January 29, 2025 - Dark Doings in the Senate, George Washinton's Words, Deportation of Illegals, Achilles Heel, Holocaust Remembrance and a Weakening Affair

Shhhh! 

Make of this what you wish:  In today's political climate, it might be personally dangerous to write specifically about certain topics, and all members of the staff (at present, just me) at Jackspotpourri are aware of that. No one wants the DOJ chasing after them, and lawyers are expensive. Sometimes leaving certain things 'unsaid' can be more effective than saying them. We must learn to 'read between the lines.' 

* Abide! 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

Hegseth In and I.G.s Out – George’s Advice

Pete Hegseth (center), and the three Republican Senators with sufficient guts not to vote to approve him as Secretary of Defense, clockwise starting in top right corner: Senators McConnell, Collins, and Murkowski. The dude at top left is Hegseth's lawyer. He'll probably need him before long.

If you’re not already getting and reading ‘Letters from an American’ every day, check out its posting dated January 25 where Boston College Professor  Heather Cox Richardson covers the Senate’s approving Peter Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and the 47th president’s firing of several government agencies’ Inspector Generals, stifling possible whistleblowers.  Just copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line or just CLICK HERE. 

All but three of the weak-minded Republican Senators voted for Hegseth’s approval because they put their party over their country. Shameful! The three Republican Senators who joined with the Democrats and voted against his approval (Senators McConnell, Murkowski, and Collins) are to be complimented for their courage. 

It took the presiding Vice-President’s vote to assure the appointment of the totally unqualified Hegseth, but this is what the country gets when it elects Republicans to high office. The lessons of the 1890s and 1920s are quickly forgotten. It is also why George Washington included the following in his 1796 Farewell Address, warning the new nation about the danger of political parties: 

Washington

 “ However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. “ 

Yup, that’s what the Republican Party of today is doing, engaged in ‘subverting the power of the people.’ 

JL

                                                      * * * 

Military Involvement in Deportation 

President Trump should be very careful about suggesting the use of troops to assist in his plans to gather and deport those in this country illegally.  Unless those they help to deport are loyal to a foreign adversary, such use would be beyond the mission of our ‘regular’ full-time armed forces (comprising about 1,350,000 members), 

This is not equally true, however, of the military’s very sizable part-time Army and Air Force ‘National Guard’ components (comprising about 425,000 members) whose command is shared by the President with State governors, either of whom can activate them for use it in local emergencies such as fires, floods or civil disorders. 

Keep your eyes and ears open for any hints as to where the Joint Chiefs of Staff stand on this matter. It would seem that they might not agree with actions involving using any of their resources to deport immigrants that might diminish our armed forces’ abilities to carry out their primary role of protecting the nation against potential foreign adversaries like China, Russia, or North Korea. 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

Achilles Heel Explained 

In several postings, Jackspotpourri has referred to an ‘Achilles Heel,’ whereby a strong person, or a powerful nation, has succumbed because of having a particular fault, an ‘Achilles Heel.’ (The previous posting explained how this phenomenon came to be so named in Greek mythology.) 

Is it time to explain in greater detail the nature of this ‘Achilles Heel’ in our representative democracy (or any democracy for that matter) whereby it contains the seeds of its own destruction. 

There are too many people in most political entities for ‘true democracy’ to exist there. That is why we have ‘representative democracy,’ which exists through ‘representatives’ being elected to stand in for large groups of people, which is part of the definition of a republic. Those with an ax to grind who say we are a ‘republic’ and not a ‘democracy’ often fear ‘representative democracy’ which amounts to fearing accepting the will of the people voting in their own interests. 

But getting back to describing our particular ‘Achilles Heel’: 

I believe our 'Achilles Heel' it is the right to vote, possessed by all adult citizens, but without considering the possibility that some of them are vulnerable to the risks of being influenced by varying degrees of ignorance (correctable), gullibility (correctable), or stupidity (not correctable). 

Voters who succumb to these risks can lead to a governmental authority which tries to guarantee its survival by diminishing or getting rid of the representative democracy to which it owes its very existence. (Go back and read George Washinton’s words earlier in this posting.) 

