Tom James

Ohio attorney helping clients w/ contracts, suits & ADR, estates, & more. Also a dad, tech enthusiast, & former Sycamore Township, OH Trustee (2020-2023).

[Tom James @tom_james]

TLDR: Feds Rain Down Jail Time on Drought-Faking Farmers.

I represent federally reinsured crop insurance companies in claim disputes (among other things). Crop insurance is federally regulated and is heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Most claims are paid without controversy, and some initially denied ones result in payment or other resolution via arbitration or other dispute resolution processes required by the government-issued policy terms. Many claim disputes concern disagreements over whether the loss is due to naturally occurring covered perils (example: drought), or whether the shortfall in crop production or damage was instead from causes which were uninsured or even self-inflicted (examples: improper agricultural practices; crop abandonment; failure to control weeds).

Our law firm's insurer clients try to pay every claim they can, but they must follow federal crop insurance program rules because program integrity and taxpayer dollars are at stake, and ultimately those rules require a farmer to prove that his loss is valid before it can be paid. The law as to other types of insurance coverage is usually the opposite, requiring the insurer to pay the claim unless it can prove it shouldn't. But with crop insurance, federal law puts that burden on the farmer, not the crop insurer, and any state law which says otherwise is preempted.

Sometimes our clients deny claims because things just don't add up and the claimed "loss" might be from fraud, waste, and abuse of the system. In those cases, the insurer must report the situation to the feds so that USDA and federal law enforcement can investigate. Here's a great example of two farmers who were abusing the crop insurance system by tampering with rain gauges. They effectively tried to fake drought conditions and got caught. Now both are going to jail. See the link for details as to this interesting situation.

This wasn't a claim our firm was involved in, but we've certainly handled others with really odd or suspicious circumstances where we've unearthed apparent or actual farmer fraud in substantial, sometimes multi-million-dollar claims, leading to government action to preserve crop insurance program integrity and taxpayer dollars. Our firm's efforts have saved our clients from having to pay some pretty significant fraudulent claims and the taxpayers from having to subsidize them. That's something I am quite proud of. #cropinsurance #insurance #arbitration #FCIC #RMA #USDA
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Two Southeastern Colorado Farmers Sentenced to Federal Prison and Will Pay Over $6.5 Million for Defrauding Federal Crop Insurance Programs https://t.co/VUpnom2wJX

[Dan McLaughlin @baseballcrank]

Read @mike_frags @NRO on some amazingly dishonest legal hackery in the anti-Trump cause by a bunch of former federal judges https://t.co/o9KuCHGzJn

[Tom James @tom_james]

@jameslgb Yep. It’s burning a hole in the legislature’s pocket. I’m sure they will spend it all and then even add a little more, just for kicks.

[Tom James @tom_james]

Here's a novel idea that I'm sure will be a non-starter: Maybe just give the revenue windfall back to Ohio taxpayers on a per-capita basis as a rebate?

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

The judicial philosophy of "disparate impact" has done more to promote racism and inequality in America than all of the SPLC's "hate groups" have ever done, combined, by a factor of about 10,000x.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

The only way to fully reform the Pentagon is mass firings of bureaucrats.

But if @elonmusk didn’t have the political capital to pull that off, what chance does @PeteHegseth have?

The Democrats and the blob have no power to get anything done. But they have enormous power to throw wrenches into working machinery.

If Hegseth fired half the Pentagon tonight, the warfighter would suffer in the short to medium term.

Supplies, ammunition, food replenishment for the carriers off Iran: all of it would be “accidentally” misplaced.

Remember all those stories about sailors going malnourished on the USS Ford?

Complete fake news.

Or was it?

Those stories weren’t reporting on what is happening now. They were warnings about what WILL happen the moment Hegseth or the CNO push too hard on reform.

That’s what most people don’t understand about the media fakenews. They don’t pull these factual wrong stories out of thin air. The narrative serves a purpose.

The fake news is often a warning of what will happen if MAGA doesn’t back off.

Look at what happened with ICE. Noem did not give a damn about the blob, so what did the blob do? They didn’t just shut down ICE. They kneecapped the entire U.S. Coast Guard.

