3.18.2024

Random Monday Morning Thoughts




Seven years later, the money would amazingly be found by a plumber working on a toilet. The public would only learn about it because he called into a radio show and casually spoke about it. 


  • The Liberally Lean March Madness tournament is up. Join it here. As we've done the last couple of years, the scoring system is very tricked up which rewards upset picks.


  • I said that I needed to compile a list of Wise County murder indictments over the last handful of years so I did. We will probably have one more added to it based upon an arrest last week. 

  • They better get control over that area.

  • The death of an Alvord man is getting coverage on WFAA and in the Star-Telegram.

     

  • Republicans are all free market capitalists and limited government until the are not. 

  • Trump is going full Hitler and he's not even disguising it. I cannot believe what I am seeing. 
    • He ramped up his defense and support of those engaged in Insurrection on January 6th calling them hostages and saluting them as the Convict Choir sang in the background. The recorded voice going over the loudspeaker even boomed, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages!"  Video. This is full fledged insanity.

    • He then delivered a doozy of speech in Ohio. A bloodbath if he's not elected*, and immigrants are "not people" but "animals."  Yep, full Hitler. (*Yes, I know his campaign now claims he was just talking about the auto industry but this is coming from the same guy who told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by.")

    • And this is not the first first time he used the animals comment. At least a few years ago he would try to walk in back by saying he was just referring to specific gang members.  He's abandoned that. They are all animals now. And if all of this sounds very familiar. . .

      • . . .it should. 

  • Mike Pence joined this list over the weekend of former Trump confidents who are not endorsing him. Those who knew him best and saw him behind the scenes in the Oval Office want nothing to do with him. 

  • The Business Second™. I'm not sure I understand this after a big lawsuit settlement on Friday, but it sounds big

  • NCAA Basketball notes from yesterday.
    • Teams who didn't make the NCAA Tourney also declining an NIT invitation.

    • The confetti went off while a tournament championship game was still being played. Video.

    • Love this. 

  • Once again, sign up for the Liberally Lean tourney or you will have a bad week.


3.15.2024

It's Friday - Let's Get Out of Here





Random Friday Morning Thoughts




The missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 (which, I guess, is still missing) gave rise to wild speculation in the days after it happened. None quite as bold as the theory that the pilots were pirates who had been paid off and delivered the plane to third parties. 


  • Wise County avoid bad weather last night, but some places didn't. These photos are from Lantana which is just west of Argyle.  Later in the night, massive storms moved through at 2:00 a.m. but developed just south of Wise County hitting Weatherford and then traveling through the metroplex. 


  • Ken Paxton has killed Pornhub in Texas. I've said it before, for a man who has a lot of vices, he sure sues to eliminate a lot of vices.
    • Details: "Pornhub, one of the most visited websites in the world, sued Attorney General Ken Paxton last year to block enforcement of a 2023 state law that requires websites that host pornography to institute age-verification measures and display health warnings on its pages.Pornhub disabled its website in Texas after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the age-verification requirement in a ruling last week . . . ."


    • When they tell you it's about the children, it's never about the children. None of them cared to do anything after Uvalde.  


  • Whether you testify in your own defense or not (he didn't but his wife dead), you're probably going to be convicted when the State goes after you. 
  • Lo and behold, after years of complaining by me, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner finally issues a finding that makes sense to me. They are doctors. The only thing they can tell you is why a body stopped functioning from a physiological standpoint (a bullet hit the heart). They have no business of giving an opinion as to what happened before that (how the bullet came to be fired from a gun.)


  • Trump trial news:
    • I don't think the judge will force her off the case, but the damage is done. She should get out and save face after one of the greatest unforced errors of all time. 
    • And other prosecutors are having to pay for screw-ups as well. Yesterday the DA in New York agreed to Trump's continuance request in the Stormy Daniels "business records" case because the federal prosecutors, who had previously investigated the case, finally dumped "tens of thousands of pages" of documents on both the D.A. and Trump after Trump's lawyers requested them. 

