My editor proposed two stories for me to cover last week, and I chose both. The first was on cuts to Friends of the Rappahannock. The other was on cuts to the Fredericksburg Food Bank. Both stories are important to this area, and as it turns out, one of them is important nationwide.
Think of all the government workers Elon has laid off who can’t afford groceries because of Trump’s recession and inflation, and now they can’t get any assistance from the food banks.
It’s not all bad news. There’s still enough money in the budget for Donald Trump’s golf trips, asshole billionaires and trust-fund babies will still get another huge tax cut, Elon will continue scoring government contracts to add to the $38 billion he’s already got from the government.
I’m so glad I got to experience the Hands-Off protest yesterday. A blog for that is coming later today.
Creative note: I drew this at Starbucks on Friday night. I wanted to complete this week’s cartoon for the Advance so I could focus on covering the DOGE protest in Washington, DC.
Now, I’m writing this blog on the train home.
Music note: I listened to Pete Yorn while coloring.
When I went to Peace buttons Monday night, their site was down, or something, so no P&J 4/1 morning. However, keep scrolling; it’ll be after 4/2! -A
April 2, 1917 Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, took her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The first woman ever elected to Congress, she became the only member to vote against U.S. entry into both world wars. Rankin lost her seat in the next election but was re-elected twenty years later when she opposed entry into World War II. She again served just one term. Though American women weren’t guaranteed the right to vote for three more years with passage of the 19th amendment, women in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Washington had full voting rights even before statehood. Rankin was instrumental in passing laws that made married women citizens in their own right. Jeannette Rankin biography
April 2, 1966 One hundred thousand Vietnamese demonstrated in DaNang against both the U.S. and their South Vietnamese governments. Civil unrest spread also to Hue and the capital, Saigon.
April 2, 1970 Massachusetts, in the midst of the Vietnam war, enacted a law which exempted its citizens from having to fight in an undeclared war. The U.S. Congress had never formally declared war on North Vietnam as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
April 1, 1841 Brook Farm, perhaps history’s most well-known utopian community, was founded by George and Sophia Ripley near West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Its primary appeal was to young Bostonians who were uncomfortable with the materialism of American life, and the community was a refuge for dozens of transcendentalists, including authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Following four days of demonstrations against the Military Services Act that devolved into rioting in Quebec City, Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden sent in troops from Ontario to stop the violence. Orders from the soldiers were read only in English to the mostly Francophone demonstrators, and when the they didn’t disperse, the troops fired, killing four and wounding 70. [see March 28, 1918] A memorial in Quebec to those who died protesting conscription into World War I More about Brook Farm
April 1, 1932 500 schoolchildren, in the depth of the Depression, paraded through Chicago’s downtown section to the Board of Education offices, demanding that the school system provide them with food.
April 1, 1955 The African National Congress had called on parents to withdraw their children by this day from South African schools in resistance to the Bantu Education Act. That 1953 law transferred education of the Bantu (blacks) from religious missions to state-controlled schools. Mission education, argued then-Minister of Bantu Education Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, not only tended to create “false expectations” amongst the natives, but was also in direct conflict with South Africa’s racially separatist apartheid policies. Whites, who were in complete control of government and society, comprised only 14% of South Africa’s population. Verwoerd presented to Parliament: “When I have control of native education, I will reform it so that natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them. There is no place for him (the black child) in European society above the level of certain forms of labour…What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?”
April 1, 1983 Tens of thousands in the United Kingdom formed a “peace chain” 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) long to express their opposition to nuclear weapons. The chain started at the American airbase at Greenham Common, passed the Aldermaston nuclear research center, and ended at the ordnance factory in Burghfield. At the same time 15,000 people took part in the first of a series of anti-nuclear marches in West Germany. They were protesting the siting of American cruise missiles on West German territory. Contemporaneous coverage of the Peace Chain
April 1, 1985 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered an end to the dumping of sludge off the New Jersey coast into the Atlantic Ocean. 21st century sludge
Booker began the all-night speech by making his intentions clear:
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.
