The African American community is experiencing record low unemployment, record highs in income and educational attainment, and has seen a massive decline in income poverty since the 1960s. Despite all that, the check for racial economic equality is still bouncing. Without intervention, it will take centuries for Black wealth to catch up with white wealth in this country.
Rights & Liberties
Welcome to the Old South, The Myth that Refuses to Die
In Florida, we prefer not to discuss ‘slavery’ unless we are enlightening the ignorant about how it was Not That Bad. You have only to read Miss Margaret Mitchell’s brilliant and perfectly accurate novel to see the Truth of this.
Elise Stefanik’s Immoral Compass, and Ours
When Rep. Elise Stefanik grilled then-Harvard President Claudine Gay about her “moral clarity” about genocide and bullying on campus, Israel was in its eighth week of the most genocidal assault on Palestinians in the history of Arab-Jewish wars predating even the creation of Israel in 1948. None of it was relevant to Stefanik, because when Israel is the subject matter, there are no two sides to the story. There are no interpretations. There is no discussion. None permissible, anyway. There is only dogma. Anything else is heresy.
As Escambia County Bans 1,600 Titles, Including Dictionaries, a Lawsuit Is Cleared for Trial
A federal judge cleared the way for a First Amendment challenge to decisions by the Escambia County School Board to remove or restrict access to school library books. An updated list of Escambia’s now-1,600 banned titles includes five dictionaries, The Guinness Book of World Records, a Thurgood Marshall biography, Sherlock Holmes and many more.
Bill That Would Allow Kids 16 and 17 to Work Over 30 Hours a Week During School Year Advances
The proposal by Tampa Bay area Republican Rep. Linda Chaney (HB 49) would allow 16 and 17-year olds to work more than 30 hours a week during the school year and allow for fewer mandatory work breaks. The proposal was approved on a party-line vote in a House committee and is one committee stop away from making it to the House floor for final approval.
The Brendan Depa I Have Come To Know
Brendan Depa, the former Matanzas High School special education student who pleaded guilty to the beating of Joan Naydich, his paraprofessional, last February, will be sentenced on Jan. 31. Gene Lopes is a retired special education teacher who has spent the last several months tutoring Depa at the Flagler County jail. Here’s his experience.
Lawmakers File Bills to Prohibit Youths Under 16 From Having Social Media Accounts, and End Existing Ones
The bills would require social-media platforms to bar minors under 16 from creating social-media accounts and use “reasonable age verification” methods to check the ages of people when accounts are created. The bills also would require social-media platforms to terminate existing accounts that are “reasonably known” by the platforms to be held by minors younger than 16 and would allow parents to request that minors’ accounts be terminated.
GOP Measure Would Forbid Government Agencies from Using Individuals’ Preferred Pronouns
Mirroring a House bill filed in November, a Senate Republican on Thursday proposed a measure that would place restrictions on government agencies in the use of personal pronouns.
For Supreme Court, a ‘Monumental’ Decision on Donald Trump’s Ballot Eligibility
Momentous questions for the U.S. Supreme Court and momentous consequences for the country are likely now that the court has announced it will decide whether former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump is eligible to appear on the Colorado ballot.
An Interview with Acclaimed Civil Rights Attorney and Equal Justice Initiative Founder Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal clinic in Montgomery, Ala., that’s made strides on prisoners’ behalf, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a six-acre remembrance space highlighting the racial terrorism campaign that saw the lynching of over 6,500 victims, including women and children. In a wide-ranging interview, he reflects on the state of race in America and how honest accounts of history can help overcome resistance to progress.
School Board and Other Elected Officials Could Soon Be Barred from Censoring People on Social Media
At stake is what constitutes state action – or action taken in an official governmental capacity – on social media. Under the First Amendment, officials engaging in state action cannot restrict individuals’ freedom of speech and expression. The ruling could establish whether social media accounts of public officials should be treated as personal or governmental.
With 3,500 Petitions from Flagler Voters, Abortion-Right Ballot Measure Meets Signature Requirements
Some 910,946 valid signatures have been tallied for a constitutional amendment proposal that would protect the right to an abortion in Florida until the viability of a fetus. That topped a requirement of submitting 891,523 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Flagler County alone submitted 4,800 petitions, 3,543 of them valid.
Lawsuit Blames DeSantis for Wresting Control from FDLE to Keep Travel Records Secret
A legal battle has intensified about public records related to travel by Gov. Ron DeSantis, as The Washington Post accused the governor’s office of taking “control” of Florida Department of Law Enforcement compliance with the state’s Sunshine Law. A lawsuit about the records has roiled the FDLE, resulting in whistleblower complaints and the ouster of two high-ranking officials.
