April 14, 2025 - Trump, Bukele, and Carville

Back in Jackpotpourri’s April 9 posting, I said I would follow up the idea of prematurely terminating the presidency of Donald Trump in greater detail in the next posting. I’m postponing that; the posting is already written, and you’ll be seeing it in a few days, but there are a few important items I would like to draw to your attention right now. We can start with some news about two Presidents, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and our own Donald Trump.

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Trump’s Savior – ‘El Salvador’- A Tale of Two Presidents 

Today (April 14), the President of El Salvador, jailer of those President Trump wants out of the United States, is visiting the White House.  That is a national disgrace. 

Presidentes Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele

El Salvador's Nayib Butele ignores our request to return an immigrant we mistakenly arrested and sent to his prison. (This tactic avoids our sending civilian deportees to Guantanamo, which might create giant legal problems here.) He laughs at us and defies our laws, and we are paying him six million dollars a year to do so.  (I wonder if we canstop the check,)

If justice were to be served, he should be seized and held as a hostage until he returns those illegally deported to his country back to the United States. But Trump would be the last person to do that. He is as bad as Bukele who has indeed reduced crime in his country but only by arbitrarily imprisoning thousands of innocent people, sacrificing their freedom. Trump may wish he could do the same here, especially to journalists who regularly criticize him with facts, as those on MSNBC do daily. 

In reading the articles about the Adminstration’s deportation practices, filled with lies, evasions, and defiance of court orders, and which have affected many immigrants long legally in the United States, and even visiting tourists, I smell the aroma of the lies the Nazis told about their detention facilities which were really death camps. Stories of ICE arrests remind one of Gestapo tactics. No one, including misinformed and misled Republicans should be fooled. 

JL 

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Some Thoughts from James Carville 

Here’s a piece James Carville wrote for the New York Times.  

'How to Turn Trump’s Economic Chaos Against Him' 

James Carville - April 14, 2025 

(Jim Carville is a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s in 1992, and a consultant to American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC).

“In many ways, President Trump is a one-trick Shetland pony: He talks a big game, like building a border wall or ending Covid, and then tries to distract Americans when his promises go belly up. 

Back in office this winter, he promised a golden age for the economy and the end of inflation starting on Day 1 — and then we got served plenty of fish bait: blowing smoke about seizing Greenland, huffing and puffing about annexing Canada and throwing people into a tizzy over seeking a third term, which he will never be able to do. Now we know why. Mr. Trump didn’t have a plan to bring down inflation and make life better (except for the rich, who disproportionately benefit from his tax cuts), and he was hellbent on tariffs at all costs. The problem is that smoke and mirrors only work until you screw up so hard that no act of lunacy can pull the American people’s attention elsewhere. And boy, did the president just screw up royally. 

In what will certainly be recorded as one of the most ignorant acts of political leadership in American history, the president of the United States has now willfully damaged the global economy with his tariff chaos. Not only was this an act of economic warfare, it has broken the cardinal rule in American politics: Never destabilize the economy. 

With it, the Trump administration is causing enormous damage to itself — and there can be no more distraction from this naked truth. This is where the Democrats have an opening. In February I wrote a piece calling on my party’s leaders to play dead, allowing the Republicans to punch themselves out and crumble beneath their own weight. But many Democrats indulged Mr. Trump’s lunacy or allowed themselves to become the story over the government funding and shutdown debate, while the president continued his campaign of chaos and distraction. 

Now, Democrats have an opportunity to allow the Republicans to edge closer to collapse as the party in full control of Washington — let’s please not become the story again and get in their way. In the coming weeks and months, many Americans are going to experience pressure and pain with the tariffs on China and the remaining tariffs on an array of goods and countries. Prices could rise sharply, consumer spending may well dry up and we are already seeing evidence of surging mortgage rates and a weakened bond market. 

The Trump administration will not be competent enough to dig us out. The path to stabilizing and strengthening the country starts when Democrats can take back the economic narrative from the Republican Party and persuade the majority of Americans to close the book on the Trump chaos. This can only be done if we avoid the distractions — whether it’s Mr. Trump’s third-term talk or Democratic infighting on social issues — and instead focus on the economic foundations that matter to Americans most. 

My fellow Democrats, it’s time we transform our party into a projector for the economic pain of the American people. Here’s how to do it: 

First, focus on prices. We must start with what matters most. President Trump won the White House on an overt promise to bring down prices. Let’s not forget his most oft-repeated claims: “Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods” or: “Prices will come down. You just watch. They’ll come down, and they’ll come down fast, not only with insurance, with everything.” 

