9.18.2019

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • Dear Wise County IT guy who fixed the link after my bullet point yesterday: You are now in competition for the The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. But would I be the worst non-paying client in the world if I complained that it is no longer automatically updating every four hours? 
  • I've got a hot and specific prediction on the murder trial going on in Wise County even though I've watched very little of it. (I just wrote it down and took a screenshot with a time stamp.  I'll share it if it proves I'm a genius or if I'm ridiculously wrong.) 
  • Sean Spicer deleted his tweet blaming his low scores on Dancing With The Stars on the judges not loving Jesus. He's had a great 24 hours.  
  • Random baseball note on former Ranger Yu Darvish:
  • You probably didn't watch Corey Lewandowski testifying before a Congressional committee yesterday. He freely admitted that the Mueller Report was accurate when it said Trump asked him to tell AG Jeff Sessions that he should publicly announce that Mueller’s probe was unfair to Trump and to tell the public that he would meet with Mueller and direct him to refocus the probe on future elections. (Wisely to avoid Obstruction charges, he never did.) But what about giving an interview to MSNBC where he said, “I don’t ever remember the president ever asking me to get involved with [former Attorney General] Jeff Sessions or with the Department of Justice in any way, shape or form, ever”? After having the clip played for him in the hearing, he said: "I have no no obligation to be honest to the media." Translated: This Trump bag man thinks he had no obligation to be honest to you
  • I keep supporting new Messenger reporter Christian McPhate to continue placing nuggets of gold in his coverage of city council meetings. He didn't do it with his latest coverage of a Rhome meeting, but, in his opinion piece on Wise County growth, he did give us this tidbit about a New Fairview meeting he previously covered: 
  • A Decatur resident is running for Congress. Seriously, do you ever hear a single word about what Kay Granger does in Washington. Not that I'm a fan of elected official self promotion, but she seems to avoid radio and TV interviews.
  • Mommy and Daddy are fighting!  Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Empower Texans PAC CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan got into a Twitter war. Sullivan, who is somehow manages to be more weaselly than Patrick, went after Patrick for supporting background checks, and Patrick went after Sullivan for secretly recording House Speaker Dennis Bonnen.
  • Nationally renowned journalist Cokie Roberts died yesterday. Who reacted worse? Trump saying, "She never treated me nicely" or Al Sharpton misspelling her name and confusing her with Christiane Amanpour.
  • This blurb below is out of Waco, but it's a good chance to explain how the system works. Judges are rarely involved in sentencing. Normally, their job is just to approve plea bargains which they do 99.9% of the time.  I have clients ask me all the time what the judge "is like" thinking he will be the one who decides punishment. My response is normally, "I know, but it doesn't matter. It's the prosecutor we have to worry about."  But a judge does have the right to reject a plea bargain. So what happens when that occurs? Does he just impose his own sentence as the defendant and lawyers are caught in a "holy crap" moment? Nope. The defendant has an absolute right to withdraw his guilty plea and the case just goes back on the court's docket. In the Waco case below, the judge rejected a plea of reducing the case from Intoxication Manslaughter to Criminally Negligent Homicide with a disposition of a certain number of years (it doesn't say) of deferred adjudication probation. 
  • Imagine how good the Cowboys would be if they had hit on the #1 draft pick in 2017 instead of busting on Taco Charlton? In other news, prepare for the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx?
  • If Trump loses in 2020, it will be wild. There is no way he'll graciously concede, he'll contend that the election results are fake, and I have no idea if he would attend the swearing in ceremony at Capitol Hill like every single losing president before him. Heck, I don't think he would have to be forcibly removed from the White House, but I wouldn't rule that out. 
  • Messenger: Above The Fold