Category: Uncategorized

* You, go, Trayvon Bromell. The fastest sprinter in the world and a gold-medal, 100-meter favorite at the Tokyo Olympics, is a St. Petersburg native and a Gibbs High graduate.

* MLB umpires will now routinely inspect baseballs and scrutinize pitchers for illegal, sticky, grip-enhancing substances. What’s next? Maybe those suspicious rosin bags.

* “After a century of baseball taking such a hard line against gambling, this waltz between MLB and on-line gambling is jarring. … I worry about the gambling temptation for players, not to mention for fans who wrestle with gambling addiction.”–Micheline Maynard, WaPo.

* “We didn’t get anything. We gave up a very big stage to Russia, and we got nothing. It was a good day for Russia.” That was the former president, who, as we know, granted the big-stage treatment (including a joint press conference) to Putin and (in Helsinki in 2018) proceeded to declare that he trusted Putin more than America’s intelligence agencies when it came to Russian interference in the 2016 election—the one that helped bring Trump to the White House.

* The recent Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Kissimmee drew the expected crowd of conservative Christian voters and conservative-Christian-voter-courting GOPsters—from Marco Rubio and Rick Scott to Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and Mike Pence. The sectarian bottom line: No, hypocrisy is really not a sin.

* Speculation is rising again on the possibility of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker entering the Georgia GOP Senate primary for a chance to run against the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, the Democratic incumbent and a fellow African-American. It matters to GOPsters that Walker is a friend of color of Trump and once played for Trump’s pro football team, the New Jersey Generals of the short-lived United States Football League.

* “Donald Trump thought America should have the same restrictive admittance protocol as his country clubs.”–Ruben Navarrette, WaPo.

* There’s a quaint sort of White House tradition where a first-term president hosts a ceremony for the unveiling of his predecessor’s official portrait. Trump, of course, didn’t follow that tradition with his predecessor, Barack Obama. President Joe Biden, however, plans to host a White House ceremony—likely this fall—for the unveiling of former President Obama’s portrait.

As for Trump agreeing to his portrait being unveiled in an East Room event hosted by his successor—who he has accused of stealing the 2020 election—no way. BTW, there’s another presidential precedent that was broken earlier this year. Trump declined to attend Biden’s inauguration.

* “I think it’s great to have the U.S. president part of the club and very willing to cooperate.”–French President Emmanuel Macron.

* “America would be well served if the European Union got its act together and defined a coherent China strategy.”–Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the U.S.

* “Either they (China) allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where this (coronavirus) came from or they will face isolation in the international community.”–U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

* “(Vietnam) is a one-party state, political dissent is not tolerated. We can go there freely, spend money freely … We give aid to them, cooperate with Vietnam in many areas, raise human rights with them. We don’t have a similar relationship with Cuba?–Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

* “This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take.”–President Joe Biden, who signed legislation establishing a new federal holiday (Juneteenth/June 19^th) commemorating the end of slavery.

* “What Juneteenth and other Emancipation days commemorate is both the promise of freedom and its delay.”–Kevin Young, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

* “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”–President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

* “I think it’s highly unlikely.”–Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on whether he would allow a confirmation vote on a new Supreme Court justice during the remainder of Joe Biden’s presidential term if Republicans retook the Senate.

* “In Republican-controlled states across the nation, the campaign for a 21st-century Jim Crow is well underway.”–Robert J. Walker, author of “12 Characteristics of an Effective Teacher.”

* “A fair share of using our roads and bridges.”–What Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine wants electric cars to pay.

* “I miss nuance, which has been incinerated by today’s hot takes. There aren’t as many clicks in cooling tempers and complicating people’s understanding of situations as there are in stoking their rage.”–Frank Bruni, New York Times.

* “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”–Mae West.

* “We have to think about … options for building more modest homes, smaller homes, things to meet people at different points in their lifestyle.”–Anne Ray, housing data clearing-house manager at the University of Florida.

