April 5, 2025 - Trump's Tariffs - a Step Too Far, Singapore 'Hits,' and What Fox Hosts are Saying

 

                                                       * * * 

They are Watching 

Google provides Jackspotpourri with data indicating how many out there have clicked on its URL and possibly read it. Over the past week, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of ‘hits’ from the ‘city-state’ of Singapore. This has happened before in times of international concern, and I usually assume this represents monitoring of Jackspotpourri by the Chinese government which has a friendly presence in Singapore. (Singapore’s position on Taiwan, for example, parrots Beijing’s.) 

The only reason that I can see for this to be happening at this time are President Trump’s tariffs, about which the Chinese diligently check every possible source for intelligence, even Jackspotpourri. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Hey there, President Xi:    All I know is what I read in the newspapers and online, just like your guys. Trump doesn’t even know what he’s doing. 

JL

                                                      * * * 

Inconceivable? Impossible? Who Knows? 

In the preceding Jackspotpourri (which for some of you might appear directly following this posting, depending on what device you are using), in writing about a president’s disregard for the ‘rule of law,’ I pointed out that once that happens ‘what had been inconceivable is no longer impossible,’ and that is dangerous. 

And now, economic policy, represented by the President’s tariff increases, joins ignoring the ‘rule of law’ in making ‘what had been inconceivable no longer impossible.’ 

The Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs. But the International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows the president to impose tariffs if he declares a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, which Trump has done. He has declared a “national emergency to increase our competitive edge, protect our sovereignty, and strengthen our national and economic security.” 

While many Presidents, including Trump, have declared such national ‘emergencies’ in the past, they usually have been in response to specific situations, not the non-specific ‘bullshit’ talking points the President declared as his reasons as quoted above. Nobody has attacked us from abroad or domestically or threatened to do so. I doubt that Trump’s reasons are what Congress had in mind as constituting a national emergency when they passed those Acts, nor that a President might use these acts to usurp a power the Constitution first gives to Congress. 

If the truth were to be known, the President might just as well have come out and said, ‘I’ll do whatever the hell I want to do, regardless of what the laws say.’ That would at least be honest, possibly a ‘first’ for him. 

Really though, there is a ‘national emergency’ right now, identifiable as Donald John Trump being in the White House. It may last as long as he is there. And that ‘emergency’ can be blamed on the ‘misinformed and misled’ mentioned in the previous posting of Jackspotpourri. 

President Trump’s playing around with tariffs as a political tool, wreaking havoc to our economy, hurting individual Americans and businesses, threatening a 1930s style depression here and in the entire world, now joins disregard for the ‘rule of law’ as making ‘what had been inconceivable no longer impossible.’ 

Check out Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s April 3 and April 4 postings of her ‘Letters from an American’ (CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line) to find out how Trump’s tariff policy, which has no basis in any real economic data or theory, amounts to what one critic compares to a mob boss shaking down all the businesses in a town, but in this case, they are our 50 States and other nations! 

It is even likened by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to ‘what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK's 

thoughts are to vaccine science.’ The Trump tariff policy, Summers added, ‘makes little sense EVEN if you believe in protectionist mercantilist economics.’ 

Even many of the wealthy and business leaders, of course excluding the MAGA dummies, who supported Trump in November, 2024, are losing faith in him. 

                                                        * * 

All of which raises a question: Is it time, right now, for supporters of the President and those opposed to his actions to be more specific about what is now ‘conceivable’ and now ‘possible’ in the United States of America? 

Those at both extremes are beginning to go further and wonder if the adjective ‘possible’ ought to be replaced with the more urgent ‘necessary’?

Are we at that point where ‘what had been ‘inconceivable’ is not only ‘possible,’ but also ‘necessary’?

