July 14, 2025 - Fourteenth Amendment, Accountability in Texas, April Postings, and Platonic Empathy

                                                              *   *   *

The Fourteenth Amendment

Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated July 9 explains the historic background of the Fourteenth Amendment and decries the ‘originalist’ Justices who would take away many of the rights it guarantees for Americans; they include present Supreme Court Justices Alito and Thomas. 

I believe that there should be either a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices or a fixed number of years in their terms. (Justice Alito is 75. and Justice Thomas is 77.)

JL 

                                                                                                                         

                                                    *   *   * 

There Must Be Accountability Somewhere

Paul Krugman’s July 10 column explains why the Texas flood tragedy should not avoid being ‘politicized.’ The government should not be allowed to avoid responsibility, if not for the specific acts of non-feasance which many claim occurred, but at least for nourishing a mindset that reduces the role of the federal government, and sets the similar tone for State and local government in directly serving the people, especially in times of tragedy.

I believe that a federal government prepared to serve the needs of the people in emergencies is not socialism. Others might.

JL 

                                                                                                                         

                                                    *   *   *  

Let's Go Back to April

Jackspotpourri’s April, 2025, postings concerning President Trump were very important and should be reviewed. Access them from the archives over to the right. 

On April 2, for example, I posted the following: ‘A President who disagrees with a law will find ways to avoid his Constitutional duty of executing the laws, even in the face of court decisions supporting the law. And hence, the ‘rule of law’ takes a back seat, and once that happens, what had been inconceivable is no longer impossible, and that is dangerous.’ 

Over three months later, that remains true, the ‘inconceivable’ remaining an alternative. Please re-read the April postings in regard to the President. 

JL                                                            

                                                           

                                                    *   *   *  

Empathy Wins Out over Opinion 

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world." - Plato 

This leads us to be careful in accepting what appears as any source’s ‘opinion’ as suggested by Plato and to give greater credence to ‘empathy-based’ ‘stories’ of what one personally experiences or witnesses directly, a point made recently by film maker Ken Burns to columnist Maureen Dowd. 

JL                                                            

                                                           

                                                    *   *   * 

Some source materials used by Jackspotpourri:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

https://msnbc.com/ 

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/ 

https://snyder.substack.com/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/ 

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/ 

https://www.thefp.com (the Free Press) 

Some of these sources call for a subscription, but generally, much information is still available from them without subscribing in order to cross their ‘paywalls,’ where they exist. If I were to select one source to access without paying to subscribe to it, Professor Richardson’s is the clear choice.

In a recent meeting with several followers of Jackspotpourri, it was suggested that one of its shortcomings was its lack of brevity. We will try to address that where possible. You might  notice that in today's posting.

JL                                                            

                                                           

                                                    *   *   * 

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.  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 where I can look up any subject I want. 

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

Following such ‘AI’ search results, there follows the results of my initially having accessed Google (or any other search engine) for information. Contrary to the AI-generated summaries, the sources of these results are clearly indicated.

I feel that It comes down to who YOU want to be in the driver’s seat in seeking information, yourself or something else (AI), the structure of which somewhere along the way had to have been created by others, with whose identity I am neither familiar nor comfortable.  Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence.

(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

 

                                                                 * * * *

July 9, 2025 - Stories About Trump, the SCOTUS, NYC Elections, Texas Floods, and Headache Remedies

                                                                    *   *   *

The closing words of this posting (before the ‘Housekeeping’ section) are ‘Thinking Americans must recognize that they are involved in a struggle to limit the unwarranted changing of the Executive Branch into a autocratic dictatorshop. Ultimately, it will end well but until then there will be trials and tribulations making life uncomfortable for all of us.’ 

But please, read through the whole thing till you get to these words again. 

JL

                                                        * * * 

Good Stories Beat Good Arguments 

Film maker Ken Burns was quoted the other day by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times as saying “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s point of view; the only thing that can do that is a good story. Good stories are a kind of benevolent Trojan horse. You let them in, and they add complication, allowing you to understand that sometimes a thing and its opposite are true at the same time.” 

Arguments, however strong and compelling, will not usually convince anyone of anything. To change minds, they must be personally affected or plainly see others being hurt. That’s where the ‘stories’ come in. 

While the tax reductions that the Republican scoundrels (I can think of no better word) in Congress and the Administration have pushed through will take effect shortly, the cuts that will personally hurt many millions of Americans, such as those involving Medicaid, are scheduled to kick in only after the 2026 mid-term elections. Until then, they will be mostly ignored by the misinformed voters who put Republicans into office. 

