Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Latest round of nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Please go read Elaine's "Bruce Springsteen's NEBRASKA" from last night.  I love it when she writes about music.  In fact, I miss our theme posts we used to do where we'd all write about an artist or our favorite album or a poem.  But Elaine made me recall all I loved about NEBRASKA and, I agree, it is a great album.  

News right now would include that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has started online voting for the next round of inductees.


Who has to be inducted?


I'd argue three or must inductees: Cyndi Lauper, Billy Idol and Oasis.  I'd argue that they have lasting significant work and they had an impact on the music scene and many people followed copying them.


Chubby Checker?  I was going to say take a pass on him.  He can be inducted at another time because he's dead . . . 


He's not dead.  I went to WIKIPEDIA to count his top forty hits on the pop and R&B charts -- 23 -- and discovered he was still alive.  So that change it for me on him.  If he can be inducted while he's alive that means a lot more and I would certainly advocate for him being inducted.  He's a godfather of rock and roll and, again, 23 hits, Id move him to the must inductees column.


Mariah Carey?  If not this year, then next.  She's an original.  The huge switch up she did in the second half of the 90s changed the way everyone sings.  She's a pioneer.  I'm not going to count her hits -- I'm sure it's well over 60.  She's been a huge influence and a pioneer.  This year would be fine, next year would be okay with me as well.


The White Stripes?


My attitude is pass.  Jack White's done nothing of value since he broke up the group except for the Bond song with Alicia Keys.  That's it.  The White Stripes were not together that long.  They didn't have that many great things.  Jack and Meg were married but passed themselves off as brother and sister.  That's still creepy.  So, no.  I love "Seven Nation Army" and even their cover of "I Don't Know Just What To Do With Myself" but that's not enough to get into the Hall.


Joy Division and New Order?  Don't feel it's pressing this year.  Modern English belongs in the Hall before Joy Division gets in.


Outkast is a pioneering group and they've earned their place in the Hall but it could be next year and I'd be okay with that


Soundgarden belongs in but Chris Cornell's dead and I don't see why their induction has to be this year.  I loved that band and they're great but, again, don't see the pressing need for it to be this year.


Joe Cocker.  Pass.  He's not unique -- not even due to John Belushi parodying him on SNL.  He died over ten years ago.  He was a singer.  He was a White siner who tried to imitate Black singers and I never felt he added unique and was just a rip-off.  He had no real impact in the US.   He had a number one hit in the early eighties and that didn't interest the country in him or revive his career.  Prior to that?  He had two top ten hits.  


Three albums went gold.  Just gold.  One was a live one, two were studios,  The two were in 1969 and the live was 1970.  He just didn't have an impact here.  No million seller.  No multi-million seller.  No one was trying to ape Joe Cocker in this country.  He released at least 61 albums.  Only three went gold.  Nothing went gold after 1970.  Nothing went platinum. 


We realize, don't we, that Diana Ross is not in the Hall as a solo performer, right?  She's in for her leadership of the Supremes.  As a solo artist, she's had six gold albums and two platinum.  On the pop, adult contemporary, dance or R&B charts in the US, she's hit the top forty with 63 songs.


She's an icon and she changed music and was a huge influence.  And she's not in but we're going to let Joe Cocker get in with his bad Blackface minstrel show?

Phish?  

Great live band but no real impact in the recording field  Maybe someday but it shouldn't be this year.  (They're men, I'm sure they'll get in this year but they shouldn't.)

Bad Company?  Sure.  Right after the Archies get in.


The Black Crows?  Love "She Talks To Angels" and got drunk to that song many times.  But is that really enough for inclusion into the Hall?  


Where's Til Tuesday?  That's a pioneering band that has a legacy.  


But it's fronted by a woman.  And the Hall remains sexist.


14 nominees.  One band -- White Stripes with Meg as the drummer -- two solo singers Cyndi and Mariah. 


Still sexist.


