No Iran Negotiations Yet
As long as the Iranians control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz (see map in prior Jackspotpourri posting), they hold the key to ending the war our president started with them. Much of the world, including democracies that would normally be on our side, depend to varying extents on petroleum shipments through it.
The degree to which Iran opens that faucet will be their bargaining chip in determining:
(1) how much of their nuclear development program will survive the war,
(2) how much support they will continue provide to their ‘clients’ in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, including Gaza, and
(3) to what extent they will allow political and religious dissent to exist in their country.
Our bombing Iran to smithereens, including their refineries, will not reduce their control of the Strait of Hormuz, where geography is on the side of the Iranians, so they will still be able to use it to cut as favorable a deal for them as possible with our president in the three areas mentioned above. They are already hinting on insisting on reparations for the damage our bombing caused. Even an idiot like Trump would not go along with that.
And Israel, which Iran has sworn to destroy, will not go along with any such deal our president makes and continue hostilities with the Iranians so long as the United States provides weaponry for that purpose, which I believe we will.
While Iran is trying to spread a lot of propaganda throughout the world, mischaracterizing such events as the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations and columns like the one that follows to weaken the resolve of Americans, we should be careful to distinguish such items from what should be obvious to most of us by now.
Clearly, those whom President Trump has selected as advisors (Hegseth, Rubio, son-in-law Kushner, Witkoff, and VP Vance) are ill-prepared for their jobs and as guilty as he is. Too many American voters are as well.
I suppose that is the price we pay for our representative democracy, where the ignorant and gullible have an equal voice with those better informed.The following piece, by Maureen Dowd, adds to this story.
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| Dowd |
JL
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Our Narcissist President - ‘Trump Does Anything He Wants — and More’
If he can’t get his mug on Mount Rushmore, Trump is settling for his signature on dollar bills. There is no end to this narcissist’s quest for self aggrandizement, which included his tacking his name onto the Kennedy Center in Washington and proposing humungus monuments to himself there.
Maureen Dowd’s March 28 New York Times column dwells on these excesses on the part of Donald Trump, clearly the least fit person ever to be the nation’s president. Here’s her column, which might not be available to those who do not subscribe to the Times’ online site, a source which can be shared with only a limited number of email addresses.
‘Trump
Does Anything He Wants — and More’
March 28, 2026, 7:00 a.m. ET
by Maureen Dowd - Opinion Columnist,
"Donald Trump used to brag about grabbing women by the crotch. Now he’s grabbing the world by its axis. He still believes he has the right to swoop in with a transgressive attack. He has simply expanded his targets. “When you’re a star,” he once said, “they let you do it. You can do anything.”
His approach in his second term can best be described as manhandling, abetted by his cabinet of lackeys and congressional Republican bootlickers. Mike Johnson pathetically conjured an “America First Award” for Trump out of thin air. The House speaker called the “beautiful golden statue” of an eagle appropriate to “the new golden era in America.”
Trump thinks more than ever that he can have his way with whatever he wants in whatever way he wants. Whether it’s a country, a skyline, the White House. He accosted the People’s House, bulldozing the East Wing and a Jackie Kennedy garden, before anyone could even look at the plans. He blows up suspected drug boats, snatched Nicolás Maduro out of his bedroom and salivates at the thought of pillaging Greenland and assailing Cuba. “I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” he said. “That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form. Whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth.”
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, an amused Trump mused: “I think I may go to Venezuela and run for president against Delcy,” referring to Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president who ascended with Trump’s approval.
On Monday, Trump said that if Iran did not submit to him, “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out.” He was steaming that NATO was not bending to his will, and he was vowing that it would rue the day. “This was a test for NATO,” he said during the cabinet meeting, adding: “If you don’t do that, we’re going to remember. Just remember. Remember this in a number of months from now. Remember my statements. They have an expression, a great expression, ‘Never forget.’ We can never forget.”
It’s odd that Trump co-opted the bracing slogan about 9/11 given that on that day he observed that, with the twin towers coming down, one of his buildings, 40 Wall Street, became the tallest in Lower Manhattan.
Once, Trump thought war was a waste of time and lives and money; he dreamed of building hotels on the beaches of North Korea and Gaza. After he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, he gave a speech outlining his military policy. “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with,” he said.
Now he lusts for regime change.
