For decades, one name was ubiquitous in American evangelical homes: Focus on the Family. A media empire with millions of listeners and readers, its messages about parenting, marriage and politics seemed to reach every conservative Christian church and school. And one man’s name was nearly synonymous with Focus on the Family: James Dobson.
Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions
3rd Lawsuit Challenges Florida’s Authority to Run ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ and Hold People Without Charges
Calling it “exactly the kind of disaster that Congress took pains to avoid,” attorneys for immigrants held at a detention center in the Everglades filed a lawsuit alleging Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration lacks the authority to run the facility. The lawsuit, filed Friday in the federal Middle District of Florida, is the third major legal challenge to the detention center, erected by the DeSantis’ administration as part of the state’s support of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
The Most Alarming Price Increase of All: Your Health Insurance Premiums
Since 1999, health insurance premiums for people with employer-provided coverage have more than quadrupled. According to Business Group on Health, a consortium of major employers, “actual health care costs have grown a cumulative 50% since 2017.” In a separate survey published in 2021, 87% of companies said that in the next five to 10 years, the cost of providing health insurance for their workers would become “unsustainable.”
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, August 25, 2025
The Bunnell City Commission reconsiders and possibly approves the 6,000-to-8,000 home Reserve at Haw Creek development, the Palm Coast Charter Review Committee holds its inaugural meeting, a modest proposal for ICE.
The Grim Side of Plantation Tourism
The American South – and the nation more broadly – continues to wrestle with how to remember its most painful chapters. Tourism is one of the arenas where that struggle is most visible. the impulse to monetize history isn’t new. More than 300 plantation sites across the country generate billions of dollars in revenue each year. This type of tourism forces communities and visitors alike to ask a difficult question: What parts of the past do Americans preserve, and for whom?
Free State of Florida Proclaims Right-Wing Indoctrination in Schools
We’re proud to be bringing these precious boys and girls (note the statutorily mandated unambiguous sex designations) the finest curriculum in these United States, handcrafted with love by Gov. Ron DeSantis (J.D. Harvard), Commissioner of Education Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas (J.D. Regent), and your Florida Legislature, all of whom graduated from high school, probably. Here’s a taste of what we have in store for your student! Not to worry: Kids educated in Florida have been trained to resist inappropriate thought.And they can always report professors pushing DEI or CRT or BLM.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, August 24, 2025
Bethune-Cookman University Concert Chorale is in concert at Palm Coast United Methodist Church, Gamble Jam, chasing that first high, whether it’s the perfect golf swing or a shot of fentanyl.
Data Centers Consume Massive Amounts of Water. Companies Rarely Tell the Public How Much.
A 2024 report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that in 2023, U.S. data centers consumed 17 billion gallons (64 billion liters) of water directly through cooling, and projects that by 2028, those figures could double – or even quadruple. The same report estimated that in 2023, U.S. data centers consumed an additional 211 billion gallons (800 billion liters) of water indirectly through the electricity that powers them. But that is just an estimate in a fast-changing industry.
Federal Court Orders Florida to Dismantle ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ DeSantis Is Not About to Do It.
Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t backing away from a controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades after a federal judge ordered his administration to begin dismantling the facility, as environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe gear up for the next stage of the legal battle. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction preventing additional construction and bringing additional detainees to the complex, which the state has dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” Williams also ordered the removal within 60 days of temporary fencing, detention-center lighting and such things as generators.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, August 23, 2025
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market, Peps Art Walk, Samer Abouhamad’s fabulous cycling adventure across 73,000 miles and all continents.
Why the Eiffel Tower Gets Bigger Every Summer
Specialists have estimated that the Eiffel Tower actually grows between 12 and 15 centimetres when comparing its size on cold winter days with the hottest days of summer. This means that, in addition to being a landmark, a communications tower and a symbol of Paris itself, the Eiffel Tower is also, in effect, a giant thermometer.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, August 22, 2025
Arend van Dam compares the president to Neville Chamberlain, Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center in The Hammock, the Friday Blue Forum, intimations of war and rancid patriotism from 1914 to 9/11 to 2025.
