Brain Rot, Making Up Minds, Health Info for Floridians, and More 'About Democracy'

Brain Rot 

The Oxford English Dictionary, considered by many to be the most authoritative arbiter of the words English-speaking (and writing) people use today, has named its ‘Word of the Year.’ It’s ‘brain rot’ and here’s a short item defining and explaining it from the New York Times. Just copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/arts/brain-rot-oxford-word.html on your browser line or JUST CLICK HERE. 

Although we try to avoid ‘slop,’ as mentioned in the article, avoiding the sometimes-unwanted assistance of Artificial Intelligence in publishing Jackspotpourri is nearly impossible because of the way it has invaded the internet. 

JL 

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Making Up Your Mind 

Heather Cox Richardson’s Dec. 1 posting on ‘Letters from an American’ touches more bases than there are on a baseball diamond. Check out her posting at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or by CLICKING HERE.  It is well worth reading. 

But many Americans think differently from Professor Richardson. To see what they might believe, check out Bari Weiss’ ‘Free Press’ at bariweiss@substack.com (CLICK HERE) where on December 2, author and commenter Joe Nocera heaped praise upon many whom others fear and condemn. 

And another favorite of mine, Yale professor Timothy Snyder turns it all into a mind-bending historical exercise which can include many outcomes, in his ‘Thinking About’ piece dated November 30, entitled ‘Trumpomuskovia.’ Check it out at https://snyder.substack.com/ along with his ‘Decapitation Strike’ posted on December 1. (CLICK HERE)

Much of what all three post about is accurate. But some may not be or even be contradictory. There’s a lot out there for Americans to chew on, spitting out some, but digesting most of it each day to come up with an answer that will perhaps, just maybe, keep our representative democracy alive and healthy. If it doesn’t, our great experiment might just be slipping away. (Spitting something out is preferable to vomiting it up later.) 

JL 

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Thomas Friedman’s Optimism Dismissed 

A recent column by the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman recalled that despite his anticipated appointment of ‘one-stater’ religious zealot Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel, president-elect Trump’s history includes his efforts during his earlier administration to bring about a ‘two-state’ solution recognizing Palestinian rights! 

Friedman suggests that he might somehow pivot back to that position. If this occurs, it would be another example of Trump’s playing one side against the other, using them to serve his own objectives, which might include having something positive for history to record about him along with all the documented garbage and slime amidst which he dwells. Friedman’s idea is no more than wishful thinking. 

JL 

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 A while back I had promised future postings ‘About Democracy.’ The initial posting chronicled the events leading to the formation of the United States with its Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Here is ‘number two’ in that series, stressing the Constitution and its great shortcoming, the United States Senate. 

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 About Democracy (#2) – Making it Work 

 After the War of Independence, it became evident that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to manage the new nation. To remedy the situation, twelve States selected delegates to a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to draft a document to replace them. 

After they finally surmounted an initial hurdle by agreeing that there would be two legislative bodies, a House of Representatives (a ‘people’s house) whose numbers were based on the population of the States (slave holding States got to count non-voting slaves as 3/5 of a person), and a Senate where each State would have two Senators, making each State equal to each other State, the tradeoff began as to what would be the powers of each house of those dual legislatures, of an executive branch, and of a judicial branch. 

The intention was that these three branches would serve as brakes on one another. Much of this horse trading was resolved by agreeing that there would be a Bill of Rights comprising the first ten Amendments to the new Constitution, guaranteeing certain basic rights to individuals, and in effect to States as well, mollifying the initial reluctance of some States to ratify the proposed Constitution. 

Those ten Amendments were finally passed by December of 1791 by the State Legislatures to which the new Congress, as required by the new Constitution, had forwarded them. They were not officially passed until over three years after the Constitution’s ratification! 

They were: 

Amendment I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

Amendment II - A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 

Amendment III - No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 

Amendment IV - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

Amendment V - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. 

Amendment VI - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. 

Amendment VII - In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. 

Amendment VIII - Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. 

Someone must have then stood up (Maybe James Madison) and shouted ‘Now, is everybody happy?

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(One important delegate to that Convention who was not happy at all was Massachusetts’ Elbridge Gerry. He would have preferred that the Bill of Rights be in the Constitution itself. We remember him as the proponent of the practice of States altering Congressional District borders to best serve the interests of one party. We call it ‘Gerrymandering.’) Undoubtedly a great patriot and one of the Founding Fathers, he was one of the three attendees at the Constitutional Convention who refused to sign the Constitution because originally it did not include a Bill of Rights. Even after having a Bill of Rights was agreed to, he withheld his signature from the Constitution’s ratification, because those first ten Amendments had not yet been passed. He had wanted them in the Constitution before ratification. A man of great principles, Gerry was elected to the first House of Representatives and became President Madison’s vice-president.)                                                                 

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Nevertheless, the ratification by nine of the thirteen new States’ delegations to the Constitutional Convention, required to make the Constitution legal, was eventually secured in this order. 

