September 30, 2024 - Non-Registered Voters, Tim Snyder on the G.O.P. Ticket, Granola, Baseball, Football, and a Word from Jefferson

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Believe It or Not, There are Many Out There Who are Not Registered to Vote

If you are not a registered voter, Monday, October 7, is the last day that you can register (at least in Palm Beach County).  Remind your friends!  Tell them to contact the Supervisor of Elections at https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/Voters/Register-to-Vote.  It can be done online!

JL

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Yale University’s Timothy Snyder Speaks Out on Trump’s ‘Hitlerian Month’

More than one critic has pointed out the similarity between the actions and words of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and those of the two candidates heading the 2024 Republican presidential ticket, Donald Trump and JD Vance.  Their supporters have defended the two of them and attacked those bringing up that the Republican candidates often take such seemingly ‘Hitlerian’ positions.  

While not formally Nazis, Trump and Vance seem to
 think in the same direction as Germany's dictator did.

Snyder points out that indeed, Trump and Vance are echoing Nazi ideas, especially antisemitism, and using the tactic of turning the tables by condemning one’s critics for criticizing them. Of late, Trump has been suggesting that Jews might be blamed should he lose in November, and Vance has found another minority, Haitians, to scapegoat.

Take the time to visit  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKLbMwJvtVHwSqpGHmPzqNrtxCppMTqjDBWNgXbSVzcdCnwnBqRFsLkbwgsGlNSDqTZg  to read the article or read it by CLICKING HERE.  It is not a ‘happy’ read, but it is an essential one.

JL

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The Words of Thomas Jefferson Still Resonate

Many politicians fail to recognize that a public office is a public trust. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote that ‘When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property, and justly liable to the inspection and vigilance of public opinion; and the more sensibly he is made to feel his dependence, the less danger will there be of his abuse of power, that rock on which good governments, and the people’s rights, have been so often wrecked.’

New York City’s Mayor should take note of this.  Once in office, elected officeholders must recognize that their current and past actions will be under a spotlight and monitored.  This ought to prevent the possibility of their abusing their power.  But it doesn’t!

Many, most recently including former Congressman George Santos, former New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, and even the forty-fifth president of the United States to varying degrees have stumbled on ‘that rock’ which Jefferson mentions and suffer the consequences.

Democracy is weakened when those who fail to recognize this are elected to office by a gullible and easily fooled electorate. 

JL

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Granola Label Questioned

It amazed me to see a label on a 17 oz. package of Nature Valley Granola declaring that it contained ‘50% More Granola than our 11 oz. package.’ Of course it does.  Why?  it’s a larger package!  

Only an idiot need be told that if you increase a package size by 50%, it will be able to contain 50% more of whatever its content is.  I suppose General Mills, whose product this is, believes that its granola consumers lack the arithmetic skills of an elementary school student. Maybe it’s something they put in the granola.

JL

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Sports Section

Baseball - Several months ago, I predicted that the Miami Marlins would lose 107 games this year.   Surprisingly, they finished the season with only 100 losses while winning 62 games, better than two other major league teams, the Chicago White Sox and the Colorado Rockies! 

Now we can concentrate on the baseball playoffs where the Detroit Tigers, the Houston Astros, the Kansas City Royals, and the Baltimore Orioles battle to see who challenges the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians for the American League’s World Series slot. 

After today we’ll know for sure if it will be the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves who join the Milwaukee Brewers and the San Diego Padres in the National League playoffs.  They play a doubleheader today and if one of them sweeps it, eliminating the other, the door still might be open for the Arizona Diamondbacks to see who challenges the Philadelphia Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers to represent the National League in the World Series, where I predict the Yankees will defeat the Phillies in seven games.

Football - As for NFL football, the local Miami Dolphins as well as the New England Patriots, the New York Jets, and the New York Giants for which some local fans, originally from up north, still root, are going nowhere this season.  If you want to follow a team, consider the Baltimore Ravens whose stellar quarterback, Lamar Jackson, is a product of Boynton Beach High School.

JL

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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. 

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. There are just about just five weeks remaining until Election Day. Spread the word. 

 

JL 

 

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September 25, 2024 - Protection Old Style, TV Political Ads, a Tim Snyder Quote, and More

 

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The ‘Protection’ Racket 

Donald Trump, in one of his more outrageous comments, declared the other day that he saw himself as a ‘protector’ of women and claimed that American women won’t be ‘thinking about abortion’ if he’s elected. (His actual position concerning women’s abortion rights appears to be that it should be left to our fifty individual states, where he incorrectly believes that’s what all women want. His party’s position, dominant in many of those states, is closer to favoring a national ban, which leaves Trump’s position unclear at best.) 

