May 15, 2025 - I'm Overwhelmed, Ignorance No Handicap, Justice Sotomayor Speaks, Choosing a Pope, Authoritarian Overreach, and that Achilles Heel Again

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I Am Overwhelmed by All That is Going On 

Usually I work on what will appear on the next Jackspotpourri during the three or four days between its postings. And that is what follows in today’s posting, despite a deluge of fresh material worthy of inclusion being present at the time I am posting this supposedly fresh posting of Jackspotpourri.

I am overwhelmed and just don’t have the time to include all of it today. But here is a summary of what Jackspotpourri is NOT covering today. It’s up to you to check out these vital issues on your own! Do a little 'googling' to find the pertinent postings.

    • Paul Krugman writes about the delays at Newark Airport being a symptom of Elon Musk’s elimination of supposedly unnecessary government jobs.

 

    • Three eminent professors, including Yale’s Timothy Snyder, alarmed at what is happening to our government, have left the country, accepting positions at the University of Toronto, according to the New York Times.

 

    • President Trump’s speech before Saudi leadership at Riyadh marked our abandoning efforts to encourage countries with undemocratic governments from trying to do things the way we do and more or less, agreeing to deal with despots. This was covered in two essays in the Free Press blog.

 

    • The Supreme Court is about to consider what Birthright citizenship, bestowed by the 14th Amendment, really means. Opponents of Birthright citizenship look to what they claim was its more limited intent, (just for freed slaves). If so, does ‘intent’ apply to the 2nd Amendment as well, where its ‘limited’ intent was spelled out in its first thirteen words?

 

     • Retired conservative judge J. Michael Luttig claims that that ‘the courts are holding and will continue to hold,’ but President Trump ‘will continue his assault on America, its democracy, and rule of law until the American people finally rise up and say, ‘No more.’ Heather Cox Richardson says that they are indeed ‘rising up’!

I have my doubts. 

JL 

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Ignorance No Handicap 

The preceding posting on Jackspotpourri identified President Trump as being an ignorant person, citing a few examples. To make up for that deficiency, throughout his life, Donald Trump has successfully polished his skills as a huckster, a salesman, a glad-hander, a ‘wheeler-dealer,’ and a peddler of snake-oil remedies with sufficient resources to repel any detractors with seemingly unending and costly litigation. This skill ultimately enabled him to be elected to the nation’s presidency not once, but twice. 

Another ‘ignorant’ President, Andrew Jackson, achieved the same result by letting the voting population be convinced that his military victory at New Orleans in the War of 1812 validated his leadership abilities, at a time when the nation was groping around seeking leaders to follow in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers. It took until Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 for one to be found. 

JL 

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Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Says Lawyers Must ‘Stand Up’ and ‘Fight This Fight’ 

In pointed remarks, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told an audience of hundreds of lawyers last Thursday at a program at Georgetown University’s Law School that she had joined them as “an act of solidarity.” I believe she said this to make it clear that she was not speaking in her role as a Justice of the Supreme Court, but as a lawyer, to fellow lawyers. 

As reported by Adam Liptak in the New York Times, her remarks came against the backdrop of immense stress on lawyers from the Trump administration. “If you’re not used to fighting, and losing battles, then don’t become a lawyer,” she said. “Our job is to stand up for people who can’t do it themselves.” “Right now,” she added, “we can’t lose the battles we are facing.” 

Justice Sotomayor spoke in general terms, but her remarks came against that backdrop of immense stress on lawyers and the legal system from the Trump administration. That tension included a string of executive orders from President Trump retaliating against prominent law firms, stripping their lawyers of security clearances, barring them from entering federal buildings and discouraging federal officials from interacting with the firms. She was once a summer associate at one of those firms, Paul Weiss, which led the way in striking a deal with the administration, prompting criticism that it had sacrificed its principles to protect its bottom line. Many other leading firms followed suit. 

