September 9, 2024 - Debate Tomorrow, More about Justice Scalia, the 'Thumb on the Scale' in the Senate and Electoral College, Football Jerseys, and Prehistoric Dining Habits

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Trump                Harris

The Only 2024 Presidential Debate 

Tuesday Evening at 9:00 p.m. – ABC TV 

JL

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IMPORTANT FLORIDA ELECTION INFORMATION!

All requests to vote by mail made before November 8, 2022 have now expired!  In Palm Beach County, to check to see if yours has, or to request a vote-by-mail ballot, call 561-656-6208, or visit the Supervisor of Election’s website at https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/.  (Elsewhere contact your Supervisor of Elections.)  Election Day falls within the always unpredictable hurricane season, so this is very important!  Here are some important dates to remember:

Last day to register to vote is Monday, Oct. 7.

Last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot is Thursday, Oct. 24.

Deadline for County to receive mail-in ballots is 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5 (Election Day).

Some early in-person voting sites will be available from Saturday, Oct. 26 until Saturday, Nov. 2.  Check locations by contacting the Supervisor of Elections.

Election Day is Nov. 5.

JL

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Nameless Football Jerseys

Penn State Football Player 

Let me add Penn State to the list of college football teams that think they are so great that they don’t bother to put their players names on their jerseys, and therefore don’t deserve the support of anyone other than their most loyal alumni.  There are many more, I believe.  The bigger they are, the harder they will eventually fall.  They just don't care.  

Along with USC, Notre Dame, and of course the New York Yankees, their actions define ‘hubris’ or often unwarranted ‘arrogance.’ (Go look these words up.)  These are not desirable qualities.

JL

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More on Justice Scalia’s 2008 Gun Control Decision

Continuing my layman’s commentary on Justice Scalia’s decision in D.C. vs Heller in 2008, I want to point out that Scalia knew what he was doing, and was almost apologetic about it.

Many laws exist for many years without courts deciding what they really mean.  Justice Scalia’s position and opinion (that gun rights pre-existed militias) had not prevailed for almost 220 years, without being successfully reflected in SCOTUS decisions.  

After recognizing that, and stating his opinion, Justice Scalia was almost apologetic about doing something to finally challenge the usually accepted position that the Amendment only pertained to enabling militias to be formed.  Here is a quote directly from his opinion:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.[Footnote 26]

   We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

So Justice Scalia knew what he was doing, but rather than let sleeping dogs lie, he made his choice  (that gun rights pre-existed militias), one that was his honest interpretation of the law, but which also resulted in the proliferation of weapons and the deaths of many Americans. To do so was his decision, for him to live by, and for others to die by, often violently.

It was a terrible decision that he made, ignoring human lives, still trusting in the very protections (underlined above)  provided by years of decisions which his opinion overrode.  What he wrote is all the more unforgivable because he knew what he was doing.  History will never forgive him.

Note the portions of his words that I have underlined. 

JL

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More ‘Thumb on the Scale’ of Democracy – The Presidency

By now, from the previous posting on Jackspotpourri, you know that the composition of the Senate is heavily skewed toward the less populated States.  And since the two Senators each State has, regardless of its population, also serve in determining the number of Electoral votes it has in choosing a president (one for each Representative and Senator), there is a ‘thumb on the scale’ there too.

All of this comes from the efforts of the slave-owning Founding Fathers, led by James Madison, in trying to preserve the power of those slaveholding States controlled by wealthy landowners.  The rest of the States went along with it, wanting the Constitution approved at any cost, assuming that slavery would eventually ‘die on the vine’ and wither away on its own. 

But the slaveholding States did not let that happen and were willing to destroy the Union (remember that the Nation is made up of independent States, supposedly ‘united’ together (E Pluribus Unum – One out of Many) and were willing to fight the Civil War to defend their independent position in order to preserve slavery, the basis of their economies.

And so we are stuck, even today, with a Senate giving a disproportionate amount of power to a minority of Americans, as the prior posting pointed out in regard to the Supreme Court, and as pointed out above, to the election of our president as well.  That’s why solving problems like gun violence and abortion rights is so difficult.

