January 31, 2024 - DJT is Nothing, Lincoln in 1838, the Uneducatable, Joe's Accomplishments, and a Suggested Boycott

 

‘Donald Trump is Nothing!’ - A Melting Iceberg

There are at least two sides to most political and economic issues ... and Republicans and Democrats usually have opposing positions.  I believe that the positions of Democrats are more in the best interests of the American public than those of the Republicans.  But that is not what I am about to address.

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Democrats have a tougher job presenting their ideas because before getting through to the nuts and bolts of their arguments, and hopefully reaching a bi-partisan compromise, they must first expend their energies working through the layers of lies and plotting which the Republican Party, led by the defeated and indicted forty-fifth ex-president, wrap around their arguments, which sometimes, when finally revealed, turn out to be nothing more than just opposition, without anything constructive about them. 

Democrats in Congress and elsewhere, before even getting to the real issues, have been forced to wade through this morass, wasting their resources, challenging lies and fighting MAGA intrigues.  Leaving it to the courts to resolve, that in our system of justice always tries to be fair to defendants, often benefits Donald Trump and his acolytes. Just look how they have used the courts to slow down the wheels of justice. For example, it will be years before litigation stemming from Trump’s theft of government documents is resolved.

The answer:  At this point, Democrats must concentrate on tearing down Trump's image.  Doing that is more important than the political and economic issues on the table, which tend to hold people’s attention only momentarily.  

A day should not go by without Democrats pointing out that he is a scoundrel, thief, liar, philanderer, and who is presently under indictment by grand juries for numerous crimes committed against the laws of the United States and of several States. He must be demonized so that his lies and MAGA intrigues are shattered in the eyes of those who still believe in him. 

Only then will Democrats be able to return to arguing about issues with their Republican opponents, who would no longer be able to hide behind a shattered Donald Trump.

This may not be as enormous a task as it seems because Trump is very successful at demonizing himself with his own words and actions, increasingly illustrating how unhinged from reality he has become.  That must be hammered home to those who still support him.

And as it melts, he drowns

Confusing Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and fulminating about her choice of dresses were only hints at his dementia, the top of the melting iceberg that is Donald Trump.  Rather than wasting energy contradicting his lies and trickery in regard to individual issues, Democrats should ‘go for the jugular’ and totally shatter his image first.  Then the dying Republican Party would have no place to hide.

Trump’s ‘melting’ continued this past week with E. Jean Carroll winning her sexual assault lawsuit against Trump in which a jury awarded her $83,000,000.  Ms. Carroll, an author and magazine columnist, drove home the importance, not only of her lawsuit and its significance to all women, but of its shattering Trump’s image and reputation as well.

To the world (on Rachel Maddow’s TV show), as a successful litigant, she proudly announced that ‘Donald Trump is nothing.  We need not be afraid of him.’   The sooner America realizes this, the better off the nation will be, leaving it  to historians to document the damage to democracy this ‘big nothing’ did bring about.

‘Donald Trump is nothing.  We need not be afraid of him.’ 

JL

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In 1838, Lincoln Saw the Problem

The other day, Heather Cox Richardson (in her ‘Letters From an American’ daily posting) wrote about a young Abraham Lincoln’s ‘Lyceum’ address in 1838, more than two decades before the Civil War.  Lincoln felt that the passions of Americans that had fueled the nation’s independence and growth were no longer needed in those roles and seemed to be turning in less noble directions, criticizing our own government, with the English no longer available as a target. Basically, he said it was time to ‘cool it,’ using the phrase ‘sober reason.’  These were his words, referring to what was that period’s MAGA movement.  (They called themselves ‘Know-Nothings.) These words are still pertinent today:

“The Founders had used their passions to create a system of laws, but the time for passion had passed, lest it tear the nation apart. The next generation must support democracy through “sober reason,” he said. He called for Americans to exercise ‘general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”

Makes sense, and he became president 21 years later, but those passions still tore the nation apart then, as it threatens to do again today. We cannot let that happen, as a glance back at history teaches us.