Justice Sotomayor indicated that she had a different conception of what lawyers ought to do. “We need trained and passionate and committed lawyers to fight this fight,” she said. “For me, being here with you is an act of solidarity.” 

(It took about two days for the ignorati at FoxNews, noting her remarks, to receive their marching orders from the White House and unleash a barrage of criticism of Justice Sotomayor.) 

JL

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 How the Conclave Chose Pope Leo XIV 

 Among the many articles about Pope Leo XIV, what occurred during the ‘secret’ Conclave that elected him is best described in a New York Times article that you can read by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/world/europe/conclave-vote-pope-leo-robert-prevost.html?algo=reverse-chron&block=3&campaign_id=142&emc=edit_fory_20250511&fellback=false&imp_id=5880844909334050&instance_id=154335&nl=for-you&nlid=78918068&pool=channel-replacement-ls&rank=5&regi_id=78918068&req_id=1305417648555655&segment_id=197752&surface=for-you-email-channelless&user_id=02fa158150d34dc186b01b1b8ec7a224&variant=holdout_fye_channelless on the browser line of your device. 

It’s the sort of article that will prompt some of its sources, mostly Cardinals who had participated in the Conclave, to tell the article’s writers, of which there were four, that they didn’t think what they had said to them would end up in print.  Separately, none of these Cardinals violated their vows of silence, but putting two and two and two and two together added up to eight, and that is what the New York Times printed. 

JL 

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Stopping Trump’s Authoritarian Overreach, Achilles Heel Again … and Mothers Day

Heather Cox Richardson’s May 12 posting on ‘Letters from an American’ ripped into the rotteness of the Trump administration, highlighting its attacks on ‘habeas corpus,’ (the rights of those accused of crimes, including any held in detention, to have their day in court), as well as violations of the Constitution’s prohibition on Presidents’ taking gifts, and other transgressions, amounting to ‘authoritarian overreach.’ 

I’ll quote one line from that posting: ‘It seems as if Republicans who are not on board the MAGA train are hoping the courts or reality will stop Trump’s authoritarian overreach.’ 

‘Hoping’ is not enough though, and too many of them still reside in an imaginary alternate Trumpian reality. Dependence on untrustworthy Republicans not remaining quiet in the face of their Party’s acceptance of unconstitutional behavior and disregard of the Constitution’s checks and balances is an inadequate life preserver for our democracy! 

These Republicans who are ‘not on board the MAGA train’ may hold the future of our democracy in their hands. Read Professor Richardson’s full postings by CLICKING HERE or visiting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

This is what happens when our representative democracy bares its ‘Achilles Heel’ to the poisoned arrows of those who do not believe in it. 

Permit me to again (Jackspotpourri has gone there before) remind you that the root of our democracy’s ‘Achilles Heel’ consists of an undemocratic Senate whereby every State, regardless of population, has two Senators, and that this heavy ‘thumb on the scale’ of democracy extends further into the composition of the Electoral College in voting for a president, who makes appointments to the Supreme Court, confirmable by that unrepresentative Senate as well. Oy! 

Back in 1789, this was a massive ‘bribe’ paid to those States whose economies were dependent upon slavery to entice them to support the Constitution. But ever since the Civil War, slavery is no more, and there is no reason to preserve the results of that ‘bribe’! 

We will approach having a true representative democracy only [1] when the President is elected by a popular, nationwide, vote, and [2] State representation in the Senate becomes population-based, as it is in the House of Representative.) 

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To honor Mothers Day, Professor Richardson in her May 10 posting described an elderly neighbor whom, as she aged, illustrated the necessity of making friends with succeeding generations through the ‘mothers’ of each generation. She wrote that ‘I watched her lose my grandmother's generation and then work to make friends with my mother's generation. And when they, too, died, she set out, in her eighties, to make friends with my generation. Every day was a new day.’  There's a lesson there.

JL 

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Please Pardon Me for Demonstrating, Maybe 

The other day, twenty-five demonstators at the Capitol protesting threatened MAGA cuts in Medicaid funding were arrested and others forcibly removed by Capitol Police because It is against the law to protest inside congressional buildings. 

