Category: Uncategorized

• The economy grew at a 6.5 percent annual rate last quarter. The total size of the economy has now surpassed its pre-pandemic level.
• “I always thought the free-market system was not only that there’s competition among companies but guess what: Companies should have to compete for workers.”—That was President Joe Biden, underscoring that antitrust laws–while not the high-profile issue that infrastructure, voting rights and child care have become—is also a major priority. The President has directed federal regulators—notably the Justice Department’s antitrust division with several key Biden appointees—to consider a harder line against corporate consolidation in tech, hospitals, health insurance and meat processing. One expected byproduct of renewed antitrust activism is the increased scrutinizing of prospective judicial nominees on their antitrust views.
• Federal workers will be required to prove they’ve been vaccinated or else face mandatory masking, weekly testing, distancing and other new rules. The Biden Administration is also looking into adding a COVID vaccination shot requirement for members of the military—and federal contractors.
• C-Notes for COVID shots: The President is urging states and local governments to use COVID relief package funds to offer $100 to individuals who get shots. Perhaps bribes are the only way we get to herd immunity.
• “What has not changed is the fact that people who are vaccinated have a huge deal of protection from serious illness, from hospitalization and from death.”—White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
• Speaking of the WH press secretary, she’s a professional and does daily briefings. Anyone other than the usual suspects miss Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Sean Spicer?
• “He’s such a moron.”—That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s criticism of the Capitol physician’s mask mandate in the House.

• Major European economies, including Italy and France, are moving closer to making vaccines mandatory for everyone. “The appeal to not getting vaccinated is an appeal to die,” said Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
• Israel has become the first country to offer a COVID booster shot.
• “Simply put, health misinformation has cost us lives.”—U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
• The Department of Veterans Affairs became the first federal agency to require its health care workers to get vaccinated.
• In San Francisco, all city workers are now required to be vaccinated.
• “If all the unvaccinated people were responsible and wore masks indoors, we would not be seeing this surge.”—Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska College of Public Health.
• Air Rage: According to a survey by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, 85 percent of attendants have dealt with unruly passengers.
• More than 3.5 million Americans are at risk of eviction.
• Maryland has reached its goal of 70 percent vaccinated with at least one shot. A big factor, claim Maryland officials: the state’s $2 million Vax-Cash lottery.
• Publix is now requiring employees to wear face coverings—regardless of their vaccination status.
• The number of people getting tested for coronavirus has increased over the past month. Federal law requires that testing be free. In the Tampa Bay area, it’s available mainly through CVS and Walgreens pharmacies, urgent care facilities, Quest Diagnostics locations (including those in Walmart stores) and doctors’ offices.
• At Tampa General Hospital, the number of COVID-19 patients has gone from about 15 to approximately 80.
• St. Joseph’s Hospital and other BayCare Health System facilities are scaling back elective procedures—as COVID-19 cases surge.
• As of this week, Hillsborough County will require the public to wear masks inside county buildings.

• “To help us provide high-quality classes, student services, extracurricular activities and athletic programs in a healthy environment, we strongly recommend that all students get vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus before arriving on campus.”—Excerpt from a letter to all students from the Florida Board of Governors.
• Another day, another Trumplican box checked: Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed Florida on to the legal effort (along with 10 other GOPster governors) to overturn Roe v. Wade—with the anticipated help of a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS majority.
• “Florida … ranks 43^rd in per pupil funding, and it diverts an enormous amount of public money to for-profit charter schools that are not accountable and often fail to provide the full range of educational services required by law—like those with special needs and disabled students.”—U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor.
• “Our view is that (masks in public schools) should absolutely not be mandated. And I know our Legislature feels strongly about it.”—Gov. Ron DeSantis.
• Too bad the imperative of an apolitical abundance of caution to combat a public health crisis that impacts EVERYBODY can’t be mandated.
• Starting Oct. 1, Leon and Orange counties will require their employees to get vaccinated—or be terminated. BTW, the Orange County mayor is Jerry Demings, who declared a local state of emergency, and is the husband of Val Demings. Yes, that will be mentioned again by certain partisans.
• Face coverings are once again mandatory—indoors or on buses and trams—at Walt Disney World.
• Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried has suspended concealed carry weapons permits for 22 people involved in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol assault.
• “Mask mandates are stupid. Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.”—Rep. Matt Gaetz, during his Florida Man Freedom Tour stop in Largo.