History may be likened to a pendulum’s swinging back and forth over the centuries between lengthy periods when, unfortunately, its Achilles Heel as described above prevails, diminishing real representation by and for the people, and those periods when everything seems to be going well for them, and the right to vote is not besmirched by ignorance and gullibility. 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

A Weakening ‘Bromance’ 

President Trump and Elon Musk are travelling on separate tracks, which no longer, now that Trump is in office, may be parallel. Although Musk’s support may have been crucial in getting Trump elected, their differing perspectives on how the power they attained is to be used are now coming to the fore. 

A recent article in The Hill described this. Copy and paste https://thehill.com/opinion/5107082-trump-musk-marriage-over/ on your browser line or CLICK HERE. 

Adding the presence of China’s 'DeepSeek' into the competition for supremacy in the world of Artificial Intelligence complicates this even further. 

JL

         

                                                                * * * 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Monday, January 27, was observed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Germany’s Nazi concentration and extermination camp at Auschwitz. It brings two poems to mind. 

English poet John Donne is remembered for asking ‘For whom the bell tolls.’ The answer was contained in a poem by Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), a prominent antisemitic Lutheran pastor in Germany who in 1920s and early 1930s, sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radical right-wing political movements. 

After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller spoke out against Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. As a result, he spent the last eight years of Nazi rule, from 1937 to 1945, in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. 

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for this poetic statement made after World War Two, which I recall was carved on a monument in the Holocaust Garden of a temple on Long Island to which I belonged some years ago:

“First they came for the Communists 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Communist, 

Then they came for the Socialists 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Socialist, 

Then they came for the trade unionists 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a trade unionist, 

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Jew, 

Then they came for me 

And there was no one left 

To speak out for me.” 

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.

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.  Meanwhile, Abide. 

* (The word 'Abide' is more fully discussed in the Jackspotpourri postings dated January 15, and January 21, 2025.   Also, Professor Richardson's 'Letters from an American' dated January 28 includes this quote from Jim Acosta, as he resigned from CNN: ''Don’t give into the lies. Don’t give into the fear. Hold onto the truth and to hope.' Another way of defining 'Abide.')

JL

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Janurary 25, 2025 - PhotoQuiz Revisited, Executive Orders, Achilles Heel, and Nat Turner

 

PhotoQuiz Revisted

Here’s one more chance at the ‘PhotoQuiz’ that appeared in Jackpotpourri’s last posting. This time I include some choices. Pick the correct one.

                                                       *

 ____________________ on January 6, 2021. 

Pick One caption to fill in the blank under this picture. 

a. A group of patriotic tourists, unwilling to wait in line for the next tour of the Capitol building, decided to buck the line, something they considered a Constitutional right  . . .

 b. Knowing that the Congress would confirm the 2020 electoral college vote, confirming the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president, that election loser’s supporters attempted to prevent them from doing so, as inspired by the loser's ambiguously suggesting that they proceed to the Capitol to do so, and as a result, many were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced . . . 

c. It never happened and this is just a video concocted in Hollywood by some closet commies in the movie business . . . 

                                                       *

_______________________ on January 20, 2025.

Pick One caption to fill in the blank under this picture.

a. The newly elected 47th president, displaying one of his ‘Day One’ Executive Orders, a leatherette-bound copy of which (take your choice from an attractive list of them) would be available shortly for just $79.95 each or two for $199.95 . . .

b. Newly elected President Trump, displaying the Executive Order exonerating about fifteen hundred of the convicted criminals who broke into the Capitol four years earlier to stop the electoral vote count, chasing Senators and Representatives into hiding, threatening the Vice President's life,  disregarding the Constitution, causing the serious injury of many law enforcement officers on duty there, one of whom died, and millions of dollars of damage to the Capitol building . . . 

c. Newly elected President Trump displaying his Executive Order declaring that Professional Wrestling would replace baseball, or possibly football, as our ‘National Pastime’ . . . 

                                                        *

 (‘b’ is the correct answer to both.) 

 JL

                                                       * * * 

More on Executive Orders 

And speaking of Executive Orders, they included the recission of some of his predecessor’s Executive Orders that included efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions (a scientifically proven source of climate change), protecting federal lands from oil drilling and reducing the cost of prescription medications, particularly to senior citizens. 