In 1861, the South's slave owners rallied the passions of the residents of what became the Confederacy by stoking their fears of the Federal government's disturbing the expansion of the basis of their economy, slavery.

Similarly, today's Republican Party stokes the passions of Americans with fears that out-of-control immigration will disturb their way of life. That is why, as ordered by their likely presidential candidate, they oppose the Senate's and President Biden's initially bi-partisan efforts to finally control immigration. They prefer a crisis over immigration as the only campaign issue left to them, since they've already lost the battle over abortion in the minds of the nation's voters.  I suspect that after November, what remains of the G.O.P. will just be a part of a new Whig party, along with the fascists and libertarians.

But crucial to this all happening is the shattering of the already melting image of Donald Trump that Ms. Carroll correctly characterized by saying : 

‘Donald Trump is nothing.  We need not be afraid of him.’ 

JL

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How Do We Educate the Uneducatable?

If you read ‘real’ newspapers, you should know the score regarding what is going on in the world around us.  The identity of  the troublemakers, internationally and domestically, is no secret.

I believe that if we were to come up with solutions for the war in Ukraine, for the Palestinians, for the immigrants on our Southern border, and most other problems that we face, doing so would remove weapons currently used by those who want to perpetuate these crises to gain supporters for their own nefarious aims. Real solutions would leave them weaponless.

The ’Uneducatable’ - Yet there are many millions of Americans who absolutely refuse to connect the dots which lead to today's Russia, Iran, their non-state followers like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as well as to the present leadership of the Republican Party, right here in the United States, that shamelessly play politics with the future of democracy.  

As a result, too many Americans are functionally ‘uneducatable.’ That is because they have one thing in common.  They view everything through a rear-view mirror, afraid to think about any changes the future might bring.  Thus, they end up supporting those whose aims are to perpetuate, not resolve, crises.

But they cannot be ignored because in many States, they are a majority, whose votes affect the Electoral College and enable gerrymandering of congressional districts. That is the problem we face.  

And guess who the chief purveyor of those rear-view mirrors is! Must we just wait for the iceberg referred to earlier in this posting to melt down to a puddle? 

Do you have an answer?  Let’s hear it!  E. Jean Carroll, as cited above had one. ‘Donald Trump is nothing.  We need not be afraid of him.’  Time to spread that truth! 

‘Donald Trump is nothing.  We need not be afraid of him.’

JL

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Joe Biden’s Accomplishments

Don’t take my word for them.  Check out Simon Rosenberg’s ‘Hopium Chronicles’ (especially the Jan. 29 posting) to be enlightened!  Find them at https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/ or just CLICK HERE.

JL

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Boycott Targets?

If any ‘captains of industry’ (or just plain consumers) who might follow this blog object to the ridiculous 'State's Rights' crap coming out of Texas governor Abbott’s mouth, they might consider boycotting some of the businesses headquartered in the Lone Star State.  Some have competitors elsewhere who understand that immigration law is a federal, and not a State, area of governance. For a list of the top 25 Texas-based Fortune 500 companies, check out  https://www.concordia.edu/blog/top-25-fortune-500-companies-headquartered-in-texas.html or just CLICK HERE.

Obviously, consumers or local entities don’t deal directly with most of them but they still might find other, non-Texas-based competitors of these companies where they can spend their money.  Numbers 1,2,3,7,10,12,19, and 23 on the list might fit in this category.

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, particularly if they are a registered voter.

 

JL

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January 25, 2024 - Letter From Israel, Insurance Advertising, Hacking, Biden's Accomplishments, How 'Bad Guys' Get Elected, and Trust in Democracy.

Letter From Israel and a Bit More

Image that accompanied
the New Yorker article.

Far too lengthy to include on Jackspotpourri is the ‘Letter from Israel’ by David Remnick, New Yorker magazine editor, who has made several visits to Israel since the Hamas attack in October.  He writes about whether Benjamin Netanyahu puts his own interests above that of the State of Israel, and even recalls the Revisionist Zionism of Zev Jabotinsky, in which Bibi’s father believed and is strongly reflected in Bibi’s present Knesset coalition that wants nothing to do with a two-state solution.

