An Irish Blessing on Saint Patrick's Day, the $130,000 Deal, a Letter to the Post, "Taking him Down," a "Tweet" Battle and a Discarded Newspaper

              The "Mascot" for today's posting is the State Butterfly of Florida, the Broadwing Zebra  (Helconius)

The Art of the Deal

Just how do you arrive at writing a check for $130,000 to close a deal?  It is an unusual figure, an odd number, unlike $100,000 or $150,000.  Imagine a scenario like this:

A:  My client wants a quarter of a million dollars, $250,000, that’s what we want.

B:  You’re crazy.  We’ll settle for $50,000.  Take it or leave it.

A:  Look, we’re reasonable.  Make it $200,000 and it’s a deal.

B:  $100,000, not a penny more.

A:  Now you’re talking more sense.  We’ll settle for $150,000.  Bottom line!

B:  Look, let’s cut the difference in half.  We’ll up it to $125,000

A:  Maybe, but look, we’ve come down way more than you’ve come up!

B:  You’ve got a point.  So we’ll sweeten it a bit.   $130,000?

A:  You’re getting away cheap but it's getting late, so okay, we'll go with that number. 

Does this sound like a believable discussion between two lawyers?  And of course, the deal would never have been made without there being something of substance at issue.  That is the important thing, not the money.

In previous blog postings, I’ve made it clear that the President eventually will be “going down.”  Obviously, the Republican majorities in both Houses are for the present incapable of carrying out this duty for a variety of reasons such as fear of far right-wing challenges in primaries, a loss of campaign donations and inept leadership on the part of Messrs. McConnell and Ryan. 

So, it looks like that task will fall upon an aging porn star who claims she had an affair with the President a dozen years ago, just about the time the President’s wife, one of the most beautiful women in the world, was giving birth to his son. Sooner or later, someone will take down that unfaithful, lyin’ sonofabitch and since Mitch and Paul won't do it, it might as well be Stormy.

   Us?  Hell no!!

And speaking of "sonsofbitches," I recall that as a kid back in the Forties (gee, that makes be seem ancient), I heard a story about a man who bought a newspaper every day, looked at the front page, and then threw it in a nearby trash can.  Finally, one day, the guy who ran the newsstand leaned over and asked the man, “How come, sir, you buy a paper every day, glance at the front page and then throw it in the garbage?”  The man quickly answered, “Oh, I’m just looking for an obituary.”  The newsstand operator replied, “But sir, the obituaries are way back in the second section of the paper.”  Before he could say more, the man interjected, “When this sonofabitch dies, it’ll be all over page one!”  

Yes, such anti-Franklin Roosevelt jokes were prevalent during his four terms in office.  Oddly though, I can appreciate the man’s attitude. Each morning when I wake up, I turn on the bedroom TV (usually set at MSNBC for “Morning Joe”) for exactly the same reason.  And then, somewhat disappointed, go on about my day’s routine.

Jack Lippman

Saint Patrick's Day

Saturday was Saint Patrick'sDay, and while the day indeed celebrates a Roman Catholic Saint, it has a broader meaning in our American culture.  The Irish represnt a group which emigrated to theis country in the mid-nineteenth century to excape both famine and poitical oppression.  Other groups have come here for similar reasons.

The progeny of Irish immigrants have contributed much to our country particularly in the areas of public service, literature and entertainment. But when a green stripe is painted up the center of Fifth Avenue in New York City, it is not for religious reasons.  It celebrates the Irish contribution which along with the contributions of groups such as the Italians, Jews, Greeks, Africans, Latinos and many others have served to make America great. 

In the future, the contributions of newer immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa will be increasingly celebrated, that is so long as our government does not forget and ignore what brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock and successive waves of immigrants through our "golden door" beside which that lady "lifts her lamp."

                   

JL

Battle of the Tweets

The Friday evening firing of Deputy FBI Director McCabe, probably by order of the President, was followed by his tweeting that the firing was “a great day for Democracy” and also that McCabe knew “all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”

Well, it didn’t take long for former CIA Director John Brennan to tweet the following message, replying to the words of the President: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.  You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America … America will triumph over you.” 

(Incidentally, it has already been reported on “Breitbart” that Brennan’s comments should be investigated as to whether they constitute a threat on the life of the President. Apparently they hit home.)

JL

Letter to the Post

And here’s a low key letter I submitted to the Palm Beach Post last week which points up the need for additional resources for law enforcement agencies as well as for mental health programs as part of an effort to deter violent acts, including those carried out with weapons.   I'll let you know if they print it.

