Important Announcement:   Between now and the next full posting on this blog, new items will continue to come up.  Rather than wait for the blog's next full posting, they will be added ... with the date they are added shown ... at the tail end of this posting.  Scroll down right now to read the ones already added to this particular posting, if any.  (And see recent prior postings as well.)

                                                    *   *   *   *

Political Thoughts and Florida Senate Bill 90

Here in Floriduh, the Republican controlled Senate is likely to approve a pending piece of legislation, Senate Bill 90, which limits requests for "vote by mail" ballots to the current election.  The existing law enabled those who asked for "VBM" ballots to be listed to receive them for the next years' election as well.  That is the current law, passed when the GOP felt voting by mail helped them.  Now, they think it favors Democrats so they are retroactively taking away something existing law gave to voters who requested it in the last election.  This is just another example of voter suppression by Republicans who know that the more people who vote, the less chance Republicans stand of getting elected.

Here's a thought.  Nationally, the Democrats did not do as well as they expected to in the last election.  They hoped to win more than those Senate seats they picked up and to expand their House majority, and score gains in State legislatures.  None of this really happened.  Biden was elected President by the Electoral College and also had a massive popular vote margin, but other than that, the Republicans did well in the 2020 elections.  This was due to a general antipathy of the public toward Donald Trump, to put it mildly.  It didn't extend further down the ballot.  So, the Democrats have a lot to do to prepare for the 2022 midterm elections.

The Republican Party is still controlled by believers in the big lie (that Trump really won in 2020 but the election was stolen from him) and seem to live in another reality.  They are willing to pretend that the "trickle down" economy they are peddling, favoring the wealthy and large businesses, is good for the people and that those opposing that concept are "socialists."  They feel government regulation, even in the people's interest, is bad.  They have not yet learned from the Texas disaster.  Ignorance and gullibility remain their tools and the militant far right its flag bearers. 

Here's a letter I sent to the Palm Beach Post on this subject.

A letter writer in Monday's Post criticizing Florida Senate Republicans for supporting Senate Bill 90 limiting “vote by mail” requests to one year concluded by suggesting that since they have chosen party politics over country, ”they should all resign.”  Believe me, they won’t.  The only way to get them out of office is by voting them out of office, an unlikely happening in most of Florida’s gerrymandered State Senate districts.

JL 

 Item Added Feb. 23, 2021

The defeated 45th president still can't get over losing.  Here is his latest collection of lies.  Note in the last paragraph where he criticizes prosecutors and attorneys-general using the law against him as a threat to the very foundation of our liberty. For years he has employed lawyers to get around laws but now that day is past and he openly considers laws to be his enemies.  He will be talking this way all the way to his sentencing for whatever crimes he might be convicted.

*  *  *  * 

Wrong or Right?

Had a discussion with a friend the other night where I pointed out the vast numbers of Americans who still believe the big lies Republican leaders support and spread, and resemble the bitter Germans of 1932. 

She had much more faith than I did that the basic intelligence of Americans, over the next few years, would rise to diminish the influence of the ignorant and gullible whom I still fear. I hope I'm wrong and she's right. 

JL

Item Added - February 24, 2021

Here are three pieces from today's Palm Beach Post.  With much news content reaching the public via TV and the Internet, a lot of the emphasis and "readers' choice" which a local paper provides is lost.  It is very important that the public subscribe to and read their local papers, which often contain pieces from major national papers like the Washington Post, USA Today and the New York Times as well.  I urge you to subscribe!  

Here's a column with which I disagree, but millions of Americans do think this way.

Limbaugh championed the ‘forgotten Americans’

Marc Thiessen

Columnist WASHINGTON

Americans of a certain age remember the days before Spotify when we made mix tapes of bands we loved. In college in the late 1980s, my friends and I would play them during long road trips, savoring the chance to expose each other to new artists.

On one particular trip, a friend popped a tape into the cassette player – but instead of music, a voice came on the radio. It was a scratchy recording of a talk show from New York’s WABC. 'You have to hear this guy,' my friend said. The voice was that of Rush Limbaugh. My friend had recorded a week’s worth of shows, and we listened to them the whole trip.

For a budding young conservative at the dawn of the age of political correctness, Limbaugh was a revelation. He was funny, irreverent, iconoclastic and unapologetically conservative.

How did he become such a sensation? First, he made conservatism fun. He feigned arrogance, declaring that he possessed 'talent on loan from God' and that he spoke with 'half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.' And he made fun of the left. Just like his hero, Ronald Reagan, who told jokes to mock communism and big government, Limbaugh used humor as a powerful weapon in the battle of ideas. His adversaries wanted to be taken seriously; he made them the butt of the joke.

Second, he connected with millions of Americans who felt ignored, derided and marginalized by the political elites. Long before Donald Trump came along, Limbaugh rallied these 'forgotten Americans.' He understood that the conservative movement has always been populist at heart. In 1964, Reagan declared that conservatives refuse to 'confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.' And Buckley famously said, 'I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.'

Limbaugh gave a voice to folks in the phone book and elevated them over that little intellectual elite. He rarely had guests on his show, choosing instead to give a platform to ordinary Americans who called in. He gave them a voice in our political discourse and affirmed the validity of what they believed. He assured them that 'our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology,' and they felt they finally had a champion.

He loved his audience, and they loved him back. They arranged their schedules around his show, doing their shopping so they would be in the car when he came on. Long-haul truckers listened to him on the job, while workers gathered in 'Rush Rooms' at local restaurants to listen to his show during their lunch hour.