Sit down and devote at least half an hour to reading it and learn what difficult decisions Israel really faces today.  Copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/letter-from-israel on your browser line to read the piece from the Jan. 22, 2024 issue of the magazine or just CLICK HERE. 

And this might be an appropriate time to mention that my ‘two-state’ solution recommended in the previous posting of Jackspotpourri resulted in only one person asking to be taken off my list of those receiving alerts of fresh postings. 

JL

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Insurance Advertising

The property and casualty insurance industry, businesses that collect money, invest, or lend it, making a profit, and end up paying out more than operating expenses and agents’ commissions ONLY when their ‘policyholders’ submit property damage or automobile claims (which for most of them is ‘never’) is part of our nation’s conservative financial structure.

They seem to be ashamed of that, however, because much of their advertising tries to make them appear to be anything other than ‘conservative.’  Just look at their names. What images do ‘Progressive’ and ‘Liberty’ bring to mind?  And one company (GEICO) is even named after those who hold civil service jobs, working class people employed by the government.  This is the antithesis of being ‘conservative.’

The one that takes the cake, however, is a very American insurer that appears to be named after the collectivization of all agriculture in Russia instituted by the Bolsheviks after they overthrew the Tsar in 1918, replacing individual enterprises with 'State Farms.’  That name also has been applied to agricultural activities at what were once called ‘poorhouses,’ orphanages, and prisons run by government agencies. That explanation of its origin appears to be more ‘conservative’ than the Russian one.

JL

 

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Unavoidable Assholes Among Us

Someone to whom I send emails occasionally has let me know that she is getting some emails that look like they’re from me, but obviously are not.

When you get email, phone calls or text messages from sources that you don't recognize, you risk being 'hacked,' if you respond to them.  I usually ignore such communications.  Occasionally though, I might answer a phone call from my own area code that I suspect is from a neighbor who is not in my 'contact' list.  (I never click on any links in a suspicious email or text message.) 

I recently ordered a printer cartridge online directly from the manufacturer of my printer, using its website.  Within a day or so, I started receiving obviously amateurish texts directing me to click on a link to clarify my address with the sender who was pretending to be with the USPS.  I ignored them, of course, and there was no problem with the delivery of the cartridge.  My conclusion is that someone 'hacked' my order.  I don't know how I could have avoided this problem.

It is difficult not to be 'hacked' occasionally with your phone number or email address falling into the hands of a robot.  Despite the virus protection systems we pay for, and a reasonably cautious approach to communications, such ‘hacking’ is close to unavoidable, particularly when an attachment or an image is involved or an email is sent to many recipients.  Just be careful.  There are many ‘A.H.’s out there, and not all are robots.

JL

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Some Folks Just Won't Give Joe Credit for Anything

The daily postings of Professor Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American) are always worthwhile reading.  I recommend that you sign up for them at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/.  They are free, unless you choose to make comments, in which case monthly membership is available.  

HCR’s January 19, 2024, posting is particularly noteworthy, and well worth passing on to your friends and relatives.  While praising President Biden and his administration, it also warns of dangers to our representative democracy posed by those who oppose it.  In its entirety, here is HCR’s posting (the highlighting is mine):

‘President Joe Biden today signed the continuing resolution that will keep the government operating into March.

Meanwhile, the stock market roared as two of the three major indexes hit new record highs. The S&P 500, which measures the value of 500 of the largest companies in the country, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which does the same for 30 companies considered to be industry leaders, both rose to all-time highs. The third major index, the Nasdaq Composite, which is weighted toward technology stocks, did not hit a record high, although its 1.7% jump was higher than that of the S&P 500 (1.2%) or the Dow (1.1%).