Judge Rules Migrant Held Responsible for Death of Deputy After Arrest Is Incompetent to Stand Trial
Circuit Judge R. Lee Smith ruled that Vergilio Aguilar Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant held responsible for the death of a St. Johns County deputy of a cardiac episode several minutes after Mendez was arrested, is incompetent to proceed to trial and is to receive “competency restoration” while held at the Volusia County Branch Jail. The order suspends further criminal proceedings, but may be abrogated over the next 60 days should the treatment restore competency to the court’s satisfaction.
A Colorado Justice’s Dissent on Insurrectionists Signals Trouble or Democracy
Chief Justice Brian Boatright’s opinion in the Colorado Supreme Court case excluding Donald Trump from the ballot encapsulates a misunderstanding of — or refusal to accept — Section 3 of the 14th Amendment even among some of the nation’s highest ranking jurists, and it reflects the unfolding failure of U.S. institutions to sustain constitutional order in the face of an existential threat.
Migrants Ace Their Citizenship Tests Routinely. Could You?
At least 9 out of 10 applicants for legal immigration routinely pass a rigorous citizenship test, but an alarmingly high percentage of native-born Americans experience difficulty listing the three branches of government (“Lather, rinse, repeat?”) or remembering the name of their state legislator.
From Abortion to Disney, Guns, Pot, Trans and Social Media Law: 10 Florida Court Cases to Watch in 2024
High-profile Florida cases in state and federal courts in 2024 include a challenge to the 15-week abortion ban, Disney’s claim that the DeSantis administration illegally retaliated against it, a challenge to the state’s age-restriction on buying long guns, whether the wording of a constitutional amendment legalizing recreational pot can head for the ballot, and several more.
‘That Was My Home’: The Homeless Are Being Purged Out of Their Encampments
More than 653,000 Americans are experiencing homelessness in 2023, a 12% increase from last year. Among the people experiencing homelessness, 64% are unsheltered. As tent encampments continue to dot urban landscapes — strewn around parks, along sidewalks, lining highways or sometimes abutting schools — many cities have increased their sweeps, some governors have announced funding to clear encampments, and several states have outlawed the tent communities altogether.
Judge Mulls Trial Competency of Migrant Facing Manslaughter Charge in Sudden Death of Deputy After Arrest
Declaring it a “complex situation,” Circuit Court Judge R. Lee Smith at the end of a three-hour hearing today said he needed time to think before issuing a decision on whether Vergilio Aguilar Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant controversially charged with manslaughter in the death of a St. Johns County deputy Michael Kunovich last May, is competent to stand trial. Kunovich died several minutes after Mendez was arrested for resisting arrest after a stop-and-frisk encounter in St. Augustine.
Taking On Artificial Intelligence, Florida Legislature Will Contend Unpredictable Scenarios in Coming Session
As access to artificial intelligence, or AI, continues to spread, state lawmakers are poised to consider ways to set up guardrails around a technology that one senator said has “outpaced government regulation.” Measures filed by Senate and House Republicans target issues such as potential defamation of people using AI in media, use of the technology in political advertising and the creation of a state council that would look at potential legislative reforms.
A Constitutional Scholar Explains Colorado Court’s Trump Ballot Ban
Taken as a whole, the structure of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment leads to the conclusion that Donald Trump is one of those past or present government officials who by violating his oath of allegiance to the constitutional rules has forfeited his right to present and future office.
Ban on Felons Owning Guns Survives as Florida Supreme Court Rejects Challenge
Florida Supreme Court Justices on Monday issued an order rejecting an appeal by William Edenfield, who was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after a 2020 shooting incident in Leon County. Edenfield went to the Supreme Court in August after the 1st District Court of Appeal rejected his Second Amendment arguments.
Anti-LGBTQ Activist Wants Flagler Library System to Stop Paying $173 Membership to American Library Association
The Flagler County library system is hoping to fend off an attempt by a South Florida activist opposed to LGBTQ equality to sever library staff memberships in the American Library Association and its affiliates, though currently that entire cost amounts to $173. It is the latest flare-up of an ongoing push by the far right in schools and libraries to restrict or ban LGBTQ-related materials, themes or associations, particularly in connection with children’s access or programs, though in this case the connection–if there is one–is tenuous.
Federal Judge Will Hear Arguments in Escambia Schools’ Book-Banning Case in January
The case is playing out amid wide-ranging debates in Florida and other states about school officials removing or restricting access to books. The plaintiffs in the Escambia County case contend that the school board’s decisions violated First Amendment and constitutional equal-protection rights. Attorneys for the school board argue the judge should dismiss the case because the board has authority to decide which books to purchase and keep on school shelves.
