September 19, 2025 - First Amendment Rights, Originalism, the Second Amendment, Political Truths, Artificial Intelligence, and Dragons

 

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First Amendment Rights Endangered 

Search anywhere you choose on the internet for news of Jimmy Kimmel’s cancelllation by ABC. He joins Steve Colbert as victims of those in power in Washington who believe firmly in free speech only if what is said agrees with the President and those he appoints, often with the approval of a supine Congress, fearful of primary challenges from the right. 

When Tucker Carlson and Heather Cox Richardson seem to agree with one another, it is time to distrust the President and his actions in regard to the First Amendment. Check her comments dated September 18 at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

JL 

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How Originalism Killed the Constitution

A radical legal philosophy has undermined the process of constitutional evolution, and Harvard Professor Jill Lepore has written about it in the Atlantic. The writers of the Constitution went to great pains to keep it from being a static document but one that would be adaptable to change through a very demanding amendment process. 

Not doing that would mean sticking precisely to the Constitution’s language, a position known as ‘originalism.’ The chief modern advocate of this was the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who is responsible for an ‘originalist’ misreading of the Second Amendment causing thousands of deaths through the unregulated proliferation of weapons. More about that follows. 

Justice Scalia - Is there blood on his hands?

JL 

                 

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The Second Amendment Was Originally About Militias … But That Has Changed 

A recipient of Jackspotpourri took my statement in the last posting that there were ‘no absolute political truths’ to amount to an endorsement of the ideas promulgated by the late Charlie Kirk.  

Not so! My statement included that such ideas should be dealt with in a non-violent manner. This may be the wrong time to point out that Kirk regularly excused the very same sort of violence that tragically ended his life, but it cannot be denied that in 2023, in supporting the Second Amendment, he is quoted as having said “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” Words matter. 

Kirk believed the Second Amendment was there to guarantee individuals the right to gun ownership for self-protection as well as being a defense against government tyranny, rather than its clearly stated purpose in its original first thirteen words, enabling States to have armed recruits available to serve in their militias. 

Although this reduction of the Second Amendment to just its final fourteen words was approved by the Supreme Court in 2008 in D.C. vs Heller, I believe that is not what the Founding Fathers intended it to mean, or at least what it was for 219 years until 2008 when a politicized Supreme Court first decided that it was acceptable to ignore the Amendment’s first thirteen words (underlined below) in that decision. 

(The Second Amendment, in its entirety reads as follows: ’A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’) 

The late Justice Antonin Scalia’s tortured opinion, in effect cancelling the Amendment's first thirteen words, remains the basis for many laws regarding weapons today and has contributed to gun violence, allowing a proliferation of weapons in this country, and thousands of deaths. 

It is my hope that a future SCOTUS decision will return the Second Amendment to what it was about: arming State militias, the predecessors of today’s State National Guard units, something that is now a function of the Federal government and no longer a concern of individual ‘free States.’ 

That leaves the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment standing alone, a right that no one ever challenged, and never needed to be nor intended to be amended into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers, but which is now standing alone there preventing reasonable local ordinances concerning guns from being passed. (That was what D.C. vs Heller was about.) 

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If my statement regarding there being ‘no absolute political truths’ was inaccurate, it was in that it did not mention that actually there are some self-evident absolute political truths that most Americans recognize, and these are that ‘all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ This is made clear in the Declaration of Independence and made into law in the Constitution. These words will outlive the present occupant of the White House. 

Meanwhile, we should join in recognizing that the acceptance of gun violence by some as an acceptable tool to advance their ideas is inexcusable, and that no American should ever be denied their First Amendment rights by bullets or other acts of violence, nor by words of condemnation by government officials. 

JL 

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Here Be Dragons 

When ancient mapmakers reached the limits of what was then human knowledge, they simply labeled such areas with the notation ‘Here Be Dragons.’ Professor Barbara Walter (San Diego State – Univ. of California) so labels her periodic journeys into the unknown where indeed, there may be dragons or similar dangers awaiting us. 

