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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, December 5, 2021

A REPUBLICAN DISEASE - LYING, a Dionne Column plus Jambalaya

A REPUBLICAN DISEASE - LYING!

From an Associated Press article (12/3/21) written by Lisa Mascaro

“During his Senate confirmation hearing as a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh convinced Sen. Susan Collins that he thought a woman’s right to an abortion was ”settled law,” calling the court cases affirming it “precedent on precedent” that could not be casually overturned.

Amy Coney Barrett said during her hearing that laws could not be undone simply by persona beliefs.

But during this week’s landmark Supreme Court hearing over a Mississippi law that could curtail, if not outright end a woman’s right to abortion, the two newest justices struck a markedly different tone, drawing lines of questioning widely viewed as part of the court’s willingness to dismantle decades-old decisions on access to abortion.”

This just goes to show you that anyone associated with the former president and the Party that nominated these two to the Court must be considered to be liars unless and until proved otherwise.  

Trump’s “Big Lie” is that he believes he actually won the 2020 presidential election and that it was stolen from him.  Such a preposterously gigantic lie is reinforced by the many lesser lies which Republicans, like Kavanaugh and Barrett, utter every day, not even realizing that they are lying.  It’s a Republican disease.  Lying.

And in addition to being liars, they suffer from a lack of consistency.  In a column last week, the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg pointed out that Republicans who downplay the need for vaccinations in combatting Covid19 by saying "My Body - My Choice" (allowing even health care workers to go unvaccinated) refuse to take the same position in regard to women having the same choice in regard to abortions. Go figure! A group of liars and hypocrites, that's what the Republican Party has turned into. 


JL

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And here’s a “must read” column from the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court’s pro-gun, pro-life problem

 



By E.J. Dionne Jr.

December 1, 2021 at 3:50 p.m. EST

"On Tuesday, four high school students — ages 14, 16 and 17 — were fatally shot in Oxford, Mich., by a 15-year-old classmate firing a 9mm pistol with 15-round magazines.

Less than 24 hours later, a Supreme Court majority that seems on the verge of weakening the nation’s gun laws heard arguments in a case that could lead to tougher restrictions on abortion.

 

Please tell me: What can the words “pro-life” possibly mean when the same people who want to constrain abortion are eager to make it easier for Americans to obtain and carry deadly weapons?


How is it “pro-life” for a nation to accept school shootings as a routine part of our daily news feeds? Can it possibly be “pro-life” to pretend that because no law will ever end all such shootings, it’s not worth trying to pass anything that might at least make them less likely?

 

We take for granted a conservative ideology rooted not in intellectual consistency but in the politics of culture wars that hold abortion rights as an abomination but gun rights as inviolable. And we wonder why the shootings continue.

 

Let me stipulate: I know people opposed to abortion rights who are, in fact, consistently “pro-life.” They fight for tougher gun laws, oppose the death penalty and support far more help for poor women when they bring children into the world. Even if you disagree with them on abortion, you should bless them for their witness and their moral consistency.

 

But this group is a small minority of the political movement trying to outlaw abortion. The conservatives on the Supreme Court — judging from oral arguments last month on a New York law restricting handguns and the arguments Wednesday on a Mississippi abortion ban — seem quite comfortable with being pro-gun and antiabortion. Against all the evidence from countries with stricter gun laws and far lower gun homicide rates, the pro-gun, antiabortion crowd insists that a massively armed citizenry protects life.

 

Yes, a few of the court’s conservatives expressed qualms during the November argument about guns at Yankee Stadium or in Times Square. But the core conservative commitment to a gunfight-at-the-O.K.-Corral approach to public safety was outlined with great clarity by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.


Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. lamented during oral arguments in a N.Y. gun control case on Nov. 1 that "hardworking, law abiding people" can't have guns. (Reuters)

“There are a lot of armed people on the streets of New York and in the subways late at night right now. Aren’t there?” Alito asked at oral argument. “All these people with illegal guns, they’re on the subway, they’re walking around the streets. But the ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding people I mentioned, no, they can’t be armed.”

Have at it, everybody.

 

In her recent Opinions Essay on the dangers posed by a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, my Post colleague Ruth Marcus pointed out archly that justices who tout their devotion to a theory they call “originalism” were happy to ignore many decades of state laws, upheld by the courts, regulating weapons.

 

“The court’s originalists,” she wrote, “seemed not at all troubled by abundant historical evidence of states restricting guns in public places.”

 

The disconnect between warm, life-embracing rhetoric about abortion and indifference toward the loss of innocent life furthered by our nation’s uniquely permissive gun laws moved Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to call out this moral scandal on Tuesday night.