This promise is formally broken. The cost of trucks and vehicles is set to shoot up thousands of dollars. Dame, a sexual wellness brand that makes adult toys and personal care products, implemented a $5 “Trump tariff surcharge.” Everything from seafood to cans of beer to clothing to toys will grow more expensive. The most direct hit to working people’s pocketbooks will always be from the cost of daily goods. Making it clear that Trump and the Republicans willingly broke this promise should be in every ad, every podcast talking point, every message we send from now until the midterms.

Second, it’s not about the stock market, it’s about 401(k)s. With six in 10 Americans lacking the savings to cover even a $1,000 emergency expense, Democrats cannot afford to hinge our economic narrative on the rise and fall of a market for the privileged. For younger Americans, stocks will most likely rebound and grow over time. But the tariffs are a poison dagger for those who have saved and vested into their 401(k) their entire lives, just to see it depleted by the reckless actions of the president. You can bet certain retirees are now living in a panic, pausing home renovations and big-ticket purchases as their life savings start to drain by the day. If this continues, many retirees will have to go back into the work force, spending what should be their comfortable years grinding in the office like they are in their 30s. This is a real, substantial pain that will be felt by the Americans who are the least deserving of it. As it turns out, older voters are also some of the most reliable, powering Trump’s re-election. Democrats, uplift their stories and connect their pain to the president. Do not focus on the market or the daily percentage drop in the Magnificent Seven tech stocks. 

And third, make the message local. It’s important that as a party we understand this is not about us and that the Democratic brand is tarnished at this given moment. And instead, take our prints off of the message as much as possible. This is not about us going on CNN or taking to X to complain about the president. The Democratic Party must now take local stories and project them where they matter most. Record the story of Nicholas Gilbert, a dairy farmer upended by the tariffs — and localize it to Wisconsin. Focus on the Latino and Black men who supported his previous election, and take it to Georgia or Arizona. Go on influencer networks and podcasts talking about the looming increase in car prices and the fact that the president exploded Nintendo’s plans for the Switch 2. For the entirety of his tenure in American politics, Donald Trump for better or worse has lived on by the grace of the American people’s faith in his economic leadership. 

Now it is plain and clear, just as with his failures in Atlantic City or with Trump University, that President Trump never had any idea what he was doing all along. If we avoid the distractions to come and stay focused on the economy, Democrats can take back the one issue that has kept Trump on a respirator all this time. Through all the hardships to come, we bring the silver lining. And finally, we can begin again.” 

I don’t think Carville goes far enough.  He is on the right track, but it will take more than that, as the next posting on Jackspotpourri will suggest. 

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps. 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)

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. JL 

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April 9, 2025 - Compromises Getting Nowhere, States vs Federalism, The Meaning of MAGA, a Krugman Column, and a 'Biggie'

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Compromises, Tariffs, War, and Their Heritage 

Compromises are not necessarily a permanent solution. 

It’s time for a little history. Andrew Jackson, whom President Trump admires, was a supporter of tariffs, the government’s major source of revenue in those pre-income tax days, but he knew how to compromise, playing both sides of an issue. 

In 1832, anti-tariff’ South Carolina, an exporter of cotton with little manufacturing and where imports played a big role, announced that it would militarily resist the collection of tariffs, a process known as ‘Nullification’ (of a Federal law). President Jackson and Congress then responded by threatening to send in the United States Army to force their collection. 

Congressional leaders rushed to negotiate a compromise in 1833 whereby both South Carolina and the President backed off from aiming guns at one another, withdrawing the warlike legislation originally passed both in Washington and in Charleston. Jackson and Congress ended up reducing the tariffs but they remained a political weapon and still are one today, potentially damaging to the nation if used by those with no understanding of how they work. The Congressional pressure to craft a compromise on tariffs in 1833 could not happen today because both Houses of Congress have given up their autonomy in exchange for the votes of Trump’s MAGA loyalists. 

Over the next three decades after Jackson’s compromise on tariffs, the concept of ‘Nullification’ did not disappear as tariffs increased and were joined by fierce arguments and failing compromises regarding the expansion of slavery. More States than South Carolina were by then involved, as the concept of ‘Nullification’ led to ‘Secession’ and the war between the North and the South.

John C. Calhoun, proponent of 'Nullification'

South Carolina’s Senator John Calhoun, who also served as Vice President for John Quincy Adams and during Andrew Jackson’s first term, spearheaded the cause of States Rights and slavery, and fought tariffs during his career. Eventually a frequent foe of Jackson, he died in 1850 but not before working with Henry Clay to bring about the Compromise of 1850, which postponed the Civil War by eleven years. Clemson University sits on Calhoun’s estate, donated by his heirs. 

