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

 

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Three Related Comments

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

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

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

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

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2. Kirk Assassination 

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

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

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

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

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

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3. A Denial of Extremism 

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

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

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

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

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

JL 

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Why a Switch in Newspapers? 

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

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

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

JL 

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Local Resident’s Letter Published 

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

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

Dr. Howard Olarsch, DDS, Boynton Beach’ 

JL 

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The Daily Kos 

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

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

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Getting Closer to the Truth About Epstein, Maybe      

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

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

Marshall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JL 

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Believe It or Not #1 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JL

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Believe it or Not #2 

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

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

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

JL

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Wrapping Up 'Sic Semper Tyrannis'

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

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

 

 JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

JL  

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

 

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National Emergencies

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

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

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

JL 

                                                   

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Constructive Resistance

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

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

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

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

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

Remember those closing words!

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

JL 

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Jackspotpourri Values Your Opinion 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JL 

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College Football 

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

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

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

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

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

JL 

                                                     * * * 

South Park 

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

 JL 

                                                     * * * 

Brevity and Verbosity 

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

JL 

                                                   * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

JL

                                             *   *   *   *

Sept. 1, 2025 - Labor Day, Three Columns to Read or Skip, Letters, and Sic Semper Tyrannis

 

                                                Today is Labor Day 

First Labor Day Parade on Sept. 5, 1882 Reaches Union Square

                  

                                                          * * * 

Life Saving Column from Maureen Dowd and Much More 

You don’t have to read Maureen Dowd’s August 30 New York Times column, but you must absolutely forward it to anyone you know who has young children, including your own and your grandchildren. It might save a life! Find it at https://www.nytimes.com/column/maureen-dowd.  Its title is ‘Vax Quack Lacks Facts.’ And guess who the ‘Quack’ is. 

Also, because I don’t want to ruin anyone’s Labor Day, I won’t recommend their checking Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s August 29 column at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ .  Her ‘Letters from an American’ of that date picks up where Maureen Dowd leaves off, describing the evils that pervade the entire Trump administration; they go beyond attacking vaccinations. 

But I do definitely recommend that you read Professor Timothy Snyder’s Sept. 1 ‘Thinking About’ piece. Find it at https://snyder.substack.com/  under the title of ‘Look at My Works, Ye Mighty.’  It’s mighty serious business. 

JL 

                                                     * * * 

We Get Letters With Comments

A regular recipient of Jackspotpourri recently asked to be sent only ‘the right stuff’ and not what he considered ‘junk.’ I politely told him I could not do that. When you click on Jackspotpourri, you get the whole package. 

He is a classic example of someone who wants decisions made for him by others, like those who get most of their information from FoxNews or other stops along the way down the right-wing rabbit hole, already pre-digested for them. We don’t play that game. Feel free to disagree, but don’t ask Jackspotpourri to do it for you! 

Another recipient’s comment frowned upon Jackspotpourri aggressively ‘bashing’ Trump and his administration, as unnecessarily ‘polarizing’ opinion rather than encouraging ‘peacemaking’ and ‘solidarity’ among those with whom one disagrees as to the best way to reach what might be common goals. 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ Isn’t Synonymous with Assassination 

Back in Rome in 44 B.C, his fellow Senators objected to the power grab being executed by Julius Caesar, so they murdered him. 

Back in Washington in 1865, States-rightists and supporters of the defeated pro-slavery Confederacy believed that Abraham Lincoln was taking actions beyond those permitted to a president, resulting in their murdering him.

Subsequent assassination attempts, sucessful or not, might not have been so specifically motivated, but are part of American history. 

Lincoln’s assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, was reported to have shouted as he squeezed the trigger of his pistol, ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis.’ Literally, that translates as 'thus always to tyrants,' but in contemporary parlance (according to an Artificial Intelligence search), it can merely mean that tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown in some manner or other'. 

In fact, these words still appear in Latin on the official seal of the State of Virginia, where no one has been accused lately of using it as a basis for advocating a political murder. 

Only mentally disturbed individuals consider such violence necessary. There is no sympathy for anyone who would act in that manner. Nevertheless, it holds true that ‘tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown.’ And that can still be accomplished by legal means, provided by our Constitution and laws, including those concerning impeachment and the 25th Amendment. 

Of interest is the following piece, received by me in connection with a request to donate to ‘Vote Vets.’  It clarifies a lot concerning presidential powers, as discussed above and more specifically, in the Jackspotpourri of August 29, immediately preceding this one.  (On some devices, that posting will automatically appear following this posting.) General Eaton’s closing sentence makes a lot of sense to me: 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Paul Eaton. Major General, U.S. Army, retired. I want to try to impress upon you the significance of Donald Trump’s authoritarian decision to force the National Guard, and potentially the Active Duty United States Military, into law enforcement roles on American soil. 

