September 14, 2024 - Cats & Dogs, Adjectives & Adverbs, Tuesday's Debate, and a Strange Lady

 

                                                          * * * 

About Those Who Eat Others’ Pets in Ohio 

For the full story about the ‘dog and cat eating’ lies many Republicans are gullible enough to believe, check out Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s comments dated September 13 at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or JUST CLICK HERE. The story is pure fiction. 

She documents historical precedent for the evils that DJ Vance and Donald Trump represent, and ties them to Republican efforts, often successful, to corrupt our system of courts and misuse the tools of government once they get their dirty hands on them. 

 JL 

                                                          * * * 

Comment on the Debate 

Enough has been said about former president and convicted felon Donald J. Trump’s pathetic performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate, so I will be very brief.   

Trump was quickly set back on his heels once Kamala Harris strode across the platform to him, offered her hand and introduced herself to him during the debate’s first few seconds. He never recovered from that ‘invasion’ of his physical territory, and just devoted himself to making futile, often untrue, arguments. 

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, while giving little attention to the questions to which she does not yet have very precise answers, nevertheless did so with a level of humor and cleverness that instilled the confidence and hope which the pathetic Donald Trump never approached.

But nothing is guaranteed in American politics. There are those out there who seriously believe Trump won the debate, won the 2020 election, and is the innocent victim of a legal system weaponized against him and will never, ever, renounce those weird beliefs. 

 JL 

                                                       * * * 

A Strange Lady

I would not normally devote any space on Jackspotpourri to this subject, except that it has ‘local’ interest as indicated in the following paragraph. There has been mention in the media of efforts of what survives as the Republican Party’s legitimate campaign leadership to try to distant their presidential candidate from right-wing extremist, nut-job, Laura Loomer. It won’t work since Trump does what he wants to do and ignores advice. Some of her comments make Donald Trump’s seem sane. I leave it to you to seek them out if you want to know how despicable this person is. Could that be Trump’s way of saying, ‘See, I’m not so bad. Look at what she says’?

Incidental to this, for Floridians, is the fact that back in 2020, Loomer ran for Congress in my Congressional district (FL 21) where both Donald Trump and I live. At that time, she lost to the incumbent, Lois Frankel (61% to 39%), but still received about 157,000 votes in doing so. (The percentages were about the same in 2022 when the G.O.P. ran someone else, who is also their 2024 candidate against Representative Frankel.) 

That very significant number illustrates the large number of voters who accept her lies, and will continue to accept them, including Donald Trump, his horrible performance in the debate notwithstanding. 

The First Amendment protects the likes of people like Loomer, although they can be individually sued for acts of libel or slander by those damaged by her words, but this affords them publicity, win or lose in court, so it doesn’t happen often. 

JL

                                                          * * * 

Trump Often Says Things Wrongly

Donald J. Trump prefers adverbs to adjectives. He seems to think they make him sound more intelligent by turning an adjective into an adverb, giving it more power, relating to an action rather than just sitting there being descriptive, modifying a noun. 

For example, rather than simply describe something as being ‘huge,’ he would use the word ‘hugely,’ describing it as being accomplished in that manner.’ He was quoted as hoping to win the 2016 election ‘bigly,’ althogh some think he meant ‘big league,’ or didn’t quite know the difference. 

Whatever he is trying to communicate, he usually does it wrongly and openly. Listen for this kind of stuff. 

JL 

                                                         * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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. 

Strange ‘Hits’: The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened. 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. 

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 

                                                          * * *

September 9, 2024 - Debate Tomorrow, More about Justice Scalia, the 'Thumb on the Scale' in the Senate and Electoral College, Football Jerseys, and Prehistoric Dining Habits

                                             *   *   *

Trump                Harris

The Only 2024 Presidential Debate 

Tuesday Evening at 9:00 p.m. – ABC TV 

JL

                                       *   *   *

IMPORTANT FLORIDA ELECTION INFORMATION!

All requests to vote by mail made before November 8, 2022 have now expired!  In Palm Beach County, to check to see if yours has, or to request a vote-by-mail ballot, call 561-656-6208, or visit the Supervisor of Election’s website at https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/.  (Elsewhere contact your Supervisor of Elections.)  Election Day falls within the always unpredictable hurricane season, so this is very important!  Here are some important dates to remember:

Last day to register to vote is Monday, Oct. 7.

Last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot is Thursday, Oct. 24.

Deadline for County to receive mail-in ballots is 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5 (Election Day).

Some early in-person voting sites will be available from Saturday, Oct. 26 until Saturday, Nov. 2.  Check locations by contacting the Supervisor of Elections.

Election Day is Nov. 5.

