DIY: Spring Cleaning for Your Garden & Lawn: Part 2

DIY 3 Minutes

10 Scrub those clay pots.

Clay pots get very dirty if they are left out over the winter. Now is the time to soak them so that they will be ready for the plants when the weather is warm enough for them to be planted.  

11 Cut back perennials

 Sometimes I do this in the fall, but more often, I leave this chore for the early spring, to keep some seed pods for winter birds. Perennials can be cut back almost to the ground level in most cases without hurting them at all.

12 Prune your roses

 In most cases, you will be pruning your roses just as the plant will be breaking the winter dormancy.  In warm climates, like NC, this will be fairly early in the year, just after the last frost.  Roses bear flowers on last year’s wood.  Trim off any old, dead canes. Be sure to prune so that the center of the bush is open for best air circulation.  

13 Remove dead wood

This goes for roses but also for other trees and shrubs too. Nothing will grow from dead wood, so get rid of it.  This goes for most suckers too. They sap the life from your plant and should be removed.

TIP:  If it is too early for you to prune shrubs, you can still inspect the plants. Take some ribbon with you and tie it where you want to prune once the weather warms up. So get out those garden gloves and your pruning shears and get rid of the dead wood. You’ll be glad you did come summer time.

14 Spring weeding

Even though I have it listed as #14, weeding is at the top of my list for early spring garden project. Weeding can the bane of my gardening life, if I let it be. Each year, I say that I am going to pull up weeds during the winter on warm days, and each year, I neglect this. But early spring is a good time to weed as long as the ground is not too wet, AND it’s the best time to do this job. The roots of the weeds are shallow and they will come out easily this time of the year.   This border that I planted late last summer looks as though it needs some TLC l right now, but those weeds will be out in less than a half hour and the bed will be beautiful.

15 Early spring Vegetables

Many vegetables thrive when planted in the early spring because they love the cooler weather. Some popular ones are English peas, broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. Here in NC, these plants don’t do well in the summer at all, so early spring is when I have to plant them if I want to grow them.  See my list of cold hardy vegetables here.

16 Check your lawn edges

 Inspect plastic lawn edging to see if it needs replacing.  If you edge manually with trenches, now is a good time to tidy these up so the edges will be ready when the lawns start to grow. Doing it early means that the edges will only need cutting into soil, not into lawn that is encroaching into the borders.

17 Start seeds indoors

Get a head start on spring but planting seeds for flowers and vegetables indoors.  I have a large plant stand that sits outside during the spring and summer. During the winter, it sits in front of my glass sliders and gets southern sunlight. It is the perfect spot for my plant cuttings and seed starting efforts.

18 Divide perennials

One of my favorite early spring garden projects is to divide my perennials.  Early spring is the perfect time to divide perennials. Many of them really benefit from being divided for best growth. Either plant the divisions in another part of your garden, or share them with some of your plant loving friends.  

SOURCE: THEGARDENINGCOOK.COM

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Published by pat frederick

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140 thoughts on “DIY: Spring Cleaning for Your Garden & Lawn: Part 2”

    1. Morning kea!
      us too. it’s really strange though. the fist year we were here, I planted stella d’oro lilies–beautiful yellow ones! they left them alone for the first few years. then one spring, they ate them to the ground. next few years ate them. then they stopped for a couple of years. now they’re eating them again. every tree we plant, we have to cage because they eat the leaves and the bucks would use them in the fall for their antler rubbing…sigh.

      Liked by 2 people

              2. i doubt it.
                every spring (before the leaves are on the trees) I can see porcupines in the tops of the trees–eating the new spring growth. hubby chased one, one time, and treed it. it stayed in the crook of the tree all night.

                Liked by 1 person

    1. Good morning, Pat! Nothing but a light dusting here and there, thankfully. Dodged it! Yeah!!! 26 and cloudy w/no wind.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Morning Filly! awesome!
        this morning (it getting lighter earlier) I was talking to hubby in the kitchen and he started laughing. I said what’s so funny. he said your customers are waiting and he pointed to the deck.
        there were 2 chickadees–one on the back of the adirondak chair and one in the tray I keep beneath the feeder when it’s out, looking in the window…lol

        Liked by 1 person

    1. ACTUALLY – Roberts DID NOT do a good job of inaugurating President Trump – he didn’t give First Lady Melania and the family time to come forward and President Trump did not get to place his hand on the Bible.

      Liked by 2 people

  20. eilert (@guest_1427897)

    Offline

    March 6, 2025 02:31

    D.J. Daniels the kid in uniform with cancer who stole the show on DJT’s State of the Union address, steels the show again on Bannons WarRoom:

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1897422504064385327

    Collin Rugg @CollinRugg

    JUST IN: DJ Daniel tells @nataliegwinters  he thinks President Trump is the best president America has seen, delivers a message to Democrats.

