Opinions to go Online

• “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying: ‘Our interest first. Who cares about the others?’”—French President Emmanuel Macron.
• More than7 million Venezuelans have already left the country during the presidency of Nicolas Maduro.
• The WHO has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health.
• Trade between Russia and India increased by 66% last year. India now gets more than 40% of its oil imports from Russia.

• “Never say never. Next Olympics are at home (2028 Los Angeles).”—Gold Medal gymnast Simone Biles, on speculation that she will retire after the Paris Games.
• The U.S. men only won one Olympic gold medal in swimming. That was by Clearwater’s Bobby Finke in the 1,500-meter freestyle—in world record time.
• “Sixteen is our today, and 16 is our tomorrow.”—Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey, referring to the size of the newly expanded SEC.
• According to a 2023 Ipsos survey, cornhole is the most-played sport in America—ahead of bowling, swimming and golf. But, no, it’s not in the Olympics yet.
• But ping pong—oops, table tennis—is. BTW, when it comes to doubles, the table seems way too small for four players.
• The NBA, a predominantly black sport, has been promoting basketball in Africa for more than two decades. It even operates an academy for high-school-age players, an NBA Africa office and the headquarters of the Basketball Africa League in Senegal. Today, about 10% of NBA players are either African or have at least one parent from Africa.
• “We can’t let now beat us later.”—Rays baseball operations president Eric Neander, on the reasoning behind the Rays’ recent high-profile, high-salaried trades to better position the team for the future.
• Remember “amateurism”?

• “I don’t believe in ‘win/win.’ I believe in I win.”—Donald Trump on his zero-sum perspective.
• Who the hell other than Trump thought it was a good idea to sit on stage with an interviewing journalist in front of a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists? His take on Kamala Harris’ morphing from Indian to Black didn’t go over well, to say the least.
• If Trump debates Harris, a former prosecutor well prepped to take on a felon, it means the race is closer than his campaign had assumed. Debating Harris would be like testifying, over the advice of counsel, at your own trial.
• Trump, of course, is an autocrat. When in charge, he also presides, as it were, over a chaotic adhocracy.
• According to the Pew Research Center, white evangelicals went 77% for Trump in 2016 and 84% in 2020.
• “I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”—Mike Pence.
• “I love my black job.”—Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles.
• Lesley Stahl of CBS News once asked Trump, off camera, why he engaged in so much media bashing. His candid response: “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”
• Before his fealty flip, Lindsey Graham once tweeted: “You know how to make America great again? Tell @real Donald Trump to go to hell.”
• MAGA: Make America Grating Again.
• “I never prepare for a big deal. I go in and I look the other guy in the eye and I make the big play and that’s how I built my business empire—and that’s why I am the greatest negotiator in the history of the presidency.” –Donald Trump on why he remains unread and unprepared before important negotiations. At least Vlad Putin appreciates the approach.
• “Who is our bigger enemy, (Fed Chair) Jay Powel (sic) or Chairman Xi?—D. Trump.
• The problem with Trump was that “he always does the wrong thing.”—Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
• “He’s a lying mother f***er, but a lot of fun to hang out with.”—Lindsey Graham.
• “The Slim Reaper”: How Melania Trump’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, referred to Jared Kushner.
• Hulk Hogan spoke at the GOP convention—but not as the VP nominee.
• “She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”—Trump in an ad hominem, juvenile insult of Kamala Harris.
• MAGA: Make America Grieve Again.

• “The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.”—Adolf Hitler.
• “We are in the process of the second American Revolution.”—Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation.
• “A man may smile and still be a villain.”—Shakespeare.
• “There are so many differences between the 1968 and 2024 conventions. One of the biggest is that now, the whole world is filming. The problem today is not how much we can see, but how much we can believe.”—Northwestern Journalism Professor Heather Hendershot.
• “You have people imbibing propaganda all day, so moving over that (violent) line is a lot easier” than it was in the past.—Colin P. Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group,, an intelligence and security consulting firm.
• “Trump is in rebellion against the presidency. Its traditions get in the way of the quick results he wants.”—CBS News anchor John Dickerson.
• “I love the black population of this country. I’ve done so much for the black population of this country.”—Donald Trump.
• “This is not the party of Lincoln, the party of Nixon, or even the party of Reagan. This is the party of (“Birth of a Nation” director) D.W. Griffith, this is the party of the KKK, and the party of Trump.”—SiriusXM host Karen Hunter.
• “There is no epidemic of violent crime in America.”—Paul Krugman, New York Times.
• “The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding.”—Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
• “I don’t think we can solely rely on the hope that the platforms can fix this problem on their own.”—U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, on his call to require a warning label on social media platforms.
• “Yes, Florida is now approaching science and education like a 2-year-old.: If you don’t like something, just pretend it doesn’t exist.”—Scott Maxwell, Orlando Sentinel.
• “Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves.”—Outgoing UF President Ben Sasse.
• “I personally don’t know if I’ve met anyone who is a better leader.”—Mayor Jane Castor, on Joe Lopano, who is in his last year before retiring as TIA CEO.

Russian warships–plus a nuclear sub–participated in military exercises in the Caribbean and came within 30 miles of Florida on their way to Cuba. No, it wasn’t footage from October 1962—but a 21^st century reminder of geopolitical reality in the age of Vladimir Putin.

The Russian autocrat–and former KGB agent–is the embodiment of Soviet humiliation and revenge. The Soviets, under Nikita Khrushchev, were forced to withdraw their Cuba-based missiles—despite Fidel Castro’s disagreement and outrage—in the context of face-saving negotiations. Khrushchev would soon leave office.

