The Filibuster, Covid Masks, a Sad Apotheosis and Fox News

 

About the Filibuster and How it Stalls the President’s Agenda

The ‘filibuster’ allows a Senate minority to stop legislation that the majority there wants to pass.  Originally, it required that the ‘filibusterer’ speak for hours and hours on end to forestall voting on a measure.  Now, his or her intent to do so is all that is required.

To pass something in the Senate, 60 votes are needed.  The Democrats have 51, if you include the Vice President’s tie-breaking vote.  Most of the time, that isn’t enough.  There are exceptions, however.  If the measure involves spending or the budget, it can be immune to the filibuster and just needs 51 votes, but measures like voting reform and addressing police violence don’t qualify for such budget “reconciliation.”

A simple majority can change these Senate rules though!  For example, the Republicans did it for confirmation of Supreme Court nominees and tax legislation, and that “reconciliation” loophole was provided over 45 years ago.  So such rule changes are possible.

The Democrats are seeking to either get rid of the filibuster entirely or add some exceptions to it in the Senate’s Rules which would enable some of their “non-budgetary” items to pass with just a simple majority.

The problem is that even one Democratic Senator opposing such Senate rule changes would make them impossible.  Their majority is that thin, consisting of every Democratic Senator and the Vice-President's tie-breaker.  There is no wiggle room.  And right now, there are two, Senators Manchin and Sinema, who cannot be counted as solid members of that thin majority.  Each has their own agenda.  

And there is why progressive Democratic legislation is presently stalled. 

JL

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But it Ain’t Over ‘til it’s Over: Mask Up for Delta and Omicron*

In Monday’s (12/13) Palm Beach Post, Robert Kershner, MD, a local physician, pointed out the continuing danger posed by the latest Covid19 variants in a “Your Turn” column.  Here are a few words from it:

“These variants have proven their ability to reinfect and will not disappear until we make them disappear.  What should we be doing? With vaccine protection waning, getting another “booster” shot is probably a good idea.  However, the only PROVEN method in preventing infection is wearing an N-95 mask securely covering the nose and mouth (not a KN-95, which being less effective, were allowed before manufacturing of the real masks caught up with the demand.)  If the virus cannot get in, it cannot infect you or spread to others.  And if the virus cannot be spread through the air person-to-person, it will disappear, forever.”

Let me add that the good doctor’s words pertain to everyone, regardless of their politics, including the governor of the State of Floriduh.  Also, the N-95 masks he refers to are now readily available locally and online, as are KN-95s which some studies show to be almost as effective but do not fit as snugly as the N95s.

*(This was the headline the Post gave the column.)

 JL

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Where Have All the Grown-ups Gone?

Here’s the last two paragraphs of a recent article by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman which recently appeared in the New York Times reporting on the demise of the Republican Party as we once knew it:

“But now the transformation of American conservatism – the same movement that complains about liberal “snowflakes” – into a collection of malignant whiners seems to have reached *apotheosis.  Yes, there are self-pitying hypocrites on the left, too, but they don’t dominate the way Trump and Trump-like figures dominate the right.

I’m not entirely sure why this has happened; the degradation probably began decades ago, maybe as early as the Vietnam years.  But there’s no question that it has happened.  At this point there are no grown-ups left on one side of the political aisle.”

Krugman may not be sure of why this has happened, but I have a good guess. It started with the Republicans, frustrated by the success of New Deal reforms, accepting William Buckley’s writings in the 1950’s and the novels of Ayn Rand, both worshipping free enterprise and attacking government involvement, as something to be taken seriously. The wealthy, obsessed with turning the clock back to pre-Roosevelt (both Franklin and Theodore) days were glad to finance such beliefs.  Doesn’t take a Nobel prize to figure that out.

 * That's a big word!  It means reaching a god-like status.

 JL

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 What’s With Fox News Viewers?

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump raised the following question the other day in regard to Fox News’ political coverage:  “Are conservative Republicans tuning in to Fox News because it reflects their viewpoints? Or are their viewpoints shaped by the coverage they see?”

I think it is both in a circular manner; To a great extent, watching Fox News shapes their viewpoints and that hooks them on tuning in to Fox because it reflects what became their viewpoints from watching Fox.  Regardless of how they got to possess those viewpoints though, it’s a bad sign that so many viewers share them.  It turns out that even some Fox anchors don’t really share them once the camera is off.  

