May 5, 2026 - A Word of Caution, Paying for Info, Urgent Care, Blondie, and Ending the Iran War

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A Word of Caution During an Epidemic of Paranoia

The Department of Justice and the FBI are showing signs of paranoia. And what is a real part of their fears is that the American people will finally see them for the betrayers of the Constitution that they are. 

When the DOJ interprets the number 8647, found spelled out in sea shells on a beach by someone, and photographed by former FBI Director James Comey, as a threat on the President’s life, things are getting out of hand. 

 

For those few who don’t know it by now, ‘86’ is restaurant shorthand for verbally telling the wait staff that the kitchen has run out of an item and not to take orders for it, verbally removing it from the menu, and ’47,’ of course, represents our 47th president. 

‘86’ has occasionally been used in movies and TV shows to apply to more than just restaurant menus. And since a paranoid DOJ has made a legal issue of it, politically motivated tee shirts and caps with ‘8647’ on them have appeared. 

A critic of President Trump, and there are many of them, might smile at that, seeing it as a clever way of advocating removing the President by some legal means such as impeachment or by the 25th Amendment. Only a DOJ sick with paranoia would see it as a death threat, and will get nowhere with it in a courtroom. The Supreme Court in Watts vs United States in 1969 ruled that kind of ‘political hyperbole’ was permissible under the First Amendment when it was used against President Lyndon Johnson. 

Nevertheless, it should be taken as a warning to those critical of President Trump to be careful of the language they use. There might be people somewhere in the Administration maintaining a list of those who criticize the President and feel that some of those at a ‘No Kings’ demonstration, for example, may be thinking in the direction that led to the removal by beheading of France’s King Louis XVI back in 1793. That was really taking ‘No Kings’ to the the max. (or should I say, the ‘ax.’) 

I suspect that the DOJ, the FBI, and also the Secret Service will try to keep a watchful eye on the President’s critics, especially since It has been reported that Cole Tomas Allen, now in custody for last Saturday night’s assassination attempt, recently attended such a demonstration. But that will be a big job because most Americans, from what all of the polls show, are included among the President’s many, many millions of critics. But still, please be careful of what you say or write. Bad people are watching. 

JL 

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‘Upgrade to Paid’ 

In searching the internet for information, the three words I dislike the most to encounter are requests to ‘upgrade to paid.’ 

Some news or opinion sites provide a great amount of useful information before they make that pitch (Professor Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ is the best example) but many do not (the Free Press and the Atlantic magazine ask readers to ‘upgrade’ after just one or two brief paragraphs of a tempting article). 

Some fall in the middle, combining availabilty of news and opinions with a ‘paywall’ in an inconsistant manner. Economist Paul Krugman’s site as well as Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles are examples of that. On many sites, ‘upgrading’ enables the reader to add their comments. 

The only such site (besides my community’s basic cable subscription) that I pay extra for is that of the New York Times, one that usually has a generous amount of free information, but offers a lot more to subscribers. 

Also worthy of mention is the heavily opinionated KOS website; it boasts that it does not have a paywall, but asks for donations from those who agree with its usually anti-adminstration and anti-Trump postings. 

JL 

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About Urgent Care

When and When Not to Use!

And speaking of the New York Times website, it recently provided important information to subscribers regarding Urgent Care centers as compared to visits to hospital Emergency Rooms or visits to one’s primary physician. Try to check it out by copying and pasting https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/well/urgent-care.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260504&instance_id=175073&nl=the-morning&regi_id=78918068&segment_id=219328&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224 on your device’s browser line or clicking here. It may or may not work for you. (It may be available only to Times subscribers.) 

If it doesn’t work for you, an Artificial Intelligence summary as available on most internet searches, such as Google, will still be helpful. Be sure to mention ‘Urgent Care, Emergency Rooms, and Doctor visits’ in your search, wherever you do it.  It is important information, wherever you get it. 

 JL 

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The Words of a President 

I do not pay to be able to comment on Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s daily ‘Letters From an American’ site, but if I did, I would have made this comment regarding her May 3 posting: 

‘Today’s listing of and the actual quotes from the eleven social media postings made by President Trump on Friday evening can serve as evidence, in his own words, to use to remove him (86?) from office via the 25th Amendment. It appears that he is out of his mind.' 

