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Here’s a column written by a ‘guest
columnist’ that appeared in the Palm Beach Post on March 27. The supposed message that our first president
might have sent to our forty-fifth president would have centered on these words
taken from the following letter, written by George Washington to the Jewish
congregation in Newport, Rhode Island: ‘…everyone
shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none
to make him afraid.’
Donald Trump, even in his campaigning, threatens retribution and punishment to those who oppose him, and certainly is one who makes other Americans, not only non-Christians, afraid.
Incidentally, the ‘vine and fig tree’ imagery, frequently used by Washington, comes from Hebrew Scripture. To learn more about this, check out https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/vine-and-fig-tree/
Here’s the full column
as published in the Palm Beach Post: (Another reason to read a daily newspaper, any
one !!)
“Did George Washington
leave a message for Donald Trump?
“Many good citizens have been pained by long-standing anti-Islamic, anti- immigrant, and now anti-Semitic talk by a candidate today for president of the United States. So it is worth remembering what our nation’s first president wrote in his 'Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island,' on Aug. 18, 1790:
 |
| Touro Synagogue, Newport R.I. |
'Gentlemen:
'…If
we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored,
we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a
great and a happy people.
'The
citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for
having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy
worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of
citizenship. For happily the government of the United States, which
gives to bigotry no
sanction, to persecution no assistance,
requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves
as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
'…May
the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit
and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his
own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.
May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and
make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and
way everlastingly happy.
'—
Geo. Washington'
“At a
time when Vladimir Putin is surreptitiously supporting a candidate for
president of the United States, it is also worth remembering that King George
III was surprised that Washington did not seek to become our autocratic ruler.
Washington in 1783 voluntarily resigned as commander in chief of the
Continental Army, and then in 1796 he said farewell when again he would have
been elected president by acclamation.”
Richard Emory, Guest columnist
JL
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A Headline from ‘Book Bub’
(which
I sometimes look at online.)
‘These 27 Uplifting Books Are Spring’s Must Reads’ - Come on, other than someone in jail with no TV, do you know anyone who will read 27 books this Spring, or even this year?
JL
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A Thought or Two (or Three) About Donald Trump’s Actions
It appears that both China and Russia are supporting Trump in the upcoming election, trying to influence this country’s media. Trump’s ‘America First’ isolationism allows them to try to control their neighbors without any interference from us, and that includes Ukraine and Taiwan, both still preventing rows of dominoes from tumbling.
News that a Trump-appointed judge has reversed the conviction of the traitor who ran through the Capitol on January 6, waving a Confederate flag is disappointing at best. At least it wasn’t a Nazi swastika. Sometimes I wonder If and when President Biden is re-elected with majorities in both Houses of Congress, such politically motivated judicial decisions as well as numerous politically motivated pardons of convicted criminals, might be subject to review, especially if President Biden adds four Justices to the Supreme Court.
Trump frequently complains that
the Department of Justice, under Merrick Garland, is ‘weaponized’ against him,
while he, and his allies, are the ones who have used it as a weapon in the
appointment of prosecutors, judges, SCOTUS justices, and issuing pardons for
other than compassionate reasons. Even Garland’s
supposed evenhandedness in assigning a Trump-appointed prosecutor to look into
Hunter Biden’s supposed business activities’ relationship to his father, then
Vice President, fell into this trap when that prosecutor tried to ‘weaponize’
that issue. Give a Trumpublican an inch, and they take a mile. Never forget that they are not on the side of
democracy for others than themselves!
Convicted criminals like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort are pardoned from their sentences (which doesn’t ‘unconvict’ them) by Trump and he has even hired the latter to help with his present campaign. He has also announced his intention, if elected again, to pardon all of those convicted of crimes in the Trump-inspired insurrection of January 6, 2021. Historians in the future will seek out the problems in our country that caused so many Americans to actually vote for Donald John Trump. What they will find, I am afraid, will be shameful. Too many Americans deny bigotry, but practice hypocrisy in their daily existence.
And while we have the spotlight on the forty-fifth president, this self-proclaimed very, very, very, rich man is now hawking, in addition to his golden-hued sneakers, a patriotic edition of his ‘favorite book,’ the Bible. The only connection between Trump and Bibles is the usual presence of that book in drawers in hotel rooms, accommodations that those who on occasion don't wish to sleep at home for various reasons, might frequent. I wonder if the guest rooms at Mar-a-Lago are provided with Bibles.
On paper, Donald Trump might
build a case supporting the idea that he is wealthy, but that wealth is not now
(and may never had been nor will be) transferable to ‘liquidity’. For that, he depends on the same ‘charity of
others’ that Blanche Dubois depended upon in ‘Streetcar Named Desire,’ only he
seeks it from the checkbooks of his MAGA base as a sign of their love for him. Both Donald and Blanche live in a world of ‘alternate
facts,’ but Donald’s isn’t just part of a play
… or maybe it is, at least in his mind, or what’s left of it. Blanche lost her mind in
Tennessee Williams’ play and Donald is well on the way to losing his in the
morass of legal entanglements in which he is ensnared. Just watch and listen when he speaks. He is very close to the edge.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore has suddenly ceased. In their place, however, there have appeared large numbers of ‘hits’ on each posting in the hundreds, and as was the case with those from Singapore, but this time from Hong Kong! I suspect that the Chinese are playing around with internet transmissions, possibly to try to identify who is reading them.
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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