* “Florida businesses are trying to fill vacancies and are actually having a difficult time hiring.”–Dane Eagle, head of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

* “Violent crime numbers are up, and you can see it’s affecting just small pockets of our city.”–Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan. All 21 of the city’s homicides by gunfire in the first half of 2021 were in East Tampa.

* I remain the only elected official in North America who has ever been able to strike a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman.

* “I’m just very, very pleased that we are moving in that direction.”–Hillsborough County Commission Chair Pat Kemp, on a new proposal to expand the Cross Bay Ferry to year-round service.

* “It’s outside validation that we’re building wealth and success in our community. The more we sell, the more money there is to build the next Tech Data, the next Sykes.”–Tampa City Council member Bill Carlson, on the announcement that Sykes Enterprises, one of the largest public companies in the Tampa Bay area, is being sold to the Miami-based Sitel Group in a deal worth $2.2 billion.

Once again, America’s enthrallment with guns and a self-serving Second Amendment are prominent in the news cycle. It’s what happens when mass shootings, still unconscionably common, remain a perfect-storm outgrowth of gun culture, gun lobbyists and gun-enamored politicians who equate weaponry with bumper-stickered patriotism. Common sense for the common good isn’t a good enough rationale. Who would have thought the Founding Fathers, in the revolutionary era of muskets and militias, could have presciently foreseen automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines?

But the enablers transcend the NRA and spineless political officials. They also include the judiciary. A federal judge recently overturned California’s 32-year ban on assault weapons, saying it was unconstitutional. That’s not all U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said. “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.” That’s how he cut to the chase. Seriously.

Maybe this is what we should expect in a country with more guns than people. The total number in circulation is now estimated as high as 400 million. But, no, bazookas are not available for the average American. Not yet.

* President Biden’s first foreign trip was all about messaging. As in, the U.S. is back and “tight” with Europe. As in, authoritarian Russia and China, you’re being given notice. The former most notably on cyber attacks, the latter on its global economic competition/Belt-and-Road Initiative and intellectual-property deviousness. One key American concern: looking the part of a global role model despite the Capitol insurrection and racial polarization.

* Biden’s aides previewed his European trip as one focused on “three C’s.” That’s COVID, China and Climate. Among those not making the “C” cutoff: Czar Vladimir Putin.

* The Interior Department has suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The move overturns former President Trump’s controversial act during his last days in office.

* The Biden Administration has created a Ransom Ware Task Force. It helped the Department of Justice recover most of the ransom payment made to the Dark Side hackers of the Colonial Pipeline.

* The Administration has brokered an agreement with Pfizer to purchase 500 million COVID-19 vaccination doses to be donated to 92 lower income countries and The African Union over the next year. Meanwhile, a variety of vaccine bribes (oops, incentives) remains a U.S. reality.

* We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.”–That was “squad” member U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, in a context we normally don’t see for the U.S.

*Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin slammed Sen. Ted Cruz for his code-word criticism of the U.S. Army. Cruz castigated U.S. troops as projecting an image of “pansies” as a result of inclusive recruiting policies. “Pansy” is a familiar slur for gays.

* Saudi Arabia is limiting this year’s hajj pilgrimage, which begins in mid-July, to no more than 60,000 people. In normal, non-pandemic years, up to 2 million Muslims perform the hajj.

* Vaccination rate for Haiti: 0 percent.

* The TSA screened 2 million people last Friday. It was the first time that daily threshold has been crossed since March 2020.

* Health officials have warned that obesity and related conditions are risk factors for severe COVID-19. In the U.S., an estimated one in four adults are considered obese.

* According to the CDC, emergency-room visits for suspected suicide attempts by teenagers, especially girls, rose sharply during pandemic lockdowns.

* Increasingly, people are reporting that they’ve forgotten aspects of driving—including formerly familiar routes and driving at night.

* “It’s important to get children vaccinated, not only to protect them … but to prevent children from being a reservoir for the virus that continues the outbreak in the rest of society.”–Eric Toner, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

* As of last Friday, according to the CDC, 64 percent of Americans 18 and older had had at least one vaccine shot. President Biden’s goal is 70 percent by July 4^th.