Her September 15 column appears below: 

Why the Killing of Charlie Kirk Feels Different It's a New Phase of Instability – Barbara F. Walter Sept. 15, 2025 

“I’m posting a bit earlier this week. This felt too urgent to hold back. Wednesday was the kind of day that rattles you. My phone lit up. My inbox filled. Emails came from every major outlet in the United States, from London, Sydney, Berlin. I even got an email from People magazine. Everyone wanted to know the same thing: was America sliding into political violence, even civil war? Something about this moment - the murder of Charlie Kirk - feels different. More dangerous. It wasn’t like this after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July 2024. It wasn’t like this after Gabby Giffords was shot, or Steve Scalise, or Melissa and Mark Hortman. Those were shocking, tragic events. But the Kirk assassination has put the country on edge in a new way. The question is why. I think there are three reasons. 

1. Our Leaders are Reacting Differently. After high-profile attacks in the past, leaders across the political spectrum almost always responded the same way: they condemned the violence, urged calm, and asked Americans to come together. This time was different. Elon Musk declared, “The Left is the party of murder.” Laura Loomer demanded the government “crack down on the Left… no mercy.” Stephen Miller called on conservatives to “dedicate ourselves to defeating the evil that stole Charlie from this world.” Eric Trump described the assassination as having “awoken that sleeping giant of American conservatism.” Donald Trump called it a “dark moment for America,” saying it was proof that conservatives are under siege. In other words, the immediate response wasn’t about unity. It was mobilization. For the first time, mainstream MAGA voices turned a political killing into a rallying cry. And rhetoric matters. Political scientists have shown that when elites use violent or threatening language - especially when it comes from one’s own side - it increases public support for political violence. What shifted last week was the default script: no longer “thoughts and prayers,” but “prepare for battle.” That is a dangerous move. 

2. Violence is No Longer One-sided. For decades, far-right extremists - white supremacists, militias, anti-government radicals - have carried out the vast majority of lethal domestic terrorism in the United States. They still account for most of it. But in recent years, violence from the far-left has begun to rise. We don’t yet know what motivated Tyler Robinson, or whether he was tied to either camp. But President Trump is already pointing to the murder as proof that the Left is surging in its violence and must be subdued. That is exactly the wrong way to contain violence. Domestic terrorism is a lot easier to control when it comes primarily from one direction, as it has for most of the last twenty years. Once both sides believe the other is targeting them, escalation is much more likely. The scholarly literature is clear: reciprocal violence - when each camp sees the other as an existential threat - sets off cycles of retaliation that are extremely hard to stop especially when people feel they need to act in self-defense. By framing conservatives as victims under siege, Trump is priming his supporters for violence. This is new and provocative. 

3. America’s Law Enforcement Leaders Aren’t What They Used to Be. The contrast with the 1990s is stark. Back then, militias were multiplying across the U.S., feeding off anger at the federal government. The breaking point came in April 1995, when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children. Two things followed. First, Americans were horrified. Recruitment into militias collapsed. What had seemed fringe but tolerable now looked monstrous. Second, the FBI acted decisively. They infiltrated groups, prosecuted leaders, and shut down networks. Within a few years, extremist militias were in retreat. That kind of reversal would be almost impossible today. For three reasons. The first is cultural. Surveys now show that more Americans than ever believe political violence can be justified under certain conditions (if an election is stolen, if government overreaches, if their way of life is threatened). Support is no longer confined to the fringes. The second is technological. In 1995, McVeigh’s ideology spread through newsletters and gun shows. Today, extremists use YouTube, Telegram, and TikTok to radicalize millions in real time. And the third is political will. Donald Trump has no interest in curbing far-right extremism. On the contrary, he has excused it, encouraged it, and sometimes embraced it. Under his leadership, the FBI has been stripped of independence and expertise, its senior ranks filled with loyalists rather than professionals. Even if it wanted to act, the bureau no longer has the capacity to replicate its success of the 1990s. That is the difference between then and now. In the 1990s, Americans recoiled and institutions responded. Today, Americans are more polarized, extremists are more connected, and government is more compromised. That makes the threat of more violence bigger and harder to contain. 

