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More and more droughts, fires, and
floods are taking place unexpectedly.
Lives are being lost. The Maui
disaster may be a foretaste of things to come.
Fighting to preserve democracy might even have to take a back seat, at least temporarily, to our having a nation, or even a planet, remaining for us to preserve. You must do your part. Be very selective in whom you vote for. Lives are at stake. Perhaps yours eventually.
JL
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Shut His
Mouth – The Limits of the First Amendment
The
indicted former president believes the First Amendment’s freedom of speech
guarantees give him permission to refer to the President as ‘Crooked Joe
Biden,’ with no evidence to support his use of that adjective, among his other
insults. That would be true, were he not under indictment, and only if that kind of language were not intended to convince someone to commit an illegal act,
like making a death threat to the President.
And it appears that is what happened in Provo, Utah on Wednesday.
President Biden was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City, about an hour’s drive from Provo, Utah, where a man who was facing charges for death threats made against him, lived. The FBI tried to serve arrest and search warrants at his home Wednesday morning, resulting in an ‘agent-involved-shooting’ in which the well-armed man died, apparently unwilling to peacefully accept the warrants.
The
indicted former president cannot be excused from involvement in this in view of
his continuing use of inflammatory language regarding the President. Free speech for those under indictment is
limited when it can be related to their indictment. The extent to which he remains out of the
direct hands-on custody of the courts in which his indictment will come to
trial must be carefully monitored. After
climate change, he remains the single greatest threat to our nation.
In my
opinion, this defendant should be barred from publicly discussing in any manner
or otherwise addressing his ongoing and pending litigation and related
political matters. The judge has the power to do that!
 |
| The Judge Has the Power to Limit What the Defendant Can Say, In and Out of Court. |
Thus far, while the prosecution had wanted to restrict the defendant from publicizing any of the material provided by them in the discovery process, the judge has limited that to ‘sensitive’ material, leaving the decision to her as to what is ‘sensitive.’ Even this generous restriction, not wholly liked by the prosecution, was objected to by the defendant’s lawyers.
The
indicted former president cannot be permitted to transfer his trial from the
courtroom, with its well-structured rules of law, to the media where anything
goes. Of course, he will try to do so,
disregarding the judge’s instructions. Ultimately, I see him being remanded
back to the direct hands-on custody of the court, something he probably wants,
so he can claim that he is no longer a defendant, but a victim, like Alexei
Navalny (someone whom I’m sure the indicted former president never heard of),
the jailed potential opponent to Vladimir Putin.
The fact
that he may be the Republican nominee for president next year is unfortunate
but that should not allow him to persist in his incendiary language, under the
guise of campaigning. The judge likened
that to any defendant’s ‘day job’ and pointed out that it should not be allowed
to interfere with the trial. If the Republicans had any brains, they would not
entertain any attempt to nominate him.
But most Republicans do not.
What Is
Doubly Dangerous - Even if the indicted former president’s bellowing is
silenced because of his involvement in litigation, his supporters can continue
to lie and inspire violence toward those with whom they disagree, including
witnesses, judges, and prosecutors, some of whom are already receiving added
security, even during recesses from the courtroom.
Paired
with the proliferation of weapons in this country, made possible by the gross
misinterpretation of the Second Amendment perpetrated by the Supreme Court in
2008, this makes their doing so, protected by their First Amendment rights,
doubly dangerous to the nation.
This
problem will be solved, but democracy may suffer in reaching a solution.
JL
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Do They Teach That in Law School?
Without offending any of you who happen to be
lawyers, it appears to me that to justify every illegal act that our indicted
former president carried out, he managed to find a lawyer who said doing so was
okay beforehand. He even had the dean of
a law school on his side performing that function. That might even be a defense used in court,
despite the overwhelming evidence the prosecution possesses. I suspect this would be a losing argument.
While those who commit crimes are entitled to legal representation in their defense, that is not the same as lawyers advising clients on how to get away with such crimes before they even commit them.
Do
they teach that in law schools?
And even if a lawyer doesn’t okay a client’s criminal actions beforehand, he or she might point out to a client the possibility of going to jail for something and recommend that instead, the act might be performed by a corporate entity created for that purpose, shielding the client from personal responsibility. Sometimes, PACs (Political Action Committees) and similar groups are used for that purpose. Think ‘Citizens United,’ whereby ‘free speech’ rights were extended from individuals to corporations. It’s hard to blame that on a single individual.
Or the lawyer might suggest using tentative, imprecise, or ambiguous language which might be able to separate the client from responsibility for his acts in the minds of some. The words of the indicted former president at the Ellipse in Washington, just before his supporters attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, fall into that category.
That is why some such lawyers have become accessories to this defendant's criminal acts and are now designated as co-conspirators, risking sharing in his punishment if he is convicted of criminal acts.
