Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other GOP leaders are following the Nazi playbook, substituting transgender youth for the Jews. They industriously promote hatred, fear, and physical revulsion of this small group — also barely 1 percent of the population — and pretend it’s out of concern for children.
Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions
Lawyers Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Halt Duane Owen’s Killing, Arguing Mental Incompetence
Attorneys for convicted murderer Duane Owen on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block his execution, after Florida courts rejected arguments that he was not mentally competent to be put to death.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 13, 2023
Nysean Giddens in court, the Palm Coast City Council talks referendum and recall procedures, St. Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church in St. Augustine, Bruce Catton’s Civil War.
South Florida’s Rich Spanglish-Infused Dialect
A new dialect is taking shape in South Florida, a language variety that came about through sustained contact between Spanish and English speakers, particularly when speakers translated directly from Spanish.
Why the 9/11 Families Are So Angry With the PGA Tour
The PGA Tour seized on alleged Saudi connections to the 9/11 attacks when opposing the Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour. But in partnering with LIV, families of the 9/11 victims say the PGA has “done a complete 180.”
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, June 12, 2023
The county commission holds a budget workshop, what if the moms for bigotry held a “festival” of their own, the Bunnell City Commission meets.
America’s Gun Crime: Why Tourists Are Being Warned to Avoid and Beware
Uruguay has suggested its citizens avoid certain American cities, Germany warns of the possibility of killing sprees, Canada now recommends its citizens familiarise themselves with how to respond to an active shooter before visiting, Australia’s official travel advice warns “gun crime is prevalent.”
The American Way of Woke
What is truly perverse today are those who actively seek to infringe upon the liberties of others while masquerading as defenders of liberty, argues Brad West. We are not perfect, and will always be a work in progress, even in wokeness. But we get better because of those who have been, and are, woke.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, June 11, 2023
Pride Fest’s Vigil for Pulse Victims, Wanda Sykes’s crush, Al-Anon Family Groups, Joseph Epstein on Donald Trump’s bug.
Pat Robertson: What We Endured
Televangelist Pat Robertson, who died at the age of 93 on June 8, was a familiar face on television for many conservative Christians, and wielded enormous influence on American politics.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, June 10, 2023
Flagler Pride Fest, celebrating National pride Month, at Palm Coast’s Central Park in Town Center, celebrating Saul Bellow’s birthday, Gamble Jam.
Trump’s Charge Under The Espionage Act Explained
The Espionage Act has historically been employed most often by law-and-order conservatives. But the biggest uptick in its use occurred during the Obama administration, which used it as the hammer of choice for national security leakers and whistleblowers.
Trump Indictment: 37 Felony Counts in Classified Documents Probe
According to the indictment, Trump schemed with an aide to keep possession of top secret and other sensitive national security documents from his presidency and concealed those documents even from his own lawyers, who sought to comply with a federal order to return them.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, June 9, 2023
Burlesque and drag night at Coquina Brewery in Flagler Beach, Christian Boyd, is sentenced, Flagler Pride’s Erica Rivera on Free for All Fridays, the surprising Justice Roberts.
Why a Federal Judge Found Tennessee’s Anti-Drag Law Unconstitutional
On June 2, Judge Thomas Parker, a Trump-appointed federal district court judge in western Tennessee, ruled that Tennessee’s anti-drag “Adult Entertainment Act” violated the First Amendment’s free speech protection.
In Surprise Victory for Voting Rights, Supreme Court Rejects Redistricting Map Diluting Black Vote
By a vote of 5-4, the justices issued a major voting rights decision, ruling that Alabama’s new congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act. Even more significantly, the court declined an invitation to adopt an interpretation of the act that would have made it much more difficult to challenge redistricting plans.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, June 8, 2023
Drug Court, the Flagler Beach City Commission meets, Library Director Holly Albanese speaks to the The Palm Coast Democratic Club on the ongoing assaults against the freedom to read, Canada’s horrific C-18 bill.
Canada Wants Google and Facebook to Pay for News Content. The Effort Is Misguided.
