Category: Uncategorized

By all accounts, the migrant surge at the southern border is a crisis. One that is a function of a less-than-seamless transition from the patchwork system of the previous administration as well as humanely ironic messaging.Anyone with a soul would have agreed with Biden Administration moves to exorcise Trump mandates and do a reboot on border-immigration policy that wasn’t just unwelcoming but family-separating. The prudent, pragmatic approach would have been to use the pandemic to buy time.

But humane morphed into chaos as migrants-to-be, smugglers and traffickers saw orders to stop building a wall, a moratorium on ICE deportations and vows to protect “Dreamers” as signs that this was some kind of post-Trump open season.

What the migrant surge requires is an approach that directly impacts the motivation of those migrating up from Central America to the US.-Mexico border. We know the poverty, cartel-gang terrorism and corruption they are escaping from in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. That’s why it’s imperative that America help address thecause—not merely implement an ad hoc policy that translates into a border green light and chaos.

That’s why, as Julian Castro, a former HUD secretary, San Antonio mayor and presidential candidate, advocated in the 2020 debates, we need what amounts to a Marshall Plan for Central America. One that helps law enforcement; addresses governments’ susceptibility to corruption; stimulates economic development with hemispheric trade partners; and prioritizes diplomatic relations. In short, a program that incentivizes locals to stay and grow sustainable communities rather than opt out and flee north. A program that is not a Yanqui giveaway, but one that is a prime example of enlightened self-interest—not unlike the original Marshall Plan. “If we want to solve the immigration issue, we need to go to the root of the cause—and that is that people can’t find safety and opportunity in Central America,” underscored Castro.

And it hardly helps if we don’t have a come-to-Jesus reckoning with Mexico about taking back more Central American families who had entered illegally from Mexico. As part of a migrant-asylum quid pro quo, the U.S. has now agreed to supply Mexico with excess doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and Mexico has pledged to do its part on its side of the border.

* Under-promise and over-deliver update: The Biden Administration has reached its announced goal of delivering 100 million vaccine shots in its first 100 days—more than a month ahead of time.

* “The president and I will not be silent. … We will always speak out against violence, hate crimes and discrimination, wherever and whenever it occurs.”–Vice President Kamala Harris, during her Atlanta visit.

* “Climate facts are back on EPA’s website, where they should be.” EPA Administrator Michael Regan, in announcing that the EPA just resurrected a website full of data and science about global warming—a website that the Trump Administration had deleted.

* “God bless America; they are coming to our rescue.”–Ontario Premier Doug Ford, in thanking President Biden for U.S. plans to send 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Canada. The U.S. has also announced plans to send vaccines to Mexico.

* Here’s hoping “SNL” doesn’t reprise its Gerald Ford follies after President Joe Biden tripped and fell on the stairs while boarding Air Force One. Head’s up if Chevy Chase is a guest host.

* Precedent update: Not only do we have a female vice president and a Second Gentleman, we also have a White House where the respective spouses of the VP and the president are also part of the workforce. Jill Biden teaches writing at Northern Virginia Community College, and Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, teaches a course at Georgetown Law.

#AloneTogether

* “Each of these (European) countries has had nadirs like we are having now, and each took an upward trend after they disregarded known mitigation strategies. They simply took their eye off the ball.”–Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC director.

* U.S.: 4.25 percent of the world population. U.S.: 20 percent of the global COVID deaths.

* Approximately 20 percent of Americans have had at least one vaccine dose.

* Context: approximately 1,300 deaths per day currently. Two months ago: approximately 3,400.

* Context: approximately 55,000 new cases per day. Early January: approximately 250,000 per day. Not out of the woods, but clearing ahead.

* The most popular hospitality perk of 2021 is the coronavirus test.

* The CDC has announced that schools can allow social distancing of three feet—rather than the six-foot standard.

* The coronavirus vaccine eligibility-age in Florida was lowered to 50 this week. According to Gov. Ron DeSantis, shots will likely be expanded to all Floridians 16 and older before May 1.

* Publix has passed the 1 million mark in vaccine doses administered.

* Miami Beach has imposed an 8 p.m. curfew in the South Beach entertainment district through the end of spring break. “We are quite simply overwhelmed,” said Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.