The importance of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, also instrumental in the ultimately unsuccessful compromises of that era, cannot be minimized.  He is famous for saying ‘I’d rather be right than President,’ (He ran and lost three times); Henry Clay will be addressed in a future Jackspotpourri. 

The Civil War was about how far the rights of individual States extended, with owning slaves as an inherent property right being the salient issue. Back in 1789, for the sake of creating and passing our Constitution, the slavery question had been avoided by the Founding Fathers. By the middle of the Nineteenth century, however, times had changed; slavery had been banned in most of Europe, including Great Britain, tariffs were again rising , and both Andrew Jackson and that 1833 tariff compromise were dead.

Although that compromise and others were not permanent solutions, they were still useful in that they provided time to somehow try to avoid a war that was looming on the horizon, even back in 1832 and 1833. But all it did was to postpone it. 

The North was infuriated by the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which allowed a former slave to be returned from Wisconsin to his former owner in Missouri, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the West to slavery. The die had been cast and the North and the South were ready to fight for their beliefs, and no longer did they focus on tariffs, generally popular in the North, less so in the South.  The rights of States and slavery, intertwined issues, were what the War would be about.

In 1861, South Carolina’s guns finally fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, starting a war some say continues today in other, non-military forms, touching on those same issues. 

After all, isn’t the President’s use of tariffs as a supposed weapon of coercion against foreign nations, ultimately burdening Americans with higher prices to enable importers to pay ‘tariffs’ to our government? Sounds like a thinly disguised sales tax on consumers who purchase imported items to me. 

And aren’t his attacks on ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ related to the heritage of slavery? Historically, Trump stands with those who brought post-Civil War ‘Reconstruction’ to an end, welcoming the ‘gilded’ age of the unregulated ‘Robber Barons’ and ‘Jim Crow’ State laws in 1877 when the last Federal troops were withdrawn from the South. 

His praise of President McKinley, who did nothing praiseworthy, represents this. Things change and also remain the same.

JL 

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The Continuing Conflict – Federalism vs States Rights 

Throughout most of the first century of the history of the United States of America, the conflict between the power of the Federal government and the rights of the supposedly ‘united’ individual States centered on tariff policies, the favorite revenue-raising tool of Alexander Hamilton. 

In 1862, to help finance the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln created the IRS and the income tax which Congress approved.  This eventually moved the focus of those who disliked central Federal government from opposition to tariffs to opposition to taxes. Both are still with us, although the emphasis is now on the latter, while States Rights themselves remain an issue presently more related to voting, environmental, and health care issues.

JL

 

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What MAGA Really Means 

In disbelief, the other day I heard our now pro-tariff President mumble that the income tax was mysteriously started in 1913 to replace income derived from tariffs, apparently unaware that Abraham Lincoln started the IRS in 1862 to finance the Civil War. He must have cut class the days they taught that at Wharton and New York Military Academy.

And this past week, I saw a poster at an anti-Trump rally declaring that Morons Are Governing America. Tee Shirts and caps are on the market with that slogan as well. That is absolutely true. 

President Trump is their drum major, leading their parade. That slogan well describes the proponents of tariffs who are ignorant of how they work and who is left to ultimately pay for them. It takes a little thinking to understand that; just scratching the surface is not enough, once you’re out of junior high school. (Did Trump cut classes there too?) 

Worse is the fact that Americans voted these morons into office, misinformed and misled by deceitful media, protected by the First Amendment. 

JL

  

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At the Edge of the Abyss

Economist Paul Krugman writes about how we are at the brink of economic disaster because of the President’s tariffs. CLICK HERE  or copy and paste https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-chaos-this-is-getting on your browser line. You might not understand all that he writes but give it a shot.  After all, he is a Nobel Prize winner.  

What it comes down to, I think, is that bondholders seek stability, and if that is absent due to stock market gyrations caused by tariffs or anything else, they prefer having cash on hand rather than a future promise to pay, which is what a bond is.  So they will sell, sell, and sell … until there aren’t any buyers left, and that can push the bond market over the brink into the abyss, eliminating the money sources necessary for growth and dragging the entire economy behind it. Huh? 

JL  

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Today's 'Biggie' 

For the past few postings of Jackspotpourri, I've been dancing around what can be done about the unqualified, shallow, bigot we have in the White House. I've also thrown around the words 'inconceivable,' 'possible,' and 'necessary.'  But face it, we are now precisely at the point where the ‘inconceivable’ looks to be a ‘possibility’ if not a ‘necessity’ in order to save the nation from self-destruction. Elaborating on that leads nowhere but to Donald Trump. It is time to put it all together, to fish or cut bait.  So here goes!