• Delaware: December 7, 1787 

• Pennsylvania: December 12, 1787 

• New Jersey: December 18, 1787 

• Georgia: January 2, 1788 

• Connecticut: January 9, 1788 

• Massachusetts: February 6, 1788 

• Maryland: April 28, 1788 

• South Carolina: May 23, 1788 

• New Hampshire: June 21, 1788 (With this state’s ratification, the Constitution became legal.) 

• Virginia: June 25, 1788 

• New York: July 26, 1788 

• North Carolina: November 21, 1789 

• Rhode Island: May 29, 1790 (Rhode Island did not hold a State constitutional convention to choose delegates as did the other twelve.) 

After the relatively rapid approval of those first ten Amendments by 1791, looking to the Constitution’s Amendment process to make future changes to make our democracy work more effectively turned out to be a difficult route. It requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress, and ratification by three quarters of the nation’s 50 State legislatures. 

The Constitution was a great improvement over the Articles of Confederation, but it has left us with several problems, most of which stem from the undemocratic structure of the Senate, where each State names two Senators, regardless of its population. Originally, this was the responsibility of the State legislatures, but the 17th Amendment (1913) provided that they be elected by a State’s voters. (There also was a ‘thumb on the scale’ in the House of Representatives as well where non-voting slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person in calculating the size of a State’s House delegation.) 

The thirteen original States were reluctant to totally give up their independence. That is why States were given great influence in the Senate, regardless of their population. This was understandable at that time since ‘the elephant in the room’ was slavery, and its preservation required an undemocratically formed Senate. In effect, the Bill of Rights ‘bought’ the ratification of the Constitution by slave-holding States. 

That affected the presidency as well, because each State has a presidential electoral vote for each of their Representatives in the House of Representative and one for each of its Senators. This extended the Senate’s undemocratic basis to the Electoral College, which chooses for our president. That same undemocratic Senate also confirms Supreme Court appointees, approves treaties, and serves as a jury if the House of Representatives impeaches a president. The undemocratic rules determining the composition of the Senate lie at the heart of the problems with which our 1788 Constitution has left us. 

Besides the decades-long Amendment process, it also includes the Tenth Amendment, one of the goodies which convinced those reluctant to ratify the Constitution to sign it, reading ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ (‘People’ were not defined.) 

All of this word-juggling was because of that ‘elephant in the room,’ slavery, which slaveholding States feared might be the subject of pressure from the Federal government. That was also the real reason for the Second Amendment, if Federal military force became involved, or if there were a ‘slave rebellion.' 

This is the setting that we find ourselves in today, still trying to make our democracy work effectively. Change does not come easily, but today is neither 1788 nor the 1860s. Standing still as time moves on may be the same as moving backwards. Stay tuned to Jackspotpourri for suggested remedies.

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Something more to think about: Would it have been better if the Constitution had not been ratified, leaving the new nation stuck with the unmanageable Articles of Confederation, or if the Brits succeeded in taking us back, as they tried to do in 1812, when they got as far as burning the Capitol? 

In London, Parliament ended slavery in the entire British Empire effective in 1834, and that would have included their North American colonies, which except for Canada and some islands, are now the United States of America! If history had flowed in that direction, we would not have had a Civil War when we tried to end slavery in the 1860s. That was what the Civil War was all about although some still maintain it was about the Rights of States, a more respectable basis for argument than the slavery such rights permitted. 

Or would we have had our Civil War thirty years earlier in 1834 as a reaction to any British effort to enforce Parliament’s Slavery Abolition Act here? 

JL 

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Cancer Centers and Other Hospitals 

(Of particular interest to those living in Florida) 

Just because a hospital calls itself a ‘comprehensive cancer center’ doesn’t mean it is one of the 57 institutions nationwide given that specific designation by the government’s National Cancer Institute. In the State of Florida, there are only two hospitals meeting the criteria required to be given that designation: the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, and the Mayo Clinic’s branch in Jacksonville. (The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, has several such branches, one in Jacksonville and two others in Arizona.) 

