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Now that the indicted former
president’s lawyers in the Federal case being heard in a D.C. court have
requested a trial date in 2026, even that lengthy delay will turn out to be
inadequate. Based on the enormous amount
of evidence of his trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election that
the defense will want to review before the trial, even 2026 will turn out to be
far ‘too soon,’ with further delays even then certain to be requested.
Why? The defeated former president continues to provide ongoing evidence likely to deepen the hole he has dug for his defense. And there is no indication, regardless of any ‘gag’ rules imposed, that he or his acolytes will ever stop doing so, providing a never-ending Niagara Falls of evidence.
Therefore, I suggest the trial date be firmly fixed once and for all at one year after the death of the defendant, at which point chances are that at least personally, he probably will not be able to further add to the evidence against him that must be reviewed by his lawyers.
Of course, that won’t happen. Getting back to reality though, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment is now coming into the spotlight.
For an interesting summary of its historical basis and how it can apply to the likely Republican presidential candidate in 2024 election, should he be convicted in the case discussed above or the case pending in Georgia, read Professor Heather Cox Richardson's comments at https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/august-19-2023?r=50599&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email or just CLICK HERE.
In a nutshell, it would make his candidacy illegal. Obviously, delaying the trials beyond the 2024 presidential election is the aim of the defense’s strategy, based on the small hope that he will win the election. They know that once convicted, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment would prevent him from running for office in 2024.
JL
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Here’s Some Fiction for a Change
Long-time followers of Jackspotpourri know that it isn’t just politics. Occasionally, it features some short creative fiction by me, or even by you if you wish to submit it for inclusion. Examples are the eight-part Chrissy Frost chronicle repeated earlier this year, the annual children’s holiday story about Santa’s Belt and several stories over the years by the late Sid Bolotin.
Here’s another attempt at a piece of fiction. As with most such efforts, it has a basis in reality, in this instance explained in the author’s note at its conclusion.
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'The Kosher Epidemiologist'
Jack Lippman
Rachel never fit in with her family’s very
orthodox background in Boro Park. Though
fully observant, in her head she never fully bought into the role assigned to orthodox
Jewish women, the way their social structure insisted that it was supposed to
be.
Though she seemed just like the others, she was
not. She did dress modestly, did learn
how to cook and keep house, shun worldly diversions, learn all the prayers
women were supposed to learn, and after what amounted to the kind of religion-based
high school education such girls receive, she got herself a job as a waitress
in a kosher restaurant in the neighborhood, as an alternative to working in one
of the schools she had learned to dislike.
 |
| Rachel's Neighborhood |
Rachel had to earn a living because she had
made it clear to her parents that she was not interested in a pre-arranged
marriage, as her parents had negotiated for her older sisters, the usual route
to matrimony followed in such families.
‘Oy,’ her father moaned. ‘Not enough that my son moved to Manhattan and
doesn’t go to shul anymore. But at least
Rachel is still observing the Laws.’
The only one who seemed to understand her was,
in fact, her brother Sam, the computer programmer who had deserted Boro Park
for Manhattan. They did talk whenever
they had the chance.
Rachel had loved science ever since she was a
kid. She loved the chapters in Genesis
that described Creation, but even then suspected that there might be a better
explanation somewhere. Stuff like that just didn’t happen in six days, or just
maybe in those times what we call a ‘day’ might have been defined differently. Science was given little attention in her
limited schooling, but that did not deter her from devoting every spare moment
when she wasn’t working to learning what she could from the books available in
the public library and from the internet terminals there that Sam had taught
her to use. She wouldn’t dare bring such
studying into her home, where the only approved reading was the Torah or
commentary on it, so her scientific education was a clandestine affair.
The area that interested her most was why some
people get sick, some don’t, and how sicknesses spread differently among
different groups of people. Those
plagues that afflicted the Egyptians in the Bible fascinated her, as she sought
to find some more scientific basis for them, something making sense of how these
events had been used as tools by the Creator in those chapters of Exodus. If a book or scientific paper had been
written on these subjects, Rachel knew about them and perhaps had even read
some of them.
And this was the way things were when the Covid
19 pandemic struck in 2019. Its effects
were starkly evident in Brooklyn’s orthodox enclaves like Boro Park, where
there were more infections and deaths than in other neighborhoods in New York
City. She repeatedly asked herself why
and made sure to try to read every newspaper article or scientific piece about
the spread of Covid 19 that she could find.
She had the time to do this because the restaurant where she worked had
closed due to the pandemic, leaving her to become a full-time denizen of the
public library that in a limited manner, had remained open.
Although government agencies were already
advocating masking and avoiding contact with groups of people in theatres,
restaurants, schools, and even in houses
of worship, the synagogues of Boro Park were filled with worshippers, unmasked,
and close upon each other. Most rabbis
there shunned the suggested restrictions, believing faith was enough to triumph
over the spreading infection. It was not.
Rachel read how the same thing was happening
among some Christians far from Boro Park, where congregations were being
similarly decimated. In Time Magazine, she
read about a professor with a strong Christian religious background at a
college in Texas who had established a website called ‘Friendly Neighbor
Epidemiologist,’ advocating masking and avoiding crowds, even in churches, as ways
to avoid Covid 19 and its spread. When
vaccinations for the disease came onto the scene, that professor advocated
them, despite strong opposition from the local clergy.
‘Just like the rabbis here,’ Rachel
thought. She became a little frightened
though when she read how the life of the professor in Texas was being threatened
by those who disagreed with her.
The next time she spoke to Sam, she asked him
what an epidemiologist was. He showed
her the online definitions that said it was a branch of medicine which dealt with the incidence, distribution, and
possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.
‘Hey,’ she said,
‘That’s what I’ve been looking
into over the past couple of years, controlling diseases. But do you have to be a doctor to get a job
in that field?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sam replied.
