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Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Light southwest wind increasing to 5 to 9 mph in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 15 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 53.
- 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:
Gamble Jam: Musicians of all ages can bring instruments and chairs and join in the jam session, 2 to 4 p.m. Note that in a temporary change from the regular schedule, Gamble Jam will be the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month. The program is free with park admission! Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach, 3100 S. Oceanshore Blvd., Flagler Beach, FL. Call the Ranger Station at (386) 517-2086 for more information. The park hosts this acoustic jam session at one of the pavilions along the river to honor the memory of James Gamble Rogers IV, the Florida folk musician who lost his life in 1991 while trying to rescue a swimmer in the rough surf.
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students: 9:30 to 10:25 a.m. at Grace Presbyterian Church, 1225 Royal Palms Parkway, Palm Coast. Improve your English skills while studying the Bible. This study is geared toward intermediate and advanced level English Language Learners.
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village: The city’s only farmers’ market is open every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at European Village, 101 Palm Harbor Pkwy, Palm Coast. With fruit, veggies, other goodies and live music. For Vendor Information email [email protected]
Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. most days, with matinees on Sundays, at 2 p.m., and on Nov. 15. Thornton Wilder’s timeless masterpiece chat quietly and powerfully explores life, love, and loss in small-town America. A deeply human story that resonates with every audience.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from noon to 3 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
Readings: I liked this excerpt from a front-page editorial by Madeleine von Holzen in Le Temps, the Swiss French daily, of Nov. 6: “Born in Uganda to an Indian family 34 years ago, a Muslim, Zohran Mamdani is the antithesis of the President of the United States. He is also the polar opposite of the Democrat Joe Biden. He has emerged in an America that is tearing itself apart under the blows of its septuagenarian entrepreneur president and which despairs at the decline of the Democratic Party. This party, which allowed a weakened man to run for president and which is struggling to produce a new strong figure. The Democrats are challenged by Zohran Mamdani’s victory, which will force the party to position itself. Toward the center or further to the left? The debate will be lively, and that’s a good thing. […] Demonstrating that democracy, attacked by the Republican’s methods, is indeed alive and well, Zohran Mamdani has gathered the disappointed and the worried. He has inspired desire. He even made people dream, which New Yorkers clearly needed. And the dream, in politics, is a powerful force. It should even be the foundation of any societal project, whatever it may be.”
—P.T.
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.
November 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
Tree-Lighting Ceremony in Central Park
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
Al-Anon Family Groups
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
Loyals of my loyals, companions of my youth, ancient Persians, what is wrong with my city? It weeps, it laments, and the ground opens. I am worried to see my wife near my tomb, but I hasten to accept her libations. You too groan around my tomb, and your shrill, shadow-like wailings call me sadly. It is not easy to come, especially since the subterranean deities are more likely to take us than to give us up; but I have some influence over them, and I arrive in haste so that I may not be reproached for being late.What is this recent evil that weighs on the Persians?
–From Aeschylus’s “The Persians” (472 BC).
Pogo says
@We dream
… and then awaken — from sleep; having changed what?
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Laurel says
The “owning the libs” part says it all, doesn’t it?
People who felt ineffective all their lives are now feeling in power. It’s not about coming together as a stronger nation, it’s about doing harm to our neighbors and families.
Anyone who sees through the grifter is “radical.”
You’re not looking good, folks.
Dennis C Rathasm says
Flagler live FINNALLY gets it right….. this is a democratic shutdown. A fitting way to end SCHUMERS career!
YankeeExPat says
13 % of SNAP Beni fisheries are active Military families.
I’m with Trump , I am getting sick of all the this Winning !
Ray W. says
Winston Churchill, just over a month of his being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in November of 1924, wrote of his philosophy of wealth. At the time, having just turned 50 years of age, he had over the previous nearly twenty years or so served in Britain’s government as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, President of the Board of Trade, First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies, giving him access to much of the best wisdom and thought his nation had to offer.