FPL ‘Settlement’ With Opponents Reduces Proposed Rate Hike from $2.5 Billion to $1.71 Billion Over 2 Years
But other parties in the case have not agreed to the proposed settlement, including the state Office of Public Counsel, which is designated by law to represent utility customers. The Public Service Commission is expected to hold a hearing this fall to determine if the proposal should be approved.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, August 21, 2025
‘Let’s Talk Palm Coast’ Town Halls with Council member Charles Gambaro, Model Yacht Club Races, the Marineland Commission meets, on being a Sullivan v. New York Times baby, and an interview with Anthony Lewis.
Ancient Greeks Did Not Share Your Love of the Beach
Beach vacations only became popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries as part of the lifestyle of the wealthy in Western countries. Early Europeans, and especially the ancient Greeks, thought the beach was a place of hardship and death. As a seafaring people, they mostly lived on the coastline, yet they feared the sea and thought that an agricultural lifestyle was safer and more respectable.
Canadians Not as Interested in Florida as They Used To Be Even as Overall Tourism Numbers Rise
U.S. travelers continue to bolster Florida’s tourism industry, while the state hopes to make up for a decline in Canadian visitors by drawing people from other countries. Visit Florida on Tuesday estimated 34.435 million people traveled to Florida from April 1 through June 30, up from 34.279 million people during the same period last year. The estimate for this year would be a second-quarter record, according to the state tourism-marketing agency.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, August 20, 2025
The Flagler County Contractor Review Board and Palm Coast’s planning board meet, Separation Chat, Open Discussion, how editorials might write the requiem of the current administration, and a little Gide on Wagner.
As US Folds on Climate, China’s Leadership Steps In
While it’s still too early to fully assess the long-term impact of the United States’ political shift when it comes to global cooperation on climate change, there are signs that a new set of leaders is rising to the occasion. China and the European Union issued a joint statement vowing to strengthen their climate targets and meet them. They alluded to the U.S., referring to “the fluid and turbulent international situation today” in saying that “the major economies … must step up efforts to address climate change.”
John Thrasher Remembered as ‘Building Block for a Generation of Conservative Governance’
Family, Florida legislative figures past and present, and Florida State University stakeholders honored the life of John Thrasher Tuesday in an ceremony representing his lifetime of service to the Sunshine State. Former Gov. Jeb Bush, Thrasher’s successor President Richard McCullough, and children and grandchildren were among those who eulogized the former Florida House Speaker and senator who died in May at the age of 81.
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Lawsuit Over Migrants’ Legal Representation Moved to Orlando
Pointing to “prudence,” a federal judge late Monday ruled that a battle about legal representation for people at an immigrant-detention center in the Everglades should move to a different court. The judge declared moot the plaintiffs’ argument that the federal government had violated their rights by not identifying an immigration court that would handle their claims. That court has now been identified.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, August 19, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council meets, Food Truck Tuesdays in Palm Coast’s Central Park, Flagler Tiger Bay Club’s annual Wine Tasting Meet & Greet at the Palm Coast Community Center, the nostalgia for the College Mariste de Champville.
4 Years of Repressive Taliban Rule, But the World Looks Elsewhere
Despite promises of moderation and inclusion, four years later, the Taliban has established a repressive, exclusionary regime – one that has dismantled institutions of law, justice and civil rights with ruthless efficiency. As the Taliban regime has tightened its grip, international attention has waned. Crises elsewhere dominate the global agenda, pushing Afghanistan out of the spotlight. With the Taliban seeking to end its isolation and gain legitimacy, can the international community find the will now to exert real pressure?
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, August 18, 2025
The Flagler County Commission meets, so does the Mosquito Control district board, the Library of America’s new volume of Hemingway, containing “A Farewell to Arms.”
‘People Are Really Good at Heart’: Anne Frank Beyond the Quote
The quote carries a universal message that good will eventually prevail. This has turned Anne’s legacy into an easily adoptable trope, serving activists and political agendas. But who, actually, was Anne Frank? And how did she differ from the “Anne Franks” that have emerged since the end of the war?
