* * *
There are Limits
I can’t get everything I want into a posting of Jackspotpouri. The last one stressed Trump’s illegal Venezuelan adventure, leaving little space to include his trampling upon the Constitution, his appointment of many unqualified sycophants like Robert Kennedy, Jr., Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, Kash Patel, Russell Voight, and Pam Bondi to crucial government positions, and applying the questionable ethics of crooked real estate developers to running our country.
Things move so quickly these days making it impossible for an occasionally produced blog like Jackspotpourri to keep up. So for those omissions, I apologize.
It’s up to you to personally keep up with what is going on each day by reading reliable daily newspapers, their online versions, and watching honest telecasts.
Meanwhile, I have sent an email to my two Senators regarding the President’s Venezuelan adventure. (My Representative in the House need not be convinced) It read as follows:
‘Senators Moody and Scott: Please remember that it is the job of Congress to authorize military action by our Armed Forces, and not the President. In the absence of someone attacking us, actions to enforce our laws or court decisions should not be carried out by military force. The Executive Branch must not be allowed to seize the powers of the Legislative Branch of our government. Read Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution. This is a time to put country before party.’
I know they don’t read such communicaions, but they do count them, recognizing they come from voters. Here is some contact information for Floridians. Please use it.
Senator Rick Scott: (202) 224 5274, https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/contact/contact
Senator Ashley Moody (202) 224 3041, https://www.moody.senate.gov/contact-us/
JL
* * *
Fifteenth Century Justice
On the fifth anniversary of the insurrection and invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters fought to keep the count of electoral votes from being carried out, many of them, claiming to be acting on his behalf, commited acts of violence for which they were charged, convicted, and imprisioned.
Re-elected in 2004, Trump has pardoned them and on Tuesday, they celebrated and demonstrated in Washington. This was disgusting.
Trump has attempted to rewrite history, claiming they were merely peaceful and patriotic demonstrators and not following his directions. The millions of Americans who witnessed his remarks immediately beforehand, and the ensuing invasion of the Capitol, and the attacks upon its police defenders saw what was happening on TV and know better.
They know that Trump is a liar, as he has been throughout his life, in business and in government. It is an expression I am reluctant to use, but our president is and always has been a piece of shit, the aroma and presence of which have fatally infected the Republican Party.
Despite my views, I wish President Trump a long and healthy life, but eventually, he will pass into history. At that time, he will pay the price for his lifetime of lying and dishonesty as his soul goes straight to Hell, believed by many to be the ultimate destination for those like him.
 |
| Donald: Please take notice. Here's a portion of Hell, as depicted by Hieronymus Bosch in his "Garden of Earthly Delights' at about the beginning of the Fifteenth Century. Part of a triptique, it hangs in the Prado Museum in Madrid. |
JL
* * *
Can’t Say Your Weren’t Alerted Department
JL
Take a look at the very small print in the oval label just below this bottle’s neck and then check out the vegetable pictured on its big label. Despite this, this is a pretty good product at a fair price in some stores.
JL
* * *
Minneapolis ICE Wednesday Morning Shooting
To figure out what really happened, I’d like to see creditable diagrams of the positions of all of the vehicles involved during the incident, the kind any insurance company would want to study before paying a claim.
But from what I saw from the videos on TV, an ICE vehicle was stuck, spinning its wheels on the ice, and had to be pushed to get it moving. This put it in the way of a vehicle to its left either standing still or driven by a woman who was then trying to avoid the freed ICE vehicle which was now hurtling forward. The woman had been parked there partially obstructing the street, supposedly to monitor ICE activities in her neighborhood, a not uncommon activity in that Minneapolis neighborhood.
To aid in freeing the ICE vehicle from its skidding, an ICE officer on the scene had asked the woman to get out of her car. She refused, resulting in another ICE officer deciding that the woman was ‘weaponizing’ her vehicle by refusing to get out of her car, adding that she was attempting to run him down. On the contrary, videos indicate that the beginning of movement of her vehicle was her attempting to back it off from the scene. He opened fire on her, fatally wounding her, leaving her unresponsive and her car uncontrolled, crashing into some cars parked nearby.