“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy. These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
While we were writing this piece, Booker was every bit as impassioned as he condemned the Republican budget plan that would slash Medicaid and the social safety net so billionaires and corporations could have (more) huge tax cuts, adding trillions to the US debt, asking, “If you’re a Christian conservative, how can you hurt the weak to benefit the rich and powerful? The people of the United States have to stand up and say ‘NO!’”
This man does not look like he’s been speaking for more than 14 hours. Here’s the AP’s live feed. Watching this, we’re even feeling some hope — especially if other senators follow up with marathon speeches of their own.
(And it’s still running! -A)
Also too, we’re going to go ahead and call this a filibuster anyway, if only because the Washington Postwent out of its way to explain in its subhead (archive link) that it’s not actually a filibuster because Booker isn’t delaying a vote on legislation. Just seems like the sort of nitpick best saved for the body of the article, which is where all the other outlets have placed it. So why did we mention it in our subhed? Because fuck WaPo is why.
Booker received help throughout the night — and still, this morning — from other senators, because he is allowed to take questions, which tend to come in the form of brief speeches ending with a question mark. But it’s not just a tactic to help him preserve his voice; it’s also a chance for fellow Democrats to show their unity, with multiple voices pointing out how completely not normal the last two months have been. Booker and other senators called out Trump and co-president Elon Musk for multiple assaults on democracy, like their attempts to shut down federal agencies created by Congress, to cancel spending authorized by Congress, to withhold grants to nonprofits that were already awarded, to fire large segments of the federal workforce without regard to worker protections, and to effectively dissolve America’s alliances by siding with Russia against Ukraine and our European allies. And much more.
We should also note that, unlike the longest talking filibuster on record, old racist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond’s 25-hour filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights bill, Mr. Booker doesn’t have the opportunity to take restroom breaks. Now that’s impressive.
“Senator McCain, I know you wouldn’t sanction this, I know you would be screaming, I’ve seen how angry you can get, John McCain. I’ve seen you tear people apart on this floor, Democrat and Republican, for doing the same stupid thing over and over again. Listen to John McCain explain why he voted ‘no’ the last time the Republican Party tried to unite and tear down health care with no idea how to fix it, threatening to put millions of Americans in financial crisis and health care crisis. I can’t believe we are here again.”
Booker returned again and again to that theme: Why on earth are we allowing this madness to happen? How on earth are we in a situation where a US president is threatening to invade our allies and help our adversaries?
As we wrap up here, Booker’s voice is beginning to get a little raspy, but his overall energy isn’t flagging so far. At the moment, he’s having a colloquy with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) about the importance of US foreign assistance, which Trump and musk have unconstitutionally slashed. Coons called attention to how those cuts have left us unable to provide help to the victims of the earthquake in Myanmar — and Booker immediately pointed out that by wrecking America’s soft power, Trump has handed all that influence to China.
We hope Booker keeps going a couple more hours. And that as many of his Democratic colleagues follow his example with filibusters of their own. (snip)
I didn’t intend for this to be a deep, thought-provoking cartoon when I started it, with the intention of it being drawn just for kicks and to take advantage of the fake holiday. I rarely ever do April Fools cartoons, and I’m sure this theme has been done in the past by other cartoonists.
But when I think about it, there is some depth to this cartoon as it highlights some of the many horrifying absurdities of Donald Trump. Every time I do cartoons like this, a reader will always tell me I forgot something. Well, duh. There’s only so much space in a cartoon. But let’s cover the issues in the cartoon.
Democracy over fascism: Trump’s talking about a third term. Nuff said?
Hiring weirdos: Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, RFK Jr, Linda McMahon, Kristi Noem, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Baby Goebbels Miller, etc, etc. These are all goons and lunatics, most of whom are not qualified for their positions. Case in point, the Signal group chat controversy where nobody has been fired yet. Trump’s asking around if he should fire Mike Waltz, his National Security Advisor, who added the journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chat. But I think too much time has passed for that. Trump could have come off as a tough guy who takes national security seriously if he had fired Waltz last Wednesday, not a week later, after asking for everyone’s opinion, from Sean Hannity to the janitor who empties his waste basket.
Who is Trump asking whether he should fire Walzt or not? Everyone in his vicinity was on the chat.
