May 10, 2025 - Pope Leo XIV, Moby Dick, Two Excellent 'Letters from an American,' What the President Doesn't Know, Why a Fox Anchor Fainted, Zebra Longwings, and More!

 

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Roman Catholics, And Others, Welcome Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV and Crowd in St. Peter's Square

Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters to an American’ dated May 8 reported on what we might expect from the new Pope, Leo XIV, in regard to social issues. Find it at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or just CLICK HERE.

While there is some disagreement as to the intent of certain theological writings, the new Pope clearly disagrees, as also did the late Pope Francis, with the position of conservative Catholics, including Vice President Vance, a convert to Catholicism five years ago, whose shallow opinion is obviously politically motivated. 

I respectfully (I am not Catholic) covered this territory, involving the writings of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, in some detail in Jackspotpourri dated February 17, 2025, which you can access through the archives listed off to the right. I recommend that you do that right now. 

JL 

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Pressed for Time? 

If you’re too busy to read all the way through Jackspotpourri today (or any day, for that matter), at least take a look at what Boston College historian, Heather Cox Richardson, had to say in her daily “Letters from an American” dated May 9. 

Just follow the directions in the paragraph directly above to get there. Her posting dated May 9 reinforces my conviction that the inmates are running the asylum that passes for the Executive Branch of our government. 

Make touching base with Professor Richardson's 'Letters' an everyday habit, even on days when Jackspotpourri is not posting. You will not be disappointed and become more aware of what is going on around you in the country and the world.  

Her May 8 and May 9 postings are not to be missed.

JL 

                                                      

For Our Literature-Oriented Followers 

Friday’s Palm Beach Post included the following letter on its Opinion page. I have omitted the writer’s name. 

'Moby Dick’ Analogy Rings True Today’ 

‘Although 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Great Gatsby,' the book that resonates for me the most right now is Herman Melville’s 'Moby Dick.' We’re not living in the Jazz Age; we’re in the middle of the deepest, darkest sea, with President Trump as Captain Ahab, the White House as the Pequod, and America as the great white whale, the focus of the Trump-Ahab megalomaniacal obsession.  The burning question, at least in my mind, is which of us, if any, will be fortunate enough to be Ishmael?’ 

                                                                

 (For those unfamiliar with Melville’s novel, Ishmael was the only one who survived to tell the story.) 

      

JL 

    

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Trump Doesn’t Know the Meaning of the Declaration of Independence … And a Lot of Other Stuff As Well 

Here’s an excerpt from Brad DeLong’s ‘Grasping Reality’ newsletter, forwarded by a regular follower of Jackspotpourri. Check out the President’s total failure to understand the Declaration of Independence: 

“When Trump, on national television, points to the Declaration of Independence and mutters about it being a ‘declaration of unity and love and respect,’ we are not just witnessing confusion, we are witnessing profound cognitive decline. 

The Declaration is not about love. It is not about unity. It is not about respect. Jefferson and company had zero respect for King George III Hanover and his ministers. It is about revolt. It is about the severing of political bonds. It is about the violation of inalienable rights by those who control but do not love us.  

The idea that Trump sees it as a feel-good sentiment is not an alternative interpretation, it’s a symptom. Yet his party rallies behind him. The press parses his word salad with straight faces, afraid or unwilling to confront the implications. But let’s be brutally honest: Trump doesn’t know what he’s saying. And he doesn’t care that he doesn’t know.” 

DeLong charitably and wryly associates this with cognitive decline. Maybe so, but I put it right along with Trump’s unbelievably pathetic excuses for not revealing his taxes (‘they’re under audit’) or passing the buck to his lawyers when asked on ‘Meet the Press’ if he knows the President’s job includes upholding the Constitution. 

As ignorant as he is, he is clever enough to know that most of those who voted for him and his followers in Congress are even more ignorant than he is, or if they are not, are nevertheless afraid to correct his profound ignorance or close their eyes to it for selfish reasons. (The Vice-President and the Secretary of State fall into this latter category, while death threats were sufficient impetus to prevent former Vice-President Pence from being in this latter category.)

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Somewhat related to that ignorance, I’ve read that some of the cast of ‘Les Miz,’ scheduled to be performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington with the President in attendance, have dropped out, objecting to the Center’s being purged of ‘progressive’ programming by him. 