                                                         * * 

Here’s a hint: Contradictory answers from both sides involve the President, some taking him to be a heaven-sent angel and others, as a disciple of the devil. You can guess where Jackspotpourri stands. I have my ideas as to possible answers, but I don’t want to be ahead of the news about things that haven’t happened yet and may not ever happen. Eventually, however, I may share my thoughts. Please ‘stay tuned.’ 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

Fox Reaction to Bad Economic News 

Courier, a liberal newsgathering website, to which I don’t subscribe, recently documented the reaction of FoxNews personalities in a posting designed to attract donors. They reported the following comments after enormous declines in the financial marketplace resulting from the President’s tariff policy, put into effect despite it being contrary to all reputable economic theory.  Here’s what Courier reported Fox News’ most biggest hosts said after the crash: 

 Jesse Watters: “It’s an exciting time to be alive.” 

 Jeanine Pirro: “I don’t really care about my 401(k)... I believe in this man.” 

 Sean Hannity: “I am absolutely a thousand percent confident that things are going to work out.” 

 Laura Ingraham: “I personally know a lot of people who are buying into this  market. That's how people always make money.” 

Yes, they actually wrote ‘most biggest.’ That sounds like something our President might say. That says a lot for Courier, but they did get their idea across. 

My take on these four Fox hosts’ words: Let Jesse be excited, let Jeanine keep on believing, let Sean be 1000% confident, and it is reassuring that Laura knows people who ‘buy low’ hoping to ‘sell high.’ 

None of them give a darn about the American people who are being hurt by higher tariffs that automatically lead to higher prices having to be paid by the importer and then passed on to the customer. (I would venture to guess that all four are wearing some imported clothing and drive imported cars, but they are sufficiently overpaid not to care. Most Americans do care.) Meanwhile, foreign countries put retaliatory tariffs on American exports lessening demand for them, hurting employment in the United States. It’s a ‘lose-lose’ proposition: Higher prices and fewer jobs! All these four Fox hosts are interested in doing is spreading misinformation to those they daily mislead, which is what their employer pays them to do, and how we got into this mess in the first place. 

 JL

                                                         * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: 

The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily newspaper and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I get to that email, I take these steps. (1.) I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or so emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. (2.) I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criterion is whether or not they end up asking for money. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the emails at which I will actually look, which on a typical day add up to about fifty or sixty.

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am unaware of the sources AI has mined to come up its summaries. Sources with their origin clearly identified follow, and that is what I use as sources for Jackspotpourri postings. In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – no AI please’. This is a work in progress. 

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. JL 

                                                            * * *

April 2, 2025 - Disagreeing with Laws, Elections, Ideas from Heather and Tim, Semantics, and College Sports

 

Something to Think About 

When a judge rules against a defendant but lacks the ability to bring about their compliance, what should the plaintiffs, the ones who brought the action, do? When the ‘rule of law’ is ignored, where do we turn? 

In 1832, disagreeing with a Supreme Court decision (Worcester vs Georgia) that ultimately made it more difficult for non-Cherokees to settle on Cherokee tribal lands, President Andrew Jackson is reported to have said, ‘John Marshall (the Court’s Chief Justice) has made his decision; now let him enforce it!’ And it wasn’t enforced. 

President Trump has Jackson's portrait in the Offal Oval Office

A President who disagrees with a law will find ways to avoid his Constitutional duty of executing the laws, even in the face of court decisions supporting the law. And hence, the ‘rule of law’ takes a back seat, and once that happens, what had been inconceivable is no longer impossible, and that is dangerous. 

JL 

                                                  * * * 

Election Results in a Nutshell – Making Democrats Optimistic for 2026 

In Wisconsin, where Donald Trump carried the State by less than 1% in November, Democrat Susan Crawford won a crucial ten-year term on the State Supreme Court by about an 8% margin. The ‘Cheeseheads’ are wising up. Wow!  Among other things on the liberal agenda, this could be instrumental in changing the existing Congressional ‘gerrymandering’ there, which would increase the number of Democrats in Congress! 

In Florida, two vacated Congressional seats in solid Republican districts that voted for Trump by margins of over 30% in November still elected Republicans but by margins of only about 14% each. This has frightened many Republican legislators nationwide comprising the slim G.O.P House majority who would not be able to survive a similar drop off in Republican support in closer districts in 2026. 

