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Weather: Sunny. A chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 90s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent. Heat index values up to 107. Friday Night: Mostly clear. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the mid 70s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
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Today at a Glance:
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today, Superintendent LaShakia Moore discusses the state’s school voucher system and the people who double-dip–taking voucher money while attending public school. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
Notably: One of the arguments against the publication of the infamous “Muhammad Cartoons” of 2005, or against the Islamohilarious humor of Charlie Hebdo, the scene of the 2015 massacre (12 lives lost, not including the two brothers who provoked the massacre, because it is the brothers who provoked, not Charlie Hebdo), is that a society must be respectful of its believers’ religions. In case of Islam, a society must respect Islamic tenets that, in the case of the cartoons, forbids the facial depiction of the prophet (peace be upon him, perhaps, but peace obviously not sought by his followers), let alone the ridiculing of the prophet, Charlie Hebdo’s specialty. But what right has a set of believers to impose its dogmas on an entire, open, secular society? In mid-February 1945 FDR and Churchill, three days apart, met with Ibn Saud, the Saudi king, FDR on a ship in the Red Sea, Churchill in the Egyptian desert. Ibn Saud, that old Wahhabi, would not allow smoking and drinking in his presence. FDR respected the prohibition, catching cigarettes like a fugitive between moments with the king, on his own ship, the USS Murphy. Churchill was not so accommodating. “I was the host,” he said (according to Daniel Yergin’s The Prize, the history of oil) “and I said if it was his religion that made him say such things, my religion prescribed as an absolute sacred rite smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after, and if need be during, all meals and the intervals between them.” I sympathize. But what gave Churchill the illusion he was the host? He was in the Egyptian desert. Only his imperious, colonial dickishness allowed him to imagine himself the host, when clearly Ibn Saud was far more on his own terrain, Aab to Arab, than Churchill was on his imaginary Egyptian Chartwell. If Churchill had been on English soil, his irritation would have been justifiable and defensible. It would apply to the publication of the Muhammad Cartoons or of Charlie Hebdo as it might not had Charlie Hebdo been attempting to have, say, a Jiddah edition. But there’s a caveat. If we are to be a pluralist society, religious minorities’ sensibilities cannot be ignored outright. Nor can they dictate. Where’s the just middle? I think the question is superfluous once we have decided to have a secular society, even if the majority of the population were Muslim, assuming we equate free expression with the tenets of secularism, which is not necessarily inevitable: we can have free expression in a non-secular society, too. The override here is free expression (the First Amendment approach), not secularism. Magazines that run tasteless cartoons and material that some may see as Islamophobic (as Charlie Hebdo’s humor is not) may lose their shit, and should be free to do so. They may boycott, demonstrate, picket. But kill? Prohibit? Banish? No. The Churchill approach prevails.
—P.T.
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July 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Democratic Women’s Club
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida
For the full calendar, go here.
In the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders, I wrote this: “Religion, an ancient form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. Religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”
–From Salman Rushdie, from Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024).
Pogo says
@I could swear
… I just read something by someone quibbling about the arrogance of a democratically elected leader who was paramount to saving human civilization from freaking Adolf Hitler — because of supposed condescension towards a man who was born to the throne of a theocracy.
Oh, well — stuff happens.
Ray W, says
This bears repeating to FlaglerLive readers.
Voltaire, ever the satirist and critic, had to flee to England in his young adult years after French authorities, driven by the Church, announced a warrant for his arrest. His years in England molded much of his later thought. After his return to France, he purchased land straddling the border between France and Switzerland. He then built a second home and a chapel on the Swiss side of the property. Whenever he learned that French authorities were again plotting on his arrest, he moved into Switzerland until the threat softened and later went away.
Voltaire’s was one of many voices to which our Founding Father’s listened.
As an aside, it is being reported that a 15-year-old male was held for three days at Alligator Alcatraz. Did not Secretary of Homeland Secuity Kristi Noem promise that only the worst of the worst, such as murderers or rapists, would be held there?
DHS supervises a significant number of long-ago built detention centers spread throughout Florida, built long ago mainly due to the decades and decades of persistent improper entry by who knows how many undocumented Cubans, Haitians, and others. How hard would it be to process immigrants at any of the other sites so as to ensure that only the worst are sent to Alligator Alcatraz?
Ray W, says
Thank goodness that since 2021 I have been commenting on OPEC+’s manipulation of the international crude oil marketplace in a manner that has affected U.S. gasoline prices.
The story should be familiar to all FlaglerLive readers by now, but it bears repeating.