The only solutions that I see, short of waiting for the Constitution to be modified over the next century (the ‘amending’ process takes many, many, years), are enormous, overwhelming, victories by Democrats in the election of the House, the Senate, the presidency, and State legislatures over the next few dozen years, starting on Nov. 5, 2024.  If you agree with me, it is your job to make that happen!

(This article would be incomplete if it didn’t mention the ‘National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.’  This would call for States with a total of at least 270 electoral votes, a number sufficient to elect a president, to legislatively agree to submit all  its electoral votes to the candidate who won a majority of the popular vote in the entire nation.  This idea has been around a while and has been stalled with only sixteen states providing 209 electoral votes approving it, coming far short of the required 270 electoral votes to elect a president. This might be changed if the Democrats are able to take over additional State legislatures in November, enabling the Constitutional ‘thumb on the scale’ of the biased Electoral College to be bypassed.  I am sure that if this happens, it will end up before the Supreme Court.)

JL

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An Obituary for Silverware

Prehistoric man didn’t have a drawer filled with eating utensils.  All they had were very sharp knives, used to kill and slice up the animals they cooked and ate, and harvest the more stubborn vegetation they also ate. Stabbing a chunk of meat with a knife was the limit of the use of ‘silverware.’  Most of the time they just picked up their food with their hands and shoved it into their mouths. 

Of course, this wasn’t possible with soups and mushier foods and created a problem, eventually solved when some genius invented the spoon to help with that, shortly after how to make a bowl, or even use a coconut shell for one, was discovered.

And this is the way people ate for thousands and thousands of  years until the ancient Greeks invented the fork to hold meat steady while it was being cut with a knife.  The later Byzantines eventually improved on this, learning to pick up cut-up meat and other foods with that fork and deliver it directly to their mouths, without their picking it up with their hands.

I find it very strange, these days, to see that mankind is returning to its original, ‘primitive,’ utensil-less, eating habits.  It may have started when the British Earl of Sandwich ordered that his slice of meat be placed between two slices of bread back in 1762, so he didn’t have to get up from the card table and go into the dining room to eat. 

Named after the Earl, handheld ‘Sandwiches,’ and their cousins, hot dog and hamburger rolls, are familiar to all of us.  And silverware can be further avoided with handheld slices of pizza, wraps, tacos, and food stuffed into the pocket of a pita.  

The prevalence of baked, mashed, or boiled potatoes, traditionally delivered to one’s mouth by a fork, has been surpassed by ‘french fries,’ another food that only requires the use of fingers, joining chicken wings in that messy category.  

There are restaurant chains where the only food available comes on a handheld ‘hoagie’ or ‘sub’ role.  I always have a supply of fajitas in my refrigerator which I use with cheeses, salads, and various spreads to deliver by hand to my tongue. The days of using that fork to gather up kernels of corn (‘niblets’) scraped from an ear of corn have been replaced by just grasping the salted and buttered cob with two hands and eating away at it, row by row.  Only this afternoon, an employee in the place where I shop was passing out chips topped with guacamole for customers to sample and eat with their hands. 

I think Prehistoric man might feel at home today.

(Footnote:  The last remaining flatware manufacturer in the United States, Oneida, ceased operating as such in 2006, but some of their products are still produced in Oneida, NY, under the name of Liberty Tabletop by the Sherrill Manufacturing Company.) 

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. 

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened.  I suspect that the Chinese are playing around with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them. 

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, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word. 

JL 

 

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September 5, 2024 - Another School Shooting, Blame it on the SCOTUS, the Senate races, Comma-La, and Athletes' Names on Jerseys

Another School Shooting – Ho, Hum 

Here are the words of the Second Amendment to the Constitution: ’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.’ 

Anyone who can read should conclude that its intent is that the ‘right of the people to keep and bear Arms,' and that that right ’not be infringed’ is intended to provide for ’a well regulated Militia’ that is ‘necessary to the security of a free State.’ 

In 1789, the thirteen free States, especially those whose economies were based on slavery, had reason to fear a strong central government, and wanted the legal right to raise a militia, if ever the central government threatened its ‘security’ (which really was a polite way of stating its right to own slaves). And in 1789, those expected to be called upon to form such a militia were expected to bring their own guns. Plain and simple, that is what the Second Amendment was all about back in 1789.  

