January 27, 2026 - Mostly About Minneapolis

 

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A Grim Scenario 

There may be a grim scenario lurking way back in the most remote recesses of many Americans’ minds. People under illegal attack by government personnel have only so much patience. The President and his appointees claim that the manner in which Immigration Control and Enforcement personnel as well as the Department of Justice are dealing with civilians is perfectly legal. I suppose the Nazi regime back during the Second World War considered concentration camps and gas chambers to be perfectly legal too, according to their laws at the time. 

A point is reached in such situations where citizens are willing to put their lives on the line, even knowing that many will not survive. This was the case when Jews confined to the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 and 1943 fought back. Few of those fighters survived. 

Might a governor activate their State’s National Guard, defying the President, in order to oppose the armed personnel of the Federal Government’s ICE agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security? Who will the Guardsmen obey? Are we fully confident that they will not actually start shooting at one another? 

Minneapolis street scene as ICE personnel, seeking 'illegals,' turn
their weapons on protesters.  If anything going on there is 'illegal,' 
it is the behavior and actions of ICE's  masked enforcers. Tracing
the blame for this will take you directly to those appointed by the
pathetic wannabe tyrant in the White House, and those who were
either sufficiently ignorant or gullible to have voted for him.

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Who will control the many individuals, including the most recent victim of ICE’s lawbreaking violence, who are legally entitled to carry weapons because of the supposed blessings of the Second Amendment?  When the limit of their patience with the Federal Government’s violation of their rights is reached, will some passionate civilians use their weapons against ICE personnel, even knowing that they are likely to die in doing so, as the fighters in the Warsaw ghetto did?

 In 1860, no one expected that a tragic confrontation was about to unfold resulting in the deaths of about 700,000 Americans who would fight for ideas in which they believed. But that is what happened. That is the grim scenario Americans should fear. 

But it need not be. 

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Time is growing short though, and the nation cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the next election to stop this grim scenario from continuing on its path to becoming a reality. Today’s Minneapolis might be your town’s future tomorrow. 

Congress must immediately tightly close the purse strings it controls and remove from the nation’s budget funding for the Department of Homeland Security, cutting off funds used to support the immigration control and enforcement activities that are at this very moment recklessly and dangerously trampling upon the cherished and historic rights of Americans. Even already existing budgeted funding for the DHS should be cancelled and recovered so long as its ICE personnel are harassing and attacking American citizens, violating their rights. 

How this is being allowed to happen is very well explained by Professor Timothy Snyder, recognized worldwide as an expert on tyranny, whose ‘Thinking About …’ remarks of January 25 follow. They are words that you ought to think about yourself and forward to others, asking them to do the same. 

"Lies and Lawlessness - Timothy Snyder – January 25, 2026

It is not just the moral horror. It is the political logic. People are dying in American concentration camps, unseen. And people are being executed on American streets, seen by all of us. This is enough. The radical is the pragmatic. 

The president should be impeached and convicted, as should everyone responsible for these outrages. ICE should be disbanded. So should the Department of Homeland Security. The other agencies within it should be redistributed across other departments. And the people who have killed should be investigated and brought before judges and juries. 

But we have to see the logic of the killings as well as the killings themselves. The horror is a truth in itself. But it is also a sign of a political logic, one known from the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, Soviet as well as Nazi, and from attempts to replace the rule of law with personal tyranny. It is the logic of lies and of lawlessness. 

In a constitutional regime, such as ours, the law applies everywhere and at all times. In a republic, such as ours, it applies to everyone. For that logic of law to be undone, the aspiring tyrant looks for openings, for cracks to pry open. One of these is the border. The country stops at the border. And so the law stops at the border. 

And so for the tyrant an obvious move is to extend the border so that is everywhere, to turn the whole country as a border area, where no rules apply. Stalin did this with border zones and deportations in the 1930s that preceded the Great Terror. Hitler did it with immigration raids in 1938 that targeted undocumented Jews and forced them across the border. And just what is Trump doing now? By his own admission, as well as by the admission of cabinet members, he is using ICE, nominally a border authority, to enforce his own whims on an American state of his choosing. 