Eleven crazy postings!  Check them it our for yourself by copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your device’s browser line or by clicking here.   

And here’s some more good stuff. 

Ooops, I can’t figure out a way of including the ‘Blondie’ comic strip dated May 4, 2026 on Jackspotpourri, which had been my intention. It'll be easy for you to do it though.

View it on your own by using Google or any reliable search engine to access it.  I wonder who she and Dagwood were watching on TV?  Three guesses.

JL 

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 A Way Out for Trump is in Iran’s Hands 

In an interview with Greg Sargent of The New Republic included in Paul Krugman’s Substack column on May 2, it is acknowledged that Trump has not won his war against Iran. All that the President now requires to end the war he started without any real goals nor Congressional approval is a way to avoid the humiliation that accompanies his not winning it. 

Conceivably, Iran can use the cards in its hand that include (1) its control of the Strait of Hormuz (they never had that until Trump shoved it into their hands), (2) its still having a stash of refined uranium, (3) its continued nuclear program deep underneath remote mountains, and (4) its support of terrorist regimes elsewhere, to serve as sufficient leverage to provide some off-ramp for Trump to use. 

Even just appearing to give in a bit in one or more of these areas might accomplish that.   According to polling, most Americans oppose the war and and would like it ended, if only for relief from the economic distress that has accopanied it.  As for Iran, its entire economy is in tatters and it is in financially worse shape than was the now defunct Spirit Airlines. 

It would be a clear victory for Iran if the war were to end with that nation merely surviving Trump’s attack on it, while it appears that all the President wants is to avoid the embarassment that comes with not winning it, in effect being a loser, damaging his self-designed imperial image. 

But going this route seems to be up to Iran, and is not Trump’s decision. Iran holds most of the cards leaving only empty rhetoric and the threat to blockade Iranian shipping in Trump’s hands. The next move must come from Tehran. I hope, but doubt, that our President understands that. 

 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 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 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 

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

 

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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.) 

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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 

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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

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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 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 

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April 26, 2026 - The End of the G.O.P. and the 'Bulwark'

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Here’s the Jackspotpourri posting that was prepared for release today, April 26.  Why waste it? 

Intentionally omitted from it is any mention of the assassination attempt that occurred at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday evening, April 25. There will be plenty of opportunity for commentary on that after the dust has settled on the reporting of and the repercussions of that event.  Right now, there are still many unanswered questions.

JL 

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And now, back to the Jackspotpourri prepared for today. 

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Mealtime at Mar-a-Lago

The occasional use by extreme right-wingers of the Gadsden flag from Revolutionary War days, showing a snake devouring itself and including the phrase ‘Don’t Tread on Me,’ does not preclude that imagery from being used for other purposes, as shown in the cartoon above. 

Who would have thought two months ago that Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi would be canned, causing worries on the part of other unpopular Trump appointees like Hegseth, Patel, and JFK jr, and those like Vance and Rubio who in the past have strongly criticized Trump? Guys, Donald has a long memory, regardless of what jobs he has given to you. And Hegseth will eventually run out of hairspray. 

Those who consider themselves to be 'friends' of Trump are greatly mistaken. He has no friends. Only those he uses, like Bondi, who took the fall for inadequately hiding the Epstein papers and Noem, who got the blame for ICE excesses in Minneapolis. 

Right now, he’s looking for someone to take the blame for his stupid Iranian ‘excursion.’ That’s a difficult task since most of his advisers tried, unsuccessfully, to talk him out of it.  Infrequently but also mentioned is the depletion of our military hardware, intended as a buttress against China or Russia, wasted on Iran. 

Trump ought to be singing ‘What Kind of Fool am I', Anthony Newley’s hit song from the 1961 musical, ‘Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.’ That best describes him. 

And he can’t pin the blame on Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who would have eventually acted anyway, with or without Trump coming along. Also, his doing that might open him to charges of antisemitism. 

It looks like Trump will end it, declaring it to be a victory if only because that is what he’ll say. He’ll make up some cockamamie story, probably blaming someone in his administration whom he’ll promote to the job of Ambassador to some remote country whose name he will fail to remember. 