Okay, then what about the hundreds who invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021, doing millions of dollars in damage, and who were arrested and convicted, only to be pardoned by the President? Trump and his supporters cannot have it both ways. 

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Please Read This!

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps. 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

Besides email, my other source of information is 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). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)

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.

JL 

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May 10, 2025 - Pope Leo XIV, Moby Dick, Two Excellent 'Letters from an American,' What the President Doesn't Know, Why a Fox Anchor Fainted, Zebra Longwings, and More!

 

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Roman Catholics, And Others, Welcome Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV and Crowd in St. Peter's Square

Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters to an American’ dated May 8 reported on what we might expect from the new Pope, Leo XIV, in regard to social issues. Find it at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ or just CLICK HERE.

While there is some disagreement as to the intent of certain theological writings, the new Pope clearly disagrees, as also did the late Pope Francis, with the position of conservative Catholics, including Vice President Vance, a convert to Catholicism five years ago, whose shallow opinion is obviously politically motivated. 

I respectfully (I am not Catholic) covered this territory, involving the writings of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, in some detail in Jackspotpourri dated February 17, 2025, which you can access through the archives listed off to the right. I recommend that you do that right now. 

JL 

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Pressed for Time? 

If you’re too busy to read all the way through Jackspotpourri today (or any day, for that matter), at least take a look at what Boston College historian, Heather Cox Richardson, had to say in her daily “Letters from an American” dated May 9. 

Just follow the directions in the paragraph directly above to get there. Her posting dated May 9 reinforces my conviction that the inmates are running the asylum that passes for the Executive Branch of our government. 

Make touching base with Professor Richardson's 'Letters' an everyday habit, even on days when Jackspotpourri is not posting. You will not be disappointed and become more aware of what is going on around you in the country and the world.  

Her May 8 and May 9 postings are not to be missed.

JL 

                                                      

For Our Literature-Oriented Followers 

Friday’s Palm Beach Post included the following letter on its Opinion page. I have omitted the writer’s name. 

'Moby Dick’ Analogy Rings True Today’ 

‘Although 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Great Gatsby,' the book that resonates for me the most right now is Herman Melville’s 'Moby Dick.' We’re not living in the Jazz Age; we’re in the middle of the deepest, darkest sea, with President Trump as Captain Ahab, the White House as the Pequod, and America as the great white whale, the focus of the Trump-Ahab megalomaniacal obsession.  The burning question, at least in my mind, is which of us, if any, will be fortunate enough to be Ishmael?’ 

                                                                

 (For those unfamiliar with Melville’s novel, Ishmael was the only one who survived to tell the story.) 

      

JL 

    

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Trump Doesn’t Know the Meaning of the Declaration of Independence … And a Lot of Other Stuff As Well 

Here’s an excerpt from Brad DeLong’s ‘Grasping Reality’ newsletter, forwarded by a regular follower of Jackspotpourri. Check out the President’s total failure to understand the Declaration of Independence: 

“When Trump, on national television, points to the Declaration of Independence and mutters about it being a ‘declaration of unity and love and respect,’ we are not just witnessing confusion, we are witnessing profound cognitive decline. 

The Declaration is not about love. It is not about unity. It is not about respect. Jefferson and company had zero respect for King George III Hanover and his ministers. It is about revolt. It is about the severing of political bonds. It is about the violation of inalienable rights by those who control but do not love us.  

The idea that Trump sees it as a feel-good sentiment is not an alternative interpretation, it’s a symptom. Yet his party rallies behind him. The press parses his word salad with straight faces, afraid or unwilling to confront the implications. But let’s be brutally honest: Trump doesn’t know what he’s saying. And he doesn’t care that he doesn’t know.” 

