Who's Watching the Blog, the Medal of Freedom and How to Beat Trump

Blog Statistics

Since discontinuing pre-notification to about 140 of this blog’s original followers whenever a new posting is added, local viewership of the blog has decreased.  But overall, many people still follow www.jackspotpourri regularly.  Here is a summary, by country, of those who checked out at least one of the blog’s postings during the past week.  Join them!   See what you may be missing!

(Statistics as of Saturday, February 8, 2020.  Discount the U.S. number by 10% because I am uncertain as to whether my own views of pages accessed in developing postings, supposedly not counted, are included or not.  Many of the foreign listings reflect the fact that many enterprises as well as government intelligence agencies monitor “everything,” including this blog.)

United States	148
United Kingdom	57
Austria	55
Netherlands	49
Germany	43
Switzerland	34
Russia	26
Unknown Region	25
France	17
Sweden	16

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Get Him with His Pants Down

Why do the Republicans get away with what they are doing?  Why did Mitch McConnell refuse to even consider Obama’s Court nomination of Merrick Garland with a full year left in his presidency?  Why did that same Senate Impeachment Jury foreman McConnell get away with declaring his refusal to be impartial even before taking a oath at the mock impeachment trial by the Senate?  How is the President permitted to play act as a dictator every day, and spew lies every time he opens his mouth? 

Don’t blame the Democrats.  The answer starts with the Republicans of this country, in Congress and in the streets and homes of citizens of this nation.  I have heard it said that the answer rests in their being silent, pliable or complicit.   And that guilt reaches beyond just the Republicans. The guilty in this age are very similar to those who permitted the bloodletting and beheadings of the French Revolution, the excesses of the Inquisition, the Holocaust and similar abominations throughout history to occur.  Being silent, pliable and complicit with evil acts amounts to enabling them and has been the recipe for Republican success and the placement of Trump in the White House.

That’s a hard combination for those who fight by the Marquis of Queensbury rules to beat.  The answer is to be as tough, and almost as reckless and ruthless, as they are.  Remember, by a five to four count, the Republicans, thanks to the corrupt Citizens United court decision enabling corporate funding of conservatives in the Senate, have stolen the ultimate role of umpire which the Supreme Court ought to fill.  That makes the task even harder.

For every Republican suggestion of doing things like investigating the Bidens the Republicans make, and other such nonsense to appeal to the gullible (and unfortunately growing) Trumpian base, the Democrats should bring up:

Stormy Daniels,

Karen McDougal,

Trump University,

His failed casinos,

His bankruptcy dodges to avoid paying bills,

His Access Hollywood remarks,

The millions of dollars which their thinly veiled business connections enable the President, Donald, Jr., Ivanka and Jared to make only because they are the President’s family,

His trashing of the Constitution,

His purging of government employees who do their jobs rather than kissing his ass,

His relationships with despots like Erdogan and Putin,

and North Korea's Kim,

His taking credit for Barack Obama’s economic accomplishments and

His innumerable lies, exaggerations and manifestations of profound ignorance in all areas. 

You get the idea?   It doesn't end.

Don’t giveTrump a pass and let him get away with this stuff.  Voices beyond the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC must join in!  

"All Ten Commandments ! Now
recite them slowly, Donald! Don't
forget the Seventh (the Sixth, if you
like the  Catholic version better.)"

And where is the clergy?  Have they considered that God is watching them!  Do Christians, particularly the Evangelicals who seem to think Trump is one of them, ask themselves “What would Jesus do”?  And parallel questions should bother clergy of other faiths, including the Orthodox Jews who think Trump can do no wrong because he opposes abortion, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem (creating all sorts of problems in our efforts to negotiate a peace with the Palestinians) and supports whatever Netanyahu does in Israel.

It’s not enough to logically explain that Trump’s is out to restore “pre-existing conditions” in health insurance decision-making, for example, despite his repeatedly claiming the opposite.  His actions and those of those in Congress he support prove otherwise.  He and his lawyers, the ones who aren’t in jail already, will argue points like this endlessly, rendering them immaterial.  And that includes the Attorney General who believes he is the President’s lawyer, and not the Government’s! Trump must be caught with his pants down, figuratively of course, and that should be displayed repeatedly on TV and throughout all media.  His pants are down most of the time, as proven by his remarks about Pearl Harbor and his disrespect of the National Anthem at the Superbowl.

James Carville said it Monday morning on “Morning Joe.”  “The only thing standing between America and the abyss is the Democratic Party.”   I heard him, but I wonder how many Americans, busy last week with the Superbowl and last night with the Academy Awards, hear him.   The Founding Fathers assumed an educated electorate and not the silent, pliable and complicit mob it appears we have.  Democracy has a hard row to hoe.

So, what are YOU going to do about it?  Thomas Paine said it many years ago:  "These are the times that try men's souls."

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 The Medal of Freedom

And as for Trump’s disgusting award of the Medal of Freedom to the vile radio charlatan Rush Limbaugh, compare that disgraceful and purely political act by the President with previous honorees in the fields of radio and television, the only categories appropriate for Limbaugh … and make your own decision.  (List courtesy of Wikipedia.)  Excuse me while I step outside to vomit. 

Radio

Recipient	Year	President	Notes
Lowell Thomas	1977	Gerald Ford	[51]
Paul Harvey	2005	George W. Bush	[5]
Rush Limbaugh	2020	Donald Trump	Awarded during 2020 State of the Union Address[52]

Television

Recipient	Year	President	Notes
Lucille Ball	1989	George H.W. Bush	Posthumous[53]
Johnny Carson	1992	George H.W. Bush
Peggy Charren	1995	Bill Clinton	[5]
Joan Ganz Cooney	1995	Bill Clinton	[5]
Bill Cosby	2002	George W. Bush	[5]
Fred Rogers	2002	George W. Bush	[5]
Julia Child	2003	George W. Bush
Carol Burnett	2005	George W. Bush	[5]
Andy Griffith	2005	George W. Bush	[5]
Brian P. Lamb	2007	George W. Bush	[5]
Oprah Winfrey	2013	Barack Obama	[35]
Marlo Thomas	2014	Barack Obama	[21]
Lorne Michaels	2016	Barack Obama	[10]
Ellen DeGeneres	2016	Barack Obama

All deserving except for Cosby, of course.

(When the late Senator Joseph McCarthy died, even his harshest critics refrained from immediate criticism, saying that one speaks only kindly of the deceased. Recognizing that Limbaugh is seriously ill, I am making these comments while he still is alive.)

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So, what are YOU going to do about it?  Thomas Paine said it many years ago:  "These are the times that try men's souls."