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Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

09-07-2022 - Election Reminder, Biden's Sept. 1 TV Coverage, Name a Country Game, Fourteenth Amendment, and Student Loans

 

Election Day Reminder

It is nine weeks to Election Day. Now is time for you to make your decision as to how you will vote:

Ø  Early voting at limited locations,

Ø  by mail, or 

Ø  at the polls on Election Day. 

Don’t wait.  Decide now.  And remind your friends and relatives to do the same.  For those who are not registered to vote, October 11 is the final deadline.  Help those who need help to register!  The Election Supervisor’s (Palm Beach County) telephone number is (561) 656 6200.

65(6566561) 656-6200 | (561) 656-6200 |

I will be voting (by mail) for Charlie Crist for governor and Val Demings for Senator.  Make your own decision but that is what I recommend.  I will be voting for the rest of the Democratic candidates on the ballot as well because, especially in the State legislature, Republicans do not represent the majority of the people of Florida.  Too many Florida Republicans still support the defeated former president.  Getting down to specific issues, DeSantis, Rubio, and both House of the Legislature do not represent the views of the majority of Floridians in these vital areas:

Ø  the State’s intrusion into personal medical decisions made between women and their doctors, 

Ø  real legislation to reduce gun violence, and 

Ø  guaranteeing voting rights to persons of color, which are under constant Republican attack through gerrymandering and purely political appointments. 

Oh, there are many other issues, including the Florida governor’s trashing of the First Amendment, but these three are the crucial ones, the things that will motivate voters.

Mark your calendars.  Speak to your friends and relatives.  Nine weeks remain and that isn’t very much time to mobilize the votes of women and persons of color, as well as others, who are specifically victimized by Republican positions.

JL

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Coverage of the President's September 1 Speech

While the traditional broadcast networks (ABC, CBS. NBC, Fox) did not carry the President’s September 1 address, pointing out the need for all Americans to rise to the occasion of defending our democracy against those presently attacking it, the ‘news’ channels did.   Between them, MSNBC and CNN had 3.91 million viewers of Biden’s speech. Add to these whatever PBS had and let's call it about 4 million.

Meanwhile, FoxSnooze carried the speech but with the President's voice muted, substituted by a running commentary by semi-fascist Tucker Carlson, drawing 2.89 million viewers, more than either MSNBC or CNN individually drew.  That is a bad sign, reflecting on the American public.  Carlson wins the Josef Goebbels Award for excellence in propaganda for this charade.  (He skipped accepting the prize, a swastika armband because one possibly is already tattooed on his upper arm.)  

That the regular broadcast networks that chose not to carry the speech drew larger audiences than saw it on the news networks confirms the fact that they are in business to make money and don't give a damn about the public service aspect which supposedly came along with their being given access to the airwaves. 

JL

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The United States of America is a Wonderful Country 

Can you name a country where a former president who behaved as our defeated former president has (without evidence, disputing the results of the election which he clearly lost, inciting violence to disrupt a peaceful transition of the presidency, stealing classified government documents to take with him) would not by now be either dead, imprisoned, hospitalized, under indictment, under house arrest, in exile, or strangely absent from all news media as if he never existed?  Name one.  Try hard. 

The United States of America is a wonderful country!  Smokers, helmetless bikers, seatbelt shunners, and the unvaccinated love it here, almost as much as liars in the media, the courts, the marketplace, and of course, in politics.  We have the freedoms to believe, and engage in, all kinds of crap.  I still believe that is a good thing.  

JL

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14th Amendment – Section 3

It reads: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

A federal judge in New Mexico just threw a county commissioner out of office. He had participated in the January 6 rioting at the Capitol, which the judge considered to be a violation of the Constitution’s clause quoted above.

 JL

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A Solution – Student Loan Forgiveness

I may have criticized this in an earlier posting, but I do have a solution!  Here's the ‘tweaking’ the President’s Student Loan Forgiveness proposal needs to make it more palatable.  I feel that It is necessary because most Americans either won’t accept nor understand the Administration’s argument that providing benefits for one type of borrower while ignoring others is no different than the way that tax legislation sometimes benefits those with investment income over those who just earn salaries. That’s too much of a stretch for most to swallow.  Here is what I recommend:

Allow those who have either paid off their student loans or whose loans under their terms are considered as ‘paid off,’ and whose income falls within the tight limits indicated in the proposal, to share in its benefit by being given an annual tax deduction broken down and stretched out over the next dozen years or so, adding up to no more than that same $10,000 or $20,000 ‘forgiveness’ (depending on type of loan) being made available to those still paying loans off. 

Sure, this will add to the proposal’s cost, but stretching it out over twelve years will make it much easier to fund.  Will that make everybody happy and take an argument out of the hands of Republicans? 

 JL

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Enough preaching to the choir.  Get out there and make sure you work to turn out a massive vote to save American democracy on Nov. 8.  That is what is at stake.

Remember that we are a government dependent upon the ‘rule of law’ and the documents on which laws are based.  Any political party that is willing to trade that for the comfort of having confidence in and dependence upon an absolute ‘leader’ (the *Germans call him a ‘Fuhrer') is giving up democracy and should never be trusted at any level of government, even as your local dog catcher.  That pretty much describes today’s sorry remnant of the Republican Party.   

*(Years ago, when I attended a concert in Germany, the 'usher' who led me to my seat wore a cap emblazoned 'Fuhrer,' his job being to lead people to their proper place.  That's fine in a theatre, but not in a democracy where all 'seating' is in the unreserved 'general admission' section.)

All Republicans, from local dog catchers on up to those who appoint and confirm judges, are infected with anti-democratic poisons. Too many support the 'big lie' and oppose abortion rights! The only antidote is the ballot. And local and state elections may be more important than federal ones.  Republican successes have proven that!  Democrats must learn from that!

Get to work. Now. Today. There’s a lot you can do.  Sign up to knock on doors, make phone calls, send emails or texts, send postal cards, show up at demonstrations.  Make donations.  If you need help, get started by contacting your local Democratic party, even if you’re not a Democrat. Do Something!

Now!  Today!  This minute!

 JL

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America Afloat 

 


(A poem that is always worth repeating in these blog postings. To learn more, visit this blog's posting of July 30, 2022, accessible from the Archives off to the right.)       JL

 

 

 


America Afloat

 Jack Lippman

 The greatness of America

Is that it does survive

Attacks upon democracy

Whose flame it keeps alive.

 

The laws that blossom from the words

The Founding Fathers wrote

Still serve us well today to keep

America afloat.

 

This doesn’t happen by itself,

We cannot wish it true,

The bottom line, my friends, is that

It all depends on you.

 

 JL                      


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