What struck me as unusual was his use of the word ‘protector,’ in making this comment. That brings to mind Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England for five years in the mid-seventeenth Century, taking the title of ‘Lord High Protector’ to make his dictatorship, which sanctioned the beheading of King Charles l, as something benevolent, dedicated to ‘protecting’ the people. 

Oliver Cromwell, a 17th Century 'Protector'

Far from it. Cromwell was a dictator who came to power, and maintained it, in a period of political and religious ferment by the use of military force. Even today though, some see him as a hero of liberty, agreeing with Parliament’s initially doing away with the monarchy.  After his death in 1658, his son unsuccessfully tried to succeed him, but the English had enough of a ‘Lord High Protector’s’ dictatorial ‘protection’ and they reinstated the monarchy. ‘Protector’ Cromwell’s body was then disinterred from his grave and publicly mutilated. 

But Donald Trump knows nothing about Oliver Cromwell and what became of him. Any person or thing that he claims to want to ‘protect,’ should run quickly in the opposite direction. In fact, many Englishmen did exactly that in those days, fleeing to the colonies then being developed on the other side of the Atlantic, just to get away from being ‘protected’ by their “Lord High Protector.’ 

JL

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Anti-Debbie TV Ads

I’ve seen the TV ads Florida’s troglodyte Senator Rick Scott is running against Debbie Muscarsel-Powell, pointing out her earlier campaigns for public office, some successful, some not, but all of which were aimed at serving the people, at the same time that Scott’s former hospital company (he was its CEO) was being convicted of Medicare fraud, fleecing the people and the government. 

The TV ad ends showing a fictitious license plate for Debbie with one word on it: ‘Socialist,’ as if anything starting with the first six letters of that word, s-o-c-i-a-l, were automatically evil.  I suppose that coincides with Scott’s idea of putting Social Security (and Medicare) up for renewal every five years.  Any senior who votes for Scott should have their head examined.

Looks like Scott’s ad agency is so taken in by MAGA malarky that they think it resonates with everyone.  They are wrong.  It's up to Florida voters to prove that!

The time to replace Rick Scott with Debbie Muscarsel-Powell has arrived.  His candidacy should be buried along with that of Trump as Florida goes blue at last in November.

JL

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To Be or Not to Be

In his September 24 posting, with the Shakespearian quote as its heading, Yale professor Timothy Snyder wrote, in referring to ending Ukraine’s war with Russia, that ‘one cannot simply choose to negotiate with a power that openly seeks to bring about the end of your nation and state,’ it being a question of choosing between ‘being’ or ‘not being’ an independent nation.

He points out that negotiations will only be possible when Russia abandons its idea of ending Ukraine’s nationhood, and Snyder goes on to point out the necessity of American support in accomplishing that.

The same logic can be applied to Israel’s reluctance to commit to full negotiations with parties that are sworn to end its nationhood.  Israel is doing a dance, using military and less conspicuous means, with or without America’s support, to convince their antagonists and their Iranian puppeteers, to abandon that position.  Only then can real, meaningful, negotiations take place.

JL

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The Success of President Biden’s Economic Plans

When President Biden recently spoke to a group of economists, he based the extraordinary economic successes of the past three and a half years upon the American Rescue Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Science and CHIPS Act. He told the audience: “American business, our economic dynamism can’t succeed…without a stability and security that makes us the envy of the world.” 

These pieces of legislation, passed without Republican help, are what make this possible.  They are the direct results of Democratic victories in the 2020 election.

This blows into smithereens the traditional Republican theory of an economy where the profits of businesses and the wealthy ‘trickle down’ to working families and fails to directly address the economic wellbeing of most of the nation’s working population.  Just remember that voting for Republicans in any election, national or local, is like sleeping outdoors in a bed of poison ivy and is to be avoided.

JL

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Gasoline Prices

Those who criticize President Biden (transferring their opinion to Kamala Harris' campaign) often cite high gas prices as an example of inflation. 

No longer so!  Gasoline prices bounce around depending on the available supply and vary daily and are far lower than they were a year ago.  On Monday I filled  my tank at a ‘no-name-brand’ station with regular gas at $2.97 per gallon!  Name brands were about a dime more a gallon, but within a day, even ‘regular’ at the ‘no-name’ station was up about twenty cents.  But that is not the fictitious $4 a gallon price right-wingers claim exists.  That’s just misinformation.

JL

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Drafting Players in the Schoolyard

Years ago, before playing a game of ‘touch’ football in the schoolyard, I recall the kids present ‘choosing up sides.’  As a result, the better athletes were not always on the same teams.  (Usually, the two best athletes were ‘captains’ of the two teams doing the choosing.)

