Opinions to go Online

* With his chaotic presidential run behind him, maybe Gov. DiSastrous could now focus on the immediate issues that matter most to most Floridians, such as affordable housing and home and health insurance. Alas, there’s a better chance that he will be inspired by Alabama and push for nitrogen gas executions.

* “Florida’s higher education system will focus on preparing students for high-demand, high-wage jobs, not woke ideology.” That was Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, on the removal of sociology as a Florida core course. What Diaz inexplicably doesn’t get is that universities are more than anti-woke trade schools.

* Florida leads the U.S. in Affordable Care Act enrollment: more than 4 million signees for 2024.

* Floriduh: Don’t say “climate change,” especially if you’re gay.

* In Davos, the World Economic Forum ranked misinformation as the biggest short-term danger in its Global Risks Report.

* “The corporate greed in media is out of control, and hedge funds are at the core of that corporate greed.”–Jon Schleuss, president of NewsGuild-CWA, which represents newsroom employees, including those at the Chicago Tribune who went on a recent one-day strike over fair wages.

* “In a certain sense, being a journalist is choosing to touch with your hands the wounds of society and of the world. This is an occasion for me to thank you.”–Pope Francis, in reference to Rome-base journalists who uncovered scandals in the Catholic Church.

* “If you’re on “Saturday Night Live,” you’ve broken out of the political media bubble into general pop culture, and that’s a good place to be for presidential candidates.”–GOP PR consultant Alex Conant.

* The UN Human Rights Office says the death penalty violates the right to life and does not deter crime.

* Amnesty International ranks China as the top global executioner. (Lethal injection is the most common form of execution.)

* New Zealand was the first country in the world to extend the right to vote to women (1893). The last European country to extend suffrage to women was Switzerland (1971).

* If Putin-wary NATO had a presidential vote, it wouldn’t be for Trump. Peace and self-defense–not tough-guy appeasement and ally abandonment–is the priority.

* Record for the Tampa Bay ages: The Rays home-attendance record is 45,369—dating back to the franchise’s 1998 debut. That won’t change.

* It’s been more than a decade (2011-12) since the USF men’s basketball team made the NCAA tourney. That could change this season as the Bulls recently won their 11^th in a row (over FAU) before a sold-out, packed (10,659) house at the Yuengling Center. Go, Bulls.

* The Super Parity Bowl: Where else in football would the championship game feature teams (Kansas City and San Francisco) with a combined 11 losses?

* Sobering sign of the times: MLB now needs—and has—a Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault & Child Abuse Policy. As Wander Franco well knows.

* Trump tells his base supporters that he is being prosecuted on their behalf. They believe him. It’s what followers of any cult leader—whether Trump or the Rev. Jim Jones—do.

* Trump will be forced to pay a $364 million fraud fine. He’s already looking for new sources of revenue. Exhibit A: High-top, gold-glossed, stars-and-striped “Trump Sneakers”: only $399.

* Jan. 6 rioters are not “political prisoners.” But they are stupid, insurrectionist, criminal punks.

* “I just love you (Trump).”–That was Sen. Tim Scott again giving sycophancy a bad name.

* The family man: Trump is pushing for his daughter-in-law Lara to co-chair the RNC.

* “People need to start coming together and working together. But right now, none of that is happening because (Nikki Haley) is still out there stoking the anti-Trump fire.”–Former Trump adviser David Urban. In short, hang in there, Haley. It would be helpful, if unlikely, if a Hillary/Bernie-like, infighting scenario counterproductively impacted the GOP this year and undermined party unity and the 2024 election.

* “Nobody should be playing politics with the border … Trump shouldn’t be telling Republicans, ‘Wait until the election, because we don’t want this to help Biden win.’”–Nikki Haley again, concerned about “America First” or “Trump First.” Or maybe “America Alone.”

* “Trump doesn’t regard Europe’s defense as a vital American interest.”–William Golston, WSJ.

* It should be worth noting–especially in a zero-sum, partisan political context–that (former President) Trump’s “populist” tax cut added more than $2 trillion to the federal debt. Maybe some Tea Partiers have noticed.

* 2020 Forecast reminder: “If Biden wins, you’re going to have a stock market collapse the likes of which you’ve never had. You will have a collapse.” It still hasn’t happened, but we know what Trump is rooting for.

* “Because they (investors) think I’m going to be elected.”–Trump’s take on why the stock market is doing well.

* The 2006 version of Trump the faux populist weighing in on the approaching housing-market crash (of ‘08): “I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy.” America first?

* In a court of law, Trump can be found legally guilty or not guilty. “Innocent” he’s not.

* Low-caliber pandering: According to the NRA, Trump’s recent speech was his eighth to the gun rights organization.

* “Donald Trump is great, and he has great policies, but I feel—and I know a lot of people feel this way—that DeSantis was a once-in-a-generation, true conservative candidate that could have brought the party back into a different direction.”–Brittany Lyssy, president of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans. Sobering.

 

* “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”–Thomas Jefferson.