    “If you’re a Democrat and you’re being mean to President Trump, I’m on your bumper.”

    Liked by 1 person

  21. “UPDATE The House Freedom Caucus will be introducing a censure resolution against Rep. Al Green today.”

     #🚨SOTU Warning from the HFC board🚨 

    “The President’s address to tonight’s joint session of Congress is a constitutional obligation — not a sideshow for Democrats to use noisemakers, make threats, throw things or otherwise disrupt. Our colleagues are on notice that the heckler’s veto will not be tolerated. You will be censured. We expect the Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police to take appropriate action against any Members of Congress or other persons violating House rules.”

    https://x.com/freedomcaucus/status/1897292275488792979

    Liked by 1 person

  23. “Democrats Are Just Not Normal”

    Red State, Kurt Schlichter | Mar 06, 2025

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “Take that, little [black] cop cancer kid! The Democrats sure showed him! No applause for you. How dare you be celebrated by the country when the president pointed you out from the lectern. Yeah, they showed him. They showed Donald Trump. They showed us all!

    The Democrats aren’t going to allow Donald Trump to be normalized! Nor kids with cancer! Nor foster parents of 40 kids. Nor victims of rape and murder [hispanic] by the Third World barbarians Democrats imported into the country. No, the party that thinks some women have penises isn’t going to normalize the party that doesn’t.

    Their campaign to keep from normalizing Donald Trump has worked, but not exactly how they thought it would. They showed us that they’re not normal, that they’re weirdos, that they’re pretty much insane.

    Or that they are stupid. Sometimes, stupid and insanity are hard to differentiate. But you can be sure that they’ve learned absolutely nothing. Tom Nichols, the expert on experts writing at “The Atlantic,” explained that “Democrats Are Acting Too Normal.” It’s not clear how they can be any weirder, but I’m sure they’ll give it the old communist college try. Remember, with Donald Trump, there are no rules. There are no norms. He’s that bad. He’s literally Hitler plus Putin all at the same time. Oh, and along with Elon Musk he wants to come and take your Social Security and buy some stuff at Target.

    Obviously, this situation calls for drastic action. The Democrats must take a stand!

    Applaud for a heroic orphan [Hispanic perhaps?] getting into West Point? No.

    Applaud for finding and cutting waste in the federal budget? No.

    Applaud for endless money given to ungrateful foreigners? Absolutely.

    I don’t know who came up with the strategy of adopting only positions normal Americans hate, but it is sure a bold one. I’m eager to see how it works out for them. Maybe the idea is to be so annoying that we give up in the face of their relentless nincompoopery. But if Trump’s speech the other night was any indication, we’re just getting started.

    And so are they. They seem intent on doubling down on dumb. When you get past the stupid costumes – I like how they wore pink to show support for women after unanimously showing support for men pretending to be women the day before – and their weird auction paddles and the bizarre writing on their clothes and that strange dude with the cane yelling at clouds, what’s really going on is that they reject the legitimacy of any possible faction having political power besides themselves. They have not accepted the results of the November election, and they are holding their breath really hard until maybe Trump just goes away. 

    And they never will accept their loss. They can’t, because in the roiling psychodrama that passes for their political party, they are so wound up with the idea that anybody who deviates even a micrometer from their bizarre and perverted ideology is inherently evil and, therefore, cannot legitimately claim any power.

    The problem is that normal people don’t think that. Normal people still believe that when they elect a political party, that political party should get a chance to do what it does, and the other political party should honor some basic norms. But that’s not so for the Democrats. There are no other political parties. There are only the Democrats and the extreme ones at that. Everyone else is a Nazi. No one else can rule. This is known as “Our Democracy.” 

    So, we get them ignoring basic traditions, like the leadership of both parties escorting the president into the joint session of Congress. The Democrats just didn’t show up for the walk-in, as if Donald Trump can’t be president, and if they just pretend he’s not hard enough, he will stop being president.

    But he’s not going to stop being president. He knows their game, and he called it to them right to their smug little faces. He told them that they wouldn’t applaud for anything he did, and these dummies took him up on it. To normal people, it looked insane.

    Here’s a heroic Border Patrolman [Hispanic] who fought it out with the cartels! Silence. Nothing. Tumbleweeds. OK, normal people don’t act like that. Weirdos, losers, and mutations act like that. Crazy people act like that. The Democrats have a small group of leftist activists that they’re seeking to suck up to, and they’re sucking all right – they’re polling right there on par with foot fungus.

    And as they register loss after loss, Donald Trump racks up win after win. Just on the day of the speech, Zelensky rolled over and cravenly crawled up to kiss his shoes. China and Mexico rolled over on tariffs. Because the regime media can only obsess over one or two stories at a time, Trump was busy firing people, confirming people, and DOGEing the hell out of the communist feed trough. They are helpless in the face of his onslaught, reduced to feeble and fussy protests that simply make them look stupid.

