>>9576159 lb

https://pelosi.house.gov/news/press-releases/pelosi-remarks-at-the-funeral-of-senator-robert-c-byrd

>Pelosi Remarks at the Funeral of Senator Robert C. Byrd

>Jul 2, 2010 Press Release

>Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami/Drew Hammill, 202-226-7616

>Charleston, West Virginia – Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks today in Charleston, West Virginia at the funeral of Senator Robert C. Byrd, who died earlier this week. Below are the Speaker’s remarks:

>“Good afternoon. Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Leaders Reid and McConnell, Bishop Grove, so many friends of Senator Byrd who are gathered here. I am so pleased to join my colleagues from West Virginia—Mr. Rahall, who is a chairman and a great leader in the Congress of the United States; Congressman Alan Mollohan, he is a chairman as well; Shelley Moore Capito. I am pleased to be with them as well as our delegation from the House of Representatives led by our Leader Steny Hoyer in the House.

>“I bring, as Speaker of the House, I sadly have the privilege of bringing the condolences of the House of Representatives to Marjorie and to Mona and the entire Byrd family. As a friend of Senator Byrd, I do so with great sadness.

>“But happily, thanks to the Byrd family, some of us had the opportunity to sing Senator Byrd’s praises in his presence in December, when he became the longest-serving Member of Congress in American history.

>“I noted then that Senator Byrd’s Congressional service began in the House of Representatives. In those six years in the House, he demonstrated what would become the hallmarks of his commitment: his love of the people of West Virginia, his passion for history and public service, and his remarkable oratorical skills.

>“And I am going to talk to you about his service in the House briefly. In 1953, this is one of his earliest speeches, he came to the floor of the House and he said: ‘I learned quite a long time before becoming a Member of this House that there is an unwritten rule in the minds of some, perhaps, which is expected to cover the conduct of new members in a legislative body to the extent that they should be often seen but seldom be heard; I have observed this rule,’ he said, ‘very carefully up to this time and I shall continue to do so… however…the book of Ecclesiastes…says: ‘To everything there is a season… a time to keep silence and a time to speak.’ And he decided it was time for him to speak.

>“He went on in that speech; it was one of his earliest speeches. He went on in that speech to quote not only the bible but Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, and Daniel Webster. And, Mr. President, this was a speech about world trade.

>“Though he thrived in the House, when he moved on to the Senate, Senator Byrd remarked that he was happy to leave behind the limitations on speaking time on the House floor.

>“On a personal moment, I’ll never forget a dinner I hosted for him in the early 80’s when he was running for reelection at that time, in California.

>“After dinner, we didn’t know what to expect. We were all so nervous to be in the presence of such a great person. And what did he do? He pulled out his fiddle and regaled us with West Virginia tunes and told us great stories about each and every one of you. That was an act of friendship that I will never forget.

>“Later, when I came to Congress, I told Senator Byrd how my father, who had served in Congress, gave me the image of a coalminer carved in coal. It is the only thing I have from my father’s office as a Member of Congress. It had been a gift to him from Jennings Randolph, who had represented West Virginia so well, and it sat in my father’s office when he was in the House of Representatives.

>“It now sits in the Speaker’s office. It is in my West Virginia corner, along with a silver tray from Senator Byrd which I love especially because it is engraved, ‘With thanks, from Robert and Erma.’

>“In the beginning of my comments, I mentioned a speech of Senator Byrd’s on the House floor. That day, in 1953, he quoted the words of Daniel Webster. These words, when you come to the Capitol, are etched on the wall of the chamber high above the Speaker’s chair. And these words would come to define his leadership but he voiced them in that earliest speech. Senator Byrd said, ‘Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered.’ Daniel Webster.

>“Senator Byrd’s service, and his leadership, were more than worthy to be remembered for many generations to come. And as my colleague Mr. Rahall said, it is very appropriate that we are celebrating Robert Byrd’s life and putting him to rest in the week of July 4th; he was a great American patriot. And as Governor Manchin said, we shall never see his like again.

>“May he rest in peace. Amen.”

