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 |
JL
* * *
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
* * *
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
* * *
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
* * *
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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