08-07-2022 - An Election Paradox, Dr. Fauci Criticized, Medicare Advantage Plans and Wolves

   

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Two Things are Clear from the Results of the Primary Elections that Took Place Last Week  

In Kansas, no less!

First, when women are motivated to vote, as they are by the Supreme Court’s taking away of the right to abortion, they do so in enormous numbers.  This happened in heavily Republican Kansas where a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions was soundly defeated. (59% against it, 41% for it.)

Secondly, the Republican Party is still in the hands of those who support the defeated former president and believe his lies. Most of those Republicans who did not fall for his lies were defeated in primary elections by candidates who supposedly believe them, or in any event, convinced the voters that they do.  Even in Kansas, despite the referendum to ban abortion on the same ballot being defeated, the Republicans nominated a candidate for governor, Derek Schmidt, who believes the lies of the defeated former president. This is a paradox that will have to be resolved on November 8.

Some Democratic candidates are pleased by this because it means that they will not be running against a reasonable, perhaps conciliatory Republican, making the voters’ choice more difficult, instead of one who is standing fast with the defeated former president’s lies, an easier target for Democrats.  There are flaws in this strategy.

On November 8, there very well might be, as shown by the turnout in the Kansas abortion referendum vote, an enormous number of pro-choice women’s votes, cast throughout the nation for Democrats.  But this will happen ONLY if their Republican opponents can be clearly identified as approving the repeal of Roe vs. Wade and for the restriction of abortions. 

It is essential that every Democratic candidate for any office whatsoever repeatedly demand that their Republican opponent clearly state his position on this issue, and not be permitted to equivocate or sit on a fence regarding abortion.  Only then will the enormous power of the pro-choice women’s vote come into play. 

I would hope that Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Schumer are frequently on the phone personally with all candidates making this point strongly.  Unless they devote their energies to this, the women's vote might not materialize and a potent weapon would be defused. 

Even if women turn out in great numbers throughout the country, motivated by the abortion issue, that alone might not guarantee enough votes to maintain, or even increase the Democratic majorities in Congress. They can contribute mightily to that result, but along with them must be the voting power of persons of color, whose interests the Republican Party has ignored since the 1870s. Issues such as voting rights protection, gerrymandering, childcare benefits, schools, health insurance and equal opportunity must be addressed in order to mobilize these voters.

In 2020, South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn brought these votes to Joe Biden, giving him both the Democratic nomination and the presidency.  In 2022 and in 2024, more Jim Clyburns will be needed.  The pro-choice votes of women might not be enough.

JL

 

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Right Wing Mud Slingers Attack Dr. Fauci

Let’s not get carried await by right-wing media digging up Dr. Anthony Fauci’s speculation thirty-nine years ago that AIDS could be transmitted by close personal contact other than sexually.  When he wrote this, he even specified that such a possibility should be approached with caution.

Scientists often speculate but go on further to prove or disprove theories. Dr. Fauci’s speculation was never proven and scientific evidence since then has proven it to be inaccurate.  It is really a far reach by right-wingers, including Floriduh’s governor, to latch on to Dr. Fauci’s 1983 speculation to disparage the work he went on to do at the government’s Communicable Disease Center in regard to the spread of other diseases, including the Coronavirus. But they never have anything constructive to say, ever!

It is certainly no reason to shun his support of Covid 19 vaccinations which the right-wing is attempting to do.  People tend to believe what they want to believe, despite solid evidence to the contrary.  Such evidence shows that vaccination, while not necessarily providing permanent immunity to infection, does afford some protection and also significantly lessens the severity of those infections that do occur.  That has been proven.  Get vaccinated, even if you believe Floriduh’s governor who, for political reasons, won’t indicate whether or not he has been vaccinated and opposes Covid19 vaccination for children. (Forty-nine states accepted Federal aid for such vaccinations.  Guess which one didn’t.)

JL

 

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Wolves Deserve Your Help, but ...