These were the two ‘special’ elections in the Sunslime State. In CD 6, Randy Fine replaced Mike Waltz who went to work in Trump’s White House, leading the ‘Signal’ chat fiasco (his days are numbered) and State CFO Jim Patronis who replaced the resigned and disgraceful Matt Gaetz in CD1; Patronis can at least add two and two. Fine can do less harm in Congress than he might have done as president of Florida Atlantic University, where Governor DeSantis tried to shove him last year. (He found another out-of-work politician for that job.)

While the Wisconsin and Florida results must not have pleased Donald Trump, they dealt a stronger blow to Elon Musk, whose insanity is turning off many Republican voters while energizing Democrats. Actually, the President might not mind the spotlight being shifted away from Musk. Neither rich guy is comfortable playing in the same sandbox with the other. Looking at the Wisconsin results, a contest into which Musk poured millions, his presence did the Democrats a favor there, providing them with a meatier target than Crawford’s State Supreme Court opponent! There is something very offensive about this fellow. 

JL

                                                      * * * 

The Lesson of El Salvador 

It was once thought that countries in Latin America would be inspired to emulate the democracy found in the United States. (If they did, we might not have an immigration problem.) Instead, it looks like our President seeks to emulate the dictator running tiny El Salvador. 

WLRN, the Miami NPR outlet, recently included this piece by Tim Padgett, their ‘America’s Editor,’ on the air and online. It subsequently appeared as a guest column in the Palm Beach Post. It inspired me to write to my House Representative and my two Senators. You might want to do the same. Please check it out by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://www.wlrn.org/commentary/2025-03-20/el-salvador-bukele-trump-democracy on your device’s browser line. It illustrates the wrong direction in which our present Administration is going. 

JL 

                                                  * * * 

'Letters From an American’ Says It All 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s March 30 posting is a short course in American History, describing what the Trump Administration is trying to destroy. CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line to be enlightened and be inspired to not let them get away with it. 

JL 

                                                  * * * 

Greenland and Denmark 

Tim Snyder’s ‘Thinking About …’ dated March 29 talks about Imperialism, Greenland, and Denmark. Check it out by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://snyder.substack.com/p/vance-in-greenland on your browser line. We can learn a lot from Denmark, a lot more than we ever could learn from El Salvador. 

JL 

                                                    * * * 

Something More Than Semantics 

A few months ago, in the interest of not insulting my fellow Americans, I ceased referring to certain voters as ‘ignorant, gullible, or stupid.’  Instead, I began describing them as ‘misinformed and misled.’ That’s not insulting; it is just my personal opinion of their positions. 

The other morning, after reading some of the remarks made by Republicans in the ‘comments’ addendum following a New York Times article describing the election campaigning in Florida’s Sixth Congressional district, I am wondering if I was too hasty in making that change. 

For Florida’s seniors on Social Security and Medicare to attack those programs, and for immigrant workers here, possibly subject to deportation, to endorse President Trump’s immigration policy cannot be anything other than ‘ignorant, gullible, or stupid.’ But out of pity for these pathetic people (Hillary Clinton used the word ‘deplorable’) who are dragging America down by supporting Trump, I will still be sticking with ‘misinformed and misled.’ 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

Ruling and Ruining College Athletic Competition 

The ‘transfer portal,’ allowing athletes to switch schools without any ‘waiting’ period and the availability of ‘NIL’ money now rules college athletics as well as contributing to its ruin. 

In addition to great disparities in what colleges can budget for their athletic programs from their own funds, those with large numbers of alumni, especially wealthy ones, are able to pay athletes, sometimes generously, for commercial use of their ‘Names, Images, and Likenesses.’ This further separates the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’ and eventually this will have to be recognized with a total reorganization of college athletic conferences. 

