Homeowners left scrambling after insurers drop coverage targeting working-class families: ‘Almost impossible to find coverage’
Alyssa Ochs – October 24, 2024
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Insurance companies are dropping customers in San Francisco due to extreme weather risks and if they fail to make unaffordable home upgrades.
Homeowners who still can get coverage are struggling to afford the sky-high premiums and risk having to pay out of pocket for natural disasters.
What’s happening?
As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, California’s insurance crisis is worsening.
Many insurers are telling homeowners they must make roofing and electrical repairs and replacements to keep their policies. As a result, an increasing number of San Franciscans are enrolling in the California FAIR plan, which provides the most basic but high-cost insurance to people who can’t get a policy through traditional insurance companies.
Jerry Becerra, Barbary Insurance Brokerage president, said the aging wiring of many San Francisco homes built in the 1940s or earlier makes it “almost impossible to find coverage.”
Beyond home maintenance-based denials, insurers are refusing to cover San Francisco homeowners due to wildfire risks. They also won’t cover homes where there are too many policies in the region prone to climate-related threats.
Why is homeowners insurance important?
San Francisco is just one of the many places experiencing an insurance crisis right now.
Insurance companies are dropping customers in high-risk areas all over the country due to extreme weather threats. These climate shifts result from planet-overheating pollution caused by unsustainable human activities like burning dirty energy.
Yet, in San Francisco and elsewhere, homeowners insurance is a crucial safety net for protecting against natural disasters.
What’s being done about insurance accessibility?
Insurance alternatives like the California FAIR Plan are helping homeowners get basic coverage for their homes for at least some peace of mind.
Ahsha Safaí from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors said, “It’s unfortunate that it’s playing out and hitting working families.” He also said the insurance crisis “has to be something that we advocate for through our state delegation.”
You can advocate for insurance accessibility by contacting your local government representatives and expressing your concerns. Vote for candidates who support pro-climate policies, and start making small changes in your daily habits to influence your neighbors as you lead by example.
For example, now is the perfect time to look into the available tax credits and government rebates for sustainable home upgrades. These cost savings may make it possible to update your home so that it is eligible for insurance coverage while lowering your monthly energy bills at the same time.
Homeowners outraged after major insurance company announces it won’t renew nearly 1,300 policies — here’s what you need to know
Jenny Allison – October 23, 2024
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For many Oklahoma homeowners, November is ushering in the need to find new insurance coverage at a time when it seems many options are either too expensive, insufficient, or simply nonexistent.
What’s happening?
The reason behind their predicament is that Farmers Insurance has decided not to renew certain policies due to wildfire risk, Newsweek reported. Now, around 1,300 homeowners are scrambling to find new coverage, as their policies are expiring in November.
“As housing prices have swelled as have the costs to replace them, so too have insurance prices to cover potential damage,” Newsweek quoted Alex Beene, a financial literacy professor at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
“And when you mix those increased expenses with a home in an area that is highly likely to encounter some type of natural disaster, it’s forcing insurance providers to raise premiums to unfathomable heights or just drop coverage completely.”
Why is this pattern concerning?
While Farmers is choosing not to renew the selected policies due to wildfire risk, other states are seeing the same issue over risks of hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, or other extreme weather-related events.
Unfortunately, scientists have found that these events are projected to grow even more intense as a direct result of our warming climate. And unless those temperatures slow down soon, wildfires and storms will continue to grow in severity.
For homeowners, losing coverage can mean having to enroll in a more expensive policy; in some cases, when no such policies are available or affordable, it can mean having to move towns or even states.
“Not only are they living in a property that won’t be covered in the case of damage, but the odds of them being able to relocate and sell that property go down considerably based on that same circumstance,” Beene told Newsweek.
What’s being done to protect homeowners?
Ideally, smaller insurance carriers in a market like Oklahoma’s could “come and pick up the pieces” left behind by a decision like this, Newsweek explained. But with carriers fearing increasing costs, many homeowners will instead see soaring premiums or be forced to use subpar providers.
Some states offer a state-managed plan, but it’s essentially a “last resort” arrangement and isn’t currently structured to withstand covering thousands of homeowners per state.
Homeowners left in the lurch after major insurance companies deem state ‘essentially uninsurable’: ‘Too many landscapes are ready to explode’
Kaiyo Funaki – October 24, 2024
Another turbulent wildfire season in California has left residents without insurance for some of their most valuable assets.
What’s happening?
According to a report from Wired, insurance companies are either hiking up premiums for homeowners or dropping policies altogether in fire-prone California.
For example, Allstate refuses to accept new customers, while Liberty Mutual and State Farm have stopped renewing plans for tens of thousands of customers — some of whom had been with a company for decades and have resorted to state-operated coverage that is far more expensive.
“My whole family has been with State Farm for maybe 75 years. They sent us a letter in July saying that they would keep us if they could, but had no choice and were canceling in August,” Suzanne Romaine, a resident of northern California’s Siskiyou County, told Wired.
The issue has become so prevalent that severalcounties have requested state officials to declare a state of emergency for insurance prices. Climate research and technology nonprofit First Street Foundation has even regarded parts of the state as “essentially ‘uninsurable.'”
Why are the rising insurance rates driven by wildfires concerning?
As global temperatures continue to climb, so will the frequency and destruction of wildfires.
According to Wired, California has suffered $30 billion in losses from wildfires since 2017. In that same period, the state experienced nine of its 10 largest fires and 13 of its 20 most destructive ones.
This past summer, first responders battled the fourth-largest fire in state history — one that spawned fire tornadoes and contaminated water supplies.
“The drying out of the U.S. Southwest since 1980 has created so much kindling that too many landscapes are ready to explode,” Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College, said. “The planet is warming rapidly, which increases the desiccation of vegetation and establishes near impossible conditions in which to fight fire.”
These conditions — coupled with improper forest management, the state’s restrictive fire insurance regulations, and economic restraints — have created an untenable situation with few winners.
