Author: opinionstogo

 

* $ooner Magic Moments”: This is a University of Oklahoma deal by which VIP-ish fans can actually sit in on post-game press conferences with the head coach and players. Ticket prices (by the pair) range from $461 to $692. Seriously.

Two takeaways: First, it’s yet another example of the further monetizing of big-time college sports in the pay-to-play collegiate era. Second, to anyone who has ever attended a post-game press conference, it’s often an awkward experience. Unless, that is, you’re impressed with gotcha questions and cliche-ridden coach-speak.

BTW, press conferences are streamed live for free. And, no, ticker-holders will have to be satisfied with bragging rights; they won’t be allowed to ask questions.

* I’m not a big NFL fan. It’s become an athletic lounge act. I guess I miss the “NoFunLeague” days. But I was reminded of that again when seeing what the NFL has to deal with these days when it comes to “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalties. The NFL now bans “any violent gesture, which shall include but not be limited to a throat slash, simulating firing or brandishing a gun, or using the ‘nose wipe’ gesture, or an act that is sexually suggestive or offensive.” For the record, violent gestures increased by 133% from the previous season, and the “nose wipe” gesture is banned because of its association with gangs. It’s a sad, cultural commentary on a sport a lot of us grew up with.

* Minor consolation for Gator fans and Billy Napier: UF hasn’t been shut out since 1988 (a 16-0 loss to Auburn). Florida has now scored in 466 consecutive games, an NCAA record.

* Little League World Series meets geopolitics: Taiwan won, beating a team from Las Vegas in the final. Most formal references, however, referred to the winner as Chinese Taipei. It’s what happens when the “One China” principle is in play about an island that is not a member of the UN.

 

* “We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.”–Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson.

* “This nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”–President John F. Kennedy.

* “It’s the epitome of dumbness to criticize the Smithsonian for dealing with the reality of slavery in America.”–Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

* “Geopolitical tensions, high volatility in the tariff environment, as well as sudden changes in trade restrictions seem to have become the new normal.”–Siemens Chief Executive Roland Busch.

* “The world can tell the difference now between a war being waged for the survival of the Jewish state and a war being waged for the political survival of its prime minister.”–Thomas Friedman, NYT.

* “There will be no Palestinian state.”–Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

* “Together, we will make DC safe again!”–Attorney General Pam Bondi.

* “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low-wage job.”–SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

* “Justice and accountability are not favors from the powerful. They are obligations decades overdue.”–Epstein-abuse survivor Jesse Michaels.

* “In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in every form.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, on the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

* “I see a dangerous transformation: Instead of using data to determine how to govern, the administration is manipulating, ignoring and jettisoning data altogether.”–Texas A&M University Law Professor Hannah Bloch-Wehba.

* “This is the most radical redesign of how we manufacture cars since the Model T.”—Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley, on Ford’s plans to sell more affordable cars by lowering the cost of electric vehicle components.

* “I would say that Billy Beane invented ‘moneyball,’ and then Stu (Sternberg) and his group perfected it.”–Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio.

Florida, a Trump proxy, is now going after cities with political murals and messages. Local transportation agencies have been warned that state funds could be withheld if street art installations aren’t removed.

There’s a difference between partisan, ideological politics and universal ideals. For instance, rainbow-striped murals or “Black History Matters” is a positive, societal message. “Down With Tariffs,” “President Predator,” or “Truck Fump,” however appealing and applicable, is a reach too far from bumper-sticker hectoring to public street art. Not as bad as, say, MAGA-pleasing “Plessy v. Ferguson Forever” or “In GOP We Trust,” but bad enough.

Visual, public representations of inclusion are much more than political banners. They are reminders of what we have in common as Americans and human beings. America’s mission is still treating everyone with equal respect and dignity. We have enough reminders of what we have in conflict with a cult-figure, felonious commander-in-chief. BTW, you can erase crosswalk art, but you can’t erase the reality of what prompted it and what we’re living through.

 

Trump is all about branding. From urban towers and golf courses to steaks, sneakers, coins, bibles, burgers, watches, phones, a “university,” a Miss Teen USA pageant and a TV reality show. “Make America Great Again” is not so much a worthy goal or ambition as it is a Trumpian MAGA branding about a fabled past. America is a democratic republic with ideals and flaws and global impact. We need to keep evolving into a better version of US, not a retrograde rallying cry of arrogant, protectionist nativism.

 

* Generational approach: “You can’t just point at Donald Trump every day and point out the bad things that he’s doing. You have to show a positive, affirmative vision of what you’re going to do if you’re in power. … We need a new generation across the board.” That was Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin. You may remember that it was Slotkin who gave the Democratic response to President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress back in March.

* “Part of what Democrats are looking for…is someone who could imagine appealing to working voters and black working voters, Latino working voters, even rural working voters.”–Princeton history Professor Julian Zelizer.