DeLong charitably and wryly associates this with cognitive decline. Maybe so, but I put it right along with Trump’s unbelievably pathetic excuses for not revealing his taxes (‘they’re under audit’) or passing the buck to his lawyers when asked on ‘Meet the Press’ if he knows the President’s job includes upholding the Constitution. 

As ignorant as he is, he is clever enough to know that most of those who voted for him and his followers in Congress are even more ignorant than he is, or if they are not, are nevertheless afraid to correct his profound ignorance or close their eyes to it for selfish reasons. (The Vice-President and the Secretary of State fall into this latter category, while death threats were sufficient impetus to prevent former Vice-President Pence from being in this latter category.)

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Somewhat related to that ignorance, I’ve read that some of the cast of ‘Les Miz,’ scheduled to be performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington with the President in attendance, have dropped out, objecting to the Center’s being purged of ‘progressive’ programming by him. 

I doubt if Trump is capable of catching some of the revolutionary themes in Les Miz that attack oppressive government and treatment of the poor, particularly in the lyrics to ‘Can You Hear the People Sing’? 

(The 2012 Universal film production of Les Miz was much more graphic than live stage performances are in this respect. For informational purposes only, an excerpt from that film can be seen by copying and pasting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U) on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE. The film might remind a more astute person than the President of the demonstrations against his policies that are going on throughout the nation.) 

How Does One Get to Be That Ignorant?

I wonder if Donald Trump's ‘ignorance’ might have started when he 'cut classes' or perhaps paid someone to sit there pretending to be him somewhere during his school years, leaving him to grow up an uneducated person. Politico had reported that according to accounts in journalist Bob Woodward’s 2018 book, ‘Fear: Trump in the White House,’ his Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, had claimed President Donald Trump had the understanding of ‘a fifth - or sixth grader.’ Most economists would put his understanding of tariffs at about that level. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if well-meaning family donations to the New York Military Academy, Fordham University, and the University of Pennsylvania served to enable him to get away with it. And we are all paying the price. 

JL 

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You Never Know WHO May Be Watching TV

When a Fox New pundit passed out on camera on Thursday, while delivering some very nasty remarks about former President Biden, it supported those who believe that we are being monitored by a power greater than mankind's and Who just wants to remind us of Who is really in charge. The liars who inhabit Fox News should now be more cautious about their remarks, fearing divine retribution, of which this episode was just a hint. It could have been worse.

Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel illustration
of God's power infusing mankind

 

JL 

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Where the Girls Aren’t 

The other day, while hosing down some furniture on my patio, I left the screen door open for a short while. During that time, a butterfly (specifically a Zebra Longwing, the State Butterfly of Florida - Heliconius charitonius), flew in and decided to stay there, despite my leaving the screen door open again, hoping it would leave. It didn’t. 

Zebra Longwing Butterfly

On the contrary, with the screen door opened, the butterfly was able to invite its friends to join it on my patio. A few did. And why not? There were plenty of regularly watered plants there (two begonias, a mandevilla vine, three bromiliads, and a bonsai bush) from which they might seek moisture or nectar besides a giant schifflera to provide shade if they wanted some. And best of all, while sunshine poured through the patio’s screening, it also kept out the butterflies’ natural predators. 

This paradise for butterflies lasted about a week, when finally, my Zebra Longwing guests took a hint and exited via the opened screen door. 

A little research taught me the reason for their departure. It seems that male Zebra Longwings, unlike many other species of bufterflies, do not wait to mate with adult female Zebra Longwing butterflies, but instead attempt to start their reproductive process at an earlier stage. In a sense, they are ‘robbing the cradle.’ 

They try to fertilize the female through the outside of its crysalis (or pupa, or cocoon) that ultimately morphed from the caterpillars that grew from eggs laid earlier by fertilized female Zebra Longwings. It is from these crisalises, when they finally break open, that adult Zebra Longwings butterflies will emerge if the male’s earlier efforts were successful. Some will be females and continue the egg laying function. 