Obeying court orders: So far, at least two court orders have been violated by the Trump administration (sic). They won’t be the last.
Eat a salad: This is one where I encourage him to continue to eat hamberders and KFC. Trump is 78, and a single Trump meal from McDonald’s is around 2,000 calories. I’m not the healthiest eater in the world, but after a few days of meat, I need a salad…and I kinda hate salads. Boring. I look forward to my meals when traveling, but I know I’ll have to squeeze a salad or two in during a trip, especially in Chicago. And it doesn’t matter what I eat at McDonald’s (which can be a treat when in the right mood), I feel horrible after.
RFK Jr described Trump’s diet as “poison” and said the only options on the campaign plane were KFC and Big Macs. Corey Lewandowsky said his typical McDonald’s order was two Big Macs, two Filet O Fishes, and a large chocolate shake, but we’ve seen several photos with fries included.
His former chef said Trump would always say, “No garbage with it” when ordering a burned steak with ketchup. The “garbage” was garnish and vegetables. Ironically, it’s the chef who has passed away.
People are not all made the same. How people like Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne are still alive is a mystery of science. Maybe Trump is made like one of those people where he can live longer than Betty White on a diet of Adderal and hot dogs. I don’t wish death or any physical harm on anyone, not even Trump, but I won’t mind if he skips the salads.
My question here is, did he eat that entire bucket by himself? My hands are greasy just looking at the photo.
Nazis: Trump supports Nazis. He deports Muslims while pardoning Nazis. He claims good people march with Nazis who “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.” Nazis vote for Trump. Trump hired a Nazi, who gave Sieg Heils at one of his inauguration events, to find “waste” and “fraud” in the government.
I’m almost guaranteed to be yelled at by a MAGAt each time I mention Nazis in Trump and Elon cartoons. A lot of the people screaming at me are repeat screamers. They’ll say, “Nazis were socialists because that word’s in the name.” And yes, Elon did give TWO Nazi salutes. Sorry, MAGAts.
Golf: Not only won’t he stop cheating at golf, but he won’t stop bilking us for his golf trips. His golf outings aren’t just expensive for taxpayers, but a lot of that money, over $26 million so far in Trump 2.0, goes to Trump’s resorts.
Threatening allies: He insults Canada’s sovereignty when he threatens to make our northern neighbors a third state. He talks out of ignorance when he threatens to take the Panama Canal. Now, he and his goons are talking about taking Greenland by force, as if it was taken from us. Trump talks about Greenland the way Hitler talked about Czechoslovakia.
Ogling Cats: Who wants to hear Grandpa talk sexually about women dressed as cats? That’ll make you leave the room. Trump described the time he saw the play, saying, “I walked in, I saw all these bodies, and then I noticed those bodies were gorgeous. They had silk tights on, and they were all ballerinas and women from Broadway.” Did he also notice they were made up as cats? Does this make Trump a furry? I didn’t think Trump could get creepier. He literally wants to grab them by the pussy.
Grifting: Every president absolves himself of his businesses, except Trump. Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, but Trump keeps grifting. He’s still selling merchandise and can even be bribed through his cryptocurrency. Also, re-read the paragraph on his golf grift.
Oligarchs: Elon, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others are oligarchs. This is not a good thing for a democracy.
DOGE being transparent: Despite the claims, DOGE is NOT transparent, which should concern us all.
Lies: Trump told over 35,000 lies during his first term (sic). Can he top that in his second? Don’t underestimate him.
Groping: If Trump isn’t groping now, it’s only because he’s in the limelight. At least 26 women have accused Trump of rape, kissing, groping, walking into teenage dressing rooms, and even looking under skirts. He’s a real-life Quagmire. Giggity. He has cheated on all three of his wives. He often compliments a woman’s looks when he speaks of them, as thought that’s all they’re worth. And we just learned you can’t leave him alone with your cat.
Tariffs: More tariffs are planned for all of our trading partners, starting tomorrow, which Trump is calling “Liberation Day.” Let’s hope that’s an April Fools joke because tariffs are dumb.
Now, I’ve created a challenge for myself, which is to re-do this cartoon for April Fools 2026 but with new issues.
