Quoteworthy

* “After something like (the storming of the U.S. Capitol), I believe it would be very difficult for the world to see the United States as a symbol of democracy in the world.”–Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

* “We have to restore Congress’ traditional role as a partner in our foreign policy-making.”–Anthony Blinken, the recently confirmed secretary of state.

* “We knew that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target.”–Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda D. Pittman, in apologizing to Congress for her department’s failure to adequately act on intelligence before a violent mob of insurrectionists attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.

* “Never mind Inauguration Day rhetoric about unity or gauzy stories about the warm relationship with Biden. In Mitch McConnell’s view, the duty of the opposition is to oppose—and do everything it can to win the majority back.”–Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times.

* “The Republicans’ unwillingness to confront the dark forces within their party is not only unseemly but dangerous.”--Karen Tumulty, Washington Post.

* “It’s a crazy world right now. … I think people are really yearning for some renewed bipartisanship and cooperation.”–Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who’s retiring next year.

* “I don’t Uncle Tom to anybody. I don’t care who it is. When I smile, I smile. I do not grin.”–The late Cicely Tyson on racial dynamics and Hollywood.

* “There’s nothing more important to the economy now than people getting vaccinated.”–Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

* “It will lead to a spike, then it will fade away.”–Dr. Edwin Michael, a USF epidemiologist, in assessing the virus-transmission impact of the Super Bowl.

* “For local officials, business community leaders—get the messaging out loud, clearly and frequently—we are ecstatic about the Super Bowl, but Tampa will not become a super spreader site. Like Disney, we want you to have a great time—but there will be consequences to breaches.”–Jay Wolfson, professor of public health, medicine and pharmacy at USF and associate vice president of USF Health.

* “Our players and staff are steadfast in their commitment to creating programs and enhancing initiatives that reverse the course of systemic injustice.”–Bucs co-owner Darcie Glazer Kassewitz. The Bucs, along with Tampa Bay’s other professional sports teams, have contributed to the funding of USF’s new Center for Justice Research and Policy.

* I want the Rays to remain in St. Petersburg and I’m willing to work with them to make it happen.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman.

* “This doesn’t get done unless the county, the city—which means the mayor, the council, business people—get together and pull together.”–Rays owner Stu Sternberg.

* “(Bruce Arians) is just such a unique guy, and we have such a unique, strong bond. We get along well. We even argue well.”–Bucs General Manager JasonLicht.

Host And Home Team

Yes, we’re still in a pandemic. And our economy has been blindsided. And our politics have never been more divisive. We crave unity, mourn what was and pray for a post-insurrection America. We need good-news diversions like never before.

So, thank you Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Rays and now the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We needed winners, not whiners. Not only is Tampa the upcoming Super Bowl host–for the fifth time–but more importantly, it houses the home team. Yes! The Bucs makeover had its share of missteps and bad timing, but the season morphed into one for the, well, ages.

“This is a championship town,” underscored Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. Indeed, and if the 2021 Bucs–given nearly two decades of disappointment and futility–can play a Super Bowl at Raymond James Stadium, there’s nothing that can’t be overcome.

Forum For Healing

I’m likely not the only one. As I watched the inauguration of President Joe Biden and all the ceremonial trappings, I couldn’t help thinking about the elephant in the Capitol room. Two weeks earlier this was a crime scene. The Capitol had been turned into the Baghdad Green Zone. Once it had been unconscionably breached and desecrated on Jan. 6, could anything be precluded? Would the swearing-in be countered by a swearing at? Was there a security rogue lurking? I didn’t give voice to it. We were replacing the Confederate-in-chief with a Commander-in-chief. Comity and decency were on display. When the unexpected turns out to be Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s mispronunciation of “Kamala” and Lady Gaga’s balloon skirt, you know you’ve dodged the bullet.

President Biden’s speech was “carnage” free, unity-themed and spot on—with equal parts candor, empathy and hope. It was what we needed to hear. And history was made by Vice President Harris. And that history was abetted and underscored by the young African-American poet, Amanda Gorman, in her recitation of “The Hill We Climb.” Pitch perfect for the occasion.

