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It isn’t bad enough that a politicized Supreme
Court misinterpreted the Second Amendment back in 2008 (Check out Justice Scalia's opinion in D.C. vs Heller) by allowing the
uncontrolled proliferation of weapons in this country, ignoring the Amendment’s
first thirteen words, and bringing about many deaths.
 |
| Speaker Michael Johnson, a defender of God against big government |
The solution: Never, ever, vote for a Republican for any elective position whatsoever. By and large, they neither understand history nor our representative democracy and are unfit to hold public office. Electing even just one, even to minor local posts, strengthens their overall organization and results in the likes of the new Speaker, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Ron DeSantis, and of course, Donald Trump winning elections.
The decent ones, the Liz Chaneys and Adam Kizingers, have long since been thrown out of the G.O.P., or left politics, leaving us with the likes of phony baloney George Santos whom they lack the guts to expel. The Republican Party, if you have a long, long, memory, once was respectable but no longer is.
This weekend is just one year from Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. Time to get to work to keep the presidency and the Senate blue, and take back the House from Republican scoundrels like the new House speaker!
JL
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Not Good News from Israel
A question for you: When Israeli intelligence
learns that there is a Hamas installation firing off missiles or being used for
any other military purpose in attacking the State of Israel, and it is at a
location amidst or tunneled underneath residential dwellings, hospitals,
school, or mosques, what are they supposed to do?
Right now, Israel is urging Palestinian
civilians in Gaza to move from such locations, but there really is no place to
which they can go.
Ideally, those who urge Israel to stop
bombarding such targets for humanitarian reasons should tell Hamas to first cease
using innocent civilians in that manner.
I believe the large number of innocent civilians being killed or
otherwise affected by Israeli bombardment are the result of Hamas’ intentionally
putting these civilians in the way of such Israeli actions and blaming their
deaths on Israel. Hamas has no more
respect for Palestinian lives than it does for Israeli lives. And there is little that outsiders can do
about it.
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing
about 1,400 Israeli civilians living near the Gaza border. If Hamas is allowed to continue to exist,
which is what a ‘cease-fire’ would amount to, that could happen again,
elsewhere. That is why Israel is now
committed to destroying Hamas, a terrorist organization recognized as such by
the United States and the nations of the European Union.
Right now, the United States is urging Israel
to consider ‘brief pauses’ in their bombardment of the Gaza Strip, to allow for
humanitarian aid to reach there, and for hostage negotiations to proceed. This
would fall short of a ‘cease fire’ something that would greatly benefit the Hamas
terrorists, but might be acceptable to Israel. One such ‘brief pause’ did
take place last week, for long enough for two hostages to be released, but that
is far short of a ‘cease fire.’
Digging deeper, however, with the aim of resolving the circumstances that motivated that attack, requires negotiating, but Hamas is not an acceptable negotiator, being committed to the destruction of Israel.
That might be the role of those states
supporting Hamas in varying degrees, especially Iran which also backs similar
Hezbollah terrorists on Israel’s northern borders, but there is little chance
of that happening today. Even the
suggestion of the United States talking to Iran (which we of course do through
intermediaries) results in Republicans in Congress becoming apoplectic and going on the warpath. That
leaves Israel with no alternative other than its war to destroy Hamas, while
trying to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza as best they can, an almost
impossible task.
The negotiations that are going on via Qatar, Egypt,
and countries like the United States, seem to be dealing with hostages and
humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, but not the basic causes of the problem.
Any cease-fire agreement, in the eyes of
Israel, would validate Hamas October 7 attack as more than an act of terrorists,
and constitute a victory for such terrorism. That is why Israel is correct in
its efforts to destroy Hamas, just as Western nations and moderate Arab states
fought to destroy ISIS and Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.
Up to now, I have believed that whenever ‘real’
negotiations ultimately take place, as well as focusing on concluding the
Israeli-Hamas War, they must at the same time address establishing a
‘two-state’ solution, as envisioned by the 1947 partition of Palestine. Failure to accomplish that has been the basis
of all conflict between Israel and the Palestinians for the past 75 years.
But now I have my doubts. Such a ‘two-state’ solution has been shoved
into the distant background by extremists on both sides. These include Arabs who are implacable in
their efforts to exterminate the State of Israel, and Israelis who have moved
into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with the support of the Israeli
government, establishing many settlements there on land supposedly intended to
be part of a Palestinian state, but lost by them in the unsuccessful wars Arabs fought
to destroy Israel.
These 'settlements,' believed by successive
Israeli governments to be a ‘security’ measure, on land where a Palestinian
state was intended to be, seem to make a ‘two-state’ solution almost
impossible at this point, leaving us only with ‘one-state’ solutions, all of
which are fraught with danger.
These 'settlements' are much more than mere
outposts, as the word ‘settlement’ suggests, envisioning a very basic ‘pioneering’
environment. Many have grown into
bustling neighborhoods of apartment houses.
