SJC CORRUPTION WATCH: "It is only through politics that miracles occur"

Do you believe in miracles?

I do. 

For the first time in a decade, no spoiler will close the Universal Primary, set for August 20, 2026.  

Victoria Oakes, St. Johns County Supervisor of Elections, so informed Commissioners at their August 16 meeting.  

"They're letting Democrats vote!" 

So said the extremists, even writing it down on Facebook. 

They're crying in their imported Champagne, my friends.

What happened?

Did some wise guys, or their corporate criminal defense lawyers wave them away from their usual dirty tricks?

Did past criminal prosecutions and ongoing investigations of stinky Ghost Candidates and Phony Sample Ballots make them get cold feet?

You tell me. 

"There is no shortage of shills in St. Johns County," as retired lawyer Tom Cushman told me 20 years ago.

This time, seats 2 and 4 are Universal Primaries, as voters intended in amending our Florida State Constitution. 

Near the end of at two-part, six hour play and movie, "Angels in America," one of playwright Tony Kushner's characters says, "It is only through politics that miracles occur.'

America at 250 -- We SHALL overcome! 

Wake up, my friends.  It's 2026.  Time to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. 

Let freedom ring.

I learned about no-bid contracts and corruption from my Mother and my Father, who taught me to fight corruption. My Father taught me,  as JFK's father taught him, that "you have to stand up to people with power, or else they walk all over you."

The New York Times reported on June 19, 2026 about the Department of the Interior's botched no-bid contract for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:  "On Friday night, Mr. Trump blamed at least some of the problems on 'vandalism” by people who he said were out 'to destroy and demean our beautiful work.'"

What a magnificent metaphor for the vandalism of Donald Trump and other developers.

Our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to establishing a democracy on our shores.  They pledged to create the world's first democracy, "E Pluribus Unum," out  of many, one."

Trump claimed recently there are no limits on his power.  Dangerous. Wrong. Undemocratic. Constitutionalism means limited government. Anything less is unAmerican. It is authoritarian, and beneath the dignity of a free people. No kings here.

We, the People, defeated the Confederacy and its laws allowing ownership of human beings. 

We, the People, defeated fascism.   My father and the 82nd ABN DIVN helped liberate the first French town from the Nazis on D-Day, June 6, 1944 before the sun even rose that day.

"We SHALL overcome," as President Lyndon Baines Johnson said to Congress after Selma.

The late "voice of Lincolnville," Ms. Carrie Johnson led some 300 residents in singing "We shall overcome" on January 10, 2008 at St. Paul A.M.E. Church on the occasion when We, the People exposed and defeated the Jim Crow City of St. Augustine City Manager, William Barry Harriss, who dumped a contaminated landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir, 40,000 cubic yards in West Augustine). 

Today, fascism is back, attacking democracy, with more than 1400 police-bashing January 6, 2021 insurrectionists now pardoned by President Donald John Trump.  Americans see right through them,  at last. 

As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Don't give up.  Don't despair."

Let freedom ring.  "Be not afraid."  (It's in the Bible some 106 times).

"Be not afraid" of juvenile gerrymandering, lying, cheating billionaires and trillionaires.