That is, until the gun lobby, financed by gun manufacturers, managed to convince the Supreme Court that the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed) could stand alone and need not be related to its first thirteen words (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State). That was the opinion written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in D.C. vs Heller, decided by the SCOTUS in 2008. 

Justice Scalia's reasoning recognized that while the existence of National Guard units in every state made calling on armed civilians to form militias obsolete and unnecessary, these civilians possessed arms even before their participation in such militias might have been called upon, and that uninfringed right to possess them pre-existed and cannot be taken away, having nothing specific to do with the composition of militias. And those final fourteen words of the Second Amendment said precisely that, while its first thirteen words, referring to the no-longer-necessary militias could be flushed down the toilet.

Since then, Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have not only accepted Scalia’s reasoning but refused to go along with effective national or even State efforts to regulate or control the purchasing and marketing of guns, leading to their ready availability. 

News of still another school shooting must lead the United States Senate to recognize that their approval of Supreme Court Justices is directly connected to the problem of gun violence. I believe that from here on in, Justices must be approved by the Senate only if they recognize that D.C. vs Heller must be reversed, or at least modified by another decision so that enforceable regulations for the purchasing and marketing of guns can be included, and realistically, accomplished on a national basis. State regulation will not solve a national problem. 

And if the Justices lie during their confirmation hearings (as several did when asked about abortion rights), they should face impeachment, the SCOTUS having no formal or informal ethics code.  While it is ‘people’ who kill ‘people,’ the primary instruments by which they do so are guns, and they must be regulated. 

Recognizing that States today all have established militias in the form of National Guard units, repeal and rewording of the Second Amendment would take decades. But the election of Senators who understand the Second Amendment and the need to stop the proliferation of guns would be a quicker solution since they are the ones who approve SCOTUS appointees.

Meanwhile, school children and teachers are being murdered thanks to Justice Scalia, whose memory is soaked in the blood of thousands of Americans killed since 2008. Republicans praise his decision. They should be ashamed of it. Change can be accomplished without causing a problem for hunters and target shooting sportsmen, so that issue ought not be raised.

The proliferation of weapons in this country must be stopped. Now! You can do your part on election day! The following article, about Senate races can be a giant step in that direction, if Democrats are elected in sufficient numbers to that body. 

JL 

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Eleven Senate Races 

Of great importance in the upcoming election is the vote for one-third of the United States Senate in which each State has two Senators, a compromise made in 1789 to get the slaveholding States to endorse the new Constitution.

As a result, Wyoming with about 600,000 residents has two Senators as does California with about 39,000,000 residents! And this is where Supreme Court Justices are confirmed!  It is in that Supreme Court where our Constitution and its Amendments are routinely misinterpreted because of appointees who put their political allegiances ahead the interests of the American people. 

To get rid of this ‘thumb on the scale,’ a Constitutional Amendment would be necessary, probably not achievable during the lifetime of anyone reading this. That’s why control of the Senate is so, so, important. 

Here is what is on the line! 

There are five Democratic Senators (Montana’s Jon Tester, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin.) running for re-election. All five races are very close with Tester’s seat in the greatest jeopardy. 

Equally important are Senate vacancies in three States where Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester, Arizona’s Ruben Gallego, and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks are seeking to fill them. 

Finally, there are three States where Democratic challengers (Colin Allred in Texas, Debbie Muscarsel-Powell in Florida, and Gloria Johnson in Tennesee) are running to unseat incumbent Republicans. Democrats stand their best chances in Texas and Florida.

I recommend choosing two or three of these candidates to support by donations (if you can afford to do that) and writing postal cards, for which I can steer you in the right direction, if you email me at jacklippman18@gmail.com. A bumper sticker on your car or a sign in its rear window would be great! (I am not a great fan of telephone banks or old-fashioned knocking on doors.) 

You might consider making a donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee which supports all of these candidates. Reach their site at https://www.dscc.org/ or just CLICK HERE.

Personally, I have donated to the DSCC, and individually to Tester, Muscarsel-Powell and the Harris/Walz campaign. Control of the Senate is very, very important.  

