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Shhhh! (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.' * Abide!
JL
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A Change and an Apology
In many of the comments appearing in Jackspotpourri, some voters have been labeled as ‘ignorant, gullible, or even stupid.’ And this has crept into the description of our democracy’s Achilles Heel, especially in the posting of January 29, 2025 on Jackspotpourri.
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| To my knowledge, the mascot of "Mad Magazine' is not a registered voter. |
Well, I’ve finally recognized that it is bad politics to insult voters. It only serves to alienate them. So, from now on in Jackspotpourri, there will be no more of such labelling. Instead, such voters will be more charitably characterized as ‘misinformed’ or ‘misguided.’
And I apologize for any insult made to those whom I had labeled with any of those three negative adjectives.
JL
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The Deluge
The deluge of opinion has started. Columnists, academics, pundits, and just plain Americans are voicing opinions all over the place on what the president, his administration, and illegally empowered civilians like Elon Musk, are doing. It is difficult to keep up with them. What happens in the morning is often old news by sunset. Jackspotpourri cannot touch all of the bases.
Keeping up with the ongoing ‘rejection,’ or as Timothy Snyder put it, the ‘destruction,’ of our government is up to you … if you care, and I hope you do.
I’m not going to enumerate the illegal acts and unconstitutional things that are taking place daily. It’s up to YOU to make a list of them, mentally anyway.
Each day, read a local newspaper like the Palm Beach Post or the South Florida SunSentinel, or a national one like the New York Times or the Washington Post, at least their online versions. Also, academic commentators like Timothy Snyder (Yale) and Heather Cox Richardson (Boston College) keep you up on the illegal or unconstitutional acts taking place in Washington daily. But in the final analysis, keeping track of what is happening is up to you. Jackspotpourri only scratches the surface of the evil deeds going on right now in YOUR country.
Please remember that Donald Trump was elected through the constitutionally established method we follow to elect our presidents, fair and square. But as I have stated on Jackspotpourri, that method has an ‘Achilles Heel’ that was punctured by a poisoned arrow on November 5, when too many voters, at least in my opinion, were misinformed and voted against their own interests. We must find a way of putting a bandage on that wound, and that will be very difficult. Meanwhile, the president and his cohort are proceeding on their unconstitutional and illegal course led by Elon Musk, whose only talent is the ability to make money, regardless of whom he hurts and what laws he violates!
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| Musk and friend |
By now you must know about the president’s latest proposal whereby the United States takes over Gaza. That is pure insanity creating more problems that it solves.
But hold on! It occurs to me that this might just be a diversion by the president, something that will not happen, but proposed just to steal the headlines from, and to cover up, the scurrilous activities of his unelected partner in running the country, Elon Musk, who is busy violating laws and destroying our government so that he can become even wealthier.
Don’t be misled!
The way Musk has used and outwitted Donald Trump makes it clear why Trump’s commercial enterprises so often have gone into bankruptcy. He is not very bright and hasn’t much of a business head. That’s why he went into politics, where there are plenty of sheep to be led to slaughter.
JL
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February is Black History Month … and More Betrayals
The president even signed a proclamation, as previous presidents have done, announcing February as Black History Month.
But his actions prove that his heart was not in it.
Read all about what the president has actually done by viewing an Axios article by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting this link on your browser line: https://www.axios.com/2025/02/01/president-trump-recognizes-black-history-month-while-rolling-back-diversity-efforts .
It describes how he is removing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) from the United States government, as if it never existed. And the private sector, seeing this and seeking not to make waves, is following suit.
This contradicts the words of the Declaration of Independence which back in 1776 stated that all men were created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. Well, the president of the United States is now testing that inalienability, specifically enumerated by the Fourteenth Amendment!
Looking at his actions reversing governmental positions that benefitted Black (and other) citizens, I wonder if members of those minorities who supported Trump in November’s elections for various reasons would do so today, now that their eyes are being opened by his actions.
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But they’re not the only ones who’ve been betrayed. Besides persons of color, many millions of Americans have been hoodwinked in areas other than implementing DEI.
We’ll be hearing from them eventually too, regarding politically motivated tariffs that will raise most consumer prices, harm our economy, and overly hasty deportations of immigrants with questionable legal statuses, a step that will not solve our immigration problem.
When Americans see prices rise, and not just on imported items, and they can’t find a landscaper to trim their hedges, they will question what is coming out of Washington.
And Elon Musk, a private individual who has bought his way into our ruling circles through his wealth, and who answers to no one, now has gotten access to what amounts to control of the Treasury Department’s check-writing (or other payment dispensing apparatus) to use for his own purposes.
Congress may vote to spend our money to pay for appropriations to fund legislation they pass, but Musk’s DOGE people are trying to shut off that money from being used as Congress intended.
Fortunately, his lackeys did it openly and not covertly, so Americans are not unaware of it and public opposition to it is growing. I fear that other things have been done, of which we are unaware. That is why it is important to read between the lines, always.
If these thing don’t sound kosher, ‘whistle blowers’ who recognize improprieties won’t have Inspectors General to complain to either. They have been gotten rid of tooI .
* Abide.
JL
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Reading Between the Lines Department
CNN’s chief domestic correspondent, morning anchor Jim Acosta, a strong critic of the 47th president, was recently relegated to an undesirable time slot, midnight, in a supposed reshuffling of CNN’s news anchors, also necessitating his move to Los Angeles from D.C.
