July 29, 2025 - Mosquito Bites, ICE, Local News, and More

 

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Another delicious 'O' blood type located!

Mosquito Bites 

The writer of CNN’s ‘Five Good Things’ posted on July 26 included a whimsical mention of being highly susceptible to mosquito bites. Actually, those with blood type ‘O,’ the most common of blood types (37% of us have type ‘O’ blood), are more likely to attract these insects than other blood types, according to some scientific studies. To learn more, copy and paste https://www.healthline.com/health/mosquito-blood-type on your browser line or CLICK RIGHT HERE.

JL

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The Headlines are Happening Right Here in Palm Beach County 

To read about the brutal ICE treatment of an American citizen locally (please copy and paste https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2025/07/25/us-citizen-in-ice-custody-in-palm-beach-county-florida/85357485007/ on your browser line or CLICK RIGHT HERE.)

Also, Heather Cox Richardson’s July 25 posting leaves the reader to compare the actions and words of the ICE personnel involved in that incident with those of the racists who lynched Emmett Till in 1955. CLICK HERE 

 or copy and pastehttps://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-25-2025on your browser line to read it. 

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The Trump Administration has secured enormous amounts of funding for such ‘Immigration Control Enforcement.’ It is time for real Americans to speak up and protest this misuse of supposed law enforcement by the Trump Administration. 

It is time for Congress to ask from where the thugs whom ICE hires are recruited and trained, and a lot more, including why they mask their identities. Perhaps it might be to avoid eventually being identified when true, real, honest, law enforcement catches up with them. 

As part of an appeal for donations, a recent posting by ‘Move On’ included these well documented footnotes, of which the first seven dealt with ICE. They cannot be ignored by Americans and their elected Representatives in Congress. 

1. "Trump bill gives ICE $45 billion for detaining immigrants - more than it received in the last 15 years combined," The Independent, July 8, 2025 https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-bill-ice-detention-funding-b2782918.html 

2. "'ICE will now become the country’s largest federal law enforcement agency, bigger than the FBI, bigger than the DEA.'" PolitiFact, July 11, 2025 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/jul/11/jon-favreau/ICE-FBI-bill-Donald-Trump-largest/ 

3. Ibid. 

4. "ICE offering six-figure salaries and $50K bonuses as it ramps up hiring to fuel deportations," New York Post, July 23, 2025 https://nypost.com/2025/07/23/us-news/ice-offering-six-figure-salaries-and-50k-bonuses-as-it-ramps-up-hiring-to-fuel-deportations/ 

5. "Army veteran and US citizen arrested in California immigration raid warns it could happen to anyone," AP News, July 17, 2025 https://apnews.com/article/us-army-veteran-immigration-raid-53cb22251a01599a0c4d1a8d5650d050 

6. "To Staff Trump’s Immigration Crackdown, ICE Entices Its Retirees," The New York Times, July 18, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/us/ice-recruit-retiree.html 

7. "ICE, Army to build nation's biggest immigrant jail," USA Today, July 23, 2025 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/23/trump-largest-ice-detention-center-army-base/85341687007/ 

8. "About 17 Million More People Could be Uninsured due to the Big Beautiful Bill and other Policy Changes," KFF, July 1, 2025 https://www.kff.org/quick-take/about-17-million-more-people-could-be-uninsured-due-to-the-big-beautiful-bill-and-other-policy-changes/ 

9. "Trump’s Budget Bill: An Attack on Public Schools, Working Families, and Immigrants," NEA Today, July 7, 2025 https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/trumps-budget-bill-attack-public-schools-working-families-and-immigrants.

It is still our country unless we allow ‘them’ to take it away from us!  Defining ‘them’ is something to be addressed in a future Jackspotpourri. 

JL 

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Two Important Headlines from Monday’s (July 28) Palm Beach Post 

(more reasons to read a daily newspaper) 

 “Justice Dept. investigating voter rolls in some states – Attorney: Requests read like ‘fishing expedition."  (from USA Today) 

 “Trump’s distraction methods fall flat – Epstein uproar persists among usual loyal base."  (from Reuters) 

Both sound like interesting stories to read in full. See link to the Post below and take it from there. 

