There was something about the thin-armed, beer-bellied man as he walked along the sidewalk and passed the house. He had a thin, stringy beard and a severely receding hair line with the unkempt ends hanging over his tee-shirt collar.

“Good afternoon,” I called out.

“Good afternoon,” he replied as he continued up the street.

Yes. There was something that was vaguely familiar about the guy, but I couldn’t put my finger on it at the moment.

That night as I lay in bed hoping for sleep to overtake me, I thought about him again. Perhaps I’d seen him at the local Walmart or maybe the Save Mart – I couldn’t remember – but I knew I’d seen him someplace as I tend to recall faces all the time.

Then it hit me like a bolt out of the blue, a jarring memory that sent me sitting upright and absolved of all thought or want of sleep at that very moment. It was a stinging memory that I’d laid to rest years ago – but was suddenly walking through my neighborhood like a real Zombie.

“Martin,” I gasped.

He and I first crossed paths in early 1986. I’d been living in a boarding-house on Tripp Drive in Reno for a several months when Martin rented the room directly across from mine.

Martin was five years younger than me and because of this, his lack of body mass and extraordinarily hairless moustache on his upper lip, I considered him a kid. And as first impressions go, he set my alarm bell off as being a sneak.

And it didn’t take too long for my impression to prove itself out.

One Monday morning as I was leaving for work, I noticed my VW Bug’s front end pushed away from the curb. Furthermore, it had a nasty crack in the newly purchased fiberglass wheel well I’d recently installed.

Rushing back inside, I asked the landlord if she knew anything about what had happened to my car. She didn’t have a clue.

So, I went up stairs and knocked on Martin’s door. I told him about my car and he swore he had no knowledge of what had happened to cause the body damage.

Not wanting to be late for work, I drove off. However, I didn’t stop puzzling over the fact that my car was moved a good eight-inches from the curb and there was hefty crack in the body.

After work I drove home and parked in my usual spot. As I sat there it occurred to me that the landlord’s big old 1972 Chevy station wagon was recently moved.

Since she no longer drove, and the only time the ‘Beast’ as she called it moved was when I took her to the market to do her weekly shopping on Friday’s, I knew it had been driven. I had to find out by who, because I concluded that person had run the Beast’s bumper into my car.

“Did you take the car out?” I asked Ethel.

“No,” she answered, “You know I’m not allowed to drive anymore.”

“I know,” I replied, “But I had to ask. Anyone else drive your car since Friday evening?”

“No one,” she returned, “The keys are in my purse like always.”

Two days later, as I came in the front door and headed for the stairs, Ethel stopped me and in a near whisper told me, “Patsy from next door told me she saw someone she didn’t recognize driving the car late Sunday night. She described Martin.”

“So, do you want him out, because I’ll kick his ass down the stairs and out the front door, right now?” I asked.

“No. You can’t do that,” she countered, “I can’t very well simply accuse him of taking my car with proof. But do keep an eye on him.”

By now my rage was seething slightly below explosive. All I need was an excuse to pop him up along side of the head and drag him outside and give him a real smack down. I didn’t have to wait very long.

One evening I returned home from working overtime to discover my door unsecured. Every morning before I left the house I pulled it hard and rattled the knob to make certain it was locked.

As I pushed the door open, I looked around the room, but could find nothing missing. This caused me to question my recollection – perhaps I failed to double-check my door after all.

But that doubt was put to rest the next day as I realized a pocket knife I’d had in a desk drawer was missing. I searched high and low and never found it.

Then that evening, I was putting away my skivvies when I discovered both my birth certificate and my expired passport missing. They had been neatly tucked under the paper drawer-liner for safe keeping.

That seething rage became an explosive inferno as I stepped across the hall and pounded on Martin’s door. There was no answer, yet I felt certain he was inside cowering, so I pushed the door in by force.

I was wrong – Martin wasn’t in his room – but I wasn’t about to let an opportunity to search his room slip by me.