* “Time is precious. Waste it wisely.”–Mark Twain.

* “The upper classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.”–Ayn Rand.

* “China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc … We cannot afford to sleep on this danger.”–FBI Director Christopher Wray.

* “We’re looking for inflation to come down, as it has been coming down for the last six months.”–Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

* “Falling inflation, rising growth give the U.S. the world’s best recovery.”–Washington Post.

* “These companies must be reined in, or the worst is yet to come.”–Sen. Lindsey Graham at a U.S. Senate hearing that admonished leaders of social media platforms over child-abuse safety.

* “House Republicans are failing America and our allies at a time when tyranny and terrorism are on the march.”–Florida Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor.

* “Donald Trump said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Ron DeSantis, trying to out-Trump Trump, shot democracy in the middle of our courthouse—and he’s gotten away with it.”–Former Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, who was suspended and replaced by the governor.

* “You don’t just want great physician scientists and nurses and techs and allied health professionals, you want to be in the state-of-the-art facilities with state-of-the-art technology.”–Tampa General Hospital CEO John Couris. TGH has announced plans for a $500 million, 13-story, 565,000-square-foot addition to provide a state-of-the-art environment for neuroscience and transplant services.

* “The resurgence of downtown has been good for us, and we’ve been an important part of that resurgence.”–Straz Center CEO Gregory Holland.

 

“I always turn to the sports page first. It records people’s accomplishments; the front page, nothing but man’s failure.” That was former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren in a moment of non-constitutional candor. We get it. We all need escape, however brief, from all the reminders of what’s wrong with our society and the world.

And when the season was upon us, there was nothing like college football. Especially for a Catholic kid with family fealty to Notre Dame. Football was a combative, strategic, athletic sport with a fan following based on family tradition, alma mater allegiances and state pride.

Those were the days.

Today’s sports page–whether print or E-version–is looking increasingly like the rest of the news. It happens when a college game evolves into an athlete-acquisition business. The respite from that other news reality has largely disappeared. They now overlap—from economic pragmatics, legal scenarios, network hegemony and politics to more cheating, more recruiting scandals, more rap sheets and ubiquitous sports betting. Name Image and Likeness inducements, including blue-chip high school recruits, and transfer-portal free agency are precursors to increasing scandals that could play on page one.

When universities are calculatingly selling their brand identities, it’s not a news escape—but an unfortunate embodiment—of where our society is.

To no one’s surprise after his awkward, messy, $100-million campaign, “Amerika’s Governor” has finally conceded and has “suspended” (OK, ended) his presidential campaign. He will officially support Donald Trump and become a ring-kissing part of his ever-expanding campaign baggage. He’ll fall in line seamlessly and push the cultish MAGA brand to ban abortion, rip away access to health care and whitewash Jan. 6. The same Trump who ridiculed him as Ron DeSanctimonious.

So much for “Never Back Down.”

* Bottom, rally-’round line for Dems and for America: Democracy is on the ballot. How tough a choice is that?

* Money matters: The Biden-Harris campaign closed out 2023 with a strong $97 million, 4th-quarter haul.

* “As I told you four years ago, we know Joe. But more importantly, Joe knows us.”–South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, in his introduction of President Biden at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where Biden addressed, among other things, “the poison of white supremacy.” Clyburn is Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign co-chairman.

* Labor market resilience: U.S. employers added 216,000 jobs in December. In November, it added 173,000. The unemployment rate is 3.7 percent.

* “We need to fix the border. There’s virtually unanimous agreement among Democrats and Republicans about that.”–Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

* Nobody has a more formidable portfolio than Antony Blinken. Secretaries of State usually do—but his includes the murderously Muddled East and the sieve-like border with Mexico. Plus there’s the Russian-Ukraine war and all its ripple effects—from North Korea to NATO to partisan American politics.

* We’ve been living with presidential impeachment subplots—from Nixon and Clinton to Trump and Biden. Now House Republicans are maneuvering to impeach a cabinet member: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayoras. GOPsters contend that his management of the border amounts to a dereliction of his duties.

* Black small business ownership is growing at its fastest pace in 30 years.

* If GOPsters cherry-pick the Biden domestic record without context, then it’s fair to note that Donald Trump was the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when they came in.

* Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff recently represented the U.S. in Davos for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. His priorities also included highlighting the Administration’s commitment to countering the global rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia as well as promoting gender equity. That kind of high-profile portfolio is something you don’t typically see of a vice presidential spouse. Certainly not with Emhoff’s predecessor, Karen “Mother” Pence.

* Marijuana, inexplicably, remains a controlled substance under federal law. It obviously has no grass roots support among the feds.

* The Party of Capital. The Party of Labor. Remember those defining days?

* “Braver Angels”: a citizens organization that works to bridge red and blue America. It has a free online course on how to talk with MAGA relatives at family gatherings. Maybe keep the conversation confined to religion and sex.

* A “Rizzy” pick-up line: “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?”

* Does Hocus-Focus qualify as a cognition test?

* Nothing like mail from the Neptune Society to kick start your day and a new year.