JL

                                                         * * * 

Some Source Materials Used by Jackspotpourri (There are others) 

(repeated from prior July 25 posting on Jackspotpourri) 

These links can be copied and pasted on your browser line or you might try to click on them directly. In any event, here they are:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

https://msnbc.com/ 

https://www.cnn.com/ 

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/ 

https://snyder.substack.com/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/ 

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/ 

https://www.thefp.com (the Free Press’ ‘Front Page’) 

Some of these sources call for a subscription to get past their ‘teaser’ first paragraphs, but generally, much information is available from them without subscribing in order to cross their ‘paywalls,’ wherever they exist. If I were to select one source to access without paying to subscribe to it, Professor Richardson’s is the clear choice. Her daily ‘Letters from an American,’ usually posted late the preceding evening, includes material from many sites and to which she provides links. She has done the work for you. Her lengthy posting dated July 23 (CLICK HERE to read it) concluded with this sentence, something which seems to be obvious: ‘It does not seem likely the Epstein story is going away anytime soon.’  

JL

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Dowd's Comments on Kissing Trump's Ring

Maureen Dowd’s July 26 New York Times column (‘Caving, Bowing, and Scraping’) really sets some limits as to which media sources have not yet succumbed, or are shortly likely to succumb, to the pressures of President Trump.  Its allusion to Shakespearian censorship is brilliant.  Check it out at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/opinion/trump-south-park-cbs.html or CLICK HERE to find out if satire can be our salvation. 

JL 

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A Head Scratcher from Heather

I am still scratching my head about Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s posting dated July 27. It involves a lot of history, art, what was once declared to be our nation’s manifest destiny, and the dangerous direction in which the nation seems to be headed under the leadership of the present Administration. 

To check it out, CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-27-2025 on your browser line. I promise you it doesn’t mention Trump, Epstein, or any of the names in today’s headlines, which makes it all the more important. 

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 (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 anonymous 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.) 

JL 

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July 25, 2025 - Jackspotpourri's Sources, the Stakes, Frightened and Duped Republicans, Dangerous Crossings, and Inconceivability

 

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Some Source Materials Used by Jackspotpourri  (There are others) 

These links can be copied and pasted on your browser line or you might try to click on them directly. In any event, here they are:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

https://msnbc.com/ 

https://www.cnn.com/ 

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/ 

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/ 

https://www.thefp.com - (the Free Press’ ‘Front Page’) 

https://snyder.substack.com/

Some of these sources call for a subscription to get past their ‘teaser’ first paragraphs, but generally, much information is available from them without subscribing in order to cross their ‘paywalls,’ wherever they exist. 

If I were to select one source to access without paying to subscribe to it, Professor Richardson’s is the clear choice. Her daily ‘Letters from an American,’ usually posted late the preceding evening, includes material from many sites and to which she provides links. She has done the work for you. 

Her lengthy posting dated July 23 concluded with this sentence, something which seems to be obvious: ‘It does not seem likely the Epstein story is going away anytime soon.’

JL 

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Floridians Promote Death by Brightline 

Fast but Deadly

I read the other day about another fatality along the Brightline tracks, this time in Aventura. Grade roadway crossings for tracks where trains travel at high speeds have no place in urban areas. I have had several letters about this published in newspapers over the years, but things don’t change. 

Up in the North, similar high speed Acela trackage running from Washinton to Boston is almost all either elevated above or depressed below such roadway crossings. Northerners are wise to this hazard.  Floridians are not, so Brightline will continue to lead the nation in railway deaths. 

JL 

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What’s at Stake Right Now 

Be sure to check out what Paul Krugman had to say in the ‘free’ part of his July 20 posting. Before he gets to the dry numbers of the ‘economics of immigration,’ he declares that ‘human rights and the rule of law are by far the most important things at stake right now.’ Indeed they are! Read it! 

JL 

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Why Republicans are Frightened  ...  And a Bit More

The New York Times’ lengthy July 19 article (‘Inside the Long Relationship Between Trump and Epstein’) involves so much detail from so many different sources that it is difficult not to believe it is somewhere near the truth. 

Of course, our legal system permits Trump to sue anyone he claims is making up these stories, like the ones he claims Democrats made up about Russia’s proven attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.   Right now he is threatening to sue the Wall Street Journal and its owners about material they published concerning his relationship to Epstein.