There is no evidence that shows news outlets are worse off because of Google, Facebook and other aggregators. If anything, evidence (and lots of it) shows that, overall, news outlets would be in worse shape without these digital platforms.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, June 7, 2023
The Palm Coast Code Enforcement Board meets, Separation Chat, Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Schubert’s 13th piano sonata, Henry Adams has contempt.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 6, 2023
The Palm Coast City Council, the Bunnell Planning Board and the school board all meet, the Boys of Pointe du Hoc on the commemoration of the Normandy invasion.
Don’t Buy the Cynical Claim that Students Are Shutting Down Speech on Campus
The claim that college students censor viewpoints with which they disagree is now common. Such cynical distortions dominate discussions of higher education today, misinform the public and threaten both democracy and higher education.
DeSantis Lawyers Tell Court That Bill Targeting Drag Shows Doesn’t Target Drag Shows
State lawyers filed arguments Friday as U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell prepares to hold a hearing Tuesday on a motion by operators of the Orlando restaurant Hamburger Mary’s for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the law, which DeSantis signed last month.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, June 5, 2023
The County Commission starts its budget discussions, The Astronomy Club of Palm Coast meets, Ron DeSantis is all in on creating an autocracy, Roth’s “Dying Animal” on film.
The Better Way to Disagreements
At home, at work and in civic spaces, it’s not uncommon to have conversations that make you question the intelligence and benevolence of your fellow human beings. When that argument fails to have the intended persuasive impact, people often grow frustrated, and disagreement becomes conflict. There’s a better way.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, June 4, 2023
Cecile Robilliard on flute, Palm Coast Farmers’ Market, what makes you a conspiracy theorist, and 2023 on pace for a record-breaking year of mass killings in the United States.
Drag Queen Story Hour Is Not What You Think
Contrary to misconceptions, exposing children to diverse gender identities and expressions supports their natural development. Further, it fosters inclusive and accepting communities and school environments, which is fundamental for developing well-adjusted adults.
To Survive Poverty, Prayer Helped. But So Did Government.
In Florida, I worked three jobs — not enough to make ends meet, but enough to disqualify me from food stamps and cash assistance. Politicians who cut our safety net say these strict rules encourage work, but for me it was the opposite.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, June 3, 2023
Sunshine and Sandals Social at Cornerstone, The First Saturday Creative Bazaar Arts and Craft Market, Nate Persily on Alex Jones type conspiracists.
Debt Deal a Rare Triumph for Political Center
The House vote on GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s deal with Democratic President Joe Biden to suspend the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025, successful passage was undoubtedly carried by centrists. The middle may be shrinking, but it still exists, and it is critical in a closely divided Congress.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, June 2, 2023
Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord on Free For All Fridays, First Friday in Flagler Beach, the irony of Student Safety Month, Edward Gibbon on Christianity’s effect on progress.
LGBTQ Rights Under Assault Even in Israel
Many Israelis fear that hard-line conservative ministers will roll back LGBTQ rights. And LGBTQ issues are a potent symbol of a chasm fueling debate over the judicial overhaul: secular and religious Israeli Jews’ very different visions of the Jewish state.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, June 1, 2023
Two Florida medical boards look to curtail transgender treatment, the New College of Florida board meets, on the verb “rootle,” a Knausgaard bit.
AI May Be an ‘Extinction Risk,’ But How?
This week a group of well-known and reputable AI researchers signed a statement comparing the risk posed by artificial intelligence to pandemics and nuclear war. But its authors should probably be more specific and clarify their concerns.
DeSantis Lifts Hold on Killing of Duane Owen as Attorneys Battle Over Competence
Gov. Ron DeSantis has lifted a temporary hold on the planned June 15 execution of convicted murderer Duane Owen, as attorneys for Owen and the state continue to battle at the Florida Supreme Court about whether he is mentally competent to be put to death.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Weekly Chess Club for Teens at the county library, Separation Chat by the Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, where has Clint Eastwood been, when Keith Jarrett trashed Wynton Marsalis.
