Author: opinionstogo

* Unforced error: MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred keeps underscoring his support for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal. But like so many other clueless outsiders, he keeps referencing “Tampa” when he means Tampa Bay. Get it right, Commish; it’s that important to the Tampa Bay market.

* When the Rays were 20-3 and just off an 8-3 win over the Houston Astros, the defending World Series champions, they drew a Trop crowd of 9,916. No, that’s not a 4-figure misprint for the team that opened the season on a historic tear and had the best record in all of Major League Baseball.

* The Rays, however, did draw 32,142 for a game against the Yankees. The crowd, of course, was not all Rays’ fans.

* Yes, the Rays have scheduled some upcoming post-game, Trop concerts. But, no, Taylor Swift isn’t one of them.

* “I would say this is probably the worst (salary cap situation) we’ve had.” Lightning General Manager Julien BriseBoise, on the challenges the Bolts face in staying in the Stanley Cup hunt.

* “I don’t think you’ll find very many student-athletes who want to be employees. I think student-athletes want to be student athletes.”–NCAA President Charlie Baker.

* When it comes to athletes coming to the White House to celebrate victory, it should be limited to those who represented the U.S.–not a professional franchise or a particular university–in international competition, such as the Olympics or World Cup.

* If Trump were to be (re) elected, he would be a one-term lame duck. How scary is that?

* Now add this to Trump’s nefarious, presidential precedents: The first U.S. president found liable by a jury in a sexual battery case.

* “Republicans … have been hostage to a single politician obsessed with past grievances and lies, and no plan to get unstuck.”–GOP political consultant Alfredo Rodriguez III.

* “Donald Trump is a TV star, nothing more, nothing less. Let me suggest to you that in putting him back in the White House, the reruns will be worse than the original show.”–Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie.

* “Breaking News”: Trump made his prime-time return to CNN, the network he has branded “fake news”–for the first time since 2016. The occasion was a town hall in New Hampshire that turned into a dismissive, disastrous MAGA rally, fact-check hell and an exercise in candidate and host (Kaitlin Collins) continuously talking over each other. He also labeled Collins a “nasty person.” Inappropriate, appalling applause and laughter complemented the odious optics provided by Trump, ranging from lies about a “rigged election” and political “witch hunts” to “how our country has gone to hell,” how he “did finish the Wall” and how “Drill, baby, drill” is his economic mantra.

We know CNN is struggling right now and needs a ratings boost. We also know that America does not need a replay of 2015-16 when mainstream media helped elect Trump by interrupting programming to show his cult-figure, echo-chamber rallies.

* How ironic that the arrogant, unhinged, undisciplined, undemocratic Donald Trump acts worse than the leader of any “*hithole country.”

* “(Trump) does not have the ability for strategic thinking and linear thinking, or setting priorities or how to get things done in the system.”–William Barr, former attorney general in the Trump Administration.

* “Character is destiny.”–Greek philosopher Hericlitus.

* “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”–Saul Alinsky.

* “No matter how the international situation evolves, China will work with Ukraine to advance mutually beneficial cooperation.”–Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.

* “It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.”–WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

* “Vaccines are the most rigorously tested medicine on the planet.”–Shetal Shah, M.D., chairman of the national Pediatric Policy Council.

* “Three chords and the truth—that’s what a country song is.”–Willie Nelson.

* “Civics and history are the foundations of an informed and engaged public. And the signs are unmistakable that those foundations are crumbling.”–St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

* “This is an earthquake at Fox News.”–Frank Cesno, former CNN White House correspondent and bureau chief, on news of the Dominion settlement and *ucker Carlson’s firing.

* “Compromise is not necessary in our politics, but it is in governing.”–Former Florida Republican Congressman David Jolly.

* “Forgive your enemies but never forget their names.”–John F. Kennedy.

* “DeSantis was billed as a less chaotic version of Donald Trump. Instead, he declared thermonuclear war on a cartoon mouse.”–Scott Maxwell, Orlando Sentinel.

* It makes no sense that residents of a donor state should see their (flood-insurance) premiums increase.” Sen. Rick Scott.

* “Whenever people shield their children from the truth, a generation of ignorance is born.”–Florida state Rep. Dianne Hart, D-Tampa.

* “The ‘anti-woke’ platform may play well with Republican base voters. But come the general election in 2024, it’s hard to see combating ‘wokeness’ driving vote choice.”—Rich Thau, The Bulwark.

* “The county (Pinellas) and the city (St. Petersburg) are really working beautifully together. So that’s part of the reason why we’re all optimistic.”–Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg.

Sure, Donald Trump made history by twice being impeached and twice losing the popular vote. Plus, he’s the only ex-president to be charged with a crime. And let’s see what develops from aiding and abetting an insurrection, as well as soliciting post-election votes in Georgia. And it took a certified con man to remind us that there’s nothing in the Constitution that prevents someone who is indicted—or even convicted of a crime or crimes—from running for president.

But there’s something else that transcends such odious history and pathological histrionics.

It’s the stain on our democracy that will never go away.

* Roe v. Wade v. GOP: Wisconsin (via its liberal state supreme court victory) has underscored that the abortion issue is a force in voter turnout.

* If only VP Kamala Harris were as popular in the White House and with the Democratic base as she is in Africa. Accra is not Washington.

* Unemployment has fallen to 3.5 percent.

