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Weather: Showers and thunderstorms likely after 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 92. West wind 8 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Monday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely before 11pm, then a chance of showers between 11pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 75. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
- 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 three-member East Flagler Mosquito Control District Board meets at 10 a.m. at District Headquarters, 210 Airport Executive Drive, Palm Coast. Agendas are available here. District staff, commissioners and email addresses are here. The meetings are open to the public.
The Flagler County Commission meets at 5 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 E. Moody Boulevard, Building 2, Bunnell. Access meeting agendas and materials here. The five county commissioners and their email addresses are listed here.
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.
Juxtapositions:A friend sent me this screen shot from a news clip Friday, just as Trump’s name, if you can call it that, was being removed from the Kennedy performing arts facade it had soiled for so many months:
Just then I was driving back from an assignment at Bull Creek and came across this companion scene on County Road 305, that about says it all about this alleged presidency in tatters:
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.
July 2026
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
ne apparent paradox of this movement is that, even as it labels its political rivals as domestic enemies and dreams of using the power of the state to humiliate and destroy them, it does not view itself as authoritarian. Seen from the inside, fascist movements historically feel encircled and vulnerable, and the same holds true for today’s semi-fascist right. What’s more, their sense of weakness is not always a matter of pure imagination. It is true that social values around race and gender have moved leftward since Barack Obama’s second term. It’s true that the mainstream media treats claims by Republicans more skeptically than it has in the past. And it is also true that popular culture and corporate America have reviled Donald Trump. But from these isolated strands of reality, the National Conservatives have spun a fantastical narrative of victimization. One blind spot in their analysis is that they have dismissed the possibility that liberal society has any capacity to moderate. In the real world, Democrats nominated their most moderate candidate in 2020, the party is now actively funding the police, and the New York Times’ op-ed page publishes regular columns denouncing cancel culture, developments that the National Conservatives’ rhetoric presumed impossible. Instead, they have looked at the angry atmosphere of the post–George Floyd protests as the starting point of a social revolution that, they fear, will only accelerate. The National Conservatives have also ignored the causal role Trump’s grossly racist and sexist behavior played in inciting this backlash. One moment was especially telling: At a panel devoted to race, I asked if any panelists would agree that Trump had ever made racist statements in public, which even his Republican allies have acknowledged. None of the panelists conceded this. Indeed, the panelists’ entire narrative of the Trump era was one of persecution. So while his critics see Trump’s insurrection attempt as the defining event of the era, his supporters see this as at worst a minor lapse. By their way of thinking, the true insurrection was undertaken against him.
–From Jonathan Chait’s “How to Make a Semi-Fascist Party The hostile, paranoid, and increasingly authoritarian path ahead for American conservatism,” New York Magazine, Oct. 12, 2022.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Sorry, to all you useless Democrates…. The USA won the war! As hard as you prayed against TRUMP, & the demise of America! The Commies have lost, & TRUMPS plan was brilliant! He got everything he asked for & more. TRUMP will go down in history as a great president, you cant deny that now. He cleaned up the murder ridden cities, deported endless amounts of Biden INVADERES, & found major fraud in many Democratic cities. WEFARE fraud at its finest. TRUMP did what no other president had the guts to do! The Middle East is safer, the world is safer, we are safer. You see the jackass party, likes to talk a big game, Every Sunday, TRUMP did this, TRUMPS sic, TRUMPS crazy! TRUMPS crazy like a fox, & because of him Hormuz s open! The oil will flow like, like the mighty Mississippi! Inflation will all but disappear, food prices will be the cheapest since TRUMP 1 before covid. You all called me so many names, stabbed me back, making fun of my spelling…. But I had TRUMPS back, I had Americas back Im grinning frow ear to ear now You donkeys have no idea of what a patriot is, you cant even define a woman! Im a proud American, have been my whole life. I’m not afraid of standing up for America, standing up for freedom, standing behind my president. Happy Birthday, & many more!
Laurel says
So, Trump wins the election in 2016 meaning the election was good. He loses the election in 2020, which means the election was “rigged.” He wins again in 2024, which then suggests the election was good. This man lies without any attempt at being logical, even in the smallest degree. He sells the fantasy that only when he doesn’t get what he wants, the elections are “rigged,” so he is doing all that he can to make sure his party wins again by actually rigging the elections, with blatant gerrymandering, ridiculous laws without proof of need and intimidation.
This tells me that the Trump supporters know damn well he is a chronic, habitual liar, and they don’t care. Those of you, who still support him after all the lies, all the chaos and all the grift and hurt, you just don’t care. Mike Johnson doesn’t care, he can’t live on $170K annual salary, so he needs to play the market, which appears to be heavily manipulated. Marco Rubio doesn’t care, he has Presidential ambitions, as does JD Vance. Pete Hegseth doesn’t care, he would never, ever get the position he’s in without Trump. Tech bros don’t care, they get financial support and contracts. Corporations don’t care, they get taxpayer financial support, Evangelicals don’t care, they get to force themselves on the rest of us. White supremacists don’t care, they think they have a shot at a *pure race* America. Heritage Foundation doesn’t care, they can put women in their place.
