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* It’s been a very good fortnight for former Tampa Bay Buccaneer All-Pro John Lynch. He’s the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers, who will be in Super Bowl LIV. He was also named the NFL’s executive of the year. And he could soon be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in Miami. Congrats, John. You’ve always been a class act.

* Maybe it’s a good thing that former MLB manager–and Tampa native–Tony La Russa, 75, is already in the Hall of Fame. Now his name is circulating amid the sign-stealing scandal currently consuming MLB. Former Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell has accused La Russa of installing a sign-stealing system involving a camera in the 1980s when La Russa was managing the Chicago White Sox. La Russa was elected into the Hall in 2014.

* With the firing of MLB managers in Houston, Boston and New York (Mets), the Rays Kevin Cash looks even classier. It’s what he does with what he has–while remaining loyal to the game and its ethics.

* Who knows if this changes anything about Pete Rose’s pariah status with the Hall of Fame, but if context matters, infamous bet-placing might deserve reconsideration in the post-steroids, post-video sign-stealing eras. What are the odds?

* “I’ve enforced the laws and now I write the laws, and I know that nobody is above the law. But the law means nothing if the accused, whether the man who breaks into your house or the president, can destroy evidence, stop witnesses from testifying and blatantly refuse to cooperate in the investigation.”–U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., former chief of the Orlando Police Department and now one of the seven impeachment managers appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

* “What is the president hiding? … The gravity of these charges is self-evident. The House of Representatives has accused the president of trying to shake down a foreign leader for personal gain.”–Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

* “This is an example of all the president’s henchmen, and I hope that the senators do not become part of the president’s henchmen.”–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

* “This isn’t really about Ukraine policy or military money. This has been naked partisanship all along.”–Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

* “It’s all hearsay.”–Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

* “Our Founders left the Senate in charge of creating a fair and transparent impeachment process that is acceptable to the nation as a whole. Our current senators would do well to follow their lead.”–Stetson constitutional law professor Louis J. Virelli III.

* “Class-war progressivism always loses to culture-war conservatism because swing voters in the Midwest care more about their values–guns, patriotism, ending abortion, masculinity, whatever–than they do about proletarian class consciousness.”–David Brooks, New York Times.

* “No country that is permanently at war, that sends soldiers to blockade immigration, that dismisses war crimes and pardons those who commit them, that makes the assassination of leaders of  other nations a proudly proclaimed public strategy, can foster a civic society that truly values peace and harmony.”–Donald Eastman, president of Eckerd College.

* “Do not come to this fight believing that the Trump team views any action, including outright criminality, as off limits.”–Rick Wilson, Republican operative and author of “Running Against the Devil.”

* “Name a single Democrat accomplishment.”–Donald Trump Jr.

* “Like Trump too, Bernie Sanders isn’t so much campaigning for office as he is leading a movement. People who join movements aren’t persuaded. They’re converted. Their depth of belief is motivating and infectious.”–Bret Stephens, New York Times.

* “The one sport where the unthinkable can become the inevitable in a matter of weeks or even days is national politics, not the National Football League.”–Bill Weld, former Massachusetts governor and current long-shot candidate for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

* “Today is the oldest you’ve ever been; yet the youngest you’ll ever be.”–Eleanor Roosevelt.

* “I would rather face a player that was taking steroids than face a player that knew every pitch that was coming.”–Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Alex Wood.

* “As a human being, I am a creature of implicit biases. So I can’t trust my own good intentions. Please don’t ask me to trust yours.”–Miami Herald African-American columnist Leonard Pitts.

* “I’m super fired up. It’s just going to be wonderful to get astronauts back into orbit from American soil after almost a decade of not being able to do so.”–Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, as the countdown continues for the launching of astronauts from Cape Canaveral in the next few months. NASA astronauts have not launched from the U.S. since the space shuttle program ended in 2011.

* “We’ve always outpaced enrollment in other states, and I think it really shows that the marketplace coverage is extremely popular in Florida.”–Anne Swerlick of the Florida Policy Institute, in noting that Florida once again leads the nation in health insurance enrollment under the Affordable Care Act. More than 1.9 million consumers signed up for 2020.

* “We’re going to have to think really critically about the way our population centers have developed.”–Julia Nesheiwat, Florida’s new chief resiliency officer.

* “I don’t get the sense that Tampa and St. Pete are kissing cousins. … More like hissing cousins.”–Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams, who leads the campaign to bring a major league baseball team to Orlando.

* “(Trump) says a lot of things that people agree with …that people are embarrassed to admit. Because otherwise, he wouldn’t have carried Pinellas County.”–Clearwater Mayor George Cretekos.

* “Artificial intelligence is one of the great frontiers in the innovation economy. … Tampa is growing to become a promising center of diverse skills and new perspectives that will shape AI’s future.”–USF College of Engineering professor Sudeep Sarkar, chairman of the computer science department and co-chair of the USF Institute for AI+X.

