Appalachian Spring is another of my favorite compositions for Spring or any other time as far as that goes. It doesn’t get much better listening than a composition by Aaron Copland.
Enjoy, Jack
User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
Appalachian Spring is another of my favorite compositions for Spring or any other time as far as that goes. It doesn’t get much better listening than a composition by Aaron Copland.
Enjoy, Jack
thanks, Jack, and to prolong the enjoyment here’s the “simple gift” part in another setting
featuring photography from Oregon
now to break the mood
A group of teenagers (Mikey Madison, Sarah Sherman, Ego Nwodim) get added to a group chat with Secretary Pete Hegseth (Andrew Dismukes), Vice President JD Vance (Bowen Yang), Secretary Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández) and Editor of the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg (Mikey Day).
and more SNL to prolong the pain of current conditions
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week’s biggest news, like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visiting a Salvadoran prison.
Attribution: Greenland’s April Fool by John Darkow, Columbia Missourian
So Dumbass couldn’t care less if car prices rise under his tariffs. Or, I’d bet, groceries, clothing, medicine, medical care, education, energy prices… things Americans buy. Remember stagflation? Well, it’s on its way back, but he can’t blame OPEC.
I remember when the U.S. did not have presidents which were not demented, delusional, diseased and senile. Presidents which were not so far off their rockers as to want to invade and take over other friendly, and unfriendly, countries. The guy has to be put into a padded cell.
BB and Pogo, DODO with a little bit of help from his friend
Attribution: Trump robot with brain implant Musk by Schot, De Volkskrant, Netherlands
He’s doing to the US with dumbass what he’s doing to Tesla.
Thanks Jack. Appalachian Spring always takes me back to my Jimmy Carter days. Fanfare for Common Man was our unofficial campaign theme song.
Trump is spending $50 million a week more on the Southern Border according to CNN this morning.
Trump is on track to adding $2 billion in spending for just the Southern Border this year.. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/29/politics/trump-southern-border-military-mission-cost
Encounters were already down 60% since Biden’s executive order last fall. Sending the military is just costly performance art.
Thank you, Jack
Love the themes in this composition. One of Copeland’s best.
One of my other favorite Copeland pieces: Hoedown from Rodeo
I wonder about the future of Country Music now that they have writtten every last thing they could think of about pick-up trucks.
Sturgone – I have not heard any songs about their electric self driving F150 leaving them behind for a Prius or peeing on the side and getting electrocuted. C&W has a future if you are drunk enough, that was the old school. What do the singers drink now?
The Ghost of Country Music past.
“Peeing on the side of a Tesla and being electrocuted….”
Now there’s a country hit if ever I’ve seen one.
Ya just can’t beat the old school. I bet the new singers ain’t drinking Boone’s Farm or Mateus Rosé.
Mogen David?
Thunderbird?
MD 20/20?
Richard’s Wild Irish Rose?
What if……..Waltz added Goldberg completely thinking that the journalist would keep it under his hat, mum’s the word, pinky swear, and just continue to listen in.
Sturge and BiD, new 5 days ago off tiktok
The Country Cybertruck Song is out now! Link in bio.
thanks Jack!
today’s meme…
Just posted my latest cooking video, Lazy Bok Choy..
Watching PBS: Washington Week in Review w/The Atlantic Gabbard and others lied to Congress; absolutely exposed in such a way they can not hide…so RussoRepublicans will cover their eyes and ears.
Attacking the messenger didn’t work with Mr. Goldberg…who could totally sue Fox Noise and Hegseth for defamation of character.
Good note for other media, STOP BEING COMPLICIT!
Me thinks, Mike Walz protesteth too much.
My first viewer trying one of my tips (even included pics):
meme #2…
https://apwu.org/news/magazine-labor-history/notorious-part-history-may-1933-dissolution-labor-unions-nazifascist
A Notorious Part of History: May 1933: The Dissolution of Labor Unions in Nazi/Fascist Germany
*This history lesson brought to you by the American Postal Workers Union
***
https://apnews.com/article/trump-unions-collective-bargaining-end-national-security-deabc796751dc038a8500774fe174a99
President Donald Trumpmoved Thursday to end collective bargaining with federal labor unions in agencies with national security missions across the federal government, citing authority granted him under a 1978 law.
The order, signed without public fanfare and announced late Thursday, appears to touch most of the federal government. Affected agencies include the Departments of State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Justice and Commerce and the part of Homeland Security responsible for border security.
Police and firefighters will continue to collectively bargain.
Trump said the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 gives him the authority to end collective bargaining with federal unions in these agencies because of their role in safeguarding national security.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers, said late Thursday that it is “preparing immediate legal action and will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks.”
*National security? If we had national security, we wouldn’t have Donny’s DOGE demons ransacking our database and illegally firing folks and illegally freezing congressionally-appropriated funds and having war plans shared on an unsecured group chat and have a deranged mob boss call himself “king” and threaten to take over other countries and start (and lose) a trade war and have a bunch of Republicans support an apart Russian agent (all of them breaking their oaths to defend the US Constitution)…national security, pfffft.
