03-31-2023 - Someone Doesn't Like Me, A Letter, An Indictment, More on Freedom, and How to Solve Gun Violence for Real!

 

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 A Warning from Google Blogspot

Some of you may have received a ‘cautionary warning’ from Google Blogspot concerning objectionable material contained in Jackspotpourri when you click on a link to reach this blog.  It calls for you to verify that you do want to access it.  But they won’t stop you from doing that. 

According to what they sent to me, it results from a posting on Jackspotpourri made well over a decade ago.  I have gone back and checked out that posting and find nothing particularly objectionable in it.  Going back did remind me that I was a much better writer at that time than I am today.  Using the archive directory off to the right, check it out.

I suspect that possibly someone irritated by my current postings figured out a way to engineer this to get back at me.  They had to go back ten years to find something barely subject to criticism.  It might even be the Russians who are constantly attempting to screw around with the internet in this country and whose misleading photoshopping skills were featured in the last posting. 

Check it out: June 20, 2012, via the archives, off to the right on your screen.  It’s the posting that begins with the word ‘cancer.’  My use of the Yiddish word ‘drek’ in that posting might even be the problem, but why did it take ten years for them to catch it? (My idea of setting up several ‘drek’ websites was short-lived and has long since been abandoned.)  That posting, incidentally, also includes a magnificent piece of free verse by the late Sid Bolotin.  Check it out!   I believe that you can safely ignore Google Blogspot's warning.

JL

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I Get Published … Again

My letter to the Palm Beach Post, mentioned in the last blog posting, was published there on March 29.  Too bad that most of the Florida legislature is functionally illiterate.  But almost 100,000 readers got to read it!

JL

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About The Indictment

Stormy and Friend

The terms of the long-awaited indictment by the Manhattan D.A.’s office of the defeated former president, presently sealed, will come out when he turns himself in next week.  Until then, there are other matters needing your attention.  Read on.

JL

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Guns – We Must Repeal the Second Amendment

There was another school shooting the other day.  I won’t tell you about it.  Just turn on your TV.  This has become a regular and recurring tragedy.  It is time for action.  We must reduce the availability of guns in America.  And that starts with the Second Amendment, which reads 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, shall not be infringed.’

In 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled in D.C. vs Heller that the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment, (starting with ‘the right of the people’) could stand alone by themselves and did not necessarily have to refer to the militias mentioned in its first thirteen words.  This misguided decision was written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia who was joined by Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy, three of whom remain on the Court. (Kennedy is retired.)

All of their hands are soaked in blood, as well as those of subsequent appointees to the Supreme Court who vote against gun control measures.  There is blood on all their hands.  Childrens’ blood.

It's time to take off the kid gloves and start dealing with the heart of this problem realistically and not continue to fall into traps set by politically motivated politicians, lawyers, and judges.  No more fooling around. Too much blood has been shed.  Enough is enough.  Let’s open our eyes to the source of the problem, the Second Amendment.

It is time to repeal it!  ‘REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT’  Don’t be afraid to say it.

The Second Amendment is obsolete and unnecessary.  It was only added to the Constitution in exchange for the votes of the slaveholding states, which feared federal military action affecting the core of their economies, slavery, in order to insure the passage of the new Constitution in 1789. The Civil War and the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments settled that question, so the need for the Second Amendment no longer exists.

The argument that individual Americans still need weapons in case their government turns into a dictatorship is a fiction in our time whereas in 1776 it might have been true.  But it is not true today. There are better ways to preserve democracy today than having the weapons to start an unwinnable Civil War.  They include a well-informed electorate, the protection of voting rights, and crippling legal penalties for malicious lying in the media.

Automobiles are, like guns, lethal weapons, and all fifty States require their owners to be registered and their drivers licensed.  Though difficult to compare, deaths from gun-related incidents in the United States number about 46,000 a year while annual deaths from automobile accidents are about 43,000. Why should guns be treated differently from the way automobiles are treated?  In the hands of the wrong people, both can kill, and guns kill even more readily than can automobiles.

