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Three Related Comments
1. Trump Actively Destroying the FBI When It Is Needed Most
In emasculating the rule of law and the administration of justice, Donald Trump has ruined the nation’s prime law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, turning it into a tool of retribution to be used to harass his political opponents, whom he considers to be enemies.
For full details from the New York Times in their article regarding the important lawsuit filed by three fired career agents. CLICK HERE or copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/us/politics/trump-fbi-lawsuit.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20250910&instance_id=162268&nl=breaking-news®i_id=78918068&segment_id=205643&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 on your device’s browser line.
And if you cannot access it in full from the Times’ website, ask me to send it to you.
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2. Kirk Assassination
Investigation of Wednesday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, activist leader of conservative youth through his ‘Turning Point’ organization, and ardent supporter of President Trump, required the mobilization of the resources of the FBI, along with local law enforcement in Utah.
Unfortunately, the senior FBI Agent with the specific skills and leadership experience required for this task was among those just fired by the Bureau for political reasons. (See #1 above.) Similarly, the Agent-in-Charge of the Bureau’s Salt Lake City office, the territory where the assassination took place, recently met the same fate.
Hence, the FBI’s participation in seeking out the shooter was, in effect, by a ‘second team,’ with the bulk of the work seeming to fall on Utah’s law enforcement authorities.
FBI head Kash Patel and his top deputy, Dan Bongino, both Trump loyalist appointees without law enforcement experience, were in a situation far over their heads at that point. Announcements regarding the arrest of the shooter have come from the President on a Fox and Friends telecast, where the niceties of the legal process might be glossed over.
From the Oval Office, President Donald J. Trump had earlier blamed the shooting on “the radical left” and vowed to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.” Trump was not adverse to fitting the assassination into his agenda.
It is time for politics to be set aside so that Kirk’s suspected assassin does not benefit from sloppiness on the part of a politicized and inexperienced FBI leadership and the big mouth of a revenge-seeking President, himself a convicted felon. The State of Utah, led by its Governor, Spencer Cox, seems to be up to the job, now that they the suspected assassin has turned himself in at the request of his family.
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3. A Denial of Extremism
There are those among the supposedly non-committed who continually ask believers in opposing ‘extreme political positions’ to try to understand the motives and actions of each other’s side, with the aim of reaching some compromise. Sadly, they are barking up the wrong tree.
No extremist, on the right or on the left, considers themselves to be an extremist. That bears repeating: No extremist, on the right or on the left, considers themselves to be an extremist.
To their way of thinking, their beliefs are the correct ones and on the side of righteousness. It is those who disagree with their views whom they label as extremists, with views either far too liberal or far too conservative for them.
The President, ignoring that he is the president of all of the people, goes one step further, referring to those with whom he disagrees as ‘radicals on the left.’ (See #2 above.) The President should listen to voices like that of Utah’s governor and others urging that those who disagree with one another turn away from suggesting violence.
The answer may be that really, there are no absolute political truths, and all of us should be open to a variety of political opinions, regardless of their source, and be willing to deal with them in a non-violent manner. That is a lot to be hoped for, but as an example, I agree with HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, with whom I disagree most of the time, that pharmaceutical advertising on TV should be more strictly regulated.
JL
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Why a Switch in Newspapers?
Some of you may be curious as to why I switched to the South Florida SunSentinel from the Palm Beach Post as the daily newspaper delivered to my driveway. Repeatedly I have urged that everyone should have a printed newspaper delivered to them each day, something that can get far more lasting attention than a computer’s or Iphone’s screen.
To start with, since 2024, the Post, part of the Gannett organization, has not belonged to the Associated Press, depending to a great extent on their sister newspapers, especially Gannett’s flagship USA Today, for non-local news. Believe me, USA Today is no substitute for the Associated Press nor the New York Times articles occasionally seen in the SunSentinel that never see the light of day in the Post.
In addition, the Post does not include editorial and opinion pages, important to Jackspotpourri, on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Also, the Post’s sports section is inadequately staffed, unable to even cover the Miami Marlins, our local Major League baseball team, as bad as they are, nor our local major thoroughbred racetrack, Gulfstream Park. Finally, while the SunSentinel’s coverage of the southern portion of Palm Beach County is as good as the Post’s, the Post seems to put that region in a back seat compared to areas further north. And their best writer, Frank Cerebino, is retiring. ‘Nuff said?
JL
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Local Resident’s Letter Published
For those of you who missed it, here’s a letter from a Cascade Lakes resident that appeared the other day in the SunSentinel:
‘The Teflon King - Right-wing protests are on the decline, according to groups tracking them. Antisemitic and racist protesters believe that marches like the one in Charlottesville, Va., are no longer necessary as they have accomplished their goals with Donald Trump in office. That’s the view of Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right group Oath Keepers. Rhodes was part of the Jan. 6 riot and was pardoned in spite of the violence instigated by Trump. Some federal prosecutors who tried them were fired for defying the tyrant in the Oval Office. Ethics, justice and morality have been abandoned. What remains is obeisance to the Teflon King. Wake up, America. -
Dr. Howard Olarsch, DDS, Boynton Beach’
JL
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The Daily Kos
I find myself more and more taking a good look at the Daily Kos as a news opinion source. It feels no obligation go along with mainstream thinking and speak its mind. It seems to be the only news source that violates the dictum of not criticizing the deceased, and as difficult as that seems at this moment, that includes Charlie Kirk. (See https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/11/2342963/-The-whitewashing-of-Charlie-Kirk-s-toxic-legacy-is-underway )
While the Daily Kos does ask for donations, it does not make them a prerequisite to getting to its full postings, with which you can agree or disagree. Check it out at
https://www.dailykos.com
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 (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.
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