Established in 2014, Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of local and national politics, sports, lifestyles and Tampa Bay memories from a politically incorrect viewpoint.

First thing on our mind:

Joe Biden should publicly apologize to every American who paid their way through college; paid off their student loans or who never went to college.

Leading off: private education not a luxury

Mark Levin, in his recent best seller, The Democrat Party Hates America, correctly asserted that “classrooms have become indoctrination mills.” Parents no longer have a guarantee that the principles they value are being transmitted in the classroom – particularly in urban settings, where classroom sizes are being maxed out by illegal immigrants. Statistics tell us more and more families are turning to private schools where they can have more say over what is being taught. It’s a tough, but necessary choice. For some families, it means belt tightening to handle ever increasing tuitions. For many, it requires severe sacrifices or second jobs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the situation will soon change without significant reforms in public education.

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

Related to our lead article, in Pinellas County, at least, there is a push to elect some school board members with more traditional values this fall. August could be a critical month for the education of our children and grandchildren.

Meanwhile, Hillsborough County is looking at closing five schools, while in South Florida, private schools including diocesan K-12s, are reporting waiting lists.

The city of Tampa is having trouble getting those e-scooters returned. Have they never looked at a shopping center parking lot? As a great American is fond of saying, “the problem is obvious.”

Bridge “experts” in Maryland point to the fact that it took seven years to rebuild the Sunshine Skyway. They fail to mention there wasn’t the urgency here because of a second span – a luxury Maryland doesn’t have.

Time was Joe Biden could count on the blue state of Michigan in his election effort. Now, the car making state is in play. One of the biggest issues is whether the EVs Biden pushes incessantly are a job creator or job killer for Michiganders.

Related: Tesla sales down 9% the latest quarter; Rivian down 20%. They’re selling like hotcakes, Joe.

Biz note: Target’s new Target 360 loyalty program, at $49 per year, makes us wonder if we’ll someday have to pay a fee to shop at Publix, fill up at Exxon or fill a prescription at Walgreens.

Factoid: numerous lawyers here in the bay area make more than our Supreme Court justices. Good for them, but we need to review what we pay arguably the most important decision makers in our nation.

Quote of the week: “I became a conservative by being around liberals, and I became a libertarian by being around conservatives. The worst part of each of them is the moralizing.” – Talk show host Greg Gutfeld.

This week in 1986 (4/26) WMOR TV Channel 32 signs on. Originally known as WMTV, it first aired music videos. Two years later, it evolved into more standard fare for an independent station and was the original broadcast outlet for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Sports, media and other notes:

Big Apple observation from the 5:05 Newsletter: In an interesting twist, in just four short years, New York City went from “defund the police” to “bring in the National Guard.”

Fourth generation – last week the St. Louis Cards visited the Oakland A’s. In the Card’s booth was third generation Chip Caray, across the way in the A’s booth was his son, Chris. They follow patriarch Harry (Cards and Cubs among others) and second generation Skip, a mainstay for the Atlanta Braves. And Chip has a second son broadcasting minor league games!

All these years, we didn’t realize we knew someone who shared the same hometown with Radar O’Reilly, Ottumwa, IA, population 25,000.

Local historical note: A name that came up in a recent chat at the old Clearwater site was “Ham” Hamilton, the entrepreneur who owned three of upper Pinellas’ bowling lanes back in the day – and a very nice guy.

…one last thing: Do you believe in Santa?

There is naïve and then there is naïve. The first is what our Saintly Wife and our sometimes mean spirited daughter have accused us of over the last many decades. Then there is another level in which you have be to believe the Shohei Ohtani story. We don’t care how wealthy you are, you know when $16 million (maybe a thousand bucks in real people money) goes missing. Maybe, just maybe, Ohtani didn’t do any gambling, but we just aren’t buying he didn’t know what was going on. Perhaps the MLB investigation will clear things up, perhaps. And speaking of naïve, we so admire Ken Rosenthal, but his comment, “this investigation was the work of the United States Department of Justice, in concert with the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Homeland Security,” as some sort of imprimatur shows he does not watch anything but sports news.

NEXT UP: Pickle Ball; Rogue prosecutors; Grinding It Out

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