Gotta say, I feel pretty good when I discover a blues artist MuddyLee’s never heard of, which happened today.

Here are some news/blues/views midday items:

* David Brooks composes a passive-aggressive classic after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates.

* At the Plum Line, Paul Waldman examines Jeb Bush’s efforts to be down with the Kool Kidz via using Uber.

* At the Atlantic, Beinart, Frum and Goldberg debate the Iran nuclear deal.

* At the Prospect, Adele Stan suggests a Pope who truly loved the poor would become a feminist.

* Kevin Drum mocks but then takes seriously Mike Huckabee’s idiotic claim that if we’d just build a really strong military we could crush all these foreign threats toot sweet.

And in non-political news:

* Metals in kale making a lot of people sick. I’m safe.

As we break for lunch, here’s an example of Peppermint Harris’ approach to “jump blues,” a predecessor to R&B: “Cadillac Funeral.”

YouTube video

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.