11.05.2014

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts


  • No election surprises on the national or Texas level last night. 
  • I was impressed that J.D. Clark got a whopping 83% of the vote for Wise County Judge but then I noticed basically every single Republican in statewide voting received 80% or more of the Wise County vote. I'll have to check, but I bet that is at all time highs. 
  • Texas won't be blue if Democrats sit on their arse: In the last presidential election, 3,300,124 Texans voted for President Obama.  Wendy Davis received 1,820,571 votes in this election. Yeah, it's a mid-term election, but still. 
  • But I just checked Abbott's comparable numbers: Romney got 4,569,843 and Abbott received 2,775,353.   If my math is right, Davis received 55.1% of what Obama received and Abbott got 60.1% of what Romney received. Significant, but not "game on" changing. 
  • I love this election stuff. 
  • Nationally, the most entertaining thing to watch in the future is how the Normal Republicans and the Tea Party Republicans get along in the Senate. I'm counting on Ted Cruz to not let us down in the entertainment department.
  • And since President Obama can veto any crazy legislation without fear of an override, we have a stalemate for the next two years. And I'm fine with that. 
  • Craig Watkins lost the DA's race in Dallas County by a hair. An incumbent and a Democrat DA in that county lost. You have to be a major screw-up to pull that off. And, make no mistake about it, he's a major screw-up. And not very smart. And unethical. Other than that, he's a swell guy. 
  • The Republicans lost 27% of the house in the mid-terms. Oh, I'm sorry. Wrong election. That occurred under Abraham Lincoln. It takes a while for the "current" to be put into "historical" perspective. 
  • I've said it before, if the government tells me I can no longer sell my mineral rights to a fracking company, hasn't the government, legally speaking, "taken" my minerals without compensation?
  • Brian Knox has a column in the Messenger this week which begins "Dear APD:".  I think I'm a smart guy, but I have no idea what the heck he is talking about. It's written like a break up letter but he's clearly talking about some undescribed medical procedure. Someone over there clue me (and the rest of the county) in. 
  • Bad cop: A Grapevine police officer was placed on administrative leave after admitting to taking and ingesting K-9 training narcotics.
  • I've often wondered about cops stealing drugs.  If I have a client accused of possessing 2.5 grams of meth (a third degree felony) and the lab comes back with .9 grams (only a state jail felony), we probably aren't going to complain. And the cop can always say, "The 2.5 grams was the weight including packaging." 
  • "Alex from Target" was a marketing scheme? (And how do I know about Alex from Target? I have a teenage girl in the house.) 
  • Bowie had its first murder in 20 years.  You know, it's possible the guy could have claimed it was an accident (and he still might), but it doesn't help that you later burn the body. 
  • Looked up last night and Family Pup #2 had a diaper on.