• All things being equal, Tampa’s next police chief should come from within the department. But all things are rarely equal. As Mayor Jane Castor looks nationally, she—as a former chief—knows the critical assets that Brian Dugan’s successor must bring to the Tampa-community table. Someone with a track record of demanding accountability from officers, protecting communities and enabling an environment of transparency and racial equality. A chief who will expand community policing and promote being proactive without targeting. A chief who understands the constitutional rights of peaceful protestors and the inherent danger of overreactive, excessive force. And a chief who would be an advocate for a more effective and independent Citizens Review Board. In short, a chief who doesn’t traffic in sound bites but has the backs of the community as well as police officers. Tampa deserves no less.
• According to rankings compiled by U.S. News and World Report, TGH has been rated the best hospital in the Tampa Bay region and number four in the state. (The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville was the top overall hospital in Florida.) Hospital rankings were measured on factors such as survival rates, nurse staffing, technology, patient services, specialists and experiences.

• Clearwater native Bobby Finke, Countryside High grad and current Florida Gator, won two Olympic gold medals in swimming. Fellow Gator Caeleb Dressel, America’s newMichael Phelps, earned five golds.
• According to the IOC, approximately 49 percent of the nearly 11,000 Tokyo Olympic athletes are women. That number was 45.6 percent at the 2016 Rio Games.
• Russia is officially banned from the Olympics—over state-sponsored doping—but more than 300 Russian athletes are competing in Tokyo. The Russians—without their flag or anthem—compete under the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee) banner. Some “ban.”
• The next Olympic Games will be in Beijing this winter. The IOC’s (Hobbs?) choice: It was either Beijing or Almaty, Kazakhstan.

• According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 66 percent of Republicans continue to say that President Joe Biden was illegitimately elected. Other results: 76 percent of Republicans view Trump favorably, while 41 percent say they are optimistic about the GOP’s future.
• “It’s an existential predicament: (Trump) can’t be Trump without a claim on the presidency. He can’t hold the attention and devotion of the Republican Party if he is not both once and future king—and why would he ever give that up?”—Michael Wolff, author of “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency.”
• So, Trump fundraiser Tom Barrack has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates. Yet more fallout from those in Trump’s conniving circle. Call it scandal inflation.
• “I was on the lower west terrace fighting alongside these officers, and all of them, all of them were telling us Trump sent us. Nobody else. It was nobody else. It was not antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI; it was his supporters that he sent them over to the Capitol that day.”—U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, testifying before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol siege.
• “Take Nixon in the deepest days of his Watergate paranoia, subtract 50 IQ points, add Twitter, and you have Trump today.”—Bruce Bartlett, historian and former domestic adviser to President Ronald Reagan.
• “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.”—That was Trump, in a December call to then-Acting Attorney Jeffrey Rosen. Weeks before, AG William Barr revealed that the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread fraud (that could have overturned the results).
• The DOJ now says the Treasury Department must provide the former president’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.
• Trump’s political war chest through the first six months of 2021: $102 million. Obvious bottom line: Trump wants to be the mid-term king-maker or regain his disgraced throne.

• “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respected stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges.”—George Washington.
• “The thrust of bringing (House) masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state.”—House Moronic Leader Kevin McCarthy.
• “Do not provide incentives to the unvaccinated to get vaccinated. It could create a problem in the future in that people might delay taking preventive measures with the hope that delaying will compensate them.”—USF Finance professor Murad Antia.
• “For all the overheated rhetoric surrounding this Committee, our mission is very simple: to find the truth and ensure accountability.”—Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., one of two Republicans on the select committee investigating the Capitol assault.
• “(Texas) is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong in America when there is not a strong Democratic Party to check an increasingly undemocratic Republican Party and force it into moderation.”—Richard Parker, author of “The Crossing,” a history of the Southwest centered on El Paso.
• “We are creating a path of opportunity for our associates to grow their career at Walmart.”—Lorraine Stomski, Walmart’s senior VP of Learning and Leadership. The company—during a tight labor market—will begin offering free college tuition to its 1.5 million U.S. employees.
• “The $15 an hour debate is essentially being resolved by the marketplace.”—Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of Snagajob, a site for hourly employees.
• “The Hispanic experience in America is beginning to look similar to the experience of Irish Americans or Italian Americans or other past immigrant groups—a period of struggle followed by integration into the middle class. Hispanics have lately made astounding gains in education. In 2000, more than 30 percent of Hispanics dropped out of high school. By 2016, only 10 percent did. In 1999, a third of Hispanics age 18 to 24 were in college; now nearly half are. Hispanic college enrollment rates surpassed white enrollment rates in 2012.”—David Brooks, New York Times

“In a perfect world, we would have the ability to look at things like mask mandates. At this point in time, all I can say is ‘Please get vaccinated.’”—St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman.        