For that to happen, there has to be an existing population of Zebra Longwings in the area that have reached the crisalis stage. Apparently, despite its other attractions, my patio did not provide them, so off they went to the great outdoors to seek sexual gratification elsewhere. My patio’s screen door is now closed. 

JL 

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Artist at Work

The painting currently displayed off to the top-right in the ‘Pictures From My Gallery’ space is, as pointed out, a copy of a New Yorker Magazine cover. Here is a photo showing the copying of the magazine’s cover. You can see the actual magazine cover as I was copying it off to the left in this photo. That cover was called ‘Shelter’ and its artist is Anthony Russo. The New Yorker made Russo’s cover painting available on coffee mugs, one of which I have and frequently use. 

A work in progress, showing my painting and the    
magazine cover being copied.

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps. 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

Besides email, my other source of information is 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). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.)

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. 

 JL

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May 5, 2025 - Three Articles from the New Yorker, The President on Meet the Press, Tampa General Hospital ... and a lot more!

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Three Pieces From the New Yorker

The May 5 issue of the New Yorker magazine (they date it about a week ahead of its publication so it isn't 'stale' on the newsstands) was a good one. Don’t be scared off by its high price printed on its cover. It is much, much less expensive by subscription or online.

It started with the following comments in its ‘Talk of the Town’ section by its editor, David Remnick, entitled ‘100 Days of Ineptitude’: 

'100 Days of Ineptitude'  - David Remnick

"Eight years ago, in this space, a survey of the first hundred days of the initial Trump Presidency described just how “demoralizing” the Administration had already proved for any citizen concerned with the fate of liberal democracy. In both rhetoric and action, Donald Trump had undermined the rule of law, global security, civil rights, science, and the distinction between fact and its opposite. 

Cover of May 5, 2025 New Yorker

As we noted, The hundred-day marker is never an entirely reliable indicator of a four-year term, but it’s worth remembering that Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama were among those who came to office at a moment of national crisis and had the discipline, the preparation, and the rigor to set an entirely new course. 

Impulsive, egocentric, and mendacious, Trump has, in the same span, set fire to the integrity of his office. Trump never concealed his motives or his character. He came to office in 2017 celebrating the illiberalism of Andrew Jackson and William McKinley and waving Charles Lindbergh’s banner of “America First.” At the Inauguration, he took in the spotty attendance on the Mall and instructed his press secretary to declare the crowd the “largest ¬audience to ever witness an Inauguration - period.” 

Trump went on from there, demagogue and fantasist, striving to ban travellers from predominantly Muslim countries and to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Media-drunk, he tweeted at Kim Jong Un, Hillary Clinton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, while hate-toggling between CNN and MSNBC.

He appointed Michael Flynn, a QAnon favorite, as his national-security adviser––until he regretfully had to fire him three weeks into the term. He amused himself by antagonizing close European allies and declaring NATO “obsolete.” There were many more moments of chaos and cruelty to come, but now we know that Trump’s first term, his initial attempt at authoritarian primacy, was amateur hour, a fitful rehearsal. The reflexes and ambitions were all there; he just didn’t know yet what he was doing. His victory over Clinton had been a shock, so when he frantically prepared for office he threw together a motley staff of bug-eyed ideologues, silver-haired establishmentarians (who “looked the part”), and family members and retainers who hoped to profit from the job while getting off on all the super-cool trappings of power. 

As a result, his first term was characterized by an ambient contempt for him inside his own Administration. His first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was reportedly convinced that Trump was a “moron,” and both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and the chief of staff, John Kelly, eventually concluded that the Commander-¬in-Chief was, in a word, a fascist.

Trump still managed to exact plenty of damage, yet the feuding in his midst, along with the episodic flashes of congressional opposition, popular protest, and resistance in the courts, forestalled some of his fondest ambitions from being realized. Time ran out. He lost re-election. His insurrection failed. But he was not done. 