Cadet Bone Spurs has developed a taste for flaunting our unparalleled military, and there’s no one at the Pentagon to curb this new appetite for global violence — certainly not the aggro Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth showed again why he is such an unnerving choice to run our military when he blocked the promotion of two Black officers and two women to be one-star Army generals. As The Times scooped, that left a gaggle largely of white men, Hegseth’s favorite breed, on the promotion list.
When Trump was a celebrity developer, people laughed at his megalomania in plastering his name everywhere. He grabbed buildings by the crotch. But now that he is president, it’s not funny. It’s foul.
He forced his name onto the Kennedy Center. He scratched the “U.S.” out of the U.S. Institute of Peace and made it the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. He is branding his name on a class of battleships. A multistory banner of his glaring face hangs from the Department of Justice. He tried to have Washington Dulles Airport and New York’s Penn Station renamed after him, and is plotting a Trump-style arch across from the Lincoln Memorial so tall it could interfere with Reagan National Airport flight paths.
Trump’s handpicked arts commission approved the creation of a commemorative 24-karat gold coin with a scowling picture of the president leaning over a desk with his fists clenched. And King Midas is impelling the Treasury Department to mint a one-dollar gold coin with his visage.
Now, in his frenzied quest for ubiquity, he will deface U.S. currency.
The Treasury Department announced on Thursday that Trump would become the first sitting president to have his signature on paper money. Thrusting himself onto legal tender is anything but tender — he’s shoving the U.S. treasurer’s signature off the bills. Naturally, Trump put a sycophantic man in that job — ending a 76-year stretch of women holding it.
“The president’s mark on history as the architect of America’s golden age economic revival is undeniable,” said Brandon Beach, the treasurer, in a statement. “Printing his signature on the American currency is not only appropriate but well deserved.” (It’s alarming that the U.S. treasurer does not seem to know that the “operation” in Iran is raising prices and cratering stocks.)
As everyone tries to make sense of this more belligerent Trump, just remember: He’s still “Access Hollywood” Trump. He continues his amoral, pseudo-macho posturing — just with a bigger stage and the biggest weapons.
You can do anything.”
JL
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Shorter Lines at Airports, Maybe
Suddenly, President Trump has found the money to pay TSA employees. It took hours-long waits at airports to motivate his doing that. But most TSA employees are still looking for the money owed them.
Senate Democrats had delayed the Department of Homeland Security’s entire budget until the Border Patrol’s and ICE’s financing were excluded from it and Republicans were holding it hostage until Trump’s voting restrictions (his SAVE bill) were passed by the Senate. It appears that the Democrats were more successful than the Republicans, but neither’s goals were reached, and there still will be long lines at airports for a while, many fed-up TSA employees having quit and not been replaced.
Sad thing is it makes him look like a hero, which he isn’t, wasn’t, and never will be considered as one.
JL
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A Plug for Newspapers, and Words from Paul Krugman and Professor Richardson on 'No Kings'
Always a fan of traditional printed newspapers, I was impressed by the headline wire-service lead story in the SunSentinel of March 27. It factually touched almost all of the bases concerning what President Trump’s calls his ‘excursion’ into Iran. Check it out by clicking here or copying and pasting https://enewspaper.sun-sentinel.com/shortcode/SUN315/edition/147b912e-1da0-4af1-8d06-9111749a00f3?page=8f0daa27-ce8d-43bf-8db2-4b1bdf8aa69e& on your devices browser line. That’s real reporting.
Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman makes some good points in his March 27 column which you can access by clicking here or copying and pasting
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/ on your device’s browser line. He contrasted the Vietnam War’s ‘Best and the Beautiful,’ who failed to win that war, with today’s brainless psuedo-leadership!
And Professor Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ are always worth visiting. Copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your device’s browser (usually up at the top of your screen) or click right here to see her postings.
Her March 28 ‘Letter,’ addresses Trump’s efforts to revise history, and concludes with this reference to the ‘No Kings’ rallies that swept the nation on Saturday.
“Millions of Americans and their allies turned out today for more than 3,100 “No Kings” events in all 50 states, U.S. territories, Washington, D.C., and towns and cities around the world in what appears to be the largest one-day protest in American history. Instead of accepting the destruction of the true lessons of our past, we are bringing them back to life. [Image I took at a No Kings rally today.]”
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
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More on the Sources of Information in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘printed’ 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 email 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.
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. Always!
JL
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