More than politics are stormy: We could have our first actual tropical event this week
News and commentary from a Florida perspective for all of the Americas
By J.C. Bruce
Hurricane season is only two weeks old, but the first named tropical storm of the year may spool up in the next day or so.
Right now, the weather system is an area of low pressure over land on the border between Texas and Mexico, but it is expected to migrate into the northwestern Gulf of Mexico today, where it could strengthen.
If its sustained winds hit 39 mph, it will become Tropic Storm Arthur. The chances of that happening are 60%, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The current spaghetti models show the storm moving inland off the Gulf Coast, but, at the moment, at least, it does not appear to be a threat to Florida. However, whether it reaches tropical storm status or not, it will be a major rain event, and coastal and southern areas of the country will likely experience flooding.
Just a reminder: As reported here earlier, we are in an El Nino season, meaning the forecasts are for fewer hurricanes this year. Nevertheless, it only takes one storm to wreak disaster, and weather out of the Gulf is less susceptible to El Nino’s moderating influences.
Epstein paid Palm Beach deputy to get special treatment in jail
Sarah Kellen, a longtime personal assistant to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has disclosed that Epstein’s preferential treatment at the Palm Beach County jail may have been the result of him paying off Palm Beach sheriff’s deputies.
Kellen, during her interview with the House Oversight Committee last month, was questioned about perks that Epstein received while he was incarcerated at the Palm Beach County Stockade where Epstein was jailed from 2008 to 2009.
She said she visited Epstein several times at the jail, and one time, when she was home, he was able to use Skype from a jail computer to contact her. He used that computer to get her to undress for him on camera while he was in the jail, Kellen testified.
This report in the Miami Herald is from Julie K. Brown, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking coverage of Epstein.
Florida Republicans upset the party cancels debate
The Republican Party of Florida has confirmed there will be no “full” gubernatorial debate later this month when the party holds its annual summer confab in South Florida.
The reason? Party officials say that only Byron Donalds of Naples has met the established criteria to qualify, consisting of three metrics:
The candidates had to have reached at least 10% support in an official party poll (and align with other “reputable public polling”).
They had to have raised over $10 million.
They had to have secured more than 10,000 donors.
“I think it’s been rigged from the start, to be perfectly honest, and it’s just par for the course,” gubernatorial candidate Paul Renner, excluded from the debate, told the Florida Phoenix.
False electors figure reprimanded by Florida Supreme Court
The Florida Supreme Court has declined to suspend the Florida law license of Kenneth Chesebro, convicted in Georgia of filing a false list of electors there to undermine Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Instead, the justices issued a reprimand over the objection of Justice Jorge Labarga, the sole member of the court not appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Former Gov. Charlie Crist placed him on the Supreme Court in January 2009.)
“In my view, the intentional commission of fraud upon the court is one of the most egregious ethical transgressions a lawyer can commit, and such serious misconduct necessitates the imposition of severe professional sanctions,” Labarga wrote.
Strange Currents
Today’s edition of this newsletter is brought to you by Tropic Press Books, publisher of The Strange Files Series. Strange Fact: The first sentence of Strange Currents, the fourth book in the series, won the “Best First Sentence” award at the annual International Thriller Writers convention in New York City. It reads:
“I knew my number was up when the flamingo stepped on my face.”
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J.C. Bruce
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I wonder if trump will demand that all hurricanes be named after after himself. Hurricane trump 1, Hurricane trump 2, etc... After all, he is nothing more than a out of control, big blowhard.
The corrupt FL Supreme Court is giving the corrupt trump loving Robert's Court a eun for its money. So as long as someone is republican, they can lie to the court? What's next for the FL Supreme Court? Maybe giving Epstein a posthumous pardon...
All of science is based on the empirical assumptions that an objective reality exists and is discoverable. This philosophy is the "Ph" in "PhD" and applies apolitically to all sciences, including meteorology (such as the PhDs that DeSantis has on stage with him when a storm is coming) and epidemiology (including the PhD epidemiologist terrorized by a DeSantis goon squad for saying something politically inconvenient). I don't like taxes either, but I will pay to be surrounded by educated people.