    Noted nuclear physicist Jasmine Crockett decided to put out a rap video, of course. She dialed up the ghetto trashy to 11, and you could just see her daring people to point out her ghetto trashiness so she could cry racism. Well, she’s ghetto trashy, and since she already thinks you’re racist, you can say so without worrying. Maybe she will call you racister. In any case, who cares?

    All we Republicans can say is that we support Jasmine Crockett’s successful campaign to make an idiot of herself and to make bigger idiots of her party and that we hope to see a Tim Walz/Jasmine Crockett ticket in 2028. After all, these doofuses sum up the current Democrat Party. You’ve got a fey weirdo with a secret and a ridiculous, snarling stereotype as the face of the party. 

    Well, there’s actually another face as well, the blank, boring, mid face of the Elissa Slotkins. She looks like that if she’s not on the verge of complaining to the manager, she’s going to complain to her husband about him watching football. How come they all look like her? The SSRI-ridden, Chardonnay-swilling, middle-aged white lib women are a curse upon humanity, but they are the key Democrat demo. I’m all for their party embracing that vibe – it went great for Hillary Clinton. Americans don’t want to be nagged to death by unhappy people whose only pleasure in life is pestering others. No one votes for his first wife.

    These are such unhappy people. Take a look at these faces. They are vewy, vewy sewious, and they are so very disappointed in you. They probably spent the hour after Donald Trump’s epic long march of a speech high fiving each other, thinking they did great. They did not do great. Trump did. I loved it. My right-wing cronies dug it. But what mattered was when I got texts from people who don’t normally love politics. These are folks who look down on the whole enterprise as vaguely disgraceful, yet they loved it too.

    Maybe it was because Trump was happy instead of grim, hysterical, and nuts. Happiness is the secret of America First. We’re happy people. We’re not always mad, we’re not always bitter, we’re not always complaining that everybody else is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and fatist. We enjoy life and want life to get better. And we have both the class and the commonsense to clap when a little [black] cop cancer kid catches the spotlight.”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. let’s look at the last few years. we had a dem President who YELLED and SCREAMED at people. and then a dem Presidential candidate who ran on (can you believe it?) JOY

      now we have a President who is funny, who LOVES the American people and seems HAPPY to serve. And the dems despise him. HE STOLE THEIR THUNDER. they’re confused…lol. yelling didn’t work, joy didn’t work. those are their 2 emotions.

      Liked by 1 person

  24. Just The News: “California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested that biological men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports during the debut episode Tuesday of his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.”

    During the podcast, Newsom had on conservative media personality and Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk who asked him, “Would you say no men in female sports?”

    “I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that,” Newsom responded, according to the Politico news outlet. “It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair. I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”

    Kirk later pushed Newsom to speak out against AB Hernandez, who is a transgender high school student in California who competes in women’s track. Newsom did not comment on the case, but did say he thought it was unfair for biological men to compete against biological women in sports.

    Newsom announced last month that he was launching his own podcast where he will interview guests who disagree with him on policy.

    He is considered a top likely Democratic candidate for president in 2028 and is considered among the most liberal within his political party, which means he will have to appeal to moderates and some conservative to win a general election.”

    Liked by 1 person

  25. Miss Lindsey brought this up on Jesse’s show but we already knew this would be necessary for a long-term/permanent solution:

    Just The News: “A group of Senate Republicans on Wednesday met with Elon Musk privately and reportedly told him that he would need Congressional support and approval in order to pass his Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) agenda.

    The department has been helping to audit the federal government, to cut out redundancy and wasteful spending. But Musk’s allies on the hill are now saying that it won’t pass court muster without Congress codifying his plans.

    Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul told reporters after a luncheon on Capitol Hill that he supports a lot of Musk’s recent actions, but that court rulings recently proved they would need a different route to become permanent. A Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s argument that billions of dollars in foreign aid should remain frozen.

    “To make it real, to make it go beyond the moment of the day, it needs to come back in the form of a rescission package,” Paul said. “I love all the stuff they’re doing, but we got to vote on it. My message to Elon was: Let’s get over the impoundment idea and let’s send it back as a rescission package.” Paul admitted that he would need 50 or 51 senators to support Musk’s ideas in order to codify the actions, per The Hill.

    Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham expressed support for voting on DOGE’s proposed cuts, stating that the vote should have occurred “like, yesterday.”

    Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn also said they should vote on the cuts, but the proposal would not be in the next budget and would need to be done separately. “My understanding is, since the budget reconciliation deals with mandatory spending [and] that the DOGE cuts would be primarily from discretionary. The way we’d do that procedurally is for the White House to request us to take up a rescissions package,” Cornyn said. “We could pass it with 51 votes here and a majority in the House.”