I doubt if Trump is capable of catching some of the revolutionary themes in Les Miz that attack oppressive government and treatment of the poor, particularly in the lyrics to ‘Can You Hear the People Sing’? 

(The 2012 Universal film production of Les Miz was much more graphic than live stage performances are in this respect. For informational purposes only, an excerpt from that film can be seen by copying and pasting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U) on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE. The film might remind a more astute person than the President of the demonstrations against his policies that are going on throughout the nation.) 

How Does One Get to Be That Ignorant?

I wonder if Donald Trump's ‘ignorance’ might have started when he 'cut classes' or perhaps paid someone to sit there pretending to be him somewhere during his school years, leaving him to grow up an uneducated person. Politico had reported that according to accounts in journalist Bob Woodward’s 2018 book, ‘Fear: Trump in the White House,’ his Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, had claimed President Donald Trump had the understanding of ‘a fifth - or sixth grader.’ Most economists would put his understanding of tariffs at about that level. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if well-meaning family donations to the New York Military Academy, Fordham University, and the University of Pennsylvania served to enable him to get away with it. And we are all paying the price. 

JL 

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You Never Know WHO May Be Watching TV

When a Fox New pundit passed out on camera on Thursday, while delivering some very nasty remarks about former President Biden, it supported those who believe that we are being monitored by a power greater than mankind's and Who just wants to remind us of Who is really in charge. The liars who inhabit Fox News should now be more cautious about their remarks, fearing divine retribution, of which this episode was just a hint. It could have been worse.

Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel illustration
of God's power infusing mankind

 

JL 

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Where the Girls Aren’t 

The other day, while hosing down some furniture on my patio, I left the screen door open for a short while. During that time, a butterfly (specifically a Zebra Longwing, the State Butterfly of Florida - Heliconius charitonius), flew in and decided to stay there, despite my leaving the screen door open again, hoping it would leave. It didn’t. 

Zebra Longwing Butterfly

On the contrary, with the screen door opened, the butterfly was able to invite its friends to join it on my patio. A few did. And why not? There were plenty of regularly watered plants there (two begonias, a mandevilla vine, three bromiliads, and a bonsai bush) from which they might seek moisture or nectar besides a giant schifflera to provide shade if they wanted some. And best of all, while sunshine poured through the patio’s screening, it also kept out the butterflies’ natural predators. 

This paradise for butterflies lasted about a week, when finally, my Zebra Longwing guests took a hint and exited via the opened screen door. 

A little research taught me the reason for their departure. It seems that male Zebra Longwings, unlike many other species of bufterflies, do not wait to mate with adult female Zebra Longwing butterflies, but instead attempt to start their reproductive process at an earlier stage. In a sense, they are ‘robbing the cradle.’ 

They try to fertilize the female through the outside of its crysalis (or pupa, or cocoon) that ultimately morphed from the caterpillars that grew from eggs laid earlier by fertilized female Zebra Longwings. It is from these crisalises, when they finally break open, that adult Zebra Longwings butterflies will emerge if the male’s earlier efforts were successful. Some will be females and continue the egg laying function. 

For that to happen, there has to be an existing population of Zebra Longwings in the area that have reached the crisalis stage. Apparently, despite its other attractions, my patio did not provide them, so off they went to the great outdoors to seek sexual gratification elsewhere. My patio’s screen door is now closed. 

JL 

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Artist at Work

The painting currently displayed off to the top-right in the ‘Pictures From My Gallery’ space is, as pointed out, a copy of a New Yorker Magazine cover. Here is a photo showing the copying of the magazine’s cover. You can see the actual magazine cover as I was copying it off to the left in this photo. That cover was called ‘Shelter’ and its artist is Anthony Russo. The New Yorker made Russo’s cover painting available on coffee mugs, one of which I have and frequently use. 

A work in progress, showing my painting and the    
magazine cover being copied.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) 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. 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 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. 

Besides email, my other source of information is 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). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)

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. 

 JL

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May 5, 2025 - Three Articles from the New Yorker, The President on Meet the Press, Tampa General Hospital ... and a lot more!

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Three Pieces From the New Yorker

The May 5 issue of the New Yorker magazine (they date it about a week ahead of its publication so it isn't 'stale' on the newsstands) was a good one. Don’t be scared off by its high price printed on its cover. It is much, much less expensive by subscription or online.