Readers, tell me what I missed.
Creative notes: I started this cartoon yesterday, Sunday. I always want to deliver a holiday cartoon at least two days before a holiday, but since most editors weren’t in the office yesterday, they wouldn’t have received this until today, the day before the holiday. So I went ahead and did my deportation cartoon yesterday (and finished it very late in the day), then finished up this cartoon late last night. I spent my entire Sunday working except during dinner when I watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock, which I’ve been trying to finish for a few years.
A Mississippi Gulf Coast restaurant came under fire after posting a video offering a free food deal to straight people only. The LGBTQ community is boycotting the business, and the owners’ stances on the matter have been erratic, swinging from backing the decision to apologizing before once again justifying their actions. Now, they’re defending the move.
On Tuesday, March 25, Darwell Yeager III and Nettie Mechelle Yeager shared a free food deal at Darwell’s Happiness Cafe in Long Beach.
Both spelled out that trans, lesbian and gay couples could not get the deal. Only heterosexual couples, regardless of how long they’d been together. In the following days, the owners have invoked President Donald Trump’s goal to “end to all this wokeness” and briefly shared a MAGA discount before deleting it.
A Mississippi eatery that appeared on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-ins and, Dives” is facing backlash after its owners posted a video offering “something free” to only straight couples that stopped by to eat at the Cajun joint on Tuesday.
“If you come in and you’re a couple … husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, guy, girl couple, the real kind of couple,” Darwell Yeager said before his spouse cut in and said, “Because we don’t do the trans or the lesbian or gays, I’m sorry.”
“When you come in for the next hour and a half and you are a couple, can-produce-a-child couple, we’ll give you something free,” Darwell Yeager concluded in the since-deleted video that has spread online.
There’s a lot more at the first link, including multiple quotes from the couple’s now-deleted Facebook posts. The screenshot above is from a local station’s regular feature, “In The Kitchen With Darwell’s Happiness Cafe.” You should watch the video below.
MS restaurant owner defends anti-LGBTQ video offering free food after deleting apology https://t.co/m45OgjNHXF
They are not arresting people. They are vanishing them.
Rumeysa Ozturk wasn’t read her rights. She wasn’t told why she was being detained. She was walking to break her fast in Somerville, Massachusetts when masked men in an unmarked SUV pulled up, took her phone, slapped on handcuffs, and dragged her into a vehicle like she was some kind of national security threat.
She’s a doctoral student. A Fulbright scholar. A trauma researcher. But in Donald Trump’s America, she fit the profile: Muslim, foreign-born, sympathetic to Palestinians.
Now she’s locked in a for-profit detention center in Louisiana, hundreds of miles from her lawyer, after a federal judge specifically said she wasn’t to be moved.
They moved her anyway. Because rules no longer apply to those with badges — real or fake.
A MOVEMENT BUILT ON CHAINS AND COWARDS
Alireza Doroudi is gone too.
He’s a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, born in Iran, studying mechanical engineering. No criminal record. No warning. Just scooped off the grid.
ICE refuses to say where he’s being held. No public charge has been announced. His only crime appears to be existing in the wrong body, from the wrong country, in the wrong era.
Mahmoud Khalil was next — a Columbia student, arrested for leading pro-Palestinian protests. Trump labeled him a “radical foreign Hamas sympathizer” on Truth Social. Days later, he was gone.
Jeanette Vizguerra was taken from her Target shift in Colorado, chained at the waist.
Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a farmworker organizer, was dragged from his car at dawn in Washington. His window was smashed by federal agents. His voice silenced.
These aren’t isolated incidents. These are deliberate acts of political intimidation.
They are testing the system — testing us — to see how many people they can disappear before we stop calling it democracy.
WHEN ICE IS A BADGE — AND A COSTUME
While the real ICE disappears scholars, organizers, and mothers, the fakes are circling like vultures.
In South Carolina, Sean-Michael Johnson posed as an ICE officer. He pulled over a van of Latino men, screamed slurs, jiggled their keys, and knocked a phone out of someone’s hand. “You’re going back to Mexico!” he shouted. He wasn’t an agent — but he played one with conviction.
