Author: opinionstogo

• Dodged bullet: No pickle ball courts on Honeymoon Island. Yet.
• Approximately 11,000 homeschooled students live in Hillsborough County.
• Sports apparel retailer Foot Locker will relocate its headquarters to St. Pete next year. It will be Pinellas County’s 4^th Fortune 500 headquarters. The others: Jabil, Raymond James and Synnex.
• In 2026 Port Tampa Bay will add a 6^th cruise line, as Oceania Cruises comes aboard.

• The Harris campaign has added approximately 22,000 new volunteers over the past month—plus “cat-lady phone banks.”
• “Any time there’s a surge in volunteers for either party, that’s a great sign.”—Roger Austin, lecturer at UF’s political campaigning program.
• Party reality: The Republican Party has about 3 million active registered voters in the state. The Dems have about 1 million fewer.
• Unwelcome mat: Visit Florida has taken down website pages with information that helps G.B.T.Q. travelers.
• The cut-to-the-chase legacy of a certain former UF president: Ben $a$$e.

• According to Microsoft’s latest threat intelligence report, Iran is evolving its chaos-sowing cyber-attack tactics in the U.S. presidential election.
• “Influencing” on social media was a $34 billion industry in 2023. There were more than 500,000 self-identified active influencers.
• Of the 100 most-watched network TV programs last year, 93 were NFL games.
• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered a temporary block on access to X.

• Not to downplay Israel’s disproportionate overkill in Gaza, but it’s worth noting that the U.N. Human Rights Office acknowledges that co-locating combatants with civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law.
• Guyana–between Venezuela and Suriname—has been dubbed the “New Qatar” with off-shore oil reserves of more than 11 billion barrels. Formerly a poor country, Guyana’s GDP increased by a third last year.
• Mexico’s oil production has tumbled to a 45-year low this year.
• Don’t say War: The official, Putin-ordered euphemism for the Ukraine invasion is still “special military operation.”
• The EU and Norway have banned Russian tourists.

• “Breaking,” as we know, was part of this year’s Olympics. But what about the Limbo Bar and the Bristol Stomp?
• Attendance for the first Rays-Athletics game in Oakland: 3,998. The franchise will relocate next year to Sacramento—and ultimately to Las Vegas.
• For the first time, a team from Florida (Lake Mary) has won the Little League World Series.
• The New York Times ran a piece comparing the woeful Chicago White Sox (who recently lost 21 games in a row) with the Philadelphia Phillies of 1961, who lost 23 straight. Also referenced was 1964 when the Phillies blew a 6 ½ lead with 12 to play. It’s still known as the “Phlop.”

I was a Philly guy back then, so I do remember it. I also recall one of the more memorable lines that came out during that stretch. The Phils lost 1-0 to Cincinnati. The Reds scored when Chico Ruiz stole home with Frank Robinson, THAT Frank Robinson, at the plate. After the game, reporters asked Reds manager Dick Sisler what would have happened had Ruiz been out. The quick, blunt response: “He’d still be running.”

• Donald Trump: “I am who I am.” Well beyond weird.
• Trump, 78, is now the oldest party nominee in history.
• During the 2016 election, JD Vance referred to Trump as an “idiot” who was “noxious” and “hard to stomach.” All that’s changed is Vance’s fealty lens.
• Say what? At a press conference, Trump—in reference to abortion—declared that it ultimately will be “a very small issue.” He’s been wrong before; it’s a HUGE issue.
• Donald Trump: “The late, great Hannibal Lector.” Whatever.
• Lady MAGA update: Melania Trump received $237,000 for speaking to Log Cabin Republicans.
• “Comrade Kamala”: How Trump is referencing Harris for her “SOVIET style Price Controls.”
• RFK Jr. for Trump. Beyond disgraceful to a family legacy and to America.
• “I think that the people on Jan. 6 were treated very unfairly. They were there to complain about an election.” No, nothing has changed in Trump’s ongoing, revisionist take on the attack on the Capitol and U.S. democracy.
• “Trump has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth.” That was Stephanie Grisham, former Trump WH press secretary.
• Keep in mind that if a re-elected Trump doesn’t make it through another four-year term, we will have President Vance.
• The Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, was awarded by former President Trump to mega MAGA donor Miriam Adelson and right-wingnut Rush Limbaugh. That honor, according to Trump, is “much better” than the Medal of Honor. That’s because the latter goes to “soldiers” who are “in very bad shape” or “dead.” JD Vance said that was “totally reasonable.” John McCain just turned over in his grave. Again.
• “We believe children are good, because we are not sociopaths.” JD Vance.
• Polling averages collated by FiveThirtyEight show that JD Vance is now the least popular VP candidate in modern times—even below Sarah Palin.