It started with the following comments in its ‘Talk of the Town’ section by its editor, David Remnick, entitled ‘100 Days of Ineptitude’: 

'100 Days of Ineptitude'  - David Remnick

"Eight years ago, in this space, a survey of the first hundred days of the initial Trump Presidency described just how “demoralizing” the Administration had already proved for any citizen concerned with the fate of liberal democracy. In both rhetoric and action, Donald Trump had undermined the rule of law, global security, civil rights, science, and the distinction between fact and its opposite. 

Cover of May 5, 2025 New Yorker

As we noted, The hundred-day marker is never an entirely reliable indicator of a four-year term, but it’s worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama were among those who came to office at a moment of national crisis and had the discipline, the preparation, and the rigor to set an entirely new course. 

Impulsive, egocentric, and mendacious, Trump has, in the same span, set fire to the integrity of his office. Trump never concealed his motives or his character. He came to office in 2017 celebrating the illiberalism of Andrew Jackson and William McKinley and waving Charles Lindbergh’s banner of “America First.” At the Inauguration, he took in the spotty attendance on the Mall and instructed his press secretary to declare the crowd the “largest ¬audience to ever witness an Inauguration - period.” 

Trump went on from there, demagogue and fantasist, striving to ban travellers from predominantly Muslim countries and to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Media-drunk, he tweeted at Kim Jong Un, Hillary Clinton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, while hate-toggling between CNN and MSNBC.

He appointed Michael Flynn, a QAnon favorite, as his national-security adviser––until he regretfully had to fire him three weeks into the term. He amused himself by antagonizing close European allies and declaring NATO “obsolete.” There were many more moments of chaos and cruelty to come, but now we know that Trump’s first term, his initial attempt at authoritarian primacy, was amateur hour, a fitful rehearsal. The reflexes and ambitions were all there; he just didn’t know yet what he was doing. His victory over Clinton had been a shock, so when he frantically prepared for office he threw together a motley staff of bug-eyed ideologues, silver-haired establishmentarians (who “looked the part”), and family members and retainers who hoped to profit from the job while getting off on all the super-cool trappings of power. 

As a result, his first term was characterized by an ambient contempt for him inside his own Administration. His first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was reportedly convinced that Trump was a “moron,” and both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and the chief of staff, John Kelly, eventually concluded that the Commander-¬in-Chief was, in a word, a fascist.

Trump still managed to exact plenty of damage, yet the feuding in his midst, along with the episodic flashes of congressional opposition, popular protest, and resistance in the courts, forestalled some of his fondest ambitions from being realized. Time ran out. He lost re-election. His insurrection failed. But he was not done. 

During his four-year interregnum at Mar-a-Lago, Trump gazed down the fairways and concluded that Joe Biden was too diminished to win again. On this, he was right and the Democratic leadership deluded. What’s more, Trump resolved to be himself, only more so: Trump Unbound. While the commentariat saw his increasingly bizarre improvisations at the lectern as no less disqualifying than Biden’s confusion during the fatal debate, Trump kept faith with his dominant source of inspiration––retribution. With a wink, he denied any knowledge of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s vision for the exercise of executive power, but few doubted that he would enact its plans. For would-be advisers and Cabinet officers, obedience was the sole qualification. 

The Administration is now stocked with the greasily obsequious. Rank incompetence also seems no impediment to employment. How else to explain Pete Hegseth’s move from the weekend desk at Fox News to the big office at the Pentagon? And in what other Administration would bulbs as dim as Howard Lutnick or Peter Navarro be called upon to craft the future of the world’s largest economy? The record of failure after a hundred days is, at once, astonishing and predictable. With no evident purpose, Trump has alienated Europe, Japan, Mexico, and Canada, further undermined NATO, and made even more plain his affection for Vladimir Putin. He has sanctioned his benefactor Elon Musk to hoist a chainsaw and commit mayhem against government agencies that save countless human lives. 

With evident pleasure, Trump has deported more than two hundred -people (nearly all of whom have no criminal record) to a Salvadoran gulag. With his tariff proposals, he managed to destabilize the global economy in a flash, perhaps the worst own goal in history. As part of his revenge campaign, he has waged a war of intimidation against dozens of scholarly, commercial, and legal institutions. Some, like Columbia University, Amazon, and Paul, Weiss, have caved, choosing the path of obedience over principle. Shari Redstone, of Paramount, would rather trash the independence of “60 Minutes,” the most respected investigative outlet on television, than resist the absurd attacks of Trump and his lawyers. The enduring emblem of this Administration and its duplicity is undoubtedly $TRUMP, a meme-coin scheme that has brought many millions of dollars in profits to the President and his fellow-investors.