In addition to these two institutions, there are two additional hospitals in Florida included in its listing of ‘NCI Designated Cancer Centers.’ which the National Cancer Institute lists as meeting the criteria to be included as ‘clinical cancer centers,' specifically the Sylvester *Comprehensive Cancer Center in Miami and the cancer center at the University of Florida’s Shands Hospital in Gainesville. (*The use of the word ‘comprehensive’ in this case seems to be Sylvester’s choice and not the designation assigned to it by the NCI). 

It appears to me that the difference between these two ‘NCI Designated Cancer Center’ categories has to do with the type and level of research carried on there. As for excellent treatment of and care for cancer patients, there does not appear to be any difference between them. 

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Despite the great number of physicians in the Palm Beach County area, some major northern hospitals (some of which are NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers themselves) are opening satellite offices here, sometimes staffed with local physicians and sometimes staffed by physicians from their northern facilities. Most of these northern institutions, however, have not yet built hospitals here or become directly affiliated with local hospitals. 

You might notice an increasing number of advertisements for Tampa General Hospital, about a three-hour drive and 200 miles away, on TV and in local newspapers. The efforts of this highly rated hospital, whose Palm Beach County efforts are partnered with Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, are in addition to New York’s Langone Medical Center. Hospital for Special Surgery, and Mt. Sinai Hospital all of which seem to recognize a vacuum in Palm Beach County that they hope to fill, despite the many competent physicians, including oncologists and surgeons, already practicing here.

Some are independent and some are affiliated with established institutions such as the Baptist Health group (locally, Boca Raton Regional, and Bethesda East and West Hospitals), Jupiter Medical Center and those affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic’s nearby Florida branches. The Cleveland Clinic has a full hospital in nearby Weston in Broward County, and is rumored to be planning on building one in Palm Beach County where it also has a satellite office.

Many of these institutions carry the NCI designation of being a comprehensive cancer center. But while it is clear that the leading cancer centers in the United States are the M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, the Dana Farber Cancer Instituter in Boston, and Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, as well as several in California, that does not mean that excellent cancer care is not available elsewhere, including in Florida and specifically in the Palm Beach County area. 

Perhaps the presence of the winter White House at Mar-a-Lago and Vanderbilt University’s planned graduate business school in West Palm Beach will result in the residents they bring here wanting to see an upgrading of local medical facilities at least to the level found in Washington and Nashville (home of Vanderbilt). 

Right now, the Palm Beach County residents are very fortunate in being relatively close to the NCI-designated ‘clinical cancer center’ at the Sylvester Cancer Center in Miami at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.  Excellent care and treatment are available there and it is an institution deserving of our support.  And it is about 140 miles closer to Palm Beach County than Tampa, site of the Moffitt Comprehensive Cancer Center (at the University of South Florida’s Morisani School of Medicine) or even Tampa General Hospital. 

(All of the institutions mentioned above fall into the category of ‘being not-for-profit’ while others may be parts of hospital chains which are publicly traded such as Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) or Tenet Healthcare. Local examples of such publicly traded hospitals are Delray Medical Center and JFK Hospital. While excellent care may be available in such hospitals, they usually are not connected with medical schools or involved in research.

Given the choice, I feel that one should always prefer a not-for-profit hospital over one that keeps an eye on the interests of its owners or shareholders.) 

Remember that decision-making regarding all medical issues should always include discussion with one’s primary caregiver. 

(Note: Above mention of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the government’s National Institutes of Health (NHI), may become obsolete in view of the president-elect’s choice of a believer in hoaxes and conspiracies as the cabinet member or official in charge of those agencies, appointments that will lead to the premature deaths of many Americans, among other serious inconveniences.) 

 JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. JL * * *

November 26, 2024 - Struggle for Constitutional Power, Immigrants' Votes, Snyder on Hegseth, Democrats Against Democrats, and an Anniversary

 

Sixty-One Years Ago 

Thursday, Nov. 22, was the 61st anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas. Heather Cox Richardson wrote about it in her ‘Letters from an American’ posting dated Nov. 22, 2024. Copy and paste

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line or CLICK HERE to read her posting. It concludes with Jacquline Kennedy’s words, after refusing to change from her bloodied suit, ‘I want them to see what they have done to Jack.’ (‘They’ are still around, in Texas and elsewhere.) 

JL 

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But enough of URLs and clickable links for today! Here’s Yale Professor Timothy Snyder’s ‘Thinking About’ posting dated Nov. 24 in its entirety, dealing with the totally unqualified Secretary of Defense proposed by the president-elect. 