* California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Sarasota: Heads up, Free State of Florida, you’re a target of someone looking beyond Sacramento. Could get awkward, though, when your ex-wife is Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News co-host and now part of a power couple with Donald Trump Jr.

* RFK Jr. for president? The new abnormal.

* It’s still one of my favorite all-time baseball memories. It was spring training for the Phillies in in the 1980s. My mom was visiting from Philly. She was a hard-core fan of the Phillies and Hall of Fame center fielder Richie Ashburn. Her fealty grew even stronger when Ashburn became a Phillies’ broadcaster. So I took her to a spring training game at Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, where access to personnel was a lot easier than during the regular season.

After the game, we waited for the broadcasters to descend from their booth, and I introduced my Mom to Ashburn. He was the quintessential gentleman to a stranger who was a fan. My mother was blown away and said: “I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.” We all smiled and then headed for the parking lot.

The first thing my mom said when we got in the car was: “I don’t believe I said that!” Then we had a good laugh—and a great memory.

* Spoiler alert: When was the last time the phrase “With all due respect” was followed by anything remotely resembling respect?

* Still my favorite, pre-Trump political bumper sticker—from Tampa’s 2012 hosting of the GOP convention: “Where Stupidity Meets Humidity.” Even Clint Eastwood might agree.

* “Mistakes were made”: Passive voice is often active denial of personal responsibility.

* Nothing exceeds like excess.

* We all notice the inimitable way dogs greet and sniff each other. It’s a canine fist bump.

* The media, we are constantly reminded, is still the media. Even if there were no Fox or Breitbart or InfoWars. If it bleeds, it leads, is still a self-serving, inapt model. Viewer fixation, however manipulated, and ratings matter most. The aerial coverage of Trump’s indictment mini limo parade was reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson chase. It was also a reminder of all the enabling coverage Trump got for his 2016 campaign because of his political pep rallies that were performance art at its worst.

* If you’re thinking about seeing “Champions” with Woody Harrelson, think again. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve left a theater before a movie had ended. “Hoosiers” it is not; dumb and insulting it is.

* The longest-running broadcast on network TV: NBC’s “Meet The Press” (1947).

* Ronald Vaughn will be stepping down as the University of Tampa president after nearly 30 years at the helm. Well done, President Vaughn, who presided over the turnaround of a private university that had seen its enrollment and viability plummet.

* The median home sales price in the Tampa Bay area is $389,995—up 3.1 percent from last year.

* Dining with the Cuban ambassador in Tampa: Meeting and talking is not agreeing or scheming. It’s communicating—including with adversaries of far more concern than Cuba.

* TIA numbers are now setting records. More than 90,000 passengers passed through TIA on March 19, according to Transportation Safety Administration data. It was the airport’s single heaviest day of passenger traffic ever.

* Tourism has jumped more than 25 percent in Hillsborough County this year.

* According to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit, the number of antisemitic incidents increased 41.5 percent in Florida last year (to 269).

* Gov. Ron DeSantis is traveling to Israel this month to check a foreign-relations box. He’ll be delivering a speech at an event co-hosted by the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance. How ironic.

* “Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Gov. DeSantis.”–A DeSantis fund-raising ad.

* Come July 1, it will be official. “Florida Freedumb” will permit people to freely carry guns without a permit or any training. No surprise that hard-core, Second Amendment advocates have criticized the bill for not going even farther and allowing “open carry” freedumb.

* “(Health equity) is an imprecise term. It’s a term that really has grown to have more of a political meaning than a meaning related to health.”–That was Florida’s politically precise Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.

* Approximately 30 percent of Florida seniors have receive an updated booster shot, the 5^th lowest rate in the U.S—behind Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.

* A DeSantis administrative rule bans Chinese drones. But home-grown, sycophantic, GOP legislative drones remain very much in place.

* The recent NRA convention in Indianapolis was a forum for the usual blustery vows to defend the Second Amendment at all, yes all, costs. And, yes, Ron DeSantis was among the low-caliber presidential hopefuls in attendance.

* Don’t like kids as political props? Gov. DeSantis would not agree.

* “Infamous for locking the press out, denying access to state decision-making and concealing information, (DeSantis) now finds himself ill-prepared for a national media that he cannot shunt aside.”–Jennifer Rubin, WaPo.

* Updated Sunshine State David: A sling, a rock, a thong.

* Rays’ worth: According to forbes.com, the Rays’ franchise is now valued at $1.25 billion—or 26^th among the 30 MLB teams. Those below Tampa Bay: Kansas City, Cincinnati, Oakland and Miami.

* The New York Mets had a (record) $353.5 million opening day payroll. The Rays were at $73.2 million, the third smallest payroll in baseball. The top four: Mets, Yankees, Padres and Phillies.

* Forget—however briefly—logistics and financials when in comes to St. Pete or Tampa as the location for a Rays stadium. How about Tampa’s deep Hispanic roots—and the Rays largely Latin American line-up?

* “Global warming is juicing home runs in Major League Baseball.” –Dartmouth climate scientist Justin Mankin.

* “(Baseball) is like church. Many attend, few understand.”–Leo Durocher.

* Imagine, Final Four finalist FAU was one basket from playing for the national championship. Bit of deja vu for USF? Next year FAU enters the AAC and joins USF. And its trajectory could go beyond that—not unlike that of UCF, a former USF inferior now headed to the Big 12.