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| 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).
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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.)
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*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
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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
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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
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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
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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!
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I leave it to you to supply the captions to these historic images
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Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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