"Pete Hegseth: The Short Course’ (Thirteen Steps to National Destruction) - Timothy Snyder Nov 24, 2024 

1. Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, has no qualifications for the job. He has never run a large organization and has no national security expertise. 

2. Hegseth has zero notion of which other countries might threaten America or how. In his books this is simply not a subject, beyond a few clichés. 

3. Hegseth does not believe in alliances. For him, “NATO is a great example of dumb globalism.” 

4. Hegseth wants a political army that bans women from combat roles, is purged of "cowardly generals," and is anti-woke. 

5. Hegseth never notes that the politicized Russian army meets all of his standards perfectly, but it is ineffective and commits war crimes. 

6. Hegseth never notes that the Ukrainian army, which does have women in combat, and is not politicized in the way he would like, has overperformed.

7. Hegseth has almost nothing to say about the most significant armed conflict of our time and has not visited Ukraine or learned anything about it. 

8. Hegseth’s misogynist gender politics are consistent with his polygamy and the accusations of rape. 

9. Hegseth's enemies are all internal: the Left, Muslins, and immigrants. He repeatedly claims that the Left wishes to annihilate everyone else, which is a call to violence. 

10. Hegseth, a Christian Reconstructionist, believes that Americans should be governed not by law or by the Constitution but by God -- as interpreted of course by Hegseth and his friends. 

11. Hegseth calls for a "holy war" and a "crusade" against Americans who think differently than he does because "God wills it." Trump is the pretext: Hegseth wants "to make crusade great again." 

12. Hegseth, according to his books, could be counted upon to ignore threats to America from abroad, and to use a purged and politicized military against “enemies within.” This is consistent with Trump's avowed intention to build a kind of dictatorship on the ruins of a dysfunctional government. 

13. Hegseth thus represents a policy of regime change. Trump’s nomination of Hegseth is best understood as part of a decapitation strike against the republic. A Christian Reconstructionist war on Americans led from the Department of Defense is likely to break the United States. 

PS: I wrote a much longer post on this subject, hewing to a thought that I had about the usefulness of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale as a lens to see dangers of Christian Reconstructionism for the American republic. I think, though, that Hegseth's anti-qualifications for the position of secretary of defense are so blatant that they deserve a separate and clear presentation.

As before, I rely upon and draw quotations from his books ‘The War on Warriors: ‘Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (2024);’ ‘Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation’ (2023, with David Goodwin); and ‘American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free (2020).” 

(Visit Professor Timothy Snyder’s ‘Thinking About’ blog at https://snyder.substack.com/ to see his other recent postings such as the ones supporting Ukraine, and those likening the religious orientation of the incoming administration to the Margaret Atwood novel he mentions.) 

JL 

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Strange Bedfellows Department 

Those whose votes on Election Day were motivated by a desire to restrict immigration, legal or otherwise, can find allies in most of the workers who clean their houses, tend to their landscaping, bus the tables and work in the kitchens of their favorite restaurants, and do the housekeeping chores in our hotels and motels, as well as working on our farms and at many construction sites. 

They don’t want anyone coming into the country who can take away their jobs, regardless of what it took for them to get them in the first place … immigration, both legal or otherwise! 

 JL 

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When a Democratic Congressman Draws the Ire of More Progressive Democrats 

Massachusetts Democratic Representative Seth Moulton has drawn criticism, if not hatred, from ‘progressive’ Democrats for statements he has made lately. “We’ve worked so hard at becoming tolerant that we’ve become intolerant,” Moulton, who represents the suburbs north of Boston, was quoted on the Free Press site (11/25/24) as saying. 

The ‘hatred’ started about two weeks ago, when Moulton in a New York Times article explaining why Kamala Harris lost, included that the Democratic Party had become overly focused on trans issues. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton told the Times. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” 

Is not being able to say something like what Moulton said a concern or even a litmus test for office holders, even progressive Democrats? 

Somewhere else I’ve read about the difference between ‘ignorance of what is true’ and ‘ignoring what is true,’ the latter requiring a conscious effort. Both words, ‘ignorant’ and ‘ignore’ come from the same Latin root, ‘ignorare’ which means ‘to not know’ or ‘to be ignorant of.’  ‘Ignore,’ however, has come to mean to ‘willfully disregard something.’ That might be a dangerous choice to make. A pedestrian might be ignorant of what a red light at an intersection means, but ignoring it might be fatal. 

JL 

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The Struggle for Constitutional Power in Washington 

A great fear of many Americans is that the president-elect will get to do some of the things which were part of his campaign threats, actions which can push the Constitution to its breaking point, or beyond. How much independence will the Congressional and Judicial Branches of our government retain? The president-elect can, and is, attacking that independence. 