“If you suppress rates and try to tell companies that they can only charge X, and they start losing money, eventually they are going to say: ‘I’m going to be super picky at that artificially low premium,’ or ‘We’re not going to write anybody, and will come back when things get reasonable,'” said David Russell, an insurance and finance professor at California State University, Northridge. “And that’s what you’ve seen with State Farm.”
What’s being done about the rising insurance costs?
Wired noted that California has initiated its Sustainable Insurance Strategy, which would allow insurance companies to utilize wildfire risk models that rely on future projections, whereas previous models used only historical data.
The state will also create a public risk model that will prevent private models from overestimating the future risk of wildfire losses that result in overcharged customers. Additionally, California is expediting rate increase approvals to get private insurers to return.
“There are changes afoot that could bring insurance supply back to the market. This cannot happen fast enough,” Russell added.
Trump in Chicago interview defends call for tariffs on imports, does not commit to peaceful concession if he loses
Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune – October 15, 2024
CHICAGO — Former President Donald Trump used an appearance before the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday to deliver a strong defense for using tariffs on foreign imports to grow jobs and the economy, dismissing criticism it could lead to consumer price increases and a resurgence of inflation if he is elected.
The Republican presidential nominee also warned that the country is on the verge of World War III because of conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and questioned the intelligence of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential contender, to solve economic and foreign issues.
Trump’s unusual visit to a nonbattleground state with three weeks left in the campaign lacked any mention of his long-standing criticisms of Chicago and violence. He offered the more than 500 people in attendance, largely major business executives supportive of his campaign, a backhanded compliment by noting that he appeared before the Detroit Economic Club last week and, “I think you people are probably even wealthier. OK?”
The former president also veered wildly from questions posed to him by John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, and restated past criticisms of the “fake media” and “corrupt press.”
Asked about a potential Justice Department move to break up Google parent Alphabet, Trump complained that its search engine’s algorithms display a preponderance of negative stories about him.
“I think it’s a whole rigged deal. I think Google’s rigged, just like our government is rigged,” he said. But he stopped short of saying the tech giant should be broken up.
He again defended the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by Trump supporters seeking to block President Joe Biden’s Electoral College certification and claimed there had been a “peaceful transfer of power.” But Trump did not commit to a peaceful concession should he lose to Harris in November.
Trump has touted imposing tariffs as part of his protectionist America First agenda for restoring and bringing in jobs and new manufacturing into the United States, most often citing China as a major threat.
But in speaking for just more than an hour at a downtown hotel ballroom, Trump also warned that U.S. allies, including members of the European Union, Japan and South Korea, had taken advantage of import rules at the expense of the United States’ economic well-being.
“Our allies have taken advantage of us more so than our enemies,” Trump said.
“They screw us on trade, so bad the European nations,” he said, adding to it the cost of U.S. support for NATO, “so they’re taking tremendous advantage of us.”
With an estimated 40 million U.S. jobs that rely on trade, accounting for more than a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product, Trump said his answer was an easy one for companies wanting to avoid tariffs and the higher costs associated with their goods.
“All you have to do is build your plant in the United States, and you don’t have any tariffs,” he said.
Economists have repeatedly argued tariffs would amount to a national sales tax. Asked about the contention the tariffs would hit consumers on the roughly $3 trillion worth of current imports, Trump said, “The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory in the United States so it doesn’t have to pay the tariff.”
For the auto industry, Trump threatened tariffs of as high as “2,000%” to prevent foreign companies from importing cars. He said the move would price those companies out of the American consumer market unless those car companies begin building new and more manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
Trump spoke of the decline of the U.S. steel industry until he imposed tariffs on Chinese steel. He also repeated his opposition to the potential acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan-based Nippon Steel.
“There are certain companies you have to have. There are certain things you have to have. Steel, you have to have if you go to war,” Trump said. “While we’re talking about it, we have never been so close to World War III as we are right now with what’s going on in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East.”
On the neck-and-neck Nov. 5 presidential election, Trump reiterated many of his insults he’s made about Harris on the campaign trail.
“I never thought I’d say this: She is not as smart as Biden if you can put it that way. We had four years of this lunacy and we can’t have anymore. We’re not going to have a country left,” Trump said.
Trump also continued to voice his baseless grievance that the 2020 election was stolen from him, saying he believed the election was “100%” crooked. Speaking about Jan. 6 again, he said his supporters had a right to protest and said of the day of the attack that “it was love and peace” and then “some people went to the Capitol, and a lot of strange things happened.”
The former president also lied when he said none of the Capitol rioters had a gun. As a result of the attack, there were 129 people charged with ‘using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer,” the Poynter Institute found.
It was Trump’s first public appearance in Chicago since his July 31 conversation before the National Association of Black Journalists convention in which he notably questioned the racial identity of Harris, the first Black and Asian American woman to become a major party’s presidential nominee.
Trump sandwiched the trip to Chicago between a visit Monday evening for a rally in suburban Philadelphia that was cut short due to people who became overheated and a Tuesday evening appearance in Atlanta for a “town hall” on women’s issues.
Democrats have been using the Supreme Court’s reversal of a federal right to abortion to try to motivate women voters to cast ballots opposing Trump and down ballot Republicans for their anti-abortion stance.
In addition to economic clubs in Chicago and Detroit, Trump also visited the Economic Club of New York in September, where he said revenue from tariffs would more than cover the need to help provide child care assistance for working parents.
“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s — relatively speaking — not very expensive, compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in,” he said.
Trump vows to levy ‘horrible’ tariffs on imports, rejecting fears of inflation spike
Jennifer Shutt – October 15, 2024
The Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, on Tuesday, Oct. 15, spoke to the Economic Club of Chicago. In this photo, he speaks to attendees during a campaign rally at the Mosack Group warehouse on Sept. 25 in Mint Hill, North Carolina. (Brandon Bell | Getty Images)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defended his plans for steep tariffs on Tuesday, arguing economists who say that those higher costs would get passed onto consumers are incorrect and that his proposals would benefit American manufacturing.