Few seem to mind. Trump has normalized Presidential corruption. If one were forced to choose two representative events in the life of this Administration so far, they would surely be the White House meetings with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and, six weeks later, with the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele. In the first, Trump treated a moral hero as an ungrateful scoundrel. In the second, he treated a sadistic dictator as a soulmate. It is hard to recall a scene in the Oval Office more revolting than that of Trump’s smiling request to Bukele to build five more prisons, because “the homegrowns are next.” 

In recent weeks, there have been encouraging signs of opposition to Trump, on the streets and in the courts. Cory Booker, Chris Murphy, Alexandria Ocasio--Cortez, and Bernie Sanders are among the clearest voices of dissent on Capitol Hill. But accommodation and cowardice remain the norm. “We are all afraid,” the Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, said to a gathering in Anchorage. No doubt. The threat of retaliation is no joke, but the Senator’s plaintive cry does not exactly meet the demands of the moment. This is not primarily a matter of competence or a clash over policy. The Trump Administration is carrying out a coordinated assault on first principles. 

“The limits of tyrants,” Frederick Douglass said, “are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” The  President will persist in his assault until he feels the resistance of a people who will tolerate it no longer."

(Published in the New Yorker’s print edition dated May 5, 2025, issue, with the headline “100 Days of Ineptitude” as well as in the magazine’s Daily online Newsletter.) 

JL 

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Is It Happening Here? 

That issue of the New Yorker also featured a lengthy piece by New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz entitled ‘Is It Happening Here,’ leading off with a subtitle summary that read ‘Many democracies have gradually slid into autocracy. That may be where we are headed – or where we are.’ 

Marantz starts off by referring to several ‘anti-Trump’ books, including ‘How Democracies Die’ by two Harvard political scientists. Mostly, Marantz chronicles what happened, and is still happening to democracy in Hungary, as a parallel to the Trump presidencies in the United States. Marantz’ thesis is that the change from democracy to autocracy is rarely a sudden one but takes place gradually, step by step, in full view of its citizens. 

As an example, he cites a Hungarian social scientist whom he quotes as saying at lunch, “Before it starts, you say to yourself, ‘I will leave this country immediately if they ever do this or that horrible thing, … and then they do that thing, and you stay.” 

He also describes the liberal post-communist Central European University abandoning its Budapest location for Vienna, unhappy with the changes and subtle pressures of the Hungarian government. 

But that’s enough of a preview. To read the full article, copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/what-its-like-to-live-under-autocracy on your browser line or CLICK HERE. 

(The article also appeared in the New Yorker’s Daily Newsletter with the title ‘What’s it Like to Live Under Autocracy.’)

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In Case of Emergency

Finally, Jill Lepore, a professor of history and law at Harvard, finds solace from the vicissitudes of the Trump Administration in snippits of philosophy and poetry that she keeps handy. She closes the article, 'In Case of Emergency,' which you can find by copying and pasting https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/in-case-of-emergency-break-open-a-book on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE, with a quote from Walt Whitman on the eve of the Civil War in 1860: 

“I assert that all past days were what they must have been, And what they should no-how have been better than they were, And that today is what it must be, and that America is, And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.” 

I would interpret ‘no-how’ to mean ‘no way’ in today’s usage, or as Connie Francis sang a century later, ‘Que Sera, Sera.’ 

JL 

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Hello, Singapore!

Viewership of Jackspotpourri is up again in Singapore. A few postings ago, I ventured a guess that it probably represented Chinese monitoring of the Internet, understandable because China has a significant presence in Singapore. 

Why are they watching Jackspotpourri? I think they are confused by the chaos in our economny, brought about by our President, and groping to gather anything and everything they can find out about it, including what you read here. 

JL 

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A Fact-Filled Posting 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ posting of May 4 makes it easy to conclude that at last, insofar as our government is concerned, the inmates are running the asylum. Check it out at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

JL 

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Our President – Wiser than His Supporters

On ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, when asked whether he needs to uphold the Constitution, President Trump answered ‘I don’t know.’  Kristin Welker later pushed further by asking, ‘Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?’  Trump again answered, ‘I don't know. I have to respond by saying again I have brilliant lawyers that work for me.’ 