• “Iran is the head of the axis of evil, and the free world must stop it now before it’s too late.”—Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz.
• “The rest of the world is watching—to see if we can pull this off.”—Michelle Obama at the Democratic Convention.
• “If the 75,000-plus immigrants who perform the hardest of work in Wisconsin’s dairy and agriculture were gone tomorrow, the state economy would tank.”—Jorge Franco, CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin.
• “Whenever the United States is poised to break a political glass ceiling, we see an intensification of ‘othering’ in our politics.”—Presidential historian Timothy Naftali.
• “(Kamala Harris) isn’t creating a movement, but a movement is creating her—and showing up.”—Peggy Noonan,
• “Today, by virtually every measure, our economy is the strongest in the world.”—Kamala Harris.
• “My confidence has grown that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%.”—Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
• “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis be folly to be wise.”—English poet Thomas Gray.
• “Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this race.”— Lindsey Graham.
• “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie…but the myth. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”— John F. Kennedy.
• “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”—Stephen Colbert.
• “Money doesn’t win; people do. That is how you win elections. By going to the people.”—Florida Democratic Party Chairperson Nikki Fried.
• “Yes, Florida is now approaching science and education like a 2-year-old: If you don’t like something, just pretend it doesn’t exist.”—Scott Maxwell, Orlando Sentinel.
• “I personally don’t know if I’ve met anyone who is a better leader.”—Mayor Jane Castor on Joe Lopano, who is in his last year before retiring as TIA CEO.

The issue should be behind us with President Joe Biden’s departure after that disastrous debate performance.

But that now leaves 78-year-old Donald Trump squarely in the crosshairs of those focusing on ageism and cognition. This, of course, is about much more than awkward octogenarian optics.

Let’s not forget such seemingly routine Trumpisms as windmills causing cancer, Clorox helping Covid relief or mistracking Hurricane Dorian with his signature Sharpie. Or how about foiling hurricanes by bombing them with nuclear weapons?  Or trading Puerto Rico for Greenland? Or trying to extort Ukraine? Or those autocratic bromances, climate-change indifference or NATO insults? And let’s not forget a certain, Mexico-underwritten wall. Or trickle-down tax cuts. Or still targeting the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights. And what other presidential candidate has been referenced as an “American Hitler” by his VP nominee?

And let’s not forget the sober warning we got shortly after the 2016 election. That’s when 27 psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health practitioners released their findings about Trump’s mental state. “There are those who still hold out hope that this president can be prevailed upon to listen to reason and curb his erratic behavior. Our professional experience would suggest otherwise…We warn that anyone as mentally unstable as Mr. Trump simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency.”

Trump doubled down on himself by picking JD Vance as VP. Meanwhile, Harris has become a money-raising bonanza with a base even more energized than 2008—because John McCain wasn’t an existential threat and history could now be made by a woman of color.

Biden-Harris is the passing of the democratic torch. Trump would pass along the dictatorial truncheon of retribution—and assure that ageism and cognition remain a worrisome issue.

Common sense and security coordination are critical to the safety of those, most notably presidents and presidential candidates, who are protected by the Secret Service. It’s a zero-sum game. And, no, we haven’t learned anything from Dallas.

 

Donald Trump didn’t just happen. America has had its faux populists, “dog whistle” racists and “America First” obsessers before. This time, however, the planet is even more fragile, and America’s leadership against demagogues and dictators never more necessary. To paraphrase FDR, Nov. 8, 2016 will go down in “infamy.” As will Jan. 6, 2021. And here’s hoping Nov. 5, 2024 doesn’t join them.

But let’s not forget that 2008 was the de facto catalyst for where we now find ourselves. When John McCain put the implausibly ignorant, female-insulting Sarah Palin on his presidential ticket, the Veep bar was lowered to subterranean depths. And then the historic election of an African-American president.

For all those who didn’t like their lives and needed scapegoats, they could always look down on those of color. But as of 2008, one of them was now president. An electoral bridge way too far. As a result, we’ve been living in the racist, nativist, Trumpster backlash.

But how utterly ironic–and sanguine for democracy–that a female president of color is now quite possible. If that happens, infamy would be more for historians than contemporary Americans.