Lately, several with far more honesty than Fox fascist apologists Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity possess have had the guts to quit.  What took them so long?  

(Because of their expertise in lying, Fraulein Ingraham, Herr Carlson and Herr Hannity would have been hired in an instant by Herr Goebbels in Germany 85 years ago.) 

JL

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Thoughts on Democracy

 

Only the Republicans Can Save Democracy

I have no doubt that if the wheels of justice were allowed to run in the manner they were designed to run, smoothly, as they do in most cases, the former president would be convicted of civil, and possibly criminal, offenses in New York State, and of instigating and planning the January 6 attack on the Capitol building by those intent on keeping his successor from taking office, an act inspired by him, which would also be a criminal offense.  Anyone other than the former president would end up in jail for these and other acts, too numerous to mention here.

But that won’t automatically happen even if he is convicted and sentenced.  He has enough supporters so that putting him in jail would rip the nation apart, result in a possibly bloody civil war and destroy the United States of America as we know it.  There must be a way of avoiding such a tragedy at the same time as seeing that the former president gets whatever punishment our legal system deems appropriate.  We cannot let disregard for the law triumph.

As I see it, the way to accomplish this is not to relent in criticism of the former president and those who support him.  Democrats have been doing this for years, but it has not swayed his supporters.  The criticism must come from Republicans.  Let me repeat that.  The criticism must come from Republicans.  Republicans! They must be the ones who discredit the former president and his followers.

The voices of Liz Cheney and Adam Kitzinger are not enough, but that’s where it must start.  Of course, the Jordans, the Gaetzes, the Gosars, the Greens, the Brooks and their ilk can never be swayed from their support of the former president, nor can Republican governors like DeSantis or Abbott be swayed.  But every Republican who is not locked into this extreme right-wing coterie must speak up and say what they really believe about the former president.  And that, if they listen to their consciences, will amount to most of the elected Republicans in Congress.  Senators Murkowski, Collins, Sasse and Romney must lead the way and others must follow.  They can no longer sit on the sidelines and let undemocratic forces continue to control their Party.

Their criticism of the former president must not mince words. It must be strong enough to weaken his base and it must come from a majority of elected Republicans, willing to speak their minds despite the threat of right-wing primary campaigns against them led by the former president.  They must speak up strongly and forthrightly.  And quickly.

Then, with only the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party left to back him, and his base diminished after the rest of the Republicans speak up strongly and loudly against him, will the former president get the punishment our legal system deems appropriate, which in my opinion should be nothing short of incarceration or exile. 

To accomplish this, I repeat, there must be strong and unanimous support by all Republicans other than the extremist minority who now, out of fear of the former president and not love for him, dominate their party.  Saving the country from either of the undesirable alternatives of becoming an autocracy or engaging in a civil war is in their hands.  It’s a tall order. 

 

But Will The Republicans Step Up to do This?

Leonhardt

David Leonhardt’s column in the New York Times this morning suggests that the Republicans are NOT up to what is required of them to save democracy in this country.  He writes about the progress of the anti-democratic movement in this country.  Check it out at  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/briefing/anti-democratic-movement-us-politics.html  or CLICK HERE.

The mounting evidence of the culpability of the former president and his allies in his administration and Congress in regard to staging a “coup” on January 6, 2021, is ominous.  Because so many gullible and frustrated Americans have been taken in by Republican lies, Congressional and Department of Justice actions on this evidence are certain to have violent results. When South Carolina’s secessionists fired on Fort Sumpter in 1861, they did it to make a point, little realizing that 400,000 Americans would die in battle over the next four years. That’s where the anti-democratic forces Leonhardt writes about have placed us today.  My question is whether we will give up democracy to avoid a bloody civil war.

JL 

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Considering a Boycott of Publix?

Floridians:  If you’re fed up with the historically right-wing political stance of the Publix Supermarket chain, their six-figure donation to support Ron DeSantis and most recently the extensive financial support of the chain’s millionairess heir for the January 6 Capitol insurrection, there are alternatives if you wish to boycott Publix.  But Florida shoppers should first check out the political donations of those alternatives.  A Tampa radio station recently reported on this.  Read their report by visiting https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/politics/florida/planning-on-boycotting-publix-you-should-check-other-stores-political-donations/67-558161715 or just CLICK HERE.