During his four-year interregnum at Mar-a-Lago, Trump gazed down the fairways and concluded that Joe Biden was too diminished to win again. On this, he was right and the Democratic leadership deluded. What’s more, Trump resolved to be himself, only more so: Trump Unbound. While the commentariat saw his increasingly bizarre improvisations at the lectern as no less disqualifying than Biden’s confusion during the fatal debate, Trump kept faith with his dominant source of inspiration––retribution. With a wink, he denied any knowledge of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s vision for the exercise of executive power, but few doubted that he would enact its plans. For would-be advisers and Cabinet officers, obedience was the sole qualification. 

The Administration is now stocked with the greasily obsequious. Rank incompetence also seems no impediment to employment. How else to explain Pete Hegseth’s move from the weekend desk at Fox News to the big office at the Pentagon? And in what other Administration would bulbs as dim as Howard Lutnick or Peter Navarro be called upon to craft the future of the world’s largest economy? The record of failure after a hundred days is, at once, astonishing and predictable. With no evident purpose, Trump has alienated Europe, Japan, Mexico, and Canada, further undermined NATO, and made even more plain his affection for Vladimir Putin. He has sanctioned his benefactor Elon Musk to hoist a chainsaw and commit mayhem against government agencies that save countless human lives. 

With evident pleasure, Trump has deported more than two hundred -people (nearly all of whom have no criminal record) to a Salvadoran gulag. With his tariff proposals, he managed to destabilize the global economy in a flash, perhaps the worst own goal in history. As part of his revenge campaign, he has waged a war of intimidation against dozens of scholarly, commercial, and legal institutions. Some, like Columbia University, Amazon, and Paul, Weiss, have caved, choosing the path of obedience over principle. Shari Redstone, of Paramount, would rather trash the independence of “60 Minutes,” the most respected investigative outlet on television, than resist the absurd attacks of Trump and his lawyers. The enduring emblem of this Administration and its duplicity is undoubtedly $TRUMP, a meme-coin scheme that has brought many millions of dollars in profits to the President and his fellow-investors.

Few seem to mind. Trump has normalized Presidential corruption. If one were forced to choose two representative events in the life of this Administration so far, they would surely be the White House meetings with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and, six weeks later, with the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele. In the first, Trump treated a moral hero as an ungrateful scoundrel. In the second, he treated a sadistic dictator as a soulmate. It is hard to recall a scene in the Oval Office more revolting than that of Trump’s smiling request to Bukele to build five more prisons, because “the homegrowns are next.” 

In recent weeks, there have been encouraging signs of opposition to Trump, on the streets and in the courts. Cory Booker, Chris Murphy, Alexandria Ocasio--Cortez, and Bernie Sanders are among the clearest voices of dissent on Capitol Hill. But accommodation and cowardice remain the norm. “We are all afraid,” the Republican senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, said to a gathering in Anchorage. No doubt. The threat of retaliation is no joke, but the Senator’s plaintive cry does not exactly meet the demands of the moment. This is not primarily a matter of competence or a clash over policy. The Trump Administration is carrying out a coordinated assault on first principles. 

“The limits of tyrants,” Frederick Douglass said, “are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” The  President will persist in his assault until he feels the resistance of a people who will tolerate it no longer."

(Published in the New Yorker’s print edition dated May 5, 2025, issue, with the headline “100 Days of Ineptitude” as well as in the magazine’s Daily online Newsletter.) 

JL 

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Is It Happening Here? 

That issue of the New Yorker also featured a lengthy piece by New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz entitled ‘Is It Happening Here,’ leading off with a subtitle summary that read ‘Many democracies have gradually slid into autocracy. That may be where we are headed – or where we are.’ 

Marantz starts off by referring to several ‘anti-Trump’ books, including ‘How Democracies Die’ by two Harvard political scientists. Mostly, Marantz chronicles what happened, and is still happening to democracy in Hungary, as a parallel to the Trump presidencies in the United States. Marantz’ thesis is that the change from democracy to autocracy is rarely a sudden one but takes place gradually, step by step, in full view of its citizens. 