In North Carolina, Carl Thomas Bennett used a fake badge to sexually assault a woman at a motel. He told her if she didn’t comply, he’d have her deported. He held up a counterfeit ID and pretended to be the state.
And in Philadelphia, a Temple University student in an “ICE” shirt tried to storm a dorm building with two accomplices. They were dressed for the part, intoxicated by the illusion of authority, emboldened by the climate.
This is what happens when the state makes cruelty a brand. When a badge becomes a fetish object. When the line between enforcement and cosplay disappears altogether.
THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS THE CRIME
Let’s stop pretending this is a coincidence.
This is a unified strategy. The Trump administration is using ICE like a personal strike force — targeting international students, protest leaders, organizers, and mothers with surgical precision.
They invoke secret designations. They bypass due process. They manufacture pretexts out of thin air and rely on the fog of bureaucracy to hide the blood on the floor.
The point isn’t law enforcement. The point is deterrence. Spectacle. Control.
This is what political cleansing looks like when it’s dressed up in the language of national security.
They’re showing the world that resistance has a cost — and the cost is your freedom, your voice, your visibility, your future.
SILENCE IS CONSENT. AND WE ARE LOUD.
There is no middle ground here. No fence to sit on. No neutral position when people are being kidnapped in the name of the state.
ICE doesn’t need your applause. It needs your silence. Every time a student vanishes and the media shrugs, every time a woman is cuffed and the public looks away, the machine gets stronger.
They are daring us to ignore it. They are counting on our numbness. They are betting that we’ll keep scrolling.
We cannot let them win.
This is not border policy. This is not visa enforcement. This is not safety.This is authoritarianism with a PowerPoint presentation.This is fascism disguised as formality.
This is the state stripping people from the land and pretending it’s order.
Let the record show:
They took people.
And we did not look away.
We saw it.
We named it.
We raised hell.
And we did not stop.
(I didn’t write this. Credit goes to Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge)
The above is the tRump admin trying to get other countries with higher standards in their food to send us their eggs to protect tRump from the soaring prices.
This scares me because the fundamentalist and white cis straight male supremacists will demand it be used here. First on trans people to protect the children then expand it to the entire LGBTQ+ as they have been doing everything else they tried to use against trans kids / people.
Famed Navajo Code Talkers Axed From Pentagon Sites
Yes I know that these were restored. But now tRump is demanding Vance who is on the board of the Smithson and the National Zoo to remove all illegal (purge) references to race, gender, the LGBTQ+ and so much more. He is demanding a national landmark the US government doesn’t control to toe the fundamentalist straight cis white supremacy Christians agenda to deny anything but them into history or society. We really are seeing a complete take over of society and we must do all we can to prevent the rollback of all rights and equality of anyone not white straight cis Christian males. This is horrifyingly scary. Because these hate groups have learned if they can control information, control education, control what is considered good or bad by their standards they can force the youngest people in the country to voice that belief and grow up to enforce it. It is what theocratic Islamic nations do. Are we now a nation taken over by theocratic Christian fundamentalist demanding a change in even the constitution to force everyone to follow their god and their rules? Please kill me first.
Every accredited organization except those directly driven by fundamentalist religiously motivated agree this is simply torture. The religious just simply refuse to believe sexual orientation is not a choice and no one wants to be like that no matter what has to be done to change it. Including electroshock therapy to the genitals. Think of yourself, gay straight, or any other orientation. If you are cis and straight, how much conversion therapy would it take to make you believe you were gay / lesbian and desire that. How could who you are attracted to be changed. That all comes from the idea that it is a mental illness and a sickness that needs to be cured. Which the majority of medical organizations reject, agreeing it is an inborn part of a fetus development. Plus if you could change a sexual orientation … look at my childhood. I was forced to please sexually both males and females. But the only rapes that totally crashed me in the military was the one by a woman with more rank than me who demanded I have sex with her … four times. The last time I was so upset and humiliated that I ran nude up the stairs of the housing unit for higher enlisted and pounded on my soon to be E-7’s door. I was sobbing incoherently. I have been raped all my life and was able to stand that. Why did what this woman force me to do reduced me to that state? Because it was against my very nature of who I was. I was having same sex relations with another young guy and loving it. What she was forcing me to do was against everything I felt inside. That is what the people of these gay conversions want to do.
