To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Partly sunny. A chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 80s. Chance of rain 30 percent. Monday Night: Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 50s. Chance of rain 40 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 Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
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 in 2025. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
The Flagler County Beekeepers Association holds its monthly meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Flagler Agricultural Center, 150 Sawgrass Rd., Bunnell (the county fairgrounds). This is a meeting for beekeepers in Flagler and surrounding counties (and those interested in the trade). The meetings have a speaker, Q & A, and refreshments are served. It is a great way to gain support as a beekeeper or learn how to become one. All are welcome. Meetings take place the fourth Monday of every month. Contact Kris Daniels at 704-200-8075.
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.
Notably: There’s a new flag flying over the Flagler Beach Police Department station on South Flagler Avenue. City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur gifted the city the new flag, when he realized that the old one, a 3-by-5 flag, was too small for a 30-foot flagpole. “I thought it was ridiculous,” Belhumeur said. The new flag respects the dimensional ratio of the Betsy Ross flag (the one with the 13 original stars in a circle against the blue background, at least attributed to Betsy Ross, though that is more legend than reality). “I get emotional when I hear a good rendition of the national anthem,” he says–and when he sees the flag waving to a brisk breeze against a blue background. Belhumeur started his ninth and possibly final year on the commission this month.
View this profile on Instagram
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.
March 2025
Palm Coast City Council Workshop
Flagler County School Board Information Workshop
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
Budgeting by Values: A Virtual Class to Learn Budgeting Skills
NAACP Flagler Branch General Membership Meeting
Flagler County School Board Meeting
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Tyrese Patterson Sentencing
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
For the full calendar, go here.
I fear, for example, large flags of the Western world, in almost any context. When I see then hanging off the backs of pickup trucks anywhere in the United States, I have an instinctual negative reaction. In Canada, over the last few years, as a pale imitation of the U.S’s right wing has taken over more of the public sphere, I’ve come to develop the same reaction (despite the well-worn trope of slapping a Canadian flag on your luggage when traveling abroad as a preemptive declaration of niceness). The flags of France and the United Kingdom I can’t help but imagine looming over the homes and neighborhoods and nations of my ancestors in the Arab world. (Though I realize, as I write this, that I have no similar fear of Arab nations’ flags. Not a single one, including that of the country of my birth, induces any emotion at all, positive or negative.)
negative.)
–From Omar el Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025).
Jim says
Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022. Since 2022, his forces have repeated bombed and rocketed civilian targets continuously all the while claiming they are military targets. On the battlefield, his troops have murdered surrendered Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. He has stolen Ukrainian children and moved them to Russian to become “Russians”. He has lied continuously about the reasons for this invasion, claiming Ukrainians are “Nazis” while Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is a Jew. He has made claims that Ukraine is “historically Russian” and other asinine claims.
And Donald Trump thinks Putin is a great guy and somebody America should do business with.
Not long ago, the United States stood for democracy, freedom and justice. But we’ve elected Trump and all that is either gone or on its way out. Right now, Ukraine is fighting for its’ freedom and wants to be part of the West. Ukraine isn’t a perfect democracy (but who are we to point fingers?) but they are trying. It is in the West’s collective best interests that Ukraine remain free and defeat Russia if possible. They have done a tremendous job of destroying the Russian “war machine” and they’ve done this while America has often forced them to fight blindly and with minimum support. Trump cut off their access to our intelligence information and Russian made advances during that time. During Biden’s administration, the Republicans would not vote for military aid to Ukraine for over six months, forcing the Ukrainians to ration their ordnance and, again, lose territory to the Russians.
I think Biden’s administration did not go far enough in supporting Ukraine. I believe once the Ukrainians stopped the Russian invasion in 2022, NATO should have started supporting Ukraine with everything they needed to fight. Even with the West feeding the Ukrainians small amounts of tanks and aircraft, the Ukrainians have inflicted tremendous damage on Russia and, if provided what they need, could have pushed Russia back to the 2014 border or, at the very least, to the 2022 border.
But that is all history now. Trump is going to give Putin, the invader, all the land he’s taken by force. He’s likely going to stop providing aid to Ukraine. He’s likely to pull out of NATO so Putin can have the green light to further invade Europe after he’s had time to recover and rearm.
None of this is because Trump wants to see peace. That’s bullshit. What Trump wants is a Nobel Prize. Obama got one for questionable reasons and Trump is jealous. So jealous that he’s got no problem selling out Ukraine and Europe to get one. Only those MAGA nuts that refuse to look at the facts fail to see this for what it is.
I just hope that the Nobel Peace Prize committee sees this for the sell-out it is and does not give him this award. There should be honor associated with actions leading to peace and Trump does not even know the meaning of the word.