I receive many dozens of emails every day, asking for donations to the campaigns of Democratic candidates throughout the country. I get them because I have contributed to several candidates (Demings, Fried, O’Rourke, for example) and having done that, my name gets added to the mailing lists of other candidates. I don’t object to this because such contributions must be solicited to financially support candidates who will further the cause of preserving democracy in our country. The ‘other guys’ have greater sources of money, sometimes from ‘dark' sources.  If you can afford to donate, please do. 

Help me, but only after Nov. 8

What I do object to are solicitations for organizations that have nothing to do with the election less than three months away. A particular one asks to support an organization backing legislation to preserve the nation’s diminishing wolf population. Ecologically, that may be a good cause, but right now, it should take a back seat to financing candidates who can keep human wolves, intent on chewing up our democracy, out of office.

JL

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Medicare Advantage Plans Pushed on TV 

If you watch TV, you certainly have seen red, white and blue advertisements for Medicare Advantage plans. Here is a brief description of what they are, quoting from government (Health and Human Services Administration) publications:

‘A Medicare Advantage Plan, (like an HMO or PPO) is another Medicare health plan choice you may have as part of Medicare. Medicare Advantage Plans, sometimes called “Part C” or “MA Plans,” are offered by private companies approved by Medicare.

If you join a Medicare Advantage Plan, the plan will provide all of your Part A (Hospital Insurance) and Part B (Medical Insurance) coverage. Medicare Advantage Plans may offer extra coverage, such as vision, hearing, dental, and/or health and wellness programs. Most include Medicare prescription drug coverage (Part D).

Medicare pays a fixed amount for your care every month to the companies offering Medicare Advantage Plans. These companies must follow rules set by Medicare. However, each Medicare Advantage Plan can charge different out-of-pocket costs and have different rules for how you get services (like whether you need a referral to see a specialist or if you have to go to only doctors, facilities, or suppliers that belong to the plan for non‑emergency or non-urgent care). These rules can change each year.’

Medicare Advantage plans can save you a lot of money, especially if you also have purchased private Medicare Supplement insurance (not an official part of Medicare) to fill the gaps traditional Medicare Parts A and B leave unpaid, along with paying for a separate prescription plan (Part D) on your own. 

The biggest trade-off you make when choosing a money-saving Medicare Advantage Plan is that you lose the ability to make certain choices in regard to your medical care and leave it to the Plan to make such decisions for you.  These plans do this to a greater extent in HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) and to a lesser extent in a PPO (Preferred Provider Organization), which might cost somewhat more.

                                                     Namath Pitching Part C

Retired quarterback Joe Namath and actor William Shatner often appear in TV commercials for Medicare Advantage plans.  Frankly, I doubt if either of them have signed up for a Part C plan and get their medical care through it, putting their medical care on the line. If I had to venture a guess, I would suspect that both are covered by traditional Medicare Parts A and B only, and are wealthy enough to fill its payment gaps and pay for prescriptions out of pocket.

More information on these Part C plans and the TV advertisements for them may be found in an informative article in a Hudson Valley (NY) newspaper published last November.  You can find it at https://www.recordonline.com/story/opinion/2021/11/05/steve-israel-celebrities-pitching-medicare-plans/6297275001/ or by CLICKING HERE.

JL

 

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America Afloat  

(A poem always worth repeating in blog postings. To learn more, visit this blog’s posting of July 30, 2022.)

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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08-3-2022 - What's That Smell, Prosecuting You Know Who, Sanity in Kansas and Top Loading Washers

 

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Something’s Rotten in the State of Denmark, oops, I mean Floriduh

Go back to the July 30 posting on this blog, the one describing how a Floriduh State Senate seat was stolen by Republican thieves.  It seems that the Orlando Sentinel is investigating the possible connection between such political skullduggery, Florida Power and Light and an Alabama consulting firm which specializes in such dirty tricks.  South Florida SunSentinel Sunday columnist Fred Grimm takes a look at this from a historical perspective.  Check it out by Clicking Here  or just copy and paste this on your browser line.                                     

