Trumpster Diving

* “Like Trump himself, his (power) worshippers can see the world around them only through a prism of us-against-them, in which principles simply don’t count.”–Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch.

* “You should run for Senate majority leader.”–Trump to Rick Scott (chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee), reportedly on multiple occasions. Reportedly with a straight face.

* Three Trump-critic Republicans who could launch presidential bids after the mid-terms: Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

* Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, we’ve now learned, registered to vote in 2020 using the address of a North Carolina mobile home he had never lived in. So, yes, it’s verifiably true that there were voting irregularities in that last presidential election, the one lost by the candidate with the fewest votes.

* The assault rifle that was used by Kyle Rittenhouse to kill two protesters in Kenosha is no more. Wisconsin officials fed it to a shredder. The rationale: It was an evil symbol! No. Rittenhouse didn’t want somebody to buy it and turn it into a trophy. A trophy! That’s for bowling, not manslaughtering.

Quoteworthy

* “The free world is coming together to confront Putin.”–President Joe Biden.

* “Putin wants to restore Imperial Russia. … He wants to restore Russian hegemony over its former states: Ukraine first.”–Llewellyn King, executive producer and host of PBS’s “White House Chronicle.”

* “The Russian president has now definitely put an end to the post-Cold War era, which rested on an assumption that major European land wars were gone for good.”–Mary Elise Sarotte, historian and author of “Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate.”

* “The war in Ukraine is being fought not only with tanks and missiles, but also with propaganda and censorship. … (Putin’s) regime has erected a digital iron curtain.”–Eugene Robinson, Washington Post.

* “Isolated and under sanctions, alone against the world, Russia looks as though it is being remade in its president’s image.”–Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar, the author of “All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin.”

* “Taiwan will eventually return to the embrace of the motherland.”–Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

* “The great enemy of truth is often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”–John F. Kennedy.

* “Rights are universal. If welfare is not universal, then it is not a right.”–Danny Wardle, Jacobin.

* “A $32 increase in the price of crude oil translates to 80 cents at the pump. … It’s extremely volatile right now.”–AAA spokesman Mark Jennings.

* “I’m not religious, but I think there was an element of faith (in investing in Tampa). It was a big TV area and very beautiful.”–Water Street Tampa developer and Lightning owner Jeff Vinik.

* “I have deep concerns for the safety of students who identify as LGBTQ+ if we create a dangerous environment where discussion about gender and sexual identity is feared. Our teachers create safe havens for students to learn and grow, not call into question their ‘sex-coded DNA’ as right-wing pundits would have us believe.”–Florida State Senate Democratic leader Lauren Book, a former teacher.

* “An on-campus stadium elevates not only our athletic programs, but our entire university.”–Frank and Carol Morsani, who have given USF $5 million toward an on-campus facility.

* “Savor the past. Embrace the future.”–West Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

Florida’s Bully Pulpiteer

When he recently spoke at USF, Gov. Ron DeSantis stood behind a podium labeled: “Workforce Education.” He was there, after all, to make an education-related cybersecurity announcement of a $20 million state initiative. In a nanosecond, however, the podium morphed into his bully pulpit. Behind him were seven high school students, some in masks. DeSantis scolded those wearing masks, which he considers a symbol of paranoia and heavy-handed government. “This is not doing anything,” he chided. “We’ve got to stop with this COVID theater. … This is ridiculous. Please take them off.”

DeSantis is, well, DuhSantis. He’s already been unmasked. Maybe Will Weatherford, the former Republican Speaker of the Florida House and current chair of USF’s board of trustees, didn’t mind the off-putting optics, but others surely saw the dismissive, insulting demeanor for what it was.

And it was also a teachable moment, especially for parents. Don’t let your kids be political props, especially for this blatantly partisan governor. Masking is not unreasonable, but bullying students is.

Dem Notes

* The U.S. economy created 678,000 jobs in February. The unemployment rate came in at 3.8 percent, a pandemic low.