* AMC Theatres has now opened 98 percent of its U.S. movie theaters.

* “South Dakota is the only state in America that never ordered a single business or church to close. South Dakota never instituted shelter in place, never mandated people wear masks. South Dakota never even defined what an essential business is.” That was South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem. What she said is true—but so also is data from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems and Science that lists South Dakota as having the second-highest number of COVID cases per 100,000 residents in the country.

* Those scenes of Florida beaches of unmasked hordes are all too familiar pandemic optics. But party-on proximity is not the biggest spring-breaking issue. Where else do partygoers go? Restaurants, bars, restrooms, hotels, motels, airports. That’s the bigger issue. “Outside is safer than inside,” underscores Dr. Jay Wolfson, a health policy expert at USF. “The beaches are pretty safe.”

* USF will hold its spring graduation ceremony in person—with modifications—at Tropicana Field May 7-9.

* Speaking of USF, it is now the Southeast Regional Headquarters of the Global Virus Network, which includes virologists in 34 countries.

The Bright Futures scholarships are still under legislative scrutiny and moving through committee makeovers. The core controversy: Too many Republicans want college aid to reflect a hierarchy of degrees. As in, those that don’t lead directly to a good job, as defined by the legislature, would get less money. A business degree leading to a career as a hedge-fund manager, for example, would merit more than, say, someone with a philosophy degree pursuing truth or a sociology degree wanting to help society’s under-served. Let’s not forget what a university is—and isn’t. At its best, it’s still a community of teachers and scholars and students embracing critical thinking, creatively searching for truth and pursuing ideals and ideas. What it is not is a trade school.

* “Republiqan legislators.” G.B. Trudeau, Doonesbury.

* It’s all too familiar to see politicians, when asked a “yes” or “no” question, respond with only a pivot to their agenda. One that often begins with “Look, …” or “Here’s the deal” or “At the end of the day.” Perhaps President Biden should have been more equivocal–or diplomatic–when asked in an ABC interview if he thought Vladimir Putin was a “killer.” His candid response: “I do.” Not that Putin isn’t an authoritarian with blood on his hands, and no, Putin is no longer a U.S. presidential handler, but the “killer” candor just provides fodder for an America-loathing adversary to disengage—except for more cyber attacks. We need to talk to our adversaries, whether it’s Putin or Kim Jong Un. No free passes or love letters—but candor shy of counterproductive, international insult.

* Add “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to national media criticizing Florida for its spring break, beach-partying scenes.

* “France First.” The slogan for France’s Vichy government during WWII.

* “Trumpism isn’t just about him. It’s a whole way of being in the world. It’s about secrecy, domination, trickery and fraud.”–NYU historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat.

* “The language and tactics of Trump’s election suddenly seemed to offer something new to a lot of people who had been on the fringes of politics, not just in America but around the world.”–Anne Applebaum, author of “Twilight of Democracy.”

* DeFacebook? A Trump spokesperson says the former president will be re-entering the social media space with his own platform in a couple of months. His need to “re-enter,” of course, is as a result of his suspension from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, deadly attack on the Capitol.

* “No more money for RINOS. They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base—they will never lead us to GREATNESS!”–Donald Trump.

* As the NHL’s trade deadline approaches, there is the usual speculation about what teams might do to facilitate a playoff run or to rebuild with prospects. The Lightning aren’t part of the rumor-mongering. They’re looking forward to getting back the offensive wizardry of one of their own, the rehabbing Nikita Kucherov, to bolster their playoff run in defense of the Stanley Cup.

* NCAA tournament’s worst fear: A (men’s) team, Virginia Commonwealth (VCU), had to drop out mere hours before its opener against Oregon because of virus protocols.

* “Today we see a more assertive Russia, more brutal forms of terrorism, sophisticated cyber-attacks and a shifting balance of global power with China’s rise. So it is more important than ever to have friends and allies. … Neither America nor Europe can face global challenges alone. Together we can.”–NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

* “The status of women is the status of democracy.”--VP Kamala Harris in a virtual speech to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

* “Our Republican colleagues—they say no to the vote, and they show up at the ribbon-cuttings or presentations.”–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

* “This chaos would not open up an express lane to liberal change. … The Senate would be more like a 100-car pileup. Nothing moving.”–Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in warningDemocrats not to do away with the filibuster rule.