Florida Court Rules Child Is Mature Enough to Be a Mother, But Not to Have an Abortion
A state appeals court Friday upheld a Calhoun County circuit judge’s ruling that blocked a minor from having an abortion without notification and consent of a parent or guardian. The decision’s implicit reasoning is that the child is nevertheless mature enough to carry the baby to term.
The Immoral Gamble of ‘Shopping’ for Health Insurance
Between high premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, other out-of-pocket costs, and the enduring myth that Americans still get to choose their own doctor, health insurance has become a maze of forced costs and limited options based on impossible choices you shouldn’t have to make. Obamacare has failed. Private insurance is often an overpriced, over-subsidized racket. Medicare alone remains the only viable solution with universal application.
Proposal to Rollback Florida’s Child Labor Laws, Masked as Opportunities for Teens, Clears Its 1st Hurdle
A proposal that would eliminate restrictions on the number of hours that 16- and 17-year-olds could work received its first hearing in the Florida Legislature on Wednesday, where it passed on a party-line vote in the GOP-controlled committee. The measure limits restrictions that now prohibit 16- and 17-year-olds from working more than six consecutive days in any one week or working 4 hours continuously without a break.
The Minefield of College Free Speech Codes
Private colleges and universities have speech codes that allow them to punish certain speech. But in their testimony before Congress about antisemitism on their campuses, college presidents tripped, triggered a furor over their prevarications. and one of them resigned after failing to respond clearly to a simple question.
How DeSantis and GOP Are Undermining Abortion-Right Ballot Initiatives Before the Vote
As abortion-rights initiative pick up victories in referendums, Republicans across the nation, exemplified by Florida’s Ron DeSantis, want to change the terms of the debate by injecting it with misinformation or overriding the referendum process.
Abortion Rights Supporters Reach 77% of Needed Signatures for Constitutional Amendment Ballot Measure
Supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ensure abortion rights in Florida continue moving closer to submitting enough petition signatures to get on the 2024 ballot. The Florida Division of Elections website Friday showed 687,700 valid petition signatures for the measure, which is sponsored by the political committee Floridians Protecting Freedom.
Flagler Beach Property Owner Liam Mackin, 70, Identified as Anti-Semitic Hate Crime Suspect Just as He Flees
Flagler Beach police identified the man allegedly responsible for a series of hate crimes against local business on Nov. 19 and 20 as Liam Mackin, a 70-year-old resident and property owner with his wife at the Bridgewater condominiums in Flagler Beach, unit E101, since 2015. He has been a local resident for 30 years. But he has fled to Ireland. Mackin deliberately and very specifically targeted businesses that were either owned by Israelis or Americans of Jewish heritage, or had business or family affiliations with Jewish concerns.
A Poisoned Tree Grows in St. Augustine
An 18-year-old migrant faces an aggravated manslaughter charge for the death by heart attack of the sheriff’s deputy who arrested him on a resisting charge, while the migrant was on a sidewalk eating dinner and speaking to his mother by phone at his motel in St. Augustine. The death of the deputy was a tragedy. The charge against the migrant compounds it with a miscarriage of justice in the making.
The Deeply Rooted Biases Biases Behind Transgender Athlete Bans
In 2023, 24 states had laws or regulations in place prohibiting transgender students from participating on public school athletic teams consistent with their gender identity. These bans mean that a person whose sex assigned at birth was male but who identifies as a girl or woman cannot play on a girls or women’s athletic team at a public school in that state. State-level politics and public biases against transgender people are largely to blame.
In Florida, Voter-Suppression Is Essential to GOP’s Edge
Republicans in 2023 are on a campaign to emulate what occurred during Reconstruction by disenfranchising African Americans, engaging in severe gerrymandering so that the odds are turn in their favor in 2024. Their harsh and uncompromising position on abortion is costing them support and has led to losses in primaries. But the GOP’s political strategy is explained by former President Donald Trump, who has said the quiet part out loud: Republicans will never again win elections if democratic reforms make voting easier.
Hearing Set in Ban of Palestinian Group at USF
A federal judge has scheduled a hearing Jan. 26 in a lawsuit filed by the group Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida after state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues issued an order targeting such organizations.
Florida Appeals Court Upholds Disenfranchising Black Voters in North Florida, a Victory for DeSantis
A state appeals court has rejected a legal attempt to save a Black-opportunity congressional district in North Florida, relying on legal reasoning never raised by the parties to the case: That the district originally was devised to benefit Democrats, not Blacks specifically.
The Kissinger Delusion
This man’s death, way overdue–Kissinger lives to be 100 but Hank Williams, born the same year, dies at 30?–is a tragedy only in one sense: despite the copious and undisputed record about one of the most brutal men of the 20th century, Kissinger is still garnering bootlicking tributes. The tragedy is that America does not learn. It rinses the blood and repeats.
