Opinions to go Online

 

“America First” has been around awhile. About as long as America has seen the self-serving side of foreign and domestic policy decisions. In its Trump iteration, however, it’s either “America Alone” or “American Fist.” We’ve seen both in the Iran attack.

A war of choice without an endgame or ally notification is not in America’s interest. This one is “haphazard” and “not well thought out,” asserts John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor. Calling allies “cowards,” as Trump has done, hardly helps. Civilian casualties have continued to mount as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denounces “stupid rules of engagement.”

The Strait of Hormuz, through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply travels, has been choked by Iran—thus wreaking havoc on world energy markets. Iran has also attacked neighboring Arab countries and turned the region into a chaotic Muddled East.

Moreover, Trump has been duped by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose endgame prioritizes permanent Israeli control over the West Bank, no two-state scenario and re-election this year. Most Israelis, as opposed to most Americans, back the war.

But this is now MAGAmerica. Trump said he was against “forever wars” and cites Iraq. That was President George W. Bush’s mess. What he really needs to reference is President George H.W. Bush’s handling of the war that drove Iraq and Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The U.S. rallied allies beforehand. Ultimately, Bush and General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decided not to push into Baghdad. That would have meant occupying Iraq. That would have meant owning what you’d just broken. It was an exit strategy.

So why the Iranian attack when the U.S., as Trump touted, had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities last summer? Maybe it’s an ironically prescient twist. Back in 2012 Trump said: “Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin—watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.”

Trump 2026 is a presidency in roiling flux. Affordability, ICE Picks, Epstein Files and an unpopular war have driven his poll numbers down. The midterms loom.

Also looming–the pragmatic warning of Winston Churchill: “The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”

It also applies to non-statesmen.

* Winston Churchill is said to have joked that “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” He wouldn’t have been joking today.

* “When all is said and done, more is said than done.”—The late Lou Holtz.

* Sign of the times: “Stop Hiring Humans.”—From an AI start-up billboard campaign in San Francisco.

* If we keep needing to say “This is not who we are,” maybe it’s because this is now, alas, who we are?

* Ever notice that “It goes without saying” is always followed by more saying?

* Get thee to a punnery. Flattery: phony express. Sarcasm: quip lash.

* A non-believing participant in an Easter Egg hunt: an eggnostic.

* Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, hardly a “sanctuary city” proponent, is urging politicians to rethink mass deportations and consider a “path forward” for those with no criminal history who are actually bettering their communities. “All we’re doing is setting priorities and giving an exit ramp to those who came here inappropriately and illegally, but to enjoy the American dream,” explained Judd, who chairs the State Immigration Enforcement Council. No, that didn’t sit well with the DeSantis Administration.

* Governor DeSantis did, however, see the merits of protecting the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve from plans to build a cruise port in Manatee County. “There’s not really a need to add another port in the middle of a conserved area and an aquatic preserve, especially given that Tampa Bay is already home to three deep-water ports,” pointed out the governor.

* Only Florida and Alabama have school districts where superintendents are elected. In short, the overwhelming majority of states still don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce more money and politics into the role of the county’s top education officer.

* Dr. John Littell was appointed by the governor to the state’s Board of Medicine. Normally, this is not newsworthy. But this is now Flori-duh, and Dr. Littell is strongly opposed to abortion, hormonal birth control and vaccine requirements. The BOM is responsible for disciplining Florida doctors when they violate state law.

Dr. Littell has some familiarity with BOM and its oversight role. It accused him of spreading misinformation about COVID-19, and he temporarily lost his American Board of Family Medicine certification in 2023. He was later recertified. Good to go.

* “This bill protects us from those who want Western civilization to fall.” That was State Rep. Hillary Cassel, Dania Beach Republican, on a bill that gives the governor ever more powers to name “terrorist” organizations.

* Tampa has selected a developer for a north downtown project that plans to bring much-needed affordable housing to the area between East Ashley Drive and North Tampa Street just below I-275. And, no, it has nothing to do with Jeff Vinik or Strategic Property Partners or a Miami vibe. The developer, PMG Affordable, plans more than 1,100 residential units—with 70% committed to affordable and workforce housing for the underutilized area known best for an Army Navy Surplus Market store. It could be transformative. “This is a milestone for downtown Tampa and our affordable housing goals,” underscored Community Redevelopment Chairman Luis Viera.