In short, the Military is not Donald Trump’s personal instrument. Commander in Chief he may be, but there are laws specifically aimed at restricting his personal direction of the Military for domestic purposes. The most important of these is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. It draws a clear line between domestic law enforcement and the Military, and prohibits the use of federal military forces for domestic law enforcement - except by acts of Congress.

These restrictions are not modern; they go back thousands of years. The term “Crossing the Rubicon” endures from Ancient Rome as the transition point from Republic to Empire. Roman generals were forbidden from bringing standing armies into Italy, past the Rubicon river. They understood the danger of a military force posed against civilian leadership. When Julius Caesar invaded Rome at the head of his army, when he crossed the Rubicon, he committed a treasonous act. The rest, as they say, is history. 

The United States Military is the strongest, finest armed force the world has ever known. Its purpose is to support and defend the Constitution and the people of this country, from our enemies, foreign and domestic. When the military is used on our own soil, there is great danger that the line between countryman and enemy becomes blurred. We are seeing this already with masked ICE personnel executing indiscriminate mass sweeps that, at times, include US citizens and legal residents. Sweeps that are at times, performed brutally. This is a perilous moment, but I continue to have great faith in the fine women and men serving in uniform. They are our neighbors, sons, daughters, parents, and siblings. They love this country, and its people. They swear an oath to support and defend our Constitution, and they take that oath seriously. 

But as Donald Trump purges principled and experienced leaders and attempts to bend the military to his will, we must face reality with open eyes.” 

JL

                                                         * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

At least when I read a column by Timothy Snyder, for example, I know from where it comes, and to some extent, what to expect. 

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

JL

                                              *   *   *

August 29, 2025 - Painted Crosswalks, the Second Amendment, and Artificial Intelligence's Need for Power

 

                                  *   *   *

It Starts With Crosswalks 

The President’s opposition to Americans being aWOKEn to the need for our culture to address diversity and inclusion issues has been echoed by Florida’s governor in his attack on rainbow-hued street crossings that recognize the LGBTQ populations in communities that choose to do so. 

Orlando Street Crossing at Site of Pulse Bar
Shooting Removed by DeSantis

This is very dangerous territory into which Trump and DeSantis (and others) are treading. It is the first step in putting those populations in far greater danger than even they may realize. This was the philosophy of Nazi Germany where it led to concentration camps and gas chambers for some of them. 

I don’t believe that neither Trump nor DeSantis understand that banning rainbow-hued crosswalks that carry this particular message of recognition caters to the hatreds of America’s bigots. All decent Americans should urge both of them, and those who blindly support their actions, to recognize where this can lead and change their positions. 

And as for those bigoted Americans, nothing will stop them from continuing to vote for Trump-supporting Republicans. 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

Minneapolis Church School Shooting Must Be a High SCOTUS Priority 

Enough of thoughts and prayers! 

We have traveled that route too often! 

The misguided majority 5-4 decision in D.C. vs Heller in 2008 must be reversed. And this must be accomplished before any other matters are considered by the Supreme Court! It must take priority over the other papers piled on the Justices' desks.

Here is the Second Amendment in full: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Before Justice Antonin Scalia’s wrongheaded opinion with which four other Justices concurred, the District of Columbia had tough laws regarding keeping a weapon at home, even for self-defense. Scalia wrote that such laws were unconstitutional in view of the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment, disregarding its first thirteen words. 

Since then, gun possession and gun violence have proliferated, causing thousands of deaths, most of which are attributable to Justice Scalia’s opinion opening the weapons market to any screwball who wanted to buy a gun.  Prior to D.C. vs Heller, the first thirteen words of the Amendment meant something and were not ignored so easily as Justice Scalia ignored them.

The Second Amendment protects the rights of States to have armed militias, which in those days meant that volunteers were expected to bring their own guns; it is not there for the benefit of armed nut jobs running loose in our society, as too many Americans believe is their right. 

JL

                                                     * * * 

A Fresh Take on the Second Amendment 

And while the Second Amendment is in the spotlight again, let’s take a look at it from another angle. Its language sits there, four paragraphs directly above.

Those concerned with the availability of weapons are familiar with the language of the Second Amendment, particularly its final fourteen words. But there is more than that to the Second Amendment. Note that its first thirteen words presuppose the necessity of States forming their own militias, now referred to as National Guard units, with their existence being necessary to the security of the State. That is what it says. Read it! 

Why then, is command of these State National Guard units vested somewhere else other than within those States’ governments?  How does it end up with the President of the United States? How did this come to be?

Here’s how:  A president can claim that he has the power to control state militias (National Guard units) based on (1) the Commander in Chief Clause of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which allows the President to call state militias into federal service, and (2) the Insurrection Act, a Federal law authorizing the use of state and federal military forces to suppress insurrections and enforce federal law.  That's how!