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-com-fpl-john-gorrie-tudor-ice-20220729-h7zulald7ngk3k2gncyxcnnjvy-story.html

JL

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Sanity in Kansas

Yesterday, Kansans went to the polls in unprecedented numbers for a mid-term primary election because the ballot also contained a referendum supporting a change in their laws that would get rid of legal abortions in that State, something anti-abortion politicians thought they could slip through, avoiding having it on the ballot in November.  

They were wrong.  Kansans voted by a 60% to 40% margin not to support a change in their existing laws that permit abortion.  This result confused Republican candidates nationwide, awed by the enormous voter turnout, who now fear losing votes if they support abortion restrictions or losing other votes if they fail to support them.

Shakespeare would have commented on this, as he did in Hamlet, reporting that they were 'hoist by their own petard.'  

JL

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The Way to Prosecute the Defeated Former President

The other evening on his MSNBC program, the Beat, Ari Melber pointed out that while it might be difficult to prosecute and convict the defeated former president for committing one or two individual crimes, it would be easier to put all of them together, and there were many, as one massive, connected effort to carry out a coup which would leave him in office, negating the election of Joe Biden. A conviction for that one big crime might be easier.

His prompting a mob to try to stop the Constitutionally-mandated transfer of the presidency to President-elect Joe Biden on January 6, 2021 was the culmination of his many other failed efforts to remain in office, including pressure on state legislatures to submit alternate electors, searches for non-existent votes, specious challenges to vote counting procedures, telling the Vice President to throw the election into the House where an arcane Constitutional ‘one vote per state’ procedure might be attempted and other questionable acts to further his aim.

Melber pointed out that all of these attempts to remain in office in the event of his defeat were tactics planned even before the election and constituted a single overall strategy upon which his attempted coup would be was based, if he lost the election (which his campaign’s experts told him was likely).

Melber also urged that it was essential to prosecute the defeated former president or else the January 6 insurrection was likely to be repeated in the future and was just a ‘training exercise.’

Interestingly  enough, three days earlier, I had posted the following on this very blog that you now are reading.  I won’t claim that Ari got the idea for his beautifully documented program from me, or that he even follows this blog.  Let’s just leave it at concluding that great minds think alike.  Here is what I wrote on July 26:

‘The prosecution must make the point that one or two such incidents might be acceptable as just ‘planning’ on the part of the defendant. The enormous number of them, however, all confirmed by reliable witnesses, should be taken together by a jury as going beyond being mere ‘planning.’  Considering their great number, they should be taken to amount to a planned 'grand strategy,' the culmination of which on January 6, 2021, he cannot separate himself from, and convict him.’

January 6 Rioters

Okay, Melber called it a ‘coup.’  I called it a ‘grand strategy.’  Both words describe the many seditious acts of the defeated former president all lumped together.  He should seriously consider pleading guilty and cut a deal for twenty years of house arrest at Mar-a-Lago, with visitors limited only to family and friends, if he has any.  That choice would be highly preferable to his serving hard time in a real penitentiary.

I had earlier predicted that the Department of Justice would ultimately decide not to proceed with charges against the defeated former president, primarily because of the risk of losing in court and that the Attorney General, nevertheless, in announcing that decision, would point out that they were only acting in that manner to avoid the domestic violence that any verdict would precipitate.

But as the evidence mounts, I have changed my mind. I now agree with Melber that it is essential that he be prosecuted, not doing so amounting to a victory for anti-democratic forces which would further encourage them.

JL

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Consumer Warning

If you are in the market for a top loading washing machine, stay away from Samsung products.  In addition to a recall of some sold up until 2016 due to a dangerous manufacturing defect, there have been rust problems which they will do nothing about.  Mine is in that category.  All I can say about the quality of their washing machines is that Samsung makes excellent TV sets.  We are fortunate that they do not manufacture automobiles.

