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

Saturday, December 8, 2018

What Mueller Knows, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch, Floriduh, Heartburn, the National Cathedral and Decisions Made for You




Who knows what Robert Mueller knows? 

I suspect that he knows enough to indict many of those close to the President and his 2016 campaign.   If these include any of the President’s close relatives, who unlike the President, can be served with a subpoena and made defendants in a trial, look for a Presidential resignation before 2020.  He will do this to protect them and if this turns out to be the case, it will all be negotiated behind the scenes and the resignation will be clothed in another justification, such as a health problem.  That’s why so much has been “redacted” in the court papers released regarding Manafort, Cohen and Flynn. It’s to make this resolution possible.  That will be the deal.  No one will know the real reason until years later when historians will write about it.   

Jack Lippman



Meanwhile back at the ranch

Those who watch Fox News are convinced that Special Counsel Mueller’s findings, outside of and beyond his task of finding collusion between Russia and the 2016 election, can be ignored because that wasn’t his assigned mission. 

In the absence of a ‘smoking gun,’ they are willing, under the guidance of Hannity
and his crew, to ignore a Mount Everest of circumstantial evidence.  That’s the party line there this week. Sure, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen lied under oath, did bad things and cheated but Mueller has no business trying to connect that to the President and his associates.  Even when Cohen’s lies implicated the President and Russia, they did not do so specifically in connection with the 2016 election, but rather, merely with his real estate aspirations, so they are ignorable.  Fox’s people and their millions of gullible
(MSNBC’s Chuck Todd has finally come around to using that adjective which this blog has been using for two years) followers still buy Trump’s “witch hunt” approach, believe in his attacks on the media and dismiss as mere politics what is obviously clear justification for impeachment, indictment and once he is out of office, criminal charges against the President.  Watch Fox and you will understand! A battle cannot be won without understanding the opposition!  Watch Fox daily!  If you find it difficult, chew on a Tums.

JL




FloriDUH 


Florida is a great place for retirement, and even perhaps to settle down in if you can manage to own a successful business here or get a well-paying permanent job here, neither of which is easily accomplished in the Sunshine State.  The weather is fine, the restaurants, entertainment and sports attractions are adequate, the roads are good, health care isn’t too bad and there usually is plenty of parking wherever you go.   You’ll have to read what Frank Cerabino (see below) has to say to form your opinion about the schools here.  And weather-wise, except for the hot Summer months, for which air conditioning has provided an acceptable remedy, and an occasional hurricane, Florida is a great place to be.

Except for its State government.  That’s the problem.  With occasional exceptions, most of the people in the State of Florida (excluding most of those those in its Southeast four counties or along parts of I-4) are basically stupid jerks.  And they end up electing a State Legislature which belongs back in the late nineteenth century.  That’s why the State’s Constitution is cluttered with stuff which in any normal state would simply be “laws.”  But that’s another story.  With Florida government in mind, I refer you to a recent Palm Beach Post column by Frank Cerabino, wherein he explains how “ignorance” is a basic qualification for serving in Florida’s governmental structure.  You cannot make this stuff up!

Read all about it in the Palm Beach Post by clicking right here.
JL




Heartburn Department 

There is a commercial on TV these days featuring the question “Can you imagine twenty-four hours without heartburn?”   Most people can.  But not those at whom the commercial is directed.

Heartburn is usually defined as a burning sensation in the chest or throat area, caused by stomach acids.  If it occurs with great frequency, it might be diagnosed as “gastro-esophageal reflux disease” (GERD) and should prompt a visit to a physician, who very well might prescribe the very drug sponsoring the commercial, Nexium, marketed as “the purple pill.”  Any physician treating these symptoms knows about Nexium and doesn’t need the patient suggesting that he prescribe it.  And of course, that physician will hopefully first rule out a heart attack as the cause of the chest pain, something that always should be considered.

What gets me is that the commercial seems to assume that some of its viewers actually are experiencing “heartburn” on a daily basis and are not already seeing a doctor about it!  How stupid can they be?  (See posting directly above which suggests where many stupid people may be found.)  When I have an episode of heartburn or an upset stomach, and I do about once a year, I can always directly attribute it to something specific that I ate that I should not have eaten.  Usually an antacid tablet like an Alka-seltzer or Tums is all I need for relief.

The existence of people out there experiencing daily heartburn symptoms and not being under the care of a physician, which is the audience at which the commercial is directed, is a sorry commentary on the state of health care in this country.  The only good I can see from commercials like this is that when the daily heartburn sufferer goes into a drug store and asks for Nexium, the pharmacist will tell him that he had better see a doctor first, because a prescription is necessary.
JL 




The National Cathedral

The state funeral service for George H. W. Bush, our 41st President, was held in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  Some may ask how it is that in a country with a distinct separation between church and state, we have a “National” cathedral.

Although it is referred to as the National Cathedral, that beautiful structure has nothing to do with our government and receives no financial support from it.  

Its full name is The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington and is the seat of the Episcopal Church in the United States.   It is the second largest cathedral in the United States, second in size only to the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, in New York City, another Episcopal cathedral.

Because most of our Presidents have been Protestant, many worship there, and that is why President Bush’s services were held there. Jack Kennedy’s funeral was held in another cathedral in Washington, but that was the Cathedral of St. Matthew, which is Roman Catholic.
JL



 
Your Decision Makers

I have two Email addresses, one with AOL and the other with Gmail.  Sometimes they do things without my asking.  Sometimes they seem to be reading my mind in doing that.  For example, all of a sudden, I’ve found thousands of Emails in an AOL folder labelled “bulk mail.”  Never saw it before.  These are things that their programmers have decided that I need not look at.  I do divert to “trash” or “junk” many Emails which I do see and these ones in “bulk mail” that I never got to see, probably would end up there too if I had the chance to see them.  But that choice wasn't mine. Of course, I could spend a few hours trying how to figure out how to change things and stop them from doing that, but what bugs me is that they decided, all on their own, to do it in the first place.

For example, there is a chap I know with some really far right-wing political beliefs.  He sends out two or three Emails every day.  Rarely do I read them and even more rarely do I respond to him.  95% of them I delete as soon as I see his name.  Apparently, AOL has noticed this, and since they (not I, but they) know his Email is going to a lot of people, have decided to sidetrack it into that folder labelled “bulk mail” for me.   So, not having seen his Emails lately, I figured that he may be sick, have died or become a Democrat, none of which it turns out is true.  I resent AOL making such decisions for me, taking it on themselves to protect me from him. But that should be my choice, not theirs.  Meanwhile, Gmail does something similar (their ‘bulk mail’ folder is labelled ‘promotions’), but far less extreme, and which can be easily bypassed, and if it isn’t, these Emails are readily accessible.  Bottom line:  Accept the fact that when you use a computer, someone else starts making decisions for you.  
JL




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Jack Lippman 


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