Even the ‘Power Four’ conferences like the SEC and the Big Ten include ‘have-not’ members who cannot permanently survive in such an environment. Only sharing in their conferences’ TV revenues keeps them there at all. It would be better if such colleges were to choose to play in conferences composed only of schools which have similar athletics-financing abilities.

While Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia might thrive in one conference with perhaps a dozen other exceedingly well-funded college athletic programs, the colleges with less money to spend on hiring athletes might choose to play primarily in conferences made up of schools with financial resources similar to theirs. I think this would be a good idea. The Mid America Conference is a fine example of this. 

Related to that, note that some colleges choose not to field competitive football teams, always a big drain on financial resources, but still want to compete nationally in other sports, particularly basketball. They can form leagues of their own, similar to the almost entirely ‘football-free’ Big East, for example. But even there, they’ll face those same demanding financial pressures resulting from the ‘transfer portal’ and ‘NIL’ in hiring athletes to play on their basketball teams. Examples are schools like Saint Johns, Gonzaga, and Georgetown Universities. 

Understanding how ‘NIL’ works is extremely difficult. While top ‘star’ level athletes are well paid, rarely but possibly even in the six figures, bringing the average annual individual total NIL payment up to about $21,000, most athletes receive piddling payments. 

The median annual (just as many greater and just as many lesser) NIL payment is only about $480! (Source: Sports Illustrated – NIL) But even those low NIL payments serve as a lure to aspiring athletes with golden dreams.

Little good can come from money calling the tune in college athletic competition, although the courts have approved of it.  Accompanied by the growth and acceptance of legal online gambling, it is unavoidable that college athletics will eventually experience damaging scandals. Unless they really took advantage of their four-year scholarships by learning lifetime skills, athletes who are not quite at the level where they can smell the riches of an NFL or NBA contract, will be looking around for another way of making a buck; It is just a question of who, when, and where. And that is where we are today. 

JL

                                                     * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

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.  There are always people around you whom you  might want to introduce to Jackspotpourri.

JL 

                                                           * * * *

March 28, 2025 - Incompetence, Social Security, the need for a Democratic Agenda, the Joint Chiefs, and a Bit More

 

                                                         * * * 

You Can’t Hide Incompetence  

“Believe me, Achmed, it was so easy to intercept their ‘chat’ on ‘Signal’ that  I honestly thought they were only trying to mislead the Houtis … but now it turns out they’re too dumb to even suspect that we’d be listening!"  

                                                                   * *
It’s no surprise that the appointees of President Trump are as incompetent as he is and equally unfit for their positions. I won’t go into the details of their ‘not-so-secret’ online ‘chat’ initially reported in the Atlantic magazine, whose editor was accidentally and unbelievably included in it, like a bug on a wall.

Conceivably, using the relatively insecure ‘Signal’ chat room for a discussion of military tactics violates all existing protocols for discussing such sensitive matters, and everyone involved in the ‘chat’ ought to have known that. More details are all over the internet and in every newspaper in the country. If you are not aware of it, YOU are part of the problem. 

But here are some comments about their gross ignorance regarding security measures, as they appeared in ‘Letters from an American’ dated March 24: "Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction... was 'what absolute clowns.' Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. This is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: “These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.” 

Of interest is that 'chats' on official government secure sites are permanent and ultimately there as evidence, if ever necessary, of wrongdoing.  Using an insecure, although encrypted, non-government site like Signal, however, enables the content to be 'timed-out' so it is unavailable for investigation in the future.

The American people are catching on to these phonies. Their incompetence becomes more apparent with each passing day. From here on in the Republicans will be losing elections, with the Democrats likely to take over the House of Representatives next year.  Note that President Trump has even withdrawn the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik to be our United Nations Ambassador because that would require a special election to replace her, something Trump now fears the Democrats would win, reducing the Republican's razor-thin House majority! 

But getting back to the infamous ‘chat,’ with the country in the hands of these idiots, particularly Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth (the major source of its security violations), a fool who should be sent packing back to FoxNews, it is now a question of our surviving as a representative democracy until the November, 2026 elections. 