Tori Amos was yet again not nominated.  She's been eligible for the Hall forever.  Nirvana, one of her peers, got inducted in 2014.  She's still not in.  And for years, we would bemoan that.  However, it's really not happening now.  She's exhausted us with one garbage album after another -- that does include her new music to go with her children's book.  We're all tired of her music.  And we're tired of her.  A feminist who doesn't work with women. 

This month, the Oscar for best short documentary went to THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA about bassist Orin O'Brien who, in 1966, became the first female musician in the New York Philharmonic's Orchestra.  1966.


Yet 'feminist' Tori has done how many tours and all the musicians on stage with her are always men.


She should have addressed that decades ago.  It makes all her 'goddess' talk and all her pretense at being a feminist a joke.  And again, you have to back to 2002 for a great album.  She keeps releasing them and they get worse and worse with each release and sell less and less.  She didn't lose her fans, she ran them off.


 Last nominee, Mana?  They've had three monster selling albums.  Not my favorite band but they've earned a place in the Hall.  


Closing with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Wednesday, March 12, 2025.  Msuk loses money, Chump attacks school kids and much more.


Let's start with this:

For a week and a half, Kayla Somarriba and her husband Jeison Ruiz Rodriguez noticed suspicious vehicles circling their Spokane Valley block. Some were marked as federal law enforcement vehicles, others were clandestine. The couple was getting nervous. 

“With everything going on, we’re gonna be paranoid,” Somarriba said. “You see this serious car, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ But it was way too much. It’s one thing to see it once or twice, but it was just something that we would see almost daily.”

But she did not expect that federal agents would soon pull them over, break through the windows of their white Chevy Silverado, drag Ruiz Rodriguez and his brother Cesar from the vehicle and sweep them to a federal immigration jail in Tacoma after injuring the brothers with a Taser and a rifle.

The Ruiz Rodriguezes are migrants from Nicaragua; Somarriba was born in Miami.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents have been working in the Inland Northwest — as they have across the country — with agencies as far-flung as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to detain and deport migrants. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s chaotic effort to rid the country of immigrants the administration says are here illegally. 


Hey, if we spread a rumor that they're Palestinian, you think they'd get media coverage and protests.  Or does the White student getting all the attention just prove to be the 1% himself?  I guess he'd have to be, right?  He went to Columbia, after all.  Not an easy school to get into or to afford.  But let's drop everything and pretend like we're not being fed by his attorney -- which we are even when they say things like "we came across e-mails . . ."  No, you were fed them by his attorney.

And I can't figure out if that woman's inept or not?  She certainly created a media storm -- RAH RAH RAH -- but she can't get wifey on camera.  Wifey, when she speaks to the press, won't even give her name.

Does no one understand perception management?

You're trying to get attention for your client and his pregnant wife won't reveal her name?  

They're may not be anything wrong there but it doesn't look right and it doesn't play right. 

What it does do is foster doubt among people following the story as they wonder, "What's this American hiding?" 

I have no idea.  Maybe it's not really a marriage or it's a common-law marriage?  Maybe another man got her pregnant and she's afraid he'll step forward and say this was a green card scam?  Maybe the attorney's incompetent? Or maybe the wife or 'wife' is just really dumb and can't get it through her head that if she's trying to help her husband, she needs to be an open book including her name.  

What we know at present and she'll speak to sympathetic, pre-selected journalists who agree not to name her.

As a general rule when your clients is attempting to sway in the court of public opinion, you don't let the spouse dictate ground rules for the press.

But, again, the average immigrant that is being harassed and terrorized was not someone wealthy enough to go an ivy league school -- let alone one with a tuition cost where four years undergrad could buy two nice houses in most states. 

But keep marching and rallying for your 1%-er while you ignore the actual immigrants in need.

It's no different, this glorification and rally of support around one person, than the same instinct which apparently led US military veteran Ty Vaughn to Google whether or not you can get away with killing an immigrant before shooting Luis Banos Norberto in the head.  Ty got the message of hate from Donald Chump and he gets the message tat Latino immigrants don't matter from Gaza Freaks who can't be bothered to protest or speak out unless it's someone that they deem one of their own.  That's the message being sent and it's the message that's responsible for Luis Banos Norberto's murder at the age of 27. 