Dem Notes

• The Biden Administration isn’t sending troops to Haiti. But—more appropriately—it did send 500,000 doses of COVID vaccine—with more on the way. A lot more, hopefully.
• “This is a moment of existential urgency. It calls on Democrats to be creative, committed and bold. Like Lincoln, (Democrats) must take the fight to higher ground and found a new nation: one without gerrymandering, dark money and voter suppression.”—Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald.
• “AOC”: too bad that doesn’t also stand for pandemic common sense, as in “Abundance Of Caution.”
• “Strong black turnout will be crucial for (U.S. Senatorial candidate) Val Demings, as will continuing support from younger voters and non-Cuban Hispanics. She will also need to grow her support in the state’s metropolitan (especially suburban) areas. … She cannot afford additional defections from Hispanic voters.”—Stuart Rothenberg, CQ-Roll Call.
• Speaking of, Demings has done well on the fundraising front; she raised $4.6 million in her first three weeks. Marco Rubio raised $4 million over three months.
• If the likes of Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco liberal, and Liz Cheney, the Wyoming conservative, can find common cause, maybe there’s still hope.  

• “We are deeply disappointed. Their position is irresponsible and, frankly, dangerous.”—White House statement in response to China saying it could not accept the W.H.O.’s plan for the second phase of a study into the origins of COVID-19. The study was looking into the possibility that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese lab.
• Pfizer is projecting that it will earn $26 billion in COVID-19 revenue this year.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended “universal masking” during the 2021-2022 school year.
• “If we’re going to talk about traveling to the U.K., then we should also caution Americans about traveling to Florida. Right now, one in every five new COVID cases are coming out of Florida.”—Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton, medical director of GoodStock Consulting.
• In the wake of hundreds of thousands of pandemic deaths last year, the average life expectancy in the U.S. fell by 1.5 years—from 78.8 to 77.3 years.
• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of households homeschooling their children rose to 11 percent in September 2020. Six months earlier it had been 5.4 percent.
• About 54 percent of eligible Floridians are fully vaccinated.
• Florida’s positivity rate has nearly doubled in the past two weeks—from 7.8 percent to 15.1 percent.
• Earlier this month Florida changed the frequency of its COVID reporting from daily to weekly. With cases rising, critics—who believe that more information is best during a pandemic—have urged state officials and Gov. Ron DeSantis to resume daily outbreak updates.
• The Florida Department of Health has announced that DeliveRxd Pharmacy, a prescription delivery service, will vaccinate residents of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties at their homes.
• “Every additional person vaccinated is a potential life saved.”—Dr. Douglas Holt, director of the Florida Department of Health in Hillsborough County.
• Bottom line: Still no vaccine for gullibility, stupidity, ignorance or idiotology.

• “If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris choose to pander to the left-wing, open-borders base of their party rather than keep our nation safe, then it is up to the rest of us to do what is necessary to combat this crisis.”—Gov. Ron DeSantis, staying in character, at a news conference at the Texas-Mexico border.
• It’s unlikely that Florida will be reimbursed by Texas for sending state law enforcement officials to help patrol the border. Gov. DeSantis, however, has already been, in effect, reimbursed by a high-profile, national spotlight that advances his chances for a possible 2024 presidential run.
• A Miami protest in Little Havana’s Versailles Restaurant was the backdrop for a GOP town hall hosted by Trumpster acolyte Sean Hannity of Fox News. The optics were as telling as they were unsurprising: from Cuban and “Trump Won” flags to MAGA hats and “DESANTIS 2024 T-shirts. Among those participating: Ron DeSantis and Mario Rubio.
• As of July 4^th, only 42 percent of Florida’s nursing home workers had been vaccinated. The number is 56 percent nationally. This is unconscionable, especially as Florida assumes the “lead” in new COVID cases. How do nursing home workers—in good conscience—take proper care of vulnerable patients while risking disease spreading among those they care for—and, presumably, care about.
• “There’s been talk about potentially people advocating at the federal level, imposing compulsory masks on kids. We’re not doing that in Florida, okay? … We need our kids to be able to be kids.”—Gov. Ron DeSantis, okay?
• Bumper sticker update: “Don’t Fauci My Florida.” That’s DeSantis’ mantra about COVID restrictions that limit “individual rights or liberties.”