 

Let me repeat that, but this time, more SPECIFICALLY, at last: 

The ‘inconceivable possibility or necessity’ that I’ve been writing about consists of seriously thinking about PREMATURELY ENDING THE PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP as soon as possible, primarily because of his disastrous tariff policy, but also because of his disregard of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and existing legislation, our goal being saving the United States of America from its self-destruction at his hands, but let’s make it very, very, clear, it is something to be accomplished in a legal and Constitutional manner. 

Now that our goal has been stated, a big step forward, stay tuned to Jackspotpourri for some ideas about where we go from here!  It won't be easy because Trump has sixty years of feinting, lying, double-talking, and reversing his own positions so that he comes up on top in negotiations. He is one person with whom never to negotiate.  Bankruptcies, expensive law suits forced on those with whom he negotiates, and decades of not paying bills are all in his bag of tricks.  As a politician he is no different. 

Today's posting started off talking about 'compromises.'  Going down that road with him plays into his hands. But we now know what our objective is and that is a big  step forward. Next time, we'll get into the method of arriving there. successfully.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps. 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.) 

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. JL

                                                        * * *

April 5, 2025 - Trump's Tariffs - a Step Too Far, Singapore 'Hits,' and What Fox Hosts are Saying

 

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They are Watching 

Google provides Jackspotpourri with data indicating how many out there have clicked on its URL and possibly read it. Over the past week, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of ‘hits’ from the ‘city-state’ of Singapore. This has happened before in times of international concern, and I usually assume this represents monitoring of Jackspotpourri by the Chinese government which has a friendly presence in Singapore. (Singapore’s position on Taiwan, for example, parrots Beijing’s.) 

The only reason that I can see for this to be happening at this time are President Trump’s tariffs, about which the Chinese diligently check every possible source for intelligence, even Jackspotpourri. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Hey there, President Xi:    All I know is what I read in the newspapers and online, just like your guys. Trump doesn’t even know what he’s doing. 

JL

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Inconceivable? Impossible? Who Knows? 

In the preceding Jackspotpourri (which for some of you might appear directly following this posting, depending on what device you are using), in writing about a president’s disregard for the ‘rule of law,’ I pointed out that once that happens ‘what had been inconceivable is no longer impossible,’ and that is dangerous. 

And now, economic policy, represented by the President’s tariff increases, joins ignoring the ‘rule of law’ in making ‘what had been inconceivable no longer impossible.’ 

The Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs. But the International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows the president to impose tariffs if he declares a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, which Trump has done. He has declared a “national emergency to increase our competitive edge, protect our sovereignty, and strengthen our national and economic security.” 

While many Presidents, including Trump, have declared such national ‘emergencies’ in the past, they usually have been in response to specific situations, not the non-specific ‘bullshit’ talking points the President declared as his reasons as quoted above. Nobody has attacked us from abroad or domestically or threatened to do so. I doubt that Trump’s reasons are what Congress had in mind as constituting a national emergency when they passed those Acts, nor that a President might use these acts to usurp a power the Constitution first gives to Congress. 

If the truth were to be known, the President might just as well have come out and said, ‘I’ll do whatever the hell I want to do, regardless of what the laws say.’ That would at least be honest, possibly a ‘first’ for him. 

Really though, there is a ‘national emergency’ right now, identifiable as Donald John Trump being in the White House. It may last as long as he is there. And that ‘emergency’ can be blamed on the ‘misinformed and misled’ mentioned in the previous posting of Jackspotpourri. 

President Trump’s playing around with tariffs as a political tool, wreaking havoc to our economy, hurting individual Americans and businesses, threatening a 1930s style depression here and in the entire world, now joins disregard for the ‘rule of law’ as making ‘what had been inconceivable no longer impossible.’ 

Check out Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s April 3 and April 4 postings of her ‘Letters from an American’ (CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line) to find out how Trump’s tariff policy, which has no basis in any real economic data or theory, amounts to what one critic compares to a mob boss shaking down all the businesses in a town, but in this case, they are our 50 States and other nations! 

It is even likened by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to ‘what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK's 

thoughts are to vaccine science.’ The Trump tariff policy, Summers added, ‘makes little sense EVEN if you believe in protectionist mercantilist economics.’ 

Even many of the wealthy and business leaders, of course excluding the MAGA dummies, who supported Trump in November, 2024, are losing faith in him. 

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All of which raises a question: Is it time, right now, for supporters of the President and those opposed to his actions to be more specific about what is now ‘conceivable’ and now ‘possible’ in the United States of America? 

Those at both extremes are beginning to go further and wonder if the adjective ‘possible’ ought to be replaced with the more urgent ‘necessary’?

