Imagine paying into one of the highest tax cities in the nation, and then none of the municipal services you pay for are there for you when you need them and so you have to resort to private services — and then are shamed for doing so! pic.twitter.com/b3kkccM5fE
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 12, 2025
Noah Smith encourages us to Learn smart lessons from the L.A. fires, not stupid lessons. And his Smart Lesson Number One is:
Noah's article is substack-paywalled but much of his insurance company tutorial shows up.
At the NR Corner, Dominic Pino describes How Price Controls Have Made California Wildfire Recovery Harder.
Insurance price is supposed to be correlated with risk. Higher risk, higher price. Living in an area prone to wildfires is a risk for property insurance. Rather than allowing market prices to take account of that risk, California has heavily regulated the insurance industry for decades.
Proposition 103 is responsible for a lot of California’s insurance regulatory regime. Lars Powell, R. J. Lehmann, and Ian Adams wrote a paper about Prop 103 for the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE) in 2023. They trace the proposition’s origins to a 1979 California supreme court case that allowed third parties to bring legal action against insurance companies. That decision was a bonanza for trial lawyers, and the proliferation of lawsuits against California insurance companies forced them to raise rates significantly in the 1980s.
The rate hikes were unpopular and voters approved Prop 103 in 1988 by a 51–49 margin. Prop 103 forced an immediate 20 percent rate cut for car and property insurance sold in California, gave the state government power to approve or deny future rate increases, and gave public-interest groups the right to intervene when insurers request rate increases. The regulatory power would be held by the state insurance commissioner, which Prop 103 turned into an elected office.
Perhaps the craziest part of Prop 103 is that it included a provision that makes it extremely hard to amend. Any change to Prop 103 must be approved by a two-thirds majority in both houses of the California Legislature and must “further its purposes,” which is subject to judicial review. “Much has changed in the world, and in California’s insurance industry, since the passage of Prop 103, but the lion’s share of the law remains as it was in 1988,” the ICLE paper says.
I just hope Harry Bosch and Elvis Cole are OK.
Also of note:
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Yes, 1A even protects the speech of people you wish would just crawl back under their rocks. Jonathan Turley, lawprof at George Washington University, has some local news: New Hampshire Supreme Court Rejects Hate Speech Enforcement.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court just handed down a victory for free speech in Attorney General v. Hood. As is often the case, defending free speech means supporting viewpoints that most of us find grotesque and hateful. However, the justices rejected the position of the Portsmouth Police Department that it could force the removal of a racist banner from an overpass. Such signs and flags are commonly allowed, but the police and prosecutors insisted that racist messages “interfered with the rights” of other citizens.The controversy began on July 30, 2022, when a group of roughly ten people with NSC-131, a “pro-white, street-oriented fraternity dedicated to raising authentic resistance to the enemies of [its] people in the New England area,” hung banners from the overpass, including one reading “KEEP NEW ENGLAND WHITE.”
The ADL has more information on NSC-131, sample:
The Nationalist Social Club (NSC) or 131 Crew (131 is alphanumeric code for ACA, Anti-Communist Action and Anti-Capitalist Action) is a neo-Nazi group with small, autonomous regional chapters around the country. They also claim chapters in France, Hungary and Germany.
NSC-131 members consider themselves soldiers fighting a war against a hostile, Jewish-controlled system that is deliberately plotting the extinction of the white race. Their goal is to form an underground network of white men who are willing to fight against their perceived enemies through localized direct actions.
Anti-Communist and Anti-Capitalist? Geez, they really are Nazis.
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As if we needed another one. Becket Adams notices: USA Today Conducts a Master Class in Subservience.
Last week, USA Today managed somehow to embarrass itself even more with its “exit interview” of President Joe Biden, a floundering, pointless exercise in awestruck subservience. From lobbing slow-motion, underhanded softballs of no public interest to failing to seek clarification for unintelligible tirades to ignoring or allowing falsehoods and blatant political spin, the interview serves less as a public service and more as a reminder of why USA Today no longer holds the distinction of being the most circulated paper in the United States.
[…]
Consider, for example, Biden’s sudden pardon of his ne’er-do-well son, Hunter. The president promised he wouldn’t do it. Then he did it, making up weak excuses along the way for this obviously self-serving act and calling down on himself well-deserved, bipartisan scorn.
Yet in her interview with Biden, Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington bureau chief, set the stage thus: “Every parent can understand why you would want to protect your son. Do you have any concerns that your pardon of Hunter sets a precedent for future presidents? One that might be open to abuse?”
Notice how she ignores the ethics surrounding the president pardoning his son’s felony convictions. Notice how she avoids acknowledging that the pardon represents a bald-faced reversal for Biden. Observe how she frames the issue as a loving parent swooping in to rescue his wayward child. Grab the tissues. Notice Page doesn’t even take the easy palace-intrigue route, passing on the chance to ask the president to respond to the Democrats’ criticism of his decision. Most importantly, notice how Page’s question focuses on hypothetical abuses rather than the actual abuse staring her right in the face.
You can read a transcript of the tongue-bath interview here.
Only one week left to go before this babbling geezer is out the door! Unfortunately, Susan Page will remain.