JL 

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Comma-La Knows Politics are Local

 A recent article in the New Yorker magazine about the Democratic Party concluded with this quote. 'Democrats have put their stock in national candidates but the real work of party-building is local and year-round. Give people places to show up, fun things to do - opportunities to identify with the party as such, not just with a celebrity nominee.' Sort of reminds me of former House Speaker Tip O’Neil saying that ‘all politics are local.’

Republicans have long recognized this and as a result, control many State legislatures and governorships, creating numerous thorns in the side of Democrats who might have a greater presence in the Federal government.

‘, la ‘ (a piece of clever shorthand for Harris, keyed to the pronunciation of her first name – ‘comma – la) recognizes this, remembering O’Neil’s advice and she is making a point of using the Party’s resources to strengthen local Democratic organizations. 

 

JL 

 

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The Sports Section

Those who follow Jackspotpourri might recall that I am, and never have been, a fan of the New York Yankees. The reason for this is a minor one, but one of significance to me. They do not put their players’ name on the backs of their uniform jerseys! Being a Yankee fan meant being able to identify the players by their appearance. Being unable to do that disqualified you from being a true Yankee fan, in their eyes, and they don’t seem to care about that. I see this as an example of unnecessary hubris or exaggerated and unwarranted pride. ‘So, go root for the Mets,’ is their answer to New Yorkers and others. (I know the jerseys are numbered, but who keeps track of what players wear what numbers, anyway? Do they expect viewers to keep a list of the league’s players by numbers next to their TVs?) 

That’s why It distressed me, as the 2024 college football season opened, that two fine teams, Southern Cal and Notre Dame, sent their football teams onto the field wearing jerseys without names on the back, manifesting this same unnecessary hubris. When watching a football game on TV, if given the choice, I always root for teams that identify their players by putting their names on their jerseys. As for the ones that do not, they’re no better than the snooty Yankees, who took pride in fair-weather fans like Rudy Guiliani who ostentatiously wore their championship rings. So long as college football teams wearing nameless jerseys fill stadiums, and NFL scouts recognize the players, such football teams don’t really care about the fans. 

Can you identify Southern Cal’s number 10 in this video of an unbelievable catch? (View it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLw4RpTPsLk or JUST CLICK HERE.) If the Trojans had names on their jerseys, you would have immediately known it is wide receiver Kyron Hudson. Otherwise, you had to count on the telecasters mentioning it, which wasn’t guaranteed since they had to stall for a few seconds, probably looking at a program to figure out who Number 10 was. 

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened. I suspect that the Chinese are playing around with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them. 

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. 

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. Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word. 

JL 

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August 31, 2024 - Displaying Opinions, Elephants, Credit Card Advances, and a Letter Gets Published

 

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Don’t Keep Your Opinion a Secret

In response to a recent donation I made to the Democratic 2024 campaign, I received a small poster with Kamala Harris pictured on it and reading ‘Harris for President’ and in larger letters, ‘Together We Can Win This!’  I folded it so only the text appears, and it now is displayed in the rear window of my car.  I also have also received a small sheet of stickers from the DNC.  I wore a button-sized one on my shirt the other day, reading ‘Harris for President’ and it drew favorable comments from my urologist and a checkout clerk at Home Depot.

If you believe that ‘Together We Can Win This,’ I suggest you similarly display your views.  Don’t hide them. Take pride in them. 

Not having the opportunity to express a political opinion is something missed only when you no longer have that opportunity, and then, it might be too late.  

Don’t keep your opinion a secret!  Help it to become contagious.

JL

 

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Elephant in the G.O.P.’s Room

Here’s an insightful quote from Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated August 27. 

‘The elephant in the room these days is that most Republicans, along with many pundits, are pretending that Trump is a normal presidential candidate. They are ignoring his mental lapses, calls for authoritarianism, grifting, lack of grasp on any sort of policy, and criminality, even as he has hollowed out the once grand Republican Party and threatens American democracy itself.’

It is difficult to disagree with this, unless you are one of those Republicans or pundits whose vision is so impaired that they couldn’t recognize an elephant in their room from five feet away.  As a visit to any zoo will confirm, the presence of elephants is hard to ignore, and of course, today’s political pachyderm is the symbol of the Republican Party.  I’ll let you guess the elephant’s name.

And while you’re checking out Professor Richardson’s website at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ (You can JUST CLICK HERE to get there), don’t miss the posting of August 28 as well, in which she traverses a lot of the areas where the aforementioned elephant has deposited its dung. 