Are we at that point where ‘what had been ‘inconceivable’ is not only ‘possible,’ but also ‘necessary’?

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Here’s a hint: Contradictory answers from both sides involve the President, some taking him to be a heaven-sent angel and others, as a disciple of the devil. You can guess where Jackspotpourri stands. I have my ideas as to possible answers, but I don’t want to be ahead of the news about things that haven’t happened yet and may not ever happen. Eventually, however, I may share my thoughts. Please ‘stay tuned.’ 

JL 

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Fox Reaction to Bad Economic News 

Courier, a liberal newsgathering website, to which I don’t subscribe, recently documented the reaction of FoxNews personalities in a posting designed to attract donors. They reported the following comments after enormous declines in the financial marketplace resulting from the President’s tariff policy, put into effect despite it being contrary to all reputable economic theory.  Here’s what Courier reported Fox News’ most biggest hosts said after the crash: 

 Jesse Watters: “It’s an exciting time to be alive.” 

 Jeanine Pirro: “I don’t really care about my 401(k)... I believe in this man.” 

 Sean Hannity: “I am absolutely a thousand percent confident that things are going to work out.” 

 Laura Ingraham: “I personally know a lot of people who are buying into this  market. That's how people always make money.” 

Yes, they actually wrote ‘most biggest.’ That sounds like something our President might say. That says a lot for Courier, but they did get their idea across. 

My take on these four Fox hosts’ words: Let Jesse be excited, let Jeanine keep on believing, let Sean be 1000% confident, and it is reassuring that Laura knows people who ‘buy low’ hoping to ‘sell high.’ 

None of them give a darn about the American people who are being hurt by higher tariffs that automatically lead to higher prices having to be paid by the importer and then passed on to the customer. (I would venture to guess that all four are wearing some imported clothing and drive imported cars, but they are sufficiently overpaid not to care. Most Americans do care.) Meanwhile, foreign countries put retaliatory tariffs on American exports lessening demand for them, hurting employment in the United States. It’s a ‘lose-lose’ proposition: Higher prices and fewer jobs! All these four Fox hosts are interested in doing is spreading misinformation to those they daily mislead, which is what their employer pays them to do, and how we got into this mess in the first place. 

 JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: 

The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily newspaper and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I get to that email, I take these steps. (1.) I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or so emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. (2.) I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criterion is whether or not they end up asking for money. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the emails at which I will actually look, which on a typical day add up to about fifty or sixty.

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am unaware of the sources AI has mined to come up with its summaries. Sources with their origin clearly identified follow, and that is what I use as sources for Jackspotpourri postings. In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – no AI please’. This is a work in progress. 

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. JL 

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April 2, 2025 - Disagreeing with Laws, Elections, Ideas from Heather and Tim, Semantics, and College Sports

 

Something to Think About 

When a judge rules against a defendant but lacks the ability to bring about their compliance, what should the plaintiffs, the ones who brought the action, do? When the ‘rule of law’ is ignored, where do we turn? 

In 1832, disagreeing with a Supreme Court decision (Worcester vs Georgia) that ultimately made it more difficult for non-Cherokees to settle on Cherokee tribal lands, President Andrew Jackson is reported to have said, ‘John Marshall (the Court’s Chief Justice) has made his decision; now let him enforce it!’ And it wasn’t enforced. 

President Trump has Jackson's portrait in the Offal Oval Office

A President who disagrees with a law will find ways to avoid his Constitutional duty of executing the laws, even in the face of court decisions supporting the law. And hence, the ‘rule of law’ takes a back seat, and once that happens, what had been inconceivable is no longer impossible, and that is dangerous. 

JL 

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Election Results in a Nutshell – Making Democrats Optimistic for 2026 

In Wisconsin, where Donald Trump carried the State by less than 1% in November, Democrat Susan Crawford won a crucial ten-year term on the State Supreme Court by about an 8% margin. The ‘Cheeseheads’ are wising up. Wow!  Among other things on the liberal agenda, this could be instrumental in changing the existing Congressional ‘gerrymandering’ there, which would increase the number of Democrats in Congress! 

In Florida, two vacated Congressional seats in solid Republican districts that voted for Trump by margins of over 30% in November still elected Republicans but by margins of only about 14% each. This has frightened many Republican legislators nationwide comprising the slim G.O.P House majority who would not be able to survive a similar drop off in Republican support in closer districts in 2026. 

