President Obama Left Quite a Mark at the Funeral Service for Elijah Cummings
(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)
WASHINGTON—There are quite a few people in this city who are adept at throwing shade. But there is no shade like Obama shade. Obama shade is deeper and cooler than the shade thrown by ordinary mortals. Under Obama shade, you could play hockey in the Mojave. On Friday, people said their final farewells to Rep. Elijah Cummings up in Baltimore. It was a lyrical, joyful service at which a number of people spoke. One of them was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said, in part:
Like that Old Testament prophet, he stood against corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Mmmmmm, Bible shade. Let me get out of this hot sun for a moment. But the ombre de resistance came from the most recent former president, who gave everyone in church and on television some coverage.
It has been remarked that Elijah was a kind man. I tell my daughters—and I have to say, listening to Elijah’s daughters speak, that got me choked up. I am sure those of you who have sons feel the same way—but there is something about daughters and their fathers. And I was thinking I would want my daughters to know how much I love them, but I would also want them to know that being a strong man includes being kind. That there is nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There is nothing weak about looking out for others. There is nothing weak about being honorable. You are not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.
I was sitting here and I was just noticing the “honorable” Elijah E. Cummings. You know, this is a title that we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office. We are supposed to introduce them as “honorable.” But Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected to office. There’s a difference. There is a difference if you were honorable and treated others honorably. Outside the limelight. On the side of a road. In a quiet moment, counseling somebody you work with. Letting your daughters know you love them.
Yeah, that'll leave a mark.
Late on Friday, the Democratic House got a big boost in court. A federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to release the redacted evidence gathered by the grand jury associated with Robert Mueller's investigation to the House Judiciary Committee. From CNBC:
Judge Beryl Howell, in her ruling, repeatedly noted that the House is conducting an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, which could be assisted with the material assembled by Mueller’s probe. “The need for continued secrecy is minimal and thus easily outweighed by [the Judiciary Committee’s] HJC’s compelling need for the material,” Howell wrote in the decision issued in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where she is chief judge.
“Tipping the scale even further toward disclosure is the public’s interest in a diligent and thorough investigation into, and in a final determination about, potentially impeachable conduct by the President described in the Mueller Report.”
And, just in passing, Judge Powell removed the innards from Lindsey Graham's feckless resolution about the propriety of the House's current impeachment inquiry.
Howell brushed aside arguments made by Trump’s supporters in and outside of Congress that the House’s impeachment inquiry is illegitimate because the House has not held a formal vote to authorize such a probe. “Even in cases of presidential impeachment, a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry,” the judge wrote.
They really have nothing anymore.
Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Trick Bag" (Earl King): Yeah, I still pretty much love New Orleans.
Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Friday was the 90th anniversary of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Here's some video of people on Wall Street waiting to hear the bad news and just generally milling around in the middle of the street. History is so cool.
It was a light day on Capitol Hill, but I did get to see Jane Fonda and Ted Danson get arrested in the middle of First Street as part of an environmental protest. Capitol Police were everywhere, their belts thick with zip-ties. All I could think of was that the only way you can disrupt the government in Washington and not get arrested is to be a congresscritter who got elected on television. In that case, you can go on TV and whine at Sean Hannity about how oppressed you both are. Dennis The Peasant meets Uriah Heep. Next on Fox.
Is it a good day for dinosaur news, New York Times? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!
Now, a team of paleontologists has uncovered a trove of thousands of fossils in Colorado that provides an in-depth look at the first million years following the K-Pg mass extinction event. The finding provides insight into the interactions between animals, plants and climate that occurred in the earliest days of the age of mammals, and that allowed them to grow from the size of large rodents into diverse wildlife we might begin to recognize today. “We provide the most vivid picture of recovery of an ecosystem on land after any mass extinction,” said Tyler Lyson, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. His team’s paper was published on Thursday in Science.
Eventually, of course, the mammals ended up being, well, us, who know that dinosaurs lived then to make us happy now.
The Committee is very big into self-reference, and The Committee gets all warm and fuzzy when it finds evidence that people have been coming to the shebeen for a while now. That is how Top Commenter Jeff Moore got to be Top Commenter of the Week.
I'm suddenly nostalgic for the days when our biggest problems were Dolphin Ladies, Girls With Faraway Eyes, seeing Russia from the front porch, Padisha Emperors from Texas, Tan Suits being lighter than the wearer's skin, depressed Irish Setters, and Mittens, bitchez, being all they've got. Life was less absurd then.
Jeff has a permanent stool at the bar and his own personal bottle of Prestone Patron, and now he has 90.11 Beckhams to spend.
I'll be back on Monday with whatever nightmares come true over the weekend. Play nice and be well, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line, and take some time to cool off in the shade.
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