  • Yesterday, Aaron Rodgers denied he ever said that Sandy Hook did not happen. But noticeably absent is him denying that he said Sandy Hook was an "inside job."  He did not refute the part of the report which  said he "thought it was off that there were men in black in the woods by the school, falsely claiming those men were actually government operatives."


  • Eight million people now live in the metroplex.  That's the equivalent of the population of New York City (not just Manhattan, but all five burroughs.)

  • Flashback.  This really did happen. (Also, the MyPillow guy has been in the news this week by saying that he had explosive new evidence that the election was stolen and he would hand deliver it on "Friday on the steps of the Supreme Court, 3 p.m." He such a nutcase.)

  • Time which has passed since the Wise County Sheriff's Office, despite having a full male DNA profile, has failed to solve the murder of Lauren Whitener in her home at Lake Bridgeport: 4 years and 263 days.


3.14.2024

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts





Two were killed and 23 were injured in Austin. The driver would eventually get life in prison.

  • Although I still think this bill dies in the Senate, it passed with surprisingly high numbers yesterday in the House.


    • Trump's former Treasury Secretary told CNBC this morning he'll buy it. I think I'd rather have China. 


  • There is an editorial in the Messenger this week where the reporter defends the publishing of this photo after, I think, social media tried to shame him. He didn't need justify it. It's clear journalism. 

  • I asked my Liberally Lean Weather Team about the chance of potential bad weather and they, sadly, just threw up their hands. It's just too sporadic to predict although they say the best chance seems to be around 11:00 p.m. tonight. 

  • Jerry Jones' alleged love child, Alexandra Davis, suffers a loss. (I don't even remember this lawsuit even being filed.) She sued him because he said he wasn't the father and was being extorted.


  • "IRVINE, Calif. — An explosion during an indoor training exercise Wednesday sent 16 members of Southern California’s Orange County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team to the hospital . . . . It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion, but it happened during a training with the sheriff’s bomb squad" (Insert forehead slap emoji.)

  • His wife's trial was quite the media sensation just a few weeks ago, but his was very much under the radar.  She testified in her own defense and was convicted. He did not and we'll probably learn the result today.


  • Elon Musk might be the biggest baby ever. He brings Don Lemon over from CNN for his own show on X, and then cancels him after his first interview because he pressed Musk on his widely known drug use. 


  • Wise County's newest Congressman is making me power down already.


  • This will not sit well with DA's across the state. 

  • The most unsurprising news ever. He's in the same group as Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

  • Incredibly random sports: If you want to see one of the quickest catch-and-release shots in the history of ever, check out this exciting game winner by SFA over Abilene Christian last night. And he had to -- the clock expired while the ball is in the air.

  • Legal nerdy stuff that got out of hand on me: The dismissal of some counts against Trump in the Georgia election interference case hardly deserved a headline. They were dismissed not because they were meritless but because the indictment wasn't specific enough. 

    • Any time the government tries to take a right from you (generally your liberty or your property), you are entitled to "a notice and hearing."  That's called "procedural due process."
    • In a criminal case where your liberty is at stake, the "notice" is the indictment and it should tell you, with at least some detail, what you did wrong. (The "hearing" part is a full blown jury trial where the government has to prove what they gave you "notice" of, but that's not at issue here.)
    • In this case, the problem was with the "notice" - the indictment. It wasn't specific enough. The best analogy is an assault case. In those cases, the "notice" needs to tell you "how" you committed assault. Did you slap someone, or strike someone with a fist, or hit someone with a frying pan? If the government is going to accuse you of something, they have to tell you how. If they don't, the cases can be dismissed, but the government can just refile them with a better worded "notice" document. That's what happened here. The government can just refile if they want and word it better.
    • But this "notice" thing can give rise to some odd legal issues that drives the public crazy. For example, if they accuse you of telling you hit someone with a frying pan, do they have to tell you it was a cast iron skillet? Generally, no, but what if they do and instead prove at trial it was a stainless steel skillet?
  • Messenger - Above the Fold