Investors appear to be buoyed by the fact the rate of inflation has come down in the U.S. and by news that consumers are feeling better about the economy. A report out today by Goldman Sachs Economics Research noted that consumer spending is strong and predicted that “job gains, positive real wage growth, will lead to around 3% real disposable income growth” and that “household balance sheets have strengthened.” It also noted that “[t]he US has led the way on disinflation,” and it predicted further drops in 2024. That will likely mean the sort of interest rate cuts the stock market likes. 

The economic policies of the Biden-Harris administration have also benefited workers. The unemployment rate has been under 4% for more than two years, and wages have risen higher than inflation in that same period. Production is up as well, to 4.9% in the third quarter of 2023 (the U.S. growth rate under Trump even before the pandemic was 2.5%). 

The administration has worked to end some of the most obvious financial inequities in the U.S., such as the unexpected “junk fees” tacked on to airline or concert tickets, or to car or apartment rentals. On Wednesday the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a proposed rule for bank overdraft fees at banks that have more than $10 billion in assets. 

While banks now can charge what they wish if a customer’s balance falls below zero, the proposed rule would allow them to charge no more than what it cost them to break even on providing overdraft services or, alternatively, an industry-wide fee that reflects the amount it costs to deal with overdrafts: $3, $6, $7, or $14. The amount will be established after a public hearing period.

Ken Sweet and Cora Lewis of the Associated Press note that while the average overdraft is $26.61, some banks charge as much as $39 per overdraft. The CFPB estimates that in the past 20 years, banks have collected more than $280 billion in overdraft fees. (One bank’s chief executive officer named his boat “Overdraft.”) Over the past two years, pressure has made banks cut back on their fees and they now take in about $8 billion a year from those overdraft fees. 

Bankers say regulation is unnecessary and will force them to end the overdraft service, pushing people out of the banking system. Biden said that the rule would save U.S. families $3.5 billion annually. 

The administration has also addressed the student loan crisis by reexamining the loan histories of student borrowers. An NPR investigation led by Cory Turner revealed that banks mismanaged loans, denying borrowers the terms under which they had signed on to them. Rather than honoring the government’s promise that so long as a borrower paid what the government thought was reasonable on a loan for 20 or 25 years (undergrad or graduate), the debt would be forgiven, banks urged borrowers to put the loan into “forbearance,” under which payments paused but the debt continued to accrue interest, making the amount balloon. 

The Education Department has been reexamining all those old loans to find this sort of mismanagement as well as other problems, like borrowers not getting credit for payments to count toward their 20 years of payments, or borrowers who chose public service not receiving the debt relief they were promised.

Today the administration announced $4.9 billion of student debt cancellation for almost 74,000 borrowers. That brings the total of borrowers whose debt has been canceled to 3.7 million Americans, with an erasure of $136.6 billion. Nearly 30,000 of today’s relieved borrowers had been in repayment for at least 20 years but never got the relief they should have; nearly 44,000 had earned debt forgiveness after 10 years of public service as teachers, nurses, and firefighters.

Biden has been traveling the country recently, touting how the economic policies of the Biden-Harris administration have benefited ordinary Americans. In Emmaus, Pennsylvania, last Friday he visited a bicycle shop, a running shoe store, and a coffee shop to emphasize how small businesses are booming under his administration: in the three years since he took office, there have been 16 million applications to start new businesses, the highest number on record.

Biden was in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday to announce another $82 million in support for broadband access, bringing the total of government infrastructure funding in North Carolina during the Biden administration to $3 billion.  

On social media, the administration compared its investments in the American people to those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, which were enormously popular. 

They were popular, that is, until those opposed to business regulation convinced white voters that the government’s protection of civil rights, which came along with its protection of ordinary Americans through regulation of business, provision of a basic social safety net, and promotion of infrastructure, meant redistribution of white tax dollars to undeserving Black people.

The same effort to make sure that ordinary Americans don’t work together to restore basic fairness in the economy and rights in society is visible now in the attempt to attribute a recent Boeing airplane malfunction, in which a door panel blew off mid-flight, to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information yesterday chronicled how that accusation spread across the right-wing ecosystem and onto the Fox News Channel, where Fox Business host Sean Duffy warned: “This is a dangerous business when you’re focused on DEI and maybe less focused on engineering and safety.” 