During an argumentative hour-long interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago, Trump vehemently denied tariffs on certain imported goods would lead to further spikes in inflation and sour America’s relationship with allies, including those in Europe.
“The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States, and build a factory in the United States so it doesn’t have to pay the tariff,” Trump said.
Micklethwait questioned Trump about what would happen to consumer prices during the months or even years it would take companies to build factories in the United States and hire workers.
Trump responded that he could make tariffs “so high, so horrible, so obnoxious that they’ll come right away.” Earlier during the interview, Trump mentioned placing tariffs on foreign-made products as high as 100% or 200%.
Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Joseph Costello wrote in a statement released following the interview that “Trump showed exactly why Americans can’t afford a second Trump presidency.”
“An angry, rambling Donald Trump couldn’t focus, had to be repeatedly reminded of the topic at hand, and whenever he did stake out a position, it was so extreme that no Americans would want it,” Costello wrote. “This was yet another reminder that a second Trump term is a risk Americans simply cannot take.”
Smoot-Hawley memories
Micklethwait noted during the interview that 40 million jobs and 27% of gross domestic product within the United States rely on trade, questioning how tariffs on those products would help the economy.
He also asked Trump if his plans for tariffs could lead the country down a similar path to the one that followed the Smoot-Hawley tariff law becoming law in June 1930. Signed by President Herbert Hoover, some historians and economists have linked the law to the beginning of the Great Depression.
Trump disagreed with Micklethwait, though he didn’t detail why his proposals to increase tariffs on goods from adversarial nations as well as U.S. allies wouldn’t begin a trade war.
The U.S. Senate’s official explainer on the Smoot-Hawley tariffs describes the law as being “among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history.” And the Congressional Research Services notes in a report on U.S. tariff policy that it was the last time lawmakers set tariff rates.
Desmond Lachman, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, wrote last month that Trump’s proposal to implement tariffs of at least 60% on goods imported from China as well as 10 to 20% on all other imports could have severe economic consequences.
“It is difficult to see how such a unilateral trade policy in flagrant violation of World Trade Organization rules would not lead to retaliation by our trade partners with import tariff increases of their own,” Lachman wrote. “As in the 1930s, that could lead us down the destructive path of beggar-my-neighbor trade policies that could cause major disruption to the international trade system. Such an occurrence would be particularly harmful to our export industries and would heighten the chances of both a US and worldwide economic recession.”
CRS notes in its reports that while the Constitution grants Congress the authority to establish tariffs, lawmakers have given the president some authority over it as well.
The United States’ membership in the World Trade Organization and various other trade agreements also have “tariff-related commitments,” according to CRS.
“For more than 80 years, Congress has delegated extensive tariff-setting authority to the President,” the CRS report states. “This delegation insulated Congress from domestic pressures and led to an overall decline in global tariff rates. However, it has meant that the U.S. pursuit of a low-tariff, rules-based global trading system has been the product of executive discretion. While Congress has set negotiating goals, it has relied on Presidential leadership to achieve those goals.”
The presidency and the Fed
Trump said during the interview that he believes the president should have more input into whether the Federal Reserve raises or lowers interest rates, though he didn’t answer a question about keeping Jerome Powell as the chairman through the end of his term.
“I think I have the right to say I think he should go up or down a little bit,” Trump said. “I don’t think I should be allowed to order it. But I think I have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rates should go up or down.”
Trump declined to answer a question about whether he’s spoken with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since leaving office.
“I don’t comment on that,” Trump said. “But I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his new book “War” that Trump and Putin have spoken at least seven times and that Trump secretly sent Putin COVID-19 tests during the pandemic, which the Kremlin later confirmed, according to severalnewsreports.
Trump said the presidential race will likely come down to Pennsylvania, Michigan and possibly Arizona.
The Economic Club of Chicago has also invited Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for a sit-down interview.
You really think Donald Trump was a good president? Look at his record | Opinion
Andres Oppenheimer – October 11, 2024
Here’s the biggest myth that Republican candidate Donald Trump is trying to sell to Americans and to the world: that he was a good president.
Trump’s continuously repeated falsehoods about his record as president have convinced many people who find him to be a horrible person, but nevertheless support him because of what Trump says about his term in office.
“Yes, I know, he’s 78, he’s not as sharp as he used to be, he lies all the time, he has cheated on his wives, he makes racist comments, he is a convicted felon, and he tried to carry out a coup after he lost the last elections. But he was a good president,” a Republican friend told me recently.
Let me share with you some facts to help fight political amnesia. In fact, Trump was one of the worst presidents in recent history. Here are the facts:
A larger deficit
On the economy, Trump left the biggest deficit in U.S. history.
Under Trump, the national debt grew much faster than during his successor Joe Biden. Like most populists, Trump cut taxes and spent as if there were no tomorrow, leaving a national debt that will have to be paid by our children and grandchildren for decades.
The national debt rose by almost $7.8 trillion to $28 trillion during Trump’s four years in office, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The debt has kept growing since, but at a significantly slower pace.
As for the country’s economic growth, the U.S. economy under Trump grew by an overall 6.8%. By comparison, it grew by 8.4% in the Biden years.
On the jobs’ front, Trump left office with 3 million fewer jobs than there were when he entered the White House. Granted, that was largely because of the pandemic, but Biden has added nearly 16 million jobs since then.
Granted, inflation was lower under Trump than under Biden. The pandemic disrupted supply chains from China and made consumer prices soar in America in 2021 and 2022. But inflation has since fallen to 2.4%, close to its pre-pandemic levels.
A weakened democracy
On democracy, Trump undermined democratic institutions and the rule of law like no other American president in recent memory. He is the first U.S. president I can remember who tried to stage a coup d’etat to stay in power.
Trump falsely claims to this day that he won the 2020 election, even after more than 60 courts and the conservative-majority Supreme Court found his objections to be unsubstantiated.
