October 22, 2025 - Your November Weapons, the Unsworn-in Congresswoman, No Kings, A Wannabe King's Reaction, and Winning and Losing on the Gridiron

 

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Your Weapons - The November Elections 

The November mid-term elections are almost upon us! Make sure, RIGHT NOW, that you are properly registered to vote, and that you can do so by mail, postage-free. I just did so myself. 

The rules for doing so (at least in Florida) have changed. You must vote … and urge your friends, neighbors, and relatives, wherever they may be, to do the same. 

In Palm Beach County, your Supervisor of Elections’ office can be reached by clicking here or copying and pasting https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/#gsc.tab=0 on your device's browser line. It’s a simple website where you can get the necessary things done!  Their phone number is (561) 656-6200. In other locales, just contact your Board of Elections. 

JL 

                                                    * * * 

The Congresswoman-in-Waiting 

As of this moment, the House Speaker still has not enabled the swearing in of Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva to take place.  She has access to what would be her office, but she is still not sworn in.

Congress is on a long vacation, made possible by the party that controls the presidency and Congress. The President likes it that way, knowing her presence will reopen still hidden parts of the Epstein story. The longer the government remains shut down and unfinanced, the more it makes his administrative actions likely. Be alert for them. Many are unconstitutional. 

The shut-down is over continued financial support of health care programs included in Obamacare, programs that many millions of Americans below Medicare age depend upon. Democrats want them to remain. Republicans want to eviscerate them. It is that simple.  Where do you stand?  

If 'they' get away with that, I don't doubt that Medicare itself is next on their list.  The author of the reactionary Program 2025, (the one the President lied about saying he wasn't familiar with), Russell Vought, is now Director of the government's Management and Budget.

JL 

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No Kings’ Demonstration on Saturday 

Check out Simon Rosenberg’s ‘Hopium Chronicles’ to see what you missed if you weren’t at one of the demonstrations participated in by almost seven million of real Americans on Saturday in big cities and small towns. Just click here or copy and paste https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/hopium+chronicles+no+kings/WhctKLbmqJHVKlrwfTBPvBnPXVRjgKBnTTDHxcSTFKxnmDHZSbRFZHnqqtGKWtRTHmPkNDV on your device’s browser line to see the demonstrations. 

And if that is a problem for you, similar pictures of the inspirational nationwide demonstrations are available from many internet sources. Just look for them. 

And speaking of the ‘No Kings’ demonstration, please check out history Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated October 20 which includes this: “In January 1776, newly arrived immigrant Thomas Paine published Common Sense, explaining to his new countrymen why they should declare independence from the King of England. He called for a new government based not in heritage or tradition, but in the law. “In America the law is king,” Paine wrote. “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” 

That posting also shows that past loyalty to our wannabe King is no guarantee of avoiding his wrath. Too many of his supporters, in addition to his former National Security Advisor, the now-indicted John Bolton, are learning that the hard way. Don’t skip this! Click here or copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line. 

JL 

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What King Donald Thinks of the ‘No Kings’ Demonstrators

Although the President did not claim responsibility for it, his ‘Truth Social’ website did pass on this brief bit of disgusting and juvenile Artificial Intelligence chicanery that well represents the President’s demented opinion of those who demonstrated for true American values on Saturday. You can see it by copying and pasting https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115398251623299921 on your device’s browser line or by clicking here. Many such dishonest AI concoctions appear on that site. 

JL 

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 A Change of Pace - Football Advice 

As we approach the season for firing coaches in both the college and professional forms of football, here is some un-asked-for advice from me.

How to score touchdowns: A team needs no more than one or two fair-to-middling running backs and a half-way decent quarterback to score touchdowns when they have a well-stocked, powerful, dominating, and protective offensive line. Given that, even mediocre passers and running backs can run up the score. Without that, even more skilled ones will get nowhere. 

How to stop the other team from scoring touchdowns: A team must have a speedy, strong, and flexible secondary line of defense, consisting of tall and powerful linebackers and cornerbacks to keep the opposition from making large gains via passing or running the ball and also have the ability to come up with occasional interceptions as well. This is more important than a defensive line which may or may not prevent smaller gains, even if the opposition reaches a team’s ‘red zone,’ where a defensive line and a strong secondary become indistinguishable from one another. 

Accomplishing these two things (strong offensive line and strong secondary defenders) require astute use of free agency in pro football and the transfer portal in college football and directing all recruiting activities to first filling these two needs. 

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. 