But I doubt that there will still be a Republican Party remaining to believe him. The poison administered to the G.O.P. by Trump’s supporters of all stripes, from fascists to racists to economic conservatives to libertarians, and the failure of a Trump-fearing Republican Congress to do its job of being a check to balance the power of the presidency as the Constitution intended, will be fatal, leaving the detritus of the G.O.P. to make new political choices. The Republican Party, as we knew it, will be gone. Dead. Kaput. Finished. 

Some will become Democrats, moving that party more toward the center and some will become more libertarian, if only as an excuse to reduce the powers of government in order to keep their taxes, their only real concern, low. An opposition Party will eventually emerge, but for what it will stand is yet to be determined. See the following article on ‘the Bulwark’ for a clue. 

The limits of the gullibility, of the ignorance, and of the stupidity of too many American voters will have been reached.  And the Republicans will pay for it with their Party’s extinction, while Donald Trump and his family walk away with many billions of dollars resulting from their questionable use of his presidencies, which some critics are already beginning to label as corruption.

The one thing worse than electing a stupid president might be electing a stupid president who is also a crook and a bad liar as well. 

JL 

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The Bulwark      

I am continually puzzled when I see internet postings coming from the Bulwark and those associated with it. It is difficult to see where, if anywhere, it is firmly politically anchored. A search for an answer, including what the use of an Artificial Intelligence tool concludes about it, came up with the following:

 

“The Bulwark is a news and opinion website launched in 2018, known for offering serious political analysis from a center-right, "Never Trump" perspective,by Sarah Longwell, Bill Kristol, and Charlie Sykes, Founded by conservative commentators, it acts as a, platform for conservative thinkers who oppose Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, focusing on the protection of liberal democracy and constitutional norms. Here is a breakdown of what The Bulwark offers: 

Core Focus and Ideology • Anti-Trump Conservatism: It is designed for "politically homeless" conservatives who are opposed to the direction of the modern Republican party. • Pro-Democracy Coalition: While rooted in center-right views, its contributors often collaborate with center-left allies to defend Democratic institutions. • "Conservatism Conserved": The publication seeks to defend traditional, pre-2016 conservative ideals against populist, authoritarian, and populist trends. 

Content and Media • Articles and Newsletters: Daily, independent, and critical analysis of political events. • Podcasts: The Bulwark is known for its extensive podcast network, including The Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller, The Next Level, The Focus Group (with Sarah Longwell), and Shield of the Republic. • YouTube: A major focus of their digital strategy, featuring full-length shows, interviews, and video shorts. The Community (Bulwark+) • The Bulwark is a reader-supported, for-profit media company. • Bulwark+, a paid subscription service, which gives members access to, ad-free podcasts, exclusive newsletters, private podcasts, and community commenting features. •

Tim Miller, frequently featured on 'The Bulwark'

Community: The site fosters an active, engaged community of users that often includes non-conservatives who share a similar commitment to defending democracy. Key Personalities • Sarah Longwell: Publisher, executive director of Defending Democracy Together, and host of The Focus Group. • Tim Miller: Writer-at-large and host of The Bulwark Podcast. • Jonathan V. Last (JVL): Editor, known for his regular, energetic commentary and the Secret Podcast. • Bill Kristol: Editor-at-large and a prominent figure in the "Never Trump" movement.” 

I translate all of this as meaning that The Bulwark is anything its followers want it to be, depending on what part or parts of its content they access.

Some may be totally unaware of its neoconservative roots based on the last century’s disillusioned liberals, and consider it to be a liberal entity, which it is not, although some of its positions are indistinguisible from those of today’s liberals. Try to put that in your smoke and pipe it. Or did I get that wrong? 

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 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 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 usually 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 

                                                               * * * *

April 23, 2025 - Bombings, Presidential Misdeeds, and Making 'Deals'

 

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When Dropping Bombs are a Good Thing

The only good things about dropping bombs from the skies or shooting shells from ships at sea or using drones to mount attacks, is that they avoid putting troops on the ground. Why? Because once the decision to do that is made, with troops involved, belligerents are far less likely to resolve their differences through negotiations. 