These were the two ‘special’ elections in the Sunslime State. In CD 6, Randy Fine replaced Mike Waltz who went to work in Trump’s White House, leading the ‘Signal’ chat fiasco (his days are numbered) and State CFO Jim Patronis who replaced the resigned and disgraceful Matt Gaetz in CD1; Patronis can at least add two and two. Fine can do less harm in Congress than he might have done as president of Florida Atlantic University, where Governor DeSantis tried to shove him last year. (He found another out-of-work politician for that job.)

While the Wisconsin and Florida results must not have pleased Donald Trump, they dealt a stronger blow to Elon Musk, whose insanity is turning off many Republican voters while energizing Democrats. Actually, the President might not mind the spotlight being shifted away from Musk. Neither rich guy is comfortable playing in the same sandbox with the other. Looking at the Wisconsin results, a contest into which Musk poured millions, his presence did the Democrats a favor there, providing them with a meatier target than Crawford’s State Supreme Court opponent! There is something very offensive about this fellow. 

JL

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The Lesson of El Salvador 

It was once thought that countries in Latin America would be inspired to emulate the democracy found in the United States. (If they did, we might not have an immigration problem.) Instead, it looks like our President seeks to emulate the dictator running tiny El Salvador. 

WLRN, the Miami NPR outlet, recently included this piece by Tim Padgett, their ‘America’s Editor,’ on the air and online. It subsequently appeared as a guest column in the Palm Beach Post. It inspired me to write to my House Representative and my two Senators. You might want to do the same. Please check it out by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://www.wlrn.org/commentary/2025-03-20/el-salvador-bukele-trump-democracy on your device’s browser line. It illustrates the wrong direction in which our present Administration is going. 

JL 

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'Letters From an American’ Says It All 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s March 30 posting is a short course in American History, describing what the Trump Administration is trying to destroy. CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line to be enlightened and be inspired to not let them get away with it. 

JL 

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Greenland and Denmark 

Tim Snyder’s ‘Thinking About …’ dated March 29 talks about Imperialism, Greenland, and Denmark. Check it out by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://snyder.substack.com/p/vance-in-greenland on your browser line. We can learn a lot from Denmark, a lot more than we ever could learn from El Salvador. 

JL 

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Something More Than Semantics 

A few months ago, in the interest of not insulting my fellow Americans, I ceased referring to certain voters as ‘ignorant, gullible, or stupid.’  Instead, I began describing them as ‘misinformed and misled.’ That’s not insulting; it is just my personal opinion of their positions. 

The other morning, after reading some of the remarks made by Republicans in the ‘comments’ addendum following a New York Times article describing the election campaigning in Florida’s Sixth Congressional district, I am wondering if I was too hasty in making that change. 

For Florida’s seniors on Social Security and Medicare to attack those programs, and for immigrant workers here, possibly subject to deportation, to endorse President Trump’s immigration policy cannot be anything other than ‘ignorant, gullible, or stupid.’ But out of pity for these pathetic people (Hillary Clinton used the word ‘deplorable’) who are dragging America down by supporting Trump, I will still be sticking with ‘misinformed and misled.’ 

JL 

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Ruling and Ruining College Athletic Competition 

The ‘transfer portal,’ allowing athletes to switch schools without any ‘waiting’ period and the availability of ‘NIL’ money now rules college athletics as well as contributing to its ruin. 

In addition to great disparities in what colleges can budget for their athletic programs from their own funds, those with large numbers of alumni, especially wealthy ones, are able to pay athletes, sometimes generously, for commercial use of their ‘Names, Images, and Likenesses.’ This further separates the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’ and eventually this will have to be recognized with a total reorganization of college athletic conferences. 

Even the ‘Power Four’ conferences like the SEC and the Big Ten include ‘have-not’ members who cannot permanently survive in such an environment. Only sharing in their conferences’ TV revenues keeps them there at all. It would be better if such colleges were to choose to play in conferences composed only of schools which have similar athletics-financing abilities.

While Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia might thrive in one conference with perhaps a dozen other exceedingly well-funded college athletic programs, the colleges with less money to spend on hiring athletes might choose to play primarily in conferences made up of schools with financial resources similar to theirs. I think this would be a good idea. The Mid America Conference is a fine example of this. 

Related to that, note that some colleges choose not to field competitive football teams, always a big drain on financial resources, but still want to compete nationally in other sports, particularly basketball. They can form leagues of their own, similar to the almost entirely ‘football-free’ Big East, for example. But even there, they’ll face those same demanding financial pressures resulting from the ‘transfer portal’ and ‘NIL’ in hiring athletes to play on their basketball teams. Examples are schools like Saint Johns, Gonzaga, and Georgetown Universities. 

Understanding how ‘NIL’ works is extremely difficult. While top ‘star’ level athletes are well paid, rarely but possibly even in the six figures, bringing the average annual individual total NIL payment up to about $21,000, most athletes receive piddling payments. 