As Zekeria explains, “this narrative has no basis in fact.” Neither Boeing nor its supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, is particularly diverse, either at the workforce level, where minorities make up 35% of Boeing employees and 26% of those at Spirit AeroSystems, or on the corporate ladder, where the overwhelming majority of executives are white men. Zekeria notes that right-wing media figures have also erroneously blamed last year’s train derailment in Ohio and the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank on DEI initiatives.

The real culprit at Boeing, Zekeria suggests, was the weakened regulations on Boeing and Spirit thanks to more than $65 million in lobbying efforts.

Perhaps an even more transparent attempt to keep ordinary Americans from working together is the attacks former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson has launched against Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “a member of the new master race” who “must be shown maximum respect at all times, no matter what she says or does.” Philip Bump of the Washington Post noted yesterday that this construction suggests that Harris, who identifies as both Black and Indian, represents all nonwhite Americans as a united force opposed to white Americans. 

But Harris’s actions actually represent something else altogether. She has crossed the country since June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion, talking about the right of all Americans to bodily autonomy. That the Supreme Court felt able to take away a constitutional right has worried many Americans about what they might do next, and people all over the country have been coming together in opposition to the small minority that appears to have taken over the levers of our democracy. 

Driving the wedge of racism into that majority coalition seems to be a desperate attempt to stop ordinary Americans from taking back control of the country.’  

JL                                          

 

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Dammit! They Were Legitimately Elected!  

And before we leave Professor HCR for the day, her January 22 posting led me to post this comment on ‘Letters from an American.’

‘HCR quotes President Biden, who in referring to women's reproductive rights, used the words 'Because of Republican elected officials.' Those five words are the key to most of the problems challenging America today.

American voters, for a variety of reasons, continue to elect enough Republicans, especially on the State level, whose agendas are rarely in their interests, throwing sand into the gears of our government. That's how we end up with the DeSantis's, the Tubervilles, the Gaetz's, the Roys, the Jordans, the Abbotts, etc. in public office, our defeated and indicted former president, likely to run again, being the best example of all. 

History will not reflect kindly on the way the misuse of our representative democracy resulted in this happening. Although it's the best system that has come along in many centuries, it continues to be hampered by its Achilles Heel, which we must not ignore.’

JL                                          

 

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Voting by Mail

Florida voters have gotten used to voting by mail.  It’s safe and simple.  But just because you might have done it in the past does not mean you can automatically continue to do so.  Current State election laws require you to renew your ‘voting by mail’ status before the next election in order to receive a ‘vote by mail’ ballot.  

If you vote in Palm Beach County, do it right now by visiting https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/Voters/Vote-By-Mail or by clicking here   For those who do not want do it online, they can sign up for vote-by-mail by calling (561) 656 6208.  In other Florida counties, visit the website of your Supervisor of Elections or call them. 

JL                                          

 

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Do Americans Still Trust Democracy?

There are plenty of reasons NOT to vote for Donald Trump for any office whatsoever, let alone a return to the White House. Here’s a brief summary:

·        He committed massive, decades-long financial fraud, proven in New York’s civil courts which also, in another case, labeled him to be a ‘rapist.’

·        He incited an insurrection attacking the US Capitol and tried to end American democracy, acts which have resulted in Federal and State indictments for attempting to change the results of a presidential election.

·        He stole America's secrets, lied to the FBI, shared them with others and betrayed the country, resulting in a Federal indictment.

·        He and his family have taken billions from foreign governments, while in office, a violation of the Constitution’s ‘emoluments’ provision.

·        He ended Roe v Wade, severely limiting women’s reproductive rights with three right-wing anti-abortion SCOTUS appointments, justices who also close their eyes to the deaths resulting from the senseless proliferation of guns in our communities.

·        He has pardoned convicted criminals whose crimes were connected to his presidency.