The left hated him – in part because they didn’t like being the on the receiving end of his sometimes over-the-top approach, and in part because they could not replicate his success. But Limbaugh kept succeeding - three hours a day, five days a week, for more than three decades.He did it while overcoming addiction and hearing loss that would have ended other careers. He continued to broadcast to the very end, even while fighting the stage four lung cancer that finally took his life. In 1992, Buckley invited him on 'Firing Line' to talk about his success. The intellectuals dismissed Limbaugh, Buckley said, because they 'assumed that nobody who really counts spends time listening to people talk over the radio.' They recoiled at his irreverent humor, but 'only the humorless are really offended.' Like Julius Caesar, Buckley said, Limbaugh 'came, he saw, and he conquered.'

RIP.

Follow Marc A. Thiessen on Twitter, @marcthiessen.

 

Frank Cerabino's column from today's paper deals with talk radio and periphically, on the man Marc Thiessen writes about.

 Talk radio in PBC died before Rush Limbaugh

Frank Cerabino

Columnist Palm Beach Post USA TODAY NETWORK

When Rush Limbaugh died this month, I found myself mourning – not for Limbaugh, but for WJNO, the Palm Beach County radio station that carried his show.

 

I remember WJNO before Limbaugh, when it was a real radio station. It was back before the deregulation that fueled the Limbaughs of the world and led to the homogenization of talk radio through mergers and acquisitions.

My introduction to WJNO was in the mid-1980s, when it was an AM-radio station run out of a one-story studio on North Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach.

It was a 24-hour news station back then. I used to run into the station’s intrepid court reporter, Dan Bryan, who covered the same murder trials I did. Except he had a bulky tape recorder on a shoulder strap and a microphone in his hand, and I had a pen and a notepad.

WJNO was the station I listened to during working hours when I’d have to get in my car and go from one spot to another. You could hear breaking news on WJNO during a time when there were no chirping cellphones. And you could be entertained by a wide variety of talkshow hosts talking about that day’s stories on the local news pages of the local newspaper. 

A collection of quirky personalities, an endless parade of local content -

Lee Fowler tended to find something to laugh about. I remember once pulling off to the side of the road to get on a payphone to call into his show to join the fun.

Dick Farrel was an over-the-top rightwing provocateur – imagine an unmedicated Glenn Beck living in Century Village. He was unintentionally hilarious.

Farrel called the newspaper I work for “The Palm Beach Putz” and he was an early practitioner of low-stakes patriotism porn: Each show began with a devoted listener reciting the National Anthem.

Jack Cole was a cantankerous, erudite liberal who referred to himself on air as “The Inquisitor General.” He had a law degree and liked to sing on his show, often in original song parodies to news stories.

I hated being a guest on his show, because he’d always cut you off and go to a commercial before you had a chance to respond to one of his pithy remarks.

During the O.J. Simpson case, Cole empaneled his own “O.J. jury” who watched and listened to the case with him from a room in the Palm Beach Kennel Club while the greyhound races were going on. It

was a feast of quirky personalities. There were others too. Mike Miller. Randi Rhodes. Barry Young.

And skilled local politicians like former congressman Mark Foley would float among the shows, somehow sounding conservative on Farrell’s morning show, then a couple hours later miraculously liberal on Rhodes’ show.  And for a time, baseball great Pete Rose would join the lineup at the end of the day broadcasting a sports-talk show from a studio in his Pete Rose’s Ballpark Cafe in suburban Boca Raton. It was a never-ending parade of local content.

Compare that to now. WJNO still has a local morning-drive show, but the lineup of talk-show hosts from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. is syndicated three-hour chunks of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. It has become a playground for rightwing hyperbola and misinformation that covers the alphabet all the way from A to B.  It’s four shovels-worth each day from the same pile. And it’s the lineup of limited-bandwidth commentary that is identically playing in hundreds of other affiliated stations all over the country.

Cookie-cutter dreck.

What do national talking heads know about South Florida stories? -

WJNO started in 1936, and for years it was the only AM radio signal between Orlando and Miami.

It didn’t become a news station until 1979, and it was five years later when it went to a format that used local talkshow hosts instead of out-of-town talent.

You could say that the beginning of the end of that version of WJNO was 21 years ago when Cole was fired a halfhour before he would have gone on the air.

Bryan, the news director then, had quit earlier that week, and the station was going in a new direction driven by its corporate changes.

Formerly owned by Fairbanks Communications, a company that ran about 20 radio stations across the country, WJNO had been bought by Clear Channel, a Texas-based conglomerate that owned about 400 stations, including two other AM radio stations in South Florida, WIOD and WINZ.  “They’re basically not a radio company. They’re an advertising agency,” Cole said in an interview after being released.

Cole said he couldn’t imagine a local radio station better serving its audience with nationally syndicated outof- area hosts.

“There are so many stories unique to South Florida. We have the Elián Gonzalez story, the Haitians, beach erosion, global warming, immigration from the Caribbean,” he said during that interview.

“What does Rush Limbaugh or Laura Schlessinger know about any of these things?”

At the time, Limbaugh was broadcasting from New York City. He bought a home in Palm Beach in 1998 and moved here for good about a decade later.

But even when he broadcasted his show from Palm Beach County, he was never a local broadcaster. Clear Channel became iHeartMedia, which owns more than 850 radio stations, and Limbaugh’s show was carried on nearly 600 of them. One of them just happened to be here.