* “(Cancel culture’s) a trope used by the right—and now cynically appropriated by some on the left—to resist accountability for wrongdoing.”–Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

* “We’re about to have a boom. And if we do have a boom, it will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion (relief package).”–Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

* “When you create a system that incentivizes people to come across, and they are released, that immediately sends a message to Central America that if you come across, you can stay.”–Texas Democratic Rep. Vincente Gonzalez.

* “Many of our illegal immigrants (in some years, the majority of them) do not come into the country by walking over the border illegally. They come legally by land, air and sea, and then they don’t leave when they are supposed to.”–Kevin D. Williamson, the National Review.

* “The older I got, the clearer it became to me: Asian women are frequently reduced to objects by the Western male gaze.”–Christine Liwag Dixon, Washington Post.

* “I don’t believe in gradualism—or that whatever is to be done for the better should take forever to do.”–Rosa Parks.

* “Forget voter suppression. It’s time for some politician suppression.”–Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald.

* “Faculty across the board are nervous about their own students, whether or not their students will mobilize to call for their sanction or dismissal if they say the wrong thing.”–Princeton University political scientist Keith Whittington, chairman of the Academic Freedom Alliance and author of “Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech.”

* “Ensuring that the operating structure and control of Florida’s seaports remain with their respective local governments is essential to keeping this economic engine sailing.”–Doug Wheeler, president and CEO of the Florida Ports Council.

* “We’re starting to see some of those traditional markets come back.”—Steve Hayes, president and CEO of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.

A decade ago Mitch McConnell vowed to make President Barack Obama a “one-term president.” It embodied everything that’s repellent about our two-party, partisan politics. But at least they were both considered “parties.” Now the GOP is a tribe. Libertarians? Tea Partiers? How ideologically quaint. Rockefeller Republicans? How nostalgic.

No, this is about Donald Trump passing around the Kool Aid of animus that targets, scapegoats and demonizes. The other side isn’t the opposition; it’s the “enemy of the people.” Trump’s unhinged, uninformed, unethical, immoral, misogynistic ascent came amid the complementary perfect storm of Fox News, self-validating digital media and smoldering, white resentment. Demographics weren’t Democrats’ destiny; they were the impetus for over-reactive GOP game-changers. The issues–from race, immigration, liberal elites and voting to COVID mask-wearing, a cancel culture and an insurrection–were visceral. Racist George Wallace, it turns out, was ahead of his time. But at least he was disingenuously civil enough to call it states’ rights.

Should we have seen faux patriotism coming? We know about those Nazi-friendly, “America First” rallies at Madison Square Garden in the 1930s and a Confederate-Dixiecrat legacy. But look as recently as 2008. That’s when an embarrassingly inept, unprepared Sarah Palin was propped up for vice president. This wasn’t traditional ticket balancing. This was unconscionable, “hopey-changey” bar lowering. And then the election of an African-American president was more than the white-grievance crowd could handle. When you rationalize your life by looking down on others—and now the “others” have one of their own as president, you have nowhere to go but to a “birther” cult figure who sounds like the guy picking up the bar tab at last call. We’re not #AloneTogether. We’re #SeparatedByTribes.

* Those stimulus checks don’t include a President Joe Biden signature. This is a reversal from checks sent out by the previous president. This is more about taking action than getting credit.

* “We’re going to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first, but we’re then going to try to help the rest of the world.”–That was President Joe Biden on the prioritizing of vaccines.

* “By July Fourth, there’s a good chance you, your family and friends can gather in your backyard and have a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day.”–President Joe Biden.

* “Competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be.”–Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the U.S. relationship with China.

* Although daily White House press briefings are back, still no sign of a Biden press conference.

* One of the two Democratic Georgia senators elected in January, African-American Raphael Warnock, will have to defend his seat next year. Rumor has it that some Republicans are trying to recruit black Georgia football icon Herschel Walker, a former Heisman Trophy winner, to reclaim that key Senate seat. Walker has a decades-long friendship with Donald Trump dating back to when Walker played for the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, owned by Trump, in the 1980s.