(AP photo carried in many newspapers nationwide)

‘But where are the clowns? Send in the clowns! Don't bother, they're here.’  …  Stephen Sondheim

 

Eventually, however, enough Americans will be so hurt by the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that none of the clowns pictured above will ever again be elected to public office. 

And even if they wanted to run, there won’t be a Republican Party for them to pretend to be part of any longer, after Americans finally realize that today’s Republican Party is no more than a vehicle for the very wealthy and the business enterprises that brought them their wealth, very little if any of which ever ‘trickles down’ to the rest of the country as their discredited economists always claim it would supposedly do. 

That’s when the ‘stories’of which Burns spoke become realities. That’s when ‘stories’ of how the government isn’t looking out for them will be told by and listened to by plain citizens. Talking about getting rid of FEMA, or leaving it to the States to manage disasters, true or false, only reinforces such ‘stories.’

                                                                  *   *

Right now, there are such ‘stories’ stemming from the tragic floods in Texas. Although blame for them cannot be specifically attributed to the reduction in government spending to which the Administration is committed, there are those who will see it that way. There have been unfilled vacancies in the agencies that monitor our weather, and the flooded county that was most affected had decided that it didn’t want to spend money on a ‘siren’ system that might have helped, because it would have raised local taxes. 

But who is to say that anything would have prevented the tragedy in view of its suddeness, its dimensions, and the very early morning hours when it struck. As for the cell phone warning messages sent in the middle of the night, checking them out is likely to be postponed by most people until the next morning. Isn’t that what you might have done? 

But still, there will be ‘stories’ and wrong or right, they will have an effect. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

How Come the Wealthy Have So Much Money 

I am beginning to think that some people have too much money. And that includes everyone who was invited to the Bezos’ recent wedding in Venice. I cannot understand how so many people accumulated so much wealth legitimately. Here’s a thought and a hypothetical question it raises. 

Based on what a dollar is worth today, does it sound reasonable to you that no one, no matter how skilled or talented, is worth more than ten or twenty million dollars a year in ‘after tax’ compensation? To 99.9 % of people, that is BIG, very, very, BIG money. And some people are earning, or stealing, or however acummulating, far, far, far more than that amount of money, almost inconceivable amounts of it. I’ve just deleted the half dozen paragraphs I had planned on including in this Jackspotpourri about this. Why? Paul Krugman said it better than I could and I was beginning to sound like Karl Marx, which is not my intent. Copy and paste https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/inequality-part-v-predatory-financialization on your browser line or just CLICK HERE. Here’s an excerpt from what Krugman writes: 

 ‘What do I mean by financialization? Actually I mean two different but related things. One aspect is the extraordinary rise in the share of the U.S. economy devoted to financial activities as opposed to production of goods and services. A second is the pervasive way in which financiers and financial institutions like hedge funds and private equity have changed how even nonfinancial business operates. These changes have almost always increased inequality.’ (While Krugman’s posts offer more detail for those who subscribe to read what he writes ‘beyond his paywall,’ a place where I do not go, there is still a lot of information available ‘for free’ right there in his many postings at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/ .) 

Many of the guests in Venice at the Bezos nuptuals were there because of the ‘predatory financialization’ of which Krugman writes. I believe that suggests that when money itself becomes a commodity, it is always at the expense of those without much of it. 

There are also the Federal Estate tax rules whereby an individual is exempt from paying any tax on the first $13,999,000 inherited (double that for a couple filing jointly). That continues to keep the amassing of such wealth ‘in the family.’ 

It ought not be possible for anyone, or any group, to amass amounts of wealth greater than what those generous annual ten or twenty million after-tax dollars would enable them to create. But do not kid yourself! Such super-massive concentrations of wealth, do however exist and lead to a ‘oligarchical’ concentration of power, and ought to be prevented by Federal and Stae tax policy. Unfortunately, our tax policies seem to be directed in the opposite direction! (We’ve left that to the ‘clowns’ pictured above in the preceding article.) 

Democracy should rule our economy and not wealth. That’s what I think. What do you think? And that is not a hypothetical question. 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

The White House and the Supreme Court

Check out Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American dated June 27, which centers on the ignorance of the President of the United States.  Copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line, or just CLICK HERE.  Further on in this posting, I suggest that you check out her more recent postings. 