Trumpster Diving

* Impeachment reality: Feb. 9 is better than this week to kick start the trial. But a few more weeks would be even better. Any chance of something resembling an across-the-aisle reset and actually working with Mitch McConnell and company–from the COVID relief package to the role of the filibuster--would be at least improved. Not everything can be done via executive orders. But further delay or not, the trial–for insurrection incitement–remains necessary, even without a conviction, which, frankly, would require too many GOPsters to grow a spine over night.

* There’s still talk among the usual suspects of a Trump comeback via a “Patriot Party.” History is not encouraging. Third party presidential candidates tend to be political spoilers who take votes away from others. Think George Wallace and Ross Perot. In short, if a competent, respected former president such as Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t pull it off in 1912 with his “Bull Moose” Party, this vile, twice-impeached ex-president won’t succeed with a Bull Sh*t Party in 2024.

* Harbinger hell: That’s what the white nationalist “Unite the Right” Charlottesville rally in the summer of 2017 has become.

* Hardly surprising that when the nation was gearing up for the Inauguration, Donald Trump was at Joint Base Andrews boarding Air Force One for MAGA-Lago. Why hang around for an inauguration that will focus on the “winner” and further undermine your brand? And no surprise that the PA system played Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” In a way, it was his way–to the arrogant, classless end.

* “We will be back in some form”: exit quote from the Oval Office evictee. May it be via an indictment.

* “The mob was fed lies, they were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”–FORMER Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

* Trumplicans”: Trump Republicans who still contend that Biden didn’t win the election fairly.

* The old normal: Schadenfreude is never nice, but it did seem more appropriate that international headlines, videos and photos of police and rioters were from Pushkin Square in Moscow and not from the Capitol in Washington. The former involved thousands of protesters battling riot police over the jailing of Putin-opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The latter involved thugs, punks and anarchists assaulting democracy in the disgraced name of their authoritarian cult leader.

* Imagine, we have an empathetic, decent, unity-agenda president taking over amid the crushing tandem of a death-stalking pandemic and economic crisis, and America can’t really count on Congress, still burdened with too many self-serving, “anti-socialist,” white-grievance politicians, to do all in its power to help out fellow Americans. Too bad there’s no vaccine for unpatriotic malpractice.

Dem Notes

* “I’ve said to the president-elect, ‘Reach out across the aisle. Try to work with the Republicans. But don’t let them stymie your program. You can’t allow the search for bipartisanship to ruin the mandate the American people gave you.’” That was Congressman Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip, who was a key catalyst in the Biden Democratic nomination.

* Daily press briefings. Remember them? They’re back. And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is no Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Sean Spicer.

* If not now, when? How much longer will we tolerate this anachronistic Electoral College, without which there would never have been even one Trump presidency? As has been well-noted, although Trump lost by about 7 million votes in November, if roughly 40,000 votes had switched in key states, he would have won again—after having lost the popular vote in 2016.

* “What we need to do now is, in very bold and clear ways, make people understand government is directly improving their lives.”–Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose vision would be more viable were it not for the Republican misrepresentation and demonization of “socialism.”

* “Change has come to America.” That was Barack Obama in 2008. Beyond ironic and sad.

COVID Bits

#AloneTogether

* The NFL is providing free tickets to the Super Bowl for some 7,500 vaccinated health care workers—mostly from Tampa Bay and central Florida—to thank and honor them for their pandemic service.

* The Florida unemployment rate: 6.1 percent. Tampa Bay’s jobless rate: 5.2 percent. Hillsborough County: 6.3 percent.

* “We really believe that over the next few days … we’ll actually cross one million 65-and-up that have gotten shots in the state of Florida,” stated Gov. Ron DeSantis. That’s about 20 percent of the state’s 4.5 million senior citizens.

* Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda, 80, has tested positive for the caronavirus. Last summer Council member Orlando Gudes came down with the virus and recovered fully.

* Portugal: It has the world’s highest rate of new daily infections and deaths.