After trashing the place, I found absolutely nothing. He either had it so well hidden that it would take a team of detectives to find my stuff or he had taken it with him to wherever he disappeared.

Quietly, I sat up throughout much of the night waiting for the little asshole to return. He never did and eventually, Ethel had me clean out his room and repair the door so she could rent the space out to another boarder.

A few weeks later, with Mary moving to the area, we rented an apartment on Sutro Street where we would live for the next 12 years. As I was moving my stuff out of the boarding house I learned than Martin had also robbed me of a 20-dollar gold piece that I’d had hidden in my shaking kit and tucked under my bed.

There was nothing that could be done about any of it, so I resolved to let it go and move forward. Then about four-years later, as I pulled into the nearby Albertston’s on Oddie Blvd., I saw Martin coming out of the store with several grocery bags in his arms.

“Here, let me help you with those,” I offered with happiness in my voice.

Martin, not recognizing me at all, gladly allowed me to take five of the bags from him as he fished out his car keys out of his pocket. Behind him trailed a woman, a baby carrier in her arms.

Joyfully, I helped him load the truck with his groceries as his wife buckled the carrier into the back seat. That’s when I surprised him, saying, “I’d really like to have my birth certificate and passport back, Martin.”

His head snapped back and his face went pale as he knew instantly who I was and what I was talking about. Still a scrawny, stick figure of a man, he must have sensed I was more than willing to kick his ass if he got smart-mouthed or resisted me in anyway.

A fast as a ground-squirrel, he hoping behind the wheel and slammed his door shut; slapping the button lock down to make certain I couldn’t open the door and yank him out. I heard him yell at his wife to forget strapping the car seat down and to get in quick.

She had to scramble to get in the passenger seat as he had the car in gear and was pulling away within seconds of learning my identity. Martin nearly hit a mother and daughter as they came out of the grocery store and headed across the parking lot.

Yes, I could have followed him – but I decided not too. Instead I savored the fear of god I had jus’ put into the little man as he disappeared down the road.

That was the last time I saw Martin, that is until he walked by my home a few days ago.

The funny thing is that for years I’ve been trying to get a certified copy of my birth certificate from the federal government since I was born overseas as a military dependent, but to no avail, because I don’t have the hospital registry number. Then about a month ago, I accidentally stumbled on a copy that my parents placed in a ‘school record’s book,’ they started when I was baby – so now I have the necessary number.

Maybe it’s time I invite Martin over for cup of coffee. The whole idea makes me laugh.

In September 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook joined first lady Michelle Obama during President Obama’s State of the Union address. Ironic how fast the tables turned from favor to opposition.

That’s because the Department of Justice and its law enforcement arm, the FBI are trying to force Apple to create a custom software application that will help the agency break into a seized phone. Apple doesn’t want to do that, because it would be creating a security flaw in its own privacy protections, which could then be exploited, both lawfully and unlawfully.

And the DOJ/FBI are using a 227-year-old statute known as the ‘All Writ’s Act of 1789.’ So what is this All Writs Act?

• (a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.
• (b) An alternative writ or rule nisi may be issued by a justice or judge of a court which has jurisdiction.
• (June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 944; May 24, 1949, ch. 139, § 90, 63 Stat. 102.)

(A ‘nisi’ or ‘rule nisi’ is a court order that does not have any force unless a particular condition’s met. Once met the ruling becomes absolute and is binding.)

It was part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which created the federal court system and George Washington signed it into law. In essence it gives the court power to issue orders that do not fall under a pre-existing law.

It serves as a procedural tool for courts dealing with odd and miscellaneous issues that haven’t been covered by other laws yet. And if interpreted broadly, it could undermine the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which reads in part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”

If U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym decides in favor of the government, she’ll set a precedent making it easier for any agencies to force a company (or individual) to comply no matter the reason or outcome.  As stated by Thomas Jefferson, “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

“How is it that the law enforcer itself does not have to keep the law? How is it that the law permits the state to lawfully engage in actions which, if undertaken by individuals, would land them in jail?” — Frédéric Bastiat, from his 1850 pamphlet, “The Law.”