I am for intelligence testing, including a familiarity with American history, for all who run for any Federal office. I believe our President would flunk any such testing of historical knowledge. Actually, most voters would too, but while I feel this should be required of candidates, it would be undemocratic to require it of voters. But It would have at least prevented our putting a poorly educated dunce back into the White House last year. 

                                                       * * 

Trump-like ignorance didn’t stop the Supreme Court from ‘procedurally’ limiting lower court decisions supporting birthright citizenship to the Appellate district where a decision was made; elsewhere in the country, separate litigation, complicated and costly, would be required if individuals wanted to raise the question of birthright citizenship. But they did not specifically rule on birthright citizenship itself, something the President is removing via an Executive order. This refllected the SCOTUS’ reluctance to deal with the crucial question of whether a federal court in the United States of America may order the Executive to follow the law. 

The Fourteenth Amendment, passed after the the Civil War, very clearly grants citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., with a few very minor exceptions. And that is the way they have ruled for the past 127 years in the past when the question came up. It was a settled matter, and became part of what is known in law as ‘stare decisis’ in 1898 in the case of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark. It should take a monumental changing in the nation’s basic philosophy to reverse something enshrined as is ‘stare decisis,’ which means looking to previous decisions for guidance and precedents in making current decisions. Period!!! End of story!!! 

Or at least it should be. 

If one Court of Appeals rules on something, doesn’t it make sense that the Supreme Court cannot continue to allow different interpretations of that Amendment to prevail in different regions of the country by differing Appellate Courts? That would be crazy. But that is what they have done from a procedural standpoint. Other than Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, our Supreme Court majority seems to be ignoring ‘stare decisis’ in regard to citizenship just as they ignored it in regard to the Second Amendment in 2008, resulting in many unnecessary deaths from the proliferation of weapons. 

These politially motivated Republican appointees, forming the Supreme Court’s majority, should stop messing with American history just to make the President happy. 

For your information, here is Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment. It seems pretty clear to me, but I am not a lawyer. ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’

In a related story, a Republican Congressman from Tennessee has asked that the citiizenship of New York’s likely next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, born in Uganda but who becam a naturalized citizen in 2018 be investigated by the DOJ so that he might be deported because of the lyrics of a rap song that praised Palestinian terrorists that he performed before becoming a citizen.

Regardless of what you think of Palestinian terrorists, Republican dummies cannot run around ignoring the Constitution and its Amendments. The President has even threatened the same thing for his erstwhile buddy, naturalized citizen Elon Musk, who dared to criticize the dummy’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’ 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Back to the NYC Mayor’s Race 

And speaking of Zohran Mamdavi, likely to be elected New York City’s Mayor in November, he still has to somehow more strongly modify his past endorsement of a global Intifada supporting a Palestinian uprising again the State of Israel. 

While Mamdavi now acknowleges the right of the State of Israel to exist, his views in regard to the Palestinians there must be made clearer. Not doing so will cripple his administration, just as corruption has crippled the present Mayor’s. 

 In New York City, the cultural and emotional center of the nation’s Jewish population, that is an enormous factor. It means that unless a Mayor Mamdani properly addresses this issue, his hands will be tied or that there will be a mass exodus from the City, and not only of Jews, significantly changing its economic and cultural nature. 

One solution might be for Mamdani to come out for a vaguely designed ‘two state solution,’ which would be an improvement over his past support for a global Intifada. 

Of course, this would open him to charges of hypocrisy and be insufficient for both those who are totally against any Palestinian state whatsoever as well as those who are totally against the State of Israel being there at all. 

I suspect that such ‘vagueness’ will open the way for Mamdani to cut some sort of a deal with any one of, or all of, several candidates, all of whom are on his right, ranging from militant Republican Curtis Sliwa, Andrew Cuomo (who might not go away so fast), the present Mayor, the corrupt Eric Adams, now Donald Trump’s NYC deportation tool, and other candidates at this point either declared or unannouced. Combining all of them together for one candidate might come close to defeating Mamdani in November. Remember, the November election does not follow the ‘graded choice’ format. 

Mamdani might ‘deal’ to get the strong support of at least one ot these other candidates. But is he a ‘unifier’ or a ‘disrupter’? Who knows? And that’s where we are right now. 

JL 

                                                * * * 

Four Simple Remedies in National and State Elections for Those Getting a Headache 

• 1. Aspirin 

• 2. Advil 

• 3. Tylenol 

• 4. Just don’t vote for any Republicans. 