Are you aware that the confirmation of Hegseth’s appointment as Defense Secretary, on which the Senate vote was tied, 50 to 50, was only accomplished by Vice President Vance’s tie-breaking vote? 

Hegseth and his boss

Before that happened, it was thought the Senate would not vote to confirm him because North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis was planning on voting ‘no’ because of Hegseth’s rumored history of drunkenness. It is also rumored that at the last moment Tillis switched to confirming him, putting the decision into Vance’s hands but only after President Trump threatened ultra-conservative Tillis with a MAGA primary challenger in 2026. These may just be rumors, but they make sense. 

Tillis, Vance, and the President should join Hegseth in resigning and returning to civilian life for the good of the nation; they all share responsibility for this breach of national security.  What is not a rumor is that the Pentagon, a few days after the ‘chat’ that is now in the news took place, finally got around to sending out a warning that the site used for it was not secure and possibly being monitored by Russia, as if they didn’t know that earlier. Hegseth, as Defense Secretary, ought to know what is going on at the Pentagon. That’s another reason for the firing of those mentioned above. You can’t hide incompetence.

JL 

                                                         * * * 

One Democrat and One ‘Independent’ Know the Score 

You might not agree with everything Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Lopez say, but they are on the right track. CLICK HERE  or copy and paste https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/24/2312252/-AOC-and-Sanders-are-drawing-massive-crowds-and-making-Musk-nervous?detail=emaildkre on your browser line to find out what their ‘road show’ is accomplishing. And don’t skip what the ‘daily KOS’ commenters had to say there, either. 

I see this as a reaction to the moribund Democratic establishment which might, I hope, take note and follow, follow, follow! 

We know what Bernie and AOC are against, and very generally, what they are for … but its about time a Democratic Party agenda meeting today’s challenges appeared, one at least sufficiently specific to convince independents and disenchanted Republicans to ‘vote blue.’ Merely getting rid of Trump and his crew might not be enough to secure their votes. 

Historical Note:  After the Democrats had voted the inept Herbert Hoover out of office in 1932, President-elect Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins, his choice as Secretary of Labor, what had to be done to remedy the social and economic problems in which the country was mired. She was quite specific and got the President to agree to back her goals that included old-age insurance, employment insurance, health insurance, a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, and abolition of child labor. It took years for all of that to eventually become law but a big chunk of it became effective in 1935 when the initial Social Security legislation was enacted. FDR was repeatedly re-elected (the two term limit didn’t exist then) because the specificity of the Democratic agenda resonated with the voters. They liked what they were hearing. 

Today, the Democrats must once again be as specific as Perkins was in 1932 as to what their agenda is. Then they will win more easily in 2026 and 2028. 

 JL 

                                                           * * * 

Trump and Musk on Social Security 

Opposition to Social Security, it has been said, is like ‘stepping on the ‘third rail,’ a mistake which has electrocuted more than one political campaigner. Some Republicans, however, are willing to give it a try. 

While the President keeps saying that he won’t be messing with Social Security, his Rasputin-like advisor, Elon Musk, thinks Social Security is a ‘’Ponzi Game’ rather that the government-managed retirement income insurance program that has been operating successfully for the past 90 years. 

Thus far, they have not cut benefits, their true aim, but are eliminating enough Social Security employees to make telephone inquiries and office visits practically impossible, creating near chaos at the agency, giving its opponents an excuse to attempt to privatize its programs. Musk stands there smirking with his chainsaw in hand, perhaps an appropriate approach in a private business, but not with agencies designed to serve the public. Their ‘bottom lines’ differ and Musk doesn’t understand that difference. 

Republicans, if they had any brains, would disavow Musk and chase him out of Cabinet meetings, because he is perhaps the best spokesperson the Democrats could possibly have, as he tears apart the concept of government ‘of, by, and for’ the people enunciated by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.