This resulted in his immediate resignation, at which time he cautioned his TV audience ‘not to give into lies and fears, and to hold onto the truth and to hope.’ This is similar to the concept of ‘abiding’ which has been mentioned in recent postings on Jackspotpourri.
I suspect Acosta will soon be back on TV and already is starting an internet presence via substack.com.
Of course, the 47th president was delighted with this move and did not hesitate to say so, unnecessarily insulting Acosta.
Besides openly-opinionated Fox News and MSNBC, other media sources, like CNN, now walk a tightrope.
During a week that saw Trump stepping all over the Constitution and letting Musk run free (or maybe it’s the other way around), even MSNBC’s Ari Melber carefully devoted much of his nightly hour on MSNBC to ‘great American songs of protest.’ You gotta read between the lines, in this case, the lyrics.
Can you imagine Elon and Donald harmonizing, together singing this Woody Guthrie anthem (probably on Fox):
‘This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me!’
That might be what these two rich guys think, but it just isn’t so! Americans must be reminded that ‘This land is OUR land’ and not their land, no matter how much of it they try to steal.
Meanwhile, endure but do not yield.
* Abide!
JL
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Exposing the ‘Deep State’ – Rejecting or Destroying Government
Don’t miss Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ each morning, dated the preceding evening. Just CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line to read her discussion of the Republicans’ and the president’s ‘rejection of government,’ the same subject Professor Timothy Snyder wrote of in his ‘Thinking About …’ posting entitled ‘The Logic of Destruction’ on February 2. CLICK HERE to read it or copy and paste snyder@substack.com on your browser line. He called it ‘destruction’ rather than Richardson’s gentler ‘rejection.’
Come to think of it, you ought to be receiving these two valuable sources of information without Jackspotpourri directing you to them. Sign up to receive both in your email. Their basic versions are free.
It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that the ‘Deep State,’ often condemned by the president and his associates, is actually the government of the United States of America as established by the Constitution, and what Congresses elected by the people over the years have empowered that government to do in managing the nation and its affairs!
There’s nothing ‘Deep’ about that, unless you object to that government hiring employees, forming our ‘civil service,’ to do its work. Without that, the Constitution is just a collection of ‘hollow words.’ And that is just fine with Trump, Musk, and Company.
Those employees, many of whom are presently being asked to resign or be fired, are what keep the nation operating effectively. This particularly affects the ‘rule of law’ because many of those are in the Department of Justice or the FBI.
In their day-to-day operation, and particularly at times of crisis, the Executive Branch’s departments, headed by members of the president’s cabinet and agencies such as the SEC, the FAA, the FDA, FEMA, etc. provide needed expertise and experience, qualities needed to run the country. Loyalty to the man in the White House is not one of these qualities, and certainly no substitute for them.
Such loyalty appears to be the prime consideration in appointing replacements for those being asked to resign or be fired. For example, our new Secretary of Defense would have trouble running a Boy Scout troop.
The president, without any evidence whatsoever, seems to believe that Federal employees don’t work as hard as do employees in the private sector. That is just a myth spread by those aiming at the rejection or destruction of the Federal government. (This might be occasionally the case in local and State government, where political loyalties are often rewarded with jobs, but that’s not his target.)
When replacement appointees lack experience and expertise, it is difficult for them to accomplish very much and our government does not work well. And this approach leads to the ‘rejection of government’ attitude by those who never liked it anyway, that permeates the Musk, I mean Trump, administration, especially in regard to our nation’s traditional adherence to ‘the rule of law.’
The ‘Founding Fathers’ of this country recognized that the new nation could not survive with its thirteen separate States each doing whatever they chose to do. So in 1789 they wrote a Constitution, ‘uniting’ them into the ‘United States,’ enabling the nation to survive to this day. But there are still those today who reject the idea of a federal government, and they have found their place among the slash and burn tactics of the present administration aimed at rejecting or destroying it, as Richardson and Snyder point out.
Is that what America’s voters, knowingly or not, chose on November 5, 2024 when a Republican arrow pierced our representative democracy’s Achilles Heel, that vulnerable spot on our body politic that allows the misinformed access to the ballot? That’s what it looks like.
The Republicans come dangerously close to advocating anarchy, letting the very wealthy, major businesses, and financial ‘oligarchs’ do whatever they want. Their imaginary ‘Deep State’ represents their distaste for and opposition to ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’! That may be why they are rejecting that very idea of such government, enunciated by our sixteenth president at Gettysburg, and letting the billionaires who backed the 47th president call the shots instead.
* Abide!
JL
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Putting Party Before Country
Although I disagree with those in Congress who put loyalty to their political party ahead of the welfare of the country, I can understand their position.
They honestly and truly believe that their party’s traditional agenda, when carried out, is the best direction for the country to follow.
The flaw in this reasoning, however, is that the party to which they profess loyalty is no longer what its name suggests. It has been taken over by far-right wing extremists masquerading as that party, commandeering its name, and rejecting the role of government established by the Constitution.
The president is happy with that, but sooner or later these party loyalists will recognize the error of their ways and either recapture their party, or desert it.
Last Sunday evening, I saw a ’60 Minutes’ interview on CNN of a failing Senator Mitch McConnell, former Republican Senate leader, and he appeared to be thoroughly puzzled by these contradictions within the G.O.P. That is the case with many who claim to be Republicans. They must open their eyes.
JL
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* When I use the expression ‘abide,’ explained on Jackspotpourri’s January 15, 2025 posting, I mean to ‘endure adversity, but not to yield to it.'
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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