The median annual (just as many greater and just as many lesser) NIL payment is only about $480! (Source: Sports Illustrated – NIL) But even those low NIL payments serve as a lure to aspiring athletes with golden dreams.

Little good can come from money calling the tune in college athletic competition, although the courts have approved of it.  Accompanied by the growth and acceptance of legal online gambling, it is unavoidable that college athletics will eventually experience damaging scandals. Unless they really took advantage of their four-year scholarships by learning lifetime skills, athletes who are not quite at the level where they can smell the riches of an NFL or NBA contract, will be looking around for another way of making a buck; It is just a question of who, when, and where. And that is where we are today. 

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is 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. 

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.  There are always people around you whom you  might want to introduce to Jackspotpourri.

JL 

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March 28, 2025 - Incompetence, Social Security, the need for a Democratic Agenda, the Joint Chiefs, and a Bit More

 

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You Can’t Hide Incompetence  

“Believe me, Achmed, it was so easy to intercept their ‘chat’ on ‘Signal’ that  I honestly thought they were only trying to mislead the Houtis … but now it turns out they’re too dumb to even suspect that we’d be listening!"  

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It’s no surprise that the appointees of President Trump are as incompetent as he is and equally unfit for their positions. I won’t go into the details of their ‘not-so-secret’ online ‘chat’ initially reported in the Atlantic magazine, whose editor was accidentally and unbelievably included in it, like a bug on a wall.

Conceivably, using the relatively insecure ‘Signal’ chat room for a discussion of military tactics violates all existing protocols for discussing such sensitive matters, and everyone involved in the ‘chat’ ought to have known that. More details are all over the internet and in every newspaper in the country. If you are not aware of it, YOU are part of the problem. 

But here are some comments about their gross ignorance regarding security measures, as they appeared in ‘Letters from an American’ dated March 24: "Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction... was 'what absolute clowns.' Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. This is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: “These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.” 

Of interest is that 'chats' on official government secure sites are permanent and ultimately there as evidence, if ever necessary, of wrongdoing.  Using an insecure, although encrypted, non-government site like Signal, however, enables the content to be 'timed-out' so it is unavailable for investigation in the future.

The American people are catching on to these phonies. Their incompetence becomes more apparent with each passing day. From here on in the Republicans will be losing elections, with the Democrats likely to take over the House of Representatives next year.  Note that President Trump has even withdrawn the nomination of Representative Elise Stefanik to be our United Nations Ambassador because that would require a special election to replace her, something Trump now fears the Democrats would win, reducing the Republican's razor-thin House majority! 

But getting back to the infamous ‘chat,’ with the country in the hands of these idiots, particularly Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth (the major source of its security violations), a fool who should be sent packing back to FoxNews, it is now a question of our surviving as a representative democracy until the November, 2026 elections. 

Are you aware that the confirmation of Hegseth’s appointment as Defense Secretary, on which the Senate vote was tied, 50 to 50, was only accomplished by Vice President Vance’s tie-breaking vote? 

Hegseth and his boss

Before that happened, it was thought the Senate would not vote to confirm him because North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis was planning on voting ‘no’ because of Hegseth’s rumored history of drunkenness. It is also rumored that at the last moment Tillis switched to confirming him, putting the decision into Vance’s hands but only after President Trump threatened ultra-conservative Tillis with a MAGA primary challenger in 2026. These may just be rumors, but they make sense. 

Tillis, Vance, and the President should join Hegseth in resigning and returning to civilian life for the good of the nation; they all share responsibility for this breach of national security.  What is not a rumor is that the Pentagon, a few days after the ‘chat’ that is now in the news took place, finally got around to sending out a warning that the site used for it was not secure and possibly being monitored by Russia, as if they didn’t know that earlier. Hegseth, as Defense Secretary, ought to know what is going on at the Pentagon. That’s another reason for the firing of those mentioned above. You can’t hide incompetence.

JL 

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One Democrat and One ‘Independent’ Know the Score 

You might not agree with everything Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Lopez say, but they are on the right track. CLICK HERE  or copy and paste https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/24/2312252/-AOC-and-Sanders-are-drawing-massive-crowds-and-making-Musk-nervous?detail=emaildkre on your browser line to find out what their ‘road show’ is accomplishing. And don’t skip what the ‘daily KOS’ commenters had to say there, either. 

I see this as a reaction to the moribund Democratic establishment which might, I hope, take note and follow, follow, follow! 

We know what Bernie and AOC are against, and very generally, what they are for … but its about time a Democratic Party agenda meeting today’s challenges appeared, one at least sufficiently specific to convince independents and disenchanted Republicans to ‘vote blue.’ Merely getting rid of Trump and his crew might not be enough to secure their votes. 