Trump says he ‘couldn’t care less’ if auto prices rise https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/29/business/trump-auto-prices-tariffs/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=blueskyCNN&utm_content=2025-03-30T15:31:50
he doesn’t need one to get to work, why would he?
“I wonder about the future of Country Music now that they have written every last thing they could think of about pick-up trucks.”
with the rise of fascism, that shitkicking stuff has taken over my dance music and i am not happy about it
they are still singing about trucks
ugh kill me so bad
https://thehill.com/homenews/5210546-south-african-ambassador-trump-expulsion/
Expelled South African ambassador says new status is ‘badge of dignity
Rasool had accused Trump of leading a “white supremacist movement” at home and abroad during a video address to a think-tank.
“So in terms of that, the supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48 percent white,” Rasool said.
“And so that needs to be factored in, so that we understand some of the things that we think are instinctive, nativist, racist things, I think that there’s data that, for example, would support that, that would go to this wall being built, the deportation movement,” the South Africa diplomat said in comments that led to a strong response from the administration.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Rubio said in a post on X. “Emrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”
A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool said while addressing the crowds with a megaphone. “But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth … like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity,” he said. “It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets,” the diplomat added.
*Lil Marco turning out to be tRUMPutin’s nasty lil hatchet man. F every RussoRepublican MAGAt and yt supremacist on the planet.
Biography of Boris Yeltsin. Interesting.
Gorbachev’s Kremlin v Yelstin’s WH
Yeltsin “unleashed 70 years of frustration” in the people; he walked away from the Communist Party and spoke to the food and fuel shortages.
I feel like we’ll have food shortages here by the end of the year. Some will feel it sooner. Labour in the UK won’t tax the rich; they prefer to kill social safety nets. The solution is simple, but end stage capitalism won’t let them do it. Extinction burst; it gets worse before something new is born.
Fear Fish No More
https://www.newsweek.com/senate-votes-lift-cap-bank-overdraft-fees-2052084
US Senate Vote To Lift Cap on Bank Overdraft Fees
The Senate voted 52-48 to repeal the $5 cap on overdraft fees, with all Democrats opposing the measure and all Republicans, besides MissouriSenator Josh Hawley, supporting it.
The CFPB’s rule, finalized in December and intended to take effect in late 2025, would have barred banks and credit unions from charging multiple fees on the same overdraft incident. It also prohibited those with assets exceeding $10 billion from charging overdraft fees greater than $5, compared to the typical $35 charge per transaction, unless they could demonstrate that higher fees are needed to offset the costs of processing customer overdrafts.
*Hmmm, then stop or delay a Social Security check or another directly-paid benefit and watch folks’ lives collapse and banks get richer.
Which is not to say that the Boomers didn’t have more than their share of sappy car songs, but they eventually managed to outgrow them. For sappy LSD songs? Who know.
I think every generation’s music has a Sappy Division. So people like Spike Jones, Homer and Jethro, Weird Al, and Alice Cooper get to work, too.
Monday is laundry day. Maybe plant wildflowers along the fence line.
Craig,
storms are aheadin’ this-a-way tonight. expecting outages so might not be able to post a thread or much of anything else tomorrow morning. they’ve put all of KY under an enhanced status meaning possible tornados. it’s time to batten the hatches, recharge the cell phone and restock the storm room with midnight type goodies.
https://apnews.com/article/x-musk-sale-xai-b245f463076ac9b72c41f92160dc77eb
Elon Musk has sold social media site X to his own xAI artificial intelligence company in a $33 billion all-stock deal, the billionaire announced on Friday.
Both companies are privately held, which means they are not required to disclose their finances to the public.
He said the deal values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion. Musk, who serves as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX as well as an advisor to President Donald Trump, bought the site then called Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, gutted its staff and changed its policies on hate speech, misinformation and user verification and renamed it X.
*He was gonna default on loans he took out to buy X, for which he used TeSSla as collateral; the stock price dropped, so MuskRat did this phony-baloney deal. He is not the richest man in the world; he’s a heavily-leveraged conman. He says what it’s worth. It’s all made up. It’s called FRAUD!
https://thehill.com/homenews/5218816-trump-task-force-washington-dc-deportations-crime-homelessness/
Trump launches task force to make DC ‘safe and beautiful,’ focusing on deportations, crime, homelessness
The order launches a task force “to ensure effective federal participation” in the enforcement of immigration laws and redirecting resources to apprehend and deport migrants in Washington and to monitor its sanctuary-city status to comply with federal immigration laws.
Additionally, the order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to remove and clean up all homeless encampments on federal land.
