The first night of Hanukkah for those who observe it is tonight.
JL
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Justices, Representatives, Senators, and Others Who Make Murders of Children PossibleGun
violence in this country should be blamed on the Supreme Court for misinterpreting
the Second Amendment, enabling the proliferation of guns, making them readily
available to commit mass murders, like those at Sandy Hook, Parkland, Pulse,
Uvalde, Colorado Springs, etc., often including taking the lives of children.
Who are the Accessories to these Murders?
The
Justices who made the D.C. vs Heller (2008) decision possible will someday be
named in history books as accessories to these murders. Their warped decision
basically said the final fourteen words of the
Second Amendment could stand alone, ignoring the condition stated in its first thirteen words.
(The
Second Amendment reads as follows: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security
of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.)
 |
| Late Justice Antonin Scalia, patron saint of gun owners |
In
addition, with the precedent that the more recent Supreme Court decision
legalizing open carrying of weapons in New York State (New York Rifle &
Pistol Ass’n. vs Bruen) establishes, you can add the
names of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett to the names of earlier Justices
who have contributed to the murder of children.
The names
of these accessories to murders should be shouted from the rooftops!
SCALIA,
ROBERTS, KENNEDY, THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, BARRETT !!!
And who
made this possible? Republicans! Those who elect them to positions where they can nominate such people to
the Supreme Court, and elect Senators who will confirm their appointments are
also to be considered accessories to these murders.
Catering
to the violent extremists who want gun possession to be unrestricted, so that
they might someday use them in armed insurrection against a government with
which they disagree, gives Republicans sufficient
votes to win elections. That is all that concerns them. They do not care about
the victims of murders made possible by those whom they elect.
I’ve named the Supreme Court
Justices who share the blame for these murders. If your Representative or Senators in
Congress vote against measures to curtail gun violence, they too are
accessories to these murders, as are my two Senators (Marco Rubio and Rick Scott).
For more frightening implications of the Bruen ruling, take the time to read The Atlantic magazine’s article entitled ‘One Nation Under Guns’ which you can find at https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/gun-violence-scotus-bruen-ruling-mass-shootings/672446/ or by CLICKING HERE.
JL
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Homeowners' Insurance Problems in Florida Refuse to Go Away
Here’s a letter from me that appeared in Friday’s
Palm Beach Post. (12-16-2022)
“According to an
article in the Post, Florida with only 9% of the nation’s claims for roof
damage produces 76% of the nation’s litigation on such claims. This makes it
very clear that lawyers must be kept out of the solution process. The obvious
solution is for such claims for roof damage to be submitted by the homeowner,
not a contractor, to the insurer, with the contractor’s estimate. The
insurer can either agree with the estimate and authorize the work to be done or
get its own estimate. If they differ, the claim must go to mandatory
arbitration for a decision, which all parties must agree to accept. A
homeowner's premium, if they agree to having such a contractual provision in
their policy, should be significantly reduced. The key is to keep lawyers
away from the process. Sadly, there may be too many of
that profession in the State legislature to make this solution possible.”
Since I submitted that letter, the Florida
legislature has passed reforms which include changes in the way lawyers are compensated when they handle a
homeowner’s claim. As my letter pointed out, that’s desirable because without
lawyers, all that litigation doesn’t happen. (But more about some of that litigation, further on.)
The new legislation, in addition to making such
litigation less profitable for lawyers (the specific reforms are difficult for non-lawyers to understand), gets rid of a homeowner’s assigning the
benefits under a policy to the contractor intended to do the work, often one
who works hand in hand with the aforementioned lawyers. The homeowner, not the contractor should make
the claim, as my letter pointed out. It
also provides an additional billion dollars of taxpayers’ money (on top of the
two billion it provided seven months ago) to enable strapped insurance
companies to purchase reinsurance coverage, without which they cannot risk
offering homeowners’ insurance. Settling
claims out of court with the aforementioned lawyers has been named as one
reason for the precarious state of some insurers, making it difficult for them
to secure reinsurance.
What the new legislation lacks is any real relief
for the homeowner. In fact, it will
force many out of the state-designated ‘company of last resort,’ Citizens, into
companies charging higher premiums, and make the purchase of expensive flood
insurance mandatory for those remaining with Citizens.
The only promising part of the legislation for
homeowners is the inclusion of the opportunity for them to get a discount on their
premium if they contractually agree to abide by an arbitrator’s decision in
situations where the company and the homeowner (and their contractor) disagree
about a claim, another point made in my letter.
Before I sign onto that, though, I would want to know what controls
there would be on the arbitration process and how fair the selection of the
arbitrator would be.
The Bottom Line: The real area of conflict in handling roof damage claims is whether the expensive replacement involved is due to the kind of damage to a roof that insurance should cover, such as that caused by a storm, or whether it is because the roof is perfectly sound but growing old, wearing out, a situation for which insurance is not intended to pay claims.
(Studies have shown that the typical lifetime
of a tile roof in Florida is from 25 to 50 years, far longer than the life expectancy of
automobiles, for example. One doesn’t
submit a claim to their auto insurer just because their car has lived out its
lifetime. In either situation, there
must be damage caused by something designated as a hazard specifically insured against in the policy upon which to base a claim.)
Because of such claims and in anticipation of more of them, some of which might be questionable, insurers are raising homeowners’ insurance premiums, or canceling the policies, where a roof is more than ten years old, for example. This is where the aforementioned lawyers come in, to help legitimatize a claim to pay for a roof replacement primarily intended for the purpose of avoiding a such a premium increase or policy cancellation.
It is therefore good news that the new legislation changes the way lawyers involved in roof claim litigation are paid. Although it is rather complicated, it has amounted to passing on what the lawyers get paid (the costs of litigation), and any court costs, to the insurance company regardless of the result of litigation. This is why insurers are losing money on Florida homeowners' insurance, resulting in their canceling policies and raising premiums. Even If the insurer does not bother to contest a questionable claim, recognizing that the cost of doing so can exceed the entire cost of the new roof, doing that just adds to the companies' financial problems.
It is good news that the legislation attempts to deal with this problem. How well it does is another question.
Lawyers like to get paid. Is it fair to stick homeowners with the costs of hiring them to help with a claim against their own insurers? Is it fair to other insureds, who never submit a claim, to experience premium increases and policy cancellations because of the insurance companies paying such questionable claims and/or the legal costs of contesting them? I hope the legislation's reforms are successful. Lawyers are a clever lot.
 |
| Roofers at work |
JL
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And speaking of the Palm Beach Post
(where my
letter appeared) …
While the New York Times’ slogan “All the
News that’s Fit to Print” tries to describe that paper’s contents, the Palm
Beach Post’s approach, while more local, is “almost all the news we want to
print, but since we can’t afford the paper stock needed to do that, we put what
we can’t fit in the paper ‘online’ each day in ‘bonus’ sections.”
I find myself going online, to read the expanded portion of the day’s news each morning after I read its substantial printed version over breakfast. ‘Online’ is where some of its ‘in-depth’ articles appear, though. Another good thing about this is that the previous evening’s sports results are in the online ‘bonus.’ (Like the Bills defeating the Dolphins last night in a fourth quarter blizzard.)
Printed newspapers, other than nationwide papers
such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and possibly, USA
Today, will eventually be as rare as telephone booths in restaurants and on
street corners. I’ll have to find
something else to share with my cereal and coffee.
JL
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Market Report
A source we have at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where almost anything can be traded, let us know unofficially that futures action on the newly announced ‘digital trading card’ issued by the Defeated Former President has been brisk, even though few, if any, of them are in circulation. The numbers look something like this:
One Willie Mays card of any vintage for 100,000 of
the DFP’s new cards.
One Sandy Koufax card of any vintage for 150,000 DFP
cards.
Thus far, trading has been limited because of the
dearth of the new digital cards.
Hypothetically, the futures market suggests that one would need a
quarter million of them to get both the Mays and Koufax cards mentioned.
Some bargains are already becoming available
though. If one can dig up a Herschel
Walker card from his pro-football days, even if it is damaged, it is trading
evenly in a light market, one for one, with the DFP’s
new digital cards.
In a related matter, the value in several crypto
currencies of the DFP’s digital trading cards has not yet been determined, it was announced by an unnamed former White House employee who has gotten a job in
their marketing area.
JL
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Blog Reminders:
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is
a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see
that you do. And if you
are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same,
so they will be similarly alerted.
You can pass those email addresses to me by
emailing me at jacklippman18@gmail.com .
Paintings: Recently
added to the blog is a feature showing one of my paintings. (Besides writing, I also paint with acrylics
for recreation.) Right now, it features one of my latest works, but it will be periodically revised to show earlier
paintings (as it is today). You can find it off to the
right on your desktop or tablet. It will
be changed periodically.
Forwarding Postings: And of course, please forward this posting to anyone you think
might benefit from reading it. The place
to send them is:
https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com
Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is
prepared, has revised its forwarding abilities. If you click on the
envelope with the arrow at the conclusion of every posting, (it looks like
this:
), you will have the opportunity to list as
many email addresses as you wish, along with a comment from you, each of which
will receive a link to the full blog that you now are reading, with all of its
bells and whistles. This is a great advance from the very basic format Google
Blogspot originally provided when they forwarded something for you. It might take a few minutes longer for
your message to be transmitted but this method of forwarding offers the
advantage of being able to forward jackspotpourri to many addresses
simultaneously. Try it.
Either way will work, sending them the link above or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
JL
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