Then, he tacitly tried to incite rebellion on Jan. 6, 2021, when he waited for hours before trying to stop a pro-Trump mob from invading the U.S. Capitol in hopes of overturning the election result. He continues to praise the violent rioters who injured more than 100 police officers, calling them “patriots” and government “hostages.”
Emboldening dictators
On foreign policy, Trump weakened America’s standing in the world by picking fights with the closest U.S. allies while at the same time embracing dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord and threatened to abandon the U.S.-European NATO military alliance. Trump’s threats to leave NATO significantly damaged the group’s unity and probably encouraged Putin to plan his 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Trump deserves credit for the Abraham Accords to help establish diplomatic ties between Israel and some Arab countries. But if you look at the world in terms of superpower-led blocs, Trump left power in 2020 with a weaker Western alliance and a stronger China and Russia.
Reproductive rights
On abortion, Trump appointed three conservative Supreme Court judges who played a crucial role in overturning Roe v. Wade, a ruling that had made abortions legal in the country for nearly 50 years. As a result, some states banned abortions, and some women reportedly died because they could not get proper medical care to end their pregnancies.
More hatred
On crime, hate crimes increased by 28% during Trump’s term and hate-motivated murders, mainly committed by white supremacists, reached their highest number in 28 years, according to FBI statistics.
Trump has exacerbated racial hatred in the country since he started his 2016 campaign falsely declaring that most Mexican undocumented immigrants are “rapists” and are “bringing crime” to America. In 2017, he said that there were “very fine people” among white supremacists and the anti-racism demonstrators who were protesting against them in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump’s racist statements have worsened since. He recently falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants are eating the pets of Americans in Springfield, Ohio. In an Oct. 7 radio interview, Trump said that unauthorized migrants who committed violent crimes have “bad genes,” a language reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s efforts to dehumanize Jews.
Also, in 2020, the last year of the Trump presidency, there was the biggest one-year increase in the number of murders since the 1960s, according the Politifact fact checking website. In addition to the pandemic and the George Floyd riots, Democrats attribute the 30% rise in murders to the relaxation of gun control laws under Trump.
False border promises
On immigration, Trump never completed the border fence nor got Mexico to pay for it, as he had promised in his 2016 campaign. Trump now claims to have built much of the current 654 miles of border wall, but most of it was already in place and repaired or upgraded during his years in office, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
On the COVID-19 Pandemic, Trump scorned face masks and at one point asked Americans to inject themselves with disinfectant to fight the virus. Scientists say many of the 400,000 Covid deaths during his presidency could have been averted if he had exhorted people to get vaccinated.
The list of Trump administration failures goes on and on. So if you are planning to vote for Trump because of something specific he has promised, and you are willing to believe a compulsive liar, go ahead. But please don’t tell me he was a good president: he was a disaster on virtually all fronts.
Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 9 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Blog: andresoppenheimer.com
“The whole country is going to be like, you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands,” he said. “We’re not going to let her do that to this country. We’re not gonna let it happen.”
Trump told his Detroit audience that “Your car industry is going out of business” but claimed that the “nightmare” for the industry would be over if he’s elected.
There were around 1,000 attendees at the MotorCity Casino Hotel event, during which Trump suggested that Detroit is more “developing” than “most places in China,” referring to it as a “once great city.”
Trump also claimed that he would create a “Michigan miracle” and a “stunning rebirth” of the city if he’s elected.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan slammed Trump for his recent comments about Detroit (AFP via Getty Images)
“Detroit just hosted the largest NFL Draft in history, the Tigers are back in the playoffs, the Lions are headed to the Super Bowl, crime is down and our population is growing. Lots of cities should be like Detroit. And we did it all without Trump’s help,” Duggan wrote. “Numbers and Facts don’t lie. Detroit is the beacon of light. The beacon of progress. The beacon of resurgence.”
Duggan added on Instagram: “We’ve got record low homicide rates and we’re growing our population for the first time since the 1950s.”
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote on X: “As a Detroiter, I am proud of our gritty city. As a board member of the @deteconomicclub, I attended Mr. Trump’s speech today. And I was shocked to witness him bash our city. It hurt me personally, and I’m sure hurt a lot of Michiganders.”
The speaker of the Michigan state House, Democrat Joe Tate, said Trump, “might not remember where he is right now, so here’s a quick reminder about what Detroit’s all about. This is the greatest city in the country, and we’ve bounced back after Trump killed our jobs, closed our businesses, and tried to throw out our votes.”
Donald Trump painted a bleak picture during his address to the Detroit Economic Club (AP)
“Detroit threw Trump out of the White House last time, and we’ll do it again,” he added on X.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has endorsed the ex-president. Trump commuted his 28-year sentence for public corruption shortly before leaving the White House in January 2021, the Detroit News noted.
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer also responded to Trump’s comments on social media, writing: “Detroit is the epitome of ‘grit,’ defined by winners willing to get their hands dirty to build up their city and create their communities—something Donald Trump could never understand. So keep Detroit out of your mouth. And you better believe Detroiters won’t forget this in November.”
State Senate Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow said, “As a proud elected representative of tens of thousands of Detroiters: F*** this guy. Don’t come back.”
Trump Michigan Communications Director Victoria LaCivita said in a statement cited by WDIV that the former president “remembers when Detroit was lauded as the gold standard for auto manufacturing success and revolutionized the industry. Detroit has suffered from globalist policies championed by Kamala Harris that have shipped manufacturing overseas.”
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer told Trump to keep the city’s name out of his mouth (AP)
City of Detroit District 5 Council President Mary Sheffield criticized Trump for being “uninformed.”
“As a proud Detroiter and representative of this resilient city, I find it deeply disappointing to hear such uninformed remarks. Detroit is not a ‘mess.’ We are a city of strength, perseverance, and progress,” she said in a statement. “Our community has worked hard to overcome challenges, and we’ve seen incredible growth, investment, and revitalization.”
Jemele Hill, a contributing writer to The Atlantic who grew up in Detroit, shared her advice for Michigan Democrats on X: “If I’m @GovWhitmer and the Michigan Dem Party, I plaster this on everything — billboards, TV ads, etc.”