Why this matters: Taken together, these three shifts explain why the Kirk assassination feels like a turning point. It is. The danger isn’t only the killing itself. It’s what might come after: political leaders fanning the flames, violence becoming genuinely reciprocal, institutions too weak or unwilling to step in. We can’t undo the violence, but we can decide whether it becomes the spark for escalation or the wake-up call to pull together. 

For a particular great podcast on this subject see Sarah Longwell’s interview with the wonderful Rachel Kleinfeld on The Bulwark. You can find it here: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/you-can-ramp-it-up-or-ramp-it-down.

'Here Be Dragons: Warning Signs from the Edges of Democracy' is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell 'Here Be Dragons: Warning Signs from the Edges of Democracy' that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.” 

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 Accessing the link with which Professor Walter concludes the above posting will make available to you links to the many, many, blogs, newsletters, and podcasts dealing with current events. Some are free to a limited extent. Most look for paying subscribers as well. They are tempting, but beware; you can spend the rest of your life reading them, forgetting about eating, or sleeping, etc..

JL 

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Artificial Intelligence Alert 

We all should be aware that Artificial Intelligence can impact almost everything in our economy and society that up until now depended on the knowledge and skills of individuals. How you engage in creating, making, selling, doing, teaching, etc., all functions that originate in your brain, will be significantly changed. 

 At first, ‘AI’ might seem to be an ally, a useful tool, but eventually your brain might no longer be necessary, nor possibly, even you. Think about it: all human knowledge available at the click of a keyboard to do whatever you and other individuals did yesterday all by themselves. And that includes selecting your government, your mate, and what to eat for breakfast today. 

An article in the New York Times on September 15 suggested ways of approaching this. CLICK HERE  or copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/technology/what-exactly-are-ai-companies-trying-to-build-heres-a-guide.html#:~:text=The%20Promise:%20An%20Everything%20Assistant,to%20its%20Alexa%20voice%20assistant. on your device’s browser line for the good (or bad) news. 

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com , or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

 Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps: 

 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Most are from vendors which I may have used years ago. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 

 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these ‘Promotion’ emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

 3. Then I read my email. 

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine (or other search engines) where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. After such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than the AI summary. I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect. 

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

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September 13, 2025 - Three Related Comments, My Local Newspaper, a Resident's Published Letter, and the Daily Kos

 

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Three Related Comments

1. Trump Actively Destroying the FBI When It Is Needed Most

In emasculating the rule of law and the administration of justice, Donald Trump has ruined the nation’s prime law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, turning it into a tool of retribution to be used to harass his political opponents, whom he considers to be enemies. 

For full details from the New York Times in their article regarding the important lawsuit filed by three fired career agents. CLICK HERE  or copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/us/politics/trump-fbi-lawsuit.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20250910&instance_id=162268&nl=breaking-news&regi_id=78918068&segment_id=205643&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 on your device’s browser line. 

And if you cannot access it in full from the Times’ website, ask me to send it to you. 

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2. Kirk Assassination 

Investigation of Wednesday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, activist leader of conservative youth through his ‘Turning Point’ organization, and ardent supporter of President Trump, required the mobilization of the resources of the FBI, along with local law enforcement in Utah. Unfortunately, the senior FBI Agent with the specific skills and leadership experience required for this task was among those just fired by the Bureau for political reasons. (See #1 above.) Similarly, the Agent-in-Charge of the Bureau’s Salt Lake City office, the territory where the assassination took place, recently met the same fate.

Hence, the FBI’s participation in seeking out the shooter was, in effect, by a ‘second team,’ with the bulk of the work seeming to fall on Utah’s law enforcement authorities. 

FBI head Kash Patel and his top deputy, Dan Bongino, both Trump loyalist appointees without law enforcement experience, were in a situation far over their heads at that point. Announcements regarding the arrest of the shooter have come from the President on a Fox and Friends telecast, where the niceties of the legal process might be glossed over.    

From the Oval Office, President Donald J. Trump had earlier blamed the shooting on “the radical left” and vowed to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.” Trump was not adverse to fitting the assassination into his agenda. 

It is time for politics to be set aside so that Kirk’s suspected assassin does not benefit from sloppiness on the part of a politicized and inexperienced FBI leadership and the big mouth of a revenge-seeking President, himself a convicted felon. The State of Utah, led by its Governor, Spencer Cox, seems to be up to the job, now that they the suspected assassin has turned himself in at the request of his family. 

