Late last year, for the first time in Florida history, Republican voter registration surpassed that of Democrats.

The Florida GOP now enjoys a state-wide registration advantage of more than 110,000 voters. Polls also indicate that the large bloc of voters not affiliated with any party are also leaning more conservative than in the past.

Gov. DeSantis let the woke corporate mouse know that Florida’s voters are in charge of the state not the empty suits at the California-based Disney.

My Tampa Plant High School classmate and American Spectator writer, Larry Thornberry, took notice. The current Tampa resident recently wrote that “Midwesterners have moved to Florida’s west coast at such a rate that Tampa could be most accurately described now as Peoria with palm trees.”

They’ve come here not only for the sunshine but to escape the expensive and loony politics of the states they fled.

Says Larry: “Here we have no income tax, a business-friendly state government headed by a conservative governor who kept the state open during the late COVID hysteria, and prosecutors who actually prosecute and make every attempt to keep criminal predators off the street. If anyone here is in a New York state of mind he’s keeping it to himself.”

And just in case they forget about the liberal wreckage they left in their rearview mirror Amelia Island resident Amanda Borghese raised funds for a North-facing local billboard (pictured above) that smacks them in the face when they arrive here. It is expected to go up in early June and is located southbound on I-95 and leads into town from a northernmost point. This area leads to the I-295 beltway, which loops around the city, as well as the Jacksonville International Airport, and several attractions including the Zoo.  This is a high tourist, high traffic area, that leads in from Georgia. It also leads into Jacksonville (Downtown, I-10) from the north section of town.

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$3.95! Those were the “good ‘ole days”.

Brace Yourselves: If you think prices are high now you ain’t seen nothing yet!.

Linda and I took an almost 2,000-mile car trip traveling the back roads of the southeast last week and paid an average of $4.15 a gallon for gas. As I pumped the fuel I couldn’t help but notice the sky-high price of diesel and was relieved I didn’t have to spring for its $5.50 and more per gallon.

However, despite not using diesel fuel I’ll still end up paying as will others.

American businesses run on diesel, so that means higher transportation prices for almost everything and those costs will be passed on to the consumer. Since all farm equipment uses diesel food prices will keep going up because the higher costs are also passed on to us.

Diesel is going to continue to rise due to a shortage of U.S. refining capacity (a new refinery hasn’t been built in the U.S. since the mid 1970’s) and of heavy oil which is used to make diesel. Since the Biden administration has declared war on the oil and gas industry they aren’t going to invest money in exploration and drilling until this train wreck of an administration comes to an end.

If stupidity and ineptitude were crimes Joe Biden and his fellow nitwits running the Oval Office would be serving life sentences. How incompetent and stupid are they? Well, Biden and his fellow twits are saying that they’re going to reduce inflation by raising taxes on companies. What? That defies all logic since the tax increases will also be passed on to the consumer. They always are. It’ll make things worse for all of us.

These morons are worse than hopeless. Their idiocy should  be against the law.

By the way, during our stay in Oxford, Mississippi I had a chance to chat with groups of ‘Ole Miss students at local watering holes and surprisingly discovered, without prodding, that their values are as conservative as mine. I didn’t find a gender studies scholar among them.

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Speaking Of Lawless Lunatics: Insanity in public schools and government at all levels is rampant and parents and voters who are paying attention have had enough.

For example, three eighth grade school kids in Kiel, Wisconsin were just charged with sexual harassment by their school for not calling some other kid by some pronoun that kid preferred.

How many of us would have been charged with crimes for calling other kids names?

These Democrat serial morons actually encourage child abuse and genital mutilation by encouraging teens to get sex change treatments and surgery. That’s clearly child abuse. Medical doctors that practice this treatment on children should have their medical licenses revoked and then be jailed. School administrators and teachers who condone this abuse should be fired, have their licenses revoked then charged with child abuse.

