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

 

                                  *   *   *

It Starts With Crosswalks 

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

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

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

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

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

JL 

                                                        * * * 

Minneapolis Church School Shooting Must Be a High SCOTUS Priority 

Enough of thoughts and prayers! 

We have traveled that route too often! 

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

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

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

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

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

JL

                                                     * * * 

A Fresh Take on the Second Amendment 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JL 

                                                         * * * 

 A Strange Marriage – Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Power 

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

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

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

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

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

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

JL

                                                               * * * 

Sports Commentary

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

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

JL

                                                          * * * 

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

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

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

JL 

                                                       * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL 

                                                   * * * *

August 25, 2025 - Pearly Gates Admission, Enough Awready, an 'Acknowledged Liar' Speaks, and Timing News Releases

                                                               *   *   *

At The Pearly Gates

Dowd's column is titled 'Trump's Slavish Stupidity'

If your religious beliefs include hope for ultimate admission to Heaven, be assured you won’t meet Donald Trump there. That’s what Maureen Dowd’s August 23 New York Times column suggests. Look for it at https://www.nytimes.com › opinion › trump-heaven 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

When is ‘ENOUGH’ Enough? - You Can No Longer Sit Idly By 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s August 21 posting warned us by writing that ‘The president of the United States is openly admitting that his party cannot win a free and fair election. Instead of appealing to voters with popular policies, he is calling for rigging our elections so that his party cannot lose. This appears to have been the plan all along. In July 2024, Trump told an audience of evangelical Christians that if they voted for him in November, “in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."  Wow!

There is a limit to the amount of lying and deceit that the American public will tolerate. Even Texans. Eventually their collective voices will scream out ‘ENOUGH!!’

But for that to happen, that public must be aware of how they have been hoodwinked, and for that to happen, the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech must be preserved. When news and opinion sites are threatened, it is time to react to such threats. (The President recently suggested that the FCC revoke the licenses of NBC and ABC.) You must become personally involved and not sit idly by. 

The following day, August 22, Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ was all about what appears to be a ‘retribution presidency.’ We have never had that before. You cannot sit idly by and let it happen! 

And her August 23 posting tells the larger story about how the Republicans came to put party over country and, now, how they have put power over everything. 

Her ‘Letters from an American’ can be found at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

You can no longer sit idly by. Over the weekend, The New York Times reported on the Federal prosecutors who had successfully convicted many of the insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Many of them are now being fired after years of service. 

And if you have time, check out where Paul Krugman (https://paulkrugman.substack.com/) skips economics and reports on August 25 about how the government is weaponizing its tools against those the President dislikes. 

I repeat, you can no longer sit idly by. 

JL 

                                                             * * * 

Nobody Said It Would be Easy 

More and more internet news and opinion sites are curtailing what they provide without a paid-for subscription. They publish enough to serve as a ‘teaser’ and then it is goodbye to the freeloaders, like me, most of the time.

But some sites still provide generous amounts of information before asking for subscriptions or donations. They include Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ and the ‘Daily Kos.’ Their survival is important at a time when it is clear that President Trump is trying to lessen avenues of communication and do away with free elections as reported above. 

Sources still accessible without a donation or subscription include mainstream media outlets CNN and MSNBC; they try to publish supposedly non-partisan daily news summaries online.  And we still have the old-fashioned daily printed newspapers delivered to your doorstep that I repeatedly have urged all to subscribe to and to read. 

JL 

                                                        * * * 

The Story That Won’t Go Away 

Much of what President Trump has been busying himself with lately (Tariffs, Russia, Ukraine, Gaza) is aimed at diverting the headlines away from the story that just won’t go away, that of the mysteries surrounding the late Jeffrey Epstein. 

Extreme right-wingers want every scintilla of information about him revealed, in the hope that some of it will implicate liberals and Democratic supporters and politicians. Most Republicans, however, would prefer the entire story to remain buried with Epstein, aware that a scandal might possibly involve members of their party as well, including President Trump. 

The latest part of that saga, the just-released interview with Epstein’s imprisoned companion and associate, Ghilaine Maxwell, rather than clear things up has done the opposite. Here’s why. 