* “Vaccinate at the Plate.” That’s MLB’s campaign that offers vaccine for fans either by appointment or walk-in.

* Airline ticket prices rose 10.2 percent in April—and another 7 percent in May.

* Chipotle is raising menu prices by 4 percent to cover the cost of raising its workers’ wages.

* About 22 percent of Floridians aged 12-19 have gotten at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.

* Florida’s positivity rate: about 3.4 percent this past week. The Hillsborough rate was 4.8 percent.

* Hillsborough County is doubling down on giving forums to high-profile, low-caliber Trump sycophants. This week there’s a “Reopen America” conference at the River at Tampa Bay Church with featured speakers that include disgraced, pardoned former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn (of coup-advocacy infamy), conspiracy-promoting Mike Lindell, the crackpot MyPillow CEO, and longtime Trump enabler Roger Stone. Then later in the summer there’s the QAnon-enamored conspiracist, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will speak or shriek at the Hillsborough County Republican Party’s annual fundraising Lincoln Day dinner in August. She and Rep. Matt Gaetz have done a lot of traveling this year to rally conservatives behind their “America First” movement that would embarrass Charles Lindbergh.

* A shout-out to St. Petersburg for its “Hidden Voices” project, a collaboration between the city and PERC (People Empowering & Restoring Communities). It created a street team of community members—including the formerly incarcerated—who go door to door to meet with young people (in the city’s predominantly black community) to connect them with more support and resources to help curb violence. The direct, in-the-hood connection is key to reducing violence, including gang-related shootings. Perhaps “BLM” could help out too. The police would appreciate it.

* So, “critical race theory” has been ruled out by the State Board of Education. But not critical race whitewashing? Maybe critical race theory is too fraught with polarizing political connotation? Maybe just call it Racial Reality 101. It’s an insidious, human-condition issue, not just an abominable American original sin. Race and racism have impacted life throughout history—including before there was an America. “Preferring fact over narrative” should be more than a disingenuous, Ron DeSantis punch line.

* “Are we not strong enough as Americans to dissect our own history and learn from it?”–Dr. Kideste Yusef, chairman of Bethune-Cookman University’s justice and political science department.

* So, look who’s pushing legislation to reduce the national debt? None other than the Tea Partying hypocrite Rick Scott, who had to put the debt ceiling on hold until President Donald Trump was out and a Democrat was in.

Lest we forget, Trump’s skewed tax cut added at least $1 trillion to the deficit—before the pandemic. Now it looks like a 2022 campaign issue for cherry-picking GOPsters.

* “The Cold War seems to be over everywhere else, but it’s never been in Florida.”–Lillian Guerra, a historian of Cuba at the University of Florida.

* USF baseball. The Bulls came up short of qualifying for the College World Series but still had their best-ever finish. They won their (AAC) conference for the first time and then won the Gainesville regional that included the University of Florida and Miami. Then they lost to Texas in the Super Regional in Austin.

* The College Athletes Right to Organize Act has been introduced (by Democrats) in the Senate and the House. It would give college athletes the right to organize and collectively bargain with schools and conferences.

* According to the NCAA, such a bill would “directly undercut the purpose of college: earning a degree.” Presumably, the NCAA was straight-faced about universities and monetized sports—as in TV network billions and high-profile football and basketball mercenaries, many of whom will be deferring degrees forever. And all of this in the context of obscenely paid coaches presiding over such a hybrid business model. And this just in, UF head football coach Dan Mullen just received a $1.5 million raise, bumping his overall annual compensation to $7.6 million.

* “Sure I would.” That was Trump’s response to a question from Fox Business’ Stuart Varney if Trump, should he run for president again in 2024, would consider Ron DeSantis as a running mate. He then added that there were “numerous people who are great.” If not grating.

* “It’s past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism.”–Former VP Mike Pence, who can’t discard the myth that he has a presidential prayer with the “Hang Mike Pence” Trump base.