The United States is approaching pariah status in the world and it seems a lot of our citizens either don’t see it or don’t care. This is going to impact our future generations in ways I can’t imagine. It is clear to me that the next time the USA wants to stand up for something (what that might be is unclear to me right n0w), I’d lay a lot of money down betting the historic allies we’ve had will be reticent or unwilling to join us in that fight. And, at that point, it will be too late for the USA. So, MAGA, stand back and stand by while your dear leader leads us over a cliff.
Ray W, says
Earlier this month, President Trump told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that the U.S. needs Greenland for “international security” and for the benefits that its significant mineral resources could bring to the U.S.
President Trump has repeatedly stated that Greenland will be annexed. On one occasion, he said the annexation would take place “one way or another.”
Second Lady Usha Vance, accompanied by her three children, is set to travel to Greenland to “visit historical sites, learn about Greenlandic heritage, and attend the Avannaata Qimurssersu, Greenland’s national dogsled race.”
White House national security advisor, Mike Waltz and the energy secretary, Chris Wright, will join her while there. A visit to a U.S. military base is scheduled.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Egede told a Greenlandic news reporter that the United States could no longer be trusted and that Waltz’s presence during Mrs. Vance trip is a “demonstration of power” that is not “harmless”, describing it as a provocation by the Trump administration.
Prime Minister Egede added:
“We are now at a level where it can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit from a politician’s wife, which is a prospect. Because what is the security advisor doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to show a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is not to be misunderstood. …
“[Waltz] is Trump’s confidential and closest advisor, and his presence in Greenland alone will certainly make the Americans believe in Trump’s mission, and the pressure will increase after the visit. …
“Until recently, we could safely trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we liked to work closely.
“They have shown respect for us as a society, and we have established good cooperative relations that should last for many years. But that time is over, we must admit, because the new American leadership is completely and utterly indifferent to what we have stood together on so far, because now it is only a matter of them taking over our country over our heads.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
In a few short weeks, America has gone from trusted ally to perfidious street thug.
This is for the gullibly stupid among us.
Many of the world’s nations no longer see the United States as an ally capable of sticking to its treaties, military or economic. Russian commenters are announcing that the United States and Russia, together, will administer to a new Greenland in a developing Arctic world.
On a related but separate note, since 1805, the U.S. has accepted Marbury v. Madison as the template by which the courts hold the political power to interpret the nation’s laws. No longer. A major push is on by the administration to call for the gullibly stupid among us to launder the administration’s disinformation that the executive branch now interprets the nation’s laws, i.e., that the judiciary no longer holds that role.
More and more, it seems that Prussian Militarism is creeping into the new American view of statehood, which form of militarism was described in 1919 by the historical philosopher, Oswald Spengler as an illiberal, anti-democratic and anti-revolutionary form of thinking:
“The German, or more precisely Prussian instinct was: power belongs to the whole. The individual serves it. The whole is sovereign. The king is only the first servant of his state … Everyone has his place. He is commanded and he obeys.”
Is this what Ed P. meant when he commented that Trump had won and that, as a result, it was time for everyone who opposed him to get out of the way? In Ed P.’s new world order, the individual is commanded, and he obeys.
As I have commented ad nauseum: The Conservative Tradition began with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when Parlaiment funded an army stood up to King James II; he was forced to flee to France.
Since God had created kings to rule and to protect the people, Parliament then negotiated with William of Orange to assume the throne, but only if he agreed to never interfere with Parlaiment’s powers. The new king had his political powers and Parliament had its political powers. The concept of separation of powers took root in English law.
Parliament then passes a thirteen-clause Bill of Rights. The concept of individual rights took root in English law.
And the courts took on the role of interpreting the law, which was already known as the “common law.”
Churchill, in one of his many historical works, described the common law as a political ideal by which any Englishman could expect to be treated the same under the law no matter through which part of England he walked.
For centuries, then, to be a conservative meant adherence to concepts such as respect for separation of powers, and respect for individual rights, and respect for the rule of law. No longer. Today’s fake conservative Republican leaders stand before microphones and say that courts have no business telling the administration what the political power to deport individuals means under the invocation of the alien and sedition act by executive order when we are not at war.
Ray W, says
This is for Dennis C. Rathsam, who once commented with such certainty in all-caps that the Trump administration will not touch Social Security.
During yesterday’s “Meet the Press” opinion segment, Utah Senator John Curtis (R) told moderator Kristen Welker:
“We’re not being honest when we look people in the eye and say we’re not going to touch it (Social Security). If we don’t touch it, it touches itself. … You know that, right? That’s not being honest with the American people, and I think that’s one of the things that makes them not trust us, when we say something that they just know is not true.”