It is time for every weapon in the possession of anyone to be registered with a government agency, just as car ownership and drivers’ licenses are. There are more guns in this country than people!  That must be changed.  And of course, even before repeal of the Second Amendment is accomplished, assault-type weapons must be banned nation-wide.  There is no place for them outside of the armed forces.

It need not take years for the Second Amendment to be repealed.  All it takes is for a proposal of an Amendment repealing the Second Amendment to be passed by a two-thirds vote in both Houses, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the nation’s State legislatures. 

Democrats, Republicans, and Independents must unite to secure those two-thirds votes in both Houses and do so quickly.  The American people should make it clear that they will not vote for any Representative or Senator who does not support repeal of the Second Amendment.   Once that is accomplished, similar pressure must be exerted on State legislatures.  In fifty States, Americans should then make it clear that they will not vote for any State legislator who does not support repeal of the Second Amendment.  And the place to start is right here and the time is right now.  Today!  

Don’t walk away from this, calling it impossible.  It must be accomplished, just as the original thirteen colonies were able to rid themselves of the British crown and the nation was able to rid itself of slavery in 1865. Nothing is impossible.

The pressure on the House, the Senate, and ultimately on State legislatures must be unrelenting.  Millions must demonstrate throughout the country and in the nation’s capital especially.  Businesses and financial institutions which do not support repeal of the Second Amendment must be similarly targeted.  The American people must speak out.  They have had enough.  Thoughts and prayers are a joke.  Dead school children are not.

Americans must demonstrate for repeal of the Second
Amendment just as Frenchmen and Israelis have taken to
the streets to make the views of their majorities clear. (The French 
demonstrated against pension reform and the Israelis demonstrated
against Supreme Court reform.) Murders of school children are more
serious than either of these issues justifying Americans taking to
the streets!

It should be made clear that individual States will still be able to pass laws so that weapons can be available for legitimate purposes such as hunting, sport shooting, and home or business protection but with the proviso that all those guns must be registered. The days of toothless legislation must end.  The hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of Americans must be reduced and limited, so that those with mental problems or violent tendencies cannot readily get their hands on them. 

I have two questions for you.  

First, do you agree that the Second Amendment must be repealed?  

Secondly, do you have the courage to put a bumper sticker on your car reading ‘Repeal the Second Amendment’? 

I answer the first question with a resounding ‘yes,’ but honestly, I am ashamed to say that I don’t have the guts to answer the second one affirmatively, a sad commentary on the United States in 2023.  That is a measure of the enormity of the task before us, but the sooner we accomplish repeal of the Second Amendment, the fewer children will be murdered in their classrooms.

Please pass this message on to everyone you know and ask them to do the same.

JL

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Freedoms

Believe it or not, my comments about ‘Freedom – Florida Style’ that appeared in the March 27 posting of Jackspotpourri were written before I read the article about that State, its freedoms, and mostly, its governor, that will appear in the May 2023 issue of the Atlantic Magazine, covering the same territory.  It’s about two hundred times longer than what I wrote but well worth reading. 

The basketball season is drawing to a close and baseball has barely started so even sports fans can easily find the time to sit down and read this brilliant piece.  And everyone else should do so, too!

Find it at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ron-desantis-florida-state-politics-gop/673489/ or just CLICK HERE  to learn what a British journalist found out about the Sunshine State on a visit here, a possible preview of what might happen to the rest of the country eventually.  Oy!

JL

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Housekeeping  

Email Alert Bulletins:  If you are not receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted.  ( You can pass those email addresses to me by email at   jacklippman18@gmail.com . )

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it too!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, (it looks like this:  ), you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses, along with a comment from you, each of which will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you now are reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the ‘sidebar’ features such as access to the blog’s archives.

Either way will work, sending them that link or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.  Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

                     

        Have a nice day.

03-27-2023 - Legalism Versus Politics, Florida's Freedoms, and a Letter

 

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De Tocqueville Nailed it 190 Years Ago 

Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, recently quoted Alexis de Tocqueville, the brilliant French observer of American life almost two centuries ago, as saying that ‘there is hardly any political question in the United States that sooner or later does not turn into a judicial question.’  This, I suppose, is why we have a judicial system and lawyers. This is very pertinent today, as this excerpt from a recent column by Goldberg suggests.  It follows:

 ”De Tocqueville’s concern was that the relegation of political questions to the courts results in legalism overpowering other considerations.  The ‘spirit’ of legalism ‘infiltrates all of society’ until ‘the entire people’ acquire ‘the habits and tastes of the magistrate.’