* “If construction crews are an indicator of economic outlook, then things are looking pretty nice in the ‘burg. I have the hard-hat hair to prove it. I haven’t had a good hair day in two years because I spend all my time on construction sites.”–St. Petersburg Deputy Mayor Kanika Tomalin.

* “(St. Petersburg has) gone from God’s waiting room to God’s craft beer tap room.”–St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman.

* When it comes to military matters and potential, geopolitical game-changers that will imperil–and cost–lives, it would really help to have a consensus definition of “imminent.” Otherwise, it has all the credibility of “with all due respect.” But it’s part of the new normal with a real estate-branding prevaricator-in-chief who’s thinking “imminent” domain.

* “We want Iran to behave like a normal nation.”–That was said by an international critic of Iran. Unfortunately that critic, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, represents a parallel-universe administration that now lacks not just normalcy, but the ethical and moral high ground to criticize with credibility.

* Sen. Marco Rubio, who once mocked Trump as a “con man” and an “embarrassment,” has, like many of his fellow GOPsters, fawningly fallen in line behind this demagogic president. In fact, those who have taken issue with Trump’s impulsive escalation of tensions with Iran are, according to Rubio, products of “anti-Trump derangement syndrome.” That, of course, would be the self-serving prism of someone now three years into revisionist “pro-Trump sycophancy syndrome.”

* “I’m as accessible as I can be.”–That was the response of White House PRESS secretary Stephanie Grisham when asked–again–why she doesn’t do press briefings. She’s been on the job for six months–after replacing Sarah Huckabee Sanders–and has yet to hold a briefing for reporters. An improbably candid response would have been: “I work for Donald Trump who, uh, speaks for himself. He has 68 million Twitter followers. I’m simply next up after (Sean) Spicer and Huckabee Sanders, who gave ‘Saturday Night Live’ way too much material.”

* I was over at the gym (actually the Jewish Community Center) pedaling to my heart’s content on cardio equipment, when I saw on CNN that Trump was addressing the media from the Oval Office. Awkwardly seated next to him, arching an occasional brow and rolling an eye or two, was another head of state. It’s what happens when the president doesn’t deign to do actual press conferences, even for really, really important stuff such as the drone assassination of an Iranian general in Iraq. Anyway, that foreign leader looked familiar.

Then it dawned on me. It was Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who the day before had been in Tarpon Springs for the Epiphany Celebration that included the Cross Dive from the sponge docks. Then I thought, that’s actually pretty good prep to visit someone who deserves his own dunk tank.

* New-normal update. Carnival Cruise Lines has a “cruise-casual” dress code, including a ban on bathing suit attire and men’s tank-tops in the main dining rooms. We get it. Now it has added overall bans on clothing considered offensive or hateful. Wonder if  “MAGA” hats played a part?

* If former national security adviser John Bolton doesn’t testify at the impeachment trial, maybe we’ll find out some impeachment-pertinent information from his book, which could be, well, imminent. Meanwhile, it’s good marketing for unconscionably bad priorities.

* As is Constitutionally mandated, Chief Justice John Roberts presides over the Senate impeachment trial of the president. The one who otherwise presides over the Senate is the vice president. Presumably, the always-prescient Founding Fathers foresaw conflict of interest if the vice president presided over an impeachment trial that could conceivably end with the Veep replacing his boss in the Oval Office. Plus, the 21st-century optics of Mike Pence presiding over the Senate trial of Donald Trump is beyond even an “SNL” cold opening.

* We are reminded, again, why Florida’s Lieutenant Governor is Jeanette Núñez. She co-chairs “Latinos for Trump.”

*Must Donald Trump also look, all too often, like “Il Duce”? Not even Alec Baldwin pulls that off.

* With so much so obviously at stake–and the choices so starkly differentiated–why does it still require a massive, motivational get-out-the-vote campaign to rid ourselves of Unprecedented Trump and the threat he manifestly represents nationally and internationally? This shouldn’t be political business as usual–from the grass roots to brass tacks. Making the case for the female vote, the African-American vote, the Hispanic vote, the suburban vote, the evangelical vote, the rural vote, the college-degree vote and the “swing state” vote, as if the case wasn’t being made–and remade–with every presidential tweet, lie and self-serving abuse of power.

Maybe it’s human nature, democratic governments and their hallowed institutions notwithstanding. People are busy. They have other priorities, from family to wage earning. Social media too easily manipulates and masquerades as news. Or maybe it’s the ongoing impact of the culturally-embedded, political consultant-adviser industrial complex. Or maybe it’s an ironic part of “American exceptionalism.”

History will inform us.