Limbaugh told his radio audience in 2007 that he found Palm Beach County too liberal for his own tastes.

“They’ve drunk the Kool Aid down here, folks, and they drink it every day,” he had said.

“It’s one of the reasons I don’t cross the bridge much,” he said, “except … to like go to the airport and get out.”

So, if I needed another reason to fly a flag at half-mast today – other than for the half-million Americans who have died from the COVID-19 pandemic – it wouldn’t be for Limbaugh. It would be for WJNO.

fcerabino@pbpost.com @FranklyFlorida

Finally, here's a "Point of View" piece which I initially thought was a joke.  It's from a libertarian whose distaste for government extends to distribution of the Covid19 vaccine.  Imagine if he, and those who think this way, were in charge of a government they would prefer never existed.

Point of view

We’re stuck with ‘worst possible’ vaccine rollout

Bottlenecks, scheduling issues plague coronavirus inoculations

As the federal government and state governments around the country continue to roll out their COVID-19 vaccination programs, problems real and imagined abound.

The real problems include bottlenecks caused by limited availability, stringent storage requirements, and, most of all, the confusion and scheduling snafus that inevitably accompany large-scale mobilizations of resources.

The imagined problems boil down to belly-aching about how those who 'should' be getting the vaccine aren’t getting it as soon as they 'should,' and about how people who 'shouldn’t' be getting it as soon are 'jumping the line.'

At the extreme we hear claims that old 'white' people shouldn’t be getting it before people of color for reasons ranging from the former being more at risk to older people having already lived enough and to payback for past institutional racism, the latter two of which are ghoulish. More on the reasonable side of things are complaints that some younger, less at risk, people are getting it before some older, more at risk, people.

Disclosure: I’ve already received my first jab and will go in next week to get my second, but I’m not displacing anyone else. I’m participating in the Phase III clinical trial for a new vaccine that hasn’t been approved yet. You’re welcome.

The biggest real problem is water under the bridge: Governments always do things more expensively and less efficiently than markets. The Food and Drug Administration held up approval of the first vaccines for unnecessary months, and government inefficiency is almost certainly holding up your shots for unnecessary weeks.

Retrospectively, the best way to handle things would have been to push the state aside and let the market get this thing done quickly and cheaply. But instead of listening to anarchists like me, people just went along to get along yet again and are likely to continue doing so for some time.

We’re stuck with the worst possible way of doing things. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make the best of it.

How DO we make the best of it? If government policies were written in English, we’d look for something like this from President Biden and 50 governors:

'We’re shipping vaccines to hospitals and doctors and pharmacies as fast as we can, and ask them to put as many two-dose courses as they can in as many arms as they can, regardless of age, sex, race, or other considerations, using whatever scheduling and allocation methods they find work best.'

If the vaccines work, every immunized person is one person less likely to catch COVID-19 or pass it on, and puts us one step closer to hopefully achieving herd immunity.

Every vaccination administered is a win, if the goal is to reduce the numbers of cases, reduce the numbers of deaths, and hopefully bring this ugly era to an end.

Every missed opportunity to stick a needle in an arm is a loss on those same criteria.

Let’s stop letting jealousy over the ages, sexes, and races of the arms in question get in the way.

THOMAS L. KNAPP, GAINESVILLE Editor’s note: Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

Okay ... Save me the trouble of passing on stuff like this.  Subscribe to your local newspaper!  Today!

                             *  *   *

Item Added - Feb. 25, 2021

When the domestic terrorists who attempted to stop the count of electoral votes on Jan. 6, invading the Capitol, are brought to the bar of justice, I would hope they are not let off the hook because of First and Second Amendment rights.  

They are sure to claim the Second Amendment permits armed militias to force out a tyrannical government and that is what they had been convinced came into power when the Democrats seized power fraudulently on November 3 ... and that the First Amendment guarantees their rights to free speech and assembly with the aim of righting that wrong.   (It was Trump and his lackeys ... Cruz, Hawley, Nelson, Gohmert, Jordan, etc. who convinced them of this lie.)

If and when convicted for attempting to stage a coup d'etat on January 6, they all should  be imprisoned for lengthy periods, preferabley in a jail intended for terrorists, such as Guantanamo Bay.

Is Democracy a Dirty Word - Once it Was

Important Announcement:   There are some changes taking place in the way this blog operates.  I will continue to post new “editions” periodically (probably weekly) of which this is one, but as new items come up, rather than start a fresh posting every few days, I plan on adding them to the most recent posted version, showing the date the item was added.  They will appear at the bottom of that posting.  Scroll down right now to read the ones already added to this particular posting, if any.  (And see recent prior postings as well.)

When "Democracy" was Almost a Dirty Word 

Years ago, when my local library up north had a book sale to clean out its overcrowded shelves, I bought a copy of Saul Padover’s 1963 masterpiece, “The Meaning of Democracy,” for twenty cents.  What a bargain!  And look at this bit of history that I found on pages 18 through 20 and the insight it provides into how ‘democracy’ was viewed by the nation’s founders. 

Frequently today, one hears those on the right state that we are a republic and not a democracy.  They are correct if democracy is defined as it was by those who wrote the Constitution.  But today, the definition of democracy has expeanded to encompass the idea of a democratic republic, which is what we have.  Over the years, Hamilton’s “Consent of the People” has increasingly grown to be derived directly from the people, but even now, it is still derived through republican representation in lingering undemocratic institutions like the Electoral College and was in the Senate until 1913, when Senators first became popularly elected.  But getting back to Padover,

“Americans of the latter part of the eighteenth century, including those who created the U.S. Government, believed in self-government but retained skepticism in regard to ‘democracy.’  To them, self-government meant representative government, a republic, guided by carefully chosen representatives.  When they referred to ‘democracy,’ it was usually as ‘pure democracy’ or ‘pure republic’ – meaning unrestrained popular majorities – which they rejected on the traditional ground that it could be nothing but a nursery of chaos.

