Anti-‘woke’ Patronis all wrong on insurance | Letters to the editor
What the heck is wrong with Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and the rest of the governor’s political lackeys?
Now, it’s the CFO’s claim that “woke” policies and “virtue signaling” caused Farmers Insurance to drop some 100,000 Florida customers.
Since woke means being “aware of social and political issues, especially racism,” I guess the fact that Famers said racism was wrong (which the company did after the killing of George Floyd) was a mortal sin by violating the 11th Commandment of Gov. Ron DeSantis: Thou Shalt Not Say CRT (critical race theory).
No, what Famers did by dropping all these Florida customers is called “greed capitalism.” Too much risk with the water rising in Florida from global warming threatens to reduce their profit margins.
When will they also call the mosquitoes spreading malaria “woke”? Will red tide become “woke”? How about calling the current Florida heat wave a “woke” wave?
DeSantis and his Tallahassee followers are most definitely not “woke.” They are a sad and pathetic joke that is ripping our state apart.
Ray Belongie, Fort Lauderdale
Climate voting records
Given the recent extreme heat and rising ocean temperatures, it seems like an opportunity to provide the people with clear voting records of their elected representatives in Congress on the issue of climate.
While there are likely to be objections by some that focusing on the climate crisis in the aftermath of disasters is using tragedy for political ends, an equal argument may be made that willfully ignoring repeated evidence of the rapidly degrading climatic situation is also a political ploy.
Here are scores of some Florida members of Congress compiled by the League of Conservation Voters based on their votes in 2022. (A score of 100 is considered perfect; a zero is the lowest score.
John Rutherford, 0%; Byron Donalds, 5%; att Gaetz, 5%; Michael Waltz, 11%, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 95%; Frederica Wilson, 95%; Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, 100%; Lois Frankel, 100%; and Kathy Castor, 100%. The Senate scores for 2022 scores are Rick Scott, 4% and Marco Rubio, 9%.
The data is found at https://scorecard.lcv.org.
David Friedman, Fayetteville, N.Y.
Tyler Herro’s good fortune
Please, Sun Sentinel Heat writer Ira Winderman, don’t lecture me about how badly Tyler Herro has been treated.
It was Herro who, after being named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2022 (or was it 2021), then demanded to be a starter. And his injury-shortened stint as a starter did not translate into his scoring and prowess as a sixth man.
Herro might be unhappy, but he is a very rich unhappy young man. So he might be in limbo as to where he will play next season, and it might or might not be Miami. But in the context of the bigger picture of people who are trying to make it in this world, he is very lucky.
Ellen Isaacs, Pompano Beach
Devout, devoted, disciplined
The Sun Sentinel, in its passionate quest to be fair and equal, has devoted an inordinate amount of space to letters from Neal Bluestein of Boca Raton.
For those not familiar with Bluestein’s writings, you will never find a more devout, devoted and disciplined hard-right conservative gentleman. He has steadfastly defended his party’s philosophy of attacking anything that could be interpreted as liberal or Democratic.
What kind of epiphany would it take for Bluestein to realize that in order to “make America great,” you have to govern from the center? You can only achieve that when you resurrect the word “compromise.”
Martin Reichenthal, Boca Raton