Historian Richardson’s opinions are free … unless you become a paying ($5 a month) subscriber allowing you to comment and comment on others’ comments. (I used to pay this, but no longer do since reading the comments was too time-consuming.  Reading her posting is enough to keep you wide awake!)

And if the DOJ has any lawyers not already chasing after convicted NY felon Trump’s lawbreaking, they might assign one to his illegal violation of Arlington National Cemetery’s rules against political campaigning there.  He has truly redefined how low a ‘low-life’ can be.

JL

 

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I Still Write Letters

In case you missed it (which you probably did), The Palm Beach Post published a letter from me on Friday, August 30.  Here’s what I wrote:

‘Amid all the words that have been printed about the unwise attempt to develop parts of Johnathan Dickinson State Park, two stand out.  The Post’s Aug. 28 editorial used ‘stupid arrogance’ to suggest the mindset of Gov. DeSantis and his administration.  How long will it take Florida’s voters to recognize this?  It goes far beyond those three unnecessary golf courses.’

The Post started their Letters section off with mine at the top, entitling it ‘Park plan shows DeSantis’ arrogance.’

JL

 

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Thirty Percent Interest

I just received by my credit card statement in the mail (always preferable to getting it online which only reduces the bank’s expenses and makes it harder to examine closely) and noted that the bank charges an annual rate of 29.99% for cash advances made on that card, a percentage even higher than what they charge on other unpaid balances. 

I always pay my full balance every month so that doesn’t affect me but I suppose it might be the last resort for someone who is totally broke.  I suspect that most who borrow at that usurious rate do so unaware that they are borrowing at almost 30%. ‘Need money?  Just take it from the card,’ they think.  It might even be the manner in which an overdraft is automatically covered.

Of course, pawnshops and shady characters on the street corner charge much more.  Folks in such circumstances should seek financial counselling.  It might even be a good idea for banks to require that they do so when such credit card borrowing reaches a certain limit.  The only ones who might object to that would be the collection agencies to which the banks sell their uncollectable debts.

JL

 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri  (There's a bit more coming after this so stick with it!)

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened.  I suspect that the Chinese are playing around with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them. 

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. 

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. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word. 

 

JL 

And remember ...

                                      

'This is what I plan to do with your democracy on
 my first day in office if you elect me.  I've told you so!'

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August 27, 2024 - Kamala Harris and the SCOTUS, Voting Rights, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

                                                     

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Unless you reside on another planet, you must know that Kamala Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee in the November 5 election, less than two and a half months away.  If you support her, you should be doing something (besides donating to her campaign and those of other Democrats if you can afford to) to make sure they defeat the candidates of what used to be the Republican Party, but is now a servile collection of misinformed, gullible, bitter, and sometimes bigoted Americans. If you don’t know how to become active, email me (jacklippman18@gmail.com) for some recommendations and I will point you in the right direction.    

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the
Democratic Ticket in Novermber's Election

Many Republicans, either openly or quietly, will be supporting Kamala Harris. Some even spoke at the Democratic Party’s convention. Unfortunately, those Americans who choose to depend upon news sources such as Fox News or Newsmax are not being given that news. It will be up to the Democrats to publicize the numerous Republican defections.

 

And speaking of news sources, you also should be keeping up with the news by reading a newspaper every day, either in its paper form or online.  Locally, I recommend the Palm Beach Post, the Sun-Sentinel, and of course the Washington Post, the New York Times, or even USA Today. The ‘free’ NPR site online is brief but touches all the bases every daily via some selected links. TV is a less thorough source of information, often opinionated, and radio has been contaminated by the Sinclair group, a mouthpiece for the far-right, even less objective than Fox News. As for other online sites, read them with caution.  It is important that you remain well-informed throughout the days leading up to the election.

Today’s posting touches on the Supreme Court, Israeli-Palestinian issues, and those who choose to misread the Declaration of Independence, eager to replace ‘the pursuit of happiness’ with the power that owning ‘property’ brings. These are all things with which our Forty-seventh president will have to deal.  

So let's take a look at them.