‘Democracy,’ John Adams wrote in his Defense of the Constitution of the United States of America  (1787), ‘never has been and never can be so desirable as aristocracy or monarchy, but while it lasts, is more bloody than either … It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”

Padover points out that even Alexander Hamilton, who believed that our government was based on ‘the consent of the people, had his doubts when he bluntly attacked the ‘turbulent and uncontrolling’ passions of the people and advocated a Senate elected for life in order to serve as a check on the ‘imprudence of democracy.’ Hamilton is quoted as saying that ‘the ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government.  Their very character was tyranny, their figure, deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity.’

Madison

Padover continued: “The general attitude of liberals and moderates toward ‘democracy’ was perhaps best reflected in James Madison, whose influence on the shaping of the Federal Constitution was unrivaled.  Madison’s prime concern was with political freedom and social stability.  He dreaded equally aristocracy and democracy, the former as the tyranny of the few and the latter as the despotism of the many.  Madison was not opposed to democracy as we understand it today, as manifested by our democratic republic.  He was a dedicated republican, an eloquent champion of freedom and self-government.  He preferred the term ‘republic’ to ‘democracy,’ because he thought that the latter applied strictly to what he called ‘pure democracy,’ meaning direct rule by all the people which he regarded as unrestrained mischief.” 

Madison would have considered the January 6 assault on the Capitol as an example of ‘unrestrained mischief,’ democracy at its worst, "the despotism of the many."  The invasion of the Capitol that day by insurrectionists should serve as an example of why the Constitution’s framers feared what they called ‘pure democracy.’ 

When a president like Donald Trump, with autocratic ambitions takes advantage of such a ‘nursery of chaos’ to further his own ends under the guise of democracy, it seems to justify the framers’ fear of the dangers of democracy as a form of government.   Thus, they were very cautious in adopting some of its features in the Constitution of the new nation.

 JL

 (More from Padover at a later date.  I am still re-reading it.)

 

                                       *    *    *   *

Excerpts from my postings on "Letters to an American."

Next insurrection? On its way! Of course, Trump will be acquited and the 14th Amendment's Sec. 3 ignored as well. Former FBI agent and Ass't Director Frank Figliuzzi (on MSNBC) says that self-regulation by social media isn't enough to police the messaging and promulgation of lies on which the insurrectionists depend. It will remain a continuing threat which only Congressional legislation can deal. The First Amendment was never intended to justify the acts of criminals.

Trump's latest lawyer, in his slick $2.000 suit, was the perfect example of why many people dislike lawyers. Attorney van der Veen did everthing possible to make his client look good. That's what any client who knows he is guilty wants in his lawyer. He even said that what he personally thought of the issues didn't matter! If I were suing an insurance company for a personal injury (which was van der Veen's firm's stock in trade for years), I would want him pleading my case.

                                                  * * * * *

(Items added Feb. 14, 2021)

Hypocrisy Defined Anew

As I predicted in the additional item added to this blog’s prior posting on February 11, the 45^th president was indeed acquitted by the Senate of the impeachment charges brought against him by the House.  Oddly, after the vote, GOP Senate leader McConnell said that Trump was indeed guilty as charged, but for some questionable legalistic and procedural reasons, he voted not to impeach.  He was the one, incidentally, who prevented the impeachment from coming before the Senate during those last few days of Trump’s presidency, which would have significantly weakened his questionable justification for his ‘no’ vote.  But Mitch had his reasons.

1.    If Trump is to be punished for what he was impeached for, with which all but 43 GOP Senators agreed, (the vote to impeach was 57-43, well short of the required 2/3), it will be the Democratic administration which would carry that out through the legal system in regular courts.  Opposing their doing so would give some meat to the pro-Trumpers still in the party’s base, blind to the fact that Mitch was convinced of Trump’s guilt, but not willing to impeach him.  Ignorance and gullibility survived the impeachment hearings among Republican voters and that party does not hesitate to use both.

2.   Many big donors to the GOP  (personal, PACs, organizations and corporate) will only start donating again if the party has rid itself of Trump.  Most consider him a cancer on the party.  They want his base’s votes but not him. Whether Mitch’s hypocrisy is enough to convince them, and whether the rest of the GOP buys it, is still uncertain.  Separating Trump’s base from him will not be easy.

This is a clear demonstration that 43 Republican Senators, many of whom like McConnell knew Trump was guilty as charged but who nonetheless voted to acquit him, put party before country. For years, McConnell’s behavior will be the best answer when a teacher asks a student for an example of hypocrisy. 

But justice will triumph.  I believe that someday, somewhere, DJT will spend time behind bars for his crimes against the Constitution, the nation, New York State and the hundreds of people and companies to whom he owed money but never paid, preferring to walk away saying "So sue me."  The nation will have learned that no matter how successful a businessman appears to be and no matter how great his ability to get around laws are, these “skills” do not qualify him or her for public office.  Ever! 

