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Weather: Areas of frost before 8am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 56. Wind chill values as low as 27 early. Northwest wind 6 to 8 mph, with gusts as high as 15 mph. Wednesday Night: Areas of frost after 4am. Otherwise, mostly clear, with a low around 35. West wind 5 to 7 mph, with gusts as high as 16 mph.
- 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 Cold-Weather Shelter known as the Sheltering Tree will open tonight: The shelter opens at Church on the Rock at 2200 North State Street in Bunnell as the overnight temperature is expected to fall to 40 or below. It will open from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. The shelter is open to the homeless and to the nearly-homeless: anyone who is struggling to pay a utility bill or lacks heat or shelter and needs a safe, secure place for the night. The shelter will serve dinner and breakfast. Call 386-437-3258, extension 105 for more information. Flagler County Transportation offers free bus rides from pick up points in the county, starting at 3 p.m., at the following locations and times:
- Dollar General at Publix Town Center, 3:30 p.m.
- Near the McDonald’s at Old Kings Road South and State Road 100, 4 p.m.
- Dollar Tree by Carrabba’s and Walmart, 4:30 p.m.
- Palm Coast Main Branch Library, 4:45 p.m.
Also: - Dollar General at County Road 305 and Canal Avenue in Daytona North, 4 p.m.
- Bunnell Free Clinic, 4:30 p.m.
- First United Methodist Church in Bunnell, 4:30 p.m.
The shelter is run by volunteers of the Sheltering Tree, a non-profit under the umbrella of the Flagler County Family Assistance Center, is a non-denominational civic organization. The Sheltering Tree is in need of donations. See the most needed items here, and to contribute cash, donate here or go to the Donate button at this page.
A Flagler County Commission Workshop is scheduled for 5 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The commission will discuss initiating conflict resolution procedures provided by law prior to initiating administrative or court proceedings against Flagler Beach’s comprehensive plan amendment adopted on January 8.
Flagler Cares hosts its quarterly Help Night from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Flagler County Village Community Room, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite B304, Palm Coast. Help Night is organized and hosted by Flagler Cares and other community partners as a one-stop help event. Representatives from Flagler County Human Services, Early Learning Coalition, EasterSeals, Family Life Center, Florida Legal Services, Lions Club, and many other organizations will be available to provide information and resources. The event is open to the public, free to attend, and will offer assistance with obtaining various services including autism screenings, fair housing legal consultations, childcare services, SNAP and Medicaid application assistance, behavioral health services, and much more. Free vision and blood sugar screenings will be available and coordinated by the Lion’s Club. Plus, don’t miss the Rummage Sale! Find heavily discounted clothing, shoes, accessories, home décor, and more with all proceeds going directly to support our youth programs. For more information about this event, please call 386-319-9483 ext. 0, or email help@flaglercares.org.
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) meets at 9 a.m. at the Airline Room at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The TPO’s planning oversight includes all of Flagler and Volusia counties, with board representation from each of those jurisdictions. See the full agendas here. To join the meeting electronically, go here.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email atlanticcoastau@gmail.com or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
Readings: Fitnan O’Toole in the New York Review of Books, writing about the Venezuela attack: “It is thus highly significant that the US did not claim the obvious justification for its actions in Venezuela—that it was saving democracy. An aim of installing the opposition leader (and effectively the winner, through her proxy Edmundo González, of the most recent election), María Corina Machado, as president of Venezuela would have given the attack a rationale at least ostensibly rooted in the norms of the liberal international order. Machado could hardly have gone further to prove her loyalty, even to the point of offering to present Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize. The very deliberate decision to sideline her was thus a potent statement in its own right: upholding democracy is no longer part of the US brand. It has been deleted from the American mission statement. And if it is no longer part of what America claims to mean in the world at large, that’s because it is no longer central to the way it functions at home.” The key is the last line: democracy is no longer central to the way it functions at home. He goes on: “Democracy is now a US value only when it can be invoked to further the interests of American oligarchs. Otherwise, as Trump showed in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, it is either an irrelevance or an outrage. At the heart of this anarchic authoritarianism is the fascist doctrine that the strong must prey on the weak. As Trump’s most influential adviser, Stephen Miller, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on January 5, “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” Miller was speaking specifically about Trump’s right to seize Greenland, but the timeless and placeless iron laws of the world do not lose their jurisdiction at America’s own borders. The United States itself must, by this logic, be governed by force.” We are seeing it in Minnesota. We are seeing it in less-reported places. We are seeing it, most dangerously, in the trickle-down effect as local police agencies begin to take on the brawny presumptions of their federal overlords. When you start seeing local police departments and sheriff’s deputies wearing ski masks (I don’t mean undercover cops masked up at press briefings, though even that’s creepy), you’ll know the Rubicon has been crossed.