Maxwell, serving prison time for her involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking, perjured herself extensively during her trial, firmly establishing her credentials as a liar, someone never to be believed.  Anything she said, absolving Trump from anything more than a purely social relationship with Epstein, is what one would expect from a convict seeking a Presidential pardon, or a reduced sentence, and therefore can be ignored. She has already been rewarded with a transfer to a more benign prison environment.

Furthermore, the inteview was conducted by a Deputy Attorney General who had previously served as Trump’s personal attorney and knew exactly how to word his questioning of her to elicit answers that did not implicate the President. Earlier DOJ lawyers who had been working on the case and who had no prior connection to Trump, and would have been more objective in their questioning, had been fired. 

Rather than resolve things, the release of the interview now leads one to treat it as a sloppy whitewash job and strengthen the suspicion that there really might be something significant being hidden. I do not believe that there is, but releasing the interview resolves nothing. 

As icing on the cake, Maxwell voiced her opinion that Epstein did not commit suicide but was murdered, despite there being no evidence to support that conclusion. This serves to strengthen the suspicion that a living Jeffrey Epstein might have implicated others; murdering him prevented that from happening and would certainly serve to discourage anyone with such information today from speaking up and contradicting the whitewash job Maxwell promoted in the interview. 

But as I said, I do not believe that there is anything being hidden, and that releasing the interview resolves nothing. Maxwell just wants to get out of jail and will say anything to further that goal. 

JL 

                                                         * * * 

Timing is Important 

When preparing the preceding piece, I recognized that the government traditionally sends out items it really doesn’t want to send out late on Friday afternoons, after those who might comment on them are already starting their weekend activities and might have an otherwise full plate (including stories to divert their attention?) sitting before them by Monday. 

They doubled down on this for the Maxwell interview story by releasing it during the last two weeks of August, a time when many major commentators take off on vacations. You might note that the coverage of the Maxwell interview from many sources was by second-stringers, except for Katy Tur who was in the midst of her MSNBC Friday afternoon stint when the story was released. Example: At MSNBC, Alicia Melendez for Nicolle Wallace, and the guy who covered the LA wildfires (I forget his name) for Stepanie Ruhle. There’s more. 

JL

                                                          * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL

                                                            * * * *

August 21, 2025 - Untrustworthy Realtors, Unbelievable Numbers, TACOs, A Roadmap for Dems, and How We Got to Where We Are

                                                                     * * * * 

Once a Real Estate Agent, Always a Real Estate Agent 

President Trump is like a real estate agent, trying to keep both seller and buyer happy and enabling him to walk away with his commission. Putin and Zelenskyy are his buyer and seller, or vice versa. Take your choice. His commission is a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize, and the monetary rewards into which he can parlay it. 

So when he talks to his seller and to his buyer, he uses inferences, half-truths, hints at vague commitments on their parts and of other interested parties, that lead each to believe that the deal is about to be closed to their advantage. He comes close to, but not quite, lying to both of them, and when the truth finally comes out at the property’s closing, it is uncomfortable or even impossible for either or both to back out. That is the game he is playing.

Not all real estate agents play that game but Donald Trump does!  Historically, he has often come out the winner in such situations, with the buyers and sellers wishing they had never sat down with him in the first place. 

But it looks like his is the only game in town. Feel free to pass this on to both Putin and Zelenskyy, if you have access to them.  If you don’t, try writing a letter to your local newspaper. Even if they don’t print it, numbers count and they value your opinion. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Big, Big, Numbers 

The New Yorker magazine’s August 18 issue included a nineteen-page article on how President Trump is personally profiting from the presidency.  Copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/18/the-number on your device's browser line or CLICK HERE to read it. If you get a third of the way through it, you’ll begin to get the idea. 

The article, ‘The Number’ - ‘How much is Trump pocketing off the Presidency?’ is by Reporter-at-Large David D. Kirkpatrick and starts with this premise: ‘I decided to tally up the Trump family’s profiteering, including five Persian Gulf mega-projects, a luxury jet from Qatar, a sprawling resort in Hanoi, half a dozen projects peddling crypto, and MAGA merch.’ Kirkpatrick leaves the rest to you. 