Media Matters

* According to a PBS NewsHour Marist poll, 8 percent of Americans surveyed said they supported the Capitol insurrection. Downright scary.

* NBCSN, NBC’s cable sports network, will be shut down by the end of 2021. It’s currently available to 80 million homes. Key programming, including NHL games, will be moved to USA—owned by NBC—and the streaming service, Peacock.

Sports Shorts

* “(Hank Aaron) wasn’t handed his throne. He grew up poor and faced racism as he worked to become one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Hank never let the hatred he faced consume him.”–Former President George W. Bush.

* “I just played the game the way it was supposed to be played.”–That was Hank Aaron, reminding us that he was more than an all-time great. He also played the game with class. No swagger, no bat flips to show up a pitcher. When you’re that good, talent says it all.

Quoteworthy

* “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”–Benjamin Franklin.

* “Keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.” While that sounds like a Joe McCarthy quote, it’s actually—and alarmingly–from recently confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

* “If Republicans go along with (impeachment conviction), it will destroy the party. A third of the Republicans will leave the party.”–Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul.

* “(Trump’s) Republican partners are already whispering they were privately against him all along. His anathematization by social media, corporate America, and other mainstream institutions is a preview of the place he will occupy in the popular imagination. He will join the likes of Andrew Johnson, Joe McCarthy and George Wallace as an enemy of the civic creed. A century from now, Obama’s name—not Trump’s—will adorn schools, roads and plazas.”–Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine.

* “If reckoning is postponed, American conservatism will continue to regress. … The right must disavow its extremists or be destroyed by them. … The best thing conservatives can do to hold off the far left is to deal with the rising far right.”–Garry Kasparov, chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative.

* “They did some great work while they was in there and they did some great (pardons) work on the way out. Let them know that I love what they did.”–Rapper Snoop Dog, who was particularly grateful that Trump commuted the sentence of his friend Michael “Harry O” Harris, the co-founder of Death Row Records.

* “Our primary divisions are not political. … Our divisions are tribal.”–Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald.

* “The off-the-shelf Republican campaign plan is bug-eyed fear-mongering on an industrial scale about race, socialism and lawlessness.”–Veteran Republican strategist Mac Stipanovich, who is now registered NPA.

* “It’s not a question of if the filibuster will be gone, but when it’ll be gone. You cannot have a democratic body where it takes 60 percent of the vote to get anything done.”—Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

* “The strategy of lying about voter fraud, delegitimizing the election outcomes and trying to suppress votes has been unmasked for the illegitimate attack on our democracy that it is, and I think that it opens a lot more doors to real conversations about how to fix our voting system and root out this cancer.”–Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

* “Be ashamed to die until you’ve won some victory for humanity.”–Horace Mann.

* “Being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”–Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman, who did her best to make America proud.

* “It would be a devastating civil rights failure if we didn’t achieve statehood now.”–Stasha Rhodes, campaign director of ‘51 for 51,’ which advocates D.C. statehood. Currently 700,000 D.C. residents have no vote in the House or Senate.

* “In his first day in office, President Biden did more to act on climate and protect American communities than Donald Trump did in four years. By following science, listening to experts and understanding the crisis we face as a country, President Biden is poised to lead us to a clean energy future, one where American families can count on clean air and water, resilient neighborhoods and good-[paying jobs and new careers.”–Florida Congresswoman Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, the chairwoman of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

* “Nature reminds us that the idea of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is so humanly fabricated. There is only ‘we.’”–Randall H. Russell, president and CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg.

* “It’s possible to engage and critique at the same time.”—Angela Davis, activist and pioneer in radical black feminism.

* “(Ron DeSantis) seems more interested in locking horns with social media companies over what he describes as ‘big tech censorship’ than addressing an unprecedented pandemic and what it has done to our state’s workforce, rampant housing insecurity and vaccine distribution. … (Florida) has become a dystopian scramble for vaccine doses.”–State Rep. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa.

* “One of the challenges we have is that there is simply not enough space to have people cycling in and out, so this renovation is an opportunity for education in the galleries.”–Michael Tomor, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art, on the announcement of TMA’s plans for renovations that will expand the education programs and gallery space—beginning in May.

