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The Sky is FallingI was about to recommend Heather Cox Richardson’s May 16 posting on ‘Letters from an American’ but decided it would be more fun to refer you to the story about what happened when Henny-Penny thought the sky was falling. It covers the same territory as Richardson does.
Just CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/henny-penny-the-sky-is-falling on your browser line.
From 'hopeful' to 'hopeless' with Hope Florida
In your daily lives, try to do better than did Henny Penny, who was satisfied just to lay an egg, similar to how the Democratic Party as presently constituted is behaving.
JL
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More Fun
After that, if you’re still in the mood for more fun, here’s a recent column by the Palm Beach Post’s Frank Cerabino. (I had previewed it the other day with a few of you.)
‘If Casey DeSantis finds God at Waffle House, maybe she’ll be our next governor’
Frank Cerabino - Palm Beach Post
"Casey DeSantis needs to get to a Waffle
House and wait for divine intervention. It’s
the only way to save her faltering, yet-to-be-announced campaign for
governor. Allow me to explain:
It wasn’t that long ago that Florida’s First Lady, the most likeable DeSantis, seemed a sure bet to succeed her husband, the perpetually aggrieved Ron, who is whining down his time in office as a term-limited governor.
Casey DeSantis is a more natural politician and a mother of three young children. She also weathered a bout of cancer that included six rounds of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiation and three surgeries.
“Through God’s grace, I’m here,” she said.
 |
To give her some gravitas, the former TV news anchor had a resume booster she could hype on the campaign trail. She became the face of Hope Florida, a non-profit community welfare organization created to shuffle Florida’s poor away from existing public services and towards church groups willing to help them. |
But being the architect of Hope Florida went from a highlight to a liability after revelations that $10 million the state received as an overpayment from a Medicaid provider got funneled to Hope Florida, instead of state coffers, and ended up paying for ads against last November’s recreational marijuana ballot amendment.
Meanwhile, her only real obstacle for the Republican nomination, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a glib MAGA mouthpiece from Naples, won the all-important endorsement of President Donald Trump.
Trump, who had a penchant for calling Florida’s governor “Ron DeSanctimonius,” launched DeSantis’ longshot campaign for governor eight years ago by endorsing him and calling DeSantis a “brilliant young leader.”
But in the following years, DeSantis revealed himself as an abrasive guy with his own ambitions, a semi-loyalist incapable of achieving the Rubio level of emasculating, obsequious fealty that Trump required.
So, Trump did something unusual. He endorsed Donalds for governor in February — even before Donalds announced that he would run for the office.
“Byron Donalds would be a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida and, should he decide to run, will have my Complete and Total Endorsement,”
Trump posted on social media. “RUN, BYRON, RUN!”
Donalds got the “complete and total” endorsement. That’s the "top and best" kind from Trump.
Five days after Trump’s premature endorsement, Donalds announced he was running.
Lately, Donalds appears to be tidying up his personal history in preparation for next year’s election.
Rep. Byron Donalds: 'The Lord spoke to me and said ... '
As a young adult, the now-46-year-old Donalds got arrested for distribution of marijuana and passing bad checks.
He appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network recently to credit God for saving him from the path he was on in his younger life.
It was while he was rolling napkins in 2001 at a Tallahassee Cracker Barrel, where he worked as a waiter, he said.
“The Lord spoke to me and said, ‘Stop running from me,’” Donalds said, “and so it knocked me back.”
The way Donalds tells it, there was a church bus full of women coming from a religious revival eating at the restaurant. He ran out into the parking lot, stopping them from leaving to tell them the Lord was speaking to him, Donalds said.
“They pour out of the bus and they all pray over me,” Donald said. “And I gave my life to Christ in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel.”
(As a side note, I too have been saved at the Cracker Barrel — but only from heart disease by passing up the country fried steak drenched in that gray goo that’s called “sawmill gravy.”)
You see what Donalds has done here? He has engineered a clever reputation makeover by converting the crime-ing part of his life into a story about God saving him at the Cracker Barrel.
OK, Casey DeSantis, you’ve got to respond.
You can’t just let Donalds steamroll you by getting both Trump’s and God’s endorsement, a winning quinella in any Republican primary these days.
Sure, Casey DeSantis beat cancer, but lots of people beat cancer. She needs a personal visit from God at an iconic Florida location.
And Donalds has already beat her to the Cracker Barrel. Shucks!
No epiphanies among the cinnamon brooms for her. No chicken ‘n dumplin’ revelations. She’ll have to find another spot, one without rocking chairs out front.
It's Waffle House to the rescue for Casey DeSantis. I recommend a Waffle House. Any Waffle House. They’re all holy temples capable of Florida electoral miracles, as far as I can tell.
People speak in tongues at the Waffle House, especially after closing time at the local bars. And the meek shall inherit the booth near the bathroom.