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, August 17, 2025
Clay Jones on the president’s military invasion of the nation’s capital, Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, the fake DC crime wave, Vicki Gray on the militarization of language.
Alaska Summit Bust, and Possibilities
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who was excluded from the Alaska summit, has maintained that Kyiv will not agree to territorial concessions. Such a move would be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution, which requires a nationwide referendum to approve changes to the country’s territorial borders.
Idi Amin’s Phony Populism
Amin was the creator of a myth that was both manifestly untrue and extraordinarily compelling: that his violent, dysfunctional regime was actually engaged in freeing people from foreign oppressors. Even his cruelest policies were framed as if they were liberatory. In August 1972, Amin announced the summary expulsion of Uganda’s Asian community. Some 50,000 people, many of whom had lived in Uganda for generations, were given a bare three months to tie up their affairs and leave the country. Amin named this the “Economic War.”
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, August 16, 2025
To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form. Weather: Partly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms likely. Highs in the lower 90s. Lows in the mid 70s. Chance of rain 70 percent. Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here. Drought conditions here. (What is the […]
Glacier Melts and Floods in Alaska Point to Catastrophes Ahead
The glacial flood risks that Juneau is now experiencing each summer are becoming a growing problem in communities around the world. These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuries – almost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks.
Amid Legal Wrangles, DeSantis Is Reopening State Prison in Baker County as Second Lock-Up for Migrants
Amid legal wrangling over a controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said the state plans to use a shuttered prison in North Florida to boost detention of people targeted for deportation. The conversion of Baker Correctional Institution, which state corrections officials mothballed four years ago because of staffing shortages, into a second detention center in Florida will scrap a plan to house immigrant detainees at Camp Blanding west of Jacksonville.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, August 15, 2025
Free For All Fridays with David Ayres on WNZF, going one step beyond that boundary line, Lyle Lovett’s boat, what Casanova told Diderot about fate.
The Search for Sustainable Aviation Fuels Is on Chopping Block
The federal spending law passed in early July 2025, often called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, significantly reduces federal funding for efforts to create renewable or sustainable types of fuel that can power aircraft over long distances while decreasing the damage aviation does to the global climate.
Judge Rules Illegal a Florida Law Banning Trans Teachers’ Choice of Pronouns
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker sided with Hillsborough County teacher Katie Wood and a Lee County teacher, identified as Jane Doe, in finding that the state law discriminates in violation of what is known as Section VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That section bars employment discrimination because of a person’s “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” But the outcome of the issue might ultimately hinge on an appeals-court ruling in a Georgia case.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, August 14, 2025
Heat index up to 110, Michael Gilbert, an old accomplice of Brandon Washington, returns to court to decide whether to serve five more years or life, the Flagler Beach City Commission meets, grandparents’ serenity of Sannin, and a little Mozart.
The Dark History of Forced Starvation as a Weapon of War
More than 500,000 Palestinians, one-fourth of Gaza’s population, are experiencing famine, the U.N. stated. And all 320,000 children under age 5 are “at risk of acute malnutrition, with serious lifelong physical and mental health consequences.” U.N. experts have accused Israel of using starvation “as a savage weapon of war and constitutes crime under international law.” Countries – including the United States and Canada – have used starvation to conquer Indigenous peoples and acquire their land.
Federal Judge Rules Unconstitutional Part of Florida Law That Led to Book Purges from School Libraries
Siding with publishers and authors, a federal judge Wednesday ruled that a key part of a 2023 Florida law that has led to books being removed from school library shelves is “overbroad and unconstitutional.” U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza issued a 50-page decision in a First Amendment lawsuit filed last year against members of the State Board of Education and the school boards in Orange and Volusia counties.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, August 13, 2025
U.S. Rep. Randy “Starve-Away” Fine finally makes good on his visit to Palm Coast’s oldest sewer plant, Separation Chat, Open Discussion, WNEW’s Make Believe Ballroom, and that other ballroom planned for the White House.
What Is Uranium Enrichment?