"It seems that law enforcement agencies on several levels were aware of the potential for violence posed by the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as well as by the teenager who stabbed several people, killing one, at a recent Palm Beach Gardens sleepover.  It’s good news that local police and Federal agencies have the tools to get this information, but I wonder if they have the resources to keep tabs on all such individuals, which there may be many more of in our area.  Knowing who they are does not necessarily mean they are under surveillance.  Even though the new “School Safety” legislation allows police to get court orders to take away weapons from such individuals, predicting which ones are about to explode, as these two recently did, seems almost impossible.  And there are weapons other than guns."

Okay, although that's what the letter isn't about, a logical solution would be to ban the kind of weapons these sad cases usually use, assault rifles.  Knives are dangerous too, but they cannot be used to perpitrate mass killings.  Assault weapons can.

JL

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Jack Lippman 

What's Wrong with Us, Arming Teachers, Who Tunes in to this Blog and Why I Wear a Hat

Blog Survey Results

Well the numbers are in.  Of the 130 recipients of the “Blog Posting Alerts” I send out, twenty-one replied that they indeed read the blog.  Personally, I know of another dozen or so who did not respond but who, from our conversations, I know also read the blog.  And there are those who just don’t reply to surveys, ever.  I feel it safe to say that about 40 individuals regularly follow Jackspotpourri and that is not a bad number, about 30% of those who are alerted to each posting. 

Of course, the totals I see in the statistics Google provides to me include (1) the many times I personally access the blog in preparing it each week [they say they don’t count them, but I believe they do], (2) the robots in Russia and elsewhere who keep an eye on it without really reading it and (3) those who are led to it by a search engine.  Nevertheless, according to Google’s sometimes unreliable statistics for what they are worth, last week’s viewership for Jackspotpourri including those looking at older postings as well as the current one, was as follows:

	United States 69 Russia 10 Germany 3 Ukraine 3 France 2 Latvia 1 Poland 1 Romania     1
	Go Figure! Jack Lippman

What's Wrong Around Here!

The United States of America is in trouble.  It is like a car whose steering wheel is broken.  That would be bad enough, but it’s worse because of the fact that its four tires are all flat.  

We have a President who is incompetent and incapable of leading the country and who refuses to listen to those he has appointed to help him do his job. 

He does not understand the difference between campaigning for office and actually being in office and executing the tasks of governance.

And Congress is unable to step in and assume a leadership role of its own because it is bogged down, not only in struggles between Republicans and Democrats, but between factions within both these parties.  Let the allegory end here, although the nation does have the opportunity to fix those flat tires in the 2018 Congressional elections, and to install a new steering wheel in 2020.  Meanwhile, beside being the laughing stock of the world, we are falling behind better organized and better managed nations in areas where we always were the leader.  And how did this come about?

Could it be that democracy has failed in the United States?  It is the best political system in the world, but to succeed, it demands knowledgeable and civic-minded citizens.  We don’t have them any longer for a variety of reasons.  

We are in a fix because of:

(1)  the misinformation which is financed in this country by corporate dollars under the guise of free speech allowed by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision,

(2) unrepresentative legislatures made possible by the gerrymandering of congressional and state legislative districts,

(3) the replacement of traditional reputable sources of information such as newspapers by tremendous numbers of unreliable and opinionated internet media outlets and the exchange of specious information through social media.

(4)  the acceptance in the minds of many of the existence of more than one version of “truth.”

All this works together with a failing educational system, our constantly besieged media, our worship of false gods (and I am not talking about religion) and our failure to properly utilize the technology we have developed.  Many of those that we have elected to Congress and the man in the White House illustrate these shortcomings.  They are the products of our crumbling democratic process.  Other nations surpass us because they are not democracies and can single-mindedly strive to achieve state determined goals without considering the rights of individual citizens.  This is not to praise them but to point out that we are stuck with a democracy which is bogged down because it lacks enough knowledgeable and civic-minded citizens for it to work properly.  And those impediments can be remedied.

To start down the road to remedying this problem,

we must elect Democrats to Congress, to State Legislatures and to the Presidency.  They, at least, have not made a Faustian deal and sold their souls to the devil in the person of the National Rifle Association for a few dollars and a few votes, and have the interests of the people at heart rather than those of the very wealthiest of Americans.  And the best way to elect Democrats at any level in 2018 is for Democratic candidates to demand that their Republican opponents state their position on the President of the United States.  Will they acknowledge his incompetence or will they continue to support him?  Either response will divide and diminish the Republican vote and enhance Democratic candidates’ chances. 