That’s similar to what the ‘transfer’ portal has done to college athletics, particularly football and basketball.  It is almost like what in major league baseball is called ‘free agency.’  It may sound trite, but it's a new ball game on college gridirons and basketball courts.

The teams of lesser institutions that used to engage in money-making games against big time schools that were looking for what amounted to early season scrimmages, now actually have a chance of defeating them, (Example: Northern Illinois’ recent victory over Notre Dame) and even more often, providing at least very creditable competition, based on transfer students. 

If an athlete feels he (or she) is talented enough to ‘make it’ at a higher level of competition, or available compensation through use of their name, image, or likeness (N.I.L.) seems greater at another school, they can opt to transfer to that school by following the procedures of the ‘transfer portal.’

In the minds of many college athletes is the maximization of their chances of being selected by a professional team, where the really big money begins to flow, and the ‘transfer portal’ is there for them to seek greater exposure that might lead there.

Sometimes a coach in need of greater athletic talent than his school’s enrollment or recruiting has provided will search those coming through that ‘portal’ to see if there are players there who meet his school’s needs.

But is this good for the sport or the schools involved?

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.  Election Day draws near. Spread the word. 

 

JL 

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September 21, 2024 - Unsatisfying Jobs, Gun Violence, Exploding Pagers, and Tariffs

 

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A Warning to Democrats 

Unemployment might be down, and the economy might be stronger, but many of those who are sharing in the fruits of such favorable trends remain unhappy. They see the crappy, unsatisfying, jobs in which they are stuck as better than not having any job at all, but also as something to blame on President Biden’s administration. Conceivably, with absolutely no good reason to do so, they will end up voting for the Trump/Vance ticket rather than for Kamala Harris. 

Not my first choice as a job

but  maybe better than this

or this!

Democratic strategists must figure out a way of addressing this problem. They should start by making a list of the crappy jobs they themselves would not consider taking, nor steer their family members toward. It would start with fast-food franchises, the staffing of most retail establishments, and the housekeeping chores in hotels and health care facilities. These folks must be given strong reasons for voting Democratic. They must be given hope for greater, more fulfilling, opportunities. Are you listening, Kamala and Tim? 

JL                                 

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Gun Violence ... Again

After two attempts on his life with the kind of weapons intended only for military use, I hope former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump will get behind national gun control legislation. 

He ought to personally ask the three Supreme Court Justices he put on the SCOTUS to take action to reverse D.C. vs Heller, the decision that puts weapons in the hands of anyone who wants them. 

That ‘right’ is guaranteed by their 2008 misinterpretation of the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment. Sunday’s incompetent and unsuccessful assassination attempt would not have even occurred (nor would the earlier one in Pennsylvania) had not the D.C. vs Heller decision enabled the assassin, whatever his motives were, to get his hands on an assault rifle, which he abandoned when he became aware that his presence had been discovered by a Secret Service agent whose gunshot was directed in his direction. An alert passer-by, seeing him fleeing and jumping into a parked car, captured his license plate with her cell phone. 

In dealing with gun violence, just forget about ‘mental problems’ or ‘ego-hungry copycats’ as being causative, and ‘thoughts and prayers’ being an acceptable response. Guns are what kill people and they must be immediately regulated by Congressional action on a national basis. Why? It will take forty or fifty years to repeal the Second Amendment and replace it with one reading something like this: 

‘The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, for the purpose of hunting, sporting activities, and protection of one’s domicile or business, shall not be infringed.'  There’s nothing wrong with that language, unless of course one has an armed insurrection in mind. 

The Second Amendment has to be changed. That is what has to be done, but we cannot wait that long. These guns must be taken off of the streets, out of unlocked cabinets in homes, out of the gun stores, out of the gun shows, and out of circulation, while still protecting our ‘right to keep and bear arms’ (as the Second Amendment says) in the manner the revised Amendment language above suggests, before they fall into the hands of any of the hundreds of thousands of unbalanced Americans, or misguided zealots.

When? Right Now! 

The public agrees that the use of a potentially killer drug like fentanyl must be regulated. The Food and Drug Administration does that, considering it to be a ‘controlled drug.’ There is no reason why killer weapons should not be similarly regulated by Congressional action until the Second Amendment is changed as suggested above. 

When? Right Now! 

Here are some numbers to help you form your opinion: 

• According to the United States Census, the nation’s population is about 335,000,000. 

• According to registrations in all 50 States, there are about 276,000,000 private or commercially registered automobiles in the United States, evidence that all are regulated in some manner. 