JL

Quote from George Will

In a column written last week, George Will wrote that "the Republican Party will wither if the ascendant "Lout" Caucus (which he earlier defined as Senators Cruz, Hawley, Graham, Johnson and others of that ilk) is the face it presents to this nation of decent, congenial people."  

In my opinion, the Republican Party which rose from the ashes of the Whig Party primarily over the expansion of slavery westward, has switched its allegiances and it is that same issue in today's terms (voter suppression, minimum wages, immigration, economic safety nets) which will cause it to wither and return it to ashes sooner than anyone expects.

                                                *   *   *   *

(Item added Feb. 15, 2021)

Vaccine Information

In a “sponsored content” (I suppose that’s a fancy word for an ad that isn’t selling anything) full page in today’s Palm Beach Post about two Scripps Research employees well known as “Coronavirus Fighters,” the following important information appeared and is excerpted from the full page’s content:

“They know the more the pandemic virus spreads, the more likely it is to mutate and eventually resist the vaccine.  Work to design next-generation vaccines, ones that protect against many coronavirus strains, is underway.”

Scripps scientists are quoted as saying:  “The rate at which the virus changes is dependent on the number of people infected, and we have an awful lot of people infected around the world.”

“These new strains are going to be an ongoing problem.”

“We’re not protected until the entire world is protected.”

The "Rabbit Hole," a Letter and a Defense of Liars

Important Announcement:   There are some changes taking place in the way this blog operates.  I will continue to post new “editions” periodically (probably weekly) of which this is one, but as new items come up, rather than start a fresh posting every few days, I plan on adding them to the most recent posted version, showing the date the item was added.  They will appear at the bottom of that posting.  Scroll down right now to read the ones already added to this particular posting.  (And see recent prior postings as well.)

The Liars’ Defense

If one honestly believes that what they are saying, without a shred of doubt, because that’s the way their mind works, is that person lying? 

If someone who did poorly in math at school honestly believes that two plus two is anything other than four and repeats that to others, is that person lying?  And if someone honestly and fully believes the untruths that some politicians spout, no matter how ridiculous and disproven they might be, and repeats them, are they lying?  Thus, one cannot call the author of Mein Kampf a liar.  For a variety of reasons, all heinous, he honestly believed that the racial garbage he wrote was true.  As much of a monster that he was, he was not a liar.

If Donald Trump honestly and fully believes without a shred of doubt that he did not incite the January 6 Capitol invasion, and sincerely feels that he was not its cause, and repeatedly claims that to be the case, is he a liar?

If Donald Trump honestly and fully believes without a shred of doubt that he won the 2020 presidential election, and claims that to be the case, is he a liar?  He may be stupid or crazy or malicious or a bit of all three, but if he honestly believes what he claims, he is not a liar. 

The problem is that many American voters are willing to follow and vote for stupid and crazy and malicious people, even when doing so comes back to hurt them.  Even when they believe liars who do not themselves recognize that they are liars.

 

                                                              * * * * *

 

The "Rabbit Hole"

I have heard the expression “rabbit hole” used to explain where some of those who believe in the QAnon philosophy of lies and wacko conspiracies get their ideas.   Actually, It resembles some of the things I do with my blog, www.jackspotpourri.com. That’s why I recognize it.

I have a list of about 45 people to whom I occasionally send emails about something, usually political, which I feel might be of interest to them.  Some open my email, which is at the opening of the “rabbit hole” I have created.  All of my emails always contain a suggestion to click on a link to my blog. I might even suggest that doing so will tell them more about the subject of the email they are reading.  Those that click on that link to the blog (like you just did) slip a few inches further down my “rabbit hole.”  Once on my blog, they frequently encounter my opinions (not conservative) and references to articles from various liberal and progressive media sources to which they can access with a click of their mouse.  (There is one further down on this posting.)  Those that do so get still further down into the “rabbit hole.”  Where they end up may contain mention of other articles, of topics, of books or of individuals, which can be reached by clicking on those usually underlined words in blue.  Clicking on those links takes the reader still further into the “rabbit hole,” where they may spend hours reading the progressive or liberal ideas their clicking has brought to them, if they wish to. 

That’s the way my “rabbit hole” works and I believe that is the way QAnon’s does as well.  Those sites down deep in any “rabbit hole” sometimes are capable of capturing the email addresses of its visitors so they might send them messages directly.  (I don't do that with my blog, but I cannot speak for others.)

Let’s dig a bit deeper as to how this works with QAnon.  It is not as innocent as is my “rabbit hole.” The first click, usually on an email someone has sent them, as I send to my list of 45, offers information which might seem innocuous at first.  This message may have originated on a supposedly legitimate conservative website such as Newsmax, Fox or OAN, offering to provide information on vaccinations, abortion, gun control, American history, the Constitution, and so forth.  

The links they reach from there, however, as they click on suggested sites which provide more information, take them deeper into the “rabbit hole” and gradually take on a more conservative approach to these subjects and, like the links down in my “rabbit hole,” offer referral to further more opinionated links. Eventually, the deep level of QAnon conspiracy theory is reached.  This is where the QAnon “rabbit hole” differs from that of www.jackspotpourri.com.  It detours from the real world and leads to an “alternate reality.”

Along the way down the “hole,” the reader is encouraged to forward the links to others, spreading it further.  Some of those who spend enough time deep down in that “rabbit hole” can become fair game for recruiters for causes which involve domestic terrorism, but many merely end up believing in or giving unwarranted credence to an ‘alternate’ reality which is based on fictitious conspiracy theories.  Some of this material is passed on to popular sites such as Twitter or Facebook (as does liberal and progressive material as well) and especially the site which is the current favorite of those well down that extremist “rabbit hole,” Parler.  And that’s how QAnon grows.

