SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS? – FROM THE MIAMI HERALD:   After hours of divisive debate over guns, schools and freedom, the Florida Senate spent less than a minute Tuesday and voted on something they all could agree on: daylight.  The Senate voted 33-2 to send a bill to Gov. Rick Scott to ask the U.S. Congress to decide whether Florida should be a state that enjoys Daylight Savings Time year-round. It was passed by the House on Feb. 14, 103-11.  Under the plan, HB 1013, called the “Sunshine Protection Act,” the state would ask Congress to pass a law to let the Sunshine State move from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time (when you set your clocks ahead one hour) year-round. Daylight Savings Time runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November and is set to start this Sunday, March 11, and end Nov. 4.  I may be wrong, but it's hard to see how one state could be an exception, especially as thousands are crossing those borders every day. 

ANOTHER BOOMLET FOR OPRAH – FROM NEWSBUSTERS:   CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King on Tuesday urged her best friend Oprah Winfrey to run against Donald Trump in 2020. King even absurdly insisted she could stay on at CBS and cover the race “impartially.” The co-host, it turns out, has been lobbying her friend to run for months. On the show, King pleaded, “But I also think you have a unique ability in terms of healing and connecting all people.”  King even cited the late poet Maya Angelou, pleading to Winfrey: “What do you think Maya would say? It's one of these times I wish Maya was here. What do you think that she would say?”  After all this, King disputed the idea that a potential Winfrey run might compromise her as co-host of CBS This Morning.  There's a level of immaturity here that's almost frightening.  At least Donald Trump ran a huge organization and built an empire.  Maybe Oprah should give some speeches about nuclear weapons or international strategy.  I'll bet she'd say that the answer is love.

A DEMOCRATIC ROLE MODEL – FROM FOX:  A Democrat seeking a U.S. House seat in Illinois – who attracted attention for a campaign ad showing him smoking pot – now faces accusations that he has abused women and misleadingly described himself as an “Iraq veteran.”  Benjamin Thomas Wolf, who is running in the Democratic primary against incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, came under fire after an ex-girlfriend alleged he acted abusively and intentionally revealed her name and home address on social media, a practice called “doxing.”  “He actually hit me, threw me to the ground, put his foot on my chest. He was really angry. He grabbed my face,” Katarina Coates, who interned for Wolf’s campaign, told Politico.  We await the explanation from the party of Bill Clinton.  I guess it depends on what "face" means.

March 7, 2017