If you didn’t get the correct answers to the PhotoQuiz, the 47th president also issued a sweeping pardon for nearly everyone convicted of involvement in the January 6, 2020, Capitol rioting. With this in mind, I refer you to Heather Cox Richardson’s January 21 posting on ‘Letters from an American’ (a link is provided in a few paragraphs further on) where she quotes this horned fellow’s elation posted on ‘X’ celebrating his being exonerated by Trump’s Executive Orders.

 

"I JUST GOT THE NEWS FROM MY LAWYER… I GOT A PARDON BABY! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP.  ... NOW I AM GONNA BY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA …"’  Please visit the full ‘Letters from an American’ link to learn more about him and others like him. 

I suppose convicted felons, in or out of jail, must stick together.

I won’t even go into Trump’s pulling the country out of the Paris Climate accords, the World Health Organization, or allowing Tic Tok, a Chinese government-controlled website that is subtly poisoning the minds of too many young Americans, 75 extra days to get its act (and ownership) straightened out.  Using the military against possibly illegal immigrants is another one of his probably unconstitutional misuses of his office. 

Oh, there’s more that the *Achilles Heel of our representative democracy allowed to happen, chiefly in the area of revoking government regulations that had been earlier put into effect in the interest of the people. 

 (*For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase ‘Achilles Heel,’ here is a brief explanation, excerpted from Wikipedia, regarding just one of the several Greek myths about Achilles’ heel, a weakness, despite overall strength, that can lead to one’s downfall. Allegorically, it can apply to political events. This Greek myth explains that Achilles’ mother, Thetis, had dipped the infant Achilles in the river Styx, holding onto him by his heel, and he became invulnerable where the waters touched him, that is, everywhere except the areas of his heel that were covered by her thumb and forefinger. That is where a poisoned Trojan arrow finally struck and killed him.) 

Antoine Borel painting, many centuries later,
of Achilles being dunked in the River Styx making
him mostly, but not totally, invulnerable.

But what is going on now is not all attributable to President Trump, but also due to the wrong-headed 'identity politics' and strategic ineptness of the Democratic Party and of course, the votes of misinformed and gullible Americans who apparently chose to give free rein to President Musk, I mean Trump. 

As I predicted, the columnists, pundits, and savants are out in force, reacting to the initial actions of the 47th president. You don’t have to chase them all down, though.  Heather Cox Richardson in her daily ‘Letters from an American’ posting dated January 22 chronicles many of them. To find out how the United States government is being crippled and turned into what I conclude to simultaneously be a libertarian's paradise and an authoritarian state, visit https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or just CLICK HERE. 

(You should consider signing up to receive 'Letters from an American' every day.  It looks at what is going on right now through the perspective of history, and It's free.)

But as I have said in recent postings here, ABIDE! Endure but without yielding!  

Each day the 47th president builds the nation's case against him and an administration of those who put loyalty to him before their loyalty to the nation and the Constitution.  Eventually, he and they will be gotten rid of, hopefully within the parameters of the Constitution. Meanwhile, Abide.

(Note:  In 1831, after a brief, bloody, but unsuccessful slave rebellion led by the very religious Nat Turner, who claimed to be acting as instructed by visions of the Deity, he experienced another vision while awaiting execution.  In reply to his asking in prayer why God had allowed him to meet such a fate, he claimed God replied to him with two words, 'I Abide.' Turner took that to mean that it was left to him to also ‘abide’ and to ‘endure and not yield.’)  

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. I leave it to you to supply the captions to these historic images 

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.

JL

                                             *   *   *   *

January 21, 2025 - The President's Inauguration, Easier Said Than Done ... Maybe, Snyder on Nominees, and Remembering Carter.

The Inauguration

47th President and First Lady arriving on the morning of the Inauguration.  (She is wearing a hat reportedly delivered to her by the unidentified drones recently spotted over parts of the country)

Here is President Trump’s January 20 Inaugural Address 

It is important that you read it. Do not be content with summaries of it. Innumerable columnists, politicians, and savants will be commenting on it, some lauding it and others criticizing it. 

That’s very nice and perhaps educational but it is up to YOU to read it and try to sense what the words spoken in the Capitol Rotunda mean to YOU and to your beliefs. That also applies to what the 47th president said and did in the twenty-four hours following up this speech. 

Many Americans agree with him them and find his words and actions pleasing.  Many do not. Either way, they may spur you to become more active in furthering your personal beliefs. It is important to note not only what was spoken but was not addressed as well.