It is not legal to attack a city because its policies work. It is not legal to threaten a state to gain information about its voters. The border becomes the pretext to undo the law everywhere, at all times, and against anyone. It is the crack that can be opened. 

The wedge is the lie. The lies begin as clichés, memes that are pounded into our heads by the government and by those in the media who repeat them, mindlessly or with malice. One of these cliches is “law enforcement,” which is uttered over and over like a incantation. “Law enforcement” is not a noun. It is not a thing in the world. It is an action. And action is something that we have a right to see and judge for ourselves. 

People enforcing the law do not wear masks. And people wearing masks who trespass, assault, batter, and kill are not enforcing the law. They are violating it. It is indeed the job of some local, state, and federal authorities to enforce the law. It is a disservice to them when federal employees carry out public executions. It is a greater disservice to them when such actions are defined as “law enforcement.” 

The lies continue as provocative inversions, as what in 'On Tyranny' I called “dangerous words”: these are, precisely, “terrorist” and “extremist.” These two words are known to us from history as those used by tyrants. And these are the words used by the Trump people to defame those killed by their polices. This is their “messaging,” their banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt called it. Or the evil of banality, as Václav Havel said. Words turned into reality with the complicity of those who hear them. Those who actively lie are directly complicit in the deaths that just happen and in any deaths to come.

But those in media who choose to treat propaganda as the story, to begin from lies rather than from events, are also complicit. The border is the crack, the lie is the wedge, and the wedge is made up of people — of us. Words matter, uttered first or repeated. They create an atmosphere, they normalize — or they do not. We can choose to see, to call things by their proper names, to call out people who lie. We have to. The moral horror of those killings is enough. But there is a political logic as well. And the two are connected. Those who resist the lawlessness and the lies are doing right. And they are giving a second chance to the endangered American republic.” 

Wow!  Now, take a breath!  

We must take that ‘second chance’ with which Professor Snyder concludes his comments. It is preferable to the grim scenario mentioned above, which as I point out ‘need not be.’ Snyder’s message, to resist the lies and lawnessness, is directed at you. It must be carried out. 

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The President seems to be somewhat backing off on his support of the DHS’s illegal activities, but that seems to be no more than an effort on his part to repair the damage that has been done to the Republican Party by his earlier positions. While he is at least talking to Minnesota’s governor and Minneapolis’ mayor, instead of attacking them, most of the evil-doers he put into power still are there. 

Real sincerity on Trump’s part can only be accomplished by his getting rid of presidential advisor Stephen Miller, Attorney General Bondi, DHS Secretary Noem, those who advise her, and his insipid press secretary who seems to think everyone else is as gullible as she appears. That is unlikely to happen.

Trump seems to think Greg Bongino's (who supposedly was in charge of the border) ‘taking the fall’ for them all is sufficient. It isn’t. Even though it appears that some ICE personnel have been transferred out of Minnesota, taking them out of the reach of that State’s authoriities, they still are operating there, despite court orders. The best I can add is that the crisis there is now ‘in flux.’ 

 And by the way, when was the last time you heard anything about the ‘Epstein Papers,’ successfully absented from Congressional and public attention because of what is happening in Minnesota? 

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

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

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

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 More on the Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors, including the New York Times and other respected journals. 

Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. Besides these sources, I also utilize the Google search engine where I can look up any subject I want. 

Lately, these search results have been headed by a very generalized summary clearly labeled as being developed by AI (Artificial Intelligence). On occasion I might use such search results, but when I do, I will say that I am doing so. Generally, however, I try not to use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri. 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 any 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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January 24, 2026 - Things Political that Involve You - Vacating the Presidency, Jack Smith, Pardons, and More,

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Sic Semper Tyrannis

‘Sic Semper Tyrannis’ translates to ‘Thus Always to Tyrants,’ but nowadays it does not mean assassinating them as Julius Caesar, and even Abraham Lincoln in the minds of slaveowners, deserved to be, and were, violently eliminated. 

