When James Comer, the House Republican currently leading the investigation into President Biden and not finding any corruption, heard that foreign governments spent over $7 million at Trump properties, his response was that Trump’s businesses are “legitimate” and those of the Biden family are not.
I expected Comer to have a stupid excuse for continuing his snipe hunt into President Biden while ignoring clear and obvious corruption with Donald Trump and his family, and Comer didn’t disappoint.”
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Weather: Mostly cloudy. A chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 60s. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40 percent. Monday Night: Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. A slight chance of showers in the evening, then a chance of showers after midnight. Not as cool with lows around 60. Southeast winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Chance of rain 40 percent. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
In Court: It’s trial week. Here’s the list of potential cases. Most cases are either resolved or continued.
Qualifying period for Flagler Beach and Bunnell municipal elections: The qualifying period for both municipal elections, to be held on March 19, is this week, from Monday, Jan. 8 at 9 a.m. to Friday, Jan. 12 at 5 p.m. in Flagler Beach, noon in Bunnell. In Flagler Beach, the mayor’s seat and one commission seat, that of Eric Cooley, are up. One candidate has filed so far for the mayor’s seat (Patricia Louise King), two have filed for the commission seat (Robert Cunningham and Doug Bruno O’Connor).
The Flagler County Commission meets at 9 a.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 E. Moody Boulevard, Building 2, Bunnell. Access meeting agendas and materials here. The five county commissioners and their email addresses are listed here. Meetings stream live on the Flagler County YouTube page.
A Flagler County Commission Workshop is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The commission will discuss the issues at Bulow RV Park, where residents say they are being unfairly evicted. A special meeting may follow.
The Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets at 4:30 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast. The meeting of the seven-member board is open to the public.
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, where the City Commission is holding its meetings until it is able to occupy its own City Hall on Commerce Parkway likely in early 2023. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
In Coming Days:
Saturday, January 13: Keep Palm Coast Clean: It’s a Litter-ALL Effort: You can make a difference and be part of the collective effort to keep our city litter-free. Join the City of Palm Coast for the “Keep Palm Coast Clean” litter pick-up event on Saturday, January13th, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers will meet at the Public Works Department located at 1 Wellfield Grade, just off US-1. Multiple roadways are designated as focus areas for the event. See the list here. There will be awards. The city will provide: Litter-Ready Gloves, Eco-Friendly Trash Bags, Refreshments to Fuel Your Effort, Safety Measures for a Litter-Free Day. The schedule:
8 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Briefing & introduction along with location assignments
9 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. On-site cleanup
12 p.m. – Closing Ceremony to Celebrate a Litter-Free Victory
The event is FREE to participate in and we’re actively seeking volunteers, like you, who want to make a difference in our community! Individuals or groups interested in volunteering can send an email to [email protected].
Notably: Captain Yossarian, H.L. Mencken and Bryan Stevenson might have a different take on the numbers below, which seem to indicate to what extent the United States has become a nation more martial than civil, more Sparta than Athens. Small business, trusted more than courts or schools? Really? The military and police in second and third place, ahead of all other institutions? It’s a cliche now to rank the press and Congress somewhere near the catacombs. The press thing always seems to be mathematically suspect considering that by definition, no one knows anything, or very little, by way of current affairs, without the press. I’ll leave it to the fascinating Michael Schudson to provide a counterweight to the cliche, in the twin videos below and the quote at the end. If you have time to read the entirety of his Daedalus article, I recommend it.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
“The media” is not a readily comprehensible entity. What further complicates the analysis of declining trust is the underlying premise that the high level of trust in the early 1960s we have descended from was a good thing. But trust in institutions is salutary for democracy only to a point. The decline in trust in most institutions that public polling has documented since the 1960s was a decline from what was arguably much too unquestioning a level of trust. This is clearly true with the federal government, the media, banking, corporate America, organized labor, and organized religion. Trust must be distinguished from complacency, the kind of complacency that accepted President Eisenhower’s lies about the U-2 spy plane, President Kennedy’s lies about the “missile gap,” President Johnson’s lies about the war in Vietnam, and President Nixon’s lies about Watergate. It required the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s to shake that overgenerous level of deference to American political institutions and reduce it to a level of “civic skepticism” more fitting for a democratic society.
–From “What Does “Trust in the Media” Mean?” by Michael Schudson, Daedalus (2022).
Pogo says
@P.T.
Rosebud.
FWIW, I agree wholeheartedly with your endorsement of today’s videos.
Pogo says
@Somewhere else, something else
“Humans
The rise and fall of the mysterious culture that invented civilisation
Proto-cities built from 6200 years ago in eastern Europe upend our ideas about when civilisation began and why people made the move from rural to urban living
By Laura Spinney 24 February 2021
AROUND 6200 years ago, farmers living on the eastern fringes of Europe, in what is now Ukraine, did something inexplicable. They left their neolithic villages and moved into a sparsely inhabited area of forest and steppe. There, in an area roughly the size of Belgium between the modern cities of Kiev and Odessa, they congregated at new settlements up to 20 times the size of their old ones…”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933230-900-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-mysterious-culture-that-invented-civilisation/
Is carbon dating “fake news” too?
https://www.google.com/search?q=carbon+dating