Category: Uncategorized

• “The best advice for avoiding (Israeli-Hamas) misinformation, is to simply avoid social media. … The second-best advice is to follow a curated list of experts about what’s happening.”—Alex Mahadevan, director of the Poynter Institute’s digital media literacy initiative MediaWise.
• “There’s a good place to find trusted news on line: actual news websites.”—Dave Lee, Bloomberg.
• “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”—SCOTUS Justice Hugo Black at the time of the Pentagon Papers.
• It’s no surprise that network television ratings have been heading south in recent years. Netflix, Hulu et al have everything to do with it. But there’s one demographic exception to stream-at-your-leisure viewers: people over 60. “At CBS, we love older viewers,” notes Radha Subramanyam, the chief research officer at CBS. “They watch a lot of television. And advertisers love them because they have tons and tons of spending power.”
• SNL cold openings: And we thought the writers’ strike was over.
• Media monopolies: The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are moving ahead with anti-trust suits against big tech. That includes Google and Amazon.
• Dozens of states, including Florida, are suing Meta Platform Inc. for designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children—and further contribute to a youth mental health crisis. But adults are still on their own.
• Fox News: The monetizing of anger.
• R&R Hall of Fame: Still no Chubby Checker.

• The minimum MLB salary for 2024 is $740,000.
• New York Yankees president Randy Levine recently criticized the “whining” Rays and Marlins for their reliance on revenue sharing. Wonder what Levine would say to a salary cap—as we have in the other major pro sports. It’s a way of preventing the wealthiest franchises from beating their competition by simply outspending them. Or would that be a bit too egalitarian? Or is this just Levine ranting because all that Yankee money notwithstanding, his team had another disappointing season in the shadow of the low-payroll Rays.
• I miss Champa Bay.
• Tampa Bay Tech alum Michael Penix, the University of Washington quarterback, is among top Heisman Trophy favorites.
• The AP men’s preseason basketball poll has one Florida school in its top 10: not UF or FSU—but The Owls made it to the Final Four last year.
• Saturday is college football day. Only ongoing downside: having to endure AllState and Progressive commercials.
• Decals on helmets. Keep it at the motivational, high school level–no matter what Michigan or Ohio State think. Unless they want to remove decals for bad plays.

• OutHouse Speaker? Among our constitutional anomalies is the one that doesn’t require the Speaker of the House to actually be a member of said House. As a result, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia advocated the drafting of Donald Trump to be Speaker of the current House. Seriously.
• “Remember when Kevin McCarthy was the future of his party? Along with Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor?”—Charlie Sykes, The Bulwark.
• “Madness in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”—Friedrich Nietzsche.
• Some are suggesting an “Unfit to Serve” national-alert tour by disaffected former Trump insiders. It would include the high-profile likes of John Kelly, Jim Mattis, H.R. McMaster, Mark Esper and William Barr. The purpose would be nothing less than an effort to help save the country from a dangerously chaotic Trump sequel.
• “A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. … God help us.”—Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
• “A wannabe dictator.” How Trump was characterized by recently retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• “White domestic terrorism is part of the MAGA brand, and that comes from the ”—Elie Mystal, The Nation.
• “Trump is widely viewed as the leader of our party.”—Ohio Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, the whip of the House Freedom Caucus.
• Trump’s de facto Political Action Committee (Save America) has paid more than $37 million to lawyers, representing their client on his personal issues ranging from fraud to insurrection.
• “On almost no policy.” According to new House Speaker Michael Johnson, this is what he and President Biden “agree” on.
• Nostalgia for John Boehner
• It should be unfathomable that Trump’s essence—an unethical, immoral, racist, misogynistic, uninformed, divisive, narcissistic danger to democracy—is a selling point to his cult followers. But it’s not. No more than followers of the Rev. Jim Jones opting for the Kool-Aid over common sense and self-interest.
• Trump ally Roger Stone: “Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.”

• “Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.”—Jose Marti.
• “A clear message to the Iranian authorities that their crackdown on peaceful critics and human rights defenders will not go unchallenged.”—Amnesty International statement on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Iran’s imprisoned activist Narges Mohammadi.
• “Victimization isn’t a competition. Why must one form of suffering negate another?”—Shadi Hamid,
• “Time flies over us, but leaves its shadows behind.”—Nathaniel Hawthorne.
• “Some problems can’t be solved, only managed.”—Peggy Noonan,
• “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”—Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.
• “It is perverse to allow a Speaker to be removed without having been defeated by someone who had more votes. But the institution chiefly in need of fixing is not the U.S. House. It is the Republican Party.”–National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru.
• “A legislative terrorist.”—How Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, has been branded by former House Speaker John Boehner.
• “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”—William Shakespeare.
• “If you want to know what it looks like when democracy is in trouble, this is what it looks like.”—Daniel Ziblatt, author of “Tyranny of the Minority.”
• “It’s something (DeSantis) has been good at—figuring out ways to take action on issues that conservatives care about, or setting the tone for what conservatives should be doing.”—UCF political scientists Aubrey Jewett.
• “People who say it can’t be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”—George Bernard Shaw.
• “We as a country have to make decisions. A vast majority of Americans support reasonable firearm solutions and support reasonable regulations.”—Mayor Jane Castor.

Timing is (still) everything. At a time when any responsible lawmaker’s priority should be helping to unify this divisively vulnerable country, we now approach another impeachment scenario. Impeachments are invariably, definitively divisive. They can consume whatever remains of political oxygen in the Capital. So, yes, it could get even worse, as Kevin McCarthy flails about trying to appease the Freedom Caucus and the tribal Trump base, while postponing another brinkmanship shutdown battle.