I gave up while trying to see where the borders between millions, billions, and trillions, were located. 

JL 

                                                       * * * 

TACOs 

And speaking of the President, a financial analyst (The Financial Times' Robert Armstrong) recently labeled stock market instability as being due to frequent vacillations in Trump's tariff policy as the ‘TACO” effect, translated as 'Trump Always Chickens Out.’   Same thing applies to his policies regarding Ukraine and Gaza.  

JL

                                                         * * * 

A Roadmap for Democrats 

Here’s a direct quote from Professor Barbara Walter’s ‘Here Be Dragons’ posting dated August 20. Democrats must heed this advice! (I have forwarded it to my Congressional Representative and State Party head as well.)

 ‘A Roadmap for Democrats 

 1. Stop waiting for fairness. Assume Republicans will push every rule to its breaking point and have plans in place to counteract it. 

 2. Match them at every level. Run candidates everywhere, fund local races, and contest every office. Leaving down-ballot positions uncontested gives authoritarians control over how elections are managed and run.  

 3. Rebuild state politics. Republicans dominate redistricting, voting rules, and state courts because Democrats neglected state legislatures for decades. Democrats have to rebuild this infrastructure starting now.  

 4. Play offense. Defense won’t win this game. Democrats need to introduce ballot initiatives to expand voting rights, lawsuits to challenge partisan maps, create coalitions across rural and urban communities.  

 5. Talk dirty. Republicans win by framing the debate with bold, emotional language while Democrats get bogged down in nuance. Democrats need to strip away jargon, speak with force, and seize the narrative. 

The Hard Truth: Democrats face a choice: fight back with every legal tool available or risk being remembered as the last generation to hold free elections in America. The Republican Party has been captured by leaders who no longer play by democratic rules. The only way to preserve democracy is for Democrats to be just as tough, just as imaginative, and just as unyielding.’

JL 

                                                       * * * 

Take Your Choice 

Whether you follow the thoughts of Heather Cox Richardson, Barbara Walter, Timothy Snyder, Paul Krugman, Rachel Maddow, James Carville, Mike Nellis, or any other knowledgeable commentator, they all seem to agree that President Trump is ignoring the Constitution and the rules of law in attempting to change the way our elections are run, always a State function, as well as the roles of many government agencies. 

Knowingly or not, Trump is out to destroy democracy in America. We must remember, however, that while the Supreme Court has given him immunity from prosecution for ‘his official’ acts, they have not sanctioned those acts themselves!  The Constitution will have the final say on that. 

The National Guard units of our States and the FBI are not intended to be street cops chasing after civilians and the behavior of the Immigration Control & Enforcement agency, ICE, has been declared illegal by numerous judges, but the adminstration doesn’t seem to care. 

The only support they have is from the misinformed voters who elect Republicans who appeal to their bigotry, a false understanding of American history and the ignoring of Constitutional safeguards including the First Amendment as well as those protecting due process under our laws. 

Not thusly kneeling before the President guarantees a primary challenge ordered from the White House by one who many are sufficiently foolish to believe was put there by the Deity. 

If you want to know how America got to this sorry state, check out Professor Richardson’s posting dated August 20 by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

on the browser line of your device.  It is an exceptionally good "Letter from an American,' tying American history from the Civil War onward to today's headlines, and a great learning experience.

Where the nation goes from here is another question, one that only you can answer. 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

 A Homework Assignment 

Texas, where the Republican-dominated legislature and governor are ready to do whatever the President asks of them is the home of many, many, corporate giants. Wikipedia lists 54 that are among Fortune Magazine’s top 500 major corporations, according to Axios. While many are petroleum-related businesses, you still may recognize some as household names. 

Copy and paste https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/fortune-500-companies-in-texas-dfw-caterpillar-exxon-mobil-att-mckesson-tesla-oil-gas/287-ddce9682-46e8-4868-8eb5-9896f15f9ea4 on your browser line or CLICK HERE for a listing of most of them.