    Paul said that Musk appeared open to the idea of getting Congressional approval for his plans, but did not appear to know that he would need it.”

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Just The News: “House Speaker Mike Johnson’s chief of staff Hayden Haynes was arrested late Tuesday night for drunken driving after President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress, NBC News reported Wednesday.

    Haynes has worked for Johnson as his chief of staff since 2017, and was promoted to run the speaker’s office after Johnson was elected to the top job in 2023. He has also worked for former Louisiana GOP Sen. David Vitter from 2009 to 2016.

    Police sources told the outlet that Haynes allegedly backed his car into another vehicle at the Capitol, prompting the arrest and a citation to appear in court. The incident occurred shortly before midnight. “A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.,” the U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. “We responded and arrested them for DUI.”

    Johnson’s office has confirmed that it was notified of the incident, and said that the speaker still has “full faith and confidence” in his aide’s ability to run his office.

    “The Speaker is aware of the encounter that occurred last night involving his Chief of Staff and the Capitol Police,” Johnson spokesperson Taylor Haulsee told NBC News. “The Speaker has known and worked closely with Hayden for nearly a decade and trusted him to serve as his Chief of Staff for his entire tenure in Congress. 

    “Because of this and Hayden’s esteemed reputation among Members and staff alike, the Speaker has full faith and confidence in Hayden’s ability to lead the Speaker’s office,” he added.”

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Hmmmm….I think I like Elon’s stance, personally! When you add “for profit,” you add corruption and, as Elon said, it interferes with “free collaboration.”

    Just The News: “A federal judge for the Northern District of California has denied a request filed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk for a court order to prevent OpenAI from going through with its for-profit conversion, but offered to expedite a trial for the lawsuit over his investments in the company.

    U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who blocked the order Tuesday, said that similar orders are rarely granted and that Musk had not given enough evidence to warrant the action. The judge did, however, offer to expedite the trial for a lawsuit filed against the tech company by Musk to fall of 2025 “given the public interest at stake and potential for harm.”

    “I don’t know what happened, but I certainly am not throwing something out on a motion to dismiss when it is plausible that what Mr. Musk is saying is true,” Gonzalez-Rogers said. “We’ll find out. He’ll sit on the stand. He’ll present it to a jury. A jury will decide who’s right.”

    Musk, who was a cofounder of OpenAI and invested $45 million in the company, filed a lawsuit against the company over plans to transition to a for-profit business model in 2024. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI’s for-profit conversion is a breech of contract because of its origins as a nonprofit intended to facilitate free collaboration.  

    Musk has also offered a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the company to ensure that it remains a non-profit.

    OpenAI was founded by a group of 11 tech investors and entrepreneurs in 2015 as a nonprofit with the mission to promote free collaboration and information. The company was originally co-chaired by Musk and Sam Altman, who is the current CEO.  Under Altman’s leadership, the company transitioned to a “capped” for-profit model in 2019 and announced plans to become a full for-profit company in 2024.”

    Liked by 1 person

  28. “Trump Department Of Justice Ends Biden-Era Lawfare Targeting Idaho’s Pro-Life Protections”

    The Federalist, By: Jordan Boyd, March 05, 2025

    Idaho sign

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is dismissing a lawsuit the Biden administration brought against Idaho in an attempt to force its abortion activism on the pro-life state, court filings reveal.

    The DOJ’s decision to drop the lawfare should have opened the door for the Gem State to enforce its August 2022 Defense of Life Act. Idaho’s largest hospital system, however, filed a separate suit against the state after repeatedly claiming that it had to airlift women out of state to get emergency abortions. Despite previously failing to provide proof for that claim, St. Luke’s Health System was handed a temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, a President Bill Clinton nominee, one day before the Trump DOJ acted.

    The Ronald Reagan administration enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) in 1986 to stop hospitals from turning away patients based on their inability to pay for their expenses. The law requires adequate treatment for an “unborn child” but also explicitly does “not preempt any State or local law requirement, except to the extent that the requirement directly conflicts with” EMTALA.

    President Joe Biden’s regime, however, expanded EMTALA in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling to include abortion as a “stabilizing” procedure in certain cases “irrespective of any state laws or mandates that apply to specific procedures.” The Democrat administration then used its redefinition to target Idaho over its lifesaving law, which prohibits abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or if a physician deems it necessary to save the mother’s life.

    The U.S. Supreme Court had a chance in June of last year to shut down the Biden administration’s abortion activism. Even though U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar struggled during arguments to explain why a federal law that promotes preserving the health of a mother and her “unborn child” in medical emergencies should require Idaho hospitals to perform abortions outside of the exceptions outlined in its state law, the high bench instead ruled 6-3 to toss the case back to the leftist San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    “It has been our position from the beginning that there is no conflict between EMTALA and Idaho’s Defense of Life Act,” Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said in his statement confirming the DOJ dropped the suit. “The goal of each is to save lives in every circumstance, both the mother and their unborn child. We are grateful that meddlesome DOJ litigation on this issue will no longer be an obstacle to Idaho enforcing its laws. Idaho will continue defending life as intended by the legislature and our people.”