But speaking of impeachment, per se, how ironic that Biden & Son, however sleazy the latter, is the subject of “high crimes and misdemeanors” formal impeachment when so many predecessors got away unimpeached for so much worse. Depends on the political times as much as the slippery definition of impeachment from the 18^th century Founders. But “crime family”? How about the “Emolument Clan” that preceded Biden?

Biden should be considered in the context of more contemporary times: From a national security-ignoring president sharing a mistress with a mafia boss to Gulf of Tonkin and Iraq WMD lies to Iran-Contra deception to trying to overturn an election that led to an insurrection.

Capitalizing on the “Biden” brand? There are much worse offenses. And much worse brands.

Signs of generational climate-change activism at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate:

> “March now or swim later.”

> “There is no Planet B.”

 

• Biden and world leadership. Ask leaders not named Putin or Kim who they’d prefer, and it’s sure and hell not “America Fist” Trump.
• A “No Labels” third-party candidate makes “No Sense” unless the intention is to help Trump. Even Joe Manchin knows that.
• No surprise that a 2024 priority is to gin up minority voting. Hardly happenstance that the 2024 Biden-Harris campaign manager is a Latina. And Julie Chavez Rodriguez is not just any gung-ho, Latina Dem. She is the granddaughter of the late Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers union leader and iconic activist. It’s no secret that Biden 2024 needs Latino voters to win re-election. And no surprise that the United Farm Workers have formally endorsed the 2024 Biden-Harris ticket.
• “Stay active because your country and I are counting on all of you.”—VP Kamala Harris, at Hampton University, where she kicked off her national “Fight for Our Freedoms” College Tour.
• How do you demean President Biden over his age and occasional gaffes, when your warped fealty is to someone only three years younger and a demonstrably unhinged, uninformed, unethical, narcissistic, nativist, autocratic buffoon? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
• “(Biden’s) successful performance in office belies his doddering image.”—Max Boot, Council of Foreign Relations.
• Eight of the 45 men who have served previously as president died in office—four by assassination and four from natural causes. Joe Biden, the oldest-ever president, will be 81 next month.
• Fourteen vice presidents have gone on to become president, as Kamala Harris knows well.

• Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
• “Boebertjuice”: Wingnut Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert was tossed out of a “Beetlejuice” performance for disruptive behavior–but is still allowed in Congress.
• Preply Business has come out with a survey noting the most annoying buzzword cliches for 2023. Nothing we’re not familiar with—from “low-hanging fruit,” “new-normal” and “win-win” to “boots on the ground,“ “ rock star” and “think outside the box.” But no mention of “awesome,” “not rocket science” and, like, you know, “duh.”
• Marketing nightmare: When escaped murderer Danilo Cavalcanto was finally captured in southeastern Pennsylvania, he was wearing a Philadelphia Eagles hoodie. Yo.

• New Urbanism Recognized. Water Street Tampa became the first community in North America to receive a WELL Community Certification, which recognizes developers that design neighborhoods to promote a healthy lifestyle for residents.
• A land-swap deal between Tampa and 717 Parking has resulted in a Jackson House deal, one that should ultimately result in a Black History Museum. Finally. For too long the city’s last segregation-era black boarding home has been a dilapidated embarrassment to its history and an eyesore insult to the African-American community.
• TIA’s largest carrier is Southwest Airlines with 35 routes. Spirit Airlines will soon become the second largest with 21 routes.
• Happy 90^th, Dick Greco, a true and treasured Tampa icon. But his well-earned legacy deserved more than that ill-fated, “Gimme 5” fifth run for mayor.
• Tampa’s average annual temperature has increased 2.5 degrees since 1891, according to the city’s Climate Action and Equity Plan.

• Gullibles’ Travels: Ron DiSastrous’ campaign treks outside Florida.
• The chief strategist for the Iowa-concentrating, DiSastrous super PAC “Never Back Down” (or is it “Never Not Frown”?) is Jeff Roe, who used to be the campaign manager for Ted Cruz.
• OGAC: DiSastrous’s campaign fundraising now includes signed baseball caps with “Our Great American Comeback”—not “Oh, God, Another Candidate” on them.
• Unsurprisingly, the Florida Republican Party won’t require (March) presidential-primary candidates to pledge to support the nominee. Trump got what he wanted.
• “There are a lot of red flags.” That was Surgeon General Joseph LaDOPEo, in warning against getting the latest COVID-19 vaccine.
• “People are lurching toward this insanity” That was part of the contrived-outrage rhetoric employed by Gov. DiSastrous to emphasize that Florida won’t be joining states that are taking precautionary measures to blunt the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases. Too bad there are no vaccines for infectious, self-serving, bumper-sticker leadership.
• DiSastrous wants the evangelical vote, and he knows his position on abortion is critical and problematic. He knows the political downsides to all-out opposition. The safest approach: restrictions on the procedure should be left to, yes, the states.
• The University of Florida has been rated Number 1 among public universities (and Number 15 overall) in the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal/College Pulse Rankings. U.S. News & World Report had UF at Number 6 in public universities.
• First in Flight: In a recent four-state (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas) faculty survey, 46 percent of Florida respondents said they planned to seek employment in a different state within the next year. Yes, it has everything to do with the governor’s compliant, super-majority lawmakers passing legislation that, among other targets, restricted tenure and gutted diversity programs.
• “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans.” This was a warning from the NAACP. Alas, Florida now seems more welcoming to the Aryan Freedom Network.
• Florida’s Brightline is now running trains between Miami and Orlando. It’s the first private intercity passenger service to begin U.S. operations in a century.
• “A mean, vindictive, petty man.”—Description of the governor by former GOP strategist Mac Stipanovich.
• “It’s way too expensive to insure homes in Florida right now.” –Sen. Rick Scott. Perhaps his successor would agree.