Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel (Ret’d). Historian manqué, WWII and Cold War. Red Sox fan. Gator fan. Practicing Utilitarian.
Tallahassee, FL
Joined April 2009
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Richard Donelan retweeted
The president's lawyers told SCOTUS that there’s a huge emergency and the Court just shrugged and said “nah” without even hearing from the other side.
This is how far this DOJ has fallen under Todd Blanche in the eyes of the courts.
Richard Donelan retweeted
BREAKING: Just as a glimmer of hope emerges between the US and Iran, someone starts bombing Iranian radar sites. I suspect Israel.
I posted a few days ago that a glimmer of hope had emerged in the US-Iran talks mediated by Qatar. Over the past few days, progress has increased to the point that sources and officials on all sides have privately expressed a degree of optimism, and both JD Vance and Trump himself did so publicly just a few hours ago.
Then, suddenly, things started to blow up on the Iranian island of Qeshm, as well as near the cities of Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz in southern Iran.
The Iranians tell me that they are certain the attacks were conducted by Israel, and not the US. A senior US source tells me it wasn’t the American side.
I posted last weekend that Israel had breached Iranian airspace. Tehran, however, opted not to respond, suspecting that Israel wanted to goad Iran into a trap by responding harshly, as that could help Netanyahu in the elections and force Trump’s hand in terms of turning to war.
It would be completely in line with a decades-long pattern of Israeli sabotage of US-Iran diplomacy that Netanyahu would begin kinetic action on the eve of a potential breakthrough in US-Iran talks - which incidentally appears to include a Chinese dimension - in order to sabotage it. Israel has opposed every US-Iran deal, including Trump’s MOU from this past summer.
Read more: tritaparsi.substack.com/p/br…
Richard Donelan retweeted
Tomorrow, Florida can end a broken, expensive, corrupt system that has wrecked our beloved state, turned it into a playground for rapacious developers and data centers, has broken faith with our seniors and veterans, and crushed families with insane insurance costs.
There's a better way.
Vote @davidjollyfl for Governor.
Richard Donelan retweeted
Dear @AGToddBlanche: When you betray your oath and try to enforce the rule of trump over the rule of law, you get smacked down. This time by the Supreme Court.
Take your authoritarian shit and shove it.
November 3 elections are coming and you can’t stop it.
Richard Donelan retweeted
G.K. Chesterton’s old adage remains undefeated: “The poor sometimes object to being governed badly. The rich always object to being governed at all.”
Richard Donelan retweeted
#Vote2026 please analyze thoughtfully. if possible even filter out glossy tv ads slanted left and right. Vote responsibly on behalf of your town, city, state and nation for the future of your loved ones and our society. But please Vote.
Thanks All
Richard Donelan retweeted
A smart caution that we await the facts. They may reveal something worse or better than than what we think. But facts are the only metric for evaluating what happened and trying to avoid a disastrous repeat.
Writing this in my personal capacity, but I have been flying these types of aircraft for more than 20 years, with over 8,000 hours, and have reasonable familiarity with how the charter world operates. I feel compelled to post after seeing commentary about the Lear 60 crash, from missile strikes to DEI to critiquing this poor woman’s final radio calls.
That last part is what I find most troubling. She was the second-in-command (SIC), and while she was empowered to point out mistakes as part of good crew resource management, she was doing her job, communicating with ATC right to the end in a terrifying situation. She likely knew before many of those calls that she was going to die. I have heard final calls from friends, from military pilots with thousands of hours in fighter aircraft, and they are just as heartbreaking because they know the end is approaching.
I understand the public interest given the footage and audio. But you do not know the aircraft’s maintenance history, whether there was a structural failure, if any failure was induced by turbulence, overspeed, or overcontrol, or everything happening in that cockpit. I am sure weather will be part of the investigation, but beyond that, it is speculation. The charter industry routinely hires commercial pilots very early in their careers to gain experience alongside an ATP-qualified captain before they move up to the airlines. She would still have the appropriate training, qualifications, and checkouts by an FAA examiner or designee.
Let people investigate, learn, and share the facts. Be respectful to those who perished and the families who carry their memories. God bless them and their loved ones.
Richard Donelan retweeted
Russia performed a cyber attack shutting down freezers across the EU yesterday.
Today election sites in the US have closures due to “power issues” in blue parts of important swing counties….
#BREAKING: 2 election centers in Maricopa County, Arizona, closed 'due to power issues.'