Assassination of Julius Caesar

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Nowadays it is enough to destroy what a tryrant stands for and to poison any evil seeds they may have planted while they were in power. Killing them is unnecessary to live up to the words ‘Thus Always to Tyrants.’ 

And on all Election Days, especially those coming up in November, that will be the task of voters whom I hope will elect a Congress that will finally stand up to the administration of Donald Trump. It is time to elect Americans to both houses of Congress whose loyalty is to the nation and its Constitution rather than to the malignant law-breaking wannabe tyrant sitting astride the Executive Branch of our government and for whom the Constitution means nothing, especially its daily violation by the Immigration Enforcement and Control and Department of Justice personnel who go out of their way to ignore its First and Fourth Amendments. 

Never forget, as the President has, and perhaps has never believed, that we are a nation based on laws. 

We were reminded about this by former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s very limited testimony under oath before a House Committee the other day. Within the constraints of that hearing, over five hours long, he outlined the case that the President’s Department of Justice prevented him from trying in a courtroom. Democrats strongly hinted that they would be back with a further hearing once court orders preventing the discussion of other closed cases might expire. 

Smith and Democratic members of the Committee made salient points about the events of January 6, 2021 while its Republican members, not under oath, concentrated on piddling details attempting to trick Smith into making a misstatement, which he did not do. The bottom line seems to be that the Republicans were dumb enough to allow Smith to present much of his case before the American people, watching it on TV, rather than before only a jury.

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Don’t count on the 25th amendment offering a way to rid our nation of tyranny either.  While it allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to determine that the president is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" and thus remove him from the role, that group consists entirely of his loyal appointees. So ‘Fuggetaboudat’!  It doesn’t matter to them that this dunce cannot distinguish between Iceland and Greenland just because there is a lot of frozen precipitation in both places. 

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read about it anywhere else, except of course on Fox or from similar mouthpieces beholden to the President. Jackspotpourri’s posting dated January 20 might be a good place to start, checking out the newspaper editorial included there. 

An alternative course of action is suggested by Professor Barbara Walter in her ‘Here be Dragons’ posting of January 21. To read it, copy and paste https://barbarafwalter.substack.com/p/it-will-all-come-down-to-us on your browser line or click right here. 

The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd wrote about real patriotism in her posting dated January 24. Click here or copy and paste https://www.nytimes.com/column/maureen-dowd on your browser line to find out why she says that ‘the depth of his (Trump’s) shallowness is infinite.’ 

And if that isn’t enough for your tastes, check out history professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated January 23. By now you should know you can find that each day at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

JL 

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Your Responsibility Despite Despicable Pardons

The convicted criminals who invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to prevent the counting of the electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election which Donald Trump clearly lost, were pardoned by him when he won the 2024 presidential election. 

Unfortunately, once properly served and any conditions included in them satisfied, such pardons cannot be voided. Changing this would require an Amendment to the Constitution and doing that, on a long term basis, seems unwise from a political standpoint. That wold result in the repeated voiding by presidents of pardons made by prior presidents with which they might disagree. 

The best course of action would seem to be for legitimate and non-partisan law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on those pardoned to make sure they are not back to their old tricks again, behavior which originally got them convicted and sentenced. 

It’s time to consider such pardons as water over the dam and concentrate the government’s resources on addressing the underlying issues for which those pardoned were involved. If you agree with that, now is the time to start working toward massive Democratic victories in 2026 and 2028. 

It is up to you to make sure Democrats win both Houses of Congress in 2026 and the presidency two years later. That is your responsibility. Not the next person’s. IT IS YOURS! 

Sic Semper Tyrannis! The power of the vote exceeds the power of an assassin.

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors. Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. 

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

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 any 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 

                                                        * * * *

Tuesday, January 20, 2026 - A Greenland Solution, Tariffs, the Next Congress, an Editorial, and Online Gambling

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A Greenland Solution  

A One-Way Ticket

After President Trump’s term of office concludes, the United States must do two things: (1) Reiterate the legislation and agreements recognizing that Greenland is a part of and should remain under the control of Denmark, and (2) appoint him as a permanent American emissary to that place, provided that he reside there permanently, even if it takes a ‘Go Fund Me’ campaign to buy him a one way ticket to get there and a gold painted dog sled. 