* “There is budding reluctance to risk winning the White House back on the chance to make history.”–Democratic strategist Christy Setzer. In short, not a welcome assessment for Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer and Pete Buttigieg. BTW, Michigan Gov. Whitmer recently met personally with Trump to show her constituents she would even cross that rubicon to make a high-profile case for how tariffs are adversely impacting the auto industry, including Michigan job losses. It was a pragmatic effort on behalf of finding common ground that would benefit her state. Michigan was a critical “blue wall” state that flipped Republican in 2024.

* “I think the key to Democratic victories is to understand that you got to stand unequivocally with the working class of this country.”–Sen. Bernie Sanders.

* “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”–California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is pushing a plan for redistricting to counter the Texas effort to redraw a Republican-favored redistricting map. The bottom line: voters pick politicians; politicians don’t pick voters.

 

* Going from an i-Pad to a newspaper can be a less-than-seamless transition. A while back, I went from my i-Pad to a paperback book when I re-read “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac. I felt like a time traveler.

* I wear compression socks for medical reasons. They help. But, yeah, they also look like tights.

* “I believe in autopilot; just not from the Oval Office.” A line that might further help explain the end of the Trump-Musk bromance.

 

* Reality reminder: “Hurricane season is a marathon, not a sprint! Quiet the hype, remain informed and stay prepared.”–Miami Weather Service.

* “It is not the responsibility of the governor to be digging into local government budgets—unless there’s been an issue raised that there is some kind of illegal or criminal activity taking place.”–Karen Woodall, co-founder of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, in reference to the information-seeking of Florida’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE).

* “Deport Depot” merch: Nothing is beyond monetizing.

 

* “I lost my job, but not my voice.”–That was former Tampa federal prosecutor Michael Gordon, who was recently fired by AG Pam Bondi. His ouster has all the signs of retaliation for his involvement in prosecutions against those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has since filed a federal lawsuit challenging the legality of his dismissal.

* When it comes to Tampa’s historic Jackson House, there are only two credible scenarios: Save it or raise it and replace it with an homage to black history. Its ongoing state of disrepair has been an ongoing insult to the black community and its Tampa roots.

 

* Artless dealing: Trump and Putin met in Alaska to try and reach an agreement to end—or even pause–the war in Ukraine. The only winner in a high-profile, non-deal summit: Putin. Even though he didn’t get Alaska back.

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, monthly jobs figures showed hiring slowed in July and was weaker in May and June than previously reported. Trump’s unsurprising post response: “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” Then he fired the BLS director, to look even worse. Another day at the blame-the-messenger Orifice.

* Seems like part of next year’s celebration of America’s 250^th birthday will include a mixed martial arts fight card at the White House. Somehow, caged fights at the WH seem appropriate.

* Trump’s presidential model: No, it’s not Abraham Lincoln or even Ronald Reagan. It’s William McKinley, “the Tariff King.”

* “When was America great?” rhetorically asked billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “At the turn of the century. Our economy was rocking…125 years ago. We had no income tax and all we had was tariffs.” Yeah, those were the days.

* “Eventually, Americans will end up paying most of the cost of these tariffs.”–Harvard economist Alberto Cavallo.

* Trump had nearly 15 million followers on TikTok on his inauguration. The platform helped him spread his MAGA message. Hardly a coincidence that the Trump administration hasn’t been enforcing a bill passed by Congress that required TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell it.

* Donald Trump doesn’t just bluster and bully about non-MAGA partisans, he also applies this odious approach to foreign leaders who do not please him. Recent exhibit A: Brazil. He’s has threatened to impose steep tariffs on Brazil for—among other things—its prosecution of right-wing, former president Jair Bolsonaro, AKA “the Trump of the Tropics.” He’s facing criminal charges for trying to hold on to power (sound familiar?) after his electoral defeat in 2022. So Trump fired off a letter to Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The pointed rhetoric was all too familiar. “This Trial should not be taking place,” he wrote. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY.”

* House GOPsters voted to name the Kennedy Center opera house after Melania Trump. Seriously. Two takeaways: This is another insult. But it could be worse; think: “Epstein Center.”

* “Thanks to President Trump, the days of political correctness and cancel culture are over.” That was whitewashing, White House spokesman Davis Ingle.

* “GO TO HELL!”: That was the Trumpian directive to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after the Senate left for its August recess sans a deal to advance dozens of Trump nominees.

* Sen. Schumer’s rationale: “We have never seen nominees as flawed, as compromised, as unqualified as we have right now.”

* Deep-State quandary: “If Mr. Trump is to satisfy his base and put the (Epstein files) issue behind him, he will need to deliver on what he promised as an outsider now that he’s on the inside.”–Republican pollster and author Kristen Soltis Anderson.

* “We’re going to take our capital back.” That was President Trump, on placing Washington police under federal control and activating the National Guard—not on Jan. 6.

* “Bending the knee to Trump”: What Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Paramount Global, law firms and universities are doing, according to former Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas. “But he doesn’t understand, in Texas, our knees do not bend.”

* The ACLU sued the first Trump Administration 413 times.

 

* “I don’t know if there will be any late-night television shows on network TV in 10 years.”–ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

* Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate indicates a pattern of alarming ChatGPT’s interactions with teens. It even includes instructions on composing a suicide letter to their parents.

* The internet: The golden age of conspiracy theory?