If you have the opportunity to do business with any of them, you might drop a line to their CEO telling them what you think of the behavior of the Texas legislature.  And if you’re a stockholder, that would be even better. I’m sure each has a website with a contact address. 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine (or other search engines) where I can look up any subject I want. 

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

JL 

                                                        * * * *

August 18, 2025 - The Nothingburger Summit, Hurricanes and High Rises, and Internet Ripoffs

                                                           * * * 

What Happened at the ‘Nothingburger’ meeting in Alaska (as characterized by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, a Trump appointee) 

Take a look at CBS’s minute-by-minute, on-going reporting on the meeting between Trump and Putin. Copy and paste https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/trump-putin-meeting-alaska-ukraine/ on your browser line, or CLICK HERE. It covers everything that happened, or didn’t happen there. What a waste of jet fuel. And perhaps your time online today as well. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

This Plane is Not Named After a Russian Card Game 

Here’s a quick beginning lesson in Russian. Vladimin Putin’s plane was labelled with ‘RUSSIA’ spelled with letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, which is what Russians use. From left to right, the ‘P’ is pronounced like our “R,’ the ‘O’ like our ‘’U,’ the ‘C’s like two letters ‘S,’ and the final two Cyrillic letters represent our ‘I’ and ‘A.’ This might have been helpful to President Trump who doesn’t speak any foreign languages. 

 JL

                                                       * * * 

 Hurricanes and High-Rises

Hurricane Erin won’t be bothering our followers on the East Coast, as it swerves northward. But this still is the heart of the hurricane season and all of Florida, especially, should remain alert. 

There’s one big difference in hurricane preparations compared to the instructions given a couple of decades ago when Florida’s East Coast was last the target of such storms. (The West Coast has had more than its fair share since then.) 

For those not living close to the ocean, one of those recommendations was to sit tight, once your home was well secured against the winds with shutters, wind-resistent windows, or plywood, and to stash away a decent supply of essentials, especially those not requiring refrigeration. The proliferation of individual generators has strengthened that recommendation.  Getting into your car to flee the storm wasn’t recommended; some that did twenty years ago were stuck in monumental traffic jams on major highways leading to already filled motels and hotels. 

Now, two decades later, at least for those living in the high-rise structures that weren’t around then, such evacuation might actually be a recommended course of action. Being stuck without electricity, including inoperative elevators, on the thirtieth or fortieth floor of such buildings might be worse, especially for senior citizens, than being stuck in traffic on I-95 or the Turnpike, according to some postings I’ve seen online. 

Of course, evacuation requires action while one’s automobile is still accessible in the high-rise’s garage. If you live in a high-rise, you should be seriously considering evacuation as an alternative. 

JL 

                                                       * * * 

Jackspotpourri Will Never Ask You to ‘Upgrade to Paid” 

Some internet sources that Jackspotpourri accesses have reduced the amount of free material they provide online by urging readers to ‘Subscribe’ or ‘Upgrade to Paid.’ This is disenheartening because it amounts to making voicing opposition to the President, for example, into something that is for sale. 

Many sources, however, still provide a lot of information ‘for free.’ Among them are two blogs with which I recommend you keep in contact. You’ll still find a lot of free material on those of Boston College’s Professor Heather Cox Richardson and of University of California – San Diego’s Professor Barbara Walter. 

There is a tremendous amount of information available on the internet. In addition to these two sites, the postings of Timothy Snyder, Paul Krugman, Simon Rosenberg (simonwdc@substack.com), and the Free Press (https://www.thefp.com/) are excellent sources, and there are many more that similarly give you a taste of the truth for free, if only as a teaser to get you to ‘Upgrade to Paid.’ Most of those urging you to ‘Upgrade to Paid’ already have well-paying jobs in media, at universities, or foundations and are not hesitating to increase their income at your expense. 

Of course, the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and the independent, progressive Daily Kos, are still available without your paying anything more than whatever your access to the internet costs.  Use them!