 ‘In each of the modern impeachments (Bill Clinton’s in 1998 and Trump’s in 2019 and 2020), the political debate ended up being monopolized by lawyers and technical questions of criminal guilt.  For instance, on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump may not have violated the legal standard for criminal incitement of violence.  But is the president coming within millimeters of doing so OK?”  

Is this ‘spirit of legalism’ what is keeping so many of those who have committed crimes out of jail?  Where are the indictments which the purloining of classified documents by the defeated former president, his attempts to engineer a change in election results in Georgia, and his paying hush money to hide an adulterous affair just before an imminent election obviously warrant, at least from a political standpoint? 

I’ll tell you where these indictments are. They are buried in our legal system which well serves those who can afford expensive lawyers to manipulate that system. 

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  My opinion is that no one, including a defeated former president, is above the law, but no one, including a defeated former president, should be deprived of the safeguards of that law either.  Why?  Those safeguards may eventually be needed to protect you and me.

Look to one of the choruses of America, the Beautiful: ‘America, America, God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy goal with self-control, Thy liberty in law.’

JL

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A Repeated Reminder:  Currently, I am sending out emails to about 60 individuals letting them know each time that a new posting has been published on JacksPotpourri.  Periodically, I ask that any readers of the blog who had not received an email notifying them that a new posting, like this one, had been published let me know so that I might advise them of new postings in the future.  I really would appreciate your doing that.  Reach me at jacklippman18@gmail.com.  Thanks.

Jack Lippman

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Freedom, Florida-Style

The governor of Florida boasts of the freedoms available in the Sunshine State.  What he really means is that in Florida, individuals are freer here to make their own choices in areas like health issues, education, possession of weapons, environmental issues, and election procedures, than they are in other States.  Republican super-majorities in both State legislative houses reinforce his views. 

Of course, there are laws that they must obey, often at the federal level, but in Florida, the general idea is that laws exist to protect people’s rights to behave as they wish, and not put them under the control of a government bureaucracy, even though that bureaucracy’s laws might be for the benefit of the majority of people. Such laws, however noble their aims might be, can lead to dictatorship and Florida’s freedoms aim to stop that from happening.

This is a way of looking at democracy as something which often minimizes the necessity of some laws, particularly as they affect other people, and not just an individual. Such a view of democracy and of freedom is a selfish one.  It is a libertarian one.  It opens the door to anarchy.  But many believe that democracy itself permits them to insist upon having such freedom in order to restrict the freedom of others.

All of us should obey traffic laws.  They exist for the safety of all drivers. Nevertheless, I do understand why some drivers weave in and out, cutting from one lane to another at ninety miles an hour on I-95 or on Florida’s Turnpike.  They are expressing their innate right to do what they want, and so long as they don’t hurt themselves, they feel that’s okay.  (Until a trooper pulls them over.)  They really don’t care about anyone else.  And that is the core of the supposed freedoms available in Florida, not caring about anyone else.

The ‘anyone else’ includes pregnant women, people of color, immigrants, atheists, poor people, and those who believe that traditional gender identity is not immutable.  They might believe in the freedom of choice for themselves, but not for anyone else, who is different from the way they are, or believe differently from the way they believe. 

Florida has nice weather, low taxes, and the ‘freedom’ discussed above.  Only you can change it for the better by voting for the right candidates locally and Statewide.  That will take a very long time, but is it worth a try?  Maybe.  Maybe not. 

JL

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Permit-less Gun Carry in Florida

Here’s the text of a letter I’ve just sent to the Palm Beach Post.  Watch for it there.  I will let you know if they print it.