The “rabbit hole” problem facing America today is that many Republicans have crawled down to the QAnon “rabbit hole’s” conspiracy-believing level and find it a comfortable place to be.  This is reflected by their leadership taking control of State and local Republican parties, which formerly were in the hands of more traditional conservatives.  Attempting to crawl back up out of that “rabbit hole” is difficult for that Republican leadership which still has touch with reality because of the number of Republican voters who for a variety of reasons find it very comfortable down at the bottom of the QAnon “rabbit hole.”

And while you are down the “rabbit hole” of which this site is a part, you might want to check out Michelle Goldberg’s New York Times column where she describes what in effect is what happens when an entire political party, the G.O.P., stumbles down a “rabbit hole.”  JUST CLICK RIGHT HERE.   If that doesn't work, I leave it to you to find your way to:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/opinion/marjorie-taylor-greene-gop.html?algo=combo_lda_unique_clicks_norm_20&block=2&campaign_id=142&emc=edit_fory_20210203&fellback=false&imp_id=278501726&instance_id=26731&nl=for-you&nlid=78918068&rank=1&regi_id=78918068&req_id=890518007&segment_id=50948&surface=for-you-email-regular&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224&variant=1_combo_lda_unique_clicks_norm_20

                                                             * * * * *

A Letter I Wrote

Here’s a text of a letter I sent to the Palm Beach Post the other day.  I doubt that they will print it.

"How long will the working people of the State of Florida, especially in the northern parts of the State, keep electing Republican legislators?  Anyone who reads the papers knows that Florida Republicans are against (1) raising the minimum wage as approved by the State’s voters, (2) improving the nation’s worst unemployment benefit program and (3) accepting increased Federal support for the State’s Medicaid program.  These measures are not “socialism” any more than are Social Security and Medicare for seniors nor are they efforts to redistribute wealth.  They are simply government efforts to provide minimal benefits to working people who might need them.  Any working person who votes for Republicans should have their head examined.  I guess they don't read the papers."

                                                            * * * * *

Fox News Interlude

Last night, I watched a bit of Sean Hannity on Fox.  Believe it or not, he was criticizing and mocking Michael Beschloss, the noted historian who appears occasionally on MSNBC,   Historians record, interpret and comment upon history.  They deal with reality and not "make believe" as most right wingers, including Sean, do. This was too much for him.  He's in his own world, which in the absence of Donald Trump, will become increasingly lonely.

JL

(Added on Feb. 6, 2021)

A comment I posted the other day on Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American” website.        

I am against handling these domestic terrorists with kid gloves. Letting them out on bail (like Rittenhouse), particularly in jurisdictions where the local authorities might be sympathetic to them, is very risky. These terrorists, and those who enable them, like Trump, have been around for years, but never before elected to Congress nor with the support of those already there. That's a danger to our democratic republic never to be underestimated. When they see their convicted co-conspiritors sentenced to long jail terms, they will begin to understand that their alternate reality has a very limited horizon which may reach only so far as the presently empty cells at Guantanamo Bay. 

 

A comment I posted on the New York Times website yesterday concerning the failure of law enforcement at the Capitol on January 6.

It is time for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to pursue domestic terrorists with the same ardor, and budget, that enabled them to pursue foreign terrorists after 9/11. The first thing that must be remedied is the removal of domestic terrorists and their sympathizers from local law enforcement throughout the country and Federal agencies as well, and the military. All of these entities have been infiltrated. The First and Second Amendments should not be used as excuses to stop this from happening. Since private militias are illegal in all fifty States, they should be disbanded immediately by the National Guard in those States where they exist, without bloodshed if possible. It is time to play hardball. The danger has not passed.

(Added on Feb. 7, 2021)

This is a touchy area which I am now entering.  I hope no one is offended.

Scoundrels have been known to wrap themselves in the American flag.  It lessens the chance of what they are saying being criticized.  But the flag is only one part of a quotation often inaccurately attributed to Sinclair Lewis, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." 

McEnany

That is close to what was happening during the Trump administration.  In addition to his wrapping himself in the American flag at every opportunity, with a few dozen more in the background, it never went unnoticed that Trump’s final press spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, always conspicuously wore a cross.  And FoxNews anchor Laura Ingraham often makes sure her viewers see her religion hanging around her neck as she spouts the Trumpublican line.  Most recently, super Trump supporter Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene is always seen wearing a cross and of course, “pillow man” Mike Lindell, another wannabe Trump spokesperson, sometimes wears one on his lapel as well as around his neck.  C’mon.  He probably is similarly tattooed!

It is written in the Bill of Rights that Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of a religion in this country, but Republicans seem bent on letting Americans know where they stand in regard to matters of faith.  Granted that they very well may be as personally religious as is President Biden, who conspicuously made the sign of the cross at the ceremony honoring the Capitol police officer murdered by domestic terrorists on January 6, they certainly do not hesitate to display their faith whenever they can.

Might politics be involved in their choice of jewelry?

(Added on Feb. 10)

Text of my most recent emails to Senators Rubio and Rick Scott:

PLEASE EXCUSE MY EMAILING YOU REPEATEDLY BUT APPARENTLY YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE MESSAGE AMERICA IS SENDING TO YOU!  SUGGEST YOU IMMEDIATELY MAKE APPOINTMENTS WITH AN OPTHAMOLOGIST AND AN AUDIOLOGIST BECAUSE YOU ARE EITHER BLIND, DEAF OR BOTH, OR PERHAPS A CLOSET NAZI!  BUT YOU CAN REMEDY THIS BY WAKING UP AND VOTING FOR IMPEACHMENT.  (In doing so, you just might save the Republican Party from its imminent demise.)