More than half a century ago, we put ‘boots on the ground’ in Vietnam and that made negotiations elusive, if not impossible, once it became clear that victory in a ground war there was just not going to happen.  ('Boots' are an easier, less human, word to sell to the public than 'troops.')

In that sense, sticking with aerial and naval bombardment of Iran and Iranian interests might be good things; they serve to avoid taking steps it might be far more difficult from which to back off, if our goals in that war, whatever they are, happen to change.  Such change is possible because each time the President or his appointees approach defining our aims in this war, the goal posts seem to be moved either closer, or further away, than they were the day before. 

JL

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Stay on Top of the President’s Misdeeds 

Do so by checking out Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ as often as possibly by clicking here or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your device’s browser line. 

Pressed for time? Just start with any one of her recent postings.   April 20, 21, or 22 will do just fine. She doesn’t make this stuff up! Her sources are documented with her precision as a historian, and links to them are provided at the conclusion of her postings, enabling you to make up your own mind.  That's why I steer you toward them. I do not alway agree with her.  (Just most of the time.)

JL 

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The Art of the Deal 

President Trump once supposedly wrote a book titled ‘The Art of the Deal.’ Some of the tactics therein described work fine when both sides have things they want and things they will not give up. Part of the supposed strategy is not to let the other side know what these things really are, or if they exist at all. One side, conceivably, might be bluffing. 

But although this might work when it involves a lease, a piece of real estate, or a business decision, it does not apply to negotiations to end a war, as is the case with the on-again, off-again sessions to end our undeclared war with Iran, supposedly scheduled to take place in Pakistan.  In that case, what cards each side really has in its hand are known to the other side through their intelligence sources and what is general knowledge. 

Hard-bargaining international negotiators will never achieve the ‘deal’ they want if they refuse to put certain items on the table as open to negotiation. This is what both the United States and Iran are doing, excluding certain items from any negotiations, before even sitting down. 

Both parties, desirous for a cease fire, agree that it take place but only on their terms, which differ. As a result, at this point, the meetings are not taking place. But both sides know better and really everything is open to negotiations, although both sides will not admit it, seeing that as a sign of weakness. 

If we can’t talk about this or that, both sides feel, why should we even bother showing up. Ultimately, each side will have to give up something that it does not want to give up, enabling both sides to walk away from the table and declare that they came out ahead. Both sides know that but neither wants to be the first to go down that path.  And using the threat of violence to convince either side to reach that point will prove to be counter-productive in the long run. 

JL 

                                                                 * * 

'Further Comment Unnecessary' Dep't.

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 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 

                                                                  * * * *

April 19, 2026 - Clowning Around, Peace With Iran and Hezbollah, More on AI, and Thoughts from the New Yorker's Editor

 

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Sending in the Clowns 

I fail to understand why the United States sends relateively inexperienced negotiators to whatever meetings take place to resolve the war President Trump started with Iran. 

Presidential son-in-law and investor Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff lack the bargaining skills to carry out high level international negotiations as well as sufficient knowledge of the history of the issues involved. Success in the business world, or friendship with Donald Trump, does not justify their role in these meetings, whenever they resume. 

Even Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio lack all of the necessary skills and deep knowledge required when dealing with trained professional diplomats representing other countries, including of course, Iran. They need experts sitting at their side at the table. I am not certain that such expertise is available to them. 

When the United States competes in international athletic events, we try to send our best and most qualified to represent our country. We have such people available in the world of diplomacy. Unfortunately, often they turn out to be government employees (as diplomats usually are) and using them is difficult because Republican leadership, leaning in a libertarian direction, seems to think government is the enemy, not the friend, of the people. And those who come from the academic world might not profess loyalty to the Administration. So we send in amateurs which is little better than ‘sending in the clowns,’ a decision made by the chief clown himself. 

JL 

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Is Peace in Sight? 

If we are to believe what their respective governments tell us, the Strait of Hormuz ought to be open, and cease fire talks between the United States and Iran proceeding now that Israel and Lebanon are now talking to each other.

But each side, however, puts its own spin on to what it agreed, providing them with ‘wiggle room.’ I still wish we had better negotiators involved than those described above. 

