases recently decided by 5-4 margins, with Scalia leading the conservative majority, the vacancy could have major repercussions, both legally and in the presidential race.

The nomination fight in the Senate could determine the tenor of much of Obama’s final year in office — and ricochet through the campaign to replace him. Obama, who already has little goodwill on the Hill, faces stiff opposition from Republicans hungry for the chance to further tip the court to the right. A confirmation process often takes more than two months, but could be drawn out longer by the Republican-led Senate.

Obama said the Senate should have enough time for a fair hearing and timely vote. Senate Democrats made clear that they would work vigorously to keep Republicans from trying to run out the clock. They quickly offered counterarguments to Republican statements that the decision should rest with the next president.

“It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. “Failing to fill this vacancy would be a shameful abdication of one of the Senate’s most essential constitutional responsibilities.”

Democrats pointed out that Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in an election year — 1988 — the final year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Kennedy had been nominated in November 1987 after the Senate rejected Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg bowed out. Democrats also argued that waiting for the next president in January 2017 would leave the court without a ninth justice for more than the remainder of Obama’s term as Senate confirmation would not be immediate.

The court faces a crowded docket of politically charged cases that are certain to resonate in the presidential campaign on issues such as immigration, abortion, affirmative action, climate change, labor unions and Obama’s health care law. Decisions were expected in late spring and early summer on whether the president could shield up to 5 million immigrants living in the United States illegally from deportation.

The immediate impact of Scalia’s death means that the justices will now be divided 4-4 in many of those cases. If there is a tie vote, then the lower court opinion remains in place.

A Senate looking at a limited legislative agenda in an election year now faces one of the most consequential decisions for the venerable body. Not only will voters choose the next president, majority control of the Senate is at stake in November, with Republicans clinging to control and concerned about the fate of some half dozen GOP senators running for re-election in states that Obama won.

Scalia’s replacement would be Obama’s third Supreme Court appointment — joining Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. A short list of possible replacements includes Patricia Ann Millet, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Millet has argued dozens cases before the Supreme Court.

Not all the Republicans said Obama should skip a nomination fight. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is positioning himself as a moderate, said Obama has the power to nominate and should use it.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich lamented, “I just wish we hadn’t run so fast at the politics.”