Legitimatizing Antisemitism
On Sunday, an attack was carried out on a peaceful ‘walk’ in Boulder, Colorado, injuring several people who were protesting Hamas still holding hostages they took in their October, 2023 attack on Israel.
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| Boulder Terrorist with his homemade Molotov Cocktails |
A little over a week ago, two young staffers, employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, were gunned down leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
It is difficult to disassociate these sad events with the legitimacy that antiisemitism acquires when major universities tolerate demonstrations against Israel’s very understandable policy of trying to totally destroy Hamas, an organization that still openly preaches doing away wiith that nation. Such demonstrations have inevitably included antisemitic content.
But more important is the fact that Donald Trump, back in November, 2022, invited white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) for lunch at Mar-a-Lago.
Fuentes, a white supremacist and rabid misogynist who attended the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, has repeatedly spread racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. Despite his history of antisemitism, he has forged alliances with a variety of far-right figures, including some GOP officials. Ye also has made numerous antisemitic and other inflammatory remarks.
Although Trump has since denied knowing about their anti-Israel position and antisemitism and appropriately ‘backpedaled,’ the purveyors of such hatred in this country have not forgotten that luncheon by the sea. Their current activities may, at least in their minds, be bolstered by the thought that they now have a friend in the White House, a step higher than simply having lunch with him at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s willingness to associate with figures who have repeatedly spread antisemitic and white supremacist tropes was deeply concerning back then and that concern continues. What happened at Mar-a-Lago three years ago has not gone unnoticed by extremists, who smile to themselves even as Trump, never known as a paragon of truth, denies such associations.
Don’t be fooled. The President shares a piece of the blame for both of these tragic antisemitic events.
JL
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A Few Words About Trump’s Budget
As President Trump’s ‘big beautiful budget’ wends its way through Congress, be aware that in addition to cutting taxes for rich people and taking away benefits from poor people, it also contains provision that:
• Restrict judges from holding government officials accountable for violating court order,
• Stop States from overseeing the operation of Artificial Intelligence in forming State regulations,
• Gets rid of the $200 fee to have a silencer on one’s guns,
• Made requirements for Pell educational grants tougher, and
• Significantly raised fees charged those filing the paperwork necessary when seeking legal immigration to the United States, making them far more expensive than most could afford.
Please be careful whom you vote for in the 2026 Congressional elections. Many candidates are totally blind to issues such as these, and too many voters still base their votes on misinformation and subtle bigotry.
JL
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Anyone Who Deals with Donald Trump Gets Screwed
Start by making a list of those he has fired or have deserted him. You have to give the man credit. Once you proceed to negotiate with him, you automatically become a loser. He’s very good at what he does. And even if you think you’ve bested him, he manages to tie you up with very expensive litigation costs until it turns him into a winner.
Just ask the businessmen and vendors who welcomed him to Atlantic City’s casino scene, the defrauded students at Trump University, the suckers who invested in his resorts, wines, steaks, sneakers, etc.
Those falling for his ‘crypto’ ventures will similarly suffer.
(And speaking of Crypto, check out Paul Krugman’s May 30 posting, which recalls our unregulated pre-Civil War private bank that Andrew Jackson got rid of by refusing to deposit government funds in it. But guess who is bringing it back, using YOUR dollars to back up the latest worthless Crypto!)
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For those who want to check out some of the sources Jackspotpourri commonly uses, keep this list handy:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
https://snyder.substack.com
https://paulkrugman.substack.com
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(Professor Richardson’s May 31 column, compares the late Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s roasting of Joe McCarthy to his face in the Senate on June 1, 1950, with today’s challenges 75 years later. Read it.)
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But getting back to Trump’s sucker list, whom do we find there but Elon Musk, whom Trump and the Republicans milked for about $370,000,000, making him the largest single donor to their 2024 campaigns.
He has thrown in the towel, recognizing that despite the business his companies gets from the government, his goals and those of the President differ.
Trump doesn’t care about the billions of dollars Tesla’s car business was losing because ‘volunteer’ federal employee Musk, concentrating on impoverishing the government to enable stingy Republicans to cut their taxes, wasn’t paying attention.
As he waved a chainsaw, he probably dreamed of becoming the ‘shadow’ president, knowing that Donald was a lame brain capable of accomplishing nothing on his own. (Musk’s foreign birth precluded his ever being president himself.)
Now it appears that Musk is finally paying attention; even the richest person in the world doesn’t like losing money, so he is bidding Washington and his closeness to Trump farewell. Both, I suspect, are hiding their suddenly revealed animosity toward one another. But the damage Musk’s DOGE has done, and continues to do, has permanently scarred our democracy.
An extremely enlightening commentary by Maureen Dowd on Musk’s departure appeared in the New York Times on Saturday, May 31. With some online skills, you can try to find it by copying and pasting https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/opinion/elon-musk-doge-trump.html
on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE.