>>9576299

dammit already posted that

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/106995-byrd-memorial-service-begins-to-the-sound-of-fiddles

Over the course of two hours and 15 minutes, the West Virginia Democrat was remembered for his rise from a lonely, meager birth to become a champion of the Senate and a fighter for his home state — a man who quoted ancient poets and medieval authors, yet loved to play the fiddle and fought fiercely for money to pave his state’s dirt roads.

In his eulogy, President Barack Obama recalled how Byrd was orphaned as an infant and raised by an aunt in deep, coal-country poverty to become the longest-serving member of Congress, casting 19,000 votes and never losing an election.

“Today we remember the path he climbed to such extraordinary peaks,” Obama said. “Transported to Washington, his heart remained here, in the place that shaped him with the people he loved. His heart belonged to you. Making life better here was his only agenda.”

The nation’s first black president also recalled Byrd’s 10 years in the Ku Klux Klan, from 1942 to 1952. Without mentioning the KKK by name, Obama recalled how Byrd apologized personally to him during their initial meeting.

“We know there were things he said, things he did, that he came to regret,” Obama said. “I remember talking about that the first time I visited with him. He said, ‘There were things I regretted in my youth. You may know that.’ I said, ‘None of us are absent some regrets, Senator. That’s why we enjoy and seek the grace of God.’ … Robert Byrd possessed that quintessential American quality — the capacity to change, to learn, to listen, to be made more perfect.”

Among a long list of senators in attendance: Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Roland Burris (D-Ill.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.). Many wore hats and sunglasses to fend off the glaring sun.

Former President Bill Clinton, who stood alongside Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on the state capitol’s front steps, paid tribute to a senator who was often his adversary, recalling fights with Byrd over funding issues, the filibuster and the line-item veto during Clinton’s presidency. Yet, Clinton said he “loved our arguments and I loved our common causes.”

“Until Bob Byrd had lectured you, you’ve never known a lecture,” Clinton said. “I regret that every new president and every new member of Congress will never have the experience of being dressed down by Sen. Robert Byrd. He did as good a job for you as he could. As far as he was concerned, there was no such thing as ‘too much’ for West Virginia. But the one thing he would not do even for you is violate his sense of what was required to maintain the integrity of the Constitution and the U.S. Senate.”

Clinton also referenced Byrd’s tenure in the Klan, the only speaker to reference the group by name.

“He was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected,” Clinton said. “Maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done. And he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that’s what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians.”

Biden, who delivered the longest eulogy at 22 minutes, recalled how Byrd as majority leader was riled by a vote Biden made against mining interests. Byrd took a roll call sheet, drew a red circle around Biden’s name and vote, and screwed it into the door frame of his office — at eye-level for anyone who entered or left the office.

But Biden also remembered how Byrd traveled to Wilmington in 1972 to attend the funeral of Biden’s first wife and son, stood outside the crowded church in a driving rain and refused to come inside for fear of displacing someone else.

“He traveled a hard path in life, but he devoted his life to making that hard path a little easier for those who followed,” Biden said. “This is a guy who continued to taste and smell and feel the suffering of the people of his state. He tasted it. That’s why it was so deeply ingrained in him.”

>>9576309

actors gonna act

https://dailycaller.com/2017/08/19/pelosis-dad-once-praised-the-lives-of-robert-e-lee-and-stonewall-jackson-at-statue-dedication/

KERRY PICKET

POLITICAL REPORTER

August 19, 2017

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s father, the late former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., once lauded Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at a monument dedication ceremony in his city over half a century ago.

The statues were torn down by Baltimore authorities last Tuesday after the violent events surrounding the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va. last week.

According to The Baltimore Sun, the statue, first erected in 1948, included a dedication ceremony of prominent city politicians like Pelosi’s father who led the municipality at the time.

At the dedication, D’Alesandro said of the monument, “Today, with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions.”

D’Alesandro was joined by fellow Baltimore resident J. Henry Ferguson, who donated the funds to build the monument and whose father was an ally of of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

“They were great generals and great Christian soldiers,” Ferguson said during the ceremony.

More recently, Pelosi herself called for the removal of all confederate statues in the nation’s capitol.

“The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible,” Pelosi said in a statement. “If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately.”

The Washington Post notes there are 12 Confederate statues in the Capitol and it is the decision of each state as to whether to replace the statue that is representing their state.