Really though, could you expect anything different from this opportunist, belatedly a Canadian and then an American citizen, but born, raised, and educated in apartheid South Africa? Although apartheid is now illegal there, its historic influences remain echoed by the way differing classes, defined by the color of their skin, lead their daily lives in that country.  The minority Whites and a very few Blacks and 'coloreds' live in nice neighborhoods while the rest still call crumbling shantytowns home.  And this is the culture from which Elon Musk comes. 

Musk's hometown: Pretoria

Unquestionably, he is an advocate of a government (or even the absence of a government) beholden to the wealthy, corporations, and billionaire capitalists from the world of technology ... and as the old saying concludes, leaving ‘the Devil to take the hindmost.’ 

Hey, gang! To Elon Musk, you are that hindmost. 

JL

                                                      * * * 

                                                               

Two Things to Keep Your Eyes On 

First, even though the Constitution gave us the Supreme Court, establishing lower courts was left to Congress. House Speaker Johnson is threatening to use this power to weaken such courts where many judges seem to be ruling against some of the excesses of the Trump administration. He may try some tricks like reducing the funding for these courts. Keep your eyes open. 

The other thing to watch might be even more serious. Last month, the President fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, and replaced him with General Dan Caine, who will appear before a Senate Committee considering his appointment next week. General Brown’s dismissal was apparently based on his commitment to installing ‘D.E.I.’ principles in the Armed Forces. This didn’t sit well with our President, who opposes D.E.I. as undemocratic, when the opposite is the truth.  Our Constitution's division of powers is intended to prevent 'tyranny by a majority,' from taking away the benefits of democracy from those not in that majority, the aim of many on the right in the false name of democracy. 

Right now, the Vice Chairman, Admiral Christopher Grady, is temporarily filling the vacancy.  It is unusual, if not suspicious, that Admiral Grady was not included among those involved in the ‘chat’ mentioned earlier in this posting of Jackspotpourri; it certainly included matters of a military nature. Perhaps they feared his input, as someone not already established as part of their team.

An ancillary role of the leaders of any nation’s armed forces, in this country the Joint Chiefs of Staff, becomes important because, like it or not, when a government in a ‘banana republic’ disintegrates for one reason or another, it is usually the military that picks up the pieces and tries to restore order. Look to Latin America and Africa for examples. 

And like it or not, the behavior of the Trump Administration and its captive Congress is changing the government of the United States of America into a bare bones structure that might not be able to effectively deal with the challenges, foreign or even domestic, that it faces. That is why the Senate hearing on General Caine’s appointment next week is important. The inconceivable is not the impossible. 

JL 

                                                     * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

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.   This becomes very important because there are always new people moving into the area.

JL 

                                                          * * *

March 24, 2025 - The Future for Democrats, Evolving Media, Abandoning the Constitution, and Judicial Review

 

Finding the Way for Democrats – A Quest for Future Leadership    

Representatives Jason Crow and Alexandria Octavio-Cortez
(composite photo from 2021 protests of Capitol insurrection.)

                                          

The Democratic Party seems to be wandering in a desert of disarray.  I believe that its future rests with those like Colorado’s Representative Jason Crow, who seems to recognize the importance of those blue-collar, family-oriented voters who might have to shower after a sweaty day at work as opposed to the votes of those who shower before going to work, the mistake that lost them the Presidency and Congress to MAGA Republicans in 2024. Crow is heading up the selection of Democratic Congressional candidates trying to capture currently Republican House seats.

The Democrats must shed their image of East and West Coast elites, academics, and leftish progressives.  That combination does not constitute a majority of America’s voters, and appealing to them is a losing strategy, at least nationally.  Without abandoning the good fight for D.E.I rights, gender equality, and womens’ rights, they must still find a way to focus on the bread and butter issues that win elections. In 2024, after hiding President Biden’s deterioration for too long, they had no real alternative other than Vice President Kamala Harris who wasn’t quite ready, and while Tim Walz offended no one, he didn’t add anything to their losing ticket.