This guy has a short memory. When inaugurated three months earlier, of course, he swore an oath to ‘preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution.’ 

Referring to his ‘brilliant lawyers’ reminds me of his past refusal to reveal his income tax information by saying he was ‘under audit.’ Trump seems to think any answer, however preposterous, suffices to avoid the truth. Trump may not be very bright but he is wiser than those who support him. 

The tragedy of this is that despite what President Trump has done during the first hundred days of his term, damaging the economy, losing the trust of our allies, and showing disrespect for our laws, the vast majority of those who voted for him have no regrets about doing so, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll reported by MSNBC. 

This is the Achilles Heel of our democracy: misinformed and misled voters! Thomas Jefferson thought an educated population would solve the problem, which has grown with more and more Americans becoming eligible to vote over the years. 

It hasn’t. The result? Donald Trump in the White House. 

JL 

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Tampa General Hospital Becoming More Local 

Thursday’s Palm Beach Post front page carried a headline announcing that management of the Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade, presently run by Palm Beach County, would be taken over by Tampa General Hospital. That choice speaks a lot about the many more local hospitals in Palm Beach, Broward, or Dade Counties, of which none was ready to step in and take over the job. 

The article also pointed out that this was the latest effort by Tampa General, the largest hospital system on Florida’s west coast, to expand into Palm Beach County, a lucrative healthcare market. 

In recent years, Tampa General has partnered with physician practice groups in Palm Beach County to create 18 medical offices stretching from Palm Beach Gardens to Delray Beach. It also has joined with Mass General Brigham, the teaching hospital system for Harvard Medical School, to build medical offices in Palm Beach Gardens. 

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This brings to mind a Jackspotpourri posting dated January 14, 2019 (go check it out on the archive over to the right) about hospitals specializing in cancer research and treatment that were at that time listed as Cancer Centers by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Again, the institution then listed there nearest for Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade County residents turned out not to be a local one, but the one at the University of South Florida: Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, with which Tampa General Hospital is affilliated, along with the Morisani School of Medicine there. 

Since that 2019 posting, the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center has indeed been added to the list of NCI/NIH Cancer Centers, but not with the coveted ‘Comprehensive Cancer Center’ designation, despite their including the word ‘Comprehensive’ in their name.  My guess is that the reason for NCI/NIH not listing Sylvester as ‘Comprehensive’ is that its research programs are mostly demographic and statistical ones involving cancer patients rather than ones directly aimed at developing cures for specific cancers.

Again, Tampa General’s new involvement with Lakeside Medical Center is reason to compare the medical care available locally with that in the Tampa area.  Is the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach area second-tier when it comes to medicine? The Tampa-oriented future of Lakeside Medical Center points to an answer; this problem must be addressed. 

JL 

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Reform Rabbis in Israel Called it a ‘Pogrom’

The other day In Israel, Orthodox rioters attacked a Reform synagogue in Ra’anana where an annual joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial service was being screened. Right-wing Israelis, who dismiss any idea of a ‘two state’ solution, or any cooperation with Palestinian groups, are mostly Orthodox in their religious belief. Israelis have yet to learn that it is wrong for such political disagreements to be reflected in how Jews practice their religion.

While freedom of religion exists in Israel where there are some Conservative and Reform congregations, they are far outnumbered by the Orthodox. Orthodoxy is dominant among government leaders, and little was done to protect the synagogue in Ra’anana other than the inadequate presence of one police car parked there. 

Most American politicians support a ‘two state’ solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem, without taking sides from a religious standpoint. In Israel, however, the government is mostly Orthodox and generally does not interfere with the primarily Orthodox ‘settlers’ in the West Bank. 

This is damaging to the continuing of Israel remaining a strong democratic nation. I suspect that most Israelis recognize this but they seem to be insufficiently vocal. 

JL 

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Poetry Corner 

Here’s a poem of  mine that just might appear in the next issue of my community’s magazine. 

Life’s Laundry 

Folding the laundry, 

A most disliked chore,

Remains as one task

We cannot ignore. 

I try to avoid 

A loud profane shout

When I grasp a shirt

That’s turned inside out.

And with each fresh load, 

I become meaner,

Swearing that next time, 

I’ll use a dry cleaner. 

But life’s laundry won’t wait, 

And as we grow older, 

You cannot resign from 

Your task as its folder. 