If you don’t bother to look at that site, ranking them from the progressive left to the extremist right, an oversimplification based on their contribution history would look like this:  Whole Foods, Wynn Dixie, Target, Walmart, Publix.

 JL 

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 What Was Once an Unthinkable Thought

As most of you know, I faithfully follow Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s daily “Letters From An American.”  I recently posted the following there as a comment to her summary of the undemocratic actions the SCOTUS is taking.

‘A few weeks ago, a frequent ex-pat commenter on LFAA (there are a few of them) invited us to consider moving to Merida in the Yucatan, where she lives.  Were I thirty years younger, I would seriously consider doing so in view of the impending demise of democracy in the United States toward which the SCOTUS is leading us.’

Something for all of us to think about, as some wise Germans did in the early 1930’s.  It turned out to be too late for those others who finally saw the light (or actually, the darkness) a few years later.

 JL 

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Repairing SCOTUS and the United States Senate

With each passing day it becomes inevitable that President Biden will appoint three additional Justices to the Supreme Court while he still has the Senate majority needed to approve them.  The conservatives on the Court are asking for this to happen by their actions in regard to cases related to abortion and their expected actions on Second Amendment cases soon to come before it.   And fearing the possibility of a Republican majority in the Senate next year, pressure should be put on Justice Breyer to resign now while his replacement might be voted upon by that Democratic Senate.

And similarly, if Republicans in the Senate further delay the passage of President Biden’s agenda, action should be taken to finally abolish the filibuster.  We have waited long enough.

JL 

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Covid Remains a Threat 

And although the Covid19 pandemic is officially downplayed in Floriduh by Governor DeSantis, it still goes on.  The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported (online) on 12/11/21  that Florida had just reported 13,530 new Covid19 cases for the week, the highest since October.  Don't let his lies fool you. Continue to mask, observe social distancing and please, get vaccinated, even if you're a Republican.

JL 

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12-9-2021 - College Football Problem and Advice for Democrats

 

What's Wrong with College Football

College football is going down the tube. Look at the attendance at all but the biggest games.  What is killing it is the way it handles the flow of talent. (A lot of this is also applicable to college basketball but that’s a matter for another day.)

Contrast it with how talent flows in baseball and professional football.   Both NFL and Major league baseball teams get to choose the best talent available from colleges, high schools and elsewhere, based on their performance.  The worst performing teams get to make the first choices when it comes time for the annual ‘drafting’ of players.  Eventually, the bad teams get better players and the top teams don’t have early choices of recruits, unless they ‘trade’ for them.  Watch and see how the NFL’s Detroit Lions, whose awful 2021 performance earns them top choices, improve.  Same thing for baseball’s cellar dwellers. Eventually, they will rise to the top, or at least become contenders.

Not so with college football.  Rating agencies regularly rank the top players in high school and prep school teams throughout the nation.  Colleges know who they are. Some parents actually move their ball-playing sons to different secondary schools to better display their talents.  This is common in places like Florida where they can get away with it.  But unlike in the two major sports mentioned above, MBL and the NFL, the worst-performing college programs don’t have the first choice.  It’s just a matter of who can best recruit the five-star and four-star rated high school players, all of whom dream of a career in the NFL, giving them millionaire status, which explains parental involvement. 

It is that dream that drives them to the top teams in the five major conferences, and the best chances of being on TV week after week and making it to the NFL or even being in contention for the Heisman trophy, awarded to the top college football player each year.  And new rules, allowing college football players to commercialize their names and make a profit from it do not help.  A firm will pay for an endorsement of their product by someone who plays for Clemson, but not usually for a player from Western Kentucky University. 

The top talent goes to the schools that already have it, the Michigans, the Ohio States, the Clemsons, the Oklahomas, the Alabamas, the Georgias, the Notre Dames, etc.  The rest of the teams get the leftover high school athletes and, however talented they may be, they end up playing for the losers in these conference like Vanderbilt, Arizona, Boston College, or in less prestigious conferences.  The teams at the bottom do not get the top rising talent.  Those already on top get them.  And that’s why they stay on top, year after year.  Oh, they try to blame the coaches and fire and hire them, but most coaches know what to do to produce a winner, but to do that, they have to have top-level recruits.  Most teams do not.