    Idaho’s pro-life protections, when enforced, are estimated to save the lives of more than 1,500 unborn babies every year.”

    Liked by 1 person

  29. Breanna Morello
    @BreannaMorello
    The Biden regime funneled nearly $20 billion dollars into newly founded environmental groups, according to the New York Post.

    Kamala Harris handed over a check for nearly $7 billion to a group called Climate United Fund.

    The group does not appear in the IRS’s charities database, and has no federal filings.

    The non-profit fund had only been incorporated five months before the check was handed over.

    The cash for the charity came from a huge $370 billion climate slush fund of taxpayer money overseen by Clinton political consultant John Podesta.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Just The News: “The House on Thursday censured Rep. Al Green, D-Texas for disrupting President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress earlier this week. The votes was 224-198 with Green among two members who voted neither yes or no, according to The Hill newspaper.

    Green is the 28th member of the House to get a rebuke from Congress. Green voted “present” when it came his time to vote.

    “We take no pleasure in this,” Johnson reportedly said to journalists right before the vote. “I gave repeated warnings to Representative Green to stand down and to sit down and he refused to do it, he chose to deliberately violate House rules in a manner that we think is probably unprecedented in history, interrupting the message of a president of the United States, who is an honored guest.”

    NF: OK – what does it really mean?

    EXCERPT: “….Over the decades, several forms of discipline have evolved in the House. The most severe type of punishment is expulsion from the House, which is followed by censure, and finally reprimand. Expulsion, as mandated in the Constitution, requires a two-thirds majority vote. Censure and reprimand, which evolved through House precedent and practice, are imposed by a simple majority of the full House.

    These are not the only penalties which the House may levy on its Members. Beginning with the creation of a formal ethics process in the late 1960s, the Committee on Ethics (which for many years was called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct) has had the ability to issue a formal “Letter of Reproval.” The Ethics Committee may also opt to register its disapproval of a particular action using more informal means. Committee rules, as well as the rules of the individual party caucuses, provide other means of discipline. For instance, Members may also be fined, stripped of committee leadership positions and seniority, or deprived of other privileges depending on the infractions…..”

    https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Discipline/

    Liked by 1 person

  33. “Democrats File Articles Of Impeachment Against Little Black Boy With Cancer”

    Politics · Mar 5, 2025 · BabylonBee.com

    Article Image

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressional Democrats acted quickly to file articles of impeachment against D.J. Daniels, the young black cancer survivor that Trump honored during his speech last night.

    During his speech to Congress, Trump deputized the young boy and made him an honorary Secret Service agent. Democrats say this type of obvious grab at power won’t be tolerated.

    “We must resist,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview on CNN. “No one elected D.J. Daniels! Trump simply appointed him to the Secret Service despite being only thirteen and totally unqualified. I have instructed members of my party to immediately file articles of impeachment against that little cancer kid.”

    While some in the Democratic party felt it might be unwise to come out as pro-pediatric cancer, Congressional leaders did not waver. “We will never cheer little black boys beating cancer and achieving their dreams,” said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “That’s exactly what Trump wants us to do. We will never support such tyranny.”

    At publishing time, Democrats had added a new sign to their little paddles reading “Yay brain cancer.”

    Liked by 1 person

  34. “8 Powerful Ways Democrats Protested Trump’s Speech”

    Sponsored · Mar 5, 2025 · BabylonBee.com

    Article Image

    “The world is abuzz following President Donald Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress, with many people talking about how bravely the Democrats pushed back against Trump’s message of peace, hope, and prosperity.

    The Babylon Bee compiled the following list of incredibly powerful ways Democrats protested Trump’s speech:

    1. Covered their ears while saying “la la la la la”: This is how we fight back.
    2. Stared blankly with ugly, unpleasant expressions: We’re now being told that’s just how they look.
    3. Supported women by borrowing every pink pantsuit in Tim Waltz’s closet: Never has the Minnesota governor’s fabulous wardrobe come in more handy.
    4. Ripped up copies of the Constitution at the end of the speech: Fascism defeated.
    5. Silently drew up legislation that would continue funding the war in Ukraine using other people’s money: That’ll prove how committed they are.
    6. Gave a rebuttal message that said “We’re rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off us and sticks to you”: There’s no comeback for that.
    7. Did some insider trading on their phones: This technically wasn’t to protest Trump, but whatever.
    8. Rooted for cancer: Trump supporters deserve what’s coming to them.

    Boy, they sure showed Trump. He’ll think twice before crossing them ever again. What other subtle Democrat protests did you notice?