Some of them think that being gay is a choice because … well when did they decide instead of men they would like to have sex with women? No they just felt it, but what gay / lesbian people feel is not valid and must be forced to change. The rest of this group feels their interpretations of their view of what their god wants must be enforced on everyone even those that don’t follow their god. Because it is their god and he must be pleased because their god hates what they hate. Even if it is not in the bible or they misunderstood it, their hate preacher told them it was so. They can not let others live their lives, everyone must live by their church dictates. Why??? Because only that way their god will love them? I am an atheist that is willing to let religious people believe as they wish as long as they don’t try to force their beliefs on others. You do you … but why can’t they do the same. They insist that no one can be different from them and their beliefs. That is scary just that they think like that and more that they are now running the US government.
PS. When James was a newly teen of 13 his parents went to the Florida Keys with a group of us. They always stayed apart even though they asked to be part of the caravan of RV going. Well I caused an issue. His … maybe abusive parents had lots of tattoos and were highly Catholic religious … even had a statue of the mother Mary in the entrance of their home. Yes the husband ruled the house and told the wife what she would do at all times. Which included the abuse of the child which is where we came in. In a year or so after this even the boy started staying at our home because he was not allowed home until the mother was there. I had seen a young kid come in with a Mohawk. The boy had his hair shaved on both sides of his head and long in the front and back. We had already talked to their son at our table because the parents they were trying to force the boy to get Christian tattoos.
When I spoke up and said there is …. next hair cut … it will look grand on him. His stepdad exploded and said he wouldn’t ever allow the boy in the house with that and he would hold him down and shave all his hair off. As anyone can imagine I got triggered, I had been held down and had my hair cut. I flew up from the table as Ron was grabbing at me and yelled you want him to have tattoos which is against the bible but a simple haircut which can be changed or grow back and has no mentioned in the bible upsets you so much you’re threatening the kid. I loudly said, “What the fuck is wrong with you”! They took the boy from our table and left his meal uneaten. I was furious. Others who did not know of my childhood tried to calm me down. The family of the boy left that day from our group at the campground. Next time the boy came to our home his hair was cut short and the parents never went on another trip with us. Hugs
Again an attempt to turn the country into a while male cis straight only nation. How much clearer can it be. And all these republicans or most of them are fundamentalist Christians who were funded by their church in a steal run to get elected. This not what the publican wants. But these republican fundamentalist groups understand … politicians can force change in public opinion if they support something loud and forcefully enough. Which is one why Kamala Harris l think lost the election, the democrats refused to respond to the attacks on trans people fearing it would hurt them. That is how you bring people along to a new understanding. The republicans are doing it in reverse of what the progressive movement did with government support in the early 2000s. Now that democrats have retreated only the hard right republicans are getting their voices heard returning the countries view to pre-rights for LGBTQ+ people. Hugs
March 30, 1891 Signaling a growing movement toward direct political action among desperate western farmers, “Sockless” Jerry Simpson called on the Kansas Farmers’ Alliance to work for a takeover of the state government. “Sockless” Jerry Simpson Simpson was one of the most well-known and influential leaders among Populist-minded western and midwestern farmers of the late 19th century. Angered over low crop prices, high-interest bank loans and unaffordable shipping rates, farmers began to unite in self-help groups like the Grange and the Farmers’ Alliances. Initially, these groups primarily provided mutual assistance to members while agitating for the regulation of railroads and grain elevators. Increasingly, though, they became centers of support for more sweeping political change by uniting to help form the nationwide third-party movement known as the Populists. More about Populist “Sockless” Jerry Simpson
March 30, 1919 Shops were closed and thousands demonstrated in protest against Rowlatt Acts in New Delhi, Amritsar, and other Indian cities. The hastily passed law permanently extended wartime civil liberties restrictions such as trial without jury and internment without trial.