JL

                                                   *   *   *

Nameless Football Jerseys

Penn State Football Player 

Let me add Penn State to the list of college football teams that think they are so great that they don’t bother to put their players names on their jerseys, and therefore don’t deserve the support of anyone other than their most loyal alumni.  There are many more, I believe.  The bigger they are, the harder they will eventually fall.  They just don't care.  

Along with USC, Notre Dame, and of course the New York Yankees, their actions define ‘hubris’ or often unwarranted ‘arrogance.’ (Go look these words up.)  These are not desirable qualities.

JL

                                                   *   *   *

More on Justice Scalia’s 2008 Gun Control Decision

Continuing my layman’s commentary on Justice Scalia’s decision in D.C. vs Heller in 2008, I want to point out that Scalia knew what he was doing, and was almost apologetic about it.

Many laws exist for many years without courts deciding what they really mean.  Justice Scalia’s position and opinion (that gun rights pre-existed militias) had not prevailed for almost 220 years, without being successfully reflected in SCOTUS decisions.  

After recognizing that, and stating his opinion, Justice Scalia was almost apologetic about doing something to finally challenge the usually accepted position that the Amendment only pertained to enabling militias to be formed.  Here is a quote directly from his opinion:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.[Footnote 26]

   We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

So Justice Scalia knew what he was doing, but rather than let sleeping dogs lie, he made his choice  (that gun rights pre-existed militias), one that was his honest interpretation of the law, but which also resulted in the proliferation of weapons and the deaths of many Americans. To do so was his decision, for him to live by, and for others to die by, often violently.

It was a terrible decision that he made, ignoring human lives, still trusting in the very protections (underlined above)  provided by years of decisions which his opinion overrode.  What he wrote is all the more unforgivable because he knew what he was doing.  History will never forgive him.

Note the portions of his words that I have underlined. 

JL

                                                   *   *   *

More ‘Thumb on the Scale’ of Democracy – The Presidency

By now, from the previous posting on Jackspotpourri, you know that the composition of the Senate is heavily skewed toward the less populated States.  And since the two Senators each State has, regardless of its population, also serve in determining the number of Electoral votes it has in choosing a president (one for each Representative and Senator), there is a ‘thumb on the scale’ there too.

All of this comes from the efforts of the slave-owning Founding Fathers, led by James Madison, in trying to preserve the power of those slaveholding States controlled by wealthy landowners.  The rest of the States went along with it, wanting the Constitution approved at any cost, assuming that slavery would eventually ‘die on the vine’ and wither away on its own. 

But the slaveholding States did not let that happen and were willing to destroy the Union (remember that the Nation is made up of independent States, supposedly ‘united’ together (E Pluribus Unum – One out of Many) and were willing to fight the Civil War to defend their independent position in order to preserve slavery, the basis of their economies.

And so we are stuck, even today, with a Senate giving a disproportionate amount of power to a minority of Americans, as the prior posting pointed out in regard to the Supreme Court, and as pointed out above, to the election of our president as well.  That’s why solving problems like gun violence and abortion rights is so difficult.

The only solutions that I see, short of waiting for the Constitution to be modified over the next century (the ‘amending’ process takes many, many, years), are enormous, overwhelming, victories by Democrats in the election of the House, the Senate, the presidency, and State legislatures over the next few dozen years, starting on Nov. 5, 2024.  If you agree with me, it is your job to make that happen!

(This article would be incomplete if it didn’t mention the ‘National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.’  This would call for States with a total of at least 270 electoral votes, a number sufficient to elect a president, to legislatively agree to submit all  its electoral votes to the candidate who won a majority of the popular vote in the entire nation.  This idea has been around a while and has been stalled with only sixteen states providing 209 electoral votes approving it, coming far short of the required 270 electoral votes to elect a president. This might be changed if the Democrats are able to take over additional State legislatures in November, enabling the Constitutional ‘thumb on the scale’ of the biased Electoral College to be bypassed.  I am sure that if this happens, it will end up before the Supreme Court.)

JL

                                                   *   *   *

An Obituary for Silverware

Prehistoric man didn’t have a drawer filled with eating utensils.  All they had were very sharp knives, used to kill and slice up the animals they cooked and ate, and harvest the more stubborn vegetation they also ate. Stabbing a chunk of meat with a knife was the limit of the use of ‘silverware.’  Most of the time they just picked up their food with their hands and shoved it into their mouths. 

Of course, this wasn’t possible with soups and mushier foods and created a problem, eventually solved when some genius invented the spoon to help with that, shortly after how to make a bowl, or even use a coconut shell for one, was discovered.

And this is the way people ate for thousands and thousands of  years until the ancient Greeks invented the fork to hold meat steady while it was being cut with a knife.  The later Byzantines eventually improved on this, learning to pick up cut-up meat and other foods with that fork and deliver it directly to their mouths, without their picking it up with their hands.

