* * * *
Who Follows This Blog Anyway Besides the Russians?‘This just may be the last posting of Jackspotpourri in the
manner in which it is presently distributed for a while. I do not feel it is reaching enough people. I
need more information to make a decision about what to do. Therefore, I ask that everyone who is reading
it right now send me an email (jacklippman18@gmail.com) or make a comment at the
link at the end of the posting, merely saying they have accessed it. This will give me real numbers with which to
work. The statistics which Google Blogspot gives me are not encouraging. Thank you.’
Well, four of you responded to me, and I know of two or three
faithful followers who didn’t bother to respond but will get to it sooner or
later, so that gives me about seven regulars.
I know some of them tell me they pass the blog on, but I don’t see that
reflected in the numbers. The Google Analytics number of ‘hits’ on that posting
over the past week was five, which seems close.
For the time being, I am not making any changes, but I
urge you to pass the blog’s address, www.jackspotpourri.com on to
others.
Because ‘net surfers’ sometimes end up at ‘jackspotpourri’ while searching for something else, there were 279 hits on it during the past week, entirely on older postings. Two hundred of them were from the United States and 48 were from Russia, with the rest scattered all over the planet.
Because
internet surfing by civilians is perhaps not as common among Russians as it is elsewhere, I assume the disproportionate number of Russian hits were from government instrumentalities. The Russian government keeps an eye on blogs,
even this one, to pick up bits of intelligence, and they probably are among my regular
followers, although I don’t know which postings they look at. (They might have enjoyed the fictitious Chrissy
Frost stories.) Anyhow, fellows, if you
are reading this and I suspect your algorithms have alerted you to it by now,
please cut a deal to put Britney Greiner on a plane out of Russia, but don’t
try to tie it to your Ukraine adventure. That won’t work.
 |
| Internet Research Agency Building in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where Russians just might be following this blog. |
До свидания!
JL
* * * *
HOW TO END GUN VIOLENCE:
Hundreds have been
murdered by killers who have easy access to weapons because of the Supreme
Court’s insane interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Legislative and Executive Branches of our
government must find a way to put a stop to the mass murders that the SCOTUS's
crazy decisions have encouraged. They must step up to defend the intent of the
Constitution and its Amendments. Because of the defeated former president’s three
political appointments, the SCOTUS is out of control.
The easiest way would be for an Executive Order being declared by the President with the support of both Houses of Congress temporarily suspending the Second Amendment. There is little Constitutional basis for doing so, but a way must be found by those who have practiced law for a lifetime. We certainly have enough lawyers in government to figure this out. If the privilege provided by a writ of ‘habeas corpus’ can be suspended (Article One, Section 9, Clause 2, of the Constitution), there must be a way to treat the Second Amendment similarly. Circumstances demand it. (You know, sometimes I wonder if there are too many lawyers in government and too few historians.)
Then, legislation should then be passed calling
for all Americans to relinquish possession of all weapons except those used for
personal protection at home or in a business situation, for hunting, or target
shooting, uses for which licensing would be required, and under no
circumstances permitting military-type weaponry or armor to be in the hands of
civilians. The use of the Second
Amendment to arm those whose intent is the overthrowing of our government, a lurking threat as demonstrated on Jan. 6, 2021, should not be ignored.
The Executive Order should remain in force until the Second Amendment, as it now stands is repealed and replaced with a rewritten Second Amendment, with these CAPITALIZED words in red added to it as follows: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms SPECIFICALLY NECESSARY FOR THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE WHEN A WELL REGULATED MILITIA REQUIRES THEM shall not be infringed.” This would clarify the Supreme Court’s 2008 misinterpretation of the Second Amendment that has permitted anyone to bear arms and caused so much blood to be shed.
Of course, since our current well-regulated militias, in the form of state
National Guard units, don’t ask members to bring their own weapons anyway, the
entire Amendment is unnecessary, but asking that it not be replaced at all
after its repeal in its present form would be too much to expect. I believe
that the revised wording is what the framers of the Constitution intended and
not the misinterpretation trashing the Amendment’s first thirteen words which a
politicized Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in 2008.
JL
* * * *
Gun Violence is Not the Only Evil for Which the Supreme Court is Responsible
And while we are going about getting rid of the evils that the Supreme Court has encouraged to exist in regard to gun violence,
their unpatriotic and inhuman decisions regarding a woman’s personal right to
choose to have an abortion, and also to help prevent our planet from succumbing
to a fatal change of worldwide climate, must be rejected as well.
The
struggle to do this comes down to whether we are indeed the "United” States of
America, where our path is determined by what the majority of the people want,
or merely 50 free and independent states doing whatever they damn please and possessing
a disproportionate amount of power in the Senate and in the Electoral College.