 JL 

                                                        * * * *

October 18, 2025 - An Unpublished (?) Letter, Immigration, and Some Ideas from Heather Cox Richadson

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Immigration’s Path 

There’s a lengthy article in the October 13 issue of the New Yorker magazine about why most of the democratic states that replaced colonialism in Africa in the late Twentieth century have turned into dictatorships. In Adi Amin’s Uganda, for example, much of the existing Asian population there, primarily those from India, were persecuted. Included was the leading revolutionary scholar there, Mahmood Mamdani, who became ‘stateless,’ resulting in his immigrating to the United States with his family. 

His son, Zohran Mamdani, is currently the favorite in this year’s New York City mayoral race. If democracy had survived in Uganda, he might be running for political office there instead of in New York. 

JL \

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Social Security vs Rugged Individualism 

Here’s a thought-provoking excerpt from Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated October 13. 

‘Since taking office in January 2025, officials in the second Trump administration have made war on the vision of government embodied by the Social Security Act, promoting in its place a return to the rugged individualism that is even less true today than it was a century ago. 

Now the administration is getting rid of the building built to house the Social Security Administration, along with the murals that champion the government’s role in protecting the equality and security of ordinary people, while Trump contemplates building a triumphal arch, carving MAGA ideology into the nation’s capital in stone.’ 

 Mural by Ben Shahn in original Social Security Building in Washington,
most recently used by the Voice of America

Thought-provoking? 

For the unpleasant details, you can check out Richardson’s entire posting at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or by Clicking Here . While you’re there, check out her historically accurate and frightening postings dated October 16 and 17, recalling the basis for the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution. It is what happens when a corrupted government violently turns its weapons on its own citizens. 

JL 

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Cool Heads Do Not Always Prevail

Sooner or later when local police, trying to perform their duties in cities like Chicago, are included as victims of ICE’s unnecessary violence, such as ICE’s use of tear gas, they will fire back, leading the President to commit further illegal acts. Cool heads do not always prevail. 

JL 

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A Letter to a Local Paper

Here’s a letter a resident of my community has sent to the South Florida SunSentinel, reproduced here with his permission: 

‘What happened to the Separation of Church and State? Why is religion being brought into public schools? Why are my tax dollars being used to fund parochial schools? What happened to Freedom of the Press when the Secretary of War decides which newspapers and which reporters will have favorable status at the pentagon? What happened to Equal Justice under the Law when the convicted criminals of January 6 are all pardoned? What happened to parity between our 3 branches of government? What happened to the Executive Branch of our Government which is using the Oval Office as a place for self enrichment? Why is our Tax Code written so as to allow the very rich to pay less taxes than I do? What happened to bipartisanship? What happened that allowed masked Americans to corral people on our streets and the National Guard is utilized with no respect for States Rights? What happened to the greatest medical care system and our ability to control diseases and a misfit like RFK Jr. sets health policy. I’ll tell you what happened. It’s Donald Trump being motivated by a non elected villain like Steven Miller and enablers like Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis. (signed) Dr. Howard Olarsch’ 

The letter writer raises some interesting questions and offers an answer.  I agree with him and caution readers not to become unknowing enablers of the greatest foe of our democracy since George III.   President Trump’s role in returning Hamas’ remaining hostages to Israel and his working for permanent peace there are not reasons to excuse his ignoring the Constitution and behaving like a dictator toward American citizens and others legally in this country against whom he doesn't hesitate to use force, without Congressional consent.

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 

                                                         * * * *

October 13, 2025 - Approaching the Declaration of Independence's Anniversary Next Year, Open Carry in Florida, Free Speech at Princeton, A Choice for You, and a Good Word for the President

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It’s in the Declaration of Independence 

As we approach its 250th anniversary next year, let’s take a look at a few words from the Declaration of Independence, brought to our attention by columnist Charie Pierce in a recent column in Esquire magazine. 

They refer to King George III of England in 1776 but might have some modern-day pertinence as well: 

 “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States” 

There’s a lot more in his column that might interest you. You can check the full column out by Clicking Here or by copying and pasting https://link.esquire.com/view/5766d505d7aaa87a3a8b45adoz61u.bnq/a4e656ce on the browser line of your device. 

Hmmm. Jefferson and his co-authors got it right! 

JL 

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Free Speech 

There’s an interesting article on ‘Free Speech’ by critic/historian Louis Menand in the New Yorker magazine issue dated October 6.  Actually, it is a review of a book by the president of Princeton University on the subject. It describes the ‘war about words’ in which the country is presently involved and wonders where it might lead. 

If you wish, you can read it by Clicking Here or copying and pasting https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/10/06/review-free-speech-books on the browser line of your device. 