I find it very strange, these days, to see that mankind is returning to its original, ‘primitive,’ utensil-less, eating habits.  It may have started when the British Earl of Sandwich ordered that his slice of meat be placed between two slices of bread back in 1762, so he didn’t have to get up from the card table and go into the dining room to eat. 

Named after the Earl, handheld ‘Sandwiches,’ and their cousins, hot dog and hamburger rolls, are familiar to all of us.  And silverware can be further avoided with handheld slices of pizza, wraps, tacos, and food stuffed into the pocket of a pita.  

The prevalence of baked, mashed, or boiled potatoes, traditionally delivered to one’s mouth by a fork, has been surpassed by ‘french fries,’ another food that only requires the use of fingers, joining chicken wings in that messy category.  

There are restaurant chains where the only food available comes on a handheld ‘hoagie’ or ‘sub’ role.  I always have a supply of fajitas in my refrigerator which I use with cheeses, salads, and various spreads to deliver by hand to my tongue. The days of using that fork to gather up kernels of corn (‘niblets’) scraped from an ear of corn have been replaced by just grasping the salted and buttered cob with two hands and eating away at it, row by row.  Only this afternoon, an employee in the place where I shop was passing out chips topped with guacamole for customers to sample and eat with their hands. 

I think Prehistoric man might feel at home today.

(Footnote:  The last remaining flatware manufacturer in the United States, Oneida, ceased operating as such in 2006, but some of their products are still produced in Oneida, NY, under the name of Liberty Tabletop by the Sherrill Manufacturing Company.) 

JL

                                                   *   *   *

 Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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. 

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened.  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. 

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 

 

                                                              * * *

September 5, 2024 - Another School Shooting, Blame it on the SCOTUS, the Senate races, Comma-La, and Athletes' Names on Jerseys

Another School Shooting – Ho, Hum 

Here are the words of the Second Amendment to the Constitution: ’A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ 

Anyone who can read should conclude that its intent is that the ‘right of the people to keep and bear Arms,' and that that right ’not be infringed’ is intended to provide for ’a well regulated Militia’ that is ‘necessary to the security of a free State.’ 

In 1789, the thirteen free States, especially those whose economies were based on slavery, had reason to fear a strong central government, and wanted the legal right to raise a militia, if ever the central government threatened its ‘security’ (which really was a polite way of stating its right to own slaves). And in 1789, those expected to be called upon to form such a militia were expected to bring their own guns. Plain and simple, that is what the Second Amendment was all about back in 1789.  

That is, until the gun lobby, financed by gun manufacturers, managed to convince the Supreme Court that the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed) could stand alone and need not be related to its first thirteen words (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State). That was the opinion written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in D.C. vs Heller, decided by the SCOTUS in 2008. 

Justice Scalia's reasoning recognized that while the existence of National Guard units in every state made calling on armed civilians to form militias obsolete and unnecessary, these civilians possessed arms even before their participation in such militias might have been called upon, and that uninfringed right to possess them pre-existed and cannot be taken away, having nothing specific to do with the composition of militias. And those final fourteen words of the Second Amendment said precisely that, while its first thirteen words, referring to the no-longer-necessary militias could be flushed down the toilet.

Since then, Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have not only accepted Scalia’s reasoning but refused to go along with effective national or even State efforts to regulate or control the purchasing and marketing of guns, leading to their ready availability. 

News of still another school shooting must lead the United States Senate to recognize that their approval of Supreme Court Justices is directly connected to the problem of gun violence. I believe that from here on in, Justices must be approved by the Senate only if they recognize that D.C. vs Heller must be reversed, or at least modified by another decision so that enforceable regulations for the purchasing and marketing of guns can be included, and realistically, accomplished on a national basis. State regulation will not solve a national problem. 

And if the Justices lie during their confirmation hearings (as several did when asked about abortion rights), they should face impeachment, the SCOTUS having no formal or informal ethics code.  While it is ‘people’ who kill ‘people,’ the primary instruments by which they do so are guns, and they must be regulated. 

Recognizing that States today all have established militias in the form of National Guard units, repeal and rewording of the Second Amendment would take decades. But the election of Senators who understand the Second Amendment and the need to stop the proliferation of guns would be a quicker solution since they are the ones who approve SCOTUS appointees.

Meanwhile, school children and teachers are being murdered thanks to Justice Scalia, whose memory is soaked in the blood of thousands of Americans killed since 2008. Republicans praise his decision. They should be ashamed of it. Change can be accomplished without causing a problem for hunters and target shooting sportsmen, so that issue ought not be raised.