In July 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency decided that federal law allows it to “garnish non-Federal wages to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order.” The EPA claims this new authority by citing the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, approved under the Clinton administration.

Apparently, the DCIA gives all federal agencies the power to conduct administrative wage garnishment. The agency also pointed to a Department of Treasury rule from 2011 outlining debt collection for various agencies, including the EPA.

“Administrative Wage Garnishment would apply only after EPA attempts to collect delinquent debts and after Treasury attempts to collect delinquent debts through other means prior to any action,” giving the debtor the opportunity to “review, contest or enter into a repayment agreement.”

Americans have had to contend with such actions before. In fact, this same thing was addressed in a list of grievances by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: “He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent out hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance,” as well as “imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.”

The amount of money the EPA has collected in fines has increased steadily since President Obama took office. In 2012, the agency took in $252 million in fines, up from just $96 million in 2009.

This is what Bastiat meant when he also wrote, “It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”

A photographer has captured an image of a dead polar bear that he claims starved to death because of climate change. Sebastian Copeland was in the Canadian Arctic when he came across the animal’s emaciated corpse surrounded in molted fur on a patch of rocky ground.

Copeland claims it serves as an illustration of what polar bears face as the sea ice retreats, making it harder to hunt seals and forcing them further inland for food. His supposition’s bolstered by other climate change expert who’re warning that the Arctic could be completely free of ice in just 40 years.

Along with the polar bears, these experts say an estimated 150,000 penguins have been wiped out in Antarctica. The journal Antarctic Science says in 2010 an iceberg blocked access to the penguins’ natural feeding areas reducing the population to just a few thousand.

Yet, you and I are supposed to believe that the polar bear population is being threatened by a lack of icebergs. And honestly, even the experts like Polar Bear International, National Wildlife Federation or World Wildlife Federation can agree on the number of polar bears in the world.

In the end, it comes down to this: either there’s deadly ice in the polar ice caps or there’s not enough for survival – but you can have it both ways.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t wait for Justice Antonin Scalia’s body to reach room temperature before saying he would give any President Obama nominee a fair hearing in the Senate before rejecting the choice along partisan lines.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” said McConnell in a statement. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

The Senate’s number one Dem followed up with a warning for Republicans not to block Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, claiming such an action would be an abdication of their duties.

“Pursuing their radical strategy in a quixotic quest to deny the basic fact that the American people elected President Obama – twice — would rank among the most rash and reckless actions in the history of the Senate. And the consequences will reverberate for decades,” claimed Senator Harry Reid

Immediately afterwards, signs that Republican unity was wavering could be found.

“I think we fall into the trap if just simply say sight unseen, we fall into the trap of being obstructionists,” North Carolina’s Republican Senator Thom Tillis said, “If he puts forth someone that we think is in the mold of President Obama’s vision for America, then we’ll use every device available to block that nomination.”

Finally, GOP Senator Dean Heller, also from Nevada, is backing the Progressive power play, adding a new twist.

“The chances of approving a new nominee are slim, but Nevadans should have a voice in the process. That’s why I encourage the President to use this opportunity to put the will of the people ahead of advancing a liberal agenda on the nation’s highest court,” Heller said, adding “Should he decide to nominate someone to the Supreme Court, who knows, maybe it’ll be a Nevadan,” Heller said, in an apparent reference to Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval.

Sandoval is a former U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada judge. Prior to that, he was the Nevada’s Attorney General.

I wonder if any of these nit-wits have considered looking at someone who’ll ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ instead of trying to avoid looking bad to members of the opposite party?

The White House says President Obama won’t be attending the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The supposition is that it’s because he’s a ‘secret-Muslim.

However, his attending funerals have nothing to do with whatever religion he does or doesn’t submit too. It does however have to do with his political ideology; after all there are five funerals he did attend.

• Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a Democratic state senator for South Carolina, who lost his life on June 17, 2015. Despite never having met Pinckney, Obama delivered his eulogy.
• Former Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley, who passed away October 18, 2013. Obama spoke at the man’s funeral.
• Senator Daniel Inouye, a Democrat from Hawai’i, who passed away December 17, 2012. Obama openly wept over the Progressive senator.
• Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, who died June 28, 2010. Despite Byrd’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan, Obama gave a speech at the ceremony, calling the late senator his friend.
• Walter Cronkite, a life-long Progressive Democrat and model for modern journalists, who died on July 17, 2009. Obama spoke at the service, openly admitting that he had never met Cronkite.

It’s simple – Obama isn’t attending Scalia’s funeral because he hates the principals he stood for as a Constitutional Supreme Court Justice. The pattern speaks for itself; if you don’t believe in the same Progressive ideology as Obama, you are his enemy.

And like all megalomaniacs, when it comes to one’s enemies, he’s simply washed his hands of the man.

A dozen or so years before Cliven Bundy faced down armed agents of the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights, Nevada rancher Raymond Yowell watched as the BLM seized his herd. Adding to that insult, they’ve taken his money too since 2008.

Yowell’s 150 head of cattle had grazed for decades on the South Fork Western Shoshone Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada until the BLM seized them. They sold the cattle at auction, using some of the money to pay off part of Yowell’s ‘back grazing fees.’

Then the BLM sent Yowell a bill for the outstanding balance, some $180,000. They’ve been garnishing the former Shoshone chief’s monthly Social Security checks ever since.

While Bundy defied the BLM over fees for grazing cattle on ‘government-owned’ land, Yowell’s cattle roamed reservation land. But a 1979 Supreme Court decision held that even land designated for Indian reservations is held in trust for them, and thus subject to BLM regulation.

The Western Shoshone have never relinquished their right to the territory and treaties led to the creation of the reservation granted to Yowell and other cattlemen the right to graze cattle on the land. He’s also sued the BLM, the Treasury Department and others for $30 million, saying he was exercising his “treaty guaranteed vested rights” to be a herdsman.

Members of the Te-Moak Livestock Association deny the land in question belongs to the federal government. They say it was never alienated under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.

The treaty gave certain rights to the U.S. in the Nevada Territory, but didn’t state that the Shoshone were to surrender their lands. This omission created problems for the Indian Claims Commission from the time it was established in 1946 until it was dissolved in 1978, forcing outstanding issues to be transferred to the courts.

The federal government purchased the land from the Shoshone in the 1940s, but tribal members claim they were paid cents on the dollar for the land. Also the traditional members claim the land was not for sale and they refused payment.

In 2004, the fed’s passed the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act, which authorized payment of $145 million for the transfer of 25 million acres to the U.S. Seven of the nine tribal councils within the Western Shoshone Nation opposed the legislation. Then on January 17, 2006, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Western Shoshone National Council against the U.S. that sought to quiet title to lands defined in the Treaty of Ruby Valley.

In 2013, Yowell represented himself in a successful effort to win a federal injunction to stop the BLM from impounding his cattle, as well as a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that reversed the lower court. He continues to represent himself, this time in a petition to have the U.S. Supreme Court hear his case, where he argues his cattle were taken without due process and in violation of multiple treaties.

As all this played out, other members of the Te-Moak Band of Western Shoshone formed the South Fork Livestock Partnership had cattle grazing on the land. The SFLP members paid the grazing fee to the BLM.

Meanwhile, the TMLA, of which Yowell is a member, quit paying permit fees in 1984 with the claim that they didn’t have to pay for grazing on land that was rightfully that of the Western Shoshone. The BLM cancelled the Association’s permit in 1989.

Yowell retired in 2006 after nearly 30 years as chief of the national council. He said he leaves most of the heavy lifting to his son these days at his ranch on the edge of the Ruby Mountains where his parents first settled in the 1930s.