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3. A Denial of Extremism 

There are those among the supposedly non-committed who continually ask believers in opposing ‘extreme political positions’ to try to understand the motives and actions of each other’s side, with the aim of reaching some compromise. Sadly, they are barking up the wrong tree. 

No extremist, on the right or on the left, considers themselves to be an extremist. That bears repeating: No extremist, on the right or on the left, considers themselves to be an extremist. 

To their way of thinking, their beliefs are the correct ones and on the side of righteousness. It is those who disagree with their views whom they label as extremists, with views either far too liberal or far too conservative for them.

The President, ignoring that he is the president of all of the people, goes one step further, referring to those with whom he disagrees as ‘radicals on the left.’ (See #2 above.)  The President should listen to voices like that of Utah’s governor and others urging that those who disagree with one another turn away from suggesting violence. 

The answer may be that really, there are no absolute political truths, and all of us should be open to a variety of political opinions, regardless of their source, and be willing to deal with them in a non-violent manner. That is a lot to be hoped for, but as an example, I agree with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, with whom I disagree most of the time, that pharmaceutical advertising on TV should be more strictly regulated. 

JL 

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Why a Switch in Newspapers? 

Some of you may be curious as to why I switched to the South Florida SunSentinel from the Palm Beach Post as the daily newspaper delivered to my driveway. Repeatedly I have urged that everyone should have a printed newspaper delivered to them each day, something that can get far more lasting attention than a computer’s or Iphone’s screen. 

To start with, since 2024, the Post, part of the Gannett organization, has not belonged to the Associated Press, depending to a great extent on their sister newspapers, especially Gannett’s flagship USA Today, for non-local news. Believe me, USA Today is no substitute for the Associated Press nor the New York Times articles occasionally seen in the SunSentinel that never see the light of day in the Post. In addition, the Post does not include editorial and opinion pages, important to Jackspotpourri, on Mondays and Tuesdays. 

Also, the Post’s sports section is inadequately staffed, unable to even cover the Miami Marlins, our local Major League baseball team, as bad as they are, nor our local major thoroughbred racetrack, Gulfstream Park.  Finally, while the SunSentinel’s coverage of the southern portion of Palm Beach County is as good as the Post’s, the Post seems to put that region in a back seat compared to areas further north. And their best writer, Frank Cerebino, is retiring. ‘Nuff said? 

JL 

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Local Resident’s Letter Published 

For those of you who missed it, here’s a letter from a Cascade Lakes resident that appeared the other day in the SunSentinel: 

‘The Teflon King - Right-wing protests are on the decline, according to groups tracking them. Antisemitic and racist protesters believe that marches like the one in Charlottesville, Va., are no longer necessary as they have accomplished their goals with Donald Trump in office. That’s the view of Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right group Oath Keepers. Rhodes was part of the Jan. 6 riot and was pardoned in spite of the violence instigated by Trump. Some federal prosecutors who tried them were fired for defying the tyrant in the Oval Office. Ethics, justice and morality have been abandoned. What remains is obeisance to the Teflon King. Wake up, America. - 

Dr. Howard Olarsch, DDS, Boynton Beach’ 

JL 

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The Daily Kos 

I find myself more and more taking a good look at the Daily Kos as a news opinion source. It feels no obligation go along with mainstream thinking and speak its mind. It seems to be the only news source that violates the dictum of not criticizing the deceased, and as difficult as that seems at this moment, that includes Charlie Kirk. (See https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/11/2342963/-The-whitewashing-of-Charlie-Kirk-s-toxic-legacy-is-underway ) 

While the Daily Kos does ask for donations, it does not make them a prerequisite to getting to its full postings, with which you can agree or disagree. Check it out at https://www.dailykos.com

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com , or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com

More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps: 

 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Most are from vendors which I may have used years ago. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 

 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these ‘Promotion’ emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

 3. Then I read my email. Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine (or other search engines) where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. After such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than the AI summary. I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect. Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

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September 9, 2025 - Speculation on the Epstein Saga from Josh Marshall, and a Pair of 'Believe it or Nots.'

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Getting Closer to the Truth About Epstein, Maybe      

On September 6, Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ referred to Josh Marshall’s ‘Talking Points Memo’ dated September 6 concerning the Epstein story, vastly increasing its circulation. The stink increases daily. 

For those unfamiliar with Marshall, Wikipedia informs us that Joshua Micah Jesajan-Dorja Marshall is an American journalist and blogger who founded Talking Points Memo. A liberal, he presides over a network of progressive-oriented sites that operate under the TPM Media banner. In 2008, they averaged 400,000 page views on weekdays and 750,000 unique visitors per month. Born in 1969, Marshall has a BA from Princeton and a PhD from Brown University. 

Marshall

Here is what Marshall wrote in his ‘Talking Points Memo’ on September 6 in its entirety; you have to judge it for yourself. For the sake of clarity, I have used red lettering to indicate what it appears Marshall supects was in Donald Trump’s mind as he proceeded along the circuitous path suggested below. As I said earlier, the stink increases daily.  Here goes: 

  “Let me connect a few dots for you that may be a key part of the Trump-Epstein drama and may even be what Trump has been trying to keep hidden in those files. I’m not sure quite what we’re dealing with here. But I think this is significant. 

    Yesterday Speaker Mike Johnson was on the Hill talking to reporters running Trump defense on the Epstein files. It sounds like pretty standard stuff — and then he says this: “When he first heard the rumor he kicked [Epstein] out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant who tried to take this stuff down.” It’s an odd moment. Because Johnson says it in this kind of off-handed way and without explanation like it’s just one in a litany of talking points. But he clearly suggests that Trump played some role bringing about Epstein’s downfall, that he was an FBI informant who presumably told the authorities about Epstein’s sex crimes. The clip got a lot of attention on social media, unsurprisingly. One of Trump’s top surrogates is suggesting that far from being implicated in Epstein’s crimes, Trump is some secret good guy in the shadows, the guy who out of the limelight helped the authorities bring Epstein to justice. 

    Total fantasy, right?  Well, this reminded me of something I saw in one of those recent interviews with journalist Michael Wolff, who has been out in the media letting everyone know that he has some large quantity of taped interviews with Epstein from during Trump’s first presidency but before his rearrest and eventual suicide. Wolff said that Epstein suspected that Trump was the guy who ratted him out to the authorities. So maybe some version of Johnson’s claim isn’t that far-fetched. But of course this isn’t actually exonerating at all. In fact, it implicates Trump about as badly as anything we’ve heard to date. You can’t tell what you don’t know. 

    Trump was in a position to rat out Epstein because he knew all about his operation and had for years. They were close carousing buddies for years, partying and trying to one-up each other, competing to bed young women. Whether that also included girls under 18 for Trump we don’t know for certain. But we have abundant evidence about their carousing and bro-one-upsmanship with women just over 18. Even if he never touched a girl under 18, Trump clearly knew Epstein was. If he’s the one who ratted Epstein out to the authorities leading to his 2008 plea deal, that only confirms his knowledge more clearly. 

    But the details of why Trump appears to have turned on Epstein are key too. Wolff lays out the details starting just after minute 32 in this interview, which you can watch on Youtube. There’s a lot going on here. So I’ll try to walk you through the key points. (For more detail and flavor, I strongly recommend watching that five or six minute part of the interview.) 

    Epstein was trying to buy a South Florida estate. He brought Trump along to see it one time. A short time later Epstein found out that Trump had gone behind his back and placed a higher and ultimately successful bid on the property. He’d snatched it out from under him with a much higher bid. The problem was that Trump’s entire empire in 2004 was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It made no sense that Trump was coming up with $41 million to buy this property. Epstein suspected that Trump was acting as a front for a Russian oligarch as a money-laundering scheme. And in fact Trump did purchase and flip the estate two years later to a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, or a profit of over $50 million dollars.

    Epstein was pissed for his own reasons (he wanted the estate). But he also suspected the money laundering scheme. So he threatened Trump that he would bring the whole thing out into the open through a series of lawsuits. Right about this same time authorities got a tip about Epstein’s activities which started the investigation that led to his eventual 2008 plea deal. Two of these points are well-known. The transaction with the Russian oligarch has been written about extensively and was the subject of criminal probes. Of course, Trump denies it was money-laundering. But that part of this story is well-known. It’s also well-known that Trump and Epstein fell out over this real estate transaction. Those two parts of what I’m explaining are established parts of the Trump story. What’s new is the idea that Trump was either the key source who started the Epstein investigation or one of them and that he did this to retaliate against Epstein’s threats and protect himself from being exposed in a money laundering scheme. 

    I can’t stress this point enough: You can’t tell what you don’t know. This isn’t an accusation. It’s formal logic. So even if we accept the idea that Trump played a role in Epstein’s downfall, it’s not exonerating. It shows what we’ve long suspected: that Trump had known about Epstein’s operation for years and was fine with it. (That’s assuming for the moment he wasn’t a direct participant — it’s the weekend, I’m being generous.) He only made a call when Epstein was threatening to expose a money laundering scheme. Wolff said this a few weeks ago, apparently on the basis of recorded interviews from 2018 and 2019. But last night I saw a few articles from that period that strongly hinted at something like this. So I suspect reporters had heard something about this but couldn’t quite nail it down. In other words, I think this has been known as a rumor at least for some time. So why did Johnson say this? It’s conceivable, I guess, that he was just riffing and that there’s nothing to it. But that’s a helluva riff. I don’t think you’re just spitballing and land on the idea that the president of the United States was a confidential source who had inside knowledge and started the Epstein investigation. 

    My best guess is that Johnson said this because Epstein was right and Trump did rat him out to the authorities. But as we said, this is not a good story for Trump, so why say it? Again, the best explanation is that it’s in those files the DOJ is sitting on. The White House fears it’s going to come out and so they’re putting the best spin on it they can. Trump was a real life Bruce Wayne type richie, wheeling and dealing by day, helping the authorities take down bad guys in the shadows. With Trump’s most ardent supporters, they might get some traction with that. But again, as noted above, it’s actually super damning. Yeah I knew he was a big time pedophile and we were big pals and partied together all the time and I was fine with it. But then he tried to expose my money laundering scheme so I called my friends at the FBI. I don’t think that’s a great story. 

    Needless to say, I’ve strung together several links in a chain here. There’s Johnson’s off-hand comment, the fact that what Epstein suspected or said he suspected isn’t necessarily what happened, there’s the lack of direct proof for Trump notifying authorities. But I think if you tug at the chain you’ll find that each link in the chain is actually pretty strong. So this is worth keeping an eye on because I think Johnson said it for a reason.” 

JL 

                                                    * * * 

Believe It or Not #1 

As an example of how terrible the Trump administration is, check the details of the many news reports on these actions which I am sure you have read about. 

1. Trump wants to create jobs in this country to replace jobs in other countries producing imports to this country. 

2. Tariffs on these imports from these other countries are one of his threats or tools. 

3. South Korea was agreeable to playing along with this and was building a battery plant for Korean vehicles in Georgia, to employ Americans here instead of Koreans in South Korea. 

4. South Korea sent its experts and experienced workers to recruit and train Americans to operate the plant it was building here to appease Trump. 

5. Some had visas to allow them to come here to do this work and others were admitted as part of the deal Trump had supposedly negotiated during some of his more lucid moments. 

6. ICE, charged by the President to meet a quota of deportable immigrants, became aware of a big factory being built in Georgia employing a lot of immigrants, raided the place and arrested over 450 employees, mostly from South Korea. 

7. This became a diplomatic issue between the United States and one of its strongest allies. 

8. South Korea is sending a plane to evacuate its imprisoned workers here and construction of the plant has ceased. 

9. It is rumored that the President has added a proctologist to his staff of economists to help him locate his head. 

JL

                                                      * * * 

Believe it or Not #2 

(From the South Florida SunSentinel, Fri., Sept. 5. – First paragraphs of an article from the ‘News Service of Florida’) 

 ‘Tallahassee – Talon Tactical Outfitters west of Tallahassee has bulked up its inventory of hunting rifles and shotguns. Starting Monday and running through the end of the year, Florida will provide a sales-tax exemption on a variety of hunting equipment, the first time a state tax ‘holiday’ includes guns and ammunition. JD Johnson, an owner of Talon, which also has a neighboring firing range, said Tuesday several customers had already reached out to him about plans to make purchases afater the discount period begins … ‘ 

Jackspotpourri can recommend 49 other States for vacations or retirement, but certainly, not Florida, site of mass shootings such as those at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and at a high school in Parkland. There are a lot of guns in the Sunshine State. Also a lot of crazy people. They sense that Governor DeSantis has placed a welcome mat out for them at the State line and have flocked here. And that includes the Surgeon General that DeSantis appointed, among the nut-jobs he fancies, possibly crazier than the Governor himself. But that’s another story. 

JL

                                                * * *

Wrapping Up 'Sic Semper Tyrannis'

John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 was reprehensible and the act of a madman. As the ‘hit man’ in a plot against the president, his supposed words, ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ as he squeezed the trigger reflected his pathological hatred of the president. 

Wikipedia as well as Artificial Intelligence, in defining this Latin phrase translatable as "thus always to tyrants," points out that In contemporary parlance, it can be understood as meaning the overthrowning of a tyrant and their removal from power, and not the assassination that Booth, who considered Lincoln to be a tyrant, carrried out.  In a democratic republic, there are legal means of overthrowing tyrants to be pursued.

 

 JL 

                                                          * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

 Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com , or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com

More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps: 

 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Most are from vendors which I may have used years ago. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 

 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these ‘Promotion’ emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

 3. Then I read my email. 

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine (or other search engines) where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. After such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than the AI summary. 

I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect. 

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

JL  

                                                         *   *   *   *

September 4, 2025 - National Emergencies, Constructive Resistance, Your Opinions, Football, South Park, and Brevity

 

                                                          * * * 

National Emergencies

When President Trump wants to do something that is illegal or unconstitutional, he is in the habit of declaring the situation to warrant being a national emergency. Tariffs (the job of Congress) or street crime (the job of local government) are examples. He has done this at least ten times already this year, citing various laws to justify his doing so. 

It doesn’t make much difference when a court tells him that his perceiving something to be an emergency is not warranted. He will just ignore the ruling. Sooner or later he is likely to declare that judges who rule against his national emergencies constitute one themselves. 

In a non-violent manner of course, ‘sic semper tyrannis.’ 

JL 

                                                   

                                                        * * * 

Constructive Resistance

I know that some of you skipped checking out Professor Timothy Snyder’s ‘Thinking About’ posting of September 1. You can still find it at https://snyder.substack.com/.

'Look at my works, oh ye mighty and despair'
were the words Shelly put into his mouth!

I recommend you check it out right now. Professor Snyder quotes from Shelley’s poem, ‘Ozymandias,’ in discussing our present-day pharaoh in Washington. 

In any event, you should be aware of its closing paragraph, after he described the harm Trump and Vance are doing to America: 

 “The other lesson is that resistance is constructive. It can seem difficult to resist merchants of calamity such as Trump and Vance. No one action seems to stop them. But every act of resistance creates the possibility that the country itself can survive, and every moment of hope creates the foundation for a better republic. The actions we take have to be actions against, against what is being done to us now. But by their nature every strike, every protest, every act of organization, every act of kindness and solidarity are also actions for, for a future in which the United States continues to exist, and in which the learning from resistance becomes the politics of freedom.” 

Remember those closing words!

(Professor Snyder’s expertise is well documented in two collections of his,’On Tyranny’ and ‘On Freedom.’) 

JL 

                                                            * * * 

Jackspotpourri Values Your Opinion 

And speaking of that September 1 Jackspotpourri posting (please go back and read it including the links included in it), one of our regular followers took issue with what it included. Here, with their permission, is their unedited, except for paragraph spacing, verbatim response:

"Hi, Jack--Your people: Heather, Tim, Maureen--not offering a plan of action, yet again??? They are not a moral army. The IDF is a moral army. 

Heather slanders the entire Trump Admin. -- offers not one shred of guidance or plan of action to deal with her list of "evils". Tim slanders Trump & Vance by saying they believe in nothing; advises that we be patriotically constructive--with no specific plan of action. Maureen has taken the liberty of certifying RFK jr as a quack as if he rejected medicine. Meanwhile no one is rejecting medicine. I hope we all demand real science, informed consent, and medical freedom. 

Childhood illness has exploded. Has the CDC done anything to protect our kids? 

 1. The CDC mandates more than 72 vax doses for every child. 

 2. The CDC has not studied the safety of the full vaccine schedule. 20 years--our government’s own scientific advisors have urged the CDC to conduct these studies. The CDC ignored them. 

 3. Doctors who dared to publish data or ask questions had their licenses suspended or revoked. 

 4. Vaccines should not be mandatory-- they should be under “shared decision-making,” so parents and doctors can make individualized choices. 

 5. The CDC needs to conduct long-overdue safety studies comparing fully vaccinated and unvaccinated children. This Congress mandated. Hooray to that!" 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

College Football 

More and more, I prefer NFL professional football to the collegiate game in which paid professional athletes pretend they are students and wear a school’s colors on the field. NFL players are honest about what they do for a living. College players are not, except perhaps at those schools that you never heard of, never are on TV, and where athletes actually flunk out occasionally. 

When you recognize that your quarterback was at another school a year ago, and might be at still another one next season, you realize that the college game is bathed in hypocrisy. These players can transfer from school to school, never pay tuition; the money flows the other way in the form of scholarships and NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) compensation to them. The talented ones go where they can get the best deal. The less talented ones who stick around just get paid less and hope to be among those few selected in the NFL draft. Meanwhile, the schools enjoy the ticket revenues and a share of the network TV money the presence of these athletes brings in. That is the business model for college football. 

(Carson Beck, current University of Miami quarterback, previously attended the University of Georgia for five years, including periods when he was injured or as a backup. He is now in his sixth year as a quarterback. I remember back when college was a four year experience. Next year, he probably will be a high NFL draft pick. His predecessor at Miami, Cam Ward, quarterbacked for two years at the University of the Incarnate Word, the largest Catholic university in Texas, followed by two years at Washington State University, and transferred for a fifth and final year to the University of Miami. He is now in the NFL with the Tennessee Titans. Players like these are not exceptions; they seem to be the rule in college football.) 

Anyone who signs onto a regular schedule of real classes at a legitimate college knows that no student can succeed, let alone survive, in such educational environments, and at the same time participate in the practice, travel, and game schedule being on a football team demands. Both are full time jobs. 

This applies to the ‘Power Four’ schools, all of which are indeed legitimate colleges, and they know it. That’s where the ‘disconnect’ comes in, whereby the 'student athlete' knows he cannot do both of his full time jobs successully. I’ll repeat my solution again, which rests with the nation’s college presidents, in a future posting. 

JL 

                                                     * * * 

South Park 

The kind of criticism of the President and his administration that Jackspotpourri includes, as well as many of the sites it recommends, are usually polite and rational. But for those for whom that is not quite enough, letting these lawbreakers off too easily, an occasional visit to the cartoon series ‘South Park’ on Comedy Central offers a humorous and often raunchier approach to serious matters others take too seriously. (But it's not for kids.)

 JL 

                                                     * * * 

Brevity and Verbosity 

It is said that ‘Brevity is the soul of wit.’ But consider the opposite whereby excessive verbosity drives recipients of some postings to immediately consign them to the ‘Trash’ file without their even being read. The ‘Hopium Chronicles’ from the very knowledgeable Simon Rosenberg are a good example. If you follow his postings, especially if you become a paying participant, you won’t have time for anything else, including eating, sleeping, etc. 

JL 

                                                   * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com , or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com 

More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps: 

 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Most are from vendors which I may have used years ago. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 

 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these ‘Promotion’ emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

 3. Then I read my email. 

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine (or other search engines) where I can look up any subject I want. Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. 

After such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. Unlike the anonymous AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated, giving them a greater credibility than the AI summary. I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information: yourself or something else (Artificial Intelligence), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable. At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect. 

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

JL

                                             *   *   *   *