Opinion
By Dave Scott, 3-28-25
Former boat builder, realtor and local historian, Nick Deonas, says U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) endeavor to crack down on international financing that Cassidy says is harming the domestic shrimp industry may be too late for area shrimpers.
If Senator Cassidy is successful it may help shrimpers in Louisiana and other Gulf of America coast shrimpers but Florida’s Northeast coast, including Fernandina Beach, need more says life-long Fernandina native, boat builder and historian Deonas.
In a February 20 letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Cassidy warned that U.S. taxpayer dollars are indirectly funding foreign shrimp aquaculture expansion, putting American shrimpers at a severe disadvantage.
According to Cassidy, the price per pound dropped from $2.30 to $1.27, a devastating blow for shrimping communities dependent on stable prices to stay afloat.
The senator points to a major cause being the influx of foreign shrimp flooding the U.S. market. In 2021, imported shrimp reached a record 1.8 billion pounds
This surge he says has left domestic shrimpers struggling to compete.
It may be too late, says Deonas, (78), a local realtor, who was one of the last of the wooden boat builders on Amelia Island.
The shrimping industry hereabouts started drying up for a variety of reasons according to Nick. He says the decline is due to the rising cost of insurance, the sky-rocketing price of fuel, lack of qualified help, and packing houses closing and docks deteriorating.
Deonas keeps the era of Fernandina’s shrimping history alive through lectures at the local museum of history and other sites. His family was active in the shrimp industry both shrimping and building boats. The last one they built, the “Jet Stream” (pictured here and above) is still active and docks at Cooke’s at the North end of Front Street in Fernandina.
“Once you pay for insurance, and between $3.50 and $4.00 a gallon for diesel fuel, and sell the shrimp for just $3.50-$4 a pound, the ‘juice just isn’t worth the squeeze,’” he said, using one of his late grandmother’s expressions.
“Families who owned the docks and packing facilities sold their waterfront properties and now there are only about 3-4 shrimp boats active in Fernandina. There’s still plenty of shrimp but the costs associated with harvesting them is astronomical,” he said, adding that there are still about a half dozen shrimp boats working out of Mayport.
Nick said pond or farm raised shrimp from the Gulf in Louisiana, Texas and Alabama are selling well, but the difference in taste from the wild caught is significant. “You never know what you’re getting on your plate when you buy from a restaurant that gets its shrimp from a distributor,” he explains.
Senator Cassidy’s concerns come amid growing evidence of misrepresentation in the U.S. seafood industry.
A recent investigation in Savannah, Georgia, found that 77% of the shrimp advertised as “local” in restaurants were actually imported. The study, conducted by SEAD Consulting on behalf of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, used genetic testing to analyze shrimp origins and exposed widespread deception.
They claim similar findings emerged in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. One investigation by SEAD in Tampa and St. Petersburg revealed that only two out of 44 sampled restaurants were serving authentic, wild-caught Gulf shrimp. The fraud rate — 96% — fueled outrage among Gulf Coast shrimpers who say they are being squeezed out of the market by mislabeled foreign imports.
“If restaurants wish to serve shrimp from countries associated with labor abuses, environmental harms, and banned antibiotics, that is their choice,” said John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “But be honest and let consumers decide.”
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Desperate Dems: Is the Democrat party orchestrating and financing the harassment of Republican members of Congress such as the phony-baloney town hall filled with screeching banshees in Fernandina March 12?
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) suggested Friday, March 21, that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer inadvertently revealed that, yes, they are. And it’s not just in New York.
During a PBS interview about how Democrats plan to “mobilize” people in New York to influence Republican voters Schumer said they are sending people into Republican districts, Hawley told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Democrats are no longer a political party, says the Missouri Republican. “They’re just a theater troupe that is funded by George Soros. And that’s what we’re seeing – theater actors who are showing up at these meetings pretending to be constituents,” Hawley said. “We’re not going to fall for it. ”
Conservative radio host Dana Loesch appeared on Fox News last week to discuss the potential backlash from the town hall meetings orchestrated by left-wing activists.
Democratic leaders have launched tours across the U.S. targeting Republican-led districts to challenge political opposition. During an appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Loesch said that these events are not only failing to engage the Democratic base but are actively alienating voters. They’re backfiring.
In Fernandina Beach far-left extremist Sheila Cocchi staged a fake Aaron Bean town hall Wednesday, March 12 that illustrates Hawley’s and Loesch’s observations.
Local rabble-rouser Cocchi knew Representative Bean was in D.C. working since Congress was in session. So she conducted a fake “Aaron Bean Town Hall” without Bean and trotted out a bizarre array of local nutjobs that mirrored the cast of characters in “Alice In Wonderland’s” Queen of Hearts stolen tarts trial. Cocchi and her inquisition entertained each other and the News Leader and Observer “reporters” with a series of mindless accusations, demands, and incomprehensible gibberish, that would make the Monty Python cast chuckle.
