When most people think of how governments stifle free speech, they think of censorship. That’s when a government directly blocks or suppresses speech. In the past, the federal government has censored speech in various ways. It has tried to block news outlets from publishing certain stories. It has punished political dissenters. It has banned sales of “obscene” books. Today, however, the federal government rarely tries to censor speech so crudely. It has less blatant but very effective ways to suppress dissent.
Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions
Florida School Appeals to U.S. Supreme Court to Allow Christian Prayer Over Stadium Loudspeakers
Arguing the case “presents issues of utmost importance for religious liberty in this country,” a Tampa Christian school wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a years-long battle about whether the school should have been barred from offering a prayer over a stadium loudspeaker before a high-school football championship game.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Flagler Beach is hosting a Public Engagement Forum on Pier Replacement, Weekly Chess Club for Teens at the Flagler County Public Library, on the death of Socrates and Lao-Kung on the arts by way of Hendrick van Loon.
Gutting USAID Is Musk’s Deadliest Legacy
By making disease-stemming drugs, clean water, and food available to millions, USAID has probably saved more lives worldwide than any entity in history. Since 2000, USAID’s programs have prevented the deaths of 58 million people from tuberculosis, 25 million from HIV/AIDS, and over 11 million from malaria. It’s given 70 million people access to safe drinking water and, working in concert with global vaccine initiatives, helped to nearly eradicate polio. All that is getting demolished.
The Authoritarian Message Behind Military Parades
Adolf Hitler turned his birthdays into massive national events with military parades, mass rallies and highly estheticized scenes of domestic cheer. These displays blurred dominance and intimacy, fatherliness and force — an approach revived today in the digital era, where curated imagery and social media entangle leadership with affective spectacle.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council meets in workshop, a special school board meeting on rule development, remembering the blood of Hungarians in the 1956 uprising, Albert Camus, and the Los Angeles uprising.
From Kent State to Los Angeles: Risks of Using Troops Against Civilians’ Legal Protests
Responding to street protests in Los Angeles against federal immigration enforcement raids, the president has ordered 2,000 soldiers from the California National Guard into the city on June 7 to protect agents carrying out the raids, and authorized the Pentagon to dispatch regular U.S. troops “as necessary” to support the California National Guard. The actions chillingly echo those that led up to the Kent State shootings. Some active-duty units, as well as National Guard troops, are trained today to respond to riots and violent protests – but their primary mission is still to fight, kill, and win wars. It is not policing.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, June 9, 2025
Heat index up to 105 today. A Flagler County Commission Workshop is scheduled for 1 p.m., the Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets, so does the Bunnell City Commission, Raymond Chandler on newspapers.
The Staggering Cost of Parents’ Substance Abuse on Their Children
About 1 in 4 U.S. children – nearly 19 million – have at least one parent with substance use disorder. This includes parents who misuse alcohol, marijuana, prescription opioids or illegal drugs. Our estimate reflects an increase of over 2 million children since 2020 and an increase of 10 million from an earlier estimate using data from 2009 to 2014.
Federal Appeals Court Rejects Florida’s Attempt to Override Halt to Law Targeting Migrants
A federal appeals court Friday kept on hold a new Florida law targeting undocumented immigrants who enter the state, rejecting arguments by Attorney General James Uthmeier that enforcement should at least temporarily be allowed.
Imagine If Florida Government Shut Down. Would Floridians Even Notice?
Instead of addressing our numerous problems, from unaffordable housing to unaffordable insurance to inflation to flooding, elected officials prefer to spend much of their time worrying about pronouns, boasting about helping Trump’s storm troopers arrest brown folks, or trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, June 8, 2025
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area, the Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, Al-Anon Family Groups, a day in the life of America circa 1903, when they were not quite the good old days.