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) 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. 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 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. 

Besides email, my other source of information is 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). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.) 

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. JL

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April 29, 2025 - First Democratic Hat in the 2028 Ring, Reagan was Right, Our Youthful AG, Pain, Impeachment, and More

 

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Governor Pritzker Got it Right! Read What He Said Right Here

Last week, Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker rallied
Democrats at a New Hampshire fund-raising event

Before you turn in for the night, check out Heather Cox Richardson’s April 28 posting on her daily ‘Letters from an American’ by copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line, or by just CLICKING HERE.  She reports on what Pritzker said.

JL 

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‘Forever Young’ – Trump and Reagan Represent Different Parties 

Here’s a message for those who think of Ronald Reagan’s presidency as a time in the past when America was great and say so by wearing hats emblazoned ‘Make America Great Again.’  Because not too many of these folks follow Jackspotpourri, I recommend that you pass this on to any of them you might know! 

In 1989, on the last day of his presidency, in his last speech, President Ronald Reagan recalled what someone had once written to him: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.” 

Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but the ‘Great Communicator’ was on the right track when he continued: 

“We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.” 

Today’s Republicans, who started restricting immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, attain new levels of hypocrisy every day, closing that door bit by bit, losing America’s leadership in the world, as they ignore these words of their idol, Ronald Reagan, and turn instead to  Donald Trump. 

JL 

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A New Low Reached in Attorney General’s Office – She Thinks ‘Judges are Deranged’

The other day, Attorney General Pam Bondi talked on the Fox News Channel about the arrest of a local judge in Michigan who enablied a defendant appearing before her for a minor infraction to leave the courtroom via a ‘juror’s corridor’ to avoid ICE agents waiting in the hallway to arrest him as an illegal alien. 

“What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me,” Bondi said. “The judges are deranged is all I can think of.  I think some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today … “ 

Though it was something Bondi didn’t concern herself with, there are a couple of judges on the Supreme Court to which that might apply. SCOTUS Justices are not above the law; in fact, one of them was once actually impeached. Bondi might consder going after Justices Alito and Thomas who clearly place themselves in that category. 

And come to think about it, if thinking that one is above the law warrants prosecution, isn’t that part of President Trump’s thought processes as well? Yup, but his three appointments to the SCOTUS brought him immunity from prosecution for laws he breaks in carrying out his ‘official’ duties. Don’t stay up nights trying to define ‘official’ though. It is whatever he says it means.

Bondi

There is something known as the Constitution that the Attorney General should study while waiting for her next hair coloring retouch. C’mon, she’ll be 60 in November, an age when all unfaded blond hair is as suspect as are the President’s sometimes orange, sometimes graying, locks! It is not the color of hair that matters. It is what is within the head atop which it grows that counts. JL 

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Pain Causes Voters to Change 

Somewhere in the previous posting of Jackspotpourri, the following comment was included: ‘The pain Americans are, or will be feeling, must be turned into reasons to turn Republican voters into Democratic voters. That’s what FDR did.’ 

Think about that for a moment. How long must we wait for that to happen again? The President’s irrational tariffs, for example, add up to these painful truths for Americans: 

• Financial market instability decreasing the value of all investments especially retirement savings in IRAs and 401K plans, 

 • Higher retail prices on imported items (look at the appliances in your home, the labels on the clothing you wear, and the furniture in your living room … much of which is imported), 

 • Empty shelves in stores once loaded with imported items, and ‘dollar stores’ (where poorer people seek bargains) totally disappearing, 

 • Unemployment in industries dependent on what were once less costly imported parts and even raw materials. 

This is what higher tariffs, hastily imposed, without logic or careful thought, are causing. And of course, the nations upon whose exports we impose higher tariffs do not hesitate to reciprocate with their own tariff incresases on what we export to them! 

But there’s more! Besides tariffs, consider the uncontrolled actions by an Executive Branch intent on reducing taxes paid by the wealthy and some businesses, tax reductions to be achieved by reducing government spending for services, passed by Congress over the years, historically provided to retirees and working people, like you!  Just pick up a newspaper, any newspaper, and read all about it! Or try to reach Social Security, IRS, or Medicare by telephone (which are, incidentally, among the imports which tariffs will make more expensive). 

Federal funding of research to cure diseases is being put on a back burner while disaster relief, environmental protections, and seeing that we have decent local schools is turned over to woefully ill-prepared State governments. 

