* Just never know where USF economist Phil Porter will show up next when it comes to weighing in on the economic impact of big events. But there he was in last Sunday’s issue of the New York Times Magazine commenting on the Olympic Games and what they do–or don’t do–for host countries. Porter’s unsurprising, unequivocal comment: “The bottom line is, every time we’ve looked–dozens of scholars, dozens of times–we find no real change in economic activity.”
* This much we know about the 2016 Hillary Clinton for President campaign. She can’t afford to have it perceived–by anybody, including left-leaning pundits–as campaigning for a third Obama term.
*A recent episode of CNBC’s American Greed chronicled the tale of John Donald Cody–aka Bobby Thompson–who perpetrated the infamous U.S. Navy Veterans Association charity fraud. The scam, operated out of a seedy, Ybor City duplex, raised more than $100 million from donors nationwide from 2002 to 2010. The story was broken by the (then) St. Petersburg Times and featured (now retired) reporter Jeff Testerman.
* A picture is worth a thousand words–and worse–department: Remember those Abu Ghraib prisoner photos in Iraq and the ones of U.S. marines urinating on Taliban corpses in Afghanistan? They became visceral, anti-American rallying points. It’s hardly a stretch to conclude that people probably died as a result.
Here’s another one: That AP wire photo taken in a Jerusalem bar showing an Israeli army reserve officer with a T-shirt referring to Israeli operations during the latest war in Gaza. The back of the shirt read: “Deployed, Destroyed, Enjoyed. Gaza 2014.” Not helpful.