When most people hear the word uranium, they think of mushroom clouds, Cold War standoffs or the glowing green rods from science fiction. But uranium isn’t just fuel for apocalyptic fears. It’s also a surprisingly common element that plays a crucial role in modern energy, medicine and geopolitics. Many headlines have mentioned Iran’s 60% enrichment of uranium, but what does that really mean?
The Eugenics of the Big Beautiful Bill
Withdrawing or making Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage more restrictive will cost 51,000 lives a year by 2034. It’s one way to reduce the government’s liability for lives on the dole. It is eugenics by other means.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, August 12, 2025
The Community Traffic Safety Team meets, the Palm Coast City Council meets, so do the School Board and the county’s planning board, the American passport is no longer most favored, Simone de Beauvoir on America’s idea of its own freedoms.
Zohran Mamdani and the Upton Sinclair Effect
Mamdani’s win surprised nearly everyone. Not just because he beat the heavily favored former governor Andrew Cuomo, but because he did so by a large margin. Because he did so with a unique coalition, and because his Muslim identity and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America should have, in conventional political thinking, made victory impossible. Upton Sinclair, the famous author and a socialist for most of his life, ran for governor in California in 1934 and won the Democratic primary election with a radical plan that he called End Poverty in California, or EPIC. He lost.
State Regulators Put On Hold Case Over FPL’s $2.5 Billion Rate Increase in Light of ‘Settlement’
State regulators Monday paused a closely watched case about increasing Florida Power & Light’s base electric rates after the utility and numerous parties announced Friday they had reached a “settlement in principle.” Details of the potential settlement have not been released, and some parties in the case — including the state Office of Public Counsel, which is designated by law to represent consumers — have not signed on.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, August 11, 2025
What if Immanuel Kant and Madonna had a baby, the Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets, the Bunnell City Commission meets, Isaiah Berlin explains the inexplicable.
How GOP’s Gerrymandering Power Grab May Backfire
There are a few factors that make redistricting more complicated than just grabbing a few House seats. They may even make Republicans regret their hardball gerrymandering tactics, if the party ends up with districts that political scientists call “dummymandered.”
A Nuclear Reactors on the Moon?
A lunar nuclear reactor may sound dramatic, but its neither illegal nor unprecedented. If deployed responsibly, it could allow countries to peacefully explore the Moon, fuel their economic growth and test out technologies for deeper space missions. But with China and the United States now racing to build nuclear reactors on the Moon, it also raises critical questions about access and power.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, August 10, 2025
Clay Jones on gerrymandering Texas, Gamble Jam, Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, on the criminal notion of killing time, Cyndi Lauper, Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie.
Israel’s Genocide in Gaza: Beyond Rhetoric
The key question is not to determine whether the conditions have been met to judge specific perpetrators of specific acts of violence as genocidal, but rather to understand the logic behind the practices. A conviction for genocide or crimes against humanity does not save lives, but the very consideration that genocide is being committed or has been committed carries profound political implications.
FPL Has Delayed Core Enclosure Tests at Nuclear Plant for Nearly 20 Years
As nuclear reactors’ lifespans are extended, the industry is increasingly flying blind regarding the structural integrity of the reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) that enclose their cores. The loosening of routine RPV testing is just one example of how large firms like FPL have secured concessions to ensure they can keep aging nuclear plants churning for twice as long as their original license terms – in spite of safety concerns. In effect, watchdog groups claim, nuclear regulations are being improvised to accommodate power companies, compromising RPV safety and risking nuclear disaster.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, August 9, 2025
Sheriff’s Annual Safety Expo at European Village, Flagler Sportfishing Club’s Annual Local Brands Fishing Expo, Peps Art Walk at Beachfront Grille, the Maison Picassiette in Chartres, Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, American Association of University Women (AAUW) Monthly Meeting.
Due Process Owed Migrants
The meaning and application of due process has become a crucial issue in the U.S., most often with respect to the Trump administration’s migrant deportation efforts. Seemingly contradictory rulings on migrant issues recently not only make it unclear when due process applies but probably leave many asking what the term “due process of law” even means and how it works.