Author: opinionstogo

 

* Palindrome update: Sex at noon taxes.

* Back in the raised-as-a-Catholic day, we were forbidden to see movies such as “And God Created Woman” starring the uber-hot Brigitte Bardot. The Legion of Decency had it on its list of condemned movies. But we made do with “The Ten Commandments,” “The Blob,” “The Fly” and “Around The World In 80 Days.”

But thanks to Turner Classic Movies, I’ve FINALLY seen it (her). No, it wasn’t worth it. The Bardot character was flirty, amoral and silly. So was the plot line about her being an amorous orphan who was going to be returned to an orphanage. But the marketing was spot on, including most memorably: “…But the Devil invented Brigitte Bardot.” Too bad Satan couldn’t help make a better movie.

* 2028: At least we know who won’t be running for president.

* “The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.”–Daniel Boorstin, former librarian of Congress.

 

* Ronna McDaniel, the former RNC chairperson known for news media demonization and election denying, was hired–briefly–by NBC. She was to have a commentator spot on MSNBC, much to the dismay and disillusionment of other hosts and commentators. NBC changed its mind. Rachel Maddow & Co. made had their point—publicly: No one with a MAGA pedigree is welcomed. This isn’t Michael Steele.

* USF has announced plans to launch the state’s first college of AI and Cybersecurity.

* The unemployment rate for Tampa Bay is 2.9%–the same as the state of Florida’s. The U.S. rate is 3.6%.

* The Wall Street Journal recently named Tampa Bay the nation’s 4^th “hottest job market.” Tampa added about 12,000 jobs in the past year.

* Tampa City Council gave initial approval to a $600 million project that would transform the Tampa Heights YMCA site into a multi-use district.

* Thirty-eight states, including Florida, (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico) allow some form (online/retail) of sports betting.

* No surprise that Florida remains one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the ACA. “Medicaid expansion doesn’t work,” deadpanned Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples.

* Currently 24 states allow the use of recreational marijuana. That number can change in November when Floridians will vote on a proposed constitutional amendment on recreational marijuana.

* Walt Disney World has announced plans to expand its theme park by 12 to 14 acres.

* Brown-shirt vetting? Sheriff’s deputies have twice detained a recruit from the same February training class of the Florida State Guard.

* Since 2008, the Rays have won the third-most games in MLB (behind only the payroll-bulging Dodgers and Yankees.)

* The Rays franchise was valued at $1.25 billion in the annual Forbes.com listing—or 27^th overall.

* ESPN’s list of the “30 coaches who will define the next decade of college football” includes USF’s Alex Kolesh.

* Pro golfer Nelly Korda, 25, is the world’s No.1 player. She also won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Bradenton is her home town.

* Dartmouth’s response to a student-athlete union: Players are “students whose educational program includes athletics.” Maybe that still applies to Dartmouth.

* It’s obvious that the Jan. 6 insurrection is central to the Trump martyr campaign. Criminals are “great patriots” and those arrested and jailed are “hostages.” It’s an unsurprising, faux-patriotic response to a “stolen election.”

* “If I don’t get re-elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath.” More hyperbole?

* Speaks volumes that a former Trump vice president, attorney general, chief of staff, defense secretary and White House counsel, are not endorsing Trump in 2024. They’ve seen and enabled too much already.

* Trump: “When I did the mug shot in Atlanta … you know who embraced it more than anyone else? The black population.” Vintage Trump: insult while you’re pandering.

* Trump says he wants immigrants who come from “nice” countries: Yet another code word for white. Not enough immigrants from Luxembourg.

* “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”–The duplicitous, Trump predecessor Richard Nixon.

* Alabama: Embryos are people—and future Republicans: GOPryos.

* Trump veep speculation has included Marco Rubio, a former opponent, who has recently acknowledged that sharing a ticket would be “an honor.” So much for the “Liddle Marco” senator who accurately labeled Trump a “con artist.”

* Before he was president, Trump was sued by the DOJ for refusing to rent apartments to black and Puerto Rican tenants. Trump owns his track record, and minority voters should never forget who he really was before he needed their votes.

* Two Corinthians update: Trump, working religiously at hypocrisy, is now selling (“God Bless the USA”) Bibles ($59.95). “It’s my favorite book,” said Trump. And here we thought it was “The Art of the Deal.”

* And what’s next to peddle? How about industrial-strength Bible belts for overweight, Trump-fawning evangelicals?

* Trump International Airport? Another stain.

* Precedent? In 1920, Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party candidate, got a million votes while in prison.

 

* “It’s obvious that the use or threat of force cannot be an instrument of foreign policy.”–Mikhail Gorbachev, the world’s most-missed super-power leader.

* “All indications point to the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) meeting Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.” Admiral John Aquilino, the leader of the Indo-Pacific Command.

* “The broad mass of a nation … will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”–Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf. Still applies. Obviously.

* “Ignorance, allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”–James Baldwin.

* “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”–Louis Pasteur.

* “Each vote everywhere counts, but the 61 million Americans living in the seven (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) battleground states will decide who’s president.”–Republican strategist Karl Rove.

* “Our campaign is a spoiler, all right. It is a spoiler for President Biden and for President Trump.”–Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

* “Florida is losing doctors, medical students and residents who are fleeing to other states, and the maternal health crisis will worsen due to the abortion ban passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis. It is cruel; it is costly; and it is wrong.”–U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.

