Media Matters

* Will Smith has now been banned from the Oscars for 10 years. Too bad it didn’t kick in shortly after his violent face slap of Chris Rock and subsequent profane chirping from his audience seat. The Fresh Punk of Academy Awards should have been summarily removed, forcefully if necessary. Slapped, if necessary.

* As a Philadelphia native—one who actually appeared on Bandstand back in the day—I have fond memories of the, now, late Bobby Rydell. To most of America he is remembered for his rendition of “Volare” and his starring role with Ann Margaret in “Bye Bye Birdie.” To Philadelphia “rowhousers,” however, he was best known for “Wildwood Days”–a Rock ‘n Rock homage to Philadelphian summers at the south Jersey shore. Thanks for the memories, Bobby Ridarelli.

* “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”–Groucho Marx.

Sports Shorts

* Jeff and Penny Vinik have pledged a $5 million donation for an on-campus USF stadium. Last month Frank and Carol Morsani also donated $5 million. That kind of generosity—not surprising from the Viniks and the Morsanis—still leaves USF with a steep, money-raising challenge. The facility’s cost is expected to be at least $200 million.

* The Rays home opener at the Trop was a sell-out. For the record, that’s 25,025—with the Trop’s upper deck closed.

* The Rays 2022 payroll: $78.2 million, a team record.

* More than one in four MLB players were born outside the U.S. The top three: Dominican Republic (99), Venezuela (67) and Cuba (23).

* Russian and Belarusian runners who are residents of those countries will not be able to participate in this month’s Boston Marathon.

Trumpster Diving

* Trump on ignoring his bully pulpit and staying silent while the Capitol was under attack by his “Stop the Steal” rioters: “I hated seeing it. I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking, ‘Why isn’t she doing doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it?’ And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge.” Indeed, Trump was only commander in chief and these were merely his parasitic partisans.

* Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said a criminal investigation into Trump and his business practices is continuing “without fear or favor.”

* “Criminalizing dissent.” That’s what Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused the Jan. 6 committee of.

* “Donald Trump divides the right while uniting the non-right, which is why Democrats are more eager to talk about him than Republicans are.”–Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch.

Quoteworthy

* “(Putin’s) a petromonarch, another in a line of unsavory characters whom liberal democracies keep doing business with because they’ve got something we can’t live without.”–Farhad Monjoo, NYT.

* “Why do they need to hit civilians with missiles? Why this cruelty? Sometimes, you think whether they are human at all. Hatred has to lose.”–Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

* “Moscow can no more lose the war with Ukraine than Washington could lose a war to Mexico.”–Douglas Macgregor, The American Conservative.

* “Even absent open war, Russia will remain a generational enemy to peace in Europe and a generational threat to American interests—making policies that diminish Russian wealth and power a justified form of self-defense, both for Europe’s eastern borders and for the wider Pax Americana.”–Ross Douthat, NYT.

* “The greater our knowledge increases, the more our ignorance unfolds.”–John F. Kennedy.

* “Let’s be honest. This is a political show trial.”—How House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy referenced the Jan. 6 committee.

* “I would rather have it said ‘He lived usefully’ than ‘He died rich.’”–Benjamin Franklin.

* “We used to have thought leaders; now we have influencers.”–Maureen Dowd, NYT.

* “Unity is not the problem. … What Americans have lost—to be painfully accurate, what Republicans have trashed in pursuit of power—is the willingness and ability to share a common national identity.”--Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald.

* “Florida’s Sen. Rick Scott … is out with a plan that explicitly calls for raising taxes on 57 percent of American households. Could Democrats make something of that? And if not, what are they doing in politics?”–Mona Charen, Creators Syndicate.

* “Nearly 800,000 Floridians have no health insurance because the premiums are too high. Adults without children (for example) don’t qualify for Medicaid, no matter how little they make.”–Dr. Brent Schillinger, vice chairman of the Florida Policy Institute.

* “Watching Tampa emerge as one of the nation’s hottest tech cities, we felt it made sense for us to plant our flag here and become an active part of this burgeoning community.”–Shawn Simmons, executive vice president of Avanade, a tech firm that is building its first U.S. engineering hub in Tampa.

* “I’m highly optimistic.”–Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg, on the team working out a deal for a new stadium—one with a roof—in the Tampa Bay market.

* “Mass transit in Tampa is more than two people in an SUV. We have got to change the mindset.”–Mayor Jane Castor.

* “It is not going to sit on a shelf, I will tell you that.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Kimberly Overman, in reference to a report from MGT Consulting Group that advocated the county invest more in public transportation, create an office of equity and access and establish apprenticeship programs in emergent and green technologies.

Oil Reserves Tapped

* President Biden has announced that the government will be releasing 1 million barrels of oil a day from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help offset the loss of Russian crude oil from world markets, cut the costs for American consumers and starve Russia of revenue. The release, the biggest in the SPR’s 46-year history, would continue for six months. “This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply into production,” noted President Biden.

* The Biden Administration plans to fully lift the pandemic border controls by May—as it expands border facilities and migrant-processing capacity.

* Lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol siege can issue subpoenas, but they can’t bring criminal charges. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice are being, in effect, lobbied by non-GOPster legislators to pick it up from here.

COVID Bits

* More than 980,000 people have died of COVID in the U.S.

* Covid.gov: That’s the new “one-stop-shop” website for Americans seeking vaccines, tests, treatments and masks.

* The FDA has lowered the eligibility threshold for a second booster to 50. A key rationale: one in three Americans ages 50 to 65 have significant underlying medical conditions.

Foreign Affairs

* Last month Georgia applied to the EU. It’s a sobering reminder that Putin’s Soviet nostalgia and land-grab agenda isn’t just about intimidating and devastating Ukraine.

* “We can tell which pathways would cause (a nuclear) risk to go up further. And certainly direct conflict with Russia from forces based in NATO countries is one pathway to nuclear war.”–Jeffrey Lewis, arms control expert and professor at the Middleburg Institute.

* The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

* Evil update: Ukrainian troops have used cables to pull the bodies of civilians off the streets in at least one town out of fear that Russian forces might have booby-trapped them before leaving.

* Pope Francis is reportedly weighing a Kyiv visit. You go, Pontiff; the world will watch.

* OPEC Plus, a group of oil producers, said it would stay with its plan for modest monthly increases. One of the members of OPEC Plus: Russia.

Florida

* No surprise that Florida joined 20 states in a suit over travel mask mandates (requirements that people wear masks in airports, and on planes, trains and buses.) Attorney General Ashley Moody, the Ron DeSantis legal toady, filed the suit in federal court in Tampa. It’s beyond disconcerting to be reminded that there are 19 other states that conflate public health mask-wearing with big government-driven freedom suppression.

* According to the Computing technology Industry Association (CompTia), Florida added 10,500 new tech jobs in 2021. Only Texas, which added 10,800, had more.

* According to CompTia, the total economic impact of the tech industry in Florida for 2021 was $70 billion.

* Under state law a university president can be paid a maximum of $200,000 from public funds. The rest comes through private sources. In Rhea Law’s case, the majority of her $1.1 million (3-year) package will come from the USF Foundation.