But ignore that, ignore New Jersey's Emine Emanet and Celal Emanet.as well as so many others.  And then wonder, Gaza Freaks, why you're seen as single-issue voters and no one outside of your bubble has any respect for you at all.  With you, as with Chump, it's all transactional.

And, ZETEO and others, stop e-mailing your garbage coverage of the 1% to me.  Looking at your own stats for streaming doesn't appear you have an audience for the story either.  Twelve hours later and you've only got 13,000 streams?  But your stuff from yesterday and the day before is all over 150,000 streams -- one over 250,000 streams?

If you don't get it, we believe in equality in this country.  That's what fed Occupy Wall Street.  So you ignore all the other deportation efforts at your own peril while you rush to pimp the 1% who went to Columbia.  It's hypocrisy and people don't generally embrace it.  Contact his attorney and let her know she needs to work harder and come up with a different strategy (and a spouse that doesn't have demands from the media before she grants access).  


Let's move on. 



All are invited.  Because that's how it's supposed to be.  Elected officials have constituents.  Those are their bosses and their party i.d. does not matter.  This isn't a campaign stop, this is about members of Congress doing their job.  While Jasmine Crockett and others are more than prepared to do their job, the MAGA members of Congress are hiding and scared.  See Ava and my "Media: Some returns work better than others" from Monday for more on that.   Hiding away from your constituents doesn't spell re-election.  And the all powerful Alien Musk who had MAGA members of Congress so worried because he was going to spend millions and millions in district after district, in state after state, funding challengers?  He's still sitting pretty but the big money that he had keeps shrinking and who knows how much he's prepared to lose?  Musk isn't very smart but I believe he's smarter than Mike Lindell. 

Big news that so many outlets seem to be ignoring?  Elizabeth Dwoskin, Faiz Siddiqui and Emily Davies (WASHINGTON POST) report:


Facing weeks of negative headlines and growing pressure from within the Trump administration, the U.S. DOGE Service is racing to finish the first phase of its assignment — slashing the federal bureaucracy — and move on to what the team hopes will be seen as more constructive work: creating sleek tools for navigating government services.
Throughout DOGE, the need to find and champion positive achievements is seen as urgent, according to two people familiar with the group’s internal workings. One key ally, General Services Administration official and former Tesla employee Thomas Shedd, told his staff during a meeting last week that “I need wins to defend,” according to audio obtained by The Washington Post.

Using a Silicon Valley phrase for putting new products in the hands of users, Shedd urged staff to “remain focused on the reason you came to the government and this team to begin with, which is to deliver value and ship.”
The effort comes as backstage turmoil over DOGE has begun to spill into public view: Only two days after praising billionaire Elon Musk, who oversees the DOGE team, in an address to Congress, President Donald Trump sided last week with frustrated agency heads, saying they -- not Musk -- are in charge of making cuts in their departments. On Truth Social, Trump called for more precision, writing: “We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet.’” And in pro-Trump districts, voters have stormed town halls to protest DOGE cuts to government services and firings of thousands of civil servants.



Chump's people think they can crisis manage this.  They're that stupid.  An unpopular program of questionable legality was always going to be a hard sale.  Though Chump's been unable to fill any post with someone qualified, let's pretend for a moment that the person heading DOGE was qualified.  That still wouldn't have helped Alien Musk.  The alien is not an American.  As Lawrence O'Donnell observed Monday night when Alien was attacking a US citizen -- Senator Mark Kelly -- Alien doesn't know this country.  



He was born and raised in South Africa.  Scared of life there after apartheid was due to fall, Alien ran to Canada.  He doesn't know the US.  He is not part of the US.  Alien is an alien to Americans and that's before you get into his creepy parentage (14 children), before you get into that weird voice (he speaks as though he has a hot potato on his tongue), that weird face, etc, etc.