I just learned recently that most states have no laws specifically protecting vulnerable children from gender transition experimentation. That needs to change, and people who agree are now sounding off for parental rights and laws that protect minors from harmful gender transition procedures.

In addition, these loons are turning the U.S. military into a laughing stock with the teaching of Critical Race Theory as well as feminist and LGBTQ+ propaganda in a zany social experiment designed to make our military look ridiculous.

While Russia is invading Ukraine, China is beefing up its military, Iranian terrorists chant “Death to America” while building nuclear bombs, and North Korea fires intercontinental missiles, these nincompoops are preaching that climate change is our greatest enemy.

The whack jobs on the left think they can dictate everything we are supposed to think and say because they actually believe they are morally superior and the only ones that know what acceptable speech is and what the facts are.

Americans have had enough of the arrogance and stupidity of these people. They’re fed up with folks like Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Stacy Abrams, Adam Schiff, etc. and they are pushing back, hard.

That includes at the grassroots level right here in Nassau County. There are five local organizations that should make any left-wingers on the School Board, the City and County Commissions and others very nervous, and that’s a good thing.

“Come on folks, let’s move the ball parks to the airport.”

These local watchdog groups are looking over elected and unelected politico’s shoulders and they’re uncompromising. Both the Fernandina Beach City and County Commissions are going to have difficulty shoving any lefty garbage out the door or financing pet projects not deemed worthwhile by local voters.

For example, how many times do local citizens have to tell the jerks at city hall to leave the ball parks at Central Park right where they are. These spendthrifts are so anxious to spend our tax dollars they want once again to tear up this downtown Norman Rockwell-like setting and move it to the airport. We emphatically said “NO!” seven years ago and we said it again this past week. Yet the tone-deaf City Manager Dale “Big Spender” Martin wrote a one-third page opinion piece in the local News Leader crammed with incomprehensible bureaucratic babble in a failed attempt to justify his nonsense. Whoever, the “anonymous” donor is who offered $500,000 to screw us over, can take his money and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. Does this generous benefactor own property at the airport?

Even the bi-weekly News Leader newspaper’s far-left columnist, Ron “Get Off My Lawn You Little Bastards” Sapp, who lives in a progressive bubble, says leave the ball parks where they are. This may be the only time I’ve ever agreed with anything he’s written.

People like Fernandina Mayor and California transplant Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich and gasbag bully City Commissioner, Chip Ross, will be watched closely for any missteps. City Manager Martin should seriously consider updating his resume.

Those running for seats on the County and City Commissions and the Ocean Highway and Port Authority are going to come under harsh scrutiny as these organizations vet, then condemn or endorse candidates.

An emoji for idiots.

Candidates who attempt to lower the standard of our culture, destroy the nuclear family, narrow the range of artistic possibilities, and sexually pervert elementary school age children, have no place in our local government our schools or our society. These are people who will nonchalantly murder a nine-month-old infant coming out of the birth canal but who hysterically run around guarding sea turtle eggs buried on local beaches.

A record 185 people voted in this blog’s most recent poll asking if they agreed with Gov. DeSantis’s recent parental rights legislation which prohibits teachers from discussing gender fluidity and sexual identity to third graders and younger. A whopping 94%  (174) said “yes” while only 6% (11) said “no”.

These humorless left-wing local lemmings are attempting to radically alter language down to its use of pronouns. They have made it impossible to talk candidly about crime at a time when candor is desperately needed. Their objective is to make our lives – guided by their own misguided self-righteousness – more inhibited, constricted, and unpleasant.

These immoral bullies are now being challenged and will be called out for what they really are. These local watchdog groups won’t tolerate corporate wokeness, the corrupt and fraudulent Black Lives Matter scam, CRT, dissolving definitions of morality and ethics, loss of our national sovereignty or any other such rubbish locally or nationally.