JL

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America Afloat  (always worth repeating in blog postings)

 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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07-30-2022 - Failing to 'Stop the Steal, my Poetic Effort Explained and Happy to be an NPA

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A Floriduh Fable in Which No One

‘Stopped the Steal’

Imagine a political race between Joe Smith and Mary Jones for a seat in the State Senate.  Joe Smith is an incumbent and Mary Jones is trying to unseat him.  Her backers come up with the idea of running a third-party candidate, who is never seen, never campaigns or states any positions, and who happens to have the same last name as the incumbent, Smith, a rather common name.  Political scientists refer to such candidates as ‘ghost candidates.’  Imagine that this one happened to be in debt and the $44,000 someone paid him to run was welcomed by him.

He only gets about 6,000 thousand votes out of the 215,000 which were cast but that was enough to make Mary Jones into a State Senator.  These votes, intended for Joe Smith, were cast by voters who mistakenly voted for the wrong Smith.

This really happened in Floriduh in 2020 in its 37^th senatorial district. Look it up!  Although the criminals who engineered this bit of election fraud have been caught, and the ‘ghost candidate’ (who ‘flipped’ in court and told all) got off with house arrest and probation, the matter concerning those who engineered this scheme is still bouncing around the legal system while ‘Mary Jones’ is safely sitting in the State Senate in the seat that was stolen for her by election fraud.  The primary perpetrator of the fraud was a lawyer, so expect at least a few more years of postponements and delay before justice is fully served, if that ever will be in this case, despite his having bragged about his ‘accomplishment’ in a Floriduh bar on election night before many witnesses.

I am puzzled why, once the truth was revealed, Smith’s party did not go to Court to disallow the corrupted election and sue to have another election take place.  If they did, I didn’t hear about it.  Perhaps it was because they were already a minority in the Senate and one seat, more or less, didn’t change anything, so they ‘made nice’ and accepted the corrupted result.  It was this kind of spineless behavior on the part of Floriduh Democrats that makes me proud that I switched my party affiliation from Democratic to ‘No Party Affiliation' last year.

*I had other reasons as well, listed below.

Be that as it may, Mary Jones nevertheless occupies a Senate seat because of an election in which a majority of voters in her district either voted for her opponent or at least thought they were doing so. The voters were shortchanged by this fraud.  (Her victory was by about 35 votes.  The ‘ghost candidate’ with the same last name as her opponent  received over 6,000 votes.) 

If Mary had any honor, she ought to have graciously resigned, which she did not.  Such a moral shortcoming was not uncommon in the administration of the defeated former president in which Mary, founder of ‘Latinas for Trump in 2016,’ had been a deputy press secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.  She is no different from most members of her party, lying being their main political skill and strategy.  As for honor, that is a concept totally foreign to them. 

The names in this tale have been changed to avoid confusion with others who may, like losing candidate Smith, have similar names, but as I said, you can 'look it up.'

The party of these scoundrels attempted to pull the same stunt in other districts, using ‘ghost candidates’ to take votes away from their opponents, even if the names were not the same.  They too have been apprehended. One has fled the country.  

The accused all come from a political party that is constantly screaming about stolen elections and election fraud, which they are never able to back up with evidence.  In this case, however, a State Senate seat was indeed stolen and the fraud is real and the evidence is there. 

They are a bunch of filthy scoundrels and no one with half a brain should ever vote for any of them, and that includes the two of them who are running for re-election as Governor and United States Senator in Floriduh.  Perhaps if the voters of the Sunslime State get wise to these two charlatans on November 8 and vote them out of office, I’ll start spelling the name of the State properly. 

*My other reasons for ceasing to be a registered Democrat, listed a few months ago on this blog, include: 

1. The coddling of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, while in the custody of the Democratic Palm Beach County Sheriff, 
2. The acceptance of DeSantis appointee Wendy Satory, a life-long Republican, as a Democrat so she could be re-elected to her post of Election Supervisor in Palm Beach County, where Republicans do not win county-wide elections.  This was a slap in the face of Professor Deandre Poole who had been slated to run for that position and makes it harder for the Democratic Party to get the trust of persons of color in the County. Poole is now running for a much lesser position. Both Poole and Satory are qualified and competent, but still she is at heart a Republican, 
3. Running and electing termed-out State Senator Joseph Abruzzo for County Clerk, a job for which he had no qualifications whatsoever.  It is time for public offices, either by appointment or likely election, to cease being plums used as rewards for service to a party, so long as taxpayers fund the often generous salaries that come with them.