Right now, the United State Navy is still chasing down shipping all over the world that has Iranian connections and blockading Iranian ports by air, which acts have moved Iran to once again close the Strait of Hormuz, now renamed by them as the Strait of Iran. 

And israel is supposedly only targeting Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, but they are still difficult to separate from other locations there. By the time you are reading this, these things may have changed … again. 

JL 

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Continuing Research into Artificial Intelligence 

The previous posting of Jackspotpourri suggested keeping up with articles concerning Artificial Intelligence. Those interested in doing so might start by clicking here or copying and pasting https://www.forbes.com/lists/ai50/ on their device’s browser line. 

This Forbes Magazine article is a summary of the businesses actively involved in Artifical Intelligence’s development. Anyone who does anything on the internet should be familiar with tools such as Claude and ChatGPT and what has been going on with Anthropic, the developer of Claude. This article may provide a starting point for those who want to do more than just scratch the surface of information technology. 

JL 

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Comments from New Yorker's Editor

Originally written ten days earlier, the following piece by New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick appeared in its issue dated April 20. (That magazine dates its issues at least a week ahead so that they appear to be current when made available for purchase on newsstands.) 

Trump’s Strategic and Moral Failure in Iran 

From the first day of his Presidency, Trump has posed an emergency to both his country and the world - By David Remnick April 10, 2026 

“Not many years ago, a ruthless man with an uneasy mind took power in his country and created a cult of personality. In the center of the capital, he erected a gold statue of himself that rotated with the sun. 

He stashed billions in a foreign bank. He closed the academy of sciences, the ballet, the philharmonic, the circus, and all provincial libraries. His autobiography became the nation’s spiritual guide. He banned dogs from the capital for their “unappealing odor.” He renamed the months: January for himself, April for his mother. He was fond of melons. The second Sunday of August became National Melon Day. Such was the world of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s leader from 1985 until his death, by cardiac arrest, in 2006.

For the Turkmen people, there was nothing comical about life under his dictatorship. He barred dissent and packed his jails with prisoners of conscience. The only consolation was that he could not impose his grandiosity on the globe. 

Donald Trump, by contrast, has, from the first day of his Presidency, posed an emergency to both his country and the world, even as he has ceaselessly invoked the language of “emergency” to inflate threats, suspend norms, and expand his own power. 

A decade ago, he was already making statements that flouted the ordinary standards of adult behavior. When it came to North Korea, for example, he alternated between cooing words of affection for Kim Jong Un and issuing taunts that mixed nuclear brinkmanship with masculine insecurity: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” 

Trump embodies the notion that, with age, you become what you always were, only more so. In the final days of the 2024 campaign, he met with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. When asked whether he would deploy the U.S. military if China, under Xi Jinping, were to blockade Taiwan, Trump replied, “I wouldn’t have to, because he respects me, and he knows I’m fucking crazy.” 

The MAGA coalition has long countenanced Trump’s bigotry and cruelty. But now, with the repeated violations of an America First foreign policy, his poll numbers have plummeted. Since returning to office, Trump has ordered military strikes on Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and Iran, and has felt little need to provide a coherent rationale for any of them.

According to reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, of the Times, Trump and his national-security advisers gathered in the Situation Room on February 11th to listen to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, argue for a coördinated attack on Iran. Even though the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, made their reservations plain—Rubio called Netanyahu’s talk of regime change “bullshit”—Trump blundered ahead. And, as in the days of the Turkmen dictator, everyone fell into line. 

But when the Iranian regime failed to collapse or capitulate, when Netanyahu’s prediction of a national uprising failed to materialize, Trump turned to threats of war crimes and genocide against the very people he claimed to be helping liberate: ‘A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?’ 

These were not the words of a strategist. They were the words of a maniac. And they had a galvanizing effect, though hardly in the way Trump might have intended. Some of his erstwhile acolytes—Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones—seem to have woken up to how dangerous he has always been. 

