Opinions to go Online

 

* U.S. Customs agents seized more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl at the Mexican border last (fiscal) year. They seized 43 pounds at the Canadian border. BTW, fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin.

* “You can’t take our country—and you can’t take our game.”–Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, after Canada defeated the US to win the 4 Nations Face-Off. Trump’s typically classless response: “Justin’s a loser. Always has been.”

* “The armed forces of Europe must be created.”–Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

* The U.S. has a $68 billion trade deficit with Japan.

 

* I watched the beginning of the USA-Canada hockey game in the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal. No surprise, the backdrop to the Star Spangled Banner was a chorus of boos from Canadian fans. Normally, I’d go all nationalistic and protocol-minded and condemn booing during America’s national anthem. We all would. But the crowd wasn’t booing the America we love and respect. It was booing the Trump iteration of America. It’s arrogant, nativistic, selfish, insulting—and, alas, embarrassingly boo-able.

* “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”–That was how President Trump disingenuosly phrased it, after signing an order to ban transgender athletes from participating in female sports. Actually, such a “war” is likely not over—as long as there is a Title IX and legal controversy over transgender athletes.

* NFL parity reminder: Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles (“Iggles” if you’re from Philly) are Super Bowl champions. And, yes, they were hammered, 33-16, by the Bucs during the regular season. They were also outgained by the Bucs, 445 yds. to 227 yds. It’s a long season.

* Changes in college football have resulted in most programs hiring general managers to work with NIL collectives and oversee the revenue-sharing pool.

* Another Day at the Orifice: The Trump-Vance-Rubio-Zelenskyy White House meeting turned into an embarrassing, counterproductive, testy exchange. It was more fit for a SNL cold opening than important, impactful international diplomacy.

* Has Pax Americana become Tax Americana?

* DOGE: aka Elon & the Muskateers.

* “(Canada) is not viable as a country” without U.S. trade. Another rhetorical affront from the U.S. president who treats despotic Russia with much more respect than neighborly Canada. BTW, Canada is the world’s largest national buyer of U.S. goods.

* Trump’s nationalistic suggestions for the redrawing of international borders have become a global concern. Foremost among those who are much less concerned: Vladimir Putin.

* Air Farce One update: The White House banned an AP reporter and photographer from the presidential plane–and various events—due to disagreements over references to the Gulf of Mexico.

* Where there is a barrage of controversial, agenda-driven executive orders, there is a bunch of lawsuits. In fact, more than 40 have already been filed to challenge the Trump Administration.

* The whole DEI/meritocracy contrast is blatantly and hypocritically undermined by a born-rich, uninformed, unread, pathologically lying, narcissistic felon.

* Trump, as we well know, has pushed hard to end birthright citizenship. The legality comes down to the 14^th Amendment. For the record, it states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

* “Your past, undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments, concerns me.” That was Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, indicating his worry over the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. Cassidy is a physician. Dr. Cassidy, of course, ultimately voted for Kennedy.

* The Fraternal Order of Police, which endorsed Trump in 2024, condemned his blanket pardon of J6 rioters.

* “If they (Iran) did that (assassinate him), they would be obliterated.”–Donald Trump. But then it would be VP Vance’s obliteration call or SOD Pete Hegseth’s. At least Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay is no longer around.

* Trump has offered to rehouse white South Africans as refugees fleeing persecution. The rush is not yet on.

* Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna filed a bill directing the federal government to add Trump to Mount Rushmore. You can’t make this stuff up. Let’s just call it Mount RushNoMore.

* “The Riviera of the Middle East”: What the U.S. could, as proposed by Trump, ultimately build in Gaza. But, presumably, not the 52^nd state.

* Greenland. Iceland. Newfoundland: Could Trump resist a naming rights offer?

 

 

* “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”–Thomas Jefferson.

* “‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.”–G.K. Chesterton.

* “One major secret of dictatorships, from Stalin to Hitler, lies in their ability to provide moralistic dressing for coercion and so transform it into a satisfying experience.”–Hitler insider Albert Speer.

* “The free world needs a new leader.”–Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat.

* “The canal is and will continue to be Panamanian.”–Jose Raul Mulina, president of Panama.

* “A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.”–Woodrow Wilson.

* “So far, what we’re seeing is a lot of cost, a lot of chaos.”–Ford CEO Jim Farley on President Trump’s policies that impact auto production in the U.S.

* “This state, especially this (Florida) state, would be crippled if immigrants actually left.”–Author and political commentator Barry Golson.

* “There’s going to be something fantastic in this location. I just can’t tell you when.”–Justin Greider, VP of commercial real estate firm JLL, on the future of WestShore Plaza.

Jan. 20, 2025—yet another date that will live in American infamy.

History will not be kind. But that’s of little concern or consolation right now. America now has a criminal, celebrity-felon, autocratic president-predator. Nostradamus couldn’t have foreseen this.

America also has a diminished reputation. It comes with an execrable Capitol insurrection in defiance of Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat. Banana republics are still having the last laugh.

But more importantly, NATO, which considers America indispensable in world affairs, is worried. As are advocates of climate-change initiatives. Vulnerable immigrants are scared. DEI proponents are alarmed. Federal grant recipients are disturbed and distressed by chaotic executive orders. Anyone who equates higher U.S. tariffs with higher prices is anxious. Trump and nuclear codes is still a nightmarish rumination. Love letters from Little Kim won’t help.

In addition, those outside the malignant MAGA bubble are flat-out embarrassed. Trump’s lame cabinet nominations, presidential grifting and discomfiting, ego-driven manifest destiny over Canadian statehood, Greenland purchase or Gulf of Mexico name change have led ineluctably to domestic and international ridicule. Then add expansive immunity, a MAGA-enabling GOPster Congress, a Federalist Society-impacting SCOTUS and no re-election guard rails.

No, history will not be kind. Only kind of haunting. Reflective, no-longer-nostalgic Americans will be glad they weren’t around now when Retribution Republicans took back our country.

Riverwalk expansion is not some misprioritized “vanity project.” It’s an updated acknowledgment to do more to connect neighborhoods with the revitalized city center. It’s more than attractive destination optics; it would prompt investor development of retail and housing opportunities. It’s a logical extension of a vision for a city fortunate enough to have a river running through it. It also creates a welcome tax-base increase for the city.

Much was made, and appropriately so, about Kamala Harris’ historic ascendance to the vice presidency. But there was a predecessor, one that history has largely forgotten. Kansas Republican Sen. Charles Curtis was the first Native American to serve as vice president—to Herbert Hoover. The Kansas native was a member of the Kaw Nation.

In December, U.S. job growth surged and unemployment fell. As a result, the Fed is unlikely to cut borrowing costs for now. Another reminder of what Harry Truman was getting at with his sardonic wish for a “one-armed economist”–one who wouldn’t say “but on the other hand.”

 

Black gang warfare remains a major societal threat. The victims are mostly black. Can’t this be a collateral cause for “Black Lives Matter”? BLM would have more impact and credibility if it took up this part of the cause. Otherwise, the unfiltered, unintentional message is: “Black Lives Selectively Matter.”

* In his last days, President Biden moved to lift the state-sponsor-of-terrorism designation for Cuba. Way too late. And no movement on the U.S. embargo that makes life worse for those not responsible for the corruptly incompetent government they’re stuck with. Now we have Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a sanctions proponent, in charge.