Finally, a TRUE Story About Hurricane Survivors Getting Screwed
Finally, a TRUE Story About Hurricane Survivors Getting Screwed
Florida residents getting schlonged by the Invisible Hand's Invisible Schlong
Oct. 23: Hurricane victims stiffed by the thousands … GOPers to challenge Hispanic voter names as “suspicious” … Trump complains about inflation in cost of burying “a fucking Mexican” … Judge gives Giuliani a week to give his apartment to the election workers he defamed …
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Unrepentant former Pres. Donald Trump continues to lie about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its response to whichever hurricane climate change is currently sausage-slapping us with.
Just this week, in Asheville, NC, Trump repeated the lie that FEMA needs relief money because it was spent on helping undocumented immigrants. Not true. But it turns out that some hurricane survivors are getting stiffed.
Not by the federal government, though. And not because of Democrats.
That’s your cue, Florida!
Florida Politics analyzed data from the state’s Office of Insurance Fucking You Over Deregulation Regulation and found that Florida hurricane victims are getting schlonged by their insurance companies.
Here’s a breakdown of how insurance companies have been closing claims from people seeking payouts as a result of alleged damage from Florida’s three major storms this year alone:
Debby - almost $131 million in insured losses
Residential property claims closed with payment: 3,503
Without payment: 7,397
Commercial property claims closed with payment: 72
Without payment: 194.
Helene - estimated losses: > $1.32 billion
Residential property claims closed with payment: 7,512
Without payment: 13,895
Commercial property claims closed with payment: 101
Without payment: 347.
Milton - estimated losses > $2.66 billion
Residential property claims closed with payment: 7,297
Without payment: 13,108
Commercial property claims closed with payment: 43
Without payment: 341
(87% of claims remain open and unresolved.)
Now, could some of this be explained by Florida having a disproportionately high number of lying, frauding Floridians filing claims? As any Newsfucker who’s read Carl Hiaasen knows, it could. But as any Newsfucker who’s read Carl Hiaasen also knows, Florida officials and insurance companies are even more Florida than the people of Florida.
And lately, Florida officials have been boasting of insurance rates actually coming down. Which is easy to do when you don’t pay out on the vast majority of your claims. Away with which you can get when the governor to whom you donated, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), makes it harder for your stiffed customers to sue you!
It’s just the private sector’s Invisible Hand, people. Wearing corporatist government brass knuckles.
Republicans Pursue Hispanic and Arab Voters…to Stop Them from Voting
So it turns out that Republicans really are pursuing Hispanic voters…to stop them from voting.
Lee County, NC, Republican Party Chair James Womack was caught on tape — where Republicans commit many of their crimes1 — advising volunteers how to decide which voter names look “suspicious.”
He explicitly identifies one of the “suspicious” factors as having an “Hispanic-sounding” name.
And when CBS News called him to chat about it, Womack helpfully not only confirmed it but explained that it’s so not a big deal because he also considers “Arab” names suspicious. Diversity, equity, and inclusion!
Womack not at all coincidentally leads a totally made-up, not-a-real-thing group of self-styled armchair vote-protectors calling themselves The Justice League of North Carolina Election Integrity Team. Their mission is to look at the voter rolls after the election and try to get votes thrown out based on the team member’s particular blend of ignorance, fear, and racism.
In a virtual [because armchair] meeting of the 1,800-member “team,” Womack instructed his unqualified volunteers on the criteria for spotting los sospechosos:
"If you've got folks that you, that were registered, and they're missing information… and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter … It doesn't mean they're illegal. It just means they're suspicious.”
CBS, apparently realizing they only had a limited window of time to speak with Womack before Attorney General Merrick Garland’s civil rights division arrested him in 2029 — quickly gave Womack a call, to give him a chance to deny it elaborate:
"You look for natural mispronunciations or natural grammatical errors or punctuation problems. And that way, you can do proper list maintenance. Now, among the Hispanics, I would say the same thing about the Arab population…
"The idea that you combine those things and it equates to a suspicious voter is not true … Anyone targeting voters based on that kind of analysis and Hispanic last names, you are playing with fire."
Womack, now fucking with fire, did not explain how “mispronunciations” would occur in written records. And if he thinks grammar and punctuation are cause for suspicion, wait’ll he checks out Donald Trump’s SOCIAL MEDIAS!!!
There’s no reason, of course, to think that Trump’s other League of Voter Protection Suppression members around the country aren’t using similarly racist/xenophobic bullshit to challenge votes. And whether they succeed or not isn’t even the point. The chaos of the challenge is the point.
Because the made-up chaos is what provides the made-up rationale for legal challenges which provide the made-up rationale for elected officials and judges to issue made-up rulings making Trump president.
All of this should be a problem for Trump with Hispanic voters, or would be if other news outlets were picking it up. But if not, there’s always this…
Trump Complained About Mexican-Burial Inflation
While then-Pres. Donald Trump was still in office, he complained about rising costs, an explosive new report claims. (Trump’s campaign denies everything in the report and swears this time they’re not lying.)
Trump has made rising costs an issue of his campaign and blames them on Pres. Joe Biden. (Which, I’ve reported, has some element of truth that Trump also bears responsibility for.)
But now it turns out Trump was concerned about high costs when he was still president.
In December 2020 — when Trump was deeply involved in efforts to steal the presidential election — he took a moment out of his busy day to ask staff about the costs of Mexican burials. Here’s the back story:
Earlier that year, Army Pvt. Vanessa Guillén had been murdered by another soldier at Ft. Hood, TX. After her body was found, Trump held a virtual meeting — on TV! — with her family (her parents were born in Mexico) and told them:
“If I can help you out with the funeral, I’ll help—I’ll help you with that … I’ll help you out. Financially, I’ll help you.”
Fast forward to December 2020. According to witnesses and notes shared with The Atlantic, at a meeting (on a totally unrelated issue) the following exchange occurred:
Trump: “Did they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?”
Someone fucking thrilled not to be named by The Atlantic: Yes. It cost $60,000.
Trump: “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” [To now-indicted then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows] “Don’t pay it!”
Trump later that day apropos of nothing: “Can you believe it? … Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”
The attorney for Guillén’s family told The Atlantic they sent the bill to the White House, which never paid it, apparently due to Trump’s anger over the rising costs of Mexican funerals.
FBI Prioritizes Its America-Protecting
The FBI confirmed last night that it is investigating the leak of secret national-security documents.
The documents, leaked earlier this month, reveal sensitive U.S. secrets … namely that the U.S. is spying the fuck out of Israel. Which everyone knew.
This particular Israel-spying revealed the sensitive Israeli secret that Israel’s military is preparing to launch an attack on Iran. Which everyone knew.
The FBI reportedly has not determined yet whether the documents were intentionally leaked by someone on the inside traitorously telling Americans what their government is doing or whether the documents were hacked.
Meanwhile, of course, no word on multi-CEO Elon Musk after he broke federal law on a livestream Saturday by giving money to registered voters, which is a crime.
Unlike the being-investigated crime of telling Americans what their government is doing, Musk’s non-investigated crime involves illegally fucking with democracy.
It’s not clear you’d even need to investigate Musk, since the video shows Musk not only committing the crime but saying words that, in legalese translate to: “I am committing this crime you see me committing.”
So…maybe the Justice Department is skipping right ahead to the prosecution part? Either way, the DOJ hasn’t confirmed it, and Musk remains at large, is considered dangerous, and no civilian attempt should be made to take Musk into custody. Just call your local law enforcement if you see anyone resembling this man:
Three Quickies
Rapidly running out of terrorist leaders to kill, Israel is moving on to aspiring terrorist leaders. Israel confirmed yesterday that an airstrike last month killed Hashem Safieddine, who was on the short list to replace Hezbollah co-founder and managing partner Hassan Nasrallah, killed in a previous airstrike. The news is expected to lead to a lot of frantic editing on Hezbollah’s LinkedIn page.
Former New York prosecutor, former New York icon, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has to give up his New York apartment, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Giuliani has to give his apartment and tons of other, mostly sad, crap to Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, the Georgia election workers who had a target slapped on their backs by Giuliani’s lies — and won $148 million from Giuliani for defamation. The judge said Giuliani has a week to give them his $5 million apartment, his $25,000 1980 Mercedes once owned by Lauren Bacall, a shirt signed by Joe DiMaggio, a picture signed by Reggie Jackson, and a watch Giuliani got from his grandfather, who didn’t live to see Giuliani’s epically Greek fall from grace. Freeman and Moss are also entitled to Giuliani’s share of the fees he’s owed by former Pres. Donald Trump, who will never ever pay them.
If you missed the bonus TFN last night, TFN researchfucked the claim by McDonald’s that it’s not a political brand, not red or blue but gold. This came because a McDonald’s franchise (not the parent company) hosted a staged photo opp for former Pres. Donald Trump on Sunday. Turns out, McDonald’s has more politics than a Big Mac has meat. Or E. coli. Choose your own analogy! Your dutiful TFN found hundreds of thousands of dollars in McPoliticaldonations, mostly to moderate Dems and Republicans, but more to Republicans, and some to extremist Republicans like Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-SC) and Tim Walberg (R-MI). Then there’s the millions it spends on lobbying and its involvement in trade groups that are part of the coalition pushing back, as TFN previously newsfucked, on California’s fast-food minimum wage.
TCB
As I pointed out in last night’s bonus TFN, the claim by fast-food giant McDonald’s that it’s not political was picked up by media all over the world. As far as I could see, none of them called it out as a lie, let alone inventoried the many ways in which it’s a lie. If you think this kind of context and analysis matters, please consider supporting accountability for corporations and others in power by donating to TFN or becoming a paid subscriber.
Sharing TFN and why it’s important to you is also a big help. That’s especially true here on Substack, but I’ll also see it if you tag me on Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, Spoutible, or even Twitter. Thank you!
ALSO If you haven’t yet, check out LOLGOP’s Substack for what you can do in the election’s final days and follow BoltsMag.org if you want good reporting on lower-profile races.
And always, fucking always, keep calm and carry on.
Go get ‘em, kids!
see Trump, Jan. 6; and Musk, vote-buying by.
Did the intel leaks start about the time expoutus was receiving briefs?
If it's any comfort, I know someone who works for the DOJ, and they told me that, based on the way the DOJ often works, it is very possible that they are, in fact, investigating Elno, but won't publicly say anything about it until they have to. I know we're all frequently frustrated at the apparent lack of action by Garland, but it's possible there are things going on in the background that they just aren't making public yet.