    Liked by 1 person

  37. “California lawmakers have introduced a bill to ban private firefighters, like those who saved many buildings in the Palisades and Eaton fires, from using public hydrants, saying firefighting is a “public good.”

    Think about that for a minute. First and foremost is the fact that rich people can afford to hire private contractors to protect their properties because they fear the public services in their state are insufficient. Okay, then – with all of the arrogance and stupidity for which they are well known, the politicians they elect tell them they can’t do that, because doing it is embarrassing maybe? What other reason would they have for this?”

    “Oh, that’s right! They’re democrats….”

    “Bear in mind: he endorsed Kamala….”

    Liked by 1 person

  38. Ahhh! It was this ho!

    “I mentioned this display balloon thing this morning just briefly, then I ran across this on DailyMail.com, and I got to thinking. 

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14462733/Kim-Kardashian-skims-bikini-balloon-doll-ridiculed.html

    I hope some blogger/vlogger/influencer/whatever/the/fuck does some man-in-the-street interviews about this. It’d be interesting to hear what Vinnie and Guido from Brooklyn have to say about her ass – which actually looks a little ‘down-sized’ on the balloon. Juss’ sayin’…”

    Liked by 1 person

  39. Oh, FFS!!! The dems pulling a demonstration in the House as they were voting to censure that idiot Green – a bunch of them were standing together in the well of the House and singing, refusing to leave when Leader Johnson gaveled and told them to clear the well. They did finally pass the censure. SMDH

    Liked by 1 person

  41. Trump: Here’s a kid with terminal brain cancer we’re going to honor by making him an honorary member of the Secret Service. Actually Democrats in that moment:

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Down But Not Out: The Supreme Court Rules 5-4 Against the Freezing $2 Billion in USAID Funds

    In an interesting 5-4 split, the Supreme Court has denied the Trump Administration’s application for a stay of a district court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Administration’s effort to freeze $2 billion in funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Administration is down by one vote but hardly out in the fight with lower courts over the control of this funding.

    The unsigned order in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition refuses to stay the temporary restraining order of U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to force the payment of the money frozen by the Administration.

    However, there is more than meets the eye in this short, unsigned opinion.

    While unsigned, it is clear that Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices. The reason is the dissent of Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who was joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. — Jonathan Turley

    Our Take: This simply isn’t my area of expertise or even genuine interest in the Info War, but I find Turley to be pretty measured when it comes to SCOTUS issues.

    The headlines are painting this as an emphatic win by the administrative state and a staggering loss for the implementation of Trump’s DOGE agenda, and yet, reading a bit deeper, we see that this seems to be setting the stage for continued appeals in either direction.

    Overall, I have no idea which direction this particular decision is going to go, BUT … I think we’re seeing an era of narrowing, from presidential authority right to the courts. And before we can narrow authority, I suppose we need to stretch the limits of just how far it currently extends, and draw mandate for its curtailment. — Burning Bright

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    1. did you read this? coffee & covid’s take on the decision–pretty long read–but really interesting.

      Yesterday afternoon, the New York Times raced to run a top-of-page story headlined, “Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Bid to Freeze Foreign Aid.” This morning, it was all but missing, shrunk to a small-font trailer on the Times’ home page. They figured out that it wasn’t good news for them.

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      So far as I can tell, the phrase “waiting for the other shoe to drop” reportedly first appeared in a joke printed in Tacoma, Washington’s Evening News in 1902. It went something like this:

      “What was that?” A lodger in a New York apartment house had just gone to bed when he heard a shoe fall on the floor in the room above.

      A minute later, he was still wide awake, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Finally, unable to stand the suspense, he shouted at the top of his lungs: “For heaven’s sake, drop the other shoe!”

      For perfectly understandable reasons, conservatives these days are overwhelmed with all the good news. It is almost too much. We can’t believe our good fortune. And one side effect of all this relentless blessing has made us nervous as sheep before a shearing. We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. At the first sign of stormy weather, some of us are far too quick to start pointing the bony finger of blame and forecasting falling skies.

      It happened again yesterday, after a minor Supreme Court setback stirred the conservative-sphere into furious anger. Corporate media piled on, of course, and inflated the tiny scrap of good news (for them) into one of those wavy-armed marketing balloon men. But as I have counseled many times, we must learn to ignore the hot takes and await calmer waters before engaging our emotions.

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      👨‍⚖️ The news was that, on procedural grounds, in a brief (one page) 5-4 split decision, the Court denied President Trump’s request to stay Judge Ali’s bizarre TRO ordering the Administration to pay out $2 billion in totally wasteful (or worse) USAID money. The four justices in the minority signed a scathing seven-page dissent, which fueled even more conservative angst. Conservative commenters eagerly discarded stare decisis in favor of reams of posts analyzing Justice Coney Barret’s stares of death at Tuesday night’s presidential address.