Those interested in working with them or learning more can contact the following:

Common Sense Fernandina Beach & County Citizens Defending Freedom:

According to Common Sense founder Jack Knocke the Common Sense/CCDFUSA team is currently working on a variety of items focused on our schools to ensure that children are protected, and school taxes are being invested wisely. Following are questions that citizens have brought up that this group is currently researching.

1. What guidelines are being given to Instructional Staff re: LGBTQ+, Sexual identity, transgender, use of pronouns, etc. and what training is being given and which vendors are being used to address these issues?
2. What books are available to our students that violate the FL State Statute on Obscenity?
3. What are the impacts on students and teachers with the change from the Block Schedule to 7 period day? Effect on electives? Dual enrollment? CTE courses?
4. Why isn’t the District doing in-person exit interviews when current year resignations are approaching 25%? Why don’t they want to know about why 160+ teachers have resigned this year? Why do they only say: “It’s a national problem”?
5. Why does the District continue to promote unqualified or lesser qualified current employees rather than hire external candidates who are often very highly qualified? It’s happened three times in the last year. Why does the District limit its external recruitment to 5-7 days when best practices call for a 21–28-day recruitment time window?
6. Why weren’t Board members provided all the data necessary available to make an informed decision re: the 10-acre land purchase of $3.7 million?
7. Why are there charges for simple, basic Public Records Requests?
8. Why isn’t there a Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, as called for in Florida State Statute 1011.035?
9. What are the budget plans for 2022-2023 budget cycle? Millage increase? Spending growth? Efficiencies realized?
10. Why does our current Budget only show a 1.98% reserve when Florida mandates 3% minimum and best practices calls for one month of expenses or 8.5%?
11. Why are we using Federal ESSER Funds, which are meant to address the impact Covid-19 has had and continues to have, for basic operating expenses? Where will this $4 million come from, after next year?
12. What is the impact of the illegal aliens currently flooding into the area? How disruptive are they to the classroom? How many translators does the school system have? How many does it need? What’s the cost of this illegal invasion to the Nassau County School District? If you have to be a resident of the Nassau County School District to enroll your kids, why are there so many cars with Georgia plates picking up children after school hereabouts?

The group is seeking answers to these and other questions, as it attempts to engage more parents, grandparents, students and interested citizens to help with the process.

Locals who Would you like to join us to assist in improving our School District? Click here to sign up as an ambassador or to donate.

Rich Lamken is the Common Sense Division Leader for Schools. He can be contacted at ralamken@yahoo.com.

Nassau FL Conservatives In Action (NFCIA)

This newest local group held its first session April 20 to recruit members and explain its simple mission of “building a strong community through uncompromising conservative values.”  The group hosted state, local and federal candidates running for office at the Mocama Beer Company this past Wednesday, May 18. The group can be contacted at info@nfcinaction.com

Citizen’s Journal Florida

The newest media outlet is currently under-construction and headed-up by publisher and veteran media executive, George Miller, a newcomer to the area from Ventura County, California, who created a similarly successful publication in a much more inhospitable California media environment.

In 2013 Miller constructed, successfully operated, and eventually sold a now flourishing news outlet in that socialistic hellhole of a state. Miller’s intent is to provide an outlet for news other than the monotonous stream of pap currently spewed by the area’s politically timid, left-wing media crowd.

Miller is a harsh critic of the current “mainstream” media. The Citizens Journal will reflect his attitude, one that informal polling indicates is shared by a majority of folks hereabouts.

Miller says the online Citizens Journal will focus on reporting news important to the community, including local governments, school boards, businesses, politics, among other issues. He says that it will put state, national, and international events into perspective, particularly how they impact local citizens.