‘But epidemiologists work closely with doctors. They usually have a
college degree in it and some graduate work too. Rachel, sit tight and I’ll see
if I can find out some more information for
you. Okay?’
And that’s how
Sam, after speaking to a friend of a friend of a friend got Rachel an
appointment with the doctor who headed the Epidemiology Department at one of
the big teaching hospitals in Manhattan.
The meeting went
well, with that doctor telling Rachel that knowledge-wise, she appeared to already
be above the level of the best of his epidemiology graduate students, her only
shortcoming being a lack of formal studies in statistics, essential to
epidemiologists, and telling her to keep in touch with him.
It took many
hours of online coursework, and attendance at a few mandatory lectures to
acquire what she later found out to be the equivalent of the statistical
know-how that a master’s degree in epidemiology required. But Rachel didn’t even have a college degree.
Again with Sam’s assistance, Rachel borrowed an idea from that professor in Texas. She decided to develop a website directed at the orthodox community on the internet. An increasing number of orthodox Jews, especially women, were beginning to access it, either at home or in libraries as she had done. It would stress the necessity of masking, avoiding crowds, and vaccinations as the best tools to use to prevent Covid 19 infections, and be presented in language to which those with family backgrounds similar to Rachel’s would easily relate. And if others were attracted to it as well, that would be fine too.
Rachel named the site ‘The Kosher Epidemiologist,’ despite her having no
professional credentials whatsoever. In
explaining this on the website,
Rachel said she really was a ‘Pseudo-Epidemiologist,’ and hoped this wouldn’t
get her in trouble with anyone. Thus far, it has not.
Rachel was
unaware that over its first few months, ‘The
Kosher Epidemiologist’ had acquired
about three thousand followers. One of
these was the doctor from the Manhattan Hospital whom she had met.
Unexpectedly one day, she received a call from him. He had been
following her website and was impressed by it, but despite that and the catching up she had done in statistics, he
still couldn’t offer her the graduate faculty position he was trying to fill, something Rachel
had known nothing about. It required
having a degree, he explained, but he would be able to hire her as a ‘consultant’ instead,
receiving the same modest salary to fill the slot. After a moment of speechlessness, she accepted
the job offer!
Rachel is very happy with the work she does there in regard to Covid 19, particularly in
orthodox communities. She has already won several prominent rabbis over to her
ideas.
Another follower
of ‘The Kosher Epidemiologist,’ which Rachel still finds time to produce, is
the Texas college professor she had read about earlier. They have become good friends and have
visited together. Each has recognized
that in their work, a faith-based background can be important, particularly
when the audience they hope their work influences shares that background.
Author’s
Note: Rachel and Sam are
made-up characters. ‘The Kosher
Epidemiologist’ website does not exist. This story is a work of fiction although the college
professor from Texas and her website are real.
I had learned of her when I found in a ‘used’ book that I had purchased
online (on another scientific subject) an airline baggage check that contained
her name, used as a bookmark. Someone
whom I assumed was the one named on the baggage check had made several incisive
comments in the book’s margins and underlined many significant passages, which
prompted me to try to learn more about her through a ‘google’ search. By
visiting her website, mentioned above in this work of fiction, you can see how
it inspired it. Unfortunately, I no
longer have the baggage check that had indicated a flight from Waco, Texas (site of Baylor University) to
Dallas-Fort Worth by someone with her name.
JL
* * *
And Speaking of Covid 19 Vaccines,
It appears likely that a new version will be available in two or three months. It will better protect against the current variants of Covid 19 than earlier vaccines that were developed before these latest variants appeared, the ones that seem to be causing the current increase in infections. Whether or not you should wait depends on your age and medical history. Ask your primary physician to answer this question.
If you don’t have a primary physician, you might want to check out a recent article in the New York Times. Find it at https://www.nytimes.com/article/covid-booster-fall.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20230818&instance_id=100401&nl=from-the-times®i_id=78918068&segment_id=142395&te=1&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 or just CLICK HERE.
JL
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Planet Earth’s Self-Adaptive Resiliency – (Climate Change Unmasked.)
Planet Earth is very resilient to changes resulting from activities taking place on it, to some extent brought about by human beings over which we have some control, as well as by ‘cosmic’ changes over which we have no control.
Planet Earth’s tools available to assure that resiliency, demonstrated by its efforts to survive, include the weather, the temperatures on and below its surface, and the ways the winds blow and the waters covering most of its surface flow, all of which seem to be interrelated. The planet is able to ‘self-adapt’ these kinds of things to assure its resiliency. Mankind has little or no control over them.
That
these tools may interfere with where and how mankind, just one of the many
species inhabiting the planet, has chosen to settle down and live is no concern
of Planet Earth. Droughts that enable
wildfires that can destroy communities or rising waters or violent storms that
can make them uninhabitable are not concerns of Planet Earth. They are the collateral
damage, by-products, of the efforts of the planet’s built-in resiliency activated in the face of
challenges to its survival.
Their interference with mankind is mankind’s problem.
JL
* * *
Trivia Quiz #1 (Replacing the Nostalgia Quiz Series)
Excluding the White House’s present occupant, ten of the 45 presidents of the United States were ‘Short-Timers,’ not serving a full term as president because of either:
(1) having died while in office during the one single term to which they were elected, or
(2) succeeded to the presidency via the vice-presidency, to complete another president’s term, without ever being elected to a term of their own.
Here are their names. Which are in each of these two categories? (Clue: there are five in each category.) Answers will appear in next blog posting.
Chester Arthur
Millard Fillmore
Gerald Ford
James Garfield
Warren Harding
William Henry Harrison
Andrew Johnson
John Kennedy
Zachary Taylor
John Tyler
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 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 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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