In the words of Edwin Stanton on Lincoln's passing, "now he belongs to the ages." From Tallahassee Democrat:  Bob Graham to lie in state at old Capitol: Parking and what to know before you go Tallahassee Democrat State officials advise allowing for extra time to those coming to pay final respects to the late Florida Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham on Friday. That's because of ongoing construction on and around the Florida Capitol. As previously reported, Graham will lie in state at the Florida Historic Capitol Museum in Tallahassee, known informally as the "old Capitol," 11 a ..read more

"Let justice be done though the heavens fall."  Fun Fact: Arizona Election Denier KARI LAKE, mentioned in article, joined the roster of MATT GAETZ II and CARLOS BERUFF as a featured speaker at a fetid fete by  the St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee. From The New York Times:   Arizona Charges Giuliani and Other Trump Allies in Election Interference Case Those charged included Boris Epshteyn, a top legal strategist for Donald Trump, and fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf in Arizona after the 2020 election. Share full article 79 Rudolph W. Giuliani ..read more

Magnificent work by New York Times reporters, led by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walt Boganich, whose 2013 and 2017 page one articles and eight inside pages told the world about the coverup of the September 2, 2010 homicide of Ms. Michelle O'Connell during the maladministration of Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, who legally changed his name from ""HOAR" in 1994.  sHOAR is now an investigator for a law firm in which County Commissioner ISAAC HENRY DEAN and the father of the St. Augustine Beach Mayor are "Of Counsel." From the New York Times:  McKinsey Is Under Criminal Investigation for It ..read more

One of my late mentors in the office of the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) was a friend of the late Hal Holbrook, whose wonderful work on making "The Senator" segment of "The Bold Ones" was one of the best portrayals of what our government needs to do for us since Jimmy Stewart's work in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and before Martin Sheen's work as President Josiah Bartlett in The West Wing.  Here's the late actor Hal Holbrook talking about his developing his work in Mark Twain Tonight, which I was honored to watch from an elevated box seat overlooking the stage, at left, with anothe ..read more

Update: was former Governor and Senator Bob Graham a bitt too-cozy with segregationists? Wow.  How did the late Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham feel about the powerful local St. Augustine and St. Johns County, burghers, the A.H. "Hoppy" Tebeault family, and their St. Augustine Record newspaper's longtime support of Jim Crow segregation in St. Augustine?  A.H. Hoppy "Tebeault" was later the Vice President of Flagler College, liaison to local business owners, and assiduous censored of the nascent Flagler College newspaper, whose drafts he would ball up and throw in the trash if th ..read more

The man who set himself on fire in NYC outside the very first Trump criminal trial was from St. Augustine.  Our Nation's Oldest City was described as "one of the last bastions of the Ku Klux Klan by a former federal lawman, also our former County Commission Chairman Ben Rich, Sr. in 2008 (Folio Weekly).  From Palm Beach Post//GANNETT: Man setting himself on fire is shocking. But that Floridians believe conspiracies is unsurprising A study released in March cited the state as tops in the country for conspiracy theorists and believers. The report by a sports-betting and data-tools web ..read more

Tune in and call in.  Ask about St. Johns County's continuing violations of civil rights laws.  Ask questions. Demand answers,  Expect democracy. On Wednesday's show: St. Augustine vies for state Black History Museum By Anne Schindler Published April 23, 2024 at 12:17 PM EDT St. Johns County Public Affairs Office The proposed Florida Black History Museum in St. Augustine. On Wednesday’s First Coast Connect, we'll talk to the people working to bring Florida’s Museum of Black History to St. Augustine. The Rev. Anthony Brittonexplains why the Ancient Cit ..read more

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rightly called our city of St. Augustine and St. Johns County "the most lawless" place in America.  Courts upheld civil rights here. Congress upheld civil rights here.  Thanks to the courage of our friends, neighbors and others, our Nation grew.  We adopted the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.  We overcame Jim Crow discrimination and the arbitrary power and oppression of the St. Johns County Courthouse gang, led at the time by KKK Sheriff LAWRENCE O. DAVIS. The KKK lost their "culture war" a ..read more

Listening to this morning's oral argument in the Grants Pass, Oregon homelessness ban case, reminded me of my article in Folio Weekly:   Home/Imported Folio/First They Came for the Artists First They Came for the Artists FOLIO  March 19, 2019 Imported Folio  Facebook  Twitter  LinkedIn  Pinterest story by ED SLAVIN & GEORGIO VALENTINO Jennifer, a Stage-4 cancer patient, was sitting with her cat on a leash in the courtyard of St. Augustine’s Lightner Museum and City Hall. Then she got sick. When St. Augustine police arrived on the sce ..read more

When I was CIO for a small woman-owned local small business here in St. Augustine, the National Federation of Independent Business would send salesman to euchre us into joining.  So my bosses, husband and wife, having a great sense of humor, assigned me to hear the NFIB schpiel. Nothing helpful to small business or their workers.  Just slogans. Republican gibberish.  That's the sort of propaganda that sadly beguiles other small business owners into acting like energumens.  Don't fall for it, my friends,  NFIB is not for you, any more than the Exxon-loving, oligopolist ..read more