JL 

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'What Kind of Fool am I?’ 

That’s the title of a song from the 1962 Broadway musical, ‘Stop the World, I Want to Get Off,’ which premiered earlier in London. But we’ll get back to that shortly. 

According to the Constitution, (Article I,Section 8), the powers of Congress include the levying of tariffs on imports. Here’s how it reads: ‘The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States, etc, etc. … ‘That sounds to me like imposing tariffs is the job of Congress. 

But it doesn’t say they have that power ‘exclusively.’ It is understandable that the President can also assume this power, among other powers, but only in a national emergency. But he can’t run around making one or more such emergencies up! 

President Trump interprets this extremely liberally, using the mere threat of imposing tariffs as a weapon in our relationship with other nations, without any real national emergencies existing. When he first started using this tool, he was challenged, but such criticism has become mired in back and forth arguments and its resolution awaits the opinion of the Supreme Court. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.  Meanwhile he continues to do it, along with many other illegal or unconstitutional acts. 

But get one thing straight. Allowing him to get away with that weakens the rule of law on which our government is based. If there’s a national emergency at this time, it is the person who is the current occupant of the White House.

President Trump will go down in history as a criminal, convicted in the courts of New York State on 34 counts, and a lawbreaker. That is why he is tacking his name on everything in sight right now, fully believing that would never happen once he is out of office and Americans realize what kind of fools they were to elect him President twice, succumbing to what amounted to a political version of his shady real estate developer’s pitches. 

Anyone who voted for him should be joining with Anthony Newley as he asked the question raised by the song from that show back in the 1960’s and the subsequent motion picture: ‘What Kind of Fool Am I? 

JL 

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Coming Together 

I try to keep clickable links at a minimum (most of you know how to get there anyway) on Jackspotpourri.  But Simon Rosenberg’s January 18 piece on ‘Coming Together’ is something you should not miss. Please copy and paste https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/sunday-hopium-some-thoughts-on-meeting on your device’s browser line, or click right here. 

JL 

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Jeffrey Who? 

While Professor Heather Cox Richardson’ January 15 ‘Letters from an American’ repeats the litany of President Trump’s misdeeds and the acts by which they manifest themselves, she also makes the point that they take the spotlight off of the Epstein documents, only a miniscule portion of which have been released, even in a ‘redacted’ format, despite an act of Congress requiring that be done by a now-passed deadline. Who is hiding what? This will not end well for those involved, but also for the nation that let this mess stay out of the spotlight for so very long! 

JL 

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Future Actions by a Democratic Congress 

Nice column by Maureen Dowd in the Times on January 17 and Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ dated January 16 and January 19 as well. Read them. 

It is obvious that the President is out of his mind and beyond senility! No doubt about it. 

I believe that if (I cautiously avoid using the word ‘when’) the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress in November, Trump will finally be successfully impeached, or removed from office through the 25th Amendment. There will be problems with his successor, but at least the Mad King will be replaced with sanity. See the top article in this posting for an idea of what then to do with him. 

A Democratic Congress might also immediately withhold funding of the Immigration Control and Enforcement Agency until it starts observing the provisions of the Constitution and its Amendments, and we have an Executive Branch that must learn that lesson as well. Congress controls ‘the power of the purse’ and must use that power. 

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Two misguided and crazy assassination attempts on the President’s life (one in Pennsylvania where his ear was struck and one threatening him on one of his golf courses, aborted by the Secret Service) as well as innumerable columnists’ opinions and newspaper editorials have failed to budge Donald Trump from his tyrannical behavior which can destroy our nation and the alliances with other democracies it has led for years. As an editorial example, here’s the text of the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s editorial of January 20. It is very hard to disagree with it: 

'Weakened and Weary: America a Year Later - Sun Sentinel Editorial Board  - January 19, 2026 at 6:00 AM EST 

President Trump’s second inauguration one year ago found our nation more divided and apprehensive than at any time since the Civil War. For his followers, it was a time for jubilation. For others, it foreshadowed grave danger for our republic. The fears weren’t idle after Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election he had lost and threatened retribution against those who thwarted him. A better person would have taken his return to power as an opportunity to put the past aside and unite us. But Trump is everything a president should never be: petty, petulant, vindictive, vulgar, indifferent to unwelcome facts, addicted to lying, ignorant of history and pathologically egotistic. 