* “The time comes periodically when the landlord needs to kick in and make some improvements.”–City Council member John Dingfelder, in reference to the city-owned Straz Center requesting $25 million for upgrades–over a five-year period–from the City Community Redevelopment Agency.

* “At the end of the day, we’re all sports fans.”–Steven Stamkos.

Post-Trump America

A Republic, if you can keep it.”

* The FBI vetted all of the 25,000 National Guard troops brought in to secure Washington for the Inaugural. The reason: concerns about an insider attack or other threats from service personnel actually involved with security. Beyond sobering.

* Throw the figurative, as well as the literal, book at all Capitol insurrectionists—from blatant anarchists to GOPster collusionists. Domestic terrorism warrants no less. Such a Trump-era precedent is critical if we are to truly go forward as a viable, democratic republic. Making a high-profile example of the worst among us is best for America.

* “Hang Mike Pence.” It’s what happens when upholding the Constitution becomes a traitorous act to the worst of the Trump base. Even Mike Pence deserves better. Probably.

* Who will be among those representing Trump at a Senate impeachment trial? Pam Bondiagain? Only if it looks self-serving.

* No longer in residence at the White House, Trump has pondered where he would be most comfortable. We know about MAGA-Lago for now. Two other options: The Villages and Moscow.

* The false equivalence of BLM protests and “Stop the Steal” insurrection is an all-too-familiar, disingenuous, partisan refrain. Riotous behavior–and all its collateral damage–is always wrong. End of equivalence, however, when one is steeped in infamous, societal racism that includes police brutality and the other is steeped in–and stoked by–white grievance, fraudulent claims of a stolen election and seditious entitlement.

* Judas” update? “These 10 (Republicans), from (Trump’s) own party joined in the (House impeachment) feeding frenzy. It makes you wonder what the 30 pieces of silver were that Speaker Pelosi promised for his betrayal. … After all he has done for our country, you would turn your back and betray him so quickly.” That was evangelist Franklin Graham.

After all that Trump has wrought—including insurrection incitement in our Capitol—he’s the one who has been betrayed? What would Franklin’s dad, Billy, have said? More to the point, what would Jesus say about fealty to one who is the avatar of immorality, racism and misogyny as well as the antithesis of what Jesus died for? But maybe it will help the sale of those Pray for 45” T-shirts that Graham is promoting.

* Trump has stated that he should not be compared to Richard Nixon, who resigned the presidency in disgrace to avoid impeachment. Trump’s right; he shouldn’t be compared to Nixon. It’s not fair to Nixon, who–however dark and duplicitous–was at least qualified to be president and never fomented an insurrection against his own country.

* If impeachment and/or the 25th Amendment were not applied to Trump, they would be, in effect, inapplicable. In short, if inciting insurrection isn’t sufficient cause, what is? What an unconscionable precedent that would be–even for such an unprecedented presidency.

* “In 2022, we’ll be faced with the Trump pitchfork crowd, and there will need to be an effort to beat them back.” That was Scott Reed, the former chief political strategist for the Chamber of Commerce, in predicting a ferocious, internecine GOP brawl next year.

* “It’s just destroying the party to go out and try to censure people. It doesn’t show that they’re trying to attract new people to the party.” That was Jonathan Lines, a Trump-supporting, former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. Arizona, a historically red state, flipped into the Biden column and is now a center of Republican retribution, as Liz Cheney well knows.

* Profiles in Courage” should not be an oxymoron.

* Trump reportedly is telling supporters and donors he wants to collect $2 billion for a presidential library and museum in Florida. Begs all sorts of questions, including whether a hotel will be part of the scenario. And how many copies of “The Art of the Deal” will be included? How about love letters from Little Kim and Vlad? Maybe a copy of the tweet that fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? Tanning tips? SAT scores? Golf cards? MAGA hats? Trump University catalogues? A replica of the “Trump Baby” balloon? Stormy Daniels memorabilia?