They put maximum pain on something Trump cherishes: active duty service members.

I think that was the fundamental disagreement between Elon and Trump.
Trump wants to get shit done, but he understood that if he fired half of DC, everything would grind to a halt for a few years.

Look at the NSC. He gutted the place, which was a fantastic move, but the shipbuilding office got crushed in the process. They eventually pulled off the Maritime Action Plan, but it took a year.

Elon was willing to absorb the short term pain to get the long term result. It’s not that he doesn’t care about the warfighter. It’s certainly not ignorance of what the blob can do to inflict pain on warfighters. He was just willing to accept short term casualties to save the nation in the long run.

He was willing to sacrifice pawns, and even his knights, to win the game.

Trump thinks he can rebuild the foundation without losing any of his construction workers in the process. He thinks he can fix the foundation without evicting any of his tenants.

This is not black and white.

Neither is wrong.

And fundamentally, I think Trump is an optimist about the future of our Republic. He believes the nation will survive him.

Elon thinks we need to colonize Mars because there is a non-zero chance the entire Earth is screwed.

He’s an optimist too. Just on an entirely different timeline.

Trump wants to see real progress and real improvements before he dies. Elon is willing to sacrifice during his lifetime if it means the Republic is stronger in 100 years.

Both are patriots.

Trump just has a few more red lines he will not cross than Elon does. The biggest of those red lines is the wellbeing of our warfighters.

The problem is Democrats know it. And they are willing to kick the USCG in the balls to win the midterms.

And Trump is willing to back down, fire Kristi Noem, and sideline the deputy who was pushing USCG reforms, all to keep Coast Guard sailors from getting hurt.

I don’t blame him. It pains me too seeing our coasties suffer because of political nonsense.

Drain the swamp tomorrow and millions of tax refunds, programs for the poor, essential cancer treatments, scheduled lifesaving surgeries at the VA, and worse will grind to a halt for weeks.

Possibly months. Maybe a few years.
Don’t drain DC, and change will take decades to happen, if it happens at all.

Trump was willing to pay that price on essential services overseas. That’s why he let Elon shutter USAID.

But he is reluctant to grind domestic services to a halt, and he is unwilling to let Democrats and the blob hurt any service larger than the USCG.

[Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke]

@seanagnew It’s just embarrassing. And some are tiring of it.

[Tom James @tom_james]

This is fascinating. Not a short read, but well worth the time investment.

[Patrick McKenzie @patio11]

This week in Bits about Money: https://t.co/3UShZETZg2

[Tom James @tom_james]

Indeed.

[Randy Ludlow @RandyLudlow]

If only we were all like @BenSasse.

[Tom James @tom_james]

This is insightful.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

Cole Allen is the Dunning-Kruger Assassin.

Allen is not some random nut job from the fringes of society. He’s a very articulate graduate of Caltech, which means he has a high degree of native intelligence. He’s in the education profession. He is on BlueSky. He goes to No Kings protests. He’s your basic rank-and-file Democrat.

But it’s that high native intellect that led him astray.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is, at its simplest level, people thinking they know more that they do. People who are high achievers in one area often mistakenly believe their native abilities make them experts in all areas.

So you get a super-smart guy like Allen, he excels in one narrow area, and extrapolates that excellence into thinking he knows more than he does in other areas. He goes into Blue Sky, he goes to No Kings protests, and he is easily swayed into believing all of the insane, violent lies those sorts of intellectual cesspools foster. All of a sudden this computer science expert is a national political policy expert too, except that latter expertise is derived from insane propaganda. The man with the intellectual skill to write code is not smart enough to recognize when he himself has fallen prey to propaganda, so he KNOWS that Donald Trump is Hitler and must be stopped.

And when you KNOW that someone is Hitler, what’s the right thing to do?

That’s what is so scary at this very moment—the sheer number of ostensibly educated Democrats who KNOW so many things are “true" that are actually so very, very untrue.

In many ways, Cole Allen is just an average Democrat, and like most average Democrats, he fell prey to credentialism and Dunning-Kruger. But Cole took it to the next level; let’s pray more do not.