One of his weapons are ‘recess appointments,’ intended in the time of the Founding Fathers to enable appointments to be made while Senators were often unavailable because of the distances from their home States to the halls of Congress, requiring trips on horseback or in horsedrawn vehicles. Trump can work with the House Speaker, beholden to him, to artificially create the need for such ‘recesses.’ 

House Speaker Johnson, whose staying in office is 
dependent on the votes of the president-elect's support
among MAGA House members can create occasions
for recess appointments 

The required ‘advise and consent’ role of the Senate can thusly be bypassed, and in effect, the intent of the Constitution thwarted. Another trick, ‘impoundment,’ is refusing to spend the funds approved by Congress for specific purposes. The Constitution specifically gives the task of raising revenues to the House of Representative (Article 1, Sec. 7), but nowhere does it say the Executive Branch must use them. 

Although the writers of the Constitution provided for three branches of government, it was clear that they placed Congress in a dominant position, with the Executive and Judicial branches secondary to the House and the Senate, when all of the Constitution’s checks and balances are weighed.

Clearly, the actions of a president who wants to upset this balance is disregarding the Constitution. Government officials, including those in the Armed Forces, take an oath to first support the Constitution, not the president, the judiciary nor the legislature, although one of a president’s duties is to be Commander-in-Chief of the military. 

Right now, the president-elect and his supporters are behaving as if they have a mandate from the people to do these things on which he campaigned. Far from it. The election was a close one, certainly not a mandate. Those who support the president-elect, and those who do not, both recognize his lack of real qualification for the office of President, regardless of what they say.

He is dependent on others, some of whom he might appoint and others to whom he might just listen. This results in the president-elect’s most ardent supporters inaccurately claiming a massive mandate for Trump to do whatever it is Trump wants to do over the next four years. The underlying message to Americans: ‘Whatever comes next, it’s exactly what you asked for — so there’s no use in complaining.’ That’s what they hope the public will swallow. 

But it really is just a sign that governmental power really is up for grabs between a Congress elected by the people and the Executive Branch, populated by appointees who will do the president’s bidding. If Congress does not bend to the president’s will, particularly in the Senate’s role of ‘advise and consent,' he can threaten them with primary challenges or right now, suggest that he will push for recesses so he can appoint his nominees without their constitutionally-mandated advice and consent. 

It is entirely possible that MAGA Republicans will, in the end, force Congress into their camp, permitting Trump and his cronies to do whatever they wish. (There are about four Republican Senators who will find this difficult to do.) It is also possible that over the next four years, Republican Senators and Representatives will themselves develop spines and take back for Congress the power that has over the years gradually shifted to the presidency and check the most dangerous and unpopular of Trump’s plans and begin the process of restoring the balance of the three branches of government. 

(Many of these thoughts come from opinion pieces by David French and Heather Cox Richardson written over the past few days, as well as from NPR’s brief, but valuable daily ‘Up Front’ feature.) 

But what can YOU, as an individual, do amidst this struggle for power? First, you can follow news sources that deal with truth so that you are on top of what is going on. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. Dependence on TV and the internet is not enough. Then, you can remain politically active so that you are ready to support candidates in 2026 and 2028 who believe in the Constitution, and not in twisting it for their own personal benefit. And finally, you must personally address the question of how a ‘government of the people, for the people, and by the people’ can best serve the ‘people.’  Imagine a buffet table presenting choices including laws (or their absence) that benefit businesses and the wealthy, whose successes will benevolently spread to all citizens … as well as social and economic programs that reach all citizens more directly, without victimizing others. 

JL 

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 A Final Thought About the Election Results 

An administration that passed legislation to bring manufacturing back to the United States after decades of offshoring, and supported numerous infrastructure projects, all backed it up with more than $1 trillion in private-sector investments by the government, as President Biden has just boasted, sounds like something Republicans might do, with benefits ‘trickling down’ to American workers through job creation.  Voters were usually unaware of this route which the money followed.  And that’s why working people, who were only indirectly on the receiving end of part of that trillion dollars, felt abandoned and fell for Republican lies.  Trump is no more a protector of working people than he is of the nation's women.

Perhaps President Biden should have insisted on billboards at the site of all businesses thusly benefited reading ‘Brought to the Working People of America by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress.’ 

 JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

JL 

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November 21, 2024 - Lincoln at Gettysburg, Columns from David French and Tom Friedman, Jefferson's Recommendation, and Looking Back to 1984

Lincoln's Words at Gettysburg 

Americans cannot be reminded too often of Abraham Lincoln’s words hopefully concluding that ‘this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’  Here is an excerpt from a rare photograph of Lincoln in the crowd on the platform at the Gettysburg Cemetery dedication where he spoke those words. 

