April 29, 2026 - Last Saturday Night and Readers' Contributions

 

                                            *  *  *

Thoughts on Saturday Night Assassination Attempt at the Washington Hilton 

With the violence that ended the April 25 dinner of the White House Correspondents Association still in the headlines, there still remain unanswered questions about it. Thus far, all the President and the Administration seem to be saying is that the incident points up the need for the kind of added security that would be provided in the massive ballroom being built on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing and discouraging any opposition to that project. 

Note: The WHCA is not a part of our government and would never be able to, nor want to, run a non-government event like its annual dinner in such a government facility. For that to happen, Trump would have to turn the ‘new’ East Wing ballroom into a catering establishment like his privately owned Mar-a-Lago unofficial Florida White House. Does he and acting Attorney-General Blanche understand the difference? 

And incidentally, the seating capacity for a dinner in that proposed ballroom would be significantly less than that of the ballroom in the Hilton where the WHCA Dinner took place. The proposed new ballroom would seat just under 1000 diners while the Hilton’s facility can seat up to 3,000. 

While I can’t imagine that the incident was purposely ‘staged’ to boost the new ballroom, or anything else for that matter, there still are questions to be answered, particularly regarding the security provided for the event, considering the high level of its attendees of which the FBI, the DOJ, and the Secret Service ought to have been fully aware. This has opened the door to a broad range of conspiracy theories appearing on social media. 

Goldberg

Regarding such theories, New York Times opinion writer Michelle Goldberg started her April 27 weekly posting by suggesting that ‘Cole Tomas Allen, who was arrested during an attempt to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, may be America’s first normie liberal terrorist.’ 

She didn’t go into this any deeper, but I suspect that his political views, and what ongoing investigations might find to have been what he chose to read on the internet, were not unlike those of many who criticize the President on a daily basis from a liberal, but non-violent, standpoint. 

Further, on the trail of conspiracies, she wrote: ‘After any act of political terror, conspiracists will often make “false flag” accusations, and Saturday was no different; as The New York Times reported, uses of the word “staged” soared on X. There is, of course, no defense for spreading disinformation or indulging in ideological self-delusion. Still, we can recognize that people start such rumors because they correctly *intuit that violence often discredits the causes that inspire it. The left-wing terrorism rampant in the 1970s helped usher in Ronald Reagan, not socialist revolution. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing ended up being a boon to Bill Clinton’s political fortunes. By attempting to kill Trump in 2024, Crooks helped to elect him. Violence isn’t just ethically reprehensible; it’s strategically stupid.’ 

 *(Not one for high faluntin’ language, I take the words ‘intuit that’ to mean ‘sense that’ or ‘have a hunch that,’ something might be true, but without solid evidence.) 

                                                          *   * 

Yes, someone at the security end screwed up, but fortunately, no one was killed. Another question that arises concerns how much the normal operation of any hotel, or other venue, has to be modified when an event like this, with the President in attendance, takes place there. 

I wonder if the British Monarch, visiting here this week, has brought his own security team, unwilling to put his life in the hands of the likes of Kash Patel and other Trump appointees. 

JL 

                                                           * * * 

Readers’ Contributions 

Jackspotpourri, as it says up on top, invites readers to submt their creativity for inclusion in this blog. Here’s a recent submission from Beth, a Cascade Lakes resident: 

‘Trump & the war are trending.

 

There's a tendency to simplify what 

people don't like about Trump into 

unquestioning rejection. 

 

People like a quick solution to nuanced, 

complicated, heavily layered "news". 

 

But--the resulting aggression and fear 

only reimposes and reinforces 

limited old programming, not a

higher-dimensional consciousness.   

 

We're living through growing extremism. 

The only advantage we have is to see the 

world, our country-- in its full spectrum. 

 

Example of "full spectrum":

--Education is collapsing, but rebuilding.

--Tech (AI) expansion is going into useful 

robotics that do tasks too dangerous for people.

--Truth speaking is becoming a 'spiritual' practice.’

We look forward to contributions from more of you! Your permission to include them is always requested, and while we have your attention, note that we've removed using the color blue for emphasis. Some have complained it is hard to read.  Your comments on this are welcome.

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 in Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered local daily ‘printed’ newspaper (now 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 (when I attempt to unsubscrbe from some of these, my anti-virus program warns me that doing so might expose me to ‘phishing’) 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. 

Following 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. 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. Always! 

JL 

                                                           * * * *