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      Maybe. I have no idea what anti-Trump motives may lurk in Justice Coney Barrett’s mind, or whether she was just thinking about how, if her husband asks her one more time to find the spicy pickles when they were literally right there on the top shelf, that’s it, she’s getting a divorce. Same face.

      Either way, it is far too soon to throw the Supreme Court baby out with the TRO bathwater. Nor should Amy give up on her marriage, either, since any replacement husband will be just as helpless when it comes to locating condiments. It’s a biological imperative.

      👨‍⚖️ Let’s dial down the burners of outrage and seek understanding of the decision itself. It was unsigned. It did not order Trump to pay anybody anything. Both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Coney Barrett joined. (Which is another reason to ignore all the “Coney Barrett hates Trump” memes— remember, Chief Justice Roberts was who originally stayed the TRO that required Trump to pay the $2 billion by midnight. He joined the Majority, and nobody’s analyzing his body language. Let the libs think Coney Barrett hates Trump.)

      The motion had arrived at the Supreme Court in an odd procedural posture. The DC Circuit had refused to hear the appeal, since it was an appeal from an “unappealable” short-term TRO. So one of the confusing issues was … exactly which order was on appeal to the Supremes? Judge Ali’s TRO order? Or the DC Circuit’s order refusing to hear the case? If the latter, which makes much more procedural sense, then the Supremes’ only option was to reverse the DC Circuit, uselessly bouncing the case back down so that hostile bench could performatively render an opinion that everybody knows would have upheld the TRO anyway.

      I get it; we were all frustrated that the Court didn’t break the chain of command by reaching right over the lower appellate court and slapping Judge Ali’s TRO order right out of his hand, and that’s unfortunate. For its own reasons, the Court decided not to break several standing protocols. But … did it really toss President Trump under the bus and burn two billion dollars? Or did it throw Judge Ali under the bus?

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      The Court’s weapon is brains, not brawn. And if we stop to read the Court’s order, we find it slyly pulled Ali’s fangs, pushed him onto procedural quicksand, and invited Trump to appeal again as soon as Ali overreaches. Despite corporate media’s fondest wish, this was not a ‘whee! Trump just lost!’ moment.

      It was a temporary strategic defeat teeing up a win. I’ll prove it.

      The brief order included one long sentence that threw Trump several lifelines. Since, given all the conservative black-pilled hysteria over the decision, my analysis will be considered controversial, let’s carefully examine the order’s text:

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      Every single word has meaning. “The deadline in the challenged order has now passed” reinforced that Trump is no longer under any deadline at all. It’s gone. Judge Ali must now issue a new order setting a new deadline, all in the context of the looming March 10th date when his TRO expires four days from now. Ali’s new deadline-resetting order could be appealed again.

      More significantly, Judge Ali must soon hold a full preliminary injunction hearing, providing even more opportunities for Trump to appeal— this time on the merits, such as on his argument for sovereign immunity (strongly endorsed in the Dissent), rather than appealing on much weaker procedural grounds.

      Second, the Majority said “the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill.” In other words, the Court, in effect, partially granted Trump’s appeal. The phrase suggested that Judge Ali’s original order requiring the government to pay all the contracts by midnight was simply too broad and lacked a good reason.

      This places Judge Ali in a diabolical judicial minefield— his next order clarifying the original order has to provide more words, increasing the chances the inexperienced jurist will stumble on a buried appellate landmine.

      The third requirement, that Ali’s next order must include “due regard for the feasibility of any compliance deadlines,” means that the Court told Judge Ali, “no more same-day deadlines.” It’s bigger than it look. Ali now must hold a hearing to allow argument over the government’s needs for time, to ensure that payments are feasible. This is all while the clock is ticking on holding the emergency preliminary injunction hearing.

      If Judge Ali must have a hearing anyway, why not just go ahead and hold the preliminary injunction hearing, rather than a separate hearing to find out what should be in the next intermediate TRO order?

      The bottom line is, it’s probably impossible for Judge Ali to satisfy those three reasonable-sounding conditions in the time remaining before the substantive hearing on the preliminary injunction.

      Am I just seeing a glass half-full? Let’s discuss that next.

      👨‍⚖️ Your first question should be, if they wanted to help, why not just grant Trump’s appeal? By issuing a conditional order rather than outright overruling the TRO, the Court wins at least two ways. First, overruling the TRO required changing the law to the Court’s detriment. TRO’s are normally considered unappealable. This rule significantly reduces the work all federal appellate courts have to do, and normally it isn’t a big deal, because TRO’s are intended to be of very limited scope and duration.

      If the Court did change the non-appealability rule for President Trump, it would create precedent, it would be much more controversial, and it would create LOTS more future work for itself and for the Circuits.