 He boycotted Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

 He refuses to display Biden’s portrait at the White House. 

 He recently replied to a heckler with an obscene gesture. 

It was apparent almost from the moment of his second inauguration that he did not intend to keep his oath to uphold the Constitution. His conduct has been the worst that we feared, and then some. In what seemed a joking remark (with him, you can never be sure), Trump recently told congressional Republicans that he would not try to block the 2026 election because people would then call him a dictator. It’s much too late for that. 

Defining a tyrant 

 A president who prostitutes the Department of Justice to persecute or intimidate his perceived enemies, now including the chairman of the independent Federal Reserve, is a tyrant. 

 A president who demands absolute obedience from his party’s officeholders and who calls for their defeat when one crosses him is a tyrant. 

 A president who threatens to seize another nation’s territory “whether they like it or not” is a tyrant. 

 A president who orders states to redraw voting districts in a non-Census year to strangle the opposition is a tyrant. 

 A president bent on imposing his will on everything from the media to universities to international corporations to major law firms to the nation’s museums to how the states conduct their elections is a tyrant. 

 A president who trashes the people’s White House as if he owned it, and who plants his image or name on everything from National Park passes to a memorial for an assassinated predecessor, is a tyrant. 

 A president who makes war and orders extrajudicial killings on the oceans without so much as notifying Congress is a tyrant. 

Contempt for the Constitution 

Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and for any restraint on his conduct was on display throughout a two-hour interview with New York Times reporters Jan. 7. “Is there anything that could stop you?” they asked. “Yeah, there is one thing,” he replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me, and that’s very good.” The words of a tyrant. 

Pressed about Greenland, he said it “may be a choice” to seize it by force, even if that should destroy NATO. He seemed to forget that he had promised the public $2,000 checks from his tariffs, then claimed the right to pay them without congressional approval. He spoke of replacing tariffs with “licenses” if the Supreme Court rules against him. ‘I won three times’: A lie. 

He would not commit to respecting the 2026 congressional election returns, insisting that “we have very dishonest elections” and that “I won three times.” A better president and wiser Congress could eventually remediate the vast damage that Trump has done to the federal work force, civil rights, equal opportunity, scientific research, the environment, the national debt, public health, ethics in government, our diplomatic corps and the industries decimated by ICE’s inhumane arrests and deportations. 

There are greater damages that will be far more daunting to repair. He has shattered the respect our nation earned worldwide over 250 years as a beacon of democracy. He has encouraged authoritarian movements elsewhere, abetted Putin’s ruthless war, vandalized the international economic order and threatened NATO’s existence. Why should our allies trust us? Why should any enemy respect us? The worst of it is the repudiation of the bedrock American faith that ours is a nation of laws and that no one is above them. 

 A Reckless Supreme Court 

The Age of Trump has coincided disastrously with a Supreme Court majority predisposed to inflating the presidency at the expense of Congress, the Constitution and the public. Chief Justice John Roberts’ ghastly opinion that a president cannot be prosecuted in connection with his official acts has emboldened Trump with a frightening sense of unaccountability. Together, Trump, Roberts and the spineless Republican majority in Congress have exposed a potentially fatal weakness: The Constitution is only as effective as the good faith of those elected to uphold it. America desperately needs a Congress able and willing to restrain the tyrant and to impeach and remove him. That, right there, is the overarching issue of the midterm elections.' 

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com. 

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It is clear that the only way to get rid of Trump, his ideas, and his followers will be on Election Day when voters can get the job done as the above editorial points out. The bullets of madmen, the words written or spoken by journalists, and demonstrations on the streets are not enough. It is totally up to YOU to get it done on Election Day. Big job, but you can do it! 