  

                                       *   *   *   *

A few postings ago, I suggested that the President would be “going down.”  I stick to that position despite his ability to shrug off problems which would, by now, have resulted in the impeachment or even the incarceration of a less egotistical president.  This one is play acting the role of President and sooner or later reality will set in when they come to cart him off, figuratively speaking of course. 

Meanwhile, Trump thrives on changing the subject every time he is threatened with damning facts and headlines which publicize them.  He will say or do anything to dominate media content.

When Special Prosecutor Mueller’s investigation creeps dangerously close to the White House, he comes up with unprepared and illogical tariff reforms which anyone with even minimal expertise in that area finds laughable. (Tariffs are taxes, ultimately paid for by the consumer through higher prices, and unless carefully tailored, cause significant job loss.  The President never learned this while taking Wharton courses at the University of Pennsylvania where he must have been dozing in class.)

When indiscretions with Stormy Daniels pop up, it’s time to announce that he will meet with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. 

Doing this without prior negotiations and months of preparation is stupid, handing a two-bit dictator the gift of apparent equivalency with the President of the United States, an act all previous Presidents, regardless of party, have assiduously avoided. He approaches diplomacy like a twelve year old playing a video game.  As I said earlier, Trump does not know the difference between campaigning and governing. 

Yet his gullible base continues to back him for the reasons stated earlier in this posting. 

Those who believe in impeachment (a slam dunk if the Democrats take over the House and come close in the Senate later this year) are stressed, however, by the fact that Vice President Pence represents the ideas of the right wing of the Republican Party even better than does the President and is not burdened by the moral, ethical and intellectual shortcomings so evident in the White House today.  That would make him a far more elusive target for Democrats, who might prefer having Trump around as a continuing menace to the nation, unifying their support until 2020.   Keep your eyes open as to how this dilemma is resolved.  Right now, I do not think the Democrats have an answer.

JL   

Arming Teachers?

Arming teachers and other school personal as a means of reducing gun violence?  School boards and teachers almost universally oppose our doing so.  Besides the danger of putting more guns into our schools where they might be misused or fall into the wrong hands, they know it presents the danger of law enforcement not being able to distinguish between a “shooter” and a teacher attempting to “shoot back” at a shooter.  Innocent people will be killed. 

But carrying this idea of arming school personnel further, why are not its advocates asking that personnel in other “soft targets” be armed as well?  Ushers in theatres and sporting events.  Baggage handlers in airports. Clergy in houses of worship. Salespeople in shopping malls.  Doctors and nurses in hospitals.   Drivers on busses.  Ticket takers on commuter trains.  Get the point?  Why stop with school personnel?  The whole idea is ridiculous and only a way for legislators to show some fealty to the National Rifle Association which provides campaign contributions and votes for them. 

Of course, the very best way to reduce gun violence is to ban assault weapons, which have no place in the civilian world anyway, except for arming killers.  But don’t try to explain this to the NRA nor to chicken-hearted legislators who take money from them.

JL

Jack's Hat

Some people ask me why I wear a hat most of the time.   Aside from the fact that my dermatologist advises be to do so because of the intensity of our sub-tropical sun, I do it from a vanity standpoint.  Each remaining hair on my head retains a feeling of independence and after it is put in position by a comb and brush makes its own decision as to how to behave.  Some turn northward.  Others head for the equator. 

I can resolve the problem by using a lot of grease on my hair (when younger, I used a product called Brylcreem which my father used and is still around) or generous spraying with hairspray imparting a shellac-like finish to my head.  I choose to do neither and instead, when I have a mind to, I imprison my remaining head of hair under the protective cover of a hat.

JL

HOW TO BE ALERTED TO FUTURE BLOG POSTINGS.

Many readers of this blog are alerted by Email every time a new posting appears.  If you wish to be added to that Email list, just let me know by sending me an email at Riart1@aol.com.

HOW TO CONTACT ME or CONTRIBUTE MATERIAL TO JACKSPOTPOURRI.com 

Just send it to me by email at Riart1@aol.com.   YOU ALSO CAN SEND ME YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO BE PUBLISHED IN THIS BLOG AS WELL AS YOUR COMMENTS AT THAT ADDRESS.  (Comments can also be made by clicking on the "Post a Comment" link at the blog's end.)

MOBILE DEVICE ACCESS.

DID YOU KNOW THAT www.jackspotpourri.com IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICES IN A MODIFIED, EASY-TO-READ, FORMAT?   

