(As we predicted back in December)
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| The Supreme Court Meets Here |
Back on December 16, 2023, on Jackspotpourri, I commented on a word finally appearing in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: Clusterfuck! Following is a copy of what I wrote. Note the last two paragraphs where I anticipated the Supreme Court’s approval of a delay in the case involving Donald John Trump’s criminal immunity once out of office, denied to him by two lower Federal courts.
The SCOTUS’ final
decision, according to what almost all legal experts predict, is highly likely
to support the lower court decisions, denying him such immunity, but is now
scheduled to arrive too late to affect the November election, which constitutes
a success for Trump’s strategy of delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay,
… and more delay!
It will now take the American voter, as I wrote back in December, to do the job the SCOTUS lacked the guts to do this week, that is to let the lower decisions stripping Trump of any post-presidential immunity stand, by just deciding not to hear the case … which they did not do.
What they did do, however, was to shove the American electorate into a position of ignorance by Election Day (or sooner for early and mail-in voters) concerning the legal status of one of the two major presidential candidates, something they could have clarified by acting more promptly, but did not do. Their decision to gum up the works and eat up time hearing the case required the assent of four Justices with political motivation. I can guess who they were: Probably Alito, Thomas and two of Trump's appointees, Justices who put political expediency ahead of patriotism.
The Supreme Court should
be ashamed of itself. President Biden, with Senate approval, would be
entirely correct, right now, if he appointed four additional Justices, an act
justified by the political games the SCOTUS, loaded with those three Trump political appointees,
plays. That’s not quite as simple as it seems because of the Judiciary Act, but
it’s a distinct possibility.
Here's what I wrote on December 16:
"I've hesitated to use the word 'clusterfuck' in postings on Jackspotpourri but since it appears in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and other dictionaries, I suppose it is now acceptable. Barely.
(Merriam-Webster
definition - 'vulgar slang. : a complex and utterly disordered and mismanaged
situation : a muddled mess.')
‘Clusterfuck’
well describes the management of the House of Representatives by its Rpublican
majority. That’s what it is!
It also might be applied to describe our justice
system's attempt to resolve the charges against the indicted former president,
charges that probably won't be finally resolved until too late to have any
meaning. More clusterfuck!
But fear not, there is an excellent chance
that both of these 'muddled messes' will be resolved by that most supreme of all courts,
the American voter, on November 5, 2024.”
And in the following Jackspotpourri posting on December 21, 2023, I again reminded followers of the issue. Here’s what I wrote then, firmly accusing the SCOTUS of being a party to a Clusterfuck.
“Add to this the pending request by Department of Justice prosecutor Jack Smith that the SCOTUS rule quickly, because of the forthcoming 2024 election, as to any presidential immunity that Trump might have against charges based on his behavior in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection. To use a word I mentioned in a posting on here a few days ago, this is a real 'clusterfuck' and the Supreme Court is right in the middle of it.”
And now, while I am in a predictive mood, let me throw two other possibilities into the mix, the second one of which can lead to a major Constitutional crisis, something we can call a ‘Super-Clusterfuck.’ Neither are guaranteed to happen but they leave something about which to think or lose sleep or both.
(1) What if Judge Cannon in Fort Pierce, another Trump appointee whom it appears puts loyalty to him ahead of loyalty to her country, and who is in charge of the Mar-a-Lago purloined documents case, another criminal indictment of our forty-fifth president, takes a hint from the SCOTUS and also decides to delay her court’s proceedings, pushing their ultimate result until after the upcoming presidential election?
(2) What If by some miracle, (a) Donald Trump wins the election on November 5, 2024, but only afterr (b) a likely SCOTUS decision, perhaps in June, that all constitutional law experts are convinced will confirm the two lower courts’ decisions as to his lack of post-presidential immunity and (c) the criminal case regarding his actions on January 6, 2021 then being allowed to proceed, finally being decided against him, but too late to affect the election result (d) but not too late to prevent his trial, possible conviction, and sentencing in late November and December of 2024, BEFORE his January 2025 inauguration? Where does that leave us? With the presidential inauguration of a convicted felon in a flag-draped prison yard, with a prison band tootling ‘Hail to the Chief,’ followed by an immediate on-site pardon of himself?
That should be unacceptable to the nation, and if it happens, will totally demolish the integrity of the presidency and the Constitution. National chaos will then reign.
Of course, The best solution would be for American voters to make sure Donald John Trump is soundly defeated on November 5, so that we all can get some sleep, and that representative democracy in this country will be saved.
JL
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Democrats Dissatisfied with Biden
Ultimately, those opposed to President Biden's candidacy because of his pro-Israeli position, however much he may modify it, know that the electoral votes of the States where they vote remain critical to again keep Donald John Trump out of office. I am specifically talking about Michigan.
From 2016 to 2020, Trump supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a major obstacle to any two-state solution there. His return to office would guarantee further violence, something only Palestinian extremists and Israeli settlers seem to find acceptable, both groups desirous of a one-state solution that would disregard the presence and survival of the other group.
Whatever misgivings some may have about re-electing Joe Biden, they pale when compared to the dangers to our country and world peace the return of Donald John Trump to the presidency can bring.
JL
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Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
The Sixth Amendment to our Constitution provides for speedy trials. This is particularly important to those who believe they are innocent of the charges against them. Every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
If, however, they know they are really guilty as charged, they will use every legal maneuver and diversion available to preserve their ‘innocent until proven guilty’ status for as long as possible. Doing so, as the defeated and indicted forty-fifth president is doing, is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Voters are entitled to treat it as such, if they wish.
‘Delayed Justice’ denies speedy trials of both the innocents’ cases and also of those brought by the State, in its efforts on the part of the people to bring lawbreakers to justice. Some of our Supreme Court Justices must have been sleeping in their law school classes on the day this was discussed.