(Added on Feb. 11)

If the Senate’s vote on impeachment were secret, the vote would probably be overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment, perhaps 85 to 15.

But the Senators’ votes will not be secret and their constituents will know how they vote. Many Senators fear the loss of the votes of the Trumpublican base in their States and the vengeance of the State GOP organizations, mostly controlled by Trumpublicans. 

As it stands today, I expect that Trump will not be impeached by the Senate based on the pathetically weak excuse that his words of encouragement to the mob were not sufficiently explicit to qualify as incitement, an argument on which Republican Senators will hang their hats. But that is the way he has always talked, with his true message hidden among innuendo, inferences, nods, silences, euphemisms, body language and signals. This will change only when enough Republicans desert the present GOP and form a new right-centrist party so that they no longer will depend on the Trumpublicans. And that will require a lot of weed killer sprayed on the GOP's grass roots. Don’t hold your breath.

Courage in 1776  (I just emailed this to my two GOP Senators)

The fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence risked their lives when they signed that document.  The death penalty was the price paid for treason committed against the English Crown.  But they did what they believed was right.   Certainly, Republican Senators can vote the way they honestly feel is right in the ex-president’s impeachment trial, the way they would vote if it were a secret ballot.  With their hearts.  The penalties they face from their local Republican party and from the Trumpublican base when next they run are far less severe than what the signers of the Declaration of Independence faced.  Unless, of course, these Republicans are spineless and gutless.

Problems of American Democracy and What's Wrong with Florida

Important Announcement:   There are some changes taking place in the way this blog operates.  I will continue to post new “editions” periodically (probably weekly) of which this is one, but as new items come up, rather than start a fresh posting every few days, I plan on adding them to the most recent posted version, showing the date the item was added.  They will appear at the bottom of that posting.  Scroll down right now to read the ones already added to this particular posting.  (And see recent prior postings as well.)

Problems of American Democracy

Back in my high school many years ago, seniors could take a social studies course called "P.A.D."  (Problems of American Democracy).  Well, today we indeed have a problem.  American democracy isn’t working the way it should.  Domestic terrorist mobs should not be attacking the Capitol, attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a presidential election.  But it happened.

Even Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy initially blamed Trump for inciting that Jan. 6 insurrection. Ultimately though, he backed off and ran to Mar-a-Lago to pledge his loyalty.  (Sort of like 'going to Canossa.’   See Note Below )  He recognized that without the Trump loyalists at the extreme right of his party, including those who aided and abetted the insurrection, the Republicans had no party left.  Most State and local Republican party organizations are in the hands of Trump loyalists and this is what Trump might have thrown in McCarthy's face, I suspect. 

Mar-a-Lago, McCarthy's Canossa. 

There is a parallel with what happened in Germany during the last century even though it has been 89 years since that country's conservatives shook hands with an extreme right-wing rattlesnake, supposedly to defeat the left-wing parties.  Soon after, when they realized what they had done, it was too late.  The snake’s fangs were embedded and the poisonous venom released. Same goes for Neville Chamberlain, betraying Czechoslovakia.  Lesson: You cannot shake hands with rattlesnakes and that is what today’s Republican Party has done. 

The slogan "Never Again" has meaning today.  Some Jews and others recognized what was happening in 1932 and got out of Germany in time.  Most did not.  Some of today's right-wing extremists, often organized and armed, mean business and are not just fooling around.  The role of local law enforcement, particularly in places which support the ex-president and still believe his lies about the election results, is uncertain and adds to the problem.

A possible solution was added to the prior blog posting on January 29.  Check it out below somewhere. It recommends prompt and severe sentencing of convicted domestic terrorists, making it clear that laws cannot be broken with impunity.

Note:   (In the 1500s, the Holy Roman Emperor was excommunicated by the Pope.  To avoid the eternal damnation this would bring, he went on his knees to the Pope's winter residence at Canossa and stayed outside in the freezing cold and snow for three days to beg forgiveness for whatever he had done.)

                                                          *   *   *   * 

Florida Diseases

There are two diseases prevalent in the State of Florida.  One is the Covid19 pandemic which we all hope will subside as more and more become vaccinated. 

The other disease is the Republican Party.  It is a cancer on most of the citizens of the State, many of whom are too blind to realize it.  It endeavors to promote State regulation rather than local regulation where it can get away with it.  It emasculates the concept of free public education by encouraging and financing private, often religious, schools.  It gerrymanders Congressional Districts so that a disproportionate number of Republicans are elected.  It fails to provide unemployment and Medicaid programs which meet the needs of the State’s residents.  It flirts with banning free speech.  I have been living here in retirement for twenty years and can tell you when this disease will be remedied. Never!  Floridians, for a variety of reasons, are too stupid or gullible or bigoted to accomplish that. 

There are many wonderful things about the State of Florida.  They include its benign climate, its beaches and recreational facilities, its boating and fishing opportunities, its golf courses, its restaurants, some of its educational institutions, its museums and its numerous entertainment venues.  All of these explain why so many choose to live here despite the State being diseased by the Republican Party.  It’s a trade-off with which we manage to put up. 