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.
[MEC id=”163848″]
For the full calendar, go here.
They reigned, and long was their reign,
but one more moment and it will end.
Had they been just, they would have been treated with justice.
But they oppressed, and time now overwhelms them with pain and trials.
Now destiny calls for them, and how can one defy destiny?
–From The Thousand and One Nights.
Pogo says
FlaglerLive
They reigned, and long was their reign,
but one more moment and it will end.
Had they been just, they would have been treated with justice.
But they oppressed, and time now overwhelms them with pain and trials.
Now destiny calls for them, and how can one defy destiny?
–From The Thousand and One Nights.
Indeed
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Thousand+and+One+Nights
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
― Omar Khayyám
https://www.google.com/search?q=Omar+Khayyám
EC: File
Jim says
From Politico yesterday on Stephen Miller: “Miller, an architect of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement campaign, said Tuesday that his initial remarks, which included labeling Pretti as a “terrorist,” were based on information from DHS. He also said the agency may not have been following White House instructions with its overall handling of the enforcement operation in Minnesota.”
Even MAGA has to admit when Stephen Miller, Trump’s lead Nazi, reverses course, it’s not a good look for the movement!
In about the same amount of time it took the rest of us to watch the early videos of Mr. Pretti’s murder (and when this moves forward, it will be ruled a murder), Miller, Noem and Vance all came out and called the man a “domestic terrorist” who was impeding law enforcement, brandishing a firearm and, basically, just not being a good American. And, MAGA, I hope you noticed their concern about a US citizen with a concealed carry permit “breaking the law” by doing so at a protest. Kyle Rittenhouse, where are you when we need you? And Kash Patel says it was illegal. If that doesn’t show MAGA that these people are much more focused on the narrative than the truth, well, you just really don’t care about truth.
Noem is too stupid to resign and she’ll eventually get impeached and I hope also investigated for how she’s spent $173M on photos and video of her riding horses and wearing various costumes. Miller is one of those “Trump whisperers” who will likely skate free of everything, disappear after Trump is gone and then try to make a comeback (like William Barr attempted). I’d love to see him get justice but people like him know how to barely avoid the wrath of the law (but maybe not the people). Vance thinks he’s been anointed as the next President. Watch and see. His closet is getting packed with skeletons that won’t look pretty by 2028.
And I see Greg Bovino, the CBP commander is being sent back to his little rat hole to retire. Even took his social media platforms away to be sure he doesn’t say anything. But Tom Homan has been sent there to “fix” things. Should I mention that fine gentleman is “alleged” to have taken a $50k bribe? Probably not…
Oh, and while we’re proudly observing the peace movement by the Trump administration, let’s all be proud that an idiot attacked Ilhan Omar during a town hall last night. Again, the fact that Trump has repeatedly attacked her because she’s Somalian (and Trump knows ALL Somalians are terrible, terrible people). But being president, Trump was gracious enough after the attack to state “she probably had herself sprayed, knowing her”. Thank God we have such a president. We can unite behind these stirring words from dear leader.
I just hope the Dems don’t do anything to stop the Trump train wreck. I think they can take the House and Senate in November. And since Trump has shown the way, I hope retribution is coming…
Laurel says
This is a much watch; it caused me to tear up. Remember, while watching this, Trump called Americans “vermin,” and “garbage.”
If you pass this by, you have no caring for the U.S.A.:
https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/a-letter-to-america/
Sherry says
Dearest Laurel,
You are quite correct! It is extremely vital that each and every American watch, and really take in the message in this video.
I just sent it to everyone n my email list. I’ll send it to my congressional representative and “Indivisible” leaders, as well! Thank You!
Just curious. says
I believe Hillary called them deplorables.
Mothersworry says
Here is a newer quote. “Tell the same lie three times and it becomes fact” by donald j trump.