JL

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Fixing the SCOTUS

If the Democrats win the presidency and both Houses of Congress in November, which I predict they will, that would leave the Supreme Court as the only part of our government not responsive to the will of the people. 

I wonder if President Harris will threaten them with an expansion of the SCOTUS, as FDR did, to get them to recognize that the nation they serve today is very different from what it was at the time of their appointments to the Court.  

Of course, this is what the Constitution intended their role to be, as a brake on runaway democracy, a respectful nod to the past, but it never anticipated the present Court’s denial of the legal principle of ‘stare decisis,’ that of basing decisions on legal precedents made over the years.  

Expansion of the SCOTUS may be the only way to produce a decision that reinstates Roe vs Wade.  I hope it doesn’t come down to that having to be done because that, in itself, would be an undesirable precedent for future presidents.  But as Bob Dylan sang, “things may be a-changin’.“  And for the better!

JL

 

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The Pursuit of Happiness Under Threat

Did you know that the Declaration of Independence’s promise that ‘all men are created equal’ was not fulfilled by the Constitution, thirteen years later? The final member of the Declaration’s new triad of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ quickly reverted to the more traditional trio of ‘life, liberty, and property,’ negating the spirit of both of those documents.

In fact, it took until the 1840s for ownership of property to be gradually phased out as a voting requirement in most States.  But there still were many who could not vote, including recent immigrants, women, and of course, slaves.  It took the Civil War in the 1860s to emancipate America’s slaves, giving them the vote, but there still were many who believed that ‘property,’ and not the Declaration’s ‘pursuit of happiness,’ was the keystone to American democracy, and they worked hard to keep it that way with local laws establishing what amounted to separate classes of citizenship.  These laws centered on restricting voting.

These people felt it were their efforts, exemplified by the property they and their families had acquired, that were the engine that drove the nation’s economy.  Their business enterprises and their investments fueled the country’s economy and that is why the protection of their ‘property’ was more important to them than the ‘pursuit of happiness.’  Abraham Lincoln thought this was bullshit and said that government ‘of, by, and for, the people’ was more important, regardless of whether or not they owned property, or even were enslaved.

But those that thought Lincoln was a tyrant put a bullet in his head and by 1876, a decade later, the Declaration of Independence’s ‘equality’ became defined as ‘equal rights,’ but only for those who possessed wealth and property. They were content that the needs of those who did not fit that definition might be satisfied by their being employed in their enterprises.  Some economists refer to that as how wealth ‘trickled down’ with the idea that every boat, even those of working people, floats higher in a rising tide.

To keep things that way, it was important to those with property or businesses that voting not be readily available to those who were not able to contribute to the economy in the manner that they, the propertied classes, were able to do, but only with their labor on farms, in mines, and in factories. A class system was necessary to accomplish this, which at a minimum would discourage ‘freeloaders’ on the economy.

Why? If working people voted in sufficient numbers, they might then seek full and equal access to the rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.  That’s why!

Those in power felt that the government’s decisions should be made by the economy’s ‘makers’ and not its non-contributory ‘takers.’  That, incidentally, is why ‘Reconstruction’ after the Civil War failed.  The words of our ‘better angels’ were drowned out by those who preferred things the way they used to be.

This attitude still exists today.  Talk to any Republican candidate for proof of that!  ‘Gerrymandering’ by easily controlled State legislatures unfavorably redistricts the votes of minorities of which many workers form a part.  Voting hours and locations are reduced.  More rigid voter ‘identification’ rules are mandated.  Voting by mail and early voting are made more difficult.  There rarely is evidence of the elusive ‘election fraud’ which is usually claimed to exist to justify such measures. 

All of these are the tools of those who want to reduce the voting power of honest working people, leaving legislation to those with wealth and the businesses in which they invest.  Those who recognize and oppose this, including union organizers, are often vilified as being socialists, or even worse, communists.  Republicans even refer to Kamala Harris and other Democrats as ‘communists.’ 

In Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, she talked about building an ‘opportunity economy,’ recognizing the need to further empower working people.  This might cater to both ‘makers’ and those they employ.  I don’t know how she plans to pull this off.  But guaranteeing the latter’s voting rights on a national basis should be the first step in this direction.   Passage of the John Lewis Voting Act should have a high priority.  That would ensure equal access to the ballot box for all citizens, regardless of skin color or language ability, and eliminate State measures which discourage voting.  It would open the door to the ‘pursuit of happiness’ for all Americans.

