If You’re Not Part of the Solution, You May Be Part of the Problem!
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Kamala Harris Chooses Tim Walz, Minnesota Governor, as Vice-presidential Running Mate
Tim Walz is an excellent choice for vice-president. The fact that Florida governor Ron DeSantis quickly posted on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) that ‘Harris-Walz was the most left-wing ticket in American history,’ (which it is not) was instantly good enough for me to see it as an unintended endorsement of Walz by way of DeSantis! If DeSantis is that much afraid of Walz to start making up lies, Tim Walz must be a pretty good choice by Harris. DeSantis and the rest of the G.O.P. are now running scared, very scared.
And the rally last evening in the Temple University arena in Philadelphia before umpteen thousand supporters, where Harris introduced Walz, was one for the books! First energized by Pennsylvania's governor Josh Shapiro, the enthusiastic crowd then heard a smiling and often laughing Harris and a joking Walz dedicate their campaign to achieving freedom by way of what amounted to a 'politics of joy.' Without hearing it sung, the tune of 'Happy Days Are Here Again' kept running through my mind and I couldn't help but liken Harris to the 'Happy Warrior' the Democrats ran in 1928. (But unlike Al Smith, who lost, Harris will win.) As she says 'When we fight, we win,' and 'When we vote, we win.'
Walz, in asking Democrats to work hard to elect Kamala to the presidency, told them to get to work right now because there is plenty of time to sleep when they're dead! A comedian, no less. And in attacking Republican efforts to limit women's reproductive rights, Walz told the G.O.P. 'to mind your own damn business!' echoed by the roaring crowd. It was that kind of rally.
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| Harris' Choice - Tim Walz |
Harris, in selecting Walz, recognized the vulnerabilities other possible choices may have presented. He’s a solid Midwesterner to balance San Francisco’s Harris, increasing her appeal to independents and even Republicans distraught with their MAGA ticket. A farmer, teacher, veteran, sharpshooter, and football coach, Walz is a positive choice as contrasted with Vance’s perpetual negativity and Trump's devotion to lies and insults rather than to the work of governance.
On July 31, a few postings ago, Jackspotpourri listed the educational background of some in government, including Trump, Vance, and Harris. Go check it out. Let me now add that Tim Walz holds a bachelor's degree in social science education from Chadron (Nebraska) State College and a master's degree in educational leadership from Minnesota State University at Mankato. He is the antithesis of Ivy League elitism, where anybody who is anybody has Harvard or Yale in their bio, even JD Vance and most of our ethically challenged and possibly compromised Supreme Court.
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(And speaking of the SCOTUS, last week Justice Neil Gorsuch cautioned President Biden about instituting reforms on the Court. 'Be careful,' he warned on Fox. Where else? He seems to have forgotten the ethical lapses of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who, after the death of Justice Scalia, stalled and dilly-dallied with the cooperation of the G.O.P., for about a year so that the nomination might be in the hands of a Republican president which turned out to be the case, resulting in Gorsuch's appointment. This was a shameless theft of an appointment to which the sitting president, Barack Obama, was entitled to make, and to which Gorsuch was a party. If anyone should 'be careful,' it is Gorsuch, who apparently has been affected by the ethical lapses of Justices Alito and Thomas.)
JL
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Become Part of the Solution
I have a flyer in the rear window of my car with the message shown below. It would be great if others (at least in Florida) who are more than disturbed by the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House, did the same.
If you cannot copy it, I will print one out for you. Just ask me via email. I believe flyers like this work in getting a message out, better than easily ignorable mailings, texts, and phone calls! Those who see these on a car cannot close their eyes while driving, unless they don't mind perishing in an accident! Until the Democratic Party comes out with real car stickers, these will have to do.
JL
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How Trump Was Paid Off by Egypt
Followers of the news are just learning about the following scenario.
1. Back during the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump decided he would stop funding part of it out of his own pocket, and abruptly ceased his personal donations, causing really big financial problems in paying campaign expenses.
2. It became clear that Egypt’s intelligence operation, aware of this, was willing to come up with ten million dollars to help out, but only if a future President Trump would look favorably on Egypt’s dictatorial regime. Apparently their message was delivered.
3. About ten million dollars was withdrawn, in American currency, from Egyptian banks, loaded into suitcases, and flown to the United States.
4. Shortly thereafter, a few days before his inauguration in January, 2017, about $9,999,998 in cash was deposited into Donald Trump’s personal accounts in New York banks, and his financial support of the campaign resumed.
5. All of the above was investigated by the FBI and the Department of Justice and confirmed with solid documentary evidence.