 

Why then would anyone even think of voting for him?  Well, Martin Gurri, right-wing scholar, quoted on Wednesday in Bari Weiss’ ‘Free Press’ blog, seems to think that many Americans, even aware of the litany of offenses listed above, have lost faith in our democratic process that gave us Donald Trump and despite them, and are willing to turn to him again.  Gurri, who apparently believes that America’s elite has given up on the nation’s voters recognizing Trump’s massive flaws, wrote:

 

“Trump appears to act as a sort of funhouse mirror on which the progressive elites who run most institutions, including the federal government, see themselves reflected in the most monstrous and frightening light, … The malady now exposed is this: the elites have lost faith in representative democracy. To smash the nightmare image of themselves that Trump evokes, they are willing to twist and force our system until it breaks.” 

 I strongly disagree with Gurri who sees authoritarianism by Democrats where there is none.  The ‘Executive Branch’ is only doing what it is supposed to do: carry out the laws passed by the ‘Legislative Branch.’

The significant percentage of registered Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire G.O.P. primary, while a distinct minority, were saying ‘no’ to Trump’s candidacy and may be reluctant to even vote in November.  Except for Haley (and probably Chris Christie) most of the would-be Republican alternatives to him are now dutifully, hypocritically, and shamelessly, falling in line behind him, willing to trade in traditional Republican conservatism for a 'fuhrer.'

Republicans who decide to stay home on Election Day, together with the nation’s Democratic and independent voters, will lead President Biden to re-election in November, but it will not be easy.  Some ‘elites’ may have given up on democracy, as Gurri suggests, but I don’t think the country is willing to trade it in for authoritarianism.  Answering my own question, ‘Do Americans Still Trust Democracy?’  I say ‘yes.’

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, particularly if they are a registered voter.

JL

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January 20, 2024 - Voting by Mail, Words, Your Role in Preserving Democracy, and My Views on Peace for Israel

 

Voting by Mail

Florida voters have gotten used to voting by mail.  It’s safe and simple.  But just because you might have done it in the past does not mean you can automatically continue to do so.  Current State election laws require you to renew your ‘voting by mail’ status before the next election in order to receive a ‘vote by mail’ ballot.  If you vote in Palm Beach County, do it right now by visiting https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/Voters/Vote-By-Mail or by CLICKING HERE.  In other Florida counties, visit your Supervisor of Elections’ website. 

This announcement is sufficient reason for you to pass this message, if not the entire posting, on to others.  That’s why it’s the ‘lead item.’

JL                                           

 

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Words

This blog, and other commenters, throw the words ‘defeated’ and ‘indicted’ around frequently when referring to former president Donald Trump.  These are serious words not to be taken lightly.

Trump was clearly and decisively defeated in the 2020 presidential election, in both the popular and electoral vote results.  Repeated recounts and challenges have proven that to be an immutable fact. The only ones who challenge his defeat are Trump himself and his loyal supporters, who would swear it were raining cats and dogs on a clear, cloudless day, if that would ingratiate them to their leader. ‘Defeated’ means but one thing: Losing.  In the 2020 presidential elections, Donald Trump was the loser.  Period.  End of story.

As for being ‘indicted,’ according to our laws before anyone is charged with a crime, a non-partisan, non-political, group of citizens, chosen from the public, must privately review the evidence the state has and decide whether it is sufficient to warrant the state’s prosecutor proceeding to go to trial attempting to convict an accused person with committing that crime.  This is known as an indictment.  The group deciding to proceed with indicting someone is known as a ‘grand jury’ as differentiated from a ‘petit jury,’ the group that, after a indicted person is tried, determines if they are guilty or innocent.  But a grand jury must first decide to indict a person for committing a crime, and If there is no indictment, there is no trial, no petit jury, and the story is over.  Finished.  Period.  End of story.