HOW TO VIEW OLDER POSTINGS.                                                

To view older postings on this blog, just click on the appropriate date in the “Blog Archive” midway down the column off to the right, or scroll down until you see the “Older Posts” notation at the very bottom of this posting.  The “Search Box” in the right side of the posting also may be helpful in locating a posting topic for which you are looking.

HOW TO FORWARD POSTINGS.

To send this posting to a friend, or enemy for that matter, whom you think might be interested in it, just click on the envelope with the arrow on the "Comments" line directly below, enabling you to send them an Email providing a link directly to this posting.  You might also want to let me know their Email address so that they may be alerted to future postings.

Jack Lippman 

Gun Control - Justice Scalia to the Rescue?, the Dirty Truth about Resistance to Gun Control and a Question

A Question:  

Who will be the first on President Donald Trump’s team to finally declare, “I’m not going to jail to save that pumpkin headed moron who doesn’t know that the ethics acceptable in the shadier part of the business world are not acceptable in government service?  Let him serve time, not me!”

JL

The Supreme Court Gave Gun Control a Thread of Hope in 2008 ... But ...

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 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.”

Many Americans believe that the Second Amendment has been hijacked by the National Rifle Association and weapons manufacturers.  Its original purpose, supposedly preserving the right of individuals to possess weapons so that States would be able to call upon armed citizens to serve in militias, no longer exists.   Yet advocates of the Second Amendment persist in hanging on to its final fourteen words to justify opposing gun control legislation.   (See the following article on the Second Amendment.) The tortured reasoning of Justice Scalia in District of Columbia vs. Heller (because a State could call upon all of its people to serve in militias, the right to keep and bear arms is extended to all of its people regardless of whether or not they are asked to serve in a militia) is an example of this. But that majority opinion also holds hope for those advocating stricter gun control.  Read on!

In that case back in 2008, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment was violated by a District of Columbia ordinance which prohibited an individual from possessing a hand gun and keeping it at home.  But this decision, broadly interpreting the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”) applied only to that law regarding hand guns. The Court did not extend it further. In fact, in his lengthy majority opinion,  The late Justice Antonin Scalia included language (excerpted below) making quite clear the limits of the decision.  The right of individuals to keep and bear assault weapons regardless of whether they are fully or semi-automatic is not protected, even by this case’s broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. Here are Justice Scalia’s words:

“. . . Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.

 . . . commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. . . For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment.

. . . Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions . . .   or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.  

. . . We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms . . . that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.”  We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

Hence, there is hope that the Supreme Court will forget the political implications of their decisions and ultimately solve the problem of assault rifles.  But don't get your hopes up too high too soon!

It will be very difficult to get a case to the Supreme Court to enable them to follow through on the opening mentioned above, whereby the banning of assault weapons would not be considered a violation of the Second Amendment.   Why?   Many State legislatures, bribed by NRA support and legal assistance from the right wing ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) have passed laws prohibiting local governments from passing their own gun control laws.  If a Florida county or municipality does so, for example, they are subject to significant fines from the State, so they don’t pass such laws.  So it won’t be easy to come up with a case on which the Supreme Court can rule, defining the limits of the Second Amendment in a manner which would ban assault rifles, the real killers of school kids and other victims murdered by civilians possessing these military weapons.  But I’m sure such a law will be passed somewhere some day, be challenged by an NRA lackey, and reach the Supreme Court.

Another ray of light is the fact that some braver G.O.P. legislators are beginning to break away from the chains the NRA has put around them.  Brian Mast (Florida’s 18 C.D.) now advocates more gun control than he did a month ago.  And retiring Congressman Tom Rooney turns out to have been a supporter of gun control all along who admits that he needed NRA support and always voted against gun control to get elected in his district.  How many Republican legislators in Washington and in State Houses across the nation are similarly enchained?  We must give them the courage to break loose.  

This must be changed!

These Republicans are like businessmen who, while against crime, still pay money to criminal racketeers as “protection” against their business being molested in some manner, the molesters of course being these same criminals.   So it is with the N.R.A.  Vote the way we tell you or we’ll run someone against you in a primary and knock you out of office.  Not too different from getting your store windows broken if you don’t pay off someone to keep them from being broken.  The N.R.A. should be Bob Mueller’s next target!

JL

The Dirty Truth About Resistance to Gun Control

Back in 1789, when Virginia and some other wealthy States were hesitating on ratifying the newly written Constitution of the United States of America, James Madison and George Mason came up with a solution, the Second Amendment.  Really, the essence of what it was all about was the fear of the Southerners that a Federal Government would use its power, and that meant its armed forces (although there was no standing army at the time), to eventually take away their property, and by that they meant their slaves, by freeing them.  