March 30, 1948 Henry Wallace, former vice-president (under Franklin D. Roosevelt) and then Progressive Party presidential candidate, lashed out at the Cold War policies of President Harry S. Truman. Wallace and his supporters were among the few Americans who actively voiced criticisms of America’s Cold War mindset during the late 1940s and 1950s. Read more on his warnings about American fascists
March 30, 1976 Land Day, 1978. (Photo: Gidon Gitai) Became known as “Land Day” when Palestinians in occupied territories stood strong against the Zionist entity’s attempted confiscation of thousands of acres of land. Their grassroots protests were met with aggressive violence in which the Zionist police force killed six and injured hundreds of its Palestinian citizens. What is LandDay? | more 1982 AP photo/Castelnuove; Marchers protest for Land Day on March 30, 1982 in the Arab village of Sakhnine in northern Israel. 2018 Palestinian people mobilized en masse along the Gaza border to demand an end to a brutal “Israeli” blockade and to demand the rights for displaced Palestinians to return to their homeland. On that day, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza put their lives on the line to participate in demonstrations that continued every Friday for over a year. Over 250 Palestinian demonstrators have been killed and over 30,000 injured. Rightfully called the Great March of Return, this unwavering display of strength solidified the Palestinian commitment to liberation and sent a clear message that Palestinians will not be silenced.
March 30, 1980 80,000 demonstrated against construction of a commercial nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf, Germany. The project was ultimately abandoned.
What a day. I have been training my self to get up at 5 am. My body and bowels now wake me at anytime between 4:15 am to 4:30 am. Ok I can live with the waking up, but not with how the bowels like to do it. Warning for poop talk ahead. See since my primary care doctor figured out why I was having diarrhea and worked with my other doctors to change my medications, my poop went from diarrhea to being rocks that could be used as paving blocks. When they move through the lower system they let themselves be known.
Ron had been letting himself sleep in later and later until he got to after 9 am before he would wake up. I told him we couldn’t have that. So I asked him to pick a reasonable time to get up, he picked 6:30 am. But after a few weeks of that and coming to bed earlier, he now wakes up when I get up to start my day. He also now gets up with me. Sometimes he goes back to bed after he has his three cups of coffee and sometimes not. Today he stayed up and went out shopping for a bit of stuff at a bit past 9 am. But … big but.
Our getting things taken care of around here has been a bit haphazard. Sundays are a news day for me. This morning Ron wanted me to make a scrambled eggs and ham breakfast as he likes the way I do eggs the best. I normally add to the meal either fried the potatoes we did not eat from the night before or shredded hash browns along with a few sausages, separate from the eggs but as sides. But today we did not have anything but 6 bread slices, eggs, and the thick ham slices from what we sliced yesterday. So why does Ron want me to cook the eggs. Two reasons, eggs can turn very quickly when cooking no matter how you are cooking them other than boiling them. Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, it doesn’t matter. Ron is incapable of paying the eggs that much attention so they come out bad for him. So how do I make my scrambled eggs different.
First I have a system for breaking the eggshell that makes sure no shell bits get into the eggs. You have to do it when the eggs are very cold. Then take the sharp side of a knife and carefully hit the lower side of the egg at about midline. That causes the egg to makes its own clean break. Next in the bowl add water. Here is the normal thing. Milk adds something I forget since I don’t use it, water adds fluffy. So most cooking shows say add a teaspoon or such … screw that. I add about a huge dash. I never measure it, like I never measure anything I add to stuff I cook (except bread. That needs to be exact to make sure the bread forms correctly), I put the bowl under the faucet and give it a “shot” or today I put the water into a cup measuring cup and between the two bowls I added about a 1/4 cup of water.
Why don’t I worry about the amount of water? Because after stirring it up in the bowls, I put the sauce pot on the stove with a large tab of real butter. Ron used to ask why a sauce pot as he uses a flat pan. Because the smaller pot can let me get the temperature up to a point there the water comes out on top and boils off and lets you fold and refold the eggs until the moisture boils away, then you can fold / chop the scrambled eggs up into ever smaller bits of good dry but not desiccated plate of scrambled eggs. They still have enough moisture to let you mix ketchup or hot sauce into them.