Yet around the Cabinet table, at Mar-a-Lago, and in the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill, it is gospel that his deranged threats forced a ceasefire and scored a major victory. The President’s war, though, seems poised to achieve little that was not already available through prewar diplomacy, or through some renewed version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A., the Iran nuclear deal secured by the Obama Administration. In fact, the original sin of this disaster was Trump’s abandonment of that deal, in 2018. For all its limits, it had stalled Iran’s march toward an atomic weapon.

But Netanyahu, long eager for a full-scale war against Iran - aimed not only at its nuclear program but at its proxies, such as Hezbollah - shrewdly played on Trump’s vanity and his contempt for Barack Obama. Trump destroyed the J.C.P.O.A. with nothing to replace it. So the war stands as a strategic failure and a moral calamity. The ceasefire is already fragile. “The whole point of this exercise was supposedly to advance the cause of freedom in Iran,” Karim Sadjadpour, a Washington-based specialist on the country, said. “To go from ‘help is on the way’ to ‘we are going to wipe out your civilization’ is strategic malpractice.” 

 According to Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert who formerly worked in Israeli intelligence, Trump’s principal envoys to the region, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, almost certainly misread Iran’s capabilities and intentions. “This is a colossal disaster and should never have happened,” Citrinowicz said, noting that it will “haunt the region and world for many years to come.” I

In the opening days of the war, the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wiped out much of Iran’s defense and intelligence leadership, apparently believing that the regime would somehow give way to “moderates” and “pragmatists.” Instead, the theocracy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remain in place, equally radical, equally repressive, and more determined than ever to acquire the ultimate deterrent: a nuclear weapon. Why give up that pursuit, as Libya did, and leave yourself exposed, when you can, like North Korea, achieve it and deter attack? Trump has gone far toward shattering what’s left of America’s global stature. 

His preposterous bluster about Greenland, Cuba, and NATO has undermined the postwar alliance. He has humiliated and betrayed the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. And all the while Vladimir Putin, who aims to press Ukraine for still more territory, and Xi Jinping, who keeps Taiwan in view, watch the spectacle of Donald Trump for what it reveals about both his instability and the cratering credibility of American leadership. 

In the midst of the war, Trump released plans for his Presidential library. Its centerpiece will be an auditorium with an immense gold statue of himself. Whether it will turn with the sun is not yet known.” 

 (Published in the print edition of the April 20, 2026, issue of the New Yorker with the headline ‘Global Threat.’) 

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In my opinion, it is up to Rubio, Ratcliffe, and Caine, as well as any others present at that February 11 meeting in the White House’s Situation Room, to recognize that they had been misinformed and misled by Netanyahu and Trump and to lead an effort, directed primarily at Republicans, to remove Donald Trump from office, using whatever means is available to accomplish that most quickly. He must go! 

Whoever succeeds Trump is certain to be a great improvement over a president who actually boasted to the Wall Street Journal two years ago (see above New Yorker article) that the president of China respects him because ‘he thinks that I’m fucking crazy.’ If that’s the self-image Trump is content to project, we have great reason for concern. Being thusly detached from reality is not a virtue. It is that simple. 

 He is, as Remnick puts it, a ‘Global Threat.’

Perhaps coincidentally, the New Yorker magazine issue from which the above article is reproduced also included a lengthy review by critic Louis Menand of a book about the end of the lost Vietnam war, a point at which all the United States was doing was attempting to ‘save face.’ It seems to me, right now, that is the same thing that we are attempting to do in our misguided war against Iran. 

JL 

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You Want Evidence? 

 And speaking of Trump’s alternate reality, economist Paul Krugman addresses it truthfully in his posting dated April 18. To read it, click here or copy and paste paulkrugman@substack.com on your device’s browser line.

And then, if you need further evidence of the President’s illegal activities, and those of his appointees, check out what Professor Heather Cox Richardson has been writing and documenting with links to her sources in her ‘Letters from an American’ by clicking here or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your device’s browser line.  

In her past few postings there, she touches a lot of bases, too many to list here … so take advantage of the suggested links. Do not remain confused by the alternate reality in which Donald Trump dwells. 

Don’t try to find some relief in the comic pages either. 

So long for now. 

 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 and those considered ‘promotional’ by Gmail’s system as no more than advertisements or requests for donations. Besides emails, 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  

                                                          * * * *