‘The Republican State legislators who supported House Bill 543 allowing the permitless carrying of weapons by Floridians, supposedly enabling them to better protect themselves and their families, ignore the fact that it is they themselves that have made guns readily available to those from whom Floridians need to protect themselves!  Most of them are too young to remember Walt Kelly's 1970 'Pogo' cartoon pointing out that  'We have met the enemy and he is us.'

JL

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Housekeeping

Blog Alerts: If you are not receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted.  ( You can pass those email addresses to me by email at   jacklippman18@gmail.com . )

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it too!   oogle Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, (it looks like this:   ), you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses, along with a comment from you, each of which will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you now are reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the ‘sidebar’ features such as access to the blog’s archives.

Either way will work, sending them that link or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.  Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

                             Have a nice day.

03-23-2023 - Kremlin Photograpy, What YOU Should be Reading in the Newspapers, and the 45th President's Legal Woes

 

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A Reminder: 

Currently, I am sending out emails to about 60 individuals letting them know each time that a new posting has been published on JacksPotpourri. Periodically, I ask that any readers of the blog who had not received an email notifying them that a new posting had been published to please let me know so that I might advise them of new postings in the future. I really would appreciate your doing that. Reach me at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Thanks,

Jack Lippman 

                                                                          * * *

If the Shoe Fits, Wear It 

I recall a shoe company years ago called ‘Adler’s Elevator Shoes’ that sold footwear designed to make shorter people appear taller.  I don’t know if they are still in business, but they certainly don’t have to be in today’s Russia.  Photography released by the Kremlin does the job for them, where necessary.

Here are three photos that were taken of Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi at their recent meeting.  Their ties are the same in all three, so I am assuming they were taken at the same meeting. 

In the first photo they are engaged in a toast.  Because liquids usually reach a level, and not remain on an incline, it would appear that this photo was altered to make Putin appear taller than he is.  Tilt it so that the wine is level in their raised glasses, as it would be according to the laws of physics, when a glass is raised in a toast before being tilted to one's lips to be tasted, and Putin becomes shorter.

The second photo, apparently taken by a photographer standing on a ladder or chair, pictures them walking into the meeting, is so angled that Putin is made to appear taller than Xi.  These first two photographs were released by Kremlin sources.

Finally, the third photo of the two of them at the meeting, taken by a non-Kremlin photographer, shows them together.  I doubt that this photo was circulated in Russia since it shows Xi to be about half a head taller than Putin, which is the case. 

The camera does not lie unless it is made to.   And that is why there is no 'Adler's Elevator Shoes' outlet in Moscow.

 JL

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If You Won't Read the Papers, Must I Spoon-Feed You?

In the previous posting of this blog, I pointed out the necessity of reading local newspapers in order to know what is going on in government.  Floridians are particularly blind to these activities unless they read a local newspaper.  The American Revolution would not have occurred without the work of journalist Thomas Paine.  So it is today.  Defend democracy.  Read a local newspaper every day!

For those of you who do not read a Florida paper each day, here is an editorial from the Palm Beach Post that appeared earlier this week (I urge you to subscribe, at least to its very inexpensive online edition) regarding what’s going on in the Florida legislature, both houses of which will do whatever the governor asks of them. But don’t count on me to provide you with valuable information from newspapers.  You must read them yourself if you care about preserving democracy.  (And if you don’t like the Post, there are others, such as the Sun-Sentinel, but don’t look for material like this in the New York Times.)

“Editorial (Palm Beach Post) 3-22-23

Legislature’s Supermajority Unleashes Dogs

 

All it takes for a bad idea to become law in Florida is a partisan supermajority of state lawmakers who either are driven by ideology, eager to grant questionable favors or simply compliant enough to do as they’re told.

Such is the the state of the Florida Legislature, which seems content with its reputation as a right-wing political petri dish.

 

Take HB 1/SB 202, the bill expanding eligibility for voucher scholarships to any public school student. The bill’s a priority that has been fast-tracked to move through the Legislature and onto Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk.

 

So has HB 837/SB 236, which makes it more difficult to sue insurance companies and other businesses, and don’t forget HB 7/SB 300, the bill that bans abortions after six weeks to the list of high-priority bills that will likely become law.