* “We do not have an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. But we are absolutely supportive of access and opportunity for everyone, and we will continue to do that.”–USF President Rhea Law.

* “The way we look at (AI) at USF is to unleash human potential. It is meant to be a tool that will help us do things better. It’s just a tool.”–Sudeep Sarkar, chairman of USF’s Computer Science and Engineering Department.

* “Democrats and Republicans in our community know the obvious. We need more transit and transportation investments. We need then now, and we are willing to pay for them.”–Tampa City Councilman Louis Viera, who chairs the county’s transportation agency.

* “This is the most important thing we are going to do, I believe, as a County Commission this year.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Michael Owen, on advancing the Community Investment Tax referendum to the November ballot.

 

Much has been made, and continues to be made, about 81-year-old President Joe Biden’s advanced age and related optics: awkward miscues and slower walking. The occasional stutter has been with him since childhood. Some, of course, would call it an inevitable trade-off for a half century of public service, life experience and accumulated wisdom. Others, of course, would say, typically in partisan taunts, that the U.S. just can’t afford an octogenarian president.

Many who say that, however, would, ironically and unconscionably, prefer a candidate who would be only three years younger come November, as well as manifestly unhinged, unethical and criminally indicted.

Biden still checks important boxes, even if he isn’t a charismatic, next-gen progressive. He actually reads and understands his briefings; has relevant knowledge of actual facts, from the constitutional to the geopolitical; maintains emotional regulation; and surrounds himself with experienced, non-democracy-threatening, Administration appointees—not mere minions. To Biden, “America First” means American democracy as a foremost priority–not a nativist ploy to a voter base.

But as Republicans continue to rally ‘round GaffeGate, “Sleepy Joe” slurs and Trump rants at his Mussolini rallies, their selective lens obviously isn’t fazed by Trump’s dual decline, both mental and moral. For his cult followers, being an outlandish, often incoherent, pathological personality is not perceived as weakness, but as celebrity charisma. And since nobody is objective about their cult leader, Trump confusing Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, World War II and World War III, Sioux City, IA. and Sioux Falls, S.D. is not some cognitive concern for hardcore Trumpsters.

His moral and ethical failings have been obvious for as long as Trump has been in the public eye—from fraudster to sex offender to birtherism founder to insurrection lodestar and leader. Now add intimations of mental decline. America deserves better than an existentially threatening, 90-felony-indictment presidential candidate—even if the Trump base doesn’t.

Here’s the pragmatic Nikki Haley strategy as she might candidly phrase it. “Yes, Super Tuesday was not encouraging. I’ve ‘suspended’ my campaign. But I’m still here. I haven’t been indicted for anything. I’m still Plan B—in case the GOP has a last-minute, common sense, country first, constitutional epiphany or Trump self-destructs and winds up in the slammer. I’m only 52; and, no, I haven’t forgotten about 2028.”

* Fate of the Union speech: Biden gave a good, feisty “Irish fire” address. But once again, while the president focused on his agenda talking points, the focus for the national audience was literally divided by the divisive optics. That’s because of the tight-frame shot of the president that necessarily includes those directly behind him, the vice president and the speaker of the House.

It’s been that way forever, and it’s beyond time to do something about the awkward, partisan-enabling optics that highlight a democracy in crisis.

Just re-arrange the furniture, so the ultimate union message is ‘bye, partisanship. Only the president should be in the frame, not the smiling, pop-up applauding and the seated frowning by VP Kamala Harris and House Speaker Mike Johnson, respectively. Whoever the president is, including a certain predecessor, that person deserves the country’s undivided attention, not a distracting, political-performance backdrop. It’s inappropriate to the occasion unless the SOTU goal is to underscore that the state of the union has never been more fractured and fraught.

* Abortion, as we well know, is on the ballot. It tops VP Kamala Harris’ agenda and is complemented by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s multi-state ad campaign to combat anti-abortion proposals in several red states that include a ban on out-of-state travel for abortions and related medications.

* “Democrats hold vast fundraising advantage as Republicans face cash problems, disarray in crucial swing states.”–No surprise—except that’s Fox News being quoted.

* The DNC is launching a bilingual billboard campaign in battleground states—including Florida—holding Trump accountable for the devastating attacks on reproductive freedoms—from abortion to IVF.

* “Women put Joe in the White House four years ago, and women will do it again.”–First Lady Jill Biden, who recently launched a “Women for Biden-Harris” program to mobilize women voters in battleground states.

* “I want to be clear: There is a place for (Nikki Haley supporters) in my campaign.”–VP Kamala Harris.

* It’s also clear that the Dems hope that Liz Cheney, the prominent face of the anti-Trump movement, and her “The New Task” PAC can help by endorsing Biden.

* “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.” That cautionary reality was underscored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Benjamin Netanyahu critic and, most notably, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S.

* 71% choose funding Social Security, Medicare over budget cuts.”–A FOX News Poll.

* California Rep. Adam Schiff is running for the Senate seat of Diane Feinstein. His opponent: Steve Garvey, the former Los Angeles Dodger—and alumnus of Tampa’s Chamberlain High.

* The Dems see third party candidates as an arm of the Trump campaign. Jill Stein (2016) and Ralph Nader (2000) remain reminders. Current Exhibit A: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. had been considering–seriously–Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura as possible running mates.

* On the other hand:

^ “If Mr. Biden steps aside, sacrificing all vanity and need, he is a hero to his party forever. If he stays and loses, he’s Ruth Bader Biden.”–Peggy Noonan, WSJ.