      Second, this way the Supreme Court scored a major political win by ruling against Trump, which shows “independence,” non-king-making, and adherence to the black-letter “rule of law.” But with a single scalpel-sharp sentence, the one-page order stripped Ali of any realistic way to revive his pay-now order—without either violating the Court’s conditions or tripping another appeal.

      Here is where the Dissent’s hammer struck the Majority’s nail. We’ll now answer your second question— if the Majority order actually helped Trump without helping him, why was the Dissent so harshly written?

      I’d hoped you’d ask that.

      👨‍⚖️ Supreme Court certioari — its agreement to hear a case — needs four Justices. In this case, fully four (4) Justices signed the barn-burning dissent that was seven times longer than the Majority opinion itself. This was a signal to Judge Ali roughly comparable to a baseball bat with the word “stop” painted on the end. The muscular Dissent signaled that, if Judge Ali strays even a little over the line, Trump will be right back in front of the Supremes, tout de suite, courtesy of the furious four.

      Furthermore, with the current 5-4 split, and with four already fired up, even inexperienced Judge Ali knows he has zero margin for error— he’s riding a banana peel down a razor’s edge. If he stretches at all, such as by short-shrifting any of the Majority’s three requirements, and loses a single judge — either Roberts or Coney Barrett — he’ll be a dead skunk.

      To be perfectly clear: my best guess, reading this order, is that all six conservative Justices were working together, and were not, actually, at odds. If I’m right, there is no daylight between them, and they are executing flawlessly. Remember— these are very smart and very politically savvy people.

      Some folks will still remain troubled by the seven pages of dissenting opinion. But there’s no cause for concern.

      The almost-over-the-top Dissent was as astonishing a bit of legal dressing down as I’ve ever seen. It was so surreal that it was almost performative. It punched almost cartoonishly hard. But it also laid out a treacherous legal roadmap for Judge Ali, charting a path he’ll fear to take but cannot ignore. It would be entertaining to quote it (“I am stunned”), but this section is already running long. Maybe I’ll do a Twitter thread about the dissent if I have time.

      Dissenting opinions are not just hot air. The Court can say things in dissent without risking political blowback that it would never dare to say in a majority opinion. It can say things in dissent that are really advising the lower court judge, for good or ill. We witnessed this dynamic last year, when Justice Thomas penned a scathing dissent about Special Prosecutor Smith’s lack of authority—an issue currently pending before South Florida Judge Cannon, who immediately ran with Justice Thomas’s implicit assurance that the Court had her back, and so she promptly chucked Jack Smith right into the judicial wood chipper.

      A dissent might lack direct legal effect, but it wasn’t at all good for Judge Ali or his judicial career to be called out by four Justices in their Dissent (they said he “self-aggrandized” his jurisdiction). While the Dissent appeared to be talking to the Majority, it was actually talking about Judge Ali— and to him. Ali now faces four angry Justices who are ready to drop the hammer.

      So, don’t engage with the hot takes. Patience, grasshopper. Don’t start yelling for the other shoe to drop. If anything, the Court just tied Judge Ali’s shoelaces together.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Outstanding explanation! I can never wrap my pea brain around all the legal mumbo-jumbo! I am thankful that what little involvement I had in these legal discussions in the DCI did not encompass such complicated issues. They were very straight-forward compared to THIS morass!!!

        Liked by 1 person

  50. “Catholic Church Introduces White Ashes For Black People”

    Church · Mar 6, 2025 · BabylonBee.com

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    VATICAN — Ash Wednesday in 2025 was the most inclusive ever, say Vatican officials, thanks to the introduction of new white ashes for black people.

    “Now, at long last, black people can take selfies of themselves with ash on their foreheads,” said Archbishop Riono Fisichella. “Which is what repentance is all about.”

    Fisichella, who previously worked on the creation of Luce, the Vatican’s first anime mascot, reportedly worked tirelessly with Italian scientists to develop the perfect shade of white ash for black Catholics.

    “Ash Wednesday is a time to come together and have ash smeared on your forehead so you can show off your repentance to other people. But black people couldn’t do that because the ash would blend in with their skin,” Fisichella said. “I’ve long enjoyed the privilege of looking holy on Ash Wednesday, and now blacks can too.”

    The ashes for Ash Wednesday typically come from the burning of palm fronds used in Palm Sunday celebrations from the previous year. However, these make a distinctly grayish-black ash that cannot be seen on black people. This causes whites and other light-skinned ethnicities to appear repentant on Ash Wednesday while black people look like they don’t care at all.

    However, despite the hard work of the church, not everyone is convinced it was worth the time and effort. “I kind of liked that no one could see it,” said Tom Warren, an actual black person. “I thought we weren’t supposed to show off when we fasted anyway.”

    The new white ashes will be distributed throughout the dioceses in 2025.

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