Do they teach that in law school?
JL
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The People Speak Out – A Paradox
All polling, and voting, as the results of the recent Ohio referendum indicated, show strong support for not restricting abortion rights. (The same story is true of the need for more gun control, although that has not been the subject of a referendum to my knowledge.)
The Ohio vote was won by those who opposed a super majority rather than the present simple majority needed to bring about changes in the State’s constitution. This victory (57% to 43%) will make it easier to protect abortion rights in Ohio in forthcoming balloting where a question regarding them will appear.
It is a paradox that this happened in a State which elected J.D. Vance, a foe of abortion rights, to the Senate in 2022. If Americans voted on the issues rather than the vague and emotionally charged cultural illusions that dominate our elections, there would be more people elected to office who truly represent the people’s interests.
Abortion foe Vance won by six
percentage points in 2022. But when the
issue was clearly laid out, abortion foes lost in that referendum mentioned
above by seventeen percentage points. There’s a ‘disconnect’ somewhere.
This is especially true in regard to electing State legislatures, which are presently a malignancy on the body politic which threatens to metastasize.
Bottom Line: Issues are crucial in elections.
JL
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Book Review
Just read
an interesting book, ‘Bad Jews - A History of American Jewish Politics
and Identities’ (Harper Collins) by Emily Tamkin. Don’t be turned off by the two horribly
misleading words leading off its title, because the book is really about the
historic challenges faced by American Jews, and the different ways in which
they approached them. It should be read
by every Jew in this country, observant or not, many of whom will disagree with
some of the book’s wide-ranging content if only because it carefully documents
all sides of the frequent disagreements occurring among American Jews.
But
disagreeing with other Jews, however strongly, should not make them ‘Bad
Jews.’ One of the sources quoted in the
book alludes to its title saying that ‘There
are enough voices in the world who are labeling Jews as bad. We shouldn't
do it to each other.' Such
polarization is not good, and that is the point Ms.Tamkin makes, despite the
book’s frightening title.
JL
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About Taylor Swift
Younger people, particularly females, who seem to be oblivious to issues like climate change, the upcoming trials of the indicted former president, the war in Ukraine, the ‘culture war’ in this country, and daily threats to our democracy, do pay a lot of attention to Taylor Swift, currently an extremely popular entertainer, although I think that is more the result of her looks, the lyrics of her songs, and the elaborate staging of her performances rather than the not unpleasant quality of her voice.
Perhaps someday the energies of her fans may turn in more productive directions. Swift herself is politically active, urging people to vote, actually endorsing the losing Democratic candidate in her home State (Tennessee) in 2018, and is not silent regarding LGBTQ and gender issues.
Check this out by visiting https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a44551559/taylor-swift-nashville-elections-vote/
or by CLICKING HERE.
If all her fans vote in 2024, and she continues to hint as to
her preferences, there might be some surprising results.
JL
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Latest on Hunter Biden
The appointment of a Special Prosecutor in regard to investigating Hunter Biden’s transgressions will ultimately confirm that he indeed did use the appearance of his ability to provide an avenue to reach his then-Vice President father to personally profit. Note that he peddled that ‘appearance’ which was never a reality.
His highly paying seat on the board of a Ukrainian firm, Burisma, was an example of this. But there is no evidence that his father ever was involved in this, or that any of those who fell for Hunter’s pitch ever benefited from whatever connection they thought Hunter might provide. They were suckers, and his was a con game.
What this will do is give Republicans something to scream about,
supposedly negating Democratic criticism of the more extensive family involvement
of Ivanka, Donald Jr, and Jared in profiting from their relationship with the
indicted former president and more seriously, taking the spotlight from the
seriousness of the charges for which he has been indicted in New York, Florida,
Washington, and any day now, in Georgia.
Defying the Constitution is much more serious than Hunter’s petty conniving.
It appears that Hunter’s ‘deal’ to plead guilty, letting his
prosecutors chalk up a ‘win’ in exchange for a ‘get out of jail free’ card, has
completely fallen apart. If Hunter ends
up paying the price for his illegal gun possession and his tax violations, so
be it. He made his bed and despite
Republican Herculean efforts to find a connection, his father was not involved.
JL
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Answers
to Nostalgia Quiz #5 (State Capitals)
Maine – Augusta
Washington
– Olympia
Oregon
– Salem
Kentucky
– Frankfort
West
Virginia – Charleston
Watch for another Nostalgia Quiz shortly.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
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.
Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.
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. I
think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.
There’s another, perhaps easier,
method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform
on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on
the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will
have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog
posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you. Each
will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that
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typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.
Either way will work, sending
them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or
clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I
recommend sending them the link.
Again, I urge you to forward
this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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