 

“I listened to my Republican colleagues come down here one after another today and talk about the sanctity of life at the very moment that moms and dads in Michigan were being told that their kids weren’t coming home because they were shot at school, due to a country that has accepted gun violence, due to Republicans’ fealty to the gun lobby,” Murphy declared on the Senate floor. “Do not lecture us about the sanctity, the importance of life when 100 people every single day are losing their lives to guns, when kids go to school fearful that they won’t return home because a classmate will turn a gun on them.”

 

Murphy’s point is amply justified by Republican blockades in the Senate against even modest gun laws, including bills on background checks passed by the House in March. But let’s not ignore Democrats who counsel caution on gun legislation for fear of losing further ground in rural areas.

 

The Michigan shootings are another reminder of the lethality of our political deadlock on guns — a powerlessness the Supreme Court majority seems eager to aggravate.

Here’s what we’re facing: conservative jurists ready to expand states’ rights when it comes to limiting or banning abortion but equally prepared to block states from enacting gun laws aimed at protecting the right of their people to live beyond their teenage years."


Of course, Dionne is right!


JL

 

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Some Changes in the Blog 

Aside from those who access Jackspotpourri (the blog you are looking at) from a link included in an email from me, many just get there via an internet search for an item which happens to be mentioned on my blog. 

Blogspot, the Google platform on which the blog is distributed, provides me with a wealth of statistical information. I have found that, outside of the “hits” resulting from an email from me, few access Jackspotpourri.com for political information.  But when I include something of more popular interest, such as the piece on the Tagavailoa brothers, both football quarterbacks, included on Nov. 28, the number of “hits” increases, based on the “search engines” leading people to the blog and they get to read the political stuff as well.  So don’t be surprised if you see items related to sports, food, celebrities, etc. occasionally included.  They’re there to draw a crowd … which they do!   (Like what follows below)

 

JL                                     

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Hungry?  Here’s a

Mouth-Watering Jambalaya from New Orleans!

 jambalaya is a quintessential one pot recipe with chicken, sausage, shrimp and rice! coming to you from new orleans!

An easy Jambalaya recipe is pure comfort food filled to the brim with flavour. The aromatic trinity of Cajun/Creole cooking: onion, celery, and bell peppers (capsicums), sautéed in andouille drippings with garlic, herbs and Cajun spices! Adding chicken and shrimp to this pot of tomato rice makes this one amazing meal in the comfort of your own homes!



Your mouth watering yet?  The recipe can be found at https://cafedelites.com/jambalaya/#recipe or by simply CLICKING HERE.  

what is in a jambalaya

Louisiana’s favourite one-pot dish varies from kitchen to kitchen, depending on the cook and the recipes passed down from older generations. Jambalaya traditionally contains any of the following meats:

·         Chicken or pork

·         Sausage — andouille, chorizo or smoked sausage.

·         Seafoods — crawfish or shrimp are the favourite choices.

A soffritto-like trinity of onion, bell peppers and celery are also included, along with rice, chili’s, seasonings and broth. Everything usually cooks together in the one pot until the rice is done.

There are two kinds of Jambalaya: Creole and Cajun. This recipe is the tomato-based Creole version.

what is a good substitute for andouille sausage?

·         Mexican chorizo sausage (comes close to andouille in flavour, but not in texture)

·         Kielbasa

·         Any Polish smoked sausage

cajun vs creole jambalaya

Creole cooks make a ‘red jambalaya’ including tomatoes in their recipe, whereas Cajun cooks do not. Another difference is the order in which the ingredients are prepared. Trying both while testing, I combined a little of both in this final recipe, choosing to sauté the sausage first to release drippings into the pot for the ‘soffritto’. We found doing this created the best flavour!

what is the difference between paella and jambalaya?

Even though Jambalaya is very similar to a Paella and includes pretty much the same list of main ingredients, the spices and seasonings change. Saffron is the main spice component in Paella, and Paella is milder than Jambalaya in the heat department.

what is the difference between a gumbo and jambalaya?

Gumbo is a stew or soup usually made with a roux to thicken it, whereas Jambalaya is a rice based dish. Okra is normally used in Gumbo to help thicken the stew and add a wonderful flavour to it. I use it in this Jambalaya recipe for the same reason! If you don’t like okra, you can use File Powder.

best rice for jambalaya

I use both long grain and short grain white rice. You could also use brown rice, but you will need to add more liquid and cook it longer than white.

best wines with jambalaya

·         Sauvignon Blanc

·         Vouvray

·         Riesling

·         Pinot Gris

·         Pinot Noir

sides that go with jambalaya

Jambalaya is THE perfect one-pot meal full of ingredients, you really don’t need to serve it with anything other than cornbread, or fresh baguettes, plus a salad with a simple dressing to not over-power all of the spices in this Jambalaya


(Jambalaya material from the "Cafe Delites" website.)


JL

 

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