There are about 64 really serious college programs in the five major football conferences and about another dozen more in lesser conferences.  There are many hundreds of high school athletes carrying five-star, four-star and three-star ratings for which these colleges all compete in offering scholarships in the recruiting race. 

In my opinion, the top ranked college teams in these programs (the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and the PAC) and a few, very few, others should be limited in the number of these top prospects to whom they may offer scholarships.  The perennial losers, the Vanderbilts, should have first crack at recruiting them, with the perennial winners, like Alabama, ‘handicapped’ in the recruiting race.  An example might be to limit conference winners or runners-up to no five-star recruits at all and only two or three four-star and three-star ones.  Then and only then will we see schools like Stanford, Maryland, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt consistently fielding winning teams and playing in the major bowl games determining the college national football champion. All it would take is this change in the flow of talent to these teams.

If this doesn’t happen, college football will continue to be no more than a collection of a few really good teams akin to baseball’s Triple A level.  The rest won’t matter.  Look at the attendance at their games.  And that is why college football is going down the tube, unless, of course, you’re satisfied with the Mid America and the Sunbelt Conferences.

And the same thing, really, holds true for college basketball but with many more teams and conferences involved, making it more complicated. Do you think that Duke, Gonzaga, UCLA and Baylor won't be among the top seeds in the NCAA March tourney this year and next year and the year after as well?  Don’t  bet on that!  

And speaking of betting, the legalization in many States and online of wagering on college sports cannot be ignored. (There are a lot of money-hungry hoopsters out there who don't remember the scandals of the late 1950's and 1960's.)

JL

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Advice for Democrats and Praise (?) for Mitch

Mitch McConnell just announced that the Republicans will not have an issue-oriented platform for the 2022 Congressional races. They will limit their campaign to just attacking Democrats.  That is very smart because their position on issues, if it were announced, would lose them support. 

Opposing abortion, protecting the January 6 insurrectionists and those who instigated the attack, voting against measures which would help people of color (particularly in voting), against measures that would reinforce women’s rights and opposing measures to combat climate change (despite unprecedented fires and floods) are not the ways to gain votes. Neither is fighting any increase in health care benefits. So they will just continue attacking Democrats with repeated lies, led by the King of Liars, the former president.

That is very smart strategy.  Their base is ignorant and gullible enough to feast on “Let’s Go Brandon” and such nonsense.  It goes over big with them.  The Big Lie about stolen elections in 2020, while totally fictitious, has had its effect on the voting population, who increasingly show distrust of the election process, in fact, of democracy.  This is what the Democrats are up against and Republicans love.

The Democrats should play the same game and put most issues (except passing voting rights legislation) on the back burner. They should devote their campaign to attacking Republicans who have a documented record of consistently voting against measures which are in the best interest of most Americans and particularly persons of color and women.

Attacking almost all Republicans’ record of such voting should help mobilize the vast number of voters among persons of color and women, absolutely essential to maintaining Democratic control of both Houses of Congress in 2022.

And this goes for State legislative and governorship races as well (where it all starts) Nothing else really matters. There is no other way to save democracy in our country.  Nancy, Chuck, Joe …. Listen to me!  Please! JL

JL

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US Embassy in Havana, no longer in use.

Havana Syndrome Debated

Bari Weiss’ Substack blog “Common Sense” just included an opinion piece on the Havana Syndrome, said to be affecting some of our diplomatic employees which some contend is real and other say is not.  It includes both sides.  It’s long, but worth reading.  Find it at:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-attacks

JL

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Offensive Lines and Poliical Truths

Offensive Lines Determine Winners

Damian Harris starting 64 yard TD run

A few weeks ago, Jackspotpourri made the point that in football, the offensive line is the best determinant of the ultimate winner. Last night, amidst 50 mph wind gusts, making passing almost impossible, the New England Patriots defeated the Buffalo Bills by a score of 14 to 10. Since the game was a struggle of ground games, rare in the NFL, the Patriots won because they had the better offensive line. In the first quarter, it opened the way for Damian Harris’ 64 yard touchdown run and that was the game. Buffalo’s late attempts at catching up failed because their offensive line wasn’t good enough to hold off New England’s blitzing defense.

JL

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Why Do Lies Get Equal Treatment?