As an example, he cites a Hungarian social scientist whom he quotes as saying at lunch, “Before it starts, you say to yourself, ‘I will leave this country immediately if they ever do this or that horrible thing, … and then they do that thing, and you stay.” 

He also describes the liberal post-communist Central European University abandoning its Budapest location for Vienna, unhappy with the changes and subtle pressures of the Hungarian government. 

But that’s enough of a preview. To read the full article, copy and paste https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/what-its-like-to-live-under-autocracy on your browser line or CLICK HERE. 

(The article also appeared in the New Yorker’s Daily Newsletter with the title ‘What’s it Like to Live Under Autocracy.’)

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In Case of Emergency

Finally, Jill Lepore, a professor of history and law at Harvard, finds solace from the vicissitudes of the Trump Administration in snippits of philosophy and poetry that she keeps handy. She closes the article, 'In Case of Emergency,' which you can find by copying and pasting https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/in-case-of-emergency-break-open-a-book on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE, with a quote from Walt Whitman on the eve of the Civil War in 1860: 

“I assert that all past days were what they must have been, And what they should no-how have been better than they were, And that today is what it must be, and that America is, And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.” 

I would interpret ‘no-how’ to mean ‘no way’ in today’s usage, or as Connie Francis sang a century later, ‘Que Sera, Sera.’ 

JL 

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Hello, Singapore!

Viewership of Jackspotpourri is up again in Singapore. A few postings ago, I ventured a guess that it probably represented Chinese monitoring of the Internet, understandable because China has a significant presence in Singapore. 

Why are they watching Jackspotpourri? I think they are confused by the chaos in our economny, brought about by our President, and groping to gather anything and everything they can find out about it, including what you read here. 

JL 

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A Fact-Filled Posting 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ posting of May 4 makes it easy to conclude that at last, insofar as our government is concerned, the inmates are running the asylum. Check it out at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ 

JL 

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Our President – Wiser than His Supporters

On ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday, when asked whether he needs to uphold the Constitution, President Trump answered ‘I don’t know.’  Kristin Welker later pushed further by asking, ‘Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?’  Trump again answered, ‘I don't know. I have to respond by saying again I have brilliant lawyers that work for me.’ 

This guy has a short memory. When inaugurated three months earlier, of course, he swore an oath to ‘preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution.’ 

Referring to his ‘brilliant lawyers’ reminds me of his past refusal to reveal his income tax information by saying he was ‘under audit.’ Trump seems to think any answer, however preposterous, suffices to avoid the truth. Trump may not be very bright but he is wiser than those who support him. 

The tragedy of this is that despite what President Trump has done during the first hundred days of his term, damaging the economy, losing the trust of our allies, and showing disrespect for our laws, the vast majority of those who voted for him have no regrets about doing so, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll reported by MSNBC. 

This is the Achilles Heel of our democracy: misinformed and misled voters! Thomas Jefferson thought an educated population would solve the problem, which has grown with more and more Americans becoming eligible to vote over the years. 

It hasn’t. The result? Donald Trump in the White House. 

JL 

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Tampa General Hospital Becoming More Local 

Thursday’s Palm Beach Post front page carried a headline announcing that management of the Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade, presently run by Palm Beach County, would be taken over by Tampa General Hospital. That choice speaks a lot about the many more local hospitals in Palm Beach, Broward, or Dade Counties, of which none was ready to step in and take over the job. 

The article also pointed out that this was the latest effort by Tampa General, the largest hospital system on Florida’s west coast, to expand into Palm Beach County, a lucrative healthcare market. 

In recent years, Tampa General has partnered with physician practice groups in Palm Beach County to create 18 medical offices stretching from Palm Beach Gardens to Delray Beach. It also has joined with Mass General Brigham, the teaching hospital system for Harvard Medical School, to build medical offices in Palm Beach Gardens. 