Defending against such litigation is very costly and time-consuming leading Trump’s critics to remain silent, as many have for years. It will be left to the historians of the next century to write about what is happening right now, as well as what occurred before and is yet to come.  In any event, you can read the Times’ article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/us/politics/inside-trump-epstein-friendship.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20250720&instance_id=158862&nl=today%27s-headlines&regi_id=78918068&segment_id=202232&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 . Try CLICKING here first. That might get you there more quickly. 

All of this has frightened Republicans, especially those who do not want a party-splitting vote (Trump loyalists versus MAGA loyalists) on releasing whatever is in the ‘Epstein’ files. Rather than let the conflict unfold officially in the halls of Congress, Speaker Johnson has shut down the House for a five week vacation, and probably advised G.O.P. Representatives to hide from their constituents during that period. Look for them under rocks. 

                                                          *   *

And while on this subject, columnist Frank Cerebino in the Palm Beach Post (on July 22) agreed with renaming the portion of Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach leading to the bridge over to Mar-a-Lago after President Trump, BUT only just so long as the connecting north-bound portion of Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach leading to where Epstein lived, a short hop from Mar-a-Lago, is renamed after the deceased Epstein, a long-time friend of Trump. 

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Finally, here is a published comment I made to the online New York Times article regarding the Administration’s sudden release of tons of documentation concerning Martin Luther King’s assassination. It is self-explanatory: 

‘C'mon. This material was released to attempt to denigrate the memory of Martin Luther King, a ploy by the President to balance the growing criticism of his relationship to the late Jeffrey Epstein. Some of the President's supporters will equate criticism of Dr. King with criticism of Trump, allowing them to give him a pass on whatever of his indiscretions are revealed. There are five Black Republican Representatives in Congress (plus one Senator) who support the President. They must now choose between honoring Dr. King's memory or buying into the slimy tactics of the President. They can't have it both ways.’ 

JL 

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A Duped Senator 

I see where Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski thought she had cut a deal with Trump’s administration to except Alaska from some of the restrictions they were putting on solar and wind power … so she voted for the President’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ only to find out immediately afterwards that they had reneged on the deal.  Republicans like her must learn never to trust other Republicans.

In fact, no American should ever trust any Republican, at any governmental level. Routinely, they believe their own lies. 

JL 

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Inconceivable 

The April 9 posting of Jackspotpourri carried the following comment regarding President Trump concerning what I had been referring to as ‘inconceivable.’ 

“The ‘inconceivable possibility or necessity’ that I’ve been writing about consists of seriously thinking about PREMATURELY ENDING THE PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP as soon as possible, primarily because of his disastrous tariff policy, but also because of his disregard of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and existing legislation, our goal being saving the United States of America from its self-destruction at his hands, but let’s make it very, very, clear, it is something to be accomplished in a legal and Constitutional manner.” 

To that, let’s add the dictionary definition of ‘inconceivable.’ According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, it is defined as ‘impossible to imagine or believe.’ That might be the territory we are now entering, so hold on tight. 

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 (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 anonymous 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.) JL * * * *

July 19, 2025 - A 'Source' List, Today's Big Story, Christian Nationalist Jewelry, A Published Letter, 'Good Trouble' Audiences, and Bad Ads

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Today's Big Story 

It is almost impossible to keep up with the tumult concerning the late Jeffrey Epstein and his possible relationship to Donald Trump. The columns of Maureen Dowd in the New York Times of July 19, and that of Heather Cox Richardson dated July 18 (which concludes with the July 18 ‘Civil Discourse’ posting of former prosecutor Joyce Vance, entitled ‘Following Orders’) just hint at the trouble ahead for President Trump. 

The ‘inconceivable’ to which Jackspotpourri has occasionally referred might ultimately materialize into a presidential resignation, followed by a pardon of sorts by a puzzled President DJ Vance (no relation of Joyce.) 

Read what Maureen, Heather and Joyce have to report. That’s why President Trump keeps saying to ‘Fuggetaboutit.’ That didn’t work for Richard Nixon and won’t for Trump who is losing his MAGA supporters who feel betrayed by him as their alternate reality he encouraged crumbles. Stay tuned. 