Chump could have put Peyton Manning in charge and Americans would still have problems with their sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, fathers and mothers being fired.  The Social Security office in Shreveport?  When those people are threatened with job losses (and they are across the US), Chump and Alien's pretense that this is about DC and cleaning the sewer just don't fly.  But when you put Alien in charge, you've got an even bigger problem and, no, this really is beyond crisis management. 

DOGE would be a hard sell with anyone but with Alien?  It's even worse.  He can't even seem to help Tesla these days.  Kelsey Vlamis (BUSINESS INSIDER) notes:


Elon Musk said Monday running his businesses, like Tesla and SpaceX, while also taking on a major government overhaul effort has not been easy.
[. . .]
His comment came as Tesla stock declined 15% on Monday, its largest single-day drop since 2020. The stock is down 55% from a high in December, causing concern among investors.


Tesla's stock fell by 15 percent on Monday, losing $16 billion in one day and becoming the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 this year.

Musk shrugged off the loss, as well as a slew of other negative news reports, in a Fox Business Network interview.


Musk is a failure.  But let's go back to our Shreveport example for a moment.  You're killing jobs in cities around the country.  Shreveport isn't even the capital of the state of  Louisiana -- Baton Rouge is.  But in those areas, people are feeling the panic and the worry and some have already lost jobs.  Now that's widespread in cities in every state -- cities plural.  And now things are about to get worse -- we're going to see people in cities and in towns suffering because of Chump and that Musky alien.  Kelly Rissman (INDEPENDENT) reports:


The Department of Agriculture has slashed over $1 billion in funding aimed at helping schools and food banks purchase from local farmers, according to a nonprofit.

“Multiple states” were recently notified of these cuts, the nonprofit School Nutrition Association said in a statement Tuesday.
“With research showing school meals are the healthiest meals Americans eat, Congress needs to invest in underfunded school meal programs rather than cut services critical to student achievement and health,” said the group’s president Shannon Gleave. “These proposals would cause millions of children to lose access to free school meals at a time when working families are struggling with rising food costs. Meanwhile, short-staffed school nutrition teams, striving to improve menus and expand scratch-cooking, would be saddled with time-consuming and costly paperwork created by new government inefficiencies.”

An estimated $660 million in funds through the Local Food for Schools program for 2025 will no longer be available to support childcare institutions and schools, the group added.


Covering the same development, Kate Nalepinski (NEWSWEEK) notes:

The impact of these cuts will vary by state, depending on their reliance on the LFS program. States that had integrated these funds into their operational plans for school meal programs and food banks will face significant challenges.

According to USDA, the following states have signed with USDA on the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
 
Check my math, but I'm counting forty-two states.   Co-presidents Chump and Musk are cutting off food to children.  How do you think that plays with parents and grandparents.  Musk doesn't know anything, he's an idiot from another country.  But Chump doesn't even grasp how this hurts him?

Louisiana is one of the most poverty stricken states in the country. Three years ago, official state records showed the poverty rate to be 18.6% with 829,565 people living in or below poverty and 255,159 of those were children.  USAID cuts are awful.  But Chump could hope there that most people wouldn't realize what was going on since it impacted populations outside of America -- largely outside of America, when you're attacking USAID, you're also attacking Americans working with USAID.  But this is Chump preparing to starve children in this country -- children of voters.  









BLUESKY users are covering the topic. 


Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:


“As Secretary of the Navy, you could make programmatic decisions that would increase DoD’s reliance on companies in which you are invested. To mitigate that conflict, you should divest your holdings in defense contractors.” 

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote to Mr. John Phelan, nominee to be Secretary of the Navy, with concerns regarding his “serious conflicts of interest,” given his financial investments in defense contractors. To address her concerns, Senator Warren asked Mr. Phelan to make a number of commitments related to his conflicts of interest ahead of the committee vote on his nomination. 

As Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Phelan could make programmatic decisions that would increase the Department of Defense’s (DoD) reliance on companies in which he is invested or with which he has close relationships. These ties to various defense contractors, including Dell Technologies, Palantir, and Red Call Partners, raise serious concerns about his potential biases in making programmatic decisions for the military. 