On December 9, 1924, and tasked with a duty to prepare the national budget for 2025, including tax policy, Churchill informed Lord Salisbury, at the time serving as the Lord Privy Seal in the House of Lords, of an “increasing distinction” between earned income and unearned income, writing that the distinction “might be one solution to raising new taxes.” But he described any effort “to hunt down ‘the idle rich’ as ‘more trouble than it was worth.”
Churchill went on:
“The existing system of death duties is a certain corrective against the development of a race of idle rich. If they are idle they will cease in a few generations to be rich. Further that that it is not desirable for the legislature to go. The christian or the moralist alone can pursue an inquisition into what is ‘service’ and what is ‘idleness’. A dilettante philanthropist wasting money on ill-judged schemes may be a poorer asset to the State than a man who having, say, 10,000 [pounds] a year spends 5,000 [pounds] selfishly and allows the rest to accumulate at compound interest increasing funds available for enterprise and employment.
“Again, a man may be a most admirable citizen, spend his whole life in public and philanthropic service, and yet be accustomed to be maintained on such a scale and in such a state that a very large number of persons are kept in unproductive employment serving him.
“My maturer views of life lead me to deprecate the personal inquisition, except when self-instituted, into actions which are within the law. I think the rich, whether idle or not, are already taxed in this country to the very highest point compatible with the accumulation of capital for future production.
“… The existing capitalist system … is the foundation of civilisation and the only means by which great modern populations can be supplied with vital necessities.”
Writing on December 4th to Sir Richard Hopkins, Churchill proclaimed that “what I am aiming at is a substantial diminution of actual burden on the direct taxpayer. I believe that his burden is at the present time a grave discouragement to enterprise and thrift and a potent factor in the tendency to high profits. I want to make a real impression upon this. For this purpose I am anxious to supplement my modest resources of relief by a direct transfer of the burdens from current taxation to Death Duties. I am sure this is in accordance with modern thought and my instinct is that the change will be welcomed by the classes affected.
“Moreover the imposition of the increased Death Duties and the friction that will arise thereupon will assist us in the general presentation of the treatment of the higher class of direct taxpayers. It harmonizes with the plan of emphasising the distinction between earned and unearned income in the lower ranges. It is intended to be an encouragement to people to bestir themselves and make more money while they are alive and bring up their heirs to do the same.
“… The process of the creation of new wealth is beneficial to the whole community. The process of squatting on old wealth though valuable is a far less lively agent. The great bulk of the wealth of the world is created and consumed every year. We shall never shake ourselves clear from the debts of the past and break into a definitely larger period except by the energetic creation of new wealth. A premium on effort is the aim and a penalty on inertia my well be its companion.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Just over 100 years ago, Churchill understood that the process of increasing GDP by creating and consuming wealth was the most favorable and beneficial possible approach of his government’s tax policy. Maximizing jobs was key. Sounds to me like nothing has changed since then. Fed Chair Powell asserts that we can grow our way out of our debt problem, but only by decreasing inflation to at or below 2% for an appreciable period of time and by managing the economy sufficiently to encourage GDP growth at a level significantly above the inflation rate.
We, as a people, have to remember that the Fed was created in 1917 by legislative act as an independent government agency with only two legislative commands: Manage the stability of the nation’s economy and maximize job creation. Reads like Churchill’s “maturer” economic beliefs to me.
Ray W. says
If I am reading accurately a story published by The Daily Beast, a “self-styled” whistleblower formerly employed by the FBI directed press attention to publicly available flight logs for FBI-owned jets, from which logs it was discerned that on October 25th FBI Director Kash Patel used a $60 million FBI jet to fly with his girlfriend to Penn State to attend a “Real American Freestyle” event and, afterwards, flying on to Nashville.
Director Patel’s girlfriend is Alexis Wilkins, a “country musician.” Ms. Wilkins’ Instragram photo of the couple’s appearance at the Penn State event has since been deleted.