A More Diverse Model for Diversity Training
Diversity training is more effective when it’s personalized, according to my new research in the peer-reviewed journal Applied Psychology. This personalized approach worked especially well for one particular group: the “skeptics.” When skeptics received training tailored to them, they responded more positively – and expressed a stronger desire to support their organizations’ diversity efforts – than those who received the same training as everyone else.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, June 7, 2025
It’s Bunnell History Day, with daylong activities, speakers, music, tours and all sorts of other things, staring at 9 a.m., Sunshine and Sandals Social at Cornerstone, Paul Bowles’s “Thousand Days for Mokhtar” and “The Echo.”
DCF Threatens Reporter Investigating Hope Florida Scandal with Cease and Desist
The Department of Children and Families (DCF) has sent a cease and desist letter to an Orlando Sentinel reporter who has been digging into the Hope Florida scandal. Jeffrey Schweers, the Sentinel’s Tallahassee bureau reporter, has broken some scoops regarding the embattled charity backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis.
Why Some Towns Lose Their Local News and Others Don’t
Five factors often decides whether local newspapers survive: Newspapers follow the money, not community needs. Newspapers don’t adequately serve diverse communities. Population growth doesn’t always save newspapers. Left or right? Local papers die either way.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, June 6, 2025
Free For All Fridays takes on the beach and Bunnell History Day, First Friday in Flagler Beach, First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, remembering D-Day through the eyes of Le Havre.
Young Americans’ Support for Free Speech Has Cratered
For much of the 20th century, young Americans were seen as free speech’s fiercest defenders. But now, young Americans are growing more skeptical of free speech. In 2021, 71% of young Americans said people should be allowed to insult the U.S. flag, which is a key indicator of support for free speech, no matter how distasteful. By 2024, that number had fallen to just 43% – a 28-point drop. Support for pro‑LGBTQ+ speech declined by 20 percentage points, and tolerance for speech that offends religious beliefs fell by 14 points.
AP, IB and AICE Face Sharp Cuts if Florida Senators Have Their Way
The Senate is warming to a new funding means for advanced courses allowing high school students to earn college credits. But the upper chamber has still only offered 70 percent of the funding calculated under a model in use for decades. A Senate PreK-12 Education Appropriations Committee offer Thursday provides $418 million in the form of a categorical grant to school districts. That’s more than $175 million less than the House wants to fund.
David Jolly Makes It Official: He’s Running for Governor as Newly-Minted Centrist Democrat
Former Republican Congressman David Jolly on Thursday became the first prominent Democrat to enter the 2026 gubernatorial race, saying he can attract middle-ground voters who want leaders to address issues such as rising housing and property-insurance costs. Jolly, 52, represented a Pinellas County district in Congress for nearly three years and more recently has been a cable-news political commentator. He hopes to become the first Democrat elected governor since Lawton Chiles won in 1994. Gov. Ron DeSantis cannot run again next year because of term limits.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, June 5, 2025
Soul Fire, a Summer Sunset Concert at Daytona State College’s Palm Coast Campus Amphitheater, model Yacht Club races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, ICE meets its match after a raid on a San Diego restaurant.
Poland Veers Right, a Bad Omen for EU, Ukraine and Women
Poland’s presidential election runoff will be a bitter pill for pro-European Union democrats to swallow. Nawrocki’s win has given anti-liberal, anti-EU forces across the continent a shot in the arm. It’s bad news for the EU, Ukraine and women. Meanwhile, Poland now has a bigger army than the United Kingdom, France and Germany. And living standards, adjusted for purchasing power, are about to eclipse Japan’s.
The Long and Violent History of Grievance Politics
By reasserting the importance of Columbus, the president took a stand against the toppling and vandalism of statues of Columbus. In this case, his act of retribution for his supporters focused on the holiday, which he could declare more easily than returning icons of a fallen man to empty pedestals. His statement invoked the politics of grievance – a sense of resentment or injustice fueled by perceived discrimination – that have characterized his actions for years.