And the regulatory abilities of Congressionally-created agencies like the Federal Communication Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Aviation Administration are being taken away or shrunken despite the real needs they fill, adding to the public’s pain. 

In normal times, the place to fight these kinds of things would be the courts. The Constitution calls for a ‘separation of powers.’  When the Executive Branch attempts to violate that separation, encroaching upon the powers of the Legislative Branch, going far beyond its duty of ‘executing the laws,’ a constitutional crisis arises and the Judicial Branch ought to step in. 

But these are not normal times. Congress meekly agrees to whatever the Executive Branch wants, and judges are constantly being harassed by the Executive Branch. Our government seems to operate as if the rule of law did not exist, carrying out daily unconstitutional measures, even defying court orders from judges who attempt to follow the laws. And the Supreme Court’s role, at the top of the Judicial Branch, is limited because of its politicalization.

Is all of this enough to bring about enough pain to Americans to turn Republican voters into Democratic voters? It did in FDR’s time. It should today or will very shortly! 

JL 

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Donald Trump’s ‘Deportation Obsession’ 

If you are sufficient naïve to still believe that there is a spark of decency in the President, read Jonathan Blitzer’s piece included in the New Yorker magazine’s ‘Talk of the Town’ print issue dated April 28, 2025, and online a week earlier. Just CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/28/donald-trumps-deportation-obsession on your browser line, and find out all about Donald Trump’s ‘Deportation Obsession,’ something that threatens all Americans, not just the possibly illegal immigrants you’ve been hearing about. 

JL 

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Jackspotpourri is Not Just Talking Big 

Back in its April 17 posting of Jackspotpourri, I suggested the impeachment of the President before his term was completed, to be accomplished by an alliance of Congressional Democrats, ‘traditional’ Republicans, and most importantly, the influence of the investment, banking and business communities, all of which recognize the damage President Trump is doing to them and the nation. Go back and read that posting. I meant it! 

Trump’s ‘making up’ a ficticious national emergency in order to justify his many unconstitutional acts (without his doing that, tariff policy for example, remains a Congressional function and due process remains protected by the Constitution’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments) should not go unpunished. We are not being ‘invaded by terrorists,’ as the President will have you believe. Peaceful demonstrators with mostly home-made signs are not a national emergency. 

History will be the judge of our 47th president, to borrow a line from Sir Walter Scott, at that time when he is returned to “the vile dust from which he sprung, unknown, unhonored, and unsung.’ 

JL 

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Let’s be Honest - Where the Money Comes From 

Many of the Democratic support groups that I know of, including the one in my own local election precinct, ‘pass the hat’ at meetings to provide funding for their activities. 

That doesn’t seem to be the case, however, with the individual ‘Indivisible’ groups that seem to be carrying much of the load for local Democraic groups today. The bottom line is that a lot of their funding originates with George Soros, through various grants from sources like the Open Society Foundations that he founded and which his wealth supports. It is difficult to fully document and trace the paths such funding follows but ‘experimental generative artificial intelligence,’ whatever that is, gives it a try. Check that out by copying and pasting https://www.google.com/search?q=open+society+foundation+-+indivisible+groups&oq=open+society+foundation+-+indivisible+groups&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRirAtIBCjI2NDU3ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBaRHZBqLkJpz&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 on your browser line or by simply CLICKING HERE. Because this link consists of ‘artificial intelligence,' which Jackspotpourri avoids, it may not be totally accurate, but I suspect it is close to the truth. 

Certainly, there is nothing wrong in accepting financial support from one of Soros’ ‘Open Society Foundations’ to accomplish ‘Indivisible’ groups’ objectives. They don’t ask for anything in return. And Elon Musk and other billionaires donated far more to Trump’s continuing campaigning.

(Incidentally, Jackspotpourri receives no support, financial or otherwise, from any sources. Check out the comments at the close of this posting headed ‘Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri’ for information about my sources, where I frown on AI which by its very nature is anonymous.) 

JL 

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Governor Pritzker Got it Right! Read What He Said Right Here 

In case you ignored the first item on today's posting, here it is again.

Before you turn in for the night, check out Heather Cox Ricardson’s April 28 posting on her daily ‘Letters from an American’ by copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line, or by just CLICKING HERE . She reports on what Pritzker said.

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) 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. 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 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. 

Besides email, my other source of information is 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). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)

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. JL 

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