Citing ‘Broken and Arbitrary System,’ Plaintiffs Argue Against Ending Felon Voting Rights Case
Plaintiffs allege that the way state and local officials have carried out Amendment 4, designed to restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences, violated the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act. Attorneys for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and four individual plaintiffs filed a 61-page court document opposing a request by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, county clerks of court and elections supervisors to dismiss the lawsuit.
Statewide Grand Jury Attacks Organizations That Help Migrants and Calls for Further Crackdowns
A statewide grand jury has issued a 146-page report that calls for taking a series of steps to try to curb illegal immigration. The report includes calling for further attempts to crack down on businesses that hire undocumented immigrants, probing non-government organizations and collecting fees on transfers of money from Florida to other countries.
Proposed Florida Law Would Ban Local Governments and Contractors from Recognizing Preferred Pronouns
A legislative proposal to bar state and local governments and contractors or nonprofits drawing state money from recognizing employees’ preferred gender pronouns if they differ from their biological sex has drawn criticism from LGBTQ+ Democrats as “a disturbing escalation of right-wing extremism in Florida.”
Trump’s Draconian Immigration Policies Are Setting the Tone for GOP’s Presidential Contenders
What were once considered far-right policies are now common talking points among the GOP candidates. That includes support for building a wall along the Southern U.S.-Mexico border and ending birthright citizenship for American-born children of undocumented immigrants — a protection that is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Coded Racism in Jason Aldean’s Song Exposes Problem with Small-Town Values
The Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, has come to represent the overlooked cultural divisions between urban and small-town America.
The courthouse was the site of the lynching of a Black teenager in 1927. It also served as a rallying spot for white vigilantes who assembled there during race riots in 1946. It is now the focus of a modern-day controversy over singer Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town.”
Flagler’s Top Prosecutor’s Advice to New Cops: Be Truthful, No Tattoos, and Don’t Be ‘a D*ckhead’
Five new recruits for the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and Flagler Beach police got a blunt, unfiltered briefing on how to testify in court from Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis. It was a rare look, witnessed by FlaglerLive, at the dynamic between prosecutors and cops on the usually confidential fringes of court cases, and at how prosecutors prepare, guide and at times admonish police before they take the witness stand, since a cop’s testimony can make or break a case.
Justice in Palestine Student Group at USF Sues DeSantis Over His Order to Ban It
The University of South Florida chapter of the group National Students for Justice in Palestine has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis and state higher-education officials over an order that called for disbanding the organization on campuses.
At Least 3 Locations in Flagler Beach Are Target of Anti-Semitic Graffiti; Police Looking for Offender
At least three business locations in downtown Flagler Beach were the target of anti-Semitic graffiti in Flagler Beach between Sunday and Monday. Flagler Beach police have surveillance footage of the individual, and are looking for the public’s help to identify him.
Eight Florida Cities Get Perfect Scores in LGBTQ+ Equality Report
Despite enduring a year that advocates have derided as the “most anti-LGBTQ legislative session in history,” a nationwide report gives eight Florida cities perfect 100% scores when it comes to assessing LGBTQ+ equality in the areas of municipal policies, laws, and services. Getting maximum scores of 100 in Florida are: Tampa, Wilton Manors, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Miami, Oakland Park, Orlando, and St. Petersburg.
U.S. Supreme Court Rejects DeSantis Attempt to Enforce Drag Show Law Halted in Lower Courts
A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration that would have allowed enforcement of a new state law aimed at preventing children from attending drag shows. U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell this summer issued a statewide preliminary injunction against the law, finding that it violated First Amendment rights.
Realtors Want Their Signs in Rights of Way. Palm Coast Warns that Hate and Other Signs Would Follow.
Palm Coast Council member Ed Danko is leading the charge on behalf of Realtors and other businesses to open up city rights of way to their advertising signs on weekends. Fellow Council member Theresa Pontieri is warning that doing so would open up rights of ways to every sign imaginable, including hate signs, while overwhelming the city’s Code Enforcement Department. The council is split on an issue it will have to decide soon.
UF Ordered to Pay $372,000 in Legal Fees in Case that Violated Professors’ 1st Amendment Rights
A federal judge has awarded more than $372,000 in legal fees to attorneys who represented professors in a high-profile lawsuit against the University of Florida over being able to serve as expert witnesses in court cases.
Condemn Palestinians’ Genocidal Rhetoric–and Israel’s Genocidal War
There’s unquestionably some river-to-the-sea anti-Semitism out there. It should be and is being denounced. But conflating all criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is itself a form of bigotry that places Palestinian lives beneath contempt and Israeli policy above reproach, even as swaths of Gaza in November 2023 look like Dresden in February 1945 and anti-Palestinian rhetoric in media and government continues to be indistinguishable from the vilest racism.