An ’AI” search into this presidential control concludes that such powers are not unlimited and are typically used in times of national crisis, but that they require only the federalization of the National Guard, not direct control over all state militias. 

I do not see any national crises, invasions, or insurrections going on and I don’t see any federal laws, all of which originate and are passed by Congress, being violated to the extent that the National Guard need be federalized to enforce them. Merely saying, without any evidence, that crime is rampant in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, or New York, without evidence of it being so is not enough. 

In no uncertain terms, California Governor Newsom and Illinois Governor Pritzker have pointed this out to the President. It probably will take a Supreme Court ruling to decide if they are correct. Meanwhile, they, and not Donald Trump, ought to be retaining command of the National Guard units in their States, which is not the case at this moment. 

I would hope the Attorneys-General of California and Illinois are drafting appropriate litigation right now to remove the National Guard units from presidential control. The conditions specified in Article Two, Section Two, of the Constitution, and the Insurrection Act have not been met. And it will be up to the Supreme Court to say so! 

Getting back to the purpose of the Second Amendment, included among the Founding Fathers were some delegates to the 1789 Constitutional convention who feared Federal military pressure on States where slavery existed. They insisted on the ability to raise militia to guarantee their freedom as free States, to oppose any use of Federal troops against them that would affect their right to own slaves. That’s what their militia, today’s National Guard units, and the Second Amendment were intended for. 

Once Governors Newsom and Pritzker regain control of their States’ militias (or National Guard units) which the President has seized using a daily barrage of lies, they will be in a position to better challenge illegal activities threatening their States’ security, specifically actions by the FBI and ICE. 

JL 

                                                         * * * 

 A Strange Marriage – Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Power 

When one does a search or asks a question on Google (or other traditional search engines), their programs go to work to seek a response. Similarly, when one does a search (or asks a question) through Artificial Intelligence, its programs go into action. An ‘AI” search, however, is much more thorough, sweeping up and organizing data that a Google search never touches, and rewriting it in what amounts to a neutral language or specific format. 

Both searches require electrical power, not only for the user’s plugged-in or internet-connected device, but to a far greater extent for the operation of the Google or ‘AI’ search programs. The electrical power for these searches is concentrated in data centers the energy for which is today mostly sourced by fossil fuels. 

The amount of electrical energy required to operate Artificial Intelligence programs, particularly in government and business activities, is already taxing these sources of power. Enormous new power plants are being envisioned or already being started to satisfy ‘AI’s tremendous appetite as it chews through mountain ranges of data which traditional search engines, like Google, never approach nor then reassemble into narrative or usable statistical formats as does ‘AI.’ 

Running a single ‘AI’ data center, it is reported by ‘AI,’ can use as much power as an entire city of 50,000 requires each day. If Artificial Intelligence is to prevail, its data centers must be paired with something other than fossil fuel based power, with nuclear energy the likely candidate. The closed Three Mile Island nuclear plant on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, for example, may fit into those plans. Microsoft has already built a data center adjacent to it, and is heavily committed to the project. Both are pictured below. 

But Paul Krugman’s August 27 posting (paulkrugman.substack.com) still has faith in solar and wind power, both of which the President opposes. Could that be because of the government’s investment in companies involved with data centers like the one close to the old, and now-renamed, Three Mile Island nuclear plant? 

The government controls ten percent of Intel and has eased the way for businesses like NVIDIA, IBM and SoftBank to commit billions of dollars to manufacturing in the U.S. and the support of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. So why would they bet on solar and wind technologies when they have put their money down on other sources of electric power, especially nuclear? 

JL

                                                               * * * 

Sports Commentary

I don’t understand why there is a major league baseball team in South Florida.

The Marlins’ attendance is usually below nine or ten thousand, impressive for a minor league franchise but pathetic for a major league team.  Attendance only exceeds four figures when retirees, Yankee, Mets, or even Red Sox fans, fill otherwise empty seats when their old teams come to town. Don’t compare them with the Oakland/Las Vegas Athletics or the Tampa Bay Rays, both of which are temporarily playing in minor league or spring training ballparks for various reasons. Once they are in their new or reconstructed facilities, the Marlins will return to unquestioned dominance of the attendance cellar. Could their ownership like it that way, probably losing money on the team, as a hedge against profits made elsewhere? Hmmm.  

JL

                                                          * * * 

Here’s a couple of sites you might find worthwhile:

simonwdc@substack.com - Check out his ‘Hopium Chronicles’ dated August 26 that touches a lot of bases. 

barbarafwalter@substack.com - On August 27 offers the views of a pessimistic sociologist who sees little hope for change in a piece titled ‘The Animal Within Us.’ 

JL 

                                                       * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL 

                                                   * * * *