Category: Uncategorized

* According to a Johns Hopkins University tracker, the U.S. has now surpassed 900,000 COVID deaths since the pandemic began.

* 76 percent: Total U.S. population that is at least partially vaccinated.

* The flu: It’s back—with its normal pre-pandemic pattern. Health officials attribute it to an increasingly lax approach to COVID control measures.

*Starting in early spring, the (64 million) people on Medicare will be able to get free COVID rapid tests from designated pharmacies.

* According to the CDC, wearing N95 and KN95 masks cuts the odds of infection by 83 percent. Wearing a cloth mask appears to lower the odds by 56 percent.

* The Florida positivity rate: 18 percent. It was 23.5 percent the previous week.

* Tampa Bay weekly hospitalizations: 2,789, a 10 percent decrease from the week before.

* “The sooner, the better.”–Hillsborough County school superintendent Addison Davis, in asking a district advisory committee to consider supporting a special property tax for schools. Davis proposed asking voters for a tax of $1 for every $1,000 of real estate value. The proposed tax would bring in an estimated $125 million a year to address spending deficits that have climbed to nearly $100 million. And, no, no one is expecting the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to write a check.

* “I’m not sure anyone would argue that an airport is the highest priority and best use of that land unless you own a Piper Cub.”—Former St. Petersburg City Council member Karl Nurse, on St. Pete’s Albert Whitted Airport. Nurse is also a former airport task force member.

* Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, the former Orlando police chief who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, has outraised incumbent Marco Rubio by $2 million in quarter 4. It’s the third consecutive quarter that Demings has outraised Rubio.

* Some news cycles are worse than others. Ask CNN. Ask Jeff Zucker and Chris Cuomo.

* For the first time in its (18-year) history, Facebook has lost daily users—about 500,000 over the last three months of 2021. But 1.93 billion users are still logging in each day.

* “Those behind this activity have a China nexus.” The assessment of Mandiant, a cyber security firm examining the recent hack on News Corp., whose publications and businesses include the New York Post and Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones.

* “(America is) pushing Ukraine to join NATO.” For the record, no it’s not. Also for the record, that was *ucker Carlson.

* “Fox & Friends,” according to network staffers, used to be known as “Roger’s daybook,” for its adherence to the favorite story lines of former Fox Chairman Roger Ailes.

* “It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.”–Joseph Goebbels.

* “A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”–Joseph Goebbels.

* “Arguments must be crude, clear and forcible and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect.”–Joseph Goebbels.

* “Joey was spot on.”–A likely response from Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

* A silencer can be affixed to a gun, so how about leaf blowers, weed whackers, dust busters and high-speed blenders?

* Why are they called “hemorrhoids” and not “asteroids”?

* Arguably the most prominently misspelled word in the midst of a pandemic: Canceled. Cancel that other one.

* Optometrist’s Office: “If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place.”

* Bumper sticker: “Sorry for being so close in front of you.”

* Beijing-hosted Olympics. Amid concerns over China’s awful human rights record and lockdown scenarios, there is this: Many countries have advised their athletes to leave their cellphones and laptops home lest they be compromised by the Chinese government.

* Hardly happenstance that China chose a (cross-country skier) Uyghur as one of two Chinese athletes to deliver the Olympic flame in Beijing. China recognizes public relations, if not human rights.

* Olympic optics: Pandemic protocols in Beijing have resulted in no more than 30 percent of site capacity seating for events. Bottom line: “Clap, don’t cheer.”

* The Beijing Games are the first winter Olympics to rely totally on artificial snow.

* According to Politico, the GOP’s biggest donor of the election cycle so far is hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who has already contributed more than $28 million to Republican groups. On the other GOP hand, Griffin says he wouldn’t back Donald Trump if he ran for president in 2024.

“It’s time for America to move on,” stated Griffin. “The four years under President Trump were so pointlessly divisive, it was not constructive for our country.”

* Word is Trump’s advisers have been urging him to hold off officially announcing if he will run in 2024 in order to avoid any blame if Republicans fail to win back the House and Senate in the midterms. That would explain the winking and nodding—just shy of an official Trump commitment.

* The RNC’s take on the deadly Capitol siege: “Legitimate political discourse.”

* Sen. Marco Rubio’s take on the House Committee investigating said siege: “Partisan scam.”

* The RNC voted to censure GOPRepresentatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their country-before-party service on the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. It also criticized the Committee, as noted earlier, for its “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Yes, the Republican Party, knowing there’s still a likely Trump sequel, is still whoring out for the MAGA cult leader.