Historical Note:  After the Democrats had voted the inept Herbert Hoover out of office in 1932, President-elect Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins, his choice as Secretary of Labor, what had to be done to remedy the social and economic problems in which the country was mired. She was quite specific and got the President to agree to back her goals that included old-age insurance, employment insurance, health insurance, a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, and abolition of child labor. It took years for all of that to eventually become law but a big chunk of it became effective in 1935 when the initial Social Security legislation was enacted. FDR was repeatedly re-elected (the two term limit didn’t exist then) because the specificity of the Democratic agenda resonated with the voters. They liked what they were hearing. 

Today, the Democrats must once again be as specific as Perkins was in 1932 as to what their agenda is. Then they will win more easily in 2026 and 2028. 

 JL 

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Trump and Musk on Social Security 

Opposition to Social Security, it has been said, is like ‘stepping on the ‘third rail,’ a mistake which has electrocuted more than one political campaigner. Some Republicans, however, are willing to give it a try. 

While the President keeps saying that he won’t be messing with Social Security, his Rasputin-like advisor, Elon Musk, thinks Social Security is a ‘’Ponzi Game’ rather that the government-managed retirement income insurance program that has been operating successfully for the past 90 years. 

Thus far, they have not cut benefits, their true aim, but are eliminating enough Social Security employees to make telephone inquiries and office visits practically impossible, creating near chaos at the agency, giving its opponents an excuse to attempt to privatize its programs. Musk stands there smirking with his chainsaw in hand, perhaps an appropriate approach in a private business, but not with agencies designed to serve the public. Their ‘bottom lines’ differ and Musk doesn’t understand that difference. 

Republicans, if they had any brains, would disavow Musk and chase him out of Cabinet meetings, because he is perhaps the best spokesperson the Democrats could possibly have, as he tears apart the concept of government ‘of, by, and for’ the people enunciated by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.

Really though, could you expect anything different from this opportunist, belatedly a Canadian and then an American citizen, but born, raised, and educated in apartheid South Africa? Although apartheid is now illegal there, its historic influences remain echoed by the way differing classes, defined by the color of their skin, lead their daily lives in that country.  The minority Whites and a very few Blacks and 'coloreds' live in nice neighborhoods while the rest still call crumbling shantytowns home.  And this is the culture from which Elon Musk comes. 

Musk's hometown: Pretoria

Unquestionably, he is an advocate of a government (or even the absence of a government) beholden to the wealthy, corporations, and billionaire capitalists from the world of technology ... and as the old saying concludes, leaving ‘the Devil to take the hindmost.’ 

Hey, gang! To Elon Musk, you are that hindmost. 

JL

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Two Things to Keep Your Eyes On 

First, even though the Constitution gave us the Supreme Court, establishing lower courts was left to Congress. House Speaker Johnson is threatening to use this power to weaken such courts where many judges seem to be ruling against some of the excesses of the Trump administration. He may try some tricks like reducing the funding for these courts. Keep your eyes open. 

The other thing to watch might be even more serious. Last month, the President fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, and replaced him with General Dan Caine, who will appear before a Senate Committee considering his appointment next week. General Brown’s dismissal was apparently based on his commitment to installing ‘D.E.I.’ principles in the Armed Forces. This didn’t sit well with our President, who opposes D.E.I. as undemocratic, when the opposite is the truth.  Our Constitution's division of powers is intended to prevent 'tyranny by a majority,' from taking away the benefits of democracy from those not in that majority, the aim of many on the right in the false name of democracy. 

Right now, the Vice Chairman, Admiral Christopher Grady, is temporarily filling the vacancy.  It is unusual, if not suspicious, that Admiral Grady was not included among those involved in the ‘chat’ mentioned earlier in this posting of Jackspotpourri; it certainly included matters of a military nature. Perhaps they feared his input, as someone not already established as part of their team.

An ancillary role of the leaders of any nation’s armed forces, in this country the Joint Chiefs of Staff, becomes important because, like it or not, when a government in a ‘banana republic’ disintegrates for one reason or another, it is usually the military that picks up the pieces and tries to restore order. Look to Latin America and Africa for examples. 

And like it or not, the behavior of the Trump Administration and its captive Congress is changing the government of the United States of America into a bare bones structure that might not be able to effectively deal with the challenges, foreign or even domestic, that it faces. That is why the Senate hearing on General Caine’s appointment next week is important. The inconceivable is not the impossible. 

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is 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. 

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.   This becomes very important because there are always new people moving into the area.

JL 

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