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Weather: Mostly sunny. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the morning, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 90s. Southwest winds around 5 mph, becoming southeast in the afternoon. Chance of rain 50 percent. Heat index values up to 108.
Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening, then partly cloudy after midnight. Lows in the mid 70s. Southeast winds around 5 mph in the evening, becoming light and variable. Chance of rain 50 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Flagler Beach here.
- tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
In Court: No drug court today. Circuit Judge Terence Perkins holds a pair of sentencings and treatment hearings, and hears a motion to dismiss a care.
Health Clinic Scoring Meeting, 1 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, for those interested in county government’s contracting with a health care provider.
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:30 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are: Hop on for stories and songs with Miss Doris.
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy qualify. |
Notably: The current cover to Charlie Hebdo in Paris: “Vote so it’s not for the last time.” At first glance it looks like a plea to save Charlie Hebdo. No. It was a plea to save the Republic, with the Rassemblement National, the neo-fascist party, breathing down the neck of the legislative elections last month. The French did their part. The cover works just as well for the American election, with that hand holding the ballot now no longer Biden’s thank heavens (otherwise the Democrats would have turned Jim Jones). The Charlie Hebdo cover is bitingly ironic in light of Trump’s assurance to an ostensibly Christian audience that if he’s elected in November, they “won’t have to vote anymore.” The fuller statement, in context: “And again, Christians get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you. Get out. You’ve got to get out and vote. In four years you don’t have to vote again we’ll have it fixed sop good you’re not gonna have to vote.” Not just once. Three times. This isn’t the sort of “bloodbath” statement his sycophants can claim was quoted out of context, misunderstood, not intended. It is as the Charlie Hebdo cover says, but to the other side.
—P.T.
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Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Blue 24 Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Flagler County’s Cold-Weather Shelter Opens
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
It’s Back! Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
For the full calendar, go here.
Voting is a simple act, but it is also an act of faith, a pledge of allegiance to the future of the country. All across America, people waited peacefully in long lines to vote-despite the disease, despite attempts to discredit or invalidate their vote, despite postal delays, despite threats of Russian or Iranian meddling, despite warnings from the White House that the president would not go quietly if he lost. They voted as if their country depended on it.
–From Lawrence Wright’s The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid (2021).
Ray W. says
Every month I check the performance of the stock market during different presidential administrations.
Not because it is the best way to compare policies (it isn’t). Not because every administration faces the same headwinds (they don’t).
I do it because so many commenters seem to place great faith that their leaders are always best and that certain other leaders are destroying America.
Through July 31st (42 months into each president’s first term):
Clinton 67%
Obama 62.6%
HW Bush 44.9%
Biden 36.2%
Trump 33.o%
Reagan 17.7%
W Bush -6.9%
Make of it whatever you will.
James says
https://www.forbes.com/sites/randywatts/2023/05/12/how-accurate-is-sell-in-may-and-go-away/
Ray W. says
Given the facially provable idea that certain FlaglerLive commenters argue that food prices have doubled over the past three years (they haven’t), and that gasoline prices should be $2.00 per gallon (they shouldn’t), I looked up average inflation rates during presidential terms, dating from the Eisenhower years.
Eisenhower (1953-1961) 1.4%
Kennedy (1961-1963) 1.1%
Johnson (1963-1969) 2.6% (the early two years of “stagflation”)
Nixon (1969-1974) 5.7%
Ford (1974-1977) 8.0%
Carter (1977-1981) 9.9%
Reagan (1981-1989) 4.6% (the last two years of “stagflation”)
HW Bush (1989-1993) 4.3%
Clinton (1993-2001) 2.6%
W Bush (2001-2009) 2.8%
Obama (2009-2017) 1,4%
Trump (2017-2021) 1.9% (the first few months of pandemic inflation)
Biden (2021-present) 5.7%
Make of it what you will.
Ray W. says
Per today’s WSJ, in a June interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, former President Trump was reported as saying “the Fed’s current rate setting is ‘very tough’ for the economy but that moving to lower rates before the election is something central bank officials ‘know they shouldn’t be doing.'”
Does thing mean the Trump campaign is taking the position that reducing lending rates will look good for the opposition.
Per today’s WSJ, yesterday three Democratic Senators sent a letter to Fed Chairman Powell urging him to cut rates after yesterday’s end to the July meeting among 17 Fed economists, arguing that “because rates are unnecessarily high, failing to lower them would amount to ‘succumbing to political threats’ from Republicans.”
Does this mean that Democrats are taking the position that reducing lending rates now will look bad for the opposition.
What to do?
Chairman Powell apparently straddled the line. “Congress has, we believe, ordered us to conduct our business in a non-political way at all times, not just some of the time.”
The WSJ wrote: “Because inflation has come down a little faster than officials anticipated at their June meeting while the jobless rate is creeping higher, the Fed has a strong case to cut rates soon, said Eric Rosengren, who was president of the Boston Fed from 2007 until 2021.” He added, “The nonpolitical thing to do is, if you think policy will be too tight going into the end of the year, you should ease. … It is a political action to avoid taking what you think is the appropriate policy.”
Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed between 1995-2022, told the WSJ: “In all my experience, the way that the Fed has approached this is to keep their heads down, think about what the right policies were, and when they needed to make adjustments, they did what was necessary.”
So just what did Fed Chairman Powell say yesterday? The WSJ reported: “We never use our tools to support or oppose a political party, a politician or any political outcome. Anything that we do before, during or after the election will be based on the data, the outlook and the balance of risks, and not on anything else.”
The next Fed meeting is scheduled for September. The one after that? November, just after the election.
i
If in September the Fed cuts the lending rate, the Republican “pestilential” partisan members of faction on the FlaglerLive site will bray that the Fed is intentionally helping Democrats. If the Fed stays the course, without a rate cut, the Democratic “pestilential” partisan members of faction will howl that the Fed is intentionally helping Republicans. Me? I will argue that both are wrong. By law, the Fed has two mandates. Manage the national economy and maximize job growth. Bending to any political pressure, regardless of the source, would violate the mandates. If the seventeen economists who comprise the Fed’s brain trust think that the economic data supports a rate cut, cut the rates. If not, keep the rates the same.
Laurel says
Ray W.: Well, you got that right. Both the Democrats and the Republicans know that Americans have short, little memory spans, and both believe the President is solely responsible for each and every event.
We do not teach fiscal responsibility, or now, history in schools. I wonder why. I remember being shocked, as a teen, that Indiana kids had check books! What were those Hoosiers up to?
Critical thinking. We don’t need no stinking critical thinking!
I guess we’ll be sort of quoting Mel Brooks for many years to come.