Tampa Bay Raves and Rants is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and nostalgia items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - much of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

A letter from the IRS; no, make that Joe

Raise your hand if you’ve recently received an official looking letter and envelope from the “Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service.” That’s never good news. So you open it up and …surprise it’s a very thinly veiled campaign letter, in English, and Spanish of course, from Joe Biden – paid for, to be sure, with our tax dollars. We are quite certain that Joe and company checked on the legality of something like this. While it may be legal, it’s incredibly unethical. And irony of ironies, Biden just asked for an additional $80 billion (yes, billion with a B) for the IRS to “crack down on tax cheats.” Perhaps the IRS should start with politicians who waste IRS resources on nothing less than hack political propaganda. And to think, 51 percent of the American electorate voted for this guy.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

“A day late and a dollar short” – Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace on VP Kamala Harris finally getting around to seeing the massive immigration problems facing the U.S. south of our borders.

Number of the Week: One. That’s the number of political candidates with two losses attempting to achieve a higher federal office or governor who have been successful in the past 20 years. That does not bode well for two-time loser Charlie Crist. Oh, the one successful candidate for higher office after two losses – Louisiana Senator John Kennedy.

Item: Lina Khan, four years out of law school, appointed to the Federal Trade Commission. Biden administration thinking since we now have this novice on the FTC, why not make her chairman? Don’t say we didn’t warn you last fall.

A couple news items from the past few weeks that make you shake your head: (1) How did Brooksville manage to inadvertently sell the town’s water tower? (2) What genius plotted the Tierra Verde bridge demolition that killed hundreds of protected game fish? Again, guys at the 5:05 Newsletter – you’re missing some great stuff!

But this one will not surprise you. New York held a mayoral election last week, announcing ahead of time the results would not be known for several days - again, so many punchlines, so little space.

Sports, media and lighter stuff:

Times have changed. Our Dad made his living running a Westinghouse plant that made radio-TV tubes. Our oldest friend’s Dad owned shops that sold and repaired TVs. An acquaintance had a store that repaired appliances like toasters and waffle irons. Gas stations always cleaned your windshield and asked, “may I check your oil?” And your milk was delivered, but pizza was not.

Idle question: how many times a week do you watch a TV commercial and at the end, wonder what they were selling?

Speaking of commercials, we lost two significant individuals connected with commercials last week. Billy Fuccillo, he of the “Huge” commercials for his car dealerships died in Sarasota at age 64. And Frank Bonner who played the stereotypical radio station ad manager on WKRP in Cincinnati passed away at age 79.

We’re less than two weeks away from the Major League Baseball draft and Calvary Christian High School right handed pitcher, Andrew Painter, is forecast by many experts to go in the first round of this year’s draft.

Answer: Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Question: what five states have only one seat in the House of Representatives?

You’ve lived in Clearwater a long time if you ever attended the movies at the Ritz Theater on Fort Harrison Avenue between Cleveland and Drew.

The Super Groups of the 60s

There is probably no decade that produced more landmark groups than the 1960s. You can’t think of the 60s without thinking of the top group of all time by almost every measure –the Beatles. Their short run of 1964 to 1970 produced 64 chart records! The other super groups of the 60s, in order, were The Supremes, and the West Coast/East Coast combination of The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons, Motown’s Temptations (My Girl), The Rolling Stones, The Miracles, The Dave Clark Five (Catch Us If You Can); young teen favorites Herman’s Hermits and The Drifters (Save the Last Dance for Me). Just missing the Top 10 groups were the Impressions and the Four Tops – an impressive list. Coming up next month, we’ll feature the Top Ten male vocalists of the 70s.

UP NEXT: Post Beatle success; All American day; Madeira Beach

062721/

Go Bolts!