More or less, that is what occurred within a very few seconds. More videos shot by the phones of those on the scene are appearing daily, as requested by local and State authorities who have been denied access to the Federal investigation’s results.
But thus far, there is no video evidence of such ‘weaponizing’ as the ICE shooter is shown walking away, after his firing at the woman’s car, apparently neither injured nor threatened by her vehicle, her only act being her refusing another ICE officer’s request to get out of her car and starting to move it out of the way. The woman was fatally wounded and it was reported available medical assistance was not permitted to approach the wounded woman who died at the scene.
That is what I conclude happened, but the event is still under investigation, but unfortunately only by Federal agencies, who will not share their information with local or State agencies.
Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s explanation and that of President Trump, totally backing the shooter’s story, was not the full story or perhaps even any part of it. It was fiction, of the self-serving genre practiced by members of the Trump administration. The President, believing what he wanted to believe, even suggested that the woman backed her vehicle over the ‘fallen’ ICE agent’s body, which of course never happened as numerous videos document.
Years ago, when roads were slippery, drivers installed chains on their rear wheels to maintain traction on the ice. That probably would have avoided this entire tragic incident. I agree with Minneapolis officials who said that ICE personnel on that city’s streets are the cause of the problem and shouldn’t be there in the first place.
The officers of ICE (Immigration Control & Enforcement), at present our largest law enforcement agency, do not receive the thorough training that regular law enforcement agencies provide for their personnel. Such training includes specific rules as to when to shoot someone and when not to, specifically to avoid situations like this; this incident clearly was in the latter category. All of ICE’s personnel are not fully trained to make these kinds of decisions.
In the absence of any evidence that the ICE officer was harmed, threatened, or endangered by any of the deceased woman’s actions, he should be charged with murder, but a conviction is unlikely. Even if there were one, the President would probably pardon him.
JL
* * *
Second Amendment Involvement in MN?
One of the purposes of the Second Amendment was to enable individual States to arm themselves with militias, whose role would include opposing what they considered to be illegal acts, affecting the rights of States, by the Federal government. It reads ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ Those militia continue to exist as State National Guard units.
When Minnesota’s governor authorized the Minnesota National Guard to assist local law enforcement in keeping the peace, ‘necessary to the securityof a free State,’ a power he shares with the president, does he envision an eventual armed shootout between his State’s Guard and ICE, a Federal entity? I hope not.
Some ICE personnel are also members of that State’s National Guard and might have difficult decisions to make. I hope things do not reach that point. It’s something to think about.
And while you’re thinking about that, check out Professor Timothy Snyder’s January 9 column (‘Thinking About …’) by clicking here or copying and pasting https://snyder.substack.com/on your device’s browser line. It's a good one.
JL
* * *
About Brevity
Shakespeare has Polonius advise his son, going off to college, that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ with words that were not very brief. (Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2).
My letter published in the SouthFlorida SunSentinel on January 7 took that advice and was a brief one, as follows:
‘On Sticking With Trump – The real tragedy of the current occupant of the White House is that millions of Americans are sufficiently gullible, ignorant or bigoted to have voted for him and still support him.’
A brief letter, yes, but I still owe readers of Jackspotpourri a further explanation and shall try to remain brief in doing so. If I had put all of this into the letter, it probably would not have been published, the editors obviously appreciating its brevity.
(1) Believing that the January 6 demonstrators were merely peaceful and patriotic tourists visiting the Capitol, and that Trump’s Venezuelan adventure is not about oil requires such gullibility.
(2) Not knowing for what the United States fought in 1776, 1861, and in two World Wars requires such ignorance, and
(3) Routinely accepting the presence of admitted racists, using immigration reform as an excuse, as a legitimate part of Trump’s support requires such bigotry, even though not often readily admitted by the bigots themselves.
JL
* * *
Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com.
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
More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (the South Florida SunSentinel which frequently carries articles from the New York Times and the Associatd Press), and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors. Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations.
Besides these sources,
I also utilize 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). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri.
After such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than any AI summary.
I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect.
Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.
JL
* * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment