Insurance Claim1

As the old saying goes, " If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything. " A few days back, I picked up the LA Times to read an article: " Friend says he and Manafort were criminals " wherein Richard Gates testified that he and Paul Manafort (former Trump Campaign Manager) had engaged in criminal activities.  Note: The testimony was that Gates and Manafort conducted criminal activities - not Trump (which goes back to the Judge's comment a while back that this case against Manafort was a witch hunt and not a drive to arrive at justice. I hadn't gotten past the 4th paragraph when the word "TORTURE" popped in my head.  I mean, why would anyone admit to having committed criminal activity in a Federal case unless they were being coerced into confessing?  Or course, this brings us to the concept of "torture."  See, at least twice weekly, I have someone come into my library who has committed some kind of felony (t...

Do you know how much it costs to have a case be appealed in a federal court of appeal?   In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 1913, that cost is $500.  Not a lot but when you don't have it, it's a whole lot of what you don't have. Now, with all that it costs to take a case to appeal, imagine, if you will, you are sitting in your house, door closed, and the police knock on your front door.  Little, piggie, little piggie, let me come in they shout.   You say, "No dice, go away."  Your roommate, who is outside the house, tells the police that they can go in.   You, again, insist that no, the police can't come in.  Police ignore you, they break a window to reach the inside lock, open the door, taser you to the floor and start to search for contraband inside your house. Sound like fun?  Well, Ryan Bonivert didn't and after the police did all that to him, he filed a case against the City of Clarkston , the County of Asotin and t...

Do you remember the civil war?  Sure you do.  It was a battle between the northern and southern states that ran from 1861-1865.  The primary reason the Civil War broke out was because the southern states wanted to secede from the union because, I suspect, the Federal government was trying to ram its ideologies down the southern states throats.  Abraham Lincoln thought differently and by sending troops to prevent succession, the Civil War began. Fast forward 140 years to the year 2005.  The year after George W. Bush was elected POTUS, Congress passed what is known as The Real ID Act of 2005 .  California was, initially, one of the states that refused to bow to the requirements of this Act.  Fact is, there were a number of hold-out states that refused to adopt this federal mandate. It has recently come to my attention, however, that this is no longer the case and after only two weeks since I (a California resident) got my new Driver's License...