When one side of a story is filled with documented lies, why should it receive equal coverage to stories whose content can be documented as truths?  When a politician or civic leader has lied repeatedly, why should he be given “equal time.”

Challenging such lies in the media only serves to give them an even larger share of space in print and electronic media, covering their rebuttals, which of course also are lies.  I haven’t seen too many articles lately rebutting the beliefs that the moon is made of green cheese and that the earth is flat.  Why are political issues any different?

Milbank

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has had a lot to say about this. Read his column of December 3 which is reproduced below. 

(You might want to make a copy of it and put it in a box with other similar columns expounding the truth about what is going on in the United States right now and hide it under some floorboards in your attic to be found by a future grandchild or great-grandchild living in a country in which democracy might not any longer exist.)

From the Washington Post - Dec. 3, 2021 - by Dana Milbank

"A sampling of headlines atop the influential Politico Playbook newsletter over the past month:

“Let the Democratic freakout begin.”

“Dems start to face the hard questions.”

“Does the WH owe Larry Summers an apology?”

“The other big intra-Democratic fight.”

“No BIF bump for Biden.”

“White House braces for a bad CBO score.”

“ … Biden dithers …”

“Biden tries to calm nerves about 2024.”

“The case for why Biden is screwed.”

 

Even the extraordinary news that jobless claims had dropped to the lowest level in 52 years came with a qualifier: “BUT, BUT, BUT … don’t expect [the numbers] to immediately change Americans’ negative perceptions of the economy.”

It isn’t just Politico. My impression of other outlets’ coverage of President Biden had been much the same: unrelentingly negative. Was it my imagination?

No, it wasn’t.

 

Artificial intelligence can now measure the negativity with precision. At my request, Forge.ai, a data analytics unit of the information company FiscalNote, combed through more than 200,000 articles — tens of millions of words — from 65 news websites (newspapers, network and cable news, political publications, news wires and more) to do a “sentiment analysis” of coverage. Using algorithms that give weight to certain adjectives based on their placement in the story, it rated the coverage Biden received in the first 11 months of 2021 and the coverage President Donald Trump got in the first 11 months of 2020.

 

The findings, painstakingly assembled by FiscalNote vice president Bill Frischling, confirmed my fear: My colleagues in the media are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy.

 

After a honeymoon of slightly positive coverage in the first three months of the year, Biden’s press for the past four months has been as bad as — and for a time worse than — the coverage Trump received for the same four months of 2020.

 

Think about that. In 2020, Trump presided over a worst-in-world pandemic response that caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths; held a superspreader event at the White House and got covid-19 himself; praised QAnon adherents; embraced violent white supremacists; waged a racist campaign against Black Lives Matter demonstrators; attempted to discredit mail-in voting; and refused to accept his defeat in a free and fair election, leading eventually to the violence of Jan. 6 and causing tens of millions to accept the “big lie,” the worst of more than 30,000 he told in office.

 

And yet Trump got press coverage as favorable as, or better than, Biden is getting today. Sure, Biden has had his troubles, with the delta variant, Afghanistan and inflation. But the economy is rebounding impressively, he has signed major legislation, and he has restored some measure of decency, calm and respect for democratic institutions.

 

We need a skeptical, independent press. But how about being partisans for democracy? The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And we in the news media, collectively, have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.

 

Sentiment analysis ranks coverage from entirely negative (-1.0) to entirely positive (1.0), and most outlets are in a relatively tight band between -0.1 and 0.1. Overall, Biden was slightly positive or neutral for seven months, ranging from 0.02 to -0.01. That plummeted to -0.07 in August — a lower number than Trump hit in all of 2020 (or 2019) — and has been between -0.04 and -0.03 ever since. Trump never left a narrow range of -0.03 to -0.04. (The data set doesn’t go far enough back to make a comparison to Trump’s first year in office.)

 

Also noteworthy: Trump got roughly twice as much coverage in 2020 as Biden has received in 2021. And the coverage of Biden is noticeably more negative than the tone of news coverage overall. Predictably, Breitbart and the New York Post are among the most negative outlets, but even liberal ones such as HuffPost and Salon have been negative. (The Post was the closest to neutral, at 0.0006.)