In addition, they must improve the kind of media choices they make to deliver their message (which apparently is still a work in progress) about a government existing to best serve and protect the nation’s working people, rather than the wealthy, large corporations, and high-tech oligarchs. They must better target younger voters, a good number of whom jumped toward Trump for no good reason in 2024, other than he reached them more effectively than did the Democrats.

Even New York Representative Alexandria Octavio-Cortez, further to the left, recognizes this and will manage to be part of a new leadership without compromising her values.  She is presently engaged in a ‘road show’ alongside independent (though usually voting with the Democrats) Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking before overflow crowds at gigantic ‘town halls’ throughout the country in places where Republican officeholders are either ashamed or afraid to confront the disappointed audiences that elected them to office but are now showing symptoms of ‘buyer’s remorse.’  They are looking to the Democrats for answers, so it is important that they come up with their 2026 campaign’s direction pretty darn soon.  Saying that its time to vote against Republicans isn’t enough and they must wake up to that.

And speaking of MAGA Republicans, the next time you’re engaging in a friendly conversation with one of them, ask what period of ‘greatness’ in our history they want to duplicate in ‘making America great again.’  When they come up with an answer about the period to which ‘again’ points, if they are able to do that, ask them how that period of ‘greatness’ would fare in a Presidency headed by Donald Trump and his Musk-led wrecking crew.

JL 

                                                     *   *   * 

Changes in the World of Media

In the Nineteenth and the early years of the Twentieth centuries, the usual, if not the only media available to the public, were newspapers and less frequently, magazines. That is pretty much all that social commentators, politicians, and political parties used to spread their ideas, other than speaking at rallies to live audiences.  Radio and television soon expanded the range of available media, but they did not replace existing sources. 

In the Twenty-first century, however, electronic advances have created a revolution in media sources, all of which might be broadly classified as what has became known as ‘social media.’  Existing media remained however, but with a lessened effect on the public. 

It first started through widely circulated Emails with or without attachments to which one might subscribe and soon expanded into more specialized and personalized internet sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (later ‘X’) and numerous other sources that were not only available on one’s computer, but on one’s ‘smartphones’ as well.  And their purveyors were often a blend of journalists and entertainers.  Over the past few years, the latest innovation would seem to be Podcasting, an online and personalized version of opinionated ‘talk radio’ shows, often including video portions.  Communication between many of the newer media sources and their audiences often could be a two-way street too.

But existing media didn’t go away either, and still remains in use.  Newspapers  may be dying, but they still are around, and like it or not, are the basis of information we receive each day on our computer or smartphone screens.  Jackspotpourri still exists as ideas transmitted by Email including a link to an attachment, primarily because that is the limit of my skills, and possibly of most of its audience as well. 

If I had necessary skills to utilize the latest advances in media production, Jackspotpourri probably would today be a podcast.  If I were a dozen years younger, I might attempt to make that transition.  But I cannot turn back the clock, so please stick with https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com/ , which I will try to continue to produce twice a week, with all of its shortcomings, and send to those on its Email circulation list.

JL 

                                                     *   *   *                                           

Abandoning the Constitution for Autocracy

Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letter from an American’ dated March 19 must be read to understand the willingness of too many Americans to discard ‘the rule of law’ as established in our Constitution for an autocracy headed by a dictator.  CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line to read it. 

(When I use the expression ‘the rule of law,’ I take it to mean the Constitution’s Article One that establishes the Legislative Branch as the ones who make our laws, Article Two that establishes the Executive Branch that is supposed to ‘take care that these laws are faithfully executed,’ and Article Three that establishes the Judicial Branch to interpret such laws when necessary.)

And while you’re there, check out Professor Richardson's subsequent postings.  She is leading the efforts of those who recognize that Trump, Musk, and their misinformed supporters are following a path leading to the abandonment of our Constitution and the democracy for which it provides the structure.

