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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
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| 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®i_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.
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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
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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.
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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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