Tampa Bay Rants and Raves (TBRR) is a weekly chronicle of politics, sports, lifestyle and historical notes from a politically incorrect viewpoint. Some of this content should not be taken literally.

First thing on our mind:

This week, we say a fond goodbye to Ken, Dale, Hoyt and Wade Hamilton who are retiring after decades of running the 100-year-old Palm Pavilion. To them and their late parents, Howard and Jean, we say thanks.

Leading off: Property versus sales taxes

There is so much wrong with Florida legislator’s idea to eliminate property taxes, it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with low income people who don’t own property and therefore will receive no benefit from eliminating property taxes. In fact, they stand to lose the most when Florida suddenly realizes that it must raise the 6% sales tax to offset the loss of property taxes. As a sidebar, with the sales tax being raised, it will be harder to get the very worthwhile “Penny for Pinellas” infrastructure taxes approved. Meanwhile communities, particularly small communities, will be hard hit by the elimination of ad valorem taxes which, in most cases, provides over 50% of their annual revenues. This, in turn, will make them more dependent on state government for funding – not a good situation. This is just Property Tax Issues 101, you will be hearing a great deal from us and others in 2026.

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

We tip our cap to the Pinellas County Commission for their decision to rename the Bayside Bridge to honor former State Attorney Bernie McCabe and Public Defender Bob Dillinger, two paragons of the Pinellas judicial system.

Thank you, Vice President Vance.

In the last ten years of counting, Florida’s population has grown 18%. Some naysayers point to moving van loads in and out of Florida as proof of slower growth. That is deeply flawed. Vans incoming to Florida will go out of their way to avoid a “dry run” back home whereas, there is no incentive for vans leaving Florida to return empty.

Related: We tire of hearing folks complain about Clearwater/Pinellas growth. Unless you were born in the large building on Druid Road, you were part of that growth. Should we have stopped growing the moment you blew into town?

Having traveled around Florida extensively in the past couple weeks, we have one piece of career advice for a youngster – anything related to road construction. That industry will never end in Florida.

Well yeah, healthcare too, as Americans continue to age.

Idle thought: Is Marjorie Taylor Greene going to become the next Liz Cheney – a ship without a port?

This attempted email scam takes the cake. We receive a Social Security Earnings and Benefits Statement from the email address beautymart.pk, asking us, of course, to open the attachment.

Scary, but true posting from the 5:05 Newsletter: I am convinced that it won’t be long before logging on to your computer will require entering your user name and password and then typing in an authentication code with your street, shoe size, hair color, eye color, toaster setting, least favorite pizza topping, credit score, blood type and TSA known-traveler number.

This week in 1977 (Jan. 31) Tampa’s Al Lopez is elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Sports and random notes:

Are we experiencing the end of the muscle car? Chevy dropped the Camaro a year ago; the Dodge Challenger a year earlier, although both Dodge and Chevy say a follow up is coming. Ford still has a gas powered Mustang along with an abomination of an electric car that has a Mustang name plate but little else that resembles one of America’s classic cars.

Indiana completes their run of the table and win their first ever national championship. The last “rookie” national champ – the Florida Gators in 1996.

Idle thought: The Buffalo Bills can’t catch a break. Turns out neither can the Broncos.

Related – what is the Buffalo front office thinking? This is a team that fires a guy who has won two-thirds of his career games. True, he never won the Super Bowl, but then neither has this franchise in its 65-year history. Perhaps it is time to look in the mirror? Sean McDermott, like Jim Harbaugh, will be unemployed for two weeks.

The newest fad in casual restaurants is Portillo’s, which is about to add its third location in Hillsborough County. The Chicago-based beer, dogs and burgers chain has just one Pinellas location in the Bay Pines area.

Last year saw milk chocolate removed from treats like Mr. Goodbar, Rolo and Almond Joy. Fair enough, just don’t mess with our occasional Hershey Bar.

You’ve lived in the bay area a long time if you ever dined at Chief Charley’s.

Looking at the above three items says something about this blog and its humble blogger.

One last thing: Confronting the bad guys

Bill O’Reilly’s best selling follow up to Confronting the Presidents is Confronting Evil. Like its predecessor, Confronting Evil is a series of 20-page chapters, this time dealing with some of history’s incredibly evil people from Caligula through Hitler to Putin. Twelve of the world’s most notorious people or groups (the Klan, Drug Cartels etc.) are covered. As with most of O’Reilly’s historical books, it features tight, well researched writing. It is not for the squeamish as all of these folks did bad, bad things. O’Reilly has a new co-author on this book. Josh Hammer replaces Martin Dugard on this one, but the new pairing doesn’t seem to miss a beat.

NEXT UP: Folks who make us laugh; Mountain Dew; Jennings

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