Mr. Phelan has investments worth over $50 million in Dell Technologies, which has a $2.5 billion contract to provide software services to the U.S. Navy, alongside other lucrative DoD contracts. Since January 2024 alone, he has earned over $5 million in capital gains and dividends from that investment. Mr. Phelan also has investments in other defense contractors, like National Resilience, a biomanufacturing company that has a $410 million DoD contract, and Woolpert, which provides school construction services for DoD.

The nominee also founded MSD Acquisition Corp., which has promoted Phelan’s “extensive and deep relationships” with Palantir and other companies in which he has invested. From his Palantir stock alone, Mr. Phelan recently earned over $5 million in capital gains. 

“Even if you have sold your Palantir investments, your relationship with the company could still bias your decision-making toward assisting Palantir in its current push for more DoD contracts,” said Senator Warren. 

Mr. Phelan also holds a multi-million-dollar stake in Red Cell Partners, a venture capital firm that is heavily invested in defense technology, has contracts with DoD, and has a history of hiring former senior defense officials, including former Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Red Cell aims to increase DoD’s reliance on artificial intelligence (AI), and Phelan’s Red Cell assets include investments in multiple defense-tech AI companies. 

Senator Warren urged the nominee to divest any remaining defense contractor investments before taking office and not repurchase stock in these contractors while serving as the Secretary of the Navy. She also asked him to recuse himself from particular matters involving his former clients and employers for four years after serving in the Navy role, as many Biden appointees did. Lastly, Senator Warren asked Mr. Phelan to commit not to lobby DoD or work for companies that do business with DoD for four years after leaving office. 

“The rampant revolving door of former government leaders lobbying the agencies they once led, while their government relationships remain fresh, erodes Americans’ faith in the federal government…By making these commitments, you would increase Americans’ trust in your ability to serve the public interest during your time at DoD — rather than the special interests of political allies and private sector companies,” concluded Senator Warren. 

Senator Warren has sought to protect servicemembers and national security by pushing defense nominees to resolve their conflicts of interest: 

  • In March 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary Nominee Stephen Feinberg, urging him to recuse himself from all matters related to Ligado Networks, which has a pending $39 billion lawsuit against the Department of Defense (DoD) over highly sought-after telecommunications spectrum space that the military has said is “essential for its various satellite communications, radars and navigation systems” usage. 
  • In March 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Mr. Emil Michael, nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, with concern over his history of inappropriate behavior at work, his attacks on journalists and public accountability, and his ties to technology companies that may seek contracts with the Department of Defense. 
  • In February 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Mr. Stephen Feinberg, nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense, ahead of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, pressing him to explain his “serious conflicts of interest” and his track record of mismanagement.
  • In January 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Mr. Michael Duffey, nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment of the Department of Defense, ahead of his confirmation hearing, with serious concerns about his record, which include violating the law, disregarding congressional authority, and his involvement in Project 2025. 
  • In January 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Mr. Pete Hegseth, nominee for Secretary of the Department of Defense, regarding his ethics conflicts ahead of the Senate’s consideration of his nomination. Mr. Hegseth’s household’s ownership of stock in several defense contractors and his unwillingness to commit to post-employment restrictions he previously advocated for at his confirmation hearing were particularly troubling for the role of Secretary of Defense.
  • In March 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren secured ethics commitments from Douglas Schmidt, ahead of his confirmation to be the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) for the Department of Defense.
  • In June 2023, Senator Elizabeth Warren and representative Andy Kim reintroduced the Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act, to limit the influence of contractors on the military, constrain foreign influence on retired senior military officers, and assert greater transparency over contractors and their interaction with DoD.
  • In July 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren secured agreements to four-year recusals from former clients’ and employers’ party matters from then-Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall and then-USD(R&E) Heidi Shyu.
  • In January 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren secured a commitment from General Lloyd Austin III, then-nominee for Secretary of Defense, to extend his recusal from Raytheon Technologies for four years and to not seek a position on the board of a defense contractor or become a lobbyist after his government service.

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