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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 18, 2021

Weekend Reads, DeSantis, Moms for Liberty, Patriotic Policemen, Filibusters and Bagels. (Wow!)


Reading for the Weekend

If you missed them, here are two important articles to check out.

MSNBC last week reported that the possible extradition of Julian Assange to the United States would reveal a lot about the connection of the former president with Russia that the Muller probe never fully confirmed.  It’s by former FBI Ass’t. Director Frank Figliuzzi who is never wrong!  CLICK HERE TO READ IT  or just visit:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/julian-assange-extradition-could-mean-even-more-legal-trouble-donald-n1285880

The other, from the New York Times, is about why the former president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, since cited for contempt of Congress, clammed up.  What he knows could focus on sedition among members of Congress.  CLICK HERE TO READ IT  or just visit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/us/politics/trump-meadows-republicans-congress-jan-6.html

 

JL

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Gov. DeSantis, Dr. Fauci, Moms for Liberty and God's Possible Involvement

Locally, (which means Florida) in a Palm Beach Post “Your Turn” column  (12-16), a reader commented on Floriduh governor Ron DeSantis who has launched a personal attack on Dr. Fauci. Quoting from the column “The savaging of Dr. Fauci is a rallying point for DeSantis … Like (the former president), DeSantis has a cruel method to his madness.  Assault character. Propagate lies. Assail the truth.  All under some warped concept of patriotism and freedom 

DeSantis recently attacked Fauci at a rally at “the Villages,” an enormous retirement community near Ocala, which always votes Republican, and will forever, no matter who their candidates are, even “Howdy Doody,” whom all of them are old enough to remember, but who are not quite so intelligent as was he, even though he was just a puppet.

Elsewhere in the paper was an article on “Moms for Liberty,” a group dedicated to being free from having to vaccinate, and wear masks, and working to remove certain books from schools along with the parts of American history to which they close their eyes.  I used to refer to such people as ignorant and gullible (both of which can be remedied) but it appears they are just plain stupid or considerably worse.  There were plenty like them in Germany in the 1930’s.

I read somewhere that there is a greater increase of Covid19 infections in the parts of the United States that support the Republican Party than in areas which lean toward the Democrats and that this might be an ‘act of God’ directed at them.  I do not believe this, but it bothers me that the lesson it teaches is being ignored by those opposing vaccinations and masking.  Their stupidity can have serious consequences for them, and unfortunately, for others as well because it permits the continued existence and spread of the coronavirus in all of its variants for all of us.  We need everyone’s help in dealing with Covid19, even God’s, if he or she or whatever wants to get involved.

 

 JL

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Law Enforcement Patriots 

Commenting on a recent posting on Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From an American,” blog on Substack, a follower mentioned the kid-glove treatment Palm Beach law enforcement gave to the late Jeffrey Epstein while under arrest.  I added the following to her comments:

“This problem extends beyond Palm Beach. Too many in law enforcement don't understand that their mission, to protect the public and maintain civil order, must take precedence over their personal politics. Give someone a law enforcement job which entitles them to wear an American Flag on their shirt sleeve, and this includes related jobs such as corrections personnel, and they identify themselves as personal protectors of that flag, letting their politics influence them. Look at all the flag wavers on January 6 at the Capitol.”

 JL

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Getting Rid of the Filibuster

An editorial in today’s Palm Beach Post supported the need for the continuance of the Senate filibuster as a means of protecting a minority from being steamrolled over in that chamber.  But it endorsed making further exceptions to it (some today exist such as the confirmation of SCOTUS Justices and bills affecting the budget) in regard to voters’ rights.  After citing the failure of bipartisan efforts to accomplish that, it concluded:

“Democrats in the Senate are working to reform the filibuster to pass vital pieces of election reform.  This must be done.  The alternative – that America would suffer through a chaotic, divisive and disputed election outcome in the not-too-distant future – is unthinkable.”

 

 JL

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Finally, Let’s Get to Important Stuff - BAGELS!

The branded bagels one buy in the supermarkets, either frozen or not, are baked months before and preserved with chemicals.  Otherwise they would be stale.  So the first lesson in Bagelry 101 is “Never a Lender nor a Thomas eat.”  Next up the scale are the ones coming from the supermarket chain’s own bakeries.  But these are not real bagel bakeries, which are special places.  The also bake cupcakes and cookies and bread and that isn’t the kind of bakery from which real bagels come.  And they usually carry an expiry date of a week or so off on their label, which means one thing: chemical preservatives!  There are many places around (I am in Florida) which claim to be bagel bakeries.  Some try hard and come close, but in some manner, almost all of them fall short.  They apologize saying it’s the water. Maybe it is.

Up north, we had truly great bagel bakeries in Newark, one of which was Watson’s and the several other bagel bakeries derivative from their operation.  You know, the water in Newark was always pretty good, which historically drew many breweries there (*Budweiser, Ballentine, Kreuger, Hensler, Feigenspan, Pabst, etc.).  Maybe that applied to bagels as well.  There were similar bagel bakeries to Watson’s throughout the New York metropolitan area. 

All other sources of bagels were inferior, as are most of the bagel places here in Florida.  The closest to a real Newark bagel that I have encountered are those produced at the outlets of the Brooklyn Water Bagel Bakery here in the Sunshine State.  They do something with their water to simulate New York (or N.J.) water. Their product captures the chewiness which all the others mentioned here lack. That’s the name of the game. Chewiness.  But they’re pricy at $7.50 for a half dozen. 

Please pass the cream cheese.

*Only Budweiser still brews in Newark, or possibly right over the city line in Elizabeth, N.J.

 JL

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