As Oglala Lakota chief Mahpiua-Luta (Red Cloud) stated, “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they kept one; they promised to take our land, and they did.”

“The world might never know exactly what killed U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia,” writes Caroline Bankoff of the New York Magazine. What an odd word ‘kill’ is when it comes to a man who supposedly died in his sleep.

But then maybe because I’ve grown up with questions like, ‘Who shot Kennedy?’ I’m cynical when it comes to the death of ‘political figures.’ But in this case, I have ligit questions that need investigating.

Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in West Texas at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa. Compliant media outlets like The Washington Post immediately claimed it was a heart attack.

However, a heart attack can be caused by several reasons and with only one medical examiner claiming it was from natural causes, more information needs to be sought. In fact, the coroner in this case, a Presidio County Judge named Cinderela Guevara contradicted news reports saying Scalia die of a heart attack, but rather of a ‘myocardial infarction.’

A myocardial infarction in the simplest terms is the destruction of an area of heart muscle as the result of occlusion of a coronary artery. This raises my question — what caused this destruction?

We’ll never know because an autopsy was never performed. In fact, Scalia was pronounced dead over the phone after Guevara “consulted with Scalia’s personal physician and sheriff’s investigators, who said there were no signs of foul play.”

In other cases, such as an unattended death or murder – the Ector County Medical Examiner out of Odessa, Texas would have been called. At 170 miles from Presidio County it’s the closest county with a licensed medical examiner.

This and other facts have started to emerge which leave at nearly 75-percent of people questioning what happened according to at least one poll. After all, the ranches owner, John Poindexter in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail says Scalia was found with a pillow over his head.

That alone should have set off alarm bells! And while Texas law does allow for an over-the-phone pronouncement of death, an eyes-on physical examination of the body should have been mandatory.

I’m certain that most law enforcement officials would agree with me that an autopsy in this case would be a matter of common sense.

It’s outrageous that a man of his stature wouldn’t have an autopsy to confirm cause of death. One would think his family would have insisted, but they’re ‘now’ claiming they didn’t want one.

And to make thing look even worse, in less than 24 hours, Scalia’s body was embalmed in accordance with Texas law because his remains were being flown to Virginia. This destroyed any evidence of foul play should it have it existed.

Add to this the timing of his death — and its hard not to see a conspiracy in Scalia’s passing.

For nearly half a year I transported the two women, from the same apartment building to same destination. Both had German accents, one was tall while the other short and blind.

The tall one, Margarete always went to the Washoe County Senior Center where she helped other seniors with their social security and other paperwork. Gertrude’s ride always ended at Washoe Medical Center where she played the piano for visitors coming through the front door.

One July morning, when the temperature was approaching the 80-degree mark, I assisted both women onto the bus. Gertrude immediately complained that it was to hot, so I offered to turn up the vehicles air conditioning.

This caused Margarete to worry that she’d get too cold. So Gertrude decided on a compromise – she’d remove her long-sleeve sweater.

Once she had it off, I noticed the strange look on Margarete’s face. She then leaned across the aisle and said something in German.

Gertrude responded in kind and then held up her left arm, showing Margarete what appeared to be a small tattoo on her forearm. They continued to talk between themselves in their native tongue.

Within minutes we pulled up in front of the senior center, where Margarete needed to be. There was a certain amount of reluctance on her part to get off the bus, but finally after chatting some more with Gertrude she got up and exited the vehicle.

After escorting her to the doorway of the building, I rushed back onto the bus, sat down in my seat and strapped in. I looked up into the overhead mirror and saw Gertrude had a small grin on her face.

Without prompting she started, “It’s a very small world.”

“It is,” I returned.

“For nearly five-years I’ve lived across the hall from that woman and not once have we spoken more than simple pleasantries to each other,” she continued, “And now this.”

I remained quiet, knowing she was already preparing to explain.

