Monthly Archives: September 2021
Narcissistic performative Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s craves attention like Congressman Matt Gaetz – both grew up in Walton County
Something must be in the water in Walton County! Walton County began flying the Confederate battle Flag over its courthouse in 1964 during the heart of the Civil Rights movement. The flag was moved and replaced by another Confederate flag (the national flag instead of the battle flag) in 2015, but the The county which […]
TFS + : Governor DeSantis yo-yo between pleasing Fox News viewers and political practicality
In 18 months, Governor Ron DeSantis has gone from being the most popular Governor of a large state to being a polarizing political figure whose popularity corresponds with prevailing partisan trends. What happened? As we saw again on Tuesday, every time DeSantis has a political opening he quickly squanders it to be a demagogue in […]
Changes coming to The Florida History Podcast
After completing our 125th episode last week, we’re making some big changes to The Florida History Podcast, effective immediately. We’ve had complaints, justifiably so about our production levels and about the audio quality of my co-host Robert Buccellato, particularly on recent shows. We’ve upgraded our production board as well as our audio mixer. Sound quality […]
WaPo: Florida’s recent COVID surge comparable in death numbers to New York’s March-April 2020 period
An interesting analysis from Philip Bump of The Washington Post. One place I would disagree with him is his saying if more Floridians were vaccinated, Florida wouldn’t have experienced quite a surge. While that’s true, Florida’s vaccination rate isn’t terrible relative to other states – but the aversion to mask wearing promoted by Governor DeSantis […]
Nikki Fried’s latest problem speaks to the malaise within the Democratic Party – #SomethingNotNew
It’s no shock for those of us familiar with Tallahassee to learn Nikki Fried has actively campaigned for or given money to some onerous right-wing Republicans. It is after all what lobbyists do, and in this day and age of GOP domination of the state. In fact, rumors about Fried’s associations with Republicans are far […]
KLM returning to Miami in December and other Florida airline route adjustments
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will resume Miami service in December with thrice-weekly nonstops to Amsterdam. Orlando service remains suspended until at least March. Azul Brazilian Airways will not fly Orlando-Campinas in January or February. Fort Lauderdale-Campinas will remain sub daily. Finnair will not fly Miami-Helsinki in November. Frontier has cut, Pensacola & Sarasota/Bradenton-Chicago (O’Hare) Orlando […]
20 years since MetroJet’s forced post-9/11 closure. Remembering the service’s Florida operations
On September 24, 2001, US Airways announced it was shutting down its successful MetroJet subsidiary in the wake of the attacks of September 11. From a Florida perspective this is significant, because with the shuttering of MetroJet, outside a later attempt to make Fort Lauderdale an international hub, US Airways ceded much of its dominant […]
Surprise: Florida AG’s office signs on to DOJ antitrust American/JetBlue lawsuit. Why?
We’ve spent plenty of time on this site analyzing the American/JetBlue partnership (dubbed the Northeast Alliance) in multiple articles arguing the alliance between the two large airlines can either be seen as anti-competitive or pro-competitive for Floridians based on your perspective. The alliance is based around Boston and New York, which from a business traveler […]
DeSantis new Surgeon General appointment deepens the Governor’s denial of COVID realities
On Tuesday Governor DeSantis announced Dr. Joseph Ladapo as the new Florida Surgeon General who also serves as the Secretary of Florida’s Department of Health. Dr. Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration which was a statement urging herd immunity and rejecting any reasonable efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. In his introduction as Surgeon […]
Terrorism, Inc. – Should Afghanistan be on the US “State Sponsors of Terrorism” List?
The US classifies countries that actively support terrorism as “State Sponsors of Terrorism.” Should Afghanistan, or at least the Taliban, now be included on the list? Alternatively, should the U.S. join the international community in supplying humanitarian relief for the Taliban government in charge of Afghanistan? The Taliban government recently named Sirajuddin Haqqani as Afghanistan’s […]
The Florida Squeeze 