 

Credit Gov. DeSantis’ unannounced presidential campaign as the Legislature is doing all it can to give him a platform befitting his 'free state' of Florida. Beyond that, lawmakers generally follow their political parties and legislative leaders.

That reality often runs counter to the wishes of constituents.

Floridians, however, still have a say with their voice and their vote.

Information also helps, which leads The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board to present this list of select legislation that illustrates the ideology and the absurdity driving state lawmakers:

 

HB 555/SB 450: Angered that the Parkland school shooter ended up with life in prison, lawmakers want to loosen the law that requires a unanimous jury decision to impose the death penalty.

Under this bill a simple majority would be enough, a change that could have unforeseen and unwanted consequences.

 

HB 991/SB 1220: The First Amendment restrains Congress from curtailing the free speech and press rights, but this isn’t stopping the Florida Legislature from doing so. This bill opens the door for litigation against journalists by weakening constitutional protections. This one’s heading to the U.S. Supreme Court for sure, which may be the intent.

 

HB 1011/SB 668: Bad enough this bill bans local governments from displaying gay pride and other flags that don’t fit newly drawn criteria. But, the Senate sponsor offered an amendment that would have allowed local governments to fly the Confederate flag. That 'mistake' was withdrawn after the media got wind of it.

 

HB 1191/SB 1258: Bill provides for a study to see if phosphogypsum, a by-product from manufacturing phosphate, can be used as material for road construction. The bill is moving through the House, even though the federal Environmental Protection Agency tried and later prohibited phosphogypsum’s use for health and safety reasons.

 

HB 1223/SB 1320: Think 'Don’t Say Gay' through the 8th grade. That what this bill does, extending the prohibition on sexual orientation and gender identity discussion. It also requires school districts to publish its parental appeal process to help parents dispute any such classroom discussion.

 

HB 1265/SB 952, HB 1421/SB 254, HB 1521/SB 1674: A transgender trifecta. One bill requires employers providing coverage of gender dysphoria treatment to cover the costs of reversing that procedure. Another sets new prohibitions on sex-reassignment prescriptions and procedures. The last governs transgender bathroom use.

 

HB 1543: This bill drops the minimum age to buy a firearm from 21 to 18, just five years after Florida’s big attempt at gun safety following the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School. The bill has sailed through the House but Senate President Kathleen Passidomo opposes it.

SB 932: This bill would make it illegal for dogs to have their heads hanging out the windows of moving vehicles. It drew ridicule from dog owners who saw the legislation as a massive government overreach. It won’t be unleashed on the public.

 

SB 1316: Tucked inside this bill is a requirement that bloggers paid for writing about the Governor, the Florida Cabinet or legislators must register with the state. The bill was such a stinker that even former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich urged the sponsor to kill it. The bill isn’t moving at the moment but hasn’t been withdrawn.”

All I can add to this editorial is ‘Wow’!  Some of these bills will never become law, but enough of them will to further define Florida as the ‘Freedom State,’ free from democracy and laws in the interest of the majority of its population.

JL

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Legal Problems of the 45th President

Caution:  This article may be obsolete by the time you are looking at it.

Of the three cases pending against the defeated former president, the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels is the weakest, based on violation of a New York state law about falsifying business records, just a misdemeanor.  

The prosecution has to tie it to election fraud, a federal crime.  That it was done just to hide his indiscretion and not specifically to help win an election might suffice for there to be no felony indictment.  That's what the delay in movement on this case is all about.  By the time you are reading this, the Manhattan grand jury will probably have made its decision.  We know the truth, but getting there seems to be difficult, although it was easy enough to send lawyer-bagman Michael Cohen to prison … but that was purely a federal case, not a State matter.

The federal purloined classified documents case and the Georgia ‘messing with an election result attempt’ are far more likely cases to provide the defeated former president with an orange suit.

JL

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Housekeeping               

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted.  ( You can pass those email addresses to me by email at             jacklippman18@gmail.com . )

 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it too!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, (it looks like this:   ), you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses, along with a comment from you, each of which will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you now are reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the ‘sidebar’ features such as access to the blog’s archives.

Either way will work, sending them that link or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.  Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

                 

        Have a nice day.