According to the reporter, FBI rules permit directors to use government planes for personal use on the condition that they repay the cost of an economy ticket.
Director Patel is not the only director to use FBI planes for personal travel. If the story is accurate, in a 2022 Truth Social post, Patel criticized then-Director Wray for “jetting off on our taxpayer dollars.” Patel, at that time, dubbed Wray “#GovernmentGangster” for having once done what Patel later did.
Shortly after news broke about what Director Patel had once described as a waste of taxpayer dollars, the current deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, Stephen Palmer, a 27-year agency veteran, also charged with oversight of the agency’s aircraft unit, was told to either resign or be fired.
Multiple persons familiar with the Palmer side of the story, speaking on conditions of anonymity, told the reporter that “they” were baffled as to why Palmer had been blamed for the plane use stories. Yes, they said, Palmer supervised the aircraft unit, but the flight logs are public record.
Said Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent, on his podcast:
“We’re in the middle of a government shutdown where they’re not even gonna pay all the employees that work for the agency that this guy heads. And this guy is jetting off to hang out with his girlfriend in Nashville on our dime? … He flew a $60 million aircraft to go hang out there. Is that gross to anybody else?”
The day after the news surfaced, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs, Ben Williamson, called press criticism of Director Patel “disingenuous and dumb” and an example of “bad faith whining.”
To the Daily Beast, Williamson wrote:
“This FBI is delivering and it’s because of a great team working incredibly hard with Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at the helm. We have zero time for people who peddle trash because they have nothing better to do.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
This story has its own twist.
According to Forbes, there exists a “satirical news site called the Dunning-Kruger Times.” In the site’s “About Us” section comes the phrase: “Everything on this website is fiction. … [I]f you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined.”
On the Dunning-Kruger Times site is a February-posted fictitious story asserting that since 2010, when the ACA was signed into law, former President Obama has collected $40 million in “taxpayer funded ‘royalties.'”
The fictitious claim spread over social media, though it was quickly debunked.
Earlier today, President Trump posted to Truth Social that former President Trump has been collecting “royalties linked to Obamacare,” adding “WOW!” to the end of his posting.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
The modus operandi of the professional lying class that sits atop one of our two political parties is to lie about anything and everything in hopes that the most gullibly stupid among us will first accept the lie as the truth and then set out to launder the lie as a truth.
In this instance, people have known since February that the story is in no way true, yet it persists. Can it be argued that the fact that the ACA is at the center of the political struggle over who caused the shutdown is the driving force for today’s presidential lie?
Ray W. says
Popular Science issued a story about road paving companies mixing graphene into their asphalt mixes to determine whether the new mix might extend the lifespan of road surfaces. The title of the story? “New asphalt could make potholes extinct”
According to the reporter, graphene is “one of the world’s strongest known materials. Graphene-infused asphalt is called “Gipave.”
I have commented on this experiment before.
In 2022, Essex County officials conducted a test of a graphene-infused asphalt roadway just outside London. An impetus for the experiment was the high government cost of fixing potholes. A paving company laid more than 165 tons of Gipave on an onramp roadway into a highway. A second onramp lane was paved with traditional asphalt.
At the end of the experiment, “third-party” engineers extracted core samples from the two lanes for “lab testing and analysis.” Testing measured “how much pressure it took to distort each dry sample. After a 72-hour immersion in water, the engineers again tested for distortion resistance.
The graphene-enhanced dry core samples comparatively performed 10% better in stiffness tests. The same samples after water immersion comparatively performed 20% better in stiffness tests. And where the graphene-enhanced core sample did crack, it cracked across the stone aggregate, not in the bitumen or in the bond between the bitumen and the graphene.
A negative from the test is the cost of graphene. At the time of the test, the graphene additive cost an extra 30 cents per square foot of asphalt. A mile of four-lane highway in the U.S., plus bordering pavement, uses 253,000 square feet of asphalt. The U.S. has abut 4.2 million miles of highway, alone.
Make of this what you will.
In the U.S., in 2021, highway and street repairs were estimated to have cost local, county, state and federal governments $206 billion. One of the most frequently incurred repairs involves roadway “cracking” due to weakening materials and repeated roadway stresses, cracking that leads to potholes.
Studies show that American motorists pay repair and tire shops around $26.5 billion per year due to pothole damage.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Could Flagler County motorists potentially benefit economically over the long term if a local government were to conduct a test of Gipave asphalt similar to that conducted in the UK?
A British industry journal, called theconstructionindex estimates that the use of graphene-enhanced asphalt will lead to a 32% savings over the long term. One particular form of graphene-enhanced asphalt involves the melting of both plastic waste pellets and graphene flakes into the asphalt mix, thereby reducing plastic pollution. This mix is expected to lengthen roadway life by a multiple of 2.5, or from 10 years to 25 years, compared to traditional asphalt.
Ray W. says
Here is a synopsis of a Raw Story article about the James Comey prosecution.
Mr. Comey, a former FBI director, stands accused of lying under oath during 2020 Senate testimony, when he, in the reporter’s words, “denied authorizing an anonymous FBI source to speak to news outlets about the bureau’s Hillary Clinton investigation”, with the anonymous source identified as attorney Dan Richman.
Discovery documents produced by the Department of Justice show that Mr. Richman, an FBI attorney from June 30, 2015 to June 30, 2016, was never reappointed to the position. A handwritten FBI official’s “note” reads: “Doc drawn up + sent to OGC for Richman signature. Never signed. Never officially reappointed after June 2016.”
All of the evidence alleged against Mr. Comey that the Trump DOJ has produced thus far during discovery shows an e-mail chain from October 29 to November 2, 2016 and emails and text exchanges in 2017, dates long after Mr. Richman ceased to be a “anonymous FBI source.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
If the allegation against Mr. Comey, with specificity, involves Mr. Richman being an anonymous FBI source during the time periods set out in the Indictment, the government has a real problem with its proof, as it is chronologically impossible for Mr. Richman to be that anonymous FBI source.
But, the old days of judges holding prosecutors to their allegations is long gone. Today is an era of “easing the paths of prosecution”, both by judges and by legislatures.
I am old enough to have witnessed a federal judge dismiss a serious drug importation charge at the close of the government’s case-in-chief because of a concept called “fatal variance”, which means that the probata at trial does not match the allegata set forth in the specifics of the Indictment.
Some, but not all, of today’s area trial judges permit prosecutors to amend their pleadings after the start of trial if the evidence elicited during trial does not support the original specifications of the charge, i.e., if the probata does not match the allegata. This never happened forty years ago.
Some 20 or so years ago, a DeLand prosecutor persuaded a trial judge to reopen the testimonial phase of a trial after the defense attorney during closing argument exposed a flaw in the state’s evidence. Astoundingly, the trial judge allowed a witness to return to the stand to testify. The 5th DCA made quick work of that, reversing the conviction and forbidding the trial judge to do that again.
Ray W. says
During a PBS NEWSHOUR appearance after the murder of Charlie Kirk, David Brooks recommended the reading of “Anger, Fear and Hatred”, a book written by Bill Galston, a Brookings Institute employee.
Mr. Brooks said:
“It’s about the dark passions. We all need to be motivated by something. And good leaders were motivated by what you might call the bright passions, hope, aspiration, a vision of a better life.
“But people have discovered that it’s more powerful to motivate people with the dark passions, like anger, hatred, resentment and the urge to dominate. And this has been true of politicians of both parties. I had a very poignant conversation a decade ago now with a Democratic ad maker who said, I want to elect Democrats, but every ad I make is about anger and fear and hatred. And so I feel like I’m part of the problem.
“And the thing about dark passions, they’re imperialistic. They’re like a cancer. Once they get in you and in the body politic, they tend to spread. And it’s super hard to turn that around.”
Make of this what you will.