* “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election.” That was former VP Mike Pence speaking at a conference hosted by the Federalist Society. He added that Donald Trump was “wrong” to claim that he could have overturned the results of the 2020 election as he presided over the counting of electoral college votes by Congress. “The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone,” underscored Pence.

As for the ex-president, he disparagingly noted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

Pence hypocritically sold out and brought a bunch of evangelicals on board for Trump. He still wants to be a player–hence the Federalist Society appearance–for a party too spineless to disassociate itself from Trump. Too bad. Call it political karma.

* “Lindsey (Graham) is a nice guy, but he’s a RINO (Republican In Name Only).” That was PINO (Patriot In Name Only) Donald Trump criticizing the South Carolina senator for not favoring pardons for convicted Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Graham called such a prospective Trump move “inappropriate”–if not unpardonable.

* It’s no surprise that House GOPsters who voted against certifying Electoral College results for President Joe Biden haven’t paid a price. In fact, those Republican electoral objectors have benefited from their seditious behavior. According to a CQ Roll Call analysis, they hauled in some $140 million to their campaign accounts—a gobsmacking 50 percent increase from the same point in the last cycle.

* It’s hardly stop-the-presses news that Trumpian legal scenarios keep coming. The latest: Retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman is suing allies of Trump, charging that they intimidated and retaliated against him while he was a key witness during Trump’s first impeachment. Among the lawsuit defendants: Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani.

* “Russia’s claim that an invasion of Ukraine is unthinkable shouldn’t pass the laugh test.”–Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch.

* “If war breaks out, it will come at an enormous human cost to Ukraine, but we believe that based on our preparations and our response, it will come at a strategic cost for Russia as well.”–White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

* “To stage the (Olympic) Games in the midst of China’s genocide of Uyghurs and ongoing repression of Tibet and Hong Kong is an atrocity. To herald the spirit of sports in a police state … is simply grotesque.”–Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post.

* “As we peer into society’s future … we must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.”–President Dwight Eisenhower.

* “White identity is inherently racist.”–Robin DiAngelo, author of “White Fragility.”

* “Nationally, we are seeing longtime, experienced election leaders and their staffs leaving their positions for other work because they’ve had it.”–Vermont’s Democratic Secretary of State Jim Condos, on the growing concern for the safety of election officials.

* “Choosing to have a gun in your home because it will keep you safe is a myth. And a deadly one at that.”–Dr. Steven Stainsbury, emergency medicine physician.

* “I certainly wish my tenure here had ended differently.”–CNN President Jeff Zucker, in announcing his resignation over “a consensual relationship” with a colleague, executive vice president Allison Gollust.

* “Facebook needs to continue to recognize the responsibility it has to protect elections around the world and invest accordingly. Governments, civil society and the public should hold it accountable for doing so.”–Katie Harbath, chief executive of Anchor Change, a company focused on the intersecting issues of technology and democracy. She had formerly been with Facebook, where she helped lead its work on elections.

* “Let’s be truthful about it because (the) Holocaust isn’t about race. It’s not about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”–Whoopi Goldberg.

* “It seems that Whoopi Goldberg’s only crime was ‘being wrong in public’–an eventuality that is all but guaranteed to arise when we televise spontaneous political debate.”–Charles C.W. Cooke, The National Review.

* “Studies show that shortening the work week would boost national productivity … . It also provides an opportunity to rebalance employment to decrease both the number of people who are overworked and those who are unemployed and underemployed.”–Adrian McMahon, Jacobin.

* “Lawmakers should approve a common-sense change that could preserve our beaches and protect wild life: Give local governments the authority to ban smoking on their beaches, and ban smoking in state parks.”–Florida Conservation Director J.P. Brooker.

* “We’re really waiting for them (Rays) to signal what the way forward is.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Harry Cohen.

* “(This city) always planned to take a last big at-bat.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch, on St. Petersburg pitching a new stadium plan for the Rays.

President Biden is doing the right thing by replacing the retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer with a black female nominee. Too bad Barack Obama couldn’t replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she decided to stay too long and Mitch McConnell decided the next nomination wasn’t part of a lame duck’s purview.

The only problem with Biden keeping his primary campaign promise is that it can seem a token gesture—or one that ignores the qualified across other races and ethnicities. This isn’t affirmative action. This is overdue action that will make history and help SCOTUS look more like America.

The process formally started with the nomination and appointment of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Justice in 1916. Thurgood Marshall became the first black Justice in 1967, and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman in 1981. Then Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic jurist, in 2009.

No less important, a black female SCOTUS Justice will also be a role model and maybe a catalyst for young black women looking at the law as a career. Right now roughly 2 percent of the nation’s 1.3 million lawyers are women of color. That has to change, and a historic selection can be a societal game changer.