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A Caution! - (Repeated from earlier Jackspotpourri postings)
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.'
Jackspotpourri rarely quotes the often hysterical Michael Moore (michaelmoore@substack.com) and will not now, but his posting dated February 14 (‘Overwhelm, Overreach, Overthrown’) approaches the kind of thinking I feel must still be left ‘unsaid.’
* Abide!
JL
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About ‘Abiding’ - A Red Line Not to Be Crossed
* When I use the expression ‘abide,’ more fully explained in Jackspotpourri’s January 15, 2025 posting, I intend it to mean to ‘endure adversity, but not to yield to it.' But even the limits of that definition are beginning to come into sight.
In the 1989 film, ‘Road House,’ actor Patrick Swayze tells his night club’s ‘bouncers’ that ‘I want you to be nice until it's TIME NOT TO BE NICE.’ ‘When will that be,’ one asked.
When will ‘abiding’ reach that point? When will a situation arise when a more assertive or even more forceful response is called for, rather than being polite toward the Trump administration? When will there be a red line not to be crossed by them? The resources of those now opposing President Trump, Elon Musk, and those working at their direction are limited, so the time for action has to be right and those resources not wasted. But read on, please.
Despite Republicans controlling both the Legislative and Executive branches of our Federal government, judges have managed to delay or postpone some of the unconstitutional or illegal measures Republicans have carried out. Ultimately, some of these actions will reach the Supreme Court.
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| The ball will soon be in their court both literally and figuratively |
Aware of this, President Trump has asked the SCOTUS to quickly rule on whether he can fire the head of an independent ethics agency that protects whistleblower federal employees, specifically Hampton Dellinger, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a Biden appointee. A lower court had ruled that he had to be reinstated after Trump had initially fired him.
(The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, established in 1934, and has been continued by Congressional resolutions since then. Its statutory authority comes from four federal laws: the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act, all passed by Congress over the years.)
If the Supreme Court rules that the President can fire Dellinger, it will mark the end of lower court judges being able to protect our democracy! It would mean that the opposition to President Trump’s high-handed actions will have reached the point where it would be ‘TIME NOT TO BE NICE’ and ‘Abiding’ would no longer suffice.
That would be the red line that those who threaten our representative democracy must not cross without there being a more assertive or even more forceful response to their actions. But until then,
* Abide!
JL
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Awaiting a Judge’s Decision
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| Emil Bove, (Trump’s lawyer in his New York ‘Hush Money’ case where he falsified business records regarding the Stormy Daniels payoff) |
It turns out that newly appointed Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ended up having to be the one to personally ask the judge to drop the pending corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. That action, some contend, would give Trump future leverage in getting Adams to aid him in deporting immigrants.
The judge’s response is awaited.
Seven of Bove's DOJ Federal prosecutors indicated they would resign, believing that asking that the case be dropped would be a violation of their oath of office, and legal ethics.
Now ‘Number 2’ at Trump’s Department of Justice, it appears that Bove had no qualms about violating his oath of office. In his heart, the only oath he had made was one to Trump, forgetting the Constitution and the rule of law that governs this country.
* Abide!
JL
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When Hiring a Lawyer Isn’t Quite Enough
Check out retired lawyer Marty London’s blog (CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://londonsbh.blogspot.com/ on your browser line) to find out how the Trump administration is attempting to ‘incapacitate’ its victims’ legal defenders. The posting, dated February 18, is entitled ‘All the Marbles.’ Meanwhile,
* Abide!
JL
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The Latest Black Sheep Among Nations: The U.S.A.!
Is there a nation in Europe, or perhaps the world, that will continue to trust the United States of America after President Trump’s apparent change of heart regarding Ukraine’s struggle with Russia? Suddenly, Russia has ceased being our adversary.
Putin is cheered by hearing plans to reduce the size of our military establishment, now run by the totally unqualified Peter Hegseth. Our NATO partners no longer can count on us. And China, seeing that, greedily eyes Taiwan.
Support of Ukraine with weapons and money, documented by several votes in Congress (including that of former Senator Rubio), went out the window as the President allied himself with Vladimir Putin who claims that Ukraine started that war, and referred to Ukrainian President Zelinsky as a ‘dictator.’ History is written in ink, and not in easily erasable pencil except in the eyes of Republicans like Rubio.
Rubio, now our new Secretary of State, was fiery in his defense of Ukraine while in the Senate. Now, when voicing Trump's desire to end that war by giving in to much of Russia's demands and insulting Ukraine's president, he (and others like him like Senator Lindsay Graham) prove that when Trump asks them to 'jump,' they only have one question to ask him in response: 'How high, Mr. President? It is no wonder few if any nations trust the United States any longer. Do these people have any degree of shame or conscience? Any backbone or integrity? I guess not. That's part of what it takes to be a Republican today.
This all could have been avoided if the nation had heeded the Mueller Report in 2019, revealing Russia’s criminally trying to influence our 2016 elections, and had not accepted its whitewashing by Trump’s Attorney-General, William Barr. And re-awakening in the background are the never-verified rumors about what Putin ‘has on Trump’ that enables him to so manipulate him.
* Abide!
JL
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Efficient Republicans, Deliberate Democrats, and States’ Sovereignty
Getting things done by our Federal government is not easy, even with the support of Congress and the Executive branch. There are local laws, zoning requirements, bids to be solicited, staff to be hired and trained, and a myriad of details to be ironed out when a government tries to create, or build, something for the benefit of the people. That’s why progress usually crawls with the speed of a turtle, often taking years. Federal government’s involvement in healthcare, through the Affordable Care Act, is a good example.
Tearing down something that government had created for the benefit of the people is much easier. All that is necessary is to stop paying for it and fire the people who manage and run it. No laws even need to be passed, although ones that might have once been passed may be ignored along the way.
Republicans are good at that kind of thing and that’s why they appear to be more efficient than Democrats, their effectiveness being paid for by those who once benefited from what they joy in destroying.
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There are still politicians, usually Republicans, who despise our even having a Federal government filling the role of serving or helping people, and would prefer to be governed by separate State governments, something that hopelessly failed between 1776 and 1789, when the nation operated under the ‘Articles of Confederation.'
To them, the normal workings of our Federal government amount to an evil ‘Deep State,’ a monster they see as engaged in repressing government by 50 separate sovereign States and their citizens. Imagine a nation with 50 States like Texas, Wyoming, or even Florida! Whew!
Despite the bloody Civil War having supposedly resolved that question for good about 160 years ago, there are still many in this country who defend the ultimate sovereignty of individual States and once empowered, have no qualms about firing thousands of Federal employees and doing away with numerous Federal agencies, equating their existence with dictatorship, and simply calling our Federal government an evil ‘Deep State’ rather than government of, by, and for the people as Abraham Lincoln envisioned it.
* Abide!
JL
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Note: There is no 'Artificial Intelligence' used in developing Jackspotpourri. It is all original. When one does a 'search' on a search engine such as Google, a summary is sometimes provided that indicates it is the product of Artificial Intelligence. Be careful of such summaries, the real sources of which are unknown.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Bear in mind that the population of Florida is constantly changing and many newcomers are not familiar with Jackspotpourri.
JL
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