“CJ-FL will be using a “Citizens Journal” mostly volunteer model,” he says. “As revenue increases we will be able to improve compensation. We will utilize a combination of local citizens, some with extraordinary skills and a few professionals, to write, publish and operate the publication. Those interested can sign up at: https://www.citizensjournal.net/2022/04/15/welcome-to-the-future-home-of-citizens-journal-florida/ Miller says he is seeking staff with various skills for the initially predominately volunteer-operated publication including the following:

• Web skills (SQL, WordPress, SEO, social media)
• Editorial-by geographical areas, categories, topics, managing editors, copy, proofreading, layout, and scheduling.
• Reporters for government, business, NGOs, topics, such as education, medicine, faith, rights, health/fitness, family, business, environment, technology, energy, transportation, entertainment, sports, etc. (certain labor-intensive reporting is paid)
• Circulation- distribution channels, social media, subscriptions
• Marketing and promotion
• Legal: copyright, permissions, liability, etc.
• Sales: advertising and fundraising. These are paid contractual relationships.

For additional information on current positions and how to contribute contact: publisher@citizensjournal.net.

We The People

We The People was created about seven years ago by island resident Deb Boelkes to provide Nassau County residents an opportunity to hear and question federal, state and local politicians, authors, educators and other influencers.  “We the People” has grown to a 500-member grassroots organization based on Amelia Island that attracts attention throughout northeast Florida. “I created We the People with a mission to rebuild traditional American values; encourage critical thinking; foster respectful, healthy dialog on matters of importance to our community, state and nation; and motivate citizens to vote,” explains Ms. Boelkes. Monthly meetings are usually held the first Monday of each month. For more information and to get on her mailing list contact Ms. Boelkes at: deb.boelkes@bwrising.com

Investigative Team

There’s another small group of very smart people including attorneys, businesspeople, educators and more that are keeping a low profile in their efforts to have the state take a peek at the City of Fernandina Beach’s activities involving the misuse of impact/capacity fees and other alleged financial shenanigans. They’re currently keeping their activities quiet until they have achieved their objective.

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Wait! What? The latest Sports Illustrated, a magazine that used to cover sports before it got woke, features what  it calls a “plus-size” gal on its annual swimsuit edition cover. In other words – she’s fat. It’s always been OK to comment on previous cover gals for the annual swimsuit edition saying they were “hot”, “attractive”, “gorgeous”, etc. so why isn’t it OK to say: “that gal is fat, and I don’t find her attractive.”  Why is it wrong to have an opinion that says: “I’m not attracted to this fat chick” but okay to applaud the slim models?

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Farewell Mikey Gilly: Larry Thornberry, who I mentioned here earlier, alerted me to country singer Mikey Gilley’s passing at 86 May 7. In his outline of Gilly’s career in The American Spectator Larry reminded his readers that during his long career, Gilley had 39 top ten and 17 No. 1 songs on the country music charts. He ran the table on country music awards. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011. During all this writing and recording, Gilley also found time to act in movies and TV shows.

“Gilley was good at the slower ballads as well as the honky-tonk stuff,” says Larry. “His first No. 1 country hit came in 1974 with “A Room Full of Roses,” a love song first brought to the country charts by Eddy Arnold. The songs came along apace, but Gilley burst into the national spotlight with 1980’s hit movie Urban Cowboy, much of which took place in Mickey’s nightclub, “Gilley’s,” in Pasadena, Texas. The movie stars John Travolta, Debra Winger, and Scott Glenn, with Mickey at the piano.”

“One of Mickey’s hits, one of my favorites, is “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time” wrote Larry, adding “ It’s a bouncy number that entertains while reminding us that country songs often deal with eternal verities. This one is a tuneful lament about the desperate, late-night search for the answer to loneliness. A search conducted in places where the chances of success are far less than the prospect of trouble.”

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The Richest & Smartest Man? Elon Musk is not only the richest man in the world, but he may also be the smartest.  Just two or three weeks ago he had Twitter employees and their supporters hysterically crying and screaming about his takeover bid for that firm. He’s now got them demanding he purchase it. He’s managed to manipulate the Board of Directors into insisting he buy the company. I bet he does and at a lower price than his initial offer too. The twits at Twitter are so confused.