Dowd’s piece includes links to articles on Musk’s very strange marital relationships and rumored drug use.
With each passing day, it becomes clear that both Musk and Trump will end up in the trash cans of history.
(I pay $4 a month for digital access to the New York Times, avoiding their occasional ‘paywalls.’ When the cost supposedly increases after six months, I find a way to deal with it.)
JL
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The Politics of Plunder
Because the weather might throw a monkey wrench into your outdoor plans for the week, it might provide you with the half hour or so needed to read an important article in the June 2 issue (published at least a week earlier) of the New Yorker magazine. And even if the sun shines all week, read it!
It is about Trumpian oligarchs, greed, and the Trump administration itself. It amazes me that so vast a number of people have amassed almost inconceivable amounts of wealth, without their behavior ever having even approached breaking the law.
To access this important article, CLICK HERE, or copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/02/donald-trumps-politics-of-plunder on your device’s browser line. If that doesn’t work, just ask me via an email to send you a personal copy. I’ll be glad to.
JL
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James Madison Knew the Score
Lately I’ve seen comments more or less quoting James Madison’s words from Federalist Papers 47, where he wrote (in the Federalist Papers’ campaign to win New York State over to the new Constitution in 1789) that ‘the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.’
This echoed the philosopy of French political philosopher Montesquieu that established the maxim that these three powers must be remain separate and distinct from one another.
Well, here’s some news! That is NOT what Madison was fully agreeing with.
Madison recognized that these separate and distinct legislative, executive, and judicial branches had to somehow work together for governments to function, despite Montesquieu’s cautionary words. And he felt the proposed Constitution did exactly that.
Madison laid out in Federalist 47 how these supposedly separate and distinct branches blended together not only in our inherited English system but also in the already existing constitutions of the thirteen individual States being asked to support the new Constitution.
His point is proven by such things as judges being nominated by the executive and confirmed by the legislative branches, and the power of impeaching an executive being held by the legislative branch, the judiciary having the power to overrule both of the other two branches, and so it went, even with the approval of treaties negotiated by the executive, the legislature having the last word.
The proposed Constitution, which we still live by, also tried to document the limits ot each of the three branches of government in balancing one another. This, friends, is still a work in progress.
JL
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A First Amendment Issue
Continuing thoughts on the three branches of government, let’s take a look at the words of the First Amendment, particularly those which are underlined:
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’
In a recent ‘Your Turn’ column in the Palm Beach Post, Kelly Garcia wrote about the right of parents to choose the school their children would attend, educating them in the values of their faith. Well, according to the first Amendment, they are free to do that, laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion being unconstitutional and that certainly applies to schools.
Short of advocating inflicting harm on those not of their faith, it seems that almost anything goes, insofar as faith-based education is involved. What the Amendment does not touch, however, leaving it to legislators, is who pays for such education. And that is where the battles are being fought.
The group Ms. Garcia writes about in a favorable light, the St. Thomas Aquinas Academy, makes it clear that its mission is to ‘cultivate saints to serve Christ and His Church.’ That’s fine with me, saints usually having been good people, but no one should ever try to pull that off with me paying for it with my taxes. Never, ever! And don’t tell me that would be ‘prohibiting the free exercise’ of religion.
Unfortunately for Floridians, Ms. Garcia is a member of the Florida State Board of Education, Governor DeSantis having appointed her. This is reason enough be thankful that he is now term-limited, precluding his doing more harm to Florida, at least as its governor, with such narrow-minded appointments.
JL
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Rubio!
And while we’re looking at the Palm Beach Post, Frank Cerebino’s Sunday column starts with these words: “I’m not sure it’s possible in a single column to adequately address the depravity of Marco Rubio’s blinding self-interest … “
While still recognizing the government of Venezuela to be a despotic dictatorship, something he has long attacked, Rubio now also cheerfully approves removing the Temporary Vistitor Status President Biden gave to those fleeing that country’s terrors. Let them deal with dictator Maduro on their own! Frank makes an allusion to the Gospels, concerning what a rooster crowing three time heralds, and I’ll add a word about the unending quest of others for something lower than a snake’s bottom side. It has been found in the person of Marco Rubio!
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Your comments on this ‘blog’ would be appreciated. My Email address is jacklippman18@gmail.com.
I would be especially interested in hearing from anyone in any of the following categories who support President Trump and those in Congress who vote to bring his ideas to fruition, and who would like their views included on Jackspotpourri:
• Senior Citizens
• Others on Medicare or Medicaid
• Veterans
• Persons of Color
• Latinos
• College Students
• Those Considered to be part of an LGBTQ community.
• Members of Particular Religious Faiths
They must have their reasons. I would appreciate those responding including their primary sources of news (Newspapers, TV Channels, Internet sites, etc.).
Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email.
Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps:
1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them.
2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open.
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). I do not 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.
(In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
JL
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