* “Now I can rest easy tonight. I was sooo concerned that I would someday have to go head to head with him.”–That was Donald Trump sophomorically mocking Sen. Cory Booker, who has ended his presidential campaign. At some level, maybe even Trump knows that he hasn’t heard the last from Booker. The New Jersey senator is an impeachment jurist, a viable vice presidential candidate, an articulate campaigner who can help gin up the post-Obama African-American vote–and one who reportedly doesn’t handle Trump disparagement well.

It’s official. Those who text while driving in Florida will get ticketed. The issuance of warnings no longer applies. Enforcement time is here. Finally. No longer a “secondary” offense; it’s now a primary offense. First offense is a $30 fine plus court costs. It jumps to $60 with a second offense within five years. Arguably, it should be a lot more. This is a serious public safety issue.

The new law (HB 107) isn’t just about serial texters or even the occasional texting-while-driving motorist. It’s really about the rest of us who have to be on the road–or even nearby sidewalks–while someone is cluelessly or impudently texting away. 

When it comes to regional issues, we have typically thought in terms of marketing, transit and the Rays. But there’s something more compelling: the impact of climate change. It’s existential–from the environment to the economy to future generations.

So it was encouraging to see that for the first time Tampa Bay area leaders gathered to affirm and discuss the challenges of climate change under the auspices of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council’s Resiliency Coalition. Along with the state’s chief resiliency officer, Julia Nesheiwat, Tampa Bay Mayor Jane Castor, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and Clearwater Mayor George Cretekos were prominent in a summit-like gathering that included scientists, academics and government officials. Time, not unlike Rick Scott, is no ally for one of the most flood-vulnerable regions in the country. Regional is the only approach, with the state as key catalyst.

The Planning Council hopes to make the summit an annual event. Indeed, it only makes sense to address–with more than rhetoric–a crisis that ominously encroaches more each year.

* For those of us who were hoping for a modicum of patriotism, if not a democratic epiphany, from Facebook chief executive Mark *uckerberg, so much for that long-shot scenario. Facebook has now officially announced that it will not change its basic rules for political advertising in advance of the 2020 election. Unlike Google and Twitter, it’s status quo for Facebook, and it’s status quo for anybody worried about unchecked “facts.”

Next Facebook announcement: the post 2020 election “apology,” not unlike post-2016 when it disingenuously apologized for allowing its platform to be overrun with hyperpartisan misinformation, some of it Russian.

* Comedy writer Buck Henry died recently. He was 89. That doesn’t resonate demographically with everyone in 2020, but I still can’t thank him enough. He was pre-eminent in the scripting of “The Graduate,” which remains my all-time favorite movie. There’s a reason why that over generations and small screens, it still works. Scripting is an art, no less than acting and directing. And if you can entertainingly nuance satire and societal commentary, you are missed–more than ever–right now.

* When it comes to marketing a business, names matter–from 1-800-ASK-GARY to Dirty Taco to College Hunks Hauling Junk. Some do it more effectively and creatively than others. Especially those that favor word play. My favorite-names list for local businesses hasn’t changed. The Sod Father, Edifice Wrecks, Plant Parenthood–in that order. A possible new (restaurant) addition: Counter Culture.

But sometimes there’s the concern of image undermining–as in a perception that maybe the owners are being too cute and don’t take their business as seriously as they should. Connotation matters. To wit: “Ditcher, Quick & Hyde,” (divorce attorneys), “Florist Gump,” “Bread Zeppelin,” “Pita Pan, “Wok This Way” and “Sew What?” Mercifully, I called a halt here.

BTW, back in the day when the NHL was expanding in 1967, the new franchise in Philadelphia, the Flyers, debuted. It was the solid, alliterative product of a name-the-team campaign orchestrated by the team and local media. What was runner-up? The Philadelphia Ice Picks. True.

* “This is their perfect new home.” That, alas, was Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams extolling the virtues of the Orlando market as the future–non-split-season–home of the Tampa Bay Rays. More than Montreal, Charlotte, Nashville, or Las Vegas, Orlando makes the most sense. From geographic symmetry to tourist hordes to corporate Disney and Universal to mass transit to burgeoning TV market. “We would not be taking away Tampa’s baseball team at all,” quipped Williams. “We’d just be moving them a little to the east.”

Message to Rays’ owner Stu Sternberg: “Sell it or just move it down I-4. We want the Rays here.” Message to the Tampa Bay market: “Be concerned. Be very concerned.”

* In hockey, basketball and baseball, teams don’t go undefeated. They play too many games. But in football, it’s still possible. In fact, the two college teams that played for the national championship, LSU and Clemson, were both 14-0. And the team, North Dakota State, that won the NCAA 1-AA championship went 16-0. So it seems a bit of an anomaly that in the NFL’s final four, one of the teams that is but a game away from the Super Bowl is Tennessee. The Titans are 9-7. In a league of parity and other variables, a 7-loss team could be in SB LIV. Still seems weird.