She added: “He insulted the entire city and it isn’t the first time. He’s invalidated Detroit voters countless times and instructed his people to riot in Detroit over the vote count in 2020. For the Detroit Economic Club to invite this absolute clown to speak there is a slap in the face to all Detroiters.”
Obama Roasts Trump for Everything From Selling Bibles to Needing a Diaper at Pittsburgh Rally | Video
Sharon Knolle – October 10, 2024
Barack Obama laid into fellow former President Donald Trump so thoroughly on Thursday that more than one X user quipped, “I’d like to report a murder.“
Obama, speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, ticked off a long list of reasons why voters should reject Trump and vote for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris next month.
He disparaged “the constant attempts to sell you stuff” including gold sneakers, a $100,000 watch and the Trump Bible. “Who does that?” asked Obama with an incredulous shrug.
“You know, he wants you to buy the word of God, Donald Trump edition. Got his name right there next to Matthew and Luke,” he said of Trump’s “God Bless the USA Bibles,” which, it was reported this week, were printed in China. They are priced at $59.99 each.
Obama: Constant attempts to sell you stuff. Who does that? Selling you gold sneakers and $100,000 watch and most recently, a trump bible. You know, he wants you to buy the word of god, Donald Trump edition. Got his name right there next to Matthew and Luke. pic.twitter.com/JUzkTQikU3
The 44th president continued to blast the 45th, recalling his shock at finding out how much diapers cost after his oldest daughter Malia was born. “Do you think Donald Trump ever changed a diaper?,” he asked about the father of five.
One attendee shouted, “His own!”
Obama admitted with a laugh, “I almost said that, but I decided I should not say it.”
Trump was dubbed “Diaper Don” by the media in 2020 over reports that he wore adult diapers while filming the reality competition “The Apprentice.”
Trump supporters not only shrugged at the suggestion when it resurfaced during Trump’s tax fraud trial earlier this year, but proudly began wearing the absorbent underwear themselves at campaign events and carrying signs that read “real men wear diapers.”
Obama also blasted Trump for taking credit for the state of the economy when he took office in 2017. “I remember that economy when he first came in being pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good, because it was my economy. It wasn’t something he did. I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me,” he said.
Watch a clip from the rally in the video above, and click through to @Acyn’s X account for more.
Fact check: Trump, on a lying spree, made at least 40 separate false claims in two Pennsylvania speeches
Daniel Dale, CNN – October 10, 2024
Former President Donald Trump is on a lying spree.
As Election Day draws nearer, the Republican presidential nominee has made false claim after false claim on a dizzying variety of subjects. He has both come up with new falsehoods on pressing issues, most notably the federal response to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, and repeated old favorites about subjects he has been railing about since his 2016 presidential campaign.
We went through the speeches Trump made at his two Wednesday campaign rallies in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, one in Scranton and one in Reading. In those two addresses alone, he uttered at least 40 separate false claims.
Here is a fact check.
FEMA and migrants: Trump falsely claimed of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: “They have no money. You know where they gave the money? To illegal immigrants coming in.” He also said, “They spent all their funds; they have no funds to take care…”
This is false in two ways. FEMA does have money for the immediate responses to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, though a string of recent disasters has depleted its disaster relief fund; the fund had about $11 billion remaining as of Wednesday. And FEMA did not give all of its disaster relief money to undocumented people; rather, as mandated by Congress, FEMA also administers an entirely separate pool of money for sheltering migrants.
FEMA and employees: Trump added another false claim about FEMA, saying: “They have no workers, they have no nothing.” FEMA has more than 20,000 employees.
Harris and the response: Trump falsely claimed that as desperate people tried to survive Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, Vice President Kamala Harris “didn’t send anything or anyone at all” to help them. There were extensive federal and state rescue and relief efforts in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It’s true that some residents died and others were stranded for days, but the state was not ignored by Harris or the Biden administration; North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has repeatedly thanked President Joe Biden for his assistance.
Schools and transgender children: Trump told a slightly vaguer version of his usual false story about schools supposedly obtaining or performing gender-affirming surgeries for transgender children behind their parents’ backs, saying, “Your child go goes to school, and they take your child. It was a ‘he.’ And comes back a ‘she.’ And they do this…And often without parental consent.”
There is no evidence that US schools have sent children into gender-affirming surgeries without their parents knowing or performed gender-affirming surgeries on site; Trump’s own presidential campaign could not provide a single example of any of this ever happening. Even in states where gender-affirming surgery is legal for people under age 18, parental consent is required before a minor can undergo such a procedure.
Trump’s opponents and the election: In Reading, Trump falsely claimed of his election opponents: “They are cheatin’ dogs, I will tell you that.” In Scranton, he falsely claimed, “Their first meeting is: ‘How do we cheat?’” This is all nonsense. There is no basis for the claim that Trump’s opponents are election cheaters.
Harris’ previous presidential campaign: Trump repeated his false claim that, when Harris ran for president in 2020, “she was the first one to drop out, of like 22 people” in the Democratic primary. In fact, 13 other Democratic candidates dropped out of that primary before Harris exited in December 2019 – including the sitting or former governors of Washington, Montana and Colorado; the sitting mayor of New York City; andsitting or former members of the House of Representatives and Senate.
Harris and the press: Trump falsely claimed of Harris: “She doesn’t do any interviews.” Trump is entitled to argue that Harris has not done a sufficient number of interviews as the Democratic presidential nominee, but the assertion she doesn’t do “any” is wrong; Harris has done multiple interviews in recent weeks. Notably, Harris did an interview with the CBS News show “60 Minutes,” which aired Monday, while Trump backed out of his own interview with the show.
Harris-Walz and the Supreme Court: After correctly noting that Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently expressed support for getting rid of the Electoral College, Trump falsely claimed, “They want to add… they’re thinking about – first time I heard this number – 25: they want to have 25 Supreme Court justices.” There is no basis for the claim that Harris or Walz is pushing for a 25-justice Supreme Court.
Walz and menstrual products in schools: Trump disparaged Walz as “Tampon Tim,” then said, “You know why they call him that? ’Cause they sell tampons, with special legislation, in boys’ locker rooms.” Trump’s claim is false. The law Walz signed in 2023 requires schools to provide free menstrual products in bathrooms, not the sale of menstrual products in locker rooms – and all 18 public school districts that responded to CNN’s questions about the law say they do not provide the products in boys’ bathrooms. You can read more here.
Wind power: Trump repeated a familiar nonsensical story about how the use of wind power means people “can’t watch” television if “there’s no wind tonight.” Using wind power as part of a mix of power sources does not cause power outages when the wind isn’t blowing, as the federal Department of Energy explained on its website even during the Trump administration.
The Biden administration and electric vehicles: Trump falsely claimed that under a Biden administration electric vehicle mandate, “everybody’s got to have an electric car almost immediately.” There is no Biden administration requirement that consumers must buy an electric car or give up their existing gas-powered cars, “almost immediately” or otherwise. The Biden administration has made a push to get automakers to reduce emissions and adopt electric vehicles, but there is not a mandate for consumers; the tailpipe rules for automakers that were unveiled by the administration earlier this year aim to have electric vehicles make up 35% to 56% new vehicles sold in 2032.
The Paris climate accord and emissions: Trump repeated his false claim that under the Paris climate accord, the US “had to pay a trillion dollars” while some other countries didn’t have to pay.
Trump’s “trillion” figure is a wild exaggeration. Under the Obama administration, the US paid $1 billion of a $3 billion commitment it originally made in 2014. After Trump pulled the country out of the Paris accord, the US paid nothing to the global finance goal. And while Biden pledged $11.4 billion annually from the US, this level of funding hasn’t materialized. That’s because Congress, responsible for appropriating the nation’s budget, has allocated only a fraction of that – roughly $1 billion in 2022.
Harris’ comments on fracking: Trump said, “Listen to Kamala in her own words very recently,” then played two video clips in which Harris said she was in favor of banning fracking. But those clips are from 2019, beyond any reasonable definition of “very recently.” Harris has said during the 2024 campaign that she no longer favors banning fracking.
Venezuela, prisons and migration: Trump falsely claimed, “In Venezuela, many countries, they’re emptying their prisons into our country.” This is false. Trump has never corroborated this claim about Venezuela, let alone “many countries,” and experts have told CNN, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org that they know of no evidence for it.
“We have no evidence that the Venezuelan government is emptying its prisons or mental health institutions to send them outside the country, in other words, to the U.S. or any other country,” Roberto Briceño-León, founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, an independent organization that tracks violence in the country, said in an email to CNN in June, after Trump made similar claims.
Venezuela, criminals and migration: Adding another colorful story about Venezuela, Trump falsely claimed that “they take the criminal gangs from Caracas off the streets and they bus them into the United States and drop them.” This is false. There is no evidence of Venezuelan authorities somehow busing gang members into the US.
The world prison population: Trump repeated his false claim that “the prison population all over the world is down, because they put them in our country.” The recorded global prison population increased from October 2021 to April 2024, from at least about 10.77 million people to at least about 10.99 million people, according to the World Prison Population List compiled by experts in the United Kingdom.
“I do a daily news search to see what’s going on in prisons around the world and have seen absolutely no evidence that any country is emptying its prisons and sending them all to the US,” Helen Fair, co-author of the prison population list and research fellow at the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London, said in June, when Trump made a similar claim.
The number of migrants: Trump, speaking about migration, falsely claimed that “21 million people – plus – came into our nation” under the Biden-Harris administration. Through August, the country had recorded about 10.3 million nationwide “encounters” with migrants during the Biden-Harris administration, including millions who were rapidly expelled from the country; even adding in so-called “gotaways” who evaded detection, estimated by House Republicans as being roughly 2 million, there’s no way the total is “21 million.”
Harris, migrants and criminals: Trump, criticizing Harris on immigration, again wrongly described a set of statistics that was released in September. He falsely claimed in Scranton, “You saw that last week: 13,099 murderers allowed to come in, through them.” He falsely claimed in Reading that “as we speak she has – and this was just announced last week – 13,099, so over 13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers, roaming free in our country.”
This 13,099 figure includes people who are incarcerated in federal, state and local prisons and jails – and it includes people who entered the country over decades, including during Trump’s administration, not just under Biden and Harris. You can read more here.
Harris’ record as attorney general: Trump falsely claimed that when Harris was attorney general of California, “she said under no circumstances” will people be prosecuted for the crimes of child sex trafficking, assault with a deadly weapon or the rape of an unconscious person. Harris did not say anything like that; Trump was grossly mischaracterizing a debate over the language Harris’ office used to summarize California ballot initiatives.
Trump’s border wall: Trump repeated his false claim that “I built over 500 miles of wall” on the southern border. Official government data shows 458 miles were built under Trump – including both wall built where no barriers had existed before and wall built to replace previous barriers.
Trump’s crowds: Trump falsely claimed of his rallies: “We never have an empty seat.” There have been empty seats at numerous Trump rallies over the years – including hundreds at this very rally in Reading. And at many Trump rallies, some once-filled seats empty out during his speeches when supporters leave.
Trump’s crowd in Butler: Trump falsely claimed there were “over 100,000 people” at the rally he held Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, at the same site where a gunman had attempted to assassinate him in July. CNN affiliate KDKA in Pittsburgh reported that the Secret Service put the crowd at 24,000 people, while the Trump-supporting sheriff of Blair County, Pennsylvania, James Ott, said in his speech at the rally itself (more than three hours before Trump took the stage) that he was looking out at “21,000-plus people.”
Trump’s response to the assassination attempt: Trump, speaking of his response to the attempted assassination in July, falsely claimed, “I said as I was getting up – before I even got up – I said, ‘How many people were killed?’ Because, you know, it was wall to wall people, and I said, ‘How many people were killed?’ They said, ‘We think three, sir,’ and I said, ‘That’s not good.’”