Because there are only so many minutes in an hour, so many hours in a day, and so much to access online, you should be discriminating in your use of the internet. And of course, that’s in addition to reading a printed newspaper delivered to your door each day which I highly recommend. It may be old fashioned but it might be the best path to follow, once you accept the fact that the news content might be a day or so stale. 

But I digress. Here is where you can find these two recommended sites: https://barbarafwalter.substack.com/ (worth an occasional visit) https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ (worth visiting daily. Start with her free and all-encompassing August 17 posting) 

While both offer more detailed paying subscriptions, much of their content is still available withot paying. Both also offer links to other postings that might appeal to some. There’s a lot out there that you can skip, but try to keep in contact with these two professors. 

Five dollars monthly here, eight dollars monthly there, etc., etc. to ‘Upgrade to Paid’ add up to more than delivery at your doorstep every morning of what a real, printed, newspaper subscription costs. And that usually includes access to the publication’s online version. And if you send someone a package, crumpled newspapers can be useful in keeping the contents from rattling around in a box. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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

More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: 

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

Besides email, my other source of information is the Google search engine (or other search engines) where I can look up any subject I want. 

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

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

JL 

                                                          * * * *

August 13, 2025 - Fear, Advice for Democrats, Sleepless Dictators, ‘Dragons,’ and Switching Newspapers

 

                                                        * * * 

The Politics of Fear

The following piece appeared in the New Yorker magazine’ ‘Talk of the Town,’ recently. The author is that magazine’s editor, David Remnick. It describes how the President has always used ‘fear’ as one of his tools. Remnick points out that “As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump made his world view plain: there was ‘us’ and there was ‘them’ and that once he was in the White House, the fear factor would prevail.”  To read it, and I strongly recommend that you do, CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/11/the-politics-of-fear on your device’s browser line. 

For those who are among ‘them,’ it should sound familiar and for those who believe they are among Trump’s ‘us,’ it offers an awakening. 

JL 

                                                     * * * 

Bet You Never Heard of Mike Nellis

A course of action for Democrats is offered by Mike Nellis in his postings. Copy and paste https://endlessurgency.com/ on your browser line or CLICK HERE.

 Mike is a long time Democratic strategist who pulls no punches and urges voters not to let Trump define the issues. Here is the final paragraph of a recent posting from that site: 

  ‘Trump wants the election about crime, safety, and immigration—his turf. We win when it’s about the economy, inflation, and how his policies make life harder. Don’t let Trump dictate the terms. That’s how we lost in 2016 and 2024. He couldn’t pull it off in 2020 because COVID swallowed everything—and he botched it spectacularly. We can’t wait for a crisis to save us again. Eyes on the ball. Stay focused. Stay grounded. Win on the things that actually touch people’s lives and mirror their lived experience.’ 

A coach’s advice: No matter how good your defense is, you need an effective offense to score touchdowns. Don’t count on an interception or a fumble. 

JL

                                                   * * * 

Why I Switched My Local Paper 

(You should get one delivered at your doorstep every day) 

Some of you, perhaps, have noticed a difference in the tone of Jackspotpourri over the past year of so. The columnists quoted are not quite the same, for example. I have at last taken steps to remedy this situation. Sort of.  Let me explain. 

Twenty-three years ago when we retired to Florida, I subscribed to the Palm Beach Post when a ‘bargain’ subscription was offered.  With rare exception, I have maintained that subscription for almost a quarter of a century, being quite satisfied with the Post, that is until lately. 

All newspapers are suffering these days, many failing or being acquired by national chains. Their local staffs are reduced and their resources are limited. The Post went this route ultimately becoming part of the Gannett organization, whose main publication is USA Today. But believe me, USA Today is not the New York Times. 

The cracks first appeared in their sports coverage. They covered the Miami Dolphins with several lengthy articles in every issue, even off-season. Baseball news, including the local Miami Marlins, was usually absent from the Post’s sports pages. Their sports editor advised me that there were not enough Marlins fans in its area and it was not worth assigning a reporter on them. 