JL 

                                                * * * 

Christian Nationalist Jewelry 

What does it take to get some Christian Nationalists to stop campaigning, however subtly, for recognition of their idea of religion, something the First Amendment prevents our government from ever officially doing? Hmm. 

Pam Bondi, Trump's Attorney General

Karoline Leavitt, Trump's Press Secretary

Laura Ingraham, Trump Loyalist at Fox News

In Hitler’s Germany, they wore swastika armbands.  With no offense to Christianity, I ask if that is the way religious jewelry is being unofficially, yet conspicuously, used here by some in a manner prior administrations have never done, in fact avoided, even during the tenure of presidents far more devout than the current White House occupant.  Or does the President just have a weakness for blondes?

Of interest might be a recent New York Times article about this curious intersection of ‘faith and culture.’  To read it, just CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/style/cross-necklaces-christian-faith.html on your browser line.

JL

                                                      *   *   *

I Get Published (Again)

A letter from me was published in the Palm Beach Post on July 16.  (That provides far greater circulaltion than Jackspotpourri!)  The Post’s readers’ letters, on their ‘opinion’ page Wednesdays through Sundays are usually representative of what a lot of people are thinking.  Here’s my letter for those of you who don’t read local  newspapers any longer . . .  a practice too many have abandoned.

 “The Post’s July 6 editorial concerning the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s effect on Floridians was overly optimistic in stating that ‘almost anyone not living under a rock has heard how the bill will drive up the national debt.’  From the way Floridians vote in gubernatorial, congressional, and presidential elections, it is quite clear that is exactly where most Sunshine State voters reside – ‘under a rock.”

JL

                                                         *   *   *

Reporting on ‘Good Trouble’ Events 

The speakers at the many rallies on Thursday celebrating the late John Lewis’ urging Americans to perform acts of ‘good trouble’ aimed their words at those the Democrats must mobiize in order to succeed in the 2026 mid-term elections, younger voters, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ communities.  

But looking around at the audience at the one I attended, I saw mostly gray-haired oldsters, most of whom were on Medicare, whose votes they already have practically locked in. The Democrats must learn to better focus on reaching the voters they will need in 2026.  And that is a ‘one-on-one’ job, something a gathering of senior citizens just does not accomplish.

JL

                                                         *   *   *

Questionable Advertising

I received a piece of mail the other day from a real estate broker who claimed to specialize in the community in which I live.  I had never heard of him before.  Even more troubling was that his office was about ten miles from here and there are several brokers, some working through a more local office of the same national firm he represents, who actually live right here in the community and whom I know.  So his mailing went right into the trash, his own words regarding specialization in my community being evidence of his questionalble honesty.

I tell this story because folks who are selling things from which they receive a commission tend to stretch the truth a bit in their marketing.  Most of us accept that.  It’s the world in which we live. But we also recognize its negative aspect, often seen in some automobile salespeople, in peddlers of the latest nutritional pill on TV or the internet, and of course, in builders of new real estate developments. That’s why we should be very careful in digesting the alleged ‘truths’ that come out of the mouths of such salespeople when they venture into other arenas. 

The President of the United States falls into this category.  He lied about his ‘university,’ his steaks, his wines, his airline, his apparel, and currently is lying about his cryptocurrency.  It is beyond my understanding how anyone can vote to put him in charge of the Executive Branch of our government.  Some of his most ardent supporters are now waking up to this and questioning the alternate reality that had been sold to them by this huckster.

JL

                                                         *   *   *

                                                    

Some of Jackspotpourri's Sources:

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 to get past their ‘teaser’ first paragraphs, but generally, much information is available from them without subscribing in order to cross their ‘paywalls,’ wherever they exist. 

If I were to select one source to access without paying to subscribe to it, Professor Richardson’s is the clear choice. Her daily ‘Letters from an American,’ usually posted late the preceding evening, includes material from many sites.

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.

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

 

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

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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 

                                                                                                                         

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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 

                                                                                                                         

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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                                                            

                                                           

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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                                                            

                                                           

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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                                                            

                                                           

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

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

Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps:

1.  I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent.  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

 

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