* “Ninety percent of the jobs lost in March and April of 2020 have been recovered.”–Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

* “Test to Treat”: That’s the program announced by President Joe Biden whereby consumers can walk into a clinic at Walgreens or CVS, get tested for COVID and, if positive, go home with a free course of antiviral medicine. The program expects to be operational by the end of this month.

* The U.S. has increased its Havana embassy staffing. But it’s still not back to the previous level.

* According to a new Fox poll, 55 percent of Dems say President Biden should run again in 2024.

COVID Bits

* The global death toll: 6 million.

* Immunocompromised people (such as those with diabetes, cerebral palsy or heart disease) comprise 2.7 percent of adults in the U.S.–or about 7 million people.

* “COVID is loosening its grip. The virus ruled through fear, and that fear is fading.”–University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee.

* Florida positivity rate last week: 3.3 percent. For Hillsborough County: 4 percent.

Foreign Affairs

* The U.N. General Assembly voted to demand that Russia halt its Ukraine invasion and withdraw all troops. The vote was 141-5, with 35 abstentions. The four countries siding with Russia: Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea and Syria. Among those that abstained: Cuba.

* Crimea perspective. Virtually no blood shed in 2014. Many Russians nationalistically cheering. Not now.

* NATO’s Article 5: An attack on one NATO member is deemed an attack on all. Ukraine, of course, is not a NATO ally, but neighboring, Russia-vulnerable countries–such as the Baltics–are.

* China’s military budget will grow by 7.1 percent this year to approximately $230 billion. Back in December, the U.S. Congress approved a budget of $768 billion for the American military.

* According to the World Economic Forum’s list of countries closest to achieving gender equality, the No. 1 spot—for the last dozen years—goes again to Iceland.

Florida

* Recall that Republican members of Congress introduced a national stand-your-ground bill back in December. “Like Kyle Rittenhouse, every American has the right to defend their life from an attacker.” That was the GOPster take of Repugnant Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

* Publix has removed Russian-made vodka from its liquor store shelves in support of Ukraine. Publix also has stores in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

* The difference between out-of-state and in-state tuition at UF: $22,278 per year.

Tampa Bay

* USF needed to get lucky after the Steve Currall presidential debacle. It did with the appointment of Rhea Law as interim president. Now she’s one of two finalists. She’s earned it. Law is more than an uber-prominent attorney known to be smart, focused and friendly. She’s a major, well-networked player in Tampa Bay who knows the big picture value of an urban-hub university and all the synergistic impacts it has on business and society, including partnerships, diversity and inclusiveness. Yes, she will need a strong provost, but she understands the region and knows how a major research institution with a big upside must be a key Tampa and Tampa Bay catalyst.

* Hillsborough County and Tampa have $28 million available (from the federal American Rescue Plan Act) to help those unable to pay rent or utilities because of the pandemic.

* According to IndyCar officials, the recent Grand Prix of St. Petersburg drew more than 200,000 attendees.

Media Matters

* No surprise that the Kremlin has aggressively curtailed press freedoms. It’s what dictatorships do. The most recent example: Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecommunications regulator, announced plans to cut the country off from Facebook.

* Nobody in the media tops Richard Engel, the chief foreigncorrespondent forNBC News, when it comes to risky, on-location, cut-to-the-chase reporting from world trouble spots, such as Ukraine. From the port city of Mariupol to Kyiv, the capital.

* 80 for Brady”: A road trip movie produced by Tom Brady that stars Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno. Also appearing in the flick: Tom Brady.

Musings

* Doctor to patient: “I have good news and bad news—the good news is that you’re not a hypochondriac.”

* Why not rearrange some House furniture so that when the president delivers his SOTU speech, the focus is solely on the president—not shared with the VP and Speaker behind him, whose optics are distracting—from deciding whether to applaud and stand to out-of-context smiles?