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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.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Treasonous Thoughts, Letting Gmail Think for You and More



Politics:  Wishful Thinking Department:  Treason?


It is time for our military, in the personage of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to disregard the orders of their Commander in Chief.  He might call it treason, but it is he who is the traitor.   For no good reason other than being out-negotiated by Turkish President Erdogan in a night-time phone conversation with no advisors present, he has betrayed the honor of the United States, exposing tens of thousands of Kurds to murder.  That is an act of treason far greater than our military leaders disobeying him would be.

A President, unless in times of war and true imminent danger to the nation, is not empowered to make such decisions. This is a time for the American military to stand up and defy the President and return American troops to their positions, protective of our Kurdish allies in northern Syria.  The Joint Chiefs should advise the Congress of their intention to disobey the Commander in Chief.   Their defiance would not be an act of treason.  It would be an act of honor.  And if it amounts to a “constitutional crisis,” if you haven’t noticed, we already are there!

This would be only a part of the constitutional crisis the President has brought upon the country by disregarding and denigrating the role of the co-equal Legislative branch of our government, just as he has attacked anyone even in the Executive branch who disagrees with him.  This is why so many have resigned, been fired and so many positions left unfilled.  This is why subpoenas are defied by our insolent President.

Inevitably, this constitutional crisis will come before the Supreme Court where the President will find that his two appointees, while agreeing with the conservative policies of the Federalist Society, will not tolerate his disregard for the Constitution.  Nor will the Chief Justice, who will preside over the Senate portion of the impeachment process.   Donald J. Trump’s presidency will go down in history as evidence that democracy must be carefully nurtured; failing to do so can have disastrous consequences.

It has been said that the impeachment process is unnecessary since the Constitution provides for getting rid of a president through its election process.  That makes sense, and should the Senate not convict the President and complete his impeachment, that is the course the nation will follow.  Nevertheless, because his very corruption of that election process itself would be one of the issues involved in the President’s impeachment, it would be better if the process were carried to completion in the Senate.  Sadly, the Republican majority there is dominated by cowards who put their dying party over nation.  It’s a stretch, but that too is treason of a sort.  Senators take an oath to defend the Constitution, not the President nor their Party.

George Will ... From the Right, always.
At this point, don’t take the word of progressive Democrats, like me, but listen to the words of a conservative, old-line, traditional, right-wing Republican columnist like George Will.  Here’s his Washington Post column of the other day.  Copy and paste this on your ‘browser line’ :



And then feel free to pass it on you your Republican friends, who may have missed their dose of “Kool Aid” on Fox this morning.

Jack Lippman


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Will ‘Smart Compose’ Replace Your Brain?

Those of you who use Gmail may have noted that when you’re composing an email message, the system sometimes jumps ahead and suggests in a gray, not black, typeface what you might say.  This is based on the system’s familiarity with your prior writings, with those of others like you, and uses a kind of artificial intelligence to think ahead for you.  You can ignore the suggested wording (in gray) and type whatever you want to type, or if you want to go along with the system’s suggestion, just hit the tab key and the gray wording automatically becomes your work in black (or in whatever color you are typing).  This feature of Gmail, incidentally, is known as “Smart Compose.”   (Another similar Gmail feature is “Smart Reply,” which again based on the nature of the email and its sender, sometimes gives you a selection of very brief responses which you can send such as “Thanks,” “Got It,” or “Really?” without bothering to compose them yourself.)

Check out John Seabrook’s article on this in the October 14 issue of the New Yorker. He cites an email he was sending to his son on which he had just typed in “I am so p” with the intention of continuing “pleased with you,” but Smart Compose thought “proud of you” would be better.  He decided that it indeed was and went along with the suggestion.  So now, it appears machines are thinking for us, and improving on our thoughts.  It started when you allowed your computer to check your spelling, but as its “artificial intelligence” expands, it begins to get frightening.
 JL
                                              
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There are NOT Always Two Sides to Every Story

It is not a legitimate struggle between those who believe the impeachment inquiry process going on right now in the House is proper … and those who believe it is not.  One side is filled with law breakers, whose positions courts are repeatedly overruling.  Some are even in prison for their acts.  That is not true of the other side, which the courts and the Constitution support.  Even those running around with their MAGA hats are beginning to recognize this and turning to conspiracy theories (like the Dark State) to justify their beliefs.  They have no other place to go when the evidence is on the table.
 JL
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I'm "Taking Five"                         

There won't be any blog postings for a few days during which I'll be away from my computer.  If you miss it, just read some older postings.

JL

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