Another word to be familiar with is ‘pardon.’  The president of the United States has the ability to ‘pardon’ those indicted by a grand jury, tried in a court, found guilty by a petit jury, and sentenced for committing a crime against the United States.  A pardon also is effective for those who plead guilty, sometimes avoiding a trial, or bringing an end to one, pre-empting what might otherwise be a sentence but it still is the equivalent of being convicted.  While a pardon frees convicted criminals from being sentenced to imprisonment, it does not eradicate their conviction, whether it be by a ‘plea bargain’ or a trial by a jury.’ It acknowledges their guilt in committing a crime. 

A ‘pardon’ refers only to a sentence or possible
sentencing.  It is no more than the equivalent of a ‘get
out of jail free’ card in the Monopoly board game. It does
not override the actions of a court or of a jury.

(My using the adjective ‘convicted’ serves to distinguish those criminals who have been adjudged as guilty in a trial or by pleading guilty from those criminals out there who have yet to be brought to justice.  Many Republican office holders fall into this latter category.)

American voters should be aware that a convicted criminal, Roger Stone, long-time Republican activist, pardoned by Trump after being indicted, tried, convicted, and given a lengthy prison sentence for the crimes that he committed against the United States in the course of his work supporting the defeated, indicted, former president, has never served a day in jail.

Trump also ‘pardoned’ his advisor Steve Bannon who while indicted for his transgressions, cut a deal with the court, admitting his guilt, and never even went to trial.  Similarly, armed with a presidential pardon, retired General Michael Flynn, briefly the forty-fifth president’s National Security Advisor, pleaded guilty to the charges against him (lying to the FBI) and plea bargained his way out of a prison sentence.  These two are also ‘convicted criminals’ who never served a day in jail.

The defeated, indicted, former president, who intends to again run for the presidency this year, has even said that he would pardon hundreds of criminals who have been indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced for their involvement in the January  6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.  Ignoring that we are a nation based on laws, he has likened their imprisonment to being held as ‘hostages.’

Finally, in compiling the words applicable to Trump, let’s consider adding ‘rapist.’ Because that designation was pinned on the Donald by the judge in a civil matter (the E. Jean Carroll defamation case in New York), it doesn’t carry the weight it would if he were so named in a criminal case. But summing up, we have millions of Republican voters supporting a defeated and indicted former president, also a rapist, and a chronic pardoner of convicted criminals who had supported him, who wants to be president again.  Wow!  These voters must be very dumb, or something. 

Donald Trump has no respect for the law.  In the past, his hiring of lawyers has primarily been for the purpose of evading our laws, Michael Cohen, his 'fixer,' having been a prime example.  Now, of course, he hires them to defend him in court against the charges for which he has been indicted as well as trying to delay these court cases until after Election Day in November. 

Important Words:  Defeated – Indicted – Pardon – Rapist.  All accurately apply to our former president.  And don’t forget ‘Liar.’

Tony Soprano

Anyone who even thinks of voting for Donald Trump for any office whatsoever is out of their mind.  On this, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the TV show, ‘The Sopranos,’ he makes even the fictitious Mafia capo Tony Soprano look benign.

 

JL

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Governing or Campaigning

Those who feel that Joe Biden is not being aggressive enough in combatting his likely opponent in the upcoming presidential election should remember that his primary responsibility is still ‘governing’ while the efforts of his likely opponent are directed at ‘campaigning’ and staying out of jail, somehow blending the two.

JL

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Your Role in Preserving Democracy

A strong indicator of a possible future failure of democracy in the United States is its liberality in giving voters the opportunity to vote for a candidate whose campaigns is filled with lies, who has been indicted for both political and business crimes, who has also been convicted in civil court as a rapist, and whose campaign promises include the reduction of many democratic rights.  But such voters have the right to vote for whomever they wish! That comes with democracy.

Donald Trump, in his litigation, seeks immunity from obedience to the laws of this country, saying that a president could not function if he or she had to act withing the law's limits, placing the presidency 'above the law,' claiming that impeachment, confirmed in the Senate, is the only guardrail against presidential lawbreaking. These are the words of dictators, but, voters still have the right to vote them into office in a democracy.