Curtis added that he plans to introduce a bill to change Social Security in a few months. He says his upcoming bill will not affect those already drawing SS benefits or those who plan to soon retire, but for younger people, changes would be coming.
“If we don’t do it, we have worse decisions thrust upon us”, Curtis added.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I am old enough to remember the Social Security debates dating from the late 70s that culminated in an agreement forged between Dole and O’neall that raised the withholding percentages for most people to 7.65%, employee and employer alike. Reagan signed the Act into law.
Prior to the Act, many of my peers thought Social Security doomed to impending insolvency. Suddenly, it wasn’t.
Economic projections of the time held that the new Social Security act would survive into the 2030s, which was a remarkably prescient observation.
So here we stand once again, with America’s youth facing impending Social Security insolvency. What will we do?
I do not offer an answer.
But I consider it reasonable to accept Senator Curtis at his word when he says changes are coming. He says that Republican Party leaders are not being honest with the American people when they claim they will not touch Social Security. I agree with his assessment of the dishonest nature of today’s Republican Party.
He might be wrong, and I might be wrong.
In the end, Dennis C. Rathsam may be proved correct.
Time will tell.
Ray W, says
Reuters reports that, after releases of Mexico’s most recent inflation and economic activity data, Mexico balances on the verge of recession.
Here are a number of bullet points from the article:
– January 2025’s economic data shows a year-over-year drop of 0.1% over January 2024’s data.
– Data collected during the last quarter of 2024 reveals the first quarterly economic contraction since the Covid-19 pandemic.
– Overall economic activity dropped by 0.2% from December 2024 to January 2025.
– Inflation remains within Mexico’s 2% to 4% target rate.
– Mexico’s “annual core inflation”, stripped of volatile food and energy components, slowed to 3.56% from 3.63% a month earlier.
– An economist with Capital Economics stated that “[t]he drop in core services inflation and weak activity seal the deal on a 50-bp cut.”
– After the release this morning of the economic data, JPMorgan “said consumer prices were beginning to respond to economic activities ‘weak backdrop’ and expects the Bank of Mexico to deliver a second consecutive 50 basis-point cut to the benchmark interest rate, taking it to 9.0%.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Mexico’s central bank lending rate is at 9.5%. Russia’s is at 21%. Ours is between 4.25%-4.5%.
Whenever any FlaglerLive commenter claims that the American economy was destroyed by the pandemic, he or she is simply laundering lies. The American economy was turned upside down by the pandemic, and extraordinary fiscal steps were adopted, but it was never destroyed.
President Trump inherited an economy that was “the envy of the world.” So sayeth The Economist. So sayeth the Wall Street Journal.
Pogo says
@Jill Stein and Butch Ware will save the day
… maybe not.
Ed P says
No Ray W, once more you intentionally parse a concept and add your special righteous lean on one of my posts.
The original post was a quote used by General George Patton and resurrected by Lee Iacocca. The origination of the quote is credited to Thomas Paine.
The phrase “ lead, follow, or get out of the way” was used a business mantra by many. It has served multiple leader leaders very well., including Ted Turner. It’s a clear, decisive leadership plan.
There is nothing nefarious about the quote. It’s extremely transparent and has zero underlying political meaning. None.
Ray W, says
Barbara Tuchman, in her lauded “Guns of August”, described two completely different mindsets that gathered large and influential audiences throughout Europe in the years just prior to the outbreak of WWI.
In 1910, Norman Angell’s “The Great Illusian” was published.
Tuchman wrote:
The author “proved that war had become vain. By impressive examples and incontrovertible argument Angell showed that in the present financial and economic interdependence of nations, the victor would suffer equally with the vanquished; therefore war had become unprofitable; therefore no nation would be so foolish to start one. Already translated into eleven languages, The Great Illusion had become a cult. At the universities, in Manchester, Glasgow, and other industrial cities, more than forty study groups of true believers had formed, devoted to propagating its dogma. Angell’s most earnest disciple was a man of great influence on military policy, the King’s friend and advisor, Viscount Esher, chairman of the War Committee ass
Laurel says
Ray W.: Thank you again, and again! Regarding Social Security: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-real-fix-for-social-security
The young people have been brainwashed into believing that Social Security will not be there for them. This will come true if they do not fight! The need to fight for what is rightfully, and legally, theirs.
Bob. M says
I did not realize how many Trump haters lived in flagler . Probably all from.up.north. . They leave a state that their liberal politics destroyed and move to a better state and then will ruin it. Like locust . The cartoon is not funny. I.never saw a cartoon about biden sleeping on.the beach while millions invaded unchecked and not had any health inspections. All I can say is don’t ruin florida like you all did ny. Nj, conn., and every other horrible run to the ground blue state.