Trump’s rally microphone picked up what was said by Trump and Secret Service agents while he was on the ground and just after, and he did not ask, before or after he got up, how many people were killed. It’s possible he did so after he was whisked off stage (and, of course, possible he was genuinely misremembering what happened in such a traumatic moment).
Trump and firefighters: Trump falsely claimed, “We got the firefighters endorse us, you probably heard.” But the actual recent national news was that the International Association of Firefighters had decided not to endorse any candidate in the race; while Trump is free to argue that this was a victory for him, given that the union endorsed Biden in 2020, it was not an actual endorsement. And while there were some people in the Scranton crowd holding “Scranton Firefighters for Trump” signs, the Scranton chapter of the union also has not issued an endorsement. The president of the chapter told the Scranton Times-Tribune that none of the people he saw holding the signs were active or retired local firefighters.
Trump and classified documents: Speaking of the criminal case against him over his post-presidency retention of classified documents, Trump repeated his false claim that “I had the Presidential Records Act; I was totally allowed to do it.” The Presidential Records Act says that, the moment a president leaves office, the National Archives and Records Administration gets custody and control of all presidential records from their administration. (Trump’s case was dismissed by a federal judge in July on other grounds, that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional; Smith has appealed.)
The New York Times and the Russia investigation: Trump, calling claims about his 2016 campaign’s connections to Russia a “scam,” repeated his false claim that The New York Times “admitted they were wrong” about the coverage that won its journalists a Pulitzer Prize along with journalists from The Washington Post.
“The claim is completely false,” Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said in an email to CNN in 2023, when Trump made a similar claim; Stadtlander noted that “the award was upheld by the Pulitzer Prize Board after an independent review” and said the Times’ reporting “was also substantiated by the Mueller investigation and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the matter.”
The New York Times and the 2016 election: Trump repeated a false claim he made during his presidency, saying of The New York Times’ coverage of the 2016 election: “Remember in 2016 they had to do an editorial apologizing to their readers because they said, ‘He’s going to lose’…and then I won?”
As the Times noted in 2017 in response to such Trump claims, it did not apologize for its 2016 election coverage. It did publish a post-election letter, from then-executive editor Dean Baquet and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., that said the election had raised several questions, including this: “Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?” But the letter did not include an apology, to Trump or anyone else.
Trump and the defeat of ISIS: Trump repeated his false claim that “we defeated ISIS in four weeks; it was supposed to take four or five years.” The ISIS “caliphate” was declared fully liberated more than two years into Trump’s presidency.
Military equipment surrendered to the Taliban: Trump repeated his false claim that “we gave $85 billion worth” of US military equipment to the Taliban. Trump’s figure is a massive exaggeration; the Pentagon has estimated that the equipment abandoned to the Taliban by Afghan forces upon their 2021 collapse was worth about $7.1 billion – a chunk of the roughly $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021.
Biden and foreign income: Trump repeated his false claim that “Biden got a lot of money from China.” After years of investigation by House Republicans, there is still no evidence Biden has received any Chinese money.
Chris Wallace and a question about the Biden family: Trump told his familiar false story about how he had asked Biden at a 2020 presidential debate why the wife of a mayor of Moscow had paid Biden $3.5 million – in fact, the money was sent to a firm connected to the president’s son Hunter Biden, not to the president – but moderator Chris Wallace, then of Fox News and now of CNN, had interjected to say, “Well, please don’t ask him that question.” Wallace never did that. As the transcript shows, Wallace interjected during this debate exchange to try to get Trump to allow Biden to answer Trump’s question about the payment, not to stop Trump from asking.
Inflation: Trump repeated his false claim that inflation under Biden and Harris is “the worst inflation in the history of our country.” Trump could fairly say that the US inflation rate hit a 40-year high in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, but that was not close to the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920, and the rate has since plummeted; the most recent available inflation rate at the time Trump spoke here was 2.5% in August.
Mortgage rates: Trump falsely claimed that young people can’t buy a house because interest rates are higher than 10%: “It’s not 10%, it’s 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 percent.” This is false. The average rate on a standard 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.12% in the week ending October 3, according to mortgage financing provider Freddie Mac, and 6.32% in the week ending October 10.
Trump’s tax cut: Trump repeated his false claim that “I gave you, as you know, the largest tax cut in the history of our country.” Expert analyses have found that his 2017 tax cut law was not the largest in US history, either in percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Tariffs on China: Trump repeated two of his regular false claims about tariffs on imported Chinese products. He falsely claimed that China “paid hundreds of billions of dollars” in these tariffs during his presidency, then falsely claimed that before his presidency, “nobody ever brought in 10 cents, not one other – not 10 cents, you check those records.”
The 1890s and tariffs: Touting the supposed benefits of tariffs, Trump falsely claimed that in the 1890s, when the US had very high tariffs, “Our country was the richest it ever was.” The US is far richer today than in the 1890s; per capita gross domestic product is now many times higher than it was then.
The trade deficit with China: Trump repeated his frequent false claim that the US trade deficit with China has averaged “$500 billion” per year. The US has never had a $500 billion trade deficit with China even if you only count trade in goods and ignore the services trade in which the US traditionally runs a surplus with China; the all-time record, about $418 billion, was set under Trump in 2018.
Harris and taxes: Trump played a deceptively edited video showing “The View” co-host Meghan McCain saying to Harris in 2019, “Everything from a 70 to 80% tax rate,” and Harris responding, “I think that’s fantastic.”
This video cuts out key words from the exchange; Harris was not specifically endorsing high tax rates when she made the “fantastic” comment.
Here’s the transcript of the 2019 exchange:
McCain: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the new darling of the party. She officially has more Twitter followers than Nancy Pelosi. She was on ‘60 Minutes’ this weekend proudly calling herself a radical. And she’s promoting policies like saying that every single carbon emission in the country, every car, should be eliminated within the next 11 years, everything from a 70 to 80 percent tax rate. Do you agree that she could possibly – and this ideology, of the socialist left – could splinter your party?”