“In 1943, I was deported to Sobibór,” she stated flatly, “You know of the place?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

“There the Nazi’s gave me this tattoo – marking me as a Jew – an undesirable,” Gertrude said, “ And I now find out that Margarete was a prisoner at Sobibór too.”

“That does make it a small world,” I commented.

“Too make it smaller still – while I cannot recall her face, nor she mine from 53-years-ago, her identification number is one digit higher than mine,” she lightly smiled, “meaning she was right behind me in that awful line.”

“Oh, my,” I exclaimed, “That gives me goose-bumps.”

She grew quiet and remained so for the rest of the ride to the hospital. As was my custom, I escorted without a word inside the front doors.

Also as usual I poured myself a complimentary cup of coffee, and then spent a few minutes listening to Gertrude warming up on the keyboard. It was at that moment that I truly felt the old woman’s inner sadness as she began playing Chopin’s “Raindrop” prelude.

And for the second time that early morning, I felt the tingle of goose-bumps as they effortlessly rushed over my skin. Then I left early, fearful that someone might see my eyes filling with tears and I’d have to explain.

It began innocently enough with a short news item that I’d written and posted on Facebook…

FORGETTING THE CONSTITUTION: Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are disagreeing on the Supreme Court nomination process in an election year. Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said it is “standard practice” not to confirm nominees during presidential elections. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said waiting would be a “dereliction of duty.”

Eric Taylor: Last time a SCOTUS justice died while still on the bench, they had a new one in less than a month (2005.) Reagan also appointed Justice Kennedy during his lame duck year in 1988. That’s the “standard practice” GOP asshats are nothing if not brazen hypocrites.

Me: The most recent declaration that there should be no new Justice’s appointed until a new President was elected came from Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer in 2007. So before calling anyone an asshat you need to know what the hell you’re talking about.

Eric Taylor: The problem with that narrative of yours is that there were no SCOTUS openings in 2007. Alito got appointed in 2006 and there were no more openings until 2009. I’m not sure if Schumer said that or not (I can only find citations from right-wing nut job websites), but if he said it in 2007, it meant precisely squat because there wasn’t actually an opening on the court, or any nomination pending.

Me: Here I presented evidence in the form of a YouTube Video entitle, “Senator Schumer on Roberts and Alito (https://youtu.be/tkRZVE3aDm8) And please don’t try and change the argument since you set it up.

Eric Taylor: Again, it was in 2007. No openings then so his statement was moot, at best. Also, his comment was somewhat regretful for his own votes confirming Roberts and Alito in 2005 and 2006 when they were (relatively) rushed through the nomination process by the GOP-controlled Senate. Finally, Schumer also said they should block nominees “unless there were extraordinary circumstances.” I’d say a vacancy on the court would qualify as extraordinary circumstances. In any event, while the GOP certainly doesn’t have the entire hypocrisy market cornered, they are certainly more brazen about, mostly because the lapdog media never calls them on it.

Me: Does not matter — it was stated by Schumer in 2007. Period!

Eric Taylor: Context is important

Me: Again trying to change the argument by adding something to it that wasn’t a part of the original argument.

Eric Taylor: I’m not changing anything by adding actual facts and context. Did you even read anything I wrote? I’m sorry I put some big words in there.

Me: This was the crux of your argument: “GOP asshats are nothing if not brazen hypocrites.” I countered with the fact that Schumer made the same comments in 2007, then backed it up with a video of him saying what I had claimed. You on the other hand tried to change the argument by trying to show that there was not confirmations planned, with wasn’t part of your original statement, then you added ‘ context,’ and to your argument and finally you’ve become insulting which is the true sign of a person who has no argument. You are a Progressive, through and through. So you can comment again — but I’ve proven my point and you’ll jus’ end up looking like the asshat in the end.

Eric Taylor: Through all of that you never addressed my original point and clung to your straw man argument even after I repeatedly minimized it.

Too be honest, I still don’t think he ever understood his original argument to begin with after all, both parties have their ‘asshats.’