Republicans with at least half a brain are choosing not to run for re-election and the rest of them do not deserve to be in office. Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ike Eisenhower were exceptions and probably would be Democrats today! This is not to say all Democrats are angels. There are some I would not vote for, and that I have not voted for. 

But from reading what apparently erudite columnists write (Paul Krugman, Timothy Snyder, Maureen Dowd, and Heather Cox Richardson are four examples; there are many more) and what appears in the ‘letters’ columns of various newspapers and on concerned viewers’ contributions to internet sites, a safer remedy for those who do not want to get a headache from spending too much time thinking about politics appears to be to always vote for Democrats and let it go at that. New York City may be an exception to that remedy. 

JL 

                                                     * * * 

Paywalls and an Important Closing Thought 

While many Internet sites provide a lot of information ‘for free,’ many offer more material or deeper insights to those who subscribe (usually that costs about five dollars monthly) to breach what is called a ‘paywall.’ The trouble with that is that there is usually so much more material made available beyond these paywalls that one who goes there doesn't have enough time left to lead an otherwise normal life! You can’t let the time demanded by the Internet control your life.

 

Right now, I pay $4 a month to only one site, that of the New York Times, for a minimal subscription to get more of what it offers. There’s a lot beyond the paywalls of The Free Press, the Washington Post, Krugman, Richardson, and Snyder … but I just don’t have time for them. 

Professor Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ always offers a lot on the ‘free’ side of her paywall, and provides links to her sources as well, if you want to do the work of following up on them. Right now, it is vitally important that you check out her July 7 and 8 postings by copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line or by just CLICKING HERE.  Then go eat your breakfast or lunch, if you still have stomach for it. 

Thinking Americans must recognize that they are involved in a struggle to limit the unwarranted changing of the Executive Branch into a autocratic dictatorship. Ultimately, it will end well but until then there will be trials and tribulations making life uncomfortable for all of us … (the words with which this posting opened.) 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

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

July 4, 2025 - The Fourth of July

Today We Celebrate the Declaration of Independence's Signing

Today is Independence Day, celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The entire text of that document follows.

"IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: 

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. 

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. 

                                                   * * 

It is important to note that the committee that composed the Declaration, headed by Thomas Jefferson, chose to use these words in its opening phrases: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ Traditionally, the third of those unalienable rights had been ‘property.’ That would have opened a can of worms which Jefferson chose not to open. 

He replaced ‘property’ with ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ avoiding the issue of slavery and opening the door for future expansion of those unalienable rights. It took almost ninety years and a Civil War to strengthen that right to ‘the pursuit of happiness’ with the more specific words of the Fourteenth Amendment, expanding the definition of citizenship to what it is today, and which incidentally is under attack by some in our government. 

JL 

                                                                * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

Sources of Information:

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

                                                          * * * *

June 26, 2025 - Stale Bread, Iran, a New Way to Vote, NYC Mayor's Race, and 'Quick Quiz' Answer

                                                                            *   *   *

The New Yorker Magazine's June 23, 2025 cover is a fine commentary
on the recent parade commemorating the Army's 250th anniversary as
well as President Trump's birthday on June 14.  On that date, millions of
Americans peacefully participated, across the nation, 
in 'No Kings' demonstrations.

                                                                                 *   *   *

What can I say? By the time I am typing this and hope that you are reading it, it will be like stale bread. Things move so rapidly these days that even supposedly up-to-the minute sources are behind the times and only can hint, and not describe, what is really taking place. 

The very least that you can do is to (1) follow the latest stale headlines in the daily postings of papers like the New York Times and free daily sites like those of CNN and NPR.  Honestly, forget about heavily opinionated FoxNews, although no news sources are entirely without some bias. 

And for the local news, (2) a subscribtion to a daily printed newspaper or full online edition of a local newspaper (In my area, the Sun Sentinel or the Palm Beach Post) is essential, to keep up on the many things that affect you that the New York Times, etc. never get anywhere near. 

                                                        *   *

But I'm not leaving you hanging there!  Here are some questions, or subjects, or thoughts, about which you should try to familiarize yourself.  That's not an easy job.  They might give you some perspective on the world around us as reported in the stale bread that fills today’s media.

 • What is the deal with the American people who seem willing to accept a government headed by a Congress and president who are not bothered by their violating the Constitution and otherwise breaking laws, and a politically appointed Supreme Court dominated by two senile Justices? Is that okay if it best serves the nation? 