Lincoln is looking downward toward the lower center

Please visit Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ posting of 11/19/24 commemorating the 161st anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  Just visit https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or JUST CLICK HERE.

JL

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Trump’s Failure Predicted

In a recent column in the New York Times (11/17/24), David French foresees the beginning of Donald Trump’s failure in his second presidency.  Check it out by copying and pasting this link on your browser line

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/opinion/trump-kennedy-gaetz-hegseth.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20241118&instance_id=139918&nl=the-morning&regi_id=78918068&segment_id=183456&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 

or by simply CLICKING HERE.

It’s hard to disagree with French’s reasoning, whereby the votes of an easily influenced majority elect a government run by a deeply engaged minority that completely takes over when that majority deserts politics and goes back to their hum-drum regular existence. 

As French puts it, ‘Because the majority votes and then checks back out, politicians hear almost exclusively from the most engaged minority.’ The next time around, just maybe, a dissatisfied voting public might vote to remove that engaged minority from control of government. Just maybe. We shall see.

This should not cause those still believing in democracy to sit back and just wait for it to happen. It won’t happen automatically.  The thought processes and motivations French describes are obscured by the lack of knowledge of too many voters. They just don’t think that deeply, their prime interests being things that directly impact upon their lives, like jobs, prices, crime, and peace, all among the ‘hot buttons’ pressed by Republicans in 2024, and not what that deeply engaged minority which they empowered, really has on its agenda. 

If the ignorant, the gullible, and the stupid were excluded from voting, we probably would end up with more effective and efficient government, but by so limiting the electorate, we would be giving up on democracy’s meaning, rule by the people, and that is not a good idea.  In fact, it’s a very bad idea. 

(See the following piece concerning Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on ignorance.) 

JL 

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A Crusade Against Ignorance 

Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters From an American’ posting dated November 16, in dealing with Republican attacks on the Department of Education, included the following item illustrating Thomas Jefferson’s take on the matter. 

Richardson points out that our third president, Thomas Jefferson, recognized that education is fundamental to democracy, because only educated people can accurately evaluate the governmental policies that will truly benefit them.

Jefferson had written a letter to a colleague about public education from which Richardson quoted: “No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness…. Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against [the evils of “kings, nobles and priests”], and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.” 

While we no longer have kings nor nobles to fear, (some scary, 

politically-motivated clergy still remain), we do have ‘oligarchs’ whom I suspect Jefferson would similarly abhor. 

The salvation of democracy rests in the likelihood of our engaging in the ‘crusade against ignorance’ of which Jefferson wrote. 

JL

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Hope For a Trumpian Two-State Solution for Israel and the Palestinians 

Tom Friedman writes in the New York Times that despite president-elect Trump’s appointment of strong one-state proponent Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel, Trump’s history also includes strong support for a two-state solution. 

The president-elect is a mercurial person, whose views are not anchored in cement.  Sometimes he doesn't remember what he said yesterday.  His two-state ideas were very far from perfect, but they started down a road that is better than any one-state solution, a prescription for continuing violence, would be. 

Read Friedman’s New York Times column by pasting

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/opinion/donald-trump-israel-gaza.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20241120&instance_id=140092&nl=today%27s-headlines&regi_id=78918068&segment_id=183631&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 

on your browser line, or just CLICK HERE. 

JL

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The Lesson of 1984 (not the Orwell book) for Democrats 

Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan in his landslide victory (far greater than anything Donald Trump has ever accomplished) pushed the Democratic Party to the brink of extinction. 

They managed to survive, however, and eight years later, they elected Bill Clinton to the presidency.  This is what today’s Democratic Party has to figure out how to do now. 

Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984, whose chief rival in the Democratic primaries had been Senator Gary Hart.  Hart, who had his flaws, had pointed out that Mondale’s loyalty to interest groups inside the Democratic party was an Achilles’ heel and summed up the problem as follows: ‘You have to reach those voters who don’t feel represented by the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the National Organization for Women], or the Sierra Club.’ 

But Mondale could not see beyond the demands of the noisiest factions in his coalition, leading to his destruction by Reagan at the polls (All he carried were his home State of Minnesota and D.C.). 

There is a lesson there for today’s Democratic Party. They must find a common denominator which applies to the majority of American voters and target their efforts toward it in seeking their votes. 