Those who thought this was settled in 1865, along
with getting rid of slavery, are wrong. The Civil War goes on, hopefully without
bullets. Your weapon is your vote, and
it should not be for any Republican, locally or statewide.
Without
the votes of those fools who have been convinced that the defeated former
president really won the 2020 presidential election and that it was ‘stolen’
from him, a totally disproven fantasy, Republicans cannot win any elections. They are living in an ‘idiot’s delight.’ In that sense, today’s Republicans are not
unlike the Tories during the Revolutionary War and the Secessionists during the
Civil War, both stubborn and unpopular minorities who committed acts of ‘treason’
or ‘sedition’ in their time. Are Republicans
loyal Americans? Tories and
Secessionists were not. Ask a Republican
to strongly condemn the January 6 insurrection and those who incited it,
attacking the Constitution’s election process, and you will learn where their
loyalties lie.
JL
* * * *
The Value of Your Vote
Your vote is very important in view of the blatant lies which are circulated on talk radio, on Fox News, on OAN, on Newsmax, and on innumerable websites, paid for by unlimited piles of ‘dark money’ contributed by those who believe the single greatest impediment to increasing their economic control over the nation is government of the people, by the people and for the people. Do not forget that you are ‘the people.’ Your vote is very important.
Followers of this blog know that for months I have been saying that massive numbers of votes by American women and by persons of color are crucial to saving democracy in our country. These voters must turn out in less than eighteen weeks to overwhelmingly defeat the candidates of the Party whose actions are not in their interests nor in the interest of democracy. This is where the Democratic Party's efforts must be totally directed. Without a Democratic majority in the Senate sufficient to end the filibuster, and enable four additional Supreme Court Justices to be appointed, the SCOTUS will just overrule administrative actions such as the President's executive order regarding abortion as not being in the Constitution or specifically allowed by acts of Congress. Civil War .01 was fought with guns. Civil War .02 is being fought with votes and the next battle is scheduled for November 8.
JL
* * * *
Fourth of July Comment - Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honors; Also Necks
At the risk of appearing partisan, it is time to make the
message of the Fourth of July very clear and simple. After reading what's in the papers and on the
tube, it is clear to me that to live up to the promises of the Declaration of
Independence, one
must vote against any Republican running for any office, from village dogcatcher on up to the president
of the United States. The evidence is
there. Just compare the words of the Declaration
of Independence with the platform of the
Texas Republican Party (see this blog’s June 22, 2022 posting), which they were
not ashamed to announce. It is un-American.
Most other Republicans are a bit more discreet, but they covertly buy
into it. Ask them.
Any reluctance to suggest voting against such
Republicans on Election Day on the part of faculty members, clergy, or others
whose words carry weight to listeners, because of the fear of losing their positions,
should be countered by the fact that the signers of the Declaration of
Independence back in 1776 went so far as to ‘mutually pledge to each other their Lives, their Fortunes and
their sacred Honor,’ even in the face of the British having put a price on
their heads. Are we willing to make such
sacrifices today? Democracy is on the
line.
JL
* * * *
Thoughts Inspired by a TV Commercial
It is very difficult for the messages from those dedicated to the preservation of democracy in the United States to break through to a public that is used to being lied to and has lost the ability to separate truths from misleading lies masquerading as truths. (Some include this within the definition of ‘gaslighting.’)
Here’s an example. There is extensive advertising on television for a life insurance company’s product, designed for senior citizens, which boasts that its price is $9.95 a month for everybody, regardless of their age or health. It is aimed at two marketing targets: people in poor health and ignorant people.
But the TV commercials do not tell the whole story. What they initially leave out of their commercial (they save that for later) is that (1) the amount of life insurance varies depending on age. $9.95 a month buys a smaller permanent death benefit at age 70 than it buys at age 65 and an even smaller death benefit at age 80, and so on, and (2) even that death benefit becomes effective only after the insured has had the policy for two years, until then its payoff being reduced to the amount of premiums paid plus a little interest. Not all States regulate these policies in the same manner, but generally, this is the case where they are available.
The point I am trying to make is that while promising the same
premium regardless of age or health is indeed the truth, it is not the whole
truth and nothing but the truth. And
that makes all the difference in the world.
Incidentally, because these insurance companies know nothing about the health of those whose lives they are insuring, including those of them who survive for two years, they base these policies’ premiums on a death rate about twice that of insureds who were first asked about their health. They know that people in good health would not purchase such policies unless they are ignoramuses, and it is from them that they make their profit.
That is also how most Republicans get elected to public office, cherishing the votes of the ignorant, as well as
those of the gullible and bigoted.
JL
* * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment