March 6, 2026 - Founding Fathers' Foresight, Texas Primaries, and Why Heather?

 

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Our Founding Fathers Got it Right 

'Let's not give so much power to one man!'

Adventures like our attack on Iran were anticipated by our country’s Founding Fathers. Here’s an excerpt from Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated March 3. 

    "The Framers of the Constitution placed the power to declare war in the hands of Congress and not in the president above all because they did not trust that much power in the hands of one man. But they also wanted to make sure the American people would have robust debates about the value of the money and lives lost in combat. So determined were they for the American people to have those debates that they put into the Constitution that Congress had the power to declare War…and…to raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.

    In Federalist #26, one of the newspaper essays Alexander Hamilton wrote to encourage the ratification of the Constitution, Hamilton explained that people shouldn’t fear the strength of the new government outlined in the Constitution, because the necessity of debating war, alongside the two-year limit on government funding for the military, would force Congress to debate military actions. He expected members of the opposition to attack those in power over military appropriations, so that if those in power were “disposed to exceed the proper limits, the community will be warned of the danger, and will have an opportunity of taking measures to guard against it.” 

                                         

But Trump has now taken that power away from the people and their representatives. He has launched a military action that by his own admission is not an emergency situation like those anticipated by the War Powers Act, and thus he should have asked Congress for authorization to send troops and money to Iran. Members of Congress, in turn, would then have had to answer to their constituents.’ 

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But the President doesn’t care very much about the Constitution and neither do his followers in Congress which has ignored the necessity of his adhering to the War Powers Act.  I suspect Trump thinks Hamilton was just another terrorist immigrant from somewhere in the Caribbean, or a Broadway show by some left-wing composer. 

Once he is out of office and sanity reappears in our government, think of the cost of scraping his name off of all of the street signs, and government buildings and institutions, on which this wannabe tyrant, and his followers, will have affixed it. There is precedent for doing so. But it will be a far bigger job than what the Democrats did in 1933, changing the name of the dam on the Colorado River from Hoover Dam, given to it by Republicans in 1930, back to Boulder Dam, after the canyon where it had just been completed and originally named. 

President Hoover’s heritage is the Great Depression. President Trump’s heritage will be far worse. Neither deserves to have anything named after them. 

JL 

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Deep In the Heart of Texas

James Talarico’s victory in the Democratic Senatorial primary in Texas hopefully is a big step toward a win over whoever wins the Republican runoff election there, incumbent four term Senator John Cornyn or ultra right-winger, and indicted, Ken Paxton. Democratic participation in these primaries far exceeded that of Republicans and that is a good sign. Some observers say that in the near future, election to the presidency without Texas’ electoral votes will be impossible. 

Although I preferred Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic race, Talarico’s economic and social positions are not too different from hers, and she will remain a strong voice in her House seat anyway. 

My only possible misgiving about Talarico is his dependence upon ‘faith in God,’ despite his criticism of those who wear their religion on their sleeves for political purposes. It is reassuring that Talarico has even referred to today’s Christian Nationalists as having ‘a mouth full of Scripture, but hate in their hearts.’ His turning to ‘faith’ may actually serve to help him among Texas voters whom also, I suspect, are not yet ready to elect a Black person to the Senate. 

If I were a Texas Democrat, I probably would have taken a deep breath and voted for Talarico because Crockett would have been a weaker candidate, lessening the opportunity to flip that seat in the Senate from red to blue. 

JL 

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Why Heather? 

One thing that the attack on Iran has accomplished is removing the Epstein file investigation from the spotlight. This is one of the items covered in Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated March 4.  

For those new to Jackspotpourri, you can follow her thoughts by clicking here or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line. 

The reason that I refer so frequently to Professor Richardson’s daily free postings is that she usually sums up what many other online observers are reporting on their individual sites. Referring to each of them separately, or providing links to them, including those of the New York Times (which has a ‘paywall’) would be a very demanding task for Jackspotpourri to take on.

Professor Richardson comes close to digesting them all each day in her posting, leaving very few (two follow) for Jackspotpourri to approach. Most of her site is available ‘for free’ unless you wish to make comments. 

Dependence on most other online news or opinion sites, without paying for a subscription, leaves the reader with just the headlines.  This is not the case with 'Letters from an American.'  Even though they are fading into history, I still prefer to also receive the print version of a real newspaper.

JL

                                                     

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Dragons? 

Even stronger than Professor Richardson’s commentary on the present political scene is that of UCSD Professor Barbara Walter.  Check it out (‘Here be Dragons) by clicking here or by copying and pasting https://barbarafwalter.substack.com/about  on your device’s browser line. 

She makes it clear that ‘everything Trump does between now and November is about keeping a Republican majority in Congress. That’s the whole game. Keep that in mind, and everything else will make sense.’ 

JL 

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Thinking About … ‘Strong Men’ 

The other day, Professor Timothy Snyder wrote about the danger of believing in a ‘strong man.’  Here is a challenging quote from his ‘Thinking About …’ posting: ‘Once you accept that Trump is strong, you are accepting that you are weaker than Trump.  And once you accept the strongman form of politics, you no longer have recourse to laws, or norms, or even basic ideas of decency. When the strongman dishes it out, you have to just take it.’ 

 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 in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors, including the New York Times and other respected journals. 

Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. 

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

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL 

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March 2, 2026 - Attacking Iran, Maureen Dowd & Artificial Intelligence, Unwarranted Politeness, and a bit of the 'Mikado'

 

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Iran War and its Ramifications

Much has already been written about our attack on Iran. Read it all and make up your mind. 

But first, here are my personal thoughts on it. My initial opinion is that the President acted illegally because it takes Congressional action, or at least spoken acquiescence among its members, to get us into a shooting war. The intent of the the Constitution is that a decision to go to war belongs to the people through Congress, only after which the President actively takes on the role of Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. The President seems to think this works the other way around. 

Compounding this, it appears Trump has no idea of how to bring about regime change in Iran, even with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei now deceased, nor with whom to talk with about forming a new government in that country, Iranians within, or perhaps outside of their government (which is still functioning). 

The price for his not looking beyond the tip of his nose regarding the consequences of his latest adventure will be the deaths of many Iranians as well as those killed in the Middle East and elsewhere by Iranian retaliatory strikes, including American military personnel and civilians. The greatest danger is that such retaliation will push us to increase our military involvement. We do not want this to blossom into another Afghanistan or Iraq. The President doesn’t understand that Iran, with a population of about 90 million, is not Venezuela. 

(Because their names are similar, there is still confusion among some between Ali Khamenei, who was just killed, and his predecessor, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who took over after Iranians overthrew the Shah’s royal family in 1979, and held Americans as hostages for over a year. Obviously, they were different people.) 

While Iran understandably poses an immediate danger to Israel and the Saudis and the Gulf States, that is not the case with the United States, certainly not justifying our direct involvement in a war there. For years, Iran’s leaders have been rhetorically threatening the United States referring to us as the ‘Great Satan,’ but chiefly conflicts with them have been in the worlds of finance, international trade, petroleum, and sanctions. Oddly, it was not Iran that attacked the World Trade Center in 2001, but terrorists from nations with whom we are presently allied against Iran and with which the President's family is reported to have financial dealings. 

Trump’s ordering an attack on Iran sounds more like a way for him to build political unity behind him, which is clearly dissipating rapidly over domestic issues he has failed to properly address. All Americans should think twice before voting for any Republican who, for any reason whatsoever, supports the President. That’s why he is working hard with State legislatures where he still has some influence, to make it more difficult for American citizens to vote in November’s mid-term elections, especially while he is ‘busy’ protecting our freedoms by attacking Iran. Certainly, he isn’t doing anything to protect our freedoms from illegal behavior by his appointees to the Department of Homeland Security and their minions of ICE enforcers. 

Sampling various opinions, Professor Heather Cox Richardson commented In her March 1 ‘Letters from an American’ posting that ‘Trump seems unclear about the end game of the conflict he has started.’ That is perhaps the understatement of the century (or week, anyway.)

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Trump speaking on TV (it was recorded earlier) when most
Americans were asleep during the pre-dawn hours on Saturday

Trump’s early Saturday morning pre-recorded announcement of the attack on Iran showed him wearing a white baseball campaign cap like what a teen-ager playing video games might wear. But that’s what you get when you let a teen-age-like President play with real weapons. Who is to blame? American voters! That’s who! 

JL 

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Artificial Intelligence Goes Political

Here’s Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column dated February 28, prepared before our attack on Iran. This is its text, not a link. Read it and make up your mind. 

Real Despots Hijack Artificial Intelligence 

Feb. 28, 2026

Maureen Dowd, Opinion Columnist 

'A.I. is a teenager now, roaring into the world, testing limits, rebelling against authority, itching to usurp the old guard and remake the planet in its image. Unfortunately, Pete Hegseth is also a teenager. His hormones are raging; his judgment is shaky. Like a repentant frat boy, he had to promise the adults in the Senate that he wouldn’t drink while he is in charge of the military and its 12-figure budget. 

He certainly lacks the maturity to guide, discipline or even understand the earth-shattering power of an adolescent A.I. Hegseth should be focused on our nerve-racking duel with Iran. Instead, he spent the week at war with Dario Amodei, the thoughtful chief executive of Anthropic and one of the few in Silicon Valley advocating for humanity. 

Anthropic is the only A.I. company operating on classified military systems; its clever chatbot, Claude, was deployed by the military to help catch Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. 

More than most of his peers, Amodei has been blunt about “civilizational concerns” — the risks of A.I. wiping us out. He even hired an Oxford-educated philosopher, a young Scottish woman, to teach Claude right from wrong. She’s feeding his “soul,” she said. Claude even has his own Constitution, rules for the bot’s values and behavior. (Good luck!) 

 A fully powerful A.I. may be only one to two years away, Amodei wrote in a January essay, “The Adolescence of Technology,” adding that it will be “smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across most relevant fields: biology, programming, math, engineering, writing, etc.” It will be able to control “physical tools, robots or laboratory equipment through a computer.” And as we can already see, with A.I. partners and suicides related to A.I., it will have a powerful psychological influence on all of us. 

Americans could land in a panopticon, constantly surveilled. “It might be frighteningly plausible to simply generate a complete list of anyone who disagrees with the government on any number of issues, even if such disagreement isn’t explicit in anything they say or do,” Amodei wrote. A.I. could “detect pockets of disloyalty forming, and stamp them out before they grow.” 

About fully autonomous weapons, Amodei conjured a Hitchcockian scene: “A swarm of millions or billions of fully automated armed drones, locally controlled by powerful A.I. and strategically coordinated across the world by an even more powerful A.I., could be an unbeatable army, capable of both defeating any military in the world and suppressing dissent within a country by following around every citizen.” There would be “a greatly increased risk” of democratic countries turning A.I. armies against their own people.

President Trump and Hegseth already have a healthy disregard for democracy. Trump is trying to take over our elections because he’s rightly worried that his party is going to get shellacked in November. And now he’s escalating his push to remove the few pathetic guardrails that exist on A.I.

Hegseth last fall revoked the press passes of all reporters who didn’t agree to sign a pledge agreeing to his draconian restrictions on where they could report and what they could report on. Amodei did not want his A.I. model to be used for surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons without human oversight — reflecting his deepest fears. 

On Tuesday, Hegseth summoned Amodei to the Pentagon to demand that he let the Pentagon do whatever it wanted, as long as it was “lawful.” This is poppycock, of course, because Trump and Hegseth have contempt for the law when it gets in the way of their whims, power grabs and revenge plots. 

Their bizarre overkill with Anthropic makes me wonder what nefarious deeds they’re up to. The self-styled secretary of war offered Amodei a double ultimatum: He would invoke the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to give the Pentagon unrestricted use of its model, or he would designate it a supply-chain risk — a national security threat — which would put the company’s government contracts, and possibly the company itself, in jeopardy. Anthropic had a choice: be extorted or blacklisted. 

 On Friday, Trump unleashed hell on Amodei, denouncing the Anthropic techies who helped the Pentagon pluck Maduro out of his bedroom as “Leftwing nut jobs.” Trump accused Anthropic of “trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution.” “Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology,” he posted. “We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” In a post on X, Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk: “Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.” He railed that “Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles.” 

Then, later Friday night, Sam Altman announced on X that his company, OpenAI, had reached an agreement with the “Department of War” to use the company for classified work with red lines that sounded the same as those that Amodei sought. “In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome,” Altman chirped. It was confusing how OpenAI could be accepted on the terms that crushed his rival. Did the administration simply have an ideological grudge against Anthropic, which it sees as more “woke” than OpenAI, or did Altman’s buttering up of Trump work, or could his terms somehow have been different? While Altman said OpenAI was “asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies,” 

Amodei said in a statement Friday night that he would sue the government. Hegseth was wrong. Anthropic has principles. It’s the administration that is fundamentally incompatible with American principles.’ 

JL 

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Not a Time for Politeness - prepared before our attack on Iran.

Those who persist in dealing with President Trump and his supporters in Congress as if they merely have a more conservative approach to meeting the challenges facing the nation are at best naïve. 

Trump and his supporters must not to be treated gently in view of their dependence on ignoring our laws and our Constitution. We are a nation based on the rule of law. Trump and his Congressional allies do not distinguish between governing according to our laws and political campaigning, and the lies that the latter involve. Their actions prove that. 

The President’s State of the Union speech was no more than what he would say at a campaign rally. Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s February 26 and 27 postings on her daily ‘Letters from an American’ includes sufficient reasons to strongly oppose illegal acts by the President, his appointees, and Republicans in Congress who are fearful of primary challenges initiated by the President. 

It is not a time to be nice nor respectful toward them. Their behavior is no better than that of Tories during the Revolutionary War or Secessionists during the Civil War. They are part of an effort dedicated to negating the rule of our country by its laws, and of course, of a democratic government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

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But there is a real risk in opposing these foes of democracy. In the words of Ko Ko, the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Mikado,’ …

 

 ‘As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,

  I've got a little list — I've got a little list,

  Of society offenders who might well be underground

  And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!' 

Click here or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line, read her postings there, and make up your mind, bearing in mind what Maureen Dowd has written about Artificial Intelligence, and what Ko Ko sang in ‘the Mikado.’ There are people in our government who have ‘a little list of those who never would be missed.’ Uncontrolled A.I. can even put Jackspotpourri on that list. 

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 in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors, including the New York Times and other respected journals. 

Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. Besides these sources, I also utilize the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. 

Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. Following such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. 

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL 

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February 26, 2026 - Trains, a Chinese Sage, and Donald Trump

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Trains

Americans have always had a great fascination with trains. Though they might travel by automobile, bus, boat, or plane, it is our railroads about which we sing: the Chattanooga Choo Choo, the Wabash Cannonball, the Atcheson,Topeka & Santa Fe, and many more. 

My favorite train song includes the following chorus:

 

 ‘Good morning, America! How are you! 

  Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son! 

  I‘m the train they call The City of New Orleans, 

  I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.’ 

Illinois Central locomotive powering the 'train they call the City of New Orleans'

'

For the full lyrics, as sung by Arlo Guthrie in 1972, and the song’s interesting background, click here or copy and paste https://genius.com/Arlo-guthrie-the-city-of-new-orleans-lyrics on your browser line. 

JL 

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Leadership 

 

Lao Tzu

Here’s a Fifth century B.C. quote from legendary Chinese sage Lao Tzu for you to consider.  A philosopher and poet, he is generally considered to be the spiritual founder of philosophical and religious Taoism. His ‘Way of Life,’ a source of inspiration for many religions, might be summed up as ‘creative quietude.’ There are many translations of the ‘Way of Life;’ this quote from one of them, written by Witter Bynner some years ago, deals with leadership and makes sense today.

      'A leader is best When people barely know that he exists, 

      Not so good when people obey and acclaim him, 

      Worst when they despise him.'

 

     ‘Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you;’ 

      But of a good leader, who talks little, 

      When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, 

      They will all say, ‘We did this ourselves.’ 

You know whom this DOESN’T bring to mind 

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State of the Union Address - Tuesday evening, the President declared that the state of the Union was ‘strong.’ That was pure baloney! He boasted that most problems, of course the fault of ‘crooked’ Democrats, had  already been, or have practically been, solved by him with the aid of his Republican allies. 

 I could list the ‘problems’ that he ignored. You can too. Virginia’s Democratic governor Spanberger did exactly that in her response to the President’s lie-filled address. That’s why all polls show his approval ratings to be plummeting to record lows. 

He still basks in the ignorance of how his beloved tariffs get paid, claiming they are paid to us by the nations from whom we import things, and can possibly eventually replace taxes!. That is not so, they are paid by the importers who pass the costs on to the purchasers, the American public.  So they really become a tax, hidden withing an imported item's price. Some importers are already talking about refunds of the tariffs the SCOTUS has ruled unconstitutional. Good luck! 

Trump also thinks it acceptable to bring us to the brink of war with Iran. He thinks that is diplomacy.  The longest State of the Union address ever, he padded it with introductions of patriots or their survivors, stressing how he had rescued some of them from murderous immigrant killers or insane terrorists. This was safe ground for him, which even drew occasional Democratic applause, except of course when he included Charlie Kirk’s widow and the kidnapping of the Venezuelan dictator as the basis for his remarks. 

 He was far, far, from the leader described by Lao Tzu above. For a more detailed description of Trump’s campaign rally-style State of the Union address, see what Professor Heather Cox Richardson had to say about it in her posting dated February 25 by clicking here or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line. 

Our ‘leader,’ President Trump, has decided to establish his own historic institutions to replace or at least compete with existing ones that he doesn’t like, such as the United Nations. That’s the deal with his phony baloney ‘Board of Peace’ and the ‘Commission of Fine Arts.’ (Those of you fluent in German might check out that language’s word for ‘leader.’) 

The other day when the Supreme Court ruled six to three against Trump’s obviously illegal and unconstitutional tariffs, Justices Gorsuch, Barrett, and Chief Justice Roberts joined with the three Democratic appointees to do so. This angered the President who said some nasty things about the Justices. Trump quickly found a new way to impose tariffs. A never-used old law permitted him to do so for 150 days if there were a ‘national emergency.’ Of course, there is one right now. It is the presence of Donald Trump in the presidency! And that, dear majority of Republican voters, is your doing! 

Plans for construction of a massive ballroom to replace the demolished East Wing of the White House continue. It will take years to reverse the changes, physical and otherwise, that our wannabe dictator, President Trump, has wrought. The voters of this country have to be more careful whom they elect to public offices. It’s not like choosing channels on a TV set! Must we continue to learn that the hard way? Not really! Defeating Republicans by voting will do the job. 

It is less than nine months until the midterm elections, at which time sane voters will probably give the Democrats a majority in the House, and reduce or possibly eliminate the Republican majority in the Senate. That will, unfortunately, increase the chances of a lame-duck President Trump taking dangerous domestic and foreign risks during the last two years of his term in office. Only Congress and the Supreme Court will remain to support the Constitution in the face of his continued defiance of our laws while he, and those he appoints, are still in office. 

Recognizing that voters are poised to turn them out of office, Republicans are trying to make it more difficult to vote, hoping their efforts will reduce turnout by Democratic voters. Be prepared to document citizenship, including name changes due to marital status, and prepare for reduced early voting opportunities. Voting by mail is also being attacked. Constitutionally, elections are governed by the individual States, but the President ignores this, believing he can insist upon such tightening of the rules by those States with Republican dominated legislatures. This is where the battle for the 2026 mid-term elections is taking place, right now. Keep the pressure on your State legislators about this. 

And speaking of defying laws, law enforcement personnel shot and killed an armed man early Sunday morning trying to enter the grounds at Mar-a-Lago. Early reports from his North Carolina home State describe him as coming from a strong pro-Trump family and community. Strange … unless it is true that familiarity breeds contempt. 

It appears to me that this fellow, like two earlier would-be assassins, was not part of a domestic terrorist group, but merely a very unbalanced (spell that 'crazy') individual motivated by a dislike for the President’s domestic or international policies which cannot, by any stretch of one’s imagination, be described as derivative from Lao Tzu’s ‘creative quietude.’ 

 JL 

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Worthwhile reading is UCSD Professor Barabara Walter’s ‘Here be Dragons’ dated February 25. Copy and paste https://barbarafwalter.substack.com/ on your browser line or click here. She explains that while both of our major parties have serious defects, one is clearly better than the other, based on demographic changes. 

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 in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors, including the New York Times and other respected journals. 

Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. Besides these sources, I also utilize the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. 

Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. Following such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the other results of my search. 

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL 

                                                          * * * *

February 19, 2026 - Offsetting Polls, Dealing with Media, the Munich Meeting, The President's Flaws, and 1984 Revisited

                                                                *   *   *

Trump’s Possible Tool to Offset Polls 

The lower President Trump sinks in the polls, the greater the chances are that he will turn to a war with Iran with the supposed aim of uniting our country behind him. If that happens, there will be many killed, and the likelihood of impeachment if he is still in office will grow. Sooner or later Trump must face the burden of accountability for his actions. 

JL 

                                                     * * * 

A History of Media and Where it Leaves Us

When human men and women first came out of the caves in which they had dwelled, they cared little about what other beings were doing, their full attention being required for mere survival. 

But eventually, the immediate world around them became important as some acquired leadership roles, making rules, and bartering among people developed as some grew more food than they needed and others did not, but who might possess other tradable skills or resources. 

The only media then available to them was what amounted to a ‘town crier’ who periodically announced what was going on with a loud voice to an attentive public, things he may have heard, what he observed, or was told to say by those who had taken leadership roles. Some town criers may even have been the earliest who had learned how to read. But, in an illiterate world, this was a step forward from ignorance of things beyond their immediate families. 

Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses on the church door

With the invention of written language and more and more people learning to read, such announcements were made by posting them prominently in a village’s center, usually where people gathered to barter or on church doors serving as bulletin boards, as Protestant reformer Martin Luther did in 1517 with his theological ideas. Those who could read passed the news they found there on orally to the vast majority who still were illiterate. 

The invention of printing enabled such announcements and news to be spread more widely as literacy increased. Eventually, although initially limited to religious matters in an age when church and state were mostly inseparable, over the years they grew into what became newspapers, reporting on almost anything and everything. 

For centuries, newspapers remained the prime medium for enabling people to keep up with things. They were sold weekly or even daily for a pittance, contained paid-for advertisements, and served to give people some idea of what was going on around them. (Afterwards, they could be used to wrap fish brought home from the market, and even as pillow stuffing.) 

Over time, newspapers were supplemented by other kinds of printed matter and even the human voice, harkening back to the days of the ‘town crier’ by the time radio was invented. Television and the internet rapidly followed; there seems to be no limit to how media sources proliferated, at the expense of newspapers which are rapidly failing financially, especially over the past century or so. Facebook, YouTube, and innumerable podcasts are examples of what is replacing them.  

But governments were not unaware of this. When our nation was founded, the writers of the Constitution saw fit to include the following language in its First Amendment: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press …‘ They were very conscious of the role media played and wanted to guarantee its honesty and freedom from government control. Today, ‘the press’ mentioned in the First Amendment encompasses all of what we refer to as ‘media.’ 

But by not ‘abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,’ protecting media became a double edged sword. Besides guaranteeing a voice for honest opinion of all kinds, it also protected the circulation of the less than honest words of charlatans, snake oil salesmen, and political liars of all stripes.  

Whether something in our media is a lie is or is not a lie has become is a highly subjective matter, often even puzzling judges and juries. 

These days, ordinary people aren’t quite sure what to believe about the supposed evils of immigration, domestic terrorism, those involved in the Epstein scandal, climate change, what’s good to eat, what pills to take, regulating nuclear weapons, various and sundry government regulations, and of course foreign relations with Iran, Ukraine, Russia, and the Middle East. As the King in the 1950’s musical, ‘The King and I’ said, ‘Is a puzzlement!’ (The theatre might also be considered to be a kind of media.) 

But there is something you can do! 

There are some wise people in this country who write books and articles, post on the internet and have looked deeply into these problems. Few are in politics, but they can be found among journalists and in our colleges and universities. It is up to you to survey their ideas and select one with whom you mostly agree. 

Different people will favor the contradictory ideas of such so called savants, but you should try choose one whose words and hopefully, solutions, seem sensible or logical to you.  But it is unacceptable for you to just sit on the sidelines, without taking a stand of some sort.  You have a brain; use it. 

You should identify with such a person and follow them closely to begin to learn what media to believe and what media to ignore. That is better than groping through the morass of ideas, good and bad, that the First Amendment allows to be voiced. At least you will have a beacon to choose to follow … and light your way. Perhaps you already have one. 

JL 

                                                       * * * 

62nd Annual Munich Security Conference Raises Questions 

There’s sufficient reason in Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s daily free ‘Letters from an American’ posting dated February 15 to convince the reader that voting for Republicans is very dangerous, risking the survival of democracy not only in the United States, but in Europe and elsewhere as well.

This reared its head at the recent Munich Security Conference, an annual conclave since the middle of the Cold War in the 1960’s, Traditionally, other nations have looked to the United State as an example and for leadership. But that is changing, causing longtime allies to question our commitment to democracy, based on the words and actions of our Republican administration, including the President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary of State. 

I urge you to check out the changes that took place at that Munich meeting by clicking here or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your devices browser line. It’s free. 

                                                         * * 

And while you’re clicked onto that site, please note that while other media voices may rant and rave, Boston College history Professor Richardson’s daily ‘Letters from and American’ includes links to solid sources substantiating and documenting her words. Take a look at her comments dated February 16 in which there is a detailed accounting of how the present President debases the office of the Presidency. 

To him, it is just another activity in which he is taking part, like the Apprentice TV show, his ‘university,’ his golf courses and resorts, and taking payoffs in exchange for favoring financial supporters. 

And putting his name on non-political entities such as the Kennedy Center, now closed for alleged renovations, is just getting free advertising on his part. He also has naming airports, a useful bargaining chip, on his list. He has no shame.

Our country is supposed to be ruled by Congress, with the Executive Branch carrying out the laws they pass. Trump sees this reversed, with Congress passing laws the president wants. 

Never in our history has a president and his family personally profited the way Trump and his children have. It is shameful. Perhaps future presidents should be required to take a vow of poverty during their term of office and exist entirely on their presidential salary, as Harry Truman, never a wealhy man, did and even sign onto a specific pledge acknowledging the Emolument clauses in Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution. 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

Echoes of “1984” 

The New York Times reported the other day that ‘a federal judge … ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore displays about George Washington’s ownership of enslaved people at a monument on the site of his former house in Philadelphia. The judge said the government’s claim to have the power to erase and alter historical accounts at the country’s monuments echoed George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.” 

But since when does the Administration heed all of the orders of judges? 

Ultimately, when enough voters have had enough of Trump and the false reality he tries to construct, he will be swept under the rug and the Democrats along with the remnants of the political party Trump destroyed with his MAGA fantasy will restore a government of, by, and for the people as envisioned by Abraham Lincoln rather than the one darkly seen by George Orwell. 

It cannot come soon enough; it is never too late for that to happen. 

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 in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors, including the New York Times and other respected journals.  

Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. Besides these sources, I also utilize the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. 

Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri.  

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL 

                                                         * * * *