* Here’s how President Biden’s Federal Communications Commission Chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, characterized the commission’s role: “First, the FCC should not be the president’s speech police. Second, the FCC should not be journalism’s censor in chief.” Too bad Brendan Carr can’t concur.

 

* Congrats to the USF men’s basketball team for winning the American Athletic Conference championship, its post-season tournament and qualifying for NCAA March Madness for the first time in more than a decade. Yes, the Bulls were one and done after losing to Louisville, but it doesn’t diminish the notable achievement of an upgraded program. Next challenge: Replacing head coach Bryan Hodgson, hired by Providence College, and staying competitive in the increasingly pricey NIL (Name Image Likeness) marketplace. Go, Bulls.

* “Major League Baseball belongs in Tampa Bay.” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.

* Another day at the Orifice: Trump recently welcomed, so to speak, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to the White House. Awkward small talk soon devolved into Trumpian bloviation when a Japanese journalist asked the president why he hadn’t notified allies ahead of the war with Iran. “Because,” said Trump, “we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?” No, you can’t make this up.

BTW, Japan, which imports more than 90% of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, could certainly have used a head’s up. Japan is also the largest foreign investor in the United States. Japanese investors hold more than $1 trillion in Treasuries.

* Crusading Secretary of Offense Pete Hegseth is playing the holy card of Christian moral underpinning in the Iran war. “The providence of our Almighty God is there protecting those (recently deployed) troops…and we’re committed to this mission.”

* “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” Trump’s version of RIP.

* Benumbing numbers: The Congressional Budget Office projects a budget deficit of $1.9 trillion this year. U.S. debt is now at a record $39 trillion. Imagine the numbers if we didn’t have a “businessman” in charge.

* “When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” –Donald Trump. The U.S. is now the largest crude producer in the world.

* Vanity Flair: At the National Portrait Gallery, the text under Trump’s portrait has been changed to eliminate any mention of his two first-term impeachments. The text under Bill Clinton’s portrait, however, still states that he was impeached for “lying under oath about a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern.”

* “Your excellency”: That’s how North Korea’s Kim Jong Un references Trump. But it might also apply to Lindsey Graham.

* “Trump has enshrined personal impulse as a governing principle of his presidency.”—WaPo associate editor and author Bob Woodward.

* According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, the president’s tariffs cost the average household $1,000 last year.

* “The strategy here is to show the Cubans and the world that the only lifeline that Cuba has left is the United States.”—Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan policy and advocacy group in Washington. In other words, the U.S. can use oil as leverage to extract concessions from a Cuban regime that is in economic free fall.

* “One way of dealing with bad times is to pretend that they are normal.”—Ian Buruma, author of “Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945.”

* “The tone in Tokyo has clearly shifted. … Caught between a more aggressive China and a less predictable United States, many in Japan are coming to the realization that caution is no longer enough to guarantee their security.”—Joshua Walker, president of the Japan Society and author of “Alliance at a Crossroads.”

* “The private sector in Cuba is quite small. But if the Cuban economy were a functioning economy, it would have a much larger private sector.”—Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

* “It takes money to kill bad guys.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

* “I think democracy versus oligarchy is going to be the battle of the 21^st century.”—University of California Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman.

* “I just get up every day and go to work. I don’t do a lot of that counting stuff.”—SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, the current oldest justice. If he stays on the bench through the spring of 2028, he would surpass the 36-year record for longest-serving associate justice.

* “The Epstein scandal is one of the most potently seismic reverberations from America to be felt in British politics since 1776, and it’s not done yet.”—Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times.

* “(ICE officers) are facing a serious and escalating threat as a result of deliberate mischaracterizations of their heroic work and rhetoric that demonizes our law enforcement.”—Recently fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

* “The state of Florida is completely ready for that (Cuban) regime to fall.”—Cuban-American Republican Rep. Juan Carlos Porras.

* “They put (Ashley) Moody in the Senate to be a ‘yes’ vote for Trump and billionaires. She’s not Florida’s senator. She’s theirs.”—Retired Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a Democrat and the whistleblower who triggered Donald Trump’s first impeachment. He is now challenging Moody for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Marco Rubio.