• According to the Ammo.com website, there are 82,000,000 civilian gun owners in the United States who when taken together, own about 500,000,000 weapons, almost twice as many as the number of registered vehicles in this country. Because of the absence of effective State regulation, only about 6,000,000 of them are registered in any manner.  

Check this out by visiting https://ammo.com/articles/how-many-gun-owners-in-america#:~:text=Based%20on%20NICS%20background%20data,least%20one%20firearm%20in%202023 or by CLICKING HERE. 

And while on this subject, here’s former FBI Deputy Director Frank Figliuzzi’s take on this crucial subject. Copy and paste https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/happened-trump-yesterday-result-deadly-lax-gun-laws-rcna171256?cid=eml_mda_20240917&user_email=033d2070fe1faa4dfea53a4950e7d0ed837513fd06d41e88f2d7b6b7c74af785 on your browser line or CLICK HERE. 

Something must be done to address this problem and if you ask 'When?,' I reiterate ...... Right Now! 

Of course, Republicans placing the blame for these assassination attempts on Democratic campaign rhetoric is ludicrous. But please understand that almost everything Trump, Vance, and their supporters claim is similarly ludicrous with their expectation that voters might believe it! Haitians in Ohio are not eating neighbors’ pets and Kamala and Walz are not Communists, etc. unless the folks who are fed these lies want to believe them, and that is a bigger problem. 

JL 

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Exploding Pagers 

Let’s get one thing straight. Those in Lebanon with cell phones are not having them blow up in their hands. 

It appears that because of the lack of security on cell phones, members of Hezbollah, designated as a terrorist organization since 1997, have chosen to carry pagers instead, obsolete for the past quarter century, and other old fashioned, low-tech, two-way communications devices, to attempt to evade Israeli interception, and are the ones who are at risk of being killed or injured when these devices, apparently successfully hacked by Israeli intelligence, explode. Some may even have been altered at the time of their manufacture. 

But remember that we’re not talking about cell phones. It’s the pagers and ‘walkie-talkies, the latest devices of choice for Hezbollah terrorists, that have been turned into bombs by hackers, supposedly Israelis. It seems to be a matter of Hezbollah members and supporters jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Their only communications alternative would seem to be handwritten notes, transported by supposedly trustworthy human hands, or perhaps by carrier pigeons. 

JL

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All About Tariffs 

Donald Trump is a big fan of tariffs. He feels we can penalize foreign countries by putting a tax, or a tariff, in items they export to the United States. There are two advantages to this, the second of which I doubt has ever entered Trump’s mind, something probably taught at Wharton on a day he cut classes. 

Here are the two supposed advantages of tariffs. 

(1) The money collected as tariffs paid by foreign manufacturers of imported items can be used as a supposedly painless way to help fund our government’s activities. The flaw in this argument is that the tariff the foreign manufacturer pays will ultimately be included in the price Americans pay for the imported item, which amounts to a hidden ‘sales tax’ for which they are charged. That’s not painless. 

(2) Tariffs, as explained above, raise the price of imported items, and can encourage Americans to purchase comparable items made in the United States if available, the price of which should be lower than the imported item, the cost of which would be inflated by a tariff. This might significantly decrease the importing of the foreign-made items, and turn out to be a boon for American manufacturers of comparable items. While this might create jobs and increase the nation’s gross national product, it would not pour money into the Treasury as would a tariff, which amounts to a consumer-paid sales tax. Trump seems to miss this latter argument about it being a boon to American manufacturers, which might actually be to his advantage. 

JL 

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Follow Heather 

After you finish reading Jackspourri today, I suggest you take a few minutes to visit Boston College professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American.’ 

Day after day she presents a historian’s extremely knowledgeable perspective on the news. Her posting dated September 20, for example, describes all that is wrong with the Electoral College, the means by which our president is chosen, and how it got to be that way. Just copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line or just CLICK HERE.   

(and as for the Electoral College, I believe that the only way to negate its 'thumb on the scale' flaw is an overwhelming Democratic victory in the 'battleground' States.)

It would be a good habit to check out what Dr. Richardson has to say EVERY DAY. It’s free, although you can subscribe at $5 monthly if you want to engage in commentary with other subscribers. (I no longer do that as it just takes up too much time. I’d rather play ‘Wordle’ each morning once I’ve checked out the New York Times and what Heather has to say.) 

JL 

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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. Election Day is drawing nearer! Spread the word. 

 JL 

                                                     *   *   *

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

 

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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 

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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 

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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

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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

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Trump                Harris

The Only 2024 Presidential Debate 

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

JL

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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 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 

 

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