 

How to explain why Biden would be treated more harshly than a president who actively subverted democracy? Perhaps journalists, pressured by Trump’s complaints about the press, pulled punches. Perhaps media outlets, after losing the readership and viewership Trump brought, think tough coverage will generate interest.

 

I suspect my peers across the media have fallen victim to our asymmetric politics. Biden governs under traditional norms, while Republicans run a shocking campaign to delegitimize him with one fabricated charge after another. This week, Republicans threatened a government shutdown to block Biden’s vaccine mandates, after a year of efforts to discourage vaccination. Yet, incredibly, they’re simultaneously blaming Biden for coronavirus deaths — deaths occurring almost entirely among the unvaccinated.

 

 “More people have died of covid under President Biden than did in all of 2020,” proclaimed Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), GOP conference chairman.

As Biden might say: C’mon, man.

Too many journalists are caught in a mindless neutrality between democracy and its saboteurs, between fact and fiction. It’s time to take a stand."

I agree with Milbank's column.

 JL

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Playing Hardball on the Steps of the SCOTUS

Both those in favor of Roe vs. Wade and those wanting it reversed demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court building last week.  The former were polite, determined, and had clever slogans.  The latter, who were more numerous, were vicious, impolite and personally insulting to those in favor of continuing access to legal abortions.

The pro-lifers were playing hardball.  The pro-choice people were playing ping-pong.  And so it goes with issue after issue.  The Democrats must learn to play hardball on all controversial issues.  The next time the pro-choice people have a demonstration, they should bring wire coat hangers, to counter the images of murdered fetuses the pro-lifers always flaunt.

JL

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Election Process on Life Support 

In the United States, at least up until now, the election process has been sacrosanct.  There were winners and there were losers and both sides respected the result.  No longer is that the case. 

The Republican Party won’t play by the rules and is actively taking steps in States where they control the legislatures to change the rules governing the electoral process so that the loser might end up the winner. (The outdated electoral college already makes that possible in presidential elections.) 

Republican efforts now hinge on calling any election they lose as ‘stolen’ from them and have no hesitancy to try to reverse the result by any means possible, including violence.  This is the philosophy of Donald Trump and those who follow him, including most Republican officials, afraid of losing the votes of his followers. There is only one way to describe it. It is ‘criminal.’  It is a way of breaking the rules which is tantamount to breaking the law.

The Democratic Party is the party which respects law and order. Their behavior of the Republican Party, however, marks it as the party of criminals, some of whom even endorse the violent January 6 attack on the Capitol, an effort to break election laws.   The Republicans who know better but are afraid to speak out, as Liz Chaney had the guts to do, are no less criminal that the rest of them, led by the former president.

Without an honest election process, democracy is dead, which is the way the financial supporters of the Republican Party want it to be. Their aim is to discredit and replace it with an autocratic, undemocratic system of choosing our government. They loudly claim otherwise, wrapping themselves in the American flag and alluding to the  trappings of religion and try to convince Americans that the support of gullible voters, misguided and misinformed by Republican criminals, is a substitute for democracy.  It isn't.          

As of this moment, the election process in this country is on life support.  Without it, democracy dies.  What happens next is up to you.   

JL

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Jobs for Republicans

If as I hope, enough women and persons of color (whose votes are crucial to Democratic victories) manage to vote in 2022 to drive many Republican officeholders out of their jobs, they will not have any difficulty finding new employment.  Their work for the G.O.P. has well qualified them to work as automobile salespeople, especially in the used car market.

"Would I lie to you?"

 JL

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A REPUBLICAN DISEASE - LYING, a Dionne Column plus Jambalaya

A REPUBLICAN DISEASE - LYING!

From an Associated Press article (12/3/21) written by Lisa Mascaro

“During his Senate confirmation hearing as a Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh convinced Sen. Susan Collins that he thought a woman’s right to an abortion was ”settled law,” calling the court cases affirming it “precedent on precedent” that could not be casually overturned.

Amy Coney Barrett said during her hearing that laws could not be undone simply by persona beliefs.

But during this week’s landmark Supreme Court hearing over a Mississippi law that could curtail, if not outright end a woman’s right to abortion, the two newest justices struck a markedly different tone, drawing lines of questioning widely viewed as part of the court’s willingness to dismantle decades-old decisions on access to abortion.”

This just goes to show you that anyone associated with the former president and the Party that nominated these two to the Court must be considered to be liars unless and until proved otherwise.  