In February 2021, OPEC member nations, 12 at the time, sent oil ministers to Vienna where they voted to curb the cartel’s output by six million barrels of oil per day, to be phased in over time. Saudi Arabia also announced its unilateral voluntary cut of another million barrels of crude oil per day.
Over time, crude oil prices began steadily to rise, topping $120 per barrel for a short while. Then President Biden began issuing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, selling it at market prices; he has since been buying back crude oil at lower prices, thereby allowing the Treasury to keep the profit, but Congress repeatedly denied Biden’s request for more money to buy more oil to inject it back into the somewhat depleted Strategic Petroleum Preserve.
The Federal Trade Commission began investigating eight CEOs of American shale oil producers, resulting in administrative sanctions for one, with a referral of him to the Department of Justice for potential criminal charges, on a finding that his company had intentionally colluded with OPEC by not drilling for more oil that it could easily could have accessed, i.e., that his company repressed drilling efforts in an effort to keep oil prices high and company profits even higher.
Over the following four years, OPEC repeatedly voted to manipulate the cartel’s oil output up or down to keep international oil prices at or above $80 per barrel.
In December 2024, average daily American crude oil output hit an all-time output of 13.5 million barrels per day; it is down from that average high today, if only slightly.
Likewise, OPEC’s daily output had been adjusted multiple times to end up this year at 2.2 million barrels per day less than what it could easily produce.
President Trump was sworn in on January 20th.
I checked the national average gasoline price per gallon of regular fuel at the time: $3.12, but I did not check with AAA figures.
OPEC then met in March 2025 to vote on how it could continue to manipulate the international crude oil marketplace. The outcome? OPEC voted to phase in over time, starting in April, output increases, announcing that it intended to recapture lost market share by lowering the international price, and that because a number of member nations had been breaking their output quotas, Iraq and Kazakhstan specifically, OPEC needed to punish the violators by cutting into their national energy income.
Since April, OPEC’s crude oil output has grown by some 1.3 million barrels a day, with another 500,000 barrel per day increase scheduled for implementation in July.
If U.S. crude oil production is down, however slightly, over the past six months, and if OPEC’s crude oil output is up by a significant amount, then why would the Trump administration try to take credit for the recent drop in gasoline prices.
AAA issued a press release in which it stated that gasoline prices have recently dropped to the lowest average national price per gallon since 2021, at $3.16. I have been telling FlaglerLive readers that this was coming for months now.
The Trump administration, through a spokesman, immediately announced that:
“Prices at the pump keep dropping thanks to President Trump unleashing American energy. President Trump ended Joe Biden’s reckless war on American energy, and he’s making life more affordable for families as a result.”
If this isn’t direct evidence that there exists a professional lying class that sits at the top of one of our two parties, what is? And, by inference, if this doesn’t prove the existence of an extremely gullible class of American citizen, what does? If American citizens were not so gullible, they would immediately know that the Trump administration is lying about the reason for dropping gasoline prices.
Oil production in America peaked at an all-time record high during the Biden administration. The average daily crude oil production by American energy producers for the entire 2024 year was higher than ever. Former President Biden’s administration never engaged in war on the American energy sector. Yes, his administration maintained regulatory compliance on the energy sector for safety and environmental reasons, but oil profits for American energy companies were the highest in history during the Biden years.
Here is the truth.
OPEC cut production in 2021, causing oil prices to rise, arguably after colluding with eight major American oil company CEOs who agreed to restrain from any additional drilling. Cartel nations earned spectacular profits for years. The American energy companies earned spectacular profits for years. American motorists paid the price at the pump.
OPEC then announced in 2025 that it would phase in production increases, giving two valid reasons for doing so. Gasoline prices at the pump are finally beginning to drop.
Again, thank goodness I have been informing FlaglerLive readers for four years about the unfolding international drama surrounding the manipulation of crude oil prices.
Those FlaglerLive readers who for years allowed themselves to become educable know what is happening and why, and that they also know that the Trump administration is not responsible for the recent drop in gasoline prices.
Those FlaglerLive readers who for years intentionally made themselves uneducable do not know what is happening and why; they just might be gullible enough to accept the lie issued by the Trump administration.
I have been waiting a long time to type this.
Years ago, I decided in my comments to FlaglerLive to focus on certain issues. I have since endeavored to keep FlaglerLive readers informed on what was, and is, happening in those select areas, knowing all along that there existed at the top of one of our two political parties a professional lying class. I almost never comment on who should serve on a school board or what the tax rate should be.