JL 

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Sports Gambling’s Back in the News 

The presence of sports gambling sites (Draftkings, Fanduel, MGM, etc.) on the internet creates legitimacy for the kind of betting that once used to be, and which still may be, illegal, and what once required contact with a neighborhood bookie. So we shouldn’t be surprised that some athletes can be bribed to affect the outcome of games where big money is at stake. With college athletes being paid through ‘legitimate’ NIL schemes, they are no less motivated by money than are professionals, and ignore the fact that what they do may be illegal. After all, they may think that if it’s all over TV and the internet, it must be okay. 

If someone wants to place a bet, they should go to a brick and mortar physical casino with a ‘sportsbook,’ where there usually is some measure of State regulation. That regulation may or may not be extended to online sports gambling sites also run by such regulated casinos, like MGM’s or the ones run by the Hard Rock Casinos in Florida. Bribery is less likely to occur in baseball where many variable factors come into play, but basketball, football, ice hockey, and of course horse racing are ripe for such dishonesty, where a slight reduction in an athlete’s intensity can mean many dollars to bettors.

Newspapers and websites regularly provide the ‘line’ for such events, usually a handicapper’s opinion, and believe me, such advice is not intended for those playing in moneyless or penny-ante ‘fantasy’ leagues. 

Horse racing odds remain a possible exception. The ‘morning line,’ while still determined by handicappers, is replaced by race time electronically by the actual amounts of money wagered in a regulated pari-mutual system at a racetrack or in its satillite betting ‘parlors.’ Still, however, a jockey can always let up just a bit on using his whip in the homestretch. 

When there is a scandal, blame those who opened the door to supposedly legitimate, but unregulated, wagering sites online. As I pointed out, some atheletes may think that because they are all over TV and the internet, they must be okay. Come to think of it, the people behind some of the unregulated online wagering sites might be the same people to whom those neighborhood bookies of years ago passed on those wagers (the expression was ‘laid off’) involving the risk of having to make giant payouts to a winner and which they knew they could not personally bankroll. (In the insurance industry, this practice is known as ‘reinsurance’ and is totally legitimate.) In wagering, those who collect the ‘vigerish’ really don’t care who the winner is so long as they can collect their cut off of the top. 

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 local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors. Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. 

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

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 any 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 

                                                            * * * *

January 14, 2026 - Hackers, the Coming Explosion, Will the Guilty Remain Around, and a little Economics

       

See item below suggesting somethint to chew on

                                                        

                                                                        *   *   *

Hackers Among Us 

On two occasions within the past few weeks, I have received emailed invitations to non-existent parties that were really ‘phishing’ expeditions by scammers who had hacked into the supposed party-giver’s email lists where my email address appeared. I opened neither. 

 If you get such an invitation, do not open it without first confirming its authenticity with a carefully phrased phone call to the person involved or someone close to them. If it smells fishy, it probably is. 

The internet will never fully replace the telephone or the United States Postal Service. 

JL 

                                                               * * * 

 A Very Serious Question – Where Will You Be?

Jackspotpourri definitely has a point of view. But it also wonders what can be done to remedy obvious problems and challenges in our culture. How long do you think Americans will just sit on their hands doing nothing? When will they decide that it is worth putting their lives on the line? That is beginning to happen in Minneapolis where the number of ICE invaders, operating far, far, beyond the purpose of that agency, 'Immigration Control and Enforcement,' actually exceeds the size of that city’s police force. 

There is a limit to the toleration of domestic problems, most of which can be traced to President Trump's desire to be a dictator like his buddy Vladimir, well described in the nation’s newspapers, in TV news, and online in postings such as those of Simon Rosenberg’s ‘Hopium Chronicles,’ Barbara Walters’ ‘Here Be Dragons,’ and Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American,’ before there is an explosion. Check out all three! 

Where will you be when it happens? And will you be part of it? 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

Procrastination

Don’t put off until ‘later’ what you could do ‘right now’ because ‘right now’ is probably what was yesterday’s ‘later.’ 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

Something to Chew On 

When something occurs to me, I suspect that I am not the only person who might be harboring such thoughts. They float around and are grasped by perhaps many of us independently. Here’s one to chew on. 