Sherry says
Joyce Vance says:
The agent who flashed his naked butt out of a hotel window at a crowd of protestors before flipping them the bird has drawn little attention, perhaps because it seems so tawdry and unimportant against the backdrop of violence ICE has brought to the city. But it’s a worthwhile reminder that “Operation Metro Surge” was not conducted with the professionalism that taxpayers, who pay agents’ salaries, benefits, and expenses, are entitled to expect from them.
Sherry says
Where is trump’s BS compliance with the laws and judges?
Joyce Vance says:
The Judiciary is beginning to play hardball with the administration over its repeated failures to comply with court orders. Tuesday morning, Judge Patrick Schlitz, the chief federal judge for the District of Minnesota, ordered the acting Director of ICE, Todd Lyons, to appear in court on Friday—not on Zoom but in person. It happened in a case called Juan, T.R. v Noem. And it’s easy to see what provoked the Judge:
On January 14, 2026, the Court ordered the administration to provide Juan, the petitioner who was detained at the time, with a bond hearing within 7 days of the date.
The Judge ordered “[i]f respondents do not provide petitioner with a bond hearing…within 7 days of the date of this Order, petitioner must be immediately released from detention.”
That’s pretty basic and easy for the government to comply with. But the court was notified by Juan’s lawyer on January 23 that his client was still in custody and hadn’t had a hearing to determine whether a bond could be set so he could be released. The government was in clear violation of the Judge’s order. And it wasn’t the first time. Judge Schlitz wrote, “This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks. The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong).”
The order is only three pages long, but it’s an extraordinary criticism of the government:
“This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result. Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward. Unfortunately, though, the violations continue. The Court’s patience is at an end.”
The Judge makes it clear in a footnote that when he is talking about the “respondents,” he is talking about Noem and her employees, not the lawyers in the local U.S. Attorney’s Office. He writes, “The Court expresses its appreciation to attorney Ana Voss and her colleagues, who have struggled mightily to ensure that respondents comply with court orders despite the fact that respondents have failed to provide them with adequate resources.” Although undoubtedly intended to keep them from facing any bar complaints, there is no telling how it will be received in Washington.
Sherry says
While ICE thugs are murdering US Citizens in the streets, trump and melania show their “let them eat cake” asses!
By Adam Kinzinger
On the day when 37-year-old Alex Pretti was killed by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis, thousands gathered in the city and in his hometown of Green Bay to protest. Seven hundred miles away, 70 of Donald and Melania Trump’s rich, famous, and powerful friends gathered in black tie in the East Room of the White House to get a sneak peek at a new film devoted to the First Lady—the Marie Antoinette of our time.
With the nation in crisis, it was a truly strange scene. There was self-help guru Tony Robbins yucking it up with Erika Kirk, widow of the assassinated right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk. Tim Cook, chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley giant Apple, chatted with the film’s director (and accused sexual predator) Brett Ratner. Mike Tyson smiled for photos in front of a screen with the name “Melania” splashed across it in black. A military band played the “Melania Waltz,” which had been written for the movie by the Hollywood composer Tony Neiman.
Jeff Bezos’s Amazon Studios has put $75 million into producing, distributing, and publicizing the “documentary,” which follows Melania during the 20-day run-up to her husband’s second inauguration. (Out of this sum, an estimated $28 million was paid as a licensing fee to the First Lady herself.) Bezos couldn’t make the party, but Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy, who greenlit the film, was able to attend.
As protesters froze in the Midwest, the champagne-sipping elite demonstrated an appalling insensitivity. (In contrast, an NBA game set for Minneapolis was rescheduled out of respect.) All wanted to help polish the image of the woman beside the man who is now America’s dictator. It was a travesty of egotism and heartlessness worthy of the Court of Versailles in the days before the French Revolution.
In partnering with Amazon on a cheesy, indulgent film, Trump lined up with all the authoritarians who have demanded—and manufactured—respect for themselves and their families as they grasped for more and more power. Think of Juan Perón and his wife Eva in Argentina, and Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in the Philippines. Both brutal dictators made sure that their cults of personality extended to their spouses.
Melania doesn’t seem to want to succeed her husband as President, but as she pocketed her millions, she showed herself to be a true member of a clan that, like all dictators’ families, is eager to cash in on the patriarch’s power. In one year, the family has reaped between $1.4 and $1.8 billion (yes, billion) by leveraging the Trump name to sell cryptocurrency and gain access to dealmakers around the globe—especially in the Middle East, where politics, government, and payoffs mix freely.