                                                              *   *

In the last Jackspotpourri (on March 20), it was made clear that the Executive Branch is in the hands of billionaire oligarchs and the Legislative Branch is obedient to it.  All that is left to defend the Constitution is the Judicial Branch of our government, and right now, it is under attack.  America’s representative democracy now hangs by a fragile cord woven by the decisions of its judges.  But our Judicial Branch still has a lot going for it, because of two early Supreme Court decisions that have survived over the years.  Let’s look at them:

In 1801, the new Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver congressionally-approved judgeship appointment papers to one William Marbury, a last-minute appointee of outgoing President John Adams, whom the new Administration opposed along with other last-minute appointees.  Marbury sued and the Supreme Court agreed with him that Madison was legally required to do so. 

But in that same decision, they also ruled that the part of the 1789 Judiciary Act that would have allowed the delivery of Marbury’s appointment to take place, was itself ‘unconstitutional.‘  Chief Justice John Marshall finally ruled that the Supreme Court could not order the delivery of Marbury’s appointment papers because the law giving Congress such a power conflicted with the role of the Judicial Branch as established in the Constitution.  Marbury’s appointment papers were never delivered. 

Marbury vs Madison confirmed the supremacy of the Supreme Court over both the Executive and Legislative Branches through ‘judicial review’ when (1) it overruled Madison’s Executive Branch refusal to deliver Marbury’s appointment papers but then (2) declared ‘unconstitutional’ that portion of the 1789 Judiciary Act that allowed acts of Congress to take precedence over certain Court decisions, enabling the SCOTUS to scuttle Marbury’s appointment.

Since then, the supremacy of Supreme Court decisions over acts of both the Executive and Legislative Branches has been made clear through its function of ‘judicial review.’ 

In another landmark case in 1819, McCulloch vs Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that State laws contrary to Federal laws were also ‘unconstitutional.’  (In that case, Maryland wanted to be able to tax the federally-chartered Bank of the United States.) Today’s governors of Texas and Florida twist words, going out of their way to avoid this pitfall, which clearly places immigration law, now in the spotlight, within Federal, and not State, law.

For ‘judicial review’ to take place, however, a case must first manage to reach the Supreme Court.  The present Administration is even attacking the ability of this to happen by threatening to remove appropriate security clearances from uncooperative law firms, usually necessary for them to be able to view government material while handling cases involving the government.  Some of these law firms are proving to be spineless, just like Congress is, in the face of Executive Branch overreach.

(An interesting contradiction yet to be clarified is President Trump’s supporters’ original claim that his speech at the ‘Ellipse’ on January 6, 2021 inciting his listeners to march on the Capitol was an ‘unofficial’ act, not related to the riotous invasion of the Capitol to prevent the 2020 Electoral College tally from being confirmed that directly followed.  Once the Supreme Court in 2024, however, provided immunity for otherwise criminal acts performed as part of a President’s ‘official’ duties, Trump’s January 6 inciteful words suddenly became such a protected ‘official’ act, even if it were a criminal act.  Unfortunately, the SCOTUS acts like a political animal, at least only until it decides not to.)

                                                            *   *

And speaking of judges, the judge whom President Trump attacked for trying to stop, or delay, his probably illegal deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, demanding IN CAPS his impeachment, is actually a bi-partisan appointee, not the Democratic tool as scathingly portrayed by the President.

Quoting from an article on NBC News, “In 2002, President George W. Bush nominated James Boasberg as an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.  In 2011, President Barack Obama selected him to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and he was confirmed by the Senate in a 96-0 vote.”  That sounds pretty bi-partisan to me, appointed by two Presidents from different parties and confirmed by the Senate with no negative votes.  How can it be then, that anyone can support the President’s ignorant and vindictive tirade?  The answer: misinformation swallowed by a misled public as well as by many Republicans elected to Congress.

SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts correctly intervened by saying that an ‘appeal’ rather than suggesting impeachment was the way to deal with a court order with which one disagreed.  Roberts did not go any further because Trump’s law breaking may soon be once again before the SCOTUS and he did not want to ‘tip’ his hand as to the direction in which he might go.

 JL 

                                                     *   *   *                

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated.  My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com.

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. 

 JL 

                                                     *   *   *