Trump’s “Big Lie” is that he believes he actually won the 2020 presidential election and that it was stolen from him.  Such a preposterously gigantic lie is reinforced by the many lesser lies which Republicans, like Kavanaugh and Barrett, utter every day, not even realizing that they are lying.  It’s a Republican disease.  Lying.

And in addition to being liars, they suffer from a lack of consistency.  In a column last week, the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg pointed out that Republicans who downplay the need for vaccinations in combatting Covid19 by saying "My Body - My Choice" (allowing even health care workers to go unvaccinated) refuse to take the same position in regard to women having the same choice in regard to abortions. Go figure! A group of liars and hypocrites, that's what the Republican Party has turned into. 

JL

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And here’s a “must read” column from the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court’s pro-gun, pro-life problem

 

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

December 1, 2021 at 3:50 p.m. EST

"On Tuesday, four high school students — ages 14, 16 and 17 — were fatally shot in Oxford, Mich., by a 15-year-old classmate firing a 9mm pistol with 15-round magazines.

Less than 24 hours later, a Supreme Court majority that seems on the verge of weakening the nation’s gun laws heard arguments in a case that could lead to tougher restrictions on abortion.

 

Please tell me: What can the words “pro-life” possibly mean when the same people who want to constrain abortion are eager to make it easier for Americans to obtain and carry deadly weapons?

How is it “pro-life” for a nation to accept school shootings as a routine part of our daily news feeds? Can it possibly be “pro-life” to pretend that because no law will ever end all such shootings, it’s not worth trying to pass anything that might at least make them less likely?

 

We take for granted a conservative ideology rooted not in intellectual consistency but in the politics of culture wars that hold abortion rights as an abomination but gun rights as inviolable. And we wonder why the shootings continue.

 

Let me stipulate: I know people opposed to abortion rights who are, in fact, consistently “pro-life.” They fight for tougher gun laws, oppose the death penalty and support far more help for poor women when they bring children into the world. Even if you disagree with them on abortion, you should bless them for their witness and their moral consistency.

 

But this group is a small minority of the political movement trying to outlaw abortion. The conservatives on the Supreme Court — judging from oral arguments last month on a New York law restricting handguns and the arguments Wednesday on a Mississippi abortion ban — seem quite comfortable with being pro-gun and antiabortion. Against all the evidence from countries with stricter gun laws and far lower gun homicide rates, the pro-gun, antiabortion crowd insists that a massively armed citizenry protects life.

 

Yes, a few of the court’s conservatives expressed qualms during the November argument about guns at Yankee Stadium or in Times Square. But the core conservative commitment to a gunfight-at-the-O.K.-Corral approach to public safety was outlined with great clarity by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. lamented during oral arguments in a N.Y. gun control case on Nov. 1 that "hardworking, law abiding people" can't have guns. (Reuters)

“There are a lot of armed people on the streets of New York and in the subways late at night right now. Aren’t there?” Alito asked at oral argument. “All these people with illegal guns, they’re on the subway, they’re walking around the streets. But the ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding people I mentioned, no, they can’t be armed.”

Have at it, everybody.

 

In her recent Opinions Essay on the dangers posed by a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, my Post colleague Ruth Marcus pointed out archly that justices who tout their devotion to a theory they call “originalism” were happy to ignore many decades of state laws, upheld by the courts, regulating weapons.

 

“The court’s originalists,” she wrote, “seemed not at all troubled by abundant historical evidence of states restricting guns in public places.”

 

The disconnect between warm, life-embracing rhetoric about abortion and indifference toward the loss of innocent life furthered by our nation’s uniquely permissive gun laws moved Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to call out this moral scandal on Tuesday night.

 

“I listened to my Republican colleagues come down here one after another today and talk about the sanctity of life at the very moment that moms and dads in Michigan were being told that their kids weren’t coming home because they were shot at school, due to a country that has accepted gun violence, due to Republicans’ fealty to the gun lobby,” Murphy declared on the Senate floor. “Do not lecture us about the sanctity, the importance of life when 100 people every single day are losing their lives to guns, when kids go to school fearful that they won’t return home because a classmate will turn a gun on them.”

 

Murphy’s point is amply justified by Republican blockades in the Senate against even modest gun laws, including bills on background checks passed by the House in March. But let’s not ignore Democrats who counsel caution on gun legislation for fear of losing further ground in rural areas.