Less than a generation later, the Soviet Union imploded. Then NATO and the European Union moved east. Further humiliation and ire—and personified by the authoritarian-for-life Putin, who gives punk a bad name.

Now it’s the war in Ukraine, which used to be part of the USSR, with the U.S. acting as the lead military surrogate.

With a problematic economy and alienation from the West, Putin needs more than oligarch swagger; he has to signal proactive strength–domestically and globally. Defiantly revisiting the missiles of October checks a foreign ego-box for him.

They are what they are: presidential debates. They are not extensions of forensic societies. They are exercises in performance art. Optics and one-liners live on more than mastery of important-issue details. Nixon sweating in 1960. Reagan’s prepared comeback lines in 1984. George Bush Sr. looking at his watch in 1992.

The Biden-Trump debate began with Biden shuffling on to the stage. Then it got worse with a raspy voice, unfinished sentences and a mouth agape in reaction shots. The bar is so low for Trump, the pathological liar, perp-walker and convicted, shameless felon, that he only had to restrain himself enough not to look like a completely unhinged buffoon.

It’s too late for the Dems to think about replacing Biden. Voters wouldn’t be part of the vetting. It would look like what it is: pure panic. Plus, the bench isn’t overly impressive. The focus needs to be on democracy. Which candidate defends it. Which one undermines it. Who represents good governance; who represents odious character. Who wants to unite America; who continues to stoke a culture war. Who leads a party; who leads a cult. A neurologist for Biden; a criminologist for Trump.

And then hope for the best in round two in September. Remember Reagan had a lackluster, age-themed performance against Walter Mondale in their first debate, raising concerns about his competence. Then he bounced back with pitch-perfect, rehearsed lines. But it helped that he was a professional actor.

Biden has always made it through tough times. But those were pre-octogenarian times. He still knows a lot, is a decent person, cares about the Constitution and is surrounded by competence—not sycophancy. He’s a moral democrat—not an immoral autocrat. Stay in the game, Joe—and on the HARRIS-BIDEN ticket.

So, what does this Supreme Court do when it’s in the cross-hairs of public mistrust? It doubles down. Roe v Wade, three Trumpers, Clarence (and Ginni) Thomas, Samuel Alito, Trump immunity, yada yada. The Extreme Court has even struck down a ban on bump stocks, those rapid-fire gun accessories that convert rifles into de facto machine guns. Would the Founders have disapproved of public safety and common sense?

 

• “President Biden and my support for the people of Ukraine is unwavering.”—VP Kamala Harris at the Summit on Peace in Switzerland. For the record, it was the vice president’s 17^th foreign trip.
• “Kamalanomics”: Now finding its way into partisan political parlance.
• An early July Reuters/Ipsos poll looked at a hypothetical Trump-Harris The results: Trump led Harris, 43% to 42%.
• Joe Biden and Barack Obama as part of a successful fundraiser. It’s a given. Only downside: Obama charisma and nostalgia starkly juxtaposed to a president past his prime.
• “Evan is not a spy. Journalism is not a crime. … He is simply being used as a bargaining chip.” That was White House national security spokesman John Kirby, in reference to the Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, who is charged with espionage and remains in jail in Russia.
• “Biden’s policies are better for the economy. They lead to more growth and less inflation.”—Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.
• Inflation context: Let’s not forget that the ultimate arbiter of the money supply is the Federal Reserve Bank—not Congress and not the president. Independent of the federal government, the Fed alone controls the money supply. Its primary function is to control inflation.
• Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has declared gun violence a public health crisis. His advisory was, no surprise, praised by doctors. The American Academy of Family Physicians has considered gun violence a public health epidemic for more than a decade. Nationwide gun control measures, however, require legislation passed by Congress.

• Diplomacy is thinking twice before saying nothing.
• “The times that tried men’s souls are over.”—Thomas Paine, known more for eloquence than prescience.
• “You look great!” Thanks. “For your age.” Yeah
• Thanks to Gov. DisAstrous and the Indian County School Board, “Floriduh” has been back in the news. That’s what happens when the book, “Ban This Book” is banned. Another gift for late-night comedians. Heavy-handed censorship, partisan self-service and idiocy, obviously, have never been banned.
• “A categorical final warning, forbidding masters of ceremonies to make political wisecracks or to use lewd erotic jokes in their performances.”—No, that wasn’t Gov. DisAstrous who made that warning. It was Joseph Goebbels.

• June 19, 1865 is the day slavery is considered to have ended in America. By then, Tampa had already been emancipated (May, 1864).
• Hillsborough County reported fewer than 155,000 vote-by-mail requests for elections this year. This is in comparison to more than 335,000 requests for the midterms. Changes in state law have everything to do with it. Voter “security” is not a synonym for partisan voter suppression.
• Amid Tampa’s high-profile urban upgrades is a project that is much more than high-rise revitalization. It’s an homage to Tampa’s African-American roots. The Tampa Housing Authority and the Tampa Bay History Museum will be jointly curating the first Black History Museum in Tampa. It will be located at the (restored) former St. James Episcopal Church in the Encore neighborhood. Heritage matters and this project underscores that critically relevant reality.
• According to data from Freddie Mac, the average rate for a 30-year-fixed-rate mortgage: 6.87%.
• Statistics from the Greater Tampa Realtors show that the median home sales price has increased 2% in the last year—to $423,710.