Such democratic principles allowed France, after it beheaded its monarchs, to turn to the a series of autocrats culminating with Napoleon Bonaparte and Germany, after World War One, to finally turn to the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler.  Neither story ended well. There are many other examples in history. 

Dealing with this Achilles heel of democracy is an ever-present challenge for us. 

Right now, the best thing for people to do is to work hard to see that candidates who support preserving representative democracy in our country are elected.  That requires not only voting for them but also getting involved in making sure many, many, others do so as well.  One’s local Democratic organization might be a good place to which to turn.  Another might be found by visiting www.activateamerica.vote where you can learn how to make phone calls, send emails and write postal cards to voters in crucial races across the country where democracy is at stake. CLICK HERE to view their website.

 

JL

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Recapitulating My Views on Bringing Peace to the State of Israel 

It is not antisemitic nor anti-Zionist to oppose or criticize certain policies of the State of Israel.  

Just as I want the hostages held by Hamas to be returned, I want Israel’s war against Hamas to have a less deadly effect on the civilian population of Gaza, used as a shield there by Hamas.  

Israel's establishment in 1948 by the United Nations, the organization that became responsible for the former British ‘mandate’ over Palestine, an entity created following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War One, was fueled by the need for the rebirth of a Jewish homeland as existed many centuries ago, defined as Zionism, brought to the world's attention because of the need to provide a place that would welcome the Jews who survived the Holocaust in Europe during World War Two. 

The United Nations’ 1947 partition plan envisioned two states to be formed there. Israel became one of them, as a Jewish state. A parallel Arab state never was formed by Arabs who wanted the entire territory of the ‘mandate’ and in fact, lost the areas that would have been a Palestinian state in unsuccessful wars to destroy Israel culminating in 1967.

Today Israel controls those lands as ‘occupied territories.’  Over the years, despite extensive Arab populations there, Israeli extremists have settled there, hoping it would eventually be part of what would be a larger Israel, as existed in historic biblical terms.  These extremists have sufficient strength in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to make the settlement of Israelis in these ‘occupied territories’ a part of Israeli government policy.

So long as this continues, I do not see any hope for the two-state solution envisioned by the United Nations in 1947 coming about, and as a result, it means a continuation in one form or another of hostility toward the State of Israel by the Arab world.

A Radical Solution:  I believe that the State of Israel must make it known to the world that it will no longer encourage Israelis to settle in these ‘occupied territories’ and is willing to take steps to incrementally abandon settlements that already exist there, resettling their 700,000 occupants within the State of Israel, but only after the Palestinians and their supporters in Muslim nations throughout the world firmly accept and guarantee the idea of a Palestinian state, existing peacefully alongside of the State of Israel.  That should be the deal. 

Just as the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 provided a home for those survivors of the Holocaust other nations were unwilling to welcome, the belated establishment of a Palestinian state at this time would provide a home for Palestinian refugees who have not been welcomed by neighboring Arab states. 

These would be terribly difficult decisions for Israelis, Palestinians, and both neighboring and distant Muslim nations to make, but I see it as the only road to peace.  Government policies cannot be altered overnight and opposition to such changes will be inevitable, but truly, change must ultimately take place.  Until then, I see no hope for Israel surviving other than as a ‘garrison’ state, continually fighting off those who want to eliminate it from the map, as the present war in Gaza, which is solving nothing, illustrates.  Even when Israel totally obliterates Hamas militarily along with its leadership, its agenda of destruction of Israel will be taken up by other extremist groups. 

I repeat that I do not believe opposing or criticizing certain policies of the State of Israel’s government would be antisemitic nor anti-Zionist. Many Israelis do exactly that every day.  I believe the settlements in ‘occupied territory’ are the focal point of Israel’s problems today. Once that problem is solved, everything else will fall into place.

If you disagree with me, please let me know what you think would be a solution to this problem, for inclusion in a future blog posting.

 

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, particularly if they are a registered voter.

 

JL

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