 • Since when has the kind of bigotry once limited to bar room discourse been elevated to a legitimate level and serving to determine how people vote?   And what happened to the pride we once had in respecting the truths discovered by science, documented by history, and spread by education, only to see them replaced by a pride in having a lack of knowledge, instinct being a sufficient guidepost for dummies. 

 • Is ‘climate change’ a reality that will so affect our planet and make it an unfit place to be? 

 • What do we do about immigration, without which only Native Americans would be the ones reading this posting?

 • Does our government, and do you, understand the roots of the conflicts now going on in Ukraine and in the Middle East? Things are rarely what they appear to be at first glance. 

• How many more mass shootings will it take for the nation and the Supreme Court to understand that there are 27 words in the Second Amendment, and not just its final fourteen?

 

• Will Florida ever get its homeowners insurance situation resolved?

 

• And what about those ideas that we package as things easity opposed by classifying them as ‘isms’: Communism, Socialism, Extremism, Terrorism, Colonialism, Internationalism, Racism, Capitalism (?), Libertarianism, etc., etc., etc. Before packaging them as easily criticized ‘isms,’ do their ideas have any merit of their own? 

 • And of course, we cannot ignore ‘Atheism,’ ‘Agnosticism,’ and the many ‘religions’ or belief systems devoted to worshipping things that can only be accepted as matters of faith, allowing there to exist many answers to important questions, unfortunately answers that often contradict one other, and for which some believers are willing to die. 

 • And why are educational institutions in the United States, if they want to play competitive games among themselves, hiring athletes instead of recruiting them from their student bodies? Have educational institutions forgotten their purpose? The athletic competitions in which the ancient Greeks and Romans participated had nothting to do with their educational systems, and that is the way it is anywhere outside of this country today, and why so many of the doctors in your local hospital have foreign-sounding names.

 

• And how was the Universe created anyway? 

 JL

                                                     * * * 

And now, here’s Jackspotpourri, for whatever it is worth. 

                                                      * *

USA Commits to Stopping Iranian Nuclear Program  -  But There Remain Questions 

What happens to Iran’s nuclear program is ultimately going to be the result of negotiations of some sort between Iran and the United States (and Israel via an intermediary). 

Regime Change: A key question in my mind is whether it will be the present Iranian government or a regime which might replace it that signs on to such an agreement. The destruction of much of Iran’s nuclear program as well as much of its scientific and military and leadership by Israel and by the United States which finally decided to bomb key Iranian nuclear sites, might be sufficient to bring about such regime change. Then again, it might not. It might take more. 

The Politics of Trump’s Decision: In the United States, most Republicans (except the MAGA isolationists who still think two oceans suffice as our walls, and shun any foreign military involvement) generally support the President’s actions while many Democrats are conflicted, some being supportive of Israel and others on the Party’s progressive left not so much, having sympathies with the Palestinians who view Iran as their ally. 

In this sense, Trump’s decision is a political one, serving to sow dissent among his Democratic critics. Some, regardless of Party, feel that bombing Iran’s nuclear sites is something only Congress can authorize, but the President still has to be convinced of that. 

                                                      * * 

In whatever negotiations eventually take place, each side has some cards to play. 

Iran still has proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Palestinians within Israel, and the Houti rebels in Yemen to disrupt shipments in the Red Sea. They still have customers for their oil, China being their biggest one, which suggest a role for it in negotiations. Iran also has a stockpile of ballistic missiles with which to harass Israel and which have caused some damage. Thus far, Iranian response to the attacks on their nuclear sites by the United States has been limited to a harmless attack on the United States base in Bahrein, about which adequate warning was given. It gave Tehran something to claim as a response; that’s all. 

Israel similarly has plenty of missiles and control of the skies over Iran and has superior and more technically advanced, although not larger, military establishments, and superior intelligence operations, as demonstrated by their initial successes in attacking Iran’s nuclear program’s sites and key personnel. They did so believing that Iran was much closer to developing nuclear weapons than others thought.

Israel and the United States also have the kind of advanced weaponry that Iran lacks. To ‘speed things up’, the United States has already played this card, or part of it anyway, by using its ‘bunker breaking’ bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites. But there still remains much of this card, and others, for them to play. 

President Trump claims that he arranged a truce between the warring parties but Israel and Iran knew little about it and are proceeding cautiously, still unleasing missile attacks on each other. 

Did the ‘bunker breaking’ bombs Trump unleashed work? There remain differing opinions as to how successful the United States’ bombing of Iranian nuclear sites actually were, ranging from Trump and Secretary Hegseth, like circus midway barkers, claiming them to have been ‘totally obliterated’ to others still seeking more evidence as to what was actually destroyed. 