Without listing or enumerating them, President Trump is doing some pretty awful things. All seem to be directed on consolidating the nation’s political, military, and economic power with him, his closest associates, and family. He is not doing it all at once but incrementally, often with others acting for him, like JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem or Stephen Miller. 

He might take a step forward but when he senses resistance, he follows it with half a step backward, just to keep his followers and likely successors in line, but his aims remain the same, the personal accumulation of power. The point is that he fully knows that what he is doing is borderline illegal, probably unconstitutional, and even criminal in nature. 

Anyone behaving in that manner should know that they ultimately will be caught and punished for their actions. That is why many assassins and mass murderers take their own lives.  Doing so might be unnecessary if for other reasons, they do not expect to still be alive to pay the price for what they are doing. At the President’s advanced age, that is a reasonable assumption to make. (It also might be a good argument for imposing age limits on those holding public office.) 

On top of that, if his physicians have given him a more specific timetable concerning his health, that would be more in line with his not fearing having to bear accountbilty for his actions. By that unknown date, he knows that he won’t be around, so what does he have to worry about. Would anyone expecting to live for more than just another year or two behave the way President Trump does? I don’t think so. And those who will be around to succeed him are fearful of opening their mouths about what he will leave for us all. As I said, this is something to chew on. And spit out. 

JL

                                                           * * * 

Economics 001- From Craftsmen to Employees 

As mankind emerged from caves and tents, there was no such thing as getting a job. No one worked for anyone else; everyone did their own thing. The hunter killed game, the weaver wove cloth, and the tinsmith made utensils. When there was more work than they could handle, they took on one or more apprentices to whom they taught their skills, and who helped them until they went out on their own, but were never considered the employees of the craftsman to whom they were apprenticed and with whom they perhaps lived. 

Eventually the skills of craftsmen became divided into separate tasks, which were assigned to others, a new class of workers who were paid for their labor. Unlike apprentices, they never were involved with the finished product, but only ‘employed’ with a piece of its creation. As tools and machinery developed, the tasks of these workers changed and with what was called the ‘industrial revolution,’ sometimes disappeared entirely. 

Eventually, the vast majority of workers became such employees, paid by and dependant on the entrepreneur who hired them, initially former craftsmen themselves. Soon such entrepreneurs came to include investors whose hands never got dirty and whose only involvement was financing what became a businees. 

Outside of this framework developed ‘professions’ in which those with sufficient resources, expertise and training practiced medicine, law, accounting, banking, teaching and such disciplines. Usually they did not hire employees. They did, however, if their workload demanded it but the independence of such professionals did not extend to any such employees they might hire. 

As the number of employees grew, such workers recognized the strength of the roles they played and formed unions or turned to governments to protect their interests, which were centered on the nature of their ‘jobs’ and the remuneration they received. These alliances sometimes worked and sometimes failed, as they became enmeshed with politics. 

Today, some employees take on the identity of ‘independent contractors,’ giving them more independence than someone who merely has a job. In doing so, they give up the security, however minimally guaranteed, that a ‘job’ would provide. That’s where we are today. 

Employment now comprises working in separate segments of businesses run by entrepreneurs, such as sales, engineering, and manufacturing, as well as in ‘services’ where no tangible products are involved. They can be as varied as were the jobs provided centuries ago when the creation of things left the hands of individual craftsmen and were passed on to employees. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Fifteenth Century Punishment Revisited 

For art connisseurs, this is a full depiction of the ‘Hell” portion of Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights,’ a Fifteenth Century triptique which you can visit at the Prado museum in Madrid. The version used in the previous Jackspotpourri suggesting the possible future of President Trump’s soul cut off the bottom portion. 

The two other panels of the triptique pictured such
'delights' more favorably, if not lewdly, in a style made
famous centuries later by Jeffrey Epstein

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 local daily ‘paper’ newspaper (now becoming the South Florida Sun Sentinel) and what appears in my daily email; that includes the views of many contributors. Be aware that when I open that email, I first quickly glance at and screen out those sent to my very old former email address and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. 

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

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 any 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 

                                                          * * * *