JL 

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'Open Carry’ of Guns in Florida 

Florida is now an ‘open carry’ state, and although there are some exceptions, grocery stores are not one of them. Some, like Publix, have publicized that they would follow the law, and others, while still recognizing Florida’s ‘open carry’ law, seem to be trying to discourage their customers from carrying firearms into their establishments. 

Florida has many screwballs living here, more than its own fair share. They seem to be attracted to the Sunshine State. The man accused of starting the recent California wildfires has moved here from there. Massive shootings have occurred throughout the State (the Pulse Club in Orlando and the Parkland high school shootings are two tragic examples).

I think the best approach to this is to try to reduce your presence in locations that potential shooters are most likely to patronize. Some groceries and other large retail establishments might seem less appealing than others to these screwballs who will be walking down the aisles and in the checkout lines with a lethal weapon on their hips. 

The other day I took my shopping list to Whole Foods instead of to Publix, and the people I saw shopping there, if it is any comfort, seemed more normal than elsewhere. I will be doing more of that kind of store-switching more often now. 

Of course, one can just place their grocery order online to be delivered to their home and avoid possible exposure to a gun-carrying shopper. The trade-off is that then, you’ll miss any bargains that you’d only spot if you were there shopping in person. 

JL 

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BUT WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? 

It is time to stop complaining, moralizing, and counting upon the ‘rule of law’ to prevail in this country.  Any of you who read newspapers, watch the news on television, or even keep up with what is going on in this country through your computer or smartphone know precisely what I am writing about.   It is time to make up your mind and take a firm stand, and turn your words into whatever actions the laws permit. 

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? What are you waiting for? 

JL 

                                      * * * 

A Good Word for the President 

The President is to be commended for his efforts in bringing about steps toward a resolution of the troubles in Israel and neighboring areas, especially the return of the remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas.  But that does not give anyone license to ignore his other actions, especially domestically. 

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 

                                                         * * * *

October 8, 2025 - Not an NFL Football Fan, Tilly, Homeless Housing, and Missing Gas Stations

 

                                                     * * * 

'Sissy Football' in the NFL 

President Trump has no great love for the NFL. Lately he has criticized the new kick-off rules initiated last year, intended to lessen injuries, as making it ‘sissy football.’ 

Back in 2017, when he objected strongly to some players not standing for the National Anthem as a political protest against supposed racism in this country, he added his dislike of penalties to those remarks according to reporting by ABC and ESPN at the time: ‘Trump also said referees are "ruining the game by calling 15-yard penalties for ‘beautiful’ tackles’ ... and went on to say that “stiffer penalties are ruining the game … Today if you hit too hard, right, they hit too hard. Fifteen yards, throw him out of the game." I suspect he was referring for penalties for intentional ‘targeting’ by tacklers.

The President prefers professional wrestling, a theatrical artificial sport where rules don’t mattter, to professional football where breaking the rules results in penalties, and sometimes even throwing a player out of a game. That’s very understandable because his administration breaks rules established by our Constitution all the time and manages to evade penalties for doing so. 

I wonder who the real ‘sissy’ is, getting a vicarious thrill from others’ violence. Somehow, I preferred the touch football played on the lawn in Hyannisport by the Kennedys. 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

Who is Tilly Norwood? 

Tilly exists only in Artificial Intelligence. She was never born and is only the product of the coding that AI required. 

Let’s start with Maureen Dowd‘s New York Times column of October 4 which points out the danger of our abandoning a world based on reality with an artificial one created by Artificial Intelligence. Ms. Dowd starts in the world of entertainment, but it just a tiny leap from there to other media and evntually to everything else in our lives. To read her column, Click Here or copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/opinion/ai-hollywood-tilly-norwood-actress.html on your device’s browser line. 

 It leads me to wonder, for example, about our how our human bodies can survive when they don’t get the same real physical nourishment from a mouth-watering AI-created dinner as they might do from a real one. 

Both (and perhaps Tilly) can make your mouth water, but that’s where the ‘artificial’ part of AI comes in and its illusion ends. 

We live in a real world. Those who choose to live in a world created by AI instead should seek professional help in the real world, perhaps to which AI can lead them. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Housing the Homeless 

In many editorials, letters to publications, and opinion pieces, I frequently read that the solution to homelessness is providing more affordable housing. Plans for residential structures often specify a certain number of units intended for such ‘affordable’ housing. 

Usually, however, such housing is intended for lower-paid public employees and other workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. As well-intended as such planning is, it fails to address the problem of homelessness. 