The Trump family has cut licensing deals for property developments in Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, which depend on the United States military for their defense. As Middle Eastern countries have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump cryptocurrency business, the president has approved the sale of sensitive technology to the UAE. Qatar got permission to buy $1.2 billion in U.S. military hardware, and Saudi Arabia won access to $142 billion. The quid pro quos—cash for the Trump family in exchange for favors from the U.S. government—were done openly. When he speaks of a “Golden Age” for America, he’s speaking about his family first.
Tyrants routinely use their governments to get rich. Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi drained $200 million out of his country before he was killed during a civil war. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad grabbed between $1 and $2 billion before his regime collapsed and he fled to Russia. Trump is operating in the spirit of these men, leveraging his power as chief executive of the United States to funnel profits to himself.
This is not normal. Every other president in history has felt constrained by the traditions of democracy and the Constitution’s prohibition of emoluments (personal benefits). It was a scandal when Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy, profited from selling beer named after himself. Before he was elected president, Joe Biden’s son Hunter sparked controversy by appearing to trade on the family name. But these pale in comparison with the direct money grabs now being perpetrated by the President and his family. They truly are acting as if the world is their piggybank.
Bad as the financial scandal may be, it pales in comparison with Trump’s other dictatorial impulse: violence. As we’ve seen in Minnesota and elsewhere, the President is a muscle-flexing autocrat who built—and is expanding—an army of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to sweep through cities and towns in the chaotic pursuit of undocumented immigrants.
Trump promised in 2024 to arrest and deport millions of immigrants. He is following through by dispatching thousands of agents in combat gear, including bulletproof vests. Squads of masked agents drive the streets, sometimes searching for specific individuals and sometimes simply grabbing people off sidewalks or inside businesses. How do they identify targets? They look for Black and brown people, listen for Spanish speakers, and enter places where immigrants may work.
In Minneapolis, they are encountering thousands of protesters, including citizen monitors who follow agents to document what they are doing. Others bring food and supplies to immigrants hiding in their homes. These Minnesotans stand against tyranny like many before them.
Alex Pretti was acting as one of those citizen monitors when he was surrounded by uniformed agents on a Minneapolis street. After one agent pushed a woman to the ground and Pretti moved to help her, they grabbed him and began pummeling him. As they were filmed from the sidewalk, they beat and pinned him to the ground. Although the government later claimed Pretti brandished a weapon, he was holding a phone.
As agents pushed Pretti down, one noticed he had a pistol holstered on his hip. He was licensed to carry it. After one agent removed the gun, another shot Pretti once at point-blank range, and then three more times. Pretti died instantly. Eight agents briefly walked away from his body.
I could say I am shocked, but I am not. Three weeks earlier, Minneapolis resident Renee Good, also a citizen observer, was shot and killed after a confrontation with ICE. In both cases, Trump and his people immediately declared the victims “domestic terrorists” and falsely claimed agents were in danger.
In frame-by-frame analyses, the press has shown that neither Good nor Pretti posed imminent danger. Nevertheless, officials claimed Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement,” that the officer feared for his life, and that Pretti was an “assassin.” Similar falsehoods followed Good’s killing.
This too is not normal. No normal administration would rush to blame civilians killed by federal officers. But dictators define reality by repetition. They insist protesters are threats and justify violence against them.
Trump has long reveled in violent rhetoric. He urged supporters to “knock the crap out of” hecklers. He said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” He asked why officers couldn’t “just shoot them in the legs or something.” That tone filters down.
In the Pretti case, outrage has become national. Even several Republican senators have demanded an investigation. Under pressure, Trump appears to be bending—slightly.
Meanwhile, in another let-them-eat-cake display, Trump will continue promoting the movie about his wife. On Thursday, it will premiere at what is now absurdly called the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Courtiers will attend, eager to flatter a man who has openly said, “Sometimes you need a dictator.”
While Minnesotans pray, cry, and march for peace, America’s first-ever royal family will celebrate itself.
Laurel says
When asked if the Melania movie’s crew wanted their names removed from the credits:
“Yes, two-thirds of the crew members who worked on the Melania documentary requested to have their names removed from the credits. They expressed discomfort with the project and the working conditions on set.