It may be contained in Senator Bernie Sanders’ views on appealing to the usually not fully appreciated nor properly rewarded American worker, or it may be something else, hopefully not something so sinister as were some of the notes played by Republicans in 2024. 

Anyway, please go back to Jackspotpourri dated November 9, 2024 to check out Senator Sanders’ ideas.

 JL 

                                                         * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

JL 

                                                             * * *

November 17, 2024 - A 'Must Read' Column, Matt Gaetz, Aging, and a Poem

 

Decapitating Democracy 

Because of its great importance, rather than provide a link to it, here is Yale history Professor Timothy Snyder’s November 15 posting on his ‘Thinking About’ column (https://snyder.substack.com/) reproduced in its entirety. 

Be sure to note that in it, he writes that ‘This is no longer a post-electoral moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment,’ and that ‘there will have to be simple defiance, joined with a rhetoric of a better America.’ 

I wonder how ‘simple defiance’ is defined. Isn’t that what the late Alexei Navalny practiced in Russia? 

A safer act of ‘simple defiance’ by you would be to pass on Professor Snyder’s column to at least a dozen people on your contact list, preferably people to whom you don’t usually send email. In that way, you can become part of a solution, rather than part of the problem.

                                                           * * 

Decapitation Strike - Preserving America from Trump's Appointments 

Snyder

Timothy Snyder - Nov 15, 2024

Each of Trump's proposed appointments is a surprise. It is comforting to think that he is simply a vengeful old man, lashing out this way and that. This is unlikely. He and Musk and Putin have been talking for years. And the whole idea of his campaign was that this time he had a plan. We should be wary of shock, which excuses inaction. Who could have known? What could I have done? If there is a plan, shock is part of the plan. We have to get through the surprise and the shock to see the design and the risk. We don't have much time. 

Nor is outrage the point. Of course we are outraged. But our own reactions can distract is from the larger pattern. The newspapers address the surprise and the shock by investigating each proposed appointment individually. And we need this. With detail comes leverage and power. But clarity must also come, and quickly. Each appointment is part of a larger picture. Taken together, Trump’s candidates constitute an attempt to wreck the American government.

In historical context we can see this. There is a history of the modern democratic state. There is also a history of engineered regime change and deliberate state destruction. In both histories, five key zones are health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence. These people, with power over these areas of life, can make America impossible to sustain. 

The foundation of modern democratic state is a healthy, long-lived population. We lived longer in the twentieth century because of hygiene and vaccinations, pioneered by scientists and physicians and then institutionalized by governments. We treat one another better when we know we have longer lives to lose. Health is not only the central human good; it enables the peaceful interactions we associate with the rule of law and democracy. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the proposed secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, would undo all of this. On his watch, were his ideas implemented, millions of us would die. Knowing that our lives will be shorter, we become nasty and brutish. 

A modern democratic state depends upon the rule of law. Before anything else is possible, we have to endorse the principle that we are all governed by law, and that our institutions are grounded in law. This enables a functional government of a specific sort, in which leaders can be regularly replaced by elections. It allows us to live as free individuals, within a set of rules that we can alter together. The rule of law depends on people who believe in the spirit of law. Matt Gaetz, the proposed attorney general, is the opposite of such a person. It is not just that he flouts law himself, spectacularly and disgustingly. It is that he embodies lawlessness, and can be counted upon to abuse law to pursue Trump's political opponents. The end of the rule of law is an essential component of a regime change. 

The United States of America exists not only because laws are passed, but because we can expect that these laws will be implemented by civil servants. We might find bureaucracy annoying; its absence, though, is deadly. We cannot take the pollution out of the air ourselves, or build the highways ourselves, our write our Social Security checks ourselves. Without a civil service, the law becomes mere paper, and all that works is the personal connection to the government, which the oligarchs will have, and which the rest of us will not. This is the engineered helplessness promised by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are to head a black hole named after a cryptocurrency. There are already oversight instruments in government. DOGE is something entirely different: an agency of destruction, run by people who believe that government should exist for the wealthy or not at all. 

In a modern democratic state, the armed forces are meant to preserve a healthy, long-lived people from external threats. This principal has been much abused in American practice. But never before Donald Trump have we had a president who has presented the purpose of the armed forces as the oppression of Americans. Trump says that Russia and China are less of a threat than "internal enemies." In American tradition, members of the armed forces swear an oath to the Constitution. Trump has indicated that we would prefer "Hitler's generals," which means a personal oath to himself. Pete Hegseth, Trump's proposed secretary of defense, defends war criminals and displays tattoos associated with white nationalism and Christian nationalism. He is a fundraiser and television personality, with a complicated sexual past and zero experience running an organization. 