Florida Law Restricting Ballot Initiatives Survives Court Challenge
A federal judge Wednesday refused to block parts of a new Florida law that placed additional restrictions on the state’s ballot-initiative process, turning down arguments by groups seeking to take issues to voters in 2026. As an example of the controversial parts of the law, it would shorten from 30 to 10 days the length of time to submit signed petitions to supervisors of elections. The judge agreed that the law makes it harder to get proposed amendments on the ballot, but disagreed tha it has severely burdened voters’ speech.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, June 4, 2025
It’s Code Enforcement Board time in Palm Coast, The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State meets for its weekly chat, the Flagler County Republican Club meets, and how China zips by the United States in the technology race while we build theme parks.
How Single-Stream Recycling Works, and What You Can Do to Make It Better
Single-stream recycling makes participating in recycling easy, but behind the scenes, complex sorting systems and contamination mean a large percentage of that material never gets a second life. Reports in recent years have found 15% to 25% of all the materials picked up from recycle bins ends up in landfills instead.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Physician John Cascone is back in court, the Palm Coast City Council meets, the Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board, which has not been a dull place lately, meets, the undermining of the nation’s weather and hurricane forecasting capabilities.
Is Every Nationalist a Potential Fascist?
Nationalism is typically seen as the preserve of right-wing politics, and it has long been a cornerstone of authoritarian and fascist governments around the world. In democratic countries the term “nationalism” is linked to national chauvinism – a belief in the inherent superiority of one’s own nation and its citizens – but the picture is more complex than it first seems.
Florida Wants Court Ruling Protecting Manatees Halted
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is asking a federal appeals court to quickly halt a district judge’s ruling that would require a series of steps aimed at protecting manatees in the northern Indian River Lagoon. The department last week filed a motion that argued the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should stay an injunction issued May 19 by U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza that included requirements such as temporarily preventing new septic tanks in the lagoon area. The state says the injunction should be put on hold until an underlying appeal of Mendoza’s ruling can play out.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, June 2, 2025
Jayden Jackson Sentencing, housing unaffordability in one graph, the Flagler County Commission meets, and when people didn’t so much live in their houses as camp in them.
Why Your Electricity Bill Is So High
Americans’ electricity bills tend to tick up each year in line with inflation. But upgrades to electric wires, reinforcing and protecting power lines from severe weather, and changing fuel costs – among other factors – are sending rates soaring. High electricity consumption from data centers and other sources of rising demand will likely cause further increases in the near future. U.S. electricity demand rose 3% in 2024 and is expected to rise even more rapidly in the coming years.
American Doctors Are Escaping to Canada. Guess Why.
The Medical Council of Canada said in an email statement that the number of American doctors creating accounts on physiciansapply.ca, which is “typically the first step” to being licensed in Canada, has increased more than 750% over the past seven months compared with the same time period last year — from 71 applicants to 615. Separately, medical licensing organizations in Canada’s most populous provinces reported a rise in Americans either applying for or receiving Canadian licenses, with at least some doctors disclosing they were moving specifically because of the new regime in the United States.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, June 1, 2025
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, Flannery O’Connor’s humor, and what she thinks of the smell of the National Geographic, Grace Community Food Pantry, comedians on college.
What Loneliness Epidemic? The Benefits Of Being Alone.
Loneliness and isolation are indeed social problems that warrant serious attention, especially since chronic states of loneliness are linked with poor outcomes such as depression and a shortened lifespan. But there is another side to this story, one that deserves a closer look. For some people, the shift toward aloneness represents a desire for what researchers call “positive solitude,” a state that is associated with well-being, not loneliness.
Sales Tax Cut Appears Dead as House and Senate Leaders Agree to More Limited Exemptions
Nearly a month after leaving the Capitol without passing a budget, House and Senate leaders said Friday night they had reached an agreement that will clear the way for lawmakers to begin hammering out details of a spending plan Tuesday. The agreement includes a $900 million tax cut through eliminating a tax on commercial leases, a longtime priority of business lobbyists. It also includes what the memos described as $350 million in “permanent sales tax exemptions targeted towards Florida families,” $250 million in debt reduction and $750 million in annual payments into a state rainy-day fund.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, May 31, 2025
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Wickline Park, along South Daytona Avenue, the sordidness of juvenile prisons and justice from Bicêtre to Florida.