Harris: “No. You know, I think that she is challenging the status quo. I think that’s fantastic. I think that – you know, I used to teach, before, especially before – in the last few years – and the thing that I always loved about teaching was when you teach, it requires you to defend the premise. And it requires you to re-examine the premise. And question, is it still relevant? Is it – does it have impact? Does it have meaning? And I think that she is introducing bold ideas that should be discussed. And I think it’s good for the party, I frankly think it’s good for the country. Let’s look at the bold ideas. And I’m eager that we have those discussions. And when we are able to defend status quo, then do it, and if there are – you know, if there’s not merit to that, then let’s explore new ideas.”
Biden’s documents case: Trump falsely claimed in Reading that, in an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents, “Biden was essentially convicted” and in Scranton that “they ruled on him, they said he’s guilty.” Biden was not convicted, “essentially” or not, and was not found guilty; in fact, Biden was not even charged with a crime. The special counsel in the case, Robert Hur, wrote in his public report that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” adding that “several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges.”
A supposed Biden gaffe: Mocking Biden’s gaffes, Trump falsely claimed, “But the worst was when he was in New Hampshire and he said, ‘It’s great to be in Florida.’ That’s palm trees.” This never happened. Biden has certainly made various geographic gaffes, as hasTrump, but he never said he was in Florida when he was actually in New Hampshire.
After ’60 Minutes,’ Palm Beach County legislator calls for probe of Ian insurance payouts
Anne Geggis, Palm Beach Post – October 8, 2024
Reports that damage claims from Hurricane Ian were systemically downgraded has a Palm Beach County state lawmaker leading a call for a Florida grand jury and a select legislative committee to investigate.
Democratic state Rep. Kelly Skidmore of Boca Raton said the report on the CBS network news magazine “60 Minutes” that aired Sept. 29 echoes testimony heard during a 2022 House Commerce Committee meeting. During that hearing homeowners and insurance adjusters testified that valid claims from the hurricane two years ago were rejected and underpaid once it came time to make insured Floridians whole from the damage suffered.
“This exposé was, unfortunately, not news to us in Florida,” Skidmore said. “For nearly 30 years, Republicans have had full oversight and control over the insurance industry. The result? A downward spiral for property owners with no real solutions to the problem.”
The Florida House Democratic Caucus has sent a letter to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis asking for the special statewide grand jury to investigate whether illegal activity resulted in insurers giving Hurricane Ian victims short shrift. And another letter was sent asking for the select legislative committee to Speaker of the House-Designate Daniel Perez, a Miami area Republican, Skidmore said.
Governor DeSantis: Concern already addressed on Hurricane Ian insurance payouts
Asked about the Democrats’ request, a spokesman for the governor provided a clip of DeSantis reacting to the 60 Minutes’ report but not the call for the statewide grand jury. DeSantis said that safeguards against downgraded claims were already baked into reforms that were passed post-Hurricane Ian.
“We now have protections in Florida law that you can’t just disregard what the adjuster does,” DeSantis said, after noting he is “not much of a fan” of the CBS news magazine. “You actually have to have a clear, valid reason to be able to depart downward. That may not have been in place when Ian happened.”
DeSantis also noted that the company the news magazine focused on, Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance, was fined $1 million last May for violating claims-handling requirements after Ian. Most of the findings in that March report, however, focused on handling claims in a timely manner and following procedures, rather than the actual amounts paid, although it did note Heritage’s failure to pay interest.
Kelly Skidmore
Heritage, for its part, issued a public statement after the 60 Minutes segment aired noting the program’s reporting omitted information the 12-year-old company had provided about improvements that were made in its claims-handling procedures in Ian’s wake. And also there was no deliberate effort to deceive customers about the value of their claims, Heritage said.
“It is important to point out that when we did our own review of Hurricane Ian claims following 60 Minutes’ outreach — using a random sample of 10,000 claims — we found that 4,162 of those were revised downward, 2,583 of them were revised upward and about 3,311 of them had no change from what the adjuster reviewed. This is further evidence that we work to pay every eligible claim,” the company statement reads.
Perez could not be reached by email, text or phone to respond to the Democrats’ call.
Florida property insurance a political hot potato
The same year that Hurricane Ian’s winds made landfall at nearly Category 5 strength, five property insurance companies became insolvent or stopped doing business in the state. Special legislative sessions were called to shore up the situation.
But Democrats were unhappy with many of the reforms that the Republican-dominated Legislature put in place. Those measures largely focused on stemming the tide of litigation from contested damage claims. But critics said the Legislature’s actions left consumers with little recourse to contest an insurance companies’ valuation of a claim.
More than a year out from those reforms, Floridians typically pay two to three times more for their property insurance premiums than the national average. The state’s potential for catastrophic hurricanes, the number of lawsuits and the financial industry’s reluctance to help insurers’ with the risk of those factors have been largely blamed for the state of affairs in providing ample and affordable property insurance.
Florida should lead the way in seeking solutions to the problem, Skidmore said, noting that Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz has proposed spreading the risk of these storms around a much wider area with a National Catastrophic Risk Pool. Moskowitz of Parkland has proposed that natural catastrophes like the one hurricanes Ian, Helene and, now possibly Milton present — with widespread, devastating damage — would be backed by the nation’s credit, instead of relying on private insurers and money markets to shoulder the worst sort of risks that have wiped out some insurers faced with a crush of damage claims.
“I am renewing my call to act and support Congressman Moskowitz’s efforts to, at the very least, have a conversation about creating a National Catastrophe Risk Pool,” Skidmore said in a prepared statement.
The risk pool idea is similar to a bill former Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist proposed when he represented Pinellas County. Moskowitz’s bill, introduced in March 2023, has not gotten a committee hearing or a cosponsor.
How to prepare: Hurricane Guide 2024
Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network.