Thinking I was done, I started making posts. But Ron had to go out and get stuff. Crap. But that was where all the other stuff of the last few days came to bite me in the butt. On Sunday I don’t do much but watch news, and I guess on Saturday we had not done dishes, so we had two and a half days of dishes this morning … to be washed. Ron wanted me to do that before he got home. Damn it … OK Ron I will. It took me until well after noon to wash / dry the dishes. Again I thought I had blogging time. But no.
I had barely sat down when Ron came home with the groceries. Actually there were few groceries but He had spent most of that three or four hours he had been gone in Home Depot getting parts for the plumbing project he needed. Ok now I could return to blogging right … Nope. Ron decided that it was time to have the roast he put in the crock pot this morning at about 6 AM. OK, help Ron make supper. Yes we eat early. About between 2 and 3 PM. Why because after 4 pm I can’t eat, or have no interest to eat. Help him with the corn, and potatoes which we decided to bake. 45 minutes later was lunch. The meal was great.
Then came clean up and putting away the food. It is now well after 3 pm, nearly 4 pm. So Ron decided he needed a nap. Would I like to nap with him? Yes of course. We never even got to the cuddle part as he went out right a way after putting on his C-Pap mask. I laid there trying to rest. At 5 pm my phone alarm for me to take my evening pills and set up my morning ones went off. Ron decided he had to get up as he was too sore to cuddle, I got up and made my pills. Now at 5:30 pm I am in my office finishing this post up. This is why it is hard for me to post and much harder to make a video. I did a load of laundry and still have one in the dryer that Ron forgot. I don’t have the energy to fold them or putting them away today. I am done. Just now one of our cats demanded wet food. I have not even managed a shower today, how can I find time to set up everything in my system, record, and then edit a video. Sadly most days I would go with Ron when he goes out shopping, today he fooled me which is why I kept texting him asking if he was OK. He had a small list of 10 items, and yet was gone over three hours. If he had told me he was going to go prowl Home Depot I would have insisted on going along. Not that he doesn’t know what he wants but he gets confused over if he got enough part a or enough part b, and maybe instead he needs part d or f and so he ends up getting far more parts than he needs. Then he says it is OK because they come in handy … some time. When I am with him he can bounce it off me and I can say well you got 5 of this and 6 of that, what is the goal.
Anyway I am going to proofread this. I want to stress that I do not regret spending my time doing housework or helping Ron. I do regret not getting to much of what I want to do with the blog. But I am reassured that even if I do not post some day or days, Ali and Randy will. Sadly that day may be coming sooner than I would like. I always figured that it would be my health that made it hard for me to keep up with the blog, now it is both my health and Ron’s. I have to tell you all, some days I only want to turn my 55-inch 4K TV to viewing position and just watch movies. But I can’t retreat like that. I hope you won’t either. Hugs.
Hi everyone. I am very tired but I wanted to do this post before I crash out and go back to doing other things. Ron and I just got done working together to slice three hams. Small boneless ones. We wait until they go on sale and get a couple. Turns out we had one in the freezer waiting for this. So a good sale came up on small boneless hams and Ron pounced like a lioness after an elk. We once got lucky, a large shoulder ham was at a really low price and had a small bone. That is important. The bone has to be small, if you get one of those that works great. You can have a ham dinner then carve the largest chunks off the bone. Those you slice on the meat slicer and the bone part you boil for soup. (insert Bernie Sanders yelling “Suooop”)! here.
So rather than describe it I will simply but the pictures below. But before I do that you might wonder why I have a meat slicer. Well for about 15 years I made bread for us and our friends. I love the taste of fresh baked bread and I had three great machines to do it. I made a two pound loaf every three days. I tried several ways to cut the bread loaves into slices. The meat slicer has a variable speed and worked great for cutting the bread into even regular slices. I used my machines so much I burned out three Breadman upright loaf machines. I liked that kind because the paddle was in only the one end of the bread loaf and so you did not lose much bread slices. I have never found another like it. I bought two, one was 200 dollars with a squat fat pan that gives an unusable loaf. If anyone has or knows of a good machine Ron keeps asking me to go back to making bread again. Ok below are the pictures. Loves, best wishes, and hugs to all.
Scottie's Playtime 