A Former Nun’s Account of Abuse and Brainwashing
“Any thoughts of escaping to a more natural life was regarded as being sinful. The idea of being unfaithful to your vocation was a step on the way to hell. It would be a mortal sin.” So spoke the author’s mother, 15 when she entered a convent in Ireland in 1950 and 34 by the time she finally managed to leave.
Voters Approved an Amendment For Racial Equity in Districts. DeSantis Wants It Ignored.
A lawsuit filed by voting-rights groups focuses a Jacksonville-area district that helped elect Black Democrat Al Lawson until a DeSantis plan redrew it and installed two white Republicans instead. Now DeSantis is asking a court to ignore a 2010 constitutional amendment requiring “Fair Districts.”
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Flagler Palm Coast High and Matanzas High School graduations, docket sounding in court, the Newseum’s demise and its last exhibit, on LGBTQ rights, as Target caves to the fanatics, the poisons of Alex Jones’s algorithms.
Should the Paleo Diet Go Back to the Cave It Came From?
The Paleo Diet urges us to mimic our prehistoric ancestors’ food choices. In practice, this means eschewing dairy products, cereals, pulses and processed sugar, and consuming vegetables, fruit, nuts, pasture-raised meat and wild-caught seafood instead. Clinical research has yet to substantiate its purported health benefits.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, May 29, 2023
Palm Coast and county government hold Memorial Day ceremonies at 8 and 10 a.m., Walt Whitman on soldiers in battle, looking at Vermeer anew.
Remembering Martin Amis
Martin Amis, pre-eminent novelist-critic of his generation, has died at the age of 73. His dazzling, pyrotechnic prose dominated the world of English writing from the mid-1970s through the fin de siècle.
A Trans Teen No Longer Feels Welcome in Florida. So She Left.
Josie moved more than a thousand miles from St. Augustine — and her parents — to start a new life in Rhode Island to escape a state where Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP Legislature politicized and passed policies that de-legitimize and demonize trans people.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, May 28, 2023
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, the Ron DeSantis legislative scorecard, “Shenandoah,” the anonymous traditional, for brass, Willa Cather’s “Double Birthday.”
The Colorado River Wins a Reprieve. Now the Hard Part.
Arizona, California and Nevada have narrowly averted a regional water crisis by agreeing to reduce their use of Colorado River water over the next three years. This deal represents a temporary solution to a long-term crisis. Nonetheless, it’s an important win for the region.
Gun Groups Perpetuate Militia Myth to Keep Whatever Arms They Dream Of
This idea of the average American stockpiling an arsenal seems rather quaint when compared to the military and the taxpayer funded arsenal we’ve allowed the government to develop. It’s kind of like putting up a macaroni collage right next to the Monet.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, May 27, 2023
The City of Palm Coast Public Works Department hosts its Touch-a-Truck event, Gamble Jam, Rachel Carson and the sense of childhood wonder.
The Supreme Court Just Plundered Wetlands Protection
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in Sackett v. EPA that federal protection of wetlands encompasses only those wetlands that directly adjoin rivers, lakes and other bodies of water. This is an extremely narrow interpretation of the Clean Water Act that could expose many wetlands across the U.S. to filling and development.
He Was Convinced the School Board Was Pushing “Transgender BS.” He Was Arrested. And Emboldened.
A parent had grievances to air about library books “trying to convert kids to gay,” and about mask and vaccine mandates. So he joined an activist group and headed to a school board meeting. This story explores how school board meetings across the country are fomenting conflicts and controversies that have led to violence and arrests.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, May 26, 2023
The Scenic A1A Pride Committee meets, the Blue 22 Forum meets, The Economist asks whether DeSantis can beat Trump, book-banners’ deepest fears.
Life Is Cheaper in Red States. But People Die Younger.
More and more Americans are moving from Democratic-leaning blue states to Republican-voting red ones, and one of the effects of this change is that they are relocating to places with lower life expectancy.