 

The Michigan shootings are another reminder of the lethality of our political deadlock on guns — a powerlessness the Supreme Court majority seems eager to aggravate.

Here’s what we’re facing: conservative jurists ready to expand states’ rights when it comes to limiting or banning abortion but equally prepared to block states from enacting gun laws aimed at protecting the right of their people to live beyond their teenage years."

Of course, Dionne is right!

JL

 

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Some Changes in the Blog 

Aside from those who access Jackspotpourri (the blog you are looking at) from a link included in an email from me, many just get there via an internet search for an item which happens to be mentioned on my blog. 

Blogspot, the Google platform on which the blog is distributed, provides me with a wealth of statistical information. I have found that, outside of the “hits” resulting from an email from me, few access Jackspotpourri.com for political information.  But when I include something of more popular interest, such as the piece on the Tagavailoa brothers, both football quarterbacks, included on Nov. 28, the number of “hits” increases, based on the “search engines” leading people to the blog and they get to read the political stuff as well.  So don’t be surprised if you see items related to sports, food, celebrities, etc. occasionally included.  They’re there to draw a crowd … which they do!   (Like what follows below)

 

JL                                     

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Hungry?  Here’s a

Mouth-Watering Jambalaya from New Orleans!

 jambalaya is a quintessential one pot recipe with chicken, sausage, shrimp and rice! coming to you from new orleans!

An easy Jambalaya recipe is pure comfort food filled to the brim with flavour. The aromatic trinity of Cajun/Creole cooking: onion, celery, and bell peppers (capsicums), sautéed in andouille drippings with garlic, herbs and Cajun spices! Adding chicken and shrimp to this pot of tomato rice makes this one amazing meal in the comfort of your own homes!

Your mouth watering yet?  The recipe can be found at https://cafedelites.com/jambalaya/#recipe or by simply CLICKING HERE.  

what is in a jambalaya

Louisiana’s favourite one-pot dish varies from kitchen to kitchen, depending on the cook and the recipes passed down from older generations. Jambalaya traditionally contains any of the following meats:

·         Chicken or pork

·         Sausage — andouille, chorizo or smoked sausage.

·         Seafoods — crawfish or shrimp are the favourite choices.

A soffritto-like trinity of onion, bell peppers and celery are also included, along with rice, chili’s, seasonings and broth. Everything usually cooks together in the one pot until the rice is done.

There are two kinds of Jambalaya: Creole and Cajun. This recipe is the tomato-based Creole version.

what is a good substitute for andouille sausage?

·         Mexican chorizo sausage (comes close to andouille in flavour, but not in texture)

·         Kielbasa

·         Any Polish smoked sausage

cajun vs creole jambalaya

Creole cooks make a ‘red jambalaya’ including tomatoes in their recipe, whereas Cajun cooks do not. Another difference is the order in which the ingredients are prepared. Trying both while testing, I combined a little of both in this final recipe, choosing to sauté the sausage first to release drippings into the pot for the ‘soffritto’. We found doing this created the best flavour!

what is the difference between paella and jambalaya?

Even though Jambalaya is very similar to a Paella and includes pretty much the same list of main ingredients, the spices and seasonings change. Saffron is the main spice component in Paella, and Paella is milder than Jambalaya in the heat department.

what is the difference between a gumbo and jambalaya?

Gumbo is a stew or soup usually made with a roux to thicken it, whereas Jambalaya is a rice based dish. Okra is normally used in Gumbo to help thicken the stew and add a wonderful flavour to it. I use it in this Jambalaya recipe for the same reason! If you don’t like okra, you can use File Powder.

best rice for jambalaya

I use both long grain and short grain white rice. You could also use brown rice, but you will need to add more liquid and cook it longer than white.

best wines with jambalaya

·         Sauvignon Blanc

·         Vouvray

·         Riesling

·         Pinot Gris

·         Pinot Noir

sides that go with jambalaya

Jambalaya is THE perfect one-pot meal full of ingredients, you really don’t need to serve it with anything other than cornbread, or fresh baguettes, plus a salad with a simple dressing to not over-power all of the spices in this Jambalaya

(Jambalaya material from the "Cafe Delites" website.)

JL

 

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