[Tom James @tom_james]

@jameslgb @VodkaPundit @BrooksBrothers That's a good comparison as to the Cracker Barrel debacle. What are they thinking with this nonsense? Did they hire the former Bud Light marketing executive team?

[Tom James @tom_james]

What was he referencing here, @grok? What was, or will be, launched that is "more powerful than XPro" and is it available yet?

[Nikita Bier @nikitabier]

@monetization_x What we’re launching in X in the next week or two will be much more powerful than XPro.

We’re only keeping XPro for people that absolutely need it for hyper-specific business workflows.

[Tom James @tom_james]

@jameslgb Coffee
Eggs & Bacon
Gym
Costco
Mowing
Cocktails
Burger
80s Music

Good day here too.

[Tom James @tom_james]

This is absolutely correct. And it’s almost universally true as to government capital projects — not limited only to California or to rail.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@Teslaconomics @boringcompany The real reason for the “high speed rail” is money-laundering to bureaucrats, consultants & unions, not actually transport. That is where the billions spent so far have gone.

That is why they don’t want an actually cost-efficient high speed transport system.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

Just stop, we all know your scam.

>Democrats raise taxes.
>Money flows to NGOs packed with Democratic operatives.
>Those operatives take their cut, write a check to Democratic campaigns
> Report back that the problem still exists and needs more funding.

If you fix the problem... the money stops.

So nothing ever gets fixed.

The money vanishes into a network of nonprofits and nobody goes to jail and nobody loses their job and then freaking YOU go on X and point at billionaires.

You doesn't want to fix anything.

Fixed problems don't generate donations or fund your life...

If you wanted to fix the problem you'd care about the fraud, BUT YOU DO NOT.

That's how I know you're lying.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

NATO is in far bigger danger than anyone realizes. And the reason has nothing to do with defense budgets.

The real danger is psychological. It’s cultural.

Europeans didn’t just free-ride on American security for 80 years. They built an entire identity around the idea that they evolved past the Americans protecting them.

That identity is now the single biggest obstacle to Western survival. And the darkest irony is: we helped build it.
After World War II, Europe wasn’t just economically shattered. Its culture was in ruins. The cities, the universities, the concert halls, the museums. Rubble.

The Marshall Plan rebuilt the economy. But culture wasn’t a priority. Not at first.
Then the Iron Curtain dropped. And suddenly culture became a weapon.

American diplomats, academics, artists & scholars flooded Western Europe. We funded their universities. Supported their orchestras. Rebuilt their museums. Promoted their intellectual life.
Not because European culture needed saving for its own sake.

Because Eastern Europeans were struggling for Maslow’s mist basic needs.

We needed the view from the other side of that Wall to be intoxicating.

So America built Western Europe into a showcase of self-actualization. Art. Philosophy. Cafe culture. Long vacations. Universities where people studied literature instead of surviving.
We were manufacturing jealousy.

And it worked. The Wall came down.

But here’s what no one accounted for.

When you give a society self-actualization on someone else’s tab long enough, they forget it was a gift. They start believing it was organically theirs.

And when they look at the country that funded it all, a country busy building aircraft carriers and semiconductor fabs and shale fields instead of reaching the Maslow’s pinnacle.

An overweight American in a ball cap who can’t tell Monet from Pissarro. Who eats fast food. Who drives a truck. Who builds strip malls instead of piazzas.

And to a culture trained in aesthetics but stripped of strategic awareness, that American looks uncivilized.

So the arrogance takes root. And once a culture decides another is beneath them, they stop listening.

Americans say wars are sometimes necessary: crude.

Oil is the backbone of prosperity: unsophisticated.

Kids build companies in garages that reshape the planet: crass.

Wall Street finances the global economy: vulgar.

Europe has no world-class technology sector. No military capable of strong defense. No energy independence. No AI capacity.

What Europe has is culture. The culture we paid for at the expense of us reaching Maslow’s pinnacle.

For decades that was fine. We funded the museums, protected the sea lanes, and tolerated the sneering because the arrangement worked.

Then Europeans stopped keeping the contempt private. They started saying it to our faces. In their media. In their parliaments. At every international forum. “Americans are stupid.

Americans are violent. Americans are a threat to democracy.”