*Or you may choose to follow the well-defined suggestion in Jackspotpourri of January 15 to simply ‘Abide’ … at least for the present. (repeated a bit later in this posting).  

                                                    *  * 

Here’s the inaugural address: 

Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Well, thank you very, very much. Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, Senator Thune, Chief Justice Roberts, justices of the United States Supreme Court, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and my fellow citizens, the Golden Age of America begins right now. 

And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free. America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before. I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success, a tide of change is sweeping the country, sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before. 

But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. While they are plentiful, they will be annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing in the United States of America. 

As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad. It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens, but provide sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world. We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to defend American borders or more importantly, its own people. Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina, been treated so badly. And other states who are still suffering from a hurricane that took place many months ago. Or more recently in Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense. They’re raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now. They don’t have a home any longer. That’s interesting, but we can’t let this happen. Everyone is unable to do anything about it. That’s going to change. We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world. And we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves, in many cases to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. 

All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly. My recent election has a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over. Our liberties and our nation’s glorious destiny will no longer be denied, and we will immediately restore the integrity, competency, and loyalty of America’s government. 

Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250 year history, and I’ve learned a lot along the way the journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom, and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

That is why each day under our administration of American patriots, we will be working to meet every crisis with dignity and power and strength. We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety, and peace for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. For American citizens, Jan. 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day. 

It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country. As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society, young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural and very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states, and the popular vote we won by millions of people. To the black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records and I will not forget it. I’ve heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come. Today is Martin Luther King Day and his honor, this will be a great honor, but in his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true. Thank you. Thank you. 

(At the opening, during, and at the end of his speech, the President stopped to thank those who were applauding him.) 

                                                           * * 

*For those of you who won’t bother to go back to the previous posting of Jackspotpourri, here is what I wrote about ‘abiding’ on January 15. “If one is unhappy with the results of the 2024 elections, as many are, they can still ‘abide,’ bearing those election results patiently and enduring them without yielding, which is the secular meaning of the word 'abide' included in dictionary definitions of it … Or they can turn to the common religious use of the word, finding solace in belief in a God despite circumstances, as did blind poet John Milton when he concluded that ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’ in his Sonnet 19.” 

For those who choose to ‘endure without yielding,’ I now inquire as to what might they be ‘standing and waiting’ for? That is up to them. 

JL

                                                       * * * 

Easier Said Than Done 

Catherine Rampell’s recent Washington Post column (written before the Inauguration) well illustrates the impossibility of the incoming administration being able to accomplish some of the things the President aims at doing, at least within the framework of the federal government as it presently is structured … which he very well will demolish and rebuild to his liking. 

Here's Rampell’s column, which while dealing with immigrants, is an example of much of President Trump’s failure-destined agenda: 

‘Laken Riley Act has nothing to do with Laken Riley’ 

“After a bruising election, Democrats fear appearing weak on illegal immigration and soft on crime. So some Democratic senators have thrown their support behind the exploitatively titled Laken Riley Act, which takes its name from a young nursing student murdered by an undocumented immigrant. 

But this is a terrible, demagogic bill. It would not have prevented its namesake’s tragic death. Worse, it would complicate law enforcement’s ability to prioritize public safety threats and give cranks in state government the ability to shut down legal immigration, nationwide. The bill was introduced last year as a messaging bill. It began with a preamble about why President Joe Biden was the absolute worst, followed by some bonkers anti-immigrant stuff that was unlikely to ever become law. Kinda similar to those grandstanding 'repeal Obamacare' bills that polled well but didn’t get much scrutiny - until they nearly passed and blew up the health-care system. 

Riley’s murderer had been arrested for shoplifting, so this bill would require immigrants accused of shoplifting or petty theft to be detained indefinitely, without even the ability to apply for bail. This includes people whose charges were dropped or who were ultimately found innocent in court. In other words, the Department of Homeland Security would be required to jail even falsely accused people indefinitely, at taxpayer expense. This would be a wild departure from, oh, the Constitution’s basic due process protections. 