Local Police Collaboration With ICE Undermines Public Safety
The surge of so-called 287(g) agreements between federal immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) and local police agencies sets a dangerous precedent for local policing, where forging relationships and building the trust of immigrants is a proven and effective tactic in combating crime. In my view, the expansion of 287(g) will erode that trust and makes entire communities – not just immigrants – less safe.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, May 30, 2025
Public workshop to discuss impact fees, at the Community Center, the Friday Blue Forum, Becs, the Argentine cartoonist, misfires with a piece that recalls cheap stereotypes, cartoons during the Napoleonic era.
When the Government Built Beautiful Homes for the Working Class
In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing 100,000 houses in more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years. These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems. Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today.
ICE Arrests More Than 100 in Raid of Construction Site Near FSU
Workers building an apartment complex near the Florida State University campus were detained and some 100 were arrested Thursday morning by agents from U.S. Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals Service, and Florida Highway Patrol. After entering a construction site in Tallahassee, federal and state officials asked workers for identification and separated them into two categories.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, May 29, 2025
Palm Coast Concert Series, 6 to 8 p.m. at the Stage at Town Center. Tonight’s band: Chillula. Drug Court convenes for the first time in a few weeks, Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, the American Conservative calls for the resignation of Randy Fine.
Governors Pick Up Where Presidents Abandoned Fight Against Climate Change
In recent years, the real progress against climate change has been outside the rooms where the official U.N. negotiations are held, not inside. In these meetings, the leaders of states and provinces talk about what they are doing to reduce greenhouse gases and prepare for worsening climate disasters. Many bilateral and multilateral agreements have sprung up like mushrooms from these side conversations.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
The River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) meets, a “spicy level warning” at Thai and I triggers recollections of budget motels past, “Baghdad Cafe,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Lost City.
The Euro Could Replace the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency
A global reserve currency is one that is extensively held by foreign Central Banks. Since the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement this position has been occupied by the US dollar and it still holds true – according to IMF data from late 2024, the dollar represented 54% of global official reserves, while the euro came in a distant second at 19%. That’s not set in stone.
By Law, $10 Million Hope Florida Deal Should Have Been Audited. It Wasn’t.
The Florida statute that governs money owed to the state requires the CFO to audit the “accounts of all the officers of the state” in regard to transactions like last year’s controversial settlement with Medicaid contractor Centene Corp. that saw $10 million in public proceeds funneled through the Casey DeSantis-affiliated Hope Florida Foundation to attack a referendum staunchly opposed by her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, to legalize cannabis. No such review or audit was conducted.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council meets in workshop to discuss coming increases in development impact fees, the Flagler School Board meets in the evening, William Faulkner’s “That Evening Sun” and primitive fears.
Why You Fall for Fake Health Information
Although there is a fire hose of health-related content online, not all of it is factual. In fact, much of it is inaccurate or misleading, raising a serious health communication problem: Fake health information – whether shared unknowingly and innocently, or deliberately to mislead or cause harm – can be far more captivating than accurate information. This makes it difficult for people to know which sources to trust and which content is worthy of sharing.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, May 26, 2025
Memorial Day ceremonies today at 8 a.m. in Palm Coast, 10 a.m. at Bunnell’s county government building, and 1 p.m. in veterans’ Park in Flagler Beach, Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, behind the words: tear down this wall.”
How Ronald Reagan Made Disney a Patriotic Site
Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Walt Disney World, near Orlando have become two of the most important spaces for the celebration and creation of American identity. One of the reasons for this is the legitimization a presidential visit bestows on a site. Forty years ago this month, Walt Disney World received a very special visitor: Ronald Reagan.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, May 25, 2025
SunBros Cafe Celebrates the Life of Travis Sundell, Clay Jones on Kristi Noem’s corpulent ignorance, Gamble Jam, André Gide on what gratefulness he owes his creator, Brian Greene on God’s choice.