We could have moved the Louvre to NY. We could have built a Venice here. We could have stolen your best artists, designers, philosophers and more… like your conquering armies did for centuries.

Instead we funded them. And all we asked for in return was to let us visit.

You don’t have the military to defend your borders. You don’t have the technology to compete. You don’t have the energy to heat your homes without begging dictators.

What you have is an 80-year superiority complex FUNDED BY AMERICANS, protected by American soldiers, and built on the false belief that self-actualization is civilization.

It isn’t. Civilization is the ability to sustain itself. By that measure, Europe isn’t a civilization at all. It’s a dependency with better wine.

That’s not a threat. It’s a weather report.

Build a Navy. Or don’t. But stop lecturing the people who made you “better than us”

Our “crudeness” our “stunted liberal education” our “ugly strip malls” are because we sacrificed our culture to support yours.

[Tom James @tom_james]

@jameslgb I’ll add it to my reading list - thanks!

[Tom James @tom_james]

@jameslgb Yep. Ditto to that.

[Tom James @tom_james]

What a bizarrely stupid and hateful take this is as to Ms. Rowling and her work.

[The A.V. Club @TheAVClub]

The first teaser for HBO's Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, a show that will give J.K. Rowling millions to donate to transphobic causes, arrived this afternoon.

https://t.co/2E3EDGFs9P

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

Hello Senator Thune,

Let's expose what you're really doing with "reconciliation."

You announced it yesterday, eleven months after the House passed the SAVE America Act. You're not trying to pass this bill. You're trying to kill it in a way you can blame on process.

Here's how we know:

Reconciliation requires the Senate parliamentarian to rule that provisions are "budgetary." Citizenship verification is not budgetary. Photo ID mandates are not budgetary. The parliamentarian will gut the bill. Then you'll shrug and say "we tried." We see through you.

Meanwhile, you WON'T use the tools that actually work:

Rule XIX limits each senator to two speeches per legislative day. Keep the Senate in continuous session, file cloture daily, and the filibuster exhausts in ~12-20 days. You dismissed it as "complicated." Because if you tried and succeeded, you'd have to actually pass the bill.

Harry Reid nuked the filibuster in 2013 when he wanted results.

Mitch McConnell changed Senate rules THREE times and canceled the August recess.

Chuck Schumer used reconciliation within months on a 50-50 Senate.

You have 53 seats. You've changed nothing, canceled nothing, and waited eleven months.

Now let's talk donors:

• Goldman Sachs: $150K to you - top H-1B user
• Google: $75K - lobbies against E-Verify
• Meta: $72.5K - Zuckerberg's FWD[.]us pushes mass immigration
• Wells Fargo: $90K - banks undocumented immigrants

Same corporations sponsor Punchbowl News, where you sit for "Fly Out Days" which nobody watches except Congress staffers and K Street lobbyists who pays premium bucks for legislative intelligence. Their reporter then telegraphs to the audience the SAVE Act "will ultimately fail."

Corporate money flows to you AND to the outlet that frames your inaction as inevitable.

We see the loop.

You called grassroots anger a "paid influencer ecosystem." YOU are the paid influencer. You take the wrong side of a 80% issue because you are indistinguishable from a K Street mouthpiece, and an ineffective one to boot who won't bend the rules to get anything passed.

What we want:

1. Force a real talking filibuster.
2. Stop hiding behind process.
3. Pass the SAVE America Act.

YOU will become the reason that we will have our butts kicked in midterms. Not Candace Owens, not Nick Fuentes, not anyone else. You and you alone, and all because you want to make the 200 or so viewers of Punchbowl Fly Out Days happy. You're living in a K Street information bubble, addicted to the comforts and praises of lobbyists masquerading as journalists. You mistake the steak and martini dinners you get invited to as your own constituents.

You are not "moderate." The SAVE America Act has 98% support among Republicans. Name one other thing that has 98% support. You are an extreme minority who prides himself on being a calm leader, when in reality you are well in the running for the most ineffective Majority leader of all time.

Prove me wrong. Do the bare modicum of effort. Not symbolic. Actual effort. Cancel the recess. Get SAVE America Act passed.