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This brings to mind a Jackspotpourri posting dated January 14, 2019 (go check it out on the archive over to the right) about hospitals specializing in cancer research and treatment that were at that time listed as Cancer Centers by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Again, the institution then listed there nearest for Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade County residents turned out not to be a local one, but the one at the University of South Florida: Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, with which Tampa General Hospital is affilliated, along with the Morisani School of Medicine there. 

Since that 2019 posting, the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center has indeed been added to the list of NCI/NIH Cancer Centers, but not with the coveted ‘Comprehensive Cancer Center’ designation, despite their including the word ‘Comprehensive’ in their name.  My guess is that the reason for NCI/NIH not listing Sylvester as ‘Comprehensive’ is that its research programs are mostly demographic and statistical ones involving cancer patients rather than ones directly aimed at developing cures for specific cancers.

Again, Tampa General’s new involvement with Lakeside Medical Center is reason to compare the medical care available locally with that in the Tampa area.  Is the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach area second-tier when it comes to medicine? The Tampa-oriented future of Lakeside Medical Center points to an answer; this problem must be addressed. 

JL 

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Reform Rabbis in Israel Called it a ‘Pogrom’

The other day In Israel, Orthodox rioters attacked a Reform synagogue in Ra’anana where an annual joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial service was being screened. Right-wing Israelis, who dismiss any idea of a ‘two state’ solution, or any cooperation with Palestinian groups, are mostly Orthodox in their religious belief. Israelis have yet to learn that it is wrong for such political disagreements to be reflected in how Jews practice their religion.

While freedom of religion exists in Israel where there are some Conservative and Reform congregations, they are far outnumbered by the Orthodox. Orthodoxy is dominant among government leaders, and little was done to protect the synagogue in Ra’anana other than the inadequate presence of one police car parked there. 

Most American politicians support a ‘two state’ solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem, without taking sides from a religious standpoint. In Israel, however, the government is mostly Orthodox and generally does not interfere with the primarily Orthodox ‘settlers’ in the West Bank. 

This is damaging to the continuing of Israel remaining a strong democratic nation. I suspect that most Israelis recognize this but they seem to be insufficiently vocal. 

JL 

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Poetry Corner 

Here’s a poem of  mine that just might appear in the next issue of my community’s magazine. 

Life’s Laundry 

Folding the laundry, 

A most disliked chore,

Remains as one task

We cannot ignore. 

I try to avoid 

A loud profane shout

When I grasp a shirt

That’s turned inside out.

And with each fresh load, 

I become meaner,

Swearing that next time, 

I’ll use a dry cleaner. 

But life’s laundry won’t wait, 

And as we grow older, 

You cannot resign from 

Your task as its folder. 

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

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

Sources of Information on Jackspotpourri: The sources of information used by Jackspotpourri include a delivered daily ‘paper’ newspaper (currently the Palm Beach Post, a Gannett publication) and what appears in my daily email. Be aware that when I open that email, I take these steps. 1. I quickly scan the sources of the dozen or two emails I still get each day at my old email address to see from where they are being sent. Without reading 99% of them, I usually immediately delete them. 2. I then go to the email arriving at jacklippman18@gmail.com. Gmail enables ‘Promotion’ emails to be so designated and separated out. I believe their criteria are whether or not they end up asking for donations or if they are no more than advertisements. I ignore most of these emails without reading them, deleting them. A very few, perhaps one or two a day, get moved over to the two or three dozen other emails which I will actually open. 

Besides email, my other source of information is 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). I do not use such summaries in preparing Jackspotpourri because I am in the dark about the techniques used and possible sources AI has mined to develop them. Sources with their origin clearly identified to me still follow, and these are what I use in composing Jackspotpourri postings. (In doing searches on Google, I have found that these AI summaries can sometimes … but not always … be avoided by saying so in your search. For example, instead of searching for ‘FDR’s New Deal,’ I might search for ‘FDR’s New Deal – No AI.’ This is a work in progress.) 

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. JL

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