A story carried by The Free Press described the Iranians removing truckloads from the Fordow site just before the attacks on that site. Check it out by  visiting https://www.thefp.com/p/did-iran-just-sneak-out-critical or by simply CLICKING HERE. Apparently they knew what was about to happen and took steps to relocate some of their partially enriched uranium. 

Trump and Hegseth are presently running in circles since a Department of Defense analysis, apparently leaked by that rarity, an honest employee in the Republican administration, contradicted their tale of ‘total obliteration.’ It would be foolish to assume Iran’s nuclear program has been destroyed. A safer assumption would be that it has been considerably delayed, anywhere from a few months to a few years. 

And while you’re in the clicking mood, please check out Heather Cox Richardson’s June 22 'Letters from an American' posting by CLICKING HERE or visiting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ for the opinions of many in our country on the President’s actions. Stay there for her June 24 posting as well, discussing President Trump’s behavior in regard to Iran and Israel, where she remarked that 'It seems to me long past time to question the 79-year-old president’s mental health.’ 

Fortunately, all Republicans are not subject to that criticism. An ‘artificial intelligence’ summary of his views indicates that Senator Rand Paul believes while Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, military strikes are not the answer and could lead to unintended consequences, such as an unwillingness on Iran’s part to sit down and negotiate honestly and continuing working toward nuclear weaponry.  Senator Paul believes diplomacy and negotiation are the way forward and is also a strong advocate for Congress's role in authorizing military action. The President has criticized him for that, as well as his objecting to parts of his ‘big beautiful budget bill.’ We seem to be in the middle of a story, and not anywhere near its conclusion 

This is where things stand today. If I had to venture a guess, I believe that the United States and Israel would be happy, as would some of the ethnic minorities within Iran comprising about 40% of its population, with a change in Iran’s regime, along with the imposition of strict monitoring and control of what remains of its probably significantly damaged nuclear program. And I repeat that we seem to be in the middle of a story, and not anywhere near its conclusion. 

JL 

                                                   * * * 

Voting by ‘Adjusted Gross Income’ 

It will never happen, but if we did away with actual voting in this country for Congress and the presidency, and replaced it with ‘default positions’ whereby the votes of all tax filers with adjusted gross incomes of $150,000 or greater would be automatically cast for Republican candidates, and the votes of all with adjusted gross incomes below that amount would be automatically cast for Democratic candidates, would the results be more representative of the needs of our population than what we now have in Washington?

It all might be done by computers since both IRS information and voting registration information are readily available online. I wonder. 

JL 

                                                       * * * 

New York City Mayor’s Race Raises Questions

It appears that 33 year-old Zohran Mamdani will end up as New York City’s Mayor when the mandatory ‘ranked choice’ run-off election takes place. An avowed socialist, he is correct in criticizing the Democratic Party, in New York and elsewhere, for ‘lecturing instead of listening.’ 

Despite his successful campaigning to make New York City ‘affordable’ for most of its residents, there will be big problems for him because of his anti-Israel position, refusing to denounce his past support of a ‘global intifada.’

 

While Andrew Cuomo was a dreadful choice made by traditional ‘machine’ Democrats, paving the way for Mamdani’s almost certain victory, his tenure in office will be affected by his position on Israel. His predecessor, present Mayor Eric Adams, avoided criminal indictment only by becoming a toady of President Trump in seeking illegal immigrants to deport from the Big Apple. New York City’s voters just can’t seem to get it right. 

I forsee Mamdani’s election as causing many valuable residents, already offended by Adams’ corruption, to think about moving to Long Island or New Jersey, rather than remain in a city whose voters will have put an anti-Israel socialist mayor into office, despite support for him belatedly coming from some Jewish politicians such as Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler. Some city-run supermarkets and free bus rides may alienate many residents, and real estate interests, always powerful, don't want to hear about rent control. We shall see.

 JL 

                                                      * * *

Quick Quiz Answer 

Answering the ‘Quick Quiz’ question posed in the previous Jackspotpourri, the first president to ignore the Sixth Amendment, supposedly guaranteeing an accused certain rights, including writs of habeas corpus, was Abraham Lincoln. He did so in order to arrest Confederate secessionist sympathizers in the North and in captured parts of the Confederacy. When the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice declared that action to be unconstitutional, Congress quickly passed legislation making it legal. 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

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

                                                          * * * *