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.
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| President Trump has Jackson's portrait in the |
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
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JL
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