JL
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Party Loyalty
With Mitch McConnell throwing in the towel as leader of Republicans in the Senate, I wonder if he will very quietly join those shunned Republicans like Senator Mitt Romney and former Representative Liz Cheney who refuse to become Trumpublicans. I don’t know if they will vote for Joe Biden, but they may convince many Republicans who still put country ahead of Trumpism to skip voting for a president in November.
Not all Republicans run around wearing MAGA hats, and I wonder if Republican National Party chairperson Ronna McDaniel, pushed into resigning by Trump, has thrown hers into the trash. She will be replaced by Donald John Trump’s daughter-in-law.
I don’t know why but this
leads my thoughts to the concern with extremism in the Armed Forces, a danger
presently under investigation. Would a Trump victory in November result in one
of his sons becoming our Secretary of Defense?
JL
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Getting to Know Kamala Harris
Back in the corporate world,
I once was made to sit through a management course that featured a ‘module’
called the ‘Mack Truck.’ It pointed out
that it is part of every executive’s job to plan for his succession if one day,
while driving to work, his car has an encounter with a Mack Truck in which it
is on the losing end, being demolished and ending the executive’s life.
With a presidential election
coming up where the incumbent is 80 years old and his challenger 78, the ‘Mack
Truck’ lesson becomes pertinent.
I have no idea whom Donald
John Trump will select to be his running mate, but I strongly suspect he will
be a right-wing conservative, a breed of public official whose expertise is one
of ‘destruction of government functions’ rather than one experienced in
carrying out government functions, as defined in our Constitution to be the job
of the head of the Executive Branch.
Trump himself lacked these skills as the mess he created from 2016 to
2020 proves.
On the Democratic side,
President Biden’s running mate will certainly be Vice President Kamala
Harris. While there has been some
criticism of her lately, mostly unwarranted, she has recently stepped up more
often into the spotlight, showing the fire she exhibited in 2020 when she was a
candidate for her party’s presidential nomination. She seems quite capable of filling the very
necessary role suggested by the ‘Mack Truck’ module. Evidence of this appeared in a recent
Bloomberg article that you can find at https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-02-16/kamala-harris-made-the-most-of-her-munich-moment, or by CLICKING HERE. And if that isn’t enough for you, check out
what the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson has to say about Kamala at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/22/kamala-harris-foreign-policy-experience/
or just CLICK HERE.
Joe Biden’s experience as a
vice president serving under Barack Obama makes him well aware of the
responsibilities of that office. Having
held it, he appreciates the nuances of the job.
Otherwise, he would be replacing Kamala Harris right now instead than
making her the nation’s spokesperson at an important international conference. President Biden has confidence in Kamala Harris and the
American public should as well. Read the
two articles mentioned above.
Trump, or anyone he would choose to attend such a conclave, with no interest in strengthening NATO, would not represent the United States as well as did Kamala Harris. All Donald John Trump and his MAGA gang are good at is cultivating chaos. Just as Trump is unfit to be president, anyone whom he would select as a running mate would be equally unfit.
JL
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I don’t know why but I keep
getting a large number of ‘hits’ on Jackspotpourri from Singapore. They might represent individual internet
users, or possibly a government, business, academic, or private entity. I just don’t know. If any Singaporean has an explanation, please
let me know by Email (jacklippman18@gmail.com). And
if you don’t want to send me such an Email, I will understand.
JL
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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.
This is particularly important in 2024
because many pollsters are coming around to believe America will re-elect a
Democratic president and turn the House ‘blue’ in November but are not quite so
sure about the Senate. That’s why it is
important that Florida seniors vote for Debbie Muscarsel-Powell to replace
Florida Senator Rick Scott in the Senate to insure a Democratic majority there.
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| Debbie Muscarsel-Powell |
That should be an easy choice for seniors, (even independents and Republicans) considering Scott’s historic opposition to Medicare and Social Security which he wanted to put up to a vote in Congress every five years.
And of course, for those who want still more
reasons to support Ms. Muscarsel-Powell, there’s Scott’s opposition to women’s
abortion rights, and his efforts to make voting more difficult. For more
information, visit https://www.debbieforflorida.com/ or just CLICK HERE.
JL
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‘Fahrenheit 451’
One of our followers correctly pointed out that Fahrenheit 451 is ‘the temperature at which paper burns efficiently, so you need to heat up a bonfire to that temperature to burn books.’
The protagonist in Ray
Bradbury’s 1953 novel with that title is a government fireman assigned to
that duty. Fiction, yes, but only a step
beyond banning books, Note the following flyer, passed on to us by another
follower of Jackspotpourri.
JL
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We Get Published … Again
I’m glad that I was wrong
about the Palm Beach Post not publishing more than one letter per month from a
reader. Thursday’s Post carried the
following letter from me, proving that I am not ‘all politics.’
‘The 'transfer portal' has changed college athletics, and
not for the better. The generous scholarships provided to 'student-athletes'
should be accompanied by an ironclad contractual relationship lasting four
years. The NFL and the NBA should work to establish minor league farm
systems as exist in baseball, with no academic connections whatsoever.
Only then will America's colleges get down to fully devoting their
energies to education, as do all colleges in the rest of the world.
Not
included in the letter was my opinion that the college providing the
scholarship should permit the athlete to be additionally compensated through Name, Image, and Location payments during their four years there. If he or she chose to leave that school,
however, the NCAA should not permit their further participation in
intercollegiate athletics, their ‘ironclad’ four-year contractual relationship
with the scholarship-granting college specifically including such a
restriction.
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, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
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 brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog.
Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it, particularly if they are a registered voter. This is an election year. Spread the word.
JL
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