Monthly Archives: October 2021
The 1974 Governor’s Race
This week on The Florida History Podcast, we discuss the 1974 Florida Governor’s Race. Governor Reubin Askew originally didn’t want to run for re-election. He eventually choose to run for a second term as Governor. In the race, he overcame a well-funded Democratic primary challenger, the Citrus baron Ben Hill Griffin and Lt Gov. Tom […]
Norse Atlantic setting up US HQ in Fort Lauderdale and other Florida aviation news
This past week The South Florida Business Journal reported that the new transatlantic startup Norse Atlantic will base it US operations in Fort Lauderdale while also serving the city with nonstop flights to Oslo, London and Paris. All three routes were served recently but are now un-served. Fort Lauderdale has been without Paris or Oslo […]
Terrorism Inc Part 2 – Pakistan
Editors Note: Kartik Krishnbaiyer our Editor-In-Chief has very publicly blamed the United States for years in terms of radicalizing Pakistan in the 1970’s and 1980’s from the execution of Ali Bhutto onward through the Zia years. However, he has not blamed the US the way some partisans domestically have for what has transpired since 9/11 […]
DeSantis stalling on Special Elections was unprecedented and cannot be allowed to happen EVER again
After months of improperly (and probably illegally) sitting on calling Special Elections to three majority-minority South Florida legislative seats, the Governor finally moved on Thursday. Here are some points on this: – In 2000, in a safe Democratic seat, when Representative Ed Healey passed away during the second week of session, Jeb Bush called a […]
PolitiFact: DeSantis exaggerates Florida’s success on job creation
Per PolitiFact, Governor DeSantis’ recent claims that Florida has accounted for 44% of new jobs in the US is an exaggeration. Read the full analysis at PolitiFact. Meanwhile per The Miami Herald, Governor DeSantis has set a Special Election date for three open seats that would leave minority representation three seats short for 57 of […]
NPR: A look into the “grassroots” groups opposing masks , vaccines and CRT
A great piece from NPR looking deep into the groups that are funded by national interests but stir up local trouble for School Boards on a number of cultural hot-button issues including vaccines, masks and Critical Race Theory (CRT). These groups aren’t organic or in any manner a manifestation of grassroots sentiment. They are as […]
DeSantis imports to the state are what is really treading on Florida
Last week, Governor DeSantis unveiled a new way to raise money – selling “don’t tread on Florida” bumper stickers and flags. Not so ironically the biggest promoters of these items were outside of DeSantis himself, non-Floridians. Regular readers of this site will know that for years, I have harped on how I believe GOP economic […]
Focus groups give a hint of what voters will be thinking about in 2022
I want to recommend Sarah Longwell’s new podcast series which dives into focus groups and what voters are thinking about multiple subjects at this point in time. Each episode focuses on a different subgroup, ie MAGA Trump Republicans, soft MAGA, Never Trump Republicans, Moderate Dems, rank-in-file Dems, Progressives, etc. For Floridians one takeaway is that […]
The US Senate: Minority rule is the rule
A few weeks back I dove into re-reading Robert Caro’s masterful biographical series on Lyndon Johnson. Much of the analysis of Caro’s series has focused on his second book in the series, Means of Ascent which was published in 1990 and detailed the shenanigans 1948 US Senate Primary in Texas which LBJ won by 87 […]
Eastern Airlines in Florida – January 1987
Eastern Airlines as we’ve discussed often was a major part of the growth of Florida, shuttling tourists from cold weather locations in the winter and serving as the primary driver of business travel to the state all year. From the 1930’s until 1987, Eastern was the largest airline in Florida, but by the end of […]
The Florida Squeeze 