 JL

 

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World Peace

In addition to facing the continuing threats to our country posed by Russia, China, and even North Korea (more about that in a future posting), Kamala Harris will also have to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of which the war in Gaza is only one aspect.  It is even divisive to Americans and can conceivably jeopardize her election on November 5.

She knows that a ‘one-state’ solution there is not a viable solution because by definition it ignores the interests of either the Palestinians or the Israelis, depending on who gets to control that ‘one-state.’  Those advocating a ‘one-state’ solution tend to be extremists, either Palestinian or Israeli, who would rather live with violence (which is easy) than solve problems (which is difficult).

In achieving a peaceful ‘two-state’ solution, the following challenges must be met. 

1.   Dealing with those who want to entirely eliminate the State of Israel, including their prime supporter, Iran.

2.   Dealing with those who want an Israel of ‘Biblical’ dimensions, with Israeli settlers already occupying parts of what might be a Palestinian state.

Part of the solution lies in replacing Iran as the Palestinians’ prime supporter with the Arab states who are willing to accept the existence of the State of Israel.  Everyone has their price, and that is what diplomacy and compromise are all about. Achieving this while still supporting Israel, but without an expanded war should be high on President Harris’ agenda.

Part of the solution is changing the mindset of the Israelis who have, with their government’s assent, settled in areas that might be part of a peaceful, neighboring, Palestinian state.  They should be offered the choice of uncomfortably remaining in a Palestinian state or being resettled in areas within the State of Israel.  The cost of resettlement, directly or indirectly, should be shared by the State of Israel, its supporters, and Israel’s more cooperative Arab neighbors.

Just as there must be changes in Iran’s position, there must be changes in Israel’s government to accomplish this. A theocracy is what has ruined Iran, and Israel should not be led down that path by those Israelis who think in that direction as well.

Along with Russia and China, these challenges will be sitting on Harris’ plate when she takes office.  It is something about which Americans care because of America’s traditional support of the democratic State of Israel as well as their recognizing the needs of Palestinians, which to some extent are parallel to those of the minorities in the United States who have not always been treated fairly. 

JL

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Theocracies Ain’t Good Things

Two paragraphs above, I refer to ‘theocracy.’  Let me digress for a moment.  That alone is an enormous challenge 

Everyone in this world should have the personal right to worship in any manner they wish or even deny the existence of any religion whatsoever!  Beyond that, religion should be limited to houses of worship, one’s home, or even the magnificent venues around us provided by the wonders of nature but be specifically kept out of any and all instruments of government or legislation.   No denomination nor religious group should be involved in elections, either!  It may be difficult for religious people to accept it but concepts such as an ‘Islamic Republic’ or a ‘Christian Democracy’ are obscene! 

The Roman Empire’s decline began when Constantine became a Christian back in the Fourth Century, initially tolerant of other faiths, but not for long.  There was nothing ‘Holy’ about the “Holy Roman Empire’ which was part of European politics for a millennium starting in the Middle Ages.

Centuries before, a progressive Rabbi in what was then the Roman-dominated State of Israel recognized that it was appropriate to ‘Render unto Caesar (representing civil government) the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.’  Although this comment was about paying taxes, it applies to much more.  There should be a wall between religious belief, even that of religious leaders, and political belief.  

Even legislation (and this includes the First Amendment to our Constitution) designed to protect one’s right to believe in a religion of their own choice should never be allowed to negatively impact those who do not similarly believe.

JL

 

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Please Explain Cryptocurrency to Me

Can someone explain to me why cryptocurrencies are nothing more than manifestations of a lack of faith and confidence in the United States government as the guarantor of the value of the pieces of paper in your wallet and bank accounts?  

Precious metals like gold and silver, usually in the form of ‘collectible’ coins, have traditionally filled that role, but at least they are tangible, something you can grasp with your hands and keep in a secure place. You can’t even keep cryptocurrency under your bed.  Could it be that those who want to bring down our system of government are hiding behind such an elusive alternate system of finance?

JL

 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened.  I suspect that the Chinese are playing around with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them. 

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. 

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. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word. 

JL 

 

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