I focused on the economy (international, national, state and local), energy, law, immigration, electric vehicles, and most of all on the vengeful among us, knowing that these categories were the subjects about which the professional liars among us most often lie.
Comment after comment, perhaps in their thousands, were designed to blunt the impact of the many FlaglerLive lie launderers who wander through life fooling themselves.
I, in time, adopted a presentation style that allows anyone to check on what I present in my comments. Many commenters disagree with what I present, but no one has successfully shown that what I offered has been based on a lie. That doesn’t mean that I am a good person. Since I live in a good/better/best, bad/worse/worst world, all I am trying to be is a less bad person than are certain other FlaglerLive commenters.
When I first “crossed swords”, as he once put it, with Ed P., in an ideal world, I wanted him to become a better commenter. I saw and still see potential in him. But I have long realized that in the real world, perhaps the best thing that could happen was that Ed P. would become a less bad commenter.
Nearly everything Dennis C. Rathsam has typed over the past four years that I have been reading his comments contains one or many laundered lies, and he is not alone in his lie laundering. His becoming less bad than he has been for a long time is not even an option. About the only thing anyone can do, good or bad, is to point out to others the numerous lies that Dennis C. Rathsam launders.
Jim says
Hey all you MAGA folks! As you know, Jeffrey Epstein ran a sex ring of children for the rich and famous for years! And you also know that (among others), Biden, H. Clinton, B. Clinton, Tom Hanks, B. Obama and M. Obama and many, many others not only participated in this sex ring, they also ate children as well (it’s true, just check it on Q-anon)! For years you’ve known this to be true! And for years, you’ve waited for the government to [finally] release the list of all Epstein’s clients and expose all these liberal sex degenerates once and for all. And, lo and behold, DJT gets elected last November (landslide, by the way, not even close; DJT got 49.8% of the vote – that’s close to half! Landslide!). So DJT promises all of you guys that he’ll release the Epstein files and then Pam Bondi says she’s reviewing the list and will be releasing it “soon”. Time goes by and then she says there is no list! What? No way! We all know there is a list- why she said she was reviewing it for gosh sakes! So what is going on here? What is happening? MAGA got it’s guy elected and should be getting the payoff now. But it’s not coming. As a matter of fact, if you can’t just accept that, DJT just told you he doesn’t need your support anyway! I know that really hurts your feelings and I hope that you will realize that DJT is always right on everything so it’s up to you to just accept that all the rumors about Epstein and all the people who’ve told you these rumors are fact are the liars and Trump is the sole bearer of the Truth! So accept that there is nothing there and get back into line behind your leader!
(Oh, any by the way, try to avoid the news (other than Fox) for several months; seems there are a lot of video, pictures and interviews with many people who all say DJT was tight with ol’ Jeffrey for many years. But, of course, just because they were big buddies doesn’t mean that ol’ DJT would be on that list that he won’t release! Right?! Right??????
Skibum says
Well the orange faced buffoon in the WH has really stepped in it this time, hasn’t he?! His sheeple aren’t just mad, they’re MAGA MAD! After years of being the point person for right wing extremists and conspiracy theorists, and after a very long and sordid history of having shared made up lies on TV networks, social media and in his own speeches and interviews, it appears the chickens are coming home to roost and his goose might yet be cooked.
The drumph following maga mush brains believed the false birther conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a natural born U.S. citizen that drumph repeatedly lied about over and over, and because of that lie they even dismissed his real birth certificate as fake when it was released to the public.
Drumph pushed the false conspiracy theory that Obama supported the ISIS terrorist cell, and helped foment anti-Obama rhetoric by referring to him as “Barack Hussein Obama” as if he was a middle eastern terrorist because of his birth name.
He orchestrated the false conspiracy theory that Obama was secretly the real president behind the scenes after Biden beat drumph and was elected president.
Drumph passed on the false conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was the one who started the birther lie against Obama.
He shared the false conspiracy theory that Jeffrey Epstein’s death was a murder that was committed by Bill Clinton.
He shared the false conspiracy theory about “Pizzagate”, and portrayed Bill and Hillary Clinton as pedophiles who were involved in the sexual abuse of children.
Drumph shared the false conspiracy theory relating to Vince Foster’s death.
He shared the false conspiracy theory that Sen. Ted Cruz’ father had ties to Lee Harvey Oswald and was involved in the assassination of president Kennedy.
Drumph repeatedly talked about the false conspiracy theory that VP Biden took bribes from Ukraine and illegally withheld loan guarantees.