The real question is: Who is paying for this? Where does Ms. Cocchi get the money to finance her extremist activities such as renting the Atlantic Recreation Center auditorium, publicizing her events, flyers, etc.?
Don’t wait for the local Fernandina News Leader or online Observer to ask or investigate. Based on their biased coverage they’re both contributing in kind to the undisciplined tactics. They come across in print as nothing more than propagandists for Cocchi and her bizarre band of angry fist-shaking sign-wavers..
In fact the News Leader front page article bylined by the biased reporter with the fortunate name of Julia Roberts, was so muddled the paper printed a rare front page correction and apology to a quoted attendee five days later.
The Observer’s Black Lives Matter activist and California transplant Mike Lednovich produced his usual “whatever you say, I agree with” drivel.
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Democrats Singing The Blues: People are voting with their feet, leaving Democrat strongholds like California and New York for the freedom of Republican-majority states like Idaho, Florida, and Texas. There is so much migration, in fact, that it is impacting the congressional makeup of these states in what is essentially a sign that the Democrat Party has a foot in the grave.
California’s projected to lose three seats, New York two. Also projected to lose a seat are Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Illinois, all blue states.
Comedian and leftist pundit Bill Maher asked: “Who’s getting the seats? Texas, Florida, Idaho, and Utah. I mean this looks like game over, you know, and the reason why people are voting with their feet is …taxes and regulation.”
Voters are also turned off by public comments by Democrat national figures such as former VP candidate and current goofy Minnesota Governor “Tampon” Tim Walz, who recently cheered car maker Tesla’s stock decline despite his state’s pension fund holding 1.6 million Tesla shares.
A DailyMail.com analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) data reveals that just under half of the country, 24 states, owned Tesla stock in some form as of December 31, 2024.
These holdings come in the form of state-funded pensions, public school teacher and first responder’s retirement funds, investments from state treasuries and more.
The 126,000 U.S. Tesla employees are probably not inclined to vote for the Elmer Fudd look-a-like and rational Minnesotans must be breathing a sigh of relief that he’s term-limited.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) this week refused to answer a question from Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Myles Morell about whether or not she condemns recent acts of vandalism at Tesla dealerships, instead asking him, “Are they paying you well … because I believe you should be paid a fair wage.”
Democrat Texas Congresswoman Jasmin Crockett, this week publicly called wheelchair constrained Texas Governor Greg Abbott “Hot Wheels” and a “hot a__ mess.” Rep. Crockett, spoke to activists on a “Tesla Takedown” conference call last week saying she wants to see Musk “taken down.”
That tops even loony tune Maxine Waters who publicly stated that Melania Trump should be deported.
I thought the Democrat party was the party of compassion. It’s not. These people are anti-American and certifiably nuts.
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From The Horse’s Mouth: Local resident, Middle East expert, author, and national and local columnist Ken Timmerman blew up the desperate Democrats’ storyline about their “Signal Gate” conniption in his recent column that appears on the pages of the Yulee News among other area and national publications.
Ken points out a number of facts debunking the Democrats’ sham argument with a slew of facts but what caught my attention was the following: “We will know — perhaps by the time you read this — which lower-level staffer added the “Atlantic Monthly” Trump-hating journalist to the chat, and whether it was an accident or the deliberate act of an infiltrator seeking to do political harm to the administration. As of now, all signs point to Mike Waltz’s deputy, Alex Wong, whose spouse, Candice Chiu Wong, was an Obama-appointed Assistant US Attorney for the District of Columbia from 2015-2024. In that role, she handled prosecutions of many J6ers.”
The ”bottom line” says Ken is: “The strikes against the Houthis were a tremendous military success and appear to have gotten Iran’s attention. Shortly afterwards, IRGC General Esmail Qaani, commander of the Qods Force, issued “firm instructions” to Iranian proxy militias in Iraq to halt all armed attacks against US targets, for fear of US retaliation.”
Ken’s 14th book of non-fiction, “The Iran House: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue”, can be ordered at: https://amzn.to/4gV9ng5 .
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Disney Snow Job: My Tampa Plant High School friend and American Spectator writer Larry Thornberry never ceases to be clever and amusing, even in personal email messages.
In a recent missive he emailed to me he commented on Disney’s latest woke disaster saying: “….as far as the new and woke Snow White is concerned, Rachel Zegler who plays the lead character is Hispanic, of Columbian descent. So to be consistent with the racial identity politics the Left insists upon, shouldn’t the movie have been titled Snow Brown? Just asking.
“And another thing,” he added. “Shake any tree in Hollywood and a good looking actress looking for work will fall out of it. So you’d think Disney could have signed one of these for the role. I guess this would have been a case of lookism….”
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