Casey DeSantis should just grab a seat, order up some grub and wait for the Lord to show up amid the scattered, smothered, and covered hashed browns.
If God is speaking to Donalds, They/Them will probably speak to Casey DeSantis too, especially if she’s down in the polls.
It’s her only chance. Get thee to a Waffle House, Casey.
Wait for a message from God and bring some Tums."
(Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network-Florida. He can be reached at fcerabino@gannett.com.)
JL
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Okay, Now It’s Time To Get Serious! Fun Time is over.
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Let’s start with the
Founding Fathers' Crystal Ball
Here’s a quote from MSNBC’s Sunday Spotlight’s online posting:
‘The founders didn't anticipate the existence of planes, but they did foresee how foreign governments might try to corrupt an American president with lavish gifts. Not only did they write into the Constitution a ban on gifts or titles from foreign states without congressional approval, they also personally returned even small gifts from foreign governments rather than risk the appearance of impropriety or undue influence. Trump's desire to accept a $400 million jumbo jet from Qatar violates all of these principles, writes presidential historian Alexis Coe.’
This is just more proof that President Trump’s blatant disregard of the Constitution amounts to a ‘high crime and misdemeanor’ worthy of impeachment. The Constitution is quite clear in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 where it states that ‘No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.’ (For those who raise the question, Congress agreed to the acceptance of the Statue of Liberty and the Oval Office’s ‘Resolute Desk,’ both gifts of foreign nations.)
I suspect there are many other such gifts that don’t make the headlines. But don’t ask the President’s appointees to go looking for them.
Ignorance or illiteracy, two of the President’s qualities that many share with him, are not excuses for disregarding these words from the Constitution.
But it’s about much more than just the illegal acceptance of gifts! Read on!
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They are Sounding an Alarm
Undeniably, Professors Heather Cox Richardson, Timothy Snyder, and Economist Paul Krugman are sounding an alarm about the dangers of the direction in which President Trump’s policies are taking us: abandoning old friends and allies for less trustworthy ones, catering to bigots, oligarchs and despots, ignoring or misreading the Constitution, and sacrificing ethical behavior for what looks like a good deal.
Read their almost daily warnings on their Substack sites regarding the acts of our President and those who follow him. Jackspotpourri can’t include them all, but at least can point the way. You can access their postings at:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
https://snyder.substack.com
https://paulkrugman.substack.com
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the vast majority of the letter writers (on their Opinion pages except on Mondays and Tuesdays) to the Palm Beach Post … as well as their occasional inclusion of columns by USA Today columnist Rex Huppke (on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social.)
No one can claim that they’re being blindsided by Trump. The alarm bells are ringing all over the place!
As an example, check out a recent (May 19) warning from Krugman. He entitled the piece
'The
Attack of the Sadistic Zombies'
and included as a subtitle, 'The GOP budget is incredibly cruel — and that’s the point’ and here it is for you to read. Just copy and paste https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/attack-of-the-sadistic-zombies
on your browser line or just CLICK HERE
Krugman is sometimes hard to digest, but please, stick with this revealing piece. A past winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, his frequent postings attempt to make really complicated issues understandable.
And if you don't bother to read it, at least be aware that Krugman closes his message with these words: "Inflicting harm on the vulnerable isn’t something they do with regret, it’s something they do with a sense of satisfaction.
OK, I’ll probably get a lot of grief for saying that — but maybe not as much grief as I would have gotten a few months ago. For does anyone doubt that the people now running America are bullies completely lacking in any kind of compassion? And why do bullies beat up people who can’t defend themselves? Because they can.”
JL
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A Letter Regarding Israel
Here’s a letter I recently emailed off to the Palm Beach Post. I’ll let you know if they print it. You might not agree with me.
‘In a recent ‘Your Turn’ Opinion column (May 17), Uriel Heilman mentions former Israeli Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon concerning the continuing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Although Heilman’s column does not specifically mention it, Ayalon has elsewhere favored a ‘two-state’ solution as part of the way to end that struggle, The problem is that the dateline of Heilman’s column reads ‘Modin, Israel. That populous Israeli city, where Heilman resides, is located on the West Bank, in territory that would be part of a Palestinian state in a ‘two-state’ solution. This may explain Heilman’s frustrations.’
Ayalon’s full thoughts appear in the April 11 edition of ‘Foreign Affairs.’ (Check it out at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/way-israel-truly-defeat-hamas-ayalon?utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=article_link&utm_term=article_email&utm_content=20250517 )
As for a ‘two-state’ solution, most of Israel’s religiously observant citizens oppose it while a majority of its not particularly observant citizens support it, according to recent surveys.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email.
Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps:
1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them.
2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open.
3. Then I read my email.
Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want.
Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri.
Following such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the more traditional results of my initially having accessed Google (or any other search engine) for information. Contrary to the AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated.
I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information, yourself or something else (AI), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable.
(In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)
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.
JL
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