Richard Donelan retweeted
If there is even a small chance that President Trump is considering bombing Iran with a nuclear weapon then he needs to be removed from office now. Someone in his cabinet needs to step up and stop this madness.
Richard Donelan retweeted
These Are The U.S. Weapons Most At Risk In The Looming Rare Earths Supply Crisis
Rare earths are critical in thousands of weapon systems, many of which are essential to national security, and China is the source for most of them.
twz.com/news-features/these-…
Richard Donelan retweeted
We continue to hear about the culture war issues from the Donalds’ camp but I have never heard any residents in my county stress over crosswalk colors, airport names, or fake socialism.
What I do hear (in meetings, townhalls, and emails) is worry about our wetlands, development boundary, and impact fees (SB180). I hear about our endless sprawl (ag enclaves, blue ribbon projects, HB399). I hear about the multitude of new “affordable” apartment projects (Live Local). I hear about our lack of a retail pet ban or environmental protections (SB170: local ordinance restrictions). I hear about AI Data Centers (the donations are in the bank).
All of these nonpartisan concerns are what ACTUALLY affect your day-to-day lives.
They are all products of the current Tallahassee establishment, corporate donors, and lobbyists and they are guaranteed to continue if we keep voting for the status quo. I would argue that these preemptions and attacks on home rule will, in fact, expand through a newly-stated mandate if we don’t vote in some guardrails.
We need checks and balances to protect our communities and give us a voice. We have an opportunity to elect a moderate, thoughtful Governor who doesn’t claim that “things are just solved over a Scotch at 11 o’clock at night” behind closed doors with lobbyists and his friends in the legislature.
A Governor Jolly would solve things WITH all of us, from all parties.
@davidjollyfl is exactly who we need holding the veto pen to return the balance of power to YOU and bring back our home rule, limited government, and local control of growth management.
If you care more about the party-line vote, then go ahead and vote the same way once again and hope for a different outcome. But don’t be surprised when you lose more of your control and your voice.
Richard Donelan retweeted
Authorities discovered safes weighing 1,660 kg of the kind used by banks and pawnshops inside a soundproofed room secured by a security door in the home of Miklós Seszták, a member of parliament and former minister under @PM_ViktorOrban.
Richard Donelan retweeted
The Navy trains roughly 1,000 air-traffic controllers annually, at about $100,000 per trainee. Nearly a quarter fail. A Georgia Tech researcher was testing a better way to identify candidates likely to succeed. His early results were promising. Then the Navy canceled the grant. He says the project had no DEI component and believes it was cut because it took place at a university. The Pentagon's own review warns that the military's research "innovation engine is at risk of stalling." Here's what that warning looks like in practice: useful research, stopped midstream.
nytimes.com/2026/10/31/clima…
Richard Donelan retweeted
Connected everything in your home, like where you talk to your fridge and your toaster tells you the weather, is going to get way less popular. All that software, how secure do you think it is? Yeah. Just buy an oven or a fridge that does fridge and oven things. Everything else is just an attack vector.
Richard Donelan retweeted
This is an abuse of power and grounds for impeachment of the Attorney General.
reuters.com/legal/government…
Richard Donelan retweeted
This was the equivalent of extending human lifespan by 9 years
science.org/content/article/… @ScienceMagazine
Bone as a modulator of aging.
Dynamic force on the tibia is sensed and extends healthspan and lifespan, with reduced inflammation, and bone marrow immunosenescence in the experimental model. When Piezo1 (pressure sensor) receptor was deleted, resulting in lack of sensing, the opposite occurred @Cell_Metabolism
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
Richard Donelan retweeted
It’s been wild to see the outrage over the Alaska stuff after being witness to a nearly identical strategy play out in Florida, which barely registered despite some underlying facts that were quite a bit more troubling.
The organized spoiler strategy didn't begin in Alaska and isn't the only one this cycle. Few are investigated and when they are, as happened in Florida when the GOP perpetrators accepted bribes, it took years to prosecute and send them to jail. tampabay.com/news/florida-po…
Richard Donelan retweeted
Closing argument from Byron Donalds: who cares if you are paying too much for things, shut up and vote for the people responsible for that increase in prices.
In 1 of last few events ahead of Election Day @ByronDonalds rips into opponent @davidjollyfl But he says gas prices and costs are "too high." "Yeah it's a little more expensive right now," he said. But he said just bc of "frustrations" they can't turn state over to Dems