* “Foreign policy in South Florida is a daily issue.”—U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

* “I do not want to see one more American soldier lose their life in a conflict that Congress never debated and never approved.”—Congresswoman Kathy Castor.

* “Let’s go from being that rising star to being the star.”—USF’s new president, Moez Limayem.

* “It’s not about being bigger; it’s about being bolder.”—Hank Hine, executive director of the Salvador Dali Museum, on the museum’s plans for a $65 million expansion.

* “This is Tampa’s deal. We are only talking to Tampa.”—Rays’ CEO Ken Babby.

 

Donald Trump, as we all know all too well, has checked all the ego-driven authoritarian boxes: from demeaning the constitution and undermining the peaceful transfer of power to scapegoating the media, weaponizing the Department of Justice and unleashing the Gestapo ICE Picks. Remember when the bully pulpit wasn’t a MAGA cudgel? TR would.

Trump is Trump, an authoritarian. He’s had historic predecessors; none have been this impactful. All authoritarians have things in common: from narcissistic personalities to brute power cravings.

But they all have help. In the case of Trump, from Congressional invertebrates to Administration sycophants and enforcers.

But some are just street-smart, self-serving, amoral opportunists who have fully supported the despot along the way: from in-house vile enablers like national security assistant Stephen Miller to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who knows he works for a “con man.” Then there’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose position of institutional power is supposed to be insulated from any partisan politicking emanating from the White House. Now she’s the Redaction Queen.

We could see it coming.

While still a Florida prosecutor, she became a regular Fox guest. When first running for attorney general in 2010, she was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Trump contributed to her campaign. Not coincidentally, she shielded the sham Trump University from fraud charges. She endorsed Trump in the 2016 Florida presidential primary. She was one of his impeachment attorneys and was appointed by Trump to the (then) JFK Center for the Performing Arts board of directors. She spoke in Trump’s support at the 2020 GOP convention and supported voter fraud accusations in the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

Bondi turned the AG role into that of a de facto Trump fixer, a DOJ successor to Michael Cohen. A moral compass that was once aimed at human trafficking and pill mills had now morphed into MAGA magnetics.

Her Judiciary Committee performance was all too fitting. She had her unrelated talking points about the stock market and Trump (“The greatest president in American history”) fealty. She had snarky (“You’re a failed politician!”) punch lines at the ready. It was an embarrassment for the DOJ, for the country and for Tampa. Maybe Matt Gaetz would have been the better choice.

 

The president’s State of the Union speech is a familiar, ceremonial fixture. It’s a constitutionally-mandated, annual report to Congress. Calvin Coolidge took it live on radio in 1923, and Harry Truman brought it to television in 1947. LBJ moved it to prime time in 1965 and ever since, it’s been game-on for presidents who can use the mega spotlight for self-serving political interests—from cherry-picking data to honoring and highlighting special guests.

The president has both a live Congressional audience and millions of TV viewer-voters. He has applause lines for his side of the aisle and his side of the electorate. We’re used to it.

What we shouldn’t be inured to, however, is the de facto political performance act that this event has devolved into. It is enabled by off-putting optics, resulting from a reaction shot-obsessed media. We see whack-a-mole partisans hopping up and down for deferential ovations, while the opposition party sits uncomfortably taciturn, eye-rolling and text-checking.

But this isn’t, of course, just about “What-a-difference-a-president-makes” Trump, MAGA shout-outs and GOPster-minion ovations over “the golden age of America.” This is about a consequential American moment that has morphed into an indecorous, politically punctuated spectacle unworthy of a serious democracy.

The SOTU speech needs a reset if it is to seen as anything but democracy-debasing, political show business. It wouldn’t be hard. Keep the president in a tight frame and do a little furniture rearrangement behind him. No need to show the Speaker and the VP, especially when they are of different parties. Awkward would be an upgrade. And no routine reaction shots—whether of uncomfortable Supreme Court Justices or role-playing partisans of either party. If it doesn’t make for good TV, too bad. Save the optics for NFL and hurricane coverage.

BTW, the U.S. WOMEN’S Gold Medal-Winning Hockey Team declined an invitation from President Trump to attend his SOTU speech. Logistics was a problem. The bigger problem, left unquoted but not unnoted, is that Trump doesn’t deserve patriotic Olympic puppets.