An unanswered question is how many of those sleeping in parks and in other public areas, and on the streets or in cars, have any source of income enabling them to ‘afford’ such ‘affordable housing’ at any price, however minimal it might be. 

Solutions to homelessness should be directed to solving that problem rather than providing affordable housing for those who lack the income to even take advantage of such solutions. 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

A Question 

In photographs of Palestinians in Gaza seeking to flee to safer areas, mixed in with images of the vast majority fleeing on foot, some photographs occasionally include those in automobiles or trucks, even as recently as earlier this year. 

Fleeing Gaza - From New York Times - March 2025

One thing that puzzles me is where the gasoline stations are where these vehicles get their fuel.  And how do they obtain it.  I never see them in the photographs.

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 

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October 3, 2025 - Another Viewpoint, A Look at the Second Amendment, the Generals Listened, Some Personal History, and a Change in Jackspotpourri's Emphasis

 

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Enough is Enough and Perhaps Too Much 

When I was a kid growing up in Newark, in the 1930s and 1940s, the prime source of news in our apartment was the Newark Evening News (which ceased being published in 1972), a copy of which my father brought home every evening, and which we all read. 

The ‘News’ carried all the national and international news, provided by its own reporters throughout New Jersey, and in Washington DC, as well as that from the national wire services (the Associated Press, United Press International, etc.). Its news might be a day or two old, but that really didn’t matter to us. Of course, it covered State and local news, including sports, thoroughly. 

There were similar ‘local’ papers in other New Jersey cities like as Jersey City, Paterson, Trenton, Camden, and the cities ‘down the shore,’ doing the same job in their locales, but the ‘News,’ was New Jersey’s largest newspaper, its ‘paper of record,’ and actually the twentieth largest paper circulation-wise in the country in those days. 

Besides reporting the news, the ‘News’ and papers like it, had pages of classified advertisements, and a galaxy of features, mostly syndicated, including comics, homemaking, fashion, advice, entertainment, dining, cooking, puzzles, and even bridge. No one really cared about the editorial positions these papers took, except perhaps at election time. Supplemented by ‘beefed-up’ Sunday editions and an occasional magazine like ‘Life,’ the ‘Saturday Evening Post,’ or the ‘Readers’ Digest,’ this was sufficient to keep us, and most people, occupied and relatively well informed, without a great investment of their time. 

But after World War Two, things began to change. As newspaper readership declined, a process that continues today, driving many papers and magazines out of business, television and the internet arose taking their place. When the ‘Newark Evening News’ closed down in 1972, its role was taken over by its morning competitor, the ‘Newark Star-Ledger,’ with whom it shared a circulation of almost 400,000 at that point and to which it sold its presses. In early 2025, the ‘Star-Ledger’ itself ended its print edition and is now available only digitally. 

Another source of information in those days was radio, with occasional newscasts and commentators, in addition to fifteen-minute soap operas and a lot of music. To know what was ‘on the air’ from local stations and the ones in nearby New York City (or Philadelphia), one could refer to their broadcast schedules in the local newspaper, which still, in those days, remained the dominant source of news. 

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I still spend at least half an hour each morning over coffee with the delivered print edition of the South Florida SunSentinel which does a good job on local and State news, depending on the Associated Press wire service and occasionally the New York Times for national and international news stories. I glance at almost every article in that paper, even if I quickly move on the next one after scanning the first paragraph or so which determines if I will read more of a particular article. It’s a rare article that I read all the way to its end.

Their ‘non-news’ features are pretty much the same as what the old Newark Evening News carried years ago, but their editorial policy is a liberal one, unlike the solidly Republican positions of the old Newark Evening News. (It seems that when the government is a liberal one, newspapers tend to be conservative, and when government is conservative, newspapers become liberal, despite their ownership. More about this some other day.) 

I then sit down before my computer to check out what’s doing online and to see if there is any late news among my emails about events that may have happened after my ‘print’ newspaper went to press. 

I wonder, after breakfast, why I am investing so much time in doing that, after sitting down for thirty minutes with a real printed newspaper. 

(As I write this, I was interrupted by a four-foot long iguana leaping from a tree to the ground behind my patio. Getting up, I shouted out ‘Get Out of Here’ and it quickly scuttled through the hedges back to the canal with his buddies. Iguanas do understand English. Many Americans do not.) 

But getting back to my emails, I find little there of which I was not already broadly aware from my perusal of the SunSentinel. Just to be sure, opening the New York Times ‘Breaking News’ or ‘Morning Headlines’ emails usually confirms this, and Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s daily ‘Letters from an American’ (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/) sums up all of a morning’s loose ends. I will continue to season what appears in Jackspotpourri with sprinklings from these sources and recommend that others access them as well.   This might be a good moment to check out what Professor Richardson has to say today. Just visit the link shown above. 

