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Weather: Showers and thunderstorms likely after 2pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. Light and variable wind becoming east 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Saturday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely before 8pm. Partly 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:
Independence Day Events in Flagler Beach and Palm Coast : The day’s festivities begin with the cherished Stars and Stripes parade down A1A in Flagler Beach starting at 9 a.m., presented by the Rotary Club of Flagler Beach. The parade will follow its traditional route from North 6th Street to South 6th Street along A1A in Flagler Beach, within view of the pier about to be demolished and rebuilt (along with that boardwalk). Following the parade, residents and visitors can enjoy the beach (remember that sunscreen) while indulging in the music and entertainment provided by DJ Vern of SURF 97.3 FM at Veterans Park in Flagler Beach. Day-long activities there include including hula hoops, corn hole toss, limbo, and a Kona Ice brain-freeze contest. The highlight of the day will be the Fireworks Over the Runways, hosted at the Flagler Executive Airport off of Fin Way in Palm Coast. The entire community is welcome to attend, with gates opening at 5 p.m. The fireworks display begins at 9:00 p.m. Details here.
| The Latest Jail Bookings |
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| j-260724 |
| Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office. Note: the Sheriff's Office redacts or censors the names of migrants arrested under authority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The federal agency requires the redactions, according to the Sheriff's Office. |
Notebook: When Ronald Reagan used the phrase “make America great again” in his first campaign in 1980, what period was he referring to? What period is Trump referring to? Ask any magazoid what period they have in mind when they imagine a better America, and the first answer is likely to be a glazed look. Americans don’t know their history. They’re not capable of comparing decades, or centuries. Not just Americans. Gaullism was a Frenchified version of maga before maga. The neonazi National Front of Jean-Mari LePen, rebranded National Rally to soften its fascism as it nears the French presidency next April–if Edouard Philippe can’t hold it together–draws its popular energy from the mythology of a better France, in a country that has never known a decade since the Gauls when its reactionaries didn’t mourn a better France. Other European countries’ rightwing shifts freebase nostalgia for nonexistent eras as ignorantly as any magazoid. Even if Americans knew their history, they’d have a hard time pointing to the “great” era they have in mind, if they want to make “again” stick. Reagan did not mean the 1960s, which he reviled: he crushed the protesters at Berkley’s People Park 10 years before DeSantis was born. He was just as dismissive of the civil rights era of the 1950s. He was elected on a promise to reverse the New Deal, so the 1930s and 40s can’t be it. The 1920s maybe? That decade has always been the lodestar of conservatives, a decade of Republican presidents, Howard Taft as chief justice, a Republican Congress, immigration stopped cold with that era’s equivalent of Muslim bans (yellow bans, back then, and Balkan bans, East European bans, Arab bans). It had its jazz, its cars, its Carousel-of-Progress‘s “great big beautiful tomorrow” of appliances and new material comforts, but was also the decade of Main Street and Babbitt, of KKK power, lynchings and Jim Crow, of Teapot Dome and other scandals of corruption run amuck in federal and state governments free of regulation, of Prohibition-drunk crime and record inequality. We can go further back, the decades of the obliteration of the Indian, the Civil War, slavery: which is it? Ask your magazoid friends–and not just them: ask nevertrumpers and liberals, too: which decade, exactly, would you like to live in other than this one? What version of your iPhone, what flatscreen TV size, what AI lure would you give up? Then ask: what got us here? The answer isn’t either or, but the dialectic of either or. It is the ongoing stew and clash of either or, without which we’re just another Saudi Arabia or Singapore. We decay only when we wish back for a greater time that never existed. That look back is the look away from our responsibilities and callings today, from who we are now, not who we once were and thankfully cannot ever, should never be, again. The phrase make America great again is its own condemnation. It is all blinders and contempt. It is phrased in aspiration. But it seethes with nihilism.
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
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Friday Blue Forum
Bowling: 2026 PBA South Region Palm Coast Open
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Bowling: 2026 PBA South Region Palm Coast Open
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Bowling: 2026 PBA South Region Palm Coast Open
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.
But [Abraham Lincoln] did not often let himself go. As one reads his speeches one feels that an English diffidence held him back-this and the strong prose of his environment. Like a true Anglo-Saxon he was reluctant to speak out, afraid to let his emotions seize upon his speech. Only at the last did that diffidence yield to complete unconsciousness. The Gettysburg speech and the Second Inaugural are marked by the sincerity and self-effacement that ennobled the words of John Brown in the Virginia court-room-it is the eloquence which rises from the heart when life has been felt in its tragic reality, an eloquence that Webster could not rise to. Such words come only to those who have been purified by fire; they are the distillation of bitter experience. But the mass of his speeches are in quite another manner that of the simple, everyday world that bred him. He had none of the itch of pub-licity that afflicts the second-rate mind. Webster was a magnificent poseur; Edward Everett repeated the same academic oration a hundred times; but Lincoln was too modest to pose and too honest to turn parrot and speak by rote. He was a man who loved to talk thought clothed itself in whimsical humor. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but like Mark Twain he let it slip out in a witticism.
–From Vernon Louis Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought (1927).
Pogo says
Notable excess, and self-indulgence — and then, an intriguing glimpse of an abbreviated life*. You are you; thanks for the meal.
*As stated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Louis_Parrington
Laurel says
Pogo: You may already know of Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, but if not, I’m sure you’ll enjoy her. She is a college professor and historian who posts on YouTube two or more times a week. We watch her all the time!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbKOlm6H9njgmN-Yil90Rg
Dennis C Rathsam says
America is the greatest country on earth, through the ups & downs, we have remained strong! Patriotism isn’t about who’s president! Its for love of country. Democrats, lost the election, & they now they refuse to celebrate with the rest of America! When there was a Democrate in the Whitehouse, we still celebrated our love for God & country. This year as the jackass party promotes socialism, as the young people run to thier free its for me, they were never taught the real truth, if they were taught at all! Why did so many flock to America to escape government control! Our country was built on capitalism, it has worked for 250 years. The American dream is still alive, just to many youngins are just plain lazy, rather them educate themselves, & reach for the stars. Parents, remember what your parents taught you about socialism & communism, Im sure you remember the stories they told you of there great escape to freedom here in America! God bless America, & God bless P/C
Laurel says
Dennis: I disagree with you. I’m not a Democrat, but to state that they refuse to celebrate is inaccurate. We stayed in a small, coastal town in Georgia, and had some apprehension about Trump flags in our faces and loud ideologies being yelled at us. In the local parade, there was only one paper mache Trump (no yahoos or applause followed him), and one woman yelling out the Charlie Kirk trick of “prove me wrong.” The whole rest of the parade was the local people, local Navy inclusion, local Boy Scouts, local Karate club and so on. No political drama! Both the Republicans and the Democrats had booths. Everyone was quite cordial.
As for “Communists & Socialists,” those two ideologies are very different:
“”Communism is a political and economic ideology that aims to create a classless society where the means of production are owned collectively, eliminating private property and social classes. It is based on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, particularly outlined in “The Communist Manifesto.””
– Search Assist, Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia
The type of socialism being promoted today is “democratic socialism,” as there are differences here too.
“Democratic socialism is a political ideology that advocates for political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production. It emphasizes economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers’ self-management, distinguishing itself from authoritarian forms of socialism.”
– Search Assist, populismstudies.org, Wikipedia
It is not the boogeyman presented to us as children. That boogeyman was intentional to keep us afraid of it, but we already have democratic socialism in our culture. Do you want to lose your Social Security? Lose your Medicare (“socialized medicine” was a term made up by an advertisement firm.)? You want to lose your library? Many people our age are in need of Meals on Wheels. Should we get rid of it? Should we ignore hungry children in our country? I have a feeling you would say “no.”
Many countries, like Norway, are democratic socialized countries that are very successful.
“Norway has 222 billionaires as of 2026, and every Norwegian is considered a millionaire on paper due to the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which amounts to over NOK 5,100 billion.”
– Search Assist, The Independent Barents, Observer thelocal.no
Don’t believe the scare tactics, they are nothing more than manipulation used by the greedy, do more of your own research.
Ed P says
Everyday the bar for common sense and rationality drops another rung. Can we exist as a nation if we ever find the bottom?
The left is literally being kidnapped by socialists who openly spew nonsense like defund law enforcement, abolish prison, release all incarcerated people, or my favorite, no deportation is justified. Really?
A nation will not remain sovereign without borders. Mankind has historically proven laws and law enforcement is required.
The DSA is radical and inexperienced in governance or leadership. They are activists and organizers. Not senators, congressmen or even mayors. Their philosophical ideologies appear to be shaped by anarchy and nihilism. Marxism has failed universally.
The DSA hates what America is and wants to transform it. The how and why is exposed.
Into what is a question.
A vision isn’t enough. A movement needs to not only know where they are going but be able to recognize it when they arrive.
Once they crush the wealthy, eliminate the upper middle class and suffocate the middle class, is that the where? The elites and then us?
The United States of America is a lot of things. Even as imperfect as it is, it’s still the best nation on the planet.
Pogo says
Giants come in many sizes
https://news.va.gov/147994/tuskegees-librarian-dr-delaney-healing-books/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
RAW says
AMEN!!!!!