It has been reported to the United Nations that there are almost 700,000
Israelis living in them, about a third in East Jerusalem and the rest on the
West Bank, both areas that would have been part of the Palestinian state in the
‘two-state’ solution envisioned at the time of partition in 1947, but lost in
1967 by the Palestinians in their failed war against Israel.
I don’t believe that these ‘occupied’
territories, because of the presence of such numerous settlements, can be readily
returned to their ‘pre-settlement’ status, and that severely cripples the idea
of a ‘two-state’ solution, at least for the time being. That may be sad, but it is difficult to deny.
The Ma'ale Adumim settlement,
pictured below, is in the West Bank, about five miles east of Jerusalem. The Har
Homa settlement, also pictured below, is in East Jerusalem. From either, Israelis can take a bus to
downtown Jerusalem. Look at them. It's not a matter of tearing down some tents or cabins. Draw your own conclusions.
No Israeli government would be agreeable to
abandoning ‘settlements’ like these.
They remember what happened when they moved Israeli settlers from Gaza
in 2005, hoping for peace, turning it over to the Palestinians, who made it
into the cancer that Israel is battling right now.
This is a tremendous problem for Israel and its
supporters. A solution would require the
wisdom of King Solomon. I am not
optimistic.
 |
| Ma'ale Adumim Settlement on West Bank five miles from Jerusalem |
 |
| Har Homa Settlement in East Jerusalem |
JL
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Not Good News About Trump
Don’t you get it? Donald Trump actually wants the judges hearing his case to enforce the gag orders they have imposed on him, intended to prevent his threatening witnesses and potential jurors and attacking members of the legal system that are prosecuting him. That’s why he continues his outrageous claims.
He doesn’t want to be asked to pay monetary
penalties. He wants to be handcuffed and taken to the slammer. Preferably on Fox News.
For a former president, that wouldn’t be so intolerable,
since he probably would be incarcerated in comfortable quarters in some four-star
hotel that would include accommodations for his Secret Service contingent. Then, he would have to finally shut his
mouth. But other voices would be raised!
His supporters’ fury would be ignited. They
would march and demonstrate and make the same threats that brought about
the former president’s silencing,
totally permissible for them under the First Amendment, because they are not
under indictment. They would scream
about the Second Amendment being made for situations like that. They would point out that this is what is
done to political opponents in third world countries, even in Russia. The white supremacists, the bigots, the
haters of government, the evangelicals, and the tin horn politicians who got
elected due to his endorsement would have a field day.
And that is why, no matter how
great his violation of a judge’s gag order may be, Donald John Trump will not
be jailed.
Come to think of it, if he is
found guilty of any of the crimes for which he has been indicted, Donald Trump
will never see the inside of a prison. House
arrest at Mar-a-Lago for a few months would be about as tough as his sentences
will be, probably including the freedom to travel anywhere nearby within
Florida, enabling his access to golf courses.
And he will write a book. Millions of his supporters will purchase
it. His ghostwriters might title it ‘My
Battle.’ (Translate that into German.)
JL
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The World Series Versus the MLB Playoffs
Now that the Texas Rangers have defeated the
Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series, it’s time to think about whether a
series of playoff games are the best way of determining Major League Baseball’s
championship team. Neither of these two
teams were the best team in the Majors in 2023!
The World Series traditionally pits the best
team in the American League against the best team in the National League, based
on their performance over an entire grueling 162 game season. Neither the Diamondbacks nor the Rangers fit
that description.
The D-Backs and the Rangers were great teams
over the final weeks of the season, survived three playoff rounds (2 of 3, then
3 of 5, then 4 of 7), and benefited strategically from additional players
acquired before the August 31 playoff eligibility deadline. That is to their credit.
The playoffs were extremely competitive and
enjoyable, but the 90-win Texas Rangers, over the entire season were inferior
to the 101-win Baltimore Orioles, the 104-win Atlanta Braves, and the 100-win
Los Angeles Dodgers, as were the 84-win Diamondbacks.
The playoffs are great, affording a dozen teams
the opportunity to participate (and a lot of time for advertisers to pitch
their products), and there is a place for them in baseball, but it is my
opinion that the World Series is not that place. (Perhaps they might be
inserted in baseball’s schedule right after the All-Star game, providing a
mid-season break in the regular season, and giving the participating teams a
chance to reassess their talent.)
The World Series should bring together the two
teams with the best record in each of the two leagues. Period.
A game in May should count as much as a game in September. This year, with apologies to the 2023 World
Series winner, the Texas Rangers, those teams should have been the Atlanta
Braves and the Baltimore Orioles.
(For the record, the Rangers split their six
games with the Orioles in the 2023 regular season, lost two of three to the
Braves in interleague competition while the Diamondbacks split their six games
with the Braves, but lost two of three to the Orioles in interleague
competition)
And that is my opinion.
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 are now 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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