 JL

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 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.

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I am proud of this poem.  It is not just a collection of patriotic rhymes. It sums up a lot of my thoughts. 

It was written in response to the meaningless slogan of the defeated former president, ‘Make America Great Again,’ which encourages his supporters to look back to any time in the past that they think was better than what America is today, casting negative aspersions on any changes which may have occurred since that elusive time in the past that they feel have diminished America’s greatness, and pointedly reduced their own traditional social and economic positions.

The first verse points out that what really makes America great has been its ability to survive the attacks on democracy presented by the crises of 1776, 1812, 1860, 1918, 1941, 2001, and most recently, by the efforts of the defeated former president to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power which has followed every presidential election in American history except his, culminating in violence on January 6, 2021. That ability enables America to continue its role as a ‘city on a hill,’ serving as a democratic beacon to other nations.

The second verse points out that America is a nation based on laws, as established in the Constitution and those subsequently developed in the spirit of that document and of the Declaration of Independence as well. The unspoken alternative to staying afloat is sinking.

 The third verse assigns responsibility for maintaining this greatness to us as individual citizens.

JL

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07-26-2022 - Lincoln's Vision, Aristophanes' Play, A Winning Strategy, Depression, Madison's Ambiguity and a New Poem

 

Lincoln in 1838 Saw it Coming

In his Lyceum address in 1838, Abraham Lincoln pointed out that 'the country’s republican experiment, though successful so far, would always require the people’s vigilant care.' He told his audience that the main threat would not come from a foreign invader.

'At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?' the future president rhetorically asked. He went on to answer his own question by saying 'If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be our author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.'

Lincoln feared, quite correctly, a civil war.  Today's House Committee's hearings are providing that 'vigilant care' Lincoln spoke of, in dealing with the present danger which is coming from within the nation, and not from elsewhere, presented by the acts of the defeated former president and his supporters, of which it appears America’s citizenry are both the ‘author and finisher.’ I hope it finishes well.

JL

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Leave it to the Girls?

Had lunch the other day with a bright couple dating back to my kindergarten days. The subject turned to what women might do to alter the political morass in which the nation seems to be.  Before long, we were discussing an old Greek play, Lysistrata.  

Aristophanes

With the aid of some ‘googling,’ we learned that back in 411 B.C., playwright Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata, in which the title character persuades the women of the warring cities of Athens and Sparta to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace in the Peloponnesian Wars. The Athenians were taking it on the chin from the Spartans at the time and there were probably a lot of 'peaceniks' demonstrating around the Acropolis, one of whom might have been Aristophanes. (Lysistrata’s strategy didn’t catch on, the war continued for seven more years, with the Spartans winning.) 

Nothing has changed much since then, except that women can now vote and hold office!  Lysistrata has been produced occasionally on Broadway, as a musical and I am sure some off-B'way producer is working on a revival right now in which this strategy is used to restore the rights taken away by the Dobbs decision, repealing Roe vs. Wade. 

I am awaiting the exposure of Aristophanes as an originating member of Antifa by Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene and his also being denounced on Fox News, complaining that this 'commie' playwright refused to be interviewed by Tucker Carlson.

 JL

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A Strategy to Convict

Okay, you’re on a jury, where the defendant is presumed innocent until you and the other jurors, decide otherwise.  The defendant is the defeated former president.  A credible witness, a former acting Attorney General, testifies under oath that the defendant asked him to “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” 

Assuming these congressmen would do his bidding, the defendant would have indeed committed a crime, in violation of the Constitution, if the acting Attorney General had gone along with him. But he didn’t, so this particular plan did not go beyond the defendant’s mind.  Your jury is not going to convict. 

