Massive tax hike, small reprieve

Many Floridians have whined that the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis have failed to enact effective homeowner insurance reform, seemingly enabling insurance companies to charge whatever they want. One insurance company sent renewal notices to thousands of policyholders dumped by state-owned Citizens’ Property Insurance. The increases ranged from 40% to 832%.

In one case the company proposed to raise the outraged homeowner’s premium from $3,200 to $16,000. I would remind him and other querulous citizens that thanks to the sales-tax holiday on school supplies, they will save 15 cents on a four-ounce bottle of Elmer’s School Glue and a whopping $1.50 on a Mickey Mouse girls’ backpack. Such ingrates!

Greg Dawson Maitland

GOP grasping at straws

Comments like those in one Tuesday letter to the editor (“Harris’ elevation wasn’t democracy”) regarding the “un-democratic” way that Kamala Harris was named the presumptive candidate (and that is all she is, until she is officially nominated, just as Joe Biden was not yet the official nominee) is simply a reaction to the swift kick to the posterior the GOP is experiencing as a result. Within a matter of hours, the Democratic Party coalesced around Harris’s elevation to the post (while anybody is still free to toss their hat in the ring).

In my view, the letter-writer is just parroting what was immediately dredged up by right-wing media that many on the right turn to for their marching orders. The fever pitch will settle down in due course but by that time, Harris will have solidly placed herself in line for the win in November and so-called conservatives are beside themselves grasping at whatever they can to make her go away.

Alex Jimenez Winter Park

Abortion bans are overtaking country

On Monday, Iowa put in place an abortion ban at six weeks, which makes Iowa the 22nd state in our country to have an abortion ban (“Iowa now bans most abortions after six weeks,” July 29). At six weeks, many women do not know that they are pregnant.  Anti-choice extremists like Donald Trump and JD Vance are the reason why cruel abortion bans are ripping away women’s rights across the country. While president, Trump handpicked three members of the U.S. Supreme Court who opposed the protections of Roe v. Wade. This means one in three women of reproductive age in America lives in a state with abortion ban.

If Kamala Harris is elected president, she says she will sign into law the protections for reproductive freedom.

Project 2025 — a conservative blueprint for the next Republican president — lays out a plan to take things even further with nationwide abortion laws and decreased access to emergency contraception. According to CNN, the manifesto was cowritten by multiple former Donald Trump appointees. Trump’s name appears over 300 times in the Project 2025 Plan.

Harris has said: “We trust women to make decisions about their own body. We trust women to know what is in their own best interest. And folks, women trust all of us to fight for their rights.”

Voters should look for a local action, this week and every week through Election Day on Nov. 5, to support reproductive freedom. Vote for Harris and Democrats to give back a woman’s right to make personal medical decisions.

Dennis Raube Fort Myers