The proliferation of weapons in this country must be stopped. Now! You can do your part on election day! The following article, about Senate races can be a giant step in that direction, if Democrats are elected in sufficient numbers to that body. 

JL 

                                                         * * * 

Eleven Senate Races 

Of great importance in the upcoming election is the vote for one-third of the United States Senate in which each State has two Senators, a compromise made in 1789 to get the slaveholding States to endorse the new Constitution.

As a result, Wyoming with about 600,000 residents has two Senators as does California with about 39,000,000 residents! And this is where Supreme Court Justices are confirmed!  It is in that Supreme Court where our Constitution and its Amendments are routinely misinterpreted because of appointees who put their political allegiances ahead the interests of the American people. 

To get rid of this ‘thumb on the scale,’ a Constitutional Amendment would be necessary, probably not achievable during the lifetime of anyone reading this. That’s why control of the Senate is so, so, important. 

Here is what is on the line! 

There are five Democratic Senators (Montana’s Jon Tester, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin.) running for re-election. All five races are very close with Tester’s seat in the greatest jeopardy. 

Equally important are Senate vacancies in three States where Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester, Arizona’s Ruben Gallego, and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks are seeking to fill them. 

Finally, there are three States where Democratic challengers (Colin Allred in Texas, Debbie Muscarsel-Powell in Florida, and Gloria Johnson in Tennesee) are running to unseat incumbent Republicans. Democrats stand their best chances in Texas and Florida.

I recommend choosing two or three of these candidates to support by donations (if you can afford to do that) and writing postal cards, for which I can steer you in the right direction, if you email me at jacklippman18@gmail.com. A bumper sticker on your car or a sign in its rear window would be great! (I am not a great fan of telephone banks or old-fashioned knocking on doors.) 

You might consider making a donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee which supports all of these candidates. Reach their site at https://www.dscc.org/ or just CLICK HERE.

Personally, I have donated to the DSCC, and individually to Tester, Muscarsel-Powell and the Harris/Walz campaign. Control of the Senate is very, very important.  

JL 

                                                           * * * 

Comma-La Knows Politics are Local

 A recent article in the New Yorker magazine about the Democratic Party concluded with this quote. 'Democrats have put their stock in national candidates but the real work of party-building is local and year-round. Give people places to show up, fun things to do - opportunities to identify with the party as such, not just with a celebrity nominee.' Sort of reminds me of former House Speaker Tip O’Neil saying that ‘all politics are local.’

Republicans have long recognized this and as a result, control many State legislatures and governorships, creating numerous thorns in the side of Democrats who might have a greater presence in the Federal government.

‘, la ‘ (a piece of clever shorthand for Harris, keyed to the pronunciation of her first name – ‘comma – la) recognizes this, remembering O’Neil’s advice and she is making a point of using the Party’s resources to strengthen local Democratic organizations. 

 

JL 

 

                                                    * * * 

The Sports Section

Those who follow Jackspotpourri might recall that I am, and never have been, a fan of the New York Yankees. The reason for this is a minor one, but one of significance to me. They do not put their players’ name on the backs of their uniform jerseys! Being a Yankee fan meant being able to identify the players by their appearance. Being unable to do that disqualified you from being a true Yankee fan, in their eyes, and they don’t seem to care about that. I see this as an example of unnecessary hubris or exaggerated and unwarranted pride. ‘So, go root for the Mets,’ is their answer to New Yorkers and others. (I know the jerseys are numbered, but who keeps track of what players wear what numbers, anyway? Do they expect viewers to keep a list of the league’s players by numbers next to their TVs?) 

That’s why It distressed me, as the 2024 college football season opened, that two fine teams, Southern Cal and Notre Dame, sent their football teams onto the field wearing jerseys without names on the back, manifesting this same unnecessary hubris. When watching a football game on TV, if given the choice, I always root for teams that identify their players by putting their names on their jerseys. As for the ones that do not, they’re no better than the snooty Yankees, who took pride in fair-weather fans like Rudy Guiliani who ostentatiously wore their championship rings. So long as college football teams wearing nameless jerseys fill stadiums, and NFL scouts recognize the players, such football teams don’t really care about the fans. 

Can you identify Southern Cal’s number 10 in this video of an unbelievable catch? (View it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLw4RpTPsLk or JUST CLICK HERE.) If the Trojans had names on their jerseys, you would have immediately known it is wide receiver Kyron Hudson. Otherwise, you had to count on the telecasters mentioning it, which wasn’t guaranteed since they had to stall for a few seconds, probably looking at a program to figure out who Number 10 was. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Strange “Hits’! The large number of those accessing Jackspotpouri from Singapore and Hong Kong has somewhat lessened. 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 

                                                     * * *