Monday • March 30 • 2026
Vol.XVIII • No.XIV
Manchester, N.H.
The first Jake from State Farm commercial was a good ad because it was funny. A husband is confronted by his untrusting wife, who doesn’t believe he’d be on the phone talking to their insurance agent that late at night. “What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm?” she asks.
Jake replies, umm, khakis. Queue the decades-old tagline; “like a good neighbor, state farm is there.”
White Jake got replaced by black Jake, and while the new Jake is a good Jake, and I could care less what color he is, the deliberate virtue signaling annoys me. In House of Dragons, HBO cast black actors to play characters who are not just pale and blonde. The race itself has this distinctive trait and has for centuries. The black actors are fantastic. Top shelf. I love their characters and portrayal. I have no complaints about the performances, but HBOs need to pander (and it’s not the actor’s fault) is so obvious it is irksome, especially when we know it is not about pairing a performer to a role. They would never cast a straight white man as a character who was black and gay, no matter how well he pulled it off.
Annoying.
Perhaps not nearly as much as State Farm has annoyed policyholders in California. The good neighbor won’t be there for 72,000 of them whom they’ve decided to drop because the not-so-golden state has made doing business there impossible.
The insurer blamed inflation, regulatory costs, and the increasing risks from catastrophes for its decision to scale back in the blue state.
“This decision was not made lightly and only after careful analysis of State Farm General’s financial health, which continues to be impacted by inflation, catastrophe exposure, reinsurance costs, and the limitations of working within decades-old insurance regulations,” State Farm announced in a March 20 statement.
The reference to risks from catastrophes refers in part to forest and woodland policy. California has been a lousy steward, pandering to environmental groups that balk at the clearing of standing and downed wood to protect the forests and the people living in or near them. California also suffers from other tendencies that lead to risk, like letting Democrats run things. State Farm can’t see a way to be a good neighbor, so they’ve decided not to pretend.
This is a real crisis,” [California’s insurance commissioner Ricardo] Lara told KABC in an interview Friday.
The commissioner said he wants to investigate State Farm’s finances, but warned that regulators can’t go too far, or else they would risk pushing companies out of California entirely.
“Insurance companies are not like utility companies,” he told KABC. “By law, they don’t have to be here, and when we try to overregulate, we’ll see what happened after the Northridge earthquake, when the legislature came in and tried to overregulate, and they no longer write earthquake insurance in California.”
The obvious solution is to sue the crap out of them and maybe this isn’t like compelling speech (also illegal). You can’t force them to open a business or to do business, and this is California so, naturally, they have an Obamacare for property insurance.
One hitch. This insurer of last resort doesn’t have much of a fiscal surplus with which to cover claims when they have another significant wildfire event and the will.
Guess who will be on the financial hook when that happens?
The post California: Jake From State Farm Might Not be Your “Good” Neighbor For Much Longer … appeared first on Granite Grok.
I have spent three years in the Nashua South civil court addressing records disputes with the City of Nashua. During this time, I’ve gained experience formulating an opinion on the impartiality of the Nashua judges in hearing cases brought against Cities.
Another Nashua citizen filed a right-to-know petition against the Town of Conway in June 2023 for failing to provide records.
Judge Temple handled the case, and the Town of Conway filed a motion to dismiss. The Court dismissed several claims, but others remained to be heard in a merits hearing. On July 12, 2023, the Town of Conway filed a motion to award attorney fees. It was a puzzling motion as the Judge had yet to hear the case’s merits, and the standard for awarding attorney’s fees is very high. How do you win fees without hearing the case?
When Judges go on vacation, the other Judge will issue orders on motions, objections, or responses to keep the case moving. At the end of July 2023, Judge Temple was on vacation, so on July 25, Judge Colburn ruled on the motion to award attorney fees. Judge Colburn ruled to grant the Town of Conway’s request for the Citizen to pay $675 in legal fees to Conway. It was a frightening ruling for citizens working hard to access public records, especially since this Judge had just issued an order on July 7, 2023, claiming I was acting as an attorney and actions could be taken against me. Without a fair hearing, she slammed the Citizen with fees.
This action created more filings and another hearing, during which the pro se citizen presented to Judge Temple that it was unfair and improper to impose fees on a plaintiff when the Court had not held a merits hearing. On September 8, 2023, Judge Temple reversed the Court’s order and ruled that fees would only be determined once the case is heard. The case remains open and is awaiting a merits hearing. Judges have a duty, according to “cannons,” to respect the inexperience of pro se litigants and help them understand the legal process (not the law), but Nashua judges do not do this.
It is concerning that a judge ruling on behalf of another judge’s case did not read the short case file to educate herself on the case. Was this the result of an overworked Judge or a deliberate action to smackdown the pro se litigants seeking records? The standard for awarding attorneys’ fees in RTK cases requires proof of bad faith, vexatious, or frivolous actions. The awarding of fees is rare.
Judge Colburn’s order firmly told pro-se litigants to get out of the Nashua court system. The Nashua Court will not process records petitions per the law and rule fairly and impartially.
Our two civil judges in Nashua, Judge Colburn and Judge Temple, specialize in drug court and criminal matters. Their strengths and interest in other civil matters aren’t there, and drugs and violent crimes will trump records matters every time. Undoubtedly, it is difficult for judges to be “jack of all trades” adjudicators skilled in every area of law. To compound this matter, our 400-member House of Representatives creates a vast amount of legislation each year. Judges must stay on top of these new laws and prepare for legal challenges that can require writing new case law.
Nashua is ready for more judges willing to address civil matters with the weight and priority they deserve. Given the state of this country and the significant lack of media coverage for local governments, the court system should recognize the public’s heightened awareness of governmental accountability. We need the Courts to share our public record interests, as our NH Constitution specifically recognizes, and permit us to challenge the open, accessible, accountable, and responsiveness to access our public records. We are not vexatious, frivolous, or bad-faith citizens out to create burdens or harm anyone. We are citizens engaged and vested in our communities and our civic duties.
The post The War on Your Right to Know: Bias Against Pro Se Litigants appeared first on Granite Grok.