This is what you voted for.
By the way, Speaker Mike Johnson is talking about cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right after the November elections. Do you care?
Pogo says
90%
Man on the Moon observed:
https://www.google.com/search?q=cognitive+dissonance+trump
… and announced Green Cheese Crypto (no kidding; beyond today — dragons fear to tread)
https://www.google.com/search?q=Green+Cheese+Crypto
Welcome to the post imagination void.
Sherry says
THANKS Pogo!
We are now all made to suffer the:
Post Constitution World
Post Honesty World
Post “Thinking” World
Post Sanity World
Post Moral World
Post Kindness World
Post Lawful World
Post Ethical World
Post Peaceful World
Post Allied World
Post Educated World
Post Logical World
Post Truthful World
Post Democratic World
Welcome to 1984!
Ray W. says
Last year, the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer, China’s CATL, predicted that by 2030 new domestic heavy-duty truck sales would reach 50% EV penetration of the overall freight marketplace.
The Chinese government just announced a government set of subsidies aimed at increasing new heavy-duty EV freight truck sales to 40% of the domestic marketplace by 2030.
According to a Reuter’s reporter, sales of new heavy-duty EV freight trucks already comprise a third of China’s domestic heavy-duty freight trucking marketplace, weighted toward short-distance haulers.
The reporter writes that for many short-haul freight routes around Beijing, new EV heavy-duty freight truck sales are expected to reach an 80% market share by 2030.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Of what value energy independence?
No one can argue that we are not at risk of being held hostage to wild swings in energy costs. Not any more. Is it reasonable to infer that China’s new heavy-duty freight trucking subsidy policy is aimed at reducing national dependence on imported crude oil?
One facet of the Reuter’s story is that the Chinese government will emphasize the construction of more heavy-duty freight truck recharging stations, including battery swap facilities. If depleted semi-tractor battery packs can be swapped with fully-charged packs in mere minutes, barely enough time for a bathroom break, what would that mean for tight delivery schedules?
The whole world is redefining its perceptions of the value of energy independence. Economists have already released studies showing that the worldwide drag thus far on GDP caused by the onset of war is 0.3%. Many arguments by other economists are sure to soon follow. They must! Competing economic assertions must be publicly hashed and rehashed.
Ray W. says
A CBS NEWS reporter constructed a recent article around a theme that, after more than four years of war, Russia is running low on its pre-war stockpile of specialized anti-cruise and anti-ballistic missile interceptors and that its defense industry can build only so many replacements.
One issue described in the story is that Ukrainian drone developers have modified their propeller-driven craft to deploy swarms of drones powered by small jet engines. Russian defenders are having to use precious interceptors to shoot down the faster modified drones.
In recent months, too, Ukrainian forces have more frequently directly sought out the interceptors for destruction.
An expert on Russian defense capabilities told the reporter that Ukrainian drone manufacturers had recently surpassed in quantity of output Russian interceptor production capacity.
Finally, due in large part to sanctions, the Russians cannot build enough advanced guidance seekers and control modules to guide whatever interceptors they can build.
From a different story, a Russian factory capable of building the necessary control modules and guidance seekers was struck by long-range Ukrainian missiles.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
Yesterday, among Ukrainian strikes on other Moscow targets, a large-throughput-capacity Russian oil refinery on the outskirts of Moscow was set ablaze. Oil smoke blanketed the capital. Moscow’s airports were shut down. Its ring highway was closed. Residents sheltered in parking garages. The Russian government announced that it had shot down 555 Ukrainian drones.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
It is simple mathematics. If the Ukraine can build drones faster than Russia can build interceptors, then air defenses all over Russia will have to degrade over time. The Russian government, itself, claims that 555 Ukrainian drones were intercepted in one day over one city, yet some got through.
I am reminded of the history of American daylight bombing of Nazi-occupied Europe. The earliest raids consisted of mere dozens of American bombers and the AAF suffered heavy losses. Eventually, the Luftwaffe degraded; it eventually ceased to be a defensive force. On March 18, 1945, 1,329 American heavy bombers raided mostly Berlin targets.
Again, the mathematics are simple. If the Russian claims are true, then the Ukrainian military now has the capacity to launch a wave of more than 555 drones targeting infrastructure in and around Russia’s capital.
Is it reasonable to argue that the tide of war has reversed? That more and more Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure will get through? That Russian civilians huddling in parking garages will come to realize that their government’s claims of defensive prowess are mere words?
The Ukrainians fight for their homes and their lives and their freedom. The Russians fight for plunder. Which populace deserves our respect and admiration and support?