FlaglerLive | October 28, 2012
Florida is dominated by Republicans, but to argue against the election of a Democrat to the Florida House–as the GOP’s Travis Hutson is arguing in his bid against Milissa Holland–is a reflection of the arrogance of a majority party that considers minorities, if not democracy, irrelevant, and that assumes that once a majority, always a majority.
FlaglerLive | October 21, 2012
With smart meters as with numerous other issues, some of our most basic scientific or technological advances are being held hostage to perversions of evidence no more legitimate than superstition and sham controversies.
FlaglerLive | October 19, 2012
Right-wingers’ elation at the Romney endorsement aside, to call the Orlando Sentinel liberal of course is to seriously misread the house organ of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, central Florida edition.
Pierre Tristam | October 12, 2012
Hoping to minimize Democrats’ turnout, the GOP-dominated Florida Legislature is going out of its way to make voting more of a privilege than an absolute right. There are a few ways to get around the voter-suppression schemes.
Pierre Tristam | October 4, 2012
Mitt Romney demolished the Obama mystique in Denver while Obama surrendered: This is the Obama flincher we’ve come to know. The man of a thousand retreats. The prevaricator. The terminated.
FlaglerLive | September 30, 2012
On synthetic pot, the Palm Coast City Council and other local governments are being had, as governments trample due process to enforce a legal shortcut against a ghost epidemic–the latest hysteria in the derelict war on drugs.
Pierre Tristam | September 30, 2012
Charles Kesler’s new book on Barack Obama loathing is a window into the closing of the conservative mind, which Mark Lilla’s review opens a notch to let in a breath of wit–unusual for unusually dour liberals.
Pierre Tristam | September 27, 2012
Vagrant scratches and notes from FlaglerLive editor Pierre Tristam on issues of the day, fugitive quotes, hit-and-run readings, insurgent observations and reflections picked up from the cutting room floor.
FlaglerLive | September 23, 2012
They are two of the most repeated claims you’ll hear every four years: That this is the most important election in our lifetime. And that partisanship is demolishing the country. Rubbish on both counts.
FlaglerLive | September 18, 2012
In 2008 John McCain’s big challenge was to control Sarah Palin’s mouth. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s biggest challenge is to control Mitt Romney’s mouth. His characterization of 47 percent of Americans as victims and dependents, besides being demonstrably false, unravels the cynicism at the core of Romney’s campaign.
FlaglerLive | September 15, 2012
“Innocence of Muslims” is a vile movie about Islam, but its movie maker had every right to make it, and it is far less vile than the murderous riots Muslim fundamentalists have launched as a result–or Mitt Romney’s political opportunism over the crisis.
Pierre Tristam | September 11, 2012
Revulsion over the losses in New York and Washington aside, the attack triggered a succession of fears: That the barbarism I so gladly left behind 23 years ago is here.
FlaglerLive | September 8, 2012
Maryland lawmaker Emmett Burns wrote a bullying letter to the Baltimore Ravens owner asking him to silence Brendon Ayanbadejo’s support for gay marriage. Chris Kluwe kicked back the most winning answer of the year.
FlaglerLive | September 2, 2012
The lies of presidents could re-carve Rushmore by audacity alone, yet the lies of the Romney-Ryan campaign have taken the art of lying to new lows, but not without the complicity of voters, who, in the golden age of fact-checking, have no excuse to be misinformed.
FlaglerLive | August 31, 2012
Vagrant scratches and notes from FlaglerLive editor Pierre Tristam on issues of the day, fugitive quotes, hit-and-run readings, insurgent observations and reflections picked up from the cutting room floor.
FlaglerLive | August 29, 2012
The Republican National Convention devoted its first full day in Tampa to refuting Obama’s alleged claim that if you have a business, you didn’t build it. Except that he never made such a claim. Not even close. The convention’s twist is emblematic of thematic, systematic deceptions.
FlaglerLive | August 19, 2012
Less than 16 percent of Florida’s eligible voters, and 20 percent of Flagler’s, cast a ballot in last Tuesday’s primary, once again reminding the world that Americans’s interest in community and citizenship is among the lowest of any democracies. Perhaps it’s time to make voting mandatory.
FlaglerLive | August 11, 2012
Mitt Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan, the seven-term Wisconsin congressman, born during the first Nixon administration, is a puzzling choice, more calculated than inspiring, more cautious than bold, and in some respects, just as strategically faulty as John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin.
FlaglerLive | August 5, 2012
Melissa Moore Stens, a candidate for Flagler County judge, has been unfairly criticized for defending Paul Miller, the Flagler Beach man who shot and killed his neighbor over barking dogs. But Paul Miller should be on trial, not his lawyers–or the Sixth Amendment.
FlaglerLive | July 22, 2012
Michelle Bachmann’s bigoted smear of Huma Abedin, the Hillary Clinton aide who happens to be a Muslim, about Abedin’s alleged Muslim Brotherhood connections, is a reflection of a pronounced reactionary-Republican rejection of evidence for ideological expediency.
FlaglerLive | July 15, 2012
With State Attorney R.J. Larizza, Flagler Sheriff Don Fleming and Putnam Sheriff Jeff Hardy in starring roles (all three are running for re-election next month), Wednesday was the latest shameless example of local and state police using a minor drug sweep for maximum political effect, at taxpayers’ expense.
FlaglerLive | July 12, 2012
I’ve been asked why certain comments in the John Pollinger-Anne-Marie Shaffer case were approved, considering their lavish innuendoes and borderline slanders. The decision bears explaining in light of this year’s distinctly foul election season.
Pierre Tristam | July 8, 2012
Thomas Lopez was fired by Jeff Ellis and Associates, the private company to whom Hallandale Beach outsourced its lifeguard services, when Lopez tried to save a drowning man beyond his jurisdiction. It’s an example of privatization’s immoral priorities.
FlaglerLive | June 30, 2012
Just as we did a year ago, FlaglerLive is moving to a new server yet again, this time a dedicated one, because readership keeps outgrowing our old accommodations. We ask for your patience over the next 72 hours. And donations.
FlaglerLive | June 22, 2012
Karen Klein is the 68-year-old school bus monitor from Greece, N.Y., cruelly bullied by seventh graders and recorded on a YouTube video that went viral. The middle schoolers are acting out the persecuting spirit that christens their daily lives.
FlaglerLive | June 10, 2012
Inspired by Ronald Reagan’s union-busting, the latest round in the war on labor is a self-inflicted wound on the American economy, where workers-union and non-union alike–have been losing ground for 30 years.
FlaglerLive | June 4, 2012
“Making Mormons look bad helps others feel good,” J. Spencer Fluhman, a Mormon scholar, argues, but it neither explains nor justifies the unresolved prejudices and self-serving veils that cling to Mormon dogma.
FlaglerLive | May 31, 2012
I have covered an endless number of graduations in my career. Tonight, for the first time, my child–my daughter–was among the graduates. There was only one way to cover this one: in the first person.
FlaglerLive | May 28, 2012
The elderly are simultaneously the country’s most powerful single demographic and its least respected. But if the elderly don’t want to be infantilized, if they don’t want to be referred to as the elderly, it may be time to means-test the term and the literal benefits it entails.
Pierre Tristam | May 20, 2012
Athletics aside, Florida doesn’t take its public universities and public schools seriously, making it difficult for top students to stay here–or for the state to depend on more than tourist ghettoes, sunbathing spreads and Medicare colonies.
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