In order to make them happy, that Second Amendment provided that “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.”  To some, the word “security” meant general physical protection but to others, once this polite icing was removed, it meant that the slave-holding Southerners would have arms to fight an eventual Federal effort to take away their property, specifically their slaves, by freeing them. This happened 71 years later.  It was known as the Civil War.

Today, the political descendants of these same folks (and they’re no longer just in the South) who insisted on the Second Amendment before they ratified the Constitution are again concerned over the Federal Government taking away their property.  They lost the Civil War, all right, but they still insist on keeping the Federal Government, whom they never trusted, at arm’s length.  Certainly, the Second Amendment doesn’t give them enough power to resist the country’s armed forces, but the idea of their having the right to do so still simmers down deep. 

A Washington Post column by conservative Michael Gerson, last week, included the following: “When it comes to American gun culture, the issue of motivation matters a great deal.  If you defend access to guns for sport and self-defense, there is no logical reason to reject reasonable restrictions on firepower and access.  Some compromise is within the realm of possibility.  But if you view the ultimate purpose of gun ownership as resistance to a future tyrannical government, then restrictions on firepower and  access are exactly the things a tyrannical government would                  
want.”  Gerson goes on to quote the National Review’s David French as summarizing this position as “the concept of an armed citizenry as a final, emergency bulwark against tyranny.”

  

                                                           Gerson and French

So are we right back where we were when Madison and Mason, with a nervous Alexander Hamilton probably pacing up and down in the hallway, came up with the idea of the Second Amendment, really to protect slavery. 

But if there had been no slavery in the first place, I suppose they still would have wanted the Amendment to protect their other property from seizure by the Federal Government. 

The idea of an armed citizenry as a bulwark against tyranny was there in 1789 and it is still there today. That’s why there are part-time “militias” practicing tactics in the woods of Idaho, and elsewhere, today. In 1789, the memories of iron-handed rule by the British remained.  Some States wanted a guarantee that the new nation’s Federal government would not resort to similar tactics. That’s why they had fought the Revolution a few years earlier.  In 1789, “the right of the people to bear arms” was the answer.  In the minds of many today, that’s what the battle over gun control is still about now that slavery, which was an excuse for 72 years, no longer clouds the real issue.

That issue is the paranoid fear of tyrannical government in Washington taking away their property, which translates loosely as their wealth. That is what they fear.  Without dwelling on this, many supporters of the Second Amendment fear losing their property through high taxes, wealth redistribution and government-provided social benefits to the less fortunate among us in the nation’s population … with their money (or property).

Look in the eyes of the leadership at an NRA convention.  Look in the eyes of almost anyone at the recent CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) meeting.  Look in the eyes of the Republican “Freedom Caucus” members off on the far right in the House of Representatives. Look in their eyes and you will know what ”the right of the people to keep and bear arms” means to them.  It borders on retaining the ability to commit treasonous acts.   This is the dirty truth about resistance to gun control legislation. And this is serious stuff about which no one talks, at least publicly.  Thank you, Michael Gerson and David French, for doing so.

Jack Lippman

HOW TO BE ALERTED TO FUTURE BLOG POSTINGS.

Many readers of this blog are alerted by Email every time a new posting appears.  If you wish to be added to that Email list, just let me know by sending me an email at Riart1@aol.com.

HOW TO CONTACT ME or CONTRIBUTE MATERIAL TO JACKSPOTPOURRI.com 

Just send it to me by email at Riart1@aol.com.   YOU ALSO CAN SEND ME YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO BE PUBLISHED IN THIS BLOG AS WELL AS YOUR COMMENTS AT THAT ADDRESS.  (Comments can also be made by clicking on the "Post a Comment" link at the blog's end.)

MOBILE DEVICE ACCESS.

DID YOU KNOW THAT www.jackspotpourri.com IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICES IN A MODIFIED, EASY-TO-READ, FORMAT?   

HOW TO VIEW OLDER POSTINGS.                                                

To view older postings on this blog, just click on the appropriate date in the “Blog Archive” midway down the column off to the right, or scroll down until you see the “Older Posts” notation at the very bottom of this posting.  The “Search Box” in the right side of the posting also may be helpful in locating a posting topic for which you are looking.

HOW TO FORWARD POSTINGS.

To send this posting to a friend, or enemy for that matter, whom you think might be interested in it, just click on the envelope with the arrow on the "Comments" line directly below, enabling you to send them an Email providing a link directly to this posting.  You might also want to let me know their Email address so that they may be alerted to future postings.

Jack Lippman