The provision applies to immigrants considered 'inadmissible' - or more colloquially, undocumented - for lacking an up-to-date visa or entering the country unlawfully. To some laypeople, an 'undocumented immigrant' might conjure images of a hardened thug on the run from the fuzz. You know, like Riley’s killer. In reality, the category also applies to normal, law-abiding people whom the government already knows about and (critically) has granted permission to stay.  For example, it includes 'dreamers,' the young undocumented people brought here as children. They - among other peaceful community members - would have to be jailed indefinitely should a vengeful boss, racist neighbor or abusive ex persuade police to arrest them for a petty offense. 

The bill would also allow states to sue the federal government to overturn individual detention decisions they disagreed with. For example, Texas’s virulently anti-immigrant attorney general, Ken Paxton, could seek an injunction to force Immigration and Customs Enforcement to lock up tens of thousands of asylum seekers, even those who haven’t broken any law. The federal government already has broad authority to lock up undocumented immigrants and subject them to deportation proceedings if ICE agents and judges decide they’re a danger to their communities or a flight risk. 

Even without this bill, the feds could have detained Riley’s killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, before he committed murder. Instead, Ibarra was released after crossing the border in September 2022 and not deported. Why? First, because there aren’t enough government resources to lock up every unauthorized immigrant in America, even if we wanted to. ICE has funding for only 40,000 detention beds, whereas the population of undocumented immigrants is about 11 million. So this bill could require orders of magnitude more people to get thrown into detention but doesn’t give ICE another penny to do so. It’s not hard to imagine detention beds being filled with asylum seekers falsely accused of swiping candy bars while actual dangerous people are allowed to roam free. 

Even if Biden (had) wanted to deport Ibarra, his home country of Venezuela would have refused to take him - as it has for other deportees. The solution to problems like this is better diplomacy, which Biden worked toward. (Not long after Ibarra crossed into the United States, Biden struck a deal with Mexico to take expelled Venezuelans.) This bill’s alternative 'solution' to recalcitrant countries is the looniest part: It would give every state veto power over federal immigration policy. Specifically, it would allow state officials to seek a court order to shut down all legal immigration from any country that has proved troublesome for U.S. immigration enforcement. 

For example, India has not always fully cooperated with the United States on deportations. So that Texas AG could sue to block every medical researcher or chemical engineer from India from getting a visa to come to America. What does any of this have to do with the wrenching loss of Laken Riley, or really any problem in our dysfunctional immigration system? It doesn’t. It just creates more problems - humanitarian, economic and constitutional. Democratic lawmakers (and any fair-minded Republicans still out there) should learn what they’re voting for, before they get manipulated into doing so.” 

Ms. Rampell is, or was, an optimist. 

JL 

                                                        * * *! 

Rejected Nominees 

Timothy Snyder (Professor of history at Yale) wrote about some eminently qualified nominees for cabinet posts whom the Senate did not approve over the years in his ‘Thinking About…‘ blog posting of January 16. 

It might make good reading for the more literate members of the incoming administration. Check it out at https://snyder.substack.com/p/rejected-cabinet-nominees or by CLICKING HERE. 

Chickens will always come back to roost. Time heals everything, but not to everyone’s satisfaction. 

JL

                                                     *   *   *

President Jimmy Carter's Love of Music

Check out some memorable pictures of Carter, who passed away at age 100 last week, with the makers of the music he loved.  Just paste https://www.npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2025/01/11/1159625549/president-jimmy-carter-love-rock-and-roll-music?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20250114&utm_term=9930465&utm_campaign=news&utm_id=65835993&orgid=482&utm_att1=  on your browser line or CLICK HERE.

 JL 

                                                        * * * 

See if you can put captions on these two dated photographs.  

                           

                                                  ____________________ on January 6, 2021

  

                                          

    ________________ on January 20, 2025

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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. I leave it to you to supply the captions to these historic images 

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. 

JL 

                                                          * * *

January 15, 2024 - Wildfires, Democracy, 'Abiding,' Insurance, Best 2024 Movies, and Sports

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California Wildfires Explained 27 Years Ago, Democracy, and ‘Abiding’ 

The Free Press (www.tfp.com) included the following revealing item on Monday, Jan. 13.

‘There’s a common misconception that beneath the asphalt, Los Angeles is a desert. It isn’t. It’s grassland. And part of the natural cycle of the grassland ecosystem is fire. Twenty-seven years ago, Mike Davis wrote 'Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster.'  One of its chapters is titled ‘The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.’ 

In it, he argued that the area between the beach and the Santa Monica Mountains simply never should have been developed. No matter what measures we take to prevent it, those hills are going to burn, and the houses we erect upon them are only so much kindling...’ 

Pacific Palisades burning as 'kindling,' as predicted by Mike Davis in his book.  Windborne embers continue to spread the wildfires there as you read this.  Historically, this is nothing new to the area as documented by its earlier Native American and Spanish populations. Only Americans, believing that money conquers everything, seem to have been blind to it. 

                                                     

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The idea of leveraging Federal aid to California in battling its wildfire crisis by pressuring States to adopt conservative, right-wing, political positions, voiced by some Congressional Republicans, is repulsive, disgusting, and un-American.   It is the result of the 2024 elections which revealed the extent of our democracy’s Achilles heel.  Jeffersonian democracy suggested a level of education and intelligence that too many American voters lack. November, 2024 confirmed that. 

Those who believe that our representative democracy is a ‘work in progress’ must recognize that such ‘work’ can be both overly constructive and overly destructive.  Historically, it seems to bounce back and forth between the two, with those 'temporarily' in charge demeaning their opposition. 

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And if one is unhappy with the results of the 2024 elections, as many are, they can still ‘abide,’ bearing those election results patiently and enduring them without yielding, which is the secular meaning of the word 'abide' included in dictionary definitions of it … 

Or they can turn to the common religious use of the word, finding solace in belief in a God despite circumstances, as did blind poet John Milton when he concluded that ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’ in his Sonnet 19: 

When I consider how my light is spent, 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 

And that one Talent which is death to hide 

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 

My true account, lest he returning chide; 

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. 

But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, 

“God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; 

who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. 

His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed 

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: 

They also serve who only stand and wait.” 

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Either way, Abide!

JL 

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Ten Best Movies of 2024 

(USA Today critic's listing from Palm Beach Post of January 5 - in ascending order) *

10.   The Piano Lesson

9.     The Substance

8.     A Different Man

7.     Inside Out 2

6.     Civil War

5.     Dune: Part 2

4.     A Complete Unknown

3.    Sing Sing

2.    Conclave

1.    The Brutalist

* This section of the paper also ranked 2024's ten best books, TV shows, Broadway shows, Songs, and Concerts, according to their critics.  (I have a copy if you are curious.)

JL

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Continuing The Use of Fossil Fuels – Good or Bad? 

Most of us know that climate change is at least part of the source of some of the environmental (and possibly economic) problems we Earthlings face, and the use of fossil fuels contributes to them. That’s why electrically powered vehicles (EV), even though their manufacture also ultimately draws upon power enabled by fossil fuels, has been touted as one solution to the problem. They have a limitless future. Fossil fuels do not and eventually will be exhausted.

Elon Musk’s Tesla automobile is one such EV, and there are others. In fact, the United States government has offered financial incentives to those who purchase an EV rather than one using gasoline. That is the supposed ‘mandate’ mentioned in the advertisement reproduced below. President Trump is an enemy of EVs, despite his strange relationship with Musk. 

Here is a full-page advertisement which has been appearing in newspapers nationwide which makes that very clear. 

If the very bottom lines of the ad did not appear clearly in this posting, AFPM (which paid for these advertisements thanking Trump for his position) stands for ‘American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers’ and their website is www.dontbanourcars.com. 

While continuing the use of fossil fuels is in the interest of those who paid for this ad, and possibly gained some votes for the President, their continued use has been recognized by scientists as part of the climatological problem that jeopardizes the planet’s survival. 

If Trump’s enthusiastic ‘Drill, Baby, Drill,’ exclamation is to be carried out, the first offshore wells should be in the Atlantic Ocean, just east of Mar-a-Lago, as suggested by columnist Frank Cerabino.   But let's first see if he actually ends the 'mandate' on his Day 1 or was that just campaign malarky.  Doing so would antagonize Elon, who is far wealthier than Trump.

JL 

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Some Thoughts on Insurance 

A problem for the insurance industry is a problem for all of us. Thinking that insurance will cover the damage done by the California wildfires is like living in a ‘fool’s paradise.’ 

We must recognize that the unbelievable, warlike, damage wildfires are presently causing in California as well as the massive damage, if not destruction, to properties in Florida and North Carolina caused by 2024’s storms, specifically Milton and Helene, are not just the problems of those immediately affected. They are ours as well, State borders notwithstanding.

In such situations, many look to the insurance companies from which they have purchased protection for relief. So let’s look at those companies. Bear in mind that many of them have subsidiaries in the States where they operate, limiting their risk exposure to those states only, but in the final analysis, their ‘parent companies’ are also affected, particularly in the area of ‘reinsurance,’ to which we’ll get shortly. 

Besides providing protection to individuals and businesses in the event of a loss, insurance companies exist to provide a predictable source of funding for the investments they make and from which they profit. By selling insurance, they acquire the money they are holding from premium payments to ultimately use to pay claims. 

But in the meantime, in the financial world, they use this money they hold as a source of lending within regulated limits, along with banks, to businesses and local governments. They employ skilled mathematicians, called actuaries, to make sure this structure works. 

Insurance companies must be able to accurately predict how much money they will need on hand to pay out to policyholders who submit claims. That’s pretty easy in the case of life insurance which can be paid out when there is a death, or a policy is cashed in. Health insurance premiums can be similarly structured but not with the near certainty that life insurance premiums can be. In short, mortality (frequency of deaths) and morbidity (frequency of sicknesses) usually can be measured and serve as a basis for premiums. 

The real trick is for an insurer to price the coverage it sells so that it works when most of its policyholders do not submit major claims, where the premiums paid by the many go to pay the claims of the very few. Unlike life and health insurance, that is the case with homeowners’ insurance and to a lesser extent with automobile insurance. 

Most purchasers of such insurance protection never anticipate submitting a major claim and never do.  For every major fire in a house or an automobile ‘totaled’ or stolen, thousands of others who also have paid premiums for protection never have such a claim to submit.  Submitting claims to insurance companies are usually ‘singular’ events, and that is that frequency on which companies base their pricing. 

The occurrence, however, of massive disasters such as those caused by hurricanes and wildfires, where entire communities are ravaged, produces an unpredictable situation involving thousands of claims. Insurance companies, even the giant ones, purchase reinsurance beforehand, available through both domestic and foreign marketplaces, to enable them to cope with such situations when the claims submitted to them stretch beyond their own considerable resources. Even these reinsurance companies have ‘treaties’ among themselves where they agree to share the support of one another, especially when such unpredictable disasters occur. 

But legitimate claims caused by massive and usually unpredictable disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, or rising seas, can even extend beyond the capabilities of the reinsurance marketplace, for both ‘parent’ companies and their ‘subsidiaries’ in States where they do business. Chickens do come home to roost. 

I suspect that is where we are heading today. It may be something beyond the capacity of the private sector to solve, even with reinsurance. This can mean that only government intervention can meet this challenge. There already are many State laws where the inability of an insurer to pay its claims is remedied by ‘guarantee corporations’ financed by increases in the premiums paid by the policyholders of the other insurers operating in that State. Yet untapped, however, are taxes to be paid by all, even those without insurance, for this purpose. This also would seriously diminish the financial role of insurance companies as a major source of lending to businesses and local governments through its investment of the premium dollars they hold. 

Try to keep some of this in mind when you next pay the premiums due for your life, health, homeowners, renters, or automobile insurance. This problem for the insurance industry is a problem for all of us. 

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(Of course, insurance cannot solve the enormous ongoing personal problems events such as those the California wildfires have caused or magnified in the areas of employment, education, housing, infrastructure, those that have died, existing medical problems, social and community 'fabric,' finances, etc.  Even if every insurance claim were paid, these problems would still exist for those recovering among the ashes.  This is an enormous problem with which the entire nation must live.) 

JL 

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Sports Section 

Those who watch Baltimore Oriole baseball games in person or on TV know that the Orioles are sometimes simply referred to as the ‘O’s. In fact, when the fans in the ballpark there rise to sing the National Anthem before each game, they always scream out the first word of its final stanza thusly: ‘OHHHHHH, Say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.’ 

Apparently, Baltimore Raven football fans can’t break that habit and do the same thing when the National Anthem is sung before National Football League games played there, even though there is no ‘O’ in Ravens. 

For those interested, I predict the Ravens will win the Super Bowl in a few weeks, led by Boynton Beach High School graduate, Lamar Jackson. 

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. 

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.

JL

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