The task force will include representatives from the Interior, as well as the departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, the FBI, Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The task force will also assist in completing the accreditation of Washington’s forensic crime lab, assist with recruiting police officers, help to “increase the speed and lower the cost of processing concealed carry license requests,” and revise policies on “pretrial detention of criminal defendants” so dangerous individuals are detained. <— MAGAt Gestapo (concealed carry)
~so safe~ ~so beautiful~
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/trump-administration-reportedly-warns-european-companies-to-comply-with-anti-dei-order/6204843/
Government officials have reportedly sent letters to companies in France and the European Union that hold U.S. government contracts, warning them to comply with an executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs if they want to keep their contracts.
According to the document, “Department of State contractors must certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws and agree that such certification is material for purposes of the government’s payment decision and therefore subject to the False Claims Act.”
The letters, distributed by the American embassies in Paris and across the E.U. also included a questionnaire ordering the companies to certify their compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws.
The move comes around the same time the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has alerted Walt Disney and its ABC unit that it will begin an investigation into the DEI efforts at the media giant.
*FFS! The world should just cut ties with us now, because Adolf & The Heritage Foundation are HELLBENT on the US being a fascist state. Ridiculous that they think the world will fall in line instead of just ostracizing us.
If the contract went into effect before the crazy, hateful no-DEI demand via EO, then it shouldn’t impact the contract. It does give companies a heads-up to make other plans. The US has no money, or won’t once the tax cuts for billionaires eat up everything just like W destroyed the surplus Clinton left us. F-ing Republicans.
i’d share gardening tales with you BiD but i am
too busy gardening 😪
Slava Ukraine
Anon – It’s cold and windy today, and another cold snap on the way. Radish seeds & only a dozen of the onion sets are in, plus garlic started here and there to repel four-legged critters. Gardening is done for at least a week, except for getting those wildflowers seeds in along the fence.
Craig – When are you making a burgoo video?
I realize this may sound about two steps off the cliff. Years of watching (and dealing with) “straight” men justify their interest in Transwomen sex and other sexual things, especially men in political power trying to write strict laws against Gay or Transgender people. They write strict so they would not continue to follow their natural desires. It does not work. Ignoring a Thin Mint on a plate is easier than trying to not be who you are.
One thing the repub/magats have constantly been found with is they are Gay or Transgender no matter how hard they deny it. I am wondering if sfb is Gay. He covers up with being a bastard in treating women and LGBT. He might be Trans when you look at how hard he tries to eliminate us.
I have now seen a couple of pictures of krasnov and Epstein and I am sure he could could have been enjoying sex with at least one man.
What is worse to a low intelligent “man’s man”? I am very sure his early life was hell, and included anti-Gay (nazi party thing). I doubt he could comprehend a lot about real life then, and now he is a delusional, demented, diseased, and senile idiot and all he can do his slash out with hate.
OBTW – I am 75 yo, overweight and not very nice to look at. I was hit on twice this last week. There is being hit on as a woman, but JFC men have no limits when hitting on a Transwoman. They think we are
https://www.economist.com/asia/2025/03/30/the-juntas-spite-worsens-myanmars-catastrophic-quake
The junta’s spite worsens Myanmar’s catastrophic quakeThe generals have a dire record of exploiting natural disaster
Outsiders had dared wonder if the enormous earthquake which struck Myanmar on March 28th might bring a pause in its awful civil war. The answer did not take long to come. On March 29th the rebel alliance known as the National Unity Government announced a temporary ceasefire so that rescuers could do their job. The military junta, which has held power since a coup in 2021, made no similar pledge. Instead, it has intensified air strikes since the disaster. Its bombs have fallen close to people scrabbling through the rubble to look for survivors.
(Rest of story behind paywall.)
BB – Not over the cliff at all, and I’m sorry that happened to you. JD, Mike Johnson, Lindsey Graham; their seeming self-hatred impacts others.
I’ve seen the rumor about SFB being a pedo, girls and boys, which the real Epstein files may reveal and Putin surely knows.
Which is why tRUMPsky’s whole being “pissed” off at Putin rings hollow. It’s all about shedding the Russian agent narrative. It’s all BS.
Craig, My son works with the Stryker program and there will be several sent to the border. They aren’t at all practical for patrolling so will probably just be spaced out to look menacing.
Jamie – To keep us in?
Bid
He retires in May and is currently doing four jobs with 20 years experience in logistics. So far no one to replace him. It could get interesting.
Take care PatD. Just watched local news about the storm, sounds scary
yeah i am establishing new gardens so a lot of digging to prepare
i do the minimum amount to ensure healthy rooting and no more and it’s still too much but if everything goes to plan an trump doesn’t nuke the world before August…
6 hours of the best show:
here’s another tip as you get outside more:
avoid the sun whenever possible and you’ll still get too much, you can’t garden if you have a heat stroke
SPF, sunhats, long sleeves, umbrellas- make it a priority
and if you have to water at noon you planted too late, mornings around dawn ideal obv
NEW THREAD