Some people are ignorant and proud of it. Ron DeSantis is one of those people. The man just vetoed almost every pitiful penny of arts and culture funding in the state budget. Museums, music, youth programs, local treasures, historic houses, Black heritage centers, performing arts spaces, dance companies, kids’ music programs, even renowned institutions such as the Ringling Museum of Art. With his characteristic eloquence, DeSantis snarled, “Some of the stuff I don’t think was appropriate for state tax dollars.”
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, June 30, 2024
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, the free St. Augustine Music Festival in its last day, V.S. Naipaul among the believers, Philip Roth’s Sabbath on the news.
Biden Crashes, Trump Lies
The earliest-ever general election debate featured a lot of bitter personal attacks. Joe Biden’s universally acknowledged poor performance surprised and even panicked Democrats; Donald Trump gave a more forceful – if not truthful – performance.
DeSantis to Farmworkers’ Need for Housing: Drop Dead
Pointing to concerns that it could provide housing for illegal foreign workers, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday vetoed an agriculture industry-backed bill that would have made it easier to build housing for farmworkers.
Panel Moves Forward on Black History Museum in St. Johns County,
Facing a Monday deadline, members of a state task force Friday voted to submit a report to the governor and the Legislature that outlines suggestions on how to build, market, operate and eventually make self-sufficient a Black history museum proposed for St. Johns County.
Trump Is No Longer the Greatest Danger to the Country. Biden Is.
Biden has a choice: certain defeat and a Trump win, or stepping aside and letting Democrats take the only kind of gamble that gives them at least a competitive chance to win in November, with either California’s Gavin Newsom or Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer at the top of the ticket–and with Whitmer clearly the better of the two. If the Democratic Party allows Biden to dig in, the party loses all legitimacy going forward.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, June 29, 2024
Peps Art Walk in the Hammock, coffee with Flagler Beach Commissioner Scott Spradley, how American comedy has become too safe on TV, the menace of George Wallace type politics.
Should We Care About Cricket?
In what has been dubbed “one of the biggest shocks in cricket history”, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup co-hosts USA beat Pakistan in a pulsating game on June 6. With seven runs needed off the last ball of a “super over” tiebreaker, Pakistan could only manage a single. Cricket is also hardly a mainstream sport in the US. Indeed, the New York Times suggested that many Americans were “oblivious to the magnitude” of the victory.
Data Company Seeking Easements Discovers Flagler Beach Commissioners Won’t Be Cowed Into Submission
The Flagler Beach City Commission will not grant a data-center company a perpetual easement over almost a third of Veterans Park in the heart of the city as a landing point for undersea internet cables. The company was attempting to save money at the city’s expense. City commissioners explicitly called out the scheme, tabling the proposal until DC Blox returns with a feasible proposal to use South 6th Street as a landing site, without disrupting the city-owned parking lot there or compromising its future value to the city.
DeSantis Veto of Vacation-Rental Bill Opens the Way for Palm Coast Regulations with Flagler’s as Model
Facing pressure, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the measure a bill that deregulated local control of vacation rentals, saying the proposal would create “bureaucratic red tape” for local officials. Now, Palm Coast has another chance to write its own vacation-rental ordinance, or at least craft some city-specific regulations. City Council member Theresa Pontieri said this morning she intends to open the way for just such a proposal, with caution, as residents increasingly complain of rentals.