This is just one example of the difficulty the Department of Justice will have in tying the many similar incidents of the defendant’s planning to defy the Constitution with the acts of others actually carrying out those plans.  Intent and planning sedition are not the same as carrying it out.  This is the problem the DOJ faces and they cannot risk losing in Court.  They would have a much easier job if the defeated former president had gone on to the Capitol and raised his fist in support before the rioters, urging them on, as Missouri Senator *Josh Hawley did.  But he didn’t.

As I see it, and I am not a lawyer, the only winning approach for the DOJ, if they proceed to indict, is to cite the many repeated incidents of planning on the part of the defendant as evidence of his intentions, even though it were others, getting the message, who attempted to carry out his plans. 

The prosecution must make the point that one or two such incidents might be acceptable as just ‘planning’ on the part of the defendant. The enormous number of them, however, all confirmed by reliable witnesses, should be taken together by a jury as going beyond being mere ‘planning.’  Considering their great number, they should be taken to amount to a planned 'grand strategy,' the culmination of which on January 6, 2021, he cannot separate himself from, and convict him.

* Josh Hawley defeated Claire McKissick to get his Senate seat in 2018 by a margin of 51.4% to 45.6% (3% went to minor candidates) which points up the fact that the defeated former president is not the problem so much as his misinformed and misguided voters are. Even if he were not available to run, they would find someone else to support, someone who also did not understand nor believe in democracy.

JL

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Depression Should Lead to Awareness and Ultimately, Action

A follower of the blog texted me saying that the last posting depressed her.  Here is what I said to her in response. 

‘Depression is good!  That should be motivation to do something about it.  Start with reading Timothy Snyder's very short book, 'On Tyranny.'  You may be depressed, but you are at least 'aware.'  Tyranny slips in quietly, with the people sometimes unaware.  

A short story.  It's true.  A Holocaust survivor who belonged to my shul on Long Island was still living in Germany when Kristallnacht occurred. His father had a furniture store, which was broken into and had its windows smashed. What did he do?  He picked up the phone and called the police about the vandalism.  Of course, they laughed at him and hung up. 

By 1938, living in Germany, he should have been aware of what was going on but he was not, shown by the fact that he actually expected help from the police.  Maybe, if more had been aware, and as a result, became depressed, they would have been moved to try to leave in time to save their lives.  We cannot ignore the torch-bearing marchers in Charlottesville and what they were shouting, the shootings at the synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, CA, and the Capitol invader with the 'Camp Auschwitz' tee shirt. 

These things are not to be taken 'in stride.' They should create awareness.  In my blog, I say that, eventually, things will get better.  But first, they have to get bad enough to make enough people 'aware,' even if some depression is involved.’

JL

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Everybody Loves Madison Who Walked on Both Sides of the Street

It seems that Republicans have embraced the idea that state legislatures should dominate our political system.  That lead me to embark upon a re-reading of James Madison in Federalist Paper Number 39, the last paragraph of which I quote below.

By using the term 'federal,' Madison refers to powers of those individual states, especially their legislatures and by 'national.' he means the powers of the central government. The Constitution. intentionally a bundle of the compromises needed to ensure its ratification was therefore confusing in 1789 and the one thing that is clear today is that it remains so. If you have an hour or so to spare, try to read #39 in its entirety. I'm sure you can find it online somewhere.  Here’s that excerpt:

'The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution., but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.'

After digesting this gibberish, I can see that Madison was honest in Number 39 in pointing out that the powers of government came from ‘the great body of the people,’ a democratic idea.  He also was honest in pointing out that most of them, however, came indirectly, through their voting being limited to state legislatures and members of just one house of Congress.  This was a republican idea.  But either way, the powers of government came from the 'great body of the people' and not an autocratic leader or aristocratic group.  They just took longer to get where they were going via the republican route.  Hence, Madison catered to both sides and all were satisfied, at least openly, with our ‘democratic republic.’   

Of course, some today, as then, would prefer that the preferences of ‘the great body of the people’ be achieved either through more democratic (or national, giving more influence to central govenment) means and others through more republican (or federal, a word derived from 'confederation,' giving more power to the states) means.  Hence we have Democrats and Republicans, both claiming Madison as their own.

 JL

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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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                         That’s Not Enough!