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Living With History - Ukraine
It has been commented elsewhere that ‘Ukraine stands between an aggressive Russian dictator and a democratic Europe.' I agree, and just as we recognized the importance of a democratic Europe to our own security in 1940, we should be doing so today. That is why I am glad that President Biden has found a way to ship additional munitions to the struggling Ukrainians, despite the opposition of those who worship at the shrine of St. Donald of Trump.
The tragedy we face is that our defeated former president's often admiring attitude toward authoritarian rulers, like Vladimir Putin and Victor Orban, has spread to our Republican Party which knows that without his base’s support, they couldn't elect a dog catcher in Dubuque, nor most of their other candidates.
As individuals, we must all do our part to work so that we are not counted among 'those who ignore history’ and ‘are forced to relive it,' as many philosphers, including George Santayana, have warned.
JL
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The
online magazine ‘Slate’ recently published a revealing piece about the
tremendous harm to the nation that was done by Mitch McConnell, who is still in
the Senate but giving up his leadership role.
Visit https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/mitch-mcconnell-retire-trump-federal-judiciary.html to read it or CLICK HERE.
What
the article reveals is enough to push Democrats to demand that President Biden, if he wins
re-election in November and is blessed with Democratic majorities in both
Houses of Congress, appoint four additional Justices to the Supreme Court! Once
that is accomplished, cases involving abortion, gun violence, voting rights,
and business regulation ought to be navigated to the SCOTUS taking America’s
judiciary out of the hands of those who have lost touch with the American
people!
 |
| McConnell |
Meanwhile,
our judiciary, that at its lower and appellate levels mostly recognizes the
lawless behavior of our defeated and indicted former president, is being
stymied by a SCOTUS that fails to recognize that ‘Justice delayed is Justice
denied.’ That maxim has been stated in a
variety of ways by William Penn, by Nineteenth century British prime minister
William Gladstone, and of course by Martin Luther King from a Birmingham
jail. Again, the solution appears two paragraphs above
in red.
JL
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Voting by Mail – Why it is Crucial to Florida's Senate Race
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.
The simplest argument for voting by mail is that the weather may be terrible, or you might not feel well, on Election Day. Don't take that chance!
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Why Rick Scott Must be Defeated and Your Role
Voting is particularly important in 2024
because some knowledgeable pundits, despite polls that disagree with one
another and change from week to week, 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. I'm not a 'pundit' but that's also what I
believe. That’s why it is important for
clear-thinking Floridians to vote for Debbie Muscarsel-Powell to replace
Florida Senator Rick Scott in the Senate to insure a Democratic majority there.
Six years ago, Scott won by only
10,033 votes, state-wide, so defeating him is very attainable in view of his stand on abortion, and for seniors (even
independents and Republicans), Scott’s historic opposition to Medicare and
Social Security which he wanted to put up to a vote in Congress every five
years should be the clincher.
Currently, Republicans are trying to lie
their way out of his originally having taken that position. The truth is that Scott’s ’12 Point Plan’ to ‘Rescue
America’ originally contained these words, ‘We will eliminate all
federal programs that can be done locally.’ Specifically, on page 19 of
the 31 page detailed description of his plan, Scott provided that “All
federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can
pass it again.” I’m not making this
up. It comes directly from Scott. Read on!
That encompasses a lot of laws to ‘sunset’! Among the many federal laws on the books is one called the Social Security Act. You’ve heard of that? This law was originally passed in 1935 to create Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children (cash welfare for widows and orphans --- later extended to cover all poor single women with children renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and Old Age and Survivors Pensions (what is commonly thought of today as “Social Security.”). That law has 21 separate ‘titles’ enumerating its many benefits. Included in the current law is an entire section covering Medicare which is administered by the Social Security Administration. (Medicare was passed as an amendment to the Social Security Act in 1965.) Scott especially wanted to get his paws on that.
 |
| The Very Replacable Senator Scott |
Before Rick went into politics, he was the CEO of a hospital
chain which carried out the largest Medicare fraud case in the program’s
history. An artful dodger, he wasn’t personally
charged, but this should give you an idea of where he was, and still is, coming
from.
When saner Republicans
realized the politically suicidal nature of eliminating such programs, which
already had their MAGA wing drooling with glee, Scott’s program-cutting ‘plan’
was amended in February, 2023, to specifically exclude Medicare, Social
Security, and Veterans benefits from what he would get rid of as Federal
programs. Scott claimed at that time that he never had intended to include them
in what he would eliminate from Federal management. But that is not what it originally had said! Words have meaning. Even for Republicans. And I believe that is what is still in his
head!
Republicans are trying
to lie their way out of his originally having taken that position. In fact, when President Biden, not one for missing an opportunity to ‘strike
back,’ during his State of the Union address, mentioned this cruel Republican
attempt at ‘sunsetting’ Medicare and Social Security every five years, the pious liar sitting in the House
Speaker’s chair repeatedly shook his head
negatively, like a child’s wind-up toy.
If there is any need to ‘Rescue America,’ it is from Republican leadership in Congress, which puts a higher priority on keeping the support of the defeated and indicted former president than addressing such pressing issues as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, our Southern border, and seeing that those who rioted on January 6, 2021 and the inciter of that attack on the Capitol, are punished. And of course, America must be rescued from the likes of Florida’s Senator Rick Scott, and that is what Debbie Muscarsel-Powell’s campaign is all about.
For more information about Florida’s next Senator, Debbie Muscarel-Powell, just visit https://www.debbieforflorida.com/ or just CLICK RIGHT HERE!
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Salt Shortage?
There is a looming shortage of salt in this country right now because most Americans are using it up rapidly, taking ‘a grain of salt’ with anything and everything a Republican politician might say! Proverbially, anyway.
JL
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A Note of Caution: The opinions I post come from this blog or either of my two email addresses, shown at the bottom of most correspondence I send. If you encounter anything else purportedly coming from me, please let me know. (One of our regular followers has encountered such emails, not coming from me and simply identified as coming from a ‘J.Lippman.’)
JL
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Housekeeping on
Jackspotpourri
Singaporeans!
I don’t know why but I
still am 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.
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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