But the tipping point might be the presence of Donald Trump in Florida and all the maggot-like creatures, like a decaying body, he will attract.  Then the vast emigration of Floridians, who originally came here from other, colder, places to other States (or countries) will begin.  

JL

 

(Added Jan. 31, 2021)

Unrecognized Historic Times

The people who lived in what the future eventually recognized to have been historic times may not have recognized the historic significance of what was happening around them at the time.  There are many examples of what at the time did not seem to have much significance turning out to be very important historic landmarks. 

A few examples:  the crucifixion of Jesus, the invention of the printing press, Martin Luther tacking his opinions on a church door; the introduction of slavery to the ‘new world,’ the Boston Tea Party, the firing on Fort Sumter, the Pearl Harbor attack, the 9/11 attacks.  While all of these events marked real turning points in world, and American, history, that was not evident for certain at the time they took place.

We are living in such times right now.  Our country has survived under its Constitution for 232 years.  It was tested by some of the events mentioned above, but it always survived.  Conceivably, it might not have survived the Civil War or the Second World War but it did, fueled by a strength from within the nation. Today’s threat is different because it is based on belief in a fictitious alternate reality which millions of Americans are sufficiently gullible or ignorant enough to believe.

Those who have bought into an alternate reality range from those who simply will not accept the 2020 presidential election results to those who believe in wild conspiracy theories and who confuse criminal behavior deserving punishment with heroism leading to martyrdom.  Some of these invaded the Capitol on January 6. There are varying levels of alternate reality.  Not all are the same.  But once accepting one level, it is easier to be convinced of others.

If we look at the numbers from the 2020 presidential election, 81 million voters voted for President Biden and 74 million voted for Donald Trump. There is no question as to the veracity of these numbers except in the minds of those who live in an alternate reality, and those that go along with them for various reasons.  Seventy-four million Americans who are convinced that their alternate reality is the real thing cannot just be ignored or told to leave.  “Re-education,” as it is called in China, on that scale is impossible in our democracy. 

The only course of action is to find and address the reasons why those who have accepted a fictitious alternate reality have chosen to do so. These may be social, demographic or economic in nature.  That is what must be done.  It may sound overly simple, but what we do will be viewed in the future as historic.  It may not seem obvious to us today, but I believe we live in historic times, times which will turn out to be as significant to our nation as are 1492, 1619, 1776, 1789 and 1861.

JL

(Added Feb. 1, 2021)

Today's New York Times included a lengthy article about what Trump did between the election and Biden's inauguration.  It's enough to warrant not only impeachment of the ex-president but his criminal prosecution as well, and that of others.   Read the article by CLICKING HERE.  

If it moves you enough, Sen. Rubio's phone # is 202 224 3041 and Sen. Rick Scott's is 202 224 5274.  

Won't help much though.  Scott was the CEO of the health care company which stole milllions from Medicare.  Only by 'taking the fifth' did he avoid conviction and likely, imprisonment.  He probably has advised Trump to do the same.

JL

(Added Feb 2, 2021)

What Alexander Hamilton Wrote

A few blog postings ago, a column dealing with the filibuster by the New York Times’ David Leonhardt was mentioned in which he briefly quoted Alexander Hamilton.   I wrote that I would get back to that later in greater detail, which I am now doing.

In campaigning in New York State for the passage of the new nation’s Constitution back in 1788 and 1789, three of its advocates, James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, wrote pieces explaining why the State should approve it.  They were all signed “Publius” and collectively form what is known as the “Federalist Papers.”  Number 22 of the series, written by Hamilton, contained many ideas worthy of note today.

“Every idea of proportional and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts or Connecticut or New York; and to Delaware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania or Virginia or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail.”

“To give a minority a negative upon the majority is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser.”

“Its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations of a respectable majority.”

“Hence, tedious delays, continual negotiations and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.”

“We are apt to rest satisfied that all is safe, because nothing improper will be likely to be done, but we forget how much good may be prevented … by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary.”

The writers of the Constitution addressed Hamilton’s concern by having two separate legislatures, the less democratic features he cited being permitted to continue in the Senate, but to a far lesser extent in the House of Representatives.

Hamilton was also concerned with the powers granted to the head of state and what to do to limit them.  Let’s listen to him again:

“A hereditary monarch has so great a personal interest in the government ... that it is not easy for a foreign power to give him the equivalent for what he would sacrifice by treachery.”

“In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying the trust.”

Obviously, Hamilton believed in impeachment.  And that was written into the new Constitution.  But a law isn’t very much if it cannot be enforced;  therefore, he also bemoaned the lack of a judiciary power in the Articles of Confederation and wanted a “Supreme Court.”

“Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.”

“There are endless diversities in the opinions of men.  We often see not only different courts but the judges of the same court differing from each other … all nations have found it necessary to establish one court paramount to the rest … authorized to settle and declare in the last resort a uniform rule of civil justice.

Finally, Hamilton seems to have wanted more government positions filled by popular vote rather than by State legislatures.  In that, he failed, the prime example being the Electoral College, and until 1913, even the Senate.  He concludes Federalist Paper Number 22 with these mighty words (and the CAPS are Hamilton’s, not mine):

“It has not a little contributed to the infirmities of the existing federal system that it never had a ratification by the PEOPLE.  Resting on no better foundation than the consent of the several legislatures, it has been exposed to frequent and intricate questions concerning the validity of its powers … The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.

I believe that Hamilton, were he alive today, would be a strong advocate of the direct election of the president by national popular vote.

JL