In a world of hostile powers, an intelligence service is indispensable. Intelligence can be abused, and certainly has been abused. Yet it is necessary to consider military threats: consider the Biden administration's correct call the Russia was about to invade Ukraine. It is also necessary to counter the attempts by foreign intelligence agencies, which are constant, to harm American society. This often involves disinformation. Tulsi Gabbard, insofar as she is known at all, is known as a spreader of Syrian and Russian disinformation. She has no relevant experience. Were she to become director of national intelligence, as Trump proposes, we would lose the trust of our allies, and lose contact with much of what is happening in the world -- just for starters. 

We would be vulnerable to all of those who wish to cause us harm. Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States. How could you do so? The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence. From this perspective, Trump's proposed appointments -- Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard -- are perfect instruments. They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done. These proposed appointments look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer. 

I do not defend the status quo. I have no doubt whatsoever that the Department of Defense and the Food and Drug Administration require reform. But such a reform, of these or other agencies, would have to be guided by people with knowledge and experience, who cared about their country, and who had a vision of improvement. That is simply not what is happening here.

We are confronted instead with a group of people who, were they to hold the positions they have been assigned, could bring an end to the United States of America. It is a mistake to think of these people as flawed. It is not they will do a bad job in their assigned posts. It is that they will do a good job using those assigned posts to destroy our country. However and by whomever this was organized, the intention of these appointments is clear: to create American horror. 

Elected officials should see this for what it is. Senators, regardless of party, should understand that the United States Senate will not outlast the United States, insist on voting, and vote accordingly. The Supreme Court of the United States will likely be called upon. Although it is a faint hope, one must venture it anyway: that its justices will understand that the Constitution was not in fact written as the cover story for state destruction. The Supreme Court will also not outlast the United States. 

And citizens, regardless of how they voted, need now to check their attitudes. This is no longer a post-electoral moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment. Trump voters are caught in the notion that Trump must be doing the right thing if Harris voters are upset. But Harris voters are upset now because they love their country. And Harris voters will have to get past the idea that Trump voters should reap what they have sown. Yes, some of them did vote to burn it all down. But if it all burns down, we burn too. It is not easy to speak right now; but if some Republicans wish to, please listen. 

Both inside and outside Congress, there will have to be simple defiance, joined with a rhetoric of a better America.  And, at moments at least, there will also have to be alliances among Americans who, though they differ on other matters, would like to see their country endure. 

JL 

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Please pass Professor Snyder's message on to others.

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A Day of Not Aging 

The November issue of the AARP Bulletin included an article on aging. That’s their monthly ‘newsprint’ publication, not their magazine.

It included on its page 12 a simple nine-point chart entitled ‘A Perfect Day of Not Aging.’  If you’re over age 65, and probably an AARP member, I suggest you check it out. I tried to copy it from their tightly protected website to provide with this posting of Jackspotpourri but that proved too difficult. 

The nine points it described were waking up in the morning, a morning walk, breakfast, meditation, lunch, exercise, socialize, dinner, and bedtime. None of us will follow all of their suggested guidelines precisely, but we should try to fit some of them into our days. I do, and I’m pretty old as some of you may know. 

Before you throw the publication out in the trash, check out the article, and if you are not an AARP member, give me a call and I’ll get you a copy of the details of these nine points. 

JL

                                                * * * 

Gaetz' Political Trickery

It occurs to me that Matt Gaetz’ resignation from his seat in Congress, ostensibly to clear the way for his appointment as the president-elect’s Attorney-General, means that the House investigation into his ‘ethics’ will end, and any damning information it has possibly thus far acquired, will be filed away, unused, or even destroyed. That's what the House Speaker, another irreligious Trump puppet hiding behind a facade of Christianity,  seems to be saying.   

Of course, Gaetz will never become Attorney-General, but that was just a gambit to end the ethics investigation. Mission accomplished! 

 Look for Gaetz to run for or be appointed to some position that might not require an investigation, possibly the puppet job of being Florida’s Attorney-General, after Ron DeSantis appoints the State’s present AG, Ashley Moody, to finish out Marco Rubio’s Senate term, when he gets appointed as Secretary of State. 

JL

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Poetry Corner 

There are certain poems that many of us first encountered back in our high school days. Here is one of them, eternally pertinent, but especially so in the context of the threat America's democracy faces. 

‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

 This poem is in the public domain, so feel free to pass it on. 

JL 

                                                    * * *

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

 JL 

                                                              * * *