As much as I would like to, this is a good excuse to not bother with the words and thoughts in the email postings of such savants as Timothy Snyder, Paul Krugman, Simon Rosenberg, Robert Reich, Barbara Walter, and many others, including the folks at ‘The Bulwark,’ the ‘Free Press,’ the ‘Gothamist,’ or the ‘Daily Kos, and network news summaries as provided by CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and Bloomberg. My conclusion is that doing so might be too great an investment of my time and attention. After reading the newspaper, the emails from New York Times and and Professor Richardson are enough. (Of course, if you’ve a lot of time on your hands, it cannot hurt to dig into what these other sources have to say.) 

In any event, future postings of Jackspotpourri will then be able to devote more space to my own thoughts rather than leaning on the postings of others. The internet is like a tree whose branches are laden with many fruits, but eating too many of them can make you sick. Enough is Enough and Perhaps Too Much. 

JL 

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 Another Viewpoint – Do You Agree? 

‘Another Viewpoint’ on the Opinion page of the SunSentinel on October 3 carried this piece by J.K. Amerson-Lopez, who was raised as a child in a family of American diplomats. Please click here to read it, or copy and paste https://enewspaper.sun-sentinel.com/shortcode/SUN315/edition/2f3c86a4-dd6f-40c4-81f8-421132e0da39?page=02c92f7b-9e3c-4ce3-b6e6-f518c1638bce& on the browser line of your device. It says what many of us are reluctant, or perhaps fearful, to say in public. 

JL 

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The Second Amendment Has Six Key Words 

Once again, let’s examine the language of the Second Amendment.

"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.’ 

Note those six key words, ‘the security of a free State.’ One of the real, ususally unspoken, purposes of the Second Amendment included the right of those free States to be able to arm militias to oppose Federal troops if ever they were used against States to enforce Federal objectives. This culminated many years later in Secession and the Civil War, basically over the issue of the expansion of slavery. 

Here’s something to think about. Is it too far a stretch to consider that the Second Amendment suggests that States might use their militias (State National Guard units) to oppose any Federal troops President Trump sends into a free State to control opposition to his policies there, considering such an intrusion to be a threat to the security of that ‘free State’? Such States’ rights were why South Carolina’s militia fired on Fort Sumter back in 1861, the start of the Civil War’s hostilities. 

The problem today is that the States no longer arm their own militias, having given responsibility for that to the Federal Government in 1903. According to ‘AI,’ ‘The federal government began arming state National Guard units following the Militia Act of 1903. The law was a major step in transforming state militias into a federally regulated reserve military force. This change codified the National Guard's dual role, serving under state governors in peacetime and the president during national emergencies.’ Undefined is what actually constitutes a national emergency during peacetime. 

Whether the Commander-in-Chief’s authority over National Guard units supercedes the authority of those ‘free States’ governments within those States is a tricky Constitutional question. There are legal challenges to such presidential authority being made by State governments right now. As I said, this is something to think about. 

JL 

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Listen Up, You Guys 

Please read somewhere the remarks made by the President and the Secretary of Defense before this week’s gathering of all of our generals and admirals that the Secretary Hegseth had assembled for an unprecedented ‘pep talk.’

Pick your source; there are many online. I found that of the Associated Press useful. You can check it out by clicking here or copying and pasting https://apnews.com/article/trump-hegseth-generals-meeting-military-pentagon-0ecdcbb8877e24329cfa0fc1e851ebd2 on the browser line of your device . 

Trump's words were actually a campaign speech suggesting strongly that the military ally themselves with the presidency, for the good of the nation. 

His words were at best contrary to the way our military has behaved since its formation. They were un-American words and I suspect clear evidence to the assembled military leaders there that Trump is a wannabe dictator with no respect for the Constitution, advocating the use of armed forces against our civilian population. West Point graduate and Harvard-educated Democratic Senator Jack Reed commented that ‘even more troubling was Mr. Hegseth’s ultimatum to America’s senior officers: conform to his political worldview or step aside.’ 

After hearing his words, and those of Secretary Hegseth, I suspect many of the career officers there, those the President likes to refer to as ‘his generals,’ were questioning whether loyalty to their ‘commander-in-chief’ was contrary to their oaths all of them had taken to support and defend the Constitution. 

It should not be ignored that the President was visibly disturbed when his presence and remarks were not greeted with applause. Whether this moves them to some sort of action is another question. 

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. 

JL 

                                                            * * * *