– Search Assist, katiecouric.com, The Daily Beast
When asked if the Melania movie was flopping:
“Yes, the documentary “Melania” is projected to flop at the box office, with early ticket sales indicating very low demand and predictions of making only $1 million to $5 million during its opening weekend. Reports suggest that ticket sales have been particularly poor in the UK, with only a few tickets sold for its premiere.”
– Search Assist, Raw Story, The New Republic
There is a God, and an amusing one at that!
Be Best!
Skibum says
I chuckled when I was scrolling through my Facebook and saw that someone had posted a meme showing a commercial aircraft flying through the sky… the pilot came over the PA announcing that the inflight movie was “Melania”… and all of the emergency exits opened and passengers had climbed out and were clinging to the outside of the fuselage and the plane’s wings. LOL!
Skiibum says
To Noem, Bovino, Vance, Bondi and other co-conspirators… keep making excuses for disorderly mobs of poorly trained, masked and unidentified federal agents who are completely out of their element with little discipline, no tact or communication skills, but lots of bullets to use against Americans who dare to stand their ground and demand that the federal agents stop ignoring the U.S. Constitution and violating people’s rights.
Keep screaming “DOMESTIC TERRORISTS” at Americans with cell phone cameras who are videorecording the truth. We have seen the indisputable evidence that proves you all are lying.
You are doing the convicted felon’s work trying to bury his Epstein files debacle under the bodies of the innocent citizens his 21st century Nazi thugs are shooting down in the streets of American cities.
As long as you approve of and support the unconstitutional behavior that is being perpetrated against the citizens in Minneapolis and other cities, you can be sure that the day will come when accountability will be at YOUR doorstep. Because ever more republican voters have seen enough, have had enough, and are turning their backs on that maga extremist cult.
Democracy, it seems, is harder to kill than the convicted felon in the WH ever imagined. And it may just be the curse of his Epstein files problem, continuing to simmer away in the background of all of the other chaos he is creating across America and around the world that keeps the candle of democracy burning. Accountability is coming for many maga cultists.
Sherry says
Import5ant Factual Information You Won’t See on FOX. . . this from Politico on DOGE abuses of you Social Security numbers. . . They LIED! So what else is new?:
Two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states,” and one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter rolls, the Justice Department revealed in newly disclosed court papers.
Elizabeth Shapiro, a top Justice Department official, said SSA referred both DOGE employees for potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government employees from using their official positions for political purposes.
Shapiro’s previously unreported disclosure, dated Friday, came as part of a list of “corrections” to testimony by top SSA officials during last year’s legal battles over DOGE’s access to Social Security data. They revealed that DOGE team members shared data on unapproved “third-party” servers and may have accessed private information that had been ruled off-limits by a court at the time.
Shapiro said the case of the two DOGE team members appeared to undermine a previous assertion by SSA that DOGE’s work was intended to “detect fraud, waste and abuse” in Social Security and modernize the agency’s technology.
Laurel says
DOGE is “fraud, waste and abuse.”
Sherry says
Great Point Laurel! Love It!
Sherry says
And, where is trump/maga compliance with laws and judges’ orders? This from Politico:
For a year, federal judges grappling with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda have looked askance at his administration, warning of potential or, in rarer cases, outright violations of their orders.
But in recent weeks, that drumbeat of subtle alarm has metastasized into a full-blown clarion call by judges across the country, who are now openly castigating what they say are systematic legal and constitutional abuses by the administration.
“There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights,” warned U.S. District Judge Michael Davis. His docket has been inundated as a result of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s large-scale deportation campaign in the Twin Cities.
The object of judges’ frustration has routinely been Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the vanguard of Trump’s push to round up and expel millions of noncitizens as quickly as possible. The agency’s unprecedented strategy to mass detain people while their deportation proceedings are pending has flooded the courts with tens of thousands of emergency lawsuits and resulted in a breathtaking rejection by hundreds of judges.
“ICE is not a law unto itself,” Judge Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge on Minnesota’s federal bench, said Wednesday in a ruling describing staggering defiance by ICE to judges’ orders — particularly ones requiring the release of detained immigrants. He estimated, conservatively, that the agency had violated court orders by Minnesota judges 96 times this month alone.