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Post’s reporting on the Marlins recent three game sweep of the New York Yankees, following a five game winning streak, by publishing a piece from a USA Today/Gannett affiliate in northern New Jersey merely reporting on the the Yankees poor performance in Florida. The Post’s sports editor told me he did not have the personnel to cover the Marlins and the USA Today/Gannett ‘Yankee’ story was the only article available to him ‘on the wire.’ 

Most local newspapers do not have the staff to report on everything that happens but share the resources of agencies like the Associated Press to broaden their coverage. That’s where ‘the wire’ comes in.  Well over a thousand newspapers participate in providing articles to the AP and the ability to share what the AP makes available ‘on its wire.’ 

Here’s the bad news. Gannett and their USA Today family, including the Palm Beach Post, withdrew from the Associated Press in March of 2024. 

That is when the deterioration of the Post began, with broader news coverage affected and some regular columnists disappearing. This limited the basic outside ‘wire’ to which the Post had access to the other Gannett publications, and a relationship with a relatively small Reuters link, good for international news, and some small independent ‘opinion’ agencies, like ‘Outside Sources.’

Basically, a subscription to the Palm Beach Post became a subscription to USA Today plus local high school sports, the Miami Dolphins, local editorials and news stories, and a link to the Palm Beach News, a paper aimed at the socialites on Palm Beach island. That’s why the Post has lost me as a subscriber. 

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (owned by the Chicago Tribune) still remains part of the Associated Press family and because of that alone, is a far better newspaper than the Post, at least for me. 

Although based in Fort Lauderdale, the Sun-Sentinel does a good job reporting on news from Palm Beach County, especially its southern part which was sometimes given a back seat by the Post. The Sun-Sentinel is now delivered to my doorstep daily. 

JL 

                                                         * * * 

Look Up in the Sky Tonight for Meteors 

Late at night this week, when there is a minimum of artificial light, away from the moon, and an absence of clouds, is the best time to watch for the annual Perseid Meteor Shower.  Around August 13, they should be at their best with about one a minute visible. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Why Dictators Sleep Poorly

When a country’s elected Chief Executive assumes dictatorial powers, dominating the judicial and legislative entities that exist in that country, the usual ways of removing him or her from office do not work, because the dictator influences or controls them. That is why dictators have to be taken down by other methods. 

Usually, it is the military which accomplishes this, but all too often they replace one dictator with another. Another way is through the efforts of criminals, an untrustworthy group with which few dictators align themselves. Latin America offers many examples of both. 

Though it has been strongly denied, there will always be the lingering suspicion that the assassinations of both Jack and Robert Kennedy resulted from broken deals with underworld elements. 

This may be why a dictatorial Chief Executive might center their attacks on immigrants, educational institutions, uncooperative corporations and businesses, media outlets, and even stubborn islands of resistance within the government itself as well as some local governments, all groups without sufficient resources to resist and fight back, resulting in the Executive getting their way. And the citizenry itself, without leadership and organization, is unable to offer resistance. 

Although such Executives might replace members of the military leadership with supposedly loyal generals and admirals, they never quite fully trust them, aware of the influence on their behavior the patriotic lessons learned in their service academies may have had on them. In fact, some Executives might prefer to recruit their own militia-like organizations. Hitler had his ‘brown shirts’ for this purpose. 

Similarly, you will not see such Executives seriously attacking the criminals who distribute drugs and may manage other illegal activities. That’s a ‘sleeping dog’ often better left unawakened. 

Either of these two groups, given good reasons to act, would have the ability in some manner to attempt to bring about the Executive’s removal from office. This is why astute observers of governments carefully watch a dictator’s actions in these two areas, and may be why some dictators do not sleep well.

(Any similarity of these ideas to what some see as today’s reality is purely coincidental.) 

Nevertheless this might be a good time to visit ‘Here Be Dragons’ by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting barbarafwalter@substack.com on your browser line to read Professor Walter’s’ thoughts.  Dr. Walter is on the faculty at the University of California – San Diego. 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. Then I read my email. 

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

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

Caution should be exercised in using Artificial Intelligence. 

JL

                                                        * * * *