He shared a false conspiracy theory that both Biden and Obama staged a fake Osama Bin Laden killing with a body double, and then had Seal Team 6 team members killed afterward.
He spread false conspiracy theories just prior to the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, and used his sharpie pen to alter the projected trajectory of an approaching hurricane on a NOAA scientific map.
Drumph shared the false conspiracy theory that former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was the son of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
He spread false conspiracy theories about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi, suggesting it was not a crime but was staged by the Pelosi family.
Drumph spread false conspiracy theories that Nicky Haley and Kamala Harris were not legitimate U.S. citizens.
He repeatedly and falsely denied there was any collusion with Russia, sharing the conspiracy theory that it was a hoax orchestrated by the Jan. 6 Select Committee, and that the committee destroyed all of the evidence of the hoax afterward.
He has repeatedly shared multiple false conspiracy theories from right wing QAnon adherents and about the “deep state”.
He shared false conspiracy theory that Dr. Anthony Fauci was somehow in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry by recommending everyone get a COVID-19 vaccination.
He shared a false conspiracy theory that using bleach and other dangerous and fake remedies could cure or prevent the coronavirus.
Drumph shared the false conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism.
He shared the false conspiracy theory that global warming was caused by and for the Chinese so they could make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
Drumph shared the false conspiracy theory that windmills cause cancer.
He shared the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that non-white immigrants are trying to displace Caucasian U.S. citizens in housing, employment and education.
He cited a non-existent “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco” in sharing a false conspiracy theory that whites killed by blacks constitutes 81% of all crime.
He falsely claimed to have witnessed Muslim citizens in New Jersey cheering the terrorist attack on 9/11.
He repeatedly shared and talked about the false conspiracy theory that Haitian residents in Springfield, OH were eating people’s cats and dogs.
Drumph shared the false conspiracy theory that George Soros was bankrolling the Latin American migrant caravans.
He shared the false conspiracy theory that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job by U.S. government officials.
He has repeatedly shared the false conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol never happened as it was portrayed on the news, and that it was a “very peaceful” event.
Drumph referenced a false conspiracy theory about Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia’s death, saying they found a pillow over his face.
He has repeatedly talked about the false conspiracy theory that the previous presidential election won by Joe Biden was stolen from him, and that he received millions more votes as well as the majority of electoral college votes in that election, which he actually lost.
There are so many other documented examples of drumph sharing false conspiracy theories, as well as his involvement and association with noted conspiracy theorists, extremists and holocaust deniers. (The above information was reviewed and obtained from my searches on multiple sites, including Wikipedia)
But finally, he has, over a number of years since Jeffrey Epstein’s death, continued to talk about the false conspiracy theory of Epstein’s supposed murder and all of the evidence and files relating to that case and the “client list” that he would release to the public if elected president. Suddenly, after his AG spoke about having all of that information on her desk for her review, nobody wants any of it released to the public, nor is there any admission or verification that there is, in fact, a client list after all. Which beckons the burning question of whether or not the drumph administration is telling the American people, and all of drumph’s maga mad supporters, the truth. Or more precisely, what they really want to know is the supposed names of all of the dems and liberal elites that the client list was supposed to be comprised of according to the conspiracy theory that was shared and talked about for years by the conservative media and shared by drumph himself… despite the fact that it is drumph who has been a close friend and ally of the sexual predator Epstein, who attended many parties and gatherings with Epstein, and who is seen in many, many photos and videos with Epstein.
Now, all of a sudden, AG Pam Bondi has angered the entirety of maga by denying that there is a client list and refusing to disclose the contents of the Epstein file. She is one of drumph’s closest and fiercest protectors, so what is she protecting him from exactly? Is there a list? Is drumph’s name on it, or other conservative, powerful people who the AG is protecting so the administration doesn’t have to disclose and admit that it is very conservative, well heeled republican conservative pedophiles, NOT democrats, involved and that all of the conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein that have sent maga into the stratosphere about this heinous man and his pedophile empire is not as it was portrayed to the maga mob???
When your entire election strategy and campaign is based on lies and made up conspiracy theories, and when the truth eventually leaks out and shows your whole purpose for running for president has been one lie, after another, after another, after another… well, I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, I can certainly see why the current administration would now want to close the whole thing down, try to distract from all the new media discussion about it, and even drumph have the audacity to call his loyal supporters STUPID for wanting him to order the release of the Epstein files when those documents have the krypton to cause extreme damage, possibly to drumph himself, and certainly to others who they are trying to protect.
You reap what you sow. So true!
Don't worry, be happy says
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/official-trump/