6. Once Donald Trump took office after winning the 2016 election, the new Attorney General, Bill Barr, saw to it that no charges were ever filed and the issue was dropped, much to the chagrin of the FBI agents and lawyers who had worked on it. This was similar to Barr’s whitewashing the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that Russia had interfered in our 2016 presidential election. Though not charged, Barr was therefore complicit in Trump’s criminal dealing with Egypt as well as with Russia.
7. Our relationship with Egypt’s dictatorship ran smoothly thereafter.
This is documented in articles by the Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, a highly respected journalist, who has further detailed it recently on MSNBC. You can check it out by copying and pasting this on your browser line: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/trump-campaign-egypt-investigation/ or by CLICKING HERE.
The federal Statute of Limitations for prosecuting this obviously criminal action, violating election laws, has run out, unless New York banking law becomes involved, as some pundits have theorized since the banks where the cash was deposited were in New York, with a lengthier Statute of Limitations.
Anyone who votes for Donald Trump is out of their minds, unfortunately a normal condition for many of his supporters. The man is a sleazy convicted felon and due for sentencing in his New York ‘hush money’ conviction in September. Prison is unlikely for the former president but a period of house arrest, without access to media via telephone or electronic devices, possibly in his Manhattan apartment, would seem appropriate. This would not interfere with his presidential campaigning. Precedent exists. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas ran for president while in a jail cell.
JL
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You Can Participate in Jackspotpourri
In the last two postings of Jackspopourri, I made it clear that the ‘founding fathers,’ including Thomas Jefferson, had a limited definition of whom they were talking about in the Declaration of Independence. When written, that document implied the exclusion of women, slaves, many immigrants, and landless Americans from being among those to which the words ‘all men are created equal’ had referred.
Since then, most of these inequities have been corrected, but back in 1776, the democracy planned for the new nation was a ‘limited democracy,’ excluding those for whom it took the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments, and 1964 civil rights legislation, to eventually restore to fuller participation in our democracy.
A follower of Jackspotpourri has posed some questions to me concerning that ‘limited democracy’ and today’s Republican Party. With their permission, here are those questions (in red) and my answers to them (in blue). I hope this encourages followers of Jackspotpourri to share their ideas with others through similar inclusion in the blog. Here goes:
"You ask questions. Here are some answers.
Jack--more limited democracy--not--more limited government? Hmmmmm. What happened? Both. By ‘limited democracy,’ I mean that the democratic right to vote, and thereby give ‘consent’ to a government, is given to fewer people, determined by such things as wealth, race, heredity, etc. Such people prefer to ‘limit’ what government does to bare essentials like national defense, staying away from social and economic issues, and certainly not promoting change, unless a change means going backwards, like repealing the Nineteenth Amendment would be.
1.) Did republican party rules change--to unconservative and un-Republican? Forget party labels. Keeping things the way they are is ‘conservative,’ regardless of what party takes that position. By the time of the Civil War, the Democrats were ‘conservative’ and those for change became the Republican Party, considered to be ‘radical’ at the time. Party labels are meaningless. But to answer your question, the G.O.P.’s rules, in today’s terms, ‘yes’ and ‘yes.’ Being ‘unconservative’ can include being even more ‘limited’ to the point of autocracy, which is un-republican with a small ‘r.’
2.) Is GOP philosophy: government restraint (limit government and then get out of the way) OVER? No, if they are given the opportunity, as Grover Norquist stated, the job is to ‘drown government in a bathtub.’
3.) Has the GOP identified the enemy within as: politicized institutions that do NOT seek popular consent? Yes, that is what they claim.
4.) Has GOP appeal shifted away from the country club and toward blue-collar workers who feel increasingly overlooked by a shifting global economy and evolving social norms? That is what they are trying to do, to get those who feel shortchanged economically and socially to turn to them for answers. But this is how most dictators with simple answers come to power. Trump just told the evangelicals to vote for him just once and he will fix things so that they will never have to vote again. J.D. Vance in ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ concluded that the problem might be that they may just be plain lazy.
5.) Is it unfair to say that the GOP are “right-wing populist authoritarians”? No, it is not, even if you ignore the oxymoron of an authoritarian being a populist.
6.) Does the GOP now favor use of extensive government power while proclaiming to protect individual rights? Yes! But using extensive government power and protecting individual rights at the same time is difficult, like adjusting the hot water and cold water in a shower to a comfortably balanced temperature without first scalding yourself and requires adherence to the ‘rule of law.’ That's what courts are for.
7.) Is that what you mean by "more limited democracy" (????) Quoting what I wrote above, by more ‘limited democracy,’ I mean that the democratic right to vote, and thereby give ‘consent’ to a government, is given to fewer people, determined by such things as wealth, race, heredity, etc.”
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Strange “Hits’! Jackspotpourri still is getting a number of hits originating in Singapore and/or Hong Kong. I ignore them. 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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