* “Mr. Trump’s foreign policy requires an unreliable regime in Tehran to behave reasonably in order to save Mr. Trump from himself. This is the tragic failure of his abandonment of diplomacy.”–Former Secretary of State John Kerry.

* “Things sometimes get worse before they get better.”–Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker.

* “(We) got less detailed information than President Trump shared with Laura Ingraham. We were told repeatedly that there was reliable intelligence of an imminent threat. That’s it.”–Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., on what Senators were told had prompted the drone hit at Baghdad Airport on Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

* “What is obvious for us, and what we can say with certainty, is that no missile hit the plane.”–Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran’s national aviation department, on reports that it was an Iranian missile that had brought down a Ukrainian jetliner and killed all 176 on board.

* “I wish I was dead. I accept all responsibility for this incident.”–Ali Abedzadeh, the following day, after admitting that an Iranian missile did, indeed, bring down the Ukrainian jetliner.

* “Today’s action will further restrict the Cuban regime’s ability to obtain revenue, which it uses to finance its ongoing repression of the Cuban people and its unconscionable support for dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.”–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in announcing that the Trump administration is banning charter flights to Cuban cities outside Havana.

* “Every senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the president or the Constitution.”–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

* “Big government at its absolute worst.”–How President Donald Trump characterized the half-century old National Environmental Policy Act that he’s pushing to roll back.

* “If you want to clean up your carbon footprint, nuclear will be part of your resources and it is carbon-free with zero emissions.”–Lakeland Electric general manager Joel Ivy.

* “With water quality in crisis in some parts of Florida and water shortages in others, protecting rural land from development should be a top state priority. Yet the three toll road corridors (linking North Florida with Collier County) cut through some of Florida’s best remaining lands and valuable water resources.”–Victoria Tschinkel, former secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation.

* “I think everyone wants someone convicted of a felony to rejoin society. The right to vote is fundamental to being a productive citizen.”–Hillsborough County Clerk of Court Pat Frank.

* “I don’t get the sense that Tampa and St. Pete are kissing cousins. … More like hissing cousins.”–Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams, who leads the campaign to bring a major league baseball team to Orlando.

* “I am willing to look outside of this building because I care about the children in this district.”–Hillsborough County School Board member Stacy Hahn, on the superintendent search that is targeting candidates from outside the district.

It’s worth repeating that an ironically ominous political scenario would be Trump supporters having to say: “Yeah, he was my guy. Damn right. He hated what I hate, grabbed what I grab and sounded like my drinking buddies. I was with him every step of the way right up until …” Fill in the foreboding blank. We may have reached that menacing point.

It happens when you assassinate an iconic official, however heinous, of another country in a de facto declaration of war. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was no Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, stateless terrorists. The Baghdad Airport assassination of this general, the second-most important person in Iran, is an act of war. As a result, the U.S. also created a rally-around martyr that is unifying a country–one that had been unraveling domestically–against America.

Now we face the fraught reality of the Muddled East with its ballistics and bluster, an impulsive imposter as U.S. president and a necessarily go-it-alone strategy sans allies that returns us to terror alert. And now we are sending 4,500 more Army troops into harm’s way into Iranian–and Iranian-proxy–cross hairs.

The impetus was President Donald Trump unconscionably withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal. Yes, it was imperfect; but it was perfectly counterproductive to opt out unilaterally. Trump never liked it principally because his predecessor, Barack Obama, signed on. But so did Iran, England, France, Germany, the European Union–as well as China and Russia. The 2015 deal also had the approval of the United Nations Security Council, NATO and the International Atomic Energy Agency. But Trump wanted the U.S. out; hell, he had campaigned on it along with getting out of the Climate Control accord. Can’t disappoint the base, even if it makes the U.S. and the rest of the world worse off. What ramifications of recklessness?         

For those speculating that part of the Trump strategy was a diversion from impeachment and to look like a tough guy, well, Iran does diversions and tough-guy theatrics as well. They had been enduring sanction-induced turmoil and bloodshed in their streets with plenty of animus directed at their own. Now this. Game-changer. Iran rallies around a “martyr” against the “infidel” and “God is great; America is evil” chants are back as daily optics. Thanks again, Mr. President, and, oh yeah, Iran has now exited the nuclear deal and the Parliament of Iraq, where so much American blood has been spilled, has officially told the U.S. to get the hell out.

Retaliation and escalation, including cyber attacks, are givens; as are impulsive, chaotic responses, including American threats to target Iranian cultural sites. Collateral damage, likely asymmetrical, is coming. But American lives will be lost. Again.

One other thing. Go back to America’s Vietnam experience. We were the French Indo-China and domino-defending